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<s>[INST] Yeah. For me as well, probably that one that one's pretty bad. The heights I tried to overcome. So I went skydiving to try to overcome the fear of heights. Well, they didn't help. [/INST] Did you jump out? Yeah, </s><s>[INST] yeah, jumped out. But it was, it was, it was fundamentally different experience and I guess there could be a lot of different flavors of fear of heights maybe. But the one I have didn't seem to be connected to jumping out of a plane is a very different because like once you accept that you're going to jump, then it's it's a different thing. I think what I'm afraid of is the moments before it is the, is the scariest part. And I don't think that's emphasized in the skydiving experience as much. And also just the acceptance of the fact that it's going to happen. So once you accept that it's going to happen, it's not a scary, it's the fact that it's not supposed to happen and it might that's the scary part, I guess I'm not being eloquent in the description, but there's something about skydiving that was actually philosophically liberating. I was, I was like, wow, it was the possibility that you can walk on the surface and then at a certain point there's no surface anymore to walk on and it's also in the world becomes three dimensional and there's this freedom of floating that the concept of like of earth disappears for a brief few seconds. I don't know those, those [/INST] wild, </s><s>[INST] that was wild, but I'm still terrified of heights. So I mean 11 thing I want to ask, just unfair because it's so fascinating is have you learned anything about what it takes to overcome fears? [/INST] Yes. And that comes from to from a, you know, research study standpoint to parallel tracks of research. One was done actually mice because we have a mouse lab also where we can program in different brain areas and trying to figure out what interesting brain areas we might want to probe around in humans and graduate school in my lab, she's now at caltech. Um, lindsey Soleil Published a paper back in 2018 showing that. Well, what at first might seem a little bit obvious, but the mechanisms are not, which is that they're really three responses to fear. You can pause, you can freeze essentially, um you can retreat, you can back up or you can go forward and there's a single hub of neurons in the midbrain. It's actually not the midbrain, but it's in the middle of the thalamus, which is a four brain structure. Uh and depending on which neurons are active there, there's a much higher probability that a mouse or it turns out, or a human will advance in the face of fear or will pause or will retreat. Now that just assigns a neural structure to a behavioral phenomenon. But what's interesting is that it turns out that the lowest level of stress or autonomic arousal is actually associated with the pausing and freezing response. Then as the threat becomes more impending. And we used visual looms in this case the retreat response has a slightly higher level of autonomic arousal and stress. So think about playing hide and go seek. You're trying to stay quiet in a closet that you're hiding if you're very calm, it's easy to stay quiet and still as your level of stress goes up, it's harder to maintain that level of quiet and stillness. You see this also in animals that are stalking a cat will chatter, its teeth. That's actually sort of top down inhibition and trying to restrain behavior. So the freeze response is actually an active response, but it's fairly low stress. And what was interesting to us is that the highest level of autonomic arousal was associated with the forward movement toward the threat. So in your case, um jumping out of the plane. However, the forward movement in the face of threat was linked to the activation of what we call collateral, which means just a side connection, literally a wire in the brain that connects to the dopamine circuit for reward. And so when one safely and adaptive lee meaning you survive moves through a threat or toward a threat. It's rewarded as a positive experience. And so the key, it actually maps very well the cognitive behavioral therapy and a lot of the existing treatments for trauma is that you have to confront the thing that makes you afraid so otherwise you exist in this very low level of river batory circuit activity where the circuits for autonomic arousal are humming and they're coming more and more and more. And we have to remember that that stress and fear and threat were designed to agitate us so that we actually move. So the reason I mention this is I think a lot of times people think that the maximum you know stress response and the response is to freeze in to lock up but that's actually not the maximum stress response. The maximum stress response is to advance but it's associated with reward. It has positive valence. So so there's this kind of, everyone always thinks about the bell, you know the sort of hump shape curve for you know at low levels of arousal, performance is low and as it increases performance goes higher and then it drops off as you get really stressed. But there's another bump further out the distribution where you perform very well under very high levels of stress. And so we've been spending a lot of time in humans and in animals exploring what it takes to get people comfortable to go to that place and also to let them experience how their heightened states of cognition. There there's um changes in time perception that allow you to evaluate your environment in fast at a faster frame rate, essentially this is the matrix as a lot of people think of it. Um but we tend to think about fear is all the low level stuff where things aren't worked out, but there are many um there are a lot of different features to the fear response and so we think about it quantitatively and we think about it from a circuit perspective in terms of outcomes and we try and weigh that against the threat. So we never want people to put themselves in unnecessary risk. But that's where the VR is fun because you can push people hard without risk of physically injuring them. </s>

<s>[INST] transform [/INST] that come into play and you realize, oh, it's probably pretty important to have deep intuitions of the fourier transform, even if it's not explicitly mentioned in like these texts and you try to get a sense of what the common players are. But I'll emphasize again like I feel very in over my head when I try to understand the exact relation between the zeros of the Riemann zeta function and how they relate to the distribution of crimes. I definitely understand it better than I did a year ago. I definitely understand it. 1 1/100 as well as the experts on the matter, do I assume? But the slow path towards getting there is it's fun. It's charming. And like to your question very beautiful </s><s>[INST] and the beauty is in the what in the journey versus the destination? [/INST] Well, it's that each each thing doesn't feel arbitrary. I think that's a big part is that you have um these unpredictable none. Yeah, he's very unpredictable patterns. Were these intricate properties of like a certain function. Um, but at the same time, it doesn't feel like humans ever made an arbitrary choice in studying this particular thing. So it feels like you're speaking to patterns themselves or nature itself. That's a big part of it. Um I think things that are too arbitrary. It's just hard for those to feel beautiful because and this is sort of what the word contrived is meant to apply to, right? Yeah. </s><s>[INST] And uh when they're not arbitrary means it could be, you can have a clean abstraction and intuition that allows you to comprehend [/INST] it well. To one of your first questions, it makes you feel like if you came across another intelligent civilization that they'd be studying the same thing maybe with different notation, but certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's what I think you talk to that other civilization, They're probably also studying the zeros of the Riemann zeta function or like some variant thereof. That um it's like a clearly equivalent cousin or something like that. But that's probably on their on their docket </s><s>[INST] whenever somebody does a lot of something amazing. [/INST] I'm going to ask </s><s>[INST] the question that you've already been asked a lot that you'll get more and more asked in your life. But what was your favorite video to create? [/INST] Oh, Favorite to create? One of my favorites is um the title is who cares about topology. Um </s><s>[INST] You want me to pull it up for now [/INST] if you want. Sure. Yeah. It is about well, it starts by describing an unsolved problem that still unsolved in math called the inscribed square problem. You draw any loop and then you ask, are there four points on that loop that make a square, totally useless right? That this is not answering any physical questions. It's mostly interesting that we can't answer that question and it seems like such a natural thing to ask. Um Now if you weaken it a little bit and you ask, can you always find a rectangle? You choose four points on this curve. Can you find a rectangle? That's hard but it's doable. And the path to it involves um things like looking at a tourist this surface with a single hole in it, like a doughnut. We're looking at a mobius strip in ways that feel so much less contrived to. When I first as like a little kid learned about these surfaces and shapes like a mobius strip. And tourists like what you learn is this mobius strip, you take a piece of paper, put a twist, glue it together and now you have a sheep with one edge and just one side. And as a student you should think who cares right? Like how does that help me solve any problems? I thought math was about problem solving. Um So what I liked about the piece of math that this was describing that was um in this paper by a mathematician named Von </s><s>[INST] was that [/INST] it arises very naturally, it's clear what it represents, it's doing something, it's not just playing with construction paper. Um and the way that it solves the problem is really beautiful. Uh so kind of putting all of that down um and concretize ng it right. Like I was talking about how when you have to put visuals to it, it demands that what's on screen is a very specific example of what you're describing. The construction here is very abstract in nature. You described this very abstract kind of surface in three D. Space. So then when I was finding myself in this case, I wasn't programming, I was using graph for that's built into Os X. For the three D. Stuff too draw that surface, you realize, oh man, the topology argument is very non constructive. I have to make a lot of, you have to do a lot of extra work in order to make the surface show up. But then once you see it it's quite pretty and it's very satisfying to see a specific instance of it. And you also feel like I've actually added something on top of what the original paper was doing that it shows something that's completely correct. Um That's a very beautiful argument, but you don't see what it looks like and I found something satisfying. And seeing what it looked like that could only ever come about from the forcing function of getting some kind of image on the screen to describe the thing I was talking about, you </s><s>[INST] almost weren't able to anticipate what's going to look like. [/INST] I had no idea, I had no idea. And it was wonderful. It was totally, it looks like the Sydney Opera House or some sort of frank gehry design and it was, you knew it was gonna be something and you can say various things about it, like, oh it it touches the curve itself, it has a boundary, that's this curve on the two D. Plane. It all sits above the plane. But before you actually, it's very unclear what the thing will look like. Um and to see it, it's very just pleasing, right? So that was that was fun to make very fun to share. I hope that it has elucidated for some people out there where these constructs of topology come from that, it's not arbitrary play with construction paper. </s>

<s>[INST] of them. Doesn't [/INST] matter the circumstances do you think I really an entrepreneur really need to hear something like that. You know the head of yellow, I had an argument with him at the U. N. And I said to him listen and you listen to me very well the reason if you want to protect employees as you claim everything you're doing is to protect employees a you know a better human being than I am in terms of making wanting to make sure that people are treated right and fairly. But last time I checked google for example is not offering their employees chef cooked meals super healthy, anything they want, feeding them from morning till evening, um having some, you know, babysitters, you know, having healthcare, um childcare on site, all of these perks that come on top of really cozy salaries, it did not happen because you be Aiello told them you have to do this. It happened because there are enough jobs created around That. Now you're in an employee's market and employers have to fall all over themselves to attract the best talent among us. That's how it's done. And not with your nonsense that you're imposing me right now, which the only results you're gonna get like in my country. Do you know what we have to show for all of these, the fact that the Senegalese employees the most protected employee on paper in the world. Well we're one of the 25 poorest countries in the world. That's what it got us. </s><s>[INST] Uh so let's try to untangle this. So there's a system in place. There's a momentum of that system like you said lady, it's not my level, which is um for somebody who grew up in the soviet union um at least echoes some of the same sounds I heard um from, from people I knew there, it's kind of this helpless feeling like, well this is just part of the system, this gigantic bureaucracy and the corruption that happens is just like the only way to get around to get anything done. And so the corruption grows maybe could you speak to the corruption? Is there is to, what degree is there corruption in Senegal and africa? And um how do we fix it? [/INST] So when you said to which degree there is corruption, I will respond to you the same, I respond to people, I say yeah we have corruption and it's almost as bad as in Chicago. Right? So um now what I want people to understand when it comes to corruption. It's because we are misguided with corruption. We think corruption is the root cause of problems when corruption is simply a symptom of a deeper root problem in this case. Um if you make the laws so senseless meaning, let me give you an example of senseless laws. Every time I have to import something in my country I have a business, we're making lip balms in this case and others skin care products, some ingredients I'm able to find in the country at the standard that I need in order to remain competitive because for example our products are sold whole foods market, you can understand it's a pretty sophisticated and really, you know, they don't just put anybody on the shelves. But the thing is it means that on the other end my input has to be right. So out of those some we have seven ingredients, seven items that need to come from abroad to go into the making of this product, some packaging and some raw material. But guess what likes 45 of them, I am paying a 40% tariff And for the other two, almost 70% tariff that I call senseless laws. These tariffs are senseless, the </s><s>[INST] corruption is just a symptom, they reveal that something was broken about. The laws and the laws are so taxation. Um This kind of restricting laws, like laws that slow down the entrepreneurial momentum. [/INST] They do, they do because in this case when my product comes, what do people have to do? Because every time if you, if you add 40%, you're basically on the other end. So every time you add um if let's say my product normally cost a dollar and with your 40% by the time I'm done, I had to pay, I had now it's costing me 1 40. By the time it arrives in my warehouse, in my manufacturing facility, it's now at 1 40 because of a tariff I left behind that 40% you added to it. Do you know how much it's gonna add to my final cost, but once the product is finished, I have to sell it to the customer, I have to sell it for dollars, 60 more because of that $40 extra you took from me in order for me at the end of the day to have some type of profits because profits at the end of the day, um is the blood of a business. There are two people are misguided. They say, oh you dirty greedy business people and it's all about profit, profit, profit, profit. You know, I belong to this organization called, I'm a board member on the conscious capitalism. It is the largest organization of purpose driven businesses and entrepreneurs, the type of people I told you about, we start our businesses because we we see something that needs to be to be taken care of in society. Hope food market is one of them the container store. You know, all of these companies that are beloved in the U. S. That you can hear of. We believe that the end goal of business is purpose, but in order to do purpose, you have to have profits to stay in to stay alive. And the best way for people to think of profits so that they're not all twisted about it. Lex. If I asked you, what's your goal in the world, you're probably gonna tell me your dream, You're gonna talk to me about what you're doing right now and how you want to be uniting, you want a more harmonious world, you want human flourishing. That's what you're working towards. That's what you say to me, you're not gonna say, well, my biggest goal in the world is to produce as many red blood cells as I can accept. You need to produce those otherwise know, lex and if no less, no one working, </s>

<s>[INST] So, basically, the nature of knowledge, and what does it represent? It can operate in the space of detached from reality, or Mhm. Can it ultimately represent reality? I guess that's the is that space of metaphysics, Is that is that [/INST] Yeah, So, what can we know is actually called epistemology, But metaphysics is basically what is the nature of reality? </s><s>[INST] And those intersect? [/INST] Absolutely, yeah, a lot of things intersect in philosophy, we just have fancy names for them. Another </s><s>[INST] non philosopher that may be considered a philosopher, since we're talking about reality is ein rand and her philosophy of objectivism. What are your thoughts on her sense of taking this idea of reality. Calling her philosophy objectivism, and uh kind of starting at the idea that you really could know everything and it's pretty obvious. And then from that you can derive an ethics about how to live life. Like what is the what is the good ethical life and all the virtue of selfishness, all that kind of stuff? Uh so you talked to a lot of academic philosophers. So I'll be curious to see from the perspective of like, is she somebody that's uh taken seriously at all? Uh why she dismissed as I see from my distant perspective by serious philosophers and also like your own personal thoughts of like, is there some interesting bits that you find inspiring in her work or not? [/INST] Okay, so I ran I've had so many exceedingly intelligent students basically mm give me her books and basically say, please Doctor basilica read this book and I'll tell them, Yes, thank you. I've read this book before and then want to engage in, you know, let me put it this way. Their religious about Ayn rand. Ok, so to them, I'm rand represents some type of way of life, write her objectivism. Um now why is she not taken seriously by philosophers in general? Well, let me put it this way. Um philosophers in general tend to get pretty I guess you could call it. They're they're kind of scientists, but with words I always called philosophy when I describe it to someone who's going to take a philosophy class. I say it's basically math problems? Like words, math problems. Okay, so that's basically what it is. </s><s>[INST] So they take words very seriously and they're very [/INST] formal and definitions very seriously. Yeah. So they all want to get on the same page, so they're not So there is no confusion. So for ayn rand to basically say you can know everything and you know, and establish ethics from that, I think philosophers automatically say no. Now that doesn't mean I say no. In fact, we have we have at my university a wonderful business school and when you walk into the dean of the business school's office, ein rand is everywhere. So it's so I want to say that not all academics are anti Ayn rand. Um and in fact, I don't think philosophers are either except that they don't teach ayn rand. Ok, so in one sense, you could say that because they don't teach her, they're being exclusive and what they teach or very particular, perhaps there's another way to put it, </s><s>[INST] it's hard to know where to place people like her because, you know, do you put Albert camus as a philosopher? So, I guess what's the good term for that? Like literary philosophers or whatever the term is, it's annoying to me that the academic philosophers get to own the word philosophy because like, it's just like people who think deeply about life, it's what I think about is his philosophy and like to me it's like, all right, so I know niches another person that's probably not respected in the philosophy circles because he is, you know, full of contradictions, full of, [/INST] I love Nietzsche, he's just my favorite philosopher. </s><s>[INST] Oh, yes, [/INST] I absolutely love Nietzsche. </s><s>[INST] So he's, you know, I love people that are full of ideas, even if they're full of contradictions. And absolutely, and Iran is also that I'm able to um look past the obvious ego that's there on the page. And uh the fact that she actually has, in my view, a lot of wrong ideas, uh but there's a lot of interesting tidbits to pick up and uh the same same goes with Nietzsche and I'm weirded out by the religious aspect here on both the people who like worship Ayn rand and people who completely dismiss her. I just kind of see as, oh, can we just read a few interesting things and get inspired by it and move on as opposed to have a dogmatic find anything. Is there something you find about her work that's interesting to you um or her personality or any of that? [/INST] Oh, I think she's fascinating. Um I don't dismiss her. Um she was a woman who reached a level of success with her mind at a time when that was difficult. So, I mean, she's definitely um worth looking at for for even that reason. Um but also her idea, I guess part of the situation with random, first of all, I think that um her work is you have to, it's misinterpreted. Okay. And I think that's the same with Nietzsche. Like a lot of people think that I'm in in fact it is the case that Nietzsche's writing before the 20th century. So he's got, you know, he's somewhat his rhetoric is sexist and racist and you know, of the time period, right? He was a educated philosopher of that time period. However, um his books are amazing and Nietzsche's philosophy is incredible and I think that I think that's what you're saying about ran too. And I agree. I mean, I think that that um we get caught up, I mean likely we should and we should contextualize these thinkers in the time period within which they are, we should not forgive their, you know, because there were people during this time that were, you know, feminist and not racist and things like that and you know, so but each has mary, I mean, I would say Nietzsche is and I you did ask me to talk about some of the books that made the largest impact on me and uh niches. Gay science is one of them is one of the best books ever. In my opinion. </s>

<s>[INST] What are the biggest challenges running the company of that size? [/INST] Let's start with a sort of big overview question. The biggest challenges I think are not in running them, it's in changing them. And that idea to know what you should change and what you should not change. Actually, people don't always ask that question. What should endure, even if it has to be modernized, but what should endure? And then I found the hardest part was changing how work got done. </s><s>[INST] It's such a big company. What was the parts that you thought should endure? The core of the company that was beautiful and powerful and could persist through time, [/INST] that it should persist through time. I'd be interested, do you have a perception </s><s>[INST] of what you think it would be? Do I have a perception? Well, I'm a romantic for a history of long-running companies. So there's kind of a tradition as a AI person. To me, IBM has some epic sort of research accomplishments where you show off Deep Blue and Watson, just impressive big moonshot challenges and accomplishing those. But that's, I think, probably a small part of what IBM is. [/INST] That's mostly like the sexy public facing part and accomplishing those. Yeah, well, certainly the research part itself is over 3,000, so it's not that small. That's a pretty big research group. But the part that should endure ends up being a company that does things that are essential to the world, meaning, the who, you know, think back, you said you're a romantic, it was the 30s, the social security system. It was putting the man on the moon. It was, to this day, banks don't run, railroads don't run, that is at its core, it's doing mission-critical work. And so, that part I think is at its core, it's a business-to-business company and at its core, it's about doing things that are really important </s><s>[INST] to the world becoming running and being better. Running the infrastructure of the world, [/INST] so doing it at scale, doing it reliably. Yes, secure in this world, that's like everything. And in fact, when I started, I almost felt people were looking for what that was. And together we sort of, in a word, was to be essential. And the reason I loved that word was, I can't call myself essential. You have to determine I am, right? So it was to be essential. Even though some of what we did is exactly what you said, it's below the surface, so many people, most people say to me, well, what does IBM do now, right? And over the years, it's changed so much. And today it's really a software and consulting company. Consulting is a third of it. And the software is all hybrid cloud and AI. That would not have been true, as you well know, back even two decades ago, right? So it changes, but I think at its core, it's that be essential. You said moonshot, can't all be moonshots, because moonshots don't always work, </s><s>[INST] but mission critical work. So given the size though, when you started running it, did you feel the sort of thing that people usually associate with size, which is bureaucracy, and maybe the aspect of size that hinder progress or hinder pivoting, did you feel that? [/INST] You would, for lots of reasons. I think when you're a big company, sometimes people think of process as the client themselves, or the, you know, I always say to people, your process is not your customer. There is a real customer here that you exist for. And that's really easy to fall into because they're, you know, people are a master to this process and that's not right. And when you're big, the other thing, and boy, there's a premium on it, is speed, right? That in our industry, you gotta be fast. And go back, like when I took over and it was 2012, you know, we had a lot of catching up to do and a lot of things to do, and it was moving so fast. And as you well know, all those trends were happening at once, which made them go even faster. And so pretty unprecedented actually for that many trends to be at one time. And I used to say to people, go faster, go faster, go faster. And honestly, I've tired them out. I mean, it kind of dawned on me that when you're that big, that's a really valuable lesson. And it taught me like the how's, perhaps more important than the what. Because if I didn't do something to change how work was done, like change those processes or give them new tools, help them with skills, they couldn't, they just like do the same thing faster. If someone tells you, you know, you got hiking boots and they're like, no, go run a marathon. You're like, I can't do it in those boots. But so you've gotta do something. And at first, I think the ways for big companies, I would call them like blunt clubs. You do what everyone does, you reduce layers. Because if you reduce layers, decisions go faster. There's just, it's math. If there's less decision points, things go faster. You do the blunt club thing. And then after that though, it did lead me down a, you know, a long journey of, they sound like buzzwords, but if you really do them at scale, they're hard around things like agile. And because you've really gotta change the way work gets done. And we ended up training, God, hundreds of thousands of people on that stuff to really change it. Correctly. On how to do it correctly. That's right. Versus, because everybody talks about it. But the idea that you would really have small, multi-disciplinary teams work from the outside in, set those sort of interim steps. You know, take the feedback, pivot, and then do it on, not just products, do it on lots of things. It's hard to do at scale. People always say, oh, I got this agile group over here, 40 people. But not when you're a couple hundred thousand people. </s>

<s>[INST] What impact did you have on your life? Like uh what have you learned from him? If you want to look at the trajectory of your mind, of the way you approach science and physics and mathematics, how did he uh perturbed that trajectory. And [/INST] he did actually. So I can explain because when I was a student, I I had the biggest impact by him uh, clearly as a grad student at Princeton. So I think that was the time where I was a little bit confused about the relation between math and physics. I got a double major in mathematics and physics at MIT and because I really enjoyed both and I like the elegance and rigor of mathematics and I like the power of ideas in physics and its applicability to reality and what it teaches about the real world around us. But I saw this tension between rigorous thinking in mathematics and lack thereof in physics and this troubled me to no end. I was troubled by that. So I was at a crossroads when I decided to go to graduate school in physics because I did not like some of the lack of Riggers I was seeing in physics. On the other hand to me mathematics even though it was rigorous and think it's sometimes where I didn't see the point of it. In other words, when I see when I, you know, the math there and by itself could be beautiful, but I really wanted more than that. I want to say, okay, what did they teach us about? Something else? Something more than just. So I wasn't, I wasn't that enamored with just math, but physics was a little bit bothersome. Nevertheless, I decided to go to physics and I decided to go to Princeton and I started working with Edward witten as my thesis advisor. And um at that time I was trying to put physics in rigorous mathematical terms. I took one of field theory, I tried to make rigorous out of it and so on. And no matter how hard I was trying, I was not being able to do that and I was falling behind from my classes. I was not learning much physics and I was not making it rigorous and it to me it was this dichotomy between math and physics, what am I doing? I like math, but this is not exactly there comes Ed witten as my advisor and I see him in action, thinking about math and physics, he was amazing in math. He knew all about the math. It was no problem with him but he thought about physics in a way we did not find this tension between the two. It was much more harmonious for him. He would draw the feynman diagrams but he wouldn't view it as a formalism. He was viewed oh yeah, the part that goes over there and this is what's going on and wait you're thinking really is this particle, this is really electron going there. Yeah, yeah it's not it's not the formal perturbation. No, no. You just feel like the electron you're moving with this guy and do that and so on. And you're thinking invariably about physics or the way he thought about relativity. Like you know I was thinking about you know this momentum says that he was thinking invariably about physics just like the way you think about the environment concepts in relativity which don't depend on the frame of reference. He was thinking about the physics in environment ways that the way that doesn't that gives you a bigger perspective. So this gradually helped me appreciate that interconnections between ideas and physics replaces mathematical rigor that the different facets reinforce each other to say, oh I cannot rigorously define what I mean by this but this thing connects with this other physical I've seen and this other thing and they together form an elegant story and that replaced for me what I believed as a solid nous, which I found in math as a rigger, you know, solid, I found that replaced the rigor and solid nous in physics. So I found, okay, that's the way you can hang on to. It is not wishy washy, it's not like somebody is just not being able to prove it, just making up a story, It was more than that and it was no tension with mathematics. In fact mathematics was helping it like friends and so much more harmonious and gives insights to physics. So that's I think one of the main things I learned from interactions with Britain and I think that now perhaps I have taken that far extreme, maybe he wouldn't go as far as I have. Namely, I use physics to define new mathematics in a way which would be far less rigorous than a if this is my necessarily believe because I take the physical intuition perhaps literally in many ways that could teach us about. So now I've gained so much confidence in physical intuition that I make bold statements that sometimes, you know, takes math, math friends of card. So for an example of it is mirror symmetry. So so we were studying these compact recreational string string geometry. This after my PhD now, by the time I've come to Harvard were studying these aspects of string compact location on these complicated manifolds, six dimensional spaces called Columbia manifolds very complicated. And I noticed with a couple other colleagues that there was a symmetry in physics suggested between different Colombia's suggested that you couldn't actually compute the oiler characteristic of a Columbia. Oily characteristic is counting the number of points minus the number of edges, plus the number of faces. So you can count alternating sequence of probably the space, which is the topological property of a space. So all the text of the Columbia was the property of the space. And so we noticed that from the physics farmers and string moves in the Columbia, you cannot distinguish, we cannot compute all the characteristic. You can only compete the absolute value of it. Now this bothered us because how could it do not compute the actual sign on this? The both sides were the same. So I conjectured maybe for every Colombia with the other countries positive, there's one with negative. I told this to my colleague Yao who was, whose, whose namesake is Colombia. Um that I'm making this conjecture. Is it possible that for every Colombia there's one with the opposite order characteristic. It sounds not reasonable. I said why I said, well we know more Colombia's with negative other characters stand positive. I said, but physics as we cannot distinguish them at least. I don't see how. So we conjectured that for every Colombia with one side, there's the other one. Despite the mathematical evidence, despite the mathematical evidence, despite the expert telling us it's not the right idea. A few years later this symmetry mirror symmetry between the sign with the opposite sign was later confirmed by mathematicians. So, this is actually the opposite view. That is physics is so sure about it. That you're going against the mathematical wisdom telling them they better look for it. </s>

<s>[INST] you should expect to appear trillions of years in the future, you know? Yeah, I see. Right, right. So this is a very sort of nuanced mathematical assumption. I don't think we can intuit it cleanly with words. But if you assume that you're just waiting, the universe stays empty and you're waiting for one life civilization to pop up, then it's gonna, it should happen very late, much later than now. And if you look at Earth, the way things happen on Earth, it happened much, much, much, much, much earlier than it was supposed to, according to this model, if you take the initial assumption, therefore, you can say while the initial assumption of the universe staying empty is very unlikely. [/INST] Right, right, right. And the other alternative theory is the universe is filling up and will fill up soon. And so we are typical for the origin data, things that can appear before </s><s>[INST] the deadline before the okay it's filling up so why don't we see anything if it's filling up because they're expanding really fast close to the speed of light exactly so we will only see it when it's here almost here okay uh what are the ways in which we might see a quickly expanding this is both exciting and terrifying it is terrifying it's like watching a truck [/INST] like driving at you at 100 miles an hour and uh right so we would see spheres in the sky at least one sphere in the sky growing very rapidly and like very rapidly right yes very </s><s>[INST] rapidly though we're not so there's there's you know different because we were just talking about [/INST] 10 million years this would be you might see it 10 million years in advance coming i mean you You still might have a long warning. Or the universe is 14 billion years old, the typical origin times of these things are spread over several billion years. So the chance of one originating at a, you know, very close to you in time is very low. So they still might take millions of years from the time you see it, from the time it gets here. You want a million years a year to be terrified this past sphere coming at you. </s><s>[INST] This past sphere... But coming at you very fast. So if they're a traveling [/INST] close to the speed of light, but they're coming from a long way away. So remember the rate at which they appear is one per million galaxies. Right. So they're, they're roughly a hundred galaxies away. </s><s>[INST] I see. So the Delta between the speed of light and their actual travel speed is very [/INST] important, right? </s><s>[INST] So if they're going at say half the speed of light, we'll have a long time then. Yeah. But what if they're traveling exactly at a speed of light? [/INST] Then we see them like, then we wouldn't have much warning, but that's less likely. Well, we can't exclude it. </s><s>[INST] And they could also be somehow traveling fast in the speed of light. [/INST] We can't I think we can't exclude, because if they could go faster than the speed of light, then they would just already be everywhere. So you know, in a universe where you can travel fast on the speed of light, you can go backwards in space time. So anytime you appeared anywhere in space time, you could just fill up everything. Yeah. And so anybody in the future, whoever appeared, they would have been here by now. </s><s>[INST] Can you exclude the possibility that those kinds of aliens aren't already here?" [/INST] Well, we should have a different discussion of that. </s><s>[INST] Okay, so let's actually leave that discussion aside. and understand the grabby alien expansion which is beautiful and fascinating. Okay so there's these giant expanding spheres of alien civilizations. Now when those spheres collide mathematically it's very likely that we're not the first collision of grabby of alien civilizations. I suppose is one way to say it. So there's like the first time the spheres touch each other recognize each other, right. They meet. They recognize each other first before they meet. They see each other coming. They see each other coming and then so there's a bunch of them there's a combinatorial thing where they start seeing each other coming and then there's a third neighbor it's like what the hell and then there's a fourth one. Okay so what is that you think look like. What lessons from human nature, that's the only data we have but can you drop [/INST] So, what can you do? So the story of the history of the universe here is what I would call a living cosmology. So, what I'm excited about in part by this model is that it lets us tell a story of cosmology where there are actors who have agendas. So most ancients peoples, they had cosmologies, stories they told about where the universe came from and where it's going and what's happening out there. And there are stories they like to have agents and actors, gods or something out there doing things. our favorite cosmology is dead, kind of boring. We're the only activity we know about or see, and everything else just looks dead and empty. But this is now telling us, no, that's not quite right. At the moment, the universe is filling up, and in a few billion years, it'll be all full. </s><s>[INST] And from then on, the history of the universe will be the universe full of aliens, aliens. Yeah, so that's a really good reminder, a really good way to think about cosmologies. We're surrounded by a vast darkness, and we don't know what's going on in that darkness until the light from whatever generate lights arrives here. So we kind of, yeah, we look up at the sky, okay, they're stars, oh, they're pretty, but you don't think about the giant expanding spheres [/INST] of alien! Right, because you don't see them, but now our date because you don't see them, but now, our date. Looking at the clock, if you're clever, the clock tells you. So I like the analogy with the Ancient Greeks. You might think that an Ancient Greek, you know, staring at the universe couldn't possibly tell how far away the sun was, or how far away the moon is, or how big the Earth is. That all you can see is just big things in the sky. You can't tell it, but they were clever enough actually to be able to figure out the size of the Earth and the distance to the Moon and the sun and the size of the moon and sun. That is, they could figure those things out, actually, by being clever enough, and so similarly we can actually figure out where are the aliens out there in space-time, by being clever about the few things we can see, one of which is our current date. And, so now that you have this living cosmology, we can tell the story that the universe starts out empty, and then at some point things like us appear very primitive, and then some of those stop being quiet and expand. And then for a few billion years they expand, and then they meet each other and then for the next hundred billion years they commune with each other...as the usual models of cosmology say that in roughly a hundred- hundred and 50 billion years the expansion of the universe will happen so much that all you'll have is left is some galaxy clusters and they that are sort of disconnected from each other. But before then for the next hundred million years...hundred billion years excuse me...um...they will interact. There will be this community of all the grabby alien civilizations and each one of them will hear about and even meet thousands of others. And we might hope to join them someday and become part of that community. That's an interesting thing to aspire to. </s>

<s>[INST] is a scary step actually because when you enter the world of benchmarks, you actually have to be good to participate as opposed to [/INST] Yeah, you can just you just believe you're the best in the world. I think the people, I think they weren't purposely misleading. I think if you don't have benchmarks, I mean, how do you know, you know, you could have your intuition. It's kind of like the way we do computer architecture. Your intuition is that this is the right instruction set to do this job. I believe in my experience, my hunch is that's true. We had to get to make things more quantitative to make progress. And so I just don't know how, you know, in fields that don't have benchmarks. I don't understand how they figure out how they're making progress. </s><s>[INST] We're kind of in the vacuum tube days of quantum computing. What are your thoughts in this holy different kind of space of architectures? [/INST] Uh you know, I actually, you know, quantum computing, his idea has been around for a while. And I actually thought, well I sure hope uh I retired before I have to start teaching this, I'd say because I talk about give these talks about the slowing of moore's law. And you know, when we need to change by doing domain specific accelerators. Common questions. See what about quantum computing? The reason that comes up, it's in the news all the time. So I think to keep in the third thing to keep in mind is quantum computing is not right around the corner. Uh there have been two national reports, one by the national campus of Engineering, another by the computing consortium where they did a frank assessment of quantum computing. And both of those reports said, you know, as far as we can tell before you get air corrected quantum computing, it's a decade away. So I think of it like nuclear fusion right? There have been people who have been excited about nuclear fusion a long time. If we ever get nuclear fusion, it's gonna be fantastic for the world. I'm glad people are working on it. But you know, it's not right around the corner. uh those two reports to me say probably it'll be 2030 before quantum computing is a uh, something that could happen. And when it does happen, you know, this is gonna be big science stuff. This is uh micro kelvin, almost absolute zero things that if they vibrate, if truck goes by it, it won't work. Right? So this will be in data center stuff. We're not going to have a quantum cell phone. Uh and and it's probably a 2030 kind of thing. So I'm happy that people are working on it, but just, you know, it's hard with all the news about it not to think that it's right around the corner. Uh And that's why we need to do something as moore's law is slowing down to provide the computing, keep imputing getting better for this next decade and and, you know, we shouldn't be betting on quantum computing um are expecting quantum computing to deliver in the next few years. It's it's probably further off, you know, I'd be happy to be wrong, it be great if quantum computing is going to commercially viable, but it will be a set of applications, it's not a general purpose computation, so it's going to do some amazing things, but there'll be a lot of things that probably uh you know, the the old fashioned computers are going to keep doing better for quite a </s><s>[INST] while And there will be a teenager, 50 years from now watching this video saying, look all silly. David Patterson was saying, [/INST] I said 2030, I didn't say so. I say never. We're not going to have </s><s>[INST] quantum cellphones, so [/INST] He's gonna be watching it. Well, I mean, I think this is such a, you know, given that we've had Moore's law, I just uh I feel comfortable trying to do projects that are thinking about the next decade. Uh I admire, people are trying to do things that are 30 years out, but it's such a fast moving field. I just don't know how to, I'm not good enough to figure out what, what's the problem is going to be in 30 years, you know 10 years. It's hard enough for me. </s><s>[INST] So maybe if if it's possible to untangling your intuition a little bit. I spoke with Jim Keller, I don't know if you're familiar with Jim and [/INST] he, he is trying </s><s>[INST] to sort of be a little bit rebellious and to try to think [/INST] that he quotes me as being wrong. So this is what your way for the for the </s><s>[INST] record Jim talks about that. He has an intuition that moore's law is not in fact in fact dead yet. And then it may continue for some time to come. What are your thoughts about Jim's ideas in this space? [/INST] This is just, this is just marketing. So what Gordon moore said is a quantitative prediction. We can check the facts right. Which is doubling the number of transistors every two years. So we can look back at Intel for the last five years and ask him, let's look at D RAM chips um six years ago. So that would be 32 year periods. So then our D RAM chips have eight times as many transistors as they did six years ago. We look at Intel microprocessors six years ago. If moore's law is continuing, it should have eight times as many transistors. His six years ago. The answer is in both those cases is no. The problem has been because moore's law was kind of genuinely embraced by the semiconductor industry as they would make investments in severe equipment. To make moore's law come true. Semiconductor improving And moore's law in many people's minds are the same thing. So when I say, and I'm factually correct that moore's law is no longer holds, we are not doubling transistors ever use yours. The downside for a company like intel is people think that means it's stopped, that technology has no longer improved. And so jim is trying to uh Uh, can track the impression that semiconductors are frozen in 2019 are never going to get better. So I never said that. I said was Moore's law is no more. And I'm strictly look at the number of transistors because that's what more. That's what Moore's law is. There's the, I don't know, there's been this uh or associated with Moore's law that they've enjoyed for 50 years about look at the field we're in, we're doubling transistors every two years one. An amazing field, which is amazing thing that they pull off. But even as Gordon Moore said, you know, no exponential can last forever. It lasted for 50 years, which is amazing. And this is a huge impact on the industry because of these changes that we've been talking about. So he claims because he's trying to act. And he claims, you know, patterson says moore's law is no more. And look at all. Look at it, it's still going and TSMC they say it's no longer, but there's quantitative evidence that moore's law is not continuing. So what I say now to try and okay, I understand the perception problem when I say moore's law has stopped. Okay, so now I say more slow a slowing down. And I think jim, which is another way of if he's if it's predicting every two years and I say it's slowing down, then that's another way of saying it doesn't hold anymore. And I think jim wouldn't disagree that it's slowing down because that sounds like it's things are still getting better. Just not as fast. Which is another way of saying moore's law isn't working anymore. </s>

<s>[INST] That's really interesting actually. I haven't heard you talk about that before. Uh in terms of fairness uh I've seen from triple A. I. Your talk how can adversarial machine learning help models be more fair with respect the sensitive variables. [/INST] Yeah. So there's a paper from Amos Turkey's lab about how to learn machine learning models that are incapable of using specific variables. So say for example, you wanted to make predictions that are not affected by gender. Um It isn't enough to just leave gender out of the input to the model. You can often infer gender from a lot of other characteristics, like say that you have the person's name but you're not told their gender. Well, if if their name is Iain they're kind of obviously a man. Um so what you'd like to do is make a machine learning model that can still take in a lot of different attributes and make a really accurate informed prediction but be confident that it isn't reverse engineering gender or another sensitive variable internally. Uh you can do that using something very similar to the domain adversarial approach where you have one player that's a feature extractor and another player that's a feature analyzer. And you want to make sure that the feature analyzer is not able to guess the value of the sensitive variable that you're trying to keep private. </s><s>[INST] Right? That's yeah, I love this approach. So. Well, yeah, with the feature uh you're not able to um in for right? This sensitive variables, brilliant. It's quite, quite brilliant and simple. Actually, [/INST] another way, I think that Ganz in particular could be used for fairness would be to make something like a cycle Gan where you can take data from one domain and convert it into another. We've seen Cycle Gan turning horses into zebras. We've seen other unsupervised Ganz made by Mingyu liu doing things like turning day photos into nytphotos. Um I think for fairness, you can imagine taking records for people in one group and transforming them into analogous people in other group and testing to see if they're they're treated equitably across those two groups. There's a lot of things will be hard to get right to make sure that the conversion process itself is fair. Uh and I don't think it's anywhere near something that we could actually use yet, but if you could design that conversion process very carefully, it might give you a way of doing audits where you say, what if we took people from this group converted them into equivalent people in another group? Does the system actually treat them how it ought to? </s><s>[INST] That's also really interesting, you know, in a popular uh in popular press and in general in our imagination, you think, well gans are able to generate data and you start to think about deep fakes or being able to Sort of maliciously generated data that fakes the identity of other people. Is this something of a concern to you? Is this something if you look 10, 20 years into the future? Is that something that pops up in your work in the work of the community that's working on generating models? [/INST] I'm a lot less concerned about 20 years from now than the next few years. I think There will be a kind of bumpy cultural transition as people encounter this idea that there can be very realistic videos and audio that aren't real. I think 20 years from now people mostly understand that you shouldn't believe something is real just because you saw a video of it. people will expect to see that it's been cryptographically signed or or have some other mechanism to make them believe the content is real. Um There's already people working on this like there's a startup called True Pick that provides a lot of mechanisms for authenticating that an image is real. There there maybe not quite up to having a state actor try to to evade their verification techniques, but uh it's not that people are already working on and I think we'll get right eventually. So </s><s>[INST] you think authentication we'll eventually went out, so being able to authenticate that this is real and this is not. [/INST] Yeah, </s><s>[INST] as opposed to Ganz just getting better and better or generative models being able to get better and better to where the nature of what is real. [/INST] I don't think we'll ever be able to look at the pixels of the photo and tell you for sure that it's real or not real. And I think it would actually be uh somewhat dangerous to rely on that approach too much. Um if you make a really good fake detector and then someone's able to fool your fake detector and your fake detector says this image is not fake, then it's even more credible than if you've never made a fake detector in the first place. What I do think we'll get to is uh systems that we can kind of use behind the scenes for to make estimates of what's going on and maybe not like use them in court for a definitive analysis. I also think we will likely get better authentication systems where uh you know, if you imagine that every phone cryptographically signs everything that comes out of it, you weren't able to conclusively tell that an image was real, but you would be able to tell um somebody who knew the appropriate private key for this phone was actually able to sign this image and upload it to this server at this time stamp. Um So you could imagine maybe you make phones that have the private keys hardware embedded in them. Um if like a state security agency really wants to infiltrate the company, they could probably you know, plant a private key of their choice or break open the chip and learn the private key or something like that. But it would make it a lot harder for uh an adversary with fewer resources to fake things for most of us. Yeah. Okay, okay, </s>

<s>[INST] It's kind of a challenge. I'm hoping to take on is I feel like some of the ideas that are conveyed through language are actually can be put outside of language. So one of the challenges I have to do is to have a conversation with people in Russian, but for an english audience and not rely purely on translators, there would of course be translators there that helped me dance through this mess of language. But also like my goal. My hope is to dance from Russian to english back and forth for an english speaking audience and for Russian speaking audience. So not this pure, this is Russian, it's going to be translated to english or this is english is going to be translated to Russian, but dance back and forth and try to share with people who don't speak one of the languages, the music that they're missing and sort of almost hear that music as if you're sitting in another room and you hear the music through the wall, I get a sense of it. I think that would be a waste if I don't try to pursue this being a bilingual human being. And I wonder, well, there is possible to capture some of the magic of the ideas in a way that can be conveyed to people who don't speak that particular language. [/INST] I think it's a super exciting project. I look forward to following it. I'll tell you one thing that does happen. So we read dostoevsky and translation occasionally I do have Russian speakers in the room, which is super helpful. Um but I also encourage my students um to, you know, to some, some of them will have different translations than others. And that can be really helpful for the non native speaker because by paying attention to the places where translators diverge in their translations of a given word or a phrase or something like that, you can start to get the idea that somehow the words that we have in english, they don't have the same contours as the word in Russian that's being translated. And then you can start to ask about what those differences are. And I think it's I think it's there's a kind of magic to it. I mean it's astonishing how rich and affecting these languages can be for people who really, who grew up in them, especially who speak them. And </s><s>[INST] that's a really powerful thing that actually doesn't exist enough of is uh, for example, for a Day of ski, most novels have been translated by Uh two or three famous translators and uh, there's a lot of discussions about who did it better and so on. But I would love to this. I'm a computer science person. I would love to do a diff where you automatically detect all the differences in the transition just as you're saying and use that. Like somebody needs to published literally just books describing the differences. In fact, I'll probably do a little bit of this, I heard the individual translators and interviews and in blog posts and articles discuss particular phrases that they differ on, but like to do that for an entire book. That's a fascinating exploration as an english speaker. Just read the differences in the translations. You probably can get to some deep understanding of ideas in those books by seeing the struggle of the translators to capture that idea. That's a really interesting idea. [/INST] Absolutely. And you you can do that in for other projects and other languages too. I mean one of the, I don't know, I have this weird huge range of interests and some some days I'll find myself reading about something at one point, I was interested in um 14th century german mysticism. Okay, turns out there's somebody who's written like volumes and volumes about this. He's fantastic. And I was, I was interested in reading Meister Eckhart, I wanted to know what was interesting about him and the and the, the sort of move that this guy Bernard Mcginn, who is the great scholar of this period, made was to say what what Eckhart did and everybody knows this? He translated Christianity into the vernacular. He started giving sermons in german to the past sermons used to be in latin and nobody could speak latin. Can you imagine sitting there for two hours sermon in a language that you don't know. So he translated it into into german, but in doing it, the resources of the german language are different from the resources of the latin language and there's a word in middle high german client, which is like we we translated as ground and it's got this earthy feel to it, it sort of invokes the notion of soil and what you stand on and what things grow out of and uh sort of what you could run your fingers through that would have a kind of honesty to it. And there's no latin word for that. But in Eckhart's interpretation of Christianity, that's like the fundamental thing. You don't understand God until you understand the way in which he is our ground. And all of a sudden this mysticism gets a kind of german can't that makes sense to the people who speak german. And that reveals something totally different about what you could think that form of existence was that was covered over by the fact that it's always been done in latin. </s>

<s>[INST] that's a louis C. K point he makes, which is like uh that like, uh in his show I think is a conversation with an older gentleman that says like, that's his favorite part of the relationship is that period between the loss of the relationship and the real death, which is forgetting the person. But that period lasts the longest and that's the, like the most fulfilling, like missing the other person is as fulfilling as the actual, like, love, the early infatuation, which is interesting. I also think of the Bukowski I returned to that. There's a little clip of him in an interview saying that love is a fog that dissipates with the first light of reality or something like that. So basically emphasizing that it's this very, very, very fleeting thing that it's a it's a it's a moment thing and then it just fades and everything else is uh, is something else though. Love is only a temporary thing, which is interesting. I think some people say that cynical, I don't know. I don't know what to think of it. I think [/INST] it's important to understand that everything is fleeting when you don't put effort into it. Almost everything will be fleeting. If you don't put effort into it, most people will get fat and lazy. If you don't put effort into something, you're gonna not be good at uh playing guitar or playing bass, you've got to put effort into it. The same thing goes for a relationship that the the awesome part of it that like love part that dies soon and early on in the relationship because it's so good that we think we don't have to work at it, but you do you have to like keep doing the things you got to keep things new and crisp and fresh and you know when you when you okay different people probably feel differently about this, but like I don't know, you walk around your girl and you start like farting and stuff like that's when it all dies, that's when it dies. You know we're all human beings well you know have you know we're all here and our bodies work in the same way but like you start to chip away at this like beautiful thing when you when you stop when you buck conventional courtesy and and things like that, we'll take it for </s><s>[INST] granted, basically take it for granted. Yeah, I mean that's the same thing with life. It's like it's the same, I'm a big fan of meditating on death, that you could die today in the same way you should meditate. Unlike this relationship could end today. This connection with another human could be, this is the last time you could uh you could be interacting [/INST] and your your chances of that increase when you take it for granted and you should on people, but when you work at it, the chances of that decrease, it's not, it's never gonna be zero, but it decreases. And when you do that, when you're the person and you're you're trying to maintain and you're trying to, you know, work at the relationship, you got to make sure that both people are working at it, otherwise you're just a fucking chump. </s><s>[INST] Okay, let's return back to mixed martial arts. Let me ask the ridiculous question of who do you think of the top three, maybe top five greatest fighters of all time? [/INST] It's so hard to compare fighters across generations and </s><s>[INST] maybe on one way to say it is, which metrics would you put on the table as to measure what a great fighter is? [/INST] There was a guy named Dioxin pus </s><s>[INST] in in [/INST] the fourth century and he was such a badass that in the olympics and 3 36 Bc no one even showed up to fight them in the pan creation event. Nobody even showed up, He was sucking everybody up years later, he was retired and uh this crazy Macedonian dude came, they were at some dinner for you know, alexander the great and once chilling drinking, you know, whatever they were drinking out of their chalices and this Macedonian dude threatened him and challenged him. So die octopus said yeah man, we'll throw down and you know, they set the time and the place Macedonian dude comes out like body armor, spear shield, all this other shit, die octopus came out absolutely naked with a wooden club and took on this much younger guy, beat the living crap out of him and then put his foot on his throat uh and then didn't even kill him in the show of ultimate power for the time. So I think </s><s>[INST] there's something about the guy being naked too. It's just extra demeaning, extra demeaning. Yeah. Okay, can we rephrase the question then? Because those are clearly going to be some probably forgotten warriors in history? Well, let's take it to like modern day mixed martial arts in the UFC perhaps? Well just mixed martial arts there, who do you think of the top five of all time, what metrics would you consider in in trying to answer this? Perhaps unanswerable question? [/INST] I think one of the things you want to think about is uh strength of opponent at the time, you fought them. So for example, fighting B. J. Penn in his prime and beating him is far different than beating BJ Penn last year. Right? So to say you have a victory over BJ Penn is not the same, given the time frame of when it happened not to take anything away from anyone who's being BJ Penn just use that as an example of someone whose career went into a different direction. I would say the guy who I think is probably the best that people are the least familiar with would be Marila bustamante and I think he was a guy who, it was one of the guys with the first really good physical build for Emma, which I think is narrow from the chest to the back and long, shoulder to shoulder and kind of sinewy made out of steel cable that was a guy who could box. That was a guy who could wrestle and that was a guy who had great jiu jitsu, uh, it wasn't great kickboxer, but at the time he didn't need it, fought everybody and gave everybody a run. Uh, I think he's probably one of those guys who's got to be considered. </s>

<s>[INST] By the way, neutron would be its name, right? Yep, so not like neutron. It's not some kind of fascinating new physics breakthrough [/INST] where they're using neutrons, right? Yep, so not like neutrons. No, no, but they are using, they're also using liquid methane and liquid oxygen. I just think it's a really, it seems like a great rocket and assuming they can actually get it flying in two or three years, I think they're gonna be, it's here to stay, you know? I'd be remiss right now, I'm editing a video from an interview with Stoke Aerospace out in Kent, Washington. It was just one of these companies that they have a long ways to go. Like they're still in the very, they're behind the curve, frankly, in terms of launch vehicles right now, because like I said, there's so many coming out of the woodwork. But the idea they're working on, their solution to a fully reusable rocket is amazing, one of the coolest concepts I've ever seen. Are you gonna cover it in the video? Yeah, yep, yep, yep. That'll be hopefully coming out the next, depending on what the schedule like is down there. I'm actively editing that as we speak and it is so cool. I mean, it is like, it's genius. And if they can actually get it to work, I can see them merging. I can for sure see someone potentially, like I, perfectly, in a perfect world, they merged with Rocket Lab. They, Stoke develops the upper stage and maybe even the engines. They are the two guys, the CEO, the co-founders of that company have, they are engine, like propulsion engineer magnificence. They have, they used to, they both have worked at blue. They developed engines in a hurry there and then left blue and it felt like it was getting too slow for them. And now they are, I mean, these guys fired a 15 chambered rocket engine instead of four from the Soviet and we're talking 15 chambers, single turbo pump, 70 times in the month of October. Wow. That's impressive. Wow. And that's like, that was on, you know, if you think about like days off, time off, you know, parts changing. Yes. Over twice a day on average of a hydrolox engine. That's insane. So I, I love them and I hope the best for them. But they're also topical right now. </s><s>[INST] They're at top of my head, so. [/INST] What about Firefly? What I like about Firefly, they've already got kind of a traditional aerospace backing. They're starting to buddy up a lot with Northrop Grumman. So they're going to be building the booster stage for Antares, which is currently flying only out of Wallops, Virginia, and is one of the only other commercial providers for the International Space Station. And Northrop Grumman is a very traditional aerospace company, you know, like lots of solid rocket boosters. And they've purchased, ironically, their current Antares is reliant on Russian engines and Ukrainian boosters, two things that I don't think you're going to be able to get your hands on too much anymore. Yes. They're going to some US propulsion and stages. So they actually are partnering with, with Firefly and their new Antares rocket will be a first stage built entirely by Firefly. So I'm, I'm excited that Firefly already has the propulsion technology. And they actually developed, ironically, their tap off cycle engine was developed in partnership with Ukraine, with Ukrainian engineers who developed the whole turbo pump system. So it's like, it's this cool meddling of, of these worlds. Their former CEO, Tom Rekusik was like, I have an interview with him and he's, anyone that can just spout nuances and facts, I just love, I just soaked that guy's information up as best I could, because he is brilliant. </s><s>[INST] Literally a doctor, a rocket doctor, you know, it's so. Yeah, I mean, that's what, like you said, the fascinating thing about these folks, they're, they're legit, they're, they're such great engineers that people, they bring these rockets to life. And then there's all this stuff that we know and don't know about in China and other parts and other nations that are putting stuff into orbit. One of the sad things also is like, you know, with Lockheed and Boeing is just military applications in general, there's so much technology that's currently being developed that we probably know nothing about. Yeah, and that makes me a little bit sad, of course. Yeah. For several reasons. One is that the use of that technology is, has really much, like, it's not, it's not that inspiring. It's like a very military focus. Yeah, it's to kill someone. It's to kill someone, yeah. There's not even like a, a side application. Right. And the big one is that the secret, it's shrouded in secrecy as opposed to being a source of inspiration. Yeah, 100%. But that's the way of the world. Like, what was that one plane that you covered that was like, we know nothing about? [/INST] Oh, the X-37B. The X-37B. Yeah, orbited for over 900 days and returned. Like, yeah, I wanna know about that thing. I don't know. That's what's, it's so frustrating. We know when it launches, people, you know, amateurs track and know, they even will be like, oh, it changed orbit, you know, it raised and lowered its orbit, blah, blah, blah. We generally have just almost no idea what it's doing up there. And it just saddens me. Cause I wanna know. And it's awesome. It's a great vehicle. </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah, beautifully put. Uh So you've uh you said that the meaning of life is to win. If you look five years into the future, what does winning look like? So [/INST] uh there's a lot of, I I can go into like technical depth to what I mean by that to win. Um It may not mean I was criticized for that in the comments like doesn't this guy want to like save the penguins in Antarctica or like, you know, listen to what I'm saying. I'm not talking about like I have a yacht or something. Uh I am an agent, I am put into this world and I don't really know what my purpose is, but if you're a reinforcement, if you're if you're intelligent agent and you're put into a world, what is the ideal thing to do? Well, the ideal thing mathematically, and go back to Schmidt hoover theories about this is to uh build a compressive model of the world, to build a maximally compressive to explore the world such that your exploration function on maximizes the derivative of compression of the past. Vancouver has a paper about this and like I took that kind of as like a personal goal function. Um so what I mean to win, I mean like maybe maybe this is religious, but like I think that in the future I might be given a real purpose or I may decide this purpose myself. And then at that point now I know what the game is and I know how to win. I think right now I'm still just trying to figure out what the game is, but once I know, </s><s>[INST] so you have uh you have imperfect information, you have a lot of uncertainty about the reward function and you're discovering it exactly what the purposes, that's a better way to put it, your purpose is to maximize it while you have it a lot of uncertainty around it and you're both reducing uncertainty and maximizing at the same time. And uh so that's at the technical level, what [/INST] is the if you believe in the universal prior, what is the universal reward function, that's the better way to put it? </s><s>[INST] So that when it's interesting, I think I speak for everyone in saying that I wonder what that reward function is for you. And I look forward to seeing that in five years and 10 years. I think a lot of people, including myself cheering you on, man. So I'm I'm happy you exist and I wish you the best of luck. Thanks for talking today, man. [/INST] Thank you. This is a lot of fun. </s>

<s>[INST] Yes, exactly. Well, that's where if you really want to get good as you're talking about. I mean that's why a lot of these folks are training three times a day they're doing, you know, they're putting in the hours, eight hours, nine hours, just, just, well, so there are a lot of them are not doing, going hard. It's just being on the mat. Some of it is just sitting there talking through ideas, watching others or teaching, explaining stuff. It's just, it's like, it's not just physical, it's, it's mental too, because you're keeping in your mind and some of the greatest, that's what they talk about. The, the wrestlers have thought with the fighters at the top of their career. They basically George ST Pierre's like this another fellow Canadian as like his stick figures in his head. They can't help their like in there because if you train enough hours, your, it's just gonna be in your head and they're all going to be playing around in your head and some little detail over time? It's almost like computing or something like that. And that ends up having a result. Even though you're not physically doing anything, it's, it's, it's always in there. Yeah, I do have to return to diet real quick. I know we're talking about pancakes. Let me quite seriously, um, you are one of the, I mean strongest athletes in the world for your sport. So you have to get big, you have to get powerful, you have to get strong, what is the right diet for you for that? Like, what do you eat? How often do you eat? Um Yeah, from the highest detail to the smalls or the things that make you happy and feel good. [/INST] I've experimented with every diet. I've done it all. I've been a vegan, I've done raw of eating only meat. Uh, I've eaten balanced of eating like a body builder. Uh, you know, you name it. I've probably tried it. Um, I don't believe that it's as important in the sport of arm wrestling as it is, perhaps in other sports. Um, I believe that, I mean, just to be very basic, I mean, if you're eating enough food, you're probably gonna be okay. Um, so it's just calories. It's a lot. I mean it really, I mean, not to overcomplicate it, but I mean that's that's where the conversation starts. So you're eating enough food. Um, and it can come in any number of ways and I don't think it's as important as a lot of other people do. I'm certainly irresponsible in a lot. But the thing is back to like volume, right? Like you need to, like if, if you want to be a super heavyweight, it's very different than if you want to be awake category guy. If you want to be a weight category guy. I'd say that you need to be more responsible, make better choices if you want to be a super heavyweight. Everything </s><s>[INST] just so we're we're watching a delicious looking omelets or eggs, bacon, syrup, so you don't care carbs approached. So in all the things you try. So I mostly eat, meet now and I landed on that. There's several things. You know, obviously I'm not, but I do a lot of sport and I was very surprised how my particularly very specific body can perform better would only meet, why better the sports I do, the mind matters. And so for some reason my mind is just clear and I don't think because it feels unhealthy, it just makes me feel really good. I don't think I would recommend it to anybody else. So it's it's interesting that that journey of just exploring can take you to figure out something about your own self. [/INST] One of the most interesting things that I heard about nutrition was I heard there was a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm an idiot. Uh now I do, I'd say over the last couple of years I've really gone into the, into carbs a lot and high glycemic carbs and you know, just, I I feel like it's one of the best things you can do if you're working out really hard, just add carbs. Yeah, exactly. Um But </s><s>[INST] where was I? So so you've had distracted forget everything, just distracting, you know, so you've added a high glycemic carbs into the mix so that you, those help, but that's from mass building, [/INST] right? So there was a study that I heard about by somebody who's trying to identify heart attacks, they did this great big study and at the end of it, I mean it didn't matter what the people ate the most important thing was how they felt about the food that they were eating. Yeah. So if you believe in the food, if you believe that it's gonna do good things for you and if you allocate it the right way, it's, it's going to have a positive impact and I try and do that no matter what it is, like I have my foods that I think do certain things and so you know, for me, I know that actually, I mean I learned about corn fed pumps when I was overseas. I realized that if I, I never used to eat crap, really didn't, I ate super clean all the time and when I was faced with imminent death more, I would be like, okay, I'm going out tonight, let's have, let's have a couple ice cream bars, you know, like whatever. And what I realized is if I eat like an entire bag of chips or like, you know, a bunch of chocolate bars and then I go and have a workout. My workout will be incredible. It'll be incredible. Um there's something about easily processed carbohydrates that will continue to quickly get into your blood as fast as you can burn it. And there's something about that, that, well, it gives you incredible blood blood flow. Yeah. </s>

<s>[INST] the world reminds us of our throne Nous for some more than others. [/INST] Yes, absolutely. And for people who have to contend on a daily basis with the fact that the social position they're thrown into is one that um negates them, or one that oppresses them, or one that sort of pushes them to the side in some way or another. I mean, the Black experience is interesting in this respect to franz Fanon, who is a contemporary of certain both Lars writes about it and it's very familiar the things that he's saying now, but you know, he writes back in the fifties about being a black man in paris and gagging on getting on an elevator with a woman alone. And how, like, you know, her reaction to him not knowing him not having any views about any reason to have any views about him, sort of puts him in a particular social position with respect to her. And that's if you don't have that experience, it's much harder to recognize the um the way in which what were thrown into something we might not have chosen. So the idea that that that that's not an aspect of our existence um which as you describe in rand's views, she sounds more like start she sounds more like it either it's not an aspect of our existence or at least we ought to sort of aim at its not being an almost </s><s>[INST] act as if it's not. Yeah, exactly, it's not. [/INST] And so I think from my point of view, I don't I don't pretend that I'm explaining the public reception of her, I'm just sort of trying to, trying to say how I understand her in this um intellectual context, from my point of view, that's not something big big to miss and the ambition to think that really what's happening is that we're all the same, we're all rational beings, we're all being. So if we just got the axioms of our existence rights and made good judgments and reasoned in an appropriate way, would um optimize ourselves. That feels to me like a kind of natural end point of the philosophical tradition. I mean, Plato starts off with a view that helps us in that direction, and the enlightenment moves us further in that direction, but from my point of view that movement has led us astray because it's missed something really important that's crucial to the kind of being that that we are. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, this is the music [/INST] system, you </s><s>[INST] let's talk about thrown nous and I think you mentioned that in the context of Heidegger. Yeah, so can we talk about Heidegger, who is this philosopher? What are some fascinating ideas that he brought to the world? [/INST] Okay, so Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher, he do know when he was born 1889, by I don't know that only by accident, it's because it's the same year that Vicki Einstein and Austrian philosopher was born and the same year that Hitler was born, so if I've remembered my dates right and someone will call in and correct me otherwise, but that's the way it, it sort of sits in my memory bank. And it's interesting that the three of them were born at the same time, uh Wittgenstein and Heidegger share some similarities, but then it's also interesting that Heidegger was um was a Nazi. I mean, this is a very disturbing fact about his personal political background. Um and so it's something that anyone who thinks that things that he said might be interesting has got a content with Heidegger </s><s>[INST] was born in Germany, Hitler in Austria, Wittgenstein is Austria also, but so you have to, when when you call Heidegger Nazi, you have to remember, I mean, there was millions of Nazis too. So, like, there are parts of their that's the history of the world, you know, there's a lot of communists, marxists and uh nazis in that part of history. [/INST] Absolutely. And, you know, one of the discussion points as well, was he just a kind of social nazi, you know, I mean, you know, he went to parties with them and stuff, or is he like, did he really believe in the ideology and that that's a Choice point? And and, you know, we could talk about it if, if you want, he he held a political position. That's one of the relevant parts in 1933, he was made rector of the University of Freiburg, that's like the president of the university, um and that was in Germany, all the universities are our state universities, and so that's a political appointment. </s><s>[INST] Can we just pause on this point from an existentialist perspective, what's the role for standing up to evil? So, I mean, I think camus probably had something to say about these things because he was a bit of a political figure. Like, do you have a responsibility not just for your decisions, but you know, if the world you see around you is um going against what you believe, somewhere deep inside is ethical. Do you have a responsibility to stand up to that, even if it costs you your life or your wellbeing? [/INST] You ask from an existential perspective, and there's lots of different positions that you could have. So let me tell you something in the area of what I think I might believe, which comes out of this tradition. Um and it's this uh if you live in a community where people are being dragged down by the norms of the community rather than elevated, then there's two things that you have to recognize. One is that you bear some responsibility for that, not necessarily because you chose it. Uh maybe you reviled it, Maybe you were against it, but there's some way in which we all act in accordance with the norms of our culture. We all give into them in some way or another. And if those norms are broken, then there's some way in which we've allowed ourselves to be responsible for for broken norms, we've become responsible for broken norms and I do think you have to face up to that. I think that um let's just take gender norms. Maybe the gender norms are broken, maybe the way men and women treat one another, the way men treat women is broken. You know, maybe there's maybe it is, maybe there's I'm not making a substantive claim, I'm just saying, you know, lots of people say it is. And if you're in a culture where uh those norms take root, you you don't get to just isolate yourself and pull yourself out of the culture and think I don't have any responsibility um that you are already a part of the culture, even if you're isolating yourself from it, that's a way of rejecting the sort of part you play in the culture. But it's not a way of getting behind it. Now, you're playing that role differently. You're saying, I I don't I don't I don't want to take responsibility for what's going on around me and that's a way of taking responsibility by refusing to do it. So I think we're implicated in whatever whatever is going on around us. And if we're going to do anything in our lives, we ought to recognize that, recognize that even in situations where you maybe didn't decide to do it, you you could be part of bringing other people down and then devote yourself to try to figure out how to act differently so that the norms up update themselves. And I think this is not a criticism of people. And to Alyosha, who we mentioned in the Brothers Karamazov, he's a character, he's a kind of saintly character um, in the brothers Karamazov, but that one crucial moment in his, in that story when he realizes how awful he's been being to someone without ever even intending to do that. It's Grishenko who is this sort of fascinating woman and she's a very erotic woman. She's sort of sexual and, and, and Alyosha, In my reading of it is kind of attracted to her. But he's a young kid, he's 20 or whatever and he's kind of embarrassed about it and he lives in the monastery and he's thinking maybe he wants to be a priest and he's kind of embarrassed by it. So what does he do every time they run across one another in the street, he averts his gaze and why is he doing that? Because he's kind of embarrassed. But how does Grishenko experience it? Well, she knows she's a fallen woman and she knows that Alyosha has this other position in society. So her read on it is he's passing judgment on me, he can see that he doesn't want to be associated with me, he can see that I'm a fallen woman, he knows that in order to maintain his purity. He's got a reason, he's got to avoid me? That's not what Alyosha intended to do? But that's the way it's experience. And so there's this way he comes to recognize, oh my God, like what I'm supposed to do is love people in Dostoyevsky's view of things. And what I'm doing instead is dragging this poor woman down, I'm making her life worse. I'm making her feel terrible about herself. And if I actually came to know her, I'd recognize her condition is difficult. She's living a difficult life. She's making hard choices. And why don't I? You know, why don't I see that in her face instead of this other thing that's making me want to avoid her. And that's a huge moment. But the idea is that we are implicated in bringing other people down whether we want to be or not. And that's our conditions. So </s>

<s>[INST] was we need to clarify that for future robots. But the pattern cutter, the pattern cutter, you don't like that. That had to be that that you can't have that part of your life. [/INST] That's not what I'm my everything that I'm doing is for. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, [/INST] the sake of the human race. There's things in capitalism, there's things in technology. Well, technology and original human species can exist in a peaceful way. As long as the people that know how to make robots aren't using their robots to control the humans. </s><s>[INST] Lex definitely something you have to be concerned about as we become more technologically savvy that my friend is why engineering isn't everything that you have to desperately study the lessons of history in Nazi Germany science was used to create atrocities, engineering the same. Engineering could be a tool of war. [/INST] We were still in the holocaust. A friend, a jewish friend of mine said, come go visit the holocaust museum. And my response was, let's visit our holocaust museum planned parenthood </s><s>[INST] with all due respect. I grew up in the soviet union. I'm jewish. Parts of my family perished in the holocaust of nazi Germany. I have to push back that there is a difference of the atrocities at that scale at that time on an entire piece. I was [/INST] gonna say the number, that's the difference. </s><s>[INST] It's not the number [/INST] because six million we'll also african americans are actually do also the lost tribe of Okay, so everyone came from Africa. </s><s>[INST] I am african, I'm basically african american, We're brothers [/INST] and we're both jew and we're brothers. So </s><s>[INST] we're human. [/INST] Six million people died in the Holocaust. Over 20 million have died by the hands of abortion. And the media promotes the my body my choice, which is actually still a promotion for planned parenthood. 50% of black deaths a year is actually abortion. It's not, it's not the cop with the knee, it's not black on black violence and gang violence, not heart attacks. It's actually abortion. The most dangerous place for a black person in America is in their mother's stomach. </s><s>[INST] 900 to a million abortions in the United States a year. I hear you but there's something about the rape, the torture, the murder of Children, women, men, the complete complete humiliation and just the suffering that was endured during World War Two. That's what we deal with [/INST] on our TVs right now with black people, sorrows would use black trauma economy for to win an election. What I love is having a healthy conversation and as opposed to there's certain things, you know, boom, this drops, people gonna have pussy hats on boom, this drops is gonna be, you know, black people and white people with signs. Boom, this drops. So, hey china, hey, left agenda, Hey, what we're gonna do is say that our species can have a healthy conversation. It's, </s><s>[INST] can I just linger on this? Because when you say jewish media, it, there's a echo of a pain that people feel. That reminds [/INST] entire redundant, right? </s><s>[INST] No, I'm not saying it's redundant. I'm saying you're saying it's redundant. I'm saying it's something that I'm saying that it's something that joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany said, I'm saying it's been said so many times in order to murder and torture, jewish people, that it just rings wrong, [/INST] just </s><s>[INST] like the N word when spoken by people that have the same skin color as me. It reminds people of a very dark time. [/INST] I know if if jewish people would accept that I'm ju then they would see what I'm saying in a different way. They would hear it in a different way. </s><s>[INST] But see the people you saying you're jewish that [/INST] no, I'm ju not jewish, jewish means like that, of a jew, I'm saying I'm ju </s><s>[INST] your jew blood [/INST] of christ that, </s><s>[INST] right? But that are you um are you a follower? The philosophy of the black hebrew Israelites, because that's where the idea comes from, Not all of those folks are extremists, but some are extremists, [/INST] I'm a follower of the idea, I have a vague idea that all people came from africa, but what I wanted to do now, okay, now I could Andy Kaufman this about seven more minutes and then tell you what it is. </s><s>[INST] Seven minutes. [/INST] No, I did this to do a spoiler alert. What's the first thing I said at the beginning, </s><s>[INST] we're talking about engineering and humans. [/INST] And I said, and then what did I say? We shouldn't focus on </s><s>[INST] race. [/INST] Not just that. I said, they shouldn't teach this in school </s><s>[INST] history, [/INST] the history. Because what they do, what schools are doing is exactly what the C. I. A. Does with Pixar films and Disney films. They make Bambi's mom die in the beginning. Right And off that pain comes a purchase of ice cream? Off that pain comes, I need some more toys Off that pain comes. I need a bigger house off that pain comes, I need more girls than my wife. Off that pain comes. So they put that pain and to make us uh now where the orphans of capitalism to make us be consumers and we need to be a community, not just consumers. So I could have went another seven minutes by being a person who presents himself in a way that says, well, I don't have to feel your pain because I also have pain too. That's not being recognized. And in every interview, when I say, why do I get to the point of putting up the tweet. Uh no one wants to understand why I got to that point, but </s><s>[INST] in your heart. But [/INST] the let's say this undoubtedly jewish people have a lot of movies about that pain and black people have a lot of movies about the pain of slavery, right? It's almost impossible to find a movie about Mansa musa. When you go to the African History Museum in Washington, D. C. It, it doesn't start with the idea of Africans being kings. It starts with the idea of Africans being slaves. But here's another interesting point about this. This was said to me one time and it stuck with me as a family member of mine with Africans. How many times you've heard like a rapper, you know, talk about we were kings. That's incorrect. If we're due, if we're do and since we are, we weren't the kings, we were the slaves that moses freed. Africans have always said, we've heard you've listened to rap music and hear black people say we kings, we blood of the pharaohs. And if we are jew, then we weren't. We were the people that moses freed. And when we talk about, have you heard black people talk about 400 years of slavery? Alright, that is, and we're having this history lesson, right? </s>

<s>[INST] I'll be I'll be curious to say they're not neurons at all. Can you describe? In which way? I mean some of it is obvious, but I'd be curious if if you have specific ways in which you think are the biggest differences. [/INST] We had a paper in 2016 called Y neurons have thousands of synapses. And it and if you read that paper, you'll you'll know what I'm talking about here. A real neuron in the brain is a complex thing. Uh let's just start with the synapses on it, which is a connection between neurons. Real neurons can everywhere, from 5 to 30,000 synapses on um the ones near the cell body, the ones that are close to the soma of the cell body. Those are like the ones that people model in artificial neurons. There is a few 100 of those, maybe they can affect the cell, they can make the cell become active, 95% of the synapses can't do that, they're too far away. So if you act at one of those synapses, it just doesn't affect the cell body enough to make any difference. Any </s><s>[INST] one of them individually, [/INST] anyone of injury. Or even if you do what mass of them, what what what what real neurons do is the following. If you activate or they, you know, you get 10-20 of them Active at the same time, meaning they're all receiving an input at the same time. And those 10-20 synapses are 40 steps within a very short distance on the dendrite, like 40 microns, a very small area. So if you activate a bunch of these right next to each other at some distant place what happens is it creates what's called the dendritic spike and then drinks bike, travels through the entrance and can reach the soma or the cell body. Now, when it gets there it changes the voltage, which is sort of like going to make the cell fire but never enough to make the self fire. It's sort of what we call it as we d polarize the cell, you raise the voltage a little bit, but not enough to do anything. It's like, well, good is that And then it goes back down again. So Uh we proposed a theory which I'm very confident and basics are, is that what's happening there? Is those 95% of the synapses are recognizing dozens to hundreds of unique patterns. They can, you know about the 10, 20 synapses at the time. And they're acting like predictions. So the neuron actually is a predictive engine on its own. It can fire when it gets enough what they call approximately input from those ones near the cell fire. But it can get ready to fire from dozens to hundreds of patterns that recognizes from the other guys. And the advantage of this to the neuron is that when it actually does produce a spike in action potential, it does so slightly sooner than it would have otherwise. And so what good is slightly sooner? Well, the slightly sooner part is that there's all the neurons in the excited neurons in the brain are surrounded by these inhibitory neurons and they're very fast. The inhibitory neurons, his basketball. And if I get my spike out a little bit sooner than someone else, I inhibit all my neighbors around it. Right. And what you end up with is a different representation. You end up with a reputation that matches your prediction. It's a it's a sparse representation, meaning is fewer non interactive, but it's much more specific. And so we showed how networks of these neurons can do very sophisticated temporal prediction basically. So, so this summarized this real neurons in the brain are time based prediction engines. And and they and there's no concept of this is all in um artificial called point neurons. I don't think you can mail the brain without them. I don't think can build intelligence about because it's the it's where a large part of the time comes from. It's it's these are predictive models and the time is is there's a prior in a prediction in an action and its inherent to every neuron in the neocortex. So, so I would say that point neurons sort of model a piece of that and not very well at that either, but you know, like, like for example, synapses um are very unreliable and you cannot assign any precision to them. So even one digit of precision is not possible. So the way real neurons work is they don't add these, they don't change these weights accurately. Like artificial neural networks do they basically form new synapses. And so what you're trying to always do is is detect the presence of Some 10-20 active synapses at the same time as opposed. And and they're almost binary. It's like because you can't really represent anything much finer than that. So, these are the kind of dish. And I think that's actually another essential component because the brain works on sparse patterns and all about all that mechanism is based on sparse patterns. And I don't actually think you could build our real brains are machine intelligence without incorporating some </s><s>[INST] of those ideas. It's hard to even think about the complex that emerges from the fact that the timing of the firing matters in the brain, the fact that you form new uh new synapses. And I mean everything you just mentioned in the past, [/INST] you can trust me. If you spend time on it, you can get your mind around it. It's not like it's no longer a mystery to me. </s><s>[INST] No, but but sorry, as a function in a mathematical way, it's can you get it start getting an intuition about what gets excited? We're not kind of representation [/INST] as easy as uh there's many other types of neural networks are that are more amenable to pure analysis. You know, especially very simple networks, you know, I have four neurons and they're doing this. Can we describe the mathematically what they're doing, type of thing. Um even the complexity of convolution neural networks today, it's sort of a mystery that can't really describe the whole system. Um And so it's different. My colleague, Super time Ahmad, he did a nice um paper on this. Um You can get all this stuff on our website if you're interested um talking about some of the mathematical properties, a sparse representations. And so we can't, what we can do is we can still mathematically, for example, why 10 to 20 synapses to recognize a pattern is the correct number is the right number you'd want to use. And by the way that matches biology, we can show mathematically some of these concepts about the show why the brain is so robust um to noise and error and fall out and so on. We can show that mathematically as well as empirically in simulations. Um, but the system can be analyzed completely any complex system can, so that's out of the realm. But there is there is mathematical uh, uh, benefits and intuitions that can be derived from mathematics. Uh, and we try to do that as well. Most most of our papers have the section about that. </s>

<s>[INST] the only way to regulate and control it is to stop it. Yeah. There's a bunch of people who argue that Bitcoin is too compelling to argument to government, that they'll actually embrace it. [/INST] But that is sheer government. That is sheer government has positive goals and wants to do </s><s>[INST] good things. You can ask. No, no, it's greedy. They say government is greedy because they, [/INST] when Bitcoiners have this whole lingo, they say, number go up. Government is not greedy. Government is not greedy for money. Government is greedy for power. Police. Government is greedy for control. Government is much more money is good too. They'll take the money if they can get it. Sure. But it's not fundamentally about money. It's fundamentally, and this is something that many libertarians don't understand. This is something many of the Bitcoin community don't understand. They have far too benevolent a view of politicians and the people in government today. I'm alive. And I know why he's laughing. I think I know why he's laughing. You know exactly why I'm laughing. And we should get to that issue at some point here. So I think there's a lot of naive Issue. There's a lot of naive it and I know why he's You know exactly why I'm laughing. Yeah, there's a lot of it. A lot of it, you're wrong. No, I'm not naive. No, I'm not naive. I'm actually naive. I'm actually providing the warning and all these Bitcoiners are saying, no, no, no, government doesn't fuck that way. No one says I'm naive. </s><s>[INST] Naive people think they're not naive. So let's put this on the table, speaking of naive. I still, more than the two of you by far, I think, have faith that government can work. [/INST] Okay, let's put that on the table. I'm not trying to be pedantic. What do you mean work? Government can achieve goals. That is not in dispute. </s><s>[INST] Can achieve goals effectively to build a better world, a functioning society. [/INST] So I'm going to take it one step further than you. Oh boy. </s><s>[INST] The only way to achieve a better world is through government. Michael, what do you think of that? [/INST] He almost dropped, and I said it on purpose that way. So you cannot achieve, you cannot have liberty or freedom without a government. Now not anything like the governments we have today. So I think the idea that you can have liberty or freedom without government, is the rejection of the idea of liberty and freedom. And they're undermining of any effort, any attempt to do it. So in that sense, I'm view. I know exactly on this side we're gonna agreement with Lex. Yeah, that government is good for unusual Dressed in black the bad guys. I agree with the guy who's reading Mein Kampf. That's not a surprise. Who's dressed in black. Who's dressed in black. No, the fascism, I mean, the road to fascism is anarchy. It's not anarchy. What the hell are you talking about? Can you give me one example of when anarchy led to fascism? Well, every example of a stateless society leads to authoritarianism, every single one in all of human history. It has to, because- Were we saying why had Germany? Were you saying why had Germany was anarchy? Well, it wasn't pure anarchy but it got close, but no, I said the reverse, by the way, books. I didn't say that every form of authoritarianism started with anarchy, I said that every situation in which human beings lived under anarchy led to authoritarianism. Anarchism isn't a location, anarchism is a relationship. The three of us are in an anarchist relationship. Every country is in a relationship of anarchy toward each other. The US and Canada have an anarchist relationship toward one another. And to claim, going back to Emma Goldman, who I love, in 1901, William McKinley, President McKinley, was shot by this guy, Leon Salgos. And it was very funny because he was a crazy person. And they arrest him, he shot the president, and they go, why did you shoot President McKinley? And he just goes, I was radicalized by Emma Goldman. And she's like, oh, god. So now she's on the lambs. She had nothing to do with this guy. She's trying to flee. She gets arrested. They caught her. And she said, and this is the hubris of this woman, which I admire as the subject of the vegan hubris, she goes, I'd like to thank the cops for doing what they're doing. They're turning far more people into anarchism than I could do on my own. So given everything you've said in these two hours, and then to pivot to being anti-government is being anti-liberty, I don't feel I have to say anything. </s><s>[INST] Well, okay, for people who are not familiar, if you're, I don't know why you would not be familiar, but Michael Malice talks quite a bit about the evils of the state and government, and espouses ideas that anarchism is actually, what is it, the most moral system, the most effective system for a human relationship? [/INST] There's this great book called Outlet Shrugged, and the author posits an anarchist private society. She calls it Galt's Gulch, where everything is privately owned and everyone, no one is in a position of authority over anyone else other than the landowner. That's an anarchist society. There's one judge and one authority. Fall. Yeah. That's what everyone, and that's what everyone, and that's what everyone has voluntarily moved there and agreed to be under. That's a very small community, right? Sure. So you violate, hold on, and that's what everyone, hold on. Sure. That is right. So, I have no problem with competing governments. That's the definition of anarchism. What's that? That's the definition of anarchism. Case Claes, okay, end the show. No, no, no, no, no. End the show, I got to end the show. End the show. I got to end the show. No, no, no, no, I got to end the show, I got to end the show. I got to double. I got to I got to double. Not the definition. I got to double. Not the finish of anarchy at all. I'm all for competing government. Get more cookie. Good job. He did it. He did it. Yay, everyone. Brought him over. More Lithuanian. What is this class? That's Lithuanian. That's my people. </s>

<s>[INST] This meat vehicle that operates with other meat vehicles in meat space and does interesting things and is worried and is hopeful and is ecstatic sometimes, sometimes is afraid. And at the end of the day, the ride ends too quickly for that meat bag that I guess others call Lex, but I don't even know what I call myself in my own head. How am I even talking to you right now? What is this? A bunch of cells, neurons, are firing, creating a thought, creating an experience of a thought, allow me in a meta way to discuss the experience of a thought, and here we are. And I'm speaking in a technology build by humans, alone in a room, but you, another human, are now listening to this. [/INST] What is this? </s><s>[INST] What is this? Anyway, if you want to get a little data on this giant mystery, this beautiful mystery that is the biology of our human body, you should use InsideTracker and you can get special savings for a limited time and you go to InsideTracker.com slash Lex. This show is also brought to you by Athletic Greens and it's AG1 drink, which is an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. I take it twice a day. I take it after a run, a long run in the now warm Texas weather, slowly getting ready for that Texas heat. I mean, I love those long runs along the river, anywhere I go. Just long runs alone with my thoughts when I'm listening to Brown Noise or an audiobook. That just takes me away. It takes me away for an hour or two or three, depending on how long the run is. It's just I'm in a different world and when I come back into this world, the first entry point is an Athletic Greens drink. Sometimes I'll put it in the fridge and then take a quick shower and drink it cold. It's delicious either way, warm, cold, doesn't matter. Just put a little powder with some water. It's magic. And I also, when I travel, I take it, it gives me that feeling that I've got in my life in order, at least for the nutritional stuff. They'll give you one month supply of fish oil when you sign up at athleticgreens.com slash Lex. This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Aaron Smith Levin. Let's do a full overview of Scientology. Its ideas, how it operates, how it wields its power and influence. And let's start at the very basics. [/INST] What is Scientology? Scientology is a belief system created by L. Ron Hubbard that does fundamentally believe that we are all immortal spiritual beings called Thetans, that we have native God-like potential, that there is nothing more powerful in the universe than a Thetan. So God-like is quite literal here. And that through various decisions Thetans have made, they have fallen away from their native God-like power, fallen down to a state where most Thetans aren't even aware that they are Thetans, aren't even aware that they ever have lived before or have these powers. And that Thetans are now in a state where they're trapped in bodies, trapped here on Earth, trapped in this prison of a physical universe, trapped on this prison of a planet. </s><s>[INST] And that only Scientology can restore a Thean to its native state. Are these multiple beings? Is there one Thean inside of me that's trapped in this prison? Well the Thean would be you. The Thean would be me. The Thean is you. But I'm presumably limited in some fundamental way. So this Thean that is me is limited. [/INST] So there's like eight billion Theans on the planet. There's one primary Thean animating each body. Later in Scientology you learn there's actually like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of like sick, unconscious, half-dead Theans stuck to you that are now an additional cause of problems for you. But fundamentally at the lower levels, the non-confidential levels, there's just one Thean per body. </s><s>[INST] I mean it's an interesting idea. I just would like to kind of explore the philosophy of that. So there's a being that's all-powerful, that's immortal. And its projection, its manifestation on this Earth is fundamentally limited. And you're trying to, the process of Scientology is the process of letting go of those limitations. You know that's an interesting idea. I mean a lot of religions have this kind of idea that there's not just religions but like we have the capacity as human beings to do, to achieve greatness in all kinds of ways. And that's the question we have with our cognitive abilities, we start with an embryo and build up into this organism and like this world of opportunities before us, what are we capable of? And the idea that we're capable of almost anything is a really powerful one and there's a lot of religions, there's a lot of philosophies, there's a lot of advice, self-help that kind of explore those ideas. And so it seems like with Scientology the application of this religious philosophy means that we're limited and we have to break through those limitations and there's a process to [/INST] break through those limitations. That would be correct. So what can make it challenging to adequately and completely describe Scientology in the beginning is what Scientologists believe actually changes as they progress further into or further up in Scientology. So the explanation I've given is pretty consistent with what you would get at the lowest levels, you're a thetan. I'm a thetan. Everyone's a thetan and we have a reactive mind. L. Ron Hubbard would say the reactive mind is a collection of these recordings, mental recordings of any moments of pain and unconsciousness you ever had in your life. It's like the subconscious mind, it's always recording in moments of pain and unconsciousness, and that these are called, these recordings, L. Ron Hubbard called them n-grams. Now, when L. Ron Hubbard first wrote Dianetics in 1950, this was before Scientology came along a couple years later, right? So in 1950, when he wrote Dianetics, it wasn't a spiritual endeavor, it was supposed to be a mental health, a science of mental health. So as of that time, the earliest engram you could have was the incident of birth. Being born was an engram. And technically in Dianetics, he said you could have prenatal engrams, like when you're still in the womb. But there was no concept of past lives as of 1950 version of Dianetics, right? And so the idea there was that the reactive mind is essentially a stimulus response mechanism created through evolution millions of years ago to protect the individual from things that would harm them. In other words, things that would bring about pain and unconsciousness. So you have these recordings of things that hurt you, create a pain and unconsciousness. And in present time, these things will react upon you in a way to cause you to avoid similar things reacting upon you in a subconscious, unconscious way. So the reactive mind protects you from the trauma that is inside your subconscious mind. Yes. And the idea is we've now as human beings evolved to a state where it no longer serves us beneficially, it only serves us negatively. This was Hubbard's theory. And he said so you can get rid of these engrams by basically recalling them and going over them again and again using Dianetics auditing therapy. And if you get back to the moment of birth and erase the earliest engram, all the other subsequent engrams on the chain would vanish. Oh, nice. So there's a chain. Earlier, similar, earlier, similar, earlier, similar, earlier, similar. Okay. So that gives you a pretty good understanding of how Elrond Hubbard thought of the mind because that carries on, has applicability later on in Scientology. </s><s>[INST] I mean, that's a pretty powerful model of the mind. I mean, Freud had similar conceptions that a lot of our traumas are grounded in sort of a poor formulation of sexuality or imperfect formulation of sexuality in early childhood, something like this. And then we're trying to figure out the puzzle of whatever we formed in early childhood. Right. [/INST] And it's similar, similar kind of. It is similar. It's probably what Hubbard took it from. In the early days of Dianetics, before he decided psychiatry was evil, he actually credited </s><s>[INST] Sigmund Freud with some of the shoulders he was standing on in writing Dianetics. So he still admired psychiatry at that time. So that's an interesting moment of Dianetics. So what else? You mentioned Dianetics. Auditing was there too. [/INST] So if we just, before Scientology, what are the ideas that formed what we know as Dianetics? As I've just described, that is the fundamental. That is pretty much the nuts and bolts of Dianetics. Was it applied? Was it applied often? Oh yeah, no, that's what Dianetics in the early days was all about. It was just auditing. Auditing is the process of the one on one counseling, recall a moment of pain and unconsciousness, run through the angrem over and over and over again, find something earlier similar. That is Dianetics auditing. One of the main things that changed with Scientology is that birth or prenatal angrams were no longer the earliest angrams on the chain. The idea is you have to get the earliest ang clinic on the chain for the later ones to blow, which is a race. And so, but all of a sudden now, with the addition of an immortal spiritual being into the equation, well now the earliest incident could be trillions of years ago in other galaxies </s><s>[INST] and universes. That is, other universes, so before the origin of this universe. Yes. Is there a model of physics integrated in any of this? [/INST] No, oh yeah. The model is, you have the physical universe, and then above that you have the theta universe. So we used the word thetan earlier. in Scientology, they'll use the word theta. Theta is just basically Satan power, Thetans collectively. So Hubbard would say you have the theta universe, which is senior to the physical universe and creates the physical universe. And remember, I said, I said native godlike potentials. So when I'm talking about the god who created the earth, we're just like, Scientologists don't believe in a god, but we'll get into that later. We're talking about just creating universes. Like just think like matrix, like just when I say creating universe, essentially just creating different Thetan simulations. </s><s>[INST] But it sounds like a little bit more like the ideas of Plato, which is there's these platonic forms, there's abstract forms that are bigger, more general than our particular reality here. And those forms are used to construct the reality. [/INST] Well, I grew up in a cult, so I'm not familiar with the works of Plato. </s><s>[INST] You can't use that as an excuse for everything. I would like to, you know, non jokingly steel man the case because a lot of philosophies, a lot of religions, a lot of even scientific endeavors are a little bit full of uncertainty. You can call it bullshit, but you're on sturdy ground because we're surrounded by mystery. And you have to take these ideas somewhat seriously and see where those ideas go wrong. This happens with communism, this happens with capitalism. These ideas sound beautiful in their ideal forms, and then they somehow go wrong and some go more wrong than others. And so I don't think sort of, it's easy to sort of caricature and make fun of the ideas. I think if we take them seriously, you'll start to understand like when you're in it, it was serious. It can be very convincing. It's, you know, the devil is going to be a charismatic person. He's not going to be a caricature, a ridiculous person. So that helps us understand which ideas will sound appealing, but will become dangerous. [/INST] I totally agree. In fact, it's one of the thrusts I have on my channel is wanting to talk about Scientology in a way that would actually resonate with current Scientologists, not just resonate with former Scientologists. I want people who are still in to be able to hear how I talk about it </s><s>[INST] and go, wow, he's being really fair and really accurate. He's not just a hater. He's not just a hater. If you look at, let's take one of the worst places on Earth, there's North Korea, you have Kim Jong-Un, and the reality is there's a lot of citizens of that nation that deeply love the leader because they've grew up in that way. I mean, through fear, through all kinds of manipulation, through propaganda and so on, they're not allowed to love members of their own family. They're not allowed to have romantic love. They're only allowed to have love for the leader. And to reach those people, you have to empathize with the fact that in their eyes, in some sense, this is a great man, this is a god, a messianic figure. You can't just make fun of the ridiculousness of the situation, this pudgy person waltzing around, creating propaganda, like how's this? With a funny haircut. With a funny haircut. Like it's so easy, Hitler too, to make fun of, to make a caricature of the person. But this is a real person, a real person that influenced the minds of millions of people. In the case of Hitler, you know, tens of millions of people and created a huge amount of suffering, not because of the caricature version, but because he was a charismatic leader. He was somebody that people deeply, deeply loved. And that just over time, I mean, with the abuse of any kind of ideology, this happens over and over. And so it's interesting because Scientology is so close to the core of what is America because so many Americans are involved with it. So it's interesting to study the beauty and the power of the ideas that underlie it and where things go wrong. [/INST] Yeah. And I'll just say it's interesting to note, you would never get a representative of the Church of Scientology to sit down and have a conversation with you and even be as fair and accurate about Scientology </s><s>[INST] as I'm going to be, which is noteworthy. Do you honestly deeply believe that's the case? There's not going to be a high level official [/INST] that would sit down for a conversation? </s><s>[INST] No. I disagree with you. I hope you're right. Because I think that given the current dynamics of what's happening, I think in order to say, from their perspective, in order to save the Church of Scientology, they have to be transparent and authentic, basically steal men their case, but better. You would think so. Well, we'll talk about the other ways you could do that, which is the manipulation through propaganda, through control media and all that kind of stuff. [/INST] They paint themselves into a corner of not being able to send a representative out into the world to speak honestly about it, because you're literally not allowed to. So when faced, if you're just sitting down with an entertainment journalist, a representative might be able to fudge their way through an interview, but sitting down for a long-form format interview with someone who is going to ask them about Xenu and the body faitons and Leah Remini and Lisa McPherson, that's a no-go zone. So I'm representing why it will never happen, but shit, I would tune in for that interview. </s><s>[INST] I mean, I hope you do get someone. I hope you do get someone. You don't think David Miscavige would sit down [/INST] for an interview? </s><s>[INST] I would love to be wrong. You know, in general, journalists, in these kinds of situations can be, can attack in a way that doesn't empathize and doesn't come from a place of deep knowledge and understanding, and I think it's possible to have serious conversations with people like that in an empathetic way, but it's also in a challenging way. I think there's a huge amount of trust required, and obviously for a very secretive organization, [/INST] the amount of trust, yes, might be too much required. Anyone over there, if they've done their homework, knows you're gonna be as fair as anyone in the world's going to be, and yet, there's simply things they're not allowed to talk about, and they're not even allowed to say I'm not allowed to talk about it. </s><s>[INST] So that's a fundamental part of the Church of Scientology is the secrecy. So that's what you're trained as you go up [/INST] through the ranks is secrecy, secrecy. It's not even a matter of training. It's that there's an entire, the entire upper half of Scientology's bridge is simply confidential. And I never even did those levels when I was in Scientology. I didn't learn what Scientologists actually believe on those upper levels until after I got out of Scientology </s><s>[INST] and I was freaking born and raised in it. Let's go there, let's go to your personal story. [/INST] So you've spent 30 years in Scientology? </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I was four years old when my mom got in. And then about seven years ago, got out, and you're on what YouTube channel now, [/INST] and you're an educator? So I was four years old when my mom got introduced to Scientology. And she got in really fast, really quick. So I was 12 years old when I was taken out of school and started officially full-time working for Scientology. Okay, so in various capacities, I worked from the ages of 12 to the age of 26. Okay, so, and then I was 34 when I officially parted ways with Scientology, which was really more them officially parting ways with me, but we can get in all that later. </s><s>[INST] That's just kind of how Scientology does it. [/INST] And what do you do now in terms of Scientology? So now I run, growing up in Scientology, the YouTube channel, but what I primarily do is I help run an organization that helps people who are escaping from Scientology. I'm the vice president of the Aftermath Foundation. And we created the foundation after the television show, Leah Remini, Scientology and the Aftermath. And there was such an outpouring of support from non-scientologists all over the world. What can we do to help people leave Scientology? That we decided to create a foundation, and it's been incredibly successful. We've helped people escape from all regions and echelons of Scientology. We've accomplished, what we've accomplished is far beyond what we actually envisioned would be possible. </s><s>[INST] It's been a huge success. So we'll talk about the negative aspect, the abuses of power, but let's just explore the ideas a little bit more. So the public facing three fundamental truths of Scientology, maybe correct me if I'm wrong. Man is an immortal spiritual being, like we said with Thetans. His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime. So infinite memory backwards. His capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized. [/INST] The capabilities are unlimited. So that when I say God-like, I really just mean Thanos, like unlimited. Scientologists don't believe in a God. So when I say God-like, I just mean the most powerful entity, the creator, the prime mover unmoved, except we are all that. A Thetan in Scientology, A Thetan has no position in space or time. A Thetan does not actually exist in the physical universe. It might choose to locate itself in the physical universe, right? And then forget that it made that decision and then sort of get caught and trapped in the physical universe. But that once that Thetan is restored to its native powers, everything you see here in the physical universe is just a Thetan playing a game, like literally, we are in a simulation right now of some Thetan. So like physics doesn't have to make sense when we're talking about it this way. Like technically, you're A Thean, I'm a Thean, we're here, This could also all just be another thetan's game. The thetan's all the way down. Yeah, it's just thetan's everywhere, </s><s>[INST] thetan's all comes down to the thetan. Is there an idea of a god? Because I read there is a kind of, there is a sense of a supreme being. Is that basically the thetan that's at the core at the bottom of it all? Yes. [/INST] Not defined, undefined. Correct. Scientology has this concept of the dynamics, Elrin Hubbard breaks life into a different dynamics. And the dynamic meaning of thrust towards survival. So he would say, you know, the first dynamic is you yourself. Second dynamic is your family. Third dynamic is any other group that you're a part of other than your family. Fourth dynamic is all humankind. The fifth dynamic is plant and animal life, all non-human life. Sixth dynamic is the physical world. Seventh dynamic is sort of like spirituality collectively, thetans, us as thetans. And the eighth dynamic, Elrin Hubbard says Scientology doesn't deal with the eighth dynamic, but we recognize that people have this idea of a supreme being, and so Scientology says you can call the eighth dynamic the supreme being dynamic, but we call it infinity, just the allness of everything without having to define it. And then they sort of do a little dance and they're like science-ology, the purpose of Scientology is to get you to the point where you have your own understandings or realizations about the nature of the eighth dynamic, we don't tell you what you have to believe about that. And technically speaking that is true. Technically speaking that is true. There's no point in Scientology where they sit you down and say you're not required to revoke your belief in a supreme being. It's just that everything in Scientology is inconsistent with a belief in the supreme being. You can still find Scientologists who through cognitive dissonance will tell you they believe in a supreme being. </s><s>[INST] Mostly they're lying to you. How is this inconsistent with the supreme being? [/INST] Because like Tatans could- Because Tatans have created everything. </s><s>[INST] Not God. Okay, so, Tatans created, they're also a creative force not just the force that runs everything. But can't those be just the fingertips of a God? [/INST] Sure. The only way you could reconcile a supreme being is if you say a single supreme being created all theta, like the spiritual big bang. But that's not what most people think when they </s><s>[INST] talk about God. They're talking about a creator of the physical universe. There's no theta. [/INST] Right. I mean, even as I've described Scientology so far, none of what I've said is something I even subject to ridicule. This is pretty common sense stuff, actually. I mean, if you believe in spirituality or spirits at all, there's nothing I've described so far that's crazy. Believing in past lives isn't particularly unique or special. The fact that Scientology does this little dance of pretending to believe in a God, I mean, it's even like a PR line. Scientology representatives will tell you you can be a Christian and be a Scientologist. Let me tell you what, Christians don't believe in past lives, and lives on other galaxies and planets and universes. But, Scientology knows that. Scientology knows you can't be a Christian and be a Scientology, but they will say </s><s>[INST] that. It's just an example of sort of the fundamental baked in dishonesty. Because it's so important to Scientology on the organization level to have tax exempt status. I wonder how do you, do you know the process of what it takes to prove that an organization is a religion? [/INST] while going through that process with the IRS... For the second time, by the way, Scientology actually had tax exemption in the early days and the IRS pulled it, and then they got it back in 1993. While going through that process again, the IRS actually took issue with the fact that Scientology was claiming you could be a Scientologist and a member of another religion. The IRS actually said, pump the brakes there, if you're gonna say that, we're gonna say you're not a religion. And they actually put in writing to the IRS. No, no, no, no, no, that's not what we meant. That's not what we meant. We meant in the beginning, you can be both, </s><s>[INST] but eventually you just have to be a Scientologist. So you mentioned the eight dynamics, but you also mentioned survival. So that seems to be a core principle that human existence is about survival. Can you elaborate what is meant by survival? We're talking about survival of the human species, survival of the individual humans, survival of the, the manifestation of thetans in human form. [/INST] What do we, what's survival? So it would be all of that because survival is the, the dominant force across all the dynamics that, I mean, Elrond Hubbard, it was either Dianetics or Science of Survival. He says he discovered the principle upon which all life exists. And that is all life, no matter what it is trying to do. Are you ready, Lex? </s><s>[INST] It's trying to survive. That's pretty powerful. That's pretty powerful. I gotta tell you, I gotta- You might get me back in, Lex. No, I'm not, I'm not trying to get you back in. I'm trying to take you, get you to take seriously the power of the ideas behind Scientology, because I think those ideas are not bad ideas. They resonate with a lot of ideas throughout philosophy, throughout religions, throughout the history of human civilization. [/INST] The interesting aspect is how it goes wrong. But here's the thing, Lex, here's the thing. It is consistent with prior efforts or studies. It's just that Elrond Hubbard said this was a watershed breakthrough that it was being discovered for the first time. </s><s>[INST] That's kind of what I'm mocking, really. Yeah, but you can mock Nietzsche for saying man has will to power. You can mock Roy. But did he claim to be the first person to ever say it? Well, Nietzsche had a bit of an ego, so. Like, and he's full of contradictions, but I'm pretty sure the imply thing is that he was the first to say it. There's a lot of scientists. There's one of the people I really admire, Stephen Wolfram, who wrote a book called A New Kind of Science that explores complex systems and cellular automata and these mathematical systems that have been explored before. But he boldly kind of defined, I am presenting to you a whole new way to look at the world. And if you just set a little bit of the ego behind that aside, there's actually beautiful ideas in there. They have of course been done before and explored before, but sometimes people declare this is the coolest. [/INST] That's the only thing I'm really mocking is that this discovery that life is trying to survive is greater than the discovery of fire. I mean again, it's a little silly. But that's fine. We can agree that the fact that life is trying to survive has meaning and is meaningful and can be, is valuable. And it's true. </s><s>[INST] I mean, life is trying to survive. Also, there's a non-trivial definition of what is life here? So this idea of a thing, the thing that permeates through lifetimes through people, there's some fabric that is bigger than the individual biological bags of meat. That's a philosophically-interesting idea. Of course, if it's not grounded in a little bit more [/INST] of physical reality, then it becomes a little too woo-woo. And the way L. Ron Hubbard in Scientology defines survival is very much intertwined with how they define ethics. Ethics, anything to be ethical is pro-survival. To be unethical is counter-survival. But we were talking about just the concept of the dynamics, like what does survival refer to? And it actually does refer to all of them, but just keep in mind, when it comes to the seventh dynamic, Thetans collectively, involved in here is the idea that a Thetan cannot die. There's no such thing as killing a Thean. A Thean can only survive. And so, anyway, this concept of the dynamics is one of the most fundamental and important concepts in Scientology. But because I mentioned that it also gets tied up with ethics, and this probably speaks to what you're just talking about is you can have the ideas and the concepts and you can have how do they go wrong. Because they hold that Scientology, applying Scientology, getting people into Scientology is the key to basically saving every spiritual being in existence. When you're analyzing what is ethical, it becomes whatever's good for Scientology becomes by definition ethical, because anything that's good for Scientology, which is a third dynamic, is inherently good for all the dynamics. So that's where you get the ends justifying the means to do anything possible, use any means necessary to afford the aims of Scientology. </s><s>[INST] That's kind of where a lot of Soviet implementation of communism went wrong, is the ends justify the means. The equality, the justice for the workers, if we have to kill, murder, imprison, censor, in the name of that, then it's for the greater good [/INST] in the long term to achieve the ideal of communism. In some respects, Scientology created a near-perfect communist experiment in its organization. What is it, from everyone according to their ability to each according to their need, or something like that? Scientology, C Organization, is damn near a perfect communist experiment. Coming from someone who doesn't necessarily know what a perfect communist experiment really is, because I'm not grew up in a cult, Lex. You can't keep it as an excuse. It's a funny tagline I use in my videos. It is interesting that an organization that is so hyper capitalist and so money hungry and is known to be very wealthy at its core is run by these group of Syorg members that live a communist lifestyle. </s><s>[INST] You can't keep using it as we're gonna jump around. Let's go, what is C or What is C organization? What is this organization? [/INST] Yeah. What is this organization? The organization is the most dedicated version, the most dedicated brand of Scientologists. So there's three like echelons of Scientologists, there's public who just live normal lives in the real world and they pay to do Scientology courses and auditing. Then there's staff members who also live in the real world, but work on two and a half year contracts or five year contracts at their local Scientology organization and then once they finished their contract, their debt is paid or whatever, and then there's the seorg members, these are the guys who signed the billion year contracts. They don't have lives in the outside world. They don't own property, they live in Scientology provided housing, they eat Scientology run cafeterias. </s><s>[INST] Is there an actual contract that says a billion years? [/INST] It's symbolic, but yes. Okay. Like, no, it's not a legally enforceable contract. They haven't succeeded in enforcing it </s><s>[INST] in any subsequent lifetimes yet. Marriage contract should be like that. A billion year, not until death's the worst part, but a billion years, it really makes it very concrete of what you're signing up for. [/INST] Yeah, yeah. Those are the billion year guys. You hear a lot about the billion year contract, the billion year contract, that's the C-ORG. And all of Scientology management, international management, middle management, continental management, and even some lower level service orgs are one composed 100% of C-ORG members. You're not allowed to marry or date someone who's not in the C-ORG. </s><s>[INST] You're also not allowed to have children. With anybody outside of C-ORG, you know, you're not allowed to have children. [/INST] C-ORG members are not allowed to have children unless they leave the C-ORG, if you, they're expected to have an abortion and stay in the C-ORG, cause that's the greatest good for Scientology. </s><s>[INST] If you accidentally get pregnant. Interesting. Cause it distracts from the focus of the work. Yeah. [/INST] What about sexual relations? Only once married. But that's why people get married after like three days. You're like, hey you, you look, you look all right. Let's get married! Are you allowed to have divorce? Yeah, you get divorced a lot in the Sea Org. I've known people get married and divorced three times by the age of 25. Oh wow. Because in the Sea Org, getting married is practically like dating. Right. Also, unless you're married, you're living in dorms with a bunch of other people, so in order to get your own room, you also have to get married, </s><s>[INST] so there's many benefits. You look all right, let's get married. Oh, wow. Okay. So, you mentioned communism. In which way? Because is there a hierarchy [/INST] inside C-ORG? Is there a redistribution of influence, position, money, power? Okay. Is that C-ORG? Everyone in the C-ORG makes $50 a week. Everybody. Except David Miscavige. And some posts might have a cash bonus incentive structure, but fundamentally their pay is $50 a week. So, even the head of a big Scientology organization </s><s>[INST] is getting $50 a week. Are celebrities also part of the C-ORG? No, not usually. So, this is really the management [/INST] layer. So, what's the idea behind $50 a week? Is that basically live a humble life? They don't have to give you anything at all. It's just, you mean like, what's the idea behind not paying? Yeah, basically not paying. Everything you need is already being provided for you. You're not here for the money. You're working all the time anyway. It's not like you don't have days off. I mean, you're working all the time. There's not, there's no concept of the weekends. There's no, Oh, thank God </s><s>[INST] it's Friday. Friday is just another day. And how are the position, the tasks, the jobs allocated within the C-ORG? Like what kind [/INST] of tasks you're doing, what kind of stuff you're doing? It's very similar to just any other business as far as you can have your human resources, you can have your sales, you can have your accounting, your operations, your quality control. It's just that in Scientology, your operations is delivering courses and auditing. So. and your quality control where most of the activity occurs as far as delivering Scientology. And then you've got your, you'd call it business development, but that's just bringing in new members, right? So the function of a Scientology organization </s><s>[INST] is very comparable to a normal business in the normal world. So let's talk about the products of this business, auditing and courses. [/INST] So what's auditing? So auditing is, so we described earlier, Dianetics auditing, Scientology auditing is very similar to that. </s><s>[INST] So at first glance, it looks like psychotherapy, [/INST] a kind of therapy. All Scientology auditing is going to look like that. It's one-on-one talk therapy. You're in a room by yourselves, no distraction, no noise. One-on-one? Yeah. So like this? Yeah, but, and in Scientology, they have what's called an E-meter, right? Almost all auditing employs the use of an E-meter. What's an E-meter? So an E-meter is a device that just measures the resistance to a small electrical flow. Except Scientologists believe that this E-meter can be used to simply direct the progress of an auditing session, to determine whether the auditing has reached a good satisfactory conclusion. All auditing sessions have to end on a satisfactory conclusion. Like that's the job of the auditor. You don't just, it's not like, sorry, the session sucked. See you next week. It's not like that. Every auditing session has to end on a positive note. And if it doesn't, there's corrections to be made. </s><s>[INST] So the E-meter. [/INST] What does it look like visually? Oh, you can pull it up. </s><s>[INST] Pull up mark eight, E-meter mark eight. So there's a few dials. There's basic information about time and duration, I'm presuming that a dial that just goes zero to something. [/INST] Okay, so let's say that the meters in front of me </s><s>[INST] and you're the one holding the cans. I'm holding the cans, so you're doing the auditing of me. I'm holding the cans. [/INST] No literally, in the beginning of an auditing session when you're calibrating the sensitivity of the E-meter, you do a can squeeze. So I go, squeeze the cans please. Okay, so I'm just like squeezing the cans. Yeah and I'm just changing the sensitivity because when you squeeze the cans, I want to get about a one third of a dial drop on the needle. The idea is if the needle is too sensitive then every time you shift around in your chair, the needle's gonna bounce all over the place. So you're trying to set the sensitivity of this thing, and that's all the knob there on the bottom to the left, that's the sensitivity knob. And that determines just how much how sensitive the needle is gonna be. And the bigger dial is called the tonearm. And that is changing, I wanna say voltage or current, but I'm not intending. </s><s>[INST] I'm going to get one of those words is wrong, right? But it is a real device, It's a real device You can actually calibrate to probably, you know, get an outcome that you want. [/INST] Yeah, so here's even how just how a Scientology auditor believes it works. You're holding the cans, there's a tiny little battery in that emitter that's sending and you're completing the circuit when you pick up the cans, right? So you got a little thing going there and that needle will respond to your physical movement but that's not what we want. We want you to sit the hell still so that we can read this thing when I'm asking you questions. </s><s>[INST] Okay. [/INST] So you're sitting there still, very still, as still as you can, comfortable, right? And I'm going to go, is there something you're withholding from me? And what I'm looking for is... right when I say at the end of me I'm looking for the </s><s>[INST] needle to dip to the right. [/INST] Having a needle, even if it's kind of random, can really be like a catalyst for a conversation. That's what it's used for, except it's an enforced conversation. So I'll give you a really good example of this. So, you're holding the cans, say, is there anything you're withholding from me? and I get an instant read and I go, is there anything you're withholding from me? </s><s>[INST] You're going to go, I don't think so, you're gonna tell. And I don't see the needle- [/INST] No, you don't see the needle. No, you don't see the needle. I go, well, what did you think of when I asked you the question? Now, if you've already had a lot of auditing, you know how this goes. It means I got an instant read and we're not going to move on until this question gets resolved. So you're gonna go, I don't know what I was thinking of and then I'm gonna be like, you know, take a look and I'll help you out here, I'll try to steer ya. Okay, so I'm looking to get roughly the same read So, you're thinking about whatever. I mean, what was that? </s><s>[INST] What was that? And you can start digging to what? [/INST] You can start? </s><s>[INST] I just want an answer to the question, okay? [/INST] And I can go to memory? Yeah, and you can give me any answer you want. There's no way for me to know if you're giving me the right answer. But I want you to give me something. If you say you can't give me anything, I'm gonna keep using the emailashater until you give me something. Yeah. Okay, so let's say you give me something. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna get all the details about that, and until time plays, form an event, I wanna know everything that happened. I wanna know all the details. Like, hold on, I'm writing all this down. So I'm taking notes of everything. You're telling me that it's a bad thing that you did that you haven't told me about. Okay, so I'm keeping notes. When you represent to me that you've told me everything there is to tell, I'm looking for the needle to give a smooth back and forth motion like this. And Scientology called that a floating needle. That means in Scientology land, we're done with that. So now I might go back to check the question. Okay, good, I'll check the question again. Is there anything you're withholding from me? Ooh, if I got another read, we gotta go through the process again. Okay, if you tell me I've told you everything and I don't get a floating needle, I've got to go okay, is there an earlier similar thing? Have you basically done an earlier similar thing? Is there an earlier similar time you haven't told someone something or is there an earlier similar thing that you did to the thing that you just told me? We're going to keep going earlier similar, earlier similar, earlier similar until I get a floating needle. That's where, explaining it this way you can see, no matter what the specific auditing session happens to be about, there's still the potential in any auditing session that you're going into past lives. Just because you have to go earlier similar until you get a floating needle. Okay, now here's how Scientologists think the emitter actually works. We're meaning why does the emitter work? So we talked before about these mental pictures, right? These recordings, okay? Well, we spoke about engrams, just recordings of pain and unconsciousness. Well, Scientology would hold the bad recordings, aren't the only recordings that you have. Those are just the recordings in your reactive mind. You also have an analytical mind, which is just your conscious memory, conscious recording of everything from present time to the last 76 trillion years. And Hubbard would say that these memories are actually a perfectly detailed recording. And he says like 56 perceptions or something. And that it's perfect. And you can access that information. You just have trouble doing so. Okay, so he says that these recordings, these mental pictures have actual electrical charge and mass. Now you asked before, is there any actual physics in this? I don't know. Where are you supposed to store the pictures of your last 76 trillion years that have charge and mass? I don't see it, but Hubbard says it's there. Okay, so he says that these things have mass. And when you recall them or put attention on them, you create an electrical flow, which maybe through magnetic fields or whatever, impinges upon the electrical flow of the emitter. And it shows up as a read on the needle. That's how Scientologists believe that's why the needle reads. Now, cynics would say the needle only reads on palm sweat and movement. Well, I know that's not true, right? I can't tell you everything the needle does read on, but I can tell you it's not just moving your hands and sweaty hands. It does correlate to thoughts probably. </s><s>[INST] Some way, somehow. Because if it didn't correlate to thoughts, that this process would be way too inefficient. Because there's going to be a bunch of people who are just not, you're not gonna get the, what is it called? The floating needle. [/INST] Like, no matter what. I can't explain to you how you get a floating needle. But it sure as hell isn't hand sweat. And it sure as hell isn't squeezing the cans. </s><s>[INST] Right, so you eventually, most people will get to the floating needle. And somehow- You get floating needles. There's like a feed, but there probably is a feedback mechanism that each person realizes how their mind and body, because you want a resolution, right? It's probably- You want your needle to float. For both people. Yes. And it's probably a great experience when you're like, yes, it's like a gamified feeling, right? [/INST] Well, when you get floating needles, well, when you're training on how to use the e-meter, there are drills where you practice generating with your mind various needle reactions. So, you know, there is a drill where you sit there and you consciously try to create a floating needle by recalling happy thoughts. You go to your happy place. And at the end of every auditing session, you actually have to go to a third party, sit down in front of an e-meter and verify that your needle's floating. Nice. Every single auditing session not only has to end on a floating needle, but then you have to go to someone else and have the floating needle verified. Any Scientologist who's a seasoned recipient of auditing </s><s>[INST] knows how to make their needle float at the examiner. I gotta be honest though, this process, again, sorry to be sort of going there, but it feels like this is a very rigorous talk therapy session. [/INST] Is there good aspects to this? Sure. A lot of people find auditing very helpful. I mean, I've heard some describe it as quite thoroughly addictive. Me personally, I never enjoyed getting auditing. That's probably more a function of having been raised in it. And it was never something I wanted to do. It was something that was forced on me as a child. And also I was never, I don't like talking about private secret stuff. Like you kind of have to want to be an open book to honestly and thoroughly participate in an auditing session. </s><s>[INST] Because there's not necessarily a belief [/INST] that this is going to be private. There's no expectation of privacy, but there's no expectation that your stuff's going to be leaked for blackmail either, I mean. You kind of. </s><s>[INST] You trust the people in the organizationization. Even despite rumors and stuff like that, but the rumors are coming from people [/INST] that are lying to you essentially. If you're a Scientologist and you're participating, in participating in an auditing session, you know that anyone in the organization has the ability to know the stuff that you talk. It's not like, oh my God, I'm only telling my auditor because I think no one's ever going to know. You know that people know, </s><s>[INST] but you also trust the organization. [/INST] How quickly does it go to past memories? For people who are seasoned, like they actually like going past life. Yeah. I hated it. I would make sure, I was really good at making my needle float. I didn't want to have some auditor, because I never believed in the past life memories. So I didn't want to be in that impassable, reach an impass and an auditing session while I was being asked for something I couldn't provide. Cause I knew this auditing session has to end on a good point. But Scientologists enjoy for the most part going, they call it whole track, whole track is past life. Going whole track. Your time track they call it the time track is your whole memory. But whole track refers to anything past life. So going whole track or deep whole track, with high reality. Meaning it's not like, oh I have a fuzzy memory and I'm not sure if it's real. a real seasoned Scientologist that are like, I was on this planet this time circling this time I was eating for breakfast. </s><s>[INST] This time circling this time I was eating for breakfast. Fascinating. Before the origin of life on Earth? Billions of years ago on a distant planet where you were eating for breakfast. I wonder if there's a nice shortcut to sneak up to actual trauma that happened to you as a therapy device. So putting cytology aside, I'm thinking about as a technique for therapy, discussing, basically, you know, some people have trauma and one of the things you do with therapy is like bringing the trauma to the surface. That's the stuff that happened to your childhood. Maybe it's a more convenient thing to do to kind of map that indirectly onto a fictitious telling of what happened to you, something like that trauma on a distant planet elsewhere. [/INST] It could be a nice way to sneak up to it. Yeah, and it goes both flows there, not just things that have happened to you, but things that you've done. So, you know, you could be being asked for, you know, you'd be going back to, I wiped out a civilization. I committed genocide, I don't know, this race on this planet. Oh wow. </s><s>[INST] Oh yeah. But so you can actually take on a whole new guilt. Oh yeah. So, okay, all right, you might actually take on a lot more guilt than I go of. Because if you feel like that self critical aspect of the brain, boy, because my brain is really self critical. So I could see myself manufacturing if I was forced to over time, some kind of story where I didn't genocide a whole population of like Pluto or something at a distance [/INST] in somewhere in Nalfa Centauri. Oh yeah. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, so I mean, now I walk around with that guilt. [/INST] Wait, am I actually a horrible person? So imagine though, if you had not only are you looking at, you know, if someone's being self critical, trying to identify destructive patterns of behavior in your present life, but what if you really internalize the fact that I haven't only been this way for 40 years. I've been this way for 40 trillion years. But Scientology would argue that as a thetan, you're inherently good. All theans are basically good. So the goal of the auditing procedure there would be essentially to figure out, find the moment, find what it was that caused you to make that shift as a being to dramatize, you know, evil intentions and stuff like that. So even if you're going whole track, looking at all the horrible things you've done, the goal is to find like, well, what happened just prior to that? What was like the prior confusion? And what did you misunderstand just before that and whatnot? So the goal is basically, so Scientologists, after a lot of auditing, are also convinced that they have fixed the reason </s><s>[INST] for any non-optimum conduct. And underlying this is a belief that at the core, we're all good. Yes. And there's a lot of really powerful ideas in Scientology, which is so interesting that it goes wrong. Okay. What about the training? You mentioned the training of the auditor. That's really interesting. So how lengthy is that process? [/INST] It can take years. Yes. </s><s>[INST] It can take years. I mean, one of that question I want to ask is, are people in Sea Org, like as an auditor, do you believe everything? How much is there a crisis of faith that creeps in? In religion, you have a crisis of faith when you start to wonder like, does God even exist? So in this case, how often do you start to doubt [/INST] that some of the core beliefs of Scientology are false? Scientology would say that Scientology is not about beliefs. It's about application of the techniques of Scientology auditing to improve someone's spiritual awareness and ability. So the belief level of Scientology </s><s>[INST] is pretty much the stuff we've already discussed. [/INST] The effectiveness of the auditing process. So the effectiveness of the auditing process, this is one of the things Hubbard says, is that standard tech, standard Scientology, they call it the tech, the technology of how to deliver auditing, standard tech, works 100% of the time when applied 100% correctly. Well, that's kind of unfalsifiable, right? Yeah. Because anytime it doesn't work. It wasn't applied correctly. Exactly. That's a nice little escape hatch to pull on having a crisis of faith. It didn't work. Well, then obviously it wasn't applied correctly. That's where quality control comes in. Their job is to nitpick, and you can always find one thing that wasn't done correctly. </s><s>[INST] Communism didn't work because it wasn't implemented correctly. It's the, it's always an escape hatch with ideologies. [/INST] That's right, that's right. I would probably argue that auditors are not in a position of having many crisis of faith, because actually they're usually seeing people, for the most part, improve in some ways through the process of auditing. Now, auditing can create like a state, somewhat of a euphoric state. You feel great. You're just blown out of your head. You feel, on top of the world, I've had that in some of my auditing. </s><s>[INST] As an auditor, sorry? [/INST] No, as a person receiving auditing. No, as a person receiving auditing. And so my point is, as an auditor, doing a lot of auditing, you're gonna have someone in front of you called the preclear, as the person in front of you who's getting the auditing, called the PC of the preclear. They see, over and over and over again, these PCs having these sort of euphoric states and floating needles and I feel great and fantastic. No, thanks, you saved my life and da, da, da, da. Like I've always said, if people didn't find Scientology helpful, nobody would ever stay in Scientology. And so auditors are pretty much the ones doing the heavy lifting of what it even means to be a Scientologist. Those guys aren't the ones that you end up having crisis of faith. I mean, doing Scientology, auditing, it doesn't require that you just have faith that you believe something. You just have to go through these motions and Scientologists, one of the reasons Scientologists think this is all scientific is because it's like, I don't care if you believe why this works, I care how you feel at the end of an auditing session. </s><s>[INST] And empirically speaking, anecdotal data is, it actually seems to improve people's lives within the context. So taking the outside world out of it, within this particular organization, you're actually measurably seeing improvement. Yes. Is that to some degree real? Because if you look at a book, Animal Farm where the pigs start to rule the other animals and over time the life of the animals gets worse and worse and worse while the pigs keep saying that it's actually getting better and better and better, again communism same thing, the rationing is getting worse and worse and worse, less and less food, but there's constant reporting that there's more and more food, [/INST] we're winning, hashtag. I would argue that what you've just described could be an identical description of what it feels like and what it means to go up. Scientology breaks the total freedom. You are reinforcing to yourself that everything's getting better and better and better, and you don't spend time with your family anymore. You're broke, even though you make a lot of money. You're always stressed. You're at the beck and call of these people who seem to run your lives. How a Scientologist feels about their own life is, it's very interesting to compare that to how that person's life looks to their non-Scientology family members. I get contacted by a lot of people who have never been in Scientology, but they're like, I got a family member who's really deep, and can you help me understand some things? Why is this person's life like this? Why is this person's life like this? So I don't want to say that Scientologists do not actually, I don't want to say, Oh, it's all in their heads. They think they're being helped, but they're really not. That doesn't feel honest. you know, but it's this thing where if Scientology was just getting auditing when you wanted about the subjects you wanted, and you could take it or leave it, that would be fine. It's the fact that it's part and parcel to this entire organization and this entire experience that has, as a part of that experience, taking everything from you, demanding everything from you, controlling who you can speak with, controlling who you can have relationships with, who you have to erase from your life. This is where... and it's hard to place one pinpoint on this is where Scientology goes wrong. It's really hard to do that, because the good parts of Scientology and the bad parts of </s><s>[INST] Scientology are all just Scientology. Yeah, so there's definition of what's bad for you, and it's probably in the beginning is bad for you. Someone's just, sounds like a template of a toxic relationship. You know, there's a bunch of stuff in this world that's just not good for you. So the authoritarian says like, I'm just protecting you by blocking you off from those negative things. And they're probably, they are probably negative things. But then this like, this freedom starts closing in to where you can't no longer speak freely, think freely, act freely. And there's some, I mean, that's why sort of power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That person doing the controlling actually starts getting that like dope immune rush of the controller that's exciting. And it's a vicious negative cycle. So you start out as a, it starts out good because you're trying to do good for the person. But then it somehow goes to shit. Yeah. So what, what, what are the aspects that just, that are often controlled about, about a person [/INST] who's in mythology, especially C org? Well information control, access to the internet, access to any information. Critical of Scientology. Is some internet access allowed? Public Scientologist has no restrictions to their access to the Internet. They're just not allowed to read anything critical of Scientology. Oh </s><s>[INST] okay, so there's self, they're supposed to self control what they read or not? And And what's the explanation? Is it always assumed that anything critical of Scientology is a lie? [/INST] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. They really pushed this thing that unless you've been in a Scientology organization yourself, or unless you've actually been a Scientologist, you couldn't possibly know the truth about Scientology. If you're only getting information from people who aren't members or former members, then you couldn't possibly be getting the correct information. Now, they don't realize the math there doesn't make sense. if you can find out the true information by becoming and being a Scientologist, then that means you can get the correct information from a former Scientologist because they traveled that path and they got the correct information. So they still create this, or they try to create this unfalsifiable loop where unless you are personally doing it, you don't have correct information. And you go, well, what about the people who did personally do it. Got the correct information, left, and are now sharing that with others? Well, no, those are lies. Well, okay, so just anything you don't like is a lie then. You go, yeah, pretty much. </s><s>[INST] That's kinda how it works. So what about the control of negative information on the internet? What, like the actual operations I've, you know, preparing, I should admit, I don't know too much about Scientology. I was doing a bunch of reading and the Wikipedia page on Scientology, interestingly enough, is not that negative about Scientology. So like, it made me ask, you know, you have to be a little bit careful how you consume stuff from Wikipedia. You have to consider, because money can buy things there. There's certain special interests and so on. But like, it made me wonder, like, like with a lot of controversial topics, what is true? And where do I look, where do I go for truth? So like, how much sort of deliberate action is there [/INST] to control what is true on the internet by Scientology? Well, these days, they've pretty much, I think, thrown in the towel, but- They have. Scientology middle management was editing Wikipedia so often from IP addresses that were traced back to the Scientology buildings that Wikipedia locked them out from any IP addresses associated with Scientology from being able to edit it. It's like, the Scientology was so infatuated with trying to control the information. And in the early days of the internet, they had a certain degree of success with that. </s><s>[INST] They just, it's just hopeless these days. It's the scale, the scale is not there, but actually I'm very surprised how bot farms, how effective that can be at a very small scale. If you just pay a hundred people, just spread narratives, but the bad stuff, the reason that's effective is you can kind of create conspiracy theories that create chaos and nobody knows what is true that bot farms can do, but actually really nicely control a narrative, it's hard. So to create chaos, it's easier to do, to basically say like, do PR control is very hard. Yeah, so especially on the internet, especially when the critical eye is there, the internet can smell bullshit, which is one of the really, really powerful thing [/INST] about the internet. And I gotta tell you, it's one of the reasons I do my YouTube channel. It's one of the reasons I decided to upload every day. I've uploaded every day for the last six months. I just wanted there to be a nonstop flow of information of any kind and any variety, as long as it's fair and balanced, intelligent, interesting, that Scientologists who stumble upon the internet will go, oh, look, someone's talking about my thing. Let's see what they got going on. And I know this guy, the fact that Scientology crushes so much information, before YouTube, before like, I have the only like big Scientology channel and that only got big in the last six months. Okay, so before that, there were channels, there was things, but it's almost like it took a lot of, like people felt like it took a lot of bravery and courage to like say something on the internet about Scientology. And so people would pop up and there weren't very many voices and I was like, I want this to be prolific. I want to be prolific. I want to have 30 or 40 other channels being prolific so that Scientology couldn't possibly successfully control the narrative about it. Have you been personally attacked? Aaron Smith Levin.com is a website created by the Church of Scientology. Have you seen it? </s><s>[INST] No. [/INST] What kind of content is on there? Oh, Aaron's an abusive father and a horrible husband and the worst staff member we've ever had. And oh, I openly talk about it because I think the fact that Scientology even does things like that is fucking hilarious. And anything they try to do to me, the way I think about it is you know, you're just giving me an opportunity to turn the mirror back on you and show everyone how horrible you are. Does it stick? </s><s>[INST] No. And that there is ineffective. [/INST] It's completely ineffective. They're so over the top. And well, I'll tell you how the website even came into being. So I was on the first season of Leah Remini, Scientology and the Aftermath. Every single person who participated in that show got a website. It's just that everyone else's website is like, whoismarkheadly.com, whoismikerender.com. Well, I bought whoisaronsmithleven.com but I was too stupid to buy, I didn't buy aaronsmithleven.com. So I'm actually the only one who has a website in their name. Oh, nice. Yeah. And I'm like, I could really get a lawyer to get it back for me, but I'm like, why? I want everyone to see what a nasty, petty, disgusting organization that this is. And nobody believes anything Scientology says anyway. </s><s>[INST] Does the general public know that? Oh, nice. It comes from Scientology. [/INST] Pull it up. It says right on the bottom, copyright 2000 whatever, Church of Scientology International. </s><s>[INST] Like they didn't even try to hide it. aaronsmithleven.com, a man with no moral compass. Aaronsmith, who is he really? Aaronsmithleven, a man with no moral compass. Read about Aaronsmithlevens, an angry man [/INST] spreading hate from the internet's shadows. </s><s>[INST] A man with no moral compass. Open mouth shot. [/INST] And you're saying like, wow, there's testimonies. </s><s>[INST] Oh, there's videos from former coworkers. The slightest thing just sets him off and he just goes totally nuts. Well, that one is true. I didn't understand why you slapped me before the interview. [/INST] I felt that. I felt that. Got links to everyone else's website on the bottom. It's so funny. </s><s>[INST] Cool with, cool with, okay. [/INST] But like 2021 Church of Scientology International all rights reserved. Here's an example of just Scientology's complete lack of self-awareness. So me and Mike Render, we went and have these on like a house flip project, right? You know, Mike Render. </s><s>[INST] You know, Mike Render. Wait, do I, he gave me a bobblehead of the guy. I don't know him. I was just, I would like to talk to him about him, but this, there's a very fine gentleman here [/INST] with a bobblehead. The reason we created the bobblehead is because on Mike Render's hate site, Scientology created a gif or a gif. How do you say it? What's the right way to say it? The correct way is gif. Gif, good. Scientology created a gif of Mike Render as a bobblehead. It was an insult like, oh, all he does is sit next to Leah Remini and go, yes, Leah, yes, Leah. And so they made a gif of him with a bobblehead. So we were like, we're going to make Mike Render bobbleheads and we're going to sell them on the spshop.com to raise money for the Aftermath Foundation. I love it. Yeah. And now that I'm- So go out and buy- Yeah, go to the spshop.com and get yourself a Mike Render bobblehead. Now look, now that my profile's getting a little higher, this head was made to bobble. Like this smooth, shiny head needs its own bobblehead now. It does, 100% does. I can't believe it doesn't exist. So, but let me show you. So here's what's happening here. We just hired some day laborers off of what, </s><s>[INST] like Craigslist or something. Yeah. And now that I- So go out and buy- [/INST] Yeah, go to the- So what Scientology did was they had a private investigator stake out the house flip project. They were clearly running license plates of anyone who visited the property because otherwise, how would they find out the laborers names, do background checks on them to find out they had criminal records. And they published this as if it's going to reflect negatively on me. Oh, we hired someone to do work who had a criminal record? Who gives a shit? Do you know, one of the biggest problems people with records have is finding employment. There's nothing bad about hiring someone who's got a criminal record. It doesn't reflect negatively on me, but it shows you what they think about those people. It shows you what they think about people who are trying to put their lives back together and maybe actually work for a living. And it also shows that they're surveilling us. Like they don't realize that putting this up, they're publishing information that they could only have if they're surveilling me and Mike, and it doesn't occur to them, </s><s>[INST] maybe we shouldn't put that up. Just the general process, sad to say, of journalism, where they're looking for any kind of dirt, and they're trying to conjure up a story, and there's something about drama and negative stories that get clicks and so on. So this is a general process. The more, especially the more celebrity you become, the more these kinds of attacks come, and they look for any kind of thing that could be, it doesn't even have to be facts, it could be just asking who is he really? Seems to have traction on the internet. What is the actual truth of the man you keep claiming you are, of the good man you keep claiming you are? It's fascinating, but sometimes that can be effective. But I think if you're being transparent and authentic and just putting yourself out there completely and down your story completely, then that's the best way to fight it. [/INST] That's the other reason to be prolific on the internet, right? The reason Joe Rogan can't get canceled is because anyone can watch thousands of hours of the authentic Joe Rogan. You can't misrepresent him because he spent thousands of hours representing himself genuinely. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, the nice thing, when you're representing yourself genuinely, you should be a good person. If you're a good person, then the internet will know, you can smell all the bullshit. who is David Miscavige, it's even like, because you said Elrond Hubbard founded Scientology. Let's go to the story of how we transitioned [/INST] from that to David Miscavige. The current leader of Scientology, he was actually not selected by Elrond Hubbard to take over, </s><s>[INST] but ended up usurping power and taking over. This sounds like Stalin and Trotsky and Stalinism, similar story. It's the person oftentimes in this situation, it's not the natural successor to power, [/INST] it's the one that takes power. Right. I think the quote sometime it gets attributed to David Miscavige is power, power is not given, it is assumed, something like that. The last six years of Elrond Hubbard's life, he was often a seclusion, essentially hiding from lawsuits. Now, by the time Hubbard went off into seclusion, Miscavige had sort of already risen up through the ranks of the sea organization. Now Miscavige was like a teenager, either like 11, 12, 13, or something like that. Miscavige was not born into Scientology, but he was a young boy when his father got into Scientology. Okay. So Miscavige did start working as a Sea Org member. So there's one organization that existed to essentially serve Hubbard directly and to represent his interests, and that was called the Commodore, he was the Commodore of the Sea Organization, the Commodore's Messenger's Organization, we're gonna call it the CMO. Miscavige started working for the CMO pretty early on in his Sea Org career. By the way, as did Mike Rinder. Mini Mike. Okay. And so he just became known as a doer, like a guy who'll get it done. No excuses, no stops, you know, get it done. So he had made a name for himself in the CMO around the time, by the time Hubbard went off into seclusion. Now, when he went off into seclusion, he took two other CMO, or I'm gonna call them messengers, right? Commodore's messengers. He took two other messengers with him, Pat and Annie Broker. Now it has been said by people, Mike, Mike Rinder has told me, he goes, the reason Pat and Annie went off with LRH isn't necessarily because he desperately wanted them to, but partly because we could afford to let them go. We didn't necessarily need them. Okay. And between the two of them, Annie was the one who was like a really compassionate person, intelligent person, caring person. </s><s>[INST] Was there a possible trajectory of this world [/INST] where she was the one that took over? Yes. In fact, Pat and Annie Broker were the two people that were supposed to take over. Okay. But because Pat and Annie were with Hubbard in seclusion, Miscavige basically had the complete run of the operation without any oversight from Hubbard. The only way any information would get from Scientology world to Hubbard is Miscavige, and Pat Broker would meet at a confidential location, and Miscavige would give Broker any information he wanted to go to LRH. So if Miscavige wanted to get rid of somebody, all he had to do was feed LRH false information that this person had been caught doing something treasonous, and then he would get in response some order from L. Ron Hubbard to get rid of this person. So are there so many similarities between various communist regimes and fascist regimes? </s><s>[INST] Well, Hitler did the same thing when he became the supreme leader. He had to take power. Yeah, he had to wait for the presidency to die, but the whole time there's a control of information and a slow aggregation of power. Of course, with nations it's different because if you control the military you control a lot, so you have to also get the generals on your side and so on. But I'm sure in this situation there is similar kind of dynamics. You have to get certain people on your side, control the flow of information, let the original founder, the original leader die off, and make sure that you are the one [/INST] that's left with the power. Yeah, right. So whereas Pat and Annie are off with LRH, all of Scientology's attorneys and accountants and lobbyists and whatever, they all know Dave. Dave's the one they deal with. So, you know, LRH passes away. Pat and Annie make disappearance. Nobody knows Pat and Annie. Everybody knows Dave. And so he ended up getting rid of Pat and Annie. This is a very short, perhaps slightly bastardized version of it, of Miscavige basically. They had been ushering just suitcases of cash to L. Ron Hubbard during this time. And, you know, Pat, like, so you have Miscavige handing boatloads of cash to Pat Broker. Pat would do crazy things like hide the money in the walls of houses and dig pits and everything. So Miscavige basically threatened to turn Pat Broker over to the IRS for tax evasion. That's part, Pat Broker's still alive. Is he a Scientologist or no? No, he basically went away and kept his mouth shut. She died a handful of years ago. She stayed a loyal Sea Org member until the very end. But literally, Miscavige put her on menial tasks, like she had no authority whatsoever. She was just put on menial tasks, washing dishes, but not really groundskeeper, just stupid low level assistant paper pusher stuff. She never operated with any actual authority, even though she was supposed to be the one </s><s>[INST] to take over her and Pat. So on David Miscavige, difficult question, but can you make both the case that he is a good man [/INST] who's misunderstood, and the case that he's not a good man? First of all, I believe that Miscavige is a true believer in Scientology. I do believe that. </s><s>[INST] That's a really important question. Do you think he believes in all the thetans and all of that? [/INST] He definitely believes in that. I think he believes in Scientology, but in a different way than all other Scientologists, because he's aware of a lot more information, damaging information about L. Ron Hubbard and the true story of Scientology than most people. So his version of belief is different. I'll give you one example here. So Scientology's bridge to total freedom goes up to what they call OT8, operating thing in level eight, okay? Scientologists have all been told that L. Ron Hubbard, before he passed, finished, completed, putting together OT9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15. It's just sitting in the vault waiting to be released. This is part of the Scientology belief system because, remember, I said going up Scientology's bridge to total freedom is how you're supposed to get back to your native, godlike state. While all the Scientologists in the world have already done OT8 know that they haven't gotten there, but they still believe in Scientology because they're told there's more. But wait, there's more. Miscavige knows there is no more. So Miscavige knows the fundamental promise of being able to achieve full operating Thetan is a lie. He knows L. Ron Hubbard didn't accomplish that, so therefore no one else is going to accomplish it as well. If L. Ron Hubbard had accomplished it, Miscavige knows, well, he didn't write it up, didn't leave instructions for how anyone else would accomplish it. So no matter what, Miscavige knows that the fundamental promise that what Scientology is saying, they will be able to deliver to mankind is a lie. Now it's going to sound like I'm contradicting myself because it sounds like I'm saying, well, he knows it's bullshit. I think he believes that L. Ron Hubbard just failed to finish his work and he's kind of hoping L. Ron Hubbard is going to come back to finish the job because L. Ron Hubbard did tell the people at the international management base, at least a core of them, that he was coming back. Now we know that David Miscavige believed this because right around the 21 year mark, he was supposed to come back like 21 years after he died, right around the 21 year Mark, David Miscavige was getting busy putting some things in place that had to get done in case L. Ron Hubbard came back so We know he at least believed to that level. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, he believes that like, [/INST] Elrond Hubbard can sort of enter his own body. No, that's not how it works in Scientology. Okay, so you can't have a transfer of thetans. </s><s>[INST] If you were full OT, you could. Okay, so you can't have a, can you describe the OT again? So OT levels, OT one, two, three, four, five to the eight. [/INST] What are they, how do you get to level one? I'm gonna answer this question by first connecting some dots. Yes. We spoke earlier in the interview about achieving your native God-like state. That in Scientology is called native state. Okay, native state and full operating thetan mean the exact same thing. Okay, because that native state, you are a fully operating thetan. You know, operating meaning operating your full capacity. So OT means operating thetan. So the upper confidential half of Scientology's bridge are called the OT levels, the operating thetan levels. And these, and remember, they're confidential. So most Scientologists have not done these levels. They don't know it's on them. It is on these levels that you learn about the zenu and the body thetan story. Can you describe zenu please? We spoke earlier about how at the lower non-confidential levels of Scientology's bridge, Hubbard saying that what's wrong with you is your reactive mind. Okay, well in Scientology, once you've gotten rid of your reactive mind, that is what's called the state of clear. Okay, so after you finish State of Clear, the next thing on the bridge is the OT levels. Well, if you've already gotten rid of your active mind, what the heck are you supposed to do now? Well, now Elrond Hubbard says, okay, first what was wrong with you was just your reactive mind. But now the next thing you have to resolve, the next thing that's wrong with you, is you actually have tens of thousands of thetans stuck to your body, and they all have their own reactive minds. </s><s>[INST] You have to audit the thetans. How do you audit the thetans? Are these like different shades of your inner mind, and you just have to try to access them somehow? [/INST] You use the emitter, just like we spoke about, except now you've got a divider that separates the cans so they don't short-circuit, and you hold both cans in one hand, and you have the emitter in front of you. So now you're auditing yourself. You're telepathically talking to the thetans that are stuck to you. You are thinking the commands instead of saying them out loud, and you sort of do drills where you practice looking for emitter reads at the instant you have a thought. You're telepathically auditing spirits that Elrond Hubbard says are stuck to your body. </s><s>[INST] Does this sound like a recipe for a mental breakdown? Or a heck of a mental journey. Wherever that leads, it could lead anywhere. It probably lead to a very bad place, right? [/INST] Very often does, and you combine that with the fact that Scientology is against any forms of mental help or health outside of Scientology, and you have a recipe for disaster. Now you might go, where did all these spirits come from that are stuck to your body? This is where Xenu comes into play. So Hubbard says that 75 million years ago, Xenu was basically a dictator at, the Galactic Confederation is like 70 something or 80 something planets somewhere in the Milky Way. And Xenu was like a dictator, an overlord for either one of these planets or the whole system. And they had a population problem. And Xenu was like, we need to get rid of like half the people. So we called them all in for tax audits. Elrond Hubbard didn't like the IRS, so of course the story has to do with tax audits. Okay, called them all in for tax audits, said, psyches,ite bitches, froze them in glycol, loaded them up on space planes,I flew them to earth. Remember, the story has to be earth because the story is what's wrong with us. Flew them to earth, drop them in volcanoes, blew them up with hydrogen bombs and then captured them with like spirit magnets. I'm making up words because, okay. And these disembodied spirits of these people that got blown up have just been blowing in the wind here on earth and they attach themselves to things and they can be in the environment and they stick to bodies and everything. And so, and they all have reactive minds. So at Scientology's upper levels, if you get sick or you have cancer or there's something wrong with you, Scientology will say, that's one of your body things. You need to get some auditing to fix the body things. </s><s>[INST] So this story, you do it with a kind of a bit of a chuckle, but when done seriously, so it's just told in a serious way, like to, [/INST] or written down and you read it. By most accounts, Scientologists struggle when they read this for the first time because this is not consistent with what Scientologists are hoping for is on the OT levels. They're hoping for some real life-changing magic. The way these things are described and sold, remember, they're hoping that these OT levels are gonna make them, give them the ability to go like completely independent of their body at will, exteriors from your body, go back into your body, </s><s>[INST] you know, like I have some real spirit powers. So first is kind of a shock, this is, but then you still probably believe, you hope, and you might turn into on yourself self-critical [/INST] that this is, I'm just not strong enough yet. Yeah, because also part of the Scientology, remember, it works 100% of the time when used 100% correctly, and if it doesn't, it could be because something's not being done right, but it also could be because you're doing bad things that you're not telling people about. Like if you're committing present time over its crime sins, Scientologists will be like, that's part of the reason auditing isn't working on you, is because you're committing criminal behavior that you're not being honest about. So every Scientologist is sort of incentivized to make auditing work on them, okay? Now, Lex, this work is a little crazy. On OT-3 you learn about the body things for the first time. When you finish OT-3 you attest to having achieved this state of having more body things and then you start OT-4 and he's like, "'Sykes! "'You got more BTs.' "'Except those other BTs, they had drug problems "'and that's why you couldn't find them the first time." So we're going to do something a little different here, just something a little different there. You got to get rid of these BTs that were addicted to drugs. Then you finish OT-4 and you're thinking, Man, I hope we get to the good stuff soon. And then you get to OT5 and he's like, psych, you got more BTs. You couldn't find these BTs because they were all bunched up together in clusters. And first you have to break up the clusters and then you can get rid of the BTs. </s><s>[INST] And you're like, okay, gotta do that. And this was all Elrond Hubbard approved. [/INST] Yeah, this is from Elrond Hubbard. And then after you finish OT5, you get rid of all the BT clusters. OT6 is just a training course to teach you how to auto OT7. Well, OT7 is now more BTs, except it's in the environment and stuff. You're trying to locate BTs, you can find them on your body, but it's just more BTs. Okay, and then OT8 is, remember we talked about in all these auditing sessions throughout the entire Scientology bridge. You have people who've run hundreds or thousands of past life, whole track incidents. These memories have become part of their self-identity of who they even think they are. OT8, you go through all these past life recalls and essentially I'm oversimplifying this a little bit. He goes, psych, all those past life memories weren't yours. They were your BTs. And he goes, now that you've discovered this, now you know who you are not. And you are ready to find out who you really are. Well, now you're supposed to find out who you really are on OT9 and 10. Those don't exist. Do we know they don't exist? Yes. In fact, the whole story of how that became known is part of how David Miscavige was able to get rid of Pat Broker and take over power because it was believed that Pat Broker was in possession of the upper unreleased OT levels. And when Miscavige determined that he was not and there weren't in fact any levels, that was a bad day to be David Miscavige because he now knew he had something on his hands he could not get himself out of. </s><s>[INST] He's like, oh. So there's no gap for faith to seep in [/INST] that there is a level nine and 10 and 11 and 12. Oh, the faith is there. Scientologists believe that these things do exist. L. Ron Hubbard didn't leave anything behind. Does David Miscavige believe they exist? Oh, no, he knows they don't exist. When I say exist, oh, I don't mean do advanced levels of spiritual awareness exist. When I said exist, I mean, did L. Ron Hubbard write down what anyone is supposed to do that's called OT9? </s><s>[INST] That doesn't exist. So you're saying David Miscavige believes that they can be written down. So they exist sort of in a platonic sense. And L. Ron Hubbard is the only one that can write it down. [/INST] So his faith is really deep. Oh, you mean his faith that only L. Ron Hubbard could have ever been the one to do it? </s><s>[INST] The full principles, beliefs of Scientology, [/INST] he is, do you have, are you sure he believes? </s><s>[INST] That what exactly? [/INST] Everything about Scientologies that is true. To the best of my ability to know that I believe it to be true. Like I'll give you small, even stupid examples. Like Mike Renders told a story where at the international base, Miscavige actually had like a copper contraption built into the ground, like grounded into the ground to come out where you could hold it. And here's something he sort of came up with to your BT, it could ground your BTs, could get your BTs that if you were feeling overstimulated or something, I'm probably slightly bastardizing this story. But he came up with this as a great idea, something to help someone de-stimulate. If their BTs were getting a little too overactive use. Now, so that's a stupid story that's sort of like, well, it shows you he believes in the concept of BTs if he's creating little rods to get rid of them, </s><s>[INST] to ground them into the earth. Well, he could be conjuring up the stories because he understands the power of myth and narrative and so on to inspire. Sure. But like, but also if we look at history, both with, this is the interesting thing because I've been reading a lot about Hitler and Stalin and it seems like both of them in different ways believed in the stories they were telling. Even when the stories, this is the fascinating, especially with Hitler and propaganda, where they were literally conjured up at first. But then you start to believe your own propaganda. With Stalin, I think what he always believed is the bigger ideal of pure communism and anything justifies the journey to communism because it will ultimately be good for humanity to achieve the state of pure communism. And then he's a God-like figure that can bring humanity there. But like, with Hitler, it's interesting because like there's constant propaganda that he knows is not true, a little bit. There's gotta be doubt, but then he liked that all doubt is removed very quickly. Yeah. [/INST] I guess humans are just, this is how they operate. Yeah, yeah. The conversation about David Miscavige gets really interesting because I could give you a, if I wanted to make the argument that he didn't believe, I could give you a dozen examples to make that argument. I just happen to think that he believes in a different way. Whereas your average Scientologist believes that Alveron Hubbard was practically infallible, that he thought of everything in advance, he took care of everything before he left. And Miscavige still believes in like the main structure of this thing, but he's like, oh shit, it's falling to me to figure out how to actually make this thing happen. I think Miscavige sees himself as someone who has to a certain degree had to go back </s><s>[INST] and fix Alveron Hubbard's mistakes. Do you think he sees himself as doing good for the world? I do. [/INST] What about for the people of Scientology? I think in his own way he does. I don't think he wakes up thinking he's screwing Scientologists. I think he sees everyone else is screwing him. I think he sees that it is his job to expand Scientology throughout the world and accomplish the aims of Scientology. And he sees that it's not happening. And he thinks if everyone else would just stop, if everyone else would get out of his way and stop creating problems for him, it would happen. I do think he sees himself as someone who is doing good. I think that's fair to say. </s><s>[INST] I think the evidence shows that. What about the effects of clearly power and influence that he's had and money? [/INST] Yeah, without question that has served as a corrupting force. </s><s>[INST] It has. Without question. Have you seen sort of evidence of that, [/INST] that he's changed over time? After the 1993 IRS exemption that Scientology won back and this information comes from Mike Rinder, that's when David Miscavige, as soon as the checks on his power were removed, </s><s>[INST] Miscavige's behavior changed markedly. Can you tell the story of Shelley Miscavige and the mystery surrounding her? [/INST] I saw that there is quite a bit of mystery. Yeah. So Shelley Miscavige for many years held the job of her post in the C organization was David Miscavige's assistant. That was her post. It's important to truly understand that and what that means because the fact that she was Miscavige's wife is meaningless. And this is something that's hard to, for regular people in the regular world to truly grasp how meaningless it is in Scientology for Sea Org members who are spouses. </s><s>[INST] It means nothing. Your role matters more within Sea Org. [/INST] Your role's the only thing that matters. So let's say if Shelley was married to Dave, but she worked in a different organization. She would never be seen with him ever, publicly ever. Wouldn't travel with him, wouldn't go to events with him, nothing. Sometime around 2006, 2007, and I'm very oversimplifying this, okay? Shelley basically pissed off Dave to the point where he's like, okay, I'm done with you. I'm gonna take you off of your post, okay? At that point, she was reassigned to another confidential Scientology base up in Twin Peaks, California. Why am I, the reason I'm providing this type of detail is because we hear that Shelley's missing. Okay, well, you realize the same people who report that Shelley's missing are also the same people who will tell you exactly where she is. She works at this secretive CST, Church of Spiritual Technology base out in Twin Peaks, California. I have personal confirmation that she was seen and spoken with by someone who knew her well in, I'll say 2019. Shelley Miscavige is missing in the sense that she hasn't been seen with David Miscavige since about 2006. But because she's no longer his assistant, </s><s>[INST] you would never see her with him. As opposed to the mystery of a person that might be murdered, this is more of a reallocation within the organization. [/INST] Yeah. Yeah. Certain people who cover Scientology, who have published stories where Shelley Miscavige's family member told a story to another family member who told the story to a friend, who told the story to a former Scientologist, who told the story to a journalist, who published the story, has created the impression that some of Shelley Miscavige's family members are actually talking to the press, when in fact that has never occurred. And so the very people who are publishing about Shelley Miscavige missing have contributed to the fact that Shelley Miscavige does no longer speak to those family members, because she thinks they're talking to the press </s><s>[INST] when they never have, it's pretty messed up. It's sad that she, because those family members, what would be a way for her to recover, [/INST] to flourish as a human being, to escape? Yeah, so I believe the information that I have that I verified, I'm putting out, I'm the one representing it's true without revealing my sources, that Shelley was still actively in touch regularly with family members outside of the C organization since about until about 2014. So I mean, regularly, okay? So there's no question about her safety during that period. And then someone else who knew Shelley very well, did see her and actually have a conversation with her in a public place in 2019 or 2020. Now somebody could still come along and be like, how do we know she's okay? It's been three years. Okay, you could say that about anybody, you know? The nature of working in the highest levels of Scientology management at these super secretive bases, it's a very weird and unique situation. It has isolation baked in. </s><s>[INST] How secrecy enforced? Why is everybody holding on to their stories so intensely? People that are within the organization, [/INST] like it's hard to leak information. Oh, they wouldn't want to leak, they're true believers. They see, like there's sort of a conspiracy theory that runs right through all of Scientology, which is that Scientology represents like an existential threat to the powers that really control this planet. </s><s>[INST] Do they have a face to the powers that really control? Do they have names to it? Like who's controlling? It's Xenu's homies. Well, I'm sure that's not what they say. [/INST] Xenu embodied in- It's actually sort of a multifaceted conspiracy in that on the one hand, L. Ron Hubbard points his fingers at like the international bankers. Okay. </s><s>[INST] Which has shades of anti-Semitism too, has shades of anti-Semitism too. [/INST] And then the IRS is going to be quickly baked in or no? The IRS, no, the IRS is so low on the totem pole as far as the, I mean, the international bankers, he would say runs everything. Got it. But used that these bankers also use big pharma and big psych to control the population. And Scientology is famously against pharma and psych. And so this is sort of how L. Ron Hubbard characterizes like this big war between Scientology that's trying to set everyone free and big pharma and big psych </s><s>[INST] that's trying to enslave everyone on the planet. Yeah. Controlling their mind, controlling their body [/INST] through chemicals and- And who controls the press? </s><s>[INST] Big pharma and big psych. So that there's a lot of correlation to other kinds of conspiracy theories. That's fascinating. [/INST] But you asked the question, why would all these people hold on to their stories? They would never want to leak. Anyone who would want to leak would not even want to be a Scientologist anymore. If you truly believe in Scientology and you got your shoulder to the wheel and you're a SEERC member, you think Scientology is literally the only thing that can save every being on this planet from a fate of eternal amnesia and slavery, right? And so it's like, I mean, you've seen The Matrix, right? So you've got everyone, once you're unplugged from The Matrix and you realize, yeah, you could get plugged back in and live your nice life, but you're a slave. That's how Scientologists see this planet. </s><s>[INST] They actually, they refer to Earth as a prison planet. Just an individual level. How is it possible to reach a person like that? Is there something you could say to that? [/INST] Like what's the journey of reaching a person like that? I personally, because when I was in those shoes, I say there's nothing anybody could have said to me to get me to change how I felt and thought about Scientology. It's almost foolproof that the more evidence you try to present that there's something wrong with what Scientology is doing, the more you're just working for the psychs. It's very, very difficult. I mean, most people who leave Scientology leave because they have had some personal experience that was just such a grave injustice that it just pushed them beyond the point of what they were willing to experience. Very rare. I'm not sure I've really ever heard a story of someone going, yeah, I just woke up, you know, I just gradually realized it was all BS and drifted away. It's usually like, no, I really believed and they treated me so horribly. I almost had no choice but to leave. </s><s>[INST] And then the stories get pretty crazy. Meaning you don't care what's true anymore, you just have to leave this, the unpleasant [/INST] feeling, the suffering. Yeah. And this sort of goes back to the conversation we're having about like, well, does Miss Scavich really believe? And I said I could make an argument for the fact that he doesn't, right? Because I go, it wouldn't be that hard to change the way Scientology treats people just a little bit and you'd probably stop losing anyone because Scientologists already believe to such a strong degree, you have to be pretty fricking horrible to people to make them leave. And that's where you go, well, does Miss Scavich even want Scientology to expand? Because if he was really being clever about it, it seems like he could at least stop the bleeding and yet he doesn't. </s><s>[INST] So that's where you make the argument, well, if he doesn't, then he must not want to. So his mind is corrupted to the point where he's not able to actually be a good businessman, [/INST] essentially. It's just that way. The numbers of Scientologists have been going down and down and down since the early 90s. </s><s>[INST] Is there a good, I mean, it's very difficult to get to this number, but is there a good [/INST] estimate of what the current number of Scientologists or practicing Scientologists is? Oh yeah, I did a video about this. It's actually quite easy to get to the number. It's not more than 35,000 in the entire world. And that's being very generous and charitable. I was intentionally generous. </s><s>[INST] I broke it all down in a spreadsheet and everything. [/INST] Can you give some insights of how you get that information? Sure, there's about 175 to 200 Scientology organizations in the world. Anybody who's ever worked at these organizations know there's not more than 35 to 50 staff members per org. There's not more than one to 200 public Scientologists per org. I broke down the number of CRG members who'd be working at every Continental Management Unit, middle management, international management. I broke down the mission network and I was generous. I mean, my numbers were like, if L. Ron Hubbard came back and they were doing an event, I was like, L. Ron Hubbard was coming back and announcing OT9 and 10. How many Scientologists could we scrape together in every city to come to this event? It wasn't more than 35,000. </s><s>[INST] Now contrast that to what Scientology says, millions, 10 million people, millions people. [/INST] Is this less people than there used to be? Yeah. At its peak, it was about 100,000 active members. But never the millions. </s><s>[INST] Never, never. No. I think David Miscavige used violence in your understanding of it, in your estimation, sort [/INST] of harassment, assault, and actual, I don't know how to define assault, but violence. Oh yeah. Dozens of former CRG members from the international base have told stories of being assaulted by Miscavige. In fact, Mike Rinder is probably the one person who's been assaulted by Miscavige more than anyone else. He's personally probably been assaulted dozens of times. Who is Mike Rinder? The man here. He's one of the highest ranking executives in Scientology. The author. There you go. </s><s>[INST] A billion years. The man here. [/INST] A billion years. It really is a fantastic book because Lex, the guy was born and raised in Scientology and worked personally with Elrond Hubbard and worked personally with David Miscavige for decades. </s><s>[INST] It doesn't get much more insider than that. A candid and deeply felt memoir of a life lost to false belief and courageously regained. Lawrence Wright. [/INST] A billion years, my escape from a life in the highest ranks of Scientology, Mike Rinder. It's a fantastic book. He also narrates his own audio book too. I know you like the audio books. That's how I listened to it. So Mike, famously, I just said a moment ago, someone who's treated so horribly, even though he still believes in Scientology, he had no choice but to leave. He tells the story in that book and he still believed in Scientology for years after he escaped. For years. Because there's this thing called the independent Scientology movement or the free zone or whatever there are people who do Scientology outside of the church of Scientology. There's just not many of them. But Mike was one of those people who has actually doing Scientology even after he left. Now, he no longer believes in that anymore and he doesn't do it. But even though he still believed, even though everything he knew was what he was leaving </s><s>[INST] behind, he still had to leave it behind. And by the way, I just opened a random page and he says, when I signed on for Sea Oregon Adelaide in 1973, the recruiter promised I would train as a Scientology executive under the direct tutelage of Hubbard on the Apollo. So this is another thing I should probably ask you about this. We could go for days. I was also told that after I learned all I needed to learn at the foot of the master, I would return to Australia to help expand Scientology in my home country. [/INST] So what was the thing that really broke him? We could go for days. The final thing is when he got to a point where he was no longer being forced to lie to protect L. Ron Hubbard, he was now being forced to lie to protect David Miscavige. And specifically, it was about the allegations of having been assaulted by Miscavige. Mike Rinder was at some event, it might've been a grand opening for a building, a Scientology building in London, and I believe it was John Sweeney at that time, a BBC journalist who stuck a camera and a microphone in Mike's face. Is it true David Miscavige assaulted? Is it true? And Mike denied it on camera. And then turned around and to himself is like, this is what my life has been reduced to lying to protect David Miscavige. This used to be about L. Ron Hubbard. This used to be about Scientology. Now it's about protecting this douchebag. When Miscavige had just issued orders that was going to send Mike off to Australia, Miscavige is sadistic. That is without question. Sadistic meaning? He enjoys inflicting pain upon others. So he very specifically was going to tell Mike, tell Rinder, or tell that cocksucker, we're shipping him off to Australia. He's never going to see his wife and his kids again, essentially. And that's when Mike was like, they were the only reason I hadn't already left. So if I follow the orders, I'm going to lose them. If I leave Scientology, I'm going to lose them, at least if I leave Scientology, I'll be free of something. </s><s>[INST] It's fucking sad. And he still believed Scientology to some degree after he left, is what you're saying? [/INST] Has he spoken about what it took to let go of believing in Scientology? He does a very good job talking about all of this in the book. And it took him it took him like four or five years to get that book done. Like it's a polished version. It's a polished version of his story. And I think Mike's about getting ready to start his own YouTube channel, so that'll be a lot of fun. Actually, Mike comes on my channel all the time. Yeah, you guys do a thing together, right? Yeah, we do three amigos with me and Mike Rinder and Mark Headley. That's why I gave you Mark's book, because I thought maybe you would know him from our </s><s>[INST] little three amigos are Mondays with Mike and Mark videos. [/INST] Mark Headley, blown for good, behind the iron curtain of Scientology. So he escaped from the international base on a motorcycle. It's a wild story. Nice. I won't even try to do it justice. </s><s>[INST] Who's it better? I won't even try to do it justice. Who's the better writer of the two of them? You're not going to get me there. [/INST] I'm trying to be investigative journalist for once. </s><s>[INST] Mike and Mark are both on the board of the Aftermath Foundation with me. [/INST] Who's better looking? No, I'm just kidding. It's one of my justifications for just putting up content every day, is every video is just an excuse to, in some little way, promote the Aftermath Foundation. And I do that again, one, to genuinely help people escape, and two, because I know it drives David Miscavige crazy. If you look in your own, in your own heart, is there anger there? I don't think it's anger. I don't hate, I don't hate Scientology. I don't hate David Miscavige. I don't even hate my experience in Scientology. Are you able to accept the good from your experience? Yeah, absolutely. But it's also the only path that I traveled. So I tend, okay, a little less so these days, but earlier in life, I tended to attribute all positive characteristics in me to Scientology. Because in my simplistic way of thinking, I was like, what else could it possibly be attributed to? </s><s>[INST] That's a very black and white way of seeing people. Well, it's a beautiful way to see life. No matter what happens to you, you attribute, like, you focus on a positive, and sometimes people have traumatic experiences with parents and so on. [/INST] And if you focus on a positive, it's a good way to let go of the trauma associated with it. Yeah, true. So for example, be like, I didn't go to school, Alex, I stopped going to school in the seventh grade, but people go, but you sound so smart. And what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to say, well, it's because of Scientology? Like how do I answer that question? Like if it's the only path I traveled, how do I answer that question? I don't necessarily want to give Scientology credit, but what the hell am I supposed to point to? </s><s>[INST] Sure. You know, sure. I mean, you said this, you kind of enjoy, I mean, part of it is you joking and trolling that you enjoy knowing that your YouTube channel drives David Miscavige crazy. [/INST] I mean, there is a joy you have. There is a joy. </s><s>[INST] I'm not going to deny that. I don't know what to make of that. [/INST] Because there's a, I suppose there's an intimacy when you're part of a tribe of that kind. It's almost like, let me try to frame it. I wasn't trying to get kicked out of Scientology. I was trying to not get kicked out of Scientology. So what happened first, first my mom got kicked out for basically talking some smack about David Miscavige, and then they go to me and they go, okay, you've got a disconnect from your mom or you're gonna get kicked out." And I lied about that and I was like, okay, I'll disconnect, but I never did. For a couple years I lied my ass off about it. Eventually they were like, this guy's gonna keep lying to us, right? And they're like, yeah, like all right, you're out. So then they go to my wife. So you gotta divorce your husband or you're gonna get kicked out. </s><s>[INST] And she goes, no. It's a hell of a statement from her. [/INST] It's gonna get harder from her, so… Okay. So I'll try to get – I'll try to do maintenance benefits. </s><s>[INST] I'll try to get – I'll try to do maintenance benefits. [/INST] like a man who's afraid of hard things. Okay. So she's like, no. So then they go to her parents and they say, you've got to disconnect from your daughter and your three granddaughters, or you're going to get kicked out. But they have three other kids who are Scientologists, who have spouses, who are Scientologists, who have grandkids. So I feel like up until that point, everybody was sort of making a decision for themselves and what would be best for themselves until they get to her parents. And then they're like, which grandkids are we going to lose? Okay. At the part where they were trying to get me to disconnect from my mom, there were hours that I spent talking to them going, you know, guys, there's another way. It doesn't have to go this way. There's another way that ends well for all of us. And that wasn't even considered. And I go like, they created this monster. And that's a fact. And that's why I take joy in it. When people ask me a Scientology or destructive cult, I don't even have to get into all the academic discussions of what's a religion and what's a cult and what's the difference. I go, as long as they destroy families like that, they're a cult. </s><s>[INST] So they cut people off deliberately, one by one. And it doesn't have to be that way. [/INST] Right. And why is it that way? I mean, it started with L. Ron Hubbard laying out a policy framework, a policy structure that if interpreted and applied in the worst possible way with the worst possible judgment can be abused in that way. I would make the argument that if an anti-broker had taken over, that Scientology policy does have enough little caveats baked into it that even the policies about disconnection could be interpreted and implemented in a non-destructive way. There is room for judgment and discretion. And Miscavige has just created the worst possible version of Scientology. And that's where you sort of get that argument of, does he even want Scientology to succeed? Because he seems to be hell-bent on making sure that he doesn't. And I don't want to see him make it succeed. But it does bring that question up of like, what are his motivations? Can he not see that he's destroying the thing he's supposed to be </s><s>[INST] expanding? That's also, there's ways to measure cost. And that would probably be the most costly aspect of Scientology, is the suffering associated with the separating of families. Yeah. I mean, that's actually just puts make, it's a very concrete, what we value in human life, is the connection to our loved ones. Like everything else doesn't matter. Like getting 50 bucks a week. Like that, like getting money stolen from you, getting the truth stolen from you, none of that compares. You can even frame that as the good. There could be a lot of positives, whatever, in the tribe. But separating families, separating loved ones, that's the destructive [/INST] thing. Yeah. So no hate, though. No, I genuinely don't hate them. Do you forgive them? 100%. There's no one I look at in Scientology that I go, how dare you? If I was in their shoes having to operate under David Miscavige's orders, I would have done the same thing, and I would have loved it. Truthfully, I don't blame any of them. I mean, I take the opposite approach. If they knew what I knew, they'd be doing what I'm doing. If they knew what I knew and believed it, they'd be doing what I'm doing. They're not dumb. It's not dumb people in Scientology. </s><s>[INST] They're ambitious, they're dreamers, they got hope, they're driven, all that kind of stuff. [/INST] Yeah. And it's one of the reasons I like putting up content on my channel so they can see, hey, like if you're a Scientologist, you look at it and you go, hey, he seems like he's doing well, he's kind of, he's happy, he's a positive guy, he's a good communicator, he knows what he's talking about, he's not lying, he's not exaggerating, I don't exaggerate anything on my channel, I don't make up anything. And this actually comes from an experience I had from 1998 to 2000, I was living in LA, I sort of had a two-year period of my life where I actually had almost no contact with Scientology. And during that time, I found my way onto the internet. And there was a website, it might've been ESMB, ex-Scientology message, but whatever it was, it was at that time the main source of critical information about Scientology on the internet. And I looked at it, and remember, I was still a true believer. And I looked at this and it was so offensive, insulting, hyperbolic, exaggerated, I was like, oh, just a bunch of bullshit. I was in Scientology for 16 more years. If what I had seen on the internet about critical of Scientology, if what I had seen when I had seen it was something that actually resonated with me, that I was like, oh, that I believed was true, that seemed credible, I would have gotten out of Scientology 16 years earlier. So I was like, how can I help create an experience on the internet that if a Scientologist stumbles upon it, it will resonate with them instead of repelling them? And that is exactly what I have set out to do and what I believe I've accomplished. </s><s>[INST] There's the content, the message, but also just showing that you can be happy outside of Scientology. Exactly. You can have a fulfilling life, you can be a good man. Yeah. All that. What benefit do you think Tom Cruise gets from Scientology? So why is he still in Scientology? [/INST] He genuinely loves it. And also Miscavige does, there's one celebrity who does have the most unique experience in Scientology, and that is Tom. Scientology hires all of Tom's staff. There are no, all of Tom's staff are subject to interrogations by Scientology, not only in the hiring process, but during the employment, like David Miscavige on Scientology runs Tom Cruise's life and his production company and his household staff. </s><s>[INST] Do you imagine there's some personal connection there where they're just, they like each other a lot? [/INST] Best friends. I mean, it's them against the world is how they see it. I think it's pretty easy to see how that works between the two of them. </s><s>[INST] I think this idea of them against the world, us against the world, is a really powerful, intimate... Like I kind of see friendships and relationships that way. that I'm not in a dark sense, but it's like the world is full of cruelty and absurdity and unfairness and so on. It's nice to huddle together like the penguins in March of the against the cold. 100%. And they're just like, and so, especially with the ideology of Scientology, this idea that you can be anything, you can essentially, you can manifest it essentially through like believing it. I mean, you don't really put it into those words, but believing that you're a god against the cold. 100%. It's a really like inspiring, [/INST] positive thing to think. If they could figure out how to do all that without destroying families and bankrupting its members, they might actually have a future. That's why, like it's funny, because sometimes I feel like it's like, like I'm rooting for them to like succeed and do it right. And I'm not, but it's an interesting academic discussion to have of like, we can all see how much people will sacrifice in the names of belief and religion. We can see how much Scientologists sacrifice based on what they already believe. If you would just start treating people less horribly, you know what I'm saying? It might actually have a future. That's what I </s><s>[INST] wanted to. That's what I wanted to. It seems like this dark lesson of human nature that they, like, there's something about, you know, to use the word cults, that you just stop seeing reality for what it is. There's a lot of things that could make this a better organization that's actually helping people flourish and be a little bit more like loose about membership, not dividing families, not causing suffering, not causing financial harm, but actually inspiring people and helping people. But then maybe it fundamentally changes what the organization is. And maybe that means somebody like David Miscavige loses power too, which might be very difficult or people that are close to him lose power and people hold on to power. Whatever the human forces here, it seems to become worse and worse over time. What about, oh, let me ask a conspiracy question. Is there a chance that Tom Cruise is being blackmailed, that there's information from auditing? No? No. So that kind of stuff is not... [/INST] I've actually come out and said definitively, I do not know of a single person who stays in Scientology because they're afraid of being blackmailed. It's just not a thing. It's just not a thing. Does Scientology have enough information to blackmail someone if they wanted to? Well, sure. I mean, and it doesn't have to be true. It could just be lies. Who cares? Who knows? Scientology can say whatever the hell they want. So that's the thing. It doesn't even have to be true. And actually that would be the argument against blackmailing. In order for Scientology to blackmail you with that information, they'd actually have to represent that, yes, he really did tell us this. And it's like, why are you spilling secrets of members? It sets a bad precedent. What are some of the sins according to Scientology? Most of the sins from a Scientology perspective are just doing or saying anything that brings disrepute to Scientology itself. It's not like Christianity where there's rules. If you break this rule, you're not getting into heaven because Scientology doesn't think about things… You can't do drugs, right? You can't do drugs. And you can't take any psychotropic medications. </s><s>[INST] And no medications almost at all? [/INST] You're allowed to take medications. There's no rules expressly prohibiting it. It's just most Scientologists tend not to. You can take Advil, but many Scientologists won't. You just can't take anything prescribed by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or any drugs that are psychotropic drugs. I mean SSRIs are considered probably the closest thing to pure evil in the world of </s><s>[INST] Scientology. What about weird question, what about sex? [/INST] Is there boundaries on what's... There used to not be. It's become very puritanical in the last many decades for a reason I can't actually explain. Like Miscavige does seem to be infatuated with controlling sex. Like that is one thing about Miscavige version of Scientology that's gotten very strange. I mean, L. Ron Hubbard even specifically wrote a policy that says, we are no longer going to regulate in any way the bedroom activities of people. He literally said, from this point on, no one is allowed to be subject to any justice actions of any kind whatsoever for anything they do in their sexual lives. But that still did not give permission for gay relationships. </s><s>[INST] That was still referring to straight stuff. And monogamous only. [/INST] Like can you do open marriages and open relationships? According to the L Ron Hubbard policy you can. Yeah, but you know. I think he wrote that policy before he created the C organization. And then what happened is, this is actually how this came into effect. He created the C organization. You had a lot of people on a ship and everybody was just banging each other. And it created just a nightmare of personal relationship. It was making producer impossible. because everybody was spending so much time banging, but because everybody was so upset about who was banging it. </s><s>[INST] Who was, yeah, yeah. I mean, sex and that kind of dynamic is really, I mean humans do what humans do, and then there's drama and all of that. It's understandable, because everybody's so intimate, it's a closed tribe, it makes sense to limit sex, otherwise, it becomes a sex cult, which a lot of them end up becoming. [/INST] Well, on that topic, would you classify Scientology as a cult? 100%. But not because I'm like, fully conversant with the academic differentiations between what's a religion and what's a cult. I mean, Scientology would say, well, all small new religions are cults. And I don't know, that's probably true. Some people would say all religions are cults. And I'd be like, depends on how you define religion. It depends on how you define cults. But I just fall back on my thing of like, if you're destroying families, and bankrupting your </s><s>[INST] members, you're a cult. That's us versus them. And the them could be your family could be your loved ones that that's deeply destructive. And one of the things you would probably throw into definition of a cult is something that's actually destructive. Because like, I do a lot of stuff that's a cult like like jiu jitsu. Like there's a lot of really close knit tribes. But there's no negative toxicity to it. There's no divide. There's no divisions, or if there is, it's more boy, try being a fan of a certain soccer team and then becoming a fan of another soccer. That's hardcore. And like, [/INST] but I'll tell you, I trained jiu jitsu as well. And I have found that community of people to be one of the most loving and helpful group of people ever shout out to John Keller, Gracie Baja Clearwater. No, but seriously, like it's one of it's one of the reasons I continue to do it. Despite my back, my hip, my shoulder. It's like it's just such a cool group of guys goes on. </s><s>[INST] I used to not I think it was much more divisive. In the beginning, from this Brazilian roots. One of the things is really hard is the team oriented like, if you're this team, you're right or die with this team. And there's no there's a country on chairs, they go to another team. And I think that aspect, that was actually a turn off from me in the beginning that the toxicity of that because I understand that a little bit for the elites, for the highest of the highest that there is, I like the brotherhood and the loyalty of the people like the Olympic gold medalist, the like the best in the world. Yes, but for like recreational fun, I guess like this is all ultimately about the camaraderie of all human beings together, not some whatever label you put on you on yourself. I don't think we actually talked about the organization itself, we talked about tax exempt status, which is really important. We talked about some of the control like through the propaganda control of what's out there. It's actually interesting that you said that like, the Scientology has pretty much lost the battle with the internet at the yeah, which is kind of inspiring that it's hard to defeat the internet. but then there's like bots there. I think if you're sophisticated, I'm not sure that's true, [/INST] but if you're not- It's kind of remarkable they haven't been able to capitalize on these bot armies, because there's one thing that they have, it's a lot of tax-free money that they got nothing else better to do. Yeah, right, they can invest. They just, they should give you a call, </s><s>[INST] like they just don't have the right people, apparently. But that said, how do they wield influence with government agencies, with you've talked about the local police enforcement, [/INST] also federal agencies, anything? Yeah, that is the one way they effectively put their money to use, is lobbyists and attorneys, judges, very rarely have they ever been able just to get a politician on their side. It's the behind the scenes people. Greta Van Susteren is a very high level long-term Scientologist and her husband, I always get it wrong, it's either Jim Cole or John Cole, I always get it wrong. He's a very powerful attorney who has a lot, wields a lot of influence behind the scenes. And that's just one example. Like the reason why that's an interesting example is because he's actually a Scientologist and he travels in those circles. Scientology, though, it's money goes to good use by hiring non-Scientologists, retired judges, attorneys, lobbyists, it really is how they get almost anything done. Like Miscavige himself is not hobnobbing in a glad hand and shaking hands and meeting these folks. It's the non-Scientologist professionals </s><s>[INST] who work behind the scenes on Scientology's behalf. Can you describe the dynamics of how that actually happens? Like why would the police department work [/INST] on behalf of Scientology? I meant more the courts and regulators, not the police department, but well, for example, it can come down to something as simple as this. In Clearwater, Scientology hires Clearwater police to do off-duty work for them. They pay like three times their normal off-duty rate. So they will, even though I'm not aware of anyone on the Clearwater PD who's actually a Scientologist, they basically end up with, they would call them allies or safe points, right? People who like, will literally operate as Scientology spies. You know, someone comes in and follows a report about some child sex case. Someone in the Clearwater PD is calling Sarah Heller at the Office of Special Affairs at the Flank Aladdin Base to let her know, hey, heads up, we got a thing coming in. And then Scientology can run around and go talk to all the Scientologists who have knowledge about this </s><s>[INST] and either get them out of Clearwater, you know. So it's not like a direct, explicit corruption, but more just friends and coworkers integrated deeply [/INST] in the community. Yeah, I call it soft corruption. So another example, you have the mayor of Clearwater, Frank Hibbard. Well, he used to, when he won his recent election, he stepped down from some of these nonprofits that he served on. But the nonprofits that he served on also gets millions of dollars of donations from some of Scientology's richest Clearwater members, right? You have one of the mayor's best friends, Joe Burdette, literally a paid lobbyist for Scientology. So that creates a chilling effect on anyone who's gonna be talking smack about Scientology because his friends are on their damn payroll. So I call it soft corruption. It's not illegal. It's not illegal. But it's how Scientology wields influence. And what's ironic is that a lot of these people who work on Scientology's behalf </s><s>[INST] actually secretly hate Scientology. They kind of see through it, but it's part of the community. I mean, it's deeply integrated in the community and there's financial leverage. Are you ever afraid? I mean, afraid for your wellbeing, afraid for your ability to function in society because of the pressures from Scientology? No. Is that because you're genetically malfunctioning or mentally or is there speaking out [/INST] as a kind of protection? I think it's one of those things that once you've seen behind the curtain and you see the Wizard of Oz, it's just a silly man. You just don't have any fear. Now it's one of these things like people say, oh, you're so brave. And I go, eh, what's that quote? Bravery is being a soldier and being afraid and going in any way. It's not brave to run in if you don't think nothing's gonna happen to you. Like, so I'm just trying to, like I do not hold myself up as an example of bravery because it's not like, oh, they could destroy me, but I don't care. No, there's not a damn thing they can do to me. And it's one of, that's one of the reasons I continue to put out content every day. So just basically go, hey, still here. I dare you to try to do something about it, but you can't and hope that that also serves as kind of an example for other people to go, if this Shmo can do it and they can't do anything else to him, then maybe I can do it too. Because I would love it. I would love there for me a 20 channels </s><s>[INST] where former Scientologists talk about their experience. I mean, that is bravery because what happens is fear seeps in, even if it's not grounded in reality. But at the same time, like, you know, my grandfather who fought in World War II, I mean, the story is, I mean, he was very convinced and sure most of the people he fought alongside would died. He was a machine gunner, but he believed that bullets can't hit him, right? He said, well, you know, he was right, right? Because he survived. So there's some sense like you're biased that he's like, just like you are. I was like, I'm not brave. I just, the bullets can't hit me. I mean, there's a dark kind of truth to that. There's some, you know, it's like a, it's a feedback loop where if you have the confidence and you push on forward and you're brave in that way to not let fear seep in and affect you, it actually gives you less things to be scared about. I mean, but that initial few steps might be for people, it might be a very difficult step to take [/INST] to talk about it publicly. The fear was knowing how the family was gonna be destroyed and trying to prevent that. I was terrified of that happening, but it happened. There's nothing left to be afraid of. And that's kind of the thing. Like they created this beast and the same is true for Mark Headley, the same is true for Mike Rinder. I said, they've essentially created a Scientology proof virus, Scientology resistant strain by throwing everything they have at us for so many years. They have just, through natural selection, created people who just do not give a damn about anything they could or would do. And maybe there is something a little wrong with me. Cause when I get a phone call from someone like, I just got this phone call about you. And it's clear that it's Scientology PIs doing work behind the scenes, I get really excited. I get really excited. I don't get nervous on going, oh no, it's happening. Like, oh yeah, this is gonna be exciting. I'm like, okay. Because everything they try to do to me, like I'm gonna figure out how to reflect it back on them </s><s>[INST] and make them look ridiculous. And that pales in comparison to the separating from family. Exactly. What is there, is there parts of your family [/INST] that you've lost because of Scientology? Yeah, most of my episode on the Lee Remini and the Aftermath show was talking about me and my twin brother. It's just a pretty horrible story. It's just a pretty horrible story. So I do have a younger brother who's still in Scientology and disconnected from me, but I never had much of a relationship with that brother, really, to begin with. But my twin brother died when I was like 23 or 24. And that was, without any question, a direct result of our Scientology experience. He died in a car accident. That wasn't technically his fault or anything. He wasn't even the one driving. But the specific fact of his death was not, meaning like the fact and the manner of his death wasn't like specifically because of Scientology. But our story and where our relationship got to and how he was even in a position of having something like that happen to him is directly attributable </s><s>[INST] to Scientology. Do you think about him? Miss him? [/INST] It's part of what you're doing in memory of him? </s><s>[INST] For sure. [/INST] Yeah, and this is such a, such a... You know, we were identical twins. </s><s>[INST] Can you imagine two of me? I can barely handle one. I love it. Losing him, would that be the darkest moment [/INST] in this whole journey of Scientology for you? Two moments would equal the darkest moment. It would be that. And also just the period of, you know, six, nine, 12 months of impending doom, knowing that my wife's whole family was gonna be obliterated and that there's nothing we could do about it. And kind of telling ourselves every step of the way it wasn't really gonna happen, you know? And I really felt like, you ever watched the Ozarks? I felt like Marty Byrd. Now this was happening before the Ozarks, but when I watch the Ozarks and I see that character, the entire world is crumbling down around him and all he can... All I did was like, all right, what's the next step? I watch Marty Byrd and I go, that's my fucking spirit animal because you can only control what you can control. And you can't keep Scientology from destroying your family. And literally, like, it's funny. I mentioned this show a lot because I watched that and I go like, that's exactly how I felt, you know? I talk about this six months or nine, 12 months, whatever it was, of impending doom. It's not like I was an emotional wreck during that time. You know, in private I was, but it's not like I was just freaking out. It was like, the sun's gonna come up tomorrow. The world's gonna keep spinning. I can't control it. This is horrible. I can't believe this is happening, but tomorrow's a new day. I've never personally, even at the darkest times, I've never experienced anything that I would characterize as depression. Certainly not ever any suicidal thoughts or anything. Even in the darkest of times, and again, this one thing I go, is it because of Scientology or is it just me? </s><s>[INST] There really is an emotional detachment. There almost has to be. And it's a cold calculation. What are my options? [/INST] What do I do here? And then once I figure out the answer to that question, I'm actually quite chipper and happy. You know, like that's sort of my default. Like, you could give me six horrible options. Once I figure out the best of those six, I'm gonna feel like I just had a pretty good day. </s><s>[INST] That's brilliant. Because just watching Ozarks is so stressful. It is, right? I feel stressful watching it. And he usually finds a way. And usually it is a set of really bad options. And it's one of the bad options. [/INST] What's the best of the bad options? And he almost gets pissed off at everyone around him </s><s>[INST] for being so pouty about it. Oh, I'm gonna watch that show again. Same way again. Oh, that's beautiful. [/INST] But you know, it's still simmering there right under the surface, like pretty damn close to the surface. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And people sometimes ask about recovery and whatnot. And like, what does that look like? And what does that mean? And sort of goes back to kind of the emotional detachment is I go, what the fuck does recovery even mean? If you're an alcoholic and you're recovering you know what that means. I used to drink, I don't drink now. Well, I used to be an occult, and I'm not an occult now. How else am I supposed to feel about this for someone to be like, it seems like you've recovered. What the fuck does that even mean? Like I'm sure some academic has an answer to that question. I'm not someone who, I don't spend any time thinking about that. My recovery is success and a little bit of trolling and revenge, but mostly success, you know? What does it mean to be a recovered former cult member? What, you don't cry when people ask you about your brother? I don't know what it means. I've never had therapy, but not because I'm still like against it from Scientology. I just like, I'm not gonna pay to talk to someone. Do you know where else I could do that? Scientology. Now I know there's a lot of people going like, oh boy, I know there's a lot, I'm not shitting on therapy. I would rather have a beer with my friend and talk about this shit than talk to a professional for $200 an hour. </s><s>[INST] That's the kind of therapy, yeah. Yeah, listen, part of the reason I do this podcast is talking to people that you care about, that you're close with. This is a really powerful, powerful thing. Yeah, I don't know what recovery looks like. Success to you is defined, just be, defined happiness. Find happiness outside the closed bubble [/INST] that defines what happiness looks like on Scientology. </s><s>[INST] If I can make my kids happy, that's success to me. What advice would you give to your kids on how to live- Travel the world. A life they can be proud of. Travel the world? [/INST] Travel the world. Get rid of friends who don't push you up and don't celebrate your success. It's hard to give that advice to young children because kids are always so catty. But honestly, it's like, when I see, that really is, I just think, not just advice to my kids, but some of the best advice to anybody. If you've got anyone around you who doesn't celebrate your success, just spend less time with those people. Surround yourself with people who actually want to celebrate your success and push you to succeed. I think that's true. I think it's even more important at a young age because if at a young age, you get used to being around people who kind of take joy and tearing you down, then that's what you become accustomed to. Yeah. You know? And I just think, you know, having friends that love you and support you </s><s>[INST] just about the closest thing to the true meaning of life and who believe in you, who believe in your potential and some of those ideas underlie the good parts of Scientology And, first of all you're an inspiring human being. But most importantly, I can't wait until I can purchase a Bobblehead on the store. So, I can keep that inspiration on my desktop. Erin, thank you so much for talking today, thank you for being you, for being brave, I know you said you're not, but thank you for being brave for talking about this. You're an inspiration and you help a lot of people, thank you brother. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Aaron Smith Levin. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas. Dive deep and swim far, so you will come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that will explain and overlook the old. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time. [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] well there's a sense in which in this conversation I've actually experienced many of those things, the sense that I've arrived. So I mentioned to you offline is very true that I started, I've been a fan of yours for many years. And the reason I started this podcast, Speaking of Ai Systems is to manipulate you Sam Harrison to do in this conversation. So, like on the calendar, literally, you know, I've always had a sense people ask me, when are you gonna talk to Sam Harris? And I always answered eventually, because I always felt, again tying our free will think that somehow that's going to happen, and it's one of those manifestation things or something. I don't know if it's maybe I am a robot, I'm just not cognizant of it and I manipulated you into having this conversation. So, it was a I mean, I don't know what the purpose of my life at this point is. So, I've arrived in that sense, I mean, all of that to say uh Emily, partially joking on that, uh it really uh is a huge honor that you would waste his time with, really means a lot. [/INST] Listen, it's mutual. I'm a big fan of yours and as you know, I reached out to you for this. So this is uh um it's great. I love what you're doing what you're doing something more and more indispensable in this world on your podcast and you're doing it differently than Rogan's doing it or that I'm doing it. I mean, you have you definitely found your own lane and it's wonderful. </s><s>[INST] Thanks for listening to this conversation with Sam Harris and thank you to national instruments, belcampo, athletic greens and lin owed. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. And now let me leave you with some words from Sam Harris in his book, Free Will. You are not controlling the storm and you're not lost in it. You are the storm. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] So that's in the space of geopolitics. This is space of politicians and you on and so on. The interesting thing about China, and this is a difficult topic. Uh, but there's so many financial interests that not many voices with power and with money speak up, speak out against China because it's a very interesting effect, because it costs a lot for an individual to speak up because you're going to suffer. I mean, China just cuts off the market like if you have a product. If you have a company and you say something negative, China just says, Okay, well, then they knock you out of the market so any person speaks up, they get shut down immediately. Financially, it's a huge cost, sometimes millions or billions of dollars. And so what happens is everybody of consequences. Financially, everybody with a giant platform is extremely hesitant to speak out. It's a very it's a different kind of, uh, hesitation. That's financial in nature. I don't know if I was always the case. It seems like in history people were quiet because of fear because of the threat of violence Here there's almost like a self interested, um, preservation of financial of wealth, and I don't I don't know what to do that I mean, I don't know if you can say something there like, yeah, uh, genocide going on because people are financially self interested. [/INST] Yeah. No, I think I mean, I think the analysis is correct. And, uh, it's not only but it's not only corporations, but it's, you know, it's the American government that represents the American people that also feels compelled, not too challenge the Chinese on human rights issues. </s><s>[INST] But the interesting thing is, it's not just, you know, and I know a lot of people from China and, uh, first of all amazing human beings and a lot of brilliant people in China. They also don't want to speak out and not because they're sort of quote unquote like silenced, but more because they're going to also lose financially. They have a lot of businesses in China. They, you know, they're running. In fact, the Chinese government and the country has a very interesting structure because it has a lot of elements that enable capitalism within a certain framework. So you have a lot of very successful companies, and they operate successfully. And then the leaders of those companies, many of whom have, um either being on this podcast. I want to be on this podcast. They really don't want to say anything negative about the government. And the nature of the fear, I sense, is not the kind of fear you would have in Nazi Germany. It's a very kind of It's a mellow like, Why would I speak out when has a negative effect on my company and my family and my in terms of finance strictly financially? And that's, uh, that's difficult. That's a different problem to solve. That feels solvable because it feels like it's a money problem. If you can control the flow of money where the government has less power to control the flow of money, it feels like that's solvable. And that's where capitalism is good. That's where the free market is good. So it's like that's where a lot of people in the Cryptocurrency space I don't know if you follow them. They kind of say Okay, take the monetary system. The power to control money away from governments make it a distributed like a lot of technology to help you with that. That's a hopeful message is, in fact, a lot of people argue that kind of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies can help um deal with some of these authoritarian regimes that lead to violations of basic human rights. If you can control, if you can give the power to control the money to the people, you can take that away from governments. That's another source of hope where technology might be able to do Something good. That's something different about the 21st century and then the 20th. Is this technology in the hands of billions of people? [/INST] I mean, I have to say, I think you're a naive when it comes to technology. I mean, I don't I'm not someone who understands technology. So it's wrong of me, you know, to argue with you because I don't really spend much time with it. I don't really like it very much. And I'm not, uh, you know, I'm neither a fan nor a connoisseur, so I just don't really no. But what human history has shown, basically, and that's a big statement. You know, I don't want to pretend I can tell you what human history has shown, but, you know, technology, Adam bomb. I mean, that's a perfect example of technology. You know what happens when you discover new things. It's a perfect example. What's going on with Facebook now, Absolutely perfect example. You know, And, you know, I once I once went to a lecture by Eric Schmidt about the future, you know, and about all the things that we're going to happen and all these wonderful things like, you know, you wouldn't have to translate yourself anything you wouldn't have to. You don't have to read a book. You know, you wouldn't have to drive a car. You don't have to do this. You don't have to do what kind of life is that? So, you know, my view of technology is it's it's absurd, Umed, you know, to the political, social and moral needs of our day and should be subsumed to that day. It's not going to solve anything by itself. It's going to be you and me that solve things. Uh, if they're solved. There are political system that solves things. Technology is neutral. On one level, it is simply a human. Uh, I mean, they're talking now about how artificial intelligence you know, it's going to do this, and it's going to do that. I'm not so sure there's anything necessarily positive or negative about it, except it does obviously make work easier and things like that. I mean, you know, I like email and I like, you know, word processing. And that's all. That stuff is great, but but actually solving human relations in and of itself for international relations or or conflict among human beings. I mean, I see technology as you know, causing as many problems as it solves and maybe even more, you know, Maybe Maybe </s>

<s>[INST] So values are fundamental. Value is fundamental. Oh boy, yeah, that's interesting. It does feel like physics is not capturing something. There's some people, panpsychists argue that consciousness might be one of the fundamental properties of nature, like from which emerges everything we see. So that could be just other words for this same notion of value. And then the basic laws of physics are not capturing that currently. So maybe humans, in order to understand from where humans came from, we have to understand these other properties of nature, [/INST] which are yet to be discovered at the physics level. Yeah, right. And it's, we contend with that underlying nature, whatever it is, with the logos, right? So we are, we're looking at uncategorized nature, and then we're assigning a word to it. So we're slicing up chaos into little boxes of order. And then we're establishing this social consensus as to those labels, which we call words. And we're using that to communicate. And when we communicate, we can start to build these other things. This is like the Yuval Harari imagined orders. So we can create these useful fictions, right? Whether it's the nation state or human rights or money. And that allows us to cooperate flexibly in large numbers so that we can better contend with reality. We can produce more complicated things. We can enlarge that bubble of civilization against entropy. And that's what capitalism is all about. It's about further specializing knowledge, further enriching mankind's treasury of knowledge, and doing it, but to do that, the communication media that we're using, the words have to have stable meaning. The money needs to have value that's dependable, right? It needs to be something that's, it's not dictated by any one group. It's reached by consensus of the entire group. That's how, so you could think it's like optimizing for error correction again, where a free market would be harnessing the intelligence of all market actors. And a central planning or essentially planned market would be harnessing just the intelligence of a small group of bureaucrats. </s><s>[INST] And it's not obvious how to achieve this kind of consensus mechanism. I mean, there's obviously, we'll talk about sort of Bitcoin as an idea. Ultimately, the idea of Bitcoin is connecting it to physics. So like, you can trust that physical matter won't change, but there could be other ideas that will yet, maybe physics could be changed. Very constant, that's the thing to say about it. Like, it's on, we right now believe that physics can't be changed, the physical matter of the world, but maybe it can in a way that we're totally not understanding. You mentioned sort of reality from Donald Hoffman's perspective. Like if we don't have even close to direct access to the fabric of reality, maybe we're living in a world that's very like many dimensions, that the notions of space and time is just like a silly and useful construct that's not at all connected. You're starting to look at like Stephen Wolfram's, I don't know if you're familiar with his view of the world, that it's like hypergraphs underneath it all, like these mathematical structures from which everything emerges. Like they're like many, many, many orders of magnitude smaller than what we think of as they're even smaller than like strings and string theory. So like those are the basic mathematical objects from which it emerges. I don't, you know, I think that's an interesting philosophical framework. It's also, people should check out a cool way to play with beautiful hypergraph mathematical structures. So he has, I don't know if you know Stephen Wolfram is, but he has, he created Wolfram Alpha and all these tools that you can actually visualize and play with. So you can play with physics in a visual way, which, or at least discrete mathematics, which I think is incredible. He doesn't get enough love. One of the reasons he, I think doesn't get enough love is because of this little quirk of human nature, which is the ego and he sometimes frustrates a few folks because he's very, let's say proud of his work. I guess. But it's interesting to think about a world where we don't have direct access to reality as Hoffman argues. And maybe I don't know if you can comment. I don't know if you're familiar with Ayn Rand's work and her whole philosophy of objectivism [/INST] or her whole contention is that we do have access. </s><s>[INST] I don't want to misstate it, but at least she will claim that it's not useful or I think she'll probably say it's not correct to argue that we don't have access to reality. We have, hence objectivism, we have direct access to reality. That's the only thing we can reason about. And the only way to live life morally is to reason through everything, starting with the axioms of reality, which we do have direct access to. Right. You have thoughts about her work. [/INST] I am slightly ashamed to say I have not read Ayn Rand yet. So she is high on my list and she's been recommended a number of times. But so I don't know a lot specifically about her philosophy or objectivism, but to me, it resonates closely with what the American pragmatist commented on truth and they distinguished, what you could say is absolute truth, which is at the bottom of reality, whether it's Mr. Wolfram's mathematical formulas or value, whatever it may be. It's something ineffable, something beyond the reach of epistemology, perhaps even. And maybe that's why religion just sort of points to it. It's trying to use, I think Joseph Campbell said something like, religion is using stories to point towards the same transcendental mystery we all experience, but cannot articulate. So something like the artist, the artist uses lies to point to the truth, something like that, that kind of thing. That's really good. But the American pragmatist said that, because at the end of the day, this is all about when we say truth, we need something that is socially, close to social consensus and is not shakable by political action. So that's what physics and mathematics are. It's an unshakable point of reference, I guess you might say. So the American pragmatist defined truth as the end of inquiry. And in markets, we could say that the market itself is a forum that generates truth. We call this pragmatic truth to separate pure objective truth that we can't even talk about without polluting it versus pragmatic truth, which is something that's useful. So the example here would be, if I give you a map and you're trying to go from your house to the local brisket restaurant, and the map gets you from your house to brisket restaurant, is that because the map is true or is that because the map is useful? They're very hard to disentangle when you're just looking at it pragmatically. And in markets, markets, I argue, generate three forms of pragmatic truth. One is the price. So this is the collective subjective demand and purchasing power of humanity running up against the objective supply of capital and resources in the marketplace. So there's demand overlaid on supply. The result of that is the price. So that is the most truthful exchange ratio, which is the closest approximation to the value of any good in the marketplace. So it gives us a data point on which we can operate. It's compressing all known market realities down into a single actionable number. You know, based on the price of bread or copper, whether you want to buy more of it, you want to abstain from buying it, or maybe you want to try and find substitutes. And you can think of that price signal, it's like an economic nerve signal that's coordinating human action across time. So if we're one socioeconomic super organism, we're collective that the price signal is the nerve. And that's the first form of pragmatic truth that markets generate. The second form would be tools and innovations themselves. So entrepreneurs are experimenting across time. They're trying to satisfy the wants of consumers. Consumers are sovereign in the marketplace. Whatever the consumer wants, the consumer gets, right? I'm trying to satisfy that and I'm trying to do it at a profit. So I'm trying to take viewing the existing price signals of goods in the marketplace. I'm trying to assemble those in a way at a cost lower than the final solution I'm delivering to my customer. I'm selling it at a price higher than the productive factors I combine to create it. And in that iterative process, we're constantly discovering new and better ways of solving problems or satisfying wants. So we could say to go out and dig a hole, right? Even once I hole dug that a shovel is going to let you do it much faster per hour than you would with your bare hands. So what is the pragmatic truth of digging holes? It's a shovel, right? It's the best way we know how to solve any particular problem based on the existing treasury of knowledge. So every tool, again, we're back to ideas being fundamental. The shovel itself is just a knowledge structure. We've figured out a way to create this particular implement and then we've indexed the raw material materials we found in nature to this knowledge structure to create a shovel, which allows us to better satisfy human wants, faster, cheaper, better, effectively. </s>

<s>[INST] And I suppose one of the elements of intimacy, like what we're talking about is vulnerability. And maybe there's a, is there a fear of being vulnerable, of being hurt again? Sure. [/INST] Is that ultimately the barrier to intimacy? Yeah, if you're taught a lesson that says the world is not safe and you're not good enough for someone to keep safe and you're not strong enough to keep yourself safe, that's a final common pathway of the vast majority of child abuse, right? Is telling those lessons to people then, how can that not change the lay of the land against openness, against the ability to rationally consider trust and mutuality and to protect oneself, but also take chances and do the things that we have to do to create the greatest happiness in our lives. </s><s>[INST] We set the odds so much against that. There's another pathway which I think is really interesting because I've seen it in people is this kind of ability to detach yourself from feeling any emotions to like protect yourself. [/INST] It's almost like you're not quite there. There's a word for this, isolation of affect. </s><s>[INST] This is a defense mechanism, yeah. Isolation of affect. Is that a common way, [/INST] another common way to deal with trauma? Well, isolation of affect can cut both ways. So if there's been a major trauma, as if someone has seen something terrible and they're isolated from their affect, and at one time it was thought, well, maybe that's good, right? They're not hysterical, they're not distraught, but we see that is not good, right? Because what needs to be held, processed, we need to get our arms around in some way, shape or form, has just been separated off, right? So we know that is not good, right? But isolation of affect can also serve us very well. When I think back to being an intern, a medical intern in the hospital, and you might have to go and pronounce someone dead with hysterical family members, and then 10 minutes later, five minutes later, maybe two minutes later, really, you have to go to another room and you've got to maybe do some procedure that involves having your focus on a certain thing and making sure your hand movements are the right way or talking to a person in a way that is, that's very different than where you just came from, that's very hopeful. And so then you have to isolate the affect of what's going on around you and it happens, not just in... It's just one example, but we have to do it in life so that we can put affect aside to process later or not fill the full weight of affect where we know the meaning. Like I knew the meaning of the tragedy the person I just pronounced dead, but I want to separate that from myself because I'm also aware that it's not my tragedy so that I can then, okay, put that affect aside and go do the next thing that I have to do. </s><s>[INST] So that, I think, can cut both ways. Right, but then you have to reattach it, understand that it's good to be close with emotion, even painful emotion, right? Because that's the human experience. Right. I feel like if you build up a skill that you can detach yourself from emotion, [/INST] I think that can become its own kind of addictive quality. Yeah, it becomes too easy to do it. Yeah. Right, and to reinforce. That's when people are suffering too much over too long a period of time, then we're creatures of habit, right? And even though our brains are, you can talk about our brains are sitting on the shoulders of the giant of the maybe thousand levels of emergence that come underneath of them, our brains are also working very simple habit-based ways. Like if you and I chose a word right now and said it 500 times, we would know, it's just a silly experiment, but we'd both be saying it tonight, right? Because our brains are also creatures of habit. So if you over and over and over have to isolate yourself from affect and you develop those mechanisms, well, you develop those mechanisms and they don't go away any easier than if we said the word 500 times and decided to forget. </s><s>[INST] We won't forget no matter what we decided. So how do we find our way back? How do we overcome trauma? [/INST] What are the different pathways? The first thing, the very first thing is to acknowledge to ourselves and often to others which might be one other person, it might be in words, spoken, it might be written, what the trauma has been, right? Because the lessons of trauma, the evil lessons of trauma, and I'll use the example of my own life, the lesson that told me that I was shameful, cursed and hopeless, right? It's a very evil lesson, right? But my brain will say it over and did say it over and over and over to me. And if that just sits inside, that's how trauma festers, that's how trauma hijacks our thoughts, our emotions. So being able to say to ourselves and to another, like this is what's happened, right? Okay, this is what's happened. We're built to massage words and to create meaning through words, right? Like we don't massage pictures, images, we talk and massage meaning with words. So when I finally went to see a therapist and I could say, you know, my brother, whatever words I would have said, like he killed himself and I can't accept it or I can't imagine it and like I let it happen. Like so I had to say those things, right? So then I could begin to bring some sense of truth to it, you know, and I think it was a long time ago, but the therapist probably says something like, okay, probably sees on you, you let it happen. It's your fault, right? Cause you got to get at those things so that one can begin to bring into focus, what does the trauma mean and what does it not mean? I mean, a classic example is that, what would you say to someone else example? You know, it'll say, well, I know how many times have I, it's just, I get cry if I stop and think about it enough. I get to stop and talk to someone who is sexually assaulted from no fault of their own who comes in and tells the story they've been telling themselves about how it's their fault. They should have walked home in different way, they should have dressed differently, they should have left earlier, right, I wrote about it in the book over and over and over. They have a person who, let's say you take a person who's intelligent, engage in the world who's like capable of understanding lots and lots and lots of things, but doesn't understand that, right? If it were someone else, that person would understand in a moment that's not that person's fault, right? So what you want to do is overcome the fact that the negative emotions, that the hijacked emotion systems of trauma are telling that person a lie, and they're telling them so strongly and so awfully, so meanly, that the person just takes it inside and starts to see it as true, right? So you begin to hold that up to the light of day. And again, one example could be, okay, so someone, my person who's coming in next has actually been through something similar, right? And can you do my, can you stay and just tell her how it's her fault, right? And they're like, oh my God, no, oh, because I could never, like then they see, right? And again, this is not always how you do it, but sometimes you can get a person to see like, well, that would be the most horrible. How could you do that? Right, and the person can maybe come in, they're doing it to themselves. So, you know, you begin to put words in a structure and say, okay, like let's look at what's going on inside of you, like you don't have to be scared of anything you're thinking and feeling. In fact, the fear is in not exposing it to the light, to the light of day. That's where it gets the best of us. And now like everything is different. And whether that involves use of medications for intrusive thoughts and depression, or there's no medicines needed, but it's all reframing, like whatever it may be that comes next, the whole world has changed when the person has acknowledged what's happened, exposed it to themselves and to trusted others around them and begun to look at it in some way other than the stuff in an evil box place that the trauma initially puts us through our, </s>

<s>[INST] but that's not at the core, the monitoring is not at the core of human nature, [/INST] it's not a well he says it is, he says we're fundamentally bartering creatures. </s><s>[INST] Well that doesn't even make sense then, because then how can we then be autonomous individuals? [/INST] Well, because we're going to barter with an eye on </s><s>[INST] on ourselves [/INST] for ourselves. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, [/INST] but alright, so but back to Adam smith for a second, like he's like Adam smith here's he's got the invisible hand and my conservative friends, I'm like you need to read his books because he is a big fan of the free market and this is my other uh gripe with folks who support just unbridled markets. Adam smith understood that there was a role for government for two reasons. One is that just like a lot of people are not going to behave with integrity and he understood that one role of government is to maintain a proverbial, you know, even playing field. And then the other thing smith said was that there's some things that can't be done well for a profit and I believe he talked about education and public health and infrastructure as things that are best done by governments because you can't you can make a profit, but that doesn't mean that the institutions themselves will be maximally beneficial. Yeah, so I I would I'm just eager to engage people by saying, let's start with our most contemporary understanding of human nature, which is that we are both selfish and tend to cooperate. And we also can be heroically helpful to folks in our own tribe. Uh of course, how you define one's tribe becomes critically important, but what some people say is, look, we let what would then be, what kind of political institutions and what kind of economic organization can we think about to kind of hit that sweet spot. And that that would be, in my opinion. How do we maximize individual autonomy in a way that fosters creativity and innovation and the self regard that comes from creative expression while engaging are more cooperative and reciprocal tendencies in order to come up with a system that is potentially stable over time. Because the other thing about all capital based systems, </s><s>[INST] the stability is fundamentally unstable [/INST] because it's based on infinite growth. And, you know, it's a positive feedback loop. To be silly. Infinite growth is only good for malignant cancer cells and compound interest otherwise, uh, you know, we want to seek a steady state. And um, that would be, you know, so when steven Pinker writes for example, again, great scholar, but I'm going to disagree when he says the world has never been better and all we need to do is keep making stuff and buying stuff. </s><s>[INST] So, your senses the world sort of in disagreement with steven Pinker that the world is um, like facing a potential catastrophic collapse in multiple directions and the fact that there are certain, like the rate of violence and aggregate is decreasing the death. You know, the quality of life, all those kinds of measures that you can plot across centuries that it's improving. That doesn't capture the fact that our world might be, we might destroy ourselves in very painful ways uh, in the, in the, in the next century. So I'm [/INST] with Jared diamond, you know, in the book collapse, where he points out studying, um, the collapse of major civilizations that it often happens right after things appeared to never have been better. And in that regard, I mean, there are more known voices that have taken issue with dr Pinker. I'm thinking of john Gray who is a british philosopher and here in the States, I don't know where he is these days, but robert jay lifton, the psycho historian. Yeah, they're both of my view and which I hope is by the way wrong. Uh, yeah. But but you know, between, um, you know, ongoing ethnic tensions, environmental degradation, economic instability and the fact that, you know, the world has become a Petri dish of psycho pathology. </s><s>[INST] Like what really worries me is the the quiet economic pain that people are going through the businesses that are closed dreams that are broken because you can no longer do the thing that you've wanted to do and how I mentioned to you off camera that I've been reading uh the rise and fall of the third Reich and I mean, the amount of anger and hatred and on the flip side of that sort of nationalist pride that can arise from deep economic pain, like what happens with the economic pain is you become bitter, you start to find the other, whether it's other european nations that mistreated you, whether it's other groups and mistreated you, it always ends up being the jews. Uh somehow, somehow our fault here. Uh that's what worries me, is where this quiet anger and pain goes in 2021 2022 2030 If you look, I'm sorry to see the parallel no, no, no Rise and fall of the third Reich, But you know what happens 10, 15 years from now? From what? Because of the covid pandemic that's happening now [/INST] and let you make a I think it really profoundly important point, you know, back to our work for a bitter Ernest Becker rather, you know, his point is, is that the way that we manage existential terror is to embrace culturally constructed belief systems that give us a sense that life has meaning that we have value and in the form of self esteem, which we get from perceiving that we meet or exceed the expectations associated with the role that we play in society. Well, here we are right now in a in a world where first of all, if you have nothing, you are nothing. And secondly, as you were saying, before we got started today, lot of jobs are gone and they're not coming back </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah, he has some Gage Theoretic conceptions about the world broadly, but also about economics, which ultimately boils down to just a set of mathematics, which allows you to more effectively reason about the world. And he has a certain set of views there. So it's fascinating to see him grapple with it. I think he's also kind of, actually kind of like all of us, grappling with the idea of what is Bitcoin in this world. It's a very young technology and it's unclear exactly how the ideas of the past fit with it and integrate, how the two integrate together. And so it's interesting to explore, not just Bitcoin in particular. So for me, what I've always saw Bitcoin as from the beginning, from a narrow worldview is computer science, which is where I come from. And so I wasn't almost aware in the social, political, financial aspects of Bitcoin. But now I see that there's not just power, but there's fascinating ideas to explore on that side of things. It's not just the computer science, not just the technical details, but the political, the socioeconomic, the philosophical. [/INST] That's where I find all the fascination in the world, frankly. I would, one other thing about wine scene and intellectuals more generally that are skeptical of Bitcoin, I would challenge them to read the book, Human Action, written by Mises, I think in 1949, he published the English version. It's essentially the Bible of Austrian economics. And I think Austrian economics is a noticeable gap in most modern intellectuals' worldviews that it's not taught in school. I mean, I have a master's degree in accounting and finance, studied a lot of economics in school. There's not one peep of Austrian Econ. Oh, yeah, talking about all the degrees he has. I was a CPA. But that curriculum that we get in college is noticeably deficient in Austrian economics. And I think there's a reason why, right? It's heavily government influenced. Again, master's degree in accounting. They never taught me about what money is or where money comes from. All you learn is that the central bank issues money and the central bank takes money away. So it's conceived of in the textbooks quite literally as God, right? An entity that suffers no opportunity costs that basically is the foundation of the entire Keynesian worldview that you're taught in economics. And Austrian economics is the opposite end of the spectrum of that, right? It's actually the culmination which economics is the youngest science in the world, by the way. So it is kind of the front. It's the frontiers of science in many ways, like to actually, when I say praxeology, many people have never even heard of that. But it's something, it's an a priori study equivalent to something like mathematics, that you're building things from first principles to reason about economic reality. And I think that book, it's a very difficult book written by Mises, 1200 pages, translated from German. The way he wields English is fascinating and terrifying all at the same time. It'd probably take you six months to read it if you read it daily, seriously. Like it's a beast of a book. But that will plug the gap, I think in most, any intellectual that's skeptical about Bitcoin, I think that will plug the gap that's necessary for you to see it in a new light. </s><s>[INST] Well, I'll take that as a challenge. Now that we took a little bit of a break, it's some good Texas brisket. Thank you for that, by the way. You're quite welcome. Let me ask the ridiculous question. At the core of the idea of Bitcoin is this guy or this entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. So the ridiculous question is, who is Satoshi Nakamoto? And first of all, is it you? [/INST] Quite well. </s><s>[INST] It's not me, I wish. And is this an interesting question? Or is it just something about our human nature [/INST] that always tends towards mystery? Well, as we've touched on a bit today, you know, mythology, in my opinion, is something that is intrinsic to how we see the world in a lot of ways. Like it's how, it's kind of the structure by which we build these useful fictions. And so in that way, you could just say that Satoshi is the godhead of Bitcoin effectively. And I think a compelling argument can be made that his disappearance is what really solidifies Bitcoin's decentralization. Because if there were one individual to personally vilify or denigrate or attack, to disparage or question the motives of, if he's out on the Hollywood Hills partying, everyone knows he's got a million Bitcoin. It would just kind of tarnish the entire project in a lot of way. But the fact that a lot of way, on that theme, something for nothing, this guy actually gave humanity something for nothing. And it appears that he didn't profit in any way. He, she, or they. I actually heard recently that he identified as a he in some of his communications. So it sounds like it is a he. </s>

<s>[INST] But what about for you? So is this akin to like systems like cellular automata where it's deterministic. But when you squint your eyes a little bit, it starts to look like there's agents making decisions at the higher sort of when you zoom out and look at the entities that are composed by the individual cells. Even though the there's underlying simple rules that make the system evolved in deterministic ways, it looks like there's organisms making decisions. Is that where the illusion of free will emerges that jump in scale, [/INST] it's a particular type of model. But this jumping skill is crucial. The jump in scale happens whenever you have too many parts to count and you cannot make a model at that level and you try to find some higher level regularity and the higher level regularity is a pattern that you project into the world to make sense of it. And agency is one of these patterns, right? You have all these cells that interact with each other and the cells in our body are set up in such a way that they benefit if their behavior is coherent, which means that they act as if they were serving a common goal and which that means that they will evolve. Regulation, mechanisms that act as if they were serving a common goal. And now you can make sense of these all these cells by projecting the common goal into them. </s><s>[INST] So for you then free will is an illusion. [/INST] No, it's a model. And it's a construct. It's basically a model that the system is making of its own behavior. And it's the best model that it can come up is under the circumstances and it can get replaced by a different model which is automatic behavior when you fully understand the mechanism under which you are acting. </s><s>[INST] But another word for model is what story. So it's a story you're telling. I mean, do you actually have control? Is there such a thing? Is that you and is there such a thing as you have in control? It's like are you manifesting your evolution as an entity [/INST] in some sense? The you as the model of the system that is in control. It's a story that the system tells itself about somebody who is in control and the contents of that model are being used to inform the behavior of the system. Okay, so the system is completely mechanical and the system creates that story like a loom and then it uses the contents of that story to inform its actions and writes the results of that actions into the story. </s><s>[INST] So how is that not an illusion? The story is written then or or rather we're not the writers of the story. [/INST] Yes, but we always knew that No, we don't know that. When do we know that? I think that's mostly a confusion about concepts. The conceptual illusion in our culture comes from the idea that you live in physical reality and that we experienced physical reality and that you have ideas about it and then you have this duelist interpretation where you have to substances rest extends to the world that you can touch. And that is made of extended things and raise competence, which is the world of ideas. And in fact both of them are mental representations. Oneness. The representations of the world is a game engine that your mind generates to make sense of the perceptual data and the other one's. Yes, that's what we perceive as the physical world, but we already know that the physical world is nothing like that, right? Quantum mechanics is very different from what you and me perceive as the world. The world you and me perceive is a game engine and no colours and sounds in the physical vote. They only exist in the game engine generated by your brain. And then you have ideas that are not cannot be mapped onto extended regions, right? So the objects that have a spatial extension in the game engine uh has extensive and the objects that don't have a physical extension in the game engine, our ideas and they both interact in our mind to produce models of the world. But </s><s>[INST] you know when you play video games, I understand that what's actually happening is zeros and ones inside of inside of a computer inside of a CPU and Gpu. But you're still seeing like the rendering of that and you're still making decisions whether to shoot to turn left or turn right. If you're playing a shooter or every time I started thinking about Skyrim and Elder scrolls and walking around the beautiful nature and swinging a sword, but it feels like you're making decisions inside that video game. So even though you don't have direct access uh in terms of perception to the bits to the zeros and ones, it still feels like you're making decisions and your decisions are actually feels like they're being applied all the way down to the zeros and ones. It feels like you have control even though you don't [/INST] direct access </s><s>[INST] to reality. [/INST] So there is basically a special character in the video game that is being created by the video game engine and this character is serving the aesthetics of the video game and that is you. Yes, but </s><s>[INST] I feel like I have control inside the video game. Like all those like 12 year olds that kick my ass on the Internet. [/INST] So for when you play the video game, it doesn't really matter that they're zeros and ones right? You don't care about the wheels of the bus, You don't care about the nature of the CPU, that it runs on what you care about the properties of the game that you're playing. And you hope that the CPU is good enough. Yes. And a similar thing happens when we interact with physics. The world that you and me are in is not the physical world, the world that you and me are in is a dream world. </s>

<s>[INST] I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by element electrolyte drink mix spelled L M and T to do low carbs dies correctly. I think the number one thing you have to get right is electrolytes, specifically sodium potassium and magnesium and that's exactly what element gets right. In fact, I was listening in to an Andrew [/INST] Huberman </s><s>[INST] live on instagram yesterday. I highly recommend his instagram by the way. It's so educational, so fascinating. But he mentioned that he loves element as well and they're actually not a sponsor of this podcast and several times I've hung out with him. He he is a lying element is always part of the picture. It's always there and he's always kind of enjoying that drink and I do too. It's a big part of my day. Anyway, they have a new flavor. My new favorite is watermelon. Salt is delicious. It's good for you. I mean it's great. Olympians use it. Tech people use it, I swear by this stuff. Try it at drink L MNT dot com slash lex. That's drink element dot com slash lex. This show is also brought to you by Athletic Greens and its newly renamed 81 drink, which is an all in one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. It replaced the multivitamin for me and went far beyond that was 75 vitamins and minerals. It's the first thing I drink every day and then like I said, I drink it twice later on in the day. It's always just makes me feel better about taking on the day, making sure that I have that nutritional base with the low carbs with the fast thing with the occasional crazy workouts, all of that I got my nutrition covered and plus it tastes great. I mean it's just it's just amazing when there's so much great science that goes into iterative development of a one stop solution for vitamins and minerals. Anyway, I'll give you one month supply of fish oil when you sign up to athletic greens dot com slash lex. That's the other thing I take is fish oil. That's a flood of greens dot com slash lex. This show is also brought to you by Roca, the makers of glasses and sunglasses that I love wearing for their design, their feel and innovation of material optics and grip. Rocca was started by two American swimmers from Stanford and was born out of an obsession with performance. Anyway, I met one of those co founders rob. He's an incredible human being. I got a chance to spend some time at Rocca here in Austin. Just a lot of great engineering, A lot of great design going on there. Rocca is designed to be active in its extremely lightweight. The grip is comfortable but strong and the style is classy. [/INST] I love their minimalist </s><s>[INST] style. So it holds up to all conditions, including in the extreme Austin heat or the cool boston late fall and see how the winter holds up check them out for both prescription glasses and sunglasses at Roca dot com. And enter code lex to save 20% off on your first order. That's Rocca dot com and enter code lex. This show is also brought to you by indeed hiring website. I've used them as part of many hiring efforts have done for the teams I've led. They have tools like indeed instant match giving you quality candidates whose resumes and indeed fit your job description. Immediately. I've been going through a process of hiring folks for the team that's in charge of creating uh cool videos [/INST] and </s><s>[INST] podcasts and all that kind of stuff. It's fascinating and I think it's essential to hire [/INST] to build the team, </s><s>[INST] brilliant creative minds in order to do this kind of thing well. And so you have to use the best tools for the job. Indeed is one such tool right now, you can get a free $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at Indeed dot com slash lex get it at. Indeed. Dot com slash lex offer is valid through december 31st 2021 terms and conditions apply that one's for the lawyers go to indeed.com slash flex. This episode is also sponsored by better help spelled H E L. P. Help like you would be spelling out on the sand if you were stuck on a deserted island with a volleyball and a bloody handprint on that volleyball anyway. Better help Help you figure out what you need and match with a licensed professional therapists in under 48 hours. I've wanted to be a psychotherapist. The psychiatrist when I was younger talk therapy has always been a thing that um fascinated me. And in some some ways that's why I love podcasts, I love listening to podcasts, I love participating in podcast. It's a it's a way through conversation to explore the human mind. And so for you on a personal level that's a great tool to use to explore your own mind. Better help us. Easy, private, affordable, available worldwide. Check them out of better help dot com slash lex that's better help dot com slash lex. This is a lex Friedman podcast and here is my conversation with boys Soft Hman who is your favorite robot and science fiction books or movies [/INST] Wall in R. Two D. Two where they were able to convey such an incredible degree of intent, emotion and kind of character attachment without having any language whatsoever. Um And just purely through the richness of emotional interactions, those are fantastic. And then uh the terminator series just like really really pretty wide, wide range, right? But uh I kind of love this dynamic. We have this like incredible terminator itself that Arnold played. But uh and then he was kind of like the inferior like previous generation version that was like totally outmatched. Uh you know in terms of kind of specs by the new one but you know still kind of like L. D. Zone. And so it was kind of interesting where you you realize how many how many levels there are on the spectrum from human to kind of potentials and ai and robotics to uh futures. And so yeah that movie really uh as much as it was like kind of a dark world in a way was actually quite fascinating gets the imagination going </s>

<s>[INST] now I'm a little bit of an outsider from this field but it has echoes of the same kind of problem I see in the Ai world with autonomous weapons systems. Nobody and my colleagues, my colleagues friends as far as I can tell people in the Ai community are not really talking about autonomous weapons systems as now U. S. And china full steam ahead on the development of both. And that seems to be a similar kind of thing on gain of function. I've uh you know have friends in the biology space and they don't want to talk about gain of function publicly and I don't that makes me very uncomfortable from an outsider perspective in terms of gain of function. It makes me very uncomfortable from the insider perspective on autonomous weapons systems. I'm not sure how to communicate exactly about autonomous weapons systems and I certainly don't know how to communicate effectively about gain of function. What is the right path forward here? Should we seize all gain of function research? Is that is that really the solution here? [/INST] Well again I'm going to use gain of function in the relatively narrow context of what you can say almost you know anything that you do to make biology more effective as gain of function. So within the narrow confines of what we're discussing I think it would be easy enough for level headed people in all of the country's level headed governmental people in all the countries that realistically could support such a program to agree we don't want this to happen because all labs leak. I mean you know an example that I I used actually didn't use in the piece I did with Sam Harris as well. Um is the anthrax attacks in the United States in 2000 and one. I mean talk about an example of the least likely lab Leaking into the least likely place. Uh this was shortly after 9-11 folks who don't remember it and it was a very very lethal strand of anthrax that as it turned out based on the forensic genomic work that was done and so forth, absolutely leaked from a high security U. S. Army lab. Probably the one at Fort Detrick in Maryland. Uh It might have been another one. But who cares? It absolutely leaked from a high security U. S. Army lab. And where did it leak to this highly dangerous substance that was kept under lock and key by a very security minded organization? Well, it leaked to places including the Senate Majority Leader's office, Tom Daschle's office. There was Senator Leahy's office, certain publications including bizarrely The National Enquirer. But let's go to the Senate Majority Leader's office. It is hard to imagine a more security minded country than the United States two weeks after the 9 11 attack. I mean, it doesn't get more security minded than that. And it's also hard to imagine a more security capable organization than the United States military. We can joke all we want about inefficiencies in the military and, you know, $24,000 wrenches and so forth, but pretty capable when it comes to that. Despite that level of focus and concern and competence. Just days after the 9 11 attacks, something comes from the inside of our military industrial complex and ends up, you know, in the office of someone I believe the Senate majority leader somewhere in the line of presidential succession tells us everything in League. So again think of a levelheaded conversation between powerful leaders in the diversity of countries Thinking through like I can imagine a very simple power point revealing, you know, just discussing briefly, things like the anthrax leak, um, things like, uh, this foot and mouth disease outbreak that or leaking that came out of a BSL four level lab in the UK. Several other things, talking about the utter violence that could result from gain of function and say, folks, can we agree that this just shouldn't happen? I mean if we were able to agree on the nuclear non proliferation treaty, which we were by a weapons convention, which we did agree on with the world for the most part, I believe agreement could be found there, but it's going to take people in leadership of a couple of very powerful countries to get to consensus amongst them and then to decide we're going to get everybody together and browbeat them into banning this stuff. Now that doesn't make it entirely impossible that somebody might do this. But in well regulated, you know, carefully watched over fiduciary environments like federally funded academic research, anything going on in the government itself, you know, things going on in, you know, companies that have investors who don't want to go to jail for the rest of their lives. Um, I think that would have a major, major dampening impact on it. </s><s>[INST] But there is a particular possible catalyst in this time we live in, which is, uh, for really kind of raising the question of gain of function research for the application of virus making viruses more dangerous. Yeah, is the question of whether Covid leaked from a lab sort of not even answering that question, but even asking that question is a very it seems like a very important question to ask, to catalyze the conversation about whether we should be doing gain of function research. I mean from a high level, why do you think people even colleagues of mine and not comfortable asking that question and to do you think that the answer could be that it did leak from the lab? [/INST] I think the mere possibility that it did leak from a lab is evidence enough again for the hypothetical rational national leaders watching this simple power point, If you could put the possibility at 1% and you look at the unbelievable destructive power that COVID, had that should be an overwhelmingly powerful argument for excluding it now as to whether or not that was a leak some very, very level, I don't I don't know enough about all of the factors in the Bayesian analysis and so forth that has gone into people making the pro argument of that, so I don't pretend to be an expert on that and I don't have a point of view. I just don't know. But what I what we can say is it is entirely possible for a couple of reasons. One is that there is a BSL four lab in Wuhan, the Wuhan Institute of virology. I believe it's the only BSL for in china, I could be wrong about that, but it definitely had a history that alarmed very sophisticated U. S. Diplomats and others who were in contact with the lab and we're aware of what it was doing long before Covid uh Covid um hit the world. And so there are diplomatic cables that have been declassified. I believe one sophisticated scientists or other observers said that W. I. V. Is a ticking time bomb and I believe it's also been pretty reasonably established that corona viruses were a topic of great interest at W. I. V. SARS obviously came out of china and that's a that's a coronavirus that would make an enormous amount of sense for it to be studied there. Um And there is so much opacity about what happened in the early days and weeks after the outbreak that's basically been imposed by the Chinese government that we just don't know. So it feels like a substantially or greater than 1% possibility to me looking at it from the outside. And that's something that one could imagine. Now we're going to the realm of thought experiment, not me to create this is what happened. But you know, if they're studying coronavirus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Um and there is this precedent of gain of function research that's been done on something that is remarkably un contagious to humans. Whereas we know coronavirus is contagious to humans. I could definitely and there is this global consensus, you know, certainly was the case, you know two or three years ago when this work might have started. There seems to be this global consensus that gain of function is fine. Us paused funding for a little while but paused funding. They never said private actors couldn't do it. It was just a pause of NIH funding and then that pause was lifted. So again, none of this is irrational. You could certainly see the folks at W. I. V. Saying Gehna function interesting vector coronavirus virus unlike H five N one very contagious. Uh we're in a nation that has had terrible run ins with coronavirus. Why don't we do a little getting function on this? And then like all labs at all levels, one can imagine this lab leaking. So it's not an impossibility and very very level headed people have said that you know, who have looked at it much more deeply do believe in that outcome. Why </s>

<s>[INST] that works like the built in types. Is there something provided as a standard, because you know, because it's AI first, you know, numerical types is so important here, so is there something come like a nice standard implementation of integer inflow? [/INST] Yeah, yeah. So we're still building all that stuff out, so we provide entries and floats and all that kind of stuff. We also provide buffers and tensors and things like that that you'd expect in an ML context. Honestly, we need to keep designing and redesigning and working with the community to build that out and make that better. That's not our strength right now. Give us six months or a year, and I think it'll be way better. But the power of putting in the library means that we can have teams of experts that aren't </s><s>[INST] compiler engineers that can help us design and refine and drive us forward. So one of the exciting things we should mention here is that this is new and fresh. This cake is unbaked. It's almost baked. You can tell it's delicious, but it's not fully ready to be consumed. [/INST] Yep. That's very fair. It is very useful, but it's very useful if you're a super low-level programmer right now. And what we're doing is we're working our way up the stack. And so the way I would look at Mojo today in May in 2023 is that it's like a 0.1. So I think that a year from now, it's going to be way more interesting to a variety of people. But what we're doing is we decided to release it early so that people can get access to and play with it, and we can build it with the community. We have a big roadmap, fully published, being transparent about this. And a lot of people are involved in this stuff. And so what we're doing is we're really optimizing for building this thing the right way and building it the right way. It's interesting working with the community, because everybody wants it yesterday. </s><s>[INST] And so sometimes it's kind of, you know, there's some dynamics there, but I think it's the right thing. So there's a discord also. So the dynamics is pretty interesting. Sometimes the community probably can be very chaotic and introduce a lot of stress. Guido famously quit over the stress of the wall of his operator. I mean, it broke, maybe that would be, yeah, exactly. And so like, it could be very stressful to develop, but can you just tangent upon a tangent? Is it stressful to work through the design of various features here, given that the community is so richly involved? [/INST] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it broke. It probably broke the camel's back. Exactly. So I've been doing open development and community stuff for decades now. Somehow this has happened to me. So I've learned some tricks, but the thing that always gets me is I want to make people happy. Right? And so this is maybe not all people all happy all the time, but generally I want people to be happy. Right? And so the challenge is that, again, we're tapping into some long, some deep seated long tensions and pressures, both in the Python world, but also in the AI world and the hardware world and things like this. And so people just want us to move faster, right? And so again, our decision was let's release this early. Let's get people used to it or access to it and play with it and like, let's build in the open, which we could have had the language monk sitting in the cloister up on the hilltop, like beavering away trying to build something. But in my experience, you get something that's way better if you work with the community. And so yes, it can be frustrating and can be challenging for lots of people involved. And, you know, if you, I mean, if you mentioned our Discord, we have over 10,000 people on the Discord, 11,000 people or something. Keep in mind we released Mojo like two weeks ago. So it's very active. So it's very cool. But what that means is that, you know, 10, 11,000 people all will want something different. And so what we've done is we've tried to say, okay, cool, here's our roadmap. The roadmap isn't completely arbitrary. It's based on here's the logical order in which to build these features or add these capabilities and things like that. And what we've done is we've spun really fast on bug fixes. And so we actually have very few bugs, which is cool. I mean, actually for a project in the state, but then what we're doing is we're dropping in features very deliberately. I mean, this is cool. </s><s>[INST] I mean, this is fun to watch because you got the two gigantic communities of like hardware like systems engineers, and then you have the machine learning Python people that are like higher level. Yeah. [/INST] And it's just too like for like army like they've been at war. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Right. And so here's a test. It's like a Tolkien novel or something. Okay. So here's the test. And again, like it's super funny for something that's only been out for two weeks, right? People are so impatient, right? But okay, cool. Let's fast forward a year. Like in a year's time, Mojo will be actually quite amazing and solve tons of problems and be very good. People still have these problems, right? And so you look at this and you say, and the way I look at this at least is to say, okay, </s><s>[INST] well, we're solving big, longstanding problems, right? And so here's a test. It's like a Tolkien novel or something. [/INST] Okay. To me, I, again, working on many different problems, I want to make sure we do it right. Right? There's like a responsibility feel because if you mess it up, right, there's very few opportunities to do projects like this and have them really have impact on the world. If we do it right, then maybe we can take those feuding armies and actually heal some of those wounds. </s>

<s>[INST] to fast a few days of the year as well outside of the month of Ramadan to keep that connection. What are the hardest parts that maybe for people outside of the Muslim faith, yeah, we'll be curious about? [/INST] Well, I think the hardest part is physically. Is it physical or is it the spiritual? So as Ramadan goes on, your acts of worship increase. So in the last 10 nights of Ramadan, there is an intense period of prayer throughout the night. So every night in Ramadan, we have something called the taraayih prayers. The taraayih prayers are about an hour, hour and a half of prayer outside of the five daily prayers. So the mosques are packed every night in Ramadan, the last 10 nights of Ramadan, people will engage in prayer throughout the entire night. So the only sleep that you're probably getting is actually a couple of hours in the morning before you go to work. So everything sort of puts together the disruption of schedule, the disruption of diet, the physically exerting yourself. But the way you feel is unmatched. I mean, you feel so fulfilled through that deprivation. And it's actually the point, you know, it all ties back together when you talk about even tests and trials that God does not deprive us of anything, except that He gives us something greater in return. And you do not deprive yourself of anything for the sake of God, except that He gives you something greater in return. And so fasting isn't exercise and patience that unlocks an infinite sense of gratitude and a greater connection to God. </s><s>[INST] So many people predict that Islam will surpass Christianity as the largest religion by the the end of the century by the number of its adherents and practitioners, what responsibility does that place on people like you, who is a religious leader, who is somebody who teaches, who grows, who cares for the community, for the Muslim community, [/INST] but actually for all people? Well, I think what that means is that we have a responsibility to teach and live our faith in the most beautiful of ways that its values and ideals are not just expressed by you, but experienced by everyone around you. And so what I often teach my community is that look at the Muslims in the area, what are they, what are your neighbors experiencing of you, what are people experiencing of you? You know, and there's statistics to Muslims being the most charitable communities in America. We're a community of great service, a community of volunteering, a community that greatly enriches the world around us. I think that oftentimes people forget the history of Muslims being at the forefront of contributing in the areas of medicine and science and all sorts of ways, education, really changing the world through their commitment to faith. But on a deeply personal level, it's important for us to be representatives of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him in a way that makes Islamophobia impossible. You know, I tell people this, that it's very hard. You know, you mentioned the United States of Hate, the documentary and the one man, the protester who met me and sort of changed his worldview. It's very hard for people to believe what they hear about Islam if they see you live it. Now, that does not excuse bigotry. That doesn't excuse the prejudice against Muslims. But it's important for us to sort of take it as a responsibility as Muslims to channel our faith in the most beautiful of ways. God describes faith in the Quran, in the chapter of Abraham, peace be upon him, as a tree with firm foundations, the firm foundation being the testimony of faith, the oneness of God to the tree of monotheism with firm foundations, and then branches high in the sky, providing shade to everything and everyone around you and producing fruit at all times. The tree of faith of a Muslim is not seasonal, so you should be producing with your faith at all times good works and things that people can actually experience. And I think that Muslims have historically contributed to the world around them. And I think that Muslims today are still contributing to the world around them, but I think that we can never do enough of holding ourselves accountable to the message that we hold dear to our hearts and trying to be the best representatives of that message </s><s>[INST] and of that messenger to the world around us. So not only are you a religious leader in the Muslim community, but you have a lot of friends who are from different religions. You have a lot of Jewish friends. So as we've talked about a lot offline, and we'll probably hopefully get a chance to talk to as well here, but on that topic, let me bring up another tragic event that was just a little bit less than a year ago in this very community here in Dallas. There was a synagogue hostage crisis. Can you describe what happened and what was your experience like through it and afterwards and what were the bad things you saw [/INST] and what are the good things you saw in the community? Good things you saw. The Caliville synagogue situation, it's kind of surreal that we're coming up on a year of that. But I'll actually tell you exactly what happened that morning. I was out with the family and that morning, I kid you not, that very morning, I was telling my kids the story of Muhammad Ali talking that man out of committing suicide off the roof. And I showed them the YouTube video. My wife pulled it up on her phone. Kids were sitting in the backseat. We talked about that video and talked about that importance of helping people. We also went to visit a loved one in the cemetery that day and we went to breakfast. So we're out as a family that day, right? And there's a lot of meaning that's sort of coming together for us and a lot of discussion, deep discussion we're having as a family. And then some of our community groups, we get this message that there is a synagogue that's been taken hostage. A rabbi and his congregation taken as hostages and go to this Facebook link and it was the feed of the synagogue. And you could hear the gunman shouting and it became apparent very early on that it was a man that was claiming to be Muslim that was holding them hostage. Now, all these synagogue massacres, all these places of worship, we're not attacked by Muslims, right? This is a different type of situation. But my first instinct was like all that happened this morning was not random. So I told my wife and I told my kids, I'm gonna go down there to Caliville. She was very supportive. Obviously there was a moment of shock. And like kids were like, wait, what? And I said, look, remember what we talked about this morning? We can't be indifferent to the stuff. We still go back and revisit that day. Like it's crazy how it was all falling into place. It's not an accident, right? So I dropped them off at home and I started to drive to Caliville. I called the Irving Police Department and I asked them to call the Caliville Police Department so that they could kind of know that I'm coming down there. I called some of the faith leaders in the community to see if they could put me in touch with those on the ground so that I wouldn't get shot when I showed up there. And eventually I had to wait out outside until I got clearance to come through and to just offer whatever support I could, pastoral support, support with trying to free the hostages of the synagogue at the time. It was operating out of a church right across the street from the synagogue. A day long, just wondering what was gonna happen. Looking at the family of the rabbi at the time, wondering what was going to happen. And trying to just be as supportive as I possibly could at that time. Thankfully, they all got out in the evening. I think that looking back on that day, my wife actually asked me, I said, would you have done it differently? And I said, no, I really wouldn't because I think that things happen sometimes. You've got to act on your good instincts sometimes, right? And we talk about being calculated. I think sometimes we're calculated when we shouldn't be. And that's when that good instinct comes in </s>

<s>[INST] So you are one of the founders of optimists ride autonomous vehicle company. We'll talk about it. But let me on that point ask maybe a good examples keeping optimists right out of this question, sort of example, ear's of different strategies on the spectrum of innovation and safety or caution. So like Waymo google's self driving car, Waymo represents maybe a more cautious approach and then you have Tesla on the other side headed by Elon musk that represents a more however, which adjective you want to use aggressive, innovative, I don't know. But uh, what what do you think about the difference? You need to do strategies in your view, what's more likely what's needed and is more likely to succeed in the short term and a long term, [/INST] definitely some sort of a balance is, is kind of the right way to go. But I, I do think that the thing that is the most important is actually like an informed public. So I don't, I don't mind, you know, I, I personally like if I were in some place, I wouldn't mind so much like taking a certain amount of risk. Um, some other people might and so I think the key is for people to be informed and so that they can ideally they can make a choice in some cases that kind of choice making that unanimously is of course very hard, but I don't think it's actually that hard to inform people. Um So I think in in one case, like for example, even the Tesla approach, um I don't know, it's hard to judge how informed it is, but it is somewhat informed. I mean, you know, things kind of come out, I think people know what they're taking and things like that and so on, but I think the underlying um I do think that these two companies are a little bit kind of representing like b of course they, you know, one of them seems a bit safer, the other one or you know, um whatever the objective for that is, and the other one seems more aggressive or whatever the objective for that is, but but I think, you know, when you turn the tables are actually there to or other orthogonal dimensions that these two are focusing on, on the one hand, for remo, I can see that, you know, they're I mean they, I think they're a little bit see it as research as well, so they kind of they don't I'm not sure if they're like really interested in like an immediate product. Um you know, they talk about it um sometimes there's some pressure to talk about it, so they kind of go for it, but I think um I think that they're thinking maybe in the back of their minds maybe they don't put it this way, but I think they realize that we're building like a new engine, it's kind of like call it the Ai engine or whatever that is and you know, an autonomous vehicles is a very interesting embodiment of that engine that allows you to understand why the ego vehicle is the ego thing is where everything else is what everything else is going to do and how do you react? How do you actually, you know, interact with humans the right way? How do you build these systems? And I think they want to know that they want to understand that and so they keep going and doing that and so on. The other dimension, Tesla is doing something interesting. I mean I think that they have a good product, people use it. Think that, you know, like it's not for me, but I can totally see people, people like it and and people I think they have a good product outside of automation, but I was just referring to the automation itself, I mean, you know like it kind of drives itself, you still have to be kind of um you still have to pay attention to it, right? But you know, um people seem to use it, so it works for something and so people, I think people are willing to pay for it, people are willing to buy it. I think it, it's one of the other reasons why people buy a Tesla car, Maybe one of those reasons is Elon musk is the Ceo and you know, he seems like a visionary person is what people think and it seems like a visionary person. And so that ads like five K to the value of the car and then maybe another five K is the autopilot. And you know, it's useful. I mean, it's, um, useful in the sense that like people are using it and so I, I can see Tesla sure, of course they want to be visionary. They want to kind of put out a certain approach and they may actually get there. Um, but I think that there is also a primary benefit of doing all these updates and rolling it out because, you know, people pay for it and it's, it's, it's basic, you know, demand supply market and people like it, they are happy to pay another five k, 10-K for that novelty or whatever that is. Um, they, and they use it. It's not like they get it and they tried a couple times, it's a novelty, but they use it a lot of the time. And so I think that's what Tesla is doing. It's actually pretty different. Like they are on pretty orthogonal dimensions of what kind of things that they're building, they are using the same ai engine. So it's very possible that, you know, they're both going to be um sort of one day um kind of using a similar, almost like an internal internal combustion engine. It's a very bad metaphor, but similar internal combustion engine and maybe one of them is building like a car, the other one is building a truck or something. So ultimately the use case is very different. </s>

<s>[INST] I value human connections so much and I only have just like you mentioned sort of a small circle of people I'm really close with by design. It always hurts me a lot to say goodbye to people. Like you meet people and you can tell they're beautiful people. They're amazing. There's something so fascinating about them there. They've had a complicated life. Like you could see in their eyes and the way they tell their story in just a few sentences. They've gone through some ship, but they also found some elements of beauty. And then you get to realize, okay, well there's a fascinating human here and all you get to say is a few words here and there. It was like a a funny little joke. Maybe a dark joke here and there and then you just say goodbye. Maybe hug it out and you go on your way. So like that's a hello and a goodbye and your paths will never cross again. That makes me like a sad walk walk away. But I guess I wouldn't have it any other way I suppose is the reality is in in your new book, you talk about that sorrow, that sadness not being such a bad thing. [/INST] Yeah. And when you just said that I just thought of this one moment in my life that I haven't thought of for 2030 years or something. But it was when I was in law school and and a classmate of mine had his friend come to visit for the weekend and the three of us hung out a lot and we just had, you know, like an amazing time and, and then this other guy who wasn't going to be coming back anytime soon if at all sent a postcard to me. And the only thing written on the postcard was this quote from Oscar Wilde and I don't remember the exact words, but it basically said that there's no pain as intense as the sorrow of parting from someone to whom you've just been introduced. There's something so intense about that and so true. </s><s>[INST] I think [/INST] partly also because when you've just been introduced to somebody, you don't yet know their difficulties. So you're seeing, you're seeing the most sparkling version of them, you're seeing like a platonic version of love and friendship </s><s>[INST] and your imagination fills in the rest and some some beautiful way that matches perfectly the kind of thing you're interested in. That's how I feel about one school, like one spoonful of ice cream and that's why you always finish the whole tub and you regret all of it. Um, do you do you do say, what did you write this? I think this is on your website that one of the best things in the world is that sublime moment when a writer, artist or musician manages to express something you've always felt, but never articulated or at least never quite so beautifully. So that's the Oscar wilde line is one line like that, but just a line from a song or maybe a piece of art that just grabs you. Is there something that jumps out into memory like that for you? I [/INST] don't know if I have an exact line though, I mean that feeling that you just quoted happens to me all the time, I'm just bad at recalling exact instances, but but the writer Alain de botton regularly makes me feel that way. He's just this beautiful essayist and observer of human nature and he's just constantly expressing things um in this gorgeous way </s><s>[INST] that [/INST] you've experienced yourself and you feel like it's just this grand act of generosity. You know, you feel less lonely, you feel like this deep sense of communion, it's such an elevating experience. </s><s>[INST] Even when it's like a melancholy line [/INST] maybe, especially when it is. </s><s>[INST] What is that? There's a so Jack, correct on the road, definitely makes me feel that way. Like every other line in there, forlorn rags of growing old, [/INST] you know, I never read that book. So what was it about that book that made you feel that way? </s><s>[INST] Well, okay, well, since you [/INST] asked, I'm going to linger, </s>

<s>[INST] And he said, I'm gonna- By the way, I don't know if you know this part. No. Oh, this is funny. Joe's gonna listen to this. [/INST] He's gonna be laughing. No. Does Joe listen like to the four hours of this </s><s>[INST] in addition to the three hours of his interviews every day? No, not every day, but he listened to a lot of these. And we talk about it, we argue about it. Hi, Joe. Hey, Joe. We love you, Joe. But he, so that particular case, I don't know why Francis said what he said there, but that's not accurate. Oh, really? So the wrestler never, he didn't almost die. He was no big deal at all for him. And he said that to him. I think, I'm not sure, I think something got mixed up in Francis's memory. There was another case he must've been like, because I don't imagine he would bring that case up and just like make it up, you know, because like why? But he, that was not at all, like that was a pretty public case. He had an interview with him that wrestler, he was just fine. So that anecdotal case, I mean, Francis should not have done that. So if I have any, so I have a bunch of criticism of how that went, people who criticize that interview, I feel like don't give enough respect to the full range of things that Francis Collins has done in his career. Her is an incredible scientist. And I also think a really good human being. But yes, that conversation was flawed in many ways. And one of them was, why when you're trying [/INST] to present some kind of critical, </s><s>[INST] so the like criticized Joe Rogan. Why bring up anecdotal evidence at all? And if you do bring up anecdotal evidence, which is not scientific, if you're a scientist, you should not be using anecdotal evidence. If you do bring it up, why bring up one that's not, that's first not true and you know, it's not true. Well, I, I, So I know that pretend so you don't know it's not your, so yes, that would have been a find another case where, exactly. [/INST] Exactly. So the basic thing in coming back to Sanjay and Joe's conversation was that Sanjay was trying to use statistical evidence and Joe was using anecdotal evidence. And so I think that for Sanjay, and there, there are all kinds of things where there are debates where the often the person who's better at debating wins the debate, regardless of the topic. So I think what, what Sanjay could have done, and Sanjay is such a smart, smart guy, is to say, why, well, that's, that's an anecdote. Here's another anecdote. And there are lots of different anecdotes and there certainly are people who have taken the vaccine and have had problems that could reasonably be traced to the vaccines. And there are certainly are lots of people, I would argue, more people who've not had the vaccine, but who've gotten COVID and have either died or our hospitals are now full of people who weren't vaccinated. And in many ways, I mean, our, our emergency rooms are full of unvaccinated people here in the United States. So I think what Sanjay could have done, but there was a conflict between wanting to kind of win the debate and wanting to take the temperature down and what he could have done is to say, well, here's an anecdote. I have a counter anecdote and we can go on all day, but here's what the statistics show. And I think that was the, the things, I think it's, it's a healthy conversation. We can't, I mean, there are a lot of people who are afraid of the vaccine. There are a lot of people who don't trust the scientific establishment and lots of them have good reason. I mean, it's not just people think of like Trump Republicans. There are lots of people in the African American community who've had a historical terrible experience with the Tuskegee and all sorts of things. So they don't trust the messages that were being delivered up. I live in, in New York city and they had a, we had a piece in the New York times where in the, in the earliest days of the vaccines, there was this big movement. Let's make sure that the poorest people in the city have first access to the vaccines because they're the ones, they have higher density in their homes. They're relying on public transport. So there was this whole liberal effort and then in the black community in New York, according to the New York times, there was very low acceptance of the vaccines and they interviewed people in that article and they said, well, if the white people want us to have it first, there must be something wrong with it. They must be doing some, and so we have to listen to each other. Like I would never, I mean, I have a disrespect for everybody and if somebody is cautious about the vaccine for themselves or for their children, we have to listen to that. At the same time, public health is about creating public health and there's no doubt. I think Joe was absolutely right that older people, obese people are at greater risk for being harmed or killed by the, by COVID-19 than young healthy people. But by everybody getting vaccinated, we reduce the risk to everybody else. And so I feel like, like with everything, there's the individual benefit argument and then there's the community argument. </s>

<s>[INST] So in the movie, first of all, incredibly original view of what an alien life would be. And it's so in that sense, it's a huge success. Let's go inside your imagination. Did the alien, that alien entity know anything about humans when it landed? So the idea is your boat, You're basically an alien life is trying to reach out to anything that might be able to hear its mechanism of communication. Or was it simply was it just basically they're biologists exploring different kinds of stuff that [/INST] you see. This is the interesting thing is as soon as you say, they're biologists, you've done the thing of attributing human type motivations to it. I I I was trying to free myself from anything like that. So all sorts of questions you might answer about this notion or alien. I wouldn't be able to answer because I don't know what it was or how it worked. I gave it some I had some rough ideas like it had a very very very slow clock speed and I thought maybe the way it is interacting with this environment is a little bit like the way an octopus will change its color forms around the space that it's in. So it's sort of reacting to what it's into an extent. But the reason it's reacting in that way is indeterminate, </s><s>[INST] but it's so but its clock speed was slower than our human life, clockspeed our interest. But it's faster than evolution [/INST] faster than our than our solution given the four billion years it took us to get here, then Yes, maybe it started eight. </s><s>[INST] If you look at the human civilization is a single organism in that sense, you know, this evolution could be us. You know, the evolution of living organisms on earth could be just a single organism. And it's kinda that's its life is the evolution process that eventually will lead to probably the the heat death of the universe or is something before that. I mean, that's that's just an incredible idea. So you almost don't know you've created something that you don't even know how it [/INST] works because any time I tried to look into how it might work, I would then inevitably be attaching my kind of thought processes into it. And I wanted to try and put a bubble around it. And I was saying, no, this is this is alien in its most alien form. I have no real point of contact. </s><s>[INST] So unfortunately, I can't talk to Stanley, kubrick. So I'm really fortunate to get a chance to talk to you do you on this particular notion? I'd like to ask a bunch of different ways and we'll explore in different ways. But you ever consider human imagination your imagination as a window into a possible future and that what you're doing, you're you're putting that imagination on paper as a writer and then on screen as a director and that plants the seeds in the minds of millions of future and current scientists and so your imagination, you putting it down actually makes it as a reality. So it's almost like a first step of the scientific method. Like you imagining what's possible in your new series with X mark and a is actually inspiring. You know, thousands of 12 year olds, millions of scientists and actually creating the future of you've imagined. [/INST] Well, all I could say is that from my point of view, it's almost exactly the reverse because I I see that pretty much everything I do is a reaction to what scientists are doing. I'm an interested layperson and I I feel, you know, this individual, I feel that the most interesting area that humans are involved in is science, I think art is very, very interesting, but the most interesting is science and science is in a weird place because maybe around the time Newton was alive, if a very, very interested layperson said to themselves, I want to really understand what Newton is saying about the way the world works um with a few years of dedicated thinking, they would be able to understand uh the sort of principles he was laying out and I don't think that's true anymore. I think that's stopped being true now. So I'm a pretty smart guy. And if I said to myself, I want to really, really understand uh what is currently the state of quantum mechanics or string theory or or any of the sort of branching areas of it, I wouldn't be able to I'd be intellectually incapable of doing it because because to work in those fields at the moment is a bit like being an athlete, I suspect you need to start when you're 12, you know, and if you if you start in your mid twenties, start trying to understand in your mid twenties, then you're just never going to catch up. That's the way it feels to me. So what I do is I try to make myself open. So the people that you're implying, maybe I would influence to me, it's exactly the other way around these people are strongly influencing me, I'm thinking they're doing something fascinating, I'm concentrating and working as hard as I can to try and understand the implications of what they say and in some ways often what I'm trying to do is disseminate their ideas into a means by which it can enter a public conversation. So, so X. McKenna contains lots of name checks all sorts of existing thought experiments, you know, uh shadows on Plato's cave and mary in the black and white room and all sorts of different long standing thought processes about sentience or consciousness or subjectivity or or gender or whatever it happens to be. And then and then I'm trying to marshal that into a narrative to say, look, this stuff is interesting and it's also relevant and this is my best shot at it. So I'm the one being influenced in my construction. </s>

<s>[INST] fundamentally changes what the computation is doing. [/INST] Oh, you know the expression the difference in quantity is a difference in kind, you know the difference between ant and ant hill, right? Or neuron and brain. You know, there's there's there's there's indefinable place where the quantity changed the quality, right? And we've seen that happen in mathematics multiple times. And my guess is it's going to keep happening. </s><s>[INST] So your senses. Yeah. If you focus head down and shrinking the transistor, [/INST] well, not just head down and we're aware well, the software stacks that are running in the computational loads and we're kind of pondering what do you do with a petabyte of memory that wants to be accessed in a sparse way and have, you know, the kind of calculations ai programmers want. So there's a there's a dialogue, an interaction. But when you go in the computer chip, you know, you find Addison sub tractors and multipliers. And </s><s>[INST] so if you zoom out then with, as you mentioned, very sudden, the idea that most of the development in the last many decades in the eye research came from just leveraging computation and just simple algorithms waiting for the computation to [/INST] improve. We'll suffer. Guys have a thing they called the problem of early optimization. Right? So you write a big software stack. And if you start optimizing like the first thing you're right, The odds of that being the performance limiter is low. But when you get the whole thing working, can you make it two X faster by optimizing the right things? Sure. While you're optimizing that, could you have written a new software stack, which would have been a better choice maybe now you have creative tension. So but </s><s>[INST] the whole time as you're doing the writing the that's the software we're talking about the hardware underneath gets fascinating. [/INST] Goes back to the moore's law and moore's Law is going to continue. Then your ai research should expect that to show up and then you make a slightly different set of choices then we've hit the wall. Nothing's going to happen. And from here it's just us rewriting algorithms Like that seems like a failed strategy for the last 30 years of Moore's law's death. </s><s>[INST] So so can you just linger on it? Uh I think you've answered it, but I just I just asked the same dumb question over and over. So what why do you think more as the law is not going to die? Which is the most promising exciting possibility of why it won't die in the next 5, 10 years. So is it that continues shrinking the transistor or is it another s curve that steps in in a totally sort of [/INST] shrinking the transistor is literally thousands of innovations, </s><s>[INST] right? So [/INST] they're all in there, there's a whole bunch of S curves just kind of running their course and and being reinvented and new things, you know, the the semiconductor fabricators and technologists have all announced what's called nano wires. So they took a fin which had a gate around it and turned out into a little wires. We have better control that and they're smaller. And then from there there are some obvious steps about how to shrink that. The metallurgy around wire stocks and stuff has very obvious abilities to shrink. And there's a whole combination of things there to do </s><s>[INST] your senses that we're going to get a lot if this innovation form just that shrinking. [/INST] Yeah, like a factor of 100. A lot. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I would say that's incredible. And it's [/INST] totally it's only 10 or 15 years </s><s>[INST] now, you're smarter, you might know, but to me it's totally unpredictable of what that 100 X would bring in terms of the nature of the computation that people will be [/INST] familiar with Bells Law. So for a long time it was mainframes, Minis workstation, Pc Mobile moore's Law drove faster smaller computers. Right? And then we were thinking about moore's Law. Roger. Kadoorie said every 10 X generates a new computation. So, Scaler vector matrix, topological computation, right? And if you go look at the the industry trends there was, you know, mainframes and minicomputers and N. P. C. S. And then the internet took off and then we got mobile devices and now we're building five G. Wireless with one millisecond latency and people are starting to think about the smart world where everything knows you recognizes you like like like the transformations are going to be like unpredictable. </s><s>[INST] How does it make you feel that you're one of the key architects of this kind of future? So you're not we're not talking about the architects of the high level people who build the angry bird apps and [/INST] snapping angry word apps. Who knows I'm going to be the whole point of the </s><s>[INST] interview. Take a standard that and the attention distracting nature of mobile phones. I'll take a stand but anyway in terms of it that matters much the side effects of smartphones or the attention distraction which [/INST] part? Well who knows you know where does this all eating? It's changing so fast. So my parents used to all of my sisters for hiding in the closet with a wired phone with a dial on it. Stop talking your friends all day now my wife yells at my kids for talking to her friends all day on text. Uh It looks the same to me. </s><s>[INST] It's always it's echoes of the same thing. Okay but you are the one of the key people architect ng the hardware of this future. How does that make you feel, do you feel responsible? Do you feel excited? [/INST] So we're in a social context? So there's billions of people on this planet. There are literally millions of people working on technology. I feel lucky to be, you know what doing what I do and getting paid for it and there's an interest in it. But there's so many things going on in parallel it's like the actions are so unpredictable. If I wasn't here, somebody else would do it. The vectors of all these different things are happening all the time. You know, there's a I'm sure some philosopher meta philosophers, you know, wondering about how we transform our world. </s>

<s>[INST] would also have to take over his twitter. So I don't tweet. Yeah. What's your twitter situation? Why why why are you so quiet on twitter? I mean two comma is like what what's your social network presence like because you on instagram you're you you do live streams your you're you're you understand the music of the internet but you don't always fully engage into it. You're part time. I [/INST] used to have a twitter. Yeah I mean it's the instagram is a pretty place. Instagram is a beautiful place. It glorifies beauty. I like I like instagram's values as a network twitter glorifies conflict glorifies you know like like like like like you know, shots, taking shots of people and it's like, you know, well it was you know, twitter and </s><s>[INST] donald trump are perfectly the [/INST] bird man. So </s><s>[INST] Tesla's on Tesla's on the right track in your view. Okay so let's try, let's really try this experiment. If you're in Waymo let's say there, I don't know if you agree but they seem to be at the head of the pack of the kind of uh what would you call that approach? Like it's not necessarily lighter base because it's not about lighter before robo taxi level for robo taxi all in before any before making your revenue. So they're probably at the head of the pack if you were yeah. Said, hey George, can you please run this company for a year? How would you change it? [/INST] I would go, I would get Anthony Levandowski out of jail and I would put him in charge of the company. </s><s>[INST] What? Um let's try to break that apart. What do you want to make you want to destroy the company by doing that. What do you mean? Or do you mean uh you like renegade style thinking that pushes that, that like throws away bureaucracy and goes to first principles thinking, what do you mean by that? [/INST] Um I think Anthony Levandowski is a genius and I think he would come up with a much better idea of what to do with Waymo than me. Mm </s><s>[INST] hmm. So you mean that un ironically he is a genius. [/INST] Oh yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt. I mean I'm not saying there's no shortcomings but in the interactions I've had with him. Yeah. What he's also willing to take? Like who knows what he would do with Waymo? I mean, he's also out there like far more out there than I am. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] These big risks. What do you make of him? I was going to talk to him in this podcast. I was going back and forth. I'm such a gullible, naive human. Like I see the best in people and I slowly started to realize that there might be some people out there that like I have multiple faces to the world, they're like deceiving and dishonest. I still refused to like I I just I trust people and I don't care if I get hurt by it, but like you know sometimes you have to be a little bit careful, especially platform wise and podcast wise. What do you what am I supposed to think? So you think you think he's a good person? [/INST] Oh I don't know, I don't really make moral judgments. </s><s>[INST] It's difficult to [/INST] I mean that's about the way I actually I mean that whole idea very non ironically about what I would do. The problem with putting me in charge of Waymo is Waymo is already $10 billion in the hole. Alright. Whatever idea, Waymo does look commas profitable, commas raised $8.1 million. That's small, you know, that's small money. Like I can build a reasonable consumer electronics company and succeed wildly at that and still never be able to pay back way most 10 billion. </s><s>[INST] So I think the basic idea with we'll forget the 10 billion because they have some backing but your basic thing is like what can we do to start making some money? [/INST] Well no, I mean my bigger ideas, like whatever the idea is that's going to save um oh I don't have it, it's going to have to be a big risk idea and I cannot think of a better person. Then Anthony Levandowski to do it so that is completely what I would do is ceo of my mom, I talked to myself a transitionary ceo do everything I can to fix </s><s>[INST] that situation. Yeah. Uh, yeah, [/INST] because I can't, I can't do it right. Like I can't, I can't, I mean I can talk about how, what I really want to do is just apologize for all those corny, uh, you know, ad campaigns and be like, here's the real state of the technology </s><s>[INST] that they have several criticism. I'm a little bit more bullish on way more than you seem to be. But one criticism I have is it went into corny mode too early. Like it's still startup, it hasn't delivered on anything. So it should be like more renegade and show off the engineering that they're doing, which is, can be impressive as opposed to doing these weird commercials of like you're friendly, you're friendly car company. [/INST] I mean that's my biggest, my biggest snipe at Waymo was always that guy's a paid actor that does not a Waymo user. He's a paid actor. Look here, I found his call </s><s>[INST] sheet do kind of like what SpaceX is doing with the rocket launches, Just get put the nerds upfront, put the engineers upfront and just like show failures to just, [/INST] I love, I love SpaceX this. Yeah, </s><s>[INST] I think they're doing it is right and it just feels like the right, but [/INST] also excited to see them succeed. I can't wait to see what it will fail. You know like you lie to me, I want you to fail. You tell me the truth, you'll be honest with me. I want you to succeed. </s>

<s>[INST] But operating in the space of concepts [/INST] concepts. The word concept was used by Alex Stepanov who is sort of the father of generic programming in the context of C. Plus plus. There's other places that use that word. But the way we call genetic programming is Alexis and he called them concepts because he said there they are the sort of the fundamental concepts of an area. So they should be called concepts. And we've had concepts all the time. If you look at the knr book about C. C has arithmetic types and it has um integral types. It says so in the book and then it lists what they are and they have certain properties. The difference today is that we can actually write a concept that will ask a type. Are you an integral type? Do you have the property is necessary to be an integral type. Do you have plus minus divide and such? </s><s>[INST] So what may be the story of concepts? Because I thought it might be part of C plus plus 11. So C C C O X. Whatever it was at the time. What was the why didn't it? What like what we'll talk a little bit about this fascinating process of standards because I think it's really interesting for people. It's interesting for me, but why did it take so long? What shapes that the idea of concepts take? Yeah. What were the challenges [/INST] back in 87 or thereabouts? </s><s>[INST] Was 27 [/INST] 1987 or thereabouts when I was designing templates, obviously I wanted to express the notion of what is required by a template of its arguments. And so I looked at this and basically for for templates, I wanted three properties, I wanted to be very flexible, it had to be able to express things. I couldn't imagine because I know I can't imagine everything and I've been suffering from languages that try to constrain you to only do what you're the designer thought good, didn't want to do that. Secondly, it had to run faster as fast or faster than hand written code. So basically, if I have a vector of key and I take a vector of char, it should run as fast as you build a vector of char yourself without prior authorization. And second. And thirdly, I wanted to be able to express the constraints of of the arguments, have proper type checking of the interfaces. And neither I nor anybody else at the time Knew how to get all three and I thought for C plus plus, I must have the two. First, otherwise it's not C plus plus, And it bothered me, found a couple of decades that I couldn't solve the 3rd 1. I mean, I was the one that put function argument type checking in to see I know the value of good interfaces, I didn't invent that idea is very common, but I did it and I wanted to do the same for templates of course and I could sew it bothered me Then we tried again 2002, capitals raised and I started analyzing the problem explained possible solutions. There was not a complete design, a group in University of indiana, an old friend of mine, they started a project at Indiana and we we thought we could get A good system of concepts in another two or 3 years that would have made C plus plus 11 to C plus plus +0607. Well, it turns out that I think we got a lot of the fundamental ideas wrong, they were too conventional. Um they didn't quite fit C plus plus in my opinion, didn't serve implicit conversions very well. It didn't serve mixed, mixed type arithmetic, mixed type competition computations very well. A lot of stuff came out of the functional community and it that community, I didn't deal with multiple types in in the same way as C plus plus, does had more constraints on on what you could express and didn't have the draconian performance requirements and basically we tried, we tried very hard, we had some successes, but it just in the end wasn't didn't compile fast enough was too hard to use and didn't run fast enough unless you had optimizers that was beyond the state of the art. They still are. So we had to do something else. Basically, it was the idea that a set of parameters has defined a set of operations and you go through an indirection table, just like for virtual functions and then you try to optimize the indirection away uh, to get performance and we just couldn't do all of that. Um, but get back to the standardization. We are standardizing C++ under ISO rules which are very open process. People come in, there's no requirements for education or experience, </s><s>[INST] the third develop C Plus Plus and there's a whole, what was the first standard established? What is that like the ISO standard, is there a committee that you're referring to? There's a group of people, What was that like? How often do you meet? What's the discussion? [/INST] I'll try and explain that. So sometime in early 1980s 9, um, two people, one from IBM, one from hp turned up in my office and told me I would like to standardize C plus plus. This was a new idea to me and I pointed out that it wasn't finished yet. It wasn't ready for formal standardization and such and they say no, Piano, You haven't gotten it. You really want to do this. Um, our organizations dependency plus plus we cannot depend on something that's owned by another corporation that might be a competitor. Of course we could rely on you, but you might get run over by a bus. </s><s>[INST] We [/INST] really need to get this out in the open. It has to be uh standardized on the formal rules and we were going to standardize it um on the S. O. Rules and you really want to be part of it because basically otherwise we'll do it ourselves. Yeah and we know you can do it better. So uh through a combination of arm twisting and flattery um Carey started. So in late In late 89 there was a meeting in D. C. At the actually no it was not. I. S. So then it was ansi the american national standard. We're doing, We met there, we were lectured on the rules of how to do an Ansi standard. There was about 25 or was there? Which apparently was a new record for that kind of meeting. Um And um some of the old see guys that has been standardizing C. Was there, so we've got some expertise in. So the way this works is that it's an open process, anybody can can sign up is they pay the minimum fee which Is about $1,000. There was less than just a little bit more now. And I think it's $1,280. It's not, it's not going to kill you. And We have three meetings a year is fairly standard. We tried to meetings a year for a couple of years that didn't work too well. So 331 week meetings a year and you meet and you have taken the meat technical discussions and then you bring proposals forward for votes. The votes are done one person per one vote per Organisation. So you can't have say IBM come in with 10 people and dominate things that's not allowed. And these </s>

<s>[INST] Uh The middle finger and the ring finger [/INST] man is what if you pick my my ring finger and my index finger. Yahoo I win. So even though I'm asking the questions, it's not impossible that I arrive at a good outcome for me, but it's no longer guaranteed. I went from a situation where I literally can't lose. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, it's pretty little probability, [/INST] right? Super low probability. And the second you realize what I'm doing, you would never let me win because the ball is truly in your court. So I guess that that's kind of what I'm fundamentally trying to put into play almost all the time. Can I ask the right set of questions? Can I develop the ability, um, skills wise, understanding wise and then discipline wise and then have the courage and the constitution and the and the discipline necessary. The patient's necessary to ask the proper questions and wait for the proper answers. And if I can assuming like the perfect world I win period. Yeah. Yeah, </s><s>[INST] that totally makes sense. So I don't know if, you know, sort of the more mathematical discipline of game theory, there's something called mechanism design. So game theory is this field where you model some kind of interaction between human beings. You can model grappling that way. You can uh model nuclear conflict between nations that way. And you set up a set of rules and incentives and then use math to predict what is like the outcome depending over time based on the interaction. Given those rules, mechanism design is the design of games. So like the design of systems that are likely to lead to a certain outcome. And so what you're suggesting is you want to create what you want to discover systems whose decision tree, all the possible things that could happen. I feel like there's choice being made, but ultimately one of the parties doesn't have any choice in what the actual final outcome is. Uh you're making them feel like they're playing a game too. So it's not like you don't feel trapped, [/INST] it's kind of one of the best traps. I don't, you don't look very threatening. So I'm like, I'll walk over there I guess I wouldn't that I guess that's kind of an interesting thing if a lion's, when is a lion roar, it's an interesting thing when you watch like lions hunting, don't roar when they hunt, they want, when they want to move you back, they do stuff like that when they actually want to come and get you there pretty slinky. It's like water cover, it's like furry water. And I guess like when you keep that in mind um It's funny how like for us to hobby. Actually, brilliant guy, like one of my mm a coaches in the head coach at tristar um He brought this up one time I thought was really salient point. So let's say we have a million person bracket was impossibly, he was like frank Dux, winning the Coumadin level, huge bracket. He claimed to knock out like 250 consecutive people and you're like, that is all of Hong kong was in that thing and everyone kept their mouth shut. But anyway, That's pretty cool. But you got to come back a little improbable, pretty cool. Um so let's say for instance, like there's no cheating going on, no cheating going on and we're flipping coins, right? Someone is going to have an unbroken string of victory through that bracket, which is pretty insane. How many, how many consecutive like toss ups, this person one? And then at the end of it all, imagine we like aliens show up and we go, hey, they want to flip a coin for the not earth, whether on earth, you know, gets to, gets to continue, oh, I'll do it, I'm good at this. That would be tempting as a person to, to do you. Like I'm a lucky guy. You are you sure? Maybe, I mean maybe effectively you are, we could argue that effectively you're incredibly lucky, but basically is that an actual ability is like a perk in a video game or is that just this thing that happened? So anyway, uh, how many times are someone, you could go through an entire career, particularly in fights board? Well, let's see you get 15 knockouts and 15 toss up scenarios because you see that happening all the time in the fight game of toss up scenario. It's not like you're mounted on me and like, and that's not a toss up scenario. Many, many, many, many, many striking scenarios. A lot of grappling with tons of striking scenarios are dead toss ups and uh somebody wins by knock out. They win five times in a row, Then they lose a couple of times in a row. We go, what happened? You know what I mean? What happened? They were always flipping the coin and then they win five more to go back on track. Can you imagine that you're flipping the corner? Like heads, heads, heads, heads, tails, what? Tails? Tails, heads again? Oh man, I'm back on it. I'm flipping good now, that's basically what's going on. I think the vast majority of the time and then humanities, you know, tendency to see a sign in almost anything. You know, it starts to present itself and then we build a narrative in our mind to convince ourselves that we're in some sort of control. In reality, I was in a marginal situation at best the whole time without </s><s>[INST] having much control, without having a deep understanding of the system. The same stories told the stock market with many of the human, these distributed human systems, we start telling narratives and start seeing patterns without understanding actually, the system is generating these patterns. [/INST] So, if we can see the system, that's incredibly valuable. But then you go, well, what system is above all of the systems, I guess, maybe physics, maybe it's not like game theory explains these things with like, I guess, what are the what aspects of the system can I can I put my hands on that? I can touch and understand and what am I, what am I missing? What's going on in the world all around me to continue to lean on dune that I don't have uh, that I don't, you know, you talk to a blind person about, about the world about site and talk to someone that doesn't have, everyone has got coronavirus now so no one can taste or smell like this is delicious. Like is it? So anyway, uh, you know, again, what, what sense is am I missing or what understanding of my missing? That's preventing me from seeing the dots connect in the world all around me. And I think sometimes if we, uh, oftentimes at least personally have screwed this up a lot, I'm so nose deep in the, in the trench of trying to understand what I'm doing that I can't take a step back and realize, you know, that I'm in a forest, not just headed head butting the tree and I may be doing both. Maybe both. Two things can be true at once, but uh, so I would say when it comes to strategy, trying to understand that, but then also you go, well, okay, well how can that sounds cool, but how can you actually do that? And then I'd say that's a really good question because if I imagine I say, man, I should fight like Stephen Thompson, I should fight. Like Wonderboy is like a good idea to go do that. I'm like I'm not thinking about the guy, I would fight, like even back and made off if I could, you know, it seems to work. So anyway, uh you go well what if I could develop, what if I could take my time developing skills so that when these strategies become apparent that you are they are executed ble to you, you actually have the ability to like in order to again, to be the person, the arena to be the person required or there's plenty of great ideas, like dunking a basketball is a fantastic idea. Alas, for me, unless there's a small trampoline nearby, I'm not the guy, but that doesn't make it any less good of an idea, I just don't haven't developed the ability or I lack the ability. So anyway, I think a lot of times, at least when I watch people in fighting, I'll use an example um we're so we're so concerned with trying to win early on rather than develop skills that I'm going like well what's the best way to fight with my current set of skills and usually the path forward is like the barbarian route, like the you put on the one ring, take the damage you need to take to hit that guy and that was something I realized very early on in Miami may career was like, I'm not that good at striking at that time, not a world class striker now, but I'm way better at striking that I'm giving any credit for because it helps people sleep at night, I think, but I'm serious. But uh yeah, </s>

<s>[INST] It's [/INST] been very useful, reductionism has been useful but it's over. And it's time for us to go beyond. </s><s>[INST] When you say space time is doomed. Is it the space is that is that the time is that the very hard coded specification of four dimensions um or are you specifically referring to the kind of perceptual domain that humans operate in which is spacetime? You think like there's a three D. Um like our world is three dimensional and time progresses forward. Therefore three dimensions +14 D. What what exactly do you mean by space time. What do you mean by space time is doomed. [/INST] Great. Great. So this is by the way, not my quote. This is from for example, Nima Hamed at the Institute for Advanced study at Princeton Ed witten. Also there David Gross Nobel prize winner. So this is not just something the cognitive scientists and this is what the physicists are saying. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, the physicists are spacetime uh skeptics. [/INST] Well, they're saying that, I can say exactly why they think it's doomed. But what they're saying is that because your question was what what aspect of space time? What are we talking about here? It's both space and time, their union into space time as in Einstein's theory that's doomed. And they're they're basically saying that even quantum theory, this is the Marconi Hamad especially. So Hilbert spaces will not be fundamental either. So that that the notion of Hilbert space, which is really critical to quantum field theory, quantum information theory, uh that's not going to figure in the fundamental new laws of physics. So what they're looking for is some new mathematical structures beyond space time beyond Einstein's four dimensional spacetime or supersymmetric version, geometric algebra signature to come before kind of, there are different ways that you can represent it, but they're finding new structures and then by the way they're succeeding now they're finding they found something called the amplitude Hedren. This is nemo and his colleagues, the the cosmological polito. These are so there are these like politics. These policy dra in multi dimensions? Generalizations of simplicities that our coding for, for example, the scattering amplitudes of of processes in the large Hadron collider and other other colliders. So they're finding that if they let go of spacetime completely, they're finding new ways of computing these scattering amplitudes that turn literally billions of terms into one term when you do it in space and time, because it's the wrong framework. It's it's it's just a user interface from that's not from the evolutionary point of view, just user interface, it's not a deep insight into the nature of reality. So it's missing. Deep symmetry is something called a dual can formal symmetry, which turns out to be true of the scattering data, but you can't see it in space time and is making the the computations way too complicated cause you're trying to compute all the loops and Feinman diagrams and all the fine men integral. So see the fine men approach to the scattering amplitudes, is trying to enforce two critical properties of space time locality and unitary T. And so by when you enforce those, you get all these loops and multiple different levels of loops. And for each of those you have to add new terms to your computation. But when you do it outside of space time you don't have the notion of unitary T. You don't have the notion of locality, you have something deeper and is capturing some symmetries that are actually true of the data. And but then when you look at the geometry of the facets of these polito hopes then certain of them will code for unitary T and locality. So it actually comes out of the structure of these deep politics. So what we're finding is there's this whole new world now beyond space time that is making explicit symmetries that are true of the data, that cannot be seen in space time, and that is turning the computations from billions of terms to one or two or a handful of terms. So we're getting insights into symmetries and we're all of a sudden the math is becoming simple because we're not doing something silly. We're not adding up all these loops in spacetime, we're doing something far deeper. But they don't know what this world is about. Also, you know, they're in an interesting position where we know that space time is doomed and I should probably tell you why it's doomed. What they're saying about why it's doomed. But but they need a flashlight to look beyond space time. What what flashlight are we going to use to look into the dark beyond space time? Because Einstein's theory and quantum theory can't tell us what's beyond them all they can do is tell us that when you put us together, spacetime is doomed at 10 to the -33 cm, 10 to the -43 seconds beyond that space time doesn't even make sense, It just has no operational definition. So, but it doesn't tell you what's beyond. And so they're they're just looking for deep structures like guessing it's really fun. So these really brilliant guys, generic brilliant men and women who are doing this work, physicists are making guesses about these structures informed guesses because they're trying to ask, okay, what deeper structure could give us the stuff that we're seeing in spacetime, but without certain commitments that we have to make in spacetime like locality unit. So they make these brilliant guesses. And of course, most of the time you're gonna be wrong, But once you get one or two that start to pay off and then you get some lucky breaks. So they got a lucky break back in 1986, a couple of mathematicians named Park and Taylor took the scattering amplitude for two gluons coming in and high energy and four glue ons going out at low energy. So that kind of scattering thing. So apparently for people who are into this, that's sort of something that happens so often you need to be able to find it and get rid of those because you already know about that. You need to so you needed to compute them. It was billions of terms and they couldn't do it even though for the supercomputers couldn't do that for the many billions or millions of times per second they need to do it. So they begged the experimentalists begged the theorist please can you gotta. So Park and Taylor took the billions of terms, hundreds of pages and Miraculous, Miraculous. They turned it into nine. And then a little bit later they guessed one term expression that turned out to be equivalent. So billions of terms reduced to one term that so called famous park Taylor formula 1986. And that was like, okay, where did that come from? What? This is a pointer into a deep realm beyond space and time, But but no one, I mean, what can you do with it? And they thought maybe it was a one off. But then other formulas started coming up and then eventually Neymar Connie Hamed and his team found this thing called the amplitude which really sort of captures the whole a big part of the whole ball of wax. I'm sure they would say no, there's plenty more to do. So I won't say they did it all by any means. They're looking at the cosmological polito as well. So what's remarkable to me is that two Pillars of modern science, quantum field theory with gravity on the one hand, And evolution by natural selection on the other, just in the last 20 years have very clearly said, space time has had a good run reductionism has been a fantastic methodology. So we had a great ontology of spacetime, a great methodology of reductionism. Now it's time for a new trick, </s>

<s>[INST] You're lost to IBM Deep Blue 1997 in my eyes is one of the most seminal moments in the history. Again, I apologize for being romanticizing the notion but in the history of our civilization because humans as the civilizations for centuries, saw chest as you know, the peak of what man can accomplish of intellectual mastery, right? And that moment when a machine could be the human being was inspiring to just an entire anyone who cares about science innovation, an entire generation of ai researchers and yet to you that loss at least if reading your face was seemed like a tragedy, extremely painful. I just said physically painful. Why when you look back at your psychology that loss, why was it so painful when you're not able to see the seminal nature of that moment? [/INST] Or </s><s>[INST] was that exactly why was that painful? [/INST] As I already said, losing was Painful physically? And the match I lost in 1997 was not the first match I lost to a machine. It was the first match I lost period. That's yeah. </s><s>[INST] Oh, wow. Oh, wow. [/INST] Yeah, Yeah. That makes all the difference to me the first time I lost, it's just now I lost. And uh the reason I was so angry that I just, you know, I had uh, suspicions that my loss was not just a result of my back play. So though I played quite poorly, you know, just when you started looking at the games today, I made tons of mistakes. But you know, I I had all reasons to believe that, you know, there were other other factors that had nothing to do with the game of chess and that's what I was angry. But look, It was 22 years ago, it's more than the bridge, we can analyze this. Imagine this is with everything you said. I I agree it was probably one exception is that uh considering chest, you know, as the sort of, uh, as a pinnacle of intellectual activities without a mistake because, you know, we just thought, oh, it's a, it's a game of the highest intellect and just, you know, you have to be so, you know, intelligent and you can see things that, you know, the uh the order did the ordinary mortals could not see it's a game. And uh all machines had to do in this game is just to make few mistakes, not to solve the game Because the game cannot be solved according to call Shannon, the number of legal moves is 10 to the 46 power. Too many zeros just for any computer to finish the job, you know, uh in next few billion years. Uh but it doesn't have to, it's all about making fewer mistakes. And I think that's the this match actually. And what happened afterwards with other games, with with goal, with Shaggy With video games. It's a demonstration that it's the machines will always beat humans in what I call closed systems. The moment you build a closed system, no matter how this system is called chairs go, Shaggy Daughter. Yeah, machines will prevail simply because they will bring down number of mistakes. Um machines don't have to solve it. They just have to, the way they outplay us. It's not by just being more intelligent. It's just by by doing something else, but eventually, it's just it's capitalizing on our mistakes. When you look at the chest machines, ratings today, in compare, compare this to magnus. Carlsen is the same as comparing Ferrari to send bold. It's the the gap is mean by Czech standards is insane. 30 for 30 520 820, 20 2015 Magnus, it's like difference between Macros and and an ordinary player from an open international tournament. Uh it's not because machine understands better than man of course, but simply because it's steady machine has steady hand. And I think that is what we we we we we have to learn From 1997 experience and from further encounters with computers and sort of the current state of affairs with Alpha zero. You're beating other machines. The idea that we can compete with computers in so called intellectual fields. It's it was wrong from the very beginning. It's just by the way, the 1997 match was not the first victory of machines over </s><s>[INST] grandmasters. [/INST] Grandmasters. Now actually it's, I played against first decent chess computers from late from late 80s. So I played with the prototype of deep blue called deep thought in 1989 to rapid chess games in New York. I want handle it both games, we played against new chess engines like fritz And other programs. And then it's the Israeli problem junior that appeared in 1995. Yeah, so there were there were several programs, I, you know, I lost a few games and blitz, I lost one match against the computer chess engine, 1994 rapid chess. So I lost one game to the blue in 1996 match, the manner the matchup I won. Some people, you know tend to forget about it that I won the first match, but it's it's we we made a very important psychological mistake thinking that the reason we lost blitz matches 55 minutes games. The reason we lost some of the rapid chess matches 25 minutes just because we didn't have enough time. If you play a longer match, we will not make the same mistakes nonsense. So yeah, we had more time, but we still make mistakes and machine also has more time. And machines. Machine will always, you know, we always be steady and consistent compared to humans instabilities and inconsistencies. And today we are at the point where yes, nobody talks about, you know, uh humans playing as machines, machines can offer handicap 2 to 2 top players are still, you know, uh will will will be favoring I think we're just learning that is, it's no longer human versus machines. It's about human working with machines. That's what I recognized in 1998 Just after licking my wounds and spending one year and just, you know, ruminating Saudi. So what's happened in this match and I knew that there were still good playing against the machines. I had two more matches in, in 2003 playing both different and deep junior. Both matches ended as a tie. Uh though these machines were not weaker at least probably stronger than the blue. Um, and by the way today, uh chest up on your mobile phone is probably stronger than the blue. I'm not speaking about chess engines that are so much superior. And by the way, when you analyze games we played against the blue, 1997 on your chest engine, they'll be laughing. So this is and it also shows that how chest changed because uh, chest commentators, they look at some of our games like Game four, game five to an idea. Now you ask, uh, stock fish, you asked Houdini, uh, you ask commodore all the leading chess engines within 30 seconds. They will show you how many mistakes, both Gary and the blue mate in the game that was uh trumpet it As the as a greater uh chess match in 1997. </s>

<s>[INST] century physics. So you can see that it's possible, you just don't know the way. But that's what I mean why some of the philosophical questions could be formulated in a way that's explorable scientifically. So some of the stuff we've talked about, but for example, this topic that's become more okay to talk about, which is the topic of consciousness. To me as an artificial intelligence person, that's a very practically interesting topic, but there's also philosophers, Sean Carroll loves to argue against them, but there's the philosophers that are panpsychists. [/INST] I'm not against philosophers, it's just not as fun, I don't- </s><s>[INST] It's not as fun, all right. They start a little flame of a fire going that some of those flames, I think, eventually become physics. So eventually become something that we can really, like having them around is really important because you'll discover something by modeling and exploring black holes that's really weird. And having these ideas around, like the ideas of panpsychists, that consciousness could be a fundamental force of nature. Just even having that crazy idea, swimming around in the background could really spark something where you were missing something complete. And it's just that's where the philosophy done right, I think, is very useful. That's where even these thought experiments, which is very fun in the tech sci-fi world that we live in a simulation, taking a perspective of the universe as a computer, as a computational system that processes information, which is a pretty intuitive notion, but you can just even reframing it that way for yourself could really open up some different way of thinking. And then you have, I don't know if you're familiar with Stephen Wolfram's work of like [/INST] cellular automata and complexity. Could be, yeah. </s><s>[INST] I did a podcast with Stephen. With Stephen, that's awesome. To me, forget physics, we get all that. Cellular automata make no sense. They're so beautiful. They're so, from simple rules you can create complexity. I just don't think, he wrote a book on new kind of science basically hinting at, which a lot of people have hinted as like, we don't have a good way to talk about these objects. We can't figure out what is happening here. [/INST] These simple, these trivial rules can create incredible complexity. </s><s>[INST] He's totally right about that, yeah. And physicists, I guess, don't know what to do with that, don't know what to do with cellular automata because you can describe the simple rules that will govern the system or how complexity [/INST] can emerge, like incredible complexity. </s><s>[INST] Of course, Wolfram's version of that is that physicists will never be able to describe. Right. Yeah, exactly. He tries to prove that it's impossible. What do you make of that? What do you make about the tension of being a physicist and potentially not being able to? If you're not a Freud or somebody that may be a Sigmund Freud, maybe you'll never be able to actually describe the human psyche. Is that a possibility for you? That you will never be able to get to the core fundamental description of the laws of [/INST] nature? Yeah, so I had this conversation with Weinberg. Yeah, how did it go? So Weinberg has this book called Dreams of a Final Theory. And I had this conversation with him, I said, why do you think there's ever going to be a final theory? Why should there ever be a final theory? I mean, what does that mean? Do physics departments shut down? We've solved everything. And doesn't it seem that every time we answer some old questions, we'll just find new ones and that it will just keep going on forever and ever? He said, well, that's what they used to say about the Nile. They were never going to find the end. Then one day they found it. Yeah. I don't know. String theory doesn't. </s><s>[INST] Then one day they found it. [/INST] Yeah. </s><s>[INST] So string theory doesn't look like a candidate to me for a final theory. [/INST] As it stands now, it doesn't get to the bottom of the well, to the sides, to the whole, to the sides, to the whole. Yeah, it seems to me that even if we kind of solved it and we did experiments, there still would be more questions like why are there four dimensions instead of six? It doesn't seem to have anything in it that would explain that. You can always hope that there's something that we don't know about string theory that will explain it. But it still doesn't look like it's going to answer every question. And why is there one time, not two? </s><s>[INST] It doesn't seem like it's, I don't even know what it would mean to answer every question. But to answer every question, obviously, so when you refer to the theory of everything, you'll be able to have a, if it exists, it would be a theory that allows you to predict precisely the behavior of objects in the universe and their movement, right? What about them? Their movement. Yeah. Like precisely no matter the object. [/INST] Right, that's true. So that would be a really interesting state of affairs. If we could predict everything, but not necessarily understand everything. So for example, let's just forget about gravity. I mean, we're not too far from that situation. If we forget about gravity, the standard model, in principle, given a big enough computer, predicts almost everything. But if you look at the standard model, it's kind of a laundry list with neutrino masses and all that stuff. There are hundreds of free parameters. Where do they come from? Is there an organizing principle? Is there some further unification? </s><s>[INST] So being able to predict everything is not the only goal that physicists have. So on the way to trying to predict, you're trying to understand. [/INST] That's actually probably the goal is to understand. Right, we're more interested in understanding than actually doing the predictions. But the predictions are more focusing on how to make predictions is a good way to improve </s>

<s>[INST] curious about it. I'm not sure who's more interesting. The people that follow Hitler or Hitler himself. So, I mean, that the question that's coupled with that is, would history rollout in similar ways, even if there wasn't a Hitler, you know, it's the people that created the Hitler or that Hitler [/INST] create the events of World War II. I think the people would be more interesting, in my opinion, </s><s>[INST] That seems to be the, that the charismatic leaders are all out there. The failed artists in the case of Hitler, they're all out there. And it's just when there's this environment of anger and fear, charismatic leaders can take over and it doesn't matter if they're evil or good. It's like a roll of the dice in terms of history, how evil, how truly insane they are. I think Stalin was much more cold and calculating. He wasn't as insane as Hitler. Hitler was legitimately insane, especially later on in the war where he would do irrational actions, I would say. But that's like a weird roll of the dice. You could have gotten a totally different leader, wanting to take over the entirety of Europe and then invading Russia. That's like insanity. [/INST] Right, right. Just the first part of that wanting to take over Europe, if you really think about the scale, if you really sit down and go, this one individual was like, I want all of this. If you really sat down and you were to sit down and put him in his traits that we know of into any sort of document nowadays that deem somebody a psychopath or a narcissist, this guy would set it on fire. He himself was, I think, so damaged and he reminds me a lot of people now who struggle to find their way. He reminds me a lot of angry individuals who are told no, either by women or by business or by whatever the sector they're in. He reminds me very much of that, what's the word I'm looking for? Just that individual who is just like, the world is shit and the world owes me everything. It's that mentality. He really came from that, it seems like. When you foster that too long, you get that. </s><s>[INST] There's a book called, what is it, Man from Underground by Dostoyevsky. I might be misnaming the book, but it's about the bitterness of a man. It breeds within his mind and it just grows. That bitterness. I mean, we all have that sort of resenting of the world when you're younger. When you have a choice, when you fail, do you blame the world or do you hold, it's the Jocko thing. Do you carry the responsibility of that and become a better man or woman because of that? That's the decision. In some sense, I mean, unfortunately, because he took responsibility in leadership, he's just insane. You can't say he wasn't a leader. So it's not that he's a failure, he's not a failure, but you can't say he's powerless, he did not take action. I think he's just basically embodiment of the anger and the fear of people at the time. But the insanity of obviously many of my relatives, not just murdering them, but putting them in camps and torturing them, but many of those people, Jewish people, were also some of the best scientists. The insanity of murdering some of the best Germans, it makes no sense. So that's why it's fascinating to kind of look back at that time in history and think, are these the same humans and also, are there echoes of that now? And is that going to happen again? Is there going to be a World War III in some other kind of way? Is there going to be some mass scale injustice in some other kind of way, which we're not yet... Because of our blindness and maybe not learning the lessons of history will allow it to happen again. And then obviously, it's a very common thing to whatever political leader you don't like to call them Hitler. [/INST] Of course. You can't say he wasn't a leader. That to me, I got to tell you, when somebody calls somebody Hitler, the weight behind that has been completely lost in this generation. This generation does not </s><s>[INST] understand what that truly means to call someone Hitler or a Nazi. Or Stalin, to be honest, the starvation. I've just been talking to a lot of folks recently, especially like North Korea with Wyoming Park. Starvation. And I remember from my grandmother, it wasn't... Time and time again, not having food to eat is the thing that people say is the worst. Everything. It's way worse than murder, not having food. And the places that takes your mind and the actions that forces you to do, that's terrifying. And all of that seems very distant [/INST] in our history. Yeah, I love her. I watched that interview with her. I want to talk to that woman so bad because when she was on Jo and she sat there and said, Jo was like, have you done any </s><s>[INST] therapy? And she laughed. I was like, oh, that's my girl. It's such a fascinating... I mean, I would love for you to kind of talk to her and explore her mind because we kind of explore her story and that's there's power and the importance of her story. But it's so difficult to understand like how does she become healthier and better even more so than she's already. She's recovered quite a bit. She's found herself quite a bit, but I wonder, is she haunted? [/INST] You're saying questions I want to ask. That's what I mean because after being in a war, there are certain things. There are certain atrocities that you see that it doesn't matter the therapy that you do. And I don't care what all the special ops guys say. Like I know plenty of them that have a light switch and they turn it off and they can function, but I also know them when they've been out for 10 years. There's things that haunt people differently, but there's no way </s>

<s>[INST] but in a lot of countries are pretty extensive safety nets. [/INST] Something like 40 hour workweek, minimum wage, safety regulations, all that kind of stuff. And all those things are, in my mind, doses of socialism within capitalism. Because what you're doing is you are taking the autonomy of capitalists to do whatever they want with the people contracted to them. And the only thing stopping them is them potentially being able to go to another employer. But even then, it's potentially a race to the bottom if you can't get more than $2 an hour from any employer in your market, you're going to have to live with it. So one factor is we have built in those protections. So we've taken enough socialism into capitalism that you could say that at a certain point, maybe it makes a qualitative difference and not just a quantitative difference in people's lives. But the other thing is over time, we've gotten wealthier and more productive as a society. So maybe at some point, the quantitative difference of just more and more wealth means that even if in the abstract, the division between a worker and a capitalist is real, if that worker is earning a quarter million dollars a year and has a good life and only has to clock in 35 hours a week, 30 hours a week, and has four weeks of vacation, then isn't it just like an abstract or philosophical difference? So I think you could level those two arguments. What I would say is that, one, a lot of these rights that we fought for are constantly being eroded and they're under attack, in part because the economic power that capitalists have bleeds into our political democracy as well. There's constant lobbying for all sorts of labor market deregulations and so on. I fundamentally believe that if tomorrow, all those regulations went away, capitalists would fight to pay people as little as possible and we'd be back in 19th century capitalism. And not because they're bad people, because if I'm running a firm and all of a sudden my competition is able to find a labor pool and is paying people less than me, I'm going to be undercut because I'll be able to take some of that extra savings and invest into new technology or whatever else and they'll gobble up my market share before long. And then also beyond that, I do think there's a normative question here, which is, now, do we believe that ordinary people have a capacity to be able to make certain decisions about their work? Do we believe they know more about their work than their bosses? Now, I don't think that's not true at every level. But I think there's no doubt that in workplaces workers know how to productively do their task in ways that their manager might not know. I think we've all been in workplaces where we've had managers who don't know what you do or whatever else. And I think that collectively, if incentivized, we could have them, one, instead of hoarding or that information, since they're getting a stake in production and so on, they'd be able to more freely share it and be able to reshape how their day-to-day work happens. And also with elected managers, you kind of take it up the chain. And I think you would have perfectly efficient market-based firms that could exist without </s><s>[INST] capitalists. So there's a lot of things to say, maybe within just a very low-level question of, if the workers are running the show, there's a brutal truth to the fact that some people are better and the workers know this. It's the Steve Jobs, A-players, you want to have all the A-players in the room, because one B-player can poison the pool, because then everybody gets demotivated by the nature of that lack of excellence and competence. This is just to take sort of a crude devil's advocate perspective. Are the workers going to be able to remove the incompetent from the pool in the name, [/INST] in the goal towards the mission of succeeding as a collective? So I think that any successful model of socialism that involves the market, you need two things. One is at the micro level, you need the ability to fire people and for them to exit firms, which might be a slower process in cooperative-based firms than it is in a capitalist firm without a union. But we're probably akin to the process that would happen in a capitalist firm, of which there are many with unions. So you need that. And then at the macro level, you need firm failure. You need to avoid a dilemma that happened in Soviet-style economies, which was soft budget constraints and firms basically not being allowed to fail, because the government was committed to full employment, the firms employed people. So even inefficient firms were at the end of the day, they knew they were going to be propped up by the government. And they would be given all the resources they would need, no matter how inefficiently they were using those resources to maintain employment. </s>

<s>[INST] satisfying. I just think enjoy what you've got and appreciate it. It does seem noticing that beauty helps make the ride pretty fun. Yeah, absolutely. David, you're an incredible person. I haven't covered most of the things I wanted to talk to you about. This is an incredible conversation. I'm glad you exist. I'm glad you're doing everything you're doing, and I'm a huge fan. Thank you so much for talking today. This was amazing. Thank you so much, Lex. It's real honor. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this conversation with David Kipping. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Carl Sagan. Perhaps the aliens are here, but are hiding because of some Lex Galactica, some ethic of non-interference with emerging civilizations. We can imagine them, curious and dispassionate, observing us as we would watch a bacterial culture in a dish to determine whether this year, again, we managed to avoid self-destruction. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. [/INST] This was amazing. </s>

<s>[INST] So he enters this whole world of uh Politics. What post World War II in the 50s? [/INST] Yes. So he he actually in the 40s even, it's an extraordinary story. And he come to the United States in 1938, just before Kristallnacht. His family leaves. They actually grew up right outside of Nuremberg. They leave right before Kristallnacht and and fall of 38 come to come to new york. He originally works in a brush factory, cleaning brushes, Goes to a public high school and in 1942, just after Pearl Harbor, he joins the military and he's very quickly in the military. First of all given citizenship, which he didn't have before. Uh he sent from the first time outside of a kosher home. He had been in a kosher home his entire life. He sent to south Carolina to eat ham for uncle Sam and then he is and this is extraordinary. At the age of 20 barely speaking english, he is sent back to Germany with the U. S. Army in an elite counterintelligence role. Why? Because any german speakers He came when he was 15. So he actually understands the society that people have that cultural knowledge and because he's Jewish, they can trust that he'll be anti Nazi and there's a whole group of these figures. He's one of many and so he's in an elite circle. He's discriminated against the new york When he goes to Harvard after that, he can only live in a jewish only dorm, but at the same time he's in an elite policy role in counter intelligence. He forms a network there that stays with him the rest of his career, there's a gentleman named fritz Kramer who becomes a sponsor of his in the emerging pentagon defense department world. And as early as the early 1950s he sent them to Korea to comment on affairs in Korea. He becomes both an intellectual, recognized for his connections but also someone who policymakers want to talk about his book on nuclear weapons when it's written is given to President Eisenhower to read because they say this is someone writing interesting things you should read what he says. </s><s>[INST] There's a certain aspect to him that's kind of like forrest gump, he seems to continuously be the right person at the right time in the right place. Somehow finding him in this. I don't want to, you know, you can only get lucky so many times because he continues to get lucky in terms of being at the right place in history for many decades until today. [/INST] Yeah, well he has a knack for that. He, I spend a lot of time talking with him. Um, and what comes through very quickly is that he has an eye for power. Uh, it's, I think unhealthy, he's obsessed with power. </s><s>[INST] Can you explain like an observer of power or this or being uh, does he want power himself? [/INST] Both of those things, Both of them. And I think I explained this in the book. He doesn't agree with what I'm going to say now, but I think I'm right and I think he's right. It's very hard to analyze yourself right? Um, I think he develops an obsession with gaining power because he sees what happens when you have no power. He experiences the trauma. His father is a very respected gymnasium lair in Germany, even though he's jewish, he's actually the teacher of german classics to the german kids and he's forced to flee and he becomes nothing. His father never really makes a way for himself in the United States, he becomes a postal delivery person. There's nothing wrong with that. But for someone who is a respected teacher in Germany and gymnasium, there are like professors, their right to then be in this position. His mother has to open a catering business when they come to new york. It's a typical immigrant story, but he sees the trauma, his grandparents are killed by the nazis. Um so he sees the trauma and he realizes how perilous it is to be without power. </s><s>[INST] And you're saying he does not. I want to acknowledge the effect of that. [/INST] It's hard, it's hard. I mean most of us if we've had drama, it's believable that it's traumatic because you don't talk about it. I have a friend who interviews combat veterans and he says as soon as someone freely wants to tell me about their combat trauma, I suspect that they're not telling me the truth. If it's traumatic, it's hard to talk about. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, sometimes I wonder how much for my own life, everything that I've ever done is just the result of the complicated relationship with my father. I tend to I had a really difficult time did a podcast conversation with him. [/INST] I saw it actually, it's great, it was I I regret everything do that with my but </s><s>[INST] I remember as I was doing it and for months after I regretted doing it, I'm just kept regretting it and the fact that I was regretting it spoke to the to the fact that I'm running away from some truths that are back there somewhere and that that's perhaps what Kissinger is as well. But is there I mean, he's done, he's been a part of so many interesting moments of american history of world history from the Cold War of Vietnam war until today. What stands out to you as a particularly important moment um in his career that that that made who he is? [/INST] Well, I think what made his career in in many ways was his experience in the 1950s, building a network, a network of people across the world who were rising leaders from unique positions. He ran what he called the international seminar at Harvard um which was actually a summer school class that no one at Harvard cared about. But he invited all of these um rising intellectuals and thinkers from around the world and he built a network there that that he used forever more. So that's what really, I think boosts him um the most important moments in terms of making his reputation, making his career or two sets of activities. One is the opening to china. Um and his ability to first of all take control of US policy without the authority to do that and direct US policy and then build a relationship with Mountie Deng and Zhou and lai that was unthinkable just four or five years earlier. Of course President Nixon is a big part of that as well. But Kissinger is the mover and shaker on that and it's a lot of manipulation. But it's also a vision. </s>

<s>[INST] Giving us glimpses of explanations for those things. Well um David, one of the special human beings in this giant puzzle of ours and it's a huge honor that you would take a pause from the bigger puzzle to solve this small puzzle of a conversation with me today. It's truly an honor and a pleasure. Thank you. [/INST] I really enjoyed it. Thanks lex. </s><s>[INST] Thanks for listening to this conversation with mrs Hobbs to support this podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from Oscar Dykstra. Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] I don't really, because it's such a new tool. Yeah. I don't know if speed is significantly improved but it feels like I'm a year away [/INST] from being five to 10 times faster, 10 times faster. So if that's typical for programmers then you're already seeing another kind of self, recursive self-improvement, right? Because previously one like a major generation of improvement of the codes would happen on the human R and D timescale. And now if that's five times shorter then it's gonna take five times less time than it otherwise would to develop the next level of these tools and so on. So this is exactly the sort of beginning of an intelligence explosion. There can be humans in the loop a lot in the early stages and then eventually humans are needed less and less and the machines can more kind of go along. But what you said there is just an exact example of these sort of things. Another thing which I was kind of lying on my psychiatrist, imagining I'm on a psychiatrist couch here saying, well, what are my fears that people would do with AI systems and other, so I mentioned three that I had fears about many years ago that they would do. Namely, teach it the code, connect it to the internet and teach it to manipulate humans. A fourth one is building an API where code can control the super powerful thing, right? Very unfortunate because one thing that systems like GPT-4 have going for them is that they are an oracle in the sense that they just answer questions. There is no robot connected to GPT-4. GPT-4 can't go and do stock trading based on its thinking. It's not an agent. An intelligent agent is something that takes in information from the world, processes it there to figure out what action to take based on its goals that it has and then does something back on the world. But once you have an API, for example, GPT-4, nothing stops Joe Schmoe and a lot of other people from building real agents, which just keep making calls somewhere in some inner loop somewhere to these powerful oracle systems, which makes them themselves much more powerful. That's another kind of unfortunate development, which I think we would have been better off delaying. I don't want to pick on any particular companies. I think they're all under a lot of pressure to make money. And again, the reason we're calling for this pause is to give them all cover to do what they know is the right thing. Slow down a little bit at this point. But everything we've talked about, I hope will make it clear to people watching this why these sort of human level tools can cause gradual acceleration. You keep using yesterday's technology to build tomorrow's technology. And when you do that over and over again, you naturally get an explosion. That's the definition of an explosion in science. Like if you have two people and they fall in love, now you have four people and then they can make more babies and now you have eight people. And then you have 16, 32, 64, et cetera. We call that a population explosion, where it's just that if it's instead free neutrons and a nuclear reaction, if each one can make more than one, then you'll get an exponential growth in that. We call it a nuclear explosion. All explosions are like that, in an intelligence explosion, it's just exactly the same principle that some quantum, some amount of intelligence can make more intelligence than that and then repeat. </s><s>[INST] You always get the exponentials. What's your intuition while you mentioned there's some technical reasons why it doesn't stop at a certain point. What's your intuition? Do you have any intuition why it might stop? [/INST] It's obviously gonna stop when it bumps up against the laws of physics. There are some things you just can't do </s><s>[INST] no matter how smart you are, right? [/INST] Allegedly, because we don't know the full laws of physics. And because we don't know the full yet, right? Seth Lloyd wrote a really cool paper on the physical limits on computation, for example. If you make it, put too much energy into it and the finite space, it'll turn into a black hole. You can't move information around faster than the speed of light, stuff like that, but it's hard to store way more than a modest number of bits per atom, et cetera. But those limits are just astronomically above, like 30 orders of magnitude above where we are now. So bigger, different, bigger jump in intelligence than if you go from an ant to a human. I think, of course, what we want to do is have a controlled thing. A nuclear reactor, you put moderators in to make sure exactly it doesn't blow up out of control, right? When we do experiments with biology and cells and so on, we also try to make sure it doesn't get out of control. We can do this with AI too. The thing is, we haven't succeeded yet. And Moloch is exactly doing the opposite, just fueling, just egging everybody on. Faster, faster, faster. Or the other company is gonna catch up with you, or the other country is gonna catch up with you. We have to want this stuff. And I don't believe in this, just asking people to look into their hearts and do the right thing. It's easier for others to say that. But if you're in a situation where your company is gonna get screwed, by other companies that are not stopping, you're putting people in a very hard situation. The right thing to do is change the whole incentive structure instead. And this is not an old... Maybe I should say one more thing about this, because Moloch has been around as humanity's number one or number two enemy since the beginning of civilization. And we came up with some really cool countermeasures. First of all, already over 100,000 years ago, evolution realized that it was very unhelpful that people kept killing each other all the time. So it genetically gave us compassion and made it so that if you get two drunk dudes getting into a pointless bar fight, they might give each other black eyes, but they have a lot of inhibition towards just killing each other. And similarly, if you find a baby lying on the street when you go out for your morning jog tomorrow, you're gonna stop and pick it up, right? Even though it may make you late for your next podcast. So evolution gave us these genes that make our own egoistic incentives more aligned with what's good for the greater group or part of, right? And then as we got a bit more sophisticated and developed language, we invented gossip, which is also a fantastic anti-Moloch, right? Because now it really discourages liars, moochers, cheaters, because their own incentive now is not to do this because word quickly gets around and then suddenly people aren't gonna invite them to their dinners anymore and trust them. And then when we got still more sophisticated and bigger societies, we invented the legal system where even strangers who couldn't rely on gossip and things like this would treat each other, would have an incentive. Now those guys in the bar fight, even if someone is so drunk that he actually wants to kill the other guy, he also has a little thought in the back of his head that do I really wanna spend the next 10 years eating really crappy food in a small room? I'm just gonna chill out, you know? And we similarly have tried to give these incentives to our corporations by having regulation and all sorts of oversight so that their incentives are aligned with the greater good. We tried really hard and the big problem that we're failing now is not that we haven't tried before, but it's just that the tech is growing much, is developing much faster than the regulators have been able to keep up, right? So regulators, it's kind of comical that European Union right now is doing this AI act, right? Which, in the beginning, they had a little opt-out exception that GPT-4 would be completely excluded from regulation. Brilliant idea. What's the logic behind that? Some lobbyists pushed successfully for this. So we were actually quite involved with the Future Life Institute. Mark Bracco, Mr. Ook, Anthony Aguirre and others, you know, we're quite involved with educating various people involved in this process about these general purpose AI models coming and pointing out that they would become the laughing stock if they didn't put it in. So the French started pushing for it. It got put in to the draft and it looked like all was good. And then there was a huge counter push from lobbyists. There were more lobbyists in Brussels from tech companies and from oil companies, for example. And it looked like it might as we can maybe get taken out again. And now GPT-4 happened. And I think it's gonna stay in. But this just shows, you know, Moloch can be defeated, but the challenge we're facing is that the tech is generally much faster than what the policymakers are. And a lot of the policymakers also don't have a tech background. So it's, you know, we really need to work hard to educate them on what's taking place here. So we're getting this situation where the first kind of non, so I define artificial intelligence just as non-biological intelligence. And by that definition, a company, a corporation is also an artificial intelligence because the corporation isn't, it's humans, it's a system. If its CEO decides, if the CEO of a tobacco company decides one morning she or he doesn't wanna sell cigarettes anymore, they'll just put another CEO in there. It's not enough to align the incentives of individual people or align individual computers, the incentives to their owners, which is what technically I safety research is about. You also have to align the incentives of corporations with a greater good. And some corporations have gotten so big and so powerful very quickly that in many cases their lobbyists instead align the regulators to what they want rather than the other way around. </s>

<s>[INST] So just to linger on this fascinating bold question that shakes you out of your dream state, does this fiction still help you in building intuitions as literary fiction does about reality, The reason we read literary fiction is it helps us build intuitions and understanding in indirect way, sneak up to the difficult questions of human nature. Great fiction. Same with this observed reality. Um does this interface that we get this fictional interface help us build intuition about deeper truths of how this whole mess [/INST] works? Well, I think that each theory that we propose will give its own answer to that question. Right? So when the physicists are proposing these structures like the amplitude Hedren and cosmological polito associate Hedren and so forth beyond space time. We can then ask your question for those specific structures and say, how much information, for example does evolution, financial selection, and the kinds of century US systems that we have right now give us about this deeper reality and why did we evolve this way? We can try to answer that question from within the deeper. So there's not going to be a general answer. I think we're going to what we have to do is posit these new deeper theories. And then try to answer your question within the framework of those deeper theories, knowing full well that there will be an even deeper theory. </s><s>[INST] So, is this paralyzing though, because how do we know we're not completely adrift out to sea, lost forever from so like that our theories are completely lost. So if if it's all um if you can never truly deeply introspect to the bottom, if it's always just turtles on top of turtles infinitely. Um Isn't that paralyzing for scientific mind? [/INST] Well, it's interesting that you say introspect to the bottom because there there is that there is one mean again, this isn't the same spirit of what I said before, which is it depends on what answer you give to, what's beyond space time. What answer we would give to your question? Right. So but one answer that is interesting to explore is something that spiritual traditions have said for thousands of years, but haven't said precisely, so we can't take it seriously in science until it's made precise, but we might be able to make it precise and that is that they've they've also said something like space and time aren't fundamental. There maya their their illusion. And but that if you look inside, if you don't respect and let go of all of your particular perceptions, you will come to something that's beyond conceptual thought and that is their claim being in contact with the deep ground of being that transcends any particular conceptual understanding, if that is correct and I'm not saying it's correct, but I'm not saying it's not correct. I'm just saying if that's correct, then it would be the case that as scientists because we also are in touch with this ground of being, we would then not be able to conceptually understand ourselves all the way, but we could know ourselves just by being ourselves. And so we would there would be a sense in which there is a fundamental grounding to the whole enterprise because we're not separate from the enterprise. This is the opposite of 3rd, the impersonal third person sci this would make science personal all the way down. And but but nevertheless scientific, because the scientific method would still be what we would use all the way down for the conceptual understanding. </s><s>[INST] Unfortunately, still don't know if you went all the way down. It's possible that this kind of whatever consciousness is and we'll talk about it is getting um, the cliche statement of be yourself uh is it is somehow digging at a deeper truth of reality, but you still don't know when you get to the bottom, you know, a lot of people, they'll take psychedelic drugs and they'll say, well, that takes my mind to certain places where it feels like that is revealing some deeper truth of reality, but it's still it could be interfaces on top of interfaces that's that's in your view of this. You really don't know. I mean, Gators incompleteness is that you really don't know [/INST] my own view on it for what it's worth because I don't know the right answer, but my own view on it right now is that it um it's never ending. I think that there will never that this is great. As I said before, great job security for science and that we if this is true and if if consciousness is somehow important or fundamental universe, this may be an important fundamental fact about consciousness itself. That that it's never ending exploration that's going on in some sense. </s><s>[INST] Well, well, that's interesting, pushed back on the job security. So maybe as we understand this kind of idea deeper and deeper, we understand that the pursuit is not a fruitful one, then maybe we need to, maybe that's why we don't see aliens everywhere is you get smarter and smarter and smarter, you realize that like exploration is there's other fun ways to spend your time than exploring. You could be um [/INST] you </s>

<s>[INST] to others. I [/INST] think those are fairly general. </s><s>[INST] How do you pick the thing, [/INST] you just have like a deep interest in something uh or like try to like find the art max over, Like the things that you're interested in </s><s>[INST] art max at that moment and stick with it, how do you not get distracted and switch to another thing [/INST] you can, if you like um </s><s>[INST] if you do an arg max repeatedly every week, [/INST] doesn't converge, </s><s>[INST] doesn't you [/INST] can like low pass filter yourself in terms of like what has consistently been true for you? Um But yeah, I definitely see how it can be hard, but I would say like you're going to work the hardest on the thing that you care about the most so low pass filter yourself and really introspect in your past, what are the things that give you energy and what are the things that take energy away from you? Concrete examples and usually from those concrete examples, sometimes parents can emerge, I like I like it when things look like this one of these positions, so </s><s>[INST] that's not necessarily the field, but the kind of stuff you're doing in a particular field. So for you, it seems like you were energized by implementing stuff, building actual things. [/INST] Yeah. Being low level learning, and then also uh communicating so that others can go through the same realizations and shortening that gap um because I usually have to do way too much work to understand the thing and then I'm like, okay, this is actually like okay, I think I get it and like why was it so much </s><s>[INST] work, [/INST] it should have been much less work and that gives me a lot of frustration and that's why I sometimes go teach. </s><s>[INST] So aside from the teaching you're doing now, putting out videos aside from a potential uh Godfather part two, uh would the A. G. I. At Tesla and beyond. What does the future of apathy hold? Have you figured that out yet or? No? I mean uh as you see through the fog of war, that is all of our future. Um do you, do you start seeing silhouettes of what that possible future could look like? [/INST] The consistent thing I've been always interested in for me at least is is A. I. And um that's probably what I'm spending my rest of my life on because I just care about it a lot and I actually care about like many other problems as well, like say aging, which I basically view as disease and I care about that as well. But I don't think it's a good idea to go after it specifically. I don't actually think that humans will be able to come up with the answer. I think the correct thing to do is to ignore those problems and you solve AI and then use that to solve everything else. And I think there's a chance that this will work. I think it's a very high chance and uh that's kind of like the the way I'm betting at </s><s>[INST] least. So when you think about ai are you interested in all kinds of applications, all kinds of domains and any domain you focus on will allow you to get insights to. The big problem with a guy [/INST] for me is the ultimate mental problem. I don't want to work on any one specific problem. There's too many problems. So how can you work on all problems simultaneously? You solve the meta problem, which to me is just intelligence and how do you automated </s><s>[INST] is their cool small projects like archive sanity and and so on that you're thinking about the the world, the ml world can anticipate. [/INST] There's someone always like some fun side projects. Archive sanity is one basically like there's way too many archive papers. How can I organize it and recommend papers and so on. I transcribed all of your podcasts. </s><s>[INST] What did you learn from that experience? Uh from transcribing the process of like you like consuming audio books and podcasts and so on. And here's a process that achieves um closer to human level performance and annotation. [/INST] Yeah, well I definitely was like surprised that transcription with opening eyes, Whisper was working so well compared to what I'm familiar with from Siri and like a few other systems, I guess it works so well. And uh that's what gave me some energy to like try it out. And I thought it could be fun to random podcasts. It's kind of not obvious to me why whisper is so much better compared to anything else because I feel like there should be a lot of incentive for a lot of companies to produce transcription systems and that they've done so over a long time. Whisper is not a super exotic model. It's a transformer, It takes mel spectrograms and you know, just outputs tokens of texts, not crazy uh model and everything has been around for a long time. I'm not 100% sure why. </s><s>[INST] It's not obvious to me either. It makes me feel like I'm missing something. [/INST] Something. Yeah, </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah, all right. Well, I'm really happy we talked. Something tells me we'll probably talk a bunch more times. I think you're a fascinating human being. I think I'm a huge fan of your work. [/INST] Maybe one more question, what's the meaning of life? </s><s>[INST] To want things, to search, to be in. [/INST] Well, I think your curiosity is like somehow getting to that. Yeah. To want things. It's curiosity, like you don't know. I want to know the answer, which is like to be in the state of yearning. </s><s>[INST] To want it. [/INST] The wanting of yearning. Yeah, that's the point. </s><s>[INST] I wonder if you could do that if you lived a million years. Just keep yearning all this. That's the thing I'm probably afraid of if I lived in a million years. It's not the torture. [/INST] It's like the yearning will fade. </s><s>[INST] It'd probably yearn to die then. [/INST] Oh, it's just sitting there wanting death intently. Intensive. That's kind of romantic a little bit. </s><s>[INST] That has like a bit of that spark. And it's constantly being denied. So most of your existence on earth would be spent deeply intimate with death, just thinking about death. I think we're already doing that, but I like hiding that from ourselves a little bit. Anyway, wanting. Well, this is an amazing conversation. [/INST] I think you're an amazing researcher and human being. You're a great interviewer. </s><s>[INST] I can see why you do this a lot. I can see why you do this a lot. I appreciate it. This was really fun. [/INST] Ella, thank you so much for talking with me today. </s><s>[INST] Thank you. Thank you for listening to this conversation with Ella. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Richard Feynman. Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give you some practical results, but that's not why we do it. [/INST] Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. </s>

<s>[INST] And so this camera will be able to this camera and this does go, we'll be able to get get some signal from the planet then. [/INST] Yes. And it would be hard because the planet is so faint, but with the star out of the way, the glare of that bright, bright, bright star with that out of the way, then it becomes a much more manageable task. </s><s>[INST] So how do we get that thing out there? Were working with [/INST] unlimited money? Okay, we're going unlimited money. We have some more engineering problems to solve, but not too many more. We've been burning down our so called tall pole list and then we just we call it technolo technology, tall pole, it's the phrase where you have to figure out what are your hardest problems and then break those down to solve So the star shade, one of the really hard problems was how to formation fly at tens of thousands of kilometers. It's like, wow, that is insane. And the team broke that down actually into a sensing problem because of the star shade. How do you see the star shade precisely enough to control it? Because if you're shining a flashlight, you know the beam spreads out so the star shape has a beacon and led or laser, it's going to spread out so much by the time it gets to the telescope, the problem wasn't how do you tell the star shape how to move around fast enough to stay in a straight line. The problem was how do you how are you able to sense it well enough. So problems like that were broken down and money that came from Nasa to solve problems is put towards solving it. So we're we've got through most of the hard problems right now. Another one was that star shade, even though it's looking at a star light from our own sun could hit the edges of the star shade and bounce off into the telescope believe it or not. And that would actually ruin it because we're trying to see this tiny, tiny signal. So then the question is how do you make a razor thin edge, those pedal edges would be like have to be like a razor, what materials can use. So there's a series of problems like that. </s><s>[INST] There's a materials problem in [/INST] there some of them materials problem and there's one so we almost finished solving all those problems and then it's just a matter of Building one and testing it in a full scale sized facility and then building the telescope. It's just a matter of time to build everything and get it, get it up for lunch. </s><s>[INST] So this is an [/INST] engineering </s><s>[INST] engineering project. [/INST] It's a real engineering project. I actually can tell you about two other projects that are not mine. I'd like to call Star Shade mine because it was my project that I helped make it mainstream without lying is constantly shifting. When I started when I got this leadership role on Star Shade remember telling people about it. It was definitely not on the mainstream. Okay line. It was on the giggle factor side of the line factor and people would just laugh like that's dead like you could never formation fly or they'd say why are you working on that? That's just so not. It's not </s><s>[INST] so awesome. There's a there's a few things you've done in your life and that's when I first saw started I was like what? Really? And then like it sinks in. I mean the same thing I felt with like Elon musk or certain people who do crazy stuff like this and then they get they actually make it work. I mean if you get starship information flying to like together, I mean how awesome is that if you actually make that happen even like from a robot, I'm sorry, from the robotics perspective. Even if it doesn't give us good data, that's just like a cool thing to get out there and it's really [/INST] exciting. So there's two other topics that aren't mine, but I still love them. One of them, let's just talk about it briefly because it's not a pro, but it's the idea to send a telescope very far away to 500 times the Earth Sun distance. And this is way farther than the Voyager spacecrafts are right now. And to use our son as a gravitational lens, choose our son to magnify something that's behind it. It's got to sink in for a minute. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, exactly. But I mean, I don't know what the physics of that is like how to use the [/INST] sun in astronomy and Einstein thought about this. Initially we can use a massive objects bend space and so light that should be traveling like straight. It actually travels around the warped space. </s><s>[INST] And somehow you figure out a way to use that from magnification. [/INST] You have a way to use that from magnification. That's right there are Galaxies that are lens so called gravitational lens by intervening galaxy clusters actually and there are micro lensing events where stars get magnified as an unseen gravitational lens star passes in between us and that very distant star. It's actually real tool in astronomy. Yeah. Using gravitational lensing magnified because it bends more rays towards you than normally would you normally see? </s><s>[INST] And again we're trying to get more higher resolution images that are basically boil down to light. [/INST] Well it boils down to light </s><s>[INST] and then you can maybe get more information about. [/INST] Well in this case you would ask me, let's say if this thing could get built it would take Like something like they like to say 25 years to get from here to there. 25 years and then it could send some information back to us and then you say so Sarah how many pixels and I wouldn't say one or less than one I'd say you know It could be like 10 x 10 pixels. Could be 100 pixels which would be awesome. </s>

<s>[INST] and where does uh reference frames fit in? So yeah, [/INST] okay, so again a reference frame I mentioned um earlier about the you know a model of a house and I said if you're gonna build a model of a house in a computer, they have a reference frame and you can think of referencing like a Cartesian coordinates like X, Y and Z axes. So I can say I'm going to design a house, I can say well the front door is at this location X, Y. Z. And the roof is at this location X, Y. Z. And so on, that's the type of reference frame. So it turns out for you to make a prediction. And I walk you through the thought experiment in the book where I was predicting what my finger was gonna feel when I touched the coffee cup, it was a ceramic coffee cup of this one will do. Um And what I realized is that to make a prediction, my fingers going to feel like I just feel different than this, which you feel different, touch the whole or this thing on the bottom, make that prediction. The cortex needs to know where the finger is the tip of the finger relative to the coffee cup and exactly relative to the car cup and to do that. I have to have a reference frame for the coffee cup that has to have a way of representing the location of my finger to the coffee cup. And then we realized of course every part of your skin has to have a reference frame, relative things that touch. And then we did the same thing with vision. But so the idea that a reference frame is necessary to make a prediction when you're touching something or you're seeing something and you're moving your eyes, you're moving your fingers. It's just a requirement to know what to predict. If I have a I have a structure, I'm gonna make a prediction. I have to know where it is, I'm looking or touching it. So then we said, well how do neurons make reference frames? It's not obvious, you know, X, Y. Z coordinates don't exist in the brain, it's just not the way it works. So that's when we looked at the older part of the brain, the hippocampus and the anti Romney cortex where we knew that in that part of the brain there's a reference frame for a room or reference name for environment. Remember I talked earlier about how you could know make a map of this room. So we said ho um that they are implementing reference frames there. So we knew that reference frames needed to exist in every quarter of a column. And so that was a deductive. Think we just reduced. It </s><s>[INST] has to do So you take the old mammalian ability to know where you are in a particular space and you start applying that to higher and [/INST] higher levels. Yeah, you first you apply to like where your finger is. So here's what I think about. The old part of the brain says, where's my body in this room? The new part of the brain says, where's my finger relative to this? This object? Where is a section of my retina relative to this object? Where where I'm looking at one corner. Where is that relative to this patch of my right now? Um and then we take the same thing and apply the concepts mathematics, physics, you know humanity, whatever you </s><s>[INST] want. Adventure, you're pondering your own mortality [/INST] well whatever. But the point is when we think about the world, when we have knowledge about the world, How is that? Knowledge organized blacks? Where where is it in your head? The answer is it's in reference frames. So the way I learned the structure of this water bottle, where the features are relative to each other. When I think about history or democracy or mathematics, the same basic underlying structures happening. There's reference frames for where the knowledge that you're signing things too. So in the book, I go through examples like mathematics and language and politics. Um But the evidence is very clear in the neuroscience, the same mechanism that we use to model this coffee cup, we're going to use to model high level thoughts. You're the demise of the humanity whatever you want to think </s><s>[INST] about. It's interesting to think about how different are the representations of those higher dimensional concepts. Uh higher level concepts, how different the representation there is in terms of reference frames versus spatial. [/INST] But interesting thing. It's it's a different application but it's the exact same mechanism. </s><s>[INST] But isn't there some aspect to uh higher level concepts that they seem to be hierarchical? Like they just seem to integrate a lot of information into this. [/INST] So is our physical objects. So take this water bottle. I'm not particularly to this brand, but this is a Fiji water bottle and it has a logo on, I use this example in my book our our company's coffee cup has a logo on it. But this object is hierarchical. It is it's got like a cylinder and a cap but then has this logo on it. And the logo has a word, the word has letters, the letters such features. And so I don't have to remember, I do have to think about this. So I said oh there's a Fiji logo on this. What about it? I don't have to go through and say oh what is the Fiji logo? It's the F. And I. And A. J. And I. And there's a hibiscus flower. And and uh it has a, you know, the statement on it, I don't have to do that. I just incorporate all of that in some sort of hierarchical representation I say. Um you know, put this logo on this water bottle and and and then the logo has a word and the word has letters. All hierarchical, </s>

<s>[INST] The perfume thing. The problem with it is just not funny. Not that no, he sucks. Okay great. Not that they dared to try to be humorous because I don't know why you mentioned johnson because johnson was pretty can be funny, [/INST] right? But he taught a generation, you still see this on twitter where things have to be inherently sarcastic and snide. But </s><s>[INST] isn't that I mean aren't you practicing that? No, [/INST] I use irony and sarcasm. Here's an example when people like you say something and someone replied to be like um last I checked blah blah blah blah and I'll say that I go, what do you think saying last I checked added to your point, you're giving me valuable information and data. But you are trained to believe that it has to be couched in this sneering. It doesn't just give me the information. This is useful information. That's that's true. </s><s>[INST] But see Jon Stewart did it masterfully. They don't and they don't, it's like people copy, commit certain comedians, you try to copy them and use everything in the process of copying. Yeah, Yeah, okay. Uh but in terms of the philosophy of, you know, selfishness, this kind of individual focused idea and I imagine that connects with you. [/INST] Yes. And I think it would connect with more people. They understood what she meant by Nathaniel Brandon who was her air until she kind of broke with him. And he was a coded dedicate e of Atlas shrugged said, no one will say Iran's views with a straight face. They won't say I believe that my happiness matters and it's important and it's worth fighting for and that Iran says this and she's dangerous. Now it's very easy to say this could have dangerous consequences if you're a sociopath. But to put it in those terms uh I think it's extremely healthy. I think more people should want to be happy. And and uh I think a lot of us are raised to be apologetic, especially in this cynical media culture, that if you say I want to be happy, I want to I love my life, that it's just like okay sweetheart, and you the eye rolling and I think that's so pernicious, it's so horrifying and this is why I'm a common person because you thought the arch enemy with cynicism and I could not agree more. Like if you're the kind of person, if someone likes a band and you're like you like them mama blah, it's like this gives them happiness. Now there's certain exceptions, but it gives you happiness, it's not for you, that's cool, </s><s>[INST] okay, this is beautiful. I so agree with you on the eye rolling, but you see the best of trolling as not the iro [/INST] correct. Of course not the best of trolling is taking down the eye rollers. </s><s>[INST] I'm gonna have to think about that because [/INST] I have a kind of red bull. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] Uh Yeah, because they put the ball is red bull. Um I kind of put them all in the same, been okay and [/INST] they're not they're not they're </s><s>[INST] not okay. [/INST] All right, here's another example of trolling. I was making jokes about Ron paul, he just had a stroke right? And someone came at me and they're like, oh blah blah blah, you know, you're ugly, I hope you have a stroke, I hope you're in the hospital and I just go I just did have a stroke on your mom's face. So they came at me and now they got put in their place </s><s>[INST] with a subpar um I mean it wasn't [/INST] clever. You want </s><s>[INST] you want clever, not particularly, no. Well one of your things you do, which is interesting. I mean I give you props in a sense is you're willing to go farther than people expect you to. [/INST] Yes, that's fun. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. In fact I'll probably edit out like half of this podcast because the thing you did was she kept in should mention Michaela Peterson now has a podcast which is nice I guess was it on her [/INST] podcast? She wasn't mine, she was on yours. We did both. But this is when you're referring to when she was in mind </s><s>[INST] she was on the right and you went right for the [/INST] so I'll tell you what it was you don't have to face. So I opened up I say you know she's Jordan Peterson's dad. As many people know George sorry, he's her dad. Yeah she's had a long issue with substance addiction and I said to her you're you know you're most famous for being you know Jordan Peterson's daughter, you know many people, he's changed so many lives around the world. He's and he's been such an enormous influence to me personally that I've started taking Benzodiazepines recreationally. And she's like, oh my God, </s><s>[INST] Michaelis or yeah because you pulled me in with this because you're talking, I mean, you know, because he's going through a rough time now. She's going through just everything was just you pulled me in emotionally. I was like, this is gonna be the sweet mike is gonna be just this wonderful and then just bam. So that's that's that's that was props to you on that. It wasn't whatever that is, that is an art form when done well. It can be taken too far. My criticism is that that feels too good for some people, [/INST] what do you mean for their too happy being a reference to show that they don't care. But I think that's another form of cynicism though, right? So </s><s>[INST] if you think it's possible to be a troll and still be the live life to its highest ideal in the common sense, [/INST] I try that's kind of my ideal. </s>

<s>[INST] friends and all those kinds of things that they respect each other so he probably didn't, but there's a comedian instinct. I saw this, I was in an open mic in here in texas, I won't say where there's many open mics, you [/INST] know, </s><s>[INST] so there, there is more sort of rougher [/INST] kinda. Yeah, you've been hanging out in like west texas. Exactly. Austin's too tame for lex. So he's like head to west texas. Exactly. </s><s>[INST] I put on a cowboy hat and instantly became a cowboy hat and talking like a cowboy. I mean I belong out there in the desert. [/INST] He's gone from eating, you know, meat and athletic greens. So rattlesnakes, rattlesnakes, you're exactly, </s><s>[INST] no, there was an open mic is late at night and this. I was one of the only people in the audience is a couple of drunk folks, a few drunk folks, one of them was a couple and like bikers like uh with helmets and so on. A guy and a girl. And then the comedian, the open mic comedian did a joke about people who wear helmets, I don't know if it was on purpose or not, but he did the joke and then the guy about women who wear helmets and the guy is this exact same situation. The guy stood up, walked up to him. There was no slap. It's so interesting because this happened before the will smith thing. So he walked up to the uh to the comedian and and said he like, he, he, I think he liked pointed his finger down and told him to stop or something like that. And then sat down, this is an audience of like six people, right? And, and uh at midnight around then there's no nobody, no security, nothing in texas in texas, which [/INST] implies then this </s><s>[INST] guy was the energy drunk but also a biker and has what he felt his lady was now attacked by the comedian right with his words. And this and the comedian was a kind of out of shape small guy, this is not threatening at all and probably in trouble. And the comedian after he sat down, he looked a little bit scared, he paced back and forth and then he did the joke [/INST] again, </s><s>[INST] wow and I was sitting and I started I leaned back and I just did this like, because that is comedy and the guy was ang getting angrier and angrier and he just sat there in and the community went on for a couple more minutes and then did another bad joke. But another joke about him, it's just like he leaned into it, [/INST] if you go to a small comedy club open mic or otherwise you're in the shooting gallery, like you're basically they're teed up as a pin to get it. We went and saw Andrew schulz in in san </s><s>[INST] Francisco in san Francisco. [/INST] Yeah, it was hilarious, it was amazing. I mean, he's he's </s><s>[INST] just [/INST] masterful in his ability to command an audience, you know, and but I felt for the people up front, but you know, no sympathy either because you know, you buy tickets to sit up front, asshole's show, you know, you're going to get it, but he was very loving </s><s>[INST] and funny. First of all, it's funny, the funniness really helps you, but the the ethic of the comedian is like that fearlessness, what I really liked, this is like the the danger, there's risk to comedy and there's also consequences. Have [/INST] you watched that show? The um what is it, the marvelous Mrs Maisel show, It's really good. Um I watched a few of them um guilty pleasure there, she plays a comic in the I think it's the mid 19 sixties in in new york. And um and there's a character that somewhat resembles Lenny Bruce was sort of meant to be Lenny Bruce. Um and they're always getting arrested and this and this kind of thing. I think I learned about it from joe. Anyway, it's the writing is great, it's very funny. Um but yeah, comedy is designed to push boundaries right and to get and to say the thing that you know, other people aren't feel, they can't say not something in science, right? Science you're supposed to etiquette is a big part of how you communicate ideas. It's about constraining communication. This is something I mean I confess on the podcast in the goals of making it clear uh interesting, surprising and actionable. You know, you have to constrain the amount and the style of information otherwise it becomes something else altogether. Right? </s><s>[INST] I saw Sandra Bullock, I google Ceo said that he likes the thing you mentioned not the yoga needle, but the I. N. S. D. Are not sleep, deep breath podcast over meditation. I don't know if you saw that. [/INST] I saw that. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. Why what do you think that is? What do you think the differences? [/INST] Yes. So non sleep depressed SDR is an acronym that I coined because it encompasses a lot of practices that are not meditation per se, but that bring the brain and body into a state of relaxation and focus. So hypnosis is one variant of NsD are there are other variants of NsD are you can just look this up and you'll find them and I think that they've caught on and that the google um the ceo of google uh is an avid practitioner of N. S. D. R. Because it has this amazing ability to reset your energy levels and focus. Whereas with meditation, many people find meditation hard and part of the reason they find it hard is that it requires focus. N. S. D. R. Is a state which is very calm and relaxing. You don't have to work too hard, you're just listening to a script. Whereas most forms of meditation, not all but most forms of meditation involved cranking up the activity in your prefrontal cortex and trying to see your thoughts as opposed to thinking your thoughts or um focus on your breath. But then third person ng yourself in some respect and that's work. And so many people who meditate quite intensely feel more exhausted now that doesn't mean that meditation doesn't have any utility but it's distinctly different than N. Str. And I think that people are working certainly the ceo of Google I have to imagine is working very hard and using his forebrain if he's gonna have 20 or 30 minutes to take a break. he should and I think this is what he's doing, he should go out for a jog and not listen to anything and just kind of let his mind wander or sit there in a chair and just zone out or do N. S. D. R. The problem is people are not that good at shifting states. We are all actually pretty good at even people with severe A. D. H. D. We had an episode about this can become hyper focused on things that they actually enjoy because dope. And most of the drugs designed to treat A. D. H. D. Are drugs that increase the levels of dopamine. So when you like something there's dopamine release and you can focus its when you don't like something that's hard to focus. Shifting states is hard. I'm sure you've experienced this. If you've ever been in deep research or podcasting, podcasting and then all of a sudden you go for a run. You probably spend the 1st 3rd of that run thinking. And then in the middle third you're kind of that thinking is is fractured a bit. And then in the final third is where you finally get to relax because the brain doesn't shift states very quickly. We can go from sleep to wakefulness quickly. We can go from wakefulness to sleep quickly but we don't shift between different states of consciousness. Like a step function. Mhm. Except in rare cases right. Fear is one all of a sudden we hear an explosion right now it's a step function. We're in fear or were in alertness right? Um heightened state of alertness. But N. S. D. R. Is terrific at allowing people to learn to shift their state. And I actually would venture to argue that part of the value of meditation and exercise is the actual state that you get into in deep meditation or exercise. But just as valuable is the transition that you have to take yourself through from one state of mind to the other and then back again when I look, you know, David Goggins, he always seems to come up. But he because he represents so many important things, drive determination, override of emotional state Going from being a £300 plus person to a fit person through. He's never revealed anything substantial about what he ate or what he didn't. He's basically says like listen, run a lot, eat less, right. Um but what's remarkable is so much of what he says is about those transitions about taking oneself from a state of I don't want to to scruff in oneself and like you're gonna do it anyway and then being able to carry that into into regular life, so to speak. So I think that um SDR is immensely powerful. It's zero cost. And one of the reasons I'm such a fan of people doing it is that most people don't stick to a meditation practice. There's also been a few cases you might find this interesting, there's a book by scott Carney, I forget what it's called. I think it's called the transcendence trap or something. I'm gonna have that title wrong. But there have been a fair number of cases of people that go and do very extensive meditation, silent meditation retreats who then return to normal life and end up killing themselves. There are states of mind inside of extended meditations or silent meditations that are very beneficial. And I'm certainly not suggesting people don't meditate, but I know at least one person who came back from one of these long extended meditation retreats and wasn't able to shift their state back into one that was functional in regular life. And that book includes a very dramatic story. I don't want to give it away in case people um check out the book. But Scott told the story to me directly once where so someone feels they have reached enlightenment and then commit suicide. So these very unusual brain states are potentially hazardous if people can't return from them. </s>

<s>[INST] So if you don't like it, they refunded, go to magic spoon dot com slash lex and use code lex at checkout to say $5 off your order. That's magic spoon dot com slash flex and use code lex. This is a lex Friedman podcast and here is my conversation with barry Barish. Mhm. You've mentioned that you were always curious about the physical world and that an early question, you remember stood out where you asked your dad why does ice float on water? And he couldn't answer. And this was very surprising to you. Uh So you went on to learn why maybe you can speak to what are some early questions in math and physics that really sparked your curiosity? [/INST] Yeah, that memory is uh uh huh Kind of something I used to illustrate something, I think that's common in science, that people that do science somehow have maintained. Uh huh maintain something that kids always have a small kid, eight years old or so. uh ask you so many questions usually typically that you're consider them pests, You tell them to stop asking so many questions. Uh and uh somehow our system manages to kill that in most people. Yeah, so in school we make people to study and do their things, but not to pester by asking too many questions and um I think not just myself, but I think it's typical of scientists like myself that uh have somehow escaped that maybe we're still Children or maybe we somehow didn't get beaten out of us, but I think it's teaching in college level. And it's, to me one of the biggest deficits is the lack of curiosity if you want that we've beaten out of them because I think it's an innate human quality. </s><s>[INST] Is there some advice or insights you can give to how to keep that flame of [/INST] curious. It's a problem of both parents and and the parents should be, should realize that's a great quality. We have. You're curious and that's good. Instead we have, we have expressions like curiosity killed the cat. Yeah. And, and uh, and more, but I mean basically it's not, not thought to be a good thing. You're gonna curiosity killed the cat means if you're too curious, you get in trouble. And uh, </s><s>[INST] maybe it's a good thing. [/INST] Yeah. That to me needs to be solved really in education and in homes that realization that there's certain human qualities that we should try to build on and not destroy one of them is curiosity. Anyway, back to me and curiosity, I was a pest and asked a lot of questions my father generally could answer them. And at that age. And the first one I remember that he couldn't answer. Uh, was not a very original question, but basically that ice is made out of water. And so why does it float on water? Uh, and uh, he couldn't answer it. And it may not have been the first question is the first one that I remember. And that was the first time that I realized that to learn and answer your own curiosity or questions. There's various mechanisms in this case it was going to the library are asking people who know more and so forth. But eventually you do it by what we call research. But, but it's uh driven by, if you're hopefully you ask good questions. If you ask good questions and you have the mechanisms to solve them, then you do what I do in life basically. Not necessarily physics, but uh huh. And it's a great quality in humans and we should nurture it. </s><s>[INST] Do you remember any other kind of in high school, maybe early college, more basic physics ideas that sparked your curiosity or mathematics or science? And [/INST] I wasn't really into science until I got to college, to be honest with you, but just staying with water for a minute. I remember uh that I was curious uh why what happens to water? It rains and there's water in a wet pavement and then the pavement dries out what happened to this water that came to? And I, you know, I didn't know that much. And then eventually I learned chemistry or something and water is made out of hydrogen and oxygen. Those are both gases. So how the heck does it make this substance? It's liquid. Uh huh. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, but so that has to do with states of matter. You've uh I know perhaps lie going the thing for which you've got the Nobel prize and the things much of your life work perhaps was a happy accident in some sense, in the early days. But is there a moment where you looked up to the stars and also the same way you wondered about water wandered about some of the things that are out there in the universe. [/INST] Oh yeah, I think everybody looks and is in awe and it's curious about what, what it is out there and, you know, and as I learned more I learned of course that we don't know very much About what's there. And the more we learn, the more we know we don't know, I mean, we don't know what the majority of anything is out there. It's all what we call dark matter and dark energy. And that's one of the big questions 20 here when I was a student. Those weren't questions. So we even know less, in a sense, the more we, uh, the more we look. So of course, I think that's one of the areas that almost it's universal. People see the sky, they see the stars and they're beautiful and, and see it looks different on different nights and it's a curiosity that we all have, </s><s>[INST] what are some questions about the universe, that in the same way that you felt about the ice that today, you mentioned to me offline you're teaching, um, of course on the frontiers of science frontiers of physics, what are some questions outside? The ones will probably talk about that kind of, uh, yeah, fill you with, uh, get your flame of curiosity up and uh, firing up, Yeah, you know, for you with the, [/INST] well, first I'm a physicist, not an astronomer. So I'm interested in physical, the physical phenomenon really. So the question of uh Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which we probably won't talk about our recent there the last 2030 years, certainly dark energy. Dark energy is a complete puzzle. It goes against what will what you will ask me about, which is general relativity and Einstein's general relativity. It basically takes something that he thought was what he what he called a constant, which isn't and and uh and if that's even the right theory and it represents most of the universe, and then we have something called dark matter and there's good reason to believe it might be an exotic form of particles. Um and that is something I've always worked on on particle accelerators and so forth. And it's a big puzzle what it is. It's a bit of a cottage industry and that there's lots and lots of searches. Um but it may be a little bit like, you know, looking for a treasure under rocks or something, you know, it's hard to we don't have really good guidance except that we have very, very good information that is pervasive and it's there and that it's probably particles small that the evidence is all of those things. But then the most uh logical solution doesn't seem to work. Something called supersymmetry. </s><s>[INST] And do you think the answer could be something very complicated. [/INST] You know, I like to hope that think that most things that appear complicated are actually simple if you really understand them, I think we just don't know at the present time and it isn't something that affects us. It does affect, it affects how the stars go around each other and so forth because we detect that there's missing gravity but but it doesn't affect everyday life at all. I tend to think and expect maybe and that the answers will be simple. We just haven't found it yet. </s><s>[INST] Do you think those answers might change the way we see other sources of gravity? Black holes? The way we see the parts of the universe that we do study. [/INST] It's conceivable uh the black holes that we found in our experiment. And we're trying now to understand the origin of those. Yes, conceivable but not doesn't seem the most likely that they were pretty primordial. That is they were made at the beginning and they in that sense they could represent at least part of the dark matter. So there can be connections. Dark black holes are, how many there are, how much of the mess they encompass is still pretty primitive. We don't know. </s><s>[INST] So before I talk to you more about black holes, let me take a step back to, I was actually went to high school in Chicago and we'll go to take classes at Fermilab watch the buffalo and so on. So let me ask about, you mentioned that Enrico fermi was somebody who was inspiring to you in a certain kind of way. Um why is that? You speak to that? [/INST] Sure he was amazing actually. Uh, he's the last this is not the real come to the reason in a minute. But the he had a big influence on me at a young age. He uh but he was the only the last physicist of note, that was both an experimental physicist and the theorist at the same time. And he did two amazing things within months in 1933. He, it was we didn't really know what the nucleus was, what radioactive decay was, what beta decay was when electrons come out of A nucleus. And in nearly near the end of 1933, uh he The neutron had just been discovered and that meant that we knew a little bit more about what the nucleus is that it's made out of neutrons and protons. The neutron wasn't discovered till 1932. And then once we discovered that there was a neutron and proton and they made the nucleus and then their electrons that go around the basic ingredients were there. And he wrote down not only just the theory, a theory, but a theory that lasted decades and has only been improved on uh beta decay, That is the radio radiation. He did this came out of nowhere and it was a fantastic theory. He submitted to Nature magazine, which was the primary, uh best place to publish even then. And it got rejected as being too speculative. And so he went back to his drawing board in Rome where he was Added some two. It made it even longer because it's really a classic article and then published it in the local Italian Journal for Physics and the German one At the same time in 19 January of 1932. Giulio and Curie for the first time I saw artificial radio activity. This was an important discovery because radio activity had been discovered much earlier. You know, they had X rays and you shouldn't be using them. But there was radio activity. People knew it was useful for medicine, but radioactive materials are hard to find. And so it wasn't prevalent. But if you could make them then they had great use and Giulio and curie we're able to bombard aluminum or something with alpha particles and find that they excited something that decade and gave a decade and had some half life and so forth. Meeting it was artificial version, our let's call it not a natural version induced version of radioactive materials. And uh for me somehow had the insight and I still can't see where he got it. That the right way to follow that up was not using charged particles like alphas and so forth. But use use these newly discovered neutrons as the bombarding particle. It seemed impossible. They barely had been seen. Uh it was hard to get very many of them. But it had the advantage that they don't they're not charged. So they go right into the to the nucleus. And that turned out to be the experimental work that he did that won him the nobel prize. And it was the first step in vision, a discovery efficient and that's he did this two completely different things. An experiment that was a great idea and uh tremendous implementation because how do you get enough neutrons? And then he learned quickly that not only do you want neutrons, but you want really slow ones? Uh he he learned that experimentally and he learned how to make slow ones and then they were able to make go through the periodic table and make lots of particles. He missed on fishing at the moment, but he had the basic information and and then vision followed soon after that, </s><s>[INST] forgive me for not knowing. But is the birth of the idea of bombarding with uh neutrons? Is that uh is that an experimental idea was born out of an experiment? He just observes something? Or is this an Einstein style style idea where you, [/INST] I think I think I think that that took a combination because he realized that neutrons had a characteristic that would allow them to go all the way into the nucleus when we didn't really understand what the you know what what the structure was of all this. So that took ah understanding our recognition of the physics itself of how a neutron interacts compared to say an alpha particle. That Giulio and curie had used and then he had to invent a way to have enough neutrons. And uh, you know, he had a team associates and and he pulled it off quite quickly. So, you know, it's pretty astounding </s><s>[INST] and probably maybe you can speak to it. His ability to put together the engineering aspects of great experiments and doing the theory. They probably fed each other. I wonder can you speak to why we don't seem more of that? Is that just really difficult to do? [/INST] It's difficult to do. Yeah, I think in both theory and experiment in physics anyway, was it was conceivable if you had the right person to do it and no one's been able to do it. So I had the dream that that was what I was going to be like for me. But </s><s>[INST] you love both sides of it, the theory. [/INST] Yeah. I never liked the idea that you did experiments without really understanding the theory or the theory should be related very closely to experiments. And so I've always done experimental work that was closely related to the theoretical ideas. </s><s>[INST] I think I told you I'm Russian. So I'm gonna ask some romantic questions. But is it tragic to you that he's seen as the architect of the nuclear age that some of his creations lead to? Potentially some of his work has led to potentially still the destruction of the human species, some of the most destructive weapons. Yeah. [/INST] Uh, but I think even more general than him, I I I gave you all the virtues of curiosity a few minutes ago, there's an interesting book called the ratchet of curiosity. A ratchet is something that goes in one direction and that that is written by a guy who is probably a sociologist or philosopher or something and he he picks on this particular problem, but other ones and that is the danger of knowledge basically. You know, you're curious, you learn something. So it's a little bit like curiosity killed the cat. You have to be worried about whether you can handle new information that you get. So in this case the new information how to do with really understanding nuclear physics and that information, maybe we didn't have the sophistication to know how to keep it under control. Yeah. And fermi himself was a very a political person. So he wasn't very driven by our, or at least he appears in all of his writing, the writing of his wife, the interactions that others had with him as either he avoided it all or he was pretty a political. I mean, you just saw the world through kind of the lands of a scientist. But you asked if it's tragic. Uh, the bomb was tragic, certainly on Japan and he had a role in that. So I wouldn't want it is my legacy for example, </s><s>[INST] I mean, but brought it to the human species that it's the rapture of curiosity that we uh, we do stuff just to see what happens. That that curiosity, that uh sort of my area of artificial intelligence, that's been a concern there on a small scale. On a silly scale. Perhaps currently there's constantly speak unintended consequences. You create a system and you put out there and you have intuitions about how it will work. You have hopes how it will work. But you put it out there just to see what happens. And uh in most cases because artificial intelligence is currently not super powerful, it doesn't create uh large scale negative effects. But that same curiosity as it progresses might lead to something that destroys the human species. And the same may be true for bioengineering. There's people uh that, you know, engineer viruses to protect us from viruses to see, you know, how do how close is this to mutating? So it can jump to humans or or going, you know, or engineering uh defenses against those. And it seems exciting. And the application of positive applications are really exciting at this time. But we don't think about how that runs away in decades to come. [/INST] Yeah. And I think it's the same idea as this little book. The ratchet of science, uh ratchet of curiosity. I mean, whether you pursue take curiosity and let artificial intelligence or machine learning run away with having its solutions to whatever you want or we do. It is I think a similar consequence, </s><s>[INST] I think uh from what I've read about Enrico fermi, he he became a little bit cynical about the human species towards the end of his life. Both having observed what he observed, [/INST] we didn't write much. I mean he died young, he died soon after the World War. There was already you know the work by Teller to develop the hydrogen bomb and I think he was a little cynical of that pushing it even further and rising tensions between the soviet union and the U. S. And look like an endless thing. So but he didn't say very much but a little bit as you said </s><s>[INST] that yeah there's a few clips to sort of maybe picked on a bad mood but in a sense that almost like a sadness and melancholy sadness too. Uh I hope that waned a little bit about that. Uh perhaps we can do like the this curious species can find the way out. [/INST] Well especially I think people who worked like he did at Los Alamos and spent years of their life somehow had to convince themselves that dropping these bombs would bring lasting peace and and that it didn't. </s><s>[INST] As a small interesting aside would be interesting to hear if you have opinions on this. His name is also attached to the family paradox which asks if there is a you know with one but it's a very interesting question which is if it does seem if you sort of reason basically that there should be a lot of alien civilizations out there, if the human species, if Earth is not that unique by basic, no matter the values you pick. Uh, it's likely that there's a lot of alien civilizations out there. And if that's the case, why have they not at least obviously visited us or send us loud signals that everybody can hear [/INST] for me is quoted as saying, sitting down at lunch. I think it was with Tell her and her Byork who was kind of the one of the fathers of the atomic bomb. And he sat down and he says something like, where are they? Which meant where these other and uh, and then he did some numerology where he calculated, you know, how many, what they knew about how many uh Galaxies there are and how many stars and how many planets in our like the earth and blah, blah, blah. That's been done much better by somebody named drake. Uh, and so people usually refer to that. I don't know whether it's called the drake formula or something, but it has the same conclusion. The conclusion is it would be a miracle if there weren't other, you know, uh, there's the statistics are so high that how can we be singular and separate. Uh, that's so probably there is, but there's almost certainly life somewhere, maybe there was even life on mars a while back, but uh intelligent life probably white or we, so, so, you know, the statistics say that communicating with us. I think that it's harder than people think uh we might not know the right way to expect the communication, but all the communication that we know about travels at the speed of light. And we we don't we don't think anything go faster than the speed of light. That limits the problem quite quite a bit. And it uh makes it difficult to have any back and forth communication. You can send signals like we try to or look for but to have any communication, it's pretty hard when it has to be close enough that the speed of light would mean we could communicate with each other and I think, and we didn't even understand that. I mean, it was an advanced civilization, but we didn't even understand that a little more than 100 years ago. So uh are we just not advanced enough maybe uh to know something about that's the speed of light? Maybe there's some other way to communicate that isn't based on electromagnetism? I don't I don't know, gravity seems to be also have the same speed. That was a principle that Einstein had and something we've measured actually. </s><s>[INST] So it is it possible, I mean, so we'll talk about gravitational ways and in some sense there's um there's a brainstorming going on, which is like how do we detect the signal? Like what would a signal look like? And how would we detect and that's true for gravitational waves, that's true for basically any physics phenomena, you have to predict that that signal should exist. You have to have some kind of theory and model why that signal should exist. I mean, is it possible that aliens are communicating with us via gravity? Like why not? [/INST] Well, yeah, yeah, it's true. Why not? Uh for us, it's very hard to detect these gravitational effects. They have to come from something pretty that has a lot of gravity like black holes. But we're pretty primitive added at this stage. Uh There's uh Very reputable physicists that look for a 5th force one that we haven't found yet. Maybe it's the key. So, you know, </s><s>[INST] it's what would that look like? What would 1/5 force of physics look like? Exactly. [/INST] Well, usually they think it's probably a long range for longer range force than we have now. Uh but uh they're reputable colleagues of mine that spend their life looking for a </s><s>[INST] 5th Force so long arranged in gravity. Yeah, [/INST] super. Doesn't fall off like one over r squared, but maybe separately gravity. Uh Newton taught us goes like inversely one over the square of the distance apart. You are? So it falls pretty </s><s>[INST] fast. That's okay. So now we have a theory of what consciousness is. It's just the fifth force of physics. Yeah. There we go. That's a good hypothesis. Uh Speaking of gravity of gravity, what are gravitational waves? This maybe start from the basics, [/INST] we learned gravity from Newton, right? You and you were young, you were told that if you jumped up the earth pulls you down and when the output falls out of the tree, the earth pulls it down. And maybe you can ask your teacher why. But most of us accepted that. That was Newton's picture, the apple falling out of the tree. But Newton's theory never told you why the apple was attracted to the earth. That was missing in Newton's theory. Uh Newton Syria also. Newton recognized at least one of the two problems, I'll tell you, one of them is there's more than those, but one is why does the earth, what's the mechanism by which the earth pulls the apple or holds the moon when it goes around whatever it is? Uh That's not explained by Newton, even though he has the most successful theory of physics ever went 200 some years with nobody ever seeing violation. </s><s>[INST] But he actually describes the movement of an object falling on the Earth. But he's not answering why that? What's, Yeah, [/INST] because it's a distance. He gives a formula which which it's a product of the Earth's mass. The apples mass inversely proportional to the square of the distance between. And then the strength he called capital G. The strength, he couldn't determine. But it was determined 100 years later, but no one ever saw a violation of this until a possible violation which Einstein fixed, which was very small, that has to do with mercury going around the sun. There are but being slightly wrong if you calculated by Newton's theory. But so, um like most theories than in in physics, you can have a wonderful one. Like Newton's theory, it isn't wrong, but you have to have uh an improvement on it to answer things that it can't answer. And in this case Einstein's theory is the next step. We don't know if it's anything like a final theory or even the only way to formulate it either. But he formulated this theory which which he released in 1915, He took 10 years to develop it, even though in 1905, he solved three or four of the most important problems in physics in a matter of months and then he spent 10 years on this problem before he let it out. And this is called general relativity. It's a new theory of gravity. 1915 and 1916, Einstein uh wrote a little paper where he did not do some fancy derivation. Instead he did what I would call it, used his intuition, Which he was very good at two. and that is he noticed that if he formed if he wrote the formulas for general relativity in a particular way, they looked a lot like the formulas for electricity and magnetism been Einstein, he then took the leap That electricity and magnetism, we discovered only 20 years before that in the 1880s have waves of course that's light and electromagnetic grease radio waves, everything else. So he said if the formulas looked similar then gravity probably has ways to, </s><s>[INST] that's such a big leap by the way, I mean maybe you can correct me, but that just seems so that seems like a heck of a li [/INST] Yeah. And so that and it was considered to be a heck of elite. So first that paper was, except for this intuition was uh poorly written, had had a serious mistake. It had the a factor of two wrong and the strength of gravity, which meant if we used those formulas, we would. And uh two years later he wrote a second paper. And in that paper it turns out to be important for us because in that paper he not only fixed his factor of two mistake, which he never admitted, he just wrote it fixed it like he always did. And and then he uh told us how you make gravitational waves, what what makes gravitational waves? And you might recall an electromagnetism. We make electromagnetic waves in a simple way. You take a plus charge in minus charge. You oscillate like this. And that makes an electromagnetic waves. And a physicist named hurts made a receiver that could detect the waves and put it in the next room, he saw them and move forward and backward and saw that it was waived like. So uh Einstein said it won't be a die poll like that, it'll be a four pole thing and that's what it's called, a quadruple moment that gives the gravitational wave. So he so that again by insight, not by derivation, that's at the table for which I needed to do to do it at the same time in the same year. Shorts child not Einstein said there were things like called black holes. So it's interesting that that came the same. </s><s>[INST] So what year was that? That was 15? It was in parallel? Uh I should probably know this, but did Einstein not have an intuition that there should be such things as black holes [/INST] that came from shorts Child. </s><s>[INST] Oh, interesting. [/INST] Yeah. So Schwartz child who was a german theoretical physicist, he got killed in the war I think in the first World War two years later or so, he's the one that proposed black holes that there were black holes. </s><s>[INST] It feels like a natural conclusion of general relativity. No. [/INST] Or is that uh may seem like it, but I don't know about a natural conclusion. It is a it's a result of curved space time though, </s><s>[INST] Right. And it's it's such a weird result that you might have to uh it's a special, [/INST] it's a special case. Yeah. So uh I don't know anyway, Einstein then an interesting part of the story is that Einstein then left the problem, most physicists because it really wasn't derived, he just made this didn't pick up on it or general relativity much because quantum mechanics became the thing in physics. And Einstein uh only picked up this problem again after he immigrated to the US so he came to the US in 1932. And I think in 1934 5 he was working with another physicist called Rosen who did several important works with. And they revisited the question and they had a problem that most of us as students always had the study general relativity. General relativity is really hard because it's four dimensional instead of three dimensional. And if you don't set it up right, you get infinities which don't belong there, we call them coordinate singularities as a name. But if you get these infinities you don't get the answers you want. And uh he was trying to derive now general relativity uh from general relativity, gravitational waves. And in doing it he kept getting these infinities. And so he wrote a paper with Rosen that he submitted to our most important journal Physical Review Letters. And uh That when it was submitted to physical review letters, it was entitled do gravitational waves exist? A very funny title to write 20 years after he proposed they exist. But it's because he had found these singularities, these infinities. And so uh the editor at that time. And part of it that I don't know is peer review we live and die by peer review as scientists and our stuff out. And we don't know when peer review actually started or what your review Einstein ever experienced before this time. But the Editor of Physical Review sent this out for review, he had a choice, he could take any article and just accept it. He could rejected Aurica Senate for review. </s><s>[INST] I believe the editors used to have much more [/INST] power and he was a young man whose name was Tate and he ended up being editor for years. But uh so he sent this for review to uh a theoretical physicist named Robertson who was also in this field of general relativity, who happened to be on sabbatical at that moment at caltech. Otherwise his institution was Princeton where I sign was and he saw that the way they set up the problem, the infinities were like I make it as a student because if you don't set it up bright and general relativity you get these infinities. And so he reviewed the article and told gave an illustration that if they set it up in what are called cylindrical coordinates, these infinities went away. He's uh Editor of Physical Review was obviously intimidated by Einstein. He wrote this really not a letter back, like I would get saying, you know, you're screwed up in your paper instead it was kind of uh what do you think of the comments of our referee Einstein wrote back, it's a well documented letter wrote back a letter to physical review saying uh I didn't send you the paper to to send it to one of your so called experts. I sentence you to publish, I know I withdraw the paper uh and he never published again in the in that journal, that was 1936. Instead he rewrote it with the fixes that were made, changed the title and published it in what was called the franklin Review, which is the franklin Institute in philadelphia, which is Benjamin franklin Institute, which doesn't have a journal now, but did at that time. So the article is published, it's the last time he ever wrote about it, it remained controversial. So it wasn't until Close to 1960, where there was a conference which brought that brought together the experts in general relativity to try to sort out whether there was um whether it was true that there were gravitational waves or not. And there was a very nice derivation by a british theorists from the heart of the theory that gets gravitational waves. Uh And that was number one, the second thing that happened at that meeting is Richard Feynman was there and Feinman said, well if there's a typical Feinman, if there's gravitational waves, they need to be able to do something otherwise they don't exist. So they have to be able to transfer energy. So he made a idea of a good Duncan experiment, that is just a bar with a couple of rings on it and then if a gravitational wave goes through it distorts the bar. Uh and that creates friction on these little rings and that's heat and that's energy. So that that meant, </s><s>[INST] is that a good idea? That sounds like a good idea. [/INST] Yeah. It means that he showed that with the distortion of space time, you could transfer energy just by this little idea. And it was shown theoretically. So at that point it was uh huh believe theoretically than by people that gravitational waves should exist. </s><s>[INST] No, we should be able to detect that [/INST] means we should be able to detect them except except that they're very, very small. </s><s>[INST] Just so what kind of uh there's a bunch of questions about what kind of events would generate gravitational waves? [/INST] You have to have. This, what I call quadruple moment that comes about. If I have uh for for example, to objects that go around each other like this, like the Earth, the Earth around the sun, or the moon around the Earth. Or in our case it turns out to be two black holes going around each other like this. </s><s>[INST] How is that different than basic oscillation? Back and forth. This is just more common in nature. [/INST] Oscillation is a dipole moment. </s><s>[INST] It has been three dimensional space kind of [/INST] So you have to have something that's three dimensional, that'll give what I call the quadruple moment that's just built into this </s><s>[INST] and luckily nature you have stuff uh [/INST] and luckily things exist and it is luckily because the effect is so small that you could say look I can take a bar bell and and spin it right and detected gravitational waves. But unfortunately no matter how much I spend it, how fast I spent it it's so I know how to make gravitational waves but they're so weak. I can't detect them. So we have to take something that's stronger than I can make otherwise. We would do what hurts did for electromagnetic waves? Go in our lab, take a bar bell, put it on something spinning </s><s>[INST] casket. Don't question. So a single object that's weirdly shaped. Does that generate gravitational waves? So if it's if it's rotating [/INST] sure it was just much weaker so it it's weaker. Well we didn't know what the strongest signal would be that we would see, we targeted seeing something called nutrients stars actually because black holes we don't know very much about it turned out were a little bit lucky there was a stronger source which was the black holes. </s><s>[INST] Well, another ridiculous question. So you say waves, what does what does the wave mean? Like uh the most ridiculous version of that question is what does it feel like to ride a wave as you get closer to the source or experience it. [/INST] Well if you experience a wave, imagine that this is what happens to you. I don't know what you mean about getting close. It comes to you. So it's like it's like uh this lightweight for something that comes through you. So when the light is you makes your eyes detective. I flashed it. What does this do is it's like going to the amusement park and they have these mirrors, you look in this mirror and you look short and fat and the one next to you makes your tall and thin. Okay. Imagine that you went back and forth between those two mirrors once a second that would be a gravitational wave with a period of once a second. Uh if you did it 60 times a second, go back and forth. And and then that's all that happens. It makes you taller and shorter and fatter back and forth as it goes through you at the frequency of the gravitational wave. So the frequencies that we detect are higher than one a second. But that's the idea. But and this amount is small </s><s>[INST] amount of small but when if you're closer to the to the source of the wave is it the same amount? [/INST] Yeah, it doesn't dissipate, It </s><s>[INST] doesn't dissipate. Okay, so it's not that fun of an amusement ride. [/INST] Well it does dissipate but it doesn't it doesn't, it's proportional to the distance. </s><s>[INST] It's not sound a big power got you. So but it would be a fun ride if you get a little bit closer or a lot closer. I mean like I wonder what the this is ridiculous question. But have you here like getting fatter and taller. Yeah, I mean that experience for some reason that's mind blowing to me because it brings the distortion of space time to you. I mean spacetime is being morphed right? Like this is a way right? That how that's so weird. [/INST] And we're in space. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, we're in space and it's moving. I don't know what to do with it. I mean does it okay. Um how much do you think about the philosophical implications of general relativity like that we're in space time and it can be bent by gravity. Like is that just what it is? We're supposed to be okay with this because like Newton, even Newton is a little weird. Right? But that at least that makes sense. That's our physical world. You know when an apple falls it makes sense. Well like the fact that entirety of the space time we're in can bend. Well that's uh that's really mind blowing. [/INST] Let me make another analogy. This </s><s>[INST] is a therapy session for me. [/INST] Another analogy. So imagine you have a trampoline. Yes. Okay. What happens if you put a marble on a trampoline doesn't do anything. Right? </s><s>[INST] No, just makes a little bit, but not much. [/INST] Yeah, I mean just if I drop it, it's not gonna go anywhere. Now imagine I put a bowling ball at the center of the trampoline. Now I come up to the trampoline and I put a marble on. What happens, </s><s>[INST] you know roll towards the bowling ball. [/INST] All right, so what's happened is the presence of this massive object distorted the space that the trampoline did. This is the same thing that happens to the presence of the earth, the earth and the apple. The presence of the earth affects the space around it. Just like the bowling ball on the trampoline. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. This doesn't make me feel better I'm affirmed from the perspective and ant walking around on the trampoline. Then some guy just dropped the ball and then not only dropped the ball right? It's not just dropping a bowling ball, it's making the ball go up and down doing some kind of oscillation thing where it's like waves and that's so fundamentally different from the experience on being on flat land and walking around and just finding delicious sweet things as Antas. And just it just feels like to me from a human experience perspective completely. It's humbling. It's truly humbling. [/INST] It's something but we see that kind of phenomenon all the time. Let me give you another example, imagine that you walk up to a still pond. Yes. Okay now I throw you like you throw a rock in what happens the rock goes in sinks to the bottom fine and these little ripples go out and they travel, oh that's exactly what happens. I mean there's a disturbance which is he safe? The bowling ball or black holes and then the ripples that go out in the water. They're not they don't have any they don't have the rock any part pieces of the </s><s>[INST] rock. And see. The thing is I guess what's not disturbing about that is it's a I mean I guess a flat two dimensional surfaces being disturbed, Like for a three dimensional surface uh three dimensional space to be disturbed, feels weird. [/INST] It's even worse. It's for dimension because it's space and time. So that's why you need Einstein is to make it uh for dimensionally No. Uh yeah, the same phenomenon. And look at it in all of space and time. Anyway, luckily for you and I and all of us, the amount of distortion is incredibly small. So it turns out that if you think of space itself now this is going to blow your mind too. If you think of space as being like a material like this table, uh it's very stiff. You know, we have materials that are very pliable materials that are very stiff. So space itself is very stiff. So when gravitational waves come through it luckily for us it doesn't distort it so much that it affects our ordinary life very much. </s><s>[INST] No, I mean that's great. That's great. I thought there was something bad coming now, this is great. That's great news. So I mean that perhaps we evolved as a life on Earth be such that for us, this particular set of uh effects of gravitational ways. Uh, it's not that significant. Maybe, maybe, maybe that's [/INST] why you probably used this effect today. Yesterday. What? So it's, it's pervasive, well, </s><s>[INST] you mean gravity or the way the external, because I only [/INST] curvature of space and </s><s>[INST] curvature of space. How I only care person is a human, right? The gravity of Earth. [/INST] But you use it every day almost </s><s>[INST] because [/INST] No, no, no. It's in this thing. Every time it tells you where you are, how does it tell you where you are? It tells you where you are because we have 24 satellites or some number that are going around in space. And it asked how long it takes uh, being to go to the satellite and come back the signal to different ones. And then it triangulate its and tells you where you are. And then if you go down the road, it tells you where you are. Do you know that if you did that with the satellites and you didn't use Einstein's equations, you won't get the right answer. That's right. And in fact, if you take a road, let's say 10 m wide, I've done these numbers and you ask how long you stay on the road. If you didn't make the correction for general relativity. This thing you're pooh poohing is you're using every day. Uh, you go off the road. You </s><s>[INST] go, well actually, that might might [/INST] use it so well. </s><s>[INST] Well, I think I'm using an andrews and maybe, and the GPS doesn't work that well. So maybe I'm using Newton's physics. Uh oh, I need to upgrade to general relativity. Um so gravitation waves and Einstein had uh Wait Fireman really does have a part of the story, was that one of the first kind of experimental, proposed, he [/INST] did what we call a Goddam can experiment. That's a thought experiment. Okay, not a real experiment, but then after that, then people believe gravitational waves must exist. You can kind of calculate how big they are, there's tiny. And so people started searching the first idea that was used was feynman's idea uh very end of it. And it was to take a great big, huge bar of aluminum and then put around and it's made like a cylinder and then put around it some very, very sensitive detectors so that if a gravitational wave happened to go through it, it would go and you detect this extra strain that was there. And that was this method that was used until we came along. It wasn't a very good method to use </s><s>[INST] and what was the so we're talking about a pretty weak signal here. [/INST] Yeah, that's why that method didn't work. </s><s>[INST] So what can you tell the story of figuring out what kind of method would be able to detect this very weak signal of gravitational ways. [/INST] So remembering the, remembering what happens when you go to the amusement park that is going to do something like stretch this way and squash that way, squash this way and stretch this way we do haven't instrument that can detect that kind of thing. It's called an interferometer. And what it does is it just basically takes usually light and the two directions that we're talking about, you send light down one direction and the perpendicular direction. And if nothing changes, it takes the same and the arms of the same length, it just goes down, bounces back and if you invert one compared to the other, they cancel. So there's nothing happens. But if it's like the amusement park and one of the arms got, you know, got shorter and fatter. So it took longer to go horizontally than it did to go vertically then when they come back, when when the light comes back, that comes back somewhat out of time. And that basically is the scheme. The only problem is that that's not very done very accurately in general and we had to do it extremely accurately. </s><s>[INST] So what uh what what's the what's the difficulty of doing so accurately. [/INST] Okay, so the measurement that we have to do is a distortion in time, How big is it? 1? It's a distortion. That's one part in 10 to the 21? That's 21 zeros and a one. Okay. </s><s>[INST] And so this is like a delay in the thing coming back. [/INST] Uh it's one of them coming back after the other one, but the difference is just one part in 10 to the 21. So for that reason we make it big, let the arms be long. Okay, so one part in 10 of the 21, in our case it's kilometers long. So we have an instruments of kilometres in one direction kilometers in the other </s><s>[INST] 44 [/INST] kilometers in each direction. uh if you take then one part in 10 to the 21, we're talking about measuring something to Uh 10 to the -18 m. </s><s>[INST] Okay, [/INST] now, to tell you how small that is? Yeah, the proton Things were made of that, you can't go and grab so easily is 10 to the -15 m. So this is 1,000th the size of a proton, that's the fact size of the effect. Einstein himself didn't think this could be measured, I've ever seen actually, he said that, but that's because he didn't, you know, anticipate modern lasers and and techniques that we developed. </s><s>[INST] Okay, so maybe can you tell me a little bit what you're referring to as ligo, the laser interferometer, gravitational wave observatory, what is like, go, can you just elaborate kind of the big picture of you here before I ask you specific questions about it? [/INST] Yeah, So in the same idea that I just said we have too long vacuum Piper tend to uh four km long. Okay, we start with a laser beam and we divide the beam Going down the two arms and we have a mirror at the other end reflects it back. It's more subtle but we bring it back if there's no distortion in space time and the lengths are exactly the same which we calibrate them to be. Then when it comes back, if we just Invert one signal compared to the other, they'll just cancel. So we see nothing. Okay. But if one arm got a little bit longer than the other, then they don't come back at exactly the same time. They don't exactly cancel. That's what we measure. So to give a number to it we have to do that too. We have the change of length to be able to do this 10 to the minus 18 m to one part in 10 to the 12th. And that was the big experimental challenge that required a lot of innovation to be able to do </s><s>[INST] what you gave a lot of credit to. I think caltech and MIT for some of the technical developments like within this project, is there some interesting things you can speak to like at the low level of some cool stuff that to be solved like what are we? I'm a software engineer. So all of this. I have so much more respect for everything done here than anything I've ever done. So it's just code. [/INST] So I'll give you an example of doing. Uh huh. Mechanical engineering at a better a basically mechanical engineering and geology and maybe at a level. Uh So what do we what's the problem? The problem is the following that I've given you this picture of an instrument that by some magic I can make good enough to measure this very short distance. But then I put it down here, it won't work. And the reason it doesn't work is that the earth itself is moving all over the place all the time. You don't realize it it seems pretty good to you. But it's moving all the time. So somehow it's moving so much that we can't deal with it. We happen to be trying to do the experiment here on Earth but we can't deal with it. So we have to make the instrument isolated from the Earth. Oh no. At the frequencies rat we've got to float it. That's a mechanical that's an engineering problem. Not as physics problem. </s><s>[INST] So when you actually like we're doing we're having a conversation, a podcast right now, there's uh people record music, work with this. You know how to create an isolated room. And they usually build a room within a room but that's still not isolated. In fact, they say it's impossible to truly isolate from sound from noise and stuff like that. But that that that's like one step of millions that you took. It's building a room inside the room. But you basically have to isolate all. [/INST] Now this is actually an easier problem. It's just have to do it really well. So making a clean room is really a tough problem because you have to put a room inside a room and you have to. So this is really simple engineering or physics. Okay. So what do you have to do? How do you isolate yourself from the, from the Earth? First? We work at uh we're not looking at all frequencies for gravitational waves. Were looking at particular frequencies that you can deal with here on Earth. So what the frequencies with us pay? You were just talking about frequencies. Mhm. </s><s>[INST] We [/INST] know by evolution. Her body's No, it's the audio band. Okay. The reason our ears work where they work because that's where the earth isn't going. Making too much noise. </s><s>[INST] Okay, so the reason our ears work the way they work is because it's just worth quiet. That's [/INST] right. So if you go to, if you go to one hurts instead of 10 hertz is the earth </s><s>[INST] is it's [/INST] really moving around. So, so somehow we live in a what we call the audio bandits tens of hertz to thousands of hurts. That's where we live. That's where we live. Okay, if we're going to do an experiment on the Earth, </s><s>[INST] might as well do it. [/INST] It's the same frequency. That's where the earth is a quiet is. So we have to work in that frequency. So we're not looking at all frequencies. Okay, so the solution for the for the shaking of the earth to get rid of it is pretty mundane if we do the same thing that you do to make your car drive smoothly down the road. So what happens when your car goes over a bump? Early cars did that? They bounced. Okay. But you don't feel that in your car. So what happened that energy, you can't just disappear energy. So we have these things called shock absorbers in the car. What they do is they absorb they take the thing that went like that and they basically can't get rid of the energy, but they move it to very, very low frequency. So what you feel isn't you feel like go smoothly? Okay. All right. So, uh, we also work at this frequency. So if we so we basically why, why why do we have to do anything other than shock observers? So, we made the world's fanciest shock observers. Okay. Uh, not just like in your car where there's one layer of them, they're just the right squishiness. And so far they're better than what's in the cars. And we have four layers of it. So whatever shakes and gets through the first layer, we treated a 2nd 3rd. </s><s>[INST] So, some mechanical engineering problem. [/INST] What I said. So it's </s><s>[INST] not, there's no weird tricks to it, like, like a chemistry type thing or [/INST] just, well, the right squishing a senior, I need the right material inside an argument. Like little springs, but there springs </s><s>[INST] there's springs. So like legitimately like shock absorbers. [/INST] What? Okay, and this is now experimental physics at the at its limit. Okay, so you do this and we make the world's fanciest shock absorbers. Just mechanical engineering. </s><s>[INST] Just mechanical genius is hilarious. [/INST] But we didn't we weren't good enough to discover gravitational waves. So uh so we did another, we added another feature and it's something else that you're aware of? Probably have one. And that is to get rid of noise. You've probably noise, which is you don't like. And that's the same principle that's in these little bows, uh </s><s>[INST] canceling [/INST] noise canceling. So uh so how do they work? They basically you go on an airplane and they sense the ambient noise from the engines and cancel it because it's just the same over and over again, they cancel it. And when the stewardess comes and asks you whether you want coffee or tea or a drink or something, you hear you're fine because she's not ambient. She's a signal. So </s><s>[INST] we're talking about active cancelling, like we're [/INST] actually canceling. </s><s>[INST] So this is OK. So another don't tell me you have active canceling on this [/INST] besides the show. So we had this. So inside this array of shock absorbers. We you asked for some interesting. </s><s>[INST] This is awesome. [/INST] So inside this it's harder than the earphone problem, but it's just engineering. We have to see measure not just the engine's still made noise, but the earth is shaking is moving in some direction. So we have to actually tell not only that there's noise and cancel it, but what direction is from? So we put this array of seismometers inside this array of shock absorbers and measure the residual motion and its direction. And we put little actuators that pushback against it and cancel it. This is </s><s>[INST] awesome! So you have the actuators and you have the thing that is sensing the vibrations and and then you have the actual actuators that adjust for that and do so imperfect [/INST] synchrony. What if it all works right? And so how much do we reduce the shaking of the earth? </s><s>[INST] I mean [/INST] One part in 10 to the 12th. </s><s>[INST] One part. [/INST] And so what gets through us is one part in 10 of the 12th. That's pretty big reduction. You don't need that in your car. But that's what we do. And so that's how isolated we are from the earth. And that was the biggest, I I say technical problem outside of the physics instrument, the interferometer? </s><s>[INST] A weird question here you make it very poetically and humorously is saying it's just a mechanical engineering problem. But is this one of the biggest precision mechanical engineering efforts ever? I mean, this seems exceptionally difficult. [/INST] It is. And so it took a long time and I think nobody seems to challenge the statement that this is the most precision precise instrument that's ever been built, ligo. </s><s>[INST] I wonder what like listening to led Zeppelin sounds on this thing because it's so isolated. I mean this is like uh I don't know no background. No, no back. It's wow, wow, wow. So when you were first conceiving this, um I would probably uh if I was knowledgeable enough kind of laugh off the possibility this is even possible. I'm sure like how many people believe that this is possible. Did you [/INST] believe I did? Uh I didn't know that we need for sure that we needed active when we started we did this passive but we were doing the tests to develop the active to add is the second stage which we ended up needing. Uh but there was a lot of now, now there was a lot of skepticism, a lot of us, especially astronomers felt that money was being wasted as we were also expensive. Doing what I told you it's not cheap. So it was kind of controversial is funded by the National Science Foundation. </s><s>[INST] Can you just linger on this just for a little longer and the actuator thing? The act of canceling um do you remember like literal experiments that were done along the way to prove to the team to themselves that this is you impossible. So from our, because I worked with quite a bit of robots and to me the idea that you could do it this precisely is a humbling and embarrassing frankly because like this is another level of precision that I can't even uh because robots are a mess and this is basically one of the most precise robots ever. Right so like is there uh we have any like small scale experiments that were done that I believe this is possible. [/INST] Yeah and larger scale we made we made tests uh that also has to be in vacuum to but we may test chambers that had this system in it. Our first mock of this system. So we could test it and uh optimize it and make it work. But it's just a mechanical engineering problem. </s><s>[INST] Okay humans are just eight descendants. I got you. I got you. Uh Is there any video of this like uh some kind of educational purpose visualizations of this act of canceling. [/INST] Uh I don't think so. I </s><s>[INST] mean is this does this live on? [/INST] Well we work for parts of it for the active canceling. We worked with for the instruments for the sensor and instruments. We worked with a small company and met near where you are because it was our M. I. T. People that got them there were you know interested in the problem because they thought they might be able to commercialize it for making staple tables to make microelectronic for example which are limited by the house stable. The table is I mean at this point it's a little expensive </s><s>[INST] so you never know never know where this leads. Okay so maybe on the let me ask you just sticking it a little longer. This silly old mechanical engineering problem. Uh what was uh do you kind of the darkest moment of what was the hardest stumbling block to get over on the engineer side? Like was there any time where there's a doubt where it's like, I'm not sure we would be able to do this kind of uh engineering challenge that was hit. Do you remember anything like that? I [/INST] think the one that that my colleague at MIT Ray Weiss worked on so hard and was much more of a worry than this. This is only a question. If you're not do it well enough you have to keep making it better somehow. But this whole huge instrument has to be in vacuum and uh the vacuum tanks are, you know, this big around and uh so it's the world's biggest high vacuum system. And uh how do you make it, first of all? How do you make this four metre long sealed vacuum system? It has to be made out of </s><s>[INST] four kilometers, [/INST] four kilometers, would I say? Something else? Meters for four kilometers long. Big difference. Yeah. And uh so but to make it, yeah, we started with uh a role of stainless steel and then we spy roll it out like a spiral so that there's a spiral weld on it. Okay, so the engineering was fine. We did that. We worked through a very good companies and so forth to build it. But the big worry it was what if you develop a leak this is a high vacuum, not just vacuum system. Typically in your in a laboratory, if there's a leak, you put helium around the the thing you have and then you detect where the helium is coming in. But if you have something as big as this, you can't surround it with a liam. </s><s>[INST] You might not actually even know that there's a leak and it will be affecting. Well, [/INST] we we have we can measure the how good the vacuum is so we can know that. But there are we can develop and and then we don't how do we fix it or how do we find it? And uh so that was you asked about a worry. That was always a really big worry. Uh </s><s>[INST] What's the high vacuum and a vacuum? What is high vacuum? That's like some adult of close to vacuum. Is there some threshold? [/INST] Well, there's a unit high vacuum is when the vacuum in the units that are used. Richard Tours there's 10 to the -9. Uh And there's high vacuum is usually used in small places. The biggest vacuum system period. Is that cernan this big particle accelerator. But the high vacuum where they need really good vacuums of particles don't scatter and is smaller than our so ours is a really large high vacuum system. </s><s>[INST] I don't know. This is so cool. I mean, this is basically by far the greatest listening device ever built by humans. The fact that like descendants of apes could do this. The evolution started with single cell organisms. I mean, is there any more? I'm a huge uh theories like Yeah, yeah. But like bridges, when I look at bridges from a civil engineering perspective is one of the most beautiful creations by human beings. It's physics. You're using physics to construct the objects that can support huge amount of mass and it's like structural, but it's also beautiful and that humans can collaborate to create that throughout history. And then you take this on another level. This is this is like it's so exciting to me beyond measure that humans can create something so precise. [/INST] But another concept lost in this. You just said you started talking about single cell. Yeah. Okay. If they realize this discovery that we made that everybody spot off on happened 1.3 billion years ago Somewhere and then the signal came to us 1.3 billion years ago, we were just converting on the earth from single cell to multi cell life. So when this actually happened, this collision of two black holes, we weren't here, we weren't even close to </s><s>[INST] people developing. [/INST] Were single. Yeah, we were we were going from single cell to multi cell life at that </s><s>[INST] point to meet up at this at this point, wow, that's like uh, that's almost romantic. Uh okay, so on the human side of things is kind of fascinating because you're talking about over 1000 people team for lego [/INST] uh </s><s>[INST] that started out with the, you know, around 100 and you've uh for parts of the time at least lead this team, what does it take to lead a team like this of incredibly brilliant theoreticians and engineers and just a lot of different parties involved, a lot of egos, a lot of ideas. You had this funny, funny example, forget where we're in publishing a paper, you have to all agree on like uh you know, the phrasing of a certain sentence or the title of the paper and so on. That's a very interesting simple exam, I'd love you to speak to that. But just in general, how what does it take to lead this kind of team? [/INST] Okay. Uh I think the general idea is when we all know you want to, you want to you want to get where the sum of something is more than the individual parts is what we say. Right? So that's what you're trying to achieve. Okay, how do you do that actually? Mostly if we take multiple objects or people, I mean you put them together, the sum is less why? Because they overlap. So you don't have individual things that you know, this person does that, this person does that, then then you get exactly the sum, but what you want is to develop, where you get more than what the individual contributions are. We know that's very common. People use that expression everywhere. And it's the expression that has to be kind of build into how people feel it's working because if you're part of a team and you realize that somehow the team is able to do more than the individuals could do themselves than they buy on kind of in terms of the process. So that's the, that's the goal that you have to have is to achieve that. And that means that you have to uh realize parts of what you're trying to do. That require, not that one person couldn't do it, it requires the combined talents to be able to do something that neither of them could do themselves and we have a lot of that kind of thing. And I think, um, I mean build into the some of the examples that I gave you and so how do you then? So, so the key almost in anything you do is the people themselves. Right? So in our case the first and most important was to attract to spend years of their life on this, the best possible people in the world to do it. So the only way to convince them is that somehow it's better and more interesting for them than what they could do themselves. And so that's part of this uh idea. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, that's powerful. But nevertheless, there's best people in the world, there's egos, Is there something to be said about managing egos? [/INST] Well, that's the human problem is always the hardest. And so there's that's an art, not a science. I think. I think the fact here that combined, there's a was a romantic goal that we had to do something that people hadn't done before, which was um important scientifically and and a huge challenge enabled us to say take and get uh I mean, what we did just take an example. We used the light to go in. This thing comes from lasers, we need a certain kind of laser. So the kind of laser that we use, there were three different institutions in the world that had the experts that do this maybe in competition with each other. So we got all three to join together and work with us uh to work on this as an example, so that you had uh and they had the thing that they were working together on a kind of object that they wouldn't have otherwise. And uh we're part of a bigger team where they could discover something that isn't even engineers. These are engineers that do laser. So, and they're part of our laser physicists. And </s><s>[INST] so, could you describe the moment or the period of time when finally this incredible creation of human beings lead to a detection of gravitational waves. [/INST] It's a long story, unfortunately, this is a part that uh we started </s><s>[INST] failures. We stayed away kind of thing are [/INST] all failures, that's all that's built into it. If you're not, if you're </s><s>[INST] not mechanical engineering, you [/INST] build on your failures that's expected. So we're trying things that no one's done before. So it's technically not just gravitational waves and so it's built on failures. But anyway, we did before me. Even the people did R. And D. On the concepts. But starting in 1994, we got money from the National Science Foundation to build this thing. um, it took about five years to build it. So by 1999 we had built the basic unit. It did not have active seismic isolation at that stage. Didn't have some other things that we have. Now. What we did at at the beginning was stick to technologies that we had at least enough knowledge that we can make work or had tested in our own laboratories. And so then we put together the instrument, we made it work, didn't work very well, but it worked and we didn't see any gravitational waves. Then we figured out what limited us. And we went through this every year for Almost 10 years. Never seen gravitational waves. We would uh run it looking for gravitational waves for months, learn what limited us, fix it for months and then run it again. Eventually we I knew we had to take another big step. And that's when we made several changes, including going adding these active seismic isolation, which turned out to be a key. Um and we fortunately got the National Science Foundation to give us another couple $100 million. 100 million more. And uh we rebuild it are fixed, our improved it. and uh then in 19 uh 2015 We turned it on and uh we um almost instantly saw this first collision of two black holes. Um and then then we went through a process of do we believe what we've seen? </s><s>[INST] Yeah I think I think you're one of the people that went to that process sounds like some people immediately believed it and then you're [/INST] like human beings, we all have different reactions, still has anything. And so quite a few of my colleagues had a Eureka moment immediately. I mean this amazing the figure that we that we put in our paper first is just data. We didn't have to go through you know fancy computer programs to do anything. And and we showed next to it uh the calculations of Einstein's equations, it looks just like the what we detected and we did in two different detectors halfway across the U. S. So it was pretty convincing. But uh huh. But you don't want to you don't want to fool yourself. So we had, being a scientist, we had a for me we had to go through and try to understand that the instrument itself which was new. I said we had rebuilt it couldn't somehow generate things that look like this that took some tests and then uh the second you'll appreciate more we had somehow convince ourselves we weren't hacked in some clever way, </s><s>[INST] cyber security question. [/INST] Yeah. Even though we're not on the internet, the but </s><s>[INST] no, it can be physical access to. Yeah, that's fascinating. It's fascinating. You would think about that. I mean, not not enough. I mean, because it's it's uh it matches prediction. So the chances of it actually being manipulated is very, very low. But nevertheless, [/INST] we still could have disgruntled all graduate students who had worked with us earlier </s><s>[INST] that I want you to I don't know how that's supposed to embarrass you, I suppose. Yeah, I suppose. I see. But but about what I think you said within a month, you kind of convince yourself sufficient [/INST] in a month. We convinced ourselves we kept a 1000 collaborators quiet during that time. Then we spend another month or so trying to understand what we've seen so that we could do the science with it instead of just putting it out to the world and let somebody else understand that it was two black holes. What it was. </s><s>[INST] The fact that 1000 collaborators were quiet is a really strong indication that this is a really close knit team [/INST] and their around the world or either strong, either strong net or tight knit or had a strong dictatorship </s><s>[INST] or something. Either fear love. You can rule by fear, love can go back to Maggie Valley. All right, well, this I mean, it was really exciting that that was that that's a success story because it didn't have to be a success story, right? I mean, eventually, perhaps you could say it will be in effect, but it could have taken it over a century [/INST] to get Yeah, it's uh uh and it's only downhill now. Kind </s><s>[INST] of. What do you mean? You mean it was gravitational? [/INST] Well, we're yeah, we've we've now we now uh but now we're off because of the pandemic. But when we turned off, we were seeing some sort of gravitational wave event each week, uh now we're fixing we're fixing we're adding features where it will probably be when we turn back on next year. It'll probably everyone every couple of days and they're not all the same. So it's learning about what's out there in gravity instead of just optics. So, it's all uh great. We're only limited by the fantastic thing other than that, this is a great field. And, you know, it's all new and so forth, is that experimentally the great thing is that uh we're limited by technology and technical limitations, not by science. So they they another a really important discovery that was made before ours was what's called the Higgs boson made a big accelerator at Cern, you know, this huge accelerator. They discovered a really important thing. It's you know, we have Einstein's equation E equals M. C. Squared. So energy makes mass or mass can make energy and that's the bomb. But the mechanism by which that happens not vision but how do you create mass from energy? Uh Was never understood until there was a a theory I've heard about 70 years ago now. And uh so they discovered it's named after a man named Higgs. It's called the Higgs bosa. And so it was discovered. But since that time and I worked on those experiments, since that time, they haven't been able to progress very much further a little bit but not a lot further. And the difference is that we're really lucky, we're uh in what we're doing in that there uh your you see this Higgs boson. But there's tremendous amount of other physics that goes on and you have to pick out the needle in the haystack kind of physics. You can't make the physics go away, it's there in our case we have a very weak signal but once we get good enough to see it, It's weak compared to where we've reduced the background. But the background is not physics, it's just technology, you know, it's getting ourselves better isolated from the earth or getting a more powerful laser. And so each time each since 2015 when we saw the first one, we continually can make improvements that are enabling us to turn this into a real science. To do astronomy? A new kind of astronomy. It's a little like astronomy. I mean Galileo started the field. I mean, he basically took lenses that were made for classes, uh and he didn't invent the first telescope made a telescope looked at uh Neptune and so that it had four months, that was the birth of not just using your eyes to understand what's out there. And since that time we've made better and better telescopes obviously, and astronomy thrives and in a similar way, we're starting to be able to for crawl, but we're starting to be able to do that with gravitational waves and it's going to be more and more that we can do is we can make better and better instruments, because as I say, it's not limited by um picking it out of others. Yeah, it's not limited by the physics. </s><s>[INST] You have an optimism about engineering that event, you know, as we as human progress marches on engineering will always find a way to uh to build a large enough device accurate enough device to detect this, [/INST] as long as it's not limited by physics. Yeah, they will do it. </s><s>[INST] Yes, So, you two other folks and the entire team won the Nobel prize for this big effort. There's a million questions I can ask for, but looking back, Mhm. Where does the Nobel prize fit into all of this? You know, if you think hundreds of years from now, I venture to say that people will not remember the winners of the prize, but they'll remember creations like these, Maybe I'm romanticizing engineering, but I guess I wanna ask how important is the Nobel prize in all of this? [/INST] Um Well that's a that's a complicated question. It uh yeah, as a physicist, it's something if you're if you're trying to win a Nobel prize, forget it, because they give you no one a year. So there's uh there's been 200 physicists have won the Nobel Prize since 1900, and so that's. you know, and so things just have to fall, right, so your goal cannot be to win an oil price wasn't my dream. Uh it's uh it's uh tremendous for science, I mean, why the Nobel prize for a guy that made dynamite and stuff, you know what it is, it's a long story, but it's the one day a year were actually the science that people have done is all over the world and so forth. Forget about the people again, you know, it is really good for for science </s><s>[INST] celebrating science [/INST] celebrates science for several days, different fields, uh chemistry, medicine and so forth, and everybody doesn't understand everything about these, generally fairly abstract, but then, you know, it's on the front page of newspapers around the world, so it's really good for science, it's not easy to get science on the front page of the new york times, it's not, there should be, but it's not, and uh um so the Nobel prize is important in that way. Uh it's otherwise, you know, I have a certain celebrity that I didn't have before, um </s><s>[INST] and now you get to be a celebrity that advertises science, it's a mechanism to uh remind us how incredible, well how much credit science deserves and everything. [/INST] Well it has a little bit more, one thing I didn't expect, which is good is that, you know, we have a government, yeah, I'm not picking on ours necessarily, but it's true of all governments are not run by scientists, in our case is run by uh lawyers and businessmen, okay, uh and at best they may have an aide or something that knows a little science, so um so our country is and all countries are hardly uh hardly take into account science in making decisions, okay, and uh having a Nobel prize, the people in those positions actually listen, so you have more influence, I don't care whether it's about global warming or what the issue is, there's some influence which is lacking otherwise, and uh people pay attention to what I say, if I talk about global warming and they wouldn't have before I had the Nobel prize. </s><s>[INST] Uh Yeah, this is very true, you're like the celebrities who talk uh celebrity has power, uh [/INST] Celebrity has power and that's that's a good thing, That's a good thing is singling out people, I mean on the other side of it singling out people has all kinds of, you know, whether it's for an Academy Awards or for this have unfairness and arbitrariness and so forth and so on. So, uh, you know, that's the other side of the coin, </s><s>[INST] as you said, especially with the huge experimental projects like this. You know, it's a large team and it does the nature of the Nobel prizes singles out a few individuals to represent the team. Nevertheless, it's a beautiful thing. Uh, what are ways to improve? Like go in the future increases sensitivity. I've seen a few ideas that are kind of fascinating is are you interested in them sort of looking, I'm not speaking about five years, Perhaps you could speak to the next five years, but also the next 100 years. [/INST] Yeah, So let me, let me talk to both the instrument and the science. Okay, so that's, they go hand in hand. I mean, the thing that I said is if we make it better, we see more kinds of weaker objects and we do astronomy. Okay, uh, we're very motivated to make a new instrument, which will be a big step. The next step like making a new kind of telescope person and the ideas of what that instrument should be having converged. Yet there's different ideas in europe. They've done more work to kind of uh, develop the ideas, but they are different from ours and we have ideas. So, but I think over the next few years will develop those. The idea is to make an instrument is at least 10 times better than what, we have, What we can do with this instrument 10 times better than that 10 times better means you can look 10 times further out, 10 times further out is 1000 times more volume. So you're seeing much, much more of the universe. The big change is that if you can see far out, you see further back in history, </s><s>[INST] you're traveling back in time. [/INST] Yeah. And so we can start to do what we call cosmology. Instead of astronomy or astrophysics, cosmology is really the study of the evolution of the </s><s>[INST] Oh, interesting. [/INST] And uh so then you can start to hope to get to the uh important problems having to do with uh how the universe began, how it evolved and so forth, which we really only study now with optical instruments are uh electromagnetic waves and early in the universe those were blocked because basically it wasn't transparent so the photons couldn't get out when everything was too dense. </s><s>[INST] What do you think? Sorry, on this tangent, what do you think? An understanding of gravitational waves from earlier in the universe can help us understand about the Big Bang and all [/INST] that kind of stuff. That's that's so </s><s>[INST] but but it's a non it's a it's a it's another perspective on the thing, is is there some insights you think it could be revealed just to help a layman understand. [/INST] Sure. First, we don't understand, we use the word Big bang, we don't understand the physics of what the Big bang itself was. Uh so I think um my my and in the early stage there were particles and there was a huge amount of gravity and mass being made. And so uh the big So I'll say two things. One is, How did it all start? How did it happen? And I'll give you at least one example that we don't understand what we should understand. We don't know why we're here. </s><s>[INST] Yes. No, we do not. [/INST] I don't mean it philosophically. I mean in terms of physics, okay, now what do I mean by that? If I go into my laboratory at cern or somewhere and I collide particles together, put energy together, I make as much anti matter as matter. Anti matter than annihilates matter and makes energy. So in the early universe there you made somehow somehow a lot of matter and anti matter. But there was an asymmetry. Somehow there was more matter and anti Matter the matter and anti matter annihilated each other at least that's what we think. And there was only matter left over and we live in a universe that we see this all matter. We don't have any idea, we have an ideas, but we don't have any, we don't have any way to understand that at the present time with the physics that we know, </s><s>[INST] You can ask a dumb question, Does anti matter have anything like a gravitational field to uh send signals. So, how how does this asymmetry of matter, anti matter could be investigated or further understood by observing gravitational fields or weirdness is and gravitational fields? [/INST] I I think that in principle, if there were, you know, um anti neutron stars, instead of just neutron stars, we would see uh different kind of signals. But it didn't get to that is we live in a universe that we've done enough looking because we don't see anti pro matter anti protons anywhere, no matter what we look at that, it's all made out of matter. There is no anti matter except we go in our laboratories. So, but when we go in our laboratories, we make as much anti matter as matter. So there's something about the early universe that made this asymmetry. So we can't even explain why we're here, that's what I meant. Physical physics, y it's not, you know, uh not in terms of how we evolved and all that kind of stuff. So </s><s>[INST] there might be inklings of uh of some of the physics that gravitational. [/INST] So, so gravitational waves don't get obstructed like light. So I said, light only goes to 300,000 years. So it goes back to the beginning. So, if you could study the early universe of gravitational waves, we can't do that yet, Then uh it took 400 years to be able to do that with optical, but uh then you can really understand the very, maybe understand the very early universe. So, in terms of uh questions like why we're here or what the big bang was, uh we should be, we can in principle study that with gravitational waves. So to keep moving in this direction, it's a unique kind of way to understand our universe. </s><s>[INST] Do you think there's more Nobel prize level ideas to be discovered in relation to, [/INST] I'd be shocked if there if there isn't uh not even going to that, which is a very long range problem, but I think that uh We only see with electromagnetic waves 4% of what's out there, uh there must be, we look for things that we knew should be there. Uh there should be uh um I would be shocked if there wasn't physics, objects, science and with gravity, that doesn't show up in everything we do with telescopes. So I think we're just limited by not having powerful enough instruments yet to do this. </s><s>[INST] Do you have a preference? I keep seeing this? Uh E lisa idea. Yeah. Is it do you have a preference for earthbound or space faring mechanisms for [/INST] their complementary It's a little bit it's completely analogous to what's been done in astronomy. So, astronomy from the time of Galileo was done with visible light? Yeah, The big advances in astronomy in the last 50 years or because we have instruments that look at the infrared microwave ultraviolet and so forth. So looking at different wavelengths has been important, basically going into space means that we look at instead of the audio ban, which we look at. As we said, on the air surface, we'll look at lower frequencies. So it's completely complimentary. And it starts to be looking at different frequencies. Just like we do with astronomy, </s><s>[INST] it seems almost incredible to me, engineering wise, just like on Earth to send something that's kilometers across into uh into space. It's harder to engineer [/INST] then. It actually is a little different. It's three satellites separated by hundreds of thousands of kilometers and they send a laser beam from one to the other. And uh if they the distance, if the triangle changes shape a little bit, they detect that from a graphic, did you </s><s>[INST] say? Hundreds of thousands of kilometers? Yeah, sending lasers to each other. Okay. [/INST] It's just </s><s>[INST] engineering. Um It's possible though. Uh [/INST] google. Okay. </s><s>[INST] Mhm. Uh That's that's just incredible. Because they have to maintain. I mean, the precision here is probably, there might be some more what is it? Maybe noises. A smaller problem. I guess there's no vibration to to worry about like seismic stuff. So, getting away from Earth, maybe you get away [/INST] from those parts are easier. They don't have to measure it is accurately at low frequencies, but they have uh a lot of tough engineering problems. The the in order to detect that the the gravitational waves affect things. The sensors have to be what we call free masses, just like ours are isolated from the earth. They have to isolate it from the satellite. And that's a hard problem. They have to do that pretty not as well as we have to do it but very well. And they've done a test mission and the engineering seems to be at least in principle in hand. This will be in the 2031, Yeah. </s><s>[INST] This is incredible. This is uh this is this is incredible. Uh Let me ask about bob black holes. Uh so what we're talking about is observing ah orbiting black holes. Uh I I saw the terminology of like binary black hole [/INST] systems is </s><s>[INST] that's that's when the when that's when they're dancing. [/INST] Okay, we're going around each other just like the Earth around the sun. </s><s>[INST] Okay. Is that weird that there's black holes going around each other? [/INST] So finding binary systems of stars is similar to finding binary systems of </s><s>[INST] black holes. [/INST] They were one stars. So, uh so we haven't said what a black hole is physically yet. So what's the black hole? So, black hole is first, it's a mathematical concept or physical concept and that is a region of space. So it's simply a region of space where the curvature of space time in the gravitational field is so strong that nothing get out including light and there's light gets spent in gravitational if the gravitation if the spacetime is warped enough. And so even like it's been around and stays in it. So that's the concept of a black hole. So it's not a and maybe you can make maybe it's a it's a concept that didn't say how they come about. And uh there could be different ways they come about, the ones that we are seeing. Uh there's a we're not sure that's what we're trying to learn now, is what they but the general expectation is that they come the black, these black holes happen when a star dies. So what does that mean? That the star dies? What happens? A star like our sun uh basically makes heat and light by fusion. It's made of and as it burns, it burns up the hydrogen and then the helium and then and slowly works its way up to the heavier and heavier elements that are in the star. And when it gets up to iron, the fusion process doesn't work anymore. And so the stars die and it happens to stars and then they do what's called a supernova. What happens then is that a star is a delicate balance between an outward pressure from fusion and light and burning and an inward pressure of gravity trying to pull the masses together once it burns itself out it goes and it collapses and that's a supernova. When it collapses all the mass that was there is in a very much smaller space. And if a star if you do the calculations, if a star is big enough that can create a strong enough gravitational field to make a black hole, our son won't. It's too smart, too smart and we don't know exactly what it, but it's usually thought that a star has to be at least three times as big as our son to make a black hole. But that's the physical way there. You can make black holes. That's the first uh explanation that one would give for the for what we see. But it's not necessarily true. We're not sure yet </s><s>[INST] what we see in terms of for the origins of black holes. [/INST] No, the black holes that we see in gravitational waves. </s><s>[INST] So the but you're also looking for the ones who are binary solar systems. [/INST] So they're binary systems, but they could have been made from binary stars. So there's binary stars around. So that's so that's the first explanation, is that that's what they are. Uh other explain. But but what we see has some puzzles. This is the kind of the way science works, I guess. Um We see heavier ones then up to her, We've seen one system that was 140 times the mass of our own son. Yeah. That's not believed to be possible with parent being a big star because big stars can only be so big or they are unstable. It's just the the fact that they live in an environment that makes them unstable. So the fact that we see bigger once, they may be come from something else. It's possible that they were uh made in a different way by little ones eating each other up or maybe they were made or maybe they came with a big bang the prime, what we call primordial, which means they're really different. They came from that, we don't know at this point if they came with a big bang, then maybe they account for what we call dark matter or some of it, </s><s>[INST] like there was a lot of them if they came with and because there's a lot of dark matter, but we'll gravitational always give you any kind of uh intuition about the origin of these, possibly [/INST] think that if we see the distributions enough of them, the distributions of their masses, the distributions of how they're spinning. So we can actually measure when they're going around each other whether they're spitting, you know, like this or </s><s>[INST] or oriented [/INST] whether the whole system has any wobbles. What? </s><s>[INST] So this is, this is now okay, [/INST] we're doing </s><s>[INST] that. And then you're constantly kind of crawling back and back [/INST] and we're crawling back in time and seeing how many there are as we go back. And so do they point back. </s><s>[INST] So you're like, what is that discipline called cartography or something? You're like mapping this the early universe via the lens of gravitational waves. [/INST] Not yet the early universe abilities back earlier. So uh so black holes are this mathematical phenomenon, But they come about in different ways. We have a huge black hole at the center of our galaxy and other Galaxies. Those probably were made some other way. We don't know when the Galaxies themselves had to do with the formation of Galaxies we we don't really know. So the fact that we use the word black hole, the origin of black holes might be quite different depending on how they happened. They just have to in the end, have a gravitational field that will bend everything in. </s><s>[INST] How do you feel about black holes as a human being? There's uh there's this thing that's nearly infinitely dense. Can doesn't let light escape. Isn't that kind of terrifying. Feels like the stuff of nightmares. [/INST] I think it's it's an opportunity </s><s>[INST] to do what Exactly. [/INST] So, uh like the early universe is an opportunity. If we can study the early universe, we can learn things like I told you. And here again, we have an embarrassing situation in physics. We have two wonderful theories of physics, one based on quantum mechanics, quantum field theory. And we can go to a big accelerator like at cern and smashing particles together and almost explain anything that happens beautifully using quantum field theory and quantum mechanics. Then we have another theory of physics called general relativity, which is what we've been talking about most of the time, which is fantastic at describing uh things that high velocities, long distances, you know, uh and so forth. So that's not the way it's supposed to be. Uh we're trying to create a theory of physics, not to theories of physics. So we have an embarrassment that we have two different theories of physics. People have tried to make a unified theory, what they call a unified theory. You've heard those words for decades. Uh They still haven't that's been primarily done theoretically or try the people actively do that. My personal belief is that like much of physics, we need some clues. So we need some experimental evidence. So where is there place if we go to cern into those experiments, gravitational waves or general relativity. Don't matter if we go to study you are black holes? Elementary particle physics doesn't matter. We're setting these huge objects. So where might we have a place where both phenomenon have to be satisfied an example of this black holes </s><s>[INST] inside black holes. [/INST] So we can't do that today. But when I think of black hole is a potential treasure chest of understanding the fundamental problems of physics and maybe can give us clues how we bring to the embarrassment of having two theories of physics together. Yeah, that's my own. What's </s><s>[INST] the worst that could happen. It's so enticing. Just go in and look, do you think um how far are we away from figuring out the unified uh theory of physics, a theory of everything. I think. What's your sense, who will solve it, Like what discipline will solve [/INST] it? Uh uh I think uh so little progress has been made uh without more experimental clues as I said that we're not we're just not able to say that we're close without some clues. The best closest popular theory these days. That might lead to that. It's called string theory. The problem with strength theory is it works uh It solves a lot of beautiful mathematical problems we have in physics and and uh it's very satisfying theoretically. But it has almost no predictive, Maybe no predictive ability because it is a theory that works in 11 dimensions. We live in a physical world of three space and one time dimension. In order to make predictions in our world with string theory, you have to somehow get rid of these other seven dimensions. That's done mathematically by saying they curl up on each other on scales that are too small to affect anything here. But how you do that. And that's okay. That's okay argument. But how you do that is not unique. So that means if I start with that theory and I go to our world here, I can't uniquely go to it which predictive, it's not predictive. And </s><s>[INST] that's that's actually [/INST] and that's a killer that's a killer. </s><s>[INST] And string theory is it seems like from my outsider's perspective has lost favor over the years perhaps because of this [/INST] very it's a lack of predictive power. I mean that science has to connect something where you make predictions is beautiful as it as it might be. So, I don't think we're close. I think we need some experimental clues that may be that information on something we don't understand presently at all, like dark energy or probably not dark matter, but dark energy or something might give us some ideas, but I don't think we're I can't envision right now uh in the short term meaning, you know, the horizon that we can see how we're gonna bring these two theories together. </s><s>[INST] A kind of uh two part question. Maybe just asking the same thing in two different ways. One question is, do you have hope that humans will colonize the the galaxy to expand out, become a multi planetary species? Another way of asking that from a gravitational and a propulsion perspective, do you think we'll come up with ways to travel close to the speed of light or maybe faster than the speed of light, which would make it a whole heck of a lot easier to expand out into the, into the universe? [/INST] Yeah, Well, I I think, you know, we're not that's a very futuristic. I think we're not that far from being able to Make a one way trip to Mars that's a that's been a question of uh whether people are willing to send somebody on a one way trip. </s><s>[INST] So I think they are. There's a lot of the explorers burned, right? [/INST] Yeah, yeah, </s><s>[INST] exactly. We're willing to die uh opportunity to explore new territory. [/INST] So uh you know this this recent landing on MArs is pretty impressive. They have a little helicopter can fly around. You can imagine, you can imagine in the not too distant future that you could have. I don't think civilisations colonizing, I can vision, but I can envision something more like the South Pole. We haven't colonized Antarctica because it's it's all ice and cold and so forth. But we have uh stations. So we have a station that self sustaining at the South Pole that I've been there. It has really. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] What's that like? Uh because that that there's parallels there [/INST] to go to MArs. It's fantastic. </s><s>[INST] What's the journey like? [/INST] The journey involves going uh the South Pole station is run in the US by by the National Science Foundation. I went because I was on the National Science Board that runs the National Science Foundation. And so you get a VIP trip if you're healthy enough to the South Pole to see it, which I took you fly from the US to Australia to uh Christchurch in Australia's southern Australia. And uh from there you fly to McMurdo station which is on the coast and it's the station with about 1000 people right on the coast of Antarctica. Uh it's about uh seven or eight hour flight and they can't predict the weather. So when when I flew from Christchurch to make Myrdal station, they tell you in advance he's doing in the military aircraft they tell you in advance that they can't predict whether they can land because they have to land on uh reassure. Yeah. And so about halfway the pilot got on and said uh sorry this is uh they call it a boomerang flight you know boomerang goes out and go spend. So we had to stay a little while in Christchurch but then we eventually went to make Myrdal station and then flew to the South Pole. The south pole itself Is uh when I was there was -51°. That was summer. Uh huh. It uh zero humidity. And uh and it's about 11,000ft altitude Because it's never warm enough for anything to melt. So it doesn't snow very much but it's about 11,000 ft of snow pack. So you land in a place that's high altitude um cole this could be and dry and incredibly dry. Which means you have a physical adjustment. Uh The place itself is uh it's fantastic. They have this great station there. They do astronomy at the South Pole. </s><s>[INST] Nature wise is a beautiful what's uh what's the experience like? Or is it like visiting any town? [/INST] No it's very small. There's only uh less than 100 people there even when I was there. Yes There were about 50 or 60 there. And in the winter there's less half of that their winner, </s><s>[INST] it's real cold [/INST] it gets really cold. Yeah. And but but it's it's a station I I think and that's I mean we haven't gone beyond that. Uh on the coast of Antarctica. They have greenhouses and their self sustaining in McMurdo station, but we haven't really settled more than that kind of thing in Antarctica, which is a big uh huh. A country or you know, uh big part of big piece of land. So I don't, I can't envision kind of colonizing at people living so much as much as I can see uh the equivalent of the South Pole station. </s><s>[INST] Well in the computing world, there's an idea of uh, you know, backing up your data and then you want to do offsite backup. Uh you know, to make sure that if the whole thing burnt, if your whole house burns down that you could have a backup off site of the data. I think the difference in Antarctica and uh and MArs is mars is an offsite backup that if we have nuclear war or whatever the heck might happen here on earth, it would be nice to have a backup elsewhere. And be nice to have a large enough colony where we sent variety of people except like uh a few silly astronauts in suits, you know, have an actual vibrant um get a few, get a few musicians and artists up there. Get a few maybe like one or two computer scientists, those are essential, maybe even a physicist. [/INST] So it's not sure, maybe not. So that comes back to something you talked about earlier, which is for me the paradox families paradox because you talked about having to escape. But and so the missing 11 number, you don't know how to use in families calculation or drake who's done it better is how long do civilizations last before they are we, you know, we've barely gotten to where we can communicate with electricity and magnetism and maybe we'll wipe ourselves out pretty soon. So </s><s>[INST] are you hopeful in general? Like you think we got another couple 100 years at least? [/INST] Are you worried? Well, no, I'm I'm hopeful, but I don't know if I'm hopeful in the long term. You know, if you say, you know, uh huh Yeah. Are we able to go for another couple of 1000 years? I'm not sure. I think we have where we started the fact that we can do things that don't allow us to kind of keep going or there can be whether it ends up being a virus that we create or ends up being the equivalent of nuclear war or something else. It's not clear that we can control things well enough. </s><s>[INST] So speaking of really cold conditions and uh not being hopeful and eventual suffering and destruction of the human species. Let me ask you about Russian literature, You mentioned uh, how's that for a transition? I'm doing my best here. You you mentioned that used to love literature when you're younger and you were even uh we're hoping to be um a writer yourself. That was the motivation and some of the books I've seen that you listed um, that were inspiring to you was was from Russian literature, like uh, I think Tolstoy dostoyevsky, soldier Nansen. [/INST] Yeah. </s><s>[INST] Um, maybe in general, you can speak to your fascination with Russian literature or general. Well, you picked up from [/INST] those, I'm not surprised you picked up on the Russian literature your background, but uh, when, when I, when you should be </s><s>[INST] surprised that didn't make the entire conversation about this. That's that's the real surprise [/INST] when when uh I didn't really become a physicist or want to go in science until I started college. So when I was younger I was good at math, that kind of stuff. But I didn't really, I came from a family, didn't know what he went to college and I didn't have any mentors. So, but I'd like to read when I was really young. And so when I was very young, I read, I always carried around a pocket book and read it And uh my mother read these mystery stories and I got bored by those eventually. And then I discovered real literature. I don't know at what age about 12 or 13. And so then I started reading a good literature and there's nothing better than Russian literature of course in reading reading good literature. So I uh read quite a bit of Russian literature at that time. Uh and uh so you asked me about the, well, I don't know, I say a few words dostoevsky. So what about dostoevsky? For me? Um, dostoevsky was important into I mean, I've read a lot of literature because it's kind of the other thing I do with my life. And He made two incredible in addition to his own literature, he influenced literature tremendously by having uh, I don't know how to pronounce polyphony. So, he's the first real serious author that had multiple narrators. And that's a he absolutely is the first. And he also was the first um he began existential literature. So, uh, the most important book that I've read in the last year when I've been forced to be isolated was existential literature. It was I decided to reread uh, moose the plague. </s><s>[INST] Oh, yeah, that's a great book. [/INST] It's a great book. And it's right now to read it, it's </s><s>[INST] this book is about love, actually, love for his humanity. [/INST] It is. But it has all the money. It has all like, you should if you haven't read it in recent years, I had read it before, of course. But to read it during this because it's about a plague. So, it's really fantastic to be done. But that reminds me of, you know, he was a great existentialist, but the beginning of existential literature with </s><s>[INST] dostoevsky. [/INST] So, in addition to his own, you know, great novels, he had a tremendous impact on on uh on literature. </s><s>[INST] And there's also for dostoevsky, unlike most of their existentialists, he was at least in part religious, I mean, their religion geocities permeated his idea. I mean, one of my favorite books of his is The Idiot and he's which is a christ like figure in there. [/INST] Well, there's Prince Myshkin is that michigan? Yeah, Michigan. That's </s><s>[INST] one thing about you write in english, I presume. Yeah, yeah. So that's the names, that's what gets a lot of people is there's so many names hard to pronounce it to remember all of them. It's like uh you have the same problem, [/INST] but he was a great character so that I </s><s>[INST] kind of uh have a connection with him. Because I often then then the title of the book, you're the idiot is I kind of I often call myself an idiot because that's how I feel, I feel so naive about this world. And I I'm not sure, I'm not sure why that is, maybe it's genetic or so on. But um I have a connection, the spiritual connection to that character to michigan to michigan. Yeah, you're just but [/INST] he was far from his, you </s><s>[INST] know, in some sense, in some sense, but in another sense, maybe not of this in [/INST] another sense, he was Yeah, I mean, but it was a bumbler bunk, </s><s>[INST] but you also mentioned Soldier Nixon very interesting did [/INST] uh and and he always confused me. Of course he was really uh really important and uh mhm. Writing about Stalin and first getting in trouble and then he later he is he wrote about Stalin in a way, I forget what it was, what the book was in a way that was very critical of London. </s><s>[INST] Uh Yeah, he he's evolved through the years and he actually showed support for Putin eventually is a very interesting transition. He took no journey he took through thinking about Russia and the soviet union, but I think what I get from him is basic uh it's like Viktor frankl has this man's search for meaning. I have a similar kind of sense of um of the cruelty of human nature, cruelty of indifference, but also the ability to find happiness in the small joys of life. That that's something there's nothing like a prison camp that makes you realize you could still be happy with a very, very little [/INST] Yeah, he was his description of kind of how to make a how to go through a day and actually enjoy it in a prison campus. Pretty amazing. Yeah, and some prison camp, I mean, it's the worst of the worst of the worst </s><s>[INST] and also just uh you know, you do think about the role of authoritarian states and in, you know, like hopeful idealistic systems somehow leading to the suffering of millions and I, you know, this might be arguable, but I think a lot of people believe that Stalin, I think genuinely believed that he's doing good for the world and uh he wasn't, it's a very valuable lesson that um even evil people, I think they're doing good, otherwise, it's too difficult to do the evil. The best way to do evil is to believe framing in a way like you're doing good, and this is this is a very clear picture of that, which is the gulags, the soul genius is one of the best people to reveal that [/INST] the most recent thing I read, it isn't actually fiction was the woman, I can't remember her name, who got the Nobel prize about Within the last five years. I don't know whether she's Ukrainian or Russian, but there interviews, have you read that </s><s>[INST] interview of Ukrainian survivors of? [/INST] Well, I think she may be originally Ukrainian, uh the books written in Russia and then translated in english, and many of the interviews are in Moscow and places, but she won the Nobel prize within the last five years or so. But what's interesting is that these are people of all different ages, all different uh occupations and so forth, and they're reflecting on the their reaction to basically the present soviet system, the system they live with before. There's a lot of uh looking back by a lot of them with uh well uh it being much better before. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I don't know what uh in America, we think we know the right answer what it means to be um to build a better world? I'm not so sure, I think we're all just trying to figure it out. [/INST] Yeah there's doing our best I think you're right. </s><s>[INST] Is there advice you can give to young people today besides reading Russian literature too young age um about how to find their way in life, how to find success in Korea or just life in general. [/INST] Uh huh I just my own belief it may not be very deep, but I believe it, I think you should follow your dreams and you should have dreams and follow your dreams if you can to the extent that you can and uh we spend a lot of our time doing something with ourselves in my case physics, in your case, I don't know whatever it is, machine learning and this uh huh uh we should we should have fun. </s><s>[INST] What was your dream follow your dreams? What what dream did you have? Because [/INST] well well originally I was </s><s>[INST] because you didn't follow your dream. [/INST] Well that's changed along the way I was going to be but I changed what happened, that was what happened, Oh I decided to take the most serious literature course in my high school, which was a mistake, I'd probably be a second rate writer now and uh </s><s>[INST] could be a Nobel prize winning writer [/INST] and uh the the book that we read, even though I had read Russia Russian novels, I was 15, I think uh cured me from being a novelist </s><s>[INST] destroyed your dream. Yes, cured you. Okay, what was the book, Moby Dick? Okay, [/INST] so why Moby Dick? So I have read it since and it's a great novel, maybe it's as good as the Russian </s><s>[INST] now, I've never made it through, I I lost, it was too big, it's too long. [/INST] Okay, your words are going to mesh with what I say, excellent, and you may have the same problem at older, </s><s>[INST] that's why I'm not a [/INST] writer, it may be. So the problem is Moby Dick is what I remember was there was a chapter that was maybe 100 pages long, all describing this, why there was Ahab and the white whale and it was the battle between ahab with this wooden peg leg and the white whale. And there was a chapter, there was 100 pages long in my memory, I don't know how long it really was uh that described in detail though, great white whale and what he was doing and what his fins were like and this and that, and it was so incredibly boring, the word used then I thought if this is great literature, screw it. Okay, now, why did I have a problem? I know now in reflection, because I still read a lot and I read that novel uh you know, after I was 30 or 40 years old. And the problem is simple, I diagnosed what the problem was I that novel in contrast to the Russian novels, which are very realistic and point of view Is one huge metaphor. </s><s>[INST] Oh yeah, [/INST] At 15 years old, I probably didn't know the word and I certainly didn't know the meaning of metaphor. </s><s>[INST] Like what do I care about a fish? Why are you telling me all about this? [/INST] Exactly. As one big metaphor? So, reading it later as a metaphor, I could really enjoy it. But the teacher gave me the wrong book or maybe it was the right book because I went into physics and so uh huh But it was it was truly I think I may oversimplify, but it was really that I was too young to read that book because not too young to read the Russian novels interestingly, but too young to read that because I I probably didn't even know the word and I certainly didn't understand it as a metaphor. </s><s>[INST] Well, in terms of fish, I recommend people read Old Man to see much shorter, much better. It's still metaphor though. So, but you can read it just as a story about a guy catching a fish and it's still fun to read. Uh I had the same experience as you, not with Moby Dick, but later in college I took a course on James Joyce don't ask me why as major in computer science. That took a course on James Joyce. And I was kept being told that he is Widged considered by many considered to be the greatest literary writer of the 20th century. And I kept reading like I think so. His short stories The Dead, I think it's called was very good. Well, I'm not very good, but pretty good. And then you will see is very good. It is very good. Only The Dead, the final story still rings with me today. But then ulysses was I got through ulysses with the help of some Cliff notes and so on, but uh and so added ulysses and Finnegans wake the moment I started fitting his wake, I said this, this is stupid, this is that's when I went full into like um I don't know, that's why I went full Kafka Bukowski like people who just talk about the darkness of the human condition in the fewest words possible and without any of the music of language. Um so it was a turning point uh as well, I wonder, I wonder when is the right time to do the to appreciate the beauty of language. Like even Shakespeare, I was very much off put by Shakespeare in high school and only later started to appreciate its value in the same way. Let me ask you a ridiculous question. [/INST] Okay, </s><s>[INST] uh huh um I mean because you've read Russian literature, Let me ask this one last question. Ah I might be lying, there might be a couple more, but what do you think is the meaning of this whole thing. You're you've got a nobel prize for looking out into the, trying to reach back into the beginning of the universe, listening to the gravitational ways. Uh but that still doesn't answer the why? Why are we here beyond just the matter and antimatter? The philosophical question, [/INST] the phillips philosophical question about the meaning of life I'm probably not really good at. Um I think that uh the individual meaning uh I would say it rather simplistically is whether you've made a difference, positive difference I'd say for anything besides yourself. Uh huh meaning you could have been important to other people or you could have discovered gravitational waves that matters to other people or something, but something beyond just existing on the earth as an individual. So your life has meaning if you have affected um either knowledge or people or something beyond yourself. Yeah, that's a simplistic statement, but it's about as good as I have. </s><s>[INST] That's that maybe and all of its simplicity, it may be very true. Do you think about uh does it make you sad that this right ends? Do you think about your mortality? [/INST] Yeah. </s><s>[INST] Are you afraid of it? [/INST] Not exactly afraid of it, but saddened by it And uh uh you know, I'm old enough to know that I've lived most of my life and uh huh I enjoy being alive. I can imagine being sick and not wanting to be alive, but I'm not so uh I'm </s><s>[INST] not a good road. [/INST] I'm not and I'm not happy to see it come to a man I'd like to see it prolong but uh I don't I don't fear the dying itself or that kind of thing. It's more I'd like to prolong uh what is I think a good life that I'm living and still living. </s><s>[INST] It's kind of it's sad to think that the finance of it is the thing that makes it special. Uh and also said to um to me at least it's kind of I don't think I'm using too strong of award, but it's kind of terrifying. The uncertainty of it. The mystery of it. You know, the [/INST] mystery of death, </s><s>[INST] the mystery of it. You have death when we're talking about the mystery of black holes that somehow distant that somehow out there and the mystery of our own. [/INST] But but but even life, the mystery of consciousness, I find so hard to deal with too. I mean, it's not as painful. I mean, we're conscious but the whole magic of life. We can understand what consciousness where we can actually think so forth. It's pretty </s><s>[INST] it's such, it seems like such a beautiful gift that it really sucks that would get to let go of it. We'll have to let go of it. What do you hope your legacy is as I'm sure they will aliens when they visited humans have destroyed all of human civilization, Aliens read about you in an encyclopedia that would leave behind. What [/INST] do you hope it says? Well, I would I would hope they if to the extent that they evacuated me uh felt that I helped move science forward as a tangible contribution and that I served as a good role model for how humans should live their lives. </s><s>[INST] And we're part of creating one of the most incredible things humans have ever created. So yes, there is the science. That's the fermi thing. Right? Uh [/INST] The instrument </s><s>[INST] and the instrument. The instrument is a magical creation, not just by a human by a collection of humans. The collaboration is uh That's yes, that's humanity at his best. I do hope I do hope we last quite a bit longer. But if we don't. Mhm this is a good thing to remember humans by at least they built that thing. It's pretty impressive. Barry this is an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for wasting your time in explaining so many things. So well, I appreciate your time today. [/INST] Thank you. </s><s>[INST] Thanks for listening to this conversation with barry Barish. To support this podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description And now let me leave you some words from Warner Heisenberg, a theoretical physicist and one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics. Not only is the universe stranger than we think it is stranger that we can think. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. Mhm. [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] thought you meant examples of stuff that's already out there because I can give you examples that for example the kind of things that I would like to work on but also the kind of things I'm hoping to see which is aI could be used by centralized powers by governments, by big organizations like facebook and twitter and so on to collect data about people. Right. Right. But I believe there's a huge hunger among people to have control over their own data. So instead you can have Ai that's distributed where people have complete ownership of their little Ai systems. So like the kind of stuff that I would like to build or like to see it to be built is uh you can think of it as personal assistance or ai that's owned by you and you get to give it out, you have complete control over all of your data, you have complete control over everything that's uh learn double about your day to day experiences that could be useful in the in the market of uh goods and ideas and all those kinds of things. So it has to do with. So I know you talk about surveillance which is very interesting. It's who gets to have control of the data. And I think I believe there's a lot of hunger among regular people to have control over their data. Such that if you want to create a business, you have a lot of money to be made from a capitalist perspective by providing products that let people control their data where you have no control. [/INST] Sounds like to me you're describing encryption or at least the ability to encrypt the ability to use uh digital keys to secure your property. And that to me is very powerful. Individual force for individual rights, very powerful and it's what's what animates. Bitcoin ultimately, which which we'll get into. But for me at least the way I look at it today in 2021, the threat from big data analysis uh used by governments and authoritarian regimes is terrifying. I mean, to actually see what the chinese Communist Party is doing, where they have hundreds of millions of cameras overseeing society cameras that can tell who's a weaker and who's a ham. That to me is terrifying and everything is sorted instantly. There are there are supercomputers that are built in a room key in Xinjiang for this explicit purpose. And, you know, it allows the government to quickly sort and basically commit genocide a lot faster. And it's really scary. So I do agree. And I've seen personally how powerful technology can be as a force for freedom. Um but I'm I'm very, very worried about big data analysis in the hands of governments. </s><s>[INST] See that's funny because I I tend to see governments as ultimately incompetent in the space of technology to where there will always be lagging behind. So you look at what the chinese surveillance systems are doing. I I believe when once you start getting bad enough, that uh like technologies will be created to resist that. So, to mess with it from, from the hacker community, but also from the individual communities or surveillance is actually very difficult from a centralized perspective to detect uh, you know, to collect data about you to detect everything you are, because you can spoof a lot of that information. So I believe you can put power in the hands of the citizens to sort of feed the government fake data to confuse it at a mass scale to where it will make their surveillance less effective but that's okay. That could be very sort of [/INST] hopeful. I mean the practical implication in Xinjiang which is a territory the size of Alaska where a large percentage of the population has been put into prison camps. Um The current issue of the new yorker has an absolutely harrowing essay that that tells the story of one such woman Who in I believe 202017 got sucked into one of these camps and it took her a year or more to get out. Um and and she's talking about how in each home in Xinjiang each home has a QR code on it that the police can scan and get a quick instant downloaded who lives there. Each car has you know like a scannable code uh every every single person has their DNA taken and the D. N. A. Is being sifted through and analyzed by algorithms. So this is like the chinese government's laboratory for how can we use technology to oppress its a sort of digital leninism and that to me is one of the biggest risks in our world today and it's not talked about enough. </s><s>[INST] That's interesting. So technology is basically enables the automation of oppression. Absolutely. So like [/INST] but define technology big data analysis and maybe specific ai etcetera does. But encryption allows us to fight back it's very important people understand we have tools to fight back the Big Brother can only grow if it can feed on your data. If it can't get your data it can't grow. So you have to willingly give up stuff to the cloud um for this monster to grow and we can we can we can like make the monster Hungary and shrink it if we give it less data. And I think that's what I would agree with you in terms of like wanting to empower people to be able to do stuff on their own terms in a sovereign way. And yeah, maybe you're kind of thinking like the personal assistant who helps out Tony stark or something like that and that's yeah, as long as there's no back doors and that's a sovereign thing that you've popped up and created and you have the keys to. Absolutely. But practically speaking, if we're talking about the world today as is we need to be concerned about the way that authoritarian regimes are using big data analysis and they're going to buy the software and this equipment from the chinese government. They're already doing it. Street level surveillance has already been purchased by governments ever from Latin America to sub Saharan africa to the heart of europe. There's been huge scandals in Britain over their purchase of chinese surveillance technology um part of the chinese government's built in road campaign which is basically to build the infrastructure of this century and to be in control of it is this idea. Part of that idea is to is to ship out and install surveillance technology both at the telecom level and at the surveillance level across dozens of countries around the world and have that back door right? There's this national security law in china which states that like companies that are chinese which are abroad are mandated to send data back to Beijing right? So they are building this like huge global surveillance state and again, not talked about enough. You should go google and research the belt and road. I think it's very important that we confront this. </s>

<s>[INST] Simple. What role would you say strength has in sports that combine skill and strength. So for me personally, maybe I'll just ask it selfishly, which is uh grappling, wrestling. Mm A Yeah. [/INST] How about I start with baseball, </s><s>[INST] please? Uh [/INST] No, I okay, </s><s>[INST] the sport. Okay, baseball and golf for two of my favorite sports. Uh No, I don't, you don't have to be in shape at all to excel at the sport. [/INST] Well here's the thing, so </s><s>[INST] you're going to get this argument? [/INST] Well I've got a perfect example because this is this is why I sell so many transformer bars into the major league baseball. So they get these people that come in these athletes that have been baseball their whole life, it is part of the culture and so they're great athletes, they've got all the skill, the only thing they have to do is develop a little bit more resilience so that they don't have the injury, they can push their training a little bit more that they can add a little bit more force output and be able to recover from it. So the only thing they've got to do is add some training, but there's no training culture there. So they don't have any experience, which is why they love the transformer bar because they don't have to worry about teaching the technique, we can actually set the bar on a setting that makes their squads perfect by queuing all the stuff with actually not having to coach it because when you're coaching a room full of athletes, it's really hard to teach the nuance of all this and not sure that all that, but that's all that they have to do with these players with a huge level of skill. So once you reach a certain level of skill, adding strength is the only real forward path. So, so that's the basic, simple answer to that. </s><s>[INST] Um So one of the benefits that are being like injury prevention, actually [/INST] injury prevent resilience, because especially uh fighting sports, you're going to be challenged in the throne and other things happen to you and the more resilient you can make your structures, the better you're going to be, even a cyclist, mountain biking, why would they need it? Why would they need to upper body training, take a crash your shoulders, gone, you're done your career is over unless you've done a little training, right? So, so there's value in all this stuff, but the resilience is like that's that's huge, and then we can overlay strength. The people where we miss is this focus on strength. And we haven't developed quality motor patterns first. So this is a huge thing with uh Children because people want to know what's the appropriate training age. I've had my daughter training before my son because she developed movement patterns that are better quality earlier. There's no age because it's gonna be very dependent on the individual. There's no point in having adaptation if we don't have the right thing to adapt to yet, </s><s>[INST] and that applies to general movement, but also the sport, you're saying the skills should be developed first in the strength applied on top of that, yep, maybe you can educate me, but I actually quit lifting and power lifting for a long time after I started um judo jiu jitsu grappling. All this sort of combat sports because I found that it was preventing me from relaxing my body enough to load in the skill. [/INST] So this isn't a problem with the training, this is a problem with you. So this is actually really, really important. The first product I ever released was a low double mace, a swinging mace. And because every power lifter and body, well not every, but most serious powerlifters and bodybuilders like shoulders mobility is pretty limited and most of really, really struggle with this. The problem is they've been taught to have tension all the time and that's not good. So when we talk about like the joint positions that we were talking about earlier and having those in the muscles in the right length and tension relationship, um athleticism is the speed to relaxation because the counter is speed to, to speed to contraction float like a butterfly sting like a bee. Right? And so what a mace can do is use that because this is a ties back into a developmental kinesiology because a lot of like reset patterns are getting back into these basic movements, but it's as much about relaxation as it is contraction. Okay, so a mace, we have this weight on a big long lever. So if I grab a kettle balance would be like the same movement as a kettlebell halo. It is the same movement is a but here in the halo, I'm on the whole time with the mace at the proper length with the right distribution. You cannot do the movement, you could not move, force your way through it. The only way that you can accomplish that is by relaxing and then now we now we can contract all the muscles related around that shoulder girdle all at once. We're working on off, on off, on off with moving and contracting and now, so what happens a lot of times as we, you know, this stiffness and tightness happens if we're in poor positions, we start using stabilizer muscles to do the movement and then that's where the stiffness come from. So it means that in some of whatever training that you're doing there is a deficit in the movement quality. Okay. Or There's a deficit in the training program and you're not recovering from an 80% of the time. That's the right answer. Right? But yeah, that's where the where the gap is and learning how to relax and the way a lot of the exercises are taught and have been taught for a long time, which is why there's a big gap and this is why both clinical rehab and all these other components are mixed in my philosophy and what I'm trying to do with Kabuki strength because I'm looking at holistic movement. I'm not looking at power lifting based movements are what I want to load and be able to assess on. But this affects all sports. All activities and strength doesn't have to be that. I mean, I'm freaking £1000 squatter and dead lifter. If you watch any of my videos where I do like complete quad fall backs, I don't stretch it all. I can usually get close to a full split. Like if I want to </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah, I like the childlike curiosity, some of those folks like you mentioned Freeman have Daniel Kahneman, I got a chance to meet and interact with some of these truly special scientists. What makes them special is that even in older age there's still like, there's still that fire of childlike curiosity that burns and uh some of that is like not taking yourself so seriously that you think you've figured it all out, but almost like thinking that you don't know much of it and that's like step one in having a great conversation or collaboration or exploring a scientific question. It's cool how the very thing that probably earned people the Nobel prize or, or work that seminal in some way is the very thing that still burns even after uh they've won the prize. It's cool to see and they're rare humans, it seems. [/INST] And to that point, I remember like the last email that I sent to Freeman, Dyson was like in his last birthday, he was really into number theory and primes. So what I did is I took like a photo of him picture and then I turned that into like a giant prime number. So I converted the picture into a bunch of one at eight and then I moved some numbers around until it was a prime. Um, and then I sent him that </s><s>[INST] also the visual like it still looks like the picture. It's a problem. That's tricky to do. [/INST] It's hard to do. It looks harder than it actually is. So the way you do it is like you convert the darker regions into AIDS and the lighter regions in once and then there's just keep flipping Yeah, numbers, but there's like some primarily test that are cheaper from a competition standpoint, but what it tells you is it excludes numbers that are not prime. Then you end up with a set of numbers that you don't know if they are prime or not. And then you run the full, primarily test on that. So you just have to keep iterating on that and it was, it was, it's funny because when you got the picture, he was like, how did you do that? It was super curious too. And then we got into the details and again, this was, it was already 90 I think 92 or something. And that curiosity was still there. Um, so you can really see that in some of these scientists. </s><s>[INST] So could we talk about from our library? [/INST] Yeah, absolutely. </s><s>[INST] What is it? What's the main goal? What's the dream? [/INST] It is a platform for annotating papers in its essence. Right. And so academic papers can be one of the densest forms of content out there and, and generally pretty hard to understand at times. And the idea is that you can make them more accessible and easier to understand by adding these rich annotations to the side. Right. And so we can just imagine a pdf view on your browser and then you have annotations on each side and when you click on them, a sidebar expands and then you have, uh, annotations that support latex can mark down. Uh, and so the idea is that you can say explain a tougher part of a paper where there's a step that is not completely obvious or you can add more context to it. And then over time papers can become easier and easier to understand and can evolve in a way, but it really came from myself, Louise and two other friends, We've been, we've had this this long running habit of kind of running a journal club amongst us. We come from different backgrounds, right? I studied CS we studied physics and so we read papers and present them to each other and uh and then we try to bring some of that online and that's that's that's when we decided to to to build from arts library. Um then over time it kind of grew into into something uh with with a broader goal uh and really what we're trying to do is trying to help move science in the in the right direction. That's really the ultimate goal and where we want to take it now. </s><s>[INST] So there's a lot to be said. So, first of all, for people who haven't seen it, the interfaces, exception. Well done. That's like execution is really important here. Absolutely. The other thing is just to mention for a large number of people apparently, which is new to me, I don't know what late check is. So it's spelled like latex, so be careful googling it if you haven't before. Uh it's uh I don't even know what the correct terminology setting. It's a typesetting language where you're basically program writing a program that then generates something that looks from a typography perspective, beautiful. And uh so a lot of academics use it to write papers, I think there's like a bunch of communities that use it to write papers, I would say it's mathematics Physics, computer science. [/INST] Yeah, yeah, because </s><s>[INST] I'm collaborating currently on a paper with two neuroscientists from stanford [/INST] and they don't know </s><s>[INST] what, so I'm using uh Microsoft word and uh mandalay and like all of those kinds of things and it's and I'm being very zen like about about the whole process, but it's fascinating. It's a little heartbreaking actually, because uh it's actually, it's it's funny to say, but uh we'll talk about open science actually, the bigger mission behind from our library is like really opening up the world of science to everybody. Is these silly to facts of like, one communities is late check and another uses word is actually a barrier between them. That's like, it's like boring and practical in a sense, but it makes it very difficult to collaborate [/INST] just on that. I think that if there are some people that should have received, like a Nobel prize, that, but we'll never get it. And I think one of those is like Donald cloth because of tech and low tech and then because it had a huge impact in terms of like, just making it easier for researchers to put their content out there, making it uniform as much as possible. </s>

<s>[INST] wet because I was blue for 100 days and now it's, [/INST] you know, so, </s><s>[INST] but part of the problem here with vlad, the, the ceo of Robin hood is the scaling, is that what we've been talking about is there's a lot of unexpected things that happened with the scaling and you have to be, I think the scaling forces you to the and return to the fundamentals. [/INST] Well, it's interesting because when you buy and sell stocks, the scaling is, you know, the stock can only move in a certain range and if you buy a stock, you can only lose that amount of money on the short short market, you can lose a lot more than you can benefit. Like it has a, it has a weird cause, you know, cost function or whatever the right word for that is. So he was trading in a market where he wasn't actually capitalized for the downside. If it got outside a certain range now whether something that various has happened. I have no idea. But at some point the financial risks, both him and his customers was way outside of his financial capacity and his understanding how the system worked was clearly week or or he didn't represent himself. I, you know, I don't know the person and when I listened to him nick, it could have been the surprise question was like, and then these guys called him, you know, it sounded like he was treating stuff as a black box. Maybe he shouldn't have, but maybe his whole pilots for somewhere else and it was going on. I don't, I don't know, </s><s>[INST] I mean, this is, uh, this is one of the qualities of good leaders under fire. You have to perform. And that means to think clearly and to speak clearly. And he dropped the ball on those things because, and I understand the problem, quickly learn and understand the problem. Like at this like basic level, like what the hell happened? [/INST] And my guess is, you know, at some level it was amateurs trading against, you know, experts slash insiders slash people with special </s><s>[INST] information, outsiders and insiders. [/INST] Yeah. And the Insiders, you know, my guess is the next time this happens, we'll make money on it. </s><s>[INST] The Insiders always went [/INST] Well, they have more tools and more incentive. I mean, this always happens like the outsiders are doing this for fun. The insiders are doing this 24/7 </s><s>[INST] but their numbers in the outsiders. This is the interesting thing is [/INST] there's numbers on the Insiders too. Like, like the kind of numbers kind of numbers, </s><s>[INST] but this could be a new era because I don't know. At least I didn't expect that a bunch of editors could, you know, there's, uh, you know, millions of people get [/INST] To go to the next one will be a surprise. </s><s>[INST] But don't you think the crowd that people are planning the next attack? We'll [/INST] see. It has to be surprised. Can't be the same game. So it could be, there's a very large number of games to play and they can be actual about it. I don't know. I'm not an </s><s>[INST] expert, right? That's a good question how the space of games, how how restricted is [/INST] it? And the system is so complicated. It could be relatively unrestricted. And also like, you know, during the last couple of financial crashes, you know, what set it off was, you know, sets of derivative events where, you know, you know, that seemed talibs, you know, the thing is, you're trying to lower volatility in the short run by creating tail events and systems always evolved towards that. And then he always crashed like the gas curve is the, you know, star low ramp plateau crash. It's 100 </s><s>[INST] effective in the long run. Let me ask you some advice to put on your profound hat. What? Uh, there's a bunch of young folks to listen to this thing for no good reason whatsoever. Undergraduate students may be high school students, maybe just young folks are young at heart looking for, uh, the next steps to take in life. What advice would you give to a young person today about life, maybe career, but also life in general, [/INST] get good at some stuff. We'll get to know yourself right. Get good at something that you're actually interested in. You have to love what you're doing to get good at it. You really got to find that. Don't waste all your time doing stuff that's just boring or bland or numbing, right? Don't let old people screw </s><s>[INST] you. [/INST] Well, people get talked into doing all kinds of ship and racking up huge student, you know, student debts and like there's so much crap going on. You know, </s><s>[INST] and the drains your time and drains, [/INST] you know, thesis that, you know, the older generation will like, oh, they're trapping all the young people. </s><s>[INST] And I think there's some truth [/INST] to that just because you're old doesn't mean you stop thinking, I know lots of really original old people. I'm an old person. So, um, but you have to be conscious about it. You couldn't fall into ruts and then do that. I mean when I hear young people spouting opinions, that sounds like they come from Fox news or CNN I think they've been captured by group thinking memes </s><s>[INST] and I also think on their own, [/INST] You know, So if you find yourself repeating what everybody else is saying, you're not gonna have a good life, like, like that's not how the world works and maybe it seems safe, but it puts you at great jeopardy for well being boring or unhappy </s><s>[INST] or how long did it take you to find the thing that you have fun with. [/INST] I don't know, I've been a fun person since I was pretty little So everything I've gone through a couple periods of depression in my life </s>

<s>[INST] initiative, you kind of saw that there's this excitement about in and breakthroughs and discoveries around black holes which are probably one of the most fascinating objects in the universe. I mean it's up there. Uh they're both terrifying and beautiful, right? Just and they capture the entirety of the physics that we know about this universe. [/INST] I should say the you know, the question is, where is the nearest black hole? Can we visit it? And uh you know, I wrote a paper with my undergraduate student Amir Siraj suggesting that perhaps there could be, if there is one in the solar system, we can detect it because I don't know if you heard, but there is a claim that maybe there is a planet nine in the solar system um because we see some anomalies in the outer parts of the solar system. So some people suggested maybe there is a planet out there that was not yet detected. So people search for it didn't find it. It weighs roughly five times the mass of the earth. And we said, okay, maybe you can't find it because it's a black hole that was from early in the universe. </s><s>[INST] Is that So where do you stand? [/INST] It could be that the dark matter is made of black holes of this mass. You know, we don't know what the dark matter is made of. You could it could be the black holes. So we said, but there is an experimental way to test it and the way to do it is because uh is there is the old cloud of icy rocks in the outer solar system. And if you imagine a black hole there every now and then, Iraq will pass close enough to the black hole to be disrupted by the very strong gravity close to the black hole. And that would produce a flare that you can observe. And we calculated how frequently these flares should occur. And with LSD on the vera Rubin Observatory, we found that you can actually test this hypothesis. And if you don't see flares, Then you can put limits on the existence of a black hole in the solar system. It would be extremely exciting if there was a black hole. If planet nine was a black hole because we could visit it, you know, and we can examine it. Um and it will not be a matter of you know, an object that is very removed from us. Another thing I should say is it's possible that the black hole affected life on earth, ah the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, how you know that black hole right now is dormant, It's very faint, but we know that it flares when a star like the sun comes close to it. The star will be spaghetti fied basically become a stream of gas, like a spaghetti and then the gas would fall into the black hole and there would be a flare and this process happens once every 10,000 years or so. So we expect that you know, these flares to occur every 10,000 years, but we also see evidence for the possibility that gas clouds were disrupted by the black hole because the stars that are close to the black hole are residing in a single or two planes. And the only way you can get that is if they formed out of a disk of gas, just like the planets in the solar system formed. So there is evidence that gas fell into the black hole and powered possibly a flare. And these flares produce x rays and ultraviolet radiation that could damage life. If the earth was close enough to the center of the galaxy where we are right now, it's not very risky for us, but there is a theoretical argument that says the solar system, the sun was closer to the galactic center early on and then it migrated outwards. So maybe maybe in the early stage of the solar system. The conditions, you know, we're affected shaped by these flares of the black hole at the center of the galaxy. And that's why for the first two billion years there wasn't any oxygen in the atmosphere, you know, who knows? But um it's just interesting to think that, you know, from a theoretical concept that Einstein resisted in 1939 it may well be that, you know, black holes have influence on our life and that, you know, it's just like discovering that some uh stranger affected your family and in a way your life, and if that happens to be the case a second Nobel prize should be given, not not for just the discovery of this black hole at the center of the galaxy, but perhaps for the Nobel prize in Chemistry, for the </s><s>[INST] effect that it had a contract for the for the interplay that resulted in some kind of uh yeah, so yeah, the chemical effect by biology, I mean, all those kinds of things in terms of uh the emergence of uh life and the creation of a habitable environment. That's so fascinating. And of course, like you said, dark matter, like black holes have some, [/INST] it could be the dark matter in principle. Yes, uh we don't know what the dark matter is at the moment, </s><s>[INST] does it make you sad? So you've had an interaction and perhaps a bit of a friendship with Stephen Hawking, does it make you sad that he didn't win the Nobel? [/INST] Well, altogether, I don't assign great importance surprises, because as you said, you know, jean paul Sartre, who I admired as a teenager, because I was interested in philosophy when I grew up on a farm in Israel, you know, I used to collect eggs every afternoon and I would drive the tractor to the hills of our village and just think about philosophy, read philosophy books, and jean paul Sartre was one of my favorite, and he was honored with the Nobel prize in literature, he was a philosopher, primarily existentialist, and he said the hell with it, why should they give um special attention to this committee of people that get their self importance from awarding me the price? Like what what's, you know, why, why does that merit my attention? So, he he gave up on the Nobel prize and, you know, that two benefits to that one, that you don't you're not working your entire life in the direction that would satisfy the will of other people. You know, you work independently, you're not after these homeowners, just for the same reason that you're if you're not living your life for making a profit or money, you can live a more fulfilling life because you're not being swayed by the wind, you know, how to make money and so forth. The second aspect of it is, you know, that very often, um you know, these prices, um they they distort the way we do science, because instead of people willing to take risks and instead of having announcements only after a group of people converges with a definite result. You know, uh, the natural progression of science is based on trial and error, you know, reporting some results and perhaps they're wrong, but then other people find perhaps better evidence and then you figure out what's going on, and that's the natural way that science is, you know, it's a learning experience? So if you give the public an image by which scientists are always right, you know, and and you know, some of my colleagues say we must do that because otherwise the public will never believe us that global warming is really taking place. But that's not true because the public will really believe you. If you show the evidence. So the point is you should be sincere when the evidence is not absolutely clear all where there are disputes about the interpretation of the evidence, we should show us, you know, the king is naked, okay. There is no point in pretending that the king is dressed, saying that scientists are always right. Scientists are wrong frequently. And the only way to make progress is by evidence giving us the support that we need to make airtight argument. So when you say global warming is taking place, if the evidence is fully supportive, if there are no holes in the argument, then people will be convinced because you're not trying to fool them when the evidence was not completely also showed them that the evidence is not </s>

<s>[INST] Is there some at the highest level plays? There's still a role for feel [/INST] absolutely if you're not doing that, because here's the thing, right? No human being plays perfectly balanced in game three often like a robot. Would there not there not? Right. So there are opportunities there to take advantage of the things that they do that are slightly too aggressive or less aggressive, you know, for example, say most human beings don't bluff enough in a certain spot. So you don't have to call with the correct range of hands. You don't have to because they're not bluffing at the optimal frequency. So you don't have to call the optimal frequency. You'd be making this mistake, frankly, if you did </s><s>[INST] what's the difference between in person and online play given that context? [/INST] Yeah. Well, online poker and live poker, it's the same game, right? Same. It's poker, but it's different in so many levels. Right? Um, I think playing online, you have to focus far more on fundamentals, you know, on game theory, you don't have the added bonus of looking across the table and getting any sense of whether your opponent is strong or weak, they're bluffing whatever, you know? And and also Because online poker, those that play it, you play far more hands. Like some of these guys are playing 10, 20 tables at the same time, right? So you're just you're hitting the long run really quickly and you're creating a database on your opponent's, right? So let's have you know online I can see your data. Like this guy, he's playing 40% of hands, he's betting the river 80% of the time. So now I can use that data and you know, explain you that way when you play live you don't have that. </s><s>[INST] Do you enjoy playing online? [/INST] I enjoy, so with online poker I enjoy the convenience of it because you know, you can be on your couch in your underwear, not leave your house. Do </s><s>[INST] You also play multiple games at the same time? We do try to play one game. [/INST] I typically like to play one or two, but I can play up to four. I find that past four it's hard for me to keep up and keep track of what's actually happening. You know, it's a different mindset required. Like a lot of these young guys, they're accustomed to 20 tables at a time. It feels </s><s>[INST] like the purity of the game is gone. It's [/INST] Much more robotic, right? So if you're playing 20 tables, you're just making decisions based on like what, you know, you're not thinking about the the depth of the situation and what just happened 15 minutes ago, you don't even know what happened because you can't pay attention to all that at once. </s><s>[INST] And some of the magic of poker is the little sample [/INST] like for </s><s>[INST] example, I'm sorry to be bringing up magnets so much, but there's so much parallel between the two you and the poker and the chess world. He hates olympics and World Championships and all that kind of stuff because it's so little sample. But to me that's part of the magic of it. There's the World Series of poker, the main event, there's a magic to it [/INST] and </s><s>[INST] I don't know what that is exactly, because so much is at stake is so rare, so much drama and heartbreak leading up to it at all somehow. Um, yeah, it's, it accumulates to that magical moment when somebody wins, [/INST] especially that event, the World series of Poker main event historically. Like that's it, you know, that's the pinnacle, That's where like mainstream watches, that's where people are tuning in and the gravity of the moment. You know, it's so much bigger than people. Like everyone gets the opportunity to play armchair quarterback too, right? Oh, he should do this. You're not there, you're not under the lights, you're not under the pressure. You know, it might seem easy for you at home to be like, well I have because you can see the whole cards, you know, they can't certainly the idea of the small sample of tournaments, I like the idea that you don't have to worry about, oh, well if I do this now, then in the future, you know, I won't be balanced. I have to be balanced here or anything like that, that's like really boring and lame, right? Again, That is kind of the way the younger generation learns how to play the game being balanced in every spot. Um, and then randomizing, you know, like, oh, I'm supposed to do this 50% of time. Okay, so if my left card is red, I'll do it and if it's black, I don't, so you're not even making, you're no longer making actual decisions for yourself. You're just randomizing and that's way less fun for me then tailoring it to the situation </s><s>[INST] and the final table at the main event, There's none of that. You have to, it's all or nothing. Well, [/INST] you shouldn't be. But there are like, again, I think a lot of the young guys, they are thinking in that regard, like, oh, randomization </s><s>[INST] Maybe at that table, the final table at the main event, uh, what's a hand that stands out to you? That was especially gutsy and powerful or memorable for that you've seen in the history of poker? [/INST] Well, for me, the one that stands out and probably because I was so young and it was my first year, like one of, well, I want a bracelet that year. I was, I was friends with scotty win, the prince of Poker and he was heads up against a guy named kevin Mcbride and I was on the rail. You know, I'm like, wow, he's gonna, you know, his head's up and he was so cool. like he had a mullet, but it's perfect, right? He had a white shirt, the black thing, he's drinking a Michelob, smoking a cigarette, whatever, you know, all chill, he bets it all on the river and the guys thinking, and he psychologically owned him and he said, he goes with his beard goes, you call gonna be all over baby, that's right, okay. So this guy who was an amateur heard that and it was like, there's so much pressure in this moment right now, I can't handle this pressure, but scotty just told me if I call here, it's the pressure is gone, I don't have to be under it anymore. So he sort of hypnotized him into making the call, you know, and scotty had it scotty had, you know, the full house and it was over for the guy you call gonna be all over baby. It was, I just, I love that aspect, sort of the table talk dynamic, which isn't as prevalent today as it was back then. Um, but that one sticks out and it probably because it was one of my first, </s>

<s>[INST] This is the LaxVietman podcast to support it. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now to your friends, here's Andrew Strominger. You are part of the Harvard Black Hole Initiative, which has theoretical physicists, experimentalists, and even philosophers. So let me ask the big question, what is a black hole from a theoretical, from an experimental, [/INST] maybe even from a philosophical perspective? So a black hole is defined theoretically as a region of space time from which light can never escape, therefore it's black. Now, that's just the starting point. Many weird things follow from that basic definition, but that is the basic definition. What is light that can't escape from a black hole? Well, light is the stuff that comes out of the sun, that stuff that goes into your eyes. Light is one of the stuff that disappears when the lights go off. This is stuff that appears when the lights come on. Of course I could give you a mathematical definition or physical mathematical definition, but I think it's something that we all understand very intuitively what is light. Black holes on the other hand, we don't understand intuitively, they're very weird. And one of the questions is about black holes, which I think you were alluding to, is why doesn't light get out? Or how is it that there can be a region of space-time from which light can't escape? It definitely happens. We've seen those regions. We have spectacular pictures, especially in the last several years of those regions. They're there. In fact, they're up in the sky, thousands or millions of them. We don't yet know how many. But the proper explanation of why light doesn't escape from a black hole is still a matter of some debate. And one explanation which perhaps Einstein might have given is that light carries energy. You know it carries energy because we have photo cells and we can take the light from the sun and collect it, turn it into electricity. So there's energy in light. And anything that carries energy is subject to a gravitational pull. Gravity will pull at anything with energy. Now, it turns out that there's a lot of energy Now, it turns out that the gravitational pull exerted by an object is proportional to its mass. And so if you get enough mass in a small enough region, you can prevent light from escaping. And let me flesh that out a little more. If you're on the Earth and you're on a rocket ship leaving the surface of the Earth, and if we ignore the friction from the air, if your rocket accelerates up to 11 kilometers per second, that's escape velocity. And if there were no friction, it could just continue forever to the next galaxy. On the moon, which has less mass, it's only seven kilometers per second. But going in the other direction, if you have enough mass in one place, the escape velocity can become the speed of light. If you shine light straight up away from the Earth, it doesn't have too much trouble. It's going way above the escape velocity. But if you have enough mass there, even light can't escape the escape velocity. And according to Einstein's theory of relativity, there is an absolute speed limit in the universe, the speed of light, and nothing makes any sense. Nothing could be self-consistent if there were objects that could exceed light speed. And so in these very, very massive regions of space-time, </s><s>[INST] even light cannot escape. And the interesting thing is Einstein himself didn't think that these objects that would call the black holes could exist. But let me actually linger on this. Yeah, that's incredibly interesting. There's a lot of interesting things here. [/INST] First there's the speed limit. Yeah, that's incredibly interesting. </s><s>[INST] First how wild is it to you if you put yourself in the mind in the time of Einstein before him to come up with the speed limit of, that there is a speed limit? And the speed limit is the speed of light. How difficult of an idea is that? You know, you said from a mathematical physics perspective, everything just kind of falls into place, but he wasn't perhaps maybe initially had the luxury to think mathematically, he had to come up with it intuitively, yes? So like what, how common intuitive is this notion to you? [/INST] Is it still crazy? No, no, so it's a very funny thing in physics. The best discoveries seem completely obvious in retrospect. Even my own discoveries, which of course are far lesser than Einstein's, but many of my papers, many of my collaborators get all confused. We'll try to understand something. We say, we've got to solve this problem. We'll get all confused. Finally, we'll solve it. We'll get it all together. And then we'll, all of a sudden everything will fall into place, we'll explain it. And then we'll look back at our discussions for the proceedings of months and literally be unable to reconstruct how confused we were and how we could ever have thought of it any other way. So not only can I not fathom how confused Einstein was before he, when, you know, when he started thinking about the issues, I can't even reconstruct my own confusion from two weeks ago, you know. So the really beautiful ideas in physics have this, very hard to get yourself back into the mindset. Of course, Einstein was confused about many, many things. Doesn't matter if you're a physicist. It's not how many things you got wrong. It's not the ratio of how many you got wrong, how many you got right. It's the number that you got right. So Einstein didn't believe black holes existed even though he predicted them. And I went and I read that paper, which he wrote, you know, Einstein wrote down his field equations in 1915 and Schwarzschild solved them and discovered the black hole solution three or four months later and very early 1916. And 25 years later, Einstein wrote a paper. So with 25 years to think about what the solution means, wrote a paper in which he said that black holes didn't exist means. And I'm like, well, you know, if one of my students in my general relativity course </s>

<s>[INST] to the selection of what we are as a species. I wonder if that coordination, that connection is actually the thing that gives birth to consciousness. That gives birth to, or let's start with self-awareness. It's more like theory of mind. Theory of mind, yeah. You know, I suppose there's experiments that show that there's other mammals that have a very crude theory of mind. I'm not sure, maybe dogs, something like that. But actually, dogs probably has to do with it. They co-evolved with humans. See, it'd be interesting if that theory of mind is what leads to consciousness in the way we think about it. Is the richness of the subjective experience that is consciousness? I have an inkling sense that that only exists because we're social creatures. That doesn't come with the hardware and the software in the beginning. That's like, that's learned as an effective tool for communication almost. Like, I think we think that consciousness is fundamental. And maybe it's not. There's a bunch of folks kind of criticize the idea that the illusion of consciousness is consciousness, that it is just a facade we use to help us construct theories of mind. You almost put yourself in the world as a subjective being. In that experience, you want to richly experience it as an individual person so that I could empathize with your experience. I find that notion compelling, mostly because it allows you to then create robots that become conscious not by being quote, unquote conscious, but by just learning to fake it till they make it. Is a creative, present a facade of consciousness and with the task of making that facade very convincing to us humans and thereby it will become conscious. I have a sense that in some way that will make them conscious if they're sufficiently convincing to humans. Is there some element of that that you find convincing? [/INST] This is a much harder set of questions and deep end of the pool than starting with the aliens was. </s><s>[INST] We went from aliens to consciousness. This is not the trajectory I was expecting nor you, [/INST] but let us walk a while. We can walk a while and I don't think we will do it justice. So what do we mean by consciousness versus conscious self-reflective awareness? What do we mean by awareness, qualia, theory of mind? There's a lot of terms that we think of as slightly different things and what do we mean by subjectivity first person? I don't remember exactly the quote, but I remember when reading, when Sam Harris wrote the book Free Will and then Dennett critiqued it. And then there was some writing back and forth between the two because normally they're on the same side of kind of arguing for critical thinking and logical fallacies and philosophy of science against supernatural ideas. And here Dennett believed there is something like free will. He is a determinist, compatibilist, but no consciousness and radical limitivist. And Sam was saying, no, there is consciousness, but there's no free will. And that's like the most fundamental kinds of axiomatic senses they disagreed on but neither of them could say it was because the other one didn't understand the philosophy of science or logical fallacies. And they kind of spoke past each other. And at the end, if I remember correctly, Sam said something that I thought was quite insightful, which was to the effect of it seems it, because they weren't making any progress in shared understanding. It seems that we simply have different intuitions about this. And what you could see was that what the words meant, right at the level of symbol grounding might be quite different. One of them might've had deeply different enough life experiences that what is being referenced. And then also different associations of what the words mean. This is why when trying to address these things, Charles Sanders Perce said the first philosophy has to be semiotics. Because if you don't get semiotics right, we end up importing different ideas and bad ideas right into the nature of the language that we're using. And then it's very hard to do epistemology or ontology together. So I'm saying this to say why I don't think we're gonna get very far is I think we would have to go very slowly in terms of defining what we mean by words </s><s>[INST] and fundamental concepts. Well, and also allowing our minds to drift together for a time so that our definitions of these terms align. I think there's a beauty that some people enjoy with Sam that he is quite stubborn on his definitions of terms without often clearly revealing that definition. So in his mind, he can like you could sense that he can deeply understand what he means exactly by a term like free will and consciousness. And you're right, he's very specific in fascinating ways that not only does he think that free will is an illusion, he thinks he's able, not thinks, he says he's able to just remove himself from the experience of free will and just be like for minutes at a time, hours at a time, like really experience as if he has no free will. Like he's a leaf flowing down the river. And given that he's very sure that consciousness is fundamental. So here's this conscious leaf that's subjectively experiencing the floating and yet there's no ability to control and make any decisions for itself. It's only the decisions have all been made. There's some aspect to which the terminology there perhaps [/INST] is the problem. So that's a particular kind of meditative experience and the people in the Vedantic tradition and some of the Buddhist traditions thousands of years ago described similar experiences and somewhat similar conclusions, some slightly different. There are other types of phenomenal experience that are the phenomenal experience of pure agency. And, you know, like the Catholic theologian but evolutionary theorist Thierry de Chardin describes this and that rather than a creator agent God in the beginning, there's a creative impulse or a creative process. And he would go into a type of meditation that identified as the pure essence of that kind of creative process. And I think the types of experience we've had and then one, the types of experience we've had make a big deal to the nature of how we do symbol grounding. The other thing is the types of experiences we have can't not be interpreted through our existing interpretive frames. And most of the time our interpretive frames are unknown even to us, some of them. And so this is a tricky topic. So I guess there's a bunch of directions we could go with it but I wanna come back to what the impulse was which was interesting around what is consciousness and how does it relate to us as social beings and how does it relate to the possibility of consciousness with it, AIs. </s>

<s>[INST] being trainable means starting from scratch knowing nothing. You can actually pretty quickly converge towards knowing a lot [/INST] or even slowly, but it means that given the resources at your disposal, you can train the neural net and get it to achieve useful performance. Yeah, that's a pillar we can't move away from. That's right. Because if you can various, if you say, hey, let's find the shortest program or you can't do that. So it doesn't matter how useful that would be. We can do it. So you want, </s><s>[INST] so do you think you kind of mentioned that the neural networks are good at finding small circuits or large circuits? Do you think that the matter of finding small programs is just the data? No. So the sorry, not, not the size or capture the quality, the type of data sort of asked giving it programs [/INST] well, I think the thing is that right now, finding there are no good presidents of people successfully finding programs really well. And so the way you find programs is you train a deep neural network to do it basically right, Which is which is the right way to go about it. </s><s>[INST] But there's not good uh illustrations [/INST] that hasn't been done yet. But in principle it should be possible. </s><s>[INST] Can you elaborate a little bit? What's your insight in principle? And it put another way you don't see why it's not possible? [/INST] Well, it's kind of like more, it's more a statement of I think that it's I think that it's unwise to bet against deep learning and if it's a if it's a cognitive function in humans seem to be able to do, then it doesn't take too long for some deep neural net to pop up that can do it too. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, I'm I'm I'm there with you. I can I've stopped betting against neural networks at this point because they continue to surprise us. What about long term memory? Can you all know, is have long term memory is something like knowledge basis. So being able to aggregate important information over long periods of time that would then serve as useful sort of representations of ST that you can make decisions by so you have a long term contacts based on what you making the decision. [/INST] So in some sense, the parameters already do that. The parameters are an aggregation of the day of the neurons of the entirety of the new Orleans experience. And so they count as the long as long form long term knowledge. And people have trained to various neural nets to act as knowledge bases and investigated with invest people have investigated language models knowledge basis. So there's work, there's work there. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. But in some sense do you think in every sense do you think there's a it's it's all just a matter of coming up with a better mechanism of forgetting the useless stuff and remembering the useful stuff because right now, I mean there's not been mechanisms that do remember really long term information. [/INST] What do you mean by that precisely </s><s>[INST] precisely? I like I like the word precisely. So I'm thinking of the kind of compression of information the knowledge bases represent sort of creating a now I apologize for my sort of human centric thinking about what knowledge is because neural networks aren't interpret herbal necessarily with the kind of knowledge they have discovered. But a good example for me is knowledge base is being able to build up over time. Something like the knowledge that Wikipedia represents. It's a really compressed structured uh knowledge base. Obviously not the actual Wikipedia or the language but like a semantic web, the dream that semantic web represented. So it's a really nice compressed knowledge base or something akin to that in the non interpret able sense as um neural networks would have [/INST] Well the neural networks would be no interpreter but if you look at the rates but their output should be very interpret Herbal. </s><s>[INST] Okay, so how do you, how do you make very smart neural networks like language models interpret Herbal? [/INST] Well you asked them to generate some text and the text will generally be interpreted. Ble </s><s>[INST] do you find that the epitome of interpret ability? Like can you do better? Like can you because you can't okay, I would like to know what does it know, what doesn't know. I would like the neural network to come up with examples where it's completely dumb and examples where it's completely brilliant and the only way I know how to do that now is to generate a lot of examples and use my human judgment but it would be nice if and you know had some aware self awareness about [/INST] 100%. I'm a big believer in self awareness and I think that I think I think neural net self awareness will allow for things like the capabilities like the ones you describe, like for them to know what they know and what they don't know and for them to know where to invest to increase their skills most optimally and to a question of interpret ability. There actually two answers to that question. One answer is you know, we have the neural net so we can analyze the neurons and we can try to understand what the different neurons and different layers mean and you can actually do that and opening has done some work on that but there is a different answer which is that I would say that the human centric answer what you say, you know you look at a human being you can't read how do you know what a human beings think and you ask them, you say hey what do you think about this, what you think about that and you get some answers. </s>

<s>[INST] And you have a kind of mathematical beautiful mathematical way of discussing this with the idea of Q. Prime. You write that usually the only way to make progress on the big questions like the philosophical questions we're talking about now is to pick off smaller sub questions ideally sub questions that you can attack using math, empirical observation or both. You define the idea of a Q. Prime. So given [/INST] unanswerable </s><s>[INST] philosophical riddle, Q. Replace it with a merely in quote scientific or mathematical question Q. Prime. Which captures part of what people have wanted to know when they first asked Q. Then with luck one solves Q. Prime. So you you describe some examples of such Q prime sub questions in uh your long essay titled white philosophers should care about computational complexity. So you catalog the various Q prime's, I wish you think theoretical computer science has made progress. Can you mentioned a few favorites of any pop any pop to mind? [/INST] Or either you're Yeah, so I mean, I would say some of the most famous examples in history of of that sort of replacement were, you know, I mean, I mean, to go back to alan turing right? What he did in his uh computing machinery and intelligence paper was exactly, you know, uh he explicitly started with the question can machines think? And then he said uh sorry, I think that question is to meaningless, but here's a different question. You know, could you program a computer so that you couldn't tell the difference between it and a human, Right? And, you </s><s>[INST] know, so in the very first two sentences, he in fact just four minutes to Q [/INST] prime precise, he does precisely that or, you know, we could look at at at at girdle, right? Uh where, you know, you had these philosophers arguing for centuries about the limits of mathematical reasoning, right? At the limits of formal systems. And um you know, then by the early 20th century uh magicians, you know, starting with, you know, frag russell. And then, you know, most spectacularly girdle, you know, managed to reframe those questions as we have these formal systems. They have these definite rules. Are there questions that we can phrase within the rules of these systems that are not provable within the rules of the systems? And can we prove that fact? Right? And um so that would be another example. Uh you know, I I had this essay called The Ghost in the Quantum turing Machine. You know, one of the crazier things I've written, but I I uh I tried to do something or, you know, to to advocate doing something similar there for free will, where, you know, instead of talking about is free will, you know, real? Where we get hung up on the meaning of, you know, what exactly do we mean by freedom? And can you have can you be, you know, do we mean compatible list? Free will libertarian free will? What do these things mean? You know, I suggested just asking the question, how well in principle consistently with the laws of physics, could a persons behavior be predicted, you know, without so let's say, destroying the person's brain, you know, taking it apart in the process of trying to predict them. And, you know, and that actually asking that question gets you into all sorts of media and interesting issues, you know, issues of uh what is the computational substrate of the brain, you know? Uh can you understand the brain just at the sort of level of the neurons at sort of the abstraction of a neural network or do you need to go deeper to the, you know, molecular level? And ultimately, even to the quantum level. Right? And of course that would put limits on predictability if if you did. So </s><s>[INST] you need to reduce, you need to reduce the mind to a computational device, like formalize it so that you can make predictions about what, you know, whether you could predict to [/INST] be, if you were trying to predict a person, Yeah, then presumably you would need some model of their brain. Right? And now the question becomes one of how accurate can such a model become, Can you make a model that will be accurate enough to really seriously threaten people's sense of free will, you know, not just metaphysically, but like really I've written in this envelope what you're going to say next </s><s>[INST] accuracy, the right term here. So it's also a level of abstraction has to be right. So if you're if you're accurate at the somehow at the quantum level, that may not be convincing to us at the human level. [/INST] Well, right. But but the question is, what accuracy at the sort of level of the underlying mechanisms do you need in order to predict the behavior right at the end of the day, the test is just, can you, you know, foresee what the person is going to do, right? I am, You know, and and and and um, you know, and and and and in discussions of free will, you know, it seems like both sides want to, you know, very quickly dismissed. That question is irrelevant. Well, to me, it's totally relevant. Okay, Because uh, you know, if someone says, oh, well, you know, a well, a well, a plus demon that knew the complete state of the universe, uh, you know, could predict everything you're going to do. Therefore you don't have free will. You know, that it doesn't trouble me that much because, well, you know, I've never met such a demon, right? You know? Uh, you know, and and uh, we, you know, we even have some reasons. The thing, you know, maybe, you know, it could not exist as part of our world. You know, it's only an abstraction. A thought experiment. On the other hand, if someone said, well, you know, I have this brain scanning machine, you know, you step into it and then, you know, every paper that you will ever write, it will right. You know, every thought that you will have, you know, even right now about the machine itself, it will foresee, you know, Well, if you can actually demonstrate that, then I think, you know, that that, you know, that that sort of threatens my internal sense of having free will in a much more visceral way, You know, But now you notice that we're asking in a much more empirical question we're asking is such a machine possible, or isn't it? Well, I think if it's not possible, then what in the laws of physics or what about the behavior of the brain, you know, prevents it from existing. </s>

<s>[INST] listening. I mean is there uh, Odio, that's a precursor to twitter. First of all, did you have any anticipation that this Jack Dorsey guy could be also ahead of a major social network and um, second did you learn anything from the guy that like, do you think it's a coincidence that you two were in the room together? And it's the coincidence meeting. Like why does the world play its game in a certain way where these two founders of social networks? I don't know. [/INST] It's so weird, right? Like, I mean it's also weird that Mark showed up, you know, in our fraternity, my sophomore year and we got to know each other then long before instagram. It's, it's a small world, but let me tell a fun story about Jack. Um, we're at a rodeo and I don't know, I think ev was feeling like people weren't working hard enough for something and I can't remember exactly what he created this thing where every friday, if it was every friday, I only remember this happening once, but he had a like a statuette. It's like mary and in the bottom it's hollow, right? And I remember on a friday, he decide have decided he was going to let everyone vote for who had worked the hardest that week. We all voted closed ballot right? We all put in a bucket, you tally the votes and then whoever got the most votes as I recall got the statuette and in the statue it was 1000 bucks or as I recall there was 1000 bucks a night, might have been 100 bucks, but let's call it a thousands more exciting that way. Like it did to me for sure. I actually got two votes. I was very happy we were a small company. But as the intern I got at least two votes, </s><s>[INST] everybody knew how many votes they got individually. [/INST] Yeah, I think it was one of these self accountability things. Anyway, I remember Jack just getting like the vast majority of votes from everyone and I remember just thinking like I couldn't imagine he would become what he'd become and do what he would do. But I had a profound respect that the new guy who I really liked worked that hard and you can see his dedication even then and that people respected him. That's the one story that I remember of him like working with him specifically from that </s><s>[INST] summer can take a small tangent on that. Of course there's kind of a push back in Silicon Valley a little bit against hard work. Can you speak to the sort of the thing you admire to see the new guy working so hard, that thing. What is the value of that thing in a company, [/INST] This is like just to be very frank, it drives me nuts. Like I saw this really funny video and tick tock tick tock, it was like I'm taking a break from my mental health to work on my career, I thought that was funny. Um so I was like, oh it is kind of phrase that way, the opposite often. Right, okay, so a couple of things uh I uh I have worked so hard to do the things that I did like mike and I lost years off of our lives, staying up late, figuring things out the stress that comes with the job. I have a lot more gray hair now than I did back then, it requires an enormous amount of work and most people aren't successful right, but even the ones that do don't skate by um I am okay if people choose not to work hard because I don't actually think there is anything in this world that says you have to work hard um but I do think that great things require a lot of hard work, so there's no way you can expect to change the world without working really hard and by the way even changing the world, you know the folks that I respect the most have nudged the world in like a slight direction, slight, very, very slight, like even if Elon accomplishes all the things he wants to accomplish, we will have have nudged the world in a slight direction but it requires an enormous amount of there was an interview with him where he was just like he was interviewed I think at the Tesla factory and he was like work is really hard, this is actually unhealthy and I can't recall the exact, but he was like visibly shaken about how hard he had been working and he was like this is bad and unfortunately I think to have great outcomes, you actually do need to work at like three standard deviations above the mean. But there's nothing saying that people </s><s>[INST] have to go see the thing is, but what I would argue this is my personal opinion is nobody has to do anything. First of all they certainly don't have to work hard. But I think hard work in a company should be admired. [/INST] I do </s>

<s>[INST] It's what happens when you reach your 80s. I read that you had this line [/INST] that you cannot be protected from being called an asshole. </s><s>[INST] Correct, especially if you're an asshole, an asshole. Well, that's, but you don't have to be an asshole to be called an asshole. That's correct. [/INST] And I think the internet has taught me that as well. Well, the internet has posed a particular challenge to free speech absolutist because of some of the stuff that's on there is godawful. But I have no different rule for freedom of speech on the internet than I have in newspapers or in lectures </s><s>[INST] or in classrooms or conversations among people. What do you think about the tension between freedom of speech and freedom of reach as is kind of sometimes termed. So the internet really challenges that aspect. It allows speech to become viral [/INST] and spread very quickly to a very large number of people. It allows speech to... Well, you know, we've had revolutions in the modalities of communication. After all, newspapers were the first challenge. Radio and television posed a new challenge. The FCC tried, but ultimately gave up the attempt to control obscenity, for example. And the Supreme Court has been pretty close. The one thing that liberal and conservative Supreme Courts, right now we're in a conservative era due to Trump nominations. During much of my life, the Warren court, it was William O. Douglas, Brennan, liberal court. One thing they agree on is free speech. They don't agree on much else, but they do agree on free speech. And I think the reason is that they recognize that, well, my group is in the ascendants today, but it may not be tomorrow. And I want to have objective, clear rules so that when I'm in the minority, I'm able to voice my opinion. And so it's one of the few things that both sides of the political spectrum agree on. The only people who don't are the people way over on the right that I call the fascists and the people way over on the left who are the communists. But with respect to most people in this, on the political spectrum, Republicans, Democrats, socialists, libertarians, they agree on the primacy of free speech </s><s>[INST] because it protects them when protection is needed. So to you, even on the internet, [/INST] free speech absolutism should rule. Yes, nobody's going to die. Remember, death threats are not protected. Nobody's going to die. So people are going to be a little bit insulted. That's the price you pay for living in a free society. And it's a small price, in my view. Some people don't have as tough a hide as others, well, then develop it. I don't mean to sound cruel, but you know, you're living in a free society, </s><s>[INST] develop a tough hide. So that's the cost of living in a free society. Yep, there's a cost. The thing is that it can really hurt at scale to be cyberbullied, to be attacked for the ideas you express, or maybe ideas you didn't express, but that somebody decided to lie about you [/INST] and use that to attack you. There's a cost. Well, first of all, there are, there are some exceptions to the First Amendment. libel and slander is an exception. Direct threats are an exception. If you say such and such, I will murder you. That is not lawful. If you say to somebody, if you say about somebody, oh you know, you beat your wife, that is not lawful, if in fact the person knows you don't beat your wife. There are some limits, defamation is one, direct threats are another. The first limit is not absolute, but it's more absolute than it is in any other society, and it's pretty near absolute. For example, fraud. If you sell somebody a car and you say, oh, this is in great running shape, and in fact it's an old jalopy and it's not going to make it more than 10 miles, that's fraud. That's not free speech. Free speech is not absolute, there are these limits, but they're very narrow specific categories </s><s>[INST] of limits. There's gray area here because while legally you're not allowed to defame a person, in the court of public opinion, especially with the aid of anonymity on the internet, rumors [/INST] can spread at scale, hundreds of thousands of people can make up things about you. You have to defend yourself. Using more speech. We're through freedom of speech, we're big boys and girls. You have to defend yourself. In some societies, if you say something, right now if you say something nasty about Putin, you'll end up in the Gulag, if you say something nasty about Biden, you end up in the New York Times. Where would you rather be? </s><s>[INST] Well, let's talk about using more speech. The thing you've done for over 20 years, which is fight for the freedom of speech on college campuses. [/INST] Why is freedom of speech important on college campuses? It's important everywhere in the society, but it's most important on college campuses. Why? Because that's where we educate our young citizens. If you are educated under a notion that some dean can call you on the carpet, because you say something which is considered racist, or you can say something which is considered dangerous to social cohesion, then it's not a liberal arts college, no. It's the theory that fusion I used in The Shadow University. </s><s>[INST] A book you've written, The Shadow University. 1998. 1998. [/INST] You were ahead of a lot of these things, by the way. </s><s>[INST] I'm afraid that as a pessimist, I always saw the bad side of things. Betrayal of Liberty on America's campuses, The Shadow University, a book you co-authored [/INST] with Alan Charles. Yes, with one of my Princeton classmates, Alan Charles Kors, who's now an emeritus professor of enlightenment history at the University of Pennsylvania. I only taught for one semester, and I can go into that later, the reason that I did not continue to teach in colleges. At Harvard Law School, I taught a course in the mid-1980s. But in any event, the college campuses are one of the most important for free speech. This is where people get education. And if you don't really get a good education, if certain points of view are not allowed to be expressed, because education comes from the clash of ideas. And you then have to decide, this is how you become a thinking adult. You have to decide which ideas make more sense to you, which ones you're going to follow. The college experience is transformative. And if there is censorship on campuses, it's highly destructive of the educational enterprise, and ultimately to the entire society. We have in the sciences, we have a scientific method. Scientific method is you try experiments, and you see which ones work, and then you develop theories based upon the results of experiments. Well, this is not much different from every other aspect of life. You have to entertain different views on different subjects. You hear all the views, and you make a decision as to which ones accurate and which ones not. </s>

<s>[INST] mind but you have to do this operation where you move one piece. You're doing like the branch analysis [/INST] like </s><s>[INST] and so you still have to somehow visualize the branching process. Um And not forget stuff. Maybe that's like constant memory recall or something. You're always looking one board at a time but [/INST] you're also because you're also looking in the future. Yeah. Yeah I guess you're keeping the position in your memory so you're remembering where all the pieces are and then you're playing it out on one board and then you can come back to the initial one that you started with that you kind of just keep in your brain and it's also easier to come back to it once you've played a position from it, </s><s>[INST] I feel like it's that memory recall that gets you to blunder. So I'll like see that I'm being attacked by certain things, but then because I get so exhausted thinking about a different thing, I forget, I actually forget about an entire branch of things that I was supposed to be worried about. [/INST] It happens very often. Yeah, if you spend a bunch of time calculating in a position, let's say like when you're really in trouble, when you're spending 15, 20 minutes calculating, you'll forget about something that you spotted like, oh if I do these 23 moves, I'll walk into a trap because you've looked at so many lines and then you play it and then you see and you're like, oh I looked at it and I saw it, but I forgot about it. So it's often called tunneling, where you're just looking so deeply on one thing you forget about the rest of the board </s><s>[INST] and it's the worst one, at least in the beginner level, there's like a, I don't know, bishop just sitting there obviously attacking your like queen or something. And then you just forget that bishop exists because if they just sit there for a few moves and don't move, just forget their existence and then it's just, yeah, that's that's definitely very embarrassing. [/INST] Well it happens to everyone, so </s><s>[INST] yes. Um Okay, cool, [/INST] okay, so we see a few trades happening on the queen's side where he had to go for those, otherwise he's in trouble. Um and this is where the game, sorry, this is where it gets excited. So, so nine h. four is really when the sacrifice starts and here the two important ponds are the ones in front of the king because they're helping with the entire defense and the car was actually preparing to sacrifice his night for upon. Um just so that he can continue his attack and open up the position. Because if you don't do that here as black and don't get some kind of attack, you are completely lost on the queen side and also you've pushed all of your own king side pawns. So you're going to be in danger. So it's one of those do or die moments. </s><s>[INST] Okay. So that, that's what makes it all in because the king is wide open. [/INST] Yeah. Yeah. The king is wide open and you all of white's pieces are pointed towards the queen side to where you're also cramped. </s><s>[INST] So the attack primarily by black done by the two ponds and in the night [/INST] and the light squared bishop is always extremely important. So you don't want to trade this in the king's indian because it's very helpful for a lot of attacks even </s><s>[INST] though it's on the other side of the board. I guess it can go all the way across in like I, I don't, I'm not sure what it's doing here, but probably threatening [/INST] Like for example if it was another black could have played would be something like Bishop H3. Where if you take the bishop you actually get made it on G. two. </s><s>[INST] With what? [/INST] So let's say you take here and then you could push the pond and then it would be checkmate. So you're kind of using your your bishop to sacrifice against white's king side ponds. </s><s>[INST] Yeah I'll be freaking out if their bishop did that [/INST] right? And that's the thing this position looks very scary as white because all of black's pawns are starting to come towards you. And it's one of those things where humans do start to worry in these positions whereas computers obviously can just calculate the best line and maybe the attack doesn't go through. So </s><s>[INST] you're saying the computer might say that the white is actually a slight favorite here. [/INST] Yeah Okay </s><s>[INST] so then uh White makes a little bit of room by moving the rook and the attack begins. [/INST] I like I like the commentary </s><s>[INST] the the night the night is hugging the king [/INST] and actually white can't even take the king here because the H. Four and H. Three is coming in to take the night. Yeah did I say king? Yes thank you the night. </s><s>[INST] Why can't take the night because why? [/INST] Um So if white takes the night here then black starts pushing his pawn to H. Four with H. Three incoming. And the idea of trying to defend against this is it looks very difficult. So I just choose it. It'd be cool to watch chess game to experience watching it without understanding it just for a day. I feel like you could use that to make better content. Um </s><s>[INST] Okay I mean that's what getting drunk doesn't fortunately [/INST] for chess players, it never leaves, it doesn't matter how this is actually a very cute move because Black's queen is under attack but the king is so cramped that he can't actually take it or he's gonna get checkmated by a pond which is a sad way to go truly. </s><s>[INST] Yeah those ponds are doing a lot of work here. [/INST] That is the king's indian, this is the king's indian player the attack of the king side pawns. </s>

<s>[INST] invisibility, right? There's some aspect why Fauci was very interesting. In my recent memory, there's not been many faces of scientific policy, of science policy. He became the face of that. And, you know, as there's some of it is meme, which is, you know, basically saying that he is science or to some people represent science, but in the... Or quote unquote science or whatever, yeah. Yeah. The positive aspect of that is that there is accountability when there's a face like [/INST] that. He was a public face. Yeah, right. But you can also see the Fauci example shows you why a lot of these folks do not want to be public because they enter a political, you know, immediate minefield. I'm actually sympathetic to that aspect of it. What I'm not sympathetic to is the concept that in 2022 that the unelected, unfireable, anonymous American regulator should be able to impose regulatory policy for the entire world. We are not the world of 1945, you know, it is not something where these other countries are even consciously consenting to that world. Just as give an example, you know, there's a concept called challenge trials. Okay. The Moderna vaccine was available very, very early in the pandemic, you can just synthesize it from the sequence. And challenge trials would have meant that people who are healthy volunteers, okay, they could have been soldiers, for example, of varying ages who are there to take a risk their lives for their country, potentially, okay, it could have been just healthy volunteers, not necessarily soldiers, just patriots of whatever kind in any country, not just the US, but those healthy volunteers could have gone. And at the early stages of the pandemic, we didn't know exactly how lethal it was going to be because, you know, Li Wenliang and, you know, 30 year old, 30 somethings in China were dying from this, it seemed like it could be far worse. How lethal the virus would be. Yeah, it may be, by the way, that those who are the most susceptible to the virus died faster earlier. It's as if you can imagine a model where those who were exposed and had the lowest susceptibility also had the highest severity and died in greater numbers early on. If you look at the graph, like deaths from COVID were exponential going into about April 2020, and then leveled off to about 7,500 10,000 a day, and then kind of fell, right? But it could have gone to 75,000 at the beginning. So we didn't know how serious it was. So this would have been a real risk that these people would have been taking. But here's what they would have gotten for that. Basically, in a challenge trial, somebody would have been given the vaccine, and then exposed to the virus and then put under observation. And then that would have given you all the data, because ultimately the synthesis of the thing, I mean, yes, you need to scale up synthesis and manufacturing and what have you. But the information of whether it worked or not, and it was safe and effective. And like that could have been gathered expeditiously with </s><s>[INST] volunteers for challenge trials. And you think there'd be a large number of volunteers? [/INST] Absolutely. What's the concern there? Is there an ethical concern of taking on volunteers? Well, so let me put it like this. Had we done that, we could have had vaccines early enough to save the lives of like a million Americans, especially seniors and so on. Okay, soldiers, and we're generally first responders and others, you know, I do believe there's folks who would have stepped up, you know, to take that risk. Heroes walk among us. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Like if military service is something which is ritualized thing, people are paid for it, but they're not paid that much, they're really paid in honor, you know, and in duty and pictures, that is actually the kind of thing where I do believe some some fraction of those folks would have raised their hand for this important, you know, task. I don't know how many of them, but I do think that we were the volunteers would have been there. There's probably some empirical test of that, which is a, there's a challenge trials website, there's a Harvard prof who put out this proposal early in the pandemic, and he could tell you how many volunteers he got. But something like that could have just shortened the the time from pandemic to functional vaccine, right, to today's, even if you'd actually really acted on it, the fact that that didn't happen, and that the Chinese solution of lockdown, that actually, you know, at the beginning, people thought the state could, you know, potentially stop the virus, stop people in place, it turned out to be more contagious than that. Basically, no NPI, no non pharmaceutical intervention, really turned out to work that much, right. And actually, at the very beginning of the pandemic, I said something like, Look, is actually February 3, about a month before people, you know, I was just watching what was going on in China, I saw that they were doing digital quarantine, like using WeChat codes to like block people off and so on. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I said, Look, if the coronavirus goes pandemic, and it seems it may, the extreme edge case becomes the new normal. It's every debate we've had on surveillance, deplatforming and centralization accelerated pandemic means emergency powers for the state, even more than terrorism or crime. And sometimes a solution creates the next problem. My rough forecast of the future, the coronavirus results in quarantines, nationalism, centralization. And this may actually work to stop the spread. But once under control, states will not see their powers. So we decentralized. And I didn't know whether it was going to stop the spread. But I knew that they were going to try to do it. Right. And, you know, look, it's it's hard to call every single thing right. And I'm sure, you know, someone will find some errors. But in general, I think that was, that was actually pretty good for like early February of 2020. Right. So it's my point, though. The point is, rather than copying Chinese lockdown, what we should have had were different regimes around the world, to some extent, Sweden defected, you know, from this, right? They had like no lockdowns or what have you. But really, the axis that people were talking about was lockdown versus no lockdown. The real axis should have been challenge trials versus no challenge trials. We could have had that in days. Okay. And that those are two examples on both vaccines and </s>

<s>[INST] That's a bit of a cyclical but nevertheless a compelling definition. And there's all kinds of things like the it seems like the unification of those laws could be discovered by looking inside of a black hole because you get both the general relativity and the quantum mechanics quantum field theory in there experimentally. Of course there's a lot of interesting ideas we can't really look close to the Big Bang. Can look that far back there's caltech and M. I. T. Well I go looking at gravitational ways, perhaps allows us to march backwards and so on. Yeah it's really exciting space and there's of course the theory of everything. Like with a lot of things in science captivates the dreams of those who are perhaps completely outside of science. It's the dream of discovering the key to how the, you know, the nature of how everything works and that feels that feels deeply human. That's perhaps the thing, the basic elements of what makes up a scientist in the end is that curiosity that long need to understand. Let me ask, you mentioned a disagreement with Weinberg on reality. Uh could you elaborate a little bit? [/INST] Well, obviously, I don't disagree with steve Weinberg on physics itself, I wouldn't know enough to even begin to do that. Uh and clearly, you know, he's one of the founders of the standard model and so on, and it works uh to a level of accuracy that no physical theory has ever worked at before. I suppose the question in my mind is something that uh in one way, could go back to the philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, namely, can we really ever convince ourselves that we have come to grips with something that is not in itself knowable to us by our senses, or even except in the most remote way through the complex instruments that we make as to what it is that underlies everything. Can we corral it with mathematics and experimental structures? Yes. Uh do I think that a particular way of corralling nature will inevitably play itself out? I don't know, it always has. I'll put it to you that way? Um </s><s>[INST] So the basic question is, can we no reality is that the common question is that the Weinberg question we humans okay with our brains, right? Can we comprehend reality? Sounds like a very trippy question because a lot of rest and definitions of no and comprehend in reality, but get to the bottom of it like it's turtles on top of turtles. Can we get to the bottom turtle? [/INST] Well, maybe I could uh put it to you this way, in a way that I we often I often begin discussions in a class on uh the history of science and so on and say, I'm looking at you. Yes, um you are in fact a figment of my imagination. </s><s>[INST] You haven't messed up imagination? Yes. [/INST] Well, what do I mean by that if I were a dragon fly, looking at you whatever by nervous system would form by way of, a perceptual structure would clearly be utterly different from what my brain and perceptual system altogether is forming when I look at you. Who's right? Is it me or the dragon fly? Wow. </s><s>[INST] What? Well, the Dragonflies certainly very impressive. So I don't know. But yes, it's uh the observer matters. Mhm. Well, how does, what is that supposed to tell us about objective reality? [/INST] Well, I think it means that it's very difficult to get beyond the constructs that our perceptual system is leading us to when we make apparatus and devices and so on? Were still making things the results of which are the outputs of which we process perceptually in various ways and and an analogy I like to use with the students sometimes, is this all right? They all have their laptops open in front of them of course. Okay. And I've sent them something to read and I say ok, click on it and open it up. So pdf opens up. I said, what are you looking at? He said, he said, well I'm looking at, you know, the paper that you sent me? I said no, you're not. What you're looking at is a stream of light coming off LED or LCD s coming off a screen. And I said, what happens when you use your mouse and move that fake piece of paper on the screen around? What are you doing? You're not moving a piece of paper around, are you? You're moving a construct around, a construct that's being processed so that our perceptual system can interact with it in the way we interact with pieces of paper but it's not real. </s><s>[INST] So are there things outside the reach of science? Can you maybe as an example, talk about consciousness? I'm asking for a friend trying to figure this thing out? Yeah, [/INST] Well boy, I mean, I uh I read a fair bit about that, but I certainly don't can't really say much about it. Um I'm a materialist in the deepest sense of the term? I don't think there's anything out there except material structures, which interact in various ways do I think for example that this bottle of water is conscious? No, I do not. Although how would I know? I can't talk to it. Yeah, But so what do </s><s>[INST] it's a hypothesis you have is an opinion. An educated opinion. That may be very wrong? [/INST] Well, I know that you're conscious because I can interact directly with you, </s><s>[INST] but am I [/INST] well, unless you're a figment of my imagination, of course, </s>

<s>[INST] I can do whatever the hell I can create a, with a bit of, with a lot of hard work, I can do quite a and no one gave [/INST] it to you. So, I mean, well I'm a believer </s><s>[INST] that like, I mean we are a community, so like there is a social aspect to it, but the freedom and the american dream is a real thing. And this is this, I, you know, I joke about being Russian, but I I'm an american and this is, I do believe the greatest country on earth. So there's a reason the nationalist pride, the pride in your nation is a powerful thing and around that, this secrecy holds value. But to me, alien technology is bigger than that. I mean, it's it's not so much a threat as a you're holding back something that could inspire the world like human knowledge. [/INST] So let's talk in theory. So I'm gonna go back to bob because I've talked about so bob is a propulsion guy, right? Bob has a bicycle of the rocket motor. He built the rocket car, you know, so he did that. So if you are trying to figure out a propulsion system, let's just say, this is, I'm just talking, this is Dave's theory. I am, I own, I have, I have custody of this thing from a technology that I don't understand and I know it's a propulsion system. So now I've got to figure it out, right? So who are you going to go to? Right? You go find someone. So you go wait, here's a guy who at the time was working at Los Alamos, which they have proven who is big into propulsion. He designs all this, he builds a ship in his garage. Hey, he's super smart. Why don't we bring him in? So you higher amount of contract and you go, hey, we're gonna brief you into a program and he goes and works on wherever he says he worked, you know, that's not important, but you get access to the technology to try and figure it out and then you go, well, you know, bob comes out and says, you know, we're figuring out these things, but there's a part where our technology isn't advanced enough for us to figure the whole thing out. So then, you know, and let's just say bob doesn't come out and tell anyone he works on it until he gets to the point where he's stagnated. He's a, he's at a wall, you go, I can't do it. So sometimes the best thing is to bring in a fresh mind, so you go find someone else who's in a propulsion to bring him and they work, they can't figure it out or they get to the point where kind of back to the Einstein theory where hey, I've got all these theories on how it works, but we don't have the technology, we haven't advanced enough to actually do what we need to do. We still have to advance technology more. So then what do you do? You shelve it, You go, hey, good projects over in the contract, you shelf it and you wait another 10 years and you wait another 10 years until technology and our abilities and our research advances more. And then you go find new people to bring in that are experts in that field and go, hey, we want you to work on this thing and here's what we know about it so far, or you don't tell them anything because because remember if you, if you reveal someone else's research, you can taint their beliefs, they'll start to sway in that direction. So you go, I'm not gonna tell you anything, I'm gonna give you this thing and now you tell me what you think and as they progress, if they get stuck on a problem that maybe bob and someone else solved earlier, you can go, hey, what about this? You don't have to tell where it came from. What about this? And now they can leapfrog and they get another two steps closer to the final answer and then we get stuck by our evolution of technology. Do you shelve it again? Do </s><s>[INST] you think that's the right way to do it because it's heartbreaking. I don't listen, I love government, but we just had this discussion about Ellen and so on. The alternative approach is to release this to the world and say there's a mystery here and then the villains of the world that Jeff bezels. We talked about money, but it's also not just money, it's like this engine that's within. We talked about the american dream to say I'm going to be the one that cracks this mystery open and like that's within a lot of us and like money aside, people in their garage just will. [/INST] But you're thinking like a scientist. Now let me now let's shift to let me think like a country. So we have country A, B and C. And you can look at the nuclear arms race. So we know that Germany was really close. We know that Russia was getting pretty close, We just won the race and we were the first ones with it. And still to this </s><s>[INST] day, Germany could have won [/INST] the they could have won, they could have won. But someone was smart enough to not finish the equation when they knew they had the answer. It is literally what it comes down to someone was smart enough to realize that that that got into the hands of the nazis, that it would be the end and and that's that's that's a tough call to do that knowing that you have the answer and you can't solve the problem because it will go into the wrong hands and that's kind of the fear when you look at this, you go, okay, so if we do this, if we put it out there, we've got this technology, if we don't work on it, kind of international space station, like we're all going to work on it together. And uh, you know, like Antarctica is really supposed to be treaty free from any weapons or anything. We're supposed to, we got the international thing down there. We're all going to work together if you did it in a, in the confines of that and you could control the flow in and out because what you don't want is the someone stealing information and getting it back to where countries are notorious to do this. Hey, we're doing internationally, but we're secretly doing it ourselves to see who can come up with a solution first. Um, that's the problem because we have this inherent thing of power and technology like that is power. It would, it would literally change the game of the way the world operates and from not just the transportation or mankind, but from a military aspect. It's got huge, huge uh yeah, </s>

<s>[INST] it's very parallel, [/INST] it's very parallel among other things, and it's not obvious. I mean, this is a really kind of mind bending thing, because we've got to try and imagine where uh you know, we've got to try and imagine a parsing of the universe different from the one we have. And by the way, when we think about extraterrestrial intelligence and so on, I think that's kind of the key thing is, you know, we've always assumed, I've always assumed, okay, the extraterrestrials, at least they have the same physics. We all live in the same universe. They've got the same physics. But actually that's not really right, because the extraterrestrials could have a completely different way of parsing that the universe. So it's as if, you know, there could be for all we know right here in this room, you know, in the in the details of the motion of these gas molecules, there could be an amazing intelligence that we were like, but we have no way of we're not parsing the universe in the same way. If only we could pass the universe in the right way. You know, immediately this amazing thing that's going on in this huge culture that's developed in all that kind of thing would be obvious to us. But it's not because we have our particular way of passing the universe. </s><s>[INST] Would that thing also have agency? I don't know the right word to use, but something like consciousness, but a different kind of consciousness. [/INST] I think it's a question of just what you mean by the word, because I think that the, you know, this notion of consciousness and the okay, so some people think of consciousness as sort of a key aspect of it, is that we feel that the sort of a feeling of that we exist in some way, that we have this intrinsic feeling about ourselves? You know, I I suspect that any of these things would also have an intrinsic feeling about themselves. I've been sort of trying to think recently about constructing an experiment about what if you were just a piece of a cellular automaton, let's say, you know, what would your feeling about yourself actually be, and you know, can we put ourselves in the in the shoes, in the cells of the cellar or thomason, so to speak? Can we can we get ourselves close enough to that? That we could have a sense of what the world would be like if you were operating in that way? And it's a little difficult because, you know, you have to not only think about what are you perceiving, but also what's actually going on in your brain and our brains do what they actually do, and they don't, it's uh you know, I think there might be some experiments that are possible with, with uh you know, neural nets and so on, where you can have something where you can at least see in detail what's happening inside the system. And I've been sort of one of the, one of my projects to think about is is there a way of kind of uh kind of getting a sense kind of from inside the system about what its view of the world is and how it how it, you know, can we make a bridge to see? The main issue? Is this where, you know, it's a it's a sort of philosophically difficult thing because it's like we do what we do, we understand ourselves, um at least to some extent we humans understand ourselves. That's correct. And but yet okay, so what are we trying to do, for example, when we are trying to make a model of physics, what are we actually trying to do? Because, you know, you say, well, can we work out what the universe does? Well, of course we can we just watch the universe, the universe does what it does. But what we're trying to do when we make a model of physics is we're trying to get to the point where we can tell a story to ourselves that we understand that is also a representation of what the universe does. So it's this kind of, you know, can we make a bridge between what we humans can understand in our minds and what the universe does and in a sense, you know, a large part of my kind of life uh efforts have been devoted to making computational language, which kind of is a bridge between what is possible in the computational universe and what we humans can conceptualize and think about in a sense, what, you know, when I built well from language and our whole sort of computational language story, it's all about, how do you take sort of raw computation in this ocean of computational possibility and how do we sort of represent pieces of it in a way that we humans can understand and that map onto things that we care about doing. And in a sense, when you add physics, you're adding this other piece where we can, you know, mediated by computer, can we get physics to the point where we humans can understand something about what's happening in it? And when we talk about an alien intelligence, it's kind of the same story. It's like, is there a way of mapping what's happening? They're onto something that we humans can understand and, you know, physics in some sense, is like our exhibit one of the story of alien intelligence is it's a it's a, you know, it's an alien intelligence in some sense. And what we're doing in making a model of physics is mapping that onto something that we understand. And I think, you know, a lot of these other things that have, I've recently been kind of studying whether its molecular biology, other kinds of things, um which we can talk about a bit um the those are other cases where we're, in a sense, trying to again make that bridge between what we humans understand and sort of the natural language of that sort of alien intelligence in some sense, </s>

<s>[INST] What about we live in a world now. I've often in my own work, I hear about this concept of work life balance or overtraining. So you've been one of the hardest workers ever on the met, you've coached some of the hardest workers ever. Do you think it's possible to over train train too much? How big of a [/INST] concern peaking and burn out our frames of mind or burnout is a, is a like you let things probably getting to the point where you could have arrested them with a good frame of mind. But Peking is a frame of mind and you know, you have to know, be able to read and that's a lot of it. And the individual athlete also has to know that it's a frame of mind. And so when you have a coach that's reading that the right way and you have an athlete that is knowing that when zero hour comes, that you're going to be ready to go. Um, and knowing that there's light at the end of the tunnel, if you feel like you're burning the candle at both ends, lights coming at the, at the end of the tunnel, I mean you're good to go. </s><s>[INST] So you think about gable and that whole dream of being carried off the mat because you worked so hard again, do you think it's possible to over train. So you said it's a, it's [/INST] mental. I do think it's possible to over train if you have a lot of distractions and if you're looking at your watch running out of the room, then yeah, you're gonna in that frame of mind isn't going to lend itself to excellency. And the thing is, is we we have to accomplish what we need to get accomplished and get better every day. You can't kind of accomplish what you need to accomplish. You have to accomplish it. And when, when you're in that mindset, then the clock is irrelevant. There's no place for a clock in the wrestling room and maybe a clock that times a match. But it may be a clock if, you know, we're at student athletes here, but that's why we encourage our, you know, when when you schedule your classes that you don't have a class that comes right up to, you know, practice time or starts as a night class and it starts at 5 30 you know, go to get the 6 30 class in the seven o'clock. </s><s>[INST] So you leave it all behind your heart, your passion is completely, and [/INST] there's no, when you walk in that wrestling room, there's no distractions and it's never eternal. The only thing that's eternal is death. You know, there's nothing. Sometimes guys come in there and a wig out. Oh my word, 25 minutes and </s><s>[INST] oh, [/INST] We're an hour and 45 minutes? Oh </s><s>[INST] yeah, you have to be willing to go as long as it takes, there's no clock, [/INST] there's no clock </s><s>[INST] again rested as some of the hardest, some of the toughest people in all of sports, but weight cutting often breaks people. So what's your thought on weight cutting? Both nutrition wise, mental eyes, how do you approach and think of it as a coach in your own career too? [/INST] It's a lot of discipline and it's a lot of discipline during a very uncomfortable time period that really doesn't last that long, but it feels like it lasts long and it's painful and, but once you shrink your body down and if you're hydrated, you'll get through it if you're a little hungry, but you're eating, but you're hydrated. Once you break that sweat, your energy depletion goes away. That's a fact. I've practiced that. You come in and you're yawning and you're, you know, you're starting to shrink your body down and it's that time of year where hey, I gotta get my body shrunk down and you're dehydrated, you are dead in the water. But if you're hungry and hydrated when you break that sweat, </s><s>[INST] have people gotten better with that over the years? Over the past [/INST] few days. I think that coaches science is better. I think that coaches communicated. I think they always have, I think the bottom line is, is having the energy to implement that and taking a guy by the hand when he doesn't understand and he's new in your program and he is essential and or he's unwilling to not disciplined enough, because when you think about the hand enough, they will learn that discipline. This is an important aspect of wrestling buddy, You know what I'm saying? So, you know, it's not just go and show up for the match. I mean, it's not about just making weight either. You gotta be able to make weight. That's part of the warm up, That's part of the process, getting ready to wrestle things </s><s>[INST] stuff. Yeah. When did you first start believing you're going to win olympic gold? [/INST] I don't know. I mean, I found out I I got really addicted to wrestling. Really, really fast, started late, but looking back at my life, um, wrestled my whole life with my twin brother, and when Terry and I would fight, it was wrestling and it was to maim. And so if if you were, if you're so, if you're trying to maim me, I better be tough because if I roll over, it expects you to scratch my belly when you're trying to maim me, I won't lose my head and tom and terry brands. There was no alpha male, and when it was on, it was on for real, </s><s>[INST] what do you mean? There's no alpha male, there's [/INST] a lot of twins, there's a dominant twin, a lot of them very few times. Is there a situation where you're gonna I'm gonna win every time in everything, and then he's thinking the same exact way, and Terry used to describe it. Like when we used to get interviewed a lot about our careers, um like could be like you grabbing the steering wheel and me grabbing a steering wheel and fighting, and that's what it was like when you would wrestle him or fight him. And so I had that benefit. So when did I know? Well, I got addicted to wrestling really, really fast in fifth grade and started to research it and I don't know why and talked about the olympics and um put it in my head and member Said something about being an Olympic champion in 5th grade and somebody made fun of me and I got in a fight in the playground. And I remember um getting pulled in, getting in trouble for that, and the people that got me in trouble for that, we're smart enough to not rake me over the coals, but they researched or they actually found out what the fight was about and I was distraught. I was I was really emotional, like crying or whatever you want to say, you don't want to admit that to me. But um but it wasn't because I got beat up, I got my nose bloody, never got punched in the face or broke my arm, or there was any pain, it was because they stomped on my dream and they doubted me. And so I fought for that, and, you know, that was a lesson. There's gonna be a lot of doubters. And what one thing we talk about is the staff is our staff has to be lockstep in that hallway, in our offices and when you deviate outside of that, that is Heresy. So </s>

<s>[INST] know, go grab a kayak and [/INST] going to go do something really don't do that don't go do something </s><s>[INST] stupid [/INST] and uh something you </s><s>[INST] read a lot later. [/INST] My foremothers Thank God. She didn't know. Well, let me </s><s>[INST] ask, because for a lot of people work for me, it is quote unquote work as a source of meaning. And at the core of something we've been talking about with jobs is meaning. So the big ridiculous question, what do you think is the meaning of life? Do you think work for us? Humans in modern society as core to that meaning? Is that? And is that something you think about in your work? So the deeper question of meaning, not just financial well being and the quality of life, but the deeper search for meaning. [/INST] Yeah, the meaning of life is love and you can find love in your work um now and I don't think everybody can there are a lot of jobs out there that just, you know, you do it for a paycheck and I think we do have to be, you know, honest about that. There are a lot of people who, you know, don't love their jobs and you know, we don't have jobs that they're gonna love. Um you know, and and maybe that's not a sort of realistic, you know, that's a utopia, right? Um but for those of us that have the luxury. I mean, I think you you love what you do um that people say that, I think the key, you know, for real happiness um, is to love what you're trying to achieve and maybe you love trying to build a company and make a lot of money just for the sake of doing that. But I think the people who, you know are really happy and have a great impact, you know, they love what they do because it has an impact on the world that they think is expresses that love, right? Um and that could be, you know, at a counseling center, that that could be, you know, um in your community that could be sending people to mars, you </s><s>[INST] know. Uh well, I also think it doesn't necessarily the expression of love isn't necessary about helping other people directly. There's something about craftsmanship and skill as we've talked about that's almost like you're celebrating humanity by like searching for mastery in the task in this simple, like especially tasks that people outside me uh see as menial as it's not important, nevertheless searching for mastery for excellence in that task, that there's something deeply human to that and also fulfilling that just like driving a truck and getting damn good at it. Like, you know, the best who's ever lived at driving the truck and taking pride in that, that that's deeply meaningful and also like a real celebration of humanity and a real show of love I think for, for humanity. [/INST] Yeah, yeah. I just had my floors redone and the guy who did it was it was an artist, you know, santa. These old 100 year old floors and made him look gorgeous </s><s>[INST] and this is craft. That's love right there. [/INST] Yeah, I mean he showed us some love the you know, the product was just like seances enriching our lives </s><s>[INST] steve this is an amazing conversation. We've covered a lot of ground your work, just like you said, impossible to connect the dots. But I'm glad you did all the amazing work you did. You're you're exploring human nature at the core of what of what America is. The blue collar America. So thank you for your work. Thank you for the care and the love you put in your work and thank you so much for spending your valuable time with me. [/INST] I appreciate it. Lexi I'm a big fan so it's just been great to be on. </s><s>[INST] Thanks for listening to this conversation with steve easily to support this podcast, appreciate got our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you some words from napoleon hill. If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. Yeah. [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah. You know, Java has a lot of out of all the Hello world that can possibly write. Java is the one where I think it's the [/INST] longest, which </s><s>[INST] is quite interesting because Java is often at least for a long time was used as the primary programming language to teach people how to program or at least about object oriented programming. I think most universities have now switched and high school switched to python. I'm not sure if that's the case. Probably [/INST] better. It's easier to lower the makes it less scary. There's like less of a hurdle </s><s>[INST] and certainly none of them use PHP. I love PHP and I feel like it's a dirty secret. I have to keep private to myself. Like it's somebody I'm seeing on the side or something like that because it's just not a respected programming language because I think there's so many ways you can write poor code with PHP, which is why it's not respected. [/INST] Yeah, it's a scripting language more so, although of course facebook built like a huge stack on top of it and valuable company, but I still love ruby to this day, ruby is probably my favorite language. Python is great too. But I just love the idea behind ruby that it's like, let's make it easier for the human harder for the computer and make it a joy to be expressive and all these things. So I was never the best computer scientist, but I was a good, a good hacker could rapidly prototype products and using languages like ruby do a lot of computer science programs still use like LISP and scheme and things like that. </s><s>[INST] No, no, they do for that's like, that's if you're hardcore, if you're legit, you're gonna do some of the functional languages. I think there's a there's a few others that popped up, but lISP is a distant memory for a lot of people. That's like somebody has to, like you go to a library, you dust off the book, but scheme a little bit. I think if you're starting, I mean, there's courses about languages themselves, like programming languages [/INST] List might be one </s><s>[INST] of those, you know how those languages that nobody uses anymore. Like ancient languages, you might have to go to school in that same way for programming languages back in the day, we used to use parentheses. I of course still use imax as the editor for most things that I do. And imax is um, you know, a lot of the customization you can do is enlist and that's the language probably when I first Really fell in love with programming is a LISP because for a long time throughout the earlier history of artificial intelligence list was the primary language, but it still had a life in the 90s and the aughts where some people would use it such a beautiful functional language. But it just somehow didn't pick up. Um, that said, I should say sort of pushback PHP. I feel like it's still true that most of the web runs on PHP, most of the back end is still, it's still PHP. So if you look at, you know, it's like the stuff that people don't talk about, like what, what runs most systems in the world, What runs the most back end? What runs most front end javascript? You know the script? [/INST] I think it's a stack exchange surveys show javascript, the most popular language in the world I think. Right. </s><s>[INST] Yeah. In terms of programmers and numbers of, I wonder by [/INST] survey of number of programmers on stack overflow. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, but that's also the cutting edge. Right? Those are the people that are just like excitedly writing code. I wonder if there's, there's people that are just like maintaining gigantic code bases. Yeah. I feel [/INST] like the amount of java out there just running industrial systems has got to be enormous. And then of course in the banking industry, finance, it's like even older stuff Cobalt and whatnot. But I've </s><s>[INST] been actually looking for somebody uh, to interview who represents? Uh, Cobalt, unfortunate like who's the figure still still there that holds the flag, you know who java founder of java creator of java. creative python creator of C Plus plus, but nobody wants to hold the flag for Cobalt unfortunately even though some of the most important systems in the world still run on those like power systems and infrastructure systems, which is fascinating. Which and and a Tms and stuff like that, like a lot of stuff that we rely on that just works and the reason we don't change it because it works well it's written which is that people don't use anymore. [/INST] That would be a cool series of interviews. Get get the stuff that's like tech that was invented 4050 years ago but still is being used widely. I mean imax this example of that. </s><s>[INST] Let me ask the big question of what are Cryptocurrency exchanges and what's coin base? How does it work before? I'll ask even bigger questions. But it's just a nice kind of palate cleansing question of what is coin base [/INST] cream base is a Cryptocurrency exchange brokerage custodian basically were the primary financial account for people in the crypto economy, How they buy crypto how they store it, how they use it increasingly in different ways we can talk about that. Um So yeah, we want to be the way that a billion people hopefully access the open financial system globally. How </s><s>[INST] does it work? What what's Cryptocurrency, you know there's uh there's Bitcoin? There's a theory? Um um what does it mean to be an exchange, what does it mean to store, what does it mean to transact, how does it what this coin base actually do? [/INST] Okay so you know basically in any given market there's some people want to buy some people who want to sell and there's you keep an order book of all those prices and then um you know if someone is willing to buy for more than the lowest price someone is willing to sell then you know you get a trade to execute, that's kind of how an exchange works underneath. And a brokerage is kind of simpler than that. Even you don't have to know look at the whole order book and everything but you just go in there and say I want to buy $100 of Bitcoin or whatever. Cryptocurrency you get a quote and if you like it you can accept and you know the core things that we do to make all that kind of just work, make it seamless. It sounds simple on the surface is we gotta we have to do payment integrations you know in a variety of places around the world to make it easy for people to get fiat currency into this ecosystem. We have to work on cyber security a lot. There's lots of hackers out there trying to break into our systems and steal crypto or to put stolen credit cards and bank accounts and things like that into these systems. Um We have to integrate with the block chains themselves right which are um periodically getting updated and um having various airdrops and all kinds of things. So we're integrated with lots of different block chains and then we have to store the crypto that people buy securely as well. So crypto is kind of like storing you store the private keys essentially. We've invented a lot of cool technology about how to do that securely that helps me sleep at night as one of the largest crypto custodians out there. Um So those are some of the pieces that had to come together to get that early simple buy sell experience to work and yeah I mean Coinbase actually has a lot of different products now so we have like an institutional product. We we have Coinbase commerce which is like merchant payments like stripe for crypto we've got a self custodial wallet which we can talk about. There's all kinds of cool applications people building with web three and they can access it through that. We just just launched an N. F. T. Product. Um I'm going down the list we have so we're sort of like a portfolio of crypto products now we're big enough where we can do multiple things but yeah that's the core thing we got started with and still the majority of revenue today is people just want to come in and buy and sell some crypto and we help them do that make it simple and easy to use. </s>

<s>[INST] and that's life those like the people you love, [/INST] it's the people you truly care about and the contrary to I have, you know, oh my God, I got 6000 facebook friends you got about that many real friends that you can count on and that's </s><s>[INST] it. Everything else doesn't matter. [/INST] It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean you can't be nice. I mean if there's acquaintance friends that I'll do anything for and then come to my house and stuff, but then there's the people that, you know, you know like my cousins who are like my brothers that, you know at a moment's notice, you know, when, when my uncle passed away at a young age, you know, who lived literally right down the street from me And my cousin Chad and I got two boys. There's 14 of us, but there's only two boys, there's three of us together and we all grew up in the same neighborhood, same schools, play football together. All that. I said, if one of those, if rare chad ever needs me, if something happens, like when my uncle died, it wasn't, it wasn't an issue if I'm coming home, it's I'm booking the ticket. I don't give a ship what it costs because I will be there to be here with you. And and then those two guys and my college roommate is another one that I'm very, very close with. You know, you know, if there's there's, I have a handful of people that, you know, I will drop literally everything even if my wife would be pissed at me at times. She's like, seriously, I got I got to do it and now she knows and it's the same thing with her. I mean, she knows that there are certain people in her life that if they really need her and she has to go, she would go and I would let her go. </s><s>[INST] So given all that I'm honored that you would uh come here and talk to me and take the time. David was one of the best conversations I've ever had. Thank you so [/INST] Much. It's a pretty long one. It's </s><s>[INST] probably sets the record for the longest ones. So I mean I'm, I lost the war is one of my favorite conversations. Thank you so much for talking to you. Dave. You're welcome. Thanks for listening to this conversation with David flavor and thank you to our sponsors, athletic Greens Express VPN and better help please check out the sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. If you enjoyed this thing, subscribe my youtube, review it with five stars on apple podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon are connect with me on twitter. Elex Friedman and now let me leave you with some words from Carl Sagan somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] and and on that line of thinking is that the time scale in in in this topic or other topics? Have you found a useful On the business side of the intellectual side to think beyond 5, 10 years to think 50 years out. Has it ever been useful [/INST] Or productive in our industry? There are essentially no examples of 50 year predictions that have been correct. Um Let's review ai right Ai which was largely invented here at M. I. T. And a couple of other universities in the 1956 1957 1958. The original claims were a decade or two. And when I was a PhD student I studied a I bet and it entered during my looking at it a period which is known as a I winter which went on for about 30 years which is a whole generation of science scientists and a whole group of people who didn't make a lot of progress because the algorithms had not improved and the computers did not approved. It took some brilliant mathematicians. Starting with a fellow named Geoff Hinton at Toronto and Montreal who basically invented this deep learning model, which empowers us today. Those the seminal work there was 20 years ago and in the last 10 years it's become popularized. So think about the time frames for that level of discovery, it's very hard to predict. Many people think that will be flying around in the equivalent of flying cars, Who knows, my own view. Uh if I want to go out on a limb is to say that when we we know a couple of things about 50 years from now, we know that there'll be more people alive. We know that we'll have to have platforms that are more sustainable because the earth is limited, you know, in the ways we all know, and that the kind of platforms that are gonna get billed will be consistent with the principles that I've described. They will be much more empowering of individuals. They'll be much more sensitive to the ecology because they have to be they just have to be. I also think that humans are going to be a great deal smarter And I think they're gonna be a lot smarter because of the tools that I've I've discussed with you. And of course people will live longer life extension is continuing apace. Uh baby born today has a reasonable chance of living to 100 right, which is pretty exciting. Well past the 21st century. So we better take care of them. </s><s>[INST] And you mentioned uh interesting statistic on uh some very large percentage 6070% of people may live in cities [/INST] Today more than half the world lives in cities. And one of the great stories of humanity in the last 20 years has been the rural to urban migration. This has occurred in the United States, it's occurred in europe, it's occurring in Asia and it's occurring in africa when people move to cities the cities get more crowded but believe it or not their health gets better, their productivity gets better, their I. Q. And educational capabilities improve. So it's good news that people are moving to cities but we have to make them livable and safe. </s><s>[INST] So you you first of all you are but you've also worked with some of the greatest leaders in the history of tech. What insights do you draw from the difference in leadership styles of yourself, steve jobs. Elon musk larry page. Now the new Ceo Sandra Park I and others from the I would say calm SAGES to the mad geniuses. [/INST] One of things that I learned as a young executive is that there's no single formula for leadership. Um They try to teach one but that's not how it really works. There are people who just understand what they need to do and they need to do it quickly. Those people are often entrepreneurs they just know and they move fast. There are other people who are systems thinkers and planners. That's more who I am somewhat more conservative, more thorough in execution a little bit more risk averse. There's also people who are sort of slightly insane right in the sense that they are emphatic and charismatic and they feel it and they drive it and so forth. There's no single formula to success. There is one thing that unifies all of the people that you named which is very high intelligence right at the end of the day. The thing that characterizes all of them is that they saw the world quicker, faster, They processed information faster. They didn't necessarily make the right decisions all the time, but they were on top of it. And the other thing that's interesting about all those people is they all started young. So think about steve jobs, started starting Apple roughly at 18 or 19, think about Bill Gates starting at roughly 2021 think about by the time they were 30 Mark Zuckerberg and a good example at 1920 By the time they were 30 they had 10 years At 30 years old, they had 10 years of experience of dealing with people and products and shipments and the press and business and so forth. It's incredible how much experience they had compared to the rest of us who are busy getting our phds so we, we, we should celebrate these people because they've just had more life experience, right? And that helps inform the judgment at the end of the day when you're at the top of these organizations, all the easy questions have been dealt with, right? How should we design the buildings? Where should we put the colors on our product? What should the box look like? Right. The problems. That's why it's so interesting to be in these rooms. The problems that they face, right? In terms of the way they operate, the way they deal with their employees, their customers, their innovation are profoundly challenging. Each of the companies is demonstrably different culturally, right? They are not in fact cut of the same. They behave differently based on input. Their internal cultures are different, their compensation schemes are different, their values are different. So there's proof that diversity works. </s>

<s>[INST] still this this uh this life is pretty fun somehow. Even the immense absurdity and at times meaninglessness of it all. It's pretty fun. And one of the for me, one of the most fun things is robots and I've looked up to your work. I've looked up to you for a long time. That's my God Rod. It's an honor that uh you would spend your valuable time with me today talking. It was an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for being here. [/INST] Thanks for thanks for talking with me. I've enjoyed it. </s><s>[INST] Thanks for listening to this conversation with Rodney brooks to support this podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with the three laws of robotics from Isaac Asimov one. A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow human beings to come to harm to a robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except when such orders would conflict with the First Law, and three, a robot must protect its own existence. As long as such protection does not conflict with the first Or the 2nd laws. Thank you for listening. I hope to see you next time. [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] we do. You mean the tools of physics? What do you mean literally are the human brain and its perception system? [/INST] Well, okay, so the human brain is where it starts but we built a bunch of instruments to do a bit better than human brain, but they still have many of the same kinds of ideas, You know, their cameras and their pressure sensors and these kinds of things. They're not uh you know, at this point we don't know how to make fundamentally qualitatively different sensory devices. </s><s>[INST] Right? So it's always just an extension of the conscious experience, even a [/INST] sensory experience </s><s>[INST] sensory experience. But uh huh sensor experiences somehow intricately tied to consciousness. [/INST] Right? So one question is when we are looking at all these molecules in the gas and there might be 10-28 molecules and some little little box or something. It's like what what do we notice about those molecules? So, one thing that we can say is we don't notice that much. We are you know, we are computational rebounded observers. We can't go in and say, okay, I'm the turn of the 20th molecules and I know that I can decrypt their motions and I can figure out this and that it's like I'm just going to say what's the average density of molecules. And so one key feature of us is that we are computational rebounded. And that when you are looking at a universe which is full of computation and doing huge amounts of computation, but we are computational rebounded. There's only certain things about that universe that we're going to be sensitive to. We're not going to be figuring out what all the atoms of space are doing because we're just computational bounded observers and we are only sampling these these small set of features. So I think the two defining features of consciousness that and I you know, I would say that the sort of the preamble to this is for years, you know, because I've talked about sort of computation and fundamental features of physics and science people ask me So what about consciousness? And I for years I've said I have nothing to say about consciousness. And you know, I've I've kind of told this story, you know, you talk about intelligence, you talk about life. Uh these are both features where you say what's the abstract definition of life? We don't really know the abstract definition. We know the one for life on earth. It's got R. N. A. It's got cell membranes, it's got all this kind of stuff. Similarly for intelligence, we know the human definition of intelligence. But what is intelligence abstract? We don't really know. And so what I've long believed is that sort of the abstract definition of intelligence is just computational sophistication. That is that as soon as you can be computational sophisticated, that's kind of the abstract version, The generalized version of intelligence. So then the question is what about consciousness? And what I sort of realized is that consciousness is actually stepped down from intelligence. That is that you might think, oh, you know, consciousness is the is the is the top of the pile but actually I don't think it is. I think that there's this notion of kind of computational sophistication which is the generalist intelligence but consciousness has two limitations. I think one of them is computational bounded nous that is that we're only perceiving a sort of computational rebounded view of the universe. And the other is this idea of a single thread of time. That is that we and in fact we know neuro physiologically our brains go to some trouble to give us this one thread of attention, so to speak. And it isn't the case that, you know, in all the neurons in our brains that that in at least in our conscious note, the the, you know, the correspondence of language in our conscious experience, we just have the single thread of attention, single threat of of perception. Um and you know, maybe there's something unconscious that's bubbling around. That's the kind of almost the quantum version of what's happening in our brain, so to speak. We've got the classical flow of what we are mostly thinking about, so to speak. But there's this kind of bubbling around of other paths that is all those other neurons that didn't make it to be part of our sort of conscious stream of experience. </s><s>[INST] So in that sense, intelligence as computational sophistication is much broader. Then uh then the computational constraints which consciousness operates under. And also the sequential, like the sequential thing, like the notion of time. That's that's kind of interesting. But then the follow up question is like, okay, starting to get a sense of what is intelligence, How does that connect her human brain? Because you're saying um intelligence is almost like a fabric, like what we like plug into it or something like I think, [/INST] you know, people consciousness </s><s>[INST] plugs into it. [/INST] Yeah, I mean the intelligence, I think the core, I mean, you know intelligence some levels just a word, but we're asking you know, what is the notion of intelligence as we generally sit beyond the bounds of humans, beyond the bounds of even the Ai is that we humans have built and so on. You know what, what is intelligence? You know, is the weather? You know, people say the weather has a mind of its own, what does that mean? You know, can the weather be intelligent? </s><s>[INST] Yeah, what does agency have to do with intelligence here? So is intelligence just like your conception of computation. Just intelligence is a is the capacity to perform computation. And the [/INST] ceo Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that's right and I think that, you know this question of of is it for a purpose? Okay. That quickly degenerates into horrible philosophical mess because you know, whenever you say, did the weather do that for a purpose? Yeah. Right. Well yes, it did. It was trying to move a bunch of hot air from the equator to the poles or something, That's its purpose, </s>

<s>[INST] world. So would you recommend it as a good whirlwind overview of the history of economics. [/INST] Yeah, I think that's exactly right, it kind of takes you through the different things. Um and you know, you can understand how they reached thinking some of the strengths and weaknesses. I mean probably is a little out of date now. It needs to be updated a bit. But you know, you could at least look through the first couple 100 years of economics, which is not a bad place to start more recently. I mean a book I really enjoy, it is by my friend and colleague max tag Mark called Life three point Oh, you should have on your podcast if you haven't already. </s><s>[INST] He was episode # one. [/INST] Oh my God, </s><s>[INST] he's back. He'll be back. He'll be back soon. [/INST] Yeah, no, he's terrific. I I love the way his brain works and he makes you think about profound things. He's got such a joyful approach to life. And uh so that's been a great book and you know, you learn, I learn a lot from it, I think everybody but he explains it in a way, even though you're so brilliant that you know, everyone can understand that. I can understand um you know, that's three, but let me mention maybe one or two others. I mean, I recently read more from less by my sometimes co author Andrew Mcafee. It made me optimistic about how we can continue to have rising living standards while living more lightly on the planet. In fact because of higher living standards, because of technology, because of digitization that I mentioned. Um we don't have to have this big an impact on the planet and that's a great story to tell. And he documents it very carefully. Uh you know, a personal kind of self help book that I'm not kind of useful people is is atomic habits. I think it's uh, what's his name? James? Clear. James clear. Um, he's just has a good name because he writes very clearly and you know, most of the sentences I read in that book, I was like, yeah, I know that. But it just really helps to have somebody like remind you and tell you and kind of just reinforce it and uh </s><s>[INST] build habits in your life that you, you hope to have uh, have a positive impact and don't have to make it big things. It could be just tiny [/INST] little Exactly. Atomic. It's a little bit of a pun. I think he says, you know, one atomic museum really small. You take these little things, but also like atomic power. It can have like, you know, big impact. </s><s>[INST] That's funny. Yeah. The biggest ridiculous question, especially to ask an economist, but also a human being. What's the meaning of [/INST] life? I hope you've got the answer that from somebody. I think we're all still working on that one. But um, what is it? You know, I actually learned a lot from my son Luke and he's 19 now, but he's always loved philosophy and he reads way more sophisticated philosophy than I do. I once took him to Oxford and he spent the whole time like pulling all these obscure books down and reading them. And a couple years ago we had this argument um and he was trying to convince me that Hedonism was the ultimate, you know, meaning of life, just pleasure seeking and how </s><s>[INST] old was he at the [/INST] Time, 17, but he made a really good like intellectual argument for it too. And you know, I just didn't strike me as right and I think that um you know, while I am kind of utilitarian, like, you know, I do think we should do the greatest good for the greatest number. That's just too shallow. And I think I've convinced myself that real happiness doesn't come from seeking pleasure. It's kind of a little bit ironic, like if you really focus on being happy, I think it doesn't work, you gotta be doing something bigger. It's I think the analogy sometimes use is, you know, when you look at a dim star in the sky, if you look right at it, it kind of disappears, but you have to look a little to the side and then the parts of your retina that are better at absorbing light, you can pick it up better, it's the same thing with happiness. I think you need to sort of find something other goal something some meaning in life and that ultimately makes you happier than if you go squarely at just pleasure. And so for me, you know, the kind of research I do that I think is trying to change the world, make the world a better place. And I'm not like an evolutionary psychologist, but my guess is that our brains are wired not just for pleasure, but we're social animals and we're wired to help others and ultimately, you know, that's something that's really deeply rooted in our psyche. And if we do help others, if we do or at least feel like we're helping others, you know, our reward systems kick in and we end up being more deeply satisfied than if we just do something selfish and shallow, </s><s>[INST] beautifully put. I don't think there's a better way to end eric, you're one of the people when I first showed up at M. I. T. That made me proud to be an M. It's so it's so sad that you're now at stanford. But as I'm sure you'll do wonderful things at stanford as well. I can't wait till future books and people should definitely read. [/INST] Well thank you so much and I think we're all we're all part of the Invisible College as we call it. You know, we're all part of this intellectual and human community where we all can learn from each other. It doesn't really matter physically where we are so much anymore. </s>

<s>[INST] that those are very, very, very unlikely. Do you don't think it could be a first step on a long [/INST] journey? Of course it's a first step on a long journey, which is awesome. I'm guessing the colonization of the rest of the physical universe will probably be done by AGIs that are better designed to live in space than by the meat machines that we are. But I mean, who knows, we may crowd preserve ourselves in some superior way to what we know now and like shoot ourselves out to Alpha Centauri and beyond. I mean, that's all cool. It's very interesting. And it's much more valuable than most things that humanity is spending its resources on. On the other hand, with AGI, we can get to a singularity before the Mars colony becomes sustaining for sure, </s><s>[INST] possibly before it's even operational. So your tuition is that that's the problem if we really invest resources and we can get to faster than a legitimate full self-sustaining colonization of [/INST] Mars. Yeah. And it's very clear that we will to me because there's so much economic value in getting from their AI toward AGI, whereas the Mars colony, there's less economic value until you get quite far out into the future. So I think that's very interesting. I just think it's somewhat off to the side. I mean, just as I think say, you know, art and music are very, very interesting and I want to see resources go into amazing art and music being created. And I'd rather see that than a lot of the garbage that society spends their money on. On the other hand, I don't think Mars colonization or inventing amazing new genres of music is not one of the things that is most likely to make a critical difference in the evolution of human or non-human life in this part of the universe over the next decade. Do you think AGI is really true? AGI is by far the most important thing that's on the horizon. And then technologies that have direct ability to enable AGI or to accelerate AGI are also very important. For example, say quantum computing, I don't think that's critical to achieve AGI, but certainly you could see how the right quantum computing architecture could massively accelerate AGI, similar other types of nanotechnology. Right now, now the quest to cure aging and end disease while not in the big picture as important as AGI, of course, it's important to all of us as individual humans. And if someone made a super longevity pill and distributed it tomorrow, I mean, that would be huge and a much larger impact </s><s>[INST] than a Mars colony is going to have for quite some time. But perhaps not as much as an AGI [/INST] system. No, because if you can make a benevolent AGI, then all the other problems are solved. Once it's as generally intelligent as humans, it can rapidly become massively more generally intelligent than humans. And then that AGI should be able to solve science and engineering problems much better than human beings, as long as it is in fact motivated to do so. That's why I said a </s><s>[INST] benevolent AGI. There could be other kinds. Maybe it's good to step back a little bit. I mean, we've been using the term AGI. People often cite you as the creator, or at least the popularizer of the term AGI, artificial general intelligence. Can you tell the origin story of the term? [/INST] For sure. For sure. So yeah, I would say I launched the term AGI upon the world for what it's worth without ever fully being in love with the term. What happened is I was editing a book, and this process started around 2001 or two. I think the book came out 2005, funnily. I was editing a book which I provisionally was titling real AI. And I mean, the goal was to gather together fairly serious academic-ish papers on the topic of making thinking machines that could really think in the sense like people can, or even more broadly than people can, right? So then I was reaching out to other folks that I'd encountered here or there who were interested in that, which included some other folks who I knew from the transhumist and singularitarian world, like Peter Vos, who has a company AGI Incorporated still in California, and included Shane Legge, who had worked for me at my company WebMind in New York in the late 90s, who by now has become rich and famous. He was one of the co-founders of Google DeepMind. But at that time, Shane was, I think he may have just started doing his PhD with Marcus Hutter, who at that time hadn't yet published his book, Universal AI, which sort of gives a mathematical foundation for artificial general intelligence. So I reached out to Shane and Marcus and Peter Vos and Pei Wang, who was another former employee of mine, who had been Douglas Hofstadter's PhD student, who had his own approach to AGI. And a bunch of some Russian folks reached out to these guys and they contributed papers for the book. But that was my provisional title, but I never loved it because in the end, you know, I was doing some, what we would now call narrow AI as well, like applying machine learning to genomics data or chat data for sentiment analysis. And I mean, that work is real. And then in a sense, it's really AI, it's just a different kind of AI. Ray Kurzweil wrote about narrow AI versus strong AI. But that seemed weird to me because first of all, narrow and strong are not entities. But secondly, strong AI was used in the cognitive science literature to mean the hypothesis that digital computer AIs could have true consciousness like human beings. So there was already a meaning to strong AI, which was complexly different, but related. So we were tossing around on an email list what title it should be. And so we talked about narrow AI, broad AI, wide AI, narrow AI, general AI. And I think it was either Shane Legge or Peter Vos on the private email discussion we had. He said, well, why don't we go with AGI, artificial general intelligence? And Pei Wang wanted to do GAI, general artificial intelligence, because in Chinese, it goes in that order. But we figured, gay wouldn't work in US culture at that time. So we went with AGI, we used it for the title of that book. And part of Peter and Shane's reasoning was you have the G factor in psychology, which is IQ, general intelligence. So you have a meaning of GI, general intelligence, in psychology. So then you're looking like artificial GI. So then Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, we use that for the title of the book. And so I think </s>

<s>[INST] through the freezing cold crust. Yes. [/INST] Very cold, very rigid crust. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] How do you, how does that look like, by the way? I don't think we've mentioned. So the gas that's expelled. Looking forward to look at it as beautiful as it looked boring. [/INST] The gas, </s><s>[INST] the whole thing, like the magma punching through. Oh my gosh, I see. [/INST] Yes, I'm sure it would be beautiful and the pictures we've seen of it are beautiful. You have. So the magma will come out of the lava will come out of these fissures and you have these curtains of lava that are maybe even a kilometer high. So, if you look at videos, I don't know how many volcano videos you've looked at on earth, but you sometimes see a tiny, tiny version of this in Iceland. You see just these sheets of magma coming out of a fisher when you have this really low um viscosity magma sort of water like coming out at these sheets. Um and the plumes that come out because there's no atmosphere. Um all the plume molecules are just plume particles where they end up is just a function of the direction that they left the vent. So they're all following ballistic trajectories. And you end up with these umbrella blooms, you don't get these sort of complicated plumes that you have on earth that are occurring because of how that material is interacting with the atmosphere that's there. You just have these huge umbrellas and it's been hypothesized actually that, so the atmosphere is made of sulfur dioxide and that you could have these kind of ash particles from the volcano and the sulfur dioxide would um condense onto these particles and you have sulfur dioxide snow coming out of these volcanic plumes. </s><s>[INST] And uh, there's not much light though, right? So you wouldn't be able to, like, it would make a good, it would not make a good instagram photo because you have to, would you see this now? [/INST] Sure there's light. It depends. </s><s>[INST] Okay, so you could, you just depends [/INST] what angle you're looking at it, where the sun is, all the things like that, you know, the sunlight is much weaker but it's still there still there </s><s>[INST] And uh how big is io in terms of gravity? Is that smaller is a pretty small moon? [/INST] It's quite a bit smaller than earth anyway, </s><s>[INST] smaller than earth. Okay. Okay, cool. So they float out for a little bit so it floats, wow. Yeah, No, you're right. That'll be that'll be that'll be gorgeous. Um what else about earth? It's interesting besides Volcan. So play tech times. I didn't realize that that was a unique element of a planet in the solar system. Ah because that, I wonder what I mean. We experience as human beings is quite painful because of earthquakes and all those kinds of things. But I wonder if there's nice features to it. [/INST] Yeah. So coming back to habitability again, um things like tectonics and plate tectonics are, are thought to play an important role in the surface. Be inhabitable and that's because you have a way of recycling material. So if you have a stagnant surface, everything you use up all the free oxygen, everything reacts until you no longer have reactant, that life can extract energy from. And so if nothing is changing on your surface, you kind of reach the stagnation point. Um but something like plate tectonics, recycled material, you bring up new fresh material from the interior, you bring down material is up on the surface and that can kind of refresh your nutrient supply in a sense, or the sort of raw materials the surface has to work with. So um from a kind of astrobiologist perspective looking at Earth, you would see that recycling of material because the plate tectonics, you would also see how much oxygen is an Earth's atmosphere. And between those two things, you would identify Earth as a reasonable candidate for a habitable environment. Um In addition to of course the, you know, pleasant temperature and liquid water. Um but the abundance of oxygen and the plate tectonics both play a role as well. </s><s>[INST] And also see like tiny dots satellites flying around [/INST] and </s><s>[INST] rocket. I wonder if they would be able to I really think about that. Like if they if aliens were to visit and will they really see humans as the thing they should be focusing on? I think it would take a while, Right? Because it's so obvious. That's because there's like so much incredible in terms of biomass, humans are a tiny tiny tiny fraction. There's like ants, they would probably detect ants, right? Or they probably would focus on the water and the fish because there's like a lot of what I don't I was surprised to learn that there's more species on land and there isn't a c Like there's 90 I think 90-95% of the species are on land [/INST] or on land on land, </s><s>[INST] not in c I thought like there's so much going on the seat but no, the the variety that like the branches created by evolution, apparently it's probably a good answer from evolutionary biology perspective why land created so much diversity. But it did. So like the see there's so much not known about two sea about the oceans, but it's not um it's not diversity friendly. What can I say? It needs to improve diversity. But can you [/INST] think the aliens would come? The first thing they would see is I suppose our cities assuming that they had some idea of what a natural world looked like. They would see cities to say these don't belong. Which of these many species created these. </s>

<s>[INST] and ultimately have that long term impact. I wonder if this is scalable to, because that's such a great metric for education, not how to get an A on the test. Uh, but how to have, how to be on the cover of new york times for inventing something new. Do you think that's general Izabal to education beyond just this particular Olympia, like it's even you're saying this feels like a rare statement, almost like a radical statement as a goal for education. [/INST] So actually, the way I teach my classes at Carnegie Mellon, which I will admit right away is not equivalent to the average in the world, but it's already not, It's already not just the top 60 in the country as picked by something. Um let me just explain, I have exams in my class which are 90% of the great, so the exams of the whole thing are most of the whole thing. And the way that I let students prepare for the exams is I show them all the problems I've ever given on the previous exams and the exam that they will take is open notes. They can take all the notes they want on the previous problems. And the guarantee is that the exam problems this time we'll have no overlap with anything. You have seen me given the past as well as no overlap with anything I taught in the class. So the entire exam is invention, wow. But that's how I go write my, my point is I have explained to people when I teach you, I don't want you to have remembered a method I showed you. I want you to have learned enough about this area. That if you face a new question which I came up with the night before by thinking about like what could I ask that I have never asked before. Oh, that's cute. I wonder what the answer is. Uh That's an exam problem. That's exactly what I do before the example and then that's what I want them to learn. And the first exam, usually people have a rough time because it's like what, what kind of crazy classes that the professor doesn't teach you anything for the exam. But then by the second or third. And by the time they finished the class they have learned how to solve anything in the area, how to invent, how to invent in that area. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] Can we walk back to the mathematical olympics? What's the scoring and format like? Uh and also what does it take to win? [/INST] So the way it works is that each of the six students Uh do the problems and there are six problems. All the problems are equally weighted, so each one is worth seven points. That means that your maximum score is six problems times seven points, which is the nice number of 42. Uh and now the way that they're scored by the way is there is partial credit. So the question is asking you explain why this weird fact is true. Okay, if you explain why you get seven points, if you make minor mistake, maybe you get six points. But if you don't succeed in explaining why. But you explain some other true fact which is along the way of proving it, then you get partial credit. And and actually now this is tricky because how do you score such a thing. It's not like it was the answer was 72 you wrote 71 it's close right? The answer is 72 you wrote 36. Oh but that's pretty close because you you know that maybe you're just off, by the way they're not numerical anyway, but I'm just giving some numerical analog to the way the scoring might work. They're all essays and that's where I guess I have some role as well as some other people who helped me in the U. S. Delegation for coaches. Uh We actually debate with the country which is organizing it, the country which is organizing the Olympia brings about 50 people to help charge the written solutions. And you you schedule these half hour appointments where the delegation from one country sits down at the table like this opposite side is two or three people from the host country. And they're just looking over these exam papers saying well how many points is this worth based on some rubric that has been designed and this is a negotiation process, we're not we're not trying to bargain and get the best score we can. In fact sometimes we go to this table and we will say we think we want less than what you gave us. This is how this is how are these are our principles if you give us too much, we say no, you give us too much. We do that. However the reason why this is an interesting process is because if you can imagine every country which is participating has its own language. And so if you're trying to grade the Mongolian scripts and they're written in Mongolian. Uh If you don't read Mongolian which most people don't then the coaches are explaining to you this is what the student has written. It's actually quite interesting process. </s><s>[INST] It's almost like uh like a jury you know you have you have uh in the american legal system you have a jury that where they're deliberating but unlike a jury there's the members of the jury is speaking different languages sometimes. Yes fascinating. But uh I mean it's hard to know what to do because it's probably really really competitive but your sense is that ultimately people like how do you prevent manipulation [/INST] here? Right well we just hope that it's not happening. So so we write in english therefore everything that the U. S. Does. Everyone can look at it. It's very hard it's very hard for you to manipulate. We don't manipulate. We only hope that other people aren't. But at the same time as you see our philosophy was we want to use this as a way to develop general talent. And although we do this for the six people who go to the international math Olympia we really want that everyone at any touched at any stage of this process. Get some skills that can help to contribute more later. </s>

<s>[INST] Well I mean the thought is the thought is perhaps you can't directly but you can map. [/INST] I couldn't but we already we know that without this experiment you could map what O. B. C's and presented in a form so that we could follow it affect every bee scientist does it? </s><s>[INST] But you don't think there's something greater than bees that we can map and then all of a sudden discover something. Be able to understand a quantum world. Quantum mechanics be able to start to be able to make sense. [/INST] Students at MIT study and understand quantum mechanics </s><s>[INST] but they always reduce it to the infant. The physical, I mean they [/INST] don't really understand oh you know there's thing that maybe another area where this just a limit to understanding. We understand the theories but the world that it describes doesn't make any sense. So you know the experiment, Schrodinger's cat for example, can understand the theory but as Schrodinger pointed out, it's an unintelligible world. Uh huh. One of the reasons why Einstein was always very skeptical about quantum theory. He described himself as a classical realist once then and one's intelligibility, </s><s>[INST] he has something in common with infants in that way. So back to linguistics, if you could humor me. What are the most beautiful or fascinating aspects of language or ideas and linguistics and cognitive science that you've seen in a lifetime of studying language and studying the human mind. [/INST] Well, I think the deepest property of language and puzzling property that's been discovered is uh, what are sometimes called structure dependence. We now understand it pretty well, but was puzzling for a long time. I'll give you a concrete example. So I suppose you say the guy who fixed the car carefully packed his tools, it's ambiguous. He could fix the car carefully or carefully packaged tools. I suppose you put carefully in front carefully. The guy who fixed the car packed his tools, then it's carefully packed, not carefully fixed. And in fact, you do that, even if it makes no sense. So suppose you say carefully, the guy who fixed the car is tall. You have to interpret it as carefully. He's tall, even though that doesn't make any sense. And notice that that's a very puzzling fact because you're relating carefully not to the linear lee closest for, but to the linear. Only more remote for linear approx. Closeness is an easy computation. But here you're doing a much more what looks like a more complex computation. You're doing something that's taking you essentially to the more remote thing. Uh, it's Now, if you look at the actual structure of the sentence where the phrases are and so on, turns out you're picking out the structurally closest thing, but the linear li more remote thing But notice that What's linear is 100% of what you hear, you never hear a structure can't. So what you're doing is, and instantly this is universal. All constructions, all languages, and what we're compelled to do is carry out what looks like the more complex computation on material that we never hear And we ignore 100% of what we hear and the simplest computation by now, there's even a neural basis for this that's somewhat understood. And there's good theories by now that explain why it's true. That's a deep insight into the surprising nature of language with many consequences. </s><s>[INST] Let me ask you about a field of machine learning. Deep learning. There's been a lot of progress in neural networks based neural network based machine learning in the recent decade. Of course, neural network research goes back many decades. What do you think are the limits of deep learning of neural network based machine learning? [/INST] Well, to give a real answer to that, you'd have to understand the exact processes that are taking place and those are pretty opaque. So it's pretty hard to prove a theorem about what can be done and what can be done. But I think it's reasonably clear. I mean, putting technicalities aside what deep learning is doing is taking huge numbers of examples and finding some patterns. Okay, that could be interesting in some areas it is. But we have to ask your a certain question, Is it engineering or is it science engineering in the sense of just trying to build something that's useful or science in the sense that it's trying to understand something about elements of the world. So it takes a google par. Sir, we can ask that question, is it useful? You know, it's pretty useful, you know, I use a google translator. So on engineering grounds it's kind of worth having, like a bulldozer. Uh does it tell you anything about human language? zero. Uh Nothing. And in fact it's very striking to its from the very beginning, it's just totally remote from science. So what is a google partner doing? It's taking an enormous text, let's say the Wall Street Journal Corpus. And asking, how close can we come to getting the right description of every sentence in the corpus? Well, every sentence in the corpus is essentially an experiment. Each sentence that you produce is an experiment which is M I A grammatical sentence, the answer is usually yes. So most of the stuff in the corpus is grammatical sentences. But now, ask yourself, is there any science which takes random experiments which are carried out for no reason whatsoever, and tries to find out something from them? Like if you're say a chemistry PhD student, you want to get a thesis, can you say? Well, I'm just gonna do a lot of mixed, mixed a lot of things together. No, no purpose. Just uh and maybe I'll find something you'd be left out of the department. Uh Science tries to find critical experiments, ones that answer some theoretical question doesn't care about coverage of millions of experiments. So it just begins by being very remote from science and it continues like that. So the usual question that's asked about C a google partner is how well does it do or some part, how well does it do on a corpus? But there's another question that's never asked, how well does it do on something that violates all the rules of language? So, for example, take the structure dependence case that I mentioned, suppose there was a language in which he used linear proximity as the mode of interpretation. These deep learning. It worked very easily on that, in fact, much more easily than an actual language. Is that a success That's a failure from a scientific point of view is a failure. It shows that we're not discovering the nature of the system at all because it does just as well or even better on things that violate the structure of the system and it goes on from there. It's not an argument against doing it. It is useful to have devices like this. </s>

<s>[INST] So what do you think? Maybe stepping outside of Alexa broadly as an Ai field, what do you think is a good test of intelligence? Put another way outside of Alexa because so much of Alexa as a product is an experience for the customer on the research side. What would impress the heck out of you if you saw you know, what is the test where you said, wow, this thing is now starting to encroach into the realm of what we loosely think of as human intelligence. [/INST] So well we think of it as a G. I. And human intelligence all together writes in some sense and I think we are quite far from that. I think an unbiased view I have is that the Alexis Okay, intelligence capability is a great test. I think of it as there are many other proof points like self driving cars, game playing like go or chess. Let's take those two for as an example clearly requires a lot of data driven learning and intelligence but it's not as hard a problem as conversing with as an Ai is with humans to accomplish tasks or open domain chart as you mentioned, like surprise in those settings. The key difference is that the end goal is not defined unlike game playing, you also do not know exactly what state you are in in a particular goal completion scenario in certain sense. Sometimes you can if it is a simple goal, but if you're even certain examples, like planning a weekend or you can imagine how many things change along the way you look for. Whether you may change your mind and you uh, you change their destination or you want to catch a particular event and then you decide, no, I want this other event I want to go to. So these dimensions of how many different steps are possible and you're con you're saying as a human with a machine makes it an extremely daunting problem. And I think it is the ultimate test for intelligence. </s><s>[INST] And don't you think the natural language is enough to prove that conversation? Your conversation [/INST] from a scientific standpoint. Natural language is a great test, but I would go beyond. I don't want to limit it to his natural language is simply understanding and intent or parsing for entities and so forth. We're really talking about dialogue. So, so I would say human machine dialogue is definitely one of the best tests of intelligence. </s><s>[INST] So, can you briefly speak to the Alexa prize for people who are not familiar with it? And also just maybe where things stand and what have you learned? What's surprising? What have you seen the surprising from this incredible competition? [/INST] Absolutely. It's a very exciting competition. Uh, I like surprises, essentially grand challenge and Conversational Artificial intelligence where we threw the conflict to the universities who do active research in the field to say, can you build what we call a social board that can converse with you coherently and engagingly for 20 minutes. Uh that is an extremely hard challenge talking to someone in a Who you're meeting for the first time or even if you're, you've met them quite often to speak at 20 minutes on any topic and evolving nature of topics is super hard. We have completed two successful years of the competition. First was one with the industry of Washington. 2nd industry of California. We are in our third instance, we have an extremely strong team of 10 coats and the third instance of the surprise is underway now and we're seeing a concert evolution. First year was definitely a learning. It was a lot of things to be put together. We had to build a lot of infrastructure to enable these universities to be able to build magical experiences and uh do high quality </s><s>[INST] Research. Just a few quick questions. Sorry for the interruption. What does failure look like in the 20 minute session? So what does it mean to fail not to reach the 20 minute mark, [/INST] awesome question. So there are one first of all, I forgot to mention one more detail. It's not just 20 minutes, but the quality of the conversation to that matters and the beauty of this competition. Before I answer that question on what failure means is first that you actually converse with millions and millions of customers as the social parts. Uh, so during the judging phases, there are multiple phases before we get to the finals, which is a very controlled judging in a situation where we have, we bring in judges and we have inter actors who interact with these social baths, that is much more controlled setting. But still the point we get to the finals, all the judging is essentially by the customers of Alexa and there you basically rate on a simple question how good your experience was. Uh So that's where we're not testing for a 20 minute boundary being across because you do want it to be very much like a Clear cut winner, be chosen and it's an absolute bar. So did you really break that 20 minute barrier is why we have to test it in a more controlled setting with actors essentially in tractors and see how the conversation goes. So this is why it's a subtle difference between how it's being tested in the field with real customers versus in the lab to award the prize. So on the latter one, what it means is that essentially the uh there are three judges and two of them have to say this conversation has stalled, essentially. </s><s>[INST] Got it and the judges are human experts. [/INST] Judges are human experts. </s>

<s>[INST] the existential aspect of it does not worry you deeply. The fact that this ride ends. [/INST] No, it began. I mean, the ride began, right? So there was I don't know how many billions of years before that I wasn't around. So that's okay. But </s><s>[INST] isn't the experience of life, it's almost like feels like you're immortal because the way you make plans the way you think about the future, if you if you look at your own personal rich experience, yes, you can understand, okay, eventually I died. There's people I love that have died, so surely I will die and it hurts and so on. But it sure doesn't. It's so easy to get lost and feeling like this is gonna go on forever. Yeah, it's [/INST] a little bit like the people who say they don't believe in free will, right? I mean, you can say that, but but when you go to a restaurant, you still have to pick a soup and stuff. So, right, So, so I don't know if I've actually seen that that happened at lunch with a with a well known philosopher and you didn't believe in free will. And, you know, the waitress came around and he was like, well, let me see, I was like, what are you doing? You're you're gonna choose a sandwich. Right? So um it's I think it's one of those things, I think you you can know that, you know, you're not gonna live forever, but you can't you can't it's not practical to live that way unless you know, so you buy insurance and then you do some stuff like that. But but but mostly, you know, um I think you just you just live as if as if as if you can make plans. </s><s>[INST] We talked about all kinds of life. We talked about all kinds of embodied minds. What do you think is the meaning of it all? What's the meaning of all the biological eyes we've been talking about here on earth? Why are we here? [/INST] I don't know that that's a that's a well post question other than the existential question you post before, </s><s>[INST] is that question hanging out with the question of what is consciousness and their uh retreat somewhere. [/INST] Not sure because </s><s>[INST] sipping pina coladas and because they're ambiguously defined, [/INST] maybe I'm not sure that any of these things really ride on the correctness of our scientific understanding that I mean, just just for an example, right? Um I've always found I've always found it weird that uh people get really worked up uh to find out realities about their their bodies. For for for example, write that you've seen them ex machina, right? And so there's this great scene where he's cutting his hand to find out, you know peaceful of cock now to me, </s><s>[INST] right? [/INST] If if if I open up and I find out in a fine bunch of dogs, my conclusion is not, oh crap, I must not have true cognition. That sucks. My conclusion is wow. Cogs can have true cognition. Great. So right, so so it seems to me, I guess I guess I'm with a card on this one that whatever whatever the truth ends up being of of of how is what is consciousness, how it can be conscious. None of that is going to alter my primary experience, which is this is what it is. And if and if a bunch of molecular networks can do it fantastic if it turns out that um there's a there's a non corporeal, you know, so great. We can, you know, we'll study that whatever. But but the fundamental um </s><s>[INST] existential [/INST] aspect of it is, you know, if somebody, if somebody told me today that yeah, yeah, you were created yesterday and all your memories are, you know, sort of fake, you know, kind of like uh like like Goldsman brains right? And human, you know, human skepticism and all that. Uh Yeah. Okay, well, so so but but here I am now. So, so </s><s>[INST] let's experience it's primal. So like that's the that's the thing that matters. So the backstory doesn't matter the explanation. [/INST] I think so from the first person perspective now, from a third party, like scientifically it's all very interesting from a third person perspective, I could say, wow, that's that's amazing that that this happens and how does it happen or whatever. But from a first person perspective, I could care less. Like I just, it's just what I what I learned from any of these scientific facts is okay, well I guess then that's that that then I guess that's what is sufficient to to give me my, you know, amazing first person perspective. </s><s>[INST] I think if you dig deeper and deeper and get a get surprising answers to why the hell we're here, it might give you some guidance on how to live. [/INST] Maybe maybe, I don't know. Um That would be nice. On the one hand, you might be right, because on the one hand, if I don't know what else could possibly give you that guidance, Right? So, so you would think that it would have to be that it would it would have to be science because there isn't anything else. So, so that's so maybe on the other hand, I am really not sure how you go from any, you know, what they call from is to uh not right from any factual description of what's going on this. This goes back to the natural, right? Just because somebody says, oh man, that's that's completely not natural, that's never happened on Earth before. I I'm not, you know impressed by that whatsoever. I think, I think whatever has or hasn't happened, we are now in a position to do better if we can write </s>

<s>[INST] like there's some kind of feeling of the entity, the stuff that's inside of it and the stuff that's outside of it. And then that's when consciousness starts making sense. But, but then, um, it seems like that could be generalized able, if you take some subset of a cellular automata, you could start talking about what does that subset [/INST] uh, feel. But </s><s>[INST] then you can, I think you could just take arbitrary numbers of subsets. Like to me, uh, like you and I individually our consciousness is, but you could also say the two of us together is a singular [/INST] conscious. Maybe maybe I'm not so sure about that. I think that the single thread of time thing may be pretty important. And that as soon as you start saying, there are two different threads of time, there are two different experiences. And then we have to say, how do they relate how they sort of entangled with each other? I mean that may be a different story of a thing that isn't much like, you know, the the, what do the ants, you know, what's it like to be an aunt, you know, where there's a sort of more collective view of the world, so to speak. I don't know, I think that, I mean, this is uh you know, I don't really have a good, I mean, you know, my my best thought is, you know, can we turn it into a human story? It's like the question of, you know, when we try and understand physics, can we turn that into something which is sort of a human, understandable narrative? And now, what's it like to be a such and such? You know, maybe the only medium in which we can describe that is something like fiction where it's kind of like you're telling, you know, the life story in that, in that, in that setting. But I I'm this is this is beyond what I've, what I've yet understood how to do </s><s>[INST] it. But it does seem so like with human consciousness, you know, we're made up of cells and like there's a bunch of systems that are [/INST] networked </s><s>[INST] that work together that at this at the [/INST] human level. </s><s>[INST] I feel like a singular consciousness when you take So maybe like an ant colony is just too low level, sorry, an ant is too low level. Maybe you have to look at the ant [/INST] colony, there's some level of which </s><s>[INST] it's a conscious being and then if you go to the planetary scale and maybe that's going too far. So there's a nice sweet spot consciousness, I mean, [/INST] I agree, I think I think the difficulty is that, you know, okay, so in sort of people who talk about consciousness, one of the one of the terrible things I've realized, because I've now interacted with with some of this community, so to speak, some interesting people who do that kind of thinking. But, you know, one of the things I was saying to one of the leading people in that area, I was saying, you know, uh that, you know, it must be kind of frustrating because it's kind of like a poetry story that is many people are writing poems, but few people are reading them. So there are always these different, you know, everybody has their own theory of consciousness and they are very non inter sort of inter discuss a ble and by the way, I mean, you know, my own approach to sort of the question of consciousness, as far as I'm concerned, I'm an applied consciousness operative, so to speak. Because I don't really, in a sense, the thing I'm trying to get out of it is how does it help me to understand what's a possible theory of physics and how does it help me to say? How do I go from this, this incoherent collection of things happening in the universe, to our definite perception and definite laws and so on. And it's sort of an applied version of consciousness and I think the reason that sort of segue to a different kind of topic, but the reason that one of the things I'm particularly interested in is kind of what's the analog of consciousness in system is very different from brains. And so why does that matter? Well, you know, this whole description of this kind of, uh, you know, we haven't talked about why the universe exists. So let's let's get to why the universe exists. And then we then we can can talk about perhaps a little bit about what these models of physics kind of show you about other kinds of things like molecular computing and so on, But that's okay, why does the universe exist? Okay, so we finally sort of more or less set the stage, we've got this idea of this really odd of this object that is made from following all possible rules, the fact that it's sort of not just this incoherent mess, it's got all this entangled structure in it and so on. Okay, so what is this really add? Well, it is the working out of all possible formal systems. So, the sort of, the question of why does the universe exist? Its core question you kind of started with is you've got to bust two equals for you've got some other abstract result, but that's not actualized, It's just an abstract thing. And when we say, we've got a model for the universe. Okay, it's this rule you run it and it will make the universe. But it's like but you know, where is it actually running? What what what is what is it actually doing? Right. What is it actual or is it merely a formal description of something? Okay. So the thing to realize with this with this the thing about the ruling ad is it's an inevitable it is the entangled running of all possible rules. So you don't get to say it's not like you're saying which rule er are you picking? Because it's all possible formal rules. It's not like it's just um you know. Well actually it's only footnote. The only footnote. It's an important footnote is it's all possible computational rules. Not hyper computational rules. That is it's running all the rules that would be accessible to a turing machine but is not running all the rules that will be accessible to a thing that can solve problems in finite time. That would take a turing machine infinite time to solve. So you can even alan turing knew this. That you could make oracles for turing machines where you say a turing machine can't solve the halting problem for touring machines. It can't know what will happen in any touring machine after an infinite time in any finite time. But you could invent a box just make a black box, you say I'm going to sell you an oracle that will just tell you press this button, it will tell you what the term machine will do after an infinite time. You can imagine such a box. You can't necessarily build one in the physical universe, but you can imagine such a box. And so we could say, well, in addition to so in this really add, we're imagining that there is a computational that at the end it's running rules that are computational. It doesn't have a bunch of oracle black boxes in it, you say, well, why not? Well, turns out if there are oracle black boxes, the ruling AD that is you can make a sort of super ruling AD that contains those oracle black boxes. But it has a cosmological event horizon relative to the first one. They can't communicate. In other words, you can you can end up with what you end up happening. What ends up happening is it's like in the physical universe we in this causal graph that represents the causal relationships of different things. You can have an event horizon where there's where the causal graph is disconnected, where the effect here, an event happening here does not affect an event happening here because there's a disconnection in the causal graph and that's what happens in an event horizon. And so the what will happen between this kind of the ordinary ruling ad and the hyper ruling ad is there is an event horizon. And you know, we in our ruling AD will just never know that there is that they're they're they're just separate things. They're not they're not connected. </s>

<s>[INST] So he, he's not going to let the athlete be soft when they, when they enter the highest, the most difficult uh competitions of their career. Uh so on the mental side, what's mental preparation looked like? Like how many years before the olympics do you start helping an athlete believe that they can win an olympic medal? [/INST] Well, I think it's gonna be a seed in that athlete's brain, something they want to do, right? Um, nobody, nobody can quickly get there right. It's a long process. But if your goal, if your national champion or you've proven yourself to win in some international tournaments and you think the olympics is a possibility for you then defining it as, hey, I want to be on the olympic team, that would be the first step into, you know, into um getting ready and you know, you always make them put it on paper. You know, if it really is your goal, then you show me that it's your goal and put it on paper and commit to it. I want to be olympic medalist. I want to be olympic champion, I want to go to the olympics, world team member, maybe junior world team member, whatever it is we walk before we go to the highest level, but if the goal is to go to the olympics, let's let's accomplish these other things first, right? Because if we, if we can accomplish these other things, then we're on our way to getting to the ultimate goal, which is the olympics for somebody like Kayla for example, you know, she didn't, she didn't say that she wanted to be olympic champion, you know, when she first came here in 2000 and five right, we wanted to become national champion, then we wanted to be on the world team, then we wanted to be a world medalist. Then we, our sights were set on the olympics or the olympic gold, you know, so it's having those clearly defined goals that are attainable, like there should be a reach, there should be a stretch, but they have to be attainable that can't be just a pipe dream, you know, but once you put it to paper and you think it's achievable, then it's, it's mapping the plan to get there. </s><s>[INST] Is there a daily process of visualizing yourself as an olympic champion or national champion? [/INST] It is, you should do it every either every night before you go to bed or every before every training session or after every training session one of those three times it should, or first thing you wake up in the morning because it may be to help some people that motivates them to go do what it is they're supposed to do in the day. Um but the process of visualization is to me is closing your eyes for a few moments, your brain works really, really fast, right? And it's actually picturing the day in its entirety from start to finish, you know, from the moment you wake up and you step on the scale to the moment you have your breakfast and you go through your morning routine, like live the day that you're gonna have at the olympics. So whatever it is you're trying to do, let's say the olympic day for example, picture yourself making weight, picture yourself who you're around, eat your breakfast, you know, having maybe saying a few jokes, laughing, this is a real day, make it real. Um going back and getting packing your judo bag for the day, you know, getting on the bus, driving to the venue, feel what it's like walking into the stadium, you know, for the first time, going to the warm up area, seeing your draw up on the, you know, on the sheet, who you're gonna fight that day, watching yourself warm up, go through your warmup routine, um walking out of the chute, you know, into the venue, going to do that first fight. Picture the moment of throwing your opponent, coming off the mat, high fiving the coach, getting ready for your second fight, like live the day from start to finish and make it as real as possible, you know, where all the way to the moment where you have just one and you're raising your arms in celebration, you're bowing, you're hugging your opponent, you come off the mat, you hug your coach, you're running around the stadium with the flag. You know, you stepped up on the podium, you heard your name olympic champion, jimmy Pedro, like you heard the moment the metal being put around your neck, pictures of people coming up on the podium with you arms around them, taking the pictures like the more real you can make it even before it ever happens, right? When you do that enough times, I feel that like pathways get created for you so that when your body gets to that moment and I've been here before, this is it, this is my moment, this is what I pictured my whole life. I'm not nervous because I've seen this, this is going to happen. I believe it's possible, right? And I believe the athletes that do that and make it real enough that when they get to that moment they go right through, there's no hesitation. This is what this is meant to be. This is my destiny. This is why I did everything I did versus the ones that don't think about it ever, but just kind of like hope, uh it's not real to them, it doesn't feel attainable. They don't believe it's possible. They haven't committed to believing it was possible without that commitment in yourself and that belief, it can't happen. </s>

<s>[INST] can we talk about tokens a little bit generally speaking There's been a meteoric rise of a bunch of different tokens. We could just talk about Bitcoin and ethereum as examples. Bitcoin I think cost $60,000 in value. What are your thoughts in general on this rise, what's the future of Bitcoin? What's the future of ethereum? Uh there's there's the total value locked metric that I think generalizes the different kind of value of these, of these tokens. What is the future value and impact of Cryptocurrency look like if we look through the lens of these tokens? [/INST] I think valuing all these tokens and determining that isn't something I'm particularly great at. I haven't spent a lot of time on that. I've spent the majority, vast majority of my time on building these systems and architect in them and getting them to fruition and getting them to a place where they operate properly on both the technical and economic and in every other and in every other sense, I I think with Bitcoin there is um a certain conception of non governmental fiat money that Bitcoin is really the first creator of, right? So there's this very powerful idea called fiat money. It's basically um more or less the kind of 40 year experiment I think on august 15th of this year is is maybe I think given the 40th anniversary, you know, government can say, hey I have a currency and it's worth something and here it is in terms of the way that governments have stopped that in the past is if anyone tries to make another fiat currency in their country, they immediately shut it down, right. They immediately say, hey this is really bad. You've done something really bad. It's time for you to stop, don't do it anymore and it stops, right? That's been the history of non governmental fiat currency. Bitcoin is really due to its decentralized nature the first um and possibly in some cases in many people's minds is still the only true non governmental fiat currency now, how powerful is non governmental fiat currency? I have no idea. Right, This is why. So it's really as powerful as the ideas that people ascribe to it. Right? So let's say people start saying like right now people are saying, hey it's internet money, it's the money of the internet. Okay great, what's that worth? I don't know, it's probably worth a lot. I have no idea what it's worth but it's worth as an idea, as a concept to underpin the fiat money. The let there be aspect of, of, of, of fiat and Bitcoin. You basically look at it and you say, Yeah Internet money, okay, that could be worth whatever, you know, 60,600,000 great question. Right? There are other versions of the world, right? Where people say, you know um there are countries that don't have a good fiat currency and I see a lot of people using Bitcoin. So Bitcoin isn't internet money, it's um countries without a good currency money. So all the countries without a good currency, not now use Bitcoin and you know, let there be Bitcoin as this, right? As this conception of Bitcoin, what's the value of that? I don't know that's a great question, probably probably huge amount of value. Um then there's then there's a further conception of Bitcoin as some, you know digital gold, there's a scarcity dynamic, there's there's all these other kinds of dynamics. What is a portable version of digital gold with some kind of built in um built in scarcity worth, you know, kind of artificially created scarcity um what's that worth? I don't know that's that's a great question. I haven't done the analysis on that is the point might be worth a lot. What is it all worth if all three of these things you know, flow into the same fiat um kind of let there be Bitcoin as these three things conception of Bitcoin, I don't know what that's worth. I don't know what that's worth but could be worth a huge amount. So I think it's not, I don't think it's I personally don't think it's super important, what I think it's worth or what many other people think it's worth. I don't think that's that's really that important. I think what's probably important is understanding what the societal conception of Bitcoin is and how does that societal conception evolve over time and that interestingly enough doesn't just depend on um you know you or me or the people who made Bitcoin or anything else, it actually depends on current events. So for example if people suddenly say I'm more and more worried about fiat currency, I'm more and more worried that governmental fiat, even if it's the most reliable version of that is not as good as I thought it was. Maybe I should go on the Paypal app and maybe I should get some Bitcoin just in case. What's the world where Bitcoin is a certain percentage of everyone's ownership as a hedge against governmental fiat money not being so good having done the analysis. But another example right here is this conception. That's that's the conception. So when I look at Bitcoin, what I see is a lot of these fascinating conceptions of of what the fiat let there be value of Bitcoin is, by the way, all of them could be true. Um maybe some of them are true, maybe some of them aren't true. And and the fascinating thing is that I've seen this conception change, right? So when I started in the Bitcoin space, the conception was micropayments, the cost of Bitcoin is low. We'll have micropayments, micropayments are wonderful for machine to machine transactions. Micropayments are wonderful and the emerging market and that's fine. Right? And and and that was one conception of Bitcoin has let there be Bitcoin as micropayments platform, right? But then the value rose and things change. There was enough expansion in certain ways and and now the conception has evolved into this other conception, but but at the end of the day, um I think governments have a very clear set of steps for directing the public's conception of their fiat right? They say our fiat is worth this for these reasons. Bitcoin doesn't have that. Bitcoin doesn't have an official Bitcoin spokesperson that goes out and says the non governmental money called Bitcoin, the non governmental fiat money called Bitcoin has value on the basis of this, this this and this, here's our fiscal budget, here's our future plans. You know, our money will continue to be safe and secure and reliable and so it's what that whole creates is a hole that we all feel right. We all basically come to some vague kind of group understanding that, you know, Bitcoin is worth is worth this because it is tied, it is tied to um you know, let's say All non governmental fiat money comes into question, everybody doubts it uh possibly due to inflation. And everybody says, you know, this is nice, but I'd like to keep 10, of my of my wealth in non governmental fiat just in case. Um you know, what, what are those numbers? I mean if that happens, you know, I'm guessing you can add a few </s>

<s>[INST] So those are maybe in their mind, they're also playing by the rules because of some technical excuse that you mentioned that was rejected. How can this let me interrupt, you [/INST] know, that's not true. Um the study was completed, The blind was broken, meaning they looked at the data In March of 2000. The article was published in the New England Journal in November of 2000. In March of 2000. There was an email by the head scientist that was published in The Wall Street Journal that said the day that the data were on blinded. That it's a shame that the cardiovascular events are there, but the drug will do well and we will do well. </s><s>[INST] But removing the three heart attacks, how does that happen? Like uh who has to convince themselves is this pure malevolence? [/INST] Um you have to be the judge of that. But the person who was in charge of the data safety monitoring board issued a letter that said they'll stop counting cardiovascular events a month before the trial is over and they'll continue counting gi events. And that person got a contract to Consult with Merck for $5,000 a day I think for 12 days a year. For one or 2 years that was signed, That contract was signed Within two weeks of the decision to stop counting heart attacks. </s><s>[INST] I want to understand that man or woman. I wanna I want it's the I've been reading a lot about Nazi Germany and and thinking a lot about the good Germans because I want to understand so that we can each encourage each other to take the small heroic actions that prevents that. Because it feels to me [/INST] removing </s><s>[INST] malevolence from the table where it's just a pure psychopathic person, that there is just a momentum created by the game. Like you mentioned. Yes. And so it takes reversing the momentum within a company I think requires many small acts of heroism, not gigantic. I'm going to leave and become a whistleblower and published a book about it. But small quiet acts of pressuring against this. Like what are we doing here? We're trying to help people, is this the right thing to do? Looking in the mirror cost and asking is this the right thing to do? I mean that's how, that's what integrity is acknowledging the pressures you're under and then still be able to zoom out and think what is the right thing to do here? But the data hiding the data makes it too easy to live in ignorance. So like within those inside those companies. So your idea is that the reviewers should see the data. That's that's one step. So to even push back on that idea is I assume you mean the data remains private except to the peer reviews reviewers. The problem of course is is you probably know is the peer review process is not perfect. You know, it's individuals. It feels like there should be a lot more eyes on the data than just the pure reviewers. Yes. [/INST] This is not a hard problem to solve. When a study is completed, a clinical study report is made. Um and its usually several 1000 pages. And what it does is it takes the raw patient data and it tabulates it in the ways it's supposedly and usually in the ways that the company has pre specified So that you then end up with a searchable, let's say 3000 page document as I became more experienced as an expert in litigation. I could go through those documents Pretty quickly quickly may mean 20 hours or 40 hours but it doesn't mean three months of my work and see if the companies, if the way the company has analyzed the data is consistent with the way with their statistical analysis plan and their, uh, pre specified outcome measures. Um, it's not hard and I think you're right peer reviewers. I don't peer review clinical trials, but I peer review other kinds of articles. I have to do one on the airplane on the way home. And it's hard. I mean, we're just ordinary mortal people volunteering to </s><s>[INST] the motivation is not clear. [/INST] The motivation is to keep, um, to be a good citizen, uh, in the medical community. Um, and to be on friendly terms with the journals so that if you want to get published, there's sort of an unspoken yeah incentive </s><s>[INST] as, as somebody who enjoys game theory, I feel like that motivation is good but could be a lot better. [/INST] Yes, you should get more recognition or in some way um, academic credit for it. Um, it should go to your career advancement </s><s>[INST] if it's an important paper and you recognize it's an important paper as a great peer reviewer that this is not in that area where it's ah, uh, like clearly piece of crap paper or clearly an awesome paper that doesn't have controversial aspects to it and it's just a beautiful piece of work. Okay, those are easy. And then there's like the very difficult gray area, which may require many, many days of work on your part as a peer reviewer. So it's not, you know, it's not just a couple of hours but really seriously reading like some papers can take months to really understand. So if you really want to struggle um there has to be an incentive for that struggle. [/INST] Yes. And billions of dollars ride on some of these studies and lies right </s><s>[INST] Not to mention [/INST] it would be easy to have full time statisticians hired by the journals are shared by the journals um who were independent of any other um financial incentive to go over these kind of methodological issues and take responsibility for the for certifying the analyses that are done. And then pass it on to the volunteer peer reviewers. </s>

<s>[INST] human level intelligence. Yeah. [/INST] So this the glib answer is to say something which is better than us at all cognitive tasks with better than any human at all cognitive tasks. But the really interesting bar I think goes a little bit lower than that. Actually. It's when they can run they're better than us that ai programming and general learning so that they can if they want to get better than us at anything by this study. So they're better </s><s>[INST] is a keyword and better is towards this kind of spectrum of the complexity of goals it's able to accomplish. So another way to okay, so no, and that's certainly a very clear definition of human love. So there's it's almost like a c that's rising and you can do more and more and more things. Its geographic, that you show. It's really nice way to put it. So there's some peaks that and there's an ocean level elevating and you solve more and more problems. But you know, just kind of to take a pause and we took a bunch of questions and a lot of social networks and a bunch of people asked sort of a slightly different direction on creativity and um and and things like that perhaps aren't a peak. Uh it's, you know, human beings are flawed and perhaps better means having being, having contradiction, being fought in some way. So let me sort of, yeah, start start easy first of all. Uh, you have a lot of cool equations. Let me ask what's your favorite equation first of all, I know they're all like your Children, but which one is that [/INST] the master key of quantum mechanics of the micro world? So this was the situation, we protect everything to do with atoms and molecules and all the way up. </s><s>[INST] Yeah, so, okay, so quantum mechanics is certainly a beautiful mysterious formulation of our world. So I'd like to sort of ask you just as an example, it perhaps doesn't have the same beauty as physics does, but in mathematics abstract The Andrew wiles who proved the Fermat's last year. So he, I just saw this recently and it kind of caught my eye a little bit. This is 358 years after it was conjectured. So this very simple formulation. Everybody tried to prove it. Everybody failed. And so here's this guy comes along and eventually uh Proves it and then fails to prove it and then proves it again in 94. And he said like the moment when everything connected into place. The in an interview said it was so indescribably beautiful that moment when you finally realize the connecting piece of two conjectures. He said it was so indescribably beautiful. It was so simple and so elegant. I couldn't understand how I'd missed it and I just stared at it in disbelief for 20 minutes. Then then during the day I walked around the department and I keep coming back to my desk looking to see if it was still there, it was still there, I couldn't contain myself. I was so excited. It was the most important moment of my working life. Nothing I ever do again will mean as much so that particular moment and it kind of made me think of what would it take and I [/INST] think we have all </s><s>[INST] been there at small levels. Um maybe let me ask, have you had a moment like that in your life? Well, you just had an idea. It's like, wow! Yes, [/INST] I wouldn't mention myself in the same breath as Andrew wiles, but I've certainly had a number of of aha moments when I, I realized something very cool about physics just completely made my head explode. In fact, some of my favorite discoveries, I made a I later realized that have been discovered earlier or someone who sometimes got quite famous for it. So I was too late for me to even publish it. But that doesn't diminish it. Anyway, the emotional experience you have when you realize it like, </s><s>[INST] wow! Yeah. So what would it take in at that moment? That, wow, that was yours in that moment. So what do you think it takes for an intelligence system and Maggie system? An Ai system to have a moment like that? [/INST] A tricky question because there are actually two parts to it. Right? One of them is can it accomplish that proof? I cannot prove that you can never right A. To the N. Plus B to the N equals +32. That equals zero for all integers etcetera etcetera. When when is bigger than 2? That was simply in any question about intelligence. Can you build machines that have that intelligent? And I think by the time we get a machine that can independently come up with that level of proofs probably quite close to a g. The second question is a question about consciousness. When will we will will and how likely is it that such a machine would actually have any experience at all as opposed to just being like a zombie. And would we expect it to have some sort of emotional response to this or anything at all? I can to human emotion where when it accomplishes its machine goal it's the views that is somehow it's something very positive and and and sublime and and and and deeply meaningful. I would certainly hope that if in the future we do create machines that are appears or even our descendants. Yeah, I would certainly hope that they do have this sort of supply and sublime appreciation of life in a way. My absolutely worst nightmare would be that and at some point in the future, the distant future. Maybe I caused much as teeming with all this post biological life doing all the seemingly cool stuff. And maybe the fun the last humans by the time our species eventually fizzles out will be like, well that's okay because we're so proud of our descendants here. And look what I think my worst nightmare is that we haven't solved the consciousness problem and we haven't realized that these are all the zombies. They're not aware of anything any more than the tape recorders hasn't any kind of experience. So the whole thing has just become a play for empty benches that would be like the ultimate zombie apocalypse me. So I I would much rather in that case that mm we have these beings which can really appreciate how uh how amazing it is. </s>

<s>[INST] it's very easy to connect stock fish to sex toys. [/INST] Actually, actually, </s><s>[INST] yes. So apparently that's a popular thing, like a lot of sex toys are bluetooth enabled so you can communicate with them. So this is actually pretty trivial to do. Not trivial. But then, and then in fact there is a um [/INST] there's </s><s>[INST] several libraries, One of them is really active called. Now this is on git hub friends. It's in rust, but I think there's python wrappers, it's called butt plug is the name of the library um that communicates with it supports a bunch of different devices, a bunch of different like vibrators and all that kind of stuff. But then I looked at the kind of vibrators that supports and they're all like creepy looking. I mean like it doesn't, it doesn't have, um, I don't know, it felt too dirty. You know, like there's a line, I was like, uh, oh, is this not gonna [/INST] because the reason I </s><s>[INST] like that kind of stuff is I like the joke of it that ultimately is somehow educational because to me, I really care about aI and this is a cool little project to do. It's super easy to share. Um, [/INST] yeah, </s><s>[INST] but I was thinking about doing it. I was thinking about doing it at first I said, no, it's just kind of feels dirty. But then the, the aforementioned friends said, no, you should definitely do it. Um, I like the, [/INST] who's your test subject? </s><s>[INST] No, we wouldn't test just, well, [/INST] I'm sure that </s><s>[INST] people will sign up. Right. [/INST] I just went on the </s><s>[INST] table like show the vibration. Like, like this is your basic converting. Uh, now it's not, I'm not obviously grandmaster. So you have to say everything. I [/INST] feel like, no, you don't, you could say the square. You don't have to say the peace the human will fill in the gap. </s><s>[INST] A good human chess player. I can't, [/INST] oh, that's </s><s>[INST] What, that's the point I wanted to make is like for me, I would like to know the actual move I need to make. So I need the full information. So I have to convert the Bishop C5, whatever two more to morse code, which is a lot of vibration. [/INST] Yes exactly. </s><s>[INST] But it still works. It's, it's hilarious and fun. So I was thinking about doing it but uh because it's pretty easy to do um it would be just like a fun exercise. I love a mix of technical rigor and humor. [/INST] Well this is the perfect project for </s><s>[INST] that. This [/INST] was more than I think out of user comment in a twitch stream. So I thought it was born on reddit this theory, but I think eric Hanson was streaming chats bra and someone in his chat made that joke and he read it out loud. That was the first time it was read out loud and then somebody clipped it and it became international news like I don't have you followed how big the traction got on this anal beads thing. It was covered by every major news network, late night talk show, Trevor Noah Stephen Colbert, international news, international news in countries like china where I would have never thought that they would report about anal beads. Yeah. </s><s>[INST] Did they? What was the tonality of? It was seen as a joke or did they say there's a cheating scandal? I [/INST] think literally anal beads like just just accused </s><s>[INST] accused [/INST] denies denies cheating with anal beads, which he never did. He never denied cheating with anal beads. It was a joke internet theory </s><s>[INST] that was him. I would lean into it. [/INST] Yeah, I can't imagine man, like that's why I don't, I don't know what the right thing for him to do is, but it's </s><s>[INST] Not touching this one. You [/INST] know, I, I've talked about it. I don't say the words anal beads in my Youtube videos, but I'll say, yeah, I'll do the things </s><s>[INST] you think I should do. The code thing is a tutorial. [/INST] Sure. Yeah. I think it would be hilarious if you find a way to do it. Yeah, you can show that it is possible to theoretically vibrate via bluetooth chest </s><s>[INST] moves [/INST] and if someone shoves it up there, asked what it was another joke. Okay? They offered you to play naked. They're gonna make you spread your cheeks. </s><s>[INST] I [/INST] didn't share my naked </s><s>[INST] soft problem. I think it doesn't have to be naked. I don't think naked is enough. [/INST] Yeah. </s><s>[INST] Um, okay. Some questions from reddit, ask him, ask levy if he deep down hates his audience. [/INST] I saw that. Yeah, I saw, I saw that was I have a, I have a love hate relationship with the chest subreddit. So that's why some of those questions were going to be tough. I have a love hate relationship. </s><s>[INST] That's a tough question or is that come from a place of love. [/INST] Very, very tough to say very tough to say </s><s>[INST] love and hate. Like they're basically next door neighbors on Reddit. I feel [/INST] like they are </s><s>[INST] really, very quickly between each other. [/INST] Yes. So Reddit chest specifically I think is mostly folks who are around before the chest boom. So the yeah, so a lot of them have been around for five years, seven years, 10 years even more. And I think the average age on Reddit is lower than the average age on these chess subreddit. I think that the chest subreddit is beyond the age of 20 maybe even 25. Like a lot of folks that </s><s>[INST] ancient, ancient people. Yeah, [/INST] I mean not 15 or 16. Uh, Anarchy chess is younger. So anarchy chess is basically chess memes </s><s>[INST] you [/INST] got anarchy chose is great. A lot of stupid memes on there. Do </s><s>[INST] they like you or they [/INST] did until my crypto sponsorship um, which is a separate convo that I'm more than happy to have. But yeah, so my relationship with the Reddit chess subreddit is tough because my content on Youtube stops at a certain point with them. They can't learn from me because I'm tailoring to 95% of my audience, which is about 16, 1700 below. And I have a lot of content where I jokingly make fun of low rated players and everyone's in on it and we all have fun and I laugh at myself a ton left as you can even see in this conversation. I, but just like you mentioned in with with clips and out of context, things folks have already formed the perception of my personality, There's nothing I can do to win them back. And I think the dominant percentage of the loudest group of folks on the chest subreddit, they just, they have a certain perception of me. It's not going to change. And you add something like Cryptocurrency sponsorship, which people on reddit just in general are relatively negative on the subject. It's gonna start, you know, snowballing more and more. So if you ever look up a thread of should I buy a Gotham course and it's on Reddit chest because they know everyone's calling it a scam over price. </s>

<s>[INST] We go from scratch. Yeah, we are living more and more in digital world. I wonder if if the scanning is good enough for the critical things in terms of memories in terms of the particular quirks of your cognitive processes. [/INST] They're not </s><s>[INST] and uh we're not we're not close. Yes, but we've made quite a bit of progress. So it's uh if you're if you're an exponential type of person. [/INST] Well, let's dream a little here. That's the way it would work. That I could see it working is you take it single cell slice through your dead brain and we can. Now the problem with the engineering aspect is that the engineering is the physical aspect of the brain is not even half the problem. The problem is which genes are switched on and off. This experience that we're having here is is altering certain genes in neurons that will be preserved hopefully for for a number of decades. But you cannot see that with a microscope easily. But there are technologies have invented actually. Just down the hall in the building. I'm at George church, invented away. His lab invented a way to look at which genes are switched on and off. Not only in a single cell, which any lab can do these days, but in situ where it's situated in the brain. So you can say, okay, this nerve cell had these genes switched on and they switched off. We can recreate that. But just scanning the brain and looking how the nerves are touching each other is not going to do it, </s><s>[INST] wow. Okay, so you have to scan the full biology the full details and look at the [/INST] epi genome </s><s>[INST] at the epa gino, to [/INST] which genes are on and off. It's just easier to reset the ePA genome and get them to work like they used to use, we're doing </s><s>[INST] that Now. Use the hardware already have just figure out how to uh make that hardware last longer. [/INST] Right. Ultimately, information will be lost. Even genetic information degrades slowly through mutation. So, immortality is not achievable through that means though. I think we could potentially reset the body hundreds of times and lived for thousands of years. </s><s>[INST] Okay, so we talked about biology. Let's forgive me but let's talk about philosophy for just a brief moment. So somebody I've enjoyed reading Ernest Becker wrote the denial of death. There's also martin Heidegger. There's a bunch of philosophers who um claim that most people live life in denial of death sort of [/INST] we </s><s>[INST] don't fully internalize the idea that we're going to die. The because if we did as as they say, there will be a kind of terror of um I mean a deep fear of death. Mhm. The fact that we don't know what's like, we almost I don't know what to do with non existence with disappearing. Like our the way we draw meaning from life seems to be grounded in the fact that we exist and that we some point will not exist is terrifying. And so we live in an illusion that we're not going to die and we run from that terror. That's what Ernest Becker would say. Do you think there's any truth to that? [/INST] Oh I know there's truth to that. I experience it every day when I talk to people, we have to live that way. Um Although unfortunately I can't but for most people it's extremely distressing, distressing to think about their own mortality. We think about it occasionally and if we really thought about it every day, we'd probably be brought to tears how much we not just miss ourselves but miss our family, our friends, we are all living life forms have evolved to to not want to die And what I mean want biochemically genetically physically that yeast cell the cells that I studied at MIT, they were fighting for their lives. They didn't think but our brain has evolved the same survival aspect. Of course we don't want to die. But the problem for us, unfortunately, it's a curse and a blessing is away now conscious we know that we're going to die. Most species that have ever existed. Don't that's a burden. That's a curse. And so what I think happened is we've evolved certainly to want to live for a long time, perhaps never want to die. But the thought about dying is so traumatic That there isn't an eight part of our brains and it's probably genetically wired to not think about it. I really think that's part of being human because think about tribes that obsessed with longevity every day and we're going to die, they probably didn't make much technological progress because they were just crying in their huts every day or on the savannah. I really think that we've evolved to naturally deny aging. And it's one of the problems that I face in my career and when I speak publicly and on social media is that it's shocking. People don't want to think about their age. But I think it's getting better. I think my book has helped These tests that we're developing should help people understand it's not a problem to think about your long term health. In fact, if you don't, you're going to reach 80 and really regret it. </s>

<s>[INST] can hack into, I don't know what's the worst thing. You can hack into something that could launch nuclear weapons, which percentage of the people in the world to have the skill would not share that with anyone um with any bad party. I guess how many people are completely devoid of ethical concerns in years in your sense. So, my my belief is all the ultra competent people are very, very high percentage of ultra competent people are also ethical people. That's been my experience. But then again, my experiences narrow what's what's what's your experience been [/INST] like. So this was another question I wanted to answer, you know, who are these people who would sell a zero day exploit that would neutralize a Schneider electric safety lock at a petrochemical plant, basically the last thing you would need to neutralize before you trigger some kind of explosion who would sell that. Um, and I got my answer, well, the answer was different. A lot of people said I would never even look there because I don't even want to know, I don't even want to have that capability. I don't like, I don't even want to have to make that decision about whether I'm going to profit off of that knowledge. I went down to Argentina and this whole kind of moral calculus I had in my head was completely flipped around. So just to back up for a moment. So Argentina actually is a real hackers paradise. people grew up in Argentina and I went down there I guess I was there around 2015, but you still couldn't get an iphone, you know, they didn't have amazon prime, you couldn't get access to any of the apps we all take for granted to get those things in Argentina as a kid, you have to find a way to hack them, you know, and it's the whole culture is really like a hacker culture, they say like it's really like a Macgyver culture. You know, you have to figure out how to break into something with wire and tape and that means that there are a lot of really good hackers in Argentina who are, who specialize in developing zero day exploits. And I went down to this Argentina conference called Eco party and I asked the organizer okay can you introduce me to someone who's selling zero day exploits to governments and he was like just throw a stone, throw a stone anywhere and you're going to hit someone and all over this conference you saw these guys who were clearly from these gulf states who only spoke Arabic, you know what are they doing at a young hacking conference in Buenos Aires And so I went out to lunch with kind of this godfather of the hacking scene there and I asked this really dumb question and I'm still embarrassed about how I phrased it but I said so you know will these guys only sell these zero day exploits to good Western governments? And he said Nicole last time I checked the United States wasn't a good Western government, you know the last country that bombed another country into oblivion wasn't china or Iran it was the United States. So if we're going to go buy your whole moral calculus you know just know that we have a very different calculus down here and we'd actually rather sell to Iran or Russia or china maybe than the United States and that just blew me away like wow you know he's like, well just sell to whoever brings us the biggest bag of cash, Have you checked into our inflation situation recently? So, you know, I had some, some of those like reality checks along the way, you know, we tend to think of things as is this moral, you know, is this ethical, especially as journalists, we kind of sit on our high horse sometimes and um right about a lot of things that seem to push the moral bounds, but in this market, which is essentially an underground market that, you know, the one rule is like fight club. You know, no one talks about fight Club. First rule of the zero day market. Nobody talks about the zero day market on both sides Because the hacker doesn't want to lose their $2.5 million dollar bounty and government's role these into classified programs and they don't want anyone to know what they have. No one talks about this thing and when you're operating in the dark like that, it's really easy to put aside your morals. Sometimes. </s><s>[INST] Can I add a small change and ask you by way of advice, you must have done some incredible interviews and you've also spoken about how serious you take protecting your sources. If you were to give me advice for interviewing when you're recording on mike with a video camera, how is it possible to get into this world? Like is it basically impossible. So you've, you've spoken with a few people, what is it, like the godfather of cyberwar cybersecurity, So people that are already out and they're still have to be pretty brave to speak publicly. Um but is it virtually impossible to really talk to anybody who is a current hacker? You're always like 10, 20 years behind. [/INST] It's a good question, and this is why I'm a print journalist, but you know, a lot, when I've seen people do it, it's always the guy who's behind the shadows whose voice has been altered. You know, when they've gotten someone on camera, that's usually how they do it. Um you know, very, very few people talk in this space and there's actually a pretty well known case study in why you don't talk publicly in this space and you don't get photographed. And that's the grok. So, you know, the grok is or was this zero day broker? South African guy lives in Thailand. And right, when I was starting on this subject at the new york times, he had given an interview to Forbes and he talked about being a zero day broker and he even posed next to this giant duffel bag filled with cash ostensibly, and later he would say he was speaking off the record, he didn't understand the rules of the game, but what I heard from people who did business with him was that the minute that that story came out? He became PNG no one did business with him? You know, his business plummeted by at least half? No one wants to do business with anyone who's going to get on camera and talk about how they're selling zero days to governments. You know, it, it puts you at danger. And I did hear that he got some visits from some security folks and that's another thing for these people to consider if they have those zero day exploits at their disposal, they become a huge target for nation states all over the world. You know, talk about having perfect opsec, you know, you better have some perfect opsec if people know that you have access to those zero day exploits, </s>

<s>[INST] So it's just going back to the the time of designing risk when you design an instruction set architecture, do you think like a programmer, do you think like a micro processor engineer? Do you think like a artist philosopher, Do you think in software and hardware? I mean, is it art Science? [/INST] Yeah, I'd say, I think designing a good instruction set as an art and I think you're trying to uh balance um the simplicity and speed of execution with how well easy it will be for compilers to use it. Right? You're trying to create an instruction set that everything in there can be used by compilers, there's not things that are missing that will make it difficult for the program to run, uh they run efficiently, but you want it to be easy to build as well. So it's that kind of, you know, so you're thinking, I'd say you're thinking hardware, trying to find a hardware software compromise that will work well. And and it's uh you know, it's, you know, it's a matter of taste, right? It's kind of fun to build instruction sets. It's not that hard to build an instruction set, but to build one that catches on and people use, you know, you have to be, you know, fortunate to be the right place at the right time or have a design that people really like are </s><s>[INST] using metrics, says, is it uh quantifiable because you kind of have to anticipate the kind of programs that people right, Yeah, ahead of time. So is that, can you use numbers, can use metrics, can you quantify something ahead of time or is this again, that's the hard part where you're kind of a [/INST] big, big change, kind of what happened? I think from Hennessy's, in my perspective in the 1980s, what happened was going from kind of really uh you know, taste and hunches to quantifiable and in fact He and I wrote a textbook at the end of the 1980s called Computer Architecture, a quantitative approach. I heard of that and it's it's the thing, it had a pretty big impact in the field because we went from text books that kind of listed. So here's what this computer does and here's the pros and cons and here's what this computer does in pros and cons to something where there were formulas and equations where you could measure things. So specifically for instruction sets. Um, what um, we do in some other fields do is we agree upon a set of programs which we call benchmarks and uh, a suite of programs. And then you develop both the hardware and the compiler and you get numbers on how well your your computer does given its instruction set and how well you implemented it in your microprocessor and how good your compilers are. And in computer architecture we're using professors terms we grade on a curve rather than great an absolute scale. So when you say, you know this, these programs run this fast. Well, that's kind of interesting. But how do you know, it's better while you compare it to other computers at the same time. So the best way we know how to make, turn it into a kind of more science and experimental and quantitative is to compare yourself to other computers of the same era that have the same access to the same kind of technology. Uncommonly agreed benchmark programs. </s><s>[INST] So maybe to toss up two possible directions, we can go one is, what are the different trade offs in designing architecture? We've been already talking about Sisk and risk, but maybe a little bit more detail in terms of specific features that you were thinking about. And the other side is, what are the metrics that you're thinking about when looking at these trade [/INST] offs? Yeah, let's talk about the metrics. So during these debates we actually had kind of a hard time explaining convincing people the ideas and partly we didn't have a formula to explain it. And a few years into it, we hit upon the formula that helped explain what was going on. And um, I think if we can do this, see how it works orally. So, uh, the, if I can do a formula orally. So the uh, so fundamentally the way you measure performance is how long does it take a program to run program If you have 10 programs. And typically these benchmarks were sweet because you want to have 10 programs so they could represent lots of different applications. So for these 10 programs, how long it takes to run? Well now when you're trying to explain why it took so long, you could factor how long it takes a program to run into. Three factors. Uh, one of the first one is, how many instructions did it take to execute? So that's the, that's the what we've been talking about, you know, the instruction of the committee. How many did it take? All right. The next question is, how long did each instruction take to run on average? So you multiply the number instructions times how long it took to run and that's your time. Okay, So that's but now let's look at this, a metric of how long did it take the instruction to run? Well, it turns out the way we could build computers today is they all have a clock. And you've seen this when you if you buy a microprocessor, it'll say 3.1 gigahertz or 2.5 gigahertz and more gigahertz is good. Well what that is, is the speed of the clock. So 2.5 gigahertz turns out to be four billions of instruction or four nanoseconds. So that's the clock cycle time. But there's another factor which is what's the average number of clock cycles that takes per instructions. So it's number of instructions, average number of clock cycles in the clock cycle time. So in these risks this debates we would we would concentrate on but risk needs to take more instructions and we'd argue what may be the clock cycle is faster. But what the real big difference was was the number of clock cycles per instruction </s>

<s>[INST] Yeah. And in the case of machine learning is uh, adversarial machine learning. So all the kinds of attacks like security, almost threats. And there's a social engineering with machine learning algorithms and [/INST] there's face recognition and Big Brother is watching you and there is the killer drones that can potentially go and targeted execution of people in a different country. I don't, you know, want them argue that bombs are not necessarily that much better, but but you know, people want to kill someone, they'll find a way to do it. </s><s>[INST] So if you if in general, if you look at trends in the data, there's less wars, There's just violence, There's more human rights. So we've been doing overall quite good as a human species. Are you [/INST] optimistic? </s><s>[INST] Are you optimistic? Uh, maybe another way to ask is do you think most people are good and fundamentally we tend towards a better world, which is underlying the question will machine learning, What gene editing ultimately land us somewhere good. Are you optimistic? Uh huh. [/INST] I think by and large? I'm optimistic. I think that most people mean well that doesn't mean that most people are, you know, altruistic do gooders. But I think most people mean well, but I think it's also really important for us as a society to create social norms were doing good and being perceived well by our peers is are positively correlated. I mean, it's very easy to create dysfunctional societies. There certainly multiple psychological experiments as well as sadly real world events where people have devolved to a world where being perceived well by your peers is correlated with really atrocious um often genocidal behaviors. So we really want to make sure that we maintain a set of social norms where people know that to be a successful member of society, you want to be doing good. And one of the things that I sometimes worry about is that some societies don't seem to necessarily be moving in the forward direction in that regard. Where it's not necessarily the case that doing um that being a good person is what makes you be perceived well by your peers. And I think that's a really important thing for us as a society to remember, it's very easy to degenerate back into a universe where it's okay to do really bad stuff and still have your peers think you're amazing. </s><s>[INST] It's fun to ask a world class, computer scientist and engineer? A ridiculously philosophical question like, what is the meaning of life? Let me ask, what gives your life meaning? What are, what is the source of fulfillment? Happiness? Joy, purpose. [/INST] When we were starting coursera in the fall of 2011, that was right around the time that steve jobs passed away. And so the media was full of various famous quotes he uttered in one of them that really stuck with me because it resonated with stuff that I've been feeling for even years before that is that our goal in life should be to make a dent in the universe. So I think that to me, what gives my life meaning is that I would hope that when I I'm lying there on my death bed and looking at what I've done in my life that I can point to ways in which I have left the world a better place than it was when I entered it. This is something I tell my kids all the time, because I also think that the burden of that is much greater for those of us who were born to privilege. And in some ways I was, I mean it wasn't born super wealthy or anything like that, but I grew up in an educated family with parents who loved me and took care of me and I had a chance at a great education and so and I've always had enough to eat. So I was in many ways born to privilege more than the vast majority of humanity and my kids I think are even more so born to privilege than I was fortunate enough to be. And I think it's really important that especially for those of us who have that opportunity that we use our lives to make the world a better place. </s><s>[INST] I don't think there's a better way to end it. That news uh honor to talk to you. Thank you so much for talking about. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Daphne koller and thank you to our presenting sponsor cash app. Please consider supporting the podcast by downloading cash app and using code lex podcast, enjoyed this podcast. Subscribe on Youtube. Review five stars on apple podcast, Support on Patreon. Simply connect with me on twitter, a lex Friedman and now let me leave you with some words from Hippocrates, a physician from ancient Greece who is considered to be the father of medicine, wherever the art of medicine is loved. There's also love of humanity. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time [/INST] </s>

<s>[INST] Like, you know, what does it visually look like? Does it, does it look like, like you said, like purple plasma? Yeah, yeah. [/INST] Actually it's it's invisible to the eye because it's so hot that it's basically emitting light in frequencies that we can't detect. It's literal. It's invisible. In fact, light goes through it, visible light goes through it. So easy that if you were to look at it, what you would see in our own particular configuration what we make is in the end is a donut shaped, it's a vacuum vessel to keep the air out of it. And when you turn on the plasma, it gets so hot that most of it just disappears in the visible spectrum, you can't see anything. And there's very, very cold plasma, which is between 10 and 100,000 degrees, which is out in the very periphery of it, which is kind of, so the very cold plasma is allowed to interact with the, kind of has to interact with something eventually at the boundary of the vacuum vessel. And this kind of makes a little halo around it, and it glows this beautiful purple light, basically. And these are, that's the, that's </s><s>[INST] what we can sense in the human spectrum. I remember reading on a subreddit called ShowerThoughts, which people should check out. It's just fascinating philosophical ideas that strike you while you're in the shower. And one of them was, it's lucky that fire, when it burns, it communicates that it's hot using visible light. Otherwise humans would be screwed. I don't know if there's a deep, profound truth to that, but nevertheless, I did find it on ShowerThoughts subreddit. [/INST] Yes, actually, I do have the, this goes off in a bit of, you're right. This is actually, it's interesting because, you know, as a scientist, you also think about evolutionary functions and how we got, like, why do we have the senses that we do? It's an interesting question, right? Like, why can bees see an ultraviolet and we can't? Then you go, well, it's natural selection. For some reason, this wasn't really particularly important to us, right? Why can't we see in the infrared and other things can? It's like, yeah. It's a fascinating question, right? Obviously, there's some, there's some advantage that you have there that isn't there and even color distinguishing, right? Of something safe to ease, not safe, whatever it would be. I actually go back to this because it's something like, that I tell all of my students when I'm teaching ionizing radiation and radiological safety, whatever you say, there's a cultural concern or that when people hear the word radiation, like what does this mean? It literally just means light is what it means, right? But it's light in different parts of the spectrum, right? And so it turns out besides the visible light that we can see here, we are immersed in almost the totality of the electromagnetic spectrum. There is visible light, there's infrared light, there is microwaves going around, going around as that's how our cell phone works. You can't, it's way past our detection capability, but also higher energy ones, which have to do with ultraviolet light, how you get a sunburn, and even x-rays and things like this at small levels are continually being, like from the concrete in this, in the walls of this hotel, there's x-rays hitting our body continuously. I can, I can bring out a, we can go down to the lab at MIT and bring out a detector and show you </s><s>[INST] every single room will have, have these people that could have these by our body. You mean the [/INST] 10 to the 28 atoms. The 10 to the 10 to the 28 atoms, and they're coming in and they're interacting with those things. And those, particularly the ones where the light is at higher average energy per per light particle, those are the ones that can possibly have an effect on human health. So we, we, it's interesting humans and all animals have evolved on earth where we're immersed in that all the time. Yeah. There's natural source of </s><s>[INST] radiation all the time. Yet we have zero ability to detect it, like zero. Yeah. Yeah. And our ability, cognitive ability to filter it all out and not, it would probably, it would probably [/INST] overwhelm us actually, if we could see all of it. But my main point is, goes back to your thing about fire and self-protection. If, if these ionized, if ionizing radiation was such a critical aspect of the health of organisms on earth, we would almost certainly have evolved methods to </s><s>[INST] detect it. And we have none. And yes. The physical world that's all around us. Yes. You're blowing my mind Dr. Dennis White. Okay. Let's, so you have experience with magnetic confinement. You have experience with inertial confinement. Most of your work has been a magnetic confinement. Yeah. But let's sort of talk about the, the, the sexy recent thing for, for a bit of a time. There's been a for a bit of a time, there's been a breakthrough in the news that laser-based inertial confinement was used by DOE's National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. [/INST] Can you explain this breakthrough that happened in December, magnetic confinement? Yeah. So it goes to the set of criteria that I talked about before about getting high energy gain. So in the end, what, what are we after in fusion is that we, we basically assemble this plasma fuel in some way and we provide it a starting amount of energy. Think of lighting the fire. And what you want to do is get back like significant excess gain from the fact that the fusion is, is making more, is releasing the energy. So it's, it's like the equivalent of like, we want to have a match, a small match, light a fire, and then the fire keeps us hot. It's like, this is very much like that. So as I said, we've, we've made many of the, and what do we mean by we, it's like the fusion community has pursued aspects of this through a variety of different confinement methodologies, is that the, the key part about what happens, what was the threshold we had never gotten over before was that if you only consider the plasma fuel, not that, not the total engineering system, but just the plasma fuel itself, we had not gotten to the point yet where basically the size of the match was, was smaller than the amount of energy that we got from the future. </s>

<s>[INST] But this is a much, much longer discussion. Cause there's a lot of details there. I would say there's potential for catastrophic events to happen in much dumber ways within AI space. There's a lot of ways to create like, uh, social networks are creating a kind of, uh, accelerated set of events that we might not be able to control. That the social network virality in the digital space can create mass movements of ideas that can then, if times are tough, create military conflict and all those kinds of things. But that's not Intel super intelligent AI. That's an interesting at scale application of AI. And if you look at viruses, viruses are pretty dumb, uh, but at scale, their application is pretty detrimental. And so origin of life, much like all of the kind of virology, you know, um, the very contentious word of gain of function research in virology, sort of like research on viruses, messing with them genetically, you know, genetically, that can create a lot of problems if not done well. So we'll have to be very cautious. So there's a kind of, whenever you're ultra cautious about stuff in AI or in virology and biology, it borders on cynicism, I would say, where it's like everything we do is going to turn out to be destructive and terrible. So I'm just going to sit here and do nothing. Okay. That's a possible solution except for the fact that somebody's going to do it. It's, uh, science and technology progresses. So we have to do it in an ethical way, in a good way, considering in a transparent way, in an open way, considering, um, all the possible positive trajectories that could be taken and making sure as much as possible that we walk those trajectories. So yeah, I don't think Terminator is coming, but a totally unexpected version of Terminator may be around the corner of the corner. [/INST] Yeah. Yeah. It might be here already. Yeah. So I agree with that. And so going back to the origin of life discussion, I think that in synthetic biology right now, we have to be very careful about how we edit genomes and edit synthetic biology to do things. So that's kind of, that's where things might go wrong in the same way as, uh, you know, Twitter, turning ourselves into a kind of strange scale effects. I would love origin of life research or artificial life research to get to the point where we have those worries, because that's why I think we're just so far away from that we are just, you know, right now, I think there are two really important, um, angles. There is the origin of life, people, researchers who are faithfully working on this and trying to make those molecules, the scam molecules I talk about. And then there are people on the creationist side is saying, look, the fact you can't make these molecules and you can't make a cell means that, um, evolution isn't true and all this other stuff. Gotcha. Yeah. And so, and I find that really frustrating because actually the origin of life research is all working in good faith, right? Yes. And, and so what I'm trying to do is give origin of life research a little bit more of a, of a, of an open, an open context. And one of the things I think is important, um, I really want to make a really want to make a new life form in my lifetime. I really want to prove that life is a general phenomena, a bit like gravity in the universe, because I think that's going to be really important for humanities, um, global psychological state, meaning going forward. </s><s>[INST] That's beautifully, that's beautifully put. So one, it will help us understand ourselves. So that's useful for science, but two, it gives us a kind of hope, if not, uh, an awe at all the huge amounts of alien civilizations that are out there. If you can build life and understand just how easy it is to build life, then that's just as good, if not much better than discovering life on another planet. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's cheaper. It's much cheaper and much easier and, uh, probably much more conclusive because once you were able to create life, like you said, is the search problem that, uh, there's probably a lot of different ways to do it. Once you create the, once you find the first solution, you probably have all the right methodology for finding all kinds of other solutions. [/INST] Yeah. And wouldn't it be great if we can find a solution? I mean, it's probably a bit late for, I mean, I worry about climate change, but I'm not that worried about climate change. And I think what one day you could think about could we engineer a new type of lifeform that could basically, and I don't want to do this, and I don't think we should do this necessarily, but it's a good thought experiment that would perhaps take CO2 out of the atmosphere or an intermediate lifeform. So it's not quite alive. It's almost like an add-on. A time-dependent add-on you could give to say cyanobacteria in the ocean or maybe to wheat and say, right, we're going to fix a bit more CO2 and we're going to work how much we need to fix to basically save the climate, and we're going to use evolutionary principles to basically get there. What worries me is that biology has had a few billion years to find a solution for CO2 fixation. It hasn't really done. The solution isn't brilliant for our needs, but biology wasn't thinking about our needs. Biology was thinking about biology's needs. But I think if we can do, as you say, make life in the lab, then suddenly we don't need to go to everywhere and conclusively prove it. I think we make life in the lab. We look at the extent of life in the solar system. How far did Earth life get? Probably we're all Martians. Probably life got going on Mars, the chemistry on Mars, seeded Earth. That might have been a legitimate way to kind of truncate the surface space. But in the outer solar system, we might have completely different lifeforms on Enceladus, on Europa, and Titan, and that would be a cool thing because- </s>

<s>[INST] instruction is. What about the mess of the beautiful mess of parallelism in the whole [/INST] picture, parallelism, which has to do with say, how many instructions could execute in parallel and things like that. You can think of that as affecting the clock cycles per instruction because the average clock cycles per instruction. So when you're running a program if if it took 100 billion instructions and on average it took two clock cycles per instruction. And there were four nanoseconds you can multiply that out and see how long it took to run and there's all kinds of tricks to try and reduce the number of clock cycles per instruction. Um but it turned out that the way they would do these complex instructions is they would actually build what we would call an interpreter in a simpler, very simple hardware interpreter. But it turned out that for the cIS constructions, if you had to use one of those interpreters, it would be like 10 clock cycles per instruction where the risk instructions could be to. So there'd be this factor of five advantage in clock cycles per instruction We have to execute, say 25 or 50% more instructions, so that's where the wind would come. And then you can make an argument whether the clock cycle times are the same or not, but pointing out that we could divide the benchmark results, time per program into three factors. And the biggest difference between risk insists was the clock cycles per execute a few more instructions, but the clock cycles per instruction is much less. And that was what this debate. Once we made that argument, Then people say, Okay, I get it. And so we went from uh it was outrageously controversial in 1982 that maybe probably by 1984. So people said, oh yeah, technically they've got a good argument. </s><s>[INST] What, what are the instructions in the RISC instruction set? Just to get an intuition? [/INST] Okay, 1995, I was asked scientists to predict the future of what microprocessor future. So I I've seen these predictions and usually people predict something outrageous just to be entertaining. Right? And so my prediction for 2020, was you know things are going to be pretty much. they're going to look very familiar with what they are and they are. And if you were to read the article, you know, the things I said are pretty much true. The instructions that have been around forever are kind of the same </s><s>[INST] and that's the outrageous prediction actually, [/INST] given how fast computers, well, you know, moore's law was going to go on, we thought for 25 more years, uh you know, who knows? But kind of the surprising thing, in fact, you know, Hennessy and I, you know, won the ACM am touring award for both the risk construction set contributions and for that textbook I mentioned. But you know, we're surprised that here we are, 35 40 years later after we did our work and the conventional wisdom of the best way to instruction sets Is still those risk construction sets that looked very similar to what we look like we did in the 1980s. So those uh, surprisingly there hasn't been some radical new idea, even though we have, you know, a million times as many transistors as we had back then. </s><s>[INST] Um But what are the basic constructions and how do they change over the years? So we're talking about addition subtraction. These are [/INST] the specific. So the so the things that are in a calculator, you are in a computer. So any of the buttons on the calculator in the computer. So the button, so if there's a memory function key and like I said, those turns into putting something in memory is called the store. Bring something that's gonna load. </s><s>[INST] Just a quick tangent when you say memory, What does memory mean? [/INST] Uh Well, I told you there were five pieces of a computer and if you remember in a calculator, there's a memory key. So you want to have intermediate calculation and bring it back later. So you'd hit the memory plus key m plus maybe. And it would put that into memory and then you hit an RM like construction and then bring it back on the display. So you don't have to type it. You don't have to write it down and bring it back again. So that's exactly what memory is that? You can put things into it as temporary storage and bring it back when you need it later. So that's memory and loads and stores. But the big thing, the difference between a computer and a calculator is that the computer can make decisions. And amazingly decisions are as simple as is this value less than zero or is this value bigger than that value? So there's uh and those instructions which are called conditional branch instructions is what give computers all its power. Uh If you were in the early days of computing before, what's called the general purpose microprocessor, people would write these instructions kind of in hardware and but it couldn't make decisions. It would just it would do the same thing over and over again with the power of having branch instructions that can look at things and make decisions automatically and it can make these decisions, you know, billions of times per second. And amazingly enough, we can get, you know, thanks to advances in machine learning, we can can create programs that can do something smarter than human beings can do. But if you go down that very basic level, it's the instructions are the keys on the calculator plus the ability to make decisions, these conditional branch instructions and and all </s><s>[INST] decisions fundamentally can be reduced down to these branch [/INST] instructions. So in in fact, and so, You know, going way back in the stack back to, you know, we did four risk projects at Berkeley in the 1980s, dated a couple at Stanford in the 1980s, uh in 2010, we decided we wanted to do a new instruction set learning from the mistakes of those risk architecture of the 1980s. And that was done here at Berkeley Almost exactly 10 years ago. And the people who did it, I participated, but uh crystal Kosanovic and others drove it, they called it Risk Five. To honor those risks The four risk projects of the 1980s. </s>

<s>[INST] to know how we're going to interact with alien life. You think there's a lot of kinds of life that's possible. I guess that was the intuition. Yeah. You provided that the way biology itself, but even this particular kinds of biology that we have on earth is something that is just one sample of nearly infinite number of other possible complex autonomous self-replicating type of things that could be possible. And so we're almost unable to see the alternative versions of us. I mean, we'll still be able to detect them, we'll still be able to interact with them. We'll still be able to like, which, what's exactly is lost in translation? Why can't we see them? Why can't we talk to them? Because I too have a sense, you put it way more poetically, but it seems both statistically and sort of romantically, it feels like the universe should be teeming with life, like super intelligent life. And I just, I sit there and the Fermi Paradox is very, it's felt very distinctly by me when I look up at the stars, because it's the same way I feel when I'm driving through New Jersey and listening to Bruce Springsteen and feel quite sad. It's like Louis C.K. talks about pulling off to the side of the road and just weeping a little bit. I'm almost wondering like, hey, why aren't you talking to us? It feels lonely. It feels lonely [/INST] because it feels like they're out there. I think that there are a number of answers to that. I think the Fermi Paradox is perhaps based on the assumption that if life did emerge in the universe, it would be similar to our life and there's only one solution. And I think that what we've got to start to do is go out and look for selection detection, an evolution detection, rather than life detection. And I think that once we start to do that, we might start to see really interesting things. And we haven't been doing this for very long. And we are living in an expanding universe and that makes the problem a little bit harder. Everybody's always leaving. But I'm very optimistic that we will, well, I don't know, there are two movies that came out in the same within six months of one another, Ad Astra and Cosmos. Ad Astra, they're very expensive. Blockbuster, you know, with Brad Pitt in it and saying there is no life and it's all, you know, we've got a life on Earth has more pressures. And Cosmos, which is a UK production, which basically aliens came and visited Earth one day and they were discovered in the UK. Right. It was quite, it's a fun film. But I really loved those two films. And at the same time, those films, at the time those films are coming out, I was working on a paper, a life detection paper. And in fact, it was so hard to publish this paper. And it was almost I got so depressed trying to get this science out there that I felt the depression of the film in Ad Astra, like life, there's no life elsewhere in the universe. But I'm incredibly optimistic that I think we will find life in the universe, firm evidence of life. And it will have to start on Earth, making life on Earth and surprising us, we have to surprise ourselves and make non biological life on Earth. And then people say, well, you made this life on Earth, therefore, it's the you're part of the causal chain of that. And that might be true. But if I can show how I'm able to do it with very little cheating or very little information inputs, just creating like a model planet, some description, and watching it, watching life emerge, then I think that we will be even to persuade even the hardest critic that it's possible. Now with regards to the Fermi paradox, I think that we might crush that with the JWST. It's basically if I recall correctly, the mirror is about 10 times the size of the Hubble, that we're going to be able to do spectroscopy, look at colors of exoplanets, I think, not brilliantly, but we'll be able to start to classify them. And we'll start to get a real fit feel for what's going on in the universe on these exoplanets, because it's only the last few decades, I think, maybe even last decade that we even came to recognize that exoplanets even are common. And I think that that gives us a lot of optimism that life is going to be out there. But I think we have to start framing. We have to start preparing the fact that biology is only one solution. I can tell you with confidence that biology on Earth does not exist anywhere else in the universe. We are absolutely unique. </s><s>[INST] Well, okay, I love the confidence. But where does that confidence come from? You know, chemistry, like how many options does chemistry really have? [/INST] Many, that's the point. And the thing is, this is where the origin of life scam comes in, is that people don't count the numbers. So if biology, as you find on Earth, is common everywhere, then there's something really weird going on that basically written in the quantum mechanics, there's some kind of these bonds must form over these bonds, and this catalyst must form over this catalyst when they're all quite equal. Life is contingent. The origin of life on Earth was contingent upon the chemistry available at the origin of life on Earth. So that means if we want to find other lifelike, other Earth-like worlds, we look for the same kind of rocky world, we might look in the same zone as Earth, and we might expect reasonably to find biological-like stuff going on. That would be a reasonable hypothesis, but it won't be the same. It can't be. It's like saying, I don't believe in magic. That's why I'm sure. I just don't believe in magic. I believe in statistics, and I can do experiments. And so I won't get exactly the same sequence of events, I'll get something different. And so there is TikTok elsewhere in the universe, but it's not </s>