Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - Carlos Farias interviews Curt Jaimungal on String Theory, Hopf Fibrations, Paradoxes

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

Full episode where Carlos interviews Curt Jaimungal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_FSkVTLu1YCarlos Farias' channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Carlos.Explains

Carlos Farias has a channel called The Sigma Series, where he interviews people like Bernardo Kastrup, Terence Deacon, Michael Evan, and Donald Hoffman. Carlos recently interviewed me on work ethic, loneliness, purpose slash life's calling, jealousy, string theory, hop vibrations, and the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, or as I argue as a present deliberation, the reasonable effectiveness of mathematics. You can find his channel in the description. Check it out. I'm honored to be here, man. I'm honored to be here. Of all the people who would interview me, I'm glad it's you. I've had it as a personal tenet of mine. If we better understand the fundamental nature of reality, that we will better know how we should act in the world. But then David Hume, you're familiar with, I'm sure,

his is-ought problem. You cannot derive an ought from an is. Where do you stand on that? Do you have an opinion? It's not clear to me that, look, when Newton came out with mechanics, that was a net positive for the world because it made us view ourselves as automatons. So it's not clear to me that you just describe more and more fundamental reality with physics, say, or something else, and then you get to a more positive ought. I don't know. I don't know why we don't just start with the ought. Like, forget about something else.

Is the whole point of Toh to then discard Toh? There's a saying that you return home and you know the place for the first time. That's at the end of all the journeying. Is it that you don't answer the questions, but you get comfortable with leaving them unanswered? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that one, Carlos. Kurt Jai Mungo is the host of Theories of Everything, a podcast which explores theoretical physics, consciousness, AI, and God in a technically rigorous manner.

He has over 280,000 subscribers, and according to YouTube Analytics, his channel is the most popular amongst my viewers like you. Please like and subscribe, and I hope you enjoy our conversation. Kurt, thanks for coming on. Hey, man. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it. Yes, this is, oh, man, long in the making

and so excited to have you on. I'm sure my audience will be a huge, like, very excited to see you. I was looking at the YouTube analytics. I mean, ever since I've had them in the last couple of years, your channel is consistently the top one that my audience overlaps with. Oh, interesting. Not Lex. So not Lex. Lex comes in and out occasionally. He's up there sometimes, but your channel is number one. Every, every time I check,

it's always Kurt Chemnick, always, always. So, I mean, I think this will be a long awaited for, for folks in my audience. That's an honor. That's an honor. will be uh long awaited for uh for folks in my audience well that's an honor that's an honor yeah yeah well you make you you have a great podcast and um for any folks that don't aren't familiar with your work i'll uh i'll link below in the description with some of my favorite episodes of yours and uh and of course they can people can peruse your channel you've got over 280 000 subscribers which is is incredible uh so congratulations to you. I mean, you've just been so successful. And yeah, yeah, thanks. It doesn't feel like that. But I appreciate it. Oh, yeah, it never does. Yeah, you always have the goalposts are always moving forward.

So, so today, we'll focus on a few different topics. One, building your theory of everything. I think that'd be lovely for people to hear. You've spoken with so many brilliant minds in the past few years. So I'd love to hear how these ideas are coming together in your brain. Secondly, about the podcast a little bit. And then ending up, we'll talk about you personally, if we have time for it at the end. So not to start off on a big question here, but if you had to right now, and this is a freely speculative zone, I want to say that you're not committed to anything in particular at this moment. I know some folks, they don't want to be taken out of turn, but

if you had to construct your own theory of everything at this time, what would it be? be this treacherous question man tough question right off the bat okay so i if i was to construct my own it may be so look there are two routes that most people take they take well what's the similarities between every toe? That's like the Baha'i faith, trying to find truth in each of them. And then there's people like Carlo Rovelli who say, well, I want to find the differences between different theories or interpretations of quantum mechanics or whatever it may be. I think it's easy to do either one of them, but not easy to do both. So what I'm trying to do is to do both. What are the similarities?

What are the differences? And maybe there's a meta-toe, a question that I think about. So there are a few questions that I think about on a, well, hour-to-hour basis. One of them is, why is it that we have so many extremely, extremely prehensile and intelligent people disagreeing? Even when they, so people will say, well, they disagree on the fundamentals. People see the world differently. Sometimes they agree on the fundamentals, and then they still disagree. They disagree on the interpretation, or they disagree on the consequences, or they have some higher god that they don't want to admit is god and they're trying to preserve that so a metatoe maybe why is it that there are so many toes

the whole project of theories of everything just so you know toe stands for theories of everything for anyone who's wondering why i keep mentioning that is is in part for me, in part to either put forward my own toe, or for me to convince myself that someone else has a toe that is already correct, maybe there's minor modifications that need to be made, or that it's impossible for us practically to know a toe, or that it doesn't exist in principle, or that it's not even worth pursuing. So in part, toe that it's not even worth pursuing. So in part, Toh is an attempt to answer any one of those questions. Yeah, it's a big project.

And it's a tough thing. Obviously, it's tough. No one's figured it out yet. No one's definitively figured this whole thing out yet. What are some of the, although when I asked that question, and when you think about, say, certain toes that have stuck out to you, and maybe they're folks you have interviewed, or maybe they're not, but are there any ones that you think seem that you come back to? that you come back to? Let's say ones that keep bubbling up to the surface, let's say, or that seem to have a certain prominence. What rises to the top in your mind? Mainly the... Okay, so there's only...

There's two broad... Not broad ones, but broad... frameworks of one or fields of one so one is if whatever i'm studying currently that's just at the forefront of my mind sure and then also what i what i don't understand so i don't understand buck i don't understand his consciousness as a simulated property i I think I understand it, but I don't feel like I understand it. And so that comes up over and over. And I think that's it. So you want specifics.

The easiest way for me to give you specifics would be if I just looked over my own channel and then gave you some, but right now I'm working on a iceberg, an iceberg of string theory i'm so excited about that man yeah it's been a video that's like a week weeks and weeks and weeks in the making maybe two months now two months in the making more than any other toe video

just going through the last 50 years of string theory and explaining the math behind it so that's super interesting i'm so excited by string theory like i don't believe it's correct but i i love it in the same way that i love chess like i don't believe chess is correct what do you mean chess is correct like sure kings actually operate like that queens operate like that well some people say queen can do whatever she wants so in some way yeah sure but but it's it's just intellectually so fascinating geometric unity as well i'd like to do a deep dive into maybe an iceberg a whole iceberg on that for people who are unfamiliar with the iceberg format it's one where you explain each topic has several attributes or different subtopics within them and then you can order

them in a way that is the surface level so it's what most people know about let me give an example when it comes to theories of everything so string theory would be there geometric unity may be there because many people have heard maybe geometric unity is on a sub layer layer number two there's usually about seven layers and as you get more and more deeper, you get more and more obscure, sometimes even dark, sometimes more philosophical. And it's where the fringes of the knowledge are at layer four. So people with PhDs only know up to layer four,

and then some professors know on layer five, and then layer six is just for people. You got to be a fanatic to know layer six and seven. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I can't wait to see this. I know you've been teasing that Iceberg, the string theory video. I think it's going to be like a two-hour long epic thing.

So very excited to see that when it comes out. Okay, so we have two. So Yoshab Box, Computational Universe, kind of broadly, his idea, then Weinstein's Geometric Unity? No, I don't think about Eric's

much. No? Oh, I'm mixing them up. Who's his Geometric Unity? String theory right now. String theory, because I'm working on this video. But I am interested in in eric's theory so he explained it to me we met up in person and he spent hours explaining it to me and i find it extremely interesting as well like super interesting man yeah cool yeah i have to dive in more into that it's actually funny because the most popular video on my channel is because of Eric's work. It's on the hop vibration,

which is, I may be familiar with. I barely even understand it. I made the snaking video and I can barely wrap my head around its actual significance. I do not really understand. He went on Joe Rogan a few years ago and said it was the most important object in the universe, was his claim. And so I went down the rabbit hole of trying to understand it myself and then trying to explain it. And still to this day, I can't really fully grok if it's legitimate, if it actually is this important, or if it's just a mere curiosity. I can't tell. Yeah, I don't agree that it's just a mere curiosity. I can't tell. Yeah. I don't agree that it's the most important.

Yeah. I agree. Yeah. That's if you asked me a gun to my head, I would say the same thing. I, I don't know. Yeah.

But I wouldn't even put it in top five. Yeah. Me neither. Yeah. I'm sure Eric has his own reasons. Yeah. I assume so. Yeah.

I mean, I just took that too far perhaps too, you know, in a three hour interview with, with Rogan, you can say a lot of things and kind of be... But it's captured the attentions of a lot of people, so that's kind of interesting. So Geometric Unity and Bach got it. Can you explain to me how is it more complicated than you have a sphere and you put a local product space of S1 on it? How is it more complicated than that?

I agree. I don't know. I don't understand its significance. I can understand generally that it's a mapping from a hypersphere onto what we'd say a traditional sphere. But beyond that, I don't know why it's important. It has applications in a number of different physics situations. But beyond that, I don't know why it's important. It has applications in a number of different physics situations, but beyond that,

I don't, I don't know. Uh, there isn't, there really is no other literature I've seen about its importance or significance. So, uh,

yeah, I just have to trust what Eric says there on it. Uh huh. Yeah. Sorry. Um, but if we make just, uh, so we'll continue on extension. Okay-huh. Yeah, sorry. But if we might just... So we'll continue on. It has an extension.

Okay, yeah, sorry. Please, yeah, no, if you have more, this would be great if you have a context on it. Yeah, sure, sure. That'd be wonderful. So there's, I believe, S4, so this may be incomprehensible to most people, but the sphere, this regular sphere, if you take it and you just consider

it as a shell hollow, otherwise it's called a ball, technically, a ball in physics, or a sphere, if you take it and you just consider it as a shell hollow, otherwise it's called a ball, technically a ball in physics, or a disc if you take the circle version. So you have to take it as hollow. That's called S2. And then if you want to go higher dimensional, then you call it S3. And lower dimensional would be S1, and that's the circle. So the circle, S1, becomes the sphere, S2, becomes some higher dimensional version of a sphere, S3, and so on. Then there's the circle. So the circle S1 becomes the sphere S2 becomes some higher dimensional version of a sphere S3 and so on. Then there's S4.

And. Yeah, so you were. Thinking of the hop vibration as taking a higher dimensional sphere, so S3 and then wrapping it around S2, whereas I think of it as S2. But then it has a local product space of S1. And those are equivalent. So in bundle theory, those are equivalent. You were looking at it in terms of the, I believe it's called the homotopy.

I believe it's called the homotopy. And I was thinking of it in terms of the bundle interpretation. So the easiest way for me to understand is the bundle interpretation. So the easiest way for me to understand is the bundle interpretation. So it's S2. So S3 goes into S2, which is the hypersphere goes into the regular sphere. But then locally, it looks like the sphere with S1, which is the circle.

You can generalize this to S4, so hypersphere, locally looking like a product of that with S3. So another hypersphere. So that's S7 going to S4, so a hypersphere, locally looking like a product of that with S3, so another hypersphere. So that's S7 going to S4, I believe. And that has an important role in physics with what? With the anti-self-dual and self-dual Yang-Mills equations. So that's a mouthful. But there's a generalization of the hop vibration that has application of physics. As for the regular hop vibration, I don't know. I don't know much. Yeah.

Well, same here. I know by far less than what you just explained. That was more than I thought about in a long time. But actually, while we're in this sort of domain here, and for folks who are listening aren't familiar with your channel, you have a background in mathematical physics. And I love to talk about just mathematics broadly and just the field. You've probably, you've certainly heard this phrase, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Do you have an intuition as to why mathematics is so unreasonably effective? I oscillate between thinking that it's so trivial that it's obvious why it's so effective,

and then also that it's a profound statement. I'm oscillating right now into it's a trivial statement. So my present deliberation, it's as foolish, thinking of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics is just as foolish as saying, I can't believe screwdrivers work. So we design screwdrivers work. So we design

screwdrivers to work. We have axioms. We could have chosen any axiom. Well, there are several axiom systems that we could have chosen that we don't. And the reason is because it just doesn't have application. One of the reasons why some people may wonder, man, mathematicians are pedantic. They take 200 pages in this book i believe it's called the principia mathematica to prove one plus one equals two okay so then the question is like why why does it take 200 pages to prove something so obvious the answer isn't that it takes 200 pages to prove that it's obvious it does do that but the answer is that we want to know if the axiomatic system we have that's so abstract is correct. So we'd better prove 1 plus 1 equals 2. It takes

200 pages to get from those axioms to 1 plus 1 equals 2, but we're not trying to prove 1 plus 1 equals 2. If we had found that it doesn't prove 1 plus 1 equals 2, that would have invalidated the axiomatic system, and we would have chosen a different one, or keep generating it until we come up with one. Luckily, I think Russell and Whitehead

came up with that about 100 or so years ago. If we had, there's the physical universe, and then we're trying to model the physical universe, and we use math to model it, but we don't use any math. We just use some parts of math. Wolfram is, by the way trying to explore the space of all math it's not like really yeah yeah so it's not like it's not like any axiomatic system works so when people say well why is math so effective you would have

abandoned it if it wasn't so effective it's what's left over that's effective. That's interesting. So you don't, I mean, I think a lot of people, myself included, probably do elevate mathematics to a certain degree in that it seems, say more fundamental, that's probably too strong a claim, but its usage across domains seems to give it a greater weight, let's say. But you don't elevate, it sounds like you don't particularly elevate math beyond the other disciplines or sciences.

No, because, well, we could have different logical systems, some that are so trivial so right now we say there is no law of that or there is a law of the excluded middle and then we have other logical systems where we don't have the law of the excluded middle but we could have had a logical system where it's just t like there's just one letter t and then all you can prove quote unquote prove are strings of t and then we think well that's just it's not interesting but it's math and so we don't question well what's the unreasonableness effective of t theories because we don't even consider that so when we say the unreasonableness effectiveness

unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics we're already considering the subset of math that is effective. So obviously, it's effective. Right, but I guess when I think about it in comparison to, it's really hard to think about it in comparison to other, I don't want to say languages, other domains, let's say, something you study in, say, biology. It's really difficult to compare between math right but something you learn from biology not necessarily applicable to something you learn in chemistry or physics or vice versa usually it's the other way around usually you know there's a bit of a hierarchy in terms of what's dependent on the other levels but

say something you learn from mathematics in one field, you can apply across, across multiple fields or different domains. Like it just, it seems to, it's like a utility player. It seems to just have all this utility across pretty much every domain you can imagine.

So, yeah, it's, it's, it's something that's, it's interesting to hear your perspective because I think, yeah, I wasn't expecting that response. What you're referring to is called universality in math. So why is there so much... Why can you invent something in one field and then it generalizes across several? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, but it seems like...

We could say, why is the hammer so effective? We invented the hammer to put in nails, but we can use it in several other domains. So to me, it sounds like a question that's just either as trivial or profound. Maybe it is an extremely profound question. Why is the hammer, so why is the knife so effective? It can cut someone, it can chop celery. To me, it's on the same level.

And whether or not it's a profound question or one that's trivial depends on to me it's the same as do you consider why is a knife so why does why do knives have so much of an application sure if you think that's an interesting question which it may be then then you could think that the unreasonableness unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics is also an interesting question. But this is my present deliberation. I oscillate. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, I understand.

And do you think mathematics is discovered, invented, or some combination of the two? Or something outside of those two entirely? Yeah, this is super interesting i i find it difficult to make the case that it's invented discovered implies that there's something so you could say that there's a platonic world and that what we're doing is we're touching aspects of that or seeing veiled images as images of it or projections of it see in our field carlos our field of podcasting on these questions there's a conflation of truth reality existence and fundamentality so donald hoffman thinks that what's not fundamental isn't

real and it's to me that's just as silly as again it's just as silly as saying like your iphone isn't real because it's made of components or petunias aren't real because they have stems and leaves like okay no one's saying petunias are doomed oh my gosh isn't that blowing your mind petunias are doomed why is it that just because something's made of components your keyboard isn't real because it's made of smaller keys like no one thought that before and then and not that no one thought that before but there's a difference between something being real and being fundamental you can have the reality of a chair even though chairs we don't think chairs comprise the universe okay so there's a conflation of reality and fundamentality then there's also a conflation of existence and real the question that i think about is can you have something that exists that isn't real? Now we think, well, let's just define existence as what's real, or let's just define what's real as existence.

So firstly, then you have a tautology. Secondly, a circular reasoning. But then these are also different words with different historical roots. And I think it's extremely left-brained of us, even though I love analyticity, you and I both. It's extremely left-brained of us to keep abstracting and abstracting away until we just find commonalities and everything's an undifferentiated mess that's in this chaotic disarray state of whatever some people think the universe emerged from. But what I find interesting is also to find the delineations. What are the differences see the right brain the left brain likes abstraction and to see commonality that's one

of the reasons why racism is associated with the left brain with left brain thinking because i'm going to treat you just like any other member of your race whereas the right brain likes to see distinction and particulars and likes to see you as a person that's different than someone else some other person. Just a moment. I'm sure. Math, in some sense, is just being more and more abstract and so the question is it is what's real what's most abstract and what's most common or is what's real associated with the particular and so as so is math actually a reflection of something real this is what i mean by there's

difference between existence and real when we say that it's invented or discovered okay if we say it's discovered we mean that there's something there and then we pushed away some dirt and we found some core to say that implies that you have some theory like a correspondence theory of the of truth you know there's several different theories of truth like deflationary and so on so embedded in this statement of is math invented or discovered is an implicit confession of one's theory of truth. I don't have a settled on theory of truth, so it's extremely difficult for me to say is math discovered or not. I'm also comfortable saying that it can be a reflection of a platonic world, but the platonic world doesn't exist. I'm comfortable with saying that.

Now, Penrose thinks the platonic world exists, and thus math is discovered. But I think math can be discovered while what's being uncovered doesn't exist, but is true. There's a difference between truth and existence. There's four concepts here that are constantly conflated. Reality, Fundamentality, Truth, and Existence. Yeah, okay. There's four concepts here that are constantly conflated. Reality, fundamentality, truth, and existence. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

You just touched on a bunch of other things I was going to ask you about, but I feel like you made, I think, I think you made your perspective clear enough, actually. I'm trying to think of where to go next here this is more just a fun question here why is oh after yeah yeah another thought no no just forgive me for taking some time to answer your questions because they're consequential questions

and i want to ensure that what i'm saying isn't something that is a prepared answer that is staged like baseball cards that i just bring out but rather something that i feel in the moment that's it's difficult oh yeah please i'm not uh it's actually one of the things i admire one of the many things i admire about you, is that you are so thoughtful and that you will take as much time as you need. It's usually a few seconds, a few moments to stop and contemplate and choose your words carefully. I think your audience resonates very strongly with that. And that's actually something, a quality I wish I had more for myself instead of starting a sentence not knowing

where it's going to end. If I just take a second and fewer ums and uhs and likes, and I'll be more precise. And so you're a good model to follow, I think. More of a fun question. I wish I had started this thing off a little lighter. We could have built, I could have started us off. I wanted to make sure that we got to these questions, but a fun one. Why is 157 your favorite number? Oh,

that's a man. You've done your homework. So where did you hear that? I'm sure. I'm certain. I heard it from you. I can't recall. I don't take,

I take pretty diligent notes, but not necessarily where I heard it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm the same. It's probably an offhand. It's probably an offhand

comment you made. It's offhand, but it's also serious. The reason is quite secretive. I'm a secretive person. Just so you know, Carlos. I can tell by the way you take notes. Your own personal notes. Your note-taking system.

notes. Your note-taking system. Yeah. It's It's not secretive out of privacy. It's something else that I haven't put my finger on. It's not protection. Maybe it's distinctiveness. I don't know.

I don't know, but the reason for that, so I have a... Well... I can tell you a bit off-air about that. Okay. Sure, yeah. I'll just get a note of it. Yeah, for sure.

I'm very comfortable. Any question? And please... I should have said this name before we started. Okay, but there's also synchronicity with that number. So one of my favorite courses in university was MAT 157 at the University of Toronto. So that's the first year real analysis course. It's your first, like you get, talk about going in without lube when you just went into

this podcast with the hard questions straight away. Yeah, no, that's the TOTE podcast as well. And that's MAT 157 as well. You go from high school to proving that the proof of induction works. It's extremely theoretical. It's your first taste of actual math. That's one of my favorite courses, MAT 157. MAT 157.

But there are a couple other reasons. Again, I'll talk to you about the Malfair. Absolutely, sure. but there are several, there are a couple other reasons. Again, I'll talk to you about the welfare. Absolutely. Sure. Um, I'll probably, maybe I'll interject some of these lighter things in between some of the harder,

because as you pointed out, these are, these are questions that aren't easy to answer. If they were, then they weren't, wouldn't probably worth be worth discussing in the first place. The, but I do want to touch back on something you said about

truth. And funnily enough, my channel used to be called The Truth with Carlos Farias. That was the initial for the first couple of years of my channel. It's actually what I named it. It was more of a placeholder than anything else. But after a while, I found that it was just too haughty and it was just too bloated and had all these. And also I don't think necessarily, but I think this actually might be counter to something I heard you say on an AMA that I'm not sure that objective truth, whatever we could say that is, is actually the highest value or is even in the tier of the highest values. the highest value or is even in the tier of the highest values.

But I would love to know where sort of your position on that is and what does truth mean to you? It's the enlightened position that are the rational position to think that, Hey, whatever's truthful is what's most good. I think it's an implicit position. I don't know if that's the case. Firstly, one has to define what they mean by truth. That's not so simple as we've discussed.

If you just mean you correspond to facts cold and calculated, I don't know why truth implies some goodness. Now, you may say, historically, it's the case that the more we know, the more good we are. Okay, firstly, what is this definition of good that you refer to? And how do you prove that the more that we know, the more good we are? How do you know that there's not something... Oh, gosh.

Jeez. So, one of my quotes I can barely say is... This comes from Lovecraft, and it's that, one of the most merciful aspects of this world is the inability for the human mind to correlate its contents, and that as soon as we do, this unfettered scientific investigation may reveal such terrifying vistas of reality and our frightful position therein

that we'll either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light to the peace and safety of the darkness. Yeah, there's no guarantee that you just learn more and it's just a net good. There's no guarantee about that. It's one of the reasons that people don't want to study. I can't even say it but politically speaking there are certain political topics that someone could be something you could study but people don't want to because well we don't want to find out the answer there again i don't want to i know well yeah to me it's just not it's not clear at all it's not clear so something is more valued than

truth or you can just say you want truth for what you can just ask someone for what they say for truth's sake what does that mean you want truth for truth's sake most of the time they'll say because it's it leads to some better outcome. Okay, so why not pursue that better outcome? Okay, because the best way to pursue it is with the truth. Okay, is that guaranteed? What if it wasn't the case? What if someone made the case that it's not?

Oh, okay, and... I get a bit frustrated about this because... See, just like there are buzzwords there are these buzz phrases that people use like like pursue truth or I'm a truth seeker and there's this

writer of Seinfeld named Peter Melman or Peter I think Peter Melman I'll correct it if i'm if i make a mistake or you'll correct me i can put it up in the description yeah absolutely he said that there are different storylines in seinfeld like the the one about the car the smelly car with the the the the bus smelly car, the valet who went in and funked up the car for the rest of the show. So there are different storylines. And the story is that someone in the writer's room, they would always pitch Larry different stories.

And Larry David would say like, no, no, no, it's not good enough, not good enough. And then someone was just telling him about their day. And then he's like, that's a Se then he's like that's a Seinfeld episode that's a Seinfeld episode right there the guy didn't even think about it like that Peter Melman said Larry was great at picking up on what would be a great storyline

like someone snubs you because you ordered a salad and not something more substantive at the restaurant and so the waitress is a bit upset because of the tip like Larry David would pick up on it like that, and it would just go over most people. I think that part of one's calling in life can be, you can phrase it as,

what is that filter that you have, that sieve that you have, that net that you have, that nothing escapes it, almost nothing escapes it, but it escapes other people yeah so for me i have a similar observational bent as larry and and and larry david and seinfeld in the sense like i'm just i'm observing but i'm not an observational comedian like i'm not in comedy so something that that stands out to me like like a like a splinter is when people say phrases that they are saying because they're

intellectually posturing or that they want to sound enlightened and deep and profound and they don't know what it means or they've heard it from somewhere else and they're copying it it just stands out to me like that i see it on in written text i see it in different interviews of people i see it in myself when i'm being interviewed maybe that's why i see it because i i'm i'm such a harsh critic of myself, even though I don't think I'm a harsh critic, but I think that's part of being a harsh critic. I'm a critic of myself, and so I see this quality in myself, or at least I see it in my former self. And it took years to minimize it. And it becomes so blatantly obvious in other people.

It just doesn't pass my filter. I see it with many, even some of the guests that I interview. Well, more so I see it in other podcasters. Not you. Don't worry.

No, it's okay. No, no, no no i feel like many podcasters become podcasters because they want to not because they care about the ideas but because they want to be a thought leader and they see this as somehow getting the credibility of the guests that they interview and that people will want to hear from them more and more and more so yeah yeah different it's any yeah yeah you mentioned this kind of reminds me of something that you'd mentioned on an ama that um it's like when you're watching film or television you can you can spot lazy dialogue very quickly like throw away when there's just something it's just not meaningful it's just not meaningful. It's not progressing the story. It's just,

and the most, I mean, separately of time about podcasts in general. And I think most media just cut it books, TV, whatever you want to art. 99% of it is not worth consuming. In my opinion,

there's so much of it. I mean, that's a very critical statement. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that my stuff is in the 1 percent i'm not claiming that at all i'm not claiming that um but i do think a selective a sort of a selective uh filter is a good thing although you you meant it in a slightly different way the one of the things i wanted to ask you about was yes when you were i'm not sure if you're still

directing any films or if you have that um any near-term plans to do that again but um I did want to ask you about because I watched I'm okay I watched that it was early it was last year at some point but I did watch it and I well I mean, because you bring up, and I thought while watching it, this is some combination, or maybe I might be stealing a quote from a snippet someone said, a combination of Woody Allen and Larry David's, something like that. That's sort of the thought stew that was happening there. And I enjoyed it. I mean, I know we had this back and forth a little bit. You said cringe, I think was the word you used. Yeah, used yeah geez louise man even you bringing this up right now no but i'm gonna i'd be red if you don't mind i'll link to it in the description so folks can actually watch it if

they want to because i know you don't talk about on the podcast that much and understand i mean you're talking about other things other topics but i wanted to talk about that experience perhaps a little bit or what did you uh what did you learn from if you have any learnings from that from that uh that production oh gosh oh boy this is the most uncomfortable uncomfortable question great okay wonderful let's see yeah yeah well it's much harder to make a a than I thought. I remember when I was filming that, I thought I knew what it's like to work hard. This happens so frequently, even with this podcast. I thought I knew what it was like to work hard until I did the film, or until I did the podcast, but we're talking about the film. the film or until I did the podcast, but we're talking about the film.

There were times where I didn't even have, it takes like 10 seconds to check your messages. I didn't even have time to check my messages unless it was directly related to work. I remember going to sleep takes me so long to fall asleep. It took me like an instant back then. I was just so exhausted filming all day, waking up immediately going to work and then immediately finishing. I set myself this

unfathomable goal of finishing a film in 60 days so finishing the filming and editing of a feature film in 60 days of one that's not something i don't of one that's not something trivial like you film in one location and it's one long shot because then that's minimal editing like you film in one location and it's one long shot because then that needs minimal editing yeah so that was that taught me what it's like to work extremely extremely formidably another is that you shouldn't feed people pizza constantly i was so cheap man i had this small budget night and everyone would come hoping that there's this is something on film sets by the way yeah sure sure pizza it's known it's like a joke that you're not supposed to that your your your food on set is supposed to be substantive and i'm just giving pizza every time and they would be so disappointed oh god because i'm i couldn't i love food but me too yeah i'm with

i'm on the same track as you that reminds me of a book i read when i was a kid i don't know why i read it because i don't have a directing impulse or an artistic or creative well i have a creative side i guess but i was called what they don't teach you in film school it was like 130 lessons or tips and i i remember devouring it as a child just being like this is really interesting the the behind the scenes and they talk about, yes, what kind of food to feed and to actually feed your people while they expect it. Yeah. Who,

I guess you can from that book. I mean, that was a long time ago. I remember just soaking that up. You remember just random things you read as a kid that you're like, why did that? You were interested in being a filmmaker before? No, I wasn i wasn't i mean and i wasn't after reading the book either i don't know why i picked that book up i think it was just at the library and it was an easy read

and it was very it was written by i'll link to the description as well i have to like go and find where this book is um or who wrote it but i think i liked the uh they were just it was like kind of like startup vibe that they were just throwing things together and learning at you know learning at rapid pace and trying to create something and it was very inspirational i want to say i remember being just just being in awe of like oh this is i didn't realize i was probably 10 when i read it and i didn't realize even what a director was of like oh there's a didn't realize i was probably 10 when i read it and i didn't realize even what a director was of like oh there's a president of a movie like they get to decide oh okay they're organizing the whole thing so um it opened my eyes to that that frame now we're all we have

some exposure i think to a lot of people do anyways the production process and how that goes to be but But, um, but speaking of, Oh, just something else I would learn. Sorry, quickly. Yes.

Just please. Yes. Specific. A specific lesson is pay more for the actors because the actors carry the movie. So mine didn't have known actors or even, well, I don't want to disparage anyone,

but it's not as if acting is the strong suit of that, of that film. I think the writing is not bad and the directing isage anyone, but it's not as if acting is the strong suit of that film. I think the writing is not bad and the directing is not bad, but the acting, including on my own part, by the way, I was in the film, so it's not terribly great. Yeah. No, I think I pointed out to you when I messaged you about it last year, it was my favorite parts.

I think the script writing, yes, and the cinematography, some of the shots in particular, uh, was really kind of stuck out and I thought they were, they were excellent. So, Oh, speaking of projects,

um, are you currently writing a book on paradoxes, consciousness, and free will? How's that going? You're a homework, man. Jeez.

Yeah. Holy moly. Yeah. So people who are watching this if you don't know who Carlos is I'm sure you do like this guy, this guy studies man yeah I'm writing a book

it doesn't have a publisher it's to get my own thoughts straight, this is something that I've seen so sometimes people come on the show or come on any show and then they're like yeah they're just promoting a book and then they'll call someone a grifter i'm like that's a phrase that needs to be eliminated from someone's vocabulary there are a few hidebounding repudiational words that just limit you that i think should be eliminated i keep a catalog of them anyhow it i used to feel that way as well. Like, oh, they're just promoting their book.

Until I start to look more into it. Number one, it turns out writing a book is one of the worst ways to make money. Because it turns out hours per what you get back. Number two, writing is such a great way to sort your own thoughts out. One of my favorite books is Gertl Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstede. Oh, same here.

Yeah, you got it. Oh. Yeah. Right oh yeah right right right i have the same one same always in arm's reach of this book and that is just that to me is like the epitome of what it is to write a book where you see someone wrestling with ideas on the page and then coming to a conclusion that to me is like, it's not only book writing, it's art. It's when you don't know what you're doing and you're trying to do something and you're exploring it through the process of

writing or through the process of filming or through the process of painting. Jung would say if you knew what you were doing prior and you kept sticking to that, that was what he would call propaganda. He thought propaganda what he would call propaganda. So he thought propaganda was more than political propaganda. It was you just trying to convince the audience of something instead of trying to find out something yourself through the art.

Anyhow, yeah, I'm writing it bit by bit. I have about seven book ideas and I'm writing them little by little here and there. Awesome. Yeah, so it's just like a work in progress. Do you have a target date? Yeah, my target date keeps changing, man. Understandable.

There's this guy named Leonardo da Vinci. I'm sure you've heard of him. Who? There's this guy. I think it'd be DiCaprio. Yeah, so Leo here. Leoo if you read his biography by walter isaacson i resonate deeply with with da vinci it's uh he firstly had an adhd mindset secondly he was solitary like he learned almost everything he learned alone and it's a lonely lonely life at least my life is extremely lonely i don't have

friends not in person i have people i text but it's a intellectually lonely life i have my wife and that satisfies like every possible need but we don't talk about anything that's academic yeah and so i resonate completely with Leonardo da Vinci. Something from him, from his book, from Walter Isaacson's book of his, is that there's a refrain. And Leonardo started this, but he would never finish. He would start this, but never finish. Or he thought it would take him a few months, and it would take him years. So that's right now where the books are at.

Hofstadter's Law. Yeah. I think that's Hofstadter's law. Right. I think that's Hofstadter's law. Yeah. That is him. Yeah. That's so interesting. And also,

I mean, speaking at girl, I should buy it. How incredible is it that that book won the Pulitzer prize, I believe. Wait, did it? Yeah.

When the Pulitzer prize, but it was also like a very popular book, I think in the, I don't know how many, how many copies it sold, but I wonder if it came out today, how well it would do. That's the goal for this book that I'm working on, is I want it to be technical for someone who is at the undergraduate level or an extremely bright and motivated high school level, but still somehow be a book that would be at the front or near the front of a bookstore. I don't know how to do that.

I don't know how to do that now. I don't know how he did it then. Yeah, I don't know. That's so tough to pull off. One of the things that reminds me, this is complete tangent if you don't mind but it's related to and maybe it'll even help perhaps but when you say that the thing the person i think of someone whose name comes up a lot i'm sure but you're familiar with joe rogan i'm sure yes but not his podcast his when he commentates on ufc fights and i'm not a ufc fan i'm not a fighting fan uh i have others i like other sports but not ufc i've watched though a handful of the fights that he calls and i think he does an impeccable job of explaining things to a level

of detail where a total novice to the sport can appreciate it and yet there's detail and specifics to the point where i know advanced viewers will get a lot out of it. It's a weird confluence of things. I mean, it's so strange, but I, I watched, I've watched a few fights and I think to myself, he's the best announcer I've ever heard in sports of a sport. I don't care about. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Which is a very interesting kind of angle and perspective. And, uh, and I'm a, a i don't listen to his podcast too too often occasionally i do if it's a guest i particularly want to hear from but um i think he does perhaps he has that kind of appeal in a sense in a pot in this podcast but

where it's really great where his expertise is the best is with the ufc fight so i'll just make that make that random comment there. You work incredibly hard. You know this. I'm amazed and I admire your work ethic. I wish I had an ounce of it. I wish I had just a sliver of it because I don't have the same drive that you seem to have. Can you attribute that to anything in particular? Do you think it's just an innate quality? Do you think that's something you built up?

Something I built, but it's also insecurity. I'm a deeply insecure person. And so I know that my drive for wanting to be the best at what I do, the best, the best, the best, it has to be the best, has to be the best. I know that comes from, from or i believe it comes from if i was to psychoanalyze myself something from when i was 17 and i was so heartbroken by a girl so heartbroken like you wouldn't believe and it just left this indelible wound that's still there i'm not hung up over any woman any woman but but my my past shapes me, and I know it's there. There's another quote, by the way, from Leonardo da Vinci, this time. One of my favorite quotes of his. I said I resonated with him because, well, several reasons. He integrated several disparate fields, he was a generalist, but at the same time being a specialist,

which is something that I, I aspire to do. He also had a bit of pride in him, but he rarely let it shine through. He also didn't like to speak about himself much. You get this from his writings, like being, I don't know if people know,

but I'm uncomfortable being interviewed. I just don't like being interviewed. I feel like one, I don't have much to say. I'm, I'm uninter being interviewed. I just don't like being interviewed. I feel like, one, I don't have much to say. I'm uninteresting. It takes so much from me. No, I'm honored to be here, man. I'm honored to be here.

I'm honored you're honored. All the people who would interview me, I'm glad it's you. But anyway, there's many qualities I like from Leonardo. One of them is, as he said, one of all the notes, and I think his notebook, by the way, I have his notebook somewhere here, his sketch note, his drawing notebooks,

the ones of sketches, is more valuable than his paintings. I'm not a fan of his paintings, but I love his sketches and his notebooks. And one of the quotes, one of the writings he wrote was to some nebulous competitor. It's not named,

and it may not even been a single person. It just may be you can cock someone as an enemy in your mind. He said, he was talking about why they'll never beat him. And he said, you will, he's like constructing this scenario. He's like, where he was, where Leonardo was examining cadavers. And he would do that because he wanted to know how do the muscles work?

And no other painter even thought to go there. Like, why would you open someone up? Why does that have anything to do with art? So he said, you will perhaps be deterred by your stomach. Or you will be, yeah, you will perhaps be deterred by your stomach. And if that doesn't get you, then the fear of living in close quarters with quartered corpses and flayed flesh will. Frightful to behold. And if you have that, if you surpass that, then you'll lack the draftsmanship and you won't be

as good with the pen and if you have that then you'll lack the knowledge of perspective remember leo was the first one of the first to have perspective in his paintings and if you have that if that were so accompanied then you will lack the geometric methods of calculating forces on the muscle and if you have that then you will simply lack the patience and not be so diligent. So in other words, something that I resonate with is like, look, you have to have the drive. You have to have the skill or the knack for this. You have to also have methods. Even if you have all of those, you're not going to outwork me.

So that's in me. That's just a deep insecurity of mine that drives that. Maybe drives it for Leonardo, I don't know. Thank you for sharing that. That's deeply personal. Would you say you have any living role models? No, I asked my wife this. And then she said, Andrew Huberman. I'm like, babe, I don't even talk about, I just talk about Andrew Huberman about the sunlight. But I talk about it so frequently because I'm like,

we need to get more sunlight into your eyes. Yeah, I'm like, babe, I don't even talk about Andrew Huberman other than the sunlight, but I do it so often. She's like, maybe it's Andrew Huberman. Yeah, no. But that was, I found so hilarious and offensive. Oh, ouch. Burn, Huberman.

No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, I know. Yes. There's nothing against Andrew Huberman. I think he's like one of the best, if not the best at what he does. I remember when he was first doing his podcast and it was lectures i don't even know why he called them podcasts but i guess you can label any long form content where you talk as podcasts and he was doing so and i was thinking

this guy has the best the best podcast the best and i yeah he has the best yeah anyhow i don't even watch his podcasts or having haven't in a long while so it wouldn't be Huberman no it would be a far cry from that I don't know I don't know I think that there's a couple yeah yeah so I'm rebelling against something Carlos

I'm rebelling against my former self where I would so uncreative. I would just imitate. I would find a role model or two and imitate them. I think there's three stages of learning or three stages of life. One where you imitate, and then the second where you inculcate or you integrate. That's another buzz phrase I don't like to use, but integrate.

And then the third is that you individuate so the integral so first you go through this phase of imitating someone and then second then the individuation phase or the sorry the integration phase is where you you're you can now disagree with your idols i think that's where you can find honesty by the way like your true feelings are when there's someone you hold with high regard and you say here's where they're wrong that's at least for me and then the individuation phase i've forgotten forgotten how that goes i don't think i meant that but anyhow i'm rebelling against myself having models, and so I don't, because I find it too difficult for me to not imitate them. Right. One of the things you just mentioned about, yes, say, picking out the things that you disagree with somebody, and it's related to something you said earlier, or perhaps a thought I had while you were speaking is that from personal experience

when i because i i think we have a lot in common here you've mentioned on ama is that you're quite judgmental or that you once were very very judgmental and i i think i feel the same way uh something i'm working on trying to get better about. But when I'm observant about the things that I criticize in the world, mostly exterior, let's say, and this happens rarely, but when I'm able to realize that the thing I'm really criticizing is a fault I have in myself, it's like the exterior, it's like the outside world. Those are symbols. It's like a, it's like a side. And usually I'm just scoff and go off and just say, Oh no, that's wrong. That's,

but if I take the time to analyze it, I'm saying pretty much always, I can't even think of instances where this is not the case. I realize, oh, wait, I've done that. I do that all the time. And actually, because I've noticed it, it's like this weird, it's like a reflection or a mirror of something that I need to work on. It's something, it's so prevalent and so common that, and perhaps it's just my own experience. I've talked to friends about this and they don't seem to share that. But it's, it's something I've noted in the past couple of years that I can't shake.

For me, couple years that i can't shake for me i find 99 of my criticisms of anyone and also of the theories that they develop so i'm also attacking those come from jealousy so i'm an MLS and desirous and rivalrous person. I'm an envious person. Almost all of my criticisms of other people come from something that's not rational, even though I would say, well, look, it's just obvious that they're wrong because of reasons A, B, and C. Yeah. That's just for me, though. Yeah. that's just for me though yeah so it's total left field here but you mentioned the word rationality there so i'm going to jump on that something you're really or you were interested in

newcomer's paragraph newcomer's paradox and i can't say i've done a deep dive into this, but I've just barely scratched the surface of it the last couple of days. I can't understand and press for the audience. If you, if you wouldn't mind, um, explain like setting it up, perhaps you, I'm sure you could do a better job than I could.

Um, but I can't understand where the real issue lies. So would you mind if, if you could to explain it a bit and then we could talk about talk it out a little bit okay let's suppose there's a genie and okay let's suppose there's a magical no i gotta remove supercomputer because then that yeah let's just say that there's a supercomputer that you enter this room, it scans your brain, and it knows the decisions you're going to make. Particularly, in particular, the decisions on this problem. There's two boxes in front of you. One of the boxes, you can't see through it.

It's a wooden box. And the next box is, let me just, it has $1,000 and it's transparent. So it's a glass box. Then the next box is... Let me just... It has $1,000 and it's transparent. So it's a glass box. You're told, look, you can do... There are two actions you can take. You can take both boxes and you keep all the money that's inside them. So in the

wooden box, maybe there's some money inside, maybe there's not, but at least you see the glass box. So you can choose. Do I take the wooden box only? This is the choice being given to you by the supercomputer do i take only the wooden box or do i take both boxes you're thinking well why not just take both boxes there's some amount of money in the in the wooden one i don't know how much but let me just take both because i'll get the amount that's in the wooden one plus i I'll get the glass one, the 1,000. Okay, the computer says, hey, here, there's a catch.

So firstly, what's in this wooden box is either going to be nothing or it's going to be a million dollars. Okay, now you're thinking, well, that's even better. Let me just take both boxes. I'll either get $1,000 or I'll get a million plus $1,000. Then the computer says, actually, there's another catch. That's not it. I've scanned your brain, by the way. I've scanned your brain. And I figured out if you're a greedy person, if you're the greedy person that one million doesn't satisfy you, you want one million plus 1,000. So you try to take both boxes. I've actually put nothing in the box. So I'm going to punish your greed. If you're the not altruistic, but less selfish person who's just going to trust and take what's inside the wooden box, I've put in 1 million in there.

So then you're like, well, do I trust this computer and so on? Well, you can imagine this computer has played this game across 1 billion people and has never predicted incorrectly. If someone tried to take both boxes, and by the way, as soon as you enter the room, this decision to put 1 million or not is made instantly. And it's always been correct. This computer has always been correct. So then the question is, what do you do? So it sounds like there's no paradox because, well, why don't I just not be greedy and take the wooden box? Because if history is correct, then it punishes greed.

I want 1 million. So I'm not going to even attempt to take that transparent 1,000 box. I'm just going to take my wooden box. Now, the paradox comes in because there's two types of rationality. There's epistemic rationality, and then there's instrumental rationality. Usually, these are aligned. That's why when someone's like, I'm a rational person, I'm like, yeah, which kind of rationality? Why do you think that one ranks supreme?

What do you do in the scenarios where they conflict? So epistemic rationality is using logic and deduction to come to conclusions. And then that's the one that would say, well, just a moment. So let me just explain what epistemic rationality is. That's the one that tries to maximize your utility. So the one that wants to maximize your utility would say, look, the history shows that if I was to take the wooden box, then I get 1 million. History also shows if I take both, I only get 1,000. So let me take the wooden box. So I'm going to maximize my utility. Then the rational one would say, yes, but that decision's already been made it's there it's already there so why can't you just decide right now to take both boxes whether there's one million or not in the trunk in the in the wooden box that just that that's there whether whether you take both or not there's another variation where someone else is a friend and can see in the wooden box, by the way, from the back. Right, right, right.

So anyway, the question is, why don't you just take both boxes? If the decision has been made already. Anyhow, that's it. Can I ask, what would you do? Anyhow, that's it. Can I ask, what would you do? I would take the wooden box only. Just one box.

The million dollar box, not both. Yeah. If I lose a thousand, so what? There's a variation where it's like a vaccine and your wife is dying. One box has 80% of the vaccine. So the transparent one has 80% of the vaccine,

and the other one has the other 20%. So you can for sure cure her if you get both, or you may have flipped it. But either way, the person who's listening can construct a variation for themselves of Newcomer's Paradox, where it's a vaccine for someone that you love, your child. And if you get both, you get 100% of the vaccine. But if you just choose one, you only get a part of it. Then the question is, what do you do? And in that case, you find people switch.

They want to take both boxes. Right, right. It's like the trolley problem being reframed versus saving five lives versus killing five people or vice versa. Sorry, I interrupted you. What were you going to say, Carlos? No, no, no. That was wonderful.

Thank you for summarizing it because I could not have done as great a job as that. Or the vice versa. Sorry, I interrupted you. What were you going to say, Carlos? No, no, no. That was wonderful. Thank you for summarizing it because I could not have done as great a job as that. The thing I... So I don't think it's that... I probably don't understand it well enough. I have to set this up this way. I think it all relies on

how much you trust the supercomputer's prediction. And it's just like that value of what percentage chance do you think, or how likely it is you think that they made the prediction that goes either against your, let's say against your favor. Because if you trust it, that it's right, let's say it's never been wrong a billion times, it seems quite obvious to just take one box and just trust it. I don't really see, I feel like there's really simple math that would just say, yes, just take the one box. I can't wrap my head

around why you would ever want to take both. And so that's, so clearly I'm wrong because this is a famous paradox. I just can't understand why. Yeah, the reasoning goes, if the money is there or not already, the decision's been made. Why can't you, with your own free will right now, just go and choose both like what

difference does choosing both make but if the decision to include right but the supercomputer there's a bit of a the tricky part i don't say causality gets involved here but the decisions already been made by the by the supercomputer they've predicted i'm going to take one or the other uh or both let's say even if it's predicted that you're only going to take one though and it put the one million in why can't you just take both and get a million and a thousand your job is to maximize the amount of money that you get so let's say it predicts. Yeah. Anyway, I understand that it's, uh, yeah, I probably just don't understand it.

Well, that's what I was like hoping, but cause it does, it just, it seems very straightforward to me, but I am probably miss. I probably have this huge blind spot that I cannot understand. Cause I,

cause I know that it's, yeah, you, you said epistemic versus was instrumental. I've seen it. Yeah. Phrase a dominance principle versus expected utility principle. There's also a frame.

The first thing I thought of was this thing from poker that I read, a poker paper many years ago. It was about counterfactual regret minimization. It made me think of what would minimize my regret after the fact it's like an older it's like another way of perceiving i don't think it falls really under the uh sure the envelope of this problem but yes if you were to try to take both and then you've got nothing that's so much worse than just taking just take the million this is kind of it also yeah leads to something we're talking about earlier a little bit in terms of it's sort of maybe it's like we're getting close to this sort of pragmatic

discussion maybe it's not truth or something but i remember thinking like just don't overthink it just take the million um but of course you can you can you can move the numbers around to make it closer exactly that's why the variations with half a million here, half a million there, or it's a vaccine are more important. So because otherwise most people think I don't care if I don't get the extra 1000, but that's not the point. The point is your task is to maximize the amount. If you don't maximize, if you were wrong, let's say you get, okay, maybe that should

be the variation. If you were wrong, you get shot right afterward. If you don't get the full, if you don't get the maximum amount that you could have gotten then you you're shot right after right outside the room it comes right yeah right outside of new comes room yeah i need to think about how to phrase that the the the roulette version the russian roulette version i didn't think about that but i think that would make it more clear that there's a paradox here. Yeah. I have to,

I think I need to dive into it more. Maybe folks in the comments will, would love to explain it or clear up this blind spot that I clearly have. A few other questions I had for you. Have you seen the boy in the heron yet? No. Is it good? You're a fan of Miyazaki, right? Yeah. I'm sure. Yes. Yeah's a good you're a fan of miyazaki right yeah sure yes yeah uh i know you're a fan of his i've actually never seen another film of his i have to watch like spirited

away and some of these okay it was my first i did not love it yeah i gotta be honest i thought it was beautiful before i heard that okay that's interesting yeah because i i went in with an open mind and the reviews were pretty great generally from critics anyway i heard that okay that's interesting yeah because i i went in with an open mind and the reviews were pretty great generally from critics anyway i heard that from the user reviews that most people who are miyazaki fans were disappointed okay good okay then that tracks okay that that's fine yeah i was i almost left the theater but uh stuck around yeah it's pretty bad i'll i'll walk out of a movie yeah i'm gonna waste another hour um but i stuck around hoping it would it would change but how many movies have you walked out on in your life oh how many actually not too many i mean i'm talking a big

game there probably a dozen wow that's plenty man that's oh is that plenty yeah i walked out of two in my entire life i stick with the ship which one stick until which one do you remember which one steve yeah the steve jobs with ashton kutcher i was like this is just so horrible yeah oh my gosh and then one time i was given a free ticket this is probably why i stay because i'm an extremely frugal person so i'm like i've said here some cost it's just my it's my model there was one for i think it was some live action remake of pocahontas or is heavily inspired by pocahontas but it wasn't yeah and it was a live action one it was years and years like 10 15 years ago couldn't bear it oh my gosh oh man that sounds terrible

the most recently i haven't i've thought of walking out of stuff but the first i remember the first ones when i was like freddy got fingered with um yeah tom something so i'm great i remember walking out of just big this is awful i't even, what was the other one? Do you have another one? You just thought, I, I, I misremembered. It wasn't the one with the live action Pocahontas.

It was King speech. I left that. And I know that's an award when people loved it. Yeah. I couldn't bear it. I could not bear it. Interesting. I liked it.

Yeah. That's funny. I remember saying, I didn't think it deserved best picture that year. Social Network was my Best Picture winner, personally, that year, but it lost to King's Speech. What year was that? I want to say 2011. I'm not sure. Okay, okay. It was within a year or two of then, I'm pretty sure. I mean, it must be a film, but have you seen anything lately that's caught your eye? No, no, I haven't.

So I decompress now at nighttime. I used to just watch dark dramas, but now I don't. I just watch something light. So there's, but 2007 and 2008 were a great year for films for me. I loved No Country for Old Men, There Will Be A Lord, and there will be oh yeah sweeney todd and those all came out oh yeah crazy i was just a buddy it was a buddy of mine the other day was one of the best films skinner yeah a few days ago a friend we were talking about favorite movies of all time and no country for old men is one of mine it's up there for sure that parasite is another one

that comes to mind i have to think about rounding out the top five but those two are definitely in that kind of discussion yeah um i want to ask you about gaming too because what do you have any favorite video games i know you don't have time to play them now but maybe when you were yeah i was playing balder's gate recently balder Gate's not bad. I don't see what the hype is about. I think it's a fantastic game. It's an extremely fantastic game, but I don't see it as being, for sure, game of the year. Zelda was great,

the new Zelda, though to me it didn't provide much that was different from the first one. I was disappointed in that. Even though I love the mechanics in the new Zelda. Tears of the Wild. Tears of the Kingdom. Then Metal Gear is my

favorite series. Love Metal Gear. Oh, yeah. I love Metal Gear. I remember playing that as a kid, yeah. On the PlayStation. I'm so sad about Metal Gear Solid 5, though. Metal Gear Solid 5 is such a disappointment to me. Was that the open world one? Yeah, it was such a disappointment.

It's like the same areas over and over. Mechanically, it's tight. The tightest of all Metal Gears. But I care about the story, and I care about variety. And I know Hideo Kojima, by the way, that's like someone my dream list person on the podcast. Kojima, yeah. I know, that's why.

Yeah, I didn't get into 5. Yeah, I didn't get into five. Yeah, I didn't get into five. I think I put 15 hours in, and then I just kind of went, eh, I don't know. It didn't take me in. The same thing with Starfield. Oh, and it's a different voice as well

for Solid Snake. The classic David hater that everyone knows and loves from MGS 1, 2, 3, four four you're gonna upshamble for level five for number five yeah sorry which one no no man is that what you said no a starfield i tried playing starfield right a few months ago my goodness i couldn't unplayable i hated it hated it i mean load screen after load screen just what is going on the another one i put 15 20 20 hours and yeah it was too bad do you like do you ever play skyrim

oh skyrim love fallout fallout is it goes like metal gear fallout i just like i so you i don't listen to music, but I enjoy, thoroughly enjoy 50s and 60s and 40s music. Music from that era because of Fallout. I just love. Man, that game. I have such sweet memories of it. That's wonderful. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, why don't you listen to music?

sweet memories of it. That's wonderful. Yeah. I want to ask you, why don't you listen to music? I, I, I just,

I don't find it conducive to studying. Hmm. Yeah, that's pretty simple. Yeah. If there's a new Eminem song, I'm going to check that out. Like as soon as I find out though. Gotcha.

I listened to Taylor Swift's album the other day. I thought it was great. Her new album. I never listened to any of her albums before. Her new album, the song called Snow on the Beach. I love that song. Oh, yeah. I got to check it out.

Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I don't have a single song of hers in my Spotify. Because I just hear her. She's so ubiquitous. I hear her in the world enough. But I like her. I mean, I hear her. She's so ubiquitous. I hear her in the world enough, but I like her. I mean,

it's not, no criticism to her. It's just a, say I should go, I should go listen to maybe some more of her catalog because she is what a force she's become. Oh yeah. She's taken over.

And I found that like I would criticize her in my head. This is something that I came up with, came out with, came to the realization of in the past year or so. I just criticized it. Why? Why do I care? It's because I'm, I'm jealous of her. I don't even want to be in stadiums i'm not a musician but i'm just

jealous of her for no reason it's all criticized see why not theories of everything and uh mega stadium you know you could you could pull it off that'd be cool one-on-one conversation um got a couple of i know you gotta run a few minutes a few more questions i definitely wanted to just touch on first is do you ever find yourself questioning reality? And then you snap back to it, remembering that, Hey, you have nothing planned for dinner. Yeah, that's hilarious, man. That's that's, they should be paying for this one.

They should be paying. That's hello fresh. That's one of the sponsors. So yeah, not a sponsor but no no but you were you were talking about the success of toe and then i said it doesn't feel that successful and that's because it's for the past year it's been such a struggle financially man like so much of a struggle like so i'm unnerved and frazzled and overtaxed and overburdened and taught and high strung. Because there was some issue with not sponsors, not the sponsors.

If you see a sponsor on toll, if you see a toll sponsor and you like them, go check them out. But the people who bring the sponsors, they take a cut. And then I had people who were bringing me sponsors who got other people bringing them sponsors. And then a third one. So there was like a 30%. Oh my gosh. And then I was people who were bringing me sponsors who got other people bringing them sponsors. And then a third one. So there was like a 30%. Oh my gosh. And then I was seeing almost nothing. I still owed thousands of dollars from something, which I can't even talk about.

And because like, I have a contract that I'm not supposed to speak poorly about something. I'm not even allowed to go find my own sponsors. Don't know. So it's just been. Yeah. But anyway, thanks for bringing up hella fresh no i just i've heard that a lot i'm just like yeah i want to ask him this uh this question i've never yeah i haven't gotten into my toes in the water as sponsorships but i have had a couple folks reach out to me directly and i've wondered because i heard a little bit about this. It sounds not pyramid scheme-esque, but referral. Yeah, MLM kind of, how many levels of referrals are there?

And can I just go directly to source and get perhaps a better deal? So it's something I'm sure, I hope one day to not have the same problem, but I hope one day to kind of get into those waters. Get into those waters. have the same problem but you know i hope one day to kind of no no i understand what you mean yeah get into those waters again man carlos if you would need any connections or tips you let me know we'll talk about it off air it's something that i think something that i i guess it's it's it's something that bothers me is that i've had no help no help carlos from anyone who's anywhere anyone who's i've had no help from any other podcaster i've had no help from any other guest who like i'm like oh but you know this person can you get can i talk to this person some people are

like can't you just ask i don't want to say person? Some people are like, can't you just ask? I don't want to say names because it's uncouth. But can't you just ask? If you want to speak to, say, Bob Lazar, can't you just ask so-and-so? Doesn't work like that. And secondly, every single time that I have, it just doesn't go through.

And I feel so horrible. I feel so alone. Like I'm making this. I'm pushing this boulder. I'm trying so hard over and over and over every single day, over and over and over. And so part of me, I think I reached out to you before saying like, hey, I like your podcast. And if you need some help, I can retweet something of yours. I think I've reached out to you saying that. I apologize if I haven't, but when I make a note of a smaller podcast, invariably we'll send them that message

like, hey man, I'm a fellow YouTuber. If there's something I can do to help you out, let me know. And I'm doing that not because I'm a great person or I'm altruistic, but because I'm so hurt inside. I know what it's like to be a small person where people won't even say your name. They'll quote you. They'll quote a podcast of yours and they won't even say. And that's, by the way, it's from theories of everything.

I'm like, oh my gosh, man, you have well and you just you don't know what it's like i don't live in texas i don't have i don't live near anyone don't have these connections it's not like i can go out to dinner with some people and just meet people spontaneously or i'm so i'm bitter about that and bitter and hurt about that. But anyway, Carlos, if you need any help, if there are some guests, I'll tell them. It's easy for me to make an intro. We'll talk. Thank you. I so appreciate that.

And actually, I feel similarly in terms of, and this is something that I have to do a better job of, or I could at least make attempts to be better at, because it does feel like a lonely pursuit for myself as well. I don't have anyone in my social circles that does anything like this, but I also don't, I live in New York city. So perhaps this location are, I can imagine there are probably a few more people that are doing something

similar or they're nearby, um, that I could reach out to. But there's an idea I had actually a few channels that are similar in size to myself and also similar topic that I'm, I'm going to reach out to soon that maybe we could do like a challenge where we have like, I'm about 40,000 subscribers and these channels are as well.

It's like first to 100,000 subscribers, you know, win some prize, you know, a handful of channels. And so that could kind of get us together in a way where we're, you know, in good nature, competing with each other to grow our channels quickly. Because at least for myself, I mean, I think it's interesting. The financial pressures that exist for this. Now I make, I make very little, you know, on this, in this pursuit so far. And it's because of my size and all the other things I could be doing. But it's funny because like the

drive, the like financial drive, even though I need to make money to live, isn't as strong as it should be or could be. You know what I mean? And I think it's perhaps a question of like motivation and I'm talking in circles here a bit, but it's something that I need to do a better job of. Cause I feel the same. I feel similarly in that. Uh, yeah, I don't know anybody in, I'm gaining a network sort of every, every person I speak with. It's another, um, potential avenue, but I don't ask. And I, maybe I should, uh, ask folks I've had on for warm intros to, you know, people of a, you know, in a more exclusive tier, let's say to try to get on for warm intros to you know people of a you know in a more exclusive tier let's say to try to get on for guests uh it's something i wrestle with as well so um i feel you if you find success in that let me know i haven't i found that i'll let you know yeah i'll let you know i mean it's worth i haven't i haven't even taken the effort or the steps to do it so i'm not even sure before we wrap up, I do want to ask you sort of more concrete question.

And I know we kind of, we started off very hardcore and a very high level and abstract in a lot of ways. I do want to ask you a question because it's something that I've, I've had it as a personal tenant of mine that if we better understand the fundamental nature of reality, that we will better know how we should act in the world. But then David Hume, you're familiar with, I'm sure,

his is-ought problem. You cannot derive an ought from an is. Where do you stand on that? Do you have an opinion about that frame? Present deliberation depends on what one means by fundamental nature. And it's not clear to me that, look, when Newton came out with mechanics, that that was a net positive for the world because it made us view ourselves as automatons. So it's not clear to me that you just describe more and more fundamental reality with physics say or something else and then you get to a more positive ought i don't know i don't know why we don't just start

with the ought like forget about this is something else is the whole point of toe to then discard toe there's a saying that you you return home and you know the place for the first time that's at the end of all the journeying is it that you don't answer the questions but you get comfortable with leaving them unanswered yeah I don't know I don't know.

I don't know that one, Carlos. Yeah, it's a tough one. But I love that response, though. Because that speaks to me, for sure. The idea of the hero's journey for turning back to where you came from, to where you left off, you, you having changed and you having brought back something you've learned from your experience in the extraordinary world,

that special world. It just seems to, it seems to me to be the case that that's the process that we just keep on doing over and over and over again, going out, seeking, learning, coming back, sharing what we've

learned, having a good meal, being with family and friends, and then doing it all over again. It's dangerous, though. So, the Hobbit in Lord of the Rings,

Frodo, Frodo Rings Frodo Frodo Frodo subverts that because he comes back home but while he's out this is something that just impacted me so much of the whole story of Lord of the Rings

that he gets stabbed with him I think it's called a Morgul blade it's a special type of blade and it hurts him and he has to go get healed by the elves but then at the end of the

journey when he's home he's there for a couple years he always touches here occasionally because it stings and then he ends up having to even leave home because there are some wounds that are so great they never leave you yeah that's, that touches me, man. It's dangerous to go out adventuring. It's not always guaranteed. It's a net positive. Well, in that case,

he did save the world. He just sacrificed himself. Quick question. But whatever I do, I i know with my wife if i was going away i would it would be with my wife not leaving her i'll i'll suffer through any pain i'll suffer through 10 of those blades anyway what's wonderful that the love cuts that deep it's wonderful I tell my wife all the time I will love you even if you're a speck like if there is nothing left of her except this little dot that I carry around and put in my little pocket you're my pocket babe then

I'm just going to carry you and you can glare at Wibin like you're not having him great good stay there I'm just going to carry you. And you can glare at women like you're not having him. You're not having him. Great. Good. Stay there. That's so wonderful. That's so lovely.

Thank you, Kurt, for sharing that. Well, I'm going to ask you one last question. The question I ask every guest on the show at the end, if you could go back and give your 20-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be? Yeah, it'd be work harder. Oh, God. Just work hard enough. An indolent, unindustrious, feckless,

rodent, scoundrel. Work harder. Yeah, for me. I know Oprah always says, yeah, if I had advice, it'd be relax. Yeah, you can say that because you've gotten to the point where you have attained success. You have no idea if you would be at this level if you didn't feel that drive. You have no idea how people say, oh, I'm going to think about what it's like when I'm 90 and do the rocking chair test. Why is that perspective somehow a privileged perspective

why do you think that perspective is not going to color anyway yeah yeah well that's great there's so much wrong again those are those one when this inauthentic copied phrases that people say it's like the rocking chair test like look how profound i am i'm going to say the rocking chair test i don't think people think about what they say. I don't think people think some people. I don't think some people think about what they say. Anyway.

Yeah. And one bonus question. Sorry, I'm going to skip over. Which interview would you consider the most underrated? Oh, that's a great question, man. Great, great, great question. Shoot. I hate it. did oh that's a great question man great great great question oh shoot i can you give me 10 seconds you can count it down for me to just browse it would be one of the more recent ones okay because i'm just ashamed of anything that's like three months old. Edward Frankel's was fantastic.

And yeah, Edward Frankel's was fantastic. And Nan Vaidya, that was a super technical one. But I love philosophy. And then there's Anna Lemke, which is more on the practical side. That one's about mental health and getting over addiction and trauma. It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the Toe. But like I mentioned, Toe is, at least for me, it's a perilous place. You need these protectors.

I want to keep asking you questions, Kirk, but I know you got to go. Next time, man. We're at time. Yeah, next time. This is so wonderful. Next time I'm in New York, we can hang out, if you don't mind yeah i'd love to see you yeah yeah that'd be great no yeah i'm in i'm in new york city so let me know anytime you're swinging by and it'd be great to meet up in person and thank you again this is such a wonderful conversation you know the audience will love it

and uh and i want to say i want to extend the same courtesy because because you did a few minutes ago he said if i could reach you could reach out to me anytime, please, please do. I mean, if you have anything, I know I'm a lot smaller podcast than yours, but if I can help out in any way, or if you're just feeling like you want to reach out to somebody who's doing this kind of similar work to you in a sense, I'm there. I'll be there for you, man. Thank you. Thank you.