Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - Tevin Interviews Curt on Consciousness, Podcasting, and UFOs

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

In this episode Curt is interviewed by Tevin Naidu on Consciousness, Podcasting, and UFOs.YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-tnoEUZQqkPlease consider signing up for TOEmail at https://www.curtjaimungal.org  Support TOE: - Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal (early access to ad-free audio episodes!) - Crypto: https://tinyurl.com/cryptoTOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE - TOE Merch: https://tinyurl.com/TOEmerch  Follow TOE: - *NEW* Get my 'Top 10 TOEs' PDF + Weekly Personal Updates: https://www.curtjaimungal.org - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theoriesofeverythingpod - TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theoriesofeverything_ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/better-left-unsaid-with-curt-jaimungal/id1521758802 - Pandora: https://pdora.co/33b9lfP - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Subreddit r/TheoriesOfEverything: https://reddit.com/r/theoriesofeverything  

Good. What is a theory of everything? So in the physics sense, it just means that there are some fundamental rules to the universe, usually mathematical. And these are what underpin every other phenomenon that we see. Now phenomenon in the physical sense, maybe consciousness is not considered to be part of the physical. That's people put it as people put asterisks on that called the hard problem or the mind body problem, which is the hard problems like a rebranding of the mind body problem that somehow

he got away with. And everyone applauds it as if it's completely original. But anyhow, many people can think of go there's a game called go or chess. And what we see are castling and we see odd moves here and there we don't know how does that come about we see the large-scale strategies like okay control the center maybe we see that maybe that's something reducible like that's force F equals ma but then what underlies that you can move a pawn forward by one or two but only two in the beginning so So there's all these exceptions. Like at first in the forties or fifties, there was someone named Wu who found that the, that

right-handed neutrinos or right-handed particles, cobalt, cobalt 60, I believe was treated differently kind of something called chirality. So left-handed particles and right-handed particles experience different there's an asymmetry there. And then someone found, okay, well, if you also reverse the charges so that you get anti particles, then there's a symmetry and it's called CP symmetry. Then 10 years later, they're like, Oh shoot, CP symmetry is violated. So there's all these, it's akin to you move the pawn. We think it only goes up one inch, but then it turns out it can go up two but actually only when it's the first move and actually also you can also take diagonally called the en passant yeah which is not the same as a regular diagonal trade

but go is more accurate because go is simpler and has more variety. And I think the reason why mathematicians or physicists don't speak about go as an analogy for the physical laws and come back to chess is because I, my subtle, my, I think that go is too akin to send the cellular automata and then people don't like to give an inch to Stephen Wolfram when you're from the Academy. So they'll stick to chess because the Academy wants the proposed solutions to toes to come from the Academy. Yeah. That's it's it's a fascinating point that you bring up because I find that that's a particular focus of your channel. Overall, it's to try. I mean, it's called theories of everything

I'm pretty sure almost all my listeners and viewers probably know it because Always recommended immediately after one of my videos always one of my highly recommended channels after mine So to my viewers every time I go into my statistics, you're always there. So our channels are so similar and I think We're both playing the same game at just different levels. I think of theories of everything, sort of a mind body solution is like a mind body solution light. I mean, sorry, I think mind body solution is like a theories

of everything light. Kind of like just bring it. What makes you say that? I think that you're approaching it a lot more mathematically and physically. Well, with physics. And because of that undergrad, I know you did an undergrad in physics.

So I know that you at least have a better foundational training in it. In med school, we did physics and chemistry, but not at the level you would want. I always wanted to be an astrophysicist. That was something I always wanted to do. So I was always jealous of those people who got to really study mathematics and physics a bit deeper at a university level. So I think

you're able to take it further because of that. And I'm approaching it from a slightly more psychological philosophical mind body perspective, pretty much trying to do the same thing, though, we're trying to both figure out What is this ultimate theory of everything? I know a part of it for you is trying to also find a worldview and and in this quest What is the German word again?

Beltanschauung. Yes, and I know you want to do that and I think it's pretty similar for me. I Did I did a post grad? My master's in one of my theories was on consciousness and I mean rest in peace to Daniel Dennett He was one of my heroes and a lot of a huge chunk of that a piece on consciousness For my dissertation was focused on his work his books out behind me He's he's he was an icon to me. In fact, there was a time where I almost called this podcast, uh, quite in quality. Uh, were you able to speak to Dan? I chatted him, I chatted to him via email and we never got the chance to finally book that session.

So it's kind of disappointing because we only got to chat via email. I watched your episode. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, that's one of the he's one of those people I really, I think if I had to put someone on the right at the top of the list to have on this show, it would have been Daniel Dennett. So that's it's such a shame. And it happened so quickly. I know it was such a shock to me. I mean, I remember chatting to him via email not too long ago. So it is pretty, very absurd to me. I lost my train of thought completely. Oh, yeah. So for me, you mentioned the you mentioned toe, and you asked the question of what is a toe? And that's different to what is the toe channel? So the toe channel, the theories of everything channel is, is a, it's

has the veneer of a podcast, but I view it like a project and a large, a large part of that project is research. Eventually it's going to be contributing research. There's some large plans for that, which I'll tell you about off there that will be announced in a couple of months. But anyhow, yeah, yes. Yeah, yes. I took growth and deke had this quote, which said, I'm not, I'm not doing research. I'm cultivating myself. So in a large, so in a, in another, another perspective is that what theories of everything is, is a selfish project of me developing my own Veltan Shaung. And it outwardly takes currently the form of a podcast. I think that's, it's similar for me.

It's a, it's very, this was my opportunity to sort of explore this for myself. It was just to indulge my own curiosity with regards to the mind body problem. I was so obsessed with this growing up. What is consciousness? What is reality? And these fundamental questions that I figured

the best way to sort of go about it would be to chat to the people who are supposedly the experts in this field. And the more you chat to people, you realize they're all on different pages. Nobody's, there's so much, there's so many different theories out there. And as close as we get, I often feel that we're still so far away. Yeah, initially, I had listed the theories of everything that I

well, that occurred to me, there was approximately 12. And then. I thought, well, man, I'm going to exhaust this in 12 episodes. I thought that it would be. It turns out it's more difficult to find someone who doesn't have a theory of everything. Especially in the comment section. Yeah, exactly. I find exactly the same problem. Though I enjoy when people email me their theories, like I catalog them, I classify them, and I am not like Brian Green where I turn my nose to people who have

theories who have toes. I think that the innovations will come from the fringes, and the academic center will verify it. It's a good way to look at it. And I think's It's the same for me. I mean I get emails from some philosophers or professors Who want to chat about the mind body problem and it's always exciting when someone approaches you and has this this theory to offer But then it means a lot more work because you have to dig deep Read all their papers try and figure out this whole new brand of thought And it becomes quite exhausting and I think that's the reason why I took the break from this podcast I mean, you're my first guest back in about six months. It's it's crazy that time flies that

fast But yeah, I mean, I where'd you go? No, no way I literally just focused on work trying to get my mental health back in order Get back into working out a bit more regularly trying to get back into my best mental and physical shape. And it worked. I mean, I feel a lot better, I am better. And you don't see it, I mean, because my channel is still quite young.

I mean, I feel I do everything, editing, thumbnails, all of it. So everything's done by me. This is just a self- soft rotating system. So the exhaustion has took its toll. I mean, working as a full-time doctor to try and get back to this channel that has almost nothing to do with medicine most of the time. There are times where I try and bring in and tie in practical significance to it. But for the most part, this is out of my work. So it's like I have to live almost two lives every day. I got a bit too much.

Well, also, so explain to me what is it that took its toll on you, specifically? I think the amount of because just like you, I'm so obsessed with this topic, man. I love it too much. So when someone tells me a theory or someone proposes some sort of a mind body solution, I mean a solution to a mind body problem for all those who don't know the term, it's I go in-depth. I try and read all the books.

I try and read all the papers. I make notes. I try and ensure that I understand it as best as I can. And sometimes I don't. So I think the amount of effort that goes into it behind the scenes because people see the final product of course and it just looks like a natural conversation but behind the scenes I'm just burning out trying to understand things and yeah it takes its toll on your mental

health and I think the more you understand theories of everything or solutions to the mind body problem the more it can toll on your mental health. And I think the more you understand theories of everything or solutions to the mind-body problem, the more it can also affect your mental health from a philosophical perspective. Because psychologically, if you start applying any of the new philosophies you've learned, that has a whole nother spiraling effect. I mean, you can imagine listening to all these theories

of everything, how has that impacted the way you see reality? Because I'm pretty sure it will have some sort of a change or a shift in your mind that can almost de-realize someone. Almost, it's an understatement. So jostled, constantly jostled. For me, it's not the studying that's difficult. It's that my mind is so or least used to be still is like I have to fight it in a sense. Maybe fight is not the right word,

but intend with it extremely open. And academics tend to use or see that as a virtue. I don't think it's a virtue. I think it's firstly, I don't think they have it. They have this quality because as you know, there's people will say that so and so it doesn't make sense. I don't get that. That that's impossible. I went to Paris recently.

It's hilarious because in Canada or in the States and almost anywhere else, when you want something, like you want water, they'll say no. They'll make a rejection of you, a rejection statement. But in Paris, they'll say something metaphysical. I'm like, oh, can I just share this with my wife? They'll be like, it's like, Oh, can I just share this with my wife? It seemed possible. Not possible. Say, Oh, well, that's like deep, man. It's not possible. The structure of reality is such that you cannot share this meal with

your wife like you have to order to anyhow. Being told what's possible what's not possible and then seriously taking it on It places me in a Lubricious place where I'm a straddle and variable and That's not it's not pleasant for me. It's a well That was And still is the most difficult part. It's one of the reasons why I haven't pursued consciousness studies as much on the channel. It's, it's, yeah, it takes its toll. Yeah. Also, when it comes to the thinking part,

you mentioned that it's difficult to study for all these people. And for me, I find the proportional, sorry, I find it's proportional to how original is the thinker. So the more original the person, the less comprehensible they are. And that's because their self developed toes are impenetrable and they're unfathomable. They are generally thought of alone and they have to then bounce their own thoughts off of their own walls incessantly and they come up with their own terminology and their own framework. They don't have a society of other people called your peers in academia or your colleagues to then test, but also make a comprehensible what what their framework is. But it doesn't mean it's the

same as word salad. That's what some people will say. I find that so, find that quite foolish or well, to me, the true test isn't how difficult is the language to parse. The true test is can you then state someone's theory back to them in a manner that they would agree. So my wife, for instance, has no knowledge in biology or math. If I'm listening to someone like Michael Levin, who me and you would both say is a fairly clear speaker, she would view that as that's just gibberish because there are words like mitochondrial DNA expression that are not in her vocabulary or she they are but extremely surface level. And then if you're a high school student and you watch something from a third year undergraduate

level you have no idea how to disembroil that from something that's at the graduate level or at the PhD level. It all looks like nonsense to you. You don't even know if it's math or computer science or physics. So Seinfeld said this in another way. He said when you're on stage, someone was asking, doesn't make a difference how large the crowd is. He said, when you're treading water, it doesn't matter if it's five meters deep or 5,000 meters deep. It's the same to you. So in that sense, when something is just mildly incomprehensible, it's almost equivalent to being extremely incomprehensible.

There's a threshold. Yes. It's also when you have your own sort of theory of everything or you already come in with a preconceived, I salute you to the mind body problem. That's what I found most intriguing with starting this podcast was how my own theory of consciousness and what I wrote in my own dissertation

as I was fundamentally illusionist. And that was where I stood in consciousness. Yeah, that's why I wrote so much on Dennett, quoted Keith Frankish quite a bit, a lot of other philosophers. And then everything just started changing, consistent, like a week by week, new theories of consciousness.

When I finally sat down, tried to put myself in the shoe of this philosopher or this thinker, my views just continuously started changing. Now I just call myself ontologically agnostic. I just don't know. I really don't anymore. And when I wrote that dissertation, I remember being very confident that this is the answer.

Hi. I have a feeling that I know, but I don't know that I know. So this phrase, I don't know. Again, that's another statement that I see academics use and they view that as a virtue again. And I don't know. I don't know how much of that they mean and how much of it is just something they have to say like, well, there are many platitudes one has to say in order to be accepted. It's something socially, genteel, honestly, it'll be genteel and politic, political, sorry. Well, yes,

politic, not political. And the reason I say that is that you have to know something in order to not slip. That's part of partly what it feels like is actually slipping mentally. And they're not slipping. They're walking around and they're fine and they're confident. So I don't know how much of this uncertainties professed uncertainty is just feigned self directed skepticism, but it's it's manufactured. Yeah. The deep. Oh, yep. Sorry, good. Okay, so something I've come to recently. Weinberg, Steven Weinberg had a statement that said when he was a graduate student, he thought he had to learn every theory. And

by the way, that's okay. A hidden project of theories of everything is to learn every theory that's ever been theorized. So Steven Weinberg thought he has to have to know more, more and more and more. And the reason why I mentioned learn every theory that's ever been theorized is because I thought that I was unique in that. And then Feynman apparently on his blackboard had solved every problem that's ever been solved. And I'm like, okay, that's cool.

But that's a bit too practical. I'm a bit more abstract. And that untethers me from the ground. So that's a character flaw. But anyhow, Weinberg said that he used to think that in order to do research, he had to know more and more and more. And once you get to a certain level for him, it was, I don't know, when he was 35 or so, he realized how much he didn't need to know. And I and that's that struck me because in some sense, the theories of everything

channel is a statement of my own naivety, naivete that I'm so immature that I think I need to know everything. Theories of everything. And Weinberg can also be thought of as a variation on on Socrates. Socrates said, I know now that I know nothing. But Weinberg is like, I know, I know now that I don't need to know everything. So I'm not at that level yet. I still feel like I need to know. And there's plenty of reasons. There's insecurity, there's drive, there's necessity. there's drive, there's necessity. But yeah, I'm a sedulous Jim Rapp for toes. It's all I do.

Prior to starting the podcast, did you have, what was your go-to toe? Did you have one? No, I had the ideas of them. I thought loop quantum gravity was a toe because I was so uninformed. And I thought maybe string theory would be the major toe. That was always the one that I wanted to build up to. Then there was Wolframs that just came out right at the inception of the channel. Eric Weinstein's, Garrett Vesey's. So those were the ones that I was interested in understanding. I think that was then sorry, then Donald Hoffman came about and Valtan Shungs and Ian McGilchrist and John Vervecky.

And how did that impact your health? Because I know you're saying that at some point you tried your best to sort of tread away from the consciousness aspect of it. Is it for that very similar reason you you feel like it does? It sort of lifts you off the ground a bit too much. That the tethering is almost being completely removed at that point. It's only for that reason that I've backed away from it. That's the only reason. And I haven't backed away completely. I've just listened because I can only do how much I can handle. Which is which for me is pretty much impossible.

I mean I've premised my entire show on this and it does. What would you say is the difference between the heart problem and the mind body problem? I think it's more difference of time because the heart problem, there's always been heart problems, various aspects. I mean, Newton had a heart problem, but not dealing with the actual topic of consciousness. So I think for Newton, it was gravity. I mean, I can't remember exactly which part of it, but in sort of physics, philosophy, back in time,

hard problems were just difficult problems to answer. So I do believe that framing the hard problem of consciousness, and when I wrote about it, I spoke about the fact that there is technically no hard problem, because the real hard problem is trying to answer all the easy problems. What is an emotion? What are thoughts?

What are all these other things? I mean, we're struggling. We're trying to answer this fundamentally huge question when we still don't have the answers to all the easy problems. So a big part of mine was this obsession of trying to. And I don't really know if I hold this view anymore. This is the tough one. You see, it's trying to, and I don't really know if I hold this view anymore, that's the this is the tough part, you see, is trying to talk about my views on these things when I really don't really know what I think about it anymore, but when I wrote

about it, I remember fundamentally saying that the explanatory gap, for example, the hard problem, these are just terms used to sort of, to sort of hide our ignorance. And when we don't know how to explain something, it's very easy to give it a definition. And that's something I remember, Denit, really. I think it was in your channel where you might have said that definitions, like maybe calm down on the definitions.

I'm not sure, was it in yours? Yeah, and try and hold back on that that and I love the idea of defining concepts But I sometimes do think when we when we try to define certain things We don't know we get stuck trying to figure out things that don't need to be known and Because the question was what is the mind-body problem versus the heart problem the mind-body problem is pretty much How is it possible that the psychological system is? sort of manifested or

repelled from a Biological system so how a psychological phenomena linked to material phenomena, and it's important to be clear, because some people think that materialism and physicalism are the same thing, but they're not really. Just to give you an example. What would be the difference? Yeah, just to give you an example,

one would be something like semi-field theory with a guy named John Joe McFadden. He thinks that consciousness is an electromagnetic information field. Now that is not material because he looks to matter, meat, as non-material. Because you can't really talk about fields as a material phenomenon. But it is physical in the sense, from the philosophical sense. Now this is where I find definitions start becoming problematic.

Because they both clearly mean the same thing, but we're using certain keywords and phrases to separate them, but they are the same thing. If you're talking about something physical, you are talking about something material. So to answer your question, I actually don't have an answer for it. The difference between the mind-body problem

and the heart problem, It's the same thing. It's it's we're just reframing the same problem in a different in a different way. What would you say is? Now I know that I don't want to interview. I do actually desperately. So let me just take this opportunity. What would you say is an insight that you've gleaned over the past six months that have not come from the channel that you'll use on the channel

or you'll carry with you to the channel? I think being patient and taking my time. I realized how much time was left open to me during, obviously I finished work, I'm based in South Africa, all my guests, I think I've only had two South Africans on the show, all my guests are from various aspects of the world and all my interviews took place in the afternoons because I have to work full-time job during the day, so I would try my best to fit them in

at 1 a.m., 2 a.m. Didn't matter the time. If I wanted to nail down that guest, I would do whatever it took to have that conversation. But it just means you just feel like your next day is completely gone. You've wasted sort of weeks and they fly by. These last six months have felt like

the longest six months ever because I was actively engaging with so many things that felt like I was less on autopilot and rather more cognitively engaged with everything around. So this time what I plan to do is is just interview less people far less often. But keep the thing going regularly. And that's that's I would say that's the main takeaway from that. And so less often means how how many per month? Oh, well, I was doing weekly

prior to this. I'm either thinking of going even more than than myself prior to six months ago? I don't know how you did it. I was doing weekly, so it was new episodes weekly. Every Friday I was posting one. I mean, it was tough. I think, luckily, now, even right now, I've got a bunch of episodes ready and I'm slowly

even uploading. I uploaded one the other day just because I decided to start start doing this but these were pre-recorded last year. So I Even have some that are left over that I just haven't posted because I just decided I need a break and for the new year Let me just start this. I hate New Year's resolutions. I don't really I don't really do that as a thing But I figured for this year. Let me just try and do be mind-body problem-free thing. But I figured for this year, let me just try and do be mind body problem free. Well, New Year's resolutions, despite what people say they work. Yeah, I mean, it did for the first week. It clearly worked for me. Six months. It's been a while. Six

months is a long time. I'm actually going to open up when if you do want to ask me about that question, I'm going to open up my own because I've never really spoken about it before. But my own dissertation is there's a quote. I mean, this obviously to pay homage to Dennett, I mean, Mr. Guy, I'm going to miss him debate. What were your thoughts chatting to him by the way. I was taken aback by that. He doesn't care too much about definitions because as a philosopher, as a, I was surprised as a mathematician or a physicist, your definitions come first.

Generally speaking. But my understanding of what he was saying was that, you know, prematurely get fixated on definitions. One of the reasons would be something like, imagine if your definitions are representations of reality that are, that don't have truth in, in and of themselves, but the reality belongs sorry, but the truth belongs to the reality. Like say this cup here, if you were to shine the light from the top, it's a circle from the side. It's a rectangle. Okay from another angle. It's some amorphous blob

If you were to take the circle as the definition of this well, that would be a bit Premature you wouldn't realize that the rectangle and this are the same. Perhaps you should examine what you're speaking about from Multiple angles you would say the scientific angles speaking to different types of, speaking to different types of scientists, speaking to different types of philosophers, and get an understanding of it. Maybe even an intuitive understanding because you never capture it from enough angles to accurately represent it, but you can get a gist inside you. It can motivate you at the bones at your, at your, at your system. I don't like like this this term, but sorry, system one or system two, there's one that's fast and one that's slow.

It'll it'll incorporate you at your slow level. Other than that, I was happy to I was I was extremely interested in peering through his mind. I find that illusionism is a is a misnomer every time I hear an illusion like what I thought

illusionism was was someone saying consciousness does not exist but then it turns out what they're saying is consciousness is not what it appears to be and then that just becomes like a trivial statement to me it's almost anyone because we all know about illusions like the Necker cube or that you can make someone see you. Well, you can take psychedelics and you can see some waviness in the world, or you can do some visual optical illusion or auditory illusion. So there's the cutaneous rabbit. I don't know if you know about that one where you have someone touch different parts of your arm at different points and at different times. And then somehow it feels like it's a continuous touching.

I think that's how it goes. Or that you skip one of the dots. I forgot how that illusion goes, but it just it seems self-evident. How else? Oh. Yeah, OK, well, I'll tell you something that he told me off here. How else? Oh, yeah. OK, well, I'll tell you something that he told me off air, off air. But that I was looking forward to and then no longer can it happen because. Of his passing. Yeah. I mean, I've got a quote in front of me.

Consciousness is an illusion of the brain, for the brain, by the brain. Yeah. I mean, I've got a quote in front of me here. Consciousness is an illusion off the brain, for the brain, by the brain. That's one that Dennis once wrote in his book. So when I started mine, I wrote it was on the illusion of consciousness. I started with the Friedrich Nietzsche quote. Truths are illusions, which we have forgotten are illusions. That was how start of this thesis and then went over to say,

the word illusion comes from old French, from Latin, with the original word illudere, meaning to mock or to play against. In Middle English, it was translated to mean deception or deceiving. In modern psychiatry, we agree on illusion being a misinterpretation of our sensory inputs when it does not correspond to our reality or to reality.

Ironically, it is within shared illusory perceptions that we seem to agree on what reality is. This irony has been thoroughly exposed by phenomena such as change blindness or inattentional blindness, for all those who don't know, where people fail to acknowledge changes in the appearances of even pronounced objects, visual objects, in a scene.

People's inclination to incorrectly but unknowingly confabulate reasons or recall inaccurate memories in an attempt to explain situations wherein they lack conscious awareness of the actual reason behind their decisions. Sorry, I've lost where I was with that. I'm just reading you this first intro, that's it. I'm not gonna go through this whole thing, obviously.

Just to give you an idea of where I was headed with this thought At some point, are you going to go over your dissertation on the channel? I Was thinking about doing that at some point. It was it was a thought I thought of making it maybe into a some sort of a clip and just go into what illusionism actually is from what I meant it to be. Cause I think there's a big misunderstanding, as you said, people tend to think that they're talking about an illusion of consciousness, but the way Frankish defines it, the way Dennett and them sort of saw it was more,

there's an illusion with the actual problem that we're talking about. So the terms that the people are using and talking about, those are the problems where the illusion occurs. It's not necessarily that we're saying, or that, not me anymore, but it's not necessarily that they're saying that this phenomenal experience does not exist.

It's more that whatever you're calling it or how you're assessing it is the actual problem. That's where the illusion actually lies, which doesn't answer the question anyway. So we still don't, we still end up with the question of what is consciousness. There are two answers that people generally take when it comes to problems like this. One is that you'll say that people will say, well, the problem is our language and language

can never capture language diminishes. What you need to do is you need to meditate or experience. Then there's the other prong, which says, yeah, we've said that about many phenomenon in the past, and actually what was the case was that we needed a more explicated language so that we can dexterously use it and then accurately describe something. Whereas prior maybe we wouldn't have seen gravity as a phenomenon or force or centripetal force or centrifugal force, and then we needed the explicated language of, of math, and then physics to describe that we wouldn't have even noticed it prior. Or if we did, we would have just thought of it all as, well, these are the, the workings of God, or these are

the workings of nature. So where do you land on that debate? In other words in other words is our language delusive and needs and watered down and so what we need to do is experience directly Or do we need to explicate further and refine? And that's what's holding us back from this Problem like even saying what is consciousness as if consciousness is just one There are several kinds of consciousness aspect, aspectual, sorry, aspectual access, self-consciousness, higher order. Exactly. So adjectival, etc. Like it's not clear to me where the problem lies.

That's I think that's something I often say, which is I think linguistically, we do have a limitation to express this. And when you look at ancient cultures like Sanskrit, the number of punctuations, the number of the vocabulary, the diversity of the language in itself provides you with more information to sort of explicator or generate a theory that would be better understood by most people.

So I think there might be a limitation in what we can achieve with English for example I do think this limits us from fundamentally understanding the true nature of reality because I mean we're basically stuck with this if this is your first language if you look at German I mean you're using that word to describe what you want to do with your channel overall it's because German actually has these words I mean you're using that word to describe what you want to do with your channel overall. It's because German actually has these words, I mean these there's words for phrases, these beautiful explanations for these complex phenomenon and I think that's a very key factor when it comes to trying to generate any theory.

Well when it comes to these, when people say that there are different languages that have different concepts than we do, generally what they mean is not that there are words that are untranslatable, but there are single words that are that don't have a single word correspondence in English, but or or whatever language language, but for for instance, even Veltan Shao, you can just expand that into 12 words in English. I haven't found a word in another language that you couldn't express with more than, with maybe a paragraph or so, maybe even a whole page if necessary. But still it's expressible. I haven't found that.

I started cataloging what are supposed to be untranslatable words like the feeling of the morning sun when it's dewy out and that's awful in the language of Dubai. I don't know. I'm just making it up. But look, we were able to describe it. We just don't have a single word for that. So are you saying that there's something about English or any language, but in this case, English that there's something about English or any language, but in this case, English, that you can't even understand the concept from another language. I think it renders the challenge a lot more harder. It becomes a lot more difficult and requires a lot more effort, work, and then makes beyond far greater of a challenge overall. Bro, I could have best explained it.

There's. I think that I'll give you an example. Sorry, you're going to explain, please go, go, go ahead. Okay. So there are, you could say, look, to create the pyramids of Egypt or a skyscraper in Toronto, in this case where I am, is difficult because of the limitations of our arms and our heart rate and whatever it may be that it boils down to. However, collections of us were able to do it and it just took a certain amount of time

and planning. So is it the case? Like, do you believe that there's something that's that we won't know because of the limitations of our language in principle? Or is it, hey, actually, we have the legals. It's just, it's going to take you 50,000 years to just build up Earth from small legos. But you have the Legos. You actually have the pieces currently. That's there's a there's a in physics, there's a debate where do we know, do we have enough of the language of the tools to currently,

do we actually have the pieces was more framed in terms of do we have the piece, the mysteries, the pieces of the puzzle that we just need to put them together? Or is there something that we're missing when it comes to data? Some people think that since the 70s, actually, ever since the standard model was put together, ever since you had su three, this is something Eric Weinstein says whenever you had su three, you actually had all the pieces together. But other people will phrase it differently. The point is that some will say we're missing some pieces.

So we require more. Some will say there's an inherent limitation. Some will say it's just difficult like building a skyscraper on your own. Well, or even with teams of people's, it's a tough endeavor, but it's achievable. It just takes organization and time. So where do you land? I think, well, to bring it back to what I wrote about, just to give you a nutshell of what I spoke about in my dissertation, it was I used a lot of Carl Friston's work, a lot of the free energy principles spoke about psychiatry's defense for illusionism as a theory of consciousness. The main premise and the main goal was to showcase the flaws in logic, fallacies in thought,

and the issues with predictions, perception, and our own perception of reality in general. And then sort of turn that around to showcase how we will fundamentally be unable to solve many problems, the mind body problem being the main one, but even it would have applied back when I wrote it in 2021 to theories of everything. Because of these heuristic adaptations, because of these, well, heuristic adaptations are a big one,

evolutionary limitations, think about it, Kurt, the optical window, we can only see ROYGBIV. There's one fundamental fact, has us trapped only seeing this electromagnetic radiation. It's kind of disappointing. I mean, wouldn't you love to see what UV rays really look like if you had this ability to sort of absorb those rays somehow.

So these biological limitations. And then also poor processing power. I mean, our brains don't do, they don't do the best job at creating a structural, confirmed, veridical truth for us. They're always playing tricks on us. We're always consistently creating these narratives in our head. And I

think it's because of these cumulative non- I sound pessimistic as well. I think it's these cumulative disappointing features within us that we will not be able to answer the most fundamental questions, which is kind of sad because that's what the goal of this podcast is for me. And I just love talking about it though. And I think that's what makes it selfish in that sense is that I just wanna talk about it and I don't have friends here to do it with.

So I can't. I know how that feels, man. Yes, and a similar to you, I can't chat about it to my girlfriend. She's an anesthesiologist. I mean, she's an expert with biology in that sense of anesthesiology, physiology. But if I'm talking about Michael Levin's work,

it's got nothing to do with her stuff. So I found this to be that outlet. This is finally the place I can talk to, to the people who I know want to talk about this. Man, I wish I had in-person friends to speak to about these topics. I'm relegated to WhatsApp, the occasional WhatsApp message. And I have like I have fantastic people on my WhatsApp and they inform me. And then the comment section.

One of the reasons why I used to heart every single comment was because I wanted to read every single comment because they informed me. There are not only criticisms of foolish behaviors or mannerisms of mine that I need to eliminate that I was not self-aware enough or whatever. They're cringe-worthy to read, but they were helpful as much as they hurt me not only for that but also because some people would say like here's an example there was a Google AI scientist recently on the channel whose name is Hartmut Nevin and he proposes that he's his theory is the opposite of Penrose's I even described it as that in my introduction because Pen Penrose and hammer off would say consciousness is produced from the formation from the collapse of a superposition down to a single possibility. Hartmut thinks it's the opposite. It's when you have two quantum systems that come together and become entangled. So superposition forms.

two quantum systems that come together and become entangled. So superposition forms. Then someone said, Oh, firstly, I love that. I just love when there's a theory that you're told that it's not only incorrect, but it's fundamentally opposite to what you had thought prior. Like it's a maximally incorrect. I like that. But then someone pointed out actually Hartmut poses Proposed sorry heart Hartmut says that his theory is the opposite of hammer-offs. However hammer-offs involves gravity because there's a something something to do with gravity that dictates the time that the quantum superposition collapses and then And time that the quantum superposition collapses and then and consciousness is produced as a result of the quantum collapse. Whereas in heart much heart, sorry, consciousness is the same as the superposition. It was something akin to this. I remember thinking, okay, I

like that distinction. Like I didn't make that distinction myself. I would not have seen that because I don't, I wouldn't have reviewed the episode again had I not read that comment. So there's several comments that then inform me. And I, yeah, that's one of the ways that there's a toe community. So there's a toe discord, there's a toe subreddit and so on. That's way more of the community than what I'm about to say. But the, the one that's a toe community that affects me viscerally is that I can, that I take a pick and choose and I'm instilled and inculcated unconsciously by different comments and it then moves me when I'm interviewing someone else. So it's almost as if

by the communities, Reddit posts and discord comments and YouTube comments that they're speaking with some of the people on the channel. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Not the reason I said that was because I was saying that I'm I'm alone physically speaking but I'm not alone when it comes to my WhatsApp groups or in the comments sections. But even though the comments section is more of a one way communication, they're just screaming at me or to me. No, I feel I feel exactly the same way. I think the comments in the community play a huge role in keeping it going. I mean, I haven't, I just don't have the energy to put in the work and make those discords and do it. I think I

should probably just join one of some of your guys and just at least have the opportunity to explore it. But I think that this podcast has given me that sort of outlet and the YouTube community, the comments, the same goes for me. I read all of them, try and make sure if anyone says anything important or something that's noteworthy, take it down. If someone wants me to ask someone a question for the next one, try and make sure I take that down as well.

I just don't think I put enough effort, probably, which I probably should do a bit more to actively grow that community, but still don't think I put enough effort probably, which I probably should do a bit more to, to actively grow that community, but, but still doesn't change the fact that I'm still sitting at home. Hello. Yes. Yes. One of the reasons why sometimes people are like, Hey, who do you want to interview? Who's dead?

And I, I never had an answer to that until recently. that until recently Leonardo da Vinci. And the reason is that there are so many qualities of mine that are similar to his, like, I'm not saying that. I don't mean that with an ego, like I'm gonna paint the Mona Lisa, but I mean personality traits. So he was self-taught. He was alone almost all the time.

He had someone named Sali like an assistant. So maybe that's not entirely the case, but he was solitary. He united disparate fields and was unboundly curious, prideful at the same time, didn't write much about himself, had an ADHD mindset. He wrote backwards, suffered from deep depression, had many unfinished projects, secretive, observational, and no connections as well. So that's something that I don't know about you, but there are two parts that I think about and I lament when it comes to toe.

One is that I don't have a physical person to speak to regularly. And then the other is that I see other channels who are growing rapidly. And I know how it works when, okay, if you move to this town, say Texas, then you're around everyone else who's in Texas and you get invited to dinners. And then when you were interviewing someone in person, there's a rapport there that could then hook you up with another guest. And I've not had any of these hookups. I still don't have any of these connections. And so it's just like, I'm working like a dog, dog, dog, and I'm looking at other people and I'm envious. it's I've had to temper this quality myself. But I if I'm being honest, it's I feel. I feel left out.

I feel like it's like, anyhow, man, you just you're just echoing exactly what I feel, so the parallels are just crazy. It's a, it's, I mean, I'm even the fact that I'm in South Africa for me just puts me like, I feel like I'm even from everything. It's just, yes. You feel like you're at a disadvantage. Like you have to push up more weight. Yeah. Like you're at the gym and you see people and what

counts is how many reps can you do? And they're lucky. They get the five pound reps and you're just there with your 50 pounds you know how can i compete but nevertheless i have to i just have to so can i tell you one of my favorite quotes it's from Leonardo da vinci so he said something like why can i i don't want don't want to impose my Oh, please, please go ahead. This guy this this episode is about you, man. So he said he was speaking to. It wasn't a particular person, and

I don't know. No one knows why he wrote this. Like, did he write it to? No one thinks he wrote it to someone. He wrote to a fabricated enemy in his head. He said something like. The context was that he was drawing bodies from corpses. And at the time, no one dealt with that,

because why would you need to examine corpses in order to improve your drawing? Just draw. But he saw it as integral, because peeling back helped him understand how the muscles were connected and tendons. And you would shine different lights at different. He would use them to study. Peeling back helps him understand how the muscles were connected and tendons and he would shine different lights at different, he would use them to study.

So he said something like, like basically saying like, if you think you're better than me, then this is what the whole rant was. He said, 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 inflate flesh will, frightful to the hold. And if that doesn't deter you, then you'll lack the good draftsmanship that such a depiction requires. And if you have that, that skill in drawing, then you'll lack the knowledge of perspective. But remember, Da Vinci was one of the first that popularized perspective

But remember, Da Vinci was one of the first that popularized perspective and perfected it. He said, and if that were so accompanied, then you'd still lack the methods of geometric demonstration, calculating the forces and constraints that the muscles have. And if you have that, then you will lack the patience and not be so diligent. So I just love that because he's saying like, look, your emotions will get the better of you or you'll lack the skill or you'll lack the IQ or you'll lack the methods that I've developed. Or even if you have all of that, you won't outwork me. So I feel like that's my internal monologue to my enemies who have no idea that I exist. You start to see the parallels. I mean, is they... At what point in your life did you come across Da Vinci's work and think like, okay, this is a guy I think I see a lot of myself in?

It was when Walter Isaacson had that book on him. And then I... I recall resonating with him at the time, especially with that quote, then I forgot about it for five years. And then I just thought about it again in the past year for some reason. And I recall the, I don't recall what brought me back to him. That's the thing you were saying that you feel similarly, can you explain?

I feel completely, I feel everything you said, I feel like I could echo it and just literally just copy paste it. I often look around in South Africa, try to find similar podcasts, similar types of people, trying to do something similar and Zero success man. I look at the top. Well the most popular content down here, and I think Like some of it's ridiculous Well from my to me at least but for the most part this this type of content isn't that popular The so I look at my audience and Mean the I think I told you this via email. The vast majority of my audience are from the US. So US is number one.

I think UK is number two. Canada is third, then Australia, then India, then South Africa. So what difference does that make? That's what I'm not. I don't understand because South Africa, well, at least me growing up, I've seen met so many scholars, so many people, and I know it's, it's such a diverse, beautiful country. So it just confuses me. I don't really understand.

Maybe it's just me not promoting the podcast world or maybe. The type of people, I don't know. I just don't, I don't have a reason to actually, to be honest. Well, what I mean to say is again, to go back to Seinfeld, if you're treading water, it makes no difference if it's five meters versus 5,000. So for me, if they're not in person, they're all digital in a sense. No, it doesn't make for my audience. It's mostly you us.

I think no difference. Sorry to touch on that aspect where you said you can't just sort of go in person and, and then, and create those reports and get invites to these. I see. That's I think that's what that's the main thing that I think is affecting me the most about it is if you would like to set up an in-person group or. Or I think just maybe that every person. No, just, I think honestly, just to attend some consciousness conferences

to kind of just do the basic stuff. It's not even about the most extravagant, cool things. It's kind of like just go for a random consciousness conference. Just like- So there's a place, yeah, continue, sorry. Quick trip to let's say the two hour trip. No, for me, it's going to be about 16 hours.

I've got to plan this. I've got to take leave. This is going to be quite a ship. There is a conference called MindFest, which I was fortunate enough to partner with there from Florida Atlantic University. And when you're there, there's so many people going in person. Luckily, lucky for me, it's a few hours away, less than four hours away.

And there is such a different quality. There was even, one of the sponsors of that event is this young, ambitious visionary who said, man, Kurt, like I have, he's a student, but he was also the sponsor of the of the event because he has his own ambitions of he's he's created an incubator I think you better actually for or artists and and philosophers and STEM science STEM people and he said like man in in my class he's a neuroscientist I believe

he said something like, no one speaks about this. No one speaks like this. No one speaks about these topics like this. When I went to mindfest, it's like I found my people. Like he felt he's just kept smiling the whole time. He's just felt so alive. So there's something about being around people in person. I'm when I am when I'm fortunate enough to go to some conference and there's like-minded people It's so darn fun, man. So darn fun I'm so jealous. I mean, I'm sorry Just I don't know why I said that it's like you're telling me about your starving then I'm like Like it's a good fact. I think this

fantastic KFC I Mean we have all of that. We have good. We've Pizza is fantastic. KFC. I mean, we have all of that. We've got enough Burger King, KFC, McDonald's, whatever. We've got all of that. We just don't have any mindfests. I would die to go to some of those. I mean, there was Mark Solms is one of the professors here at UCT.

And when we were talking about how he went to Boston, he went to Mike Levin's lab, got to chill with Kevin Mitchell, all these great thinkers, all of them chilling together, just having these chats. And all I'm thinking is just I'm so jealous. Like, well, I would rather be from his cost to you, though. Yeah, so he's he's literally UCT is about 20 kilometers away from me. So is about 20 kilometers away from me. So I don't know. So if he could do it, what's preventing you? Is it your job? Yeah, it's mostly- Money?

It's working as a medic, yeah, exactly. You can't just quit my job and just go. If I could fund this podcast of my own without this work, I would do it. I would try my best to sort of push in. I would get an editor. I would get a whole team involved, but I think it's just It's also a big step if I sort of if I make this bigger than it needs to be

Then I have to say at some point decide what I really want to do Do I want to continue to practice the medicine and I love medicine. So It's kind of like I don't want to I'm not sure where I want to go with it Okay It's kind of like I don't want to, I'm not sure where I want to go with it. Okay. Yeah. I can say, I was going to say something which maybe I could talk to you about all fair, but I can tell you now, maybe you want to keep it on. You can choose to delete it if you like.

I'll just delete it. Okay. Okay. So what's stopping you from saying, look, if I want to do the podcast in the way that I want to do it, hire an editor, I want to travel to go to someplace and go to three conferences.

Let me tally that up. OK, that turns out to be $12,000. OK, let me double that. That's $24,000 just to be safe, completely safe. Can I say to are you married or do you have a girlfriend? Girlfriend, yeah. Can I say to my girlfriend?

Would it be what do you think if I just took twenty four thousand dollars and one month off just so that some people spend way more and way less time to do their trips of a lifetime and maybe they go back backpacking across Europe, maybe it takes a bit more time. But regardless, it's similar amounts of money in the same within this the non margin of error, the same factor, factor of 10. So what's preventing you from doing that? I think first reason I'm saying that is that like, I've never had a job, I've never had a job. I've always worked for myself.

So money has always been super tight. So that's my but there are also other psychological issues. But when I hear that if someone's a doctor, not that you're making bank, but especially for your dreams. Right. All right. I think that so it's a good question. And my answer is, yeah, I think certain family responsibilities, my partner trying to I mean, trying to be around

be consistent, be present would be one of them. But the main thing, I think the first mistake was I never really monetize this channel at all. So there's zero ads. I don't promote it. I don't do any sort of branding. So my first error would be there would be cheap alternatives to me making this better, which I could already start doing. But I just think I love doing this as a hobby so much that the moment I make this work, like as source of income and it becomes a job, it becomes work, the less I'm going to enjoy this. And I think that's my biggest fear overall is if this is my main source of income and my actual job, will I love it the way I do right now? And I think that fear gets me the most. And I think that fear gets me the most.

Because I can't, I think, you know, Cal Newport, but sorry. Do you know Cal Newport? No. So Cal Newport is a computer scientist who wrote a fantastic book. It's a short read called So Good They Can't Ignore You. And it's a quote, that's a quote from Steve Martin, which said, like, I'm going to be so great. They can't continue to ignore me, basically. So he was saying, Helen Newport was saying that it's a myth to try and find your passion.

Like young people tend to feel like their passion is out there. And what I need to do is just keep trying different options until I eventually find one that resonates with me. He said, your passion is increased the longer that you invest mentally and cognitively, sorry, those are the same, mentally and physically and emotionally and monetarily into a job. The more you invest in it,

the more that you become near the forefront of your field. And then all of a sudden you're able to produce research and then you start to like it more and more. Now obviously that's not a sufficient condition but it's a necessary condition. So I don't know for me I love I absolutely love what I do. I'm upset like super upset on the days that I can't work. Yeah, I get to spend time with my wife or family or what have you. But I love knowing that, okay, today's a day that I get to take a break because then it means tomorrow I can go at it even harder because I just love going at it. I love it. I never wake up like, oh my gosh, I have to work. But that's me. I just happen to land

on something that bangs on all cylinders. And I imagine it would be similar for you, but I'm not suggesting. And again, please take this out of the podcast. If this is uncouth or forward, I'm not suggesting for you to, to, to like for me to dictate, I'm not trying to dictate your whole life trajectory or abandonment of your doctoral obligations. No, man, it's a thought I've had many times. So I might cut the spot out just in case my patients are watching and they're like, oh, God, tonight I don't leave. But yeah, I mean, there's, if I could, I think if I could do this full time, this would be

my job. I mean, I love this. So the same passion that you have, the same energy towards this, these topics and trying to continuously learn, know to develop your world view. If I could do this, I think maybe the first mistake is that I have not monetized this and seen sort of 80 gains from this mentally. Yes. Yeah. You said you're not monetized because you wanted to say, look, I do this

completely for you all, man. Like I am not in this for anything for myself. This is for the love of learning in and of itself slash the audience. Yes. And then I noticed that financially that affected me a lot more because then I'm paying for all this editing equipment, all these whatever they're trying to get all these other things prepped, getting, getting organizing my trips and holidays around this. My life eventually became so much about this podcast and I had invested so much time and money that I had lost a lot of money from this. And then I started thinking, is that, was that a good idea?

I think one of one of the worst mindsets or statements to say to someone is when someone's advertising a book on a podcast and they're like, Oh, look at this, this is a grifter. They're just there to sell their book. And I don't like that because number one, a book takes thousands of hours to write. And unless you've written a book, you have no idea how little the returns are. So it turns out you're making you're making less than minimum wage. Second, even if they make some money from their book, wouldn't you want that to be something that people aspire like it shouldn't that be an aspiration to make money doing what you love? And when people make statements like, oh my gosh, they're just promoting their movie or what have you, that's like, they loved making that movie.

They loved writing that book. Why shouldn't they be renewed? Why shouldn't there be remuneration? Yeah. So a part of the, the, this enveloping mindset that, that encircles us is, well, we have to be pure for our art. And I, I had that, I had that, and I have that as well, because inside, I'm an artist, I was speaking to someone named Samuel

Andreyev, who has a YouTube channel, which I, I recommend you check out, I recommend the people who are listening to check out on music. And he was telling me, Kurt, I was saying like, what's holding musicians back? Because I thought it would just be unbridled creativity, or they need government grants. And he was saying, No, no, no. As a musician, the grant system has done more harm than good. I'm like, how can how can that be?

He said People will say what they want to do is what Leonardo da Vinci did or what Beethoven did or Mozart did etc But all of those examples of the past they actually Were doing what they were doing for money And when you have something where you're doing it for money, not only for money, by the way, that's there's a complete difference between only for you should never do anything only for money.

That's that's that's I don't. Oh gosh, I agree with it. He said it untethers you from the market. So you go off in this avant-garde abstract realm. Not that there's anything wrong with avant-garde art, but it doesn't sell, at least not, doesn't make you money, doesn't make you happy, doesn't make other people happy. Maybe it makes you feel like you're doing something out of your pure creativity. And I thought that was such a fascinating perspective, because I remember Leonardo da Vinci even had a note to the Medici

so he was trying to get hired by the Medici's. He said in that note he said look what I will do for you is I will architect your cities. I could create railways and or not railways rail roads. I can create roads and aquifers and I'm sorry, aqua systems, systems of water, maybe they're called aqua force, weapons of war, weapons of war was a large one. He had this list of maybe 20 items, number 20, and I also draw paintings or I also paint. Like that's what we know him for, but he sold that last because he needed money. Yeah. So I'm not saying that I agree with Sam 100% that the grant system has done more harm. And also I'm not saying I don't think I'm representing his views correctly. So please just watch that podcast.

But the sentiment behind it is one that I agree with. There's something about being tethered to the market forces. You don't have to be completely tethered. That's a bit, that's, that's a going askew. But being tethered that makes you enjoy what you're doing more. It actually grounds you in the same way. That's a great way of thinking about it. In the same way, Carl Jung said,

was asked, why did Nietzsche go mad? He said he wasn't grounded. Like I, Carl, I'm dealing with similar thoughts, but I have my patience. I have my my My gardening I have something physical that grounds me whereas Nietzsche didn't I will have my wife. That's what what Jung said So in some way you can think of this as you want your creativity to be met with groundedness think of this as you want your creativity to be met with groundedness. And part of that grounding is, well, I need other people to like it enough that they're

voluntarily willing to give something from their pocket to me. I mean, this is exactly why to come back to the podcast after six months, I wanted you to be my first guest man. I had a feeling you'd motivate me and inspire me to sort of continue this because I think I needed it, man. I had a feeling you'd motivate me and inspire me to sort of continue this. Because I think I needed it, man. I was hesitant, not super keen, but I knew chatting to you would help.

And there's, just to sort of explain how much I love this topic, this niche. But when I finished medical, I did an M full in the Master in Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health, just because I wanted to find a way to find a medical way to write about consciousness. I just slowly warped that into a way to do a master's degree in consciousness,

just to write an essay on consciousness. Mention Daniel Dennett as many times as possible. Thank a few philosophers on the way, just to chat to some of these people. That's also how we sort of chatted via email at some point as well. Yes, yes. But that was so unnecessary.

I spent money on university fees. I did all these things, worked to pay off those fees just to write a bunch of essays on consciousness, just so that it's somehow tied into my work. It was completely selfish. Just a hobby horse. It had nothing to do with being an academic.

It was more just, I just wanna sort of write and progress these ideas with these people and be in this realm. So I think maybe you're right. Maybe it's something I should take more seriously. Well, there's nothing wrong with just monetizing what you have. The worst people go through is a 30 second ad and within five seconds, they can skip it if they like, and it's like three cents to you or, or two cents or whatever

it is, but that that that accumulates. And then that's something that pays for your hopefully that pays for your subscription software like it's not going to pay for rent or YouTube. Oh, and something else people don't know is that what's what bothers me so much is that the topics that other people talk about when they get many views, not only to the views that they get because about when they get many views, not only to the views that they get because they're speaking with famous guests, which brings them other famous guests. And that's something that I've, that I've limited myself. I've been enveloped myself

and said, no, I'm, I'm going to stick to these stick to my niche of physics consciousness UFOs logic philosophy biology. I know that sounds like it is. I just said it's a mission I listen like five disparate fields, but I mean it's not self-development. It's not I'm not speaking to Andrew Huberman and Whoever else is in that ilk But if I was to that opens the door to many others and you get all these views and the health scene and the economic scene, the finance scene, the block chain Bitcoin scene, the amount

that you make from YouTube ad revenue is like three times more than what you make in the science scene. The science scene is one of the lowest. And so then it bothers me because I see other people not only getting far more views for far less work. I know because I've spoken to some of them and I know how little

they study. For instance, I don't want to spoil anything, but I was speaking to someone one of the big weeks, millions of subscribers off air. And then he was saying to me that he has some interview in about, in approximately one and a half hours. And then I said, oh, okay, so how long have you studied for her? It was a woman guest. He said, oh, no, I'm just going to study right now. I'm just going to review some notes like make some notes right now. I'm like,

man, you're going to study an hour before the interview for the interview. And that's going to do, that's going to get five times the numbers than if I was to interview the person. Yeah, because I would go more in depth and so et cetera. But also, this is just me. Making excuses, so I have to be honest about that, like partly this is me making excuses for myself. Anyhow, then the way the manner in which this person would speak to the guests, the types of questions would not only get more views, but it would elicit more at YouTube ad revenue. So it's

like it's a double whammy of desire in me to be like them and to have some quality like them, not to be them. Yeah, I think I think we're the same in that we were not sacrificing necessarily by him because I mean, the guests, I mean, on that note, we've had so many. It's like revolving door with guests. Our guests have been yeah, the parallels are crazy. I mean, Lawrence Krauss, Harvey Loeb, Donald Hoffman, Michael Levin, there's so many we could go through. Did you speak to an end right? Yeah, I did. How'd you find out about an end speak to an invite? Yeah. Yeah, I did. How did you find out about it? And it was from your channel.

I when I saw it, because you were super keen. Yeah. Yeah. And then is the funny thing about that was hidden gem. The funny thing about that was you, I think you posted a lecture on him when I saw that. Yes. Then I had done an interview with him. And I think you'd done an interview with him almost around the same time. Like one week. I think so because both of those episodes went up around

at the same time and I was like oh man I hope Kurt doesn't feel like I just stole his guest. No, no, no. I did wonder how did you find out about him. And it was from you posted a lecture and I watched it and I thought this is actually quite intriguing. I would love to speak to this guy. But that's the thing about this community that we sort of have is that, I mean, I look to your channel for inspiration, for ways to make mine better, for ideas, creative. I don't want to copy paste it, though.

And I even tell some guests, I say, I don't really want to cover this because you've covered it with Kurt. And I say, if you want to see that, maybe check out his podcast. Hmm. Oh, well, that's like something else that that tugs at my heart and not in a not in the positive sense is when I see these other larger podcasters reference toe without referencing toe, like they'll say, well, you said this on a podcast. And I'm thinking, I know that that's your I know who you're

who you're speaking about. At least give me an olive branch like you have such a massive audience. It would mean everything to me. And so like it means so much when if you've referenced my name. Yeah, there's even I remember even starting one of my I think my one with Bernardo. I think I started by asking him about the debate he had with Susan and how awkward that that sort of became I'm that's Because this is the community. I'm in I'm of course I'm gonna see you podcast. This is this is part of my life I'm gonna watch it. So and so that's how we started a whole conversation

I think it was in our around two three. I can't remember but one of them Yes Yeah, cuz that was because of and then I even said cuz at some point It was in our around two or three, I can't remember, but one of them. And then I even said, cause at some point I thought about doing what you call theoloicucutions, but I said, no, I'm gonna leave that to Kurt. I think, cause a couple of guests of mine asked me if we could do that.

And I said, let's leave that for Kurt. I mean, I love the way he does that. That's something, even though we're not the same entity, we have nothing to do with each other. There's enough room for the both of us. I don't think I'd even need, I'm nowhere close to your level at this point, but I just like the way you do it.

And I prefer watching you do that. And because we have- I would love to see you do Theo Locutians, man. Yeah, no, but because we have such- I think you should consider that for this season. Maybe, we'll see, but I love the way you do it. That's the thing. It's, you're a good moderator. Yeah. What do you have rules for your podcast?

Like, you know how they're different. There's the 10 commandments. Okay. Great. And then there's the 12 rules for life. Yeah. Then there's the top five things you should know about song. So whatever it may be, do you have some lists somewhere? Maybe internally, maybe it's not formalized of your, your do's and don'ts for the podcast. I think do's be always to know the guests work thoroughly. Maybe if I don't clearly understand it to make sure during that conversation the goal would be to understand it. I think I do have some rules.

One rule is it's never a debate. It's never trying to pin down where they're wrong. Even if I disagree, no matter how much I disagree. In fact, the more I disagree, the better because I try my best to ask even more open questions to further my understanding of what they're talking about. So that's, I think, the biggest rule, and the rule I follow the most strictly

is even if they're actively saying something I disagree with, to not bring it up in that moment at all, but ask a further leading question that will allow them to explain what perhaps I'm not understanding or what I think the viewer might not understand. Do you have rules? Yeah, I do. I can tell you them, but I I'm quite secretive so I can tell you some of them

off air, but I don't know. Well, we share a similar, we share similarities here. My goal with the channel isn't to push back as I'm not a journalist to understand because I'm a researcher. So some people would say that you're not asking a hard question here and there, not here and there, but over here or over there. And generally speaking, I find that the, the criticism of hard question comes from the perspective of you didn't ask a question that undermines the guests credibility. And for me, a hard question probably for you is, is one that is, it's difficult to answer

because it's, it has some mathematical or physical implications. So a hard question would be, does the Zariski topology have an application in physics or okay, well say that then someone would think, okay, well, say that. Then someone would think, okay, I don't know. I need to think about... If we're on... Well, whatever. The point is that it's not... You said in 2002 that... That you had dinner with this person, but then later,

you actually revised that and said that it was this person and it wasn't dinner it was lunch and how do you and where is your your contract with this because you're content when i looked it up your contract said and i'm thinking oh my gosh that's it's just not how i think i don't think in terms of let me contradict the guest absolutely i think that respect for the guest and the approach that you take with them is important because that warm environment actually does allow them to express themselves even clearer. That allows me to then understand their point of view a little better. And that's it's also an

interrogation technique. Not that we're interrogating but someone is willing to be more revelatory the more they trust you the more warm some people call this a safe space but not that safe space means that all that the kid gloves are on that's not what safe space means but it means that in this example, it means that at least for me, the way that I see it is that I, I'm, I'm not attempting to undermine them. I'm trying to see how is it? Yeah, I'm trying to, I'm trying to understand, trying to get to their worldview. So I, I feel prepared for a podcast personally, maybe this is a rule. When I'm trying to understand, I'm trying to get to their worldview. So I, I feel prepared for a podcast personally, maybe this is a rule when I'm able to emulate what the guest

will say to any question that I can pose in my head. Can I have their software running in my brain such that I can ask them a question from left field and I can, I can emulate a response and it would approximate what they would actually say. Then I feel like, okay, I can do this interview. Another rule, a subtle, well, okay. And another rule and well, I'll tell you this off air because I, I'll tell you this offer to show my. Okay. From well, I'm more excited for the off area of chat than anything else. But from, from all the guests we've had. That's something else that I share with Leonardo

da Vinci is that I'm super secretive for no reason. When you hear it, you'll be like, why didn't you just say that on air? I think we're similar in that way. I think there's a lot because I'm obviously not the one being interviewed, but I think we're very similar in that regard. And I completely understand it. And I think when you do say it, I'll probably feel like maybe I would have kept that to myself too, I don't know.

But of all the guest code that you've had so far, have you had any theories of everything or conversations that stand out and like really, really got like gripped you to your core. I know that's a tough question and no, I, I almost always enjoy my past three interviews more than any of the other interviews. Like whenever someone says, what's your favorite interview is one of the past three.

So now I'm thinking who did I recently interview? John Vervecki, Sam Vaknin on narcissism, which was extremely interesting. I'll tell you an insight. Narcissists and psychotics have a similar failure in that they can't distinguish between what's external and what's internal. The difference between them is that the narcissist, so the psychotic places the emphasis on the external. In other words, something will be generated internally, like a thought, and then they'll hear it as if it came from the external. Okay. Okay. So they, they think everything is external. Okay. Okay. So they think everything is well, okay. Then the narcissist would take the external to the internal. So an example that came up in the interview was when someone

has an idea, they tell it to you. You say, you don't like the idea. Two weeks later, you come up with the same exact idea, but you think you came up with it and you attribute all of that to you. So that was super interesting. I never thought of psychotics and narcissists as being similar, nor would I have framed it in external versus internal. But, but have you heard of the dark triad? Yes. Yeah. Cause, cause that's the, the, the Machia of alienism sort of psychopath slash narcissist. Those three features just create this deadly sort of human being. It's almost. And what he was saying. Yep.

Or continue. Well, he was so psychopaths are different than psychotics. Yes, yes. I'm sure you know, I'm sure you know. So but also he was saying he doesn't like the term psychopath or sociopath. The reason is that he doesn't think that's a mental illness. Narcissists he thinks is a mental illness, but sociopaths is more cultural, like they have qualities that we don't like as a culture. And when you look at them, they're just on like look at them on some some value of say, willingness to engage in

thievery. Okay, let's just say that there's a spectrum of people. Most people are somewhat sometimes willing to engage. Some people are never willing to engage. Some people are as long as it gets them to their goal and they can get away with it are are going to do so. So there's a spectrum. He would say that psychotics slash sociopaths are just on the extreme end of a spectrum, but it's not as if it's a different sort. It's just of a different degree.

You mean psychopaths slash sociopaths, not psychotics. Yes. Oh, okay. If I, yeah, I misspoke. So sociopaths and psych, and also he said that there's no distinction between them clinically. Oh, okay. If I, yeah, I misspoke. So sociopaths and psych, and also he said that there's no distinction between them clinically. Oh, he said sociopaths is more of the, this is what he said. As one of them is what's used in one of them is used clinically and the other isn't, but colloquially, they actually mean the same.

Yeah. I mean, colloquially, we often tend to think of them as similar, but in general, the the psychopath tends to lack sort of insight and empathy altogether completely to sort of kill you, murder you, eat you right there and leave you lying on the floor. Whereas the sociopath would do it and then sort of consider that. Consider what was done. Think about it and still kind of get away do it and then sort of consider what was done, think about it and still kind of get away with it and move on, but actively still do it though.

But we'll think about it, we'll have the thought process that goes into the fact that he did something wrong or she or whoever, but they have some insight into what has happened there. So that's more of the sociopathic type of behavior clinically. Whereas a psychopath just does not know that they've just. So he's not he does not know he's abused this person or she's abused this man or whatever.

The there's no sort of cognitive engagement with this. But again, a psychologist. So. Just having having a medical degree doesn't make everything I say about, I often have to, I often just disclaim, that's a rule for me, is to often have these disclaimers on the podcast, this is purely for educational purposes only, this is, this is nothing, there's nothing medical. Not medical advice, don't confuse it with it. Because the main thing is because I'm a doctor,

I get stuck, because I'm trying to have philosophical discussions. And sometimes it takes us into these weird realms. And if you're talking about, let's say, Tom Campbell, we've both interviewed him. And if he's talking about something like reincarnation and love and death can mean this. Some people really can misinterpret those things.

I mean, if I kill myself now, that means I could possibly link up consciously with something or someone else. I mean, I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth, but that could be mistaken for medical advice. And some patients will possibly ask about that. So I've made it clear that this is a philosophy podcast, nothing to do with medicine,

absolutely zero to do with medicine. And that's even why I try not to touch on too much practical aspects of it as well, just in case. So a rule of mine, which I can say, is if a thought occurs to me in the moment when I'm speaking to a guest, and this also carries with me and through my life. So this is not, this is one of the Kurtz rules for life. I have a list of Kurtz rules for life that I'm not allowed to hang on to the thought so that I can then use it. Not because I'm trying to be present or, or, or in the moment or what have you, but because then it's a thought that I feel like is clever and I'm trying to one one up someone.

So I have to abandon that thought if it no longer applies in 10 seconds. So I can't hold on to it and be like, so. Five minutes ago, you said so and so, like unless that occurs to me in the moment right then and there, I'm not allowed to hold on to it. I have to abandon it. That's a pretty cool rule. And if I, if I do then re bring it up, I have to then say it in different words, drastically different words than I originally thought of it. And then that one comes to my, my need slash my needs slash want to exercise my vocabulary. So if there's some way of phrasing

it, that's let's say, phrase a, I need to then phrase it phrase B, that's drastically different than a, although the sentiments can be the same, because otherwise I'm not exercising. And yeah, I think of it like that. I think of it as being in a verbal gym. I need to exercise, need to exercise. Which guests do you feel gave you the most exercise? Ha ha ha. Worked you out. Which guests?

Which guests on the- Oh. Have given you the hardest workout of you, if we had to keep it along that line. Okay. Is it all right if I just have a quick browse over the- Yeah, go ahead. The guest list.

I mean, you've got so many at this point. It's incredible. How's your schedule at this point, Kurt? Do you post, are you posting full episodes by week? Once a week now, once a week, yeah. At least once a week. So it's 1.5 times a week. Because sometimes it's too consistently two per week, but then it's at least once a week. Okay, let's see. Sorry, you may need to cut.

As I go through this. It's fine as you as you go through it. I mean, I noticed you've been exploring the shorter clips now. How's that been going? It's going well. I have someone else who's in charge of that So the clip titles and the thumbnails themselves, I don't do I have say like if I disagree vehemently I'll let the person know but I I try to take my hands off of it

I'm a perfectionist in many ways and I need to temper that quality Yeah, no, I feel you. I think that's that's that's probably another reason why I haven't let someone take over to do these things. That's probably because of the same bad habit, I would say. Funny thing. So Jonathan Gerrard would be one now, not because I'm trying to stay on my toes, but because it's such a, the rapport was so great that it was like doing ping pong.

Whereas some guests are steam rollers. Like that's the internal word I have for them where you ask them one question, they'll go on for 20 minutes. In some ways we like that as podcasters, it makes our lives easier. The audience can't accuse you of trying to interject your own thoughts too often. And it's less editing as well. So I have some rules of editing like there's there's there's never a reason. You never need a reason to cut to cut to the guest, but you always

need a reason to cut to yourself. So I try to show myself as, as, as minimum minimal as possible and not have it on two sides. And this is one of the reasons why I was going to say, tell you this off air. This was one of the tips because I don't know. I didn't want to say something that, Oh, do you have both guests on at the same time like you and the guests? And I didn't want it to seem like I was critiquing you because I just don't know. But that would be one is to have full screen one guest and then you cut between them, actually edit. The weird thing about this is I swear legitimately today,

almost at that, because I had, but I obviously have just one camera. But today I thought let me just do this. And in the in the what's the view called? Let me just check this thing again. What is that view called? Speaker view, just to get me out of it and let let the guest speak. I can make clips out of that. I can do whatever I want.

And I thought I was only thinking about that today, which is crazy. Yeah, plenty of parallels, man. So that's exactly what I've been thinking of doing, because I also do want this. This interview I've spoken the most out of all my interviews. So I apologize firstly to all the audience, but I'll try and edit most of my parts out because this is meant to be about you. But yeah, this is I think you should keep it in. Yeah. Well, this is the most I've actually spoken in my, on my podcast, I think. Well, I'm much more interested in asking questions

than, than speaking. So if the goal of this is to get to know Kurt, then in large part, you get to know Kurt by observing Kurt ask questions and hearing what his thoughts are to them. You were saying the guests, you continue? Oh, I don't recall now. Oh, okay, that's fine. Okay, something subtle that I do is that if you were to actually examine the pixels of,

I'm on the left usually and the guest is on the right is that my few pixels to the left. So the guest is slightly larger. And that's because I noticed that in the beginning, I was slightly larger. And so I did that unconsciously. And I knew that that was me saying, maybe I didn't, I was slightly larger. And so I did that unconsciously. And I knew that that was me

saying, maybe I didn't, I don't know, but it could be me thinking I'm more important than the guest. And so to counteract that subconsciously to myself, but also to subtly convey that to the audience, people may not know, but I come from filmmaking. So small choices, even like when to cut by the frame to within plus or minus two frames makes a difference. So small choices, even like when to cut by the frame to within plus or minus two frames makes a difference. So I pay attention to these small details and the editor does as well now. As the that's an important point. I mean, what do you do you feel that? Because I noticed you do the dual frames and then at

some point you do go to single frames as well. There's so many parts of this podcast. I'm not going to know whether we should, we should share or not. Should we keep this for after maybe we should keep this one for later. Cause that's something I'm curious to know just offhand anyway. Sure. Like what makes us decide when to change angles? No, no, you're like, there's, there's a few questions, but I'll, I'll touch on that afterwards.

Let's, let's maybe just go to the normal podcast conversation for now. Sure. Tell me Kurt, you've become so obsessed with Toe's at this point. And what insights do you have for people like who watch the channel, people like me? What have you gathered? What insights can you share with us regarding this experience of speaking to some of the greatest minds on the planet? I mean, you've spoken to quite a few at this point,

hundreds, what can you tell us about theories of everything at this point? It's a tough question, I know. So I have my own. There are different definitions of wisdom. So apparently back prior to the Axial Age, I believe there was something called the continuous cosmos and maybe during the Axial Age, I'm not entirely sure, but around that era and wisdom was how do you fit into the power structures that exist? So it was about power.

And apparently we carry this carry this over with our term prudence. Afterward it became about how do you see through the illusion so that comes around Plato. There's this world is somehow illusory there's somehow a truer world a two world model. Someone said a professor of philosophy was putting forward a proposal. They said, look, there are some things, some statements that you believe and you know, and you need arguments for. So you'll believe it if there are good arguments. There are some statements you will believe if there are no good, even if there are in the absence of arguments like you'll just believe it. Now, if there are arguments against it, then that's something different. And third, there are statements where you're you don't believe nor disbelieve. So you just put question marks around.

I'll give you some examples. examples. Maybe you believe that the earth goes around the sun because they're good, good arguments for it. Okay. So that's an example of one that you need good arguments for. Another would be another, an example of something that you don't necessarily need good arguments for is that you exist or other people exist. It'll just say, okay, that's something that I can't provide a good argument for, but I will take that. Then number three is, well, there's plenty. You don't care how many rings there are of Saturn that you put question marks around. He said, wisdom is to know what statements go

into each category. Thought that's super interesting. I have a tentative definition of it of wisdom. This goes back to earlier, we were speaking about. As as podcasters, people as intellectuals, academics, as members of the Academy, they see openness as a virtue and I critique that because I don't believe it's actual true openness, but anyhow, I think wisdom is Is what what if scenarios exist that you used to entertain that you would no longer?

We think that no, in order to be truly open, truly an intellectual, truly a contender on the cognitive stage, you need to be you need to think anything is possible. Any what if scenario? any what if scenario? I don't think unless you've I think you need to go through a period of that. So this doesn't apply to just people who are fundamentalists from birth. I think you need to go through a period of radical openness. And then the wisdom is which which doors do you close? And so the quality of your what if scenarios that you're not willing to entertain are what determine your wisdom. Do you feel like you've been applying that to your choosing of guests for the podcast? your choosing of guests for the podcast? Or are you still open to having the discourse and showcase the research?

I don't apply it at a conscious level. So my criteria for choosing guests is in large part, 95%, if not 100%, am I interested in this? No, it's 95, 90% am I interested in this? Now that interest is influenced by something that's unconscious, which is, which are the what if scenarios that I'm not willing to entertain that I'm unaware of? Sure. And the other 10% is just strategic. So for instance, if I want to understand something about string theory, well then understanding conformal field theory would help. So who instance, if I want to understand something about string theory, well then understanding conformal field theory would help. So who's a conformal field theorist that I can interview

in and of themselves that would take me up to string theory, something like that. So again, I say this often that toe is like the, the guest order matters for me because I'm researching. I think of where do I want to go? Okay, what are the steps along the way that are necessary preconditions or prerequisites in the in the university sense? With that being said I mean, I'm the parts that you were going to tell me about after the show I'm not super keen to hear about this It's on my mind. I'm gonna I'm gonna have a lot of trouble editing this podcast, I can tell you that.

I apologize. This one's gonna be a tough one. What do you think, what have you noticed between the differences between the East and the West with regards to their approach to theories of everything. Have you seen any difference? Yeah. I see what I'm told from the West about the East, which is different than what the East is.

So the East and this comes from Adnan and then sorry. Vidya, am I saying it correctly? And then Vidya and and and and and and right and then sorry, okay. I thought that the West is analytical. Emphasis on logic, mathematics, reason, rationality, quote unquote, and then the East is more experiential. and airy fairy or or Lucy goosey, but more in touch with the present moment. Adnan said no materialism is actually more prevalent in the East than idealism.

And I had no idea. Then he told me about the history that the Indian prime minister made idealism the pizza of India, meaning that in Italy when we think of that, we think of pizza. Well, not if you're cultured enough and erudite, et cetera, but as a stereotype, you think of pizza when you think of Italy. Like I can't wait to try the pizza there. It must be the best in the world and He said that's what was

The Indian Prime Minister made it an effort a conscious effort to make to promulgate ideal idealism not only to the West but to make the West think of Idealism when they think of the East and vice versa or India. I think that the non-dualist and the physicalist make the same error of a left-brained error and the non-dualist is unaware of it. So the non-dualist believes that they're like, no, it's creativity, it's originality, it's embracing, it has a hugging quality and that must be the right-brained.

But no, the left-brain McGill grist work is what's responsible for abstraction and seeing two objects as the same. So that's what it means to abstract is you take out qualities that are similar to multiple instances, and then you start to manipulate those qualities. Well, that's, that's being analytical. Racism is an abstraction problem, because it's saying you as a brown person are the same as some other person who's brown. So what happens when you go to non dual states can be seen as a pathology of the, of the left brain where everything is the same.

Every single thing is the same. And the beauty of the right brain is that the right brain likes to see every instance as unique. Every little point is unique. Not only is this cup different than these earphones, but the left and the right are different than it's not even the earphones. So this one is different than this one. And in fact, there are multiple facets to this cup. Furthermore, it's not just that the right brain or the right brain worldview is supposed to be what is championed, nor the left brain,

the right brain had the wisdom to give the reins over to the left brain. So that's why the book is called the master and his emissary in in E. McGill Chris. So it's an interplay of both. In other words, what's the difference between the East and the West? I don't know. All I know is my watered down versions by people who think they're from the East, but have grown up in the West. And that what they tell me about the East and also what I research about the East, which is heavily filtered. So what I've said is is meant to be. Interpreted through that lens.

Is your are your ancestors from from India or? Yeah, if you go far back enough, it would be the West Indies. OK, it's from I'm from Trinidad. I think mine is from Tamil Nadu in India. I think that's so far. I'm not even sure. We've been in South Africa for almost almost 200 years now. It would allow. Yeah, we were brought from India as indentured laborers. We've been in South Africa for almost 200 years now.

It would- Wow. Yeah, we were brought from India as indentured laborers, well, not we, but my ancestors, as indentured laborers, AKA slaves, to cut sugar cane in South Africa. And so I've grown up fundamentally South African, which is very much influenced by American culture

and Western culture. So I also have a very, even though, because there's so many who came down from South Africa, it's a watered down version, but there's a section of South Africa that's called Durban. If you ever Google it, you'll see. It's called Durban. Yeah, Durban. So there's Johannesburg. There's three main cities in South Africa. Johannesburg, Cape Town, that's where Mark Solms is,

and a lot of great professors. And then there's Durban, which is in KwaZulu-Natal. And it's like a mini India. I swear, I think it's the largest city with Indians in the whole planet, outside of India. So not a country country but like city. The Indian population there is huge. So I was exposed because I grew up there. So I was exposed to a lot of the East in that sense as a child and and the philosophies were quite unique and

When I look back I feel like I undermined and didn't really appreciate some of the philosophies that I was taught as a child back then Since starting this podcast because prior to that I was so focused on Western philosophers. Yes. Mm-hmm Which is interesting in itself Yes. Which is interesting in itself. Something else about the East, but the Western East is that I thought that meditating and well, meditation would dissolve your ego or make you less egotistical.

Now there's a difference. This is when I spoke to Roy Baumeister, who is someone you should speak to is one of the most cited people, not just scientists, the most cited people on the planet. And he's alive. I remember I've read his read his name so often in the psychological literature, so often I thought he was dead, because it's so rare that someone has referenced this much and they're still alive and he's alive and well He he studied

He was I don't know if he studied it but he told me about this these studies where If you get people to meditate and they could be Zen Buddhist But they have to be Western Zen Buddhist and the side that hasn't been done on Eastern Zen Buddhist that rather than making you more selfless, you become more selfish. And how do they measure that? Well, they look at how long are you meditating for? And then there are different criteria. Like are you willing to tie someone else's shoe before yours?

Are you willing to? Oh, let me bring up let me bring up the study please because it's super interesting if you don't mind. No I don't mind at all that that would be amazing. I'm trying to also think of other ways that could be shown. I'm trying to think one of them is I've noticed that Western meditators tend to talk about meditation way too much Which can itself be yes the examples you you're talking about It's almost like now. They're sort of virtue signaling the fact that they meditate Yes, which really nullifies become obsessed with it as well and it goes against the non-attachment So okay Zen monks who are dedicated practitioners of meditation display a higher fear of death

and less willingness to give up life-saving medicine compared to other groups, suggesting a strong attachment to self-preservation, maybe even a stronger sense of the self. So how does one make sense of this? Well, meditation increases self-awareness. Perhaps that can lead to a heightened awareness that could lead to heightened awareness that

that could lead individuals to becoming more conscious of their strengths and weaknesses, potentially resulting in a sense of superiority. Oh yeah, there was something about superiority as well. That was a study from, yes, from gober. So the study I just mentioned was Nina Strominger and I can give you these links to put in the description if you like. Thanks. The study I just mentioned was Nina Strominger. And I can give you these links to put in the description if you like. Thanks. The study I'm about to say is from gobbler individuals who practice meditation over weeks started to perceive themselves as superior to others in their meditation group. That sounds like that's why there's a difference between ego and egotism. Ego may be minimized, but either egotism, their

inflated sense of their self-important self-centeredness increases. And it sort of makes sense when you think about it. The East and West. It's so strange that it's bizarre that we even have to say that at this point. That it's begun in itself, which is more disappointing because when you chat to someone like Anand who understands the history behind the content, and gives you that context that you're looking for, it becomes super fascinating to see all the things we missed out of our cultural upbringing

as Eastern Westerners, Western Easterners, by mixing it up. So I have, in this same document with notes, I have my my court rules for life. If you want to hear some of them, let's do it. So these are numbered, but they're not in any order. Number one, never underestimate the jealousy in yourself. Your criticism of others is almost in every circumstance

spawned by not spawned by some cold rationality of correctness like a teacher grading math homework is far deeper. It doesn't mean the analysis you provide is wrong, but it's from a wrong place, which in the long run will make it wrong regardless. Realize how much of a cretin is insecure of avaricious egotist you are then minimize it every time it crops up by recognizing it, though not acting on it. Number two, if people want to tarnish your reputation, let them speak kindly of them regardless. There are positive aspects to everyone, so just find those and highlight them in your enemy. Number three, don't use high bounding condescending reputational words like grifter or pseudo. Keep a list of words you vow never to say. Notice which words

are correlated with an embittered state and don't use those words. Number four, consider what you're putting off. What are you avoiding? Ask yourself and that question will bring to mind five items. Which are you avoiding most? Tackle that one. Do this daily. Number five, never say something doesn't make sense unless you can explain it in a way that the other person agrees senses relative to a constellation of knowledge and relations they're referencing of which you're unaware and vice versa. Some of these I'll tell you off air. Number 10 is one that I do in Toronto.

If you have a five dollar number 10, if you have a five dollar bill and pass a homeless person asking for it, always give it. Don't second guess whether they should be more or less homeless or more or less. Like that's something I used to do. If I had some pocket change, I'd be like, okay, well, they're asking for it, but they're going to spend it on alcohol. I can tell because their face is red and they're right by the liquor store or that person that they're they're large. They're not starving. They I'd rather. So I said, no, no, no. If they're

asking for it, you give it. Otherwise you find yourself increasingly judgmental and that mindset will bleed into other areas of your life. Number 11. I can. I will now keep going. Number 11, I think I will now keep going. Hope isn't for the weak or foolish. It's a gift of the strong being hopeful and enthusiastic is difficult. Those are rare necessary qualities to make everything better. Everything for yourself and for those you interact with. Number 12 in a conversation, don't try to prove yourself as correct or try to convince your interlocutor or any onlookers.

This will backfire. Even if it doesn't, you'll feel like you've been able to manipulate, and that has its roots in a shadowy place that you don't want. If you have something interesting to say, hold onto it for just a minute. And if the exchange changes themes, you have to cut ties with whatever clever remark you had and move along with the discussion. Number 13 in the same vein, don't try to sound or appear clever. It won't work.

It will have the opposite effect. If anything, you appear more foolish. Error on the side of having others underestimate you. And I can tell you, number 15 is life is about finding a tolerable torment. The more you joyfully can answer which of your current struggles would you want to keep if you were to repeat your life, the better. What's the suffering that brings you peace? And then the 16 is, it's just great advice that I've, I heard.

So these I generate on my own, but this one I heard from somewhere else be interest being interested is vastly more important than being interesting. It's almost like I want to say aim into like all these things. These are should is how many are they good? I have 17. Okay. I had a feeling this list. I had a feeling this would be a long list. Do you find writing these things down, seeing it, reading it out loud to yourself, allows you to implement this more actively?

How often do you come across this? Let's say in your day to day. How often do you read that? I forgot about this list until until today. Okay. Yeah. So I feel reading up reading it now right now. Well, I'm glad I didn't contradict myself. That's because I was reading it.

I wasn't reading ahead. And so I'm like, oh, shoot, Did I just say something that will expose me as? Because I had forgotten what I said about That I'm not that I'm supposed to abandon a thought after 10 seconds And I realized I said 10 seconds, but over here I said one minute. So okay, so that was a contradiction, but it's not that's that's not drastic It's a small time windows is the sentiment behind it That's not drastic. It's a small time windows is the sentiment behind it. So I feel self-conscious as I read it.

That's how I feel. And I just wonder if any of these will burn me. I had another one that I didn't write down. Maybe I did it and I didn't see it, but it's that I'm never allowed, never allowed to thumbs down a comment or thumbs up my own comment. So I didn't put that as a rule for life. I don't think so But I found myself in my past as soon as I write one comment

Like this video is BS about someone so whatever it is up my own comment like look other people are agreeing with Or all down a comment. That's that's criticizing me. Yes. I'm not allowed to do that The only time I'm allowed to downvote a comment is if it's someone saying Man last week I got rich from Bitcoin and then someone else come like you could tell us the spam Yeah, so I'm trying to not make the algorithm elicit the spam but Or someone saying click in nudes in my bio Other than that, I'm not allowed to thumbs down a comment I'm only allowed to use the thumbs up button,

but I can also choose to not use it. So if you just use your thumbs up everywhere, then it means nothing. So be selective, at least for me. It's strange, do you have, have you also had that problem at some point where these random such spammy messages from like user of the one four underscore five, six, three,

two, they'll give you like essays on consciousness. Um, I don't know what book they're reading, which person is supporting, but it's so random and it's, it's all the time. Yeah. I had someone recently write me two paragraphs of some, some criticism and they just created that account that day. Like when I looked at their bio and I'm wondering why. I wonder if it's someone that I know that was like, okay, I want to say this to Kurt, but I don't want him to tie back to me. It's crazy because some of them, I once read one that was almost like, I swear it felt like a book.

This thing went on. I don't know what the limit is. So much that they had to break it up into multiple comments as replies. I thought to myself, is this actually a bot or is this a person? Because this requires some level of effort. Can you?

Here's something new that's occurred to me in the past couple of years. It's the past one year, sorry. So I encourage people to send their toast and their theories of everything, just in case people are wondering. The toast is not, please don't send me. It's not a footloose. It's just capitalized. T O E. Okay. I encourage people to send them, but now I get people messaging me and they'll message over and over and they're just copying and pasting from chat GPT. And then they'll they'll message me their entire

chat history and they'll just keep doing it. And I don't have the time to even read that and it's quite lengthy. So I don't like that. Please filter if you're going to send me a toll please filter it. Yeah. What is this them sending you their conversation about their toe with chat GPT? I don't I don't I could be sometimes it could be. OK, so you haven't yet this one time that I have in mind a particular time, a particular person. Do you know this person? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, consciousness, and then also, I know you touch on UFOs.

I mean, how did these topics all come together? What would the inclusion criteria like and why did you exclude certain things? Do you think? So the inclusion criteria is the same. It's just, am I interested in it? So initially say 2018 and prior my whole life I was I Wouldn't even say skeptical of UFOs. I completely rejected it as a possibility. Mm-hmm. Just a moment Because I'm recording the audio on my end. Okay, so Then someone said someone who is an editor of mine for film said, watch so and so video.

And I forgot what it was. One was a drogue interview of someone I don't know of who, and one was another one. And then I remember thinking, okay, this is interesting. Not like I'm buying it, but it's interesting. And then I was thinking, okay, I want to speak to someone on this subject. I have this channel, this was 2020. I have this channel and who can I speak to? Okay, there's someone named Jeremy Corbell. He's spoken to someone named Bob Lazar. I've always heard of Bob Lazar since,

for years, decades, two decades. So why not reach out to him because he has a filmmaking background. That's a natural segue. I interviewed Jeremy. Great. I have my problems with that interview because of me, cause I interjected and I had this mannerism where I would do this and it was

cringe-worthy and affected. I do that. Yeah. Anyhow, I can't watch interviews with myself from six months prior. I just, it hurts. It hurts. Physically hurts me. My stomach. Yeah. Apparently Woody Allen's the same. He said he will look away when they're playing even the trailer to the film that he just finished who will look away. Yes. So that interview didn't do terribly well. Didn't do poor, but

it didn't do well. And I wasn't thinking anything like currently the UFO videos on the toe channel are the most popular By an order of magnitude that was the word I was looking for earlier by the way in order of magnitude So at the time no change, okay, cool, but I'm still interested. So let me speak to Kevin Knuth. That's a physicist. I'm Interested in physics my backgrounds in physics. How about I'll be low great astronomer at Harvard. Cool. Then six months from then, so a year from the first interview start the UFO videos, views started to pick up. That's pretty cool because the algorithm I had no idea that Seinfeld also said, from the fourth season, his show wasn't doing well. All of a sudden, four years later, it started to do extremely well. Sounds like that's super interesting. However, I can't compromise that any interview I do, I do has to be because I'm interested in it. So, okay. It was just

a, it was a blip in my radar of a data point to keep in mind. This is something that many people in the audience are interested in. Okay, who else is in this topic that I would be interested in speaking to? I don't know, I recall who, Lou Elizondo, Jacques Vallade, the huge names. So I spoke to them and then somehow this,

the whole of the channel, there were many polls on Reddit and Twitter about what is the best UFO channel to watch. And invariably theories of everything would either win or at least be mentioned. It's like, Oh my gosh, I remember sending that to a few people. Like, look at this poll, look at this poll. And I just, just, I would be bike riding with my wife and there would be a slew of comments and I would stop and I would have to show her like, look at this, look at this, babe.

We had to then make a rule. I'm not allowed to speak. I had to make this rule, by the way. I'm not allowed to speak about the channels comments until Fridays. Only on Fridays can I tell us I'd have to save up all the positive comments and the negative ones, anything I want to tell her because it would just enter it would ruin our lives. So that was pretty cool.

It's the same interest of like, what, what can be more enticing than are we alone? It's one of the fundamental questions in a theory of everything in it, but forget about that. The fundamental questions that motivate us theory of everything is more philosophical. Well, that's a philosophical question. Theory of everything that tends to be more analytical. But in the philosophical questions that we wonder about, are we alone is there. And it's that same impulse that drives someone like

Neil deGrasse Tyson to study science as it does for these people who are interested in UFOs to learn more about the universe, except they didn't have the luxury of, of going to university. And even that's a misnomer because it implies people are uneducated. I don't like all the stereotypes. Many people, some are professors, Kevin Knuth is a professor. So I made this whole 27 minute video, almost recounting many of these thoughts. And it was the only video that I didn't release. It's just, it's so enticing to go into the UFO scene. It's enticing. People don't realize. And so I can see myself being pulled and I have to make sure that I'm doing it for the, for the right reasons. And so, so far outside of one exception,

I've done it for the right reasons. And I just want to, I need to make sure that that stays like that because the audience will sense it and I'll sense it. One of the reasons I think that the channel does so well is because people can sense that I'm coming from, I don't like the word authentic for various reasons, but but from a place of inquisitiveness, from a genuine place of inquisitiveness. And you can sort of see it as you're trying to think through what you're trying to articulate to the listener, to the guest or to whoever you're talking to at the time,

which is good because that introspection and that well thought out, framed thought process makes it clear to the person watching you or listening to you that you were thinking about this you were you didn't just come there to ramble on. You have the ability to listen, sit back, wait, pause, process the thoughts. You even have rules for yourself. I mean, don't use the last five seconds of whatever was said. If it's if it's no longer relevant or what a minute or whatever,

then forget about it. And that's I mean, that's a pretty cool rule. That's something that I will even try to apply myself because we often find ourselves doing something like that. Trying to remember something specific, hold onto it, keep it there, continue the conversation, bring it back later. Sometimes you just don't need to do that.

Now, speaking about authenticity, I have a rule about that. So never lie. Number seven is never lie. This doesn't mean you have to disclose everything as you're entitled to privacy, but indeed never lie. Number seven is never lie. This doesn't mean you have to disclose everything as you're entitled to privacy, but indeed never lie. Number eight building on the last, don't think you possess brutal honesty, quote unquote. You're more, you're more likely alienating people or you're most likely, I think this is typo, you're most likely alienating people because it's easier to be destructive than constructive. Thinking of yourself as too blunt for others to handle is virtue signaling to yourself. Stop it. Truth can always be conveyed with clemency and regard. You're not noble. Thinking of yourself as an honest person isn't a title that you give yourself. It's something earned. It's crowned by it's crowned to you by others.

And then number nine, never claim someone has it better just because they have money. Show sympathy for all your fellow humans, regardless of their circumstances. The route to excusing your own behavior because of a comparative lack of funds or reprimanding someone else's because of their abundance is a dark path.

Don't walk it. Don't even step a foot in it Any people you dream of interviewing? And like that you haven't had you sure about Douglas Hofstadter, but he said no to me so often that I'm just gonna respect his His privacy look Douglas. That is definitely someone I've also sent him emails He's also told me no so far. I'll continue to. What I've decided is I'm gonna keep like a list of emails and just every year,

resend it out to the same person every year. And I'll call it an annual checkup. I don't think so. I don't think there's any dream guest any longer. Who was your dream guest prior to having them perhaps Bob Lazar was one. Any ideas why that's the OG.

When it comes to UFOs from my childhood, I knew that name. I didn't know how I knew that name, but I knew that name. So I, I would like to speak. Oh, and also because he, he claims to have some theory as to how they operate. It has to do with gravity, one version of gravity and another, he calls it gravity, a versus gravity B. And he had, he said it had to do with the strong force seemed Tenuous to me and I

Don't take that to mean that it's baloney as most people will say I take that to mean like I don't understand it And I would like him to explain it some more So that's why so I think you might have been a little bit more open minded when it came to UFOs than I was, because mine, I think my only one on the show is with Avi Loeb. I think that's the only one where I think the episode is just titled, Where is everybody or are they aliens? Because I've reframed the entire podcast to just be questions

so answering the the big questions or the heart problems Trying to solve the heart problems, so I've made them all questions I think it's where is everybody if I'm not mistaken. I mean the Fermi paradox. I do find fascinating That is something I've always thought about Have you watched the three body problem or read the books? I? Know this storyline of it. Hmm. I said such a fascinating Have you watched the three body problem or read the books? I know the storyline of it. Hmm. I said it's such a fascinating. Is there a show? There's a show now.

Yeah. So there's a Netflix series. And I must say, because I've read the books, it didn't do a bad job. It's quite it's actually quite cool. Have you watched Fallout? I've yes, I've watched for a lot. OK, so I'm watching fall Fallout now, man. I love the video game Fallout. I used to also love the video game. And I just thought, I thought they would mess up the show because they mess up everything. Everything gets messed up nowadays.

If it's made in the past five years, it's a horrible show. Like that's just, you can almost guarantee that. Yeah. And I watched the first episode, I'm like, this is way, way better, way better than I thought. Yeah. And it gets, and it's quite dark and twisted. I'm like, man, oh man, and mysterious at times. When I was watching Fallout, the main, what is the character without the nose? Who's got his name? Yeah.

He's a ghoul. I don't know his name. He reminds me so much of the... Have you watched Westworld? Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. So many similarities between... Oh, what is his name?

Ed Harris, his character. Yes. And that reminded me of the way Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy make a show because that's what kept me hooked, I felt, was this. Oh, are they the same creators? Yeah. Westworld. They both made this. Gosh, it's crazy.

And that's and obviously Jonathan Nolan. That's sick. Christopher Nolan as well. So these guys, they are they're related. So Jonathan Nolan is Christopher Nolan's brother. It's crazy. He's the one who wrote many of Christopher Nolan's. Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm mad, man. I want to be louder. I don't want to lose people again. This tiny apartment.

So that's why it's so epic. And when I when I thought when I saw that they made it, I was like, oh, shit, I'm going to click this right now and just start watching this. Do you think humans are capable of coming up with a with a with an ultimate toe or as does Tom Campbell, a big toe. So one, one of my anthem means, or one of the, the hidden assumptions that I didn't realize I was being well.

Okay. So let me say one of my, one of the views that I hold that's controversial that I haven't encountered elsewhere is that I don't think we can even say the word everything, which is quite odd for someone who has a channel called theories of everything. I don't think that that's a concept that is well founded. And I don't think that what you can do is you can just contain like, well, so some people would say God must be a part of this universe. Because if you just include God into

this like if this universe is separate from God just unionize with the youth set union with God I don't think you can I don't think the union of two sets is always like sorry I have to be careful because as soon as you say set it conjures a certain image I don't believe you just join two entities and then you could form a larger entity. I don't think the concept of all is well defined. And I also don't think it is what it is is. So some people say, well, it is what it is. I don't think it is. It is what it is. So I think we're, we're lost since Aristotle. We're stuck with this classical logic in our bones. Like I mentioned, we have explicit other logics, but in our bones in the way that we think some we don't think in terms of contradictions. We don't think in terms of parrot.

Well, here's another. It's not a rule of mine. It's a. It's just a thought of mine. Your intelligence is directly proportional to how can you so, um, it's directly proportional to how many profound thoughts do you have that are not paradoxical? The reason I say that is that it's so easy to have a profound thought. Then you say, but it's all paradox.

And that's why, because the, it's the, it's the flower blooms that dies. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then people sit around with the pinching, pinching their beards and saying, yes, it is. So can you say something profound without it being paradoxical? That's just, it's not a rule for life. That's not something to guide me because it's a bit snarky. But there's that. So I'm not a believer just well, it has to be contradictions. I think even just saying that and going back to what you said about the limitation of language, that's something else I don't believe is the case. We think of language as a hose that connects two people and you're that connects two people and you're deriding what you're saying or diminishing it by the propagation of it and what they receive isn't always what you intend and in fact is a lesser form. I don't think that's the case. I don't know if language is to be interpreted as that.

I know that's one interpretation of what language is, but language is also the fact of even sending is creative. So for instance, even in this conversation, I've learned about about my own thoughts by speaking them that I didn't know. So it's not only language isn't just the the sending of something that's inside. It's also excavating what's underneath the waters. It's a creative process as well. So there's creation in the transfer. It's not just the transfer is sending something that has been created already. Furthermore, it's going to be diminished as it goes along.

I don't think that's the case. I also don't think that I think that's almost obviously not the case because read Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky that's in language and it'll evoke emotions in you that you've never had before that have never been experienced. So there's something about language that can also create and same with while we say well, bait what about music like music is not language. Well, even to create the music Beethoven used sheet music. You can't create that from your head and he built on other people who used sheet music. You can't create that from your head. And he built on other people who use sheet music. So there was some, there's a two way process. It's like a back reaction is what they call it in physics. I don't see it as a static entity.

You throw it, it gets diminished and then back and forth and all look, let me repudiate language because of that. I don't think so. I think language is as much as people inflated, I think that they deflate it. So I have several views that I don't think I've ever said any of these anywhere. And there are views that I hold fairly. My views change on a weekly, well, not a weekly, on a bi-monthly. So every two months, not twice a month, but every two months, so ambiguous word bi-monthly every two months basis. So this is a present deliberation of mine. These are present deliberations of mine. Yeah. I don't think all is all. And I think that's what leads us astray. In some ways, I think that's what led, that's where I differ from Chris Langan,

as much as I love Chris Langan. And Chris Langan has this theory far more articulated than mine, which are just some notes here and there and the thoughts I've relayed to you. But he's building a theory based on a super tautology. And you can think of what I'm doing is building a super antinomy. So super contradiction. It's the opposite. Yeah. Do you do you find solace in the fact that you're getting closer to this answer that you're positive that you're that you're researching for? Or do you feel like you're getting closer to this answer that you're positive that you that you're researching for Or do you feel like you get no I know I feel I feel solace in in that I can have a worldview finally God you feel like you're getting closer like is it?

Are you yes? Yes to fine-tuning this Yes, I could I feel closer than I've ever been But it doesn't mean that the ground isn't going to be swept from underneath me. All it takes is one good theory of consciousness. Unceremoniously. Yeah. All it takes is one good theory of consciousness just to flip that whole thing upside down. Yeah, that almost happened today. I don't even want to say what it was. Like sometimes I can barely say it, especially with people that I profoundly respect because I can't help but think, okay, they may be correct.

I can't help but think. I was telling this to Verveki. Verveki thinks it's a virtue, but I don't think it's a virtue. And I think only people who haven't had their beliefs cruelly turned over cruelly, that that they think it's a virtue. Yeah. Do you since starting this journey, do you feel like you've become

did from a philosophical sense, let's let's let's take it back this journey, do you feel like you've become, from a philosophical sense, let's take it back to a mind-body solution approach at this point. From a philosophical sense, do you consider yourself a physicalist, idealist, where do you stand on this? Do you feel like you have? I think they both make the same left-brained error. So the idealist says all is this one entity. So it's a monist. And then the physicalist is a monist, but with a different, I see them as almost exactly the same, except one

will just say what's at the bottom is consciousness, conscious experience. And then the other will say it's physical matter. But one of, so one of the ways you can tell what the meaning of a word is, is in its relation to other words. So in other words, let's say you have a set of sentences, a set of hundred sentences that use the same word. OK, mask of that word now. So put X in place of that word. Is there another word that can go there? Well, hopefully no, if it's unique. Broadly speaking, I think that a physicalist and idealist are the same, except one would say physical reality and the other would say conscious reality. Which ism do you give most credence to panzikism, idealism? Is there anything that you sort of,

even though you might not adopt this as your viewpoint, but you find yourself swaying towards it every now and then way more than the others? It's something I call 157ism. So it's not a dualism, it's not a trialism, it's 157ism. What is it? I know it sounds like a joke, but it's not. What is 157. So what is when I know it sounds like a joke, but what is it's not 57 ism. I'll have to tell you off in.

Yeah, I'm I find it very difficult to not be. So have you heard the term mysterious? I actually I'm not even sure if I know the definition, but I think it's just those who just firmly believe that we will never figure out What consciousness is? Why do this podcast the more I feel like i'm going towards that route, man? It's crazy like at this point. Yeah, I have absolutely no clue So that's what i'm curious to know with your theory of everything search if it's going according to your plan because mine is I feel I'm I'm drawn similarly I also feel like maybe it's the case that I know and I just don't know that I know

and I also feel like many of these questions so the person who believes themselves to be open will say not you by the way but there's some there's someone in particular that I'm thinking of that happened recently would say, well, I don't know. So for me, my, I don't know, lately has been replaced with that's not for me to say, no, explain what that means. I was at the store and there was someone who was, There's a child misbehaving and then I wanted to... like, pardon me, wants to yell at the kid. And then I stop because I'm like, that's not for me to say. So many parts of reality or parts of questions that are asked of me,

I feel like even questions about what is my opinion on so and so. It's not for me to see. So Jesus said something similar to this. When other people are trying to throw the stone, he said, that's not basically saying that's not for you to say. The judge is not you. The judge is somewhere else. And in Lord of the Rings, it's like, I don't know if this was in the book, but it was definitely in the movie. And it gets me every time. Frodo was saying, man, Frodo was saying to Gandalf, like, it's holding this ring. It's like I wish the ring and never come to me I wish none of this had ever happened And then it's such a heart wrenching moment because you just know like there are many times in your life

You're like man, I wish the so-and-so never came to me. I wish I wish so-and-so never happened and And Gandalf says like so to all who live through such times, but that's not for them to say. And or that's not for them to decide something like that. And all we have to do is, is just decide what we have to do with the time that we have with time that's given to us. Something like that. That's not for them to say that's not for them to say, that's not for you to say. That's something

that I find myself relating with more and more. You've got me thinking of Lord of the Rings now. These books above me, this whole set, it's all just Lord of the Rings, all just Tolkien. I love Tolkien, I don't know, it's just something about the way he used language and trying to incorporate that into something more and trying to write languages and then transforming that into a book in order to make language a culture. I mean, that's just such an epic thing to do. I just think that any of the times almost every single time they use it so sparingly, they used it just the right amount

of times in the in the films that Frodo just looks at someone else and he's holding his like, I can't do this, Sam. And you just you just your heart breaks and like, you know what that's like, you know what that's like, you know what that's like to carry something and feel like you can't do it anymore and you need help. What would you say when you the things you can say? Do you think they have they are of free will?

Do you have volition in this? What are your thoughts on that topic? Where do you stand? Unless it's not for you to say. Yeah, that may not be for me to say, but I also am not terribly convinced by all the determinist arguments. I, I don't, I'm not convinced for a few reasons, which I've written down so they don't, they're not coming to mind currently. But there are a few reasons why I'm not convinced. I also, so I also don't think here's another unconventional thought

of mine. I don't think the infinite regress is a problem. And the reason is that in math, you can have higher ordinal numbers. So you can treat an infinity as a number. So in some sense, you can just say that something happens at infinity. Maybe we have some influence to it. Like there are boundary conditions that we somehow have influence over. Maybe the fact of free will is a question about boundary conditions. Maybe there is a relationship between boundary conditions and us. I mean, if you live in a deterministic world, there definitely is, because that's all that determines you is two facets, the machine that cranks out something, the next state and the state that goes in it, namely the input. So the input and the black box, then you get out the output. And the output, which is us is inextricably tied to both. If you had a different machinery,

you get a different output. If you had a different input, you would get a different output. Yeah. That that's something I also feel is going to become another replacement word for consciousness at some point. I've under condition. What? No, free will. I think free will. Ah, I see. At some point, once people figure out certain mechanisms of the way the brain

works, our consciousness works, or how electromagnetic fields work, it's going to become about how certain con certain processes get together to create this agency and this agency is going to become the new Ian Vittal which became consciousness which will become free will I Feel like it's gonna mean I feel like at some point There because I've read a few theories lately one in particular because I'm prepping for an interview is is that semi-fuel theory? I was talking about and It's different it's slightly different from Penrose and Amaroff. I mean, they're talking about microtubules,

they're talking about what you spoke about earlier. But then you've got another bunch of quantum biologists who are talking about consciousness being this electromagnetic field, and it's within this field that we're experiencing what we're experiencing right now. and they've studied this in certain Mammals, they've looked at certain patterns Apparently even one of Mike Levin's papers helped

Support this theory. It's called semi field theory for anyone. I'll put a link in the description CEMI Consciousness. Ah, right. Yeah, so consciousness is an electromagnetic information field. It's fascinating, I must say. It's actually quite interesting. And in a very basic way, because I'm still doing the research,

I haven't fully gotten in depth with it, but the electromagnetic activity that they're noticing in certain regions of the brain, or the way the synapses, the neurons are firing, the rates at which they're firing, there seems to be no correlation between synapses firing in this particular region of the brain and a certain thought process.

So the neural correlates are not there yet. Whereas the electromagnetic correlates have already been shown. So they're ahead of the neural correlates of consciousness in that sense. This theory is already sort of doing better than your average neural materialist theory of consciousness.

They're showing that these patterns or very different neurons that had nothing to do with this type of thought process in one side of the brain or different area of the brain. Yes. Can produce the same sort of thought when the right electromagnetic activity is produced around that region. I don't understand so are you saying that like one part of the brain say that's part A at the back? Yes. There is some pattern of activity activity that occurs prior to you saying that I consciously made

No, no. So what I'm saying is action. What I'm saying is let's say certain proteins store certain memories, for example, or certain areas of the brain, you've got certain protein storing memory. Let's use the hippocampus. Let's just say we're in the hippocampus looking at this specific area, the specific region with specific cells. What they realized is this group of cells separately, their activity doesn't really matter in a sense. If the same sort of electromagnetic activity occurred there, that if it occurred in a different region of the brain, if that same electromagnetic activity occurs

in that different region of the brain, the same sort of thought process or mechanism of movement. So it's no longer about, okay, this region, this type of electrical activity that's occurring is the conscious correlate. It's now the electromagnetic field that's coming out of it, the patterns, the waves of the field, that is the key to this theory.

And then in this theory, what happens is this brings me back to what we were talking about is, is at this point, free will becomes when these fields, you know, how troughs and cancel each other out if they're not, if you're not going to sort of go in sync, you're not going to you're going to either build up a word. I've lost my train of thought. But anyway, if at some point, everything is not in sync, or they...

From a physics perspective, if you're talking about waves going together, what is the term? Destructive or constructive interference? So if there's constructive interference, that is when you can make active choices and that becomes what is free will at that point. Those are the most conscious moments. Okay. So it's those constructive interference patterns that they notice seem to be the most informative interesting of sorting out. And all the destructive ones are our unconscious actions.

So you blinking, you look perhaps taking a sip of your, whatever you're drinking in that moment. All these unconscious moments are occurring when there's destructive interference. Every single constructive interference moment is a conscious free will attention awareness moment. I probably most likely butchered that theory completely. No, I understand.

I get the gist. Now that concerns me, because that means free will now has become the new consciousness in that sense. I mean, you're only conscious when you're making agent world-like decisions and we're just pushing it a little further with something like that. But it's very interesting, I must say. The more I'm reading it, the more I'm enjoying it.

Kevin, I have to get going, man. Oh, sorry. That's all right. I didn't even realize what the time was. Thank you so much. I'm just glad you're staying up so late. I appreciate you doing that for me. No, man, anytime. It's been such a pleasure to chat to you.

I've been looking forward to this for a while and it lived up to my expectations. You're such a great thinker. Thanks for doing the work you're doing. For someone like me watching it, I'm enjoying it. Whatever this project is, the overall goal and this research project, I'm keen to support it and be part of it in any way that you need. Thank you, man. Thank you so much, man.

I appreciate it. Kurt, anything before you go, anything you were you need to tell me of a that you want to quickly mention before you go or do you are you that strict for time? No, we can talk off air a bit. I just need to use the washroom and then tell my wife that she can come out. OK, OK. Back up come out. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, I think that's okay. Thank you to anyone who's who continued to watch until now. Yeah. And if you like, you can watch the theories of everything channel, you can type that

in and you'll find me on X so slash Twitter, LinkedIn, all these places. If you search my name, Kurt Jai Mungal, which I'm sure will be on the title. Yeah, no, I'll definitely put all the links in the description. Thank you so much. You've been such an amazing guest. Thanks for allowing me a chance to fit into a little as well. Thanks, man.