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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind New York Comic Con Stranger Things. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it all comes together on October six, from seven pm

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Speaker 1: to eight thirty pm at Hudson Mercantile in Manhattan. If

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Speaker 1: you're in the area, Join is for Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind Live Stranger Science as we explore the exciting

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Speaker 1: science and tantalizing pseudo science underlying the hit Netflix show

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Speaker 1: Stranger Things. Stuff you missed in history class has a

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Speaker 1: show right after us in the same venue, so you

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Speaker 1: can really double down on your stuff. And Hey, the

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Speaker 1: three of us would love to meet you. This is

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Speaker 1: the opportunity to do it. Learn more and buy your

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Speaker 1: tickets at New York Comic Con dot com. Slash n

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Speaker 1: y c C hyphen presents Welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey you

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And you know, we

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Speaker 1: had a recent episode our Scott Baker on Alien Philosophy

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Speaker 1: and Fantasy, and we chatted with Canadian author Are Scott

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Speaker 1: Baker about his recent paper on alien philosophy which published

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Speaker 1: in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. And in that paper,

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Speaker 1: he reconstructed human philosophy while trying to imagine the philosophy

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Speaker 1: and alien civilization, and he also discussed his ongoing heavy

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Speaker 1: dark fantasy sod of the Second Apocalypse, leading into the

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Speaker 1: publication of books seven, The Unholy Consult, the Magic Number. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fast forward to today, Well, The Unholy Consult has been

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Speaker 1: out for a couple of months. I read it. I

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Speaker 1: ended up reaching out to Scott, was chatting with him

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Speaker 1: about the book, and we decided, hey, let's just have

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Speaker 1: him come back on the show for a bonus episode. Right,

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Speaker 1: So this will be bonus, not part of our regular rotation,

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Speaker 1: because it's gonna be about some esoteric interests. Part of

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Speaker 1: it will be following up on our recent discussions about

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Speaker 1: the origins of consciousness, So we're gonna talk to him

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Speaker 1: about consciousness, about philosophy, about artificial intelligence. But also since

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Speaker 1: we get pretty deep into the weed about his books

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Speaker 1: and the spoiler laden discussion, we thought we would we

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Speaker 1: would pull this one out as a bonus excerpt. That's right,

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Speaker 1: and there will be a spoiler warning. So if you

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Speaker 1: have not if you were concerned with spoilers for for

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Speaker 1: for Scott's books, and particularly if you're concerned with spoilers

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Speaker 1: for the Unholy Consult, don't worry, we'll give you a

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Speaker 1: heads up before we proceed. Now, just to refresh, Scott's

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Speaker 1: fiction explorers philosophical and neuroscientific concepts through fantasy, science fiction,

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Speaker 1: even detective fiction, and his second Apocalypse saga follows the

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Speaker 1: rise of essentially a thinking machine human prophet on a

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Speaker 1: world plagued by an alien evil that leverages both sorcery

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Speaker 1: and ancient technology in a war to shield itself from

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Speaker 1: the damnation of the gods. That's pretty good, cell Robert. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well that's that's that's in a nutshell. I'm a big fan.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, you know, I was happy to chat with

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Speaker 1: with Scott about about the books in particular and some

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Speaker 1: of the metaphysics and philosophy involved there. But of course,

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Speaker 1: as previously, uh he was more than happy to just

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Speaker 1: dive in on anything related to consciousness, um, philosophy, or

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Speaker 1: you know, the grim nature of our future. Well, I

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Speaker 1: guess without further ado, we will now take you to

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Speaker 1: our conversation with our Scott Baker. Hey, Scott, welcome back

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Speaker 1: to Stuff to blow your mind. We appreciate you taking

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Speaker 1: time out of your day to chat with us again.

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Speaker 1: I guess we'll just start off with the general how's

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Speaker 1: it going and uh, have you fully recovered from your

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Speaker 1: recent eye surgery? Yeah? Ye, eye surgery. Uh has gone

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Speaker 1: off without a hitch, which is great. And I definitely

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Speaker 1: can see see much better, much better than I could,

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Speaker 1: uh just even a few weeks ago. Cool. Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: I think you said you had to. You were basically

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Speaker 1: in a prostrate position um healing for a few days. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they performed something called the truck to me um. And

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Speaker 1: you know, at first, because everything to do with eyes

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Speaker 1: absolutely freaking me out against bother to do the obligatory

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Speaker 1: Google search, I didn't even want to know, figuring that

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Speaker 1: ignorance was bliss. And so I mean I had a

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Speaker 1: retinal pair and this was actually uh secondary divide, and

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Speaker 1: so I assumed that it would be the same kind

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Speaker 1: of surgery and it was endoscopic. So I was thinking

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Speaker 1: it was going to be endoscopic. But what they did

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Speaker 1: is they actually they actually take the all the the

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Speaker 1: truth jelly inside of your eye. They shell your eye

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Speaker 1: like a Concorde grape because then they inject saline solution

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Speaker 1: and a gas. And what you need to do is

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Speaker 1: you need to keep your face down. In my case,

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Speaker 1: it was only seventy two hours, but some parceols have

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Speaker 1: to do this for longer than a week. And you know,

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Speaker 1: at first I thought, I spend so much my time

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Speaker 1: with my head down in a book that I got

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Speaker 1: no problem, I'll just read for seventy two hours straight.

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Speaker 1: And uh, the first muscle spasm started after about ninety minutes,

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Speaker 1: and it was just it was a miserable, miserable experience. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry to hear that. Uh. You know, one of

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Speaker 1: the messing with eyes makes me think about consciousness. I

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Speaker 1: know we wanted to talk to you about consciousness today,

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Speaker 1: but um, there's so much that our eyes do that

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Speaker 1: makes us aware of how unconscious, so much of our

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Speaker 1: mental processing is. Uh. Like you know, you often think

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Speaker 1: of consciousness as synonymous with awareness, like what you have

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Speaker 1: in your in your in your gaze. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I was thinking about the idea that the optic nerve

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Speaker 1: is something that completely blocks part of your vision, and

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Speaker 1: yet we totally don't notice that at all. Like our

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Speaker 1: eyes just put the picture together, and we have this

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Speaker 1: perception of seeing things as they are, even though part

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Speaker 1: of our visual field is totally included all the time

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Speaker 1: in normally healthy eyes are working as they should, and

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Speaker 1: there's a lot about eyes that's like that. I'm thinking

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Speaker 1: also of the idea of blind site, where you know,

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Speaker 1: you can have somebody whose eyes are correctly feeding information

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Speaker 1: to their brain and their brain is even processing it,

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Speaker 1: yet they're somehow not aware of what they're seeing. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean for me, it was it was uncanny, just

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Speaker 1: simply because of the blind brain theory, and um, it

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Speaker 1: just felt like I was having a living demonstration of

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Speaker 1: my theory uh played out for me in my visual

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Speaker 1: field because what happens, I had some degree land on

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Speaker 1: my retina and uh, I sleep like a vampire. I

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Speaker 1: think that was the problem. And this degree, it feeds

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Speaker 1: the retinal cells the same signal over and over and

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Speaker 1: over again. And when those cells get the same signal

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Speaker 1: all the time, your visual uh processing centers start ignoring

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Speaker 1: that information. But what they don't do is tell the

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Speaker 1: rest of your visual processing centers that that information, you know,

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Speaker 1: is mincing. And so what I ended up seeing isn't

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Speaker 1: you know, uh, black spot in front of my m

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Speaker 1: in front of my visual field. Why I ended up

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Speaker 1: seeing is a visual field. I mean it looked like

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Speaker 1: you know, if if your visual field were projected across

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Speaker 1: the screen and someone were to just grab that screen

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Speaker 1: and crinkle a big bunch of it in the fifth

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Speaker 1: so everything, all that information was missing, all that was included.

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Speaker 1: That's what I that's what I would see. So you know,

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Speaker 1: if my right eye was dominant and I turned to

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Speaker 1: look at my dog mooning here, every once in a while,

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Speaker 1: I'd look and he wouldn't have eyes because I'd looked.

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Speaker 1: I would look to his eyes. It was right in

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Speaker 1: my my phobia, like my center of my field of vision,

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Speaker 1: and so I looked to his eyes and his eyes

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Speaker 1: would be missing, so it would just be sur down

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Speaker 1: to his jaws. It was a very disconcerting experience. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the surgeon said I could wait and wait because there's

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Speaker 1: a chance it could dislodge and go away, but it was.

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Speaker 1: It was just freaking me out too much. That's amazing.

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Speaker 1: So just to clarify, you're saying that there was no darkness,

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Speaker 1: there was no white spot, there was no black spot.

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Speaker 1: There was just a lack of sight. Just the lack

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Speaker 1: of sight. And uh, I mean that's the cornerstone of

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Speaker 1: the blind brain theory um, the idea that there is.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about darkness is so interesting

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Speaker 1: because darkness is actually form of visual information. So your

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Speaker 1: our visual centers have evolved the ability to actually warn

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Speaker 1: the rest of our visual processing centers to you know,

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Speaker 1: basically the absence of visual information. So we don't go

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Speaker 1: into dark alleys because we know what dark alley is there.

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Speaker 1: But imagine if you couldn't keep darkness. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: want to imagine if you were blind the darkness, you

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Speaker 1: would never be able to see a dark galley. A

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Speaker 1: dark gallery would be like my visual field. It would

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Speaker 1: be absolutely included. You know, the two buildings you could

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Speaker 1: see would be pinched together, and if you were to

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Speaker 1: happen to trip between those buildings, you would find yourself

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Speaker 1: in a region that you simply could not see. You

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Speaker 1: couldn't even see that you couldn't see. In other words,

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Speaker 1: so it's, uh, it's a spooky a spooky analogy, but

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Speaker 1: but an app one. It makes us realize the way

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Speaker 1: that we don't really see space like we think we

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Speaker 1: see space, but really what we see does not take

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Speaker 1: place in space, except in so far as it takes

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Speaker 1: place in the space between neurons. Yeah, yeah, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean it actually shows uh that I mean, all

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Speaker 1: this stuff space, uh, you know, inside outside, you know,

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Speaker 1: the whole way in which person so are uh structured.

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Speaker 1: Um really you know, I mean technically it is nowhere

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Speaker 1: at all. I mean, it's not between your neurons. It's

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Speaker 1: it's not outside of you, right, it's I mean, it

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Speaker 1: really is a kind of recipe that we follow through

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Speaker 1: that happens to help our body navigate space and what

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Speaker 1: have you. But it's all you know, statistical guesswork that

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Speaker 1: um we sort of post factor describe in in ways

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Speaker 1: that are easily interpreted, um as being navely real or

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Speaker 1: what have you. I mean, that's that's kind of a

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Speaker 1: there's so many ways to cut that, you know. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think really the best thing to say is that

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Speaker 1: when we start asking these kinds of questions out of

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Speaker 1: our actuay that really what we've done is we've tripped

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Speaker 1: into crash space. We sort of tripped outside the bounds

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Speaker 1: of what that information was you know originally adaptedly Ute

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Speaker 1: two problem solved and uh, we're sort of doomed to

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Speaker 1: be confused post those kinds of questions. So Scott, we

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Speaker 1: we recently recorded two episodes on Julian Jayne's the origin

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Speaker 1: of the kind of of consciousness in the breakdown of

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Speaker 1: the bicameral mind. Not because we're completely won over by

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Speaker 1: it or anything, but just because we find it such

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Speaker 1: a fascinating hypothesis. Yeah, it's so radical, seems like it's

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Speaker 1: probably wrong, but I've I've almost never encountered a more

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Speaker 1: interestingly presented hypothesis. Yeah. So, so we were wondering, do

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Speaker 1: you have any specific thoughts on James's theory. Well, this,

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is something I read when when I

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Speaker 1: was undergraduate about thirty years ago, don't know, almost there

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Speaker 1: a little less than thirty years ago, So it have

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Speaker 1: to I'd have to really active memory banks to remember

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Speaker 1: the thesis. I mean. The thesis is basically the ideas

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Speaker 1: that UM, at a certain point our we UH in

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Speaker 1: our past, we couldn't actually internalize, right the different lines

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Speaker 1: of communication going on in our brains, such that we

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Speaker 1: automatically externalized voices and UH impulses or what have you,

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Speaker 1: and blame them on the gods, and that only over

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Speaker 1: time were we able to actually internalize and to unify

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Speaker 1: UM these these various various sources of information and recognize

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Speaker 1: them as being imbogenous. Is that is that roughly what

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Speaker 1: this argument was. Yeah, that's that's pretty close. So I

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Speaker 1: can give a brief rundown on it because there are

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Speaker 1: so many interesting threads to pull. So basically, Jane says

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Speaker 1: that consciousness is only made possible by the presence of language,

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Speaker 1: which gives us the ability to create metaphors, and he

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Speaker 1: views consciousness as a metaphorical mind space based on the

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Speaker 1: analogy of real space, in which this analog version of

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Speaker 1: the self can observe and enact past events and hypothetical

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Speaker 1: events in a process that James calls narratizing. Essentially, he

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Speaker 1: means arranging mental content into a story with cause and

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Speaker 1: effect and a timeline in this metaphorical space. Um, And

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Speaker 1: so he says, so that's what consciousness is now, But

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Speaker 1: he says that that form of consciousness did not exist

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Speaker 1: in humans until roughly three thousand years ago, emerging possibly

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Speaker 1: in Mesopotamia and spreading across the world through cultural contact

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Speaker 1: since then. And that yeah, like you said before, consciousness

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Speaker 1: basically when people encounter novel stem a lie whenever there

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Speaker 1: was a stress point in their behavior that could not

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Speaker 1: be responded to with basic instinct, And you know, conditioned

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Speaker 1: signal behavior. Uh, they couldn't. They couldn't respond to it

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Speaker 1: with those things. So instead what they perceived was an

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Speaker 1: auditory hallucination telling them what to do. And originally, in

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Speaker 1: the earliest forms, this would have been a hallucination of

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Speaker 1: like a dominant leader in the tribal group, or of

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Speaker 1: a chief, or of a parent or something. But over

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Speaker 1: time these voices came to be perceived as otherworldly beings

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Speaker 1: called gods. And so you have this three stage evolution

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Speaker 1: where early humans are non conscious organisms controlled entirely by

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Speaker 1: instinct and conditioning. And then you have the evolution of language,

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Speaker 1: and that brings about the bicameral mind, where one half

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Speaker 1: of the brain commands the other half what to do

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Speaker 1: and the other half routinely obeys without objection. And then finally,

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Speaker 1: about three thousand years ago, because of various stresses that

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Speaker 1: he hypothesizes could have caused this, we have the consciousness revolution,

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Speaker 1: where people instead begin to perceive of a mind space

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Speaker 1: where they can work out hypothetical scenarios in this unreal space. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm not to reread that. I mean, remember the god stuff,

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Speaker 1: but um, everything that you said up up until that

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Speaker 1: point just sounds like Dennet to me. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: sounds uh uncannily like Dennitt to the point where uh

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Speaker 1: kind of uh worries me that then it doesn't reference

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Speaker 1: James didn't has reference chains at some point I recall,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what book it was in, but I

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Speaker 1: thought he had. I mean, because that is very similar

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Speaker 1: to the theory he lays out in his most recent book,

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Speaker 1: From Bacteria to Back and Back, which is it's kind

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Speaker 1: of a retooling of the stus he lays out in

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Speaker 1: Consciousness Explained UM, which I also read way back when

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Speaker 1: for the first time, and I don't think I understood

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Speaker 1: um uh years ago when it came out. I think

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Speaker 1: it was whatteen and maybe some ladies than that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it's the same. It's the same notion, and this

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Speaker 1: the same idea that um, it's not a colossal coincidence

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Speaker 1: that all the things that we experience also happened to

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Speaker 1: be the things that we can speak of, and that

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Speaker 1: experience is kind of a linguistic pow it that we

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Speaker 1: use to interface not simply with other brains, but with

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Speaker 1: our own brain as as well, and that um, the

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Speaker 1: types and forms of information that are available in this

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Speaker 1: interface are are so geared to their applications that it

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Speaker 1: actually makes sense to talk about things James is obviously discussing,

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Speaker 1: you know, a transformation uh in consciousness or transformation into

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Speaker 1: consciousness simply on the basis of the ways in which

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Speaker 1: we linguistically categorize and uh apply the types of information

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Speaker 1: that experience renders renders available. Yeah. Fascinating, fascinating stuff, Absolutely

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Speaker 1: fascinating stuff. Definitely, uh, a kernel of truth I think

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Speaker 1: in UH, in that way of looking at consciousness. Definitely. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would say the book is definitely worth a reread,

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Speaker 1: even though you know, like we say, you have to

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Speaker 1: assume it's probably wrong because it's it's so specific and

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Speaker 1: it's so radical. But then again, I love how specific

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Speaker 1: it is. I mean, so many theories of consciousness don't

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Speaker 1: get that gritty about about the cause and effect of

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Speaker 1: the evolution of consciousness. Yeah, exactly. And you know, it's

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Speaker 1: one of the things that's always like, really really struck

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Speaker 1: me as a philosophy student over the decade, because I've

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Speaker 1: gone through such huge conversions myself, right, you know, from

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Speaker 1: you know, being a fourteen year old UM stumbling into uh,

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Speaker 1: the problem of determinism, you know, without any sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, education to help me out, and becoming a

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Speaker 1: naive nihilist convinced that experience was completely an illusion, I

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Speaker 1: mean completely convinced, and uh, doing all these drugs and

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Speaker 1: just freaking out at um, you know, what my own

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Speaker 1: phenomenology seemed to be telling me, and then all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden stumbling into Heidegger and being completely blown away

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Speaker 1: in the opposite direction, and suddenly feeling as though everything

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Speaker 1: about me was steeked in meaning, in in purpose, in

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Speaker 1: this notion that um, I was almost like a deep

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Speaker 1: sea submersible. Um, you know, uh, making existence happened right

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Speaker 1: simply by being uh interstice that forced whatever was being

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Speaker 1: from my way into my projects, into my cares, right

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Speaker 1: into it, into my worries, and most importantly, into the

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Speaker 1: structure of my own temporal existence, right, having a future,

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Speaker 1: having a past, having now that it's statically uh combined

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Speaker 1: all three and then of course they're sort of blew

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Speaker 1: that apart, and then you know, here I am now

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Speaker 1: back to where I was when I was fourteen years old.

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Speaker 1: And even though at each point I was almost even

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Speaker 1: jelical as to what my experience was telling me um ah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's just radical incompatibilities between all of those, you know, um,

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Speaker 1: from my phenomenology being the very ontological foundation of my

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Speaker 1: existence to my uh phenomenology being you know, a deceptive

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Speaker 1: assemblage of santasms. I mean, how can it be both

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Speaker 1: things at once and how can it feel like it

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Speaker 1: has to be that way to the same being at

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Speaker 1: two different times. I don't know. Maybe James had something,

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Speaker 1: had something right about the collective progression of our self understanding. Well.

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Speaker 1: One thing I like about what James offers is that

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Speaker 1: he definitely does give an interesting secular accounting of how

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Speaker 1: consciousness could be adaptive, how it could do something. That's

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Speaker 1: you know, a part from just the helpless observer theory,

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Speaker 1: the idea as you know that consciousness yet exists. There

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Speaker 1: is phenomena, but it just observes what the body does

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Speaker 1: without any power to change anything. According to James and

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Speaker 1: his version of consciousness, consciousness is a you know, it's

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Speaker 1: a metaphorical space in which we can work out hypotheticals

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Speaker 1: and this this would not be availed, you know, this

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Speaker 1: kind of introspective simulation of behavior and case running and

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Speaker 1: testing would not be available to organisms. That did not

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Speaker 1: have the power to introspect. I wonder what you think

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Speaker 1: about that for me? You know, reflective consciousness. So when

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Speaker 1: we engage in meta cognitive deliberation, you know, I see

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Speaker 1: that as being a uh in definitely in the terms

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Speaker 1: we understand it as you know, uh post scientific humans. Um,

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Speaker 1: I see that as being deeply, deeply deceptive in a

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Speaker 1: lot of ways. I mean, I think it's responsible for

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Speaker 1: this explosion of philosophical interpretations, just like that little you know,

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Speaker 1: life story I gave you of my own interpretation of

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Speaker 1: my phenomenology that was born of basically humans reapplying their

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Speaker 1: meta cognitive capacity two experience in ways that those meta

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Speaker 1: cognitive capacities to simply never evolved to be applied. Right,

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Speaker 1: So you could say all philosophical reflection in the sense

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Speaker 1: is a kind of misapplication of our meta cognitive capacity.

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Speaker 1: It's still it's enormously creative. You just got to look

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Speaker 1: at the philosophical cannon to see how creative it is.

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Speaker 1: And out of you know, that scholastic mountains of incompatible interpretations,

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Speaker 1: you could argue that there is a great, great number

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Speaker 1: of of hnos that have been taken away and take

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Speaker 1: and up in all sorts of different ways that have

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Speaker 1: ultimately profited humanity. I'm inclined to think that it's a

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Speaker 1: accidental uh More, it's more dumb, a matter of dumb

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Speaker 1: luck stumbling across, you know, some interpretation that actually ends

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Speaker 1: up enabling something that becomes socially useful down the road. UM,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I think there's just too much disagreement,

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Speaker 1: too much follow thinking. For UM, it's as far as

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Speaker 1: I'm concerned to be obviously obviously practical in a way

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Speaker 1: you're suggesting James is suggestive. I mean otherwise you know, Um,

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Speaker 1: all the ways we use it instinctively, all the time,

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Speaker 1: catching the tongue, you know, when your mother in law

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Speaker 1: says something at the dinner table. Um, pondering for a

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Speaker 1: second to remember where you put your keys, you know,

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Speaker 1: taking a deep breath during the squash game, to try

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Speaker 1: to understand what it is you're doing wrong, that's letting

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Speaker 1: your buddy kick your ass. Um. All those sort of

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Speaker 1: natural applications of metacognition are very possible. It's very effective.

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Speaker 1: The question the real questions arise when we take all

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Speaker 1: of those practical capacities and we start saying, solve this

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Speaker 1: theoretical problem, solve that theoretical problem, and so on and

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Speaker 1: so forth, especially in the absence of uh, empirical information.

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Speaker 1: I'd imagine in Jane's version, the landscape in which it

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Speaker 1: does arise is more the former. What you're talking about it,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's in day to day dealings. It comes

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Speaker 1: not from people trying to solve big philosophical problems. You know,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't Plato who invented consciousness, but people trying to

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Speaker 1: deal with hectic, novel stimuli in their day to day

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Speaker 1: lives and figuring out how to survive them and would

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Speaker 1: be interesting too. I mean, this is the thing that

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Speaker 1: I think Max has a lot of critics have done.

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Speaker 1: It is this idea that um, you know, if consciousness

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Speaker 1: is the user illusion the way the way he insists

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Speaker 1: it is, and um, it's experienced, you know, Um, isn't

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Speaker 1: you know, real the way he seems to imply it is.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he certainly doesn't believe that there's any such

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Speaker 1: thing as quailure. Uh. And the question is, um, what

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Speaker 1: is it? I mean, um, is it something that we

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Speaker 1: just make up? You know? When I think about the

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Speaker 1: redness of red, I mean it seems as intuitively there

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Speaker 1: as anything could possibly be. But there's no such thing

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Speaker 1: as quailure being. How could that simply be? And that um,

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Speaker 1: you could probably ask the same question of James. I'm sure,

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Speaker 1: I mean, was read not read before we developed consciousness? Um?

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Speaker 1: Or how about animals? How about creature consciousness? Right? Um?

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Speaker 1: Do dogs have some sort of you know, palate of

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Speaker 1: visual awareness that the um as unique to them? Um?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, and started asking questions about you know,

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Speaker 1: uh sensory consciousness and um, all these arguments um as

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Speaker 1: to you know, the ways in which judgments make consciousness happen,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to say, impose uh interpretations upon on right

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Speaker 1: some kind of hile, some kind of uh um error

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Speaker 1: consciousness UM becomes becomes very difficult for people to buy in,

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Speaker 1: though I thinks, yeah, I mean obviously, I think one

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Speaker 1: of the things that contemplating this leads us to is

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Speaker 1: that this question of like weather, consciousness is one core

401
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 1: event and phenomenized as James does seem to think it

402
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Speaker 1: is like for him, consciousness is one thing that he

403
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Speaker 1: defines fairly specifically and fairly persuasively in some sense. But

404
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: then again, you know, you look at people like dinn itt,

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Speaker 1: and they would say, I guess would didn't say that

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Speaker 1: consciousness is an assemblage of different mental phenomena that you

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Speaker 1: are just you're linking together and calling a single phenomena.

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Speaker 1: Is that about right? Yeah, he's notoriously slippy slippery when

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Speaker 1: it comes to the when it comes to the mental, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean um um. I mean for him, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's all interpretation all the way down and um. But

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Speaker 1: at the same time, he wants to always insist that

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Speaker 1: there's these real patterns that are motivating interpretations. Right, So

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Speaker 1: when he talks about mental events mental imagery, I mean,

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Speaker 1: he says, of course it's there. But then when he

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Speaker 1: talks about things all that philosophers want to say about

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Speaker 1: mental events and mental imageries, mental imagery, it really starts

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Speaker 1: to sound like he's saying it's not there at all.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I think that's another thing that people find

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Speaker 1: frustrating trying to nail down his position. I actually think

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Speaker 1: that again, it wants to say, is that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: let's just think that, close your eyes and imagine you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: your favorite pets, you know from your childhood, you know

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Speaker 1: as as best you can, and you know, then ask yourself. Um,

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Speaker 1: which way is the shadow falling across you know? Your

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Speaker 1: your pets left? Paw? You know? Um? Is your pets

427
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: for well? You know well grooved? Is there any blemishes

428
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: of any kind? Um? Is your pet perfectly still? There's

429
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: your pet moving? I mean, all these questions aren't the

430
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: kinds of questions we normally ask of mental imagery, and

431
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: so they kind of seem a place like I'm not

432
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: looking at photographs or watching a video of my pet.

433
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: I'm imagining my pet in my mind. I so you

434
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: can sort of see that whatever the information mental imagery provides,

435
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: you know, it only has so many degrees of cognitive freedom, right,

436
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: There's only so many different kinds of questions you can

437
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: ask of it. Before the questions just kind of seemed

438
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: to start to miss the point or to obscure or

439
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: confus is the matter? And if you take that which

440
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: seems pretty obvious with mental imagery, and then apply it

441
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: to consciousness as a whole, and say what kind of

442
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: questions can we ask of conscious experience? Then I think

443
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: then it starts making the whole help a lot more

444
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: sense because mm hmm, well, you know whose books read

445
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 1: it looks read? You know, but quailia. What the hell

446
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: you mean by quilia? You know this because clearlier is

447
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 1: a categorization, right, It's a way to use metic cognition

448
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: to regiment experience, and that arguably isn't something that meta cognition,

449
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: our ability to reference experience, was ever designed to do.

450
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: And so perhaps because of the way cilia creates so

451
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: much confusion in so many areas of philosophy of mind,

452
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: like perhaps qually, it's just one of those things we

453
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: should get rid of because it really doesn't belong to

454
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: that set questions that experience. You know, we have evolved

455
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: to be able to answer of experience. And just to

456
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: clarify real quickly that that term qualia might not be

457
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: in everybody's is just the redness of the red right,

458
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:33,959
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the supposedly private, ineffable uh uh character

459
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: or quality I mean equality, the fancy way of saying quality.

460
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: What's the quality of redness? If you want to just

461
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: talk about that, you know, uh, in abstraction from red

462
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 1: or blue, you know, the orangeness of orange or or

463
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 1: the brightness of light or what have you. You can

464
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: just use that term qualia in its gradation of of

465
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: uh century information as as apparently presented conscious experience. If

466
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: you don't mind, I think I got one more for

467
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: you to hand you back to Robert for a minute. Okay,

468
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: So this would be one about preferences. Do you think

469
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: consciousness is inherently preferable or if you're comfortable putting a

470
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: moral quality on that, is consciousness a thing to be

471
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 1: morally preferred or deferred to? I mean, I I think we, obviously,

472
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: whether or not it's right to do so, have a

473
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: consciousness bias, Like I would not want to be transformed

474
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: into a being that has all the same qualities as

475
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: me but is not conscious, because that seems, on the

476
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 1: face of it, like it would be the death of

477
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: my experience. Um. And so I mean that that does

478
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: bring up some weird connotations with Jane's theory. I mean,

479
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: if there if it were possible for there to be

480
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 1: something like a human being except not conscious us, Um,

481
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: would would we think that that being had the same

482
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 1: kind of rights that we did? Would Would it be

483
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 1: just as good for beings like that to inhabit the universe? Yeah?

484
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: I mean, um, so for me, these questions are there,

485
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: they're kind of almost quintessential crash based questions, right, Um,

486
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of questions that moral reason as

487
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: the set of rough and ready heuristics that we used

488
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 1: to actually navigate social and moral problems. Justly, really, it

489
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: wasn't equipped to uh be able to answer decisively one

490
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: way or the other, which is why they sort of

491
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: have this quality of being constantly problematic, um and never

492
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: finding any sort of determination uh whatsoever. I'm not saying

493
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: that the question shouldn't be asked, because it's it's absolutely fascinating,

494
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,240
Speaker 1: and it is the case in in our law eyes

495
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 1: that we defer to experience all the time. We just

496
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: look at the survivors of the Holocaust. Um. I mean

497
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 1: the moral authority that a Holocaust survivor possesses, a virtue

498
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: of having suffered, having experienced what they experienced is a

499
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: powerful thing. Has a palpable influence on individuals, particularly in

500
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 1: the company of those of those people. But what if

501
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:37,280
Speaker 1: you're talking about a zombie who suffered the Holocaust? I notice,

502
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,839
Speaker 1: even just putting framing it in these terms actually kind

503
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: of tickles it all feels like you're treading upon something sacred. Right,

504
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:52,280
Speaker 1: zombie suffering the Holocaust seems to trivialize what these people

505
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:56,399
Speaker 1: suffered in in uh, the concentration camps during the World

506
00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: War two. Right. I mean, even simply posing that theoretical

507
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: question on a matter so morally charged simply because of

508
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: the experience is underwriting it. Um. Uh. It makes you

509
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 1: sort of pause and worry. Right, Um, But the question

510
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: itself is still an honest question. I mean, would we

511
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: worry about someone who had no experiences in other words,

512
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: who simply could not suffer. They could generate suffering behavior,

513
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: but they actually never felt any suffering. Um, would we

514
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: view them the same way we review the Holocaust survivor?

515
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: And the ANSWER's got to be no, of course, not

516
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: that person is just the zombie hum Morality, whatever it is,

517
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 1: is anchored and anchored and experience, and to the point

518
00:35:55,480 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: where moral intuitions are social it makes and makes a

519
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of sense, giving games thesis that consciousness is

520
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:11,399
Speaker 1: in some sense uh linguistic insofar as you know, our

521
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: social communications of experiences that we used to primarily communicate

522
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: moral urgency, moral important. Yeah. I mean that just leads

523
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: to a very troubling conclusion. I guess that would be

524
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: that would draw from you know, if you were to

525
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:33,360
Speaker 1: given credence to James and say that his picture of

526
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,320
Speaker 1: the evolution of consciousness is correct. It would be to

527
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: basically say that there was not much of anything morally

528
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: worth anything on earth until about three thousand years ago. Yeah, exactly,

529
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it's a question, um, that is

530
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: absolutely pressing question when it comes to animal rights. I mean,

531
00:36:55,600 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 1: animal rights advocates, Um presume that you know, animals deserve,

532
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 1: uh warrant the same moral consideration as humans do, simply

533
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 1: because the animals suffer and feel and experience as as

534
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: humans do. But if it's the case that consciousness, you know,

535
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 1: is actually linguistic, then you'd have to say that animals

536
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: have no consciousness, in which case then really human morality

537
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to apply to them at all. And that's

538
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: I mean, for a lot of people, those those are

539
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 1: are fighting words. I mean, I learned, I learned some

540
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: time ago not to not to raise that, you know,

541
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:44,839
Speaker 1: potential potential quagmire and in certain company, because some people

542
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 1: get really upset, very bad when you suggest that their

543
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 1: dog isn't conscious. Well, that gives you some some social

544
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: reasons for resisting Jane's thesis. In addition to the questions

545
00:37:56,120 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: you have about its rigorous merits. Yeah. Yeah, but the

546
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:02,799
Speaker 1: bottom line is, and I mean it, then it even

547
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 1: discusses this and uh, from bacteria to pocket back. Um,

548
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 1: the bottom line is is that if you're going to

549
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: be um, you know, sort of I'm pirically tough minded

550
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:20,399
Speaker 1: about this, you just you can't let you know your

551
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: moral intuitions or or even you know your cherished conceits

552
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 1: there on the question of whether or not animals have

553
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: conscious experience or not. Right, I mean, it's a it's

554
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 1: a real question, and it's not resolved, and it won't

555
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: be resolved until we know what the hell consciousness is.

556
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 1: And um, even though a great many people are you know,

557
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: entirely convinced that animals have to have conscious awareness, science

558
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 1: has this horrific history of overthrowing our most cherished conceits

559
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 1: and beliefs. So you know, all you can do is

560
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: buckle up and cross your fingers. Well, I think we're

561
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: gonna have to go into the robot landscape of the future,

562
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: maybe on the moral maxim that if you're not sure

563
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:08,919
Speaker 1: whether a thing has consciousness or not, you should treat

564
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:12,840
Speaker 1: it like it does. Yeah, it seems like a pretty

565
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: good real of sun I mean, turns the real son

566
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 1: I use and uhum, I have about a dismal view

567
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: of consciousnessessibly. Well, so far we've let's see, we've been

568
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: talking about the potential what've we've been talking about the

569
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,320
Speaker 1: mind state of animals. We've been talking about the potential

570
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: mind state of earlier humans. Now, Scott and your Second

571
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: Apocalypse novels, you present the mind states of essentially earlier humans,

572
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: sort of medieval humans, I guess should say, as well

573
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 1: as a number of alternate creatures, alien entities like the inkorai,

574
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: various weapons races that the Consul has created to wage

575
00:39:56,719 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: war against the natural inhabitants of the world. For for

576
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:02,640
Speaker 1: listeners out there aren't familiar with your work, there's there

577
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 1: the shrink or shrink how do you prefer to be pronounced, right?

578
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: I mean I have no preference. I call them shrank myself. Yeah,

579
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:14,919
Speaker 1: I don't worry about the prince, okay, Yeah. So for

580
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: for listeners who aren't familiar, these are essentially I can

581
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,240
Speaker 1: work like warrior species. And then you have the skin spies,

582
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:24,839
Speaker 1: which are a face changing infiltration unit. Um, how how

583
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: did you envision the cognitive processes of these inhuman beings

584
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:32,840
Speaker 1: and are they truly conscious? Yeah, I mean the um

585
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,959
Speaker 1: one of the conceits for the Rank and the skin

586
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: spies is that they have no consciousness, um whatsoever. Um,

587
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't um uh suffer. I mean, so

588
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 1: they go through all the motions, they produce, all the

589
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:55,879
Speaker 1: behavior that cues our interpretation of conscious states, but they

590
00:40:55,880 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: don't actually possess those conscious states. And so the idea

591
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 1: is that the kind of in a strange way, as

592
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: a result, stand outside of our notion of notions of morality.

593
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: And I mean at points I try to play with

594
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: the reader's intuitions with because to this um, because they suffer, well,

595
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: they look like they suffer. And so I mean I

596
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 1: thought it was given given the way I tried to

597
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 1: basically press, you know, as many moral intuitions as I

598
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,799
Speaker 1: possibly can to their breaking point by the end of

599
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: the series. You know, Um, it just seems like a

600
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:47,680
Speaker 1: great vehicle to use to accuse certain intuitions and uh

601
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 1: and then to you know, subvert them, take them, take

602
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: them away, the nasty things through that, I mean, this

603
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,359
Speaker 1: kind of thing seems possibly relevant in the real world

604
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 1: if you imagine again, I mentioned the future robot landscape.

605
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: You know, a future where humans wage wars with robots

606
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 1: soldiers or something like that, you know, some kind of

607
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:12,600
Speaker 1: robotic warfare machines. I mean I wonder if people at

608
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 1: some point will say, you know, it's best to make

609
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: these things look like they're really suffering when they get

610
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: damaged in order to exploit our enemies humanity and desire

611
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: not to hurt them. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a

612
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: great hook for for a science fiction story, right there.

613
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 1: I mean, um, if you look at the bots and

614
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: dynamics robots that they have, I mean, there's something uncanny

615
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 1: about them, right, uncanny, But the way they move, you know,

616
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: the quadruped ones I find to actually be the most

617
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: interesting at a h of all. Um, they just seem organic.

618
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: There's something organic about them that once again just simply

619
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:56,839
Speaker 1: pushes your buttons, right, I know what you mean? Yeah,

620
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: I mean sure, she uh, she's been and using this

621
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: term for quite a while, but it comes up I

622
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: thinking alone together as well. Um. She talks about the

623
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:13,320
Speaker 1: Darlinian buttons in human computer interaction, and the consistent finding,

624
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: uh across the field is that it's incredibly easy, incredibly

625
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: easy to queue our you know, uh, terroistic tendencies to

626
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: project you know or anti primorifies um inanimate things or

627
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: animals or what have you. It's really easy to get

628
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:43,359
Speaker 1: us to look at things as having a mind. And

629
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the best example of that is

630
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:50,800
Speaker 1: the hyde or similar delusion anything. You can look it

631
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 1: up online easily, easily enough. I mean it's just triangles

632
00:43:54,840 --> 00:44:00,040
Speaker 1: and circles and squares and they're in there's all of

633
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: square with looks that looks like it has a door,

634
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: and it's just really I mean objectively, it's just you know,

635
00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: these triangles almost circle um dancing around on the screen.

636
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:16,839
Speaker 1: That's all the information you get, and yet your brain

637
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 1: turns it into a soap opera, you know, with this

638
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 1: father trying to keep his daughter from this lover who

639
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 1: persists and will not uh let leave her to the

640
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: devices of this evil father triangle and uh it is

641
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 1: it's it's flat l and only you know, geared to

642
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: the human tendency to um you know, turn shapes into

643
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 1: soap operas, so little information is required. And what that

644
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: means in terms of artificial intelligence is that it really

645
00:44:55,719 --> 00:45:02,280
Speaker 1: actually is easy for designers of artificial intelligences to push

646
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 1: our darwinging buttons. I think you gonna figure out where

647
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: they are. And one of the creepiest things, UM, I

648
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: teen to realize, I think over the past three or

649
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 1: four years or so, is the degree to which the

650
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: research that's being done in human human computer interactions is

651
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: basically directed at us and is and is discovering, you know,

652
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:36,800
Speaker 1: tremendous things about who we are as human beings. Because

653
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:41,800
Speaker 1: by knowing what these buttons are, we we can actually

654
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: design machines more effectively to simulate the presence of experience,

655
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:54,399
Speaker 1: the presence of mind, the presence of of intentionality, and

656
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:58,359
Speaker 1: as a result, you know, we can make humans more

657
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: at ease, or more willing to open the checkbooks right

658
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 1: or more disinclined to go to the local Poland station

659
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: to vote. It is very, very troubling, And so for me,

660
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: the big question that arises out of UH robots and

661
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: AI UM isn't you know the question about you know,

662
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 1: battling robots in the battlefield. It's it's more of an

663
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:35,239
Speaker 1: ecological question. You know, if if you see humans as

664
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 1: basically pushing each other's Darwinian buttons all the time, blindly,

665
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 1: UM and in ways that are completely adaptive because we

666
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: basically involved to track and understand and cooperate. Because the

667
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 1: big thing is that once you see things in terms

668
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:58,439
Speaker 1: of humans having these Darwinian buttons, and you understand that, yeah,

669
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 1: the Darwinian back um are what allows us to explain, understand,

670
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 1: manipulate one another. You understand then that you know, human

671
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:17,280
Speaker 1: social ecology is actually a really really delicate finally to things,

672
00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 1: as delicate as any ecology in any sphere of biology.

673
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 1: And you start looking at things like AI anyways, you

674
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 1: understand that human social ecology ecology is as delicated to

675
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 1: any other ecology, and that what you know, artificial intelligences

676
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 1: constitute is basically as formers and piece of species. Right,

677
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: I mean, you know these things. Microsoft's already selling them,

678
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: conversational user interfaces. Um, within just a few years, they're

679
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: gonna replace every human in every call center on the planet. Um.

680
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 1: You know, they're gonna uh spread as quickly as anything

681
00:47:58,880 --> 00:48:03,240
Speaker 1: spreads in the technological world. So inside of ten years,

682
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna have spam a you know, I

683
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: mean we're talking about a flood of of algorithms that

684
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 1: are designed right to push our doing in buttons UM.

685
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:26,840
Speaker 1: In other words fool of into treating them as being

686
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 1: something that actually arises from the ancestral ecologies that we

687
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 1: actually adapted to solve. Right. So I mean, for me,

688
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 1: this is at the beginning of the final stage of

689
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 1: the semantic apocalypse, right, And this is the whirlwind, the point,

690
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: the point which human meaning just simply becomes unworkable in

691
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: any sort of traditional sense. Is the ecology that requires

692
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: is the function is going to be is going to

693
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: collapse right, right, I just don't see any way around it.

694
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of scary imagining how we would

695
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:13,320
Speaker 1: have to defend ourselves against machines that push our Darwinian buttons,

696
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:15,000
Speaker 1: because it seems like the main way to do that

697
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 1: would be to desensitize ourselves to our Darwinian buttons, which

698
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 1: would mean desensitizing ourselves to the actual needs of other

699
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 1: conscious beings among us and just accusing everyone of being

700
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:30,440
Speaker 1: a robot exactly exactly. I mean, to desensitize ourselves to

701
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: each other. I mean, I mean that's the I mean,

702
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: that's the kind of the bottom line, right. I mean,

703
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 1: it's social ecology, or all of our social interactions are ecological, right,

704
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 1: And I mean this is hard for people to grasp

705
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,319
Speaker 1: because it's completely invisible to them, right, I mean, it's

706
00:49:49,400 --> 00:50:00,360
Speaker 1: completely included. Um, this aspect of our interaction is utterly

707
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:04,240
Speaker 1: invisible to experience when we talk to someone. We don't

708
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: see ourselves as pushing Darwin imbotons. We don't look at

709
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 1: it in any remotely material way or a biological way whatsoever.

710
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: But we are biological creatures. So ultimately exactly what Paul

711
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:26,839
Speaker 1: runs on, and so any you know, material um invasion

712
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:32,879
Speaker 1: of out ecology is going to disrupt that ecology. Right, So, um,

713
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 1: you put a bunch of causative technologies in our hum

714
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: human social ecology, they will progressively disrupt it. They will

715
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 1: alter it'll change it. And heuristic cognition being you know,

716
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: um circumstances dependent the way it is, it takes things.

717
00:50:55,920 --> 00:51:00,920
Speaker 1: It only operates by taking background regularities for granted. You know,

718
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: as soon as you start mucking with those back background

719
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:14,040
Speaker 1: regularities in this case basically only having you know, biological intelligences,

720
00:51:16,560 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 1: we could take. We could take so much for granted,

721
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 1: just simply because our intelligence is really the model for

722
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: all intelligence around us, including animal intelligence, right, I mean,

723
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: we'll share far more in common with our dogs than

724
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:37,359
Speaker 1: we will with these uh conversational user interfaces. And um,

725
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: the fact that are building buttons are so easily pushed,

726
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:45,839
Speaker 1: um means that they don't actually have to be all

727
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 1: that smart as fool, so we don't have to worry

728
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 1: about superintelligence. Um. You know, will be at each other's

729
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,360
Speaker 1: throats long before we ever get to the point where

730
00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:00,879
Speaker 1: the singularity takes off. This is one of the things

731
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 1: I hate about the AI debate. As you see a

732
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:09,440
Speaker 1: popularize it's just it's just it's bonkers, right that the

733
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 1: improves the user experience. Everything is great on the one end,

734
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:18,399
Speaker 1: and then you have sky net the other, right, when

735
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:22,720
Speaker 1: really all the problems are in between. Like it underestimates

736
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: our vulnerability to simple stuff exactly and completely underestimates of unagility,

737
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:33,719
Speaker 1: right I mean, um, And you know, historically speaking, you've

738
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 1: only ever caught on to the fact that we're doing

739
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:42,360
Speaker 1: you know, uh, horrific ecological damage. After that damage, um

740
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 1: is you know, well, well the pace right um. And

741
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:53,399
Speaker 1: if we fall into that pattern again with this then

742
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:59,160
Speaker 1: um K, Like I say, this is this is the whirlwind,

743
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 1: This is for me, this is the sethantic apocalypse in

744
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:05,319
Speaker 1: the Final States, right, Well, I have I have one

745
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 1: more question before we get into more like spoiler territory

746
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:12,520
Speaker 1: for the unholy consult. So it's worth mentioning in all

747
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 1: of all of this that while modern neuroscience and psychology

748
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 1: works upon the assumption that the gods do not speak

749
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:21,240
Speaker 1: to us, uh in your second Apocalypse saga, the gods

750
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 1: are real and sometimes do speak. Can you provide an

751
00:53:24,520 --> 00:53:28,400
Speaker 1: overview for for how the god's function in a in

752
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: a fictional university. We've put so much thought into the

753
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 1: inner workings of consciousness and philosophy. Yeah, I mean they

754
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 1: can see. It's actually kind of embarrassing the simple I

755
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: mean ultimately, I mean it's the gods are you know,

756
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 1: in events to drive you know, the the heuristic modules, right,

757
00:53:51,800 --> 00:54:00,799
Speaker 1: the subpersonal processes that are constantly under being, you know,

758
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: sometimes undermine sometimes making possible like the the workspace of cautiousness,

759
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 1: which is the world, which is physical reality in in

760
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:20,080
Speaker 1: my books and so um the whole series is is

761
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:29,720
Speaker 1: itself um and analogy or allegory for um this uh

762
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:38,839
Speaker 1: ancient entroprization of of the universe and the cosmos right

763
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 1: only as you know, UH projected given a modern understanding

764
00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 1: of you know um, the way in which cognition works

765
00:54:54,200 --> 00:55:02,880
Speaker 1: system too, which is reality system one, which is uh

766
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:08,400
Speaker 1: all the sub personal processes right that are constantly and

767
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 1: changing upon system to the deliberative reality of conscious experience.

768
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 1: And then you know, to cryp uh the term from

769
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: the Lawrence system zero, which lies outside of that inside

770
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:31,799
Speaker 1: outside um, which of course is odd. All right, well,

771
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:34,239
Speaker 1: I think that's that means we should probably get into

772
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 1: the spoiler. No, no, I think we should. That's the

773
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:39,319
Speaker 1: that that signals that we should get into some of

774
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:43,719
Speaker 1: the spoiler discussions here. So so here be warned, Yes,

775
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,359
Speaker 1: here be warned. Having read Scott's books and you plan

776
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:50,360
Speaker 1: to you you may depart in the seventh, the seventh book.

777
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker 1: So the seventh book to your second Apocalypse Saga came

778
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:57,360
Speaker 1: out this summer, completing I guess you'd say, the second

779
00:55:57,440 --> 00:56:01,879
Speaker 1: movement of the saga and ringing the action to gall

780
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:04,759
Speaker 1: god Roth, which the focal point of evil in your

781
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:08,360
Speaker 1: world and kind of mirrors the significance of more Doors

782
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: Barador and Lord of the Rings. First of all, just

783
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:15,719
Speaker 1: how long have you envisioned the resulting battle and the

784
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:19,280
Speaker 1: resulting showdowns, and did it come together as you imagined?

785
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: It would the idea, I mean, the boilerplate idea with

786
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 1: this stand off, with with Kelli's and the consult m

787
00:56:29,960 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 1: at glad Rock. Um I came up with when I

788
00:56:33,680 --> 00:56:37,440
Speaker 1: think I was, um, seventeen eighteen years old, when I

789
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:45,200
Speaker 1: was just a we we little punk, and UM, I

790
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:51,760
Speaker 1: have basically been obsessing over it for thirty three years now.

791
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: I have snippets, snippets that I've written twenty years ago.

792
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:01,880
Speaker 1: Snip it's been written thirty years ago, that I've written

793
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:08,239
Speaker 1: three years ago. I mean, UM, it's been uh, basically

794
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:15,120
Speaker 1: my obsession for my entire ad, all life, and um,

795
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: the project of actually writing the conclusion terrified me at first,

796
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 1: just simply because I thought, you know, so much cogitation

797
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:29,920
Speaker 1: kind of whittled down to such a sharp point. It

798
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:35,320
Speaker 1: just seemed impossible to me. And uh, I was afraid

799
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:39,439
Speaker 1: that I would freeze like a deer in the headlights.

800
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:43,760
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, I mean, I mean, the gods

801
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 1: wrote it. Basically, It's one of the strangest sustained writing

802
00:57:50,040 --> 00:57:54,080
Speaker 1: experiences in my life. I mean I literally felt like

803
00:57:54,200 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 1: I was just simply channeling um channel Uh. I mean

804
00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:02,760
Speaker 1: there's a rough draft. I mean there's a lot of

805
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 1: reflection that goes into the many, many subsequent drafts. But UM,

806
00:58:07,680 --> 00:58:11,640
Speaker 1: there there was a period of every year where I

807
00:58:11,720 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 1: would just sit in front of the screen and my

808
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 1: fingers would tap out this stuff and and UM I

809
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:27,360
Speaker 1: would model and um in that' sense my sub personal processes, right, Uh,

810
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 1: the gods underwriting my own conscious experience. We're in charge,

811
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: in charge of the whole show. Well, it's as well

812
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 1: as readers know at this point, kell us Uh basically

813
00:58:42,520 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 1: unites most of the world in this effort against the consult,

814
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 1: in this effort against the the forces of the apocalypse,

815
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 1: and and and fails the book ends and just the

816
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 1: complete defeat of the these forces of of the greater

817
00:59:03,120 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: good that have been marshaled. Um. So so in a sense, uh,

818
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 1: if we would go with the analogy that the gods

819
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:11,680
Speaker 1: were speaking to you, was there any kind of last

820
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 1: temptation where there was a temptation to um to provide,

821
00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: I guess, provide the sort of ending that I seem

822
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:23,640
Speaker 1: to think some readers. I don't know how they ended

823
00:59:23,720 --> 00:59:29,200
Speaker 1: up expecting it, but some of the divisive responses have

824
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:31,959
Speaker 1: seemed to line up with some expectation that I guess

825
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:34,880
Speaker 1: your future writings in this world would just be a

826
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:38,240
Speaker 1: victory lap for Kellis um. But was it was there

827
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 1: a temptation at all to to to provide that kind

828
00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:46,200
Speaker 1: of ending? I mean, I'm sure I don't know. You know,

829
00:59:46,240 --> 00:59:52,920
Speaker 1: the thing is is that um, Because basically the idea

830
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:57,880
Speaker 1: is to you know, bring the reader along um as

831
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: literally as as spots and you know, UM, so you know,

832
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 1: to have there your moral confusion uh to uh match

833
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: you know, to resonate with the moral confusion of the

834
01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:20,640
Speaker 1: characters in the book, right, to have you know, their revolution,

835
01:00:21,320 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 1: to resonate with the revulsion of the characters in the book,

836
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 1: and also to have their hopes resonate with the hopes

837
01:00:29,160 --> 01:00:32,440
Speaker 1: of the characters in the book. And then you know,

838
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:36,240
Speaker 1: I mean, the no God is is you know, the

839
01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:43,640
Speaker 1: the event the point at which meaning is done right.

840
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:48,640
Speaker 1: It's over no such thing as destiny, you know, no

841
01:00:48,840 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 1: such thing as contact with with God. Um. It is

842
01:00:55,480 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 1: the point where meaning itself breaks down and the reader

843
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: is reading the narrative of this story where meaning breaks down.

844
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:09,680
Speaker 1: In other words, they're actually you know, participating in this

845
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:16,040
Speaker 1: narrative of the death of meaning via meaning. And you know,

846
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:22,440
Speaker 1: the whole idea of having that meaning just cut short.

847
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:28,000
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, you know, especially when I was younger.

848
01:01:28,040 --> 01:01:31,440
Speaker 1: I mean, it just seemed like the greatest idea that

849
01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:35,880
Speaker 1: anybody you've ever had in the history of breaks. Which

850
01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:39,400
Speaker 1: many ideas do. They seem like that when you're a teenager,

851
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:42,080
Speaker 1: I guess. But Ibe, I have been committed to that

852
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:48,240
Speaker 1: right from the very uh, from the very beginning. And uh,

853
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:51,720
Speaker 1: I knew it puts people off. I knew, you know,

854
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:54,919
Speaker 1: the because it's funny and he was. You know when

855
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:58,760
Speaker 1: you look at the reviews on Amazon especially, uh, I

856
01:01:58,800 --> 01:02:02,760
Speaker 1: mean you see once the five stars on star, five stars,

857
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:06,400
Speaker 1: one stars, five stars, five stars. I mean, it's just

858
01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:10,960
Speaker 1: the book readers and what I think for anyway, there

859
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:15,840
Speaker 1: has to be a very commercially alarming way. But I

860
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:19,360
Speaker 1: don't know, like like I say, you know, it's my

861
01:02:19,400 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 1: wife who's constantly sucking to be more accessible. It's not

862
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: like I had any control over it. Whatever I say,

863
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:32,680
Speaker 1: I had, I see it a long time ago. The

864
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:37,240
Speaker 1: story is donny thing that drivers for quite sometimes. Well,

865
01:02:37,600 --> 01:02:41,040
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up revulsion and you know, and

866
01:02:41,120 --> 01:02:42,960
Speaker 1: then our level of investment of the characters, because I

867
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:46,320
Speaker 1: I certainly felt at the very end, as things really

868
01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:51,880
Speaker 1: um um turned to for the worst. I Uh, I

869
01:02:51,960 --> 01:02:55,360
Speaker 1: did feel a sense of revulsion and h confusion. You know,

870
01:02:55,400 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 1: I had I had so much within the context of

871
01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:02,680
Speaker 1: reading the fiction, it so much hope in kellis Uh

872
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:05,640
Speaker 1: that afterwards I really had to process how I felt

873
01:03:05,640 --> 01:03:09,480
Speaker 1: about what happened. Uh. How But in in processing, and

874
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:11,040
Speaker 1: you know, I realized that, well, all of this is

875
01:03:11,120 --> 01:03:13,640
Speaker 1: in keeping with the work. Like I am supposed to

876
01:03:13,720 --> 01:03:16,520
Speaker 1: feel this way, I'm not. I'm not feeling this way

877
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:20,200
Speaker 1: about a about an error in a in a work,

878
01:03:20,360 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 1: or or some sort of failure in the work. I'm

879
01:03:23,600 --> 01:03:28,560
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm responding accordingly. And I I just I

880
01:03:28,640 --> 01:03:32,720
Speaker 1: feel like maybe some of the reviewers are response they're

881
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:35,240
Speaker 1: they're reacting before they reach that point, like they're just

882
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 1: having a visceral reaction to the book, because I know

883
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:41,520
Speaker 1: they didn't just read The Unholy Console like they've they've

884
01:03:41,560 --> 01:03:44,720
Speaker 1: been winning with you for six previous books. They know

885
01:03:44,840 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 1: what you're about. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But it just goes

886
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 1: to show, right, I mean, it's the power of a

887
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:58,040
Speaker 1: narrative cognition. I mean, that's how powerful and it is, right,

888
01:03:58,120 --> 01:04:04,800
Speaker 1: I mean, a narrative that um is denied. Resolution is

889
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:08,439
Speaker 1: a nrative thing. Um. I mean it has its own

890
01:04:08,800 --> 01:04:13,400
Speaker 1: you know, internal logic and ternal montility that gives people,

891
01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:16,640
Speaker 1: you know, the most intuitive guys that I think could

892
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:20,680
Speaker 1: possibly have when it comes to judging a word. You know,

893
01:04:21,160 --> 01:04:24,520
Speaker 1: so you know, I mean it's it's I mean the

894
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:28,000
Speaker 1: fantasy series on purpose. I mean, um, I wanted to

895
01:04:28,160 --> 01:04:32,680
Speaker 1: write something that actually reached out to people, you know,

896
01:04:32,880 --> 01:04:35,760
Speaker 1: like Theodore Bill right. I mean, I know he's read

897
01:04:36,080 --> 01:04:39,160
Speaker 1: He's read my books, right, Um, I think he's even

898
01:04:39,200 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 1: recommended my books. And to me, that's a huge victory

899
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 1: because I think one of the biggest failures, you know,

900
01:04:47,160 --> 01:04:52,480
Speaker 1: leading up to the circus that's Washington today is you

901
01:04:52,560 --> 01:04:56,160
Speaker 1: know this this belief on the part of the left

902
01:04:56,440 --> 01:05:01,000
Speaker 1: that you know, not engaging you know that um, kicking

903
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:07,480
Speaker 1: everyone out of the out of the backyard backyard barbecue,

904
01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:12,760
Speaker 1: right would put an end to you know, problems like racism, masogyny,

905
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:16,960
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. When you know, anyone,

906
01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:18,600
Speaker 1: I think you spend any amount of time on the

907
01:05:18,840 --> 01:05:23,600
Speaker 1: on the web actually ranging outside of uh, you know,

908
01:05:23,720 --> 01:05:29,040
Speaker 1: liberal in groups, and see just how not the case

909
01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 1: that is? I mean, uh, for me, the web this

910
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:38,960
Speaker 1: is something I've been arguing for using us as well.

911
01:05:39,160 --> 01:05:43,600
Speaker 1: I mean, how the web is undermining human social ecology,

912
01:05:44,120 --> 01:05:46,480
Speaker 1: and I think go on with that for ours as well.

913
01:05:46,600 --> 01:05:50,040
Speaker 1: But um, it's a fantasy because I wanted it to

914
01:05:50,360 --> 01:05:55,320
Speaker 1: reach people who aren't otherwise exposed to UM things. You know,

915
01:05:55,480 --> 01:06:00,240
Speaker 1: so problematic is what you find. And you know, let's say, yeah,

916
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:04,080
Speaker 1: David Foster pless novel, you know, so to to read

917
01:06:04,160 --> 01:06:10,920
Speaker 1: something infinite just like UM in popular genre, And so

918
01:06:11,600 --> 01:06:13,640
Speaker 1: I knew, I mean I knew going in there a

919
01:06:13,720 --> 01:06:17,440
Speaker 1: lot of people would be really piste off. And I

920
01:06:17,520 --> 01:06:19,600
Speaker 1: think I think you got it. I mean some people

921
01:06:20,040 --> 01:06:22,800
Speaker 1: they sit back and they reflect and then they realize, yeah,

922
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:27,960
Speaker 1: whoa right. Some people they just follow that in turn

923
01:06:28,120 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 1: logic and they're like, this is starbage. I can't believe

924
01:06:31,920 --> 01:06:35,760
Speaker 1: I wasted money on this school. And other people are like, okay,

925
01:06:35,840 --> 01:06:38,720
Speaker 1: I get it, this is what you are trying to do. Yeah,

926
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:41,400
Speaker 1: well you're just to pump as a whole. And they

927
01:06:41,440 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 1: don't like it as well. Right, And I understand all

928
01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:48,040
Speaker 1: three responses, so you know, I don't necessarily disagree with

929
01:06:48,120 --> 01:06:53,600
Speaker 1: that last one either. I mean, um, you know, it's

930
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:57,400
Speaker 1: a it's a crazy project they set up, and um,

931
01:06:58,720 --> 01:07:02,120
Speaker 1: I don't know the worth well. So in terms of

932
01:07:02,160 --> 01:07:05,360
Speaker 1: the overall project, there is gonna be a there's gonna

933
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:09,720
Speaker 1: be a third section to the saga. Is that correct? Yeah? Yeah?

934
01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:12,919
Speaker 1: So so um, I mean when I originally envisaged it's

935
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:16,920
Speaker 1: uh back when it was a punk. Um, it is

936
01:07:16,960 --> 01:07:18,480
Speaker 1: going to be a trilogy, and it's going to be

937
01:07:18,520 --> 01:07:21,320
Speaker 1: in the print of Nothing, the Aspect Emper And then

938
01:07:21,760 --> 01:07:23,920
Speaker 1: you know, now I can say the name of the

939
01:07:23,960 --> 01:07:28,240
Speaker 1: third book, the no God um Um. The story idea

940
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:31,240
Speaker 1: only went up to the young of the Aspect Emperor,

941
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:36,200
Speaker 1: and I've never actually settled on what happens past that point.

942
01:07:36,320 --> 01:07:39,480
Speaker 1: I mean that point has always been the point where

943
01:07:39,960 --> 01:07:43,800
Speaker 1: where the vine. And so I mean, for me, um,

944
01:07:44,360 --> 01:07:46,160
Speaker 1: do you think of the ending of the book? Everyone

945
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:50,840
Speaker 1: you know is scattered and running from the whirlwind, wondering

946
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:54,400
Speaker 1: who survived and he died? And what I mean, That's

947
01:07:54,520 --> 01:07:57,560
Speaker 1: exactly where I see myself. I mean, I'm with the

948
01:07:57,640 --> 01:08:00,960
Speaker 1: readers here, I'm running from the world and I don't

949
01:08:01,000 --> 01:08:03,680
Speaker 1: know he survived, he died. So this is the point

950
01:08:03,680 --> 01:08:07,960
Speaker 1: where I've begun my discovery writing. I find out, I

951
01:08:08,080 --> 01:08:11,560
Speaker 1: find out, But what happened after after at this point.

952
01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:15,600
Speaker 1: But for me, I we need to say, you know,

953
01:08:15,720 --> 01:08:18,760
Speaker 1: you have these huge projects that that dominant so much

954
01:08:18,800 --> 01:08:20,920
Speaker 1: of your imagination and so much of your life. And

955
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:25,000
Speaker 1: and if you're you know, sort of inclined to uh

956
01:08:25,920 --> 01:08:30,000
Speaker 1: self skepticism and pessimism the way I think I am,

957
01:08:31,400 --> 01:08:33,559
Speaker 1: you just assume that something thing happened. And I always

958
01:08:33,560 --> 01:08:35,719
Speaker 1: got a map truck with something that's going to swim

959
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:38,920
Speaker 1: into me. But I would never be able to finish this, right,

960
01:08:39,640 --> 01:08:41,400
Speaker 1: And so when I actually finished the book and then

961
01:08:41,400 --> 01:08:44,720
Speaker 1: when the cook actually made it other shelves and I'm

962
01:08:44,800 --> 01:08:49,519
Speaker 1: sitting there, I'm still alive and still breathing and still

963
01:08:50,200 --> 01:08:57,240
Speaker 1: not experiencing clear you uh I mean now, yuh, it was.

964
01:08:57,479 --> 01:09:01,519
Speaker 1: It was a surreal moment. You know. It's almost kind

965
01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:03,519
Speaker 1: of like one of those things where you know you

966
01:09:03,680 --> 01:09:12,160
Speaker 1: don't plan for success. I just never really planned actually,

967
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:16,560
Speaker 1: you know, get to this point were uh you know

968
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:21,920
Speaker 1: posts post the Unholy console um And I don't think

969
01:09:21,960 --> 01:09:25,240
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. I mean I find it exciting, exhilarating,

970
01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:27,960
Speaker 1: even in a in a lot of different ways. It's

971
01:09:27,960 --> 01:09:31,000
Speaker 1: a much different place to be for me as as

972
01:09:31,040 --> 01:09:34,120
Speaker 1: a writer, much different place. Yeah, it's it's interesting to

973
01:09:34,200 --> 01:09:36,600
Speaker 1: hear you say that you don't know the uh, the

974
01:09:36,880 --> 01:09:39,960
Speaker 1: the initial fates of many of the characters, because because

975
01:09:40,000 --> 01:09:41,800
Speaker 1: reading it and I'm thinking, oh, what happened? Did this

976
01:09:41,840 --> 01:09:44,400
Speaker 1: one this character die or are they going to survive?

977
01:09:44,760 --> 01:09:47,400
Speaker 1: What seemed to happen there, and then you kind of

978
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:50,639
Speaker 1: assumed that that that Baker has a has a list

979
01:09:51,080 --> 01:09:53,920
Speaker 1: set aside with check marks beside who who survived and

980
01:09:53,960 --> 01:09:59,920
Speaker 1: who didn't, but maybe not, and that's actually more super position. Yeah, yeah,

981
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:02,840
Speaker 1: i'd say, I mean, because it's not as though I

982
01:10:02,880 --> 01:10:05,479
Speaker 1: haven't been you know, writing, It's not as those you

983
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:09,920
Speaker 1: know posts uh an only consult Uh, scenes haven't come

984
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:11,840
Speaker 1: to my head, right, I mean I have all kinds

985
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:15,200
Speaker 1: of scenes written, but they don't really they're not really

986
01:10:15,240 --> 01:10:19,160
Speaker 1: compatible with each other. It's just been so many years,

987
01:10:19,320 --> 01:10:21,960
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it really is it really is crazy.

988
01:10:22,160 --> 01:10:25,200
Speaker 1: Uh if you think about it. I mean, to have

989
01:10:25,320 --> 01:10:28,559
Speaker 1: a single story in the head for thirty three years, right,

990
01:10:29,320 --> 01:10:33,479
Speaker 1: I mean, um, yeah, that's it's a lot of notes,

991
01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:37,400
Speaker 1: it's a lot of a lot of disorganization, a lot

992
01:10:37,479 --> 01:10:43,720
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. I really don't know. So moving into the

993
01:10:43,880 --> 01:10:47,120
Speaker 1: into the future, we can expect more books in the series,

994
01:10:47,320 --> 01:10:49,760
Speaker 1: But what about other things you're working on? Can we

995
01:10:49,800 --> 01:10:54,840
Speaker 1: expect any more Disciple Manning detective stories? Uh? Any any

996
01:10:54,880 --> 01:10:57,519
Speaker 1: other works you're you're engaged in right now? Yeah, I

997
01:10:57,600 --> 01:10:59,320
Speaker 1: mean the one thing I'd love to do is I

998
01:10:59,640 --> 01:11:03,960
Speaker 1: had to idea for uh disciple second Disciple Manning novel

999
01:11:04,120 --> 01:11:08,400
Speaker 1: called Being Lightened Dead um for years now. And I

1000
01:11:08,439 --> 01:11:14,040
Speaker 1: mean I've really I could really use a Disciple Manning

1001
01:11:14,080 --> 01:11:17,800
Speaker 1: novel right about now. Um, But the Disciple of the Dog,

1002
01:11:17,960 --> 01:11:21,759
Speaker 1: I mean, people just don't really follow writers across genre lines,

1003
01:11:21,960 --> 01:11:29,960
Speaker 1: right Um. The uh big creative event in my life,

1004
01:11:30,040 --> 01:11:32,960
Speaker 1: I mean, and oddly you know, having this you know,

1005
01:11:33,280 --> 01:11:37,800
Speaker 1: uh I this uh I problem I had where the

1006
01:11:38,000 --> 01:11:41,160
Speaker 1: center of my visual field was included. Actually called that

1007
01:11:41,280 --> 01:11:45,280
Speaker 1: my little kelmullness. It's a little part of my vision

1008
01:11:45,320 --> 01:11:49,400
Speaker 1: that I couldn't see that was distorting everything, right um. Uh.

1009
01:11:50,080 --> 01:11:54,839
Speaker 1: The other the other thing was my hard drive crashing

1010
01:11:55,240 --> 01:12:00,280
Speaker 1: just weeks after um, it's probably more like months after

1011
01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:04,280
Speaker 1: I submitted to final manuscripts for been Holy Consult. Um

1012
01:12:05,120 --> 01:12:08,519
Speaker 1: all my meaning did die. I mean my computer which

1013
01:12:08,560 --> 01:12:11,720
Speaker 1: I had for ten years, which had you know, the

1014
01:12:12,200 --> 01:12:15,280
Speaker 1: content of all my other hard drives that I you know,

1015
01:12:15,680 --> 01:12:20,640
Speaker 1: uh stashed on it. I bought the computer. Um, it

1016
01:12:21,080 --> 01:12:23,960
Speaker 1: died on me and it took a few months for

1017
01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:26,920
Speaker 1: them to reconstruct it, and I had to pay a

1018
01:12:27,000 --> 01:12:32,560
Speaker 1: bunch of money um to get to h get what

1019
01:12:32,680 --> 01:12:35,280
Speaker 1: they were able to salvage back. But for a while

1020
01:12:35,320 --> 01:12:37,959
Speaker 1: then I didn't know if they've been able to salvage anything.

1021
01:12:38,439 --> 01:12:44,280
Speaker 1: And uh uh just several weeks back now I got

1022
01:12:45,120 --> 01:12:48,800
Speaker 1: the salvaged files back and discovered that everything I had

1023
01:12:48,840 --> 01:12:52,439
Speaker 1: written in the previous six months was was what I lost,

1024
01:12:53,040 --> 01:12:55,639
Speaker 1: And so what I'm concentrating on now it's just basically

1025
01:12:55,800 --> 01:12:58,080
Speaker 1: rewriting all that stuff that I had written in the

1026
01:12:58,160 --> 01:13:02,000
Speaker 1: previous six months. So it's had a huge review um

1027
01:13:02,360 --> 01:13:04,840
Speaker 1: and so much review as a as a sort of

1028
01:13:04,920 --> 01:13:10,559
Speaker 1: commentary on on then it UM that I'm just finishing

1029
01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:13,920
Speaker 1: off now that I've lost it was actually a day

1030
01:13:13,960 --> 01:13:18,120
Speaker 1: away from um posting it when my hard drive died,

1031
01:13:19,080 --> 01:13:23,719
Speaker 1: and um, I also have a science fiction novel called

1032
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:28,720
Speaker 1: The Lollipop Factory, which was over half completed and I

1033
01:13:28,840 --> 01:13:34,960
Speaker 1: lost the entire thing. UM. I really really liked It's

1034
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:37,920
Speaker 1: a great idea and I want to and I know

1035
01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:40,880
Speaker 1: if I sit on it and rather than dive into it,

1036
01:13:41,080 --> 01:13:45,680
Speaker 1: that it'll it'll be much harder for me to salvage it.

1037
01:13:45,840 --> 01:13:48,680
Speaker 1: So so I'm playing. I'm not digging back into that.

1038
01:13:49,640 --> 01:13:57,480
Speaker 1: And when um getting right back into the um second apocalypse,

1039
01:13:58,600 --> 01:14:02,400
Speaker 1: and he was the words taking Yeah, all right, well,

1040
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:05,600
Speaker 1: well good luck with with the roads ahead, and and

1041
01:14:05,680 --> 01:14:07,920
Speaker 1: thank you once more for taking time out of your

1042
01:14:08,000 --> 01:14:11,440
Speaker 1: data to chat with us about about philosophy and consciousness

1043
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:16,360
Speaker 1: and uh the coming whirlwind. Yes, in the whirlwind, thanks

1044
01:14:16,360 --> 01:14:19,559
Speaker 1: a millionaire, and um, if you could do me. Uh,

1045
01:14:20,320 --> 01:14:22,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if I should say another favor whatnot, UM,

1046
01:14:23,040 --> 01:14:25,920
Speaker 1: but spend some time on the AI stuff because uh,

1047
01:14:26,800 --> 01:14:30,360
Speaker 1: you know it's one of those things you know. I

1048
01:14:30,479 --> 01:14:34,720
Speaker 1: can't be wrong. I don't think I'm wrong, right, I

1049
01:14:34,760 --> 01:14:39,000
Speaker 1: mean it is after all she asked, philosophy. But if

1050
01:14:39,040 --> 01:14:43,120
Speaker 1: I'm right with UM, we will be in uh, we

1051
01:14:43,200 --> 01:14:48,719
Speaker 1: will be in short short order and um and things

1052
01:14:48,880 --> 01:14:50,800
Speaker 1: you know as we were just seen seen now and

1053
01:14:50,960 --> 01:14:54,240
Speaker 1: everybody feels that we're seeing in technological marvels as it

1054
01:14:54,479 --> 01:15:00,960
Speaker 1: is right, UM, uh is going to get change so

1055
01:15:01,200 --> 01:15:05,479
Speaker 1: fast and people aren't really gonna understand what's happening because

1056
01:15:05,880 --> 01:15:12,640
Speaker 1: they don't have even the nearest sense of just how

1057
01:15:12,840 --> 01:15:17,280
Speaker 1: ecological you know, the relationships for one another into society

1058
01:15:17,360 --> 01:15:20,439
Speaker 1: as a whole. Are you know how much they depend

1059
01:15:20,560 --> 01:15:26,080
Speaker 1: on the Darwinian buttons, you know, not being commercially exploited

1060
01:15:26,200 --> 01:15:32,160
Speaker 1: them by actors, interactives, artisticial insis of species? You know?

1061
01:15:33,000 --> 01:15:36,080
Speaker 1: Are you billions of these things in their lives and

1062
01:15:36,240 --> 01:15:39,720
Speaker 1: very short orders? So if you, guys, if you can

1063
01:15:39,760 --> 01:15:41,960
Speaker 1: find anyone else who can get like neo Lawrence, give

1064
01:15:42,040 --> 01:15:47,439
Speaker 1: me a Lawrence a call. Okay, yeah, so you'll blow

1065
01:15:47,479 --> 01:15:51,360
Speaker 1: your mind? All right, Well, thanks a lot, Scott, Thank you,

1066
01:15:52,080 --> 01:15:53,680
Speaker 1: all right, So there you have it. Thanks again to

1067
01:15:53,760 --> 01:15:55,920
Speaker 1: Scott for coming on the show and talking with us.

1068
01:15:56,400 --> 01:15:58,280
Speaker 1: Make sure you check out the landing page for this

1069
01:15:58,360 --> 01:16:00,439
Speaker 1: episode it's stuff to blow your mind dot com because

1070
01:16:00,439 --> 01:16:03,160
Speaker 1: I'll make sure to include links out to Scott's website

1071
01:16:03,200 --> 01:16:05,920
Speaker 1: to social media presence where you can find out more

1072
01:16:05,960 --> 01:16:08,080
Speaker 1: about his books if you're not if you're not already

1073
01:16:08,360 --> 01:16:11,679
Speaker 1: familiar with them. So I haven't read the Second Apocalypse books,

1074
01:16:11,920 --> 01:16:14,639
Speaker 1: but now that I've had them spoiled, I think it's

1075
01:16:14,720 --> 01:16:17,400
Speaker 1: time for me to jump right in at the beginning. Well,

1076
01:16:17,479 --> 01:16:20,720
Speaker 1: I have to distress that if anyone else is out

1077
01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:22,680
Speaker 1: there out there's in your shoes and and something's been

1078
01:16:22,680 --> 01:16:26,640
Speaker 1: spoiled for you. These books are not like, uh, you know,

1079
01:16:26,800 --> 01:16:29,960
Speaker 1: twist dependent. I mean, the twist is is pretty great

1080
01:16:30,120 --> 01:16:33,320
Speaker 1: and uh and really grabs you by the heart. But

1081
01:16:34,360 --> 01:16:36,479
Speaker 1: the books are rich enough. The world is rich enough,

1082
01:16:36,520 --> 01:16:38,840
Speaker 1: and all the different stories that weave in and out

1083
01:16:38,880 --> 01:16:41,160
Speaker 1: of it, uh, you know, are still going to have

1084
01:16:41,439 --> 01:16:44,160
Speaker 1: their their potency. Yeah, I mean I I I read

1085
01:16:44,200 --> 01:16:47,200
Speaker 1: plenty of books after I've already seen the movie. Yeah,

1086
01:16:47,240 --> 01:16:50,080
Speaker 1: I've gotten to the point, sadly where I've I've actually

1087
01:16:50,120 --> 01:16:54,200
Speaker 1: started going to films and going ahead and checking the spoilers.

1088
01:16:54,240 --> 01:16:56,000
Speaker 1: If I know the film is supposed to be particularly

1089
01:16:56,080 --> 01:16:59,600
Speaker 1: horrific or have anything that's kind of controversial, I'm like,

1090
01:17:00,040 --> 01:17:02,080
Speaker 1: I guess I'll check and just see what the thing

1091
01:17:02,320 --> 01:17:05,920
Speaker 1: is that I might not like, just to prepare myself. Right,

1092
01:17:06,840 --> 01:17:08,800
Speaker 1: So you've been to all the wiki pages for Mother

1093
01:17:09,000 --> 01:17:11,479
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Yeah, I I specifically looked up

1094
01:17:11,520 --> 01:17:13,519
Speaker 1: the new film Mother to see if it was something

1095
01:17:13,560 --> 01:17:15,280
Speaker 1: I was gonna be okay with seeing, and uh, and

1096
01:17:15,280 --> 01:17:17,800
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I guess, I guess. I guess I'm

1097
01:17:17,840 --> 01:17:20,559
Speaker 1: aboard with that, put a raincoad on your mind. There

1098
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:23,240
Speaker 1: you go, all right? Well, hey, if you want to

1099
01:17:23,320 --> 01:17:24,920
Speaker 1: check out more of what we do again, head on

1100
01:17:25,000 --> 01:17:27,080
Speaker 1: over to stuff Toble your mind dot com. Also check

1101
01:17:27,120 --> 01:17:30,920
Speaker 1: out o verious social media accounts. Were on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram,

1102
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:33,439
Speaker 1: and hey on Facebook, we have that discussion module, a

1103
01:17:33,520 --> 01:17:36,760
Speaker 1: special group you asked to join, and you'll you'll get

1104
01:17:36,800 --> 01:17:41,040
Speaker 1: in unless unless you're really odious exactly exactly so, so

1105
01:17:41,200 --> 01:17:42,600
Speaker 1: check it out. It is a great place to have

1106
01:17:42,880 --> 01:17:45,920
Speaker 1: longer form discussions with other listeners and even with the host.

1107
01:17:46,360 --> 01:17:48,280
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us directly,

1108
01:17:48,479 --> 01:17:51,840
Speaker 1: as always, you can email us at blow the Mind

1109
01:17:52,040 --> 01:18:04,080
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1110
01:18:04,240 --> 01:18:06,760
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

1111
01:18:06,800 --> 01:18:07,200
Speaker 1: dot com