The Blindboy Podcast - What my Uncle who sticks coins to his forehead can tell us about Artificial Intelligence and simulation theory

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

What my Uncle who sticks coins to his forehead can tell us about artificial intelligence and simulation theory . An exploration of the work of John Scotus Eriugena Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, I'm Sophia Lopercaro, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome, and I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks like Glass Animals... I guess that was the idea, to try something personal and see what happened. ...and Japanese Breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.

Gaffa at the Jack Dawes haunted cause, you jaundiced aunius. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. If you're a brand new listener, and is your first ever blind by a podcast, maybe consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast. I've got a fuckload of new listeners now because I did an online interview with Ash Sarkar on her podcast with Novara Media and a couple of clips. There was like three clips and they

went very viral. They got I think seven million views now over the past month and this has brought a huge amount of new listeners. New listeners from all around the world who are like, who's this prick with a plastic bag on his head, I'm gonna give his podcast a listen. So I've loads of brand new listeners who are mailing me on Instagram wanting to know why I wear a plastic bag on my head, wanting to know which episode of my podcast they should listen to first. Well if you listen to an episode and you like it, then go back to the very start. Some of the kindest messages I've ever received in my life come from people who went back to the very start. Some of the kindest messages I've ever received in my life come from people who went back to the start and started to listen to this podcast as an entire body of work. But also, you don't have to. It's not strictly linear. Not like, fucking hell.

I told someone to get into the Sopranos once. I'm like, you need, you really need to watch the fucking Sopranos. You really need to, I mean, look, we've all had the Sopranos suggested to us. It's phenomenal. It was during COVID lockdown, I texted the person and says, you need to watch the Sopranos. And then, like three years ago, lockdown ended. It was that time when we were all allowed back out onto the streets again and you you kind of didn't

know how to speak to people when you bumped into him you didn't know what the rules were so I bumped into this person and I said ah did you watch the Sopranos and then he goes yeah I fucking love it I'm watching like three episodes a day I love it and then I went brilliant excellent I I'm watching like three episodes a day. I love it. And then I went, brilliant, excellent. I know you'd like it. What season are you on? And then he said, I know, I just pick episodes at random. I think I just walked away.

I don't think I even said goodbye. I just left the conversation. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle that. I couldn't handle someone. Imagine watching the Sopranos. Imagine, I better text them actually, because that was about three fucking years ago.

I did, I left the conversation, I wasn't being rude. I was just so overwhelmed with the information, I think I needed to just walk away. Fuck it, I'd forgotten about that. Yeah, I should probably give that person a text to explain that. Maybe they'll listen to the podcast. Keith, Keith O'Halloran, who grew up outside Parteen.

If you're wondering why I walked away from you mid-conversation three years ago when we met on Upper O'Connell Street in Limerick City, it was because when I said to you, have you been enjoying The Sopranos? You said, yes, I fucking love it. I'm watching three episodes a day. And then I said, what what season and then you said oh I just watch random episodes it's brilliant and then instead of responding to that using words I just turned my back and walked away I'd like to apologize for the affrontery of my actions I wasn't being rude I wasn't being passive

aggressive it's just that the information that you've given me, I experienced it as an act of violence against art. You can't just, having never seen The Sopranos, you can't just pick random episodes. What the fuck is wrong with you? What are you doing? What if you said to me, what if I met you and you said, you know what, you should eat cornflakes.

Do you ever have cornflakes? They're a very common breakfast cereal. Cornflakes are the sopranos of breakfast recommendations. But what if you recommend, I met you in the street and you said, oh you should give cornflakes a try. And then I said to you, fuck it I will. So the next day I wake up and I pour myself a bowl of corn flakes, take out some milk, I put the milk on the corn flakes, they're there in the bowl. First thing in the morning I'm hungry and then I start to eat the corn flakes with my

arse. Because that's what you did, you watched the Sopranos with your arse, you did. You climbed up onto the couch, shoved your head into the cushion and pointed your anus at the television. So what if I hover my rectum over the bowl and manage to inhale cornflakes up my arse and then try to digest them that way and then report back to you that I enjoyed it. That's the thing, if I tried to shove cornflakes up my fucking arse, it's not going to go well, it's not going to be pleasant, it's going to feel bad, it's an awful way to start the day, I won't be able to digest that food because it's going up my arse. That's not how bodies work. It would be a terrible idea. It would be a terrible experience. And if I reported

back to you, oh I tried cornflakes the other day but I didn't eat them with my mouth. I put them up my arse. I'd report back and say that was disgusting. Why did you tell me to get into cornflakes? But that's... You'd have never had to say to me, cornflakes are fantastic, right? But make sure you eat them with your mouth. Don't shove them up your arse. You wouldn't have said that. In the same way that when I said to you,

fuck it, man, you haven't seen The Sopranos. Jesus, you gotta watch The Sopranos. At no point did I think to myself, better tell him to watch it sequentially. Better tell him to go, now make sure that you start on season one, and then when you watch the first episode, make sure that you watch episode two afterwards. Why would I possibly have to suggest that to a person?

So that's what you did to the Sopranos, Keith. You ate the Sopranos with your arse. And that's why I walked away from you. That's why I walked away from you. It was overwhelming. It was overwhelming information. That was too much. That was, I didn't know what to say to you.

I wish I got to... It was just after the fucking pandemic, alright? And I didn't have a lot of... I'd spent two years stuck inside not talking to people. If it had happened now, I'd have playfully used the cornflakes analogy and found a nice way to tell you that you're watching the Sopranos wrong. But the point I'm making, this podcast isn't necessarily like that. You can begin from the start if you want, but you don't have to. It's not the Sopranos. You can eat this podcast with your

arse, if you like, and you'll be alright, but it's better to eat it with your mouth. But I've been writing this podcast for so long, sometimes I can't remember if I told you a story or not, especially if the story is from my childhood. I want to tell you about the first ever £5 note, first ever £5 note that I got. I had an uncle by the name of Noel. He's my mother's brother, a lovely man. And I was... I'd say four years of age.

And my uncle Noel, he was a money uncle. We all had money uncles. The uncle that, when they fucking visited, they gave you a small bit of money. Alright? Everybody had that uncle. Magnificent uncles. Money uncles were the best. The next best uncle to a money uncle was a mineral uncle. A mineral uncle was an unclehood. Mineral is an archaic Irish term for a soft drink. And it's interesting because it comes from our tradition of venerating holy wells.

This idea that a soft drink with its effervescence and carbonation, the tingle of it on the tongue reminds them of drinking from a sacred well. A natural spring, water from deep under the earth that's pregnant with minerals like zinc and limestone. So that's where you get that Irish phrase mineral but you had mineral uncles and that was the uncle that would come up and they wouldn't give you money but they'd say to you, you have a little mineral, you have a little tinny mineral, you have a small little tinny mineral, you have a little mineral. You have a little tinny mineral. You have a small little tinny mineral. You have a little mineral. That's what made the mineral uncle the mineral uncle. They would offer you mineral but they could never pronounce it like a normal human

being. That's because of the mineral. You have a little tinny mineral. And then the third type of uncle is the uncle that let you have a sip of their pint. But my uncle Noel was a money uncle. He wasn't wealthy he just would give you money. He was the uncle that gave you little bits of money. My uncle Noel was he was a large man. Well he was probably just because I was tiny. He was a pure country fella from Tipareri. country fella from Tipperary. A very kind and friendly man but sometimes Tipperary people have a way of communicating kindness which is violent in a way. Like my dad used to say about my uncle Noel that when he'd meet my uncle Noel that Noel had the ability, Noel would

give my father this wonderful, friendly hello, but he'd do it in such a way that he stepped on my dad's toe, kneed him into the bollocks and headbutted him all at once. And my dad would be buckled after a hello from my uncle Noel, violently friendly, lovely man. And when I was a little kid, whenever uncle Noel would visit, I knew he's going to give me money. And you're waiting, because the thing is with a money uncle, they'd never give you the money in front of everybody. They'd find their little corner and they'd whisper you away and they'd go, here you go, here you go, don't tell your parents.

But what my Uncle Noel used to do, he had a huge big red forehead. He was a large man, huge big red forehead. And he used to tower above me and he'd take out of his pocket, like an old 10p, an old Irish 10p. And the thing is we're getting money back then. I was so young that I didn't really appreciate that this is a piece of currency and you can use this to buy things. It's like no, the money itself is a fucking gift. I'm being handed an adult thing, an object that adults own, this money thing that seems really important and I don't understand what it is, but now I've got a piece of money.

So what my Uncle Noel used to do is he would reach into his pocket and he'd pull out like 10p. 10p coin. And I used to love that I'd love it when he'd pull out the 10p. Even more so than 20p because the old Irish 10p, it had a fish on it, the salmon on Braddawn Fassa. It was the salmon of knowledge from Irish mythology, because you see if I got that 10p coin, then I knew my dad would see me with it, and he'd tell me story of the Salmon of Knowledge from Irish mythology. So anyway, Uncle Norler reached into his pocket and he'd

he'd hide the Cain in his hand and then he'd bring his fist up towards his forehead and I'm looking up at him, he's towering over me and then he'd get the 10p Cain and stick it to his forehead using the natural adhesion of sweat and pressure. The cane would just stay there on his forehead and I'm looking up going why is the adult sticking a cane to their forehead and then he'd smile and when he'd smile the muscles

of his face would release the cane and it would tumble down and it would go into my hands and there I am staring at the 10p, the 10p coin in my fist and the salmon, the salmon on it. And then I'd look back up at Uncle Noel and he'd be left with an indentation on his forehead, a round circle in the middle of his forehead where the skin in the middle is whiter because he's just pressed a coin against his forehead. Here's the beautiful thing about the tactile nature of this memory. I haven't seen an old Irish 10p coin in nearly 30 fucking years, okay?

And when I think of the old Irish 10p coin in my hand, I see it right now as massive, almost tennis ball sized, but it's not. I'm physically remembering the feeling of that 10p coin in my tiny little hand when I was four. I have a muscle memory for this coin, which is probably the size of a bottle cap now as an adult, but my muscle memory has memorized it as being in the context of the size of my hand back then, so back then it's fucking huge. And I'd stare at this coin and I'd look at the image of the salmon on the coin and that was enough. The coin itself was

enough. Like, oh my god, look at this thing that I own. And then one of my brothers would have said to me, or my parents, would have said, look at that now, you've got 10p, what are you gonna get in the shop? And then I went, oh, okay, this thing is exchanged for...for sweets. And of course, with 10p, with 10p, what I'd buy is... a Raya the Rover's bar or a desperate Dan bar. We used to eat sweets that were a bit like plastic. A desperate Dan bar was orange flavoured with these black rocks in it and then Rye of the Rovers. If you're an elderly person like me listening to this,

you remember a fucking Rye of the Rovers. I would give anything for a fucking Roy of the Rovers I would give anything for a Roy of the Rovers. It was a pineapple flavoured bar that would make your tongue bleed. And I'm salivating just thinking about it and this cost 10p and it said 10p on the fucking bar and that's what you do with the 10p coin. But I was so young I hated partying with the 10p. I wanted to own the coin. I wanted the thing. And I wanted to own the indentation of the kine on my Uncle Noel's forehead. The ritual of that was part of it. It wasn't just the kine. It was the fact that my... Everyone knew that Uncle Noel had given me 10p

because he's walking around the place with a fucking round mark on his forehead of whiter skin, whiter than the usual redness of his tipperary skin on his head. It was a ritual. And then one time Uncle Noel visited. And again, I'm like four years of age. Yeah, four, I'd, I wasn't five, very fucking young. Uncle Noel visited and he got as far as the bit where he's gonna give me money, reaches into his pocket and he didn't do the ritual with the coin to his forehead this time. He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me. It was a fucking five pound note. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what a five pound note was. And I was disappointed because he didn't try and stick the five pound note to his head. He just handed me this thing. And then I walked back into

the into the room and all my brothers saw me going, oh my fucking God, he's got a five pound. This was a big deal. This was a huge deal. Five fucking pounds. This was a big deal. My ma started kicking up a fuss. My ma started going to, no, no, that's too much. That's too much. Take it back now. And then Noel was like,

no, no, he can have it. Now to this day, I don't know. I reckon what happened is that Noel had a search around his pocket and there was no coins. And the smallest denomination he had was a five pound note so that's why he gave it to me. And adjusted for inflation I think a five pound note is probably around 20 euros today. This is the early 1990s lads, possibly the late 80s. Children weren't given large sums of money, that didn't happen. Celtic Tiger onwards, so we'll say 1996 onwards,

then you started to see communions and performatively large amounts of money being given to children. If you made your communion after 1996, chances are an uncle came along and they might've given you 50 pounds or even 100 pounds, that became normal. Before the Celtic Tiger no

fucking way you gave kids a pound was a bit mad a pound was considered a lot so me receiving a five fucking pound note at four years of age this was huge and I was starting to realize it because my brothers were nearly looking at it licking their fucking lips like my brothers would have been late teens, but still they were like, he's got a fucking fiver. He's got a fiver. And then I'm like, oh my god, I've got a fucking fiver. I don't know what it is, I'm just learning. So I took the fiver. It was a brownie yellow piece of paper with five pounds in it.

I took it, I ran up, ran upstairs to my room, put it in somewhere safe, and then I spent ages just looking at the fiver and holding it and I wasn't thinking about what I can purchase with it, I'm thinking about, I own this. This is an adult thing and I own it and this is mine, this fibre, this object that contains so much power that my ma wanted to give it back and my brothers were jealous of it. This fibre, oh my god! But then, I was disappointed that when Uncle Noel gave me the fibre, that there was no ritual involved, he didn't try and stick it to his head. I missed the indentation of the coin on his forehead. And then I looked at the five pound note, and on the old five pound note there was a bald man with a large forehead. And I thought to myself, the forehead of the man on this

fiver looks like it could do with a coin indentation on it. I wish my uncle Noel did the coin thing when he gave me this fiver but he didn't. So then I got a biro and I drew a coin onto the forehead of the man on the five pound knot and then I loved doing that. I'm four. So now I start to draw some dinosaurs on the five pound knot. I did a little attempt at a T-Rex, I was fucking obsessed with dinosaurs, obsessed. So I'd have probably done T-Rex, Allosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and then Archaeopteryx, which was a bird-like dinosaur, and I probably would have also then drawn a little version of me to compare myself to the size of the dinosaurs. The reason I knew I did this is that I still have encyclopedias, world book encyclopedias

that I drew in when I was four and these were the drawings I was doing. So I vandalised this £5 note. I drew all over it because I wanted the man with the bald head and the old Irish five-pound note To have the indentation of a coin on his forehead like my uncle Noel So the next day My fiver was the talk of the house and it was there was debate and arguments around it. And I remember because I was at that age where

the adults have conversations about you, around you, as if you can't understand what they're saying. Because two years ago I was a baby, but everyone is talking about me while I'm there and I'm silently listening and there was a big debate. Does he deserve that fiver? Was it a bad idea? Is it too much money for him. Maybe, like my ma suggested, let's take the fiver off him, right? And maybe my ma would keep the fiver and then give it to me in bits. That she would be a bank essentially. And then some of my brothers were going, no, this should be, this should

be distributed. The fiver is actually way too much money for him. It's wasted on him. He doesn't understand this. One of my brothers says, I have to get a geometry set for school. He was in secondary school. I have to get a geometry set, which is one of those old tins

that had like protractors and triangles in it. He goes, I have to get a fucking geometry set for school. That's like four pounds. I should have the have the fiber I'm the one who should have the fiber and give him give him 10p or 20p he doesn't know the difference he's four and then one of my other brothers steps in and says no that's not fair Noel gave him the fiber that's not fair let's let's explain him what a fiver is and explain to him, ask him what he'd like, what does he want with a fiver? And then he goes, why doesn't he go and buy a tape?

Why doesn't he buy an album for himself? He loves fucking music. Now I did, I adored music. I loved music. I used to rifle through my brother's record collections. And my favorite artist when I was four would have been T-Rex, Mark Boland, T-Rex. I was obsessed, fucking obsessed with T-Rex.

But there was one T-Rex album, vinyl. It belonged to my brothers. And I had drawn dinosaurs all over it and probably scraped dinosaurs into it. Like my earliest hot take, like my earliest experience of these two things are somehow connected and this makes me feel tingly. My earliest one of them was my favorite artist T-Rex is also the same name as my favorite dinosaur T-Rex. I would get ferociously excited about the interconnectedness of these two things. The happenstance of it. So my

brother suggested, why don't we take him into town and he can buy a tape of T-Rex that's his. That costs like £5. why don't we do that so that's what happened my brother was gonna take me into the music shop in town so I could buy my first ever album that I owned that was mine my first ever fucking tape so they said to me go and get your fiver go and get your fiver so I went and got my fiver and brought it back and then showed it to him and they're like, oh fuck. He's after drawing all over the fiver. Now I'd really drawn all over the fiver.

I'd vandalized this fiver. It was still a fiver, but there was biro drawings fucking all over it. Because I haven't agn- I don't know you're not supposed to do that. I didn't know that. So now there's a new debate. do that. I didn't know that. So now there's a new debate. The brother who wanted the fucking protractor set is very annoyed with me. Going, I told you it's a waste of a fiver. The fiver was wasted on him. And then my ma's, my ma's really pissed off, but my ma says to my dad, give him a new fiver, give him a new fiver, come on, because I'm crying at this point now because I'm realizing now that I've done something really bad to a fiver.

This is getting strong reactions all around. And my dad goes, no I'm not going to replace the fiver. This is an opportunity for an important lesson for him. I'm not going to replace the fiver. So my brother says, I'm going to bring him into town anyway, I'm going to bring him into town anyway. I'm going to bring him into town with the broken fibre. And let's see,

because there's no internet. Like they're all debating, like, if you draw on money, does it stop being money? Ah, that was it. So one of my other brothers brought up that they had a fibre before and it had split in two and they'd sellotaped it back together because if you remember back then you don't see it as much anymore you see because you're

I'm such a fucking old man this is the most elderly podcast I've ever recorded nowadays nowadays euros and shit they're made out of a kind of a plasticky material so they don't break in half. But back in the days of paper money, the old Irish pounds, they would rip in half. And sometimes you'd find yourself with a tenner or twenty quid, and it would sell a tape back together. And it would work. In shops, it would work. I think if the watermark was intact that was it. Oh it's all coming back to me now. My dad and my brothers they had the fiber up towards the window and I'd drawn the coin on the forehead of the man on the front of the

fiber and there was dinosaurs and they were holding it up to the window and you could still see the watermark which is the drawing of Lady Lavery and My brother said you can still see the watermark if you can see the watermark It means that they have to accept this as currency. It's The watermark was the real important thing you see the IRA at the time had been flooding the place with You see, the IRA at the time had been flooding the place with counterfeit money I think. So the one thing they couldn't get correctly was the watermark. So the watermark was important.

So my brothers were holding the f***ing, the fiver up to the window and the watermark was intact. I hadn't drawn over the watermark. So they decided, let's go into town and see if they'll take this fiver with drawings all over it. So that's what we did and we did it on the bus with my brother. And the record shop we went to. Down at what is now Brown Thomas in Limerick City. The menswear department now. Downstairs there used to be a record shop. And I went down those stairs at my brother and we found a tape and the tape was T-Rex's greatest hits and it had Ride a White

Swan, Jeepster, Get It On. It had songs that I'd never heard because we only had one one fucking vinyl album of T-Rex so it had songs I'd never heard, because we only had one fucking vinyl album of T-Rex, so it had songs I'd never heard, so that got me really excited. We found this tape, and it was a fiver. It was perfectly five pounds. And we went up to the counter with the mad fiver, with drawings all over it. And I don't remember what happened. Probably my brother, my brothers used to get me to wave my eyelashes, they used to get me to wave my eyelashes at adults. So probably what happened is my brother would have said to the person behind

the counter, look he's after drawing all over his first fiver and then I would have waved my eyelashes at the person behind the counter. We ended up getting the tape. We ended up getting the tape and that was the first ever album that I owned was the Greatest Hits of T-Rex on tape that I had purchased with the vandalised fiver that was given to me by my uncle Noel. Let's have a little ocarina pause now. I'm in my office, I don't know if you could hear the seagulls in the background. I'm in my office. I don't have my ocarina in this office. Keep losing ocarinas. What I do have, I'm gonna hit myself on the head with a book, and I enjoy doing this because I get to give you a little book recommendation every time I do it. This

is, I suppose you'd call this an academic book. It's called The Origins of Ireland's Holy Wells written by Celeste Ray. This is a hard one to get your hands on. Celeste Ray is, she's a professor of anthropology in Tennessee and she wrote this book which is a very authoritative book on the study of Ireland's holy and sacred wells. I'm obsessed with fucking sacred wells in Ireland and the veneration of them. It's utterly fascinating from a mythological perspective. So I'm gonna hit myself into the head. With this, it looks like it'll be painful,

so I'll be gentle. With this book, The Origins of Ireland's Holy Wells, and you'll hear an advert for something. I'm gonna headbutt it rather than hit myself. Yeah, that's not nice. Good sign of a good book, though. This episode is sponsored by the OCS Summer Pre-Roll Sale. Sometimes when you roll your own joint, Good sign of a good book though. attracted you and you dropped it on the ground. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one roll that's always perfect, the pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infuse pre-roll sale today at ocs.ca and participating retailers.

Hi, I'm Sophia Lopercaro, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome, and I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks like Glass Animals. I guess that was the idea, is to try something personal and see what happened. And Japanese Breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about Joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.

What is happy travels? It's exploring the world your way and creating cherished memories with a sun vacation, cruise, flight or hotel deal. That's by experts who have been where you are now and have gone where you want to go. Booking is easy with vacations for every traveler organized by destination, travel provider and more find your getaway Contact a travel expert or visit Oh Great fucking book

You don't want to be hitting yourself into the head with this Great fucking book. You don't want to be hitting yourself into the head with this. Just heavy enough to be painful, just floppy enough to have a snap. Yeah. Let's tap it gently. Gently tapping the book. There you go. There's your fucking ocarina pause. Hope you enjoyed your adverts support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the patreon page patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast this podcast

is my full-time job this is how I a living. I'm funded by my listeners and that means that I'm driven by failure. I'm driven by the desire to fail. The desire and what I mean by that is I'm not looking for a popular podcast this week. I'm looking for a podcast where I genuinely and passionately explore whatever the fuck I'm curious about. And what I'm speaking about this week, I'm curious about this stuff. And if I'm curious, then I'm passionate, and if I'm passionate, then I'm authentic. And if I'm authentic, then I have meaning. And this podcast brings me great meaning. And I don't believe, I don't believe in happiness't I'm not in I don't believe in happiness like I've said before I

Don't chase happiness as a state because I think that's don't think that exists You can have little moments of joy but really what I tried to do was I tried to live with meaning and Meaning is meaning is real. Happiness tends to be retrospective. If you think back to a period in your life where you were like, oh I was so happy back then, I was happy then.

Really? 100% of the time you were happy? All the time? Back then? Or have you just conveniently forgotten the little moments of struggle and pain and frustration, the necessary inevitable suffering of being alive? So often I think when we think back to parts of our lives where like I was so happy back

then, really what we were is we were, we were experiencing meaning, we were living life in a way that's meaningful and based in the present moment. That's what this podcast does for me. It brings me a great feeling of meaning and present moment enjoyment to be able to write this type of carry-on and for you to listen to it. So thank you to all my patrons, thank you to all my patrons for making this possible, for making this my full time job, and for allowing me to have the time to fail and be playful and be curious. So that's patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast and all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month, that's it.

And if you can't afford it, for whatever reason, don't worry about it. Listen for free. You can listen for free, because the person who's paying is paying for you to listen for free. So everybody gets the exact same podcast, and I get to earn a living. Wonderful model based on kindness and soundness. And if you're becoming a new, if you're joining up to my Patreon and you're a new subscriber, don't do it through the iPhone app because Apple will take 30%. Do it instead on the browser on your iPhone

or on a laptop or whatever. Upcoming gigs, I'm at a bit of a break for the summer. I'm very, very much enjoying my break after intensive touring. But this Sunday, if you're at the festival altogether now, this Sunday, I'm doing a little quiet podcast at 12 p.m. at noon, nice little Sunday, people with hangovers.

I love that slot at festivals because I'm an elderly man now, and I've been doing festivals for nearly 20 years, so a 12 p.m. slot for me is fucking perfect because I can piss off home afterwards. But if you're at All Together Now, come along to my podcast this Sunday at All Together Now, 12 p.m.

I don't know the stage, you'll figure it out. And come along, and if you're a jaundiced maur or a 10 foot Declan, and sit up front and let's try and create a bit of a podcast hug because festivals can be a bit of a nightmare for podcasts because you've rubberneckers who come and go so if you are an enjoyer of this podcast come along to that what other gigs September I am in Vicar Street on the 23rd of September. That's almost sold out. That is a lovely Tuesday night gig, Vicar Street in Dublin. Then, the 27th on the Saturday, I'm up in Derry in the Millennium Theatre.

Um, October, teeny tiny gig up in Sligo in the Hawkswell Theatre. A little intimate tiny little gig up in Sligo. I love Sligo and I love doing tiny gigs. I love doing big gigs as well. Alright, I love doing the larger gigs but you gotta mix it up. It's nice to be in a small room playing to about 300 people. And then on Halloween night, Halloween night in October, I'm at the Pukka Festival in Mead, which is a Halloween festival, so hopefully I'll get a cracker of a guest for that one. So again, this week's podcast, you know, I'm talking about an uncle sticking money to his forehead. What I want to speak about is the nature of reality.

I haven't thought about that story in a long time. I haven't thought about old Irish money. I mentioned there that the old 10p coin, that used to have a salmon on it, the salmon of knowledge, which that's a story I've told a lot on this podcast, so if you're a regular listener, you know the salmon of knowledge story from Irish mythology. I know that story because my dad used to tell it to me and he would use the 10p coin to go, do you know what that salmon is? And then he'd tell me the story of the Salmon of Knowledge. And that day when my uncle Noel didn't give me the 10p and I was disappointed because I'm like, A, I'm not gonna hear the Salmon of Knowledge story now, B, I don't get to see the magic trick with the coin on the forehead.

He just handed me this note, this five pound note, with a bald man, a bald man on the note. So I've been thinking about that bald man a lot recently. He was an Irish monk. He was an Irish monk from the eight hundred's, the ninth century. His name was John Scotus, Eirijuna. Now luckily, loads of his writings still exists, but finding out about the person himself is fucking impossible. I was trying to find out, I wanted to know who made the decision, who made the mad decision to put him on a five pound note. It was the series B banknotes and they were issued between 1976 and 1992. So my memory of this story as a kid and my first Fiverr, it definitely happened before 1992.

So John Scotus Aire Juna with the big bald forehead on the Fiverr who I wrote on. Now that's not his born name. What John Scotus Aire Juna means is John the Scot or John who was born in Ireland, John of the origin of Ireland, and Scot there, Scotia means Irish. We'll see, Ireland actually colonised part of Scotland ages ago, I think 1500 years ago, and the west coast of Scotland became the province of Dalriata. So in

Scotland back then the Picts I believe used to refer to the Irish invaders as Scotia meaning foreigner Scotty and then over time in Latin Scotty started to mean Irish. I've tried to find out his his real name, his birth name. It's very difficult. You're talking about someone from the 900s. But this fella whose whose forehead I drew on when I was four is one of the most

advanced thinkers and philosophers in the world of his time, the ninth fucking century. He was a monk in France, so he was Irish, and he went to France to work in monasteries and he he dedicated his life trying to figure out what is reality and what is God. trying to figure out what is reality and what is God. Like he was an Irish Christian monk, you know, this is the pure land of saints and scholars shit. An Irish Christian monk but a philosopher who was trying to figure out what is reality. Now I'm going to adjust this using modern language but John Scotus Irejuna, he basically came to the conclusion that what you and I call reality is a video game. It's a video game that's played by God. Christian philosophy at the time, like the

understanding of the world, would have been, well here's the Bible and the Bible says there's a fella called God, right? And God came along and then in seven days God made everything. That's what God did. God made everything and what we're living in now is a concrete reality that God made and he physically made it and that's what the crack is. John Scotus,ina was different. He was like, no, reality is a theophany. And a theophany is like a projection made by God,

like a hologram or a simulation or the ideas or thoughts of God. And if you said to Erigina, hold on a minute, I can see things, I can touch things, I can hold things. Reality is real, I'm living in it right now. He would say those are just your senses. Everything is within the rules of this theophany, this simulation, this projection from God and then if you were to ask John Scotus Irrigeena, well, what the fuck is God? Who is God?

Regina would say, well I quote him directly, Regina said God is not known because he is beyond everything that can be understood. He is nothing of what we know. He is above being and non-being. And you see that, that's a pure early Irish Christianity thing. Like even, that's a pure early Irish Christianity thing. Like even there's this 11th century manuscript called the Láir Gohvala air and the book of invasions which is like a pseudo history of Ireland but it also contains elements of the Bible and it was written by Irish monks in the 11th century and the opening words which I always think are gas because they're so ridiculously

Irish are in the beginning God made heaven and earth but he himself had no beginning or ending which is awfully silly but it's a lovely Irish way of saying whatever the fuck God is it's unknowable so that there that's apophatic theology or negative theology which was Irrigena's thing whereby you can only attempt to describe God by what God is not. It's impossible, it is not possible to have any words, senses, smells, ideas, visions. It is simply not possible to understand what God is because we are entirely limited by

the rules of our simulation. Now a disclaimer, I'm not after getting into fucking religion, I'm not, there's no religious and I don't give a fuck about God or anything like that. I'm a curio. I'm interested in the present moment That's what I'm interested in. But similarly, I'm not gonna ignore entire bodies of work from brilliant thinkers just because The writing is religious like you know I'm fucking obsessed with st. Augustine because all his writing is about trying to prove whether there was boners in the Garden of Eden Like what the fuck? What am I gonna ignore that? with Saint Augustine, because all his writing is about trying to prove whether there was boners in the Garden of Eden.

Like, what the fuck, why am I gonna ignore that? My curiosity won't let me. But anyway, John Scotus, Regina's big idea. There's no way to understand God, because the only way you could begin to even describe God is by describing God by what it isn't. The simplest way to understand that is... I mean think of a fucking video game. Technology now is making this stuff so much easier to understand.

Think of a video game like Red Dead Redemption 2. That's the best example. Because Red Dead Redemption 2, it's the closest video game that we have to a simulation of reality. There's plants, trees, animals, a weather system, characters, a fairly advanced artificial intelligence. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bit of a reality simulation, but one day in Red Dead Redemption 2... is like 20 minutes in my time. And everything that happens in this video game is... it's on a 2D screen, it's on a screen on my fucking wall.

So even though my character in the game... experiences a type of 3D reality, I know in my living room that that video game, it's not actually 3D, that's fake 3D. It's a very clever illusion of a three-dimensional space for the benefit of me to enjoy. But to my character in the video game, that's reality, that's their reality, that's their world that they live in, that they die in, that they walk through. Something which I can clearly see is just an illusion. And if you're thinking,

chill out, Blind, but you're projecting a lot of humanity on this character. That character doesn't even know it dies. That's the point. Yeah. To that character, that's death. But that character's death to you and me is completely insignificant. There's not even emotions involved. Emotions don't exist

within the code of the video game. Simulations of scripts of emotions exist to please me who's playing the video game. There is no way whatsoever for the character in my video game in Red Dead Redemption 2, there is no way whatsoever for that character to understand my living room and me. Smell doesn't exist in video games. Smell does not exist. The illusion of smell might exist, but fucking smell doesn't exist. It's not coded into it. Like in the video game Red Dead Redemption, and I'm playing it and I'm controlling this central character and it's in this beautiful simulation of the wild west of America. And that's the thing, I'm controlling the character.

As far as the poor content in the game is concerned, he's experiencing free will. No, I'm controlling you. And I will, well I'll take my character and sit down at a rock, and a magnificent thunderstorm will unfold in front of me, and the video game, Nature, and animals will pop up, and it'll feel very, very real. And then I'll sit down with my character, and my character will get hungry in the game.

In the game, my character will get hungry. A digital simulated hunger. That's real to that character in the game, in the game my character will get hungry. A digital simulated hunger that's real to that character in the game. But he could never understand my fucking hunger. There's no way to explain actual real hunger to that character. But when my character sits down, I can make them a little stew in the video game. And I can see the stew cooking, and I can look into it, and I can see the character eating the stew. And I can see the video game character being satiated see the stew cooking, and I can look into it, and I can see the character eating the stew,

and I can see the video game character being satiated by the stew, and the stew in the video game... it's a chili con carne. It's a chili con carne, right? And I know it's a chili con carne because not made with mince beef, but made with chunks of beef. And one time I was playing Red Dead Redemption 2 around my own dinner time

and I'm feeding my character chili con carne in the fucking game. And then I'm sitting in my living room neglecting my own hunger. And now I'm getting hungry for chili con carne because I'm looking at the character in my game eating chili con carne. So then I start imagining all the different smells of

cinnamon and cumin and the bang of chili pepper and all these tastes and senses that I'm bringing to my memory which I have no way... I can't explain that to the character in the game. He's eaten a digital chili con carne, but there is no way it's impossible for the character in that video game, no matter how realistic it is, with all those parameters, to explain to them or for them to imagine

what it's like to taste an actual chili con carne, even though I'm watching them eating it. So then I pause the game. I pause the reality. I pause reality for the entire world on this video game, and then I say fuck that I'm making a chili con carne. So I go about making my own chili con carne and notice all the flavors and tastes and smells. And then as I'm doing that, it brings back a specific childhood memory for me with chili con carne.

So chili con carne, when I was a kid would have been considered quite exotic. In the early 90s, chili con carne came in, it was Uncle Ben's chili con carne jar sauce that had a few beans in it and you added it to mince. And when I was a child it would be one of these food stuffs alongside balonais that we would have to convince our mother to get us as a treat because she would have been like I don't know what the fuck chili con carne is. This is too strange, but we go, please, please,

the advertisement is on the telly. Please, Uncle Ben's, just get it in duns the next time. And then she'd get us a jar of chili con carne as a treat. And she'd add it to mincemeat and probably wouldn't give us rice. She'd have served it with potatoes. But my ma would make us Uncle Ben's chilli con carne right and then whenever she'd make it my da wouldn't eat it my da

would not eat chilli con carne because of the teeny tiny bit of spice that was in Uncle Ben's chilli con carne that tiny teeny tiny little kick of chilli my da was allergic to it. And then my dad would tell us this mad story. He wasn't allergic to chilli con carne, but my dad would only eat profoundly bland foods, the blandest food that you could imagine. And he would militantly reject anything remotely spicy. He'd say, I can't go near this stuff that'll cut the belly

out of me. You might as well just stab me. That's like cutting me open with a razor. And then he'd tell us this story about when he was a little child, when my dad was a tiny teeny little child of about three or four. His appendix burst. My dad's appendix burst. Now this was in rural West Cork, rural West Cork in the late 1930s, okay? And my dad was a little child of three or four and his appendix burst and he started to get pertinitis, which is lethal blood poisoning. He nearly died as a little child because his appendix poisoning. He nearly died as a little child because his appendix burst and started to poison his blood. That's very serious. And the story he would tell is like rural West Cork, middle of fucking nowhere, 1930s, and my granddad had to go up on a fucking horse because his toddler is dying and had to ride his horse along the valleys of West Cork not to find a doctor but to find the local vet

who was closer than the doctor and he managed to get the local, the vet, the vet who operates on animals and the vet caught my dad's stomach open when he was a tiny teeny little toddler and took out his appendix and that saved his life and then they were able to get him to hospital and I know that because that's the story that my dad would tell me when we first started eating chili con carne in my house my ma would make the uncle Ben's chili con carne under pressure from me and my brothers and then my dad would come out and he'd lift up his fucking top and he'd show us he had scars on his belly that made him look like he had multiple belly buttons a vet fucking caught him open

when he was a child and he'd hold up his top and he'd say, I can't eat that stuff. And he'd get so angry with the chili con carne that he refused to pronounce the chili con carne. My dad used to call it Trevor carne. My dad used to refer to chili con carne as Trevor carne as a man. And he he'd say I'm not going near Trevor Carney he'll stab me he'll cut me open and I'd forgotten that but that memory and the name Trevor Carney that came back to me when I was making Chili Con Carney because I'd just been playing the video game Red Dead Redemption where my character is eating chili con carne and the point I'm trying to make right? How the fuck do I describe that to my character in Red Dead Redemption who's sitting down

eating their chili con carne? No matter how real this video game looks, no matter how much of a perfect simulation of reality it is, no matter how realistic the weather system looks. There is no possible way for the character in that game to understand, verbalise, imagine, empathise, visualise in any way that their actions are being controlled by me in a 3D space, in a different expression of time. There is no way that that character can understand. I'm being controlled by this third dimensional figure called Blind Boy, who has this sense called smell and this smell triggered a memory of his father calling Chilly Concarney Trevor Concarney

because he was operated on by a vet when he was a child. That there is kind of the philosophy of John Scotus' Erejuna who was on the five pound notes because that's what Erejuna come up with. It's like whatever the fuck God is, you cannot, there's no possible way to understand it in any way because we are bound by the rules of this reality and this reality is a theophany of God. It's the code in the video game. Everything we experience that we think is concrete and real, it's not.

It's all code that's being dreamed about or taught about by God. And what I love about John Scoto's Eriginus, about his writings is it's so complex that it's almost atheistic. The concept of God is so impossible within the constraints of whatever this thing is right now that we're all collectively experiencing, call it reality. The concept of God within that is so bizarre that it may as well be nothing.

How can God exist when even existence itself is within the code of this reality that we're experiencing? I'm eating chili con carne in Red Dead Redemption 2, but I don't know what taste or smell is and I have no possible way of even verbalizing them. Now I'm not being religious here or anything, I'm interested in this because it's profoundly interesting philosophy from someone who existed more than a thousand years ago. It's so advanced in its thinking. And the most important thing that John Scodas Irojuna did, as far as I'm concerned, is he inadvertently discovered ecosystems.

Instead of the old biblical way of going, Oh, God created the earth in seven days and he created all these animals and plants and rivers and everything, Iriguna was like, he, you can't say he created something. Everything that you experience as reality is an ongoing projection of this creation. And literally everything is God. And the plants are interconnected with the rivers

and the rivers are interconnected with the insects and the weather is interconnected. And every single thing that you see around you that you call reality. Because this is all interconnected and there's no such thing as separate parts, it's all one, this is because that this is the theophany, the imagination, the code, the simulation, the video game of God. But you can just replace God there with nature. Biodiversity is a thing. Ecosystems are a thing. From the mighty animal known as the human being, we would crumble tomorrow if the tiniest fungus disappeared on this earth.

Everything is interconnected and dependent on each other via nature. But John Scotus Aeoriduna, he didn't say nature he just said God. So he discovered ecology. I suppose you'd say I'd go one step further. I think John Scotus Aeorid Jonah is the originator of simulation theory. The idea that we're living in a simulation, that we live in a type of artificial intelligence, a type of video game. We don't know who created it or why, but most likely reality is several layers of simulation. I mean, the goal of artificial intelligence is to be able to create a reality simulation. I mean the goal of artificial intelligence is to be able to

create a reality simulation. That's what the people who are making artificial intelligence now and are trying to make it more and more powerful, they want to be able to create a fake type of reality so that we can test things out and better be able to predict things in our own reality. But if that simulation is incredibly accurate and within that simulation you have little artificial intelligences that have consciousness of some description, then as far as they're concerned,

the simulated reality that we build, that's their fucking reality. But they will have, and they'll be trying to wonder what the fuck we are, but they can't. I know some of this sounds like the type the type of conversations you have at four in the morning after taking yokes, but like I'm curious about this shit. I think it's deeply deeply relevant right now because of where we're at with artificial intelligence Right now. I'm confused by it. I'm frightened by it and I'm obsessed with very early religious texts, philosophical texts, mythologies that

appear to be describing artificial intelligence. I'm fucking obsessed with it. I'm not gonna go into it again. You can listen to my podcast from two years ago. I think it's called Greek mythology and simulation theory but like I've told you before about the Prometheus. Prometheus in Greek mythology Prometheus and Zeus created humans. Then the humans got out of hand They were going to get more powerful than the people that the gods who created them. So Zeus had to create mental

health issues within the AI known as humanity in order to limit the capacity and capabilities of humanity. I'm fascinated by how a story that's 2000 years old is so relevant to what's happening right now with artificial intelligence as we are definitely on the cusp of possibly creating something that's smarter than us. And the people who are creating the artificial intelligence, they know this shit too. This week Metta, the parent company of fucking Facebook, announce a new super intelligence that they're launching.

It's going to be, it's this massive cluster of computers that's going to contain a superintelligent AI and it's the size of Manhattan and Meta announced it, you know what they're calling it? Prometheus. They're calling their artificial intelligence Prometheus. What is Prometheus by Meta going to be? They're trying to make an artificial intelligence that is more, that is smarter than the humans that created it. The other super intelligence that they're trying to make is called a Hyperion. Hyperion in Greek mythology is,

again, he's a titan, which is, Hyperion was like the the representation of the light of the Sun and the clusters of Supercomputers that meta are building right are known as Titan super clusters Both Prometheus and Hyperion within Greek mythology were Titans and again Titans in Greek myth Titans were like the parents of gods. If the gods were a simulation, the Titans created the gods simulation and then the gods created the humanity simulation. The people that are making our AI, the AI that we're all really frightened of that's in the news right now and we don't know what it's going to do. These people, instead of looking at the stories from Greek myth and seeing

them as cautionary warnings, are instead going, let's actually not look at it as a warning at all. Let's name our superintelligence after Prometheus. Prometheus and Zeus created artificial human life. Zeus was like, I don't trust the fuckers, we're after creating something powerful here, I don't trust it. Prometheus went, nah, I kinda like it, I think I kinda love this artificial intelligence we've made. Prometheus gave the AI, humanity, fire. That created super intelligence, as in something possibly more powerful than the gods that could destroy the gods. It wasn't a good thing. Zeus then freaked out and said, what the fuck have you done, Prometheus?

They're gonna kill us. This AI that we've made is gonna kill us. So then Zeus said, we gotta stop them. And then he invented mental health. He invented mental health issues and gave that to the humans via Pandora's box. You're sick of hearing that story from me, I know. Okay? But I had to fucking say it because Metta are after naming their AI Prometheus.

Instead of being frightened by the warning they're going, this sounds like a good idea. So anyway, this week's podcast was about... I'm not too fucking sure what this week's podcast was about. John Scordes, a Regina, and his placement on the five pound note, and how a childhood memory of that five pound note is very relevant to my curiosity right now about reality. And I think John Scoda's or Arjuna's theories on what reality is, they're very relevant right now as humanity embarks upon creating artificial intelligence that might be smarter than us and reality simulations.

And sometimes in order to have these conversations, you need to sound like you took a couple of yolks and you're talking at four in the morning and the sun is coming up, all alright? I'm aware of that. I know those types of conversations. But it's where we need to go sometimes. I'd also intended, I wanted to speak about the entire Old Testament via simulation theory. I wanted to start with the Garden of Eden and end somewhere around Sodom and Gomorrah. No, Abraham and his son. But we're over an hour into this. I'm not

going to have time to do that this week. So I'm going to revisit the Old Testament. I'm not, not to do with religion. Like like this is mythology. I am very interested in fucking mythology. At the end of the day the Old Testament you're talking about stories thousands of years old that are so good we still have them. So of course I'm gonna be fascinated by this and I can critically analyze these things and be curious about these things without a religious bone in my body. I'm interested in the present moment. That's my spirituality. The present moment. How can I live meaningfully in the present moment? How can I meaningfully have emotional literacy so that I can respond to my present moment and not react to my present

moment? That's my spirituality. That's my spirituality. That's my religion. Alright, dog bless you glorious cunts. I'll catch you next week. In the meantime, wink at a kestrel, blow kisses at a caterpillar, wish good tidings and a dragonfly. than what you expected. Maybe it's a little too loose. Maybe it's a little too flimsy. Or maybe it's a little too covered in dirt because your best friend distracted you and you dropped it on the ground. There's a million ways to roll a joint wrong, but there's one roll that's always perfect, the pre-roll. Shop the summer pre-roll and infuse pre-roll sale today at OCS.ca and participating retailers. Hi, I'm Sophia Loper-Carroll, host of the Before

the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome, and I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks like Glass Animals I guess that was the idea, to try something personal and see what happened. and Japanese Breakfast I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus. you. you