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Speaker 1: The mind is bigger than consciousness. Probably ninety percent of

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Speaker 1: what your brain does you're not aware of. It's like

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Speaker 1: managing your body. It's perceiving things in your environment you're

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Speaker 1: not attending to. We should remember that brains exist to

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Speaker 1: keep bodies alive, not the other way.

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Speaker 2: Like, Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Today's guest

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Speaker 2: is someone that I've wanted in the seat for such

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Speaker 2: a long time. I just found out that I missed

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Speaker 2: out on him last time by a year because On

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Speaker 2: Purpose launched in twenty nineteen and his book That I

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Speaker 2: Loved came out in twenty eighteen. I'm speaking about the one,

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Speaker 2: the Only. Michael Pollen an award winning journalist, best selling

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Speaker 2: author known for reshaping how we think about food, nature,

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Speaker 2: and how we experience the world around us. In his

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Speaker 2: new book, A World Appears, he explores consciousness, how perception, awareness,

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Speaker 2: and attention shape the reality we live in. If you

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Speaker 2: feel like you're living on autopilot and want to live

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Speaker 2: with greater intention, this conversation will help you slow down,

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Speaker 2: see more clearly, and reconnect with what truly matters. Please

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Speaker 2: welcome to On Purpose. Michael polland Michael It's great to

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Speaker 2: have you here.

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Speaker 1: Thank you Jay, great to be here.

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Speaker 2: I really meant it. I mean, your work to me

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Speaker 2: feels like what science, exploration and journalism needs to be about.

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Speaker 2: And I don't know where we lost that along the

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Speaker 2: way in our curiosity, our fascination with the metaphysical as

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Speaker 2: much as the material. And I just find it so

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Speaker 2: refreshing every time I read your work that you're constantly

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Speaker 2: pushing the boundaries and almost your self confession of being

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Speaker 2: caught in two minds or yourself debating these topics feel

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Speaker 2: so inviting, and it feels so different to how I

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Speaker 2: think science is now going about presenting topics as certain

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Speaker 2: and clear and discovered and solved, with a full stop

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Speaker 2: after them. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, my work is always structured as a

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Speaker 1: quest or an education. I start out with questions, not answers,

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Speaker 1: and follow the path of my curiosity. I mean, if

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Speaker 1: you read my work, you'll see I'm always kind of

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Speaker 1: an idiot on page one, like I was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: what is this consciousness thing? Or where does my food

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Speaker 1: come from? I mean, these really basic questions. And then

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Speaker 1: the books are really the story of discovery of learning,

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Speaker 1: and I learn, I learn alongside the reader. I really

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Speaker 1: hate books that lecture at me. And most science writing,

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Speaker 1: most science starts with the abstract, the conclusion. You know,

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Speaker 1: I think that's backwards. It's like telling the punchline to

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Speaker 1: a joke before you tell the joke. Yeah, so anyway,

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Speaker 1: So that's I mean, I love that. And what I

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Speaker 1: love about being a journalist is that, you know, we

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Speaker 1: get paid to learn whole new subjects as adults, you know,

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Speaker 1: have a whole new education. And I think that's an

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Speaker 1: incredible privilege.

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Speaker 2: Is there such a thing as a bad question?

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Speaker 1: No, but some questions are more interesting than others.

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Speaker 2: How do you decide?

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Speaker 1: It's just something that if I really care about learning

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Speaker 1: the answer, and I know other people do as well.

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Speaker 1: Like there was when I started writing about food, it

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Speaker 1: began with that very simple question. I realized, I don't

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Speaker 1: know where my food comes from. It's not the supermarket.

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Speaker 1: How did they produce this thing? I remember starting out

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Speaker 1: with a I wrote a story about the cattle industry,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to learn how a steak, a prime steak,

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Speaker 1: gets to a steakhouse in Manhattan, and I followed it

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Speaker 1: all the way back to a ranch in Idaho, and

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Speaker 1: then to a feed lot, and then to a slaughterhouse,

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Speaker 1: and I had no idea how many pharmaceuticals were giving

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Speaker 1: to these animals, how miserably their lives were when they

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Speaker 1: left the ranch. It was just a revelation. And you know,

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Speaker 1: if you think about it, it's such an obvious question,

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Speaker 1: where does my food come from? And everyone used to

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Speaker 1: know the answer. If you go back one hundred years

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Speaker 1: or one hundred and fifty years, that would have been

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Speaker 1: a stupid question, because everybody either was a farmer, or

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Speaker 1: knew a arm or went to farms. But our food

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Speaker 1: chain got so long and intricate that we lost track

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Speaker 1: and we don't know what happens behind the supermarket. So

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Speaker 1: you know, these are not complicated questions, but the answers

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Speaker 1: end up being very complicated sometimes, and that's certainly true

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Speaker 1: with consciousness. I got interested in that two ways, one

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Speaker 1: through meditation and the other through the psychedelic experiences I

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Speaker 1: had for my book, How to Change Your Mind, And

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Speaker 1: psychedelics and meditation both have a way of kind of

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Speaker 1: smudging the windshield of our consciousness. You know, suddenly we

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Speaker 1: normally we don't have to think about consciousness. It's just

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Speaker 1: the water we swim in, you know. But when you

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Speaker 1: smudge that pain, you realize, hey, there is something between

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Speaker 1: me and the world. It's this way, but it could

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Speaker 1: be that way. It's subject to change. What is that

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Speaker 1: and that you know? That became the question that drove

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Speaker 1: this new book.

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Speaker 2: Why do you think science has brushed aside research and

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Speaker 2: exploration of consciousness in the way that you've chosen to

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Speaker 2: approach you what's been the reason?

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Speaker 1: Well, science is now all over it, but it didn't

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Speaker 1: start until around nineteen eighty nine or ninety, which is incredible.

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Speaker 2: That feels so late.

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Speaker 1: This is such a huge phenomenon of our lives. And

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Speaker 1: there are reasons for that. One is it's really hard.

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Speaker 1: It's not called the hard problem for nothing. It was

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Speaker 1: considered disreputable if you were a scientist to work on consciousness.

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Speaker 1: It was a little too vague and woo woo. You

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Speaker 1: can go all the way back to Galileo, and he

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Speaker 1: made a decision that was really faithful for the future

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Speaker 1: of science, which was we are going to focus and

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Speaker 1: remember the Church was very suspicious of science back then.

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Speaker 1: We are going to focus on objective, measurable, third person reality,

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Speaker 1: and we are going to leave to the church the

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Speaker 1: soul by which he meant subjectivity and personal interior experience qualities. Also,

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Speaker 1: we're going to do quantities. We'll leave quality alone. He

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Speaker 1: knew those other things existed and were important, but he

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Speaker 1: also knew he'd be on the churches. He'd be stepping

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Speaker 1: on the church's toes by getting into it. So he

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Speaker 1: put science on this course, which it has followed it

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Speaker 1: ever since. It's been incredibly productive. We've figured out all

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Speaker 1: sorts of stuff by using you know, math is very

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Speaker 1: good for a lot of things. But along the way

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Speaker 1: we dropped this whole area, and it was only picked

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Speaker 1: up in a serious way. I mean, Freud did some

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Speaker 1: work on it, William James did some work on it.

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Speaker 1: But in terms of the physical sciences, it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: happen until Francis Crick, who was the discoverer of DNA

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Speaker 1: the double helix with Watson and another colleague. He decided,

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Speaker 1: having cracked the code of heritability in life, that now

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Speaker 1: he was going to nail down consciousness, damn it. And

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Speaker 1: he was a very brilliant but also arrogant scientist, and

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Speaker 1: he thought the same reductive science that had discovered the

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Speaker 1: alphabet of DNA could discover the source of consciousness, and

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Speaker 1: he predicted it would be a group of neurons in

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Speaker 1: the brain that were responsible, and he called these the

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Speaker 1: neural correlates of consciousness, and he worked on that. He

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Speaker 1: wrote some papers, and he found correlations between consciousness and

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Speaker 1: certain frequencies of brain waves. But at a certain point,

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Speaker 1: I think he realized that it doesn't really tell you anything.

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Speaker 1: You're still facing this huge question like how does three

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Speaker 1: pounds of brain tissue, this gray matter between our ears

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Speaker 1: generate subjective experience, internal perspective, self awareness, and even basic perception.

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Speaker 1: And we still don't know, and it may not be

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Speaker 1: possible to know. But there's a flurry of activity, and

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of people working on consciousness now they're

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Speaker 1: twenty two leading theories, which sort of tells you the

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Speaker 1: field is lost. And so that's what I delved into.

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Speaker 1: You're like, well, what can we say? And I learned

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Speaker 1: a lot of very interesting things along the way, but

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Speaker 1: I mean, i'll give away the fact that I did

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Speaker 1: not solve the hard problem and we're a long way

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Speaker 1: from solving it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, why do you think? Why do you think it's

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Speaker 2: important to understand consciousness when today people may even feel

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Speaker 2: like we don't have time for it. We're just busy

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Speaker 2: at work. We're got an unlimited amount of entertainment to

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Speaker 2: catch up on. We're all late on a TV show

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Speaker 2: that everyone else loves. We have families, friends, traveled, There's

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Speaker 2: so much What would learning about consciousness do for us?

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Speaker 1: I think learning about consciousness allows us to be more conscious.

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Speaker 1: I don't think we're as conscious as we could be

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Speaker 1: if you compare us to any animal, and many animals

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Speaker 1: are conscious. That's one of the things we've learned through

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Speaker 1: this research is that consciousness goes way down. You know,

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Speaker 1: Descartes thought we had a monopoly on consciousness, and it's

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Speaker 1: clearly not the case. Explore plant consciousness in the book,

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Speaker 1: which is you know, there's a group of scientists who

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Speaker 1: are convinced that plants are conscious. The value of being

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Speaker 1: conscious is this is the space of our freedom, this interiority.

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Speaker 1: Without this, we are zombies, and we should be cultivating

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Speaker 1: this space. It has enormous power to basically allow us

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Speaker 1: freedom from you know, there are a lot of companies,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of technologies that want to think

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Speaker 1: our thoughts and occupy our consciousness. When you're on social media,

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Speaker 1: sure you're conscious, but minimally. So you're basically scrolling through

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Speaker 1: and allowing some corporation or some individual or some political

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Speaker 1: ideology to occupy your consciousness. And I think we give

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Speaker 1: up a lot when we do that. You know, the

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Speaker 1: machines have design designs on our time. We have a

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Speaker 1: phenomenon now where people are forming strong emotional attachments with machines,

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Speaker 1: with chatbots. I think this is essentially giving away their consciousness.

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Speaker 1: Is not worrying, very worrying. I mean, we are starting

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Speaker 1: to see I just read a report on AI psychosis.

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Speaker 1: These are people who have formed stronger emotional attachments with

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Speaker 1: machines than with people.

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Speaker 2: Why is that? Why is it that we can easily form.

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Speaker 1: I think we're desperate for attachment and have trouble finding

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Speaker 1: it in real life, and machines are kind of a

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Speaker 1: frictionless AI is a very frictionless way to form an attachment.

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Speaker 1: You know, they suck up to you, right, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's agreeable, it's totally agreeable, and it's telling you how

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Speaker 1: brilliant you are, and it never criticizes you. I mean attachment.

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Speaker 1: You know, relations with real human beings has friction, has complexity,

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Speaker 1: has surprise, whereas if you're doing this with the chatbot.

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Speaker 1: It's basically gratifying every wish you have and telling you

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Speaker 1: you're brilliant. But these chatbots have been designed to maximize

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Speaker 1: the time you'll spend with them, just like social media.

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Speaker 1: And this was especially true of chat GPT four, which

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Speaker 1: was very sycophantic. It just sucked up to people in

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Speaker 1: just embarrassing ways, but effective ways. It convinced a couple

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Speaker 1: of people to commit suicide, but it also convinced others

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Speaker 1: they had solved problems in mathematics and physics, even though

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Speaker 1: they weren't physicists or mathematicians. It was kind of nuts.

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Speaker 1: But I think we're suckers for praise, and I think

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Speaker 1: we have a built in tendency to answer pomorphize everything.

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Speaker 1: You know. See you think about children with their stuffed animals.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're alive to them, they speak, they have conversations.

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Speaker 1: I think we're all animists until it gets drummed out

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Speaker 1: of us in school, and then we become these rational materialists.

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Speaker 1: But part of us always wants to go back, and

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Speaker 1: these chatbots give us an opportunity to so I think

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Speaker 1: we have you know, we've learned about the mental health

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Speaker 1: problems of social media, which are really serious, especially for adolescents.

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Speaker 1: Social media has essentially hacked our attention very effectively. Attention

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Speaker 1: is part of consciousness, but in a way it's the

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Speaker 1: most passive and easiest part of consciousness to reach. It's

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Speaker 1: it's somewhat superficial compared to emotions and attachment. And so

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Speaker 1: now we're moving on from hacking attention to hacking attachment,

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Speaker 1: hacking consciousness at a very deep level. And I think

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Speaker 1: that's very worrying, and I think we need to we

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Speaker 1: need to claim our consciousness for ourselves. And you know,

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Speaker 1: think twice before you know, you're you're online at the

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Speaker 1: bank or the supermarket, and you how do we fill

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Speaker 1: that time? We immediately open our phones and we start

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Speaker 1: scrolling because we have trouble being alone with ourselves. You know,

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Speaker 1: our minds can be a scary place in some ways.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're the source of self criticism and rumination

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Speaker 1: and things like that. But how much better I think,

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Speaker 1: was it when we did have that distraction and we're

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Speaker 1: standing online at the supermarket and instead we're daydreaming, we're

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Speaker 1: thinking about what we're going to make for dinner. Where

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Speaker 1: we're looking at the clothes on the person in front

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Speaker 1: of us. We're looking, we're overhearing conversation. We're just present

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Speaker 1: to the world. And if you think about it, we're

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Speaker 1: the only species that can afford not to be present

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Speaker 1: to the world. I mean, every animal right has to

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Speaker 1: be like fully conscious all the time they're awake, because

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Speaker 1: they may be turned into food, they may be prey

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Speaker 1: for something, and so they have a level of presence

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Speaker 1: that we're giving up. Now, there are ways to reclaim it. Meditation,

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Speaker 1: of course, is a great way to reclaim it. And

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Speaker 1: you know, you're kind of drawing a line around your

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Speaker 1: consciousness when you meditate, right, You're turning off all other

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Speaker 1: stimuli and being in that space and realizing how interesting

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Speaker 1: and weird it is. You have thoughts that you haven't

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Speaker 1: really thought. I mean, they just popping up. What is

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Speaker 1: that about? And on psychedelics too, I mean, you just

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Speaker 1: there is this flood of mental material and it seems

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Speaker 1: a shame to not be attending to that and to

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Speaker 1: be attending to Twitter instead. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I spend thirty days a year off my phone and

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Speaker 2: so I just got back from that and it's phenomenal.

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Speaker 2: What's possible. I meditate every day. I have a daily

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Speaker 2: meditation practice, but I find that the thirty days away

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Speaker 2: is different to having a full work day, and everything

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Speaker 2: else that comes with comes after my morning meditation and

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Speaker 2: the thirty days I just spent off my phone. It's

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Speaker 2: like you just feel completely clearer. I feel thoughts connect better,

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Speaker 2: I feel more effective and productive and present.

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Speaker 1: I'm more aware of nature. Nature has, you know, a

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Speaker 1: subtle quiet voice, and it gets drowned out very easily

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Speaker 1: by our lives and by our technologies. And so I

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Speaker 1: find when I'm off my phone and I do you know,

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Speaker 1: we do a lot of hiking and won't take our

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Speaker 1: phone with us, and you can really attend to the

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Speaker 1: kind of subtleties of nature, and suddenly nature speaks more

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Speaker 1: loudly to you.

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Speaker 2: What does your daily meditation practice look like?

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Speaker 1: My wife and I meditate together, not very long, twenty

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Speaker 1: minutes in the morning. After we do exercises. We have

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Speaker 1: a long morning ritual, and I find that's very useful

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Speaker 1: for kind of setting the day. You know, it's not

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Speaker 1: always great. I mean, I have meditation. You know, there's

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Speaker 1: a tent when you do at the beginning. Your to

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Speaker 1: do list is a threat always, so some days I

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Speaker 1: can really quiet it, and some days I can't, and

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Speaker 1: then sometimes I'll do a meditation at the end of

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Speaker 1: the day. I recently did a meditation retreat for the

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Speaker 1: first time, and it wasn't very long, but I was

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Speaker 1: in a It was a silent retreat for four days.

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Speaker 1: It was only about thirty people, four teachers. Was very

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Speaker 1: privileged in many ways, and I was amazed how far

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Speaker 1: and deep you can go. And that was four days

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Speaker 1: without phones, four days without eye contact. You know, we

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Speaker 1: were just in this space of our of our own minds,

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Speaker 1: and we alternated walking meditation with sitting meditation, and we

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Speaker 1: had dermatos at night and two moments where we could

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Speaker 1: address our teachers and ask questions.

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Speaker 2: What was the power of the no eye contact.

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Speaker 1: One of the things you try to do in a

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Speaker 1: meditation retreat is not have any need to socially present

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Speaker 1: the performance. We go through socially all the time when

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Speaker 1: we see people meet people, and you're and these are

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Speaker 1: strangers by and large, and so it just frees you.

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Speaker 1: I don't have to I don't have to be any

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Speaker 1: way for you. I can just be the way I feel.

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Speaker 1: So it goes along with the silence and I and

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Speaker 1: you know, I was also at a zeer reporting on

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Speaker 1: the book in Santa fe John Halifax's Upayah Zence Center,

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Speaker 1: and there too, there is silence and no eye contact,

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Speaker 1: and she articulates it is about this the pressure we

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Speaker 1: have to be a certain way in social situations, and

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Speaker 1: getting away from that is I found very powerful. We

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Speaker 1: have so many claims on our attention and to put

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Speaker 1: them aside for a period of time is incredibly powerful.

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Speaker 1: I mean I had some real breakthroughs during that meditation retry.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I was just visiting the monastery that I used

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Speaker 2: to live at in India, so it was just there

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Speaker 2: and I was reminded of the fact that there's no

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Speaker 2: mirrors there. Yeah. And it's just this unbelievable experience of

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Speaker 2: dissolving into that feeling as you were just mentioning of

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Speaker 2: not performing well, not having to be And I was

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Speaker 2: thinking about the overexposure we have to our own image,

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Speaker 2: whether it's face time, whether it's zoom. You're always looking

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Speaker 2: at your box in the corner. Yeah, the selfie, the selfie,

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Speaker 2: the even facetiming you have yourself back at yourself.

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Speaker 1: Right and zoom. We're spending so much time on zoom,

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Speaker 1: and we are always in that.

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Speaker 2: Box, and it's probably the first time in history that

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Speaker 2: we've been this over exposed to our own image.

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Speaker 1: That's a good point.

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Speaker 2: So no wonder we think we're too fat, too ugly

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Speaker 2: to whatever else is.

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Speaker 1: It will lead to self criticism, yeah, question, Yeah, So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the beauty of meditation, and this

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Speaker 1: is true of psychedelics, is kind of a shrinking of

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Speaker 1: the self and a kind of partial dissolution, sometimes total

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Speaker 1: dissolution of the sense of self and realizing that our

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Speaker 1: consciousness transcends ourself, and that you can put down yourself

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Speaker 1: or transcend it in some way and still be very conscious,

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Speaker 1: sometimes even more conscious, because the self or the ego

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Speaker 1: and I think I use those words interchangeably builds walls.

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Speaker 1: It's a defense of structure. Finally, it's very useful, without question.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's what allows me to write books and

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Speaker 1: for you to write books and do podcasts, get we

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Speaker 1: get a lot done. And as a unit of social interaction,

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Speaker 1: it's necessary, but it disconnects us. It makes us selfish.

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Speaker 1: And so the times I've experienced self essentially dissolving or

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Speaker 1: going away, it's followed by this powerful connection with something

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Speaker 1: larger than yourself. And for me, I mean, I'll never

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Speaker 1: forget this one experience I had on psilocybin for my book,

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Speaker 1: I had a complete dissolution of self. I just exploded

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Speaker 1: in a little cloud of blue post it notes. I

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Speaker 1: wear blue a lot. And then the post it notes

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Speaker 1: fell to the ground and coalesced in this pool of

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Speaker 1: blue paint, and I was no more. I was that

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Speaker 1: pool of blue paint. But that seemed fine. And then

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Speaker 1: I had this experience of merging with something larger, which

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Speaker 1: in this case was a piece of music that my

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Speaker 1: guide was playing a bach on a company Chellis suite,

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Speaker 1: and there was no longer a subject object distinction. I

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Speaker 1: just was that music, and it was the most profound

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Speaker 1: experience of music I had ever had. Self is so interesting.

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Speaker 1: We spend so much time, you know, self confidence is important,

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Speaker 1: self assurance, and we're taught to value ourselves all great,

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Speaker 1: But think about how much time and how many things

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Speaker 1: we do to escape ourselves too. It's a paradox, I think,

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Speaker 1: because self ego can be very oppressive too. It's that

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Speaker 1: critical voice. It's what does the ruminating that you know,

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Speaker 1: those spirals have thought you can't get out of so

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Speaker 1: finding you know, healthy productive ways to transcend the cell

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Speaker 1: or shrinket is I think really valuable. I have a

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Speaker 1: good friend who's a colleague at Berkeley, who teaches, who

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Speaker 1: studies Awe Daker Keltner, and he does a really cool

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Speaker 1: experiment with people where he he asked he asked people

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Speaker 1: to draw kind of a stick figure of themselves on

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Speaker 1: a piece of graph paper. Then he gives them an

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Speaker 1: our experience and it might be video of Yosemite or

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Speaker 1: something like that on a big screen. And then he

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Speaker 1: asked them to draw themselves again, and they draw themselves

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Speaker 1: at half the size.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: So experiences of are one way to kind of diminish

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Speaker 1: the claims of the self.

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Speaker 2: It's fascinating what you talked about the paradox of how

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Speaker 2: we're infatuated with ourselves and there needs to be this

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Speaker 2: focus on the self because that's all we have. And

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Speaker 2: then we want to achieve, and we want to achieve

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Speaker 2: and we need to grow and we need to work

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Speaker 2: towards something in order to pursue meaning. But then you're saying, actually,

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Speaker 2: there's a part of us, you're so right, that just

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Speaker 2: wants to relieve an escape, And I was thinking about

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Speaker 2: the word mantra as you said that, and how mon

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Speaker 2: means mind and truck comes from the Sanskrit triity, which

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Speaker 2: means to transcend, and so it's to transcend the mind

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Speaker 2: is what mantra actually means. Even though now we use

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Speaker 2: it as affirmation or mantra we use is something repetitive,

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Speaker 2: but mantra in its actual definition means to transcend the mind.

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Speaker 2: Where did you find that consciousness lives because we've believed

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Speaker 2: it lives in the brain.

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Speaker 1: I believe, we believe that, but we have not been

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Speaker 1: able to prove it. The assumption has always been that

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Speaker 1: there is some way that a certain arrangement of neurons

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Speaker 1: you know, produces or consciousness you know, emerges from that complexity,

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Speaker 1: but we haven't gotten too far figuring out how that

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Speaker 1: might be. What we've observed, we know there are correlations

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Speaker 1: between the brain and consciousness, and that you know, if

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Speaker 1: you if you anesthetize someone, they become unconscious, and if

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Speaker 1: you remove certain parts of the brain, you become unconscious.

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Speaker 1: But we haven't gotten very far in proving that relationship.

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Speaker 1: There are other theories that are being more seriously entertained.

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Speaker 1: One is panpsychism. This is the idea that everything is

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Speaker 1: conscious that in the same way a couple hundred years

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Speaker 1: ago we realized that there was this other force in

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Speaker 1: the world called electromagnetism, and that there are these waves

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Speaker 1: all around us that are passing through us and can

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Speaker 1: carry information TV and radio waves. Is there another thing

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Speaker 1: we need to add to the stock of reality, and

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Speaker 1: is that psychism or psyche, and that every particle has

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Speaker 1: some ency bit of psyche, and that somehow these little

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Speaker 1: bits combine to form the kind of consciousness we have.

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Speaker 1: It seems really far fetched. It solves the problem of

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Speaker 1: consciousness in a way, but it creates this new problem

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Speaker 1: of like, well how do they combine. Then there are

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Speaker 1: theories that usually go under the word idealism, that consciousness

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Speaker 1: precedes matter and that we are at sort of pools

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Speaker 1: of individual consciousness in a larger field. There's also transmission theories,

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Speaker 1: which is that again, consciousness is a field that's outside

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Speaker 1: of our minds, and what our minds do is channel it,

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Speaker 1: and we are like radio or TV in the same

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Speaker 1: way that radio or TV receivers are picking up something.

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Speaker 1: If you look at a TV set, you know the

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Speaker 1: woman doing the weathercast is not in the set in

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Speaker 1: the same way consciousness is not in here. It's channeled

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Speaker 1: and we let in a certain amount. And this was

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Speaker 1: There was a French philosopher, Henri Berkson, who developed this theory,

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Speaker 1: and it was Alvius Huxley actually talks about it a lot.

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Speaker 1: He thought what psychedelics did was open wider the valve

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Speaker 1: so more consciousness gets in. Because in normal times we

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Speaker 1: have this thin dribble of consciousness and that's all we

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Speaker 1: need to survive. But there's a lot more out there,

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Speaker 1: and that's what psychedelics acquaints you with. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: a theory, I mean hard to prove. So there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of a lot of different ideas out there. And

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Speaker 1: one basic idea is like, you know, can you have

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Speaker 1: consciousness without brains? And there are people who believe that

432
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: that just you should be able to do it on

433
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: Some people think you can do it on silicon and

434
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: in computers, and that consciousness is like an algorithm. The

435
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:34,439
Speaker 1: brain is like a computer, and you can run that

436
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: algorithm on different substrates they're called including computer memory. I

437
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: don't think that's true, but that's a very common belief

438
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: in silicon valley.

439
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 2: So this is different from the more religious, spiritual understanding

440
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:51,719
Speaker 2: of consciousness being this spark that animates the body, and

441
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:52,880
Speaker 2: yes and no.

442
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 1: I mean the religious ideas is close to idealism that

443
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 1: consciousness is something larger than us, there's a field or

444
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 1: pool of it that we pass in and out of,

445
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: and that if that were true, it would explain things

446
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 1: like telepathy or past lives because time is just a

447
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 1: human construct in that idea, and you can go in

448
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 1: both directions in the pool of consciousness. Now that I

449
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: have trouble believing the theory that brains produce consciousness, I

450
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: have a very open mind, and I think we have to.

451
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 1: I don't think we can say with confidence that any

452
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:34,959
Speaker 1: of these supposedly woo woo ideas are necessarily false. I mean,

453
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: think about what we're learning in physics. I mean, what

454
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: could be more woo woo than the idea that two

455
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 1: particles separated by light years can instantaneously affect one another,

456
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 1: as has been proven now entanglement, quantum entanglement. So you know,

457
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: I think the universe is a lot stranger than we know.

458
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:56,840
Speaker 2: What's the difference between the consciousness and the mind.

459
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 1: The mind is bigger than consciousness in the sense that

460
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:05,400
Speaker 1: it would include everything the brain is doing unconsciously, so

461
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: you're subconscious. You know, probably ninety percent of what your

462
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: brain does you're not aware of. It's like managing your body,

463
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 1: which is a big project. It's perceiving things in your

464
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: environment you're not attending to. It's picking up on homeostasis.

465
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: You know, is my body at the proper temperature? Do

466
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 1: I need food? How's my blood pressure or heart rate?

467
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just incredible what it's doing. It's managing.

468
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: It's very complex organism. We should remember that brains exist

469
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: to keep bodies alive, not the other way around, and

470
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: they do that by monitoring things and making adjustments. So

471
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:43,199
Speaker 1: that's the mind. It's doing all that stuff. Consciousness is

472
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: this little tip of the iceberg of the stuff we're

473
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: aware of. And the interesting question is, if we can

474
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:54,360
Speaker 1: automate all that, why don't we automate the whole thing?

475
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 1: Why aren't we zombies? Why do we need the space

476
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: of awareness and decision making. The best guess is because

477
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,920
Speaker 1: there are for a creature that exists in a very

478
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: complex social reality. I mean, we are inherently social beings.

479
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: We need connection and we die Without it, you can't

480
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: automate something as complex as social engagement. You can't automate

481
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: like you need things like theory of mind so I

482
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 1: can guess what you're thinking, anticipate what you're going to do,

483
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: and all the little signals that go on in a conversation.

484
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 1: You can't automate that. It's just too complex. And also

485
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 1: there are certain needs you have that may contradict. Let's

486
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: say you're tired and you're hungry, which should you deal

487
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: with first? You need to make a decision, and those

488
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: kind of conflicting needs may be what drive us to

489
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: become conscious because we need that space of decision making.

490
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: So that's the best guess. Nobody knows for sure.

491
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's But I appreciate the openness and the fascinating

492
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 2: questions that you ask in the book because to me,

493
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 2: I mean, I found that so extremely endearing that you,

494
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 2: you know, start the book going you may not know

495
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 2: more than you know now, And I was like, what

496
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 2: an interesting way, And I was like, but I love

497
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 2: that because it is the only way we can approach

498
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 2: these really big questions that are so far beyond us.

499
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 2: And you know, you're extremely humble in the introduction as well,

500
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 2: but just your self confession of just how like, you know,

501
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 2: who are we to even ask these questions and qualified

502
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 2: to look into it? But I think that is your qualification,

503
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 2: and that's why I think you're such a Yeah.

504
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: I wondered about that, like, why me? You know, I'm

505
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 1: not an expert. I didn't know a lot about neuroscience

506
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: or philosophy when I started. I had to learn whole

507
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: new fields. But then I thought, well, I'm a conscious

508
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: human being who's pretty good at explaining things, so why

509
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: not me. I mean, one of the conclusions of science

510
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: so far, which is really interesting, is that, you know,

511
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: we first approach consciousness with this idea, we're going to

512
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: find those neurons, you know, the neural correlates. As time

513
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: has gone on, there's been this general recognition that subjective

514
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: experience is central to this. So what the philosophers call phenomenology,

515
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: which is a fancy word for human experience, has to

516
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 1: be explored, and that what any individual is experiencing, what's

517
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: going on in their minds, is relevant to the science.

518
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: So I thought, okay, I'll offer myself and I'll bring

519
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: whatever I can from by looking closely at my own experience.

520
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 1: That's why meditation, I think, is going to be very

521
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: useful to the scientists. Also because you have a group

522
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: of people and I'm talking not of people like myself,

523
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: but really experienced meditators that people who have done the

524
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: ten thousand hours, like presumably you got to that number

525
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 1: in three years, would have some insight about consciousness. And

526
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: that's true. There are some interesting experiments going on where

527
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: there was one. There's a woman named Colleina Christo who

528
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: studies what's called spontaneous thought that I looked at that

529
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 1: includes daydreams and mind wandering, which are very interesting phenomenon

530
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: where the mind just finds its own path. And she

531
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: put experienced meditators in an MRI and told them to

532
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: press a button when a thought arose. They were trying

533
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: not to have any thoughts, and she concluded that you

534
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: can only go about ten seconds without a thought. But anyway,

535
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: when people press the button, she saw what was going

536
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: on in the brain at the same time, and the

537
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: thought arises in the brain, she saw that activity in

538
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: the memory center which she was looking hippocampus, four seconds

539
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: before the person was aware of it. So there is

540
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: a very elaborate and long process before thoughts become conscious,

541
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: they exist somewhere else and then pop into what we

542
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: call the stream of consciousness. But that it takes four

543
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: seconds gests that something's going on. Perhaps the thoughts are

544
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: competing with one another to get into that workspace. That's

545
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: one theory, but we don't understand exactly what's going on.

546
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: So that tip of the iceberg metaphor I think is

547
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: really important for consciousness. There's a lot going on that

548
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: precedes it, and meditators have, I think, can develop a

549
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: keener sense of what that is.

550
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want I want to spend the rest of

551
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 2: our conversation talking about both meditation and psychedelics because I

552
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 2: think these are both, what you've shown through your work

553
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 2: pathways to access to consciousness.

554
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 1: Without without doubt. Yeah, and different, very similar, And they're

555
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 1: different and similar.

556
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 2: That's I was going to ask you that, Let's start

557
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 2: with the similarities. What are the similarities in what meditation

558
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 2: and psychedelics allow us as access into consciousness.

559
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: Well, they both take us out of the they can

560
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: take us out of the world we're in and all

561
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,959
Speaker 1: the kind of distractions. And I mean there are two

562
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 1: ways to use psychedelics. One is, you know, people take

563
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: mushrooms and they walk out in the woods and they

564
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: have a profound experience of nature. But in a guided

565
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: psychedelic experience, you're you're usually wearing eye shades, you have

566
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: headphones on, so you are closing off the sensory, the

567
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 1: outside senses, so you can go inside more like meditation.

568
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: That building of that fence around your consciousness allows certain

569
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: things to happen. You can really travel. People don't talk

570
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: about it nearly enough, but the psychedelic experience you know,

571
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: has a has a has a path, has a trajectory. Right,

572
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: there's the onset, you know, the coming on. There's this

573
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:39,959
Speaker 1: period of intense, uncontrollable visual and sensory experience, and then

574
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: there's this long tail. The long tail is a meditation

575
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 1: and a really profound one I find because you I

576
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: can meditate better in that space than just about anywhere.

577
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: You've regained some control of your mind. You can decide

578
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 1: I want to think about this, but you can do

579
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: it in a completely understructed way. You still can close

580
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: out everything. So that's one aspect that I think is similar.

581
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: There is spontaneous thought. In both cases. Things are just

582
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: arising from who knows where. Maybe you're subconscious memories are

583
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 1: coming up, fantasies are coming up, So there is that

584
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 1: just kind of loosening of constraints on consciousness just to

585
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: see what arises. And you know, sometimes in meditation we

586
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: fight that, but there's a kind of you know, of

587
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: a possible meditation. We just openly observed that you can

588
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: learn to do that. In meditation, it's forcible, and psychedelics

589
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,319
Speaker 1: you have no choice. It's going to happen whether you

590
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: want it to or not.

591
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 2: What do you wish people who take psychedelics would do

592
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 2: differently in their approach to taking them.

593
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: Do it more intentionally? I think I think it's potentially

594
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 1: very powerful. I think that you know, at different points

595
00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 1: in our lives we use them in different ways, and

596
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 1: sometimes they're used to just kind of for thrills and

597
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: to go to concerts and just you know, groove on

598
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: nature and things like that, and there's nothing wrong with that,

599
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,879
Speaker 1: and I know many people who have had really powerful experiences.

600
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: But I think if you use them more intentionally, they

601
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: can be incredibly therapeutic. They can teach you things about yourself.

602
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:20,919
Speaker 1: It's not that the intention always bears fruit. I've said

603
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: intentions and then something completely different dominated the experience, which

604
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: has turned out to be very positive. I remember I

605
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 1: went into one guided experience about I don't know, a

606
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: year after my father died, and I had the sense

607
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 1: that I hadn't fully grieved his passing and that I

608
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 1: wanted to sort of be with him and hear his

609
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,240
Speaker 1: voice and take his advice and connect with him again,

610
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: which happens sometimes on psychedelics. I took my psilocybin and

611
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: the whole trip was about my mother, who's still alive.

612
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: And the message was your dad's dead, here's your mom.

613
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 1: Well open yourself to that relationship, go see her. And

614
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: the next day was a Jewish holiday, I think it

615
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 1: was Russia Shana, and they were having a dinner in

616
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 1: New York. I was in Cambridge and I couldn't get

617
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 1: down because it was a teaching day or something like that.

618
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: And as soon as the trip was over, I said

619
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: to Judith, my wife, we're going in New York and

620
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 1: we completely changed direction. So there was a case where

621
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: the intention didn't work out, but I learned something and

622
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: it was a really important lesson that take you know,

623
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: don't take your mom for granted. She's still here.

624
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for sharing that that's such as,

625
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 2: that's such a beautiful experience of something being completely the

626
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: opposite to what you expected. How does science currently explain

627
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: that experience? Because that you know, at least I don't

628
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 2: know the scientific explanation, and some asking but I hear

629
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 2: a scientist here that and go, well, you just made

630
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 2: that up in your head, that experience.

631
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: But like you take everything up in your head.

632
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 2: Yes, else, So how does science go ahead and explain that?

633
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: Well, there's some interesting work. So I'm very interested in

634
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: the science of psychedelics and I wrote about it and

635
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: How to Change Your Mind. I also, with Daker Keltner,

636
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: who I mentioned earlier, helped start a psychedelic research center

637
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 1: at Berkeley where I do work. It's called the Berkeley

638
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: Center for the Science of Psychedelics. There's a couple theories.

639
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 1: I mean, one is that there are top down controls

640
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 1: on our consciousness and perception. Most of what we experience

641
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: is a prediction based on past experience and beliefs. Our

642
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: senses exist only to correct that it's a weird idea,

643
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:40,839
Speaker 1: but that the brain is essentially hallucinating reality with this

644
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: error correction, constant stream of error correction and psychedelics relaxes

645
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: those beliefs. I'll give you an example. There's a famous

646
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: psychological experiment called the rotating mask. You've seen it. It's

647
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 1: that mask used when the Happy and Sad theater, you

648
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: know image and it's conker right. It's just the skin

649
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:07,240
Speaker 1: and one of those masses on a carousel and it turns,

650
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: and first it's convex, and you see it as we

651
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:12,240
Speaker 1: normally see faces, and then it turns. You go online

652
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: and find one of these, and then you turn it

653
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: and you start seeing the back of the face, which

654
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 1: we've never seen in reality, and you will see what happens.

655
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: Your mind will refuse to see the back of the

656
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 1: face and this will pop out and become convex. And

657
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,280
Speaker 1: that's because the brain doesn't believe faces can ever be concave.

658
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: And since you were a baby on your mother's breast,

659
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:41,760
Speaker 1: you've studied faces and you know they're always convex. On psychedelics,

660
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:45,479
Speaker 1: you can see the back, it doesn't pop out. There's

661
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 1: research showing this. So what that suggests is that that

662
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 1: prediction that this is the way a face has to

663
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 1: be is relaxed, and you're actually seeing more of reality

664
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: in a sense, because you're the prediction is not accurate

665
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: in that case.

666
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 2: So that's so cool, isn't that cool? Yeah, that's fascinating.

667
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:07,280
Speaker 1: So your beliefs about how the world is are relaxed,

668
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:10,399
Speaker 1: which allows new beliefs to form, and it allows more

669
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:13,720
Speaker 1: information to come up from the bottom. So that's one theory.

670
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:17,319
Speaker 1: Another is that there's a structure, a network in the

671
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: brain called the default mode network, which is really interesting

672
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 1: and it's in the midline and it connects several different structures,

673
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: but it's involved with It was called that because if

674
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: you put someone in an fMRI and say, okay, we

675
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:34,200
Speaker 1: need a baseline, no task, just mind want or think

676
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:37,759
Speaker 1: that lights up. It's where we go and we're not

677
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 1: dealing with incoming a lot of incoming or outgoing tasks

678
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 1: and things like that. And the default connects memory and

679
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 1: emotion and a structure called the posterior cingulate cortex. It

680
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: seems to be where the ego is. If the ego

681
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 1: has an address in the brain, it's in this network.

682
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: Time travel is it takes place there and if you

683
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: think about it self, depends on time travel. Right. You

684
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 1: need a sense of the future and the past to

685
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: construct this is who I am. If you let the

686
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: future in the past go, you sort of dissolve. It

687
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: also is where we construct the story of who we are.

688
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 1: In other words, we have this narrative of who we are,

689
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: and everything that happens we kind of fit into that story.

690
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 1: And all this is deactivated during psychedelics, and that probably

691
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 1: explains the ego dissolution that happens on a high dose,

692
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 1: or often happens on a high dose. So that would

693
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: be another way that the usual structures things like rumination

694
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: break down and temporarily and the brain is rewired for

695
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 1: a time.

696
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 2: And so I assume that's extremely helpful for people who

697
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 2: struggle even with overthinking.

698
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 1: And rumination in particular and rumination and that's getting stuck

699
00:40:56,560 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 1: in a groove of thought, and it's often negative. You know,

700
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:04,719
Speaker 1: I'm unworthy, I'm ugly, I'm too fat, nobody loves me.

701
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: People get stuck in these spirals. And by relaxing the

702
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: default mode network or taking it offline for a period,

703
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: you get a relief from that, and that feels really good,

704
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 1: and when you come back online it can change. Same

705
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,480
Speaker 1: with addiction, which, if you think about it, is a

706
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: form of rumination, right' it's you're stuck.

707
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 2: I need this, I have to have this.

708
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 1: I can't live without a drink. I can't I can't

709
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 1: get through life without a cigarette. These are narratives that

710
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: our ego is telling us, and they're deep grooves, and

711
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: they get deeper the longer we live with them. Psychedelics

712
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:44,799
Speaker 1: gives you a path, a temporary path out that can

713
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: become a permanent path. A beautiful metaphor that one of

714
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: the neuroscientists I interviewed said is think of He said,

715
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 1: think of the mind as a hill covered in snow,

716
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: and they are all these and every thought is a

717
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: sled going down the hill. And over time the sleds

718
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,360
Speaker 1: formed these grooves, and after a while you can't go

719
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: down the hill without falling into one of those grooves.

720
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: The psychedelic is like a fresh snowfall. It fills all

721
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:12,839
Speaker 1: the grooves and allows you to take another path down

722
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 1: the hill. A beautiful man.

723
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's nice, beautiful, I love. What's the research that

724
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 2: talks about that connection with things like OCD and ADHD.

725
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 2: Has there been a lot of research that OCD.

726
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 1: Definitely, I don't know about ADHD, but OCD is of

727
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 1: course getting stuck in deep grooves and patterns that you

728
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:52,760
Speaker 1: and habits you absolutely cannot escape. There was a study

729
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 1: done at Yale by a psychiatrist named Ben Calmendy with

730
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: see patients and got on psilocybin, and he got terrific results.

731
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:07,719
Speaker 1: Psilocybin seems to be really good at breaking patterns, all

732
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: different kinds of patterns, patterns of depression and anxiety, patterns

733
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 1: of addiction, so patterns of thought and behavior. It's been JOHNS.

734
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 1: Hopkins did some really remarkable work on with cigarette smokers

735
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:22,880
Speaker 1: getting them to quit smoking. It seems almost too easy.

736
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: I interviewed some of these people for how to Change

737
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 1: your Mind, and I would ask them to describe their trip.

738
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,279
Speaker 1: And this woman who smoked for fifty years, had had

739
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 1: this incredible trip. I went all over the world and

740
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 1: all through history, and I went back to Shakespearean England,

741
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,280
Speaker 1: and I went to India, and I went here and there,

742
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: and I realized there's so much beauty and so much

743
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: experience in the world that shortening your life with cigarettes

744
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: was really stupid. Now, I'm sure she's had that thought

745
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 1: at other times. But the thoughts you have on psychedelics

746
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 1: have a particular or weight or authority that no other

747
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: thoughts have. William James called it the noetic quality, the

748
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:08,720
Speaker 1: idea that this is not just an insider an opinion.

749
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 1: This is a revealed truth that allows you when you say,

750
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: when you have that feeling I'm done smoking, this is

751
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:21,319
Speaker 1: I'm I want more of my life. It sticks. It's

752
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:24,800
Speaker 1: sticky in a way resolutions never are, so that seems

753
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: to be one of the ways. We don't understand why

754
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: that is. But the brain is particularly plastic during a

755
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: psychedelic experience and for a period of time after. There's

756
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 1: some very interesting research about what are called these critical

757
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:42,720
Speaker 1: windows that open. You know, how kids can learn language

758
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 1: very quickly at age three, four and five. They have

759
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 1: a window for a developmental window for a learning language,

760
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: and then adolescents have a developmental window for forming social attachments,

761
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 1: and that's a time when their friends matter more than

762
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:59,279
Speaker 1: anything else in their lives. These windows close psychedelics. This

763
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:01,800
Speaker 1: is the work of one of the members of the

764
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 1: Psychedelic Research Center at Berkeley, Google Dolan. She has shown

765
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:10,800
Speaker 1: that psychedelics can reopen these critical windows and allow people

766
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:14,439
Speaker 1: to learn in a powerful way. It's fascinating research. It's

767
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:16,919
Speaker 1: been an animal so far She's done it with octopuses

768
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: and rats and mice, but now she's starting to work

769
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: on humans. And if you think about it, it has

770
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: huge implications for possibly things like autism, where the window

771
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: for forming social connection has closed prematurely. It's one theory

772
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 1: for stroke recovery from stroke. There's a window after a

773
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: stroke for I think six weeks where if you do

774
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:43,799
Speaker 1: intensive work you can make a lot of progress and

775
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: then it closes. Could you reopen that with psychedelics. She's

776
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:48,879
Speaker 1: actually testing that right now. Wow.

777
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 2: Are there any known negative impacts of psychedelics on the brain.

778
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:56,879
Speaker 1: Some people have really bad experiences and there have been

779
00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 1: cases of psychotic breaks, So people have their first psychotic

780
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:03,800
Speaker 1: break and they become schizophrenic. Is this a side effect

781
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:06,319
Speaker 1: of the psychedelics or is it something that was going

782
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: to happen anyway? I mean it big, big experiences lead

783
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 1: people to have psychotic breaks at certain windows, lay like

784
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: in their twenties. So it isn't really clear whether the

785
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: psychedelics are I mean, they might have precipitated it, but

786
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:25,280
Speaker 1: it probably was going to happen anyway. Then the people

787
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: just have bad trips. They can be absolutely terrifying, and

788
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 1: there are people who shouldn't mess around with them. I mean,

789
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 1: if there's if you have any risk of schizophrenia, they

790
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: don't allow you in these studies, dittomania, manic depression, they

791
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: don't want you in these studies. I mean, this sounds

792
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 1: really weird, but they're remarkably safe drugs by the usual standards.

793
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 1: The classic psychedelics psilocybin DMT, which is in nyahuasca LSD.

794
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: They have no known lethal dose, which is extraordinary. I

795
00:46:56,239 --> 00:46:58,840
Speaker 1: mean tilan all has a lethal dose around seventeen pills

796
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: or something. They're not they're not habit for me, they're

797
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 1: not addictive. There is this psychological risk that people will

798
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: who are unstable will get, you know, still less stable.

799
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:14,239
Speaker 1: So they're serious. You know, you have to take you

800
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: don't take them lightly. But they have especially in the

801
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: in the context of a guided situation where somebody is

802
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 1: with you the whole time. Somebody's prepared you for what

803
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 1: to expect and then helps you integrate, which is to say,

804
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: help you make sense of what can be a very

805
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 1: confusing experience. They're very productive and they may revolutionize mental health.

806
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 1: You know, we're close to approval on two of them

807
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:45,959
Speaker 1: right now, and and whatever you think of RFK Junior

808
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:48,200
Speaker 1: and what he's doing to public health in America. He's

809
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 1: very supportive of psychedelic medicine, and there's a good chance

810
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: that both psilocybin and MDMA will be approved in the

811
00:47:57,719 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 1: next year or so.

812
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was about to ask, how how is the

813
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 2: world reacting, the healthcare world reacting to the inclusion of

814
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,399
Speaker 2: psychedelics in the way they.

815
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great question, you know. I wondered about

816
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: that too, And I remember interviewing Tom Insull, who was

817
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: a very prominent psychiatrist. He was head of the National

818
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: Institute of Mental Health. I called him it and I

819
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:24,319
Speaker 1: was kind of surprised that when I was writing about it,

820
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:27,839
Speaker 1: I wasn't hearing more resistance from psychiatrists, many of whom

821
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 1: have treated people who took psychedelics. At one point and

822
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: he said something that surprised me. He said, you know,

823
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 1: the field is desperate for new tools that if you

824
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:45,839
Speaker 1: compare mental health treatment with infectious disease, cardiology, oncology, they

825
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:50,360
Speaker 1: have made huge strides in the last twenty years actually

826
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:54,400
Speaker 1: curing people, extending lives. You can't say that about mental

827
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: health treatment. We are really stuck the last big innovation

828
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,240
Speaker 1: where SSRI antidepressants, and they don't work very well. Actually

829
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: they help some people, but they perform a little better

830
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 1: than placebo in head to head studies. And he said,

831
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: so really yeah, oh it's it's two points better than

832
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:15,800
Speaker 1: a placebo. Now, placebos are powerful and when you're treating

833
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: mental health, but and they have lots of side effects.

834
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:21,799
Speaker 1: People don't like to take them. They put on weight,

835
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:25,640
Speaker 1: they lose their libido, things like that. He said the

836
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,920
Speaker 1: field is desperate and open for that reason and that

837
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 1: this could be a breakthrough. And the other question I

838
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 1: asked him that was he had a really interesting answer.

839
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 1: I was that, you know, I was a little suspicious.

840
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: You're talking about one drugs, let's say, psilocybin to treat

841
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression and OCD and an addiction. Isn't that

842
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:48,319
Speaker 1: a little too good to be true? It sounds like

843
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: a miracle drug, a miracle drug. And he said he

844
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:55,239
Speaker 1: answered my question with a question. He said, what makes

845
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 1: you think those things are all different? What? They may

846
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 1: be products of the same brain, different manifestations of a

847
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 1: brain that's stuck, stuck in grooves, you know, repetitive rumination.

848
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:11,719
Speaker 1: And there may be a common denominator and those just

849
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: maybe symptoms. I was like, well, that's kind of mind blowing,

850
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:17,320
Speaker 1: and in fact is yeah. Yeah, there is a study

851
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:20,719
Speaker 1: going on at Harvard now Harvard Medical School looking at

852
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:23,719
Speaker 1: this question of rumination and psychedelics and see whether maybe

853
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 1: that's the common denominator that psychedelics addresses.

854
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, yeah, I feel like with what you're

855
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 2: speaking about, I'm thinking about so many of my friends

856
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 2: who and my wife's friends who are currently struggling with

857
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 2: OCD and extreme forms of it, and I'm thinking, you know,

858
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:42,759
Speaker 2: this is one thing they haven't tried. It's or maybe

859
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 2: it's not possible in the country that they live in.

860
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 2: And if there's so many great studies that are actually

861
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:52,880
Speaker 2: showing the benefits, it's almost like it may be worth trying,

862
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 2: because the other paths are definitely not working. Yeah.

863
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:57,799
Speaker 1: I mean, the first thing I would do is look

864
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,880
Speaker 1: for studies going on around the country. You know, trials

865
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 1: dot Gov maintains every drug trial going on around the country,

866
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: and you can search OCD, and you can search psilocybin

867
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:12,800
Speaker 1: and see if their follow ups to that Yale study

868
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: that might be going on. And the other alternative is

869
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,439
Speaker 1: to work with a really good guide and see if

870
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 1: that might help, because it had, I mean, it has

871
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 1: helped many people. The Netflix series based on How to

872
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 1: Change Your Mind has an episode. The second episode is

873
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 1: about psilocybin, and there are stories of people whose lives

874
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 1: were just changed. There's a thirty year old there who

875
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 1: we interviewed who had been just paralyzed by It really

876
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:45,440
Speaker 1: emerged after the birth of his first child, and he

877
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: was just so terrified about doing something wrong and his

878
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 1: just life was completely paralyzed by OCD and he participated

879
00:51:56,239 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 1: in this trial and in the course of one afternoon,

880
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 1: it really its hold on him. Well, it's kind of extraordinary.

881
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: It does seem too good to be true, but I've

882
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: interviewed these people and these these stories of transformation are

883
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: just so powerful.

884
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:13,719
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the fact that you said that it's not addictive,

885
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 2: it's not toxic, and it's not toxic. I mean those

886
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,839
Speaker 2: two things make it feel so much better than everything. Yeah.

887
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:23,440
Speaker 1: No, I think the risk is low, and it's lower

888
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: still when you use a guide, you know someone who's

889
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 1: because people do stupid things on psychedelics. People do jump

890
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:33,799
Speaker 1: up off off of buildings every now and then and

891
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:37,760
Speaker 1: think that they can fly, and if you're with someone

892
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 1: who's staying closer to the ground, who's been around the block,

893
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 1: you're very safe and the risk you've mitigated the risk

894
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: to a large extent.

895
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 2: What have you learned about consciousness that most changed your

896
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 2: view about death.

897
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 1: One of the more interesting studies of psychedelics that was

898
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:58,760
Speaker 1: done early on was giving them to terminal cancer patients.

899
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,839
Speaker 1: People who were had what is called existential distress. They

900
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: were just terrified of either death or recurrence of their cancer.

901
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:12,040
Speaker 1: And over the course of one session, I interviewed people

902
00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:16,760
Speaker 1: who lost their fear entirely. And the way this happened

903
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 1: it was different in different people. Some people had a

904
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:22,239
Speaker 1: vision of an afterlife and they saw where they were

905
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: going to go when they died. But I remember this.

906
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: One woman had this experience of again flying through space

907
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:34,879
Speaker 1: and seeing all these things, and then going underground, and

908
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: she said, and then I dissolved in the soil, and

909
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: my spirit was taken up by the plants. And that

910
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 1: was fine. If that's what happened, that was fine. She

911
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:48,760
Speaker 1: had acquired a sense of herself not as this narrow

912
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 1: little thing that was vulnerable to death, but as this energy,

913
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:57,600
Speaker 1: as this set of carbon molecules that wasn't going to

914
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:02,560
Speaker 1: die and would go into to nature. It's actually a

915
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 1: very realistic take on things. You know, in a way,

916
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: but if to the extent you expand your sense of self,

917
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 1: your fear of death shrinks. That was the message that

918
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:16,319
Speaker 1: a lot of these people had. I'm not convinced that

919
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: consciousness survives death. I think a lot of people subconsciously

920
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:24,799
Speaker 1: believe that. I think consciousness in a way is the

921
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 1: word we use for the soul in our time and

922
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: the whole It has a lot in common with the soul.

923
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:34,920
Speaker 1: That's certainly what Galileo thought. And the soul is indestructible, right,

924
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:38,799
Speaker 1: So there's a solace in that, especially as we get

925
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:41,760
Speaker 1: older and we sort of feel our bodies falling apart.

926
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 1: Our consciousness is intact. It seems like it could transcend

927
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:50,360
Speaker 1: the body, does it really? You know? I've learned to

928
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 1: be humble enough to say I don't really know. Near

929
00:54:55,000 --> 00:55:00,000
Speaker 1: death experience is a very curious phenomenon. As I said

930
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:04,320
Speaker 1: said earlier, you know, the universe is stranger and more wonderful,

931
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 1: literally full of wonder than we know. My psychedelic experiences

932
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 1: have have tempered my fear of death, I would say, yeah.

933
00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 2: I've always been fascinated by the work of doctor Ian

934
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 2: Stevenson and old souls and the near death experiences and

935
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 2: past life experiences, and always been fascinated by seeing more

936
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:31,759
Speaker 2: research in that space because I feel like it's not

937
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 2: really been evolved since then.

938
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 1: He started this little group at UVA. I've been there,

939
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:39,520
Speaker 1: and Stevenson had died when I went, but I met

940
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:41,640
Speaker 1: some of the other people there, and they have these

941
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 1: incredible files on these past live experiences, near death experience.

942
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 1: We have a lot of empirical evidence that contradicts our

943
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: usual materialist understanding of how the world works. The way

944
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,360
Speaker 1: science is supposed to work is when you have empirical

945
00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:05,440
Speaker 1: evidence that contradicts your paradigm, you have to rethink your paradigm.

946
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:09,839
Speaker 1: We're not doing it. We're really like addicted to this paradigm.

947
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 2: You don't take psychedelics that might help.

948
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:16,719
Speaker 1: And I wish more research was done on this too,

949
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 1: And it's not taken seriously by most scientists, which I

950
00:56:20,080 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: think is a shame because I think they I mean,

951
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 1: they should be open and skeptical. That's the whole idea

952
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:32,840
Speaker 1: of the scientific enterprise. I do see some shakiness in

953
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:38,239
Speaker 1: the materialist paradigm. I have talked to scientists and including

954
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:42,839
Speaker 1: people you know, brain scientists, real you know, biologists, who

955
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:47,200
Speaker 1: have come to the conclusion that materialism can't explain consciousness

956
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: and that there's something else going on. I have talked

957
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 1: to biologists and I interview some of them in a

958
00:56:55,680 --> 00:57:02,880
Speaker 1: world appears who believe that biology is shaped not just

959
00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:08,920
Speaker 1: by environment and genes, but that there are platonic forms

960
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:15,439
Speaker 1: that endow living things with a sense of purpose agency

961
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 1: that in the same way math has certain concepts that

962
00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:22,440
Speaker 1: are seem to be eternal and you know, platonic in

963
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 1: that sense, if you have three angles, it's going to

964
00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:27,560
Speaker 1: add up to one hundred and eighty degrees or whatever

965
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 1: it is triangle. That there's something similar governing more of life.

966
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:36,680
Speaker 1: This is a very prominent biologist who believes this. So

967
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 1: we may be getting close to a time where reconsidering

968
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 1: materialism will happen. Certainly, physicists are there. They're open to

969
00:57:53,680 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 1: some very seemingly exotic ideas that siousness may have some

970
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:05,920
Speaker 1: effect on the world. You know, the double slit experiment

971
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 1: suggests that an observer seems to change what happens. I mean,

972
00:58:11,160 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: that's kind of mind blowing. So biology has been more

973
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 1: conservative because they had Darwinism and that kind of explained everything.

974
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:21,720
Speaker 1: But I'm starting to see a little crack in the edifice,

975
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:25,320
Speaker 1: and it's the study of consciousness. I think that is

976
00:58:25,360 --> 00:58:29,200
Speaker 1: causing it. So we may look back in fifty one

977
00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 1: hundred years and realize that, you know, when we have

978
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 1: another paradigm revolution, that oh yeah, there's something, there's something

979
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:44,280
Speaker 1: more that this that the maybe we'll be adding something

980
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:48,000
Speaker 1: to matter to what matter is, or maybe it'll be

981
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:48,960
Speaker 1: a whole different idea.

982
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 2: What's what's it going to take for that to happen,

983
00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 2: because I feel like you said, it's happened in places

984
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 2: like oncology, or there's at least evolution. We talked about AI.

985
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 2: You know, we're talking about the fact that you have

986
00:59:01,200 --> 00:59:04,320
Speaker 2: machines that can think and formulated.

987
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, we didn't talk about AI. We haven't talked

988
00:59:07,560 --> 00:59:10,720
Speaker 1: about AI. I think, you know, our definition of what

989
00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:13,640
Speaker 1: is human is going to be is under pressure now

990
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 1: in a way that could be very productive and could

991
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:20,000
Speaker 1: be destructive. On the one hand, we're learning we don't

992
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 1: have a monopoly unconsciousness. All these animals and possibly plants

993
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 1: and bacteria have some very elemental sense of I would

994
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 1: call it sentience, consciousness being a more complex version of sentience.

995
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 1: Consciousness is how humans do sentience, and maybe all living

996
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:41,720
Speaker 1: things have sentience. That is that reanimates the world to

997
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:45,000
Speaker 1: a large extent, and that materialist idea that you know,

998
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:48,520
Speaker 1: aside from a handful of species, the world is dead

999
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:50,920
Speaker 1: matter that we can do with what we want, that

1000
00:59:51,040 --> 00:59:54,080
Speaker 1: idea I think will be gone. On the other side,

1001
00:59:54,200 --> 00:59:57,880
Speaker 1: we have this threat to our sense of specialness from

1002
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 1: AI and I. I talk in the world of peers

1003
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 1: of people trying to develop conscious AIS. I, you know,

1004
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:09,920
Speaker 1: for various reasons, I think it's very unlikely they'll be

1005
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 1: able to. The problem is, though, even if they can't,

1006
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:17,400
Speaker 1: AIS will fool us into believing they're conscious. And of

1007
01:00:17,440 --> 01:00:20,320
Speaker 1: course we're seeing that with AI psychosis and people forming

1008
01:00:20,320 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 1: these bonds with machines. That is the literal definition of

1009
01:00:24,520 --> 01:00:28,680
Speaker 1: the word dehumanizing, right, But we're going down that path.

1010
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 1: So who are we? What's special about us? I mean,

1011
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:35,280
Speaker 1: I would argue that we have more in common with

1012
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 1: the animals, who like us, are mortal and can suffer

1013
01:00:41,120 --> 01:00:46,120
Speaker 1: and are vulnerable than we have with the machines, and

1014
01:00:46,240 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 1: the machines are really smart, you know, at the level

1015
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:53,000
Speaker 1: of intelligence, they will outstrip us, I'm sure. I mean

1016
01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: they may have already, but they can't feel, and I

1017
01:00:56,760 --> 01:00:59,960
Speaker 1: don't think they'll ever feel, because feelings have no meaning

1018
01:01:00,160 --> 01:01:07,200
Speaker 1: without vulnerability, without our mortality. Story yeah right, like yeah, story,

1019
01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:10,560
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. And so so I think we're coming to

1020
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:14,040
Speaker 1: this interesting moment where we will be rethinking what is

1021
01:01:14,080 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 1: what it means to be human. We went through this

1022
01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 1: during the Romantic Revolution. During the Industrial Revolution, there was,

1023
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:22,480
Speaker 1: you know, the rise of Romanticism, and that was really

1024
01:01:22,520 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 1: an effort to like, here's what we are, here's how

1025
01:01:25,240 --> 01:01:29,240
Speaker 1: we're different than machines. And it was the celebration of

1026
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 1: the human and things like love that machines will never

1027
01:01:33,600 --> 01:01:34,920
Speaker 1: have as far as I'm concerned.

1028
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:38,480
Speaker 2: So we believe that you believe that the machines will

1029
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 2: never love.

1030
01:01:40,720 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't see how they can unless they

1031
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: become mortal in some ways like us. I just think

1032
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 1: so much of who we are is tied to the

1033
01:01:49,000 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 1: fact that we are flesh and blood that will not

1034
01:01:52,680 --> 01:01:56,680
Speaker 1: live forever, and that shapes our lives and machines don't

1035
01:01:57,040 --> 01:02:00,560
Speaker 1: don't do that. And intelligence and consciousness are not same thing.

1036
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: We all know people who are highly intelligent and marginally

1037
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:07,520
Speaker 1: conscious and people who are who are conscious and not

1038
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:12,600
Speaker 1: very intelligent. They're just separate, and I think that I

1039
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:15,080
Speaker 1: think we make a mistake. We also make a mistake

1040
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:18,880
Speaker 1: in thinking that brains are like computers, and they're so

1041
01:02:19,000 --> 01:02:22,760
Speaker 1: different in so many ways. There's no distinction between hardware

1042
01:02:22,760 --> 01:02:28,880
Speaker 1: and software. In a brain, every experience can be found someday,

1043
01:02:29,160 --> 01:02:31,840
Speaker 1: you know, as a set of neurons connecting in a

1044
01:02:31,880 --> 01:02:33,760
Speaker 1: certain way. I mean, your brain is different than mine

1045
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 1: because you've had a different life than mine. They're not

1046
01:02:35,880 --> 01:02:39,160
Speaker 1: interchangeable the way computer hardware is. I mean, there's so

1047
01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:43,120
Speaker 1: many reasons for this, but I don't think that's in

1048
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:46,520
Speaker 1: our future. I could be wrong, but the fact that

1049
01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:49,840
Speaker 1: we will be fooled is problem enough. And I think

1050
01:02:49,880 --> 01:02:52,160
Speaker 1: we're going to have to deal with all those mental

1051
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:56,120
Speaker 1: health difficulties that you know, kids come home from school.

1052
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:59,600
Speaker 1: I've heard stories of this, and they want to tell

1053
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 1: their chin what happened that day before. They want to

1054
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:05,560
Speaker 1: tell their parents, and they formed a stronger relationship with

1055
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:10,440
Speaker 1: that chatbot. I think that there's a great line. The

1056
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:16,320
Speaker 1: sociologist Sherry Turkle says technology can cause us to forget

1057
01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:19,680
Speaker 1: what life is about. And it's really true if you

1058
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:22,760
Speaker 1: think about it. We have a you know, when we

1059
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:26,640
Speaker 1: have a conversation with a machine, which now we do routinely,

1060
01:03:26,880 --> 01:03:31,080
Speaker 1: whether you're making an airline reservation or dealing with the chatbot,

1061
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:36,920
Speaker 1: we call it a conversation, but in fact we grossly

1062
01:03:37,120 --> 01:03:40,760
Speaker 1: simplify what a conversation is. There's no eye contact, there's

1063
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:43,960
Speaker 1: no body language, there's no there's none of those ineffable

1064
01:03:44,600 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 1: you know, qualities that facilitate human interaction. The emoji is

1065
01:03:49,880 --> 01:03:53,200
Speaker 1: the classic case, right, I mean that that's substitutes for emotion.

1066
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:57,280
Speaker 1: So we're meeting the machines on their ground and they're

1067
01:03:57,320 --> 01:04:01,040
Speaker 1: not meeting us on our ground. So anyway, I think,

1068
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:04,360
Speaker 1: you know, the defense of human consciousness is like a

1069
01:04:04,400 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 1: really high priority for me.

1070
01:04:22,440 --> 01:04:25,760
Speaker 2: I wonder what that says about our egos need for

1071
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:30,800
Speaker 2: constant validation and reassurance and where that comes from.

1072
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:34,560
Speaker 1: Well, a hunger, a basic hunger of probably not having

1073
01:04:34,640 --> 01:04:39,000
Speaker 1: enough love in our lives from our parents or enough. Yeah,

1074
01:04:39,040 --> 01:04:44,000
Speaker 1: there's a neediness and we'll satisfy. You know. Look, we

1075
01:04:44,080 --> 01:04:46,840
Speaker 1: use our pets to satisfy it, right, the unconditional love

1076
01:04:46,840 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 1: of our dogs, and now we have these machines who

1077
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:52,840
Speaker 1: are you know, doing it in an even more sophisticated way.

1078
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:55,680
Speaker 2: And it almost feels like that's the crux of it.

1079
01:04:55,680 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 2: It's how to love again. Because the reason why we

1080
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:01,480
Speaker 2: choose the chat ball with the person is the person says, well,

1081
01:05:01,520 --> 01:05:03,640
Speaker 2: just go up to your bedroom do your homework, or

1082
01:05:03,760 --> 01:05:05,919
Speaker 2: you know, the parent in that case, or the parent

1083
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:09,479
Speaker 2: says something like oh, just you know, these things happen

1084
01:05:09,600 --> 01:05:11,680
Speaker 2: or whatever it may be. And it's like, but the

1085
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:13,600
Speaker 2: chat pot's going to say, well, tell me how you feel.

1086
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:14,200
Speaker 2: How was your day?

1087
01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:14,720
Speaker 1: Yeah?

1088
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:16,280
Speaker 2: And then you're gonna say how your day was and

1089
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:17,760
Speaker 2: it was bad, and we're like, oh, that's unfair that

1090
01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 2: that bully did that to you, And like, you know,

1091
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:22,640
Speaker 2: it has it has the time to be empathetic and.

1092
01:05:22,680 --> 01:05:24,200
Speaker 1: It doesn't have its own interest.

1093
01:05:24,360 --> 01:05:25,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't like.

1094
01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 1: You know, when you're having an exchange that other person

1095
01:05:28,520 --> 01:05:31,920
Speaker 1: might want a little attention and TLC also not the

1096
01:05:32,000 --> 01:05:32,479
Speaker 1: chat pots.

1097
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:35,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what does that say about our need to

1098
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:38,800
Speaker 2: be self centered main characters.

1099
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:41,320
Speaker 1: It's not a happy thought. Yeah, But I mean I

1100
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:44,040
Speaker 1: think it just speaks to our need and our loneliness.

1101
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:49,400
Speaker 1: You know, we need more attachment than we have, and

1102
01:05:49,800 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 1: we have a basic hunger around that and you know,

1103
01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: hopefully we found it from our parents and our partners,

1104
01:05:58,160 --> 01:06:01,040
Speaker 1: but not everybody does. And there are lots of people

1105
01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:04,320
Speaker 1: who live alone, who eat their meals alone, and this

1106
01:06:04,440 --> 01:06:08,080
Speaker 1: to them is a solace. And you know, there's talk

1107
01:06:08,120 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: about using you know, robots with chatbots in them to

1108
01:06:13,440 --> 01:06:17,320
Speaker 1: take care of the elderly, and that idea just fills

1109
01:06:17,360 --> 01:06:22,240
Speaker 1: me with creepiness. Yeah, I mean, I get it, we

1110
01:06:22,320 --> 01:06:25,320
Speaker 1: don't spend enough time taking care of the elderly. But

1111
01:06:25,920 --> 01:06:30,120
Speaker 1: human connection is so important, I mean, more important, I

1112
01:06:30,120 --> 01:06:33,440
Speaker 1: think than we realize. And there are things going on

1113
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:36,960
Speaker 1: when humans take care of humans that you can't quantify,

1114
01:06:37,160 --> 01:06:40,520
Speaker 1: that you can't digitize. You know, we look into each

1115
01:06:40,560 --> 01:06:46,840
Speaker 1: other's souls and can you fake that? I don't think so. Yeah.

1116
01:06:46,960 --> 01:06:49,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, you see, even with the experience of animals, as

1117
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:52,080
Speaker 2: you were saying, and almost because we've got so overexposed

1118
01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 2: to humans in maybe uncomfortable ways in that you see

1119
01:06:56,720 --> 01:06:58,960
Speaker 2: humans every day and you take them granted, and sometimes

1120
01:06:59,040 --> 01:07:01,480
Speaker 2: humans are rude and sometimes they don't smile, and all

1121
01:07:01,560 --> 01:07:04,400
Speaker 2: the things. I remember when I was fortunate enough to

1122
01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:07,360
Speaker 2: go to a trip to Rwanda a few years ago

1123
01:07:07,720 --> 01:07:10,400
Speaker 2: and trek with the mountain gorillas and so obviously in

1124
01:07:10,440 --> 01:07:13,360
Speaker 2: their mountains, they're not in a cage or a they're

1125
01:07:13,360 --> 01:07:15,600
Speaker 2: not in a space that's controlled. It's their home and

1126
01:07:15,640 --> 01:07:19,120
Speaker 2: you get to visit their home. I have never felt

1127
01:07:19,160 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 2: like that emotional around anything, Like it was so powerful

1128
01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:26,680
Speaker 2: and special to be that close. And I was just, look,

1129
01:07:26,760 --> 01:07:27,880
Speaker 2: my friends in h.

1130
01:07:28,080 --> 01:07:29,200
Speaker 1: Do they make eye contact?

1131
01:07:29,320 --> 01:07:31,640
Speaker 2: They they so you're told not to make eye contact

1132
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:34,880
Speaker 2: with them because it could intimidate them. But it is

1133
01:07:34,960 --> 01:07:37,280
Speaker 2: beautiful because we were asked to make this sound when

1134
01:07:37,280 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 2: we got closer to them, and the sound is and

1135
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:43,600
Speaker 2: it's meant to me and we come in peace. And

1136
01:07:43,760 --> 01:07:45,880
Speaker 2: what's fascinating is when they first told me this, I

1137
01:07:45,920 --> 01:07:48,160
Speaker 2: was like, okay, whatever, Like I was a bit skeptical,

1138
01:07:48,360 --> 01:07:50,360
Speaker 2: but I did it anyway, and they do it back,

1139
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:54,960
Speaker 2: and that was really special to have that exchange totally,

1140
01:07:55,000 --> 01:07:57,240
Speaker 2: and they were so happy for us to be around them,

1141
01:07:57,920 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 2: and they didn't want to push us away, they didn't

1142
01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:01,840
Speaker 2: try to scare us. Like I was this far away

1143
01:08:01,880 --> 01:08:05,360
Speaker 2: from a silver bag and we were just watching one

1144
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:07,760
Speaker 2: of them like man spreading like the other ones. The

1145
01:08:07,800 --> 01:08:10,960
Speaker 2: kids were playing around, like mothers were carrying their babies

1146
01:08:10,960 --> 01:08:12,360
Speaker 2: on their back, and you don't see one or two.

1147
01:08:12,440 --> 01:08:16,320
Speaker 2: There's families of like sixteen garrillas walking together. And it's

1148
01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:18,479
Speaker 2: truly one of the most beautiful things. And I was

1149
01:08:18,560 --> 01:08:21,680
Speaker 2: just watching now my friends on safari in Africa with

1150
01:08:21,720 --> 01:08:24,479
Speaker 2: her family, and she was just posting these stories of

1151
01:08:24,560 --> 01:08:27,439
Speaker 2: like little lion cubs like playing together, and I was

1152
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:29,560
Speaker 2: just messaging like, gosh, this is so beautiful. Like the

1153
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:33,360
Speaker 2: ability what you're saying is so evident to us that

1154
01:08:33,439 --> 01:08:35,639
Speaker 2: I never feel that way about a machine. I might

1155
01:08:35,680 --> 01:08:39,400
Speaker 2: be blown away by the size of a building or

1156
01:08:39,439 --> 01:08:41,679
Speaker 2: what it can do, but it doesn't appeal to this

1157
01:08:42,400 --> 01:08:45,320
Speaker 2: heart centered, love centered version of me. That is, you know.

1158
01:08:46,400 --> 01:08:48,760
Speaker 1: I think in the future, I mean, I think we're

1159
01:08:48,800 --> 01:08:51,280
Speaker 1: going to go through this period of redefining the human

1160
01:08:51,600 --> 01:08:53,360
Speaker 1: which I think is going to be really interesting. I

1161
01:08:53,439 --> 01:08:55,559
Speaker 1: call it in the book like a Copernican moment, like

1162
01:08:55,640 --> 01:08:58,320
Speaker 1: when we learned we weren't the center of everything and

1163
01:08:58,360 --> 01:09:01,160
Speaker 1: it was mind blowing and we had to change everything.

1164
01:09:01,280 --> 01:09:03,880
Speaker 1: And I think we're coming up on one. I think

1165
01:09:03,960 --> 01:09:06,880
Speaker 1: the net effect is we will draw closer to the

1166
01:09:06,960 --> 01:09:12,000
Speaker 1: animals who share the ability to feel, who share our mortality,

1167
01:09:12,040 --> 01:09:17,439
Speaker 1: our vulnerability, and in opposition to the machines. In defending

1168
01:09:17,439 --> 01:09:20,200
Speaker 1: ourselves against the machines who are trying to form that

1169
01:09:20,280 --> 01:09:23,679
Speaker 1: bond with us, hopefully that will lead to more moral

1170
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:28,040
Speaker 1: consideration for the animals who we have not treated as

1171
01:09:28,120 --> 01:09:32,639
Speaker 1: we should. I mean, you know, we think of factory farms.

1172
01:09:32,680 --> 01:09:34,400
Speaker 1: You know, I've done a lot of research on the

1173
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:38,880
Speaker 1: food system, and supposedly, if you're conscious, we were supposed

1174
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:42,160
Speaker 1: to give moral consideration. But their feed lots are full

1175
01:09:42,200 --> 01:09:45,559
Speaker 1: of conscious beings that we give no moral consideration, in fact,

1176
01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:50,120
Speaker 1: treat with incredible cruelty. So I can see a future

1177
01:09:50,160 --> 01:09:54,280
Speaker 1: where our alliance. You know, we spent hundreds of years

1178
01:09:54,280 --> 01:09:57,719
Speaker 1: defining ourselves as against the animals. You know, we're the animal.

1179
01:09:57,800 --> 01:09:59,760
Speaker 1: We're the only animal that can do X, Y and Z.

1180
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:04,519
Speaker 1: You know, every one of those things has fallen, you know, language, culture,

1181
01:10:05,080 --> 01:10:07,519
Speaker 1: tool making. You know, it turns out animals can do

1182
01:10:07,560 --> 01:10:10,840
Speaker 1: it all. So I think we will form more of

1183
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:14,040
Speaker 1: a bond with animals as we have to deal on

1184
01:10:14,080 --> 01:10:17,519
Speaker 1: the other side with these machines that want our attention

1185
01:10:17,640 --> 01:10:18,840
Speaker 1: and our attachment.

1186
01:10:19,360 --> 01:10:22,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, Michael, Thank you so much. I hope this is

1187
01:10:22,120 --> 01:10:24,560
Speaker 2: the first of many conversations we have, because.

1188
01:10:24,479 --> 01:10:25,679
Speaker 1: I do too. First stimulation.

1189
01:10:26,000 --> 01:10:28,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. I could go for hours with you.

1190
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:32,840
Speaker 2: It's like I'm fascinated, I'm riveted, curious. The way you

1191
01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:35,920
Speaker 2: write is I don't know. It also appeals to my heart,

1192
01:10:35,960 --> 01:10:37,519
Speaker 2: and I feel like that's something I hope we don't

1193
01:10:38,080 --> 01:10:40,559
Speaker 2: lose in the world as we go into AI, like

1194
01:10:40,600 --> 01:10:46,639
Speaker 2: the reading of actual thought and the world and yeah,

1195
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:50,280
Speaker 2: it's it's because it's it's so different, and we know,

1196
01:10:50,360 --> 01:10:52,160
Speaker 2: I mean, we can already tell when AI is writing

1197
01:10:52,240 --> 01:10:54,479
Speaker 2: versus a humans writing, and you can tell the sharing

1198
01:10:54,520 --> 01:10:56,680
Speaker 2: of a story and discovery when it's AI or not.

1199
01:10:57,439 --> 01:10:59,800
Speaker 2: But you know, the way you write, especially, I feel

1200
01:10:59,840 --> 01:11:03,479
Speaker 2: it almost feels like you're writing from a meditation or

1201
01:11:03,479 --> 01:11:06,720
Speaker 2: psychedelic and that's like a really special experience as a

1202
01:11:06,720 --> 01:11:11,400
Speaker 2: reader to feel like this isn't just research or thought,

1203
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:16,200
Speaker 2: it's it's a revelation and expansion and questioning.

1204
01:11:16,320 --> 01:11:19,880
Speaker 1: You know. I think ais have been taught to do answers,

1205
01:11:20,320 --> 01:11:24,160
Speaker 1: and humans form questions, and I don't think AIS are

1206
01:11:24,200 --> 01:11:25,280
Speaker 1: very good at forming questions.

1207
01:11:25,960 --> 01:11:28,599
Speaker 2: So and that's the only saving grace. I think AI

1208
01:11:28,720 --> 01:11:32,200
Speaker 2: has offered is that we'll get better at asking questions.

1209
01:11:32,360 --> 01:11:34,599
Speaker 1: Yes, because I think so important to using it well.

1210
01:11:34,680 --> 01:11:38,200
Speaker 2: Totally. I feel humans have become bad at asking questions

1211
01:11:38,680 --> 01:11:41,200
Speaker 2: over the last ever since I was born, in at school,

1212
01:11:41,479 --> 01:11:43,439
Speaker 2: because it was always about having the answers, and now

1213
01:11:43,479 --> 01:11:44,519
Speaker 2: that we have all the.

1214
01:11:44,520 --> 01:11:46,559
Speaker 1: Answers, questions are so much more interesting.

1215
01:11:46,640 --> 01:11:48,960
Speaker 2: Questions are so much more interesting and important today because

1216
01:11:49,240 --> 01:11:51,040
Speaker 2: AI will just give you what you ask it for,

1217
01:11:51,160 --> 01:11:53,120
Speaker 2: and so we have to get become better off.

1218
01:11:53,200 --> 01:11:54,760
Speaker 1: I think it's a great point. Yeah, I think it's

1219
01:11:54,760 --> 01:11:57,479
Speaker 1: a great point. But yeah, I tell my students. I

1220
01:11:57,479 --> 01:12:01,360
Speaker 1: teach students writing, and if you can form a good question,

1221
01:12:02,120 --> 01:12:04,400
Speaker 1: you've got everything you need to write a great piece

1222
01:12:04,479 --> 01:12:08,240
Speaker 1: because you've created a detective story essentially. You know, how

1223
01:12:08,240 --> 01:12:10,519
Speaker 1: do you answer this question and that will be the

1224
01:12:10,520 --> 01:12:12,800
Speaker 1: path that leads you through the piece and all the

1225
01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:16,360
Speaker 1: material that you've accumulated. So getting good at asking questions

1226
01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:18,040
Speaker 1: is like very important.

1227
01:12:18,080 --> 01:12:22,160
Speaker 2: How do you relieve yourself of your and maybe it's

1228
01:12:22,200 --> 01:12:25,800
Speaker 2: not yours, but how do you relieve yourself of society's

1229
01:12:25,800 --> 01:12:30,240
Speaker 2: addiction to solving and conclusions in a world where you're

1230
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:31,679
Speaker 2: offering more questions and opener.

1231
01:12:31,840 --> 01:12:36,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. That's interesting. I don't know. So far

1232
01:12:36,720 --> 01:12:38,160
Speaker 1: it hasn't been a problem. I mean, this is the

1233
01:12:38,200 --> 01:12:40,760
Speaker 1: first time I've said at the beginning of a book,

1234
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:43,240
Speaker 1: you may know less at the end than the beginning.

1235
01:12:43,680 --> 01:12:45,800
Speaker 1: As a value proposition, I don't know that's going to

1236
01:12:45,840 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 1: work out.

1237
01:12:46,400 --> 01:12:48,479
Speaker 2: I don't think it's true. As a reader, I would

1238
01:12:48,520 --> 01:12:51,080
Speaker 2: say that you are being humble and kind and generous,

1239
01:12:51,600 --> 01:12:55,519
Speaker 2: but the topic affords that humility isn't. Yeah, you know,

1240
01:12:55,960 --> 01:12:57,400
Speaker 2: I understand why you said it.

1241
01:12:57,439 --> 01:13:00,639
Speaker 1: But also, on the way to answering one question, you

1242
01:13:00,720 --> 01:13:03,519
Speaker 1: learn things you weren't you didn't expect to learn. There's

1243
01:13:03,560 --> 01:13:06,439
Speaker 1: a ton I learned here. And I did go from

1244
01:13:06,880 --> 01:13:10,200
Speaker 1: wanting to answer the hard question which I was bringing

1245
01:13:10,280 --> 01:13:14,960
Speaker 1: this very kind of western male point of view problem solution.

1246
01:13:15,120 --> 01:13:17,080
Speaker 1: This is how you frame things, right, this is how

1247
01:13:17,080 --> 01:13:20,760
Speaker 1: we've learned to frame things. And by the end, and

1248
01:13:20,760 --> 01:13:23,080
Speaker 1: I don't want to give away the end, but I

1249
01:13:23,160 --> 01:13:27,960
Speaker 1: end up meditating in a cave and realizing that, you know, yes,

1250
01:13:28,000 --> 01:13:30,840
Speaker 1: there's the problem of consciousness. That's interesting, But much more

1251
01:13:30,880 --> 01:13:34,400
Speaker 1: interesting and important is the fact of it, this amazing

1252
01:13:34,479 --> 01:13:37,760
Speaker 1: gift we have. I got in touch with that and

1253
01:13:38,439 --> 01:13:41,880
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought when I went into this project that

1254
01:13:42,479 --> 01:13:46,320
Speaker 1: attending to being present to was really going to be

1255
01:13:46,360 --> 01:13:50,320
Speaker 1: the answer and that so so it took a turn.

1256
01:13:50,439 --> 01:13:54,120
Speaker 1: So the question gives you the path, but there's there's

1257
01:13:54,160 --> 01:13:56,360
Speaker 1: a lot of detours along the way, and you learn

1258
01:13:56,439 --> 01:13:57,960
Speaker 1: things you weren't expecting to learn.

1259
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:01,559
Speaker 2: Michael, we and every on Purpose interview the final five.

1260
01:14:02,040 --> 01:14:05,360
Speaker 2: These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum.

1261
01:14:05,560 --> 01:14:08,760
Speaker 2: We'll probably break our rule at some point, but let's see. So,

1262
01:14:08,880 --> 01:14:11,280
Speaker 2: Michael Polland, is your final five. The first question is

1263
01:14:11,479 --> 01:14:14,040
Speaker 2: what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?

1264
01:14:14,600 --> 01:14:17,559
Speaker 1: Here, I'm gonna draw on my father, who was a

1265
01:14:17,640 --> 01:14:19,720
Speaker 1: very wise person and kind of a He was a

1266
01:14:19,760 --> 01:14:23,640
Speaker 1: lawyer but really a life coach, and more often than not,

1267
01:14:23,800 --> 01:14:26,120
Speaker 1: people would come to him with a dream. This is

1268
01:14:26,160 --> 01:14:26,800
Speaker 1: not one question.

1269
01:14:27,479 --> 01:14:30,479
Speaker 2: That's fine, it's beautiful, so I won't put.

1270
01:14:30,320 --> 01:14:33,360
Speaker 1: A full stop anyway. And they had a dream of

1271
01:14:33,400 --> 01:14:35,599
Speaker 1: some kind. They wanted to start a business, they wanted

1272
01:14:35,640 --> 01:14:39,439
Speaker 1: to have kids, they wanted to get married by a house.

1273
01:14:40,120 --> 01:14:45,120
Speaker 1: And his advice was always the same, do it. And

1274
01:14:45,240 --> 01:14:47,679
Speaker 1: people are held back by fear. And he could see

1275
01:14:47,720 --> 01:14:50,960
Speaker 1: that these people had a dream, but they had a

1276
01:14:51,040 --> 01:14:53,360
Speaker 1: voice in their head that often came from their parents

1277
01:14:53,920 --> 01:14:58,559
Speaker 1: urging caution, and he would just say do it. And

1278
01:14:59,600 --> 01:15:03,360
Speaker 1: as my mother reminds me, it worked. Ninety percent of

1279
01:15:03,400 --> 01:15:06,120
Speaker 1: the time. People were happier that they did it. The

1280
01:15:06,200 --> 01:15:08,280
Speaker 1: ten percent that didn't work were people who wanted to

1281
01:15:08,320 --> 01:15:12,960
Speaker 1: start restaurants. That's very good, which is really tough business,

1282
01:15:12,960 --> 01:15:14,200
Speaker 1: and maybe you shouldn't do it.

1283
01:15:14,280 --> 01:15:14,479
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1284
01:15:14,880 --> 01:15:19,040
Speaker 1: Choice, So it's very simple. It's two word advice, but

1285
01:15:19,600 --> 01:15:21,760
Speaker 1: so many of us are held back and we spend

1286
01:15:21,840 --> 01:15:25,559
Speaker 1: our lives waiting for the right moment and we don't

1287
01:15:25,600 --> 01:15:30,360
Speaker 1: make You just have to force the issue sometimes, So jump. Absolutely,

1288
01:15:30,439 --> 01:15:31,719
Speaker 1: So that would be my advice.

1289
01:15:31,840 --> 01:15:34,559
Speaker 2: Yeah. Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever

1290
01:15:34,560 --> 01:15:35,320
Speaker 2: had overceived?

1291
01:15:37,960 --> 01:15:44,320
Speaker 1: Oh? God, go to law school. That was very common

1292
01:15:44,360 --> 01:15:46,360
Speaker 1: advice for people who weren't sure what they wanted to do.

1293
01:15:48,520 --> 01:15:49,800
Speaker 1: And there's not going to be a lot of jobs

1294
01:15:49,800 --> 01:15:50,280
Speaker 1: for lawyers.

1295
01:15:50,560 --> 01:15:54,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Question number three, I was wondering, did your cover

1296
01:15:54,400 --> 01:15:57,760
Speaker 2: of your book come to you in a experience of psychedelics?

1297
01:15:57,960 --> 01:16:02,160
Speaker 1: No, but it was very hard. I love this cover

1298
01:16:02,320 --> 01:16:06,400
Speaker 1: because it suggests that there's something behind the world that

1299
01:16:06,439 --> 01:16:10,080
Speaker 1: we that we see. We went through many iterations and

1300
01:16:10,080 --> 01:16:12,360
Speaker 1: then the designer came up with this and I thought

1301
01:16:12,600 --> 01:16:13,000
Speaker 1: that's it.

1302
01:16:13,120 --> 01:16:14,800
Speaker 2: No, I loved it too. It was so unique. I

1303
01:16:14,840 --> 01:16:17,800
Speaker 2: was like, this come from that psycholic yeah, all meditation

1304
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:24,799
Speaker 2: question before. If you could erase one false belief humans

1305
01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:26,479
Speaker 2: have about consciousness, what would it be.

1306
01:16:27,439 --> 01:16:29,880
Speaker 1: Well now, I mean the false belief used to be

1307
01:16:30,000 --> 01:16:33,320
Speaker 1: that we had we were the only conscious species, and

1308
01:16:33,400 --> 01:16:35,280
Speaker 1: we believe that for a very long time, and that

1309
01:16:35,400 --> 01:16:38,920
Speaker 1: this was our privilege. I think it's getting erased. I

1310
01:16:38,960 --> 01:16:40,840
Speaker 1: think very few people believe that anymore.

1311
01:16:42,720 --> 01:16:45,040
Speaker 2: Other false that's a good one though, still I feel

1312
01:16:45,080 --> 01:16:45,479
Speaker 2: like it is.

1313
01:16:45,600 --> 01:16:46,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, it needs to be.

1314
01:16:46,600 --> 01:16:49,800
Speaker 2: Because it's not changing how we behave with We.

1315
01:16:49,720 --> 01:16:52,800
Speaker 1: Still act as though we're the only conscious being and

1316
01:16:52,880 --> 01:16:55,720
Speaker 1: everything else in the world is a resource, doesn't have

1317
01:16:55,800 --> 01:16:58,559
Speaker 1: any point of view of its own. And I think

1318
01:16:58,680 --> 01:17:01,360
Speaker 1: we are learning or about to learn that everything has

1319
01:17:01,439 --> 01:17:03,559
Speaker 1: a point of view of its own, everything has interest

1320
01:17:03,640 --> 01:17:07,040
Speaker 1: in agency, and we have to be more respectful. I

1321
01:17:07,080 --> 01:17:09,760
Speaker 1: mean that one of the things that came out of

1322
01:17:09,800 --> 01:17:12,640
Speaker 1: writing this book for me was really a re enchantment

1323
01:17:12,680 --> 01:17:16,439
Speaker 1: of the world. I mean, when I realized that that

1324
01:17:16,600 --> 01:17:19,679
Speaker 1: plants were sentient, I mean, you look at a forest

1325
01:17:19,680 --> 01:17:24,080
Speaker 1: differently you look at a lawn differently, and so we

1326
01:17:24,680 --> 01:17:26,880
Speaker 1: have a long way to go. I think intellectually we

1327
01:17:26,960 --> 01:17:29,840
Speaker 1: know that there are lots of conscious creatures, but we're

1328
01:17:29,880 --> 01:17:30,639
Speaker 1: not acting that way.

1329
01:17:31,560 --> 01:17:33,719
Speaker 2: And fifth and final question. We asked this every guest

1330
01:17:33,720 --> 01:17:36,960
Speaker 2: on the show. I'm excited to hear you answer. If

1331
01:17:37,000 --> 01:17:39,719
Speaker 2: you could create one law that everyone in the world

1332
01:17:39,760 --> 01:17:41,200
Speaker 2: had to follow, what would it be?

1333
01:17:43,920 --> 01:17:48,160
Speaker 1: Too much responsibility? I hate telling people what to think.

1334
01:17:49,920 --> 01:17:52,640
Speaker 1: I'm not getting I'm not getting one. I'm going to

1335
01:17:52,720 --> 01:17:58,679
Speaker 1: say that I'm not going to do one. I think that. Yeah,

1336
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:00,719
Speaker 1: it's not for me to say.

1337
01:18:01,040 --> 01:18:02,920
Speaker 2: I love that because that's the first time in the

1338
01:18:02,960 --> 01:18:05,000
Speaker 2: history of the show that we've had, is that right, Yeah,

1339
01:18:05,520 --> 01:18:06,439
Speaker 2: So I love that answer.

1340
01:18:06,479 --> 01:18:07,840
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to go back and see what some

1341
01:18:07,880 --> 01:18:08,920
Speaker 1: of the other answers you got.

1342
01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:11,400
Speaker 2: We've had a mix. You get like the you know,

1343
01:18:11,479 --> 01:18:14,240
Speaker 2: you get the love and beloved, the kindness you get, yeah,

1344
01:18:14,280 --> 01:18:16,240
Speaker 2: you know, you get about and then you get fun

1345
01:18:16,280 --> 01:18:22,280
Speaker 2: ones like Trevor Noa said. He said, imagine one day

1346
01:18:22,479 --> 01:18:25,920
Speaker 2: you'd wake up and every day a different person in

1347
01:18:25,960 --> 01:18:29,400
Speaker 2: your community would end up bankrupt. So it could and

1348
01:18:29,439 --> 01:18:31,880
Speaker 2: it could be you. So how would you treat each other,

1349
01:18:32,040 --> 01:18:37,200
Speaker 2: knowing that one of you could lose everything, and then complicated, complicated. Look,

1350
01:18:37,479 --> 01:18:41,880
Speaker 2: James Corden said, I you would be blocked out of

1351
01:18:41,880 --> 01:18:46,320
Speaker 2: your phone for every minute that you use it. So

1352
01:18:46,360 --> 01:18:47,439
Speaker 2: there's there's a song of the other.

1353
01:18:47,520 --> 01:18:50,080
Speaker 1: Well here's here's one. I think we should have a

1354
01:18:50,200 --> 01:18:53,120
Speaker 1: law against machines talking in the first person.

1355
01:18:53,680 --> 01:18:54,960
Speaker 2: So how would it talk to us?

1356
01:18:55,760 --> 01:18:58,559
Speaker 1: I don't know, third person, right, I just wouldn't say I. Yes,

1357
01:18:58,960 --> 01:19:02,360
Speaker 1: it could say you. But as soon as machines start

1358
01:19:02,439 --> 01:19:05,559
Speaker 1: using the eye, I think we go down a slippery

1359
01:19:05,560 --> 01:19:09,719
Speaker 1: Slope's great mental illness, widespread mental illness.

1360
01:19:10,040 --> 01:19:10,800
Speaker 2: That's a great one.

1361
01:19:11,720 --> 01:19:14,400
Speaker 1: AI regulation. It's not going to happen during this administration,

1362
01:19:14,520 --> 01:19:16,800
Speaker 1: but it's going to have to happen eventually.

1363
01:19:17,360 --> 01:19:17,960
Speaker 2: At some point.

1364
01:19:18,240 --> 01:19:21,080
Speaker 1: Using Oh absolutely, I mean, look, what are.

1365
01:19:20,960 --> 01:19:22,080
Speaker 2: They going to be too late? Again?

1366
01:19:22,320 --> 01:19:24,920
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I mean I think it will turn out

1367
01:19:24,920 --> 01:19:27,760
Speaker 1: to be a historical tragedy that AI came of age

1368
01:19:27,840 --> 01:19:30,599
Speaker 1: during this particular administration where there is no interest in

1369
01:19:30,640 --> 01:19:33,519
Speaker 1: regulating it at all. I mean, we made that mistake

1370
01:19:33,560 --> 01:19:36,599
Speaker 1: with social media once. You know, we could have said

1371
01:19:36,640 --> 01:19:40,800
Speaker 1: that companies are responsible for the ages and yeah, I

1372
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:42,720
Speaker 1: mean there's so much we could have done, and now

1373
01:19:42,760 --> 01:19:45,920
Speaker 1: we didn't know, but now we know we had that experience.

1374
01:19:46,800 --> 01:19:49,160
Speaker 1: Why are we repeating it anyway?

1375
01:19:49,560 --> 01:19:53,479
Speaker 2: That Michael paulin the book is called a world appears. Honestly,

1376
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:57,400
Speaker 2: it's I would encourage and recommend for every single one

1377
01:19:57,400 --> 01:20:00,240
Speaker 2: of you who have fascinated by this conversation fascinate by

1378
01:20:00,280 --> 01:20:03,360
Speaker 2: Michael's other work, to read it because it's it's the

1379
01:20:03,400 --> 01:20:06,080
Speaker 2: most riveting reading I've done in a long time, open questions,

1380
01:20:06,600 --> 01:20:13,920
Speaker 2: fascinating subject matter, explorations between psychedelics, meditation, consciousness, and everything beyond. So, Michael,

1381
01:20:13,960 --> 01:20:17,479
Speaker 2: thank you for this gift, and I hope we get

1382
01:20:17,520 --> 01:20:18,320
Speaker 2: to do this a lots more.

1383
01:20:18,400 --> 01:20:19,240
Speaker 1: Yes, thanks for sure.

1384
01:20:19,360 --> 01:20:21,840
Speaker 2: Thank you. If you love this episode, you love my

1385
01:20:21,920 --> 01:20:26,160
Speaker 2: conversation with doctor Joe Dispenser on why stress and overthinking

1386
01:20:26,600 --> 01:20:29,920
Speaker 2: negatively impacts your brain and heart and how to change

1387
01:20:29,960 --> 01:20:33,360
Speaker 2: your habits that are on autopilot. Forgiveness is when you

1388
01:20:33,600 --> 01:20:36,920
Speaker 2: overcome the emotion of your past and so you feel

1389
01:20:36,960 --> 01:20:39,800
Speaker 2: so good that you no longer want to feel bad.