Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - Fidias interviews Curt Jaimungal on Podcasting, Free Will, & Morality

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

A popular YouTuber (Fidias https://www.youtube.com/@FidiasPanayiotou w/ over 2.5M subs) just received the Guinness Record for "longest time spent consecutively in VR". Congrats to him! https://youtu.be/cUmZywem8VEIt was a 30 day straight experiment. I don't know how he did it. On his last hour, he interviewed me for his channel. It was an honor, not only to be included in such a challenge, but to be the last activity he did prior to removing his VR! Enjoy this episode where Fidias interviewed me for his channel. 

A popular YouTuber named Fidius, who has over 2 million subscribers, just got the Guinness World Record for the longest time spent consecutively in VR. Congratulations to him. It was an experiment where he was under VR for 30 days straight. I don't know how he did it, but on his last hour, he interviewed me for his channel. It was an honor, not only to be included in such a challenge, but to be the last activity that he did prior to removing his VR goggles. Enjoy this episode where Fidius

interviewed me for his channel. Links to his socials are in the description. If you enjoyed this and you would like to hear more from me, then there are a couple examples of me being interviewed. One is coming up. You've heard me interview Jesse Michaels. Well, Jesse Michaels interviewed me one year ago and we're going to be mirroring it on this platform. Also, there are Ask Me Anythings and you can just search on YouTube or hear AMA's Kurt. I have no interest in speaking to Joe Rogan or Andrew Huberman, and not that I have anything against him. It's just I have no interest in it. There's this popularizer of science named Neil deGrasse Tyson. I find that what he does is give the high school explanation, sometimes even

the middle school explanation of some phenomenon, and then you're left wondering, what the heck does that even mean? It gets you excited about science science but then it actually doesn't teach you science it's positive in some ways but i prefer the more precise statements of this podcasting how did it affect you and your personal life i'm just i'm so lonely so like i i have a wife and i love my wife but we don't discuss the ideas on the podcast because she just finds them incredibly boring. Yeah, and in many ways, it's not been pleasant psychologically. It's unsettling. And I lose sleep all the time.

My mind is racing. It's a troubling state of affairs. First of all, we need to get the elephant out of the room. I have this VR headset because I'm breaking the world record of the person that had the longest time a vr headset currently i'm 29 days in the vr headset and tonight finally in couple of hours i'm going to take it off it will be the day thirsty and yes we have with us kurt jalmar gas i'm not sure if i did that correctly and first question is who are you yeah that's pretty great pretty close kurt jai mongol it's like my jungle but with jai mongol all right so i am a i'm a podcaster i have a podcast called theories of everything where we explore the fundamental nature of reality so the cosmos what are the laws of physics

what is consciousness what is the relationship between those three and more the largest questions that are about the nature of reality so you are you are not just a podcaster though you left a lot of things on the table i know sure sure yeah give us more like what like what yeah my background i used to my background's in mathematical physics and i had a whole filmmaking stint and i still carry some of those skills over to the podcast itself i did some stand-up comedy before and i believe that's about it at least that's publicly known wow okay and why did you start your podcast it was during the pandemic so i was doing a documentary and i was releasing some of

those interviews online just unedited and then that started to get some traction and i preferred that there's someone named donald hoffman i don't know if you know who that is he's been on the podcast aha okay yeah so don believes that the nature of reality is such that consciousness is fundamental. And furthermore, that you can derive this and that physics says this. And so he made many of these claims and they tend to blow people's minds when they hear it. But my mind isn't so easily blown, especially when someone's saying that they have mathematics to back it up. And I'm like, okay, great. great i love math i can understand math i i feel like i can bring something new to the interview scene because most people just take him on his word so let me look into his research let

me read the pdfs and then let me see do his claims match his derivations only the one human being in the world that sought to do that that had the passion to do that yeah right right and and so there's this large three-hour podcast with with donald and it's the only one that seems to be the the one that questions the technicalities and that took off and that is like exciting every bone in my body and so started to do more and more of that and that became theories of everything okay how about you man how did your channel start now i am a wannabe podcaster now you are switching the table the actual podcaster there so So my passion is learning. So I want to understand everything around me.

So hopefully with this knowledge, I can take some action. Now I'm 23 when I'm 30 to make, I don't know, some sustainable business that help the world in a way. That's kind of my vision, just to understand everything but also along the way is to share everything and like now i'm trying to i don't know i'm uploading on tiktok i'm trying to get a bit the younger generation into this philosophy and

consciousness that you are talking but it's hard because it's hard for them to understand all this stuff and slowly get into it but yeah right the younger generation younger than you uh about my age but yeah my viewers are mostly younger than me yeah yeah okay well that's great man that's great you're passionate about learning everything around you what do you mean by that to understand where we came from where we're going what who we are is there anything beyond uh what our needs our eye so i'm i'm i'm a big fan of the podcast and it's like of your podcast because uh it's very i appreciate a lot more because I've been a YouTuber. I don't know. I have like two and a half million subscribers

on the main channel that we have with entertainment. But this podcast thing is a completely different game. And it's like very hard because very hard to grow a podcast, very hard to do all these things. And it's like, I wanted to uh today also kind of your backstory of how you built everything how because i i i know there is a lot people think that just you jump on a call with someone and you record it but i want to learn no yes so much more yes enlighten us please sure sure so you want to know about how the episodes are prepared for or what

goes into that to it afterward or during or what everything how the what how do you prepare for the guest how do you choose the guest and everything okay the choosing of the guest is more intuition. So, well, okay, so I have large questions, such as, let's say, what is, so quantum gravity. There are various approaches to quantum gravity. How do you combine quantum field theory with general relativity? So the theory of, it's explained like the theory of the large with the theory of the small.

Many people know this is a large unsolved problem. The largest, maybe, unsolved problem in physics. If I'm interviewing someone on quantum gravity, well, there are various approaches. There's string theory. There's loop quantum gravity. There's other approaches. Then if I take one of them, to understand one, you need to understand quite a few other steps. So then I'm thinking, okay, who is a step on that ladder that is an expert on that step that leads up to where I'm trying to go?

Almost like courses in university in math. You don't take a fourth year math course before you take a second year math course because the knowledge builds on one another. So with guest selection, I think about, okay, where am I going? Broadly speaking, it's not always one defined goal. Like in the example I gave you was quantum gravity. That's one often it's fields to explore. And so I think, okay, well, what is interesting to me along the way that can, that can elucidate my later journey as well as the present one. So that's how I choose guests generally. Then how do I prepare? So I just spoke to Kiara Marletta. One second, I have a question about that.

So it's not based on, oh, these two people will get a lot of views. Let's march together. No, no. No, no. So there are many times where there are many people that could be interviewed that would get plenty of views. So for instance, there's Andrew Huberman, and there's the people that you would see over and over

in the podcast scene. I purposefully stay away from them for a couple of reasons. One is because I want to create a distinctive flavor to the channel. And I feel like, I just feel like I would be selling out. I feel like it would water down the uniqueness, but that's just my, it's like, I have a filmmaking side. It's my artistic side. It's my creative side. That's saying that there's also a business side. That's not saying that. And then there are people who are saying like, Kurt, you've got to bring on these large guests. You have to, you have to.

And so it's this constant fight. And so far I've won, but we'll see. We'll see. So it's based. Yeah, so for instance, yeah. So it's based on actually your intuition. When you're learning your personal path of learning your questions your personal questions yeah and some of that is influenced like you mentioned

it will inadvertently be some people who get large views because it's my it's people that i've looked up to for years and years and years which means they have a reputation so for instance there's daniel dennett someone i just interviewed yes he's someone i've been researching for like 10 years and then there's richard dawkins that may come up so those just by the nature of me knowing about them means they have some name so it's it's implicit but it's not explicit okay i understand and how yeah like i'm sure you feel similarly like hey you have this platform and i don't want to mispronounce your name fideas right fideas fideas yeah well gonna die all right exactly yeah so you have this huge platform and

you get to speak to whoever you want in fact you not only get to do that with your podcast you get to make videos on your other main channel on virtually any topic that you want yes yes the the main channel uh actually i actually follow the theories what okay what i don't want to get zero views I will not talk about in the main channel about entertainment, about quantum gravity and like go, it will be a challenge, a human physical challenge, but it's what I want to do. But actually in the podcast stuff is like, I'm not sitting like that.

I'm not just following my curiosity. I have a team. They're choosing some guests. It's some what I'm interested in, but I think I need to be more involved and become more exactly who I want to interview. And that would be a lot more sacred. Like the relationship that you have

with the guests that you explained. Yeah, yeah. It's almost entirely just curiosity. Luckily. But aren't you curious to learn about Andrew Huberman? Let's say, like, if you are curious about everything, so you can, like, kind of say an excuse, okay, I can talk with anybody in a way. I don't know if that's yeah i i could i could but then i would have to question my motivation because i'd have to be contriving some reason to speak to andrew huberman or who else is large joe rogan i don't i have no interest in in speaking to joe rogan not that i have anything against him it's just i have no interest in it i have no interest in speaking to andrew huberman other than to discuss nootropics or sleep like what can aid learning so if i was going to speak to huberman it would

be about that but i can't just let's say andrew huberman had something interesting to say about some controversial topic israel or andrew tate and anytime you interview him on that it gets two million views i can't i can't interview him on that then. Because it's just, it wouldn't feel right, at least to me. Okay, I understand. How do you match the guests? Match them, meaning like for the theolocutions? Yeah, and by the way, you know that you are the only person in the world that uses that word right she will accuse you yeah yeah

and i'm curious to learn more about this word because usually it's a debate but you chose to name it that's right that's right yeah so theolocution comes from the root means okay i was toying with calling it theomachy which is a term that means the battling of the gods like the greek gods battling one another but it's not a battle it's a it's speaking it's like the gods speaking to one another so theolocution locution means to speak loquacious is another word for that. They share the same root. Then, yeah, and it's a tongue-in-cheek reference to how I look up to these people. It also is not, yeah, it's also just, it's my term for the Socratic method with endearment and love, because many people pride themselves on following Socrates, but Socrates was quite sardonic and sarcastic to people. It wasn't like this. It wasn't terribly conducive to

eliciting new ideas. And if, at least that's my impression, Plato, all we know about Socrates is what comes from Plato. We have no idea if that's exactly how the dialogues went. And if you look at it, if you read it, it doesn't sound like that's something that... Socrates is constantly critiquing people. And people don't generate, generally speaking, new ideas when they're being critiqued. They become defensive. So how about we have two people who have contrasting views, explore ideas ideas together rather than trying to debate. That's the theolocution. And also you give them unlimited time. So in general debates, they're like, hey, you have 10 minutes. Let's hear your opening statement. What the heck is an opening statement, man? That already puts someone with a stake in the ground. And then someone else has to

now attack or defend their stake, attack someone else's stake or defend their own. I don't, I'm not a fan of that. I also find that to be too manipulated. And then you're like, okay, I'm going to give you five minutes to respond. Now you have five minutes. I'm going to mute your mic. I'm going to, I don't like that. Let's just, let's have them talk and let's have them talk over one another. As long as they agree to do so prior respectfully, then it's going to be interesting to me and interesting to them. Some people have had new ideas come from this that articles have been written on, like articles as in research articles. And I don't imagine that that, well, I can't speak for everyone. But anyway, how do I match two people? I listen to the comments. So there are a variety of comments to say

you should get this person to speak to this person i'm also aware of the field i know who knows who believes in free will and who doesn't believe in free will for instance and who would be a great guest i understand who whose personalities may clash but in an interesting manner and then you just you take a gamble and you hope some of the times that it's, well, you hope that it's positive. Sometimes it's not, it's not always positive. But there's this saying that if you're not failing 10% of the time,

then you're not trying hard enough, something like that. Yes, Elon Musk says 20. Ah, okay. Great. Yeah, okay. Great. Yeah, so that's that. So what's your role in a podcast? Let's say when you have a telecution,

you just shut up and listen, like what is the... Yeah, yeah, I'm just listening and then I'll guide the conversation along if there's a lull or if they're locking heads for too long, then I can try and point out where the disagreement is or I can summarize so I can serve as a proxy for the audience to bring them along to the journey because often it's extremely technical. And how do you manage this position?

Because you are a knowledgeable person yourself. For me, it's very easy. I don't need to pretend that I'm a proxy. I'm actually a proxy without knowledge and asking the stupid questions. But how do you make sure that you dumb it down sometimes the conversation for everyone to understand yeah i try not to i i don't have to i don't i i almost never simplify so that's one of the reasons why the channel has a different flavor is that it stays at the technical level as precise as it can be as rigorous as it can be it's rarely that we'll say okay i i can't even say it because i don't i don't know when we'll say it

but there's there's this popularizer of science named neil degrasse tyson and i find that what he does which is great for the public and he has much accolades and good for him, but I find that what he does is give the high school explanation, sometimes even the middle school explanation of some phenomenon. And then you're left at university or as an astute high school student wondering, what the heck does that even mean? Like, it gets you excited about science, but then it actually doesn't teach you science so it's like rhetoric it's it's which it's good because it's it's it's positive in some ways but i prefer the the more precise statements so for instance with donald hoffman and philip goff recently donald Donald Hoffman is someone who's an idealist who believes consciousness is fundamental, but he's also a non-dualist. So there's different types of people who believe consciousness is fundamental. Whereas Philip Goff is a cosmopsychist. To be a panpsychist, believing that particles had some element of consciousness to them. But now he's a cosmopsychist that believes something more general, that the cosmos itself is alive and has purpose to it.

Okay, so Don is speaking to Philip Goff. And then he's making plenty of claims. And he's saying these claims are predicated in physics. They're contingent on physics. And that the physicists, the quote- quote unquote physicist, believe this and this. And I'm there as someone who's supposed to be just watching them. But that was an example where I can't just allow some claims about physics to go unchallenged because it was just I found that what he was saying to be what I found that what Don was saying was misleading and was being stated with such conviction as if they were a consensus in the field and they weren't.

And so that's one of the times I may come in. And more generally, what's your role in a podcast that you're doing a solo podcast? Like how do you prepare and like, how do you balance the conversation do you have rules of thumb do you follow your curiosity give us a bit more deeper it's so i read their papers beforehand i'll read their book if they have a book or their books if they have books so you read some people have like 10 books you go ahead and yeah i'll just ship it then then i'll look at like i'll look at well where am i going again the example of quantum gravity and are there any that have something to do with that and i'll read those or if it's one of the most i almost always

prioritize the recent ones because people's minds change so I want their most updated thoughts okay then yeah for for Robert Sapolsky I read his determined book he has a recent book called determined that was just published a couple months ago for instance then I write down questions as they occur to me I I come up with questions as I'm watching tv with my wife or as I'm walking or as I like they just they're incessant they come to me so I often have pages and pages and pages and pages and pages of of notes then when I'm speaking to a guest, I've done the hard work already. It's almost like, yeah, I allow it to go and almost whatever they say, I try to get, what I try to do is before the interview, I try to get myself to the point where I can predict what the guest would say to

my own question that I would come up with. can i emulate them in my head once i've done that then i know i'm ready for the interview then i go in and i poke holes at where i not poke holes i find the holes in my knowledge so it's better if i give an example oh i'll have to think of an example later and we'll have to come back to that later and we'll have to come back to that fair enough so so uh you prepared okay i'll give you an example i'll give an example yeah i'll give you an example but they're a bit technical so i was speaking to to chiara marletto just about two hours ago and she had a quote about the about that quantum field theory has inequivalent representations, meaning there are many ways to get to quantum field theory. And while they produce the same results in the sense of you, they predict the same observable.

So they predict the same results in the lab. They're actually different theories. the same results in the lab they're actually different theories so she had a line that said that because they have because we have different quantum field theories in equivalent representations of quantum field theory it then leads to problems with studying curved space-time so of all her statements i okay i understand that they have different representations, quantum field theory, but I don't understand what, what that means, what the implications are of that for curved space time. Furthermore, curved space time is, is another way. Well, sometimes people make an equivalence between curved space time and quantum gravity. It's not technically true because you can just,

you can curve space time without it being dynamic. But anyway, what I'm wondering is, okay, does that statement have anything to do with string theory? So then I have, then I ask her that question because I just don't know the answer. So I have a variety of questions I don't know the answer to. It's rare that what I'll do is I'll ask a question just on behalf of the audience. The only time I would do so would be just toward the beginning to establish terms. But basically I'm a selfish person. I'm an extremely selfish, selfish person who's just trying to edify myself.

It's almost like the audience is, I don't care about the audience. So that's how I think about my role is I'm a student and I have the professor, this great sage, and I can ask this person any question that comes to my mind in office hours. So what would I ask if even if the doors were closed? All this stuff that you've been doing for a couple of years now, all this podcasting, how did it affect you and your personal life from not the business side as a person?

Yeah, it's made me more... I listen way more to people. I take people more seriously now whereas before I would dismiss many ideas as being the the outgrowth of foolishness but I don't think like that anymore

so I take more ideas seriously what about more stuff? I don't. It's made me more articulate. And it's made me more articulate and it's given me while it shattered my worldview over and over and over and over again

it's as if it's given me different frameworks for worldviews rather than any particular worldview and I don't know how to describe that yeah and in many ways it's not been pleasant psychologically it's unsettling so wow and i lose sleep all the time about what so many what yeah i i it's difficult for me to fall asleep my mind is racing and yeah it's difficult for me to fall asleep

and I'm yeah it's troubling it's a troubling state of affairs I because you have a lot of ideas because you are concerned about the next podcast because you are you just change your world view about the next podcast because you are you just

change your worldview today on a podcast and you are actually thinking deeply about that like what's the reason behind sometimes losing sleep no some of these thoughts are anxiety provoking some some of the world views and some of what could be or some of what may not be is fearsome. And much of my time is spent dealing with that and thinking about that And thinking about that over and over. Yeah, it's, it's, there's also always never enough, almost never enough time to finish all the tasks in a day. And so I'm thinking about, okay, what do I have to do tomorrow? And then now that I'm not sleeping and it's 2am and I should have been asleep by 10pm,

what am I going to have to push off from tomorrow? is essential okay how can i rearrange my schedule but that's minor that's minor compared to just the the trepidation from dealing with other frameworks of reality so um for me when i hear this stuff is yes it's troubling and challenging uh to my work views but like i leave them there but as i understand you take them with you and you think deeply about them are you thinking deeply about them alone or out loud with someone or with friends i'm not i'm not sure no i'm thinking alone that's something else like i'm just i'm so lonely so long like i i have a wife and i love my wife but my wife we don't discuss this. Probably for the good. Don't discuss the ideas on the podcast. Because she just finds them incredibly boring.

Like if I say any word that's over two syllables, she yawns. And it's so hurtful. She just can't help it. She doesn't even realize it. So it's so uninteresting to her. And it's great. Because some people, they marry someone who's in their field. And then that's all they do is talk about that.

And they're ensconced 24-7. So for instance, many mathematicians will marry another mathematician or a physicist to marry another physicist. And then it's great for their output of physical work and mathematical work. But for me, it would be too much. I like the break. Yeah, it seems that would be too much i like the break yeah it seems that you have too much thought about it anyway so you don't need more discussion yeah yeah exactly exactly it's a it's a great reprieve i i enjoy being able to to just watch the office for instance yeah so uh that's fantastic i want to understand a bit more

the details so you you email all the guests you to schedule the time start with everyone like do you have a person helping you yeah no no all the guests emailing and scheduling is me No, no. All the guests emailing and scheduling is me. So I have a standard, pretty much standard template that I send out. When I'm interested in someone, I'll send it out to them. I have it booked sometimes months in advance. And I almost always film at the same time. So that's something that I've learned to do recently, is film at the same time. So that's something that I've learned to do recently,

is film at the same exact time, because I would always go, I would jump through hoops to go through the guest's schedule. So especially if they're in London or the UK or Australia, their time is shifted so drastically. And I'd be like, okay, I'll wake up at, I'll do it at 8 a.m., which means I have to wake up it at 8am, which means I have to wake up at 6am and I have to wake up at 6am, but I often will fall asleep at 3am. And so then it would wreck me, wreck me so bad. I had to say, you know what? I film every day at either 12pm or 2pm.

And so if you can't make those slots, then we're going to have to find a day that you can make those slots or we're just not going to film. I need that rigidity and stability in my schedule. I need to be able to oversleep and still make the podcast. Because it's often that I'll miss my sleeping deadline. So I try to sleep by 10 p.m. or so. Almost every night that I miss it. And thus I wake up later than I want to.

Yeah, so that's helped. That's something I recommend, by the way, to any podcaster. Just keep your podcast filming times consistent. You are big. You can do that. Oh, yeah. Well, I did that when I had about 70,000 or 80,000 subscribers. So can you walk me through your growth and like it was exponential it was one year with

walk with me like no it's fairly consistent it's there's nothing there's there's no large ramp up it's just been a fairly a fairly smooth glide upward the first video on the channel if you see it it's noam chomsky and it has a million views or two million views that's not actually the first video on the channel it's just the videos before that were so poor like they're embarrassing how poor they are and they're me inserting myself trying to be trying to act like i know what i'm talking about and it's just it's so cringeworthy i i feel so embarrassed looking at it so i'm like okay these contribute nothing they're actually anti-toe anti-theory of theories of everything let me just remove them this chomsky

one ended up taking off but there were 20 other videos before that maybe something like that and that one happened to be the one that took off and i'm some i even there i i can't watch i just i become like a turtle i cannot watch it i cringe so drastically yeah i can't it's it's a pain to watch myself but anyway that one took off and so it looks like the channel was a success from the first video but it's it's just that i unlisted or deleted the rest so we're talking about like can you walk me you were getting like 2 000 views in their first episode after you got 2 million to that and like how was the growth like year by year yeah now you have an audience like you got it you got it anything you upload you have views now but

i've been sure it was not like that in the beginning well yeah i would be happy if i had 1000 views over the course of a month on a video i remember just wanting it i wanted my youtube video if you went to the video section to look look clean, to just have 1k, like with all the videos, something like that, like nothing that had 900 views or 544 views. I wanted it all to be clean with that singular digit and a K next to it. And I was like, oh man, if I can get that, that'd be so cool. So that's what it was. I don't even know. Maybe the first couple of videos had just a few hundred. It's been, it's been so long. Don't know. But yes, then the Noam Chomsky one started to take off.

And that was because he's a huge name. Noam Chomsky is a huge name. And I think we were the first people to interview him after, like the first amateur people to interview him because he was being interviewed on these large networks like tv networks and democracy now is the youtube channel that interviews him and then these no-name youtubers came out and interviewed him i don't know why he said yes i just got lucky and also he came out with this beard so he looked like gandalf many people kept saying he's like a wizard and i think it was a surprise to myself it was a surprise to many of his fans that he looked like Gandalf. Many people kept saying he's like a wizard. And I think it was a surprise to myself. It was a surprise to many of his fans that he looked like that.

And that also was part of the reason it took off. So it has nothing, well, little to do with the skill, with my skill level or the questions. So you're saying that one took off and that kind of gave you the 1,000, then more. Yeah, yeah. then more yeah yeah so i that may have brought me up to 8 000 subscribers or 7 000 subscribers and then i said but that was everything like i yeah man that was yeah that was plenty still is i now the last question about the podcasting stuff and then we're moving to the next

genre topic uh so I want you to walk me through your financial stuff if you want like what yeah like like like like what like what well how much money this podcast makes and like and all this stuff if you want to talk yeah sure sure so so for the first year not profitable second year profitable and then the third year which has been the last last year barely profitable like super super super duper stressful. And it's because people don't know this, but the main source of revenue for a podcast and maybe even for YouTube channels in general are sponsorships. And I'm unsure how much of this I can say like legally, which is one of the reasons I'm so stressed, so stressed out. But basically, there are people who bring you sponsors.

So I have no problem with any of the sponsors on theories of everything. But there are people who bring you sponsors. They're like sponsor brokers. And there were many miscommunications. And then there's even someone else suing someone else. Like a sponsor broker got a sponsor broker. I have to speak so general about this. But I wasn't even allowed to, I'm not allowed to talk badly about certain people.

And I'm not allowed to search or wasn't allowed to search for my own sponsors. And there was a large, there's so many videos. Like you mentioned, there are many videos that get plenty of views on the channel zero sponsors on them and it's great for the viewer it's not it's not even that great for the viewer because they just skip through sponsor messages if they don't like it it's it's not like it's a drastic improvement in the viewing experience to not to not have a sponsor message but it's everything to a creator to have one or not and i wasn't able to have one and there were some i was doing for free and then you have to it's such a stress was so stressful to even think about

like i'd wake up scratching my head from how stressed out i was and unnerved and frazzled and that seems to be dissipating it's just now dissipating where we're starting to to make it a profitable enterprise so yeah okay very interesting also in my main channel uh the uh my youtube like if we want to talk numbers as well, because I don't have a problem. I'm getting, let's say $25,000, let's say sponsor on the main channel. And every month I'm getting like ad cents of 10, 15,000. So it's like even double and more than double the sponsorships of the income of the creators.

And so, yeah, it's just to drop, help the tree of knowledge there. Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't, I'd be lucky if I see that much in sponsorship over the course of multiple months. But anyhow, so yeah interesting so um we closing the chapter of of the podcasting era yeah sure and i i i consider you one very wise man you talk with so many people so i want to get your take in the questions that you are asking uh the people first of all you interviewed all these people about

the mind body problem idealist physicalist and all this stuff where do you stand well i'm not an idealist i'm not a physicalist i i'm still learning i i i don't to me that that question is like asking a first year student what what theory do they believe in like they have ideas they've heard it but they're still learning and i hope to i hope to be in this stage for the next few years and i i think i will be in that stage and the reason i say hope is because i don't want to prematurely put a one of the worst aspects of university is that they get you to write your phd when you're your most creative so what happens is that you're 22 to 27 when you get to 27 when you start writing your PhD. And what you do with your PhD is you crystallize on a particular thesis, on a particular

subfield of a subfield. And usually develop a point of view that is close to what your advisor is pretty much. But the point is you develop a point of view. That to me is, it's horrible because you should be flying like a bird and exploring. You don't drill down. And as soon as you drill down, you think, okay, well, I'm going to drill down now and then I'm going to explore later. That rarely happens. Rarely, rarely happens. In fact, you get more ensconced and more entrenched. Sorry, you get more entrenched in your view. I'd rather just take an exploratory approach than say, I'm going to live in Papua New Guinea. I'm going to just live there and just or i'm going to live in this mayan

temple and and just live there no i'd rather explore and see what else there is to the world and then come to some conclusions later it's also the the philosophy that i have in mind when i'm interviewing someone so you're asking me about preparing what i tend to do is let's say it's let's say i'm interviewing like i mentioned chiara marletto she's someone who has a theory called constructor theory which is a general framework for for physics what i do is i research and i and i learn as much as i can so that it's like it's as if i've gone it's as if she's a tour guide of and what city are you based in by the way oh i'm in cyprus currently but i live in the united states i was living in los angeles okay so it's as if chiara marletto is a tour guide in los angeles okay so what i could

do is i could just be like let me fly to los Angeles and let's, let's have her show me around. Or what I can do is I can fly there before, like weeks before I learned the ins and outs of different side streets of Los Angeles. And then this way, me and Chiara Marletto get to explore together and there will be nooks and crannies that I don't know. And I can ask about that. So sometimes people would wonder, how is it that I'm able to keep up in the podcasts? It's because I've been there before. Like I know where the Mexican joint is around here or where the KFC is.

So anyway, this exploratory approach is what I take. So you're asking about idealism versus you refuse to take position and to you refuse to uh yeah it's not even that i refuse man it's it's that i i just i know i know so much i know of so many times in my past where i've thought adamantly about, sorry, I believed adamantly in something. I thought so-and-so was the case and it wasn't. And I was so sure about it that it's undermined my confidence. And I just can't, I know too much.

I know as soon as I put up a proposition, I could see five flaws with the proposition. So it's not like I refuse it's i can't i can't so it's foolish of me to ask you as well about the question of free will no that's it's fine it's fine like look there's some people there's some people that that think free will exists and there's some people that don't and it seems like they're arguing about definitions rather than the the science so what what i find interesting is that there's someone like some of the people who say that there is no free will they'll do so by saying look you are determined by factors beyond your control.

And then to me, my question is, well, what defines you? What do you mean you are determined by factors beyond your control? Because if you're a monist or someone who doesn't believe in dualism, like doesn't believe there's mind and then matter, but believe somehow it's all the same, then what's the difference between you and the physical laws? So if you were to say that the physical laws determine you, you don't determine you. Yeah, but what's the difference between you and the physical laws? So in some sense, you are determining yourself. I posed this to Robert Sapolsky, and then he didn't have a satisfactory answer. He didn't. Well, he was thrown by the question. It seemed like it hadn't occurred to him. what I just said. It's not like I believe what I just said, but I'm curious to see what,

when someone says like Robert Sapolsky, that he doesn't believe in free will, I'm curious, have you considered all the arguments against, not all, but have you considered the major arguments against your position? And generally what I find is, is that's not the case. And I'm disappointed because these people are my heroes. And so, but anyhow, yeah, you can ask me as much as you like about free will. So in a way, you believe in everything or you believe in nothing? No, I don't believe in everything and I don't believe in nothing. So you have some positions? Yeah, I have positions. Whether I can articulate them is different.

Yeah, I have positions. Whether I can articulate them is different. And also whether they're confident enough for me to say is also something else, because It's not to say that I believe that there is, but I used to believe that I used to believe with such confidence that there is no free will. But the arguments about, I just don't, I don't understand how one can believe, like,

how can one so assuredly believe that their conclusion that there is no free will is a correct conclusion when it's something that by their own admission depends on the on factors that are so chaotic like the wind in north carolina 300 years ago because of the random bouncing around of particles how does that not undermine their own conviction in their statements so in other words is how do they not feel the tension between it's foolish to have a belief on something that uh and no i'm talking about specifically about the free will specifically about when someone says that there exists no free will because we are determined

by factors that are as arbitrary as whether one brick was placed on the other in barcelona 600 years ago and through some chaotic effects that just influenced whatever you believe now, how can you, how does, how do you not see the tension between your conclusion and the conviction that you hold your conclusion with? So if you're saying, look, if you're saying that my, I don't believe in free will. Why? Well, because, because it rained 500 years ago in this small town. Okay.

Why do you then believe that you don't have, like, why, why does that not undermine your certainty in it? Like you can say you don't believe it but you but it's different to say it so self-assuredly that you're willing to debate people write a book about it go on podcasts okay now now i understand i understand what you mean which is is not i never thought about like that that actually for them to believe that they're 100% sure, it's a bit weird. Yes. Yeah.

And furthermore, in the Robert Sapolsky case, he even admitted that he arrived at his no free will stance when he was an early teenager. And that's something else that he hasn't changed for 50 years. Like why, what else have you arrived at when you were an early teen that you were correct at? Like what is some other theoretical stance on the nature of reality that you believed when you were in your teens that you're still correct about? Almost none of them, if any of them. So the fact that something was arrived at, and also you don't have the cognitive ability to come up with something so rational from first principles.

You do so out of emotion at that age. And maybe even at any age, at least according to some accounts of free will. But anyhow. But anyhow. Wayne, this, I don't want you to refuse to answer because I know you have stuff to say about the AI, the current state and how do you see it evolve? Are you scared?

Are you optimistic? And how do you feel about this? No, I don't know. I don't know. It is worrisome. No, but it's just extremely powerful. It's like the Manhattan Project. I remember Einstein said that he would burn his fingers had he known that what he had signed off as a yes,

like go develop the bomb, what it would actually lead to. He just didn't know the power of his own equations and it's it's not that ai will take over like people are strawmanning on each side man it's not like ai will take over like i robot and they'll embody something and it's isn't it as simple as you can shut it down? Firstly, currently, yes, it is as simple as that. But it also is something that can be used to amplify our own inadequacies and insecurities and malevolent qualities, our own. So it's not as if AI is developed in some vacuum. It's something that we interact with okay

and then also it's not as if some quote-unquote bad actor can't get a hold of of these extremely powerful weapons and then and then third it's not as if there's such a thing as unintended consequences we have no idea when we're dealing with something extremely powerful and almost everyone agrees they're powerful and extremely powerful at that. And that's in their current form. There's this saying that people love to, like, there's this guy named Two Minute Papers on YouTube. I think he so gleefully says, oh, and what a time to be alive he'll say and i'm like oh my gosh man

like you're so optimistic and you you just don't see any downsides you don't talk about them so i can see both sides that it can help cure diseases like advanced cancer research or or help develop a more efficient form of energy or technology that takes up plenty of energy currently yeah and so it's it's it's wonderful so we'll talk more about the problems that can occur should we talk more about the optimism in the current state should we just develop and shut up no i think the people who are developing should think about the consequences of what they're doing. There's a story about the Manhattan Project with Feynman, Richard Feynman. And he was saying, look, we didn't know what we were doing.

Like, we didn't actually care. We had fun writing the equations and writing papers and performing experiments. on writing the equations and writing papers and performing experiments, we didn't think about where is this going to be used and whose lives will suffer. He said that came about afterward. And so the same is with engineers. It's fun. Even with this podcast that I have, it's fun to talk to people. It's fun to deal with ideas. It's fun to research. It's fun to produce something that people seem to find useful. It's fun to deal with ideas. It's fun to research. It's fun to produce something that people seem to find useful. It's fun. It's not fun to think about, well, what are also the negative side effects and just keep that in mind. It doesn't mean that that has to win out.

Daniel Dennett said like, no one, it's like, how are you going to solve the AI alignment problem? How are you going to solve it? Like, what is the good proposal to do it? I don't know. To me, it doesn't mean you'd stop research. I like that people are talking about it. And I like that people aren't talking about it as well. I love to hear, I love it when someone says that it's overblown, that this whole AI fear-mongering is overblown. I love that because I want to hear, I hope that's the case. I want it to be true that it's all just like any other technology, like the calculator when it came out and some people were in upheaval. Great, explain to me why I would love that. great explain to me why i would love that so i'm glad that there's people like yon lacoon from facebook from meta anyhow

so you are kind of happy with what is happening like with the current concern and with the current innovation and with the current optim and with the current optimism as well like you want this to continue this trend as I understand yeah I just want there to be

overall concern and there seems to be that just as there is with anything else and I like that there's concern, and there seems to be that. Just as there is with anything else, and I like that there's people who say that you shouldn't be concerned. Like, there are some people who say you should be concerned about banning guns, and there's some people who say you should be concerned about not banning guns. I like personally I like to hear both sides

and I like it when yeah I like to hear it doesn't mean that there should always be a debate it doesn't mean that we should endlessly debate whether or not the holocaust was a good thing like that's a bit foolish to me at some point you have to put a stake in the ground Larry Page and Elon Musk I don't know if you are aware foolish to me at some point you have to put a stake in the ground uh larry page and elon musk

had i don't know if you are aware a famous argument uh about one larry page see of google being a species and elon musk supporting humans so basically the argument uh it's one second and i just clicked something in the vr word now i'm okay it's funny guys i'm still in the vr so that argument was uh that uh well a lot of page believes let evolution do its thing and if we got get extinct as a species on the way, let it be. And Elon Musk is saying, no, let's make sure 100% that we're going to prevent and make sure this and make sure that humans will be good in the future. So this is, what do you think about this? And do you have any personal opinion about this?

I don't see how, I don see why larry would say that i would need i would need to know more about that position well maybe let's say uh let's say we go uh we stop ai because we want humans to survive or something like that. Maybe we're stopping actually. Imagine the future where the AI and AI was going to. But the point is that, look, it's such a fatalistic. Sorry to interrupt you. No, it's such a fatalistic point of view because Larry's company, Google and Alphabet itself has statements on and being anti climate change. Why do you even care about that? itself has statements on and being anti-climate change why do you even care about that why don't you just say hey let the climate do whatever it like it does and and let's just die in the process

if it's if it's going it's like so to me it seems like he's if that's his claim is that let the chips fall where they may well then let the chips fall where they may don't there's a performative contradiction between that statement and then how the company at least publicizes itself. Well, I just don't see why you can't take that argument and apply it further. If that's the logic, why can't you just apply it in other domains? Like, why not just, why not have, why not eradicate laws? argument and apply it further if that's the logic why can't you just apply it in other domains like why not just why not have why not eradicate laws why not have no traffic because we might stop

something very important on the way let's say the age i will go and colonize the whole universe and find different universes and like let's say that if ai has consciousness then an agi will have consciousness or something like that they were going to stop all this stuff from happening if we don't uh uh if we put some limits now and that's why he said let evolution do its thing because he doesn't want probably to get us to get in a way in all the exponential magic that will happen with this thing yeah well i if that's what his claim is then then i would question where does he get that the val where does he val where does where does he get the value of this exponential magic? Why does he value this exploration of space by AI? Where does that come from? Who's to say that that's more valuable?

Where does this objective morality come from? Or this objective valuation? And now we're coming to the debate that we are having now in the world. Are machines going to be conscious? And if they are conscious, are they have more or less freedom rights than us? Yeah. So the Turing test is less of a test of the computer's intelligence

and more a test of our models of ourself. So, for instance, you can get a five-year-old to be, or well, maybe a three-year-old to be tricked by a Tamagotchi, like Pokemon, a game of Pokemon. They'll think that's alive. But it's not because, like it passed a three-year-old Turing test. But that's just because a three-year-old has a poor self, poor model of itself. a three-year-old has a poor self poor model of itself so the turing test isn't a test of computer intelligence but rather a test of our lack of intelligence okay so you don't think continue i'm sorry for interrupting oh no no no what i was going to say is that it doesn't matter whether like in some ways it matters

obviously whether or not a computer is conscious but what also matters or what matters even more is whether or not we or the majority of people think it's conscious and that can happen well whether does it matter that you are conscious? Yeah. Yeah, it matters. Well, why not? It doesn't matter for a computer to be conscious. No, it does matter. It does matter for a computer. But what I mean is that it matters more that other people think it's conscious.

Why? if other people think that you are conscious it changes you still can experience chocolate yeah well I mean for society at large it matters that people think computers are conscious if people don't think computers are conscious and computers are conscious and computers are conscious, well, that's poor for the computers, but it has less of an impact on society.

Whereas if we think computers are conscious and they're not conscious, it has the same exact effect as if computers were conscious and we think that they're conscious. So? as if computers were conscious and and we think that they're conscious so so what so are computers conscious is that what you're asking me no i want you to explore this idea more because you are it's interesting so so if that's right what you're saying then? This is what I mean with my poor English when I ask. Let me think of an analogy. Yeah, it's tricky because it does matter whether or not they're conscious but it also matters whether or not we think they're conscious so there's a difference so some people have it matters to us or it matters to them to that to us i'm speaking about to us yeah and we have no idea if whatever consciousness they have is going to be the same sort of consciousness.

We have no idea if they have the same continuity of self. So that's something that people just assume, well, a computer can replicate itself. What makes you think that it believes its own replication is going to be an instance of itself rather than a competitor? And that's also an open question. It's something called narrow representationalism. Can you clone yourself? If your clone was just a copy of your brain, would that then be you? Or does the concept of you also have to deal with the external environments and all your

interactions there as well? And so in cognitive science, there's something called the four E's of cognitive science. I don't remember what it used to be, but I know this is considered like the third wave of cognitive science. The four E's of cognitive science. I don't remember what it used to be, but I know this is considered like the third wave cognitive science. The four E's. It's your embodied, your enacted, meaning you have some actions. Your cognition is also action. It's also embodied. So it's part of your body, not just in your brain, not just in your encephalon, I mean. And then it's extended, extended, meaning that we use computers and pens and glasses and so on. Well, glasses aren't a tool.

Yeah, no, maybe that counts. I don't see how the case could be made, though. But your cognition is extended. I forgot what the other E is. So there's embodied, enacted, extended. Embodied, enacted, extended. Someone else can fill in the other E. But the point is that it's not clear to me if you clone someone. Does that clone all aspects of their cognition?

Does that clone them? Does that mean that that new one is them, quote unquote? Is that clone? Yeah, so that's what i'm saying some people think that it's that ai can live forever because it can clone itself it's not clear to me that that a sufficiently advanced intelligence would not also have a different model of what it means to be the self maybe our model of what it means to be some self is super poor just like we think that whatever a three-year-old's model of itself is is super poor so you think this uh is with them uh having, the machines having consciousness is a lot. I'm not sure exactly what you said with that.

I will ask for you to clarify a bit the last thoughts about the three E's and also the last thing that you mean with the whole. What do you mean exactly about that related to the previous conversation? Because I was lost in your beautiful rhythm of thought oh okay so what i'm saying is i'm just saying it's not clear to me that a copy of a program so let's say you have Riverside running right now on your computer and I have it running on mine. And we both say it's, it's Riverside quote unquote running on mine. We say it's Riverside running on yours as if they're just instantiations of Riverside. Okay. Rather than

they're two separate, completely separate so much so that we'd give them a different name. One is Bob, one is Alice. So we think of a compute a compute we often say this you can mind upload or a computer can live forever because it's just a program that the program is just the information we have no idea if that's the case we don't even we don't even if it is the case we don't know if the computer program itself would look at another instantiation of itself another copy as itself or if itself would look at another instantiation of itself, another copy as itself, or if it would look at that as a competitor. In the same way, some twins have twin rivalry. You'd think, oh, why don't they view themselves as,

as look, if I die, at least my twin lives on and therefore I live. But are we sure that they're copying themselves? And maybe it's not just a machine that lives for like, I don't know, and just upgrades or something. Yeah, that's, that's something else. Are you the same person as you were when you were five years old?

There's this great paradox called the paradox of the heap or Soraites paradox. When does, if you have one grain of sand, you just call it a grain of sand but at some point you put enough grains of sand like two three four and you make a heap a heap of sand a little hill of sand at what point was it at the 10th grain was it at the 300th grain at some point you make this arbitrary cutoff and so it's difficult to say yeah that's that's an eight you're raising an age-old philosophical problem that may be the one of the deepest philosophical problems i happen to think it is i think that the the paradox of the heap or sororities paradoxes is at the heart of almost all of our of our contemporary philosophical problems.

Are you ready for the question that I ask all the guests? Sure. I give you $1 trillion with the goal to have the maximum impact, positive impact in the planet. How do you spend it? Okay, so I have one. I think they're both serious answers, but it's going to sound not serious. I'm a germaphobe.

And I just have fantasies. I imagine all the time I fantasize about this, that there are robots that will clean the washrooms because they feel so bad for janitors. I feel so bad, so bad for janitors. I think people mistreat them. They're not paid enough. I think it's like, I can't do that job. I don't know how any, anyhow, geez, what they have to deal with. So I envision robots, and I envision like every aspect of the robot, like how's the robot going to clean itself? Because I don't want people to maintain the robot that's just as bad as you cleaning the washrooms yourself. So I would develop some way of cleaning washrooms so people never have to do that. And some sort of repair of homes and self-construction of homes. Okay, so that's the...

It's somewhat serious, but it's also a facetious answer. But then the other answer is that... Very unique answer, by the way. I never heard anything close to this. Part of it is that I think the quality of your society is the quality which

you take care of your homeless people so you need to build homes and the widows and the orphans there's like a common trope in almost all religions about widows orphans and the homeless so whatever takes care of them so that's one but then the other answer is just that it's too much power and and and i just have to give you the trillion dollars right back. Well, change. And give it to less responsible people. Or you can destroy it. In Harry Potter, the end, he had the most powerful wand.

I think I don't recall what it's called. Someone else can fill that in. The Elder Wand. I think it fill that in. The Elder Wand. I think it was the Elder Wand. Elder Wand. And then he could do whatever he wanted with this wand. And his friends asked him, what are you going to do next? Now that Voldemort is defeated.

And he breaks it and throws it away. And to me, that's the right answer to unlimited power. You break it and throw it away. What about those people that you could help? It's a very poetic, very interesting, very philosophical answer, but people will live with something, I don't know, less in a way, opportunity cost. The problem is that I can't, The problem is that I can't... I don't trust myself to be motivated by goodness.

And it's not clear to me that with a large enough weapon that I would just do more good than harm. And I think that that's always the case. I think that almost it's, it's, it's, it's, it's extremely tricky. I understand. I understand. It's super tricky, super tricky. Well, let's put it. That's why the, So the robots, the self-cleaning robots. And I also, by the way, imagine like I have several solutions to this, man. Like I thought about nanomachines that can build their own toilet and then deconstruct the toilet. So instead, you don't even need to clean the washroom. I have many ideas on this.

So maybe it'll maybe I'll just be like, I'll default back. Like, you know, give me back that trillion. I'll invest in this. This blew my mind, actually. This sunset. Give it back. It's too much power. And also the toilets as well.

Blew my mind. Anyway. I won. Recently, I've been very curious about democracy it's a shitty system if it's if it has hopes to actually

function better and stuff so what are your thoughts about democracy I have no clue man that's a whole other can of worms yeah i don't know so just so you know plato didn't think we should have democracy he thought we should have philosopher kings there's only two people as far as i know in history who thought that and one was thomas hobbes the other was was plato so plato would be the type that would say give me the trillion or give it to someone wise so you will stick by it i don't know but why don't you think about this

when has there ever been the case that someone has positively spent billions of dollars? When has there ever been the case of that? Many people question, I don't know enough about this, but many people question Bill Gates' motivations. Because sure, he's doing good good but he's consolidating global influence and that is more powerful than money at least at least according to some accounts i haven't looked into that the point is that of all the charitable people of all the people who've spent the most money on so-called charity bill gates would be near the top and even those questions and sorry and even those motivations are deeply questioned so you mean you mean about uh he cares more about power

i don't know i'm just i i stay out of that i'm just saying that these are the the different views on it and so what i what my response is to that trillion dollar question is show me a case in history like five cases there should be five at least five cases where someone has done something extremely positive almost unanimously agreed upon with their obscene amounts of money well i i cannot argue that spacex is probably one of this example okay that's one that's right i'm not saying i'm not accepting that i'm just saying that if hypothetically if one was to accept it that would just still just be one one example and and that's a for-profit enterprise you are but yeah i i don't know man it's it's a great question it's a fun one like i'll probably think about it as i am up at 2 a.m no please

it's it's more fun than what i usually do this is more light-hearted and mirthful what about to my question of democracy do you have any thoughts on that except then what plato said that uh enlightened men enlightened monarchy i think that was she's thought right i i don't know I don't know. In religious texts, there's an emphasis on God's kingdom,

which is distinct from human kingdoms. So maybe you pay attention to doing good. Keep your eye on God's kingdom. I don't know so you think democracy is functioning or this functional system i don't know okay i think that i was still asking the case could be made i was still asking the same question in different ways. It's too, the political questions are far too complicated for me. That's, I prefer string theory to political questions. Yeah.

I think there are less variables in string theory than there are in political questions. I think people's answers to political questions are so motivated by their own, are so deeply ingrained by their personalities, which is handed to them by their, in large part by their social environment and their genetics. by factors that they haven't examined, yet they state them with such audacity and unquestioningly they state them as if they're these inexorable truths with conviction they state them with conviction yeah and i don't i don't know if they realize if they weren't so open or were less open in terms of the personality test there's ocean so openness conscientiousness extraversion ext extraversion agreeableness and neuroticism that basically those five in large part determine your your political beliefs and those five are genetic are largely genetic and so let's say 30 of your political beliefs are just because of

something that is way beyond your control the it's it's a can of worms. It's a problem with a thousand different factors. And I prefer the 26 parameters of the standard model. Wow. I never thought that. Yes, that's probably right that uh democracy or all these political questions are a lot more complex because they have so much more variables uh in comparison to some scientific problems yeah they also come down to values i don't know how the people justify their values and then when someone will say well i just wanted to produce less suffering. Well, then what is it? A utilitarian view? So it's just

whatever produces less suffering as a whole. So what if I was to say that there was some alien civilization that would benefit tremendously off of our own global suffering, but their consciousness is far beyond ours and they get pleasure out of it. Are saying that that's okay like you can perform so many thought experiments that demonstrate lack of a lack of coherent a lack of cohesion in in most world views maybe in all of them i don't know yeah this goes back to these thoughts that I have that are just, it leaves me a straddle, yeah, a straddle and tentative because I can see, I can see inadequacies. They just come to me. That's why interviewing people is so easy because. Because it's so easy to formulate questions.

They just occur like three instantaneously when someone says something. I just have to hold myself back. Podcasting is in some ways super hard because I can't ask all the questions I want to. But it's extremely easy because I have an abundance of them. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people struggle to come up with something to ask. For example, my father has a big problem with asking questions.

He sits there. He doesn't ask questions. But you see him having no, no, zero problem to come up with millions of questions at once on that. And I have an exercise a bit later that I'm curious to see that in action. But for now, kind of to close this chapter, I wanted to ask you, because you think very deeply about stuff. And I'm not sure if I understood

if you are an optimistic person or a pessimistic person I would say optimistic and one of the reasons is is because it seems like there are aspects of this world which are self-fulfilling prophecies in which case it pays to be optimistic so you are not optimistic you just saw that being optimistic is better and that's why you are optimistic hmm it well it seems to be the case that... Okay, there exists a phenomenon called self-fulfilling prophecies. It's unclear to me how much of the world comprises these.

By the way, I'm also inconsistent, terribly inconsistent, so it's... Yeah, I'd say i'm optimistic overall but i but optimistic to what i don't know humans may be annihilated but i'm optimistic that if it was to be annihilated it would be for the good and it would still work out for us in the end it would still work out like i have faith that even when it doesn't work out it will still work out i don't i don't know how to square that oh pretty satisfied with the answer and now for the moment that everyone has been waiting for and me included i won two you're to take this off in two two one and a half hour actually which is very exciting

so I'm curious because you can understand how emotionally excited I am about this taking it off for 30 days in a VR headset I'm curious to see what you are curious about me doing this challenge for 30 days.

I want to know, are you sleeping with it on and then opening your eyes and that's what you're seeing first? Sleeping, showering. I didn't take it off for the last 30 days. How do you shower with that on though? I shower under here. And sometimes I shower three times my hair.

So I went to the barber shop and they have these things that they do the hair. So I disconnected this part and I was holding the front and they showered my hair. So I never took this headset off for the last 30 days. And I was live streaming consistently on my channel so people make sure okay well yeah i'm just i'm i'm like i'm curious to know what your eyesight's going to be like right afterward and how how long it will take to get adjusted because i know that when i just stare at my screen for a few hours, it hurts my eyes. And then I can't even look.

Yeah, my vision gets blurry. So I'm super curious. I wish you the best. I'm just curious. I hope that it's great for you because then it means I can stare at my screen longer. I can study for longer. There's hope. I can study for longer. There's hope. So, uh, so I just want to point out some small things, uh,

for this. I'm not sure this has never been done before, so I don't know. Maybe I'm hurting myself too much. So guys don't try this at home that you are watching. And I... Oh, yeah. Just out of... Disclaimers. I do this stuff, by the way, out of curiosity because I want to see and taste and put my toes, keep my toes into the future. So with wearing this headset, I feel that we're not going to have phones in the future because

it's very convenient to see everything like now i'm like bringing even with my dashboard here i have my dashboard in front of me by the way i'm recording this on my headset as well so people after they will see what i'm watching now and i can click instagram i can close instagram i can open whatsapp and it's super convenient to have like a big screen in front of you and position it everywhere that you want so with doing these things and kind of uh seeing uh uh how the future looks like by the way i just want to say like this was hugely hugely impactful for me like you're the way that you do things the way that you see things deeply and the way that you do your podcast as well as inspires me as well to do a lot of things and probably you don't think about

this uh your impact that you have to others with your podcast. I had a podcast there a few months, but it's very exciting for me to have this opportunity. And now with the last question, you are going to die after this podcast. And if you actually die in like 10, 20, 30 years from now, people can come back and look at this 30 40 seconds to hear your message now what you have to say this yours this 30 40 seconds was your actual last words what you had to say to the Well, it would be to my wife. I would direct it to my wife and I would say, I love you. And it would be okay.

Everything will be okay. If it was to the world, I don't, I don't, I, I, If it was to the world, I don't, I don't, I, I, be good locally and take care of the widows and orphans and the homeless. Have some criteria that when you interact with, with a homeless person, you give some amount of money, something like that, like have some rules about that. And help the, help the, the people who need help. I understand that that's some, that stands or seems to stand in contradiction with the trillion dollar throwing away,

but I think there's something much, there's something more powerful about, yeah, about us, about us all, about doing our part, doing one's part. And that's different and that's different it's different it's more meaningful way way more meaningful and i just don't trust myself with the money but anyway that's all it would be directed to my wife, if anything. Thank you so much. I love you. Thank you for your time. And I wish you to have the best 2024 of your life. Thank you, man. You as well, man. Take care. If you enjoyed this and you would like to hear more from me, then there are a couple examples

of me being interviewed. One is coming up. You've heard me interview Jesse Michaels. Well, Jesse Michaels interviewed me one year ago, and we're going to be mirroring it on this platform. Also, there are Ask Me Anythings, and you can just search on YouTube or hear AMA's Kurt.