WEBVTT - Interview Interlude Playlist, Part 7: R. Scott Bakker 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:20.160 Works dot com. The thoughts of all men arise from 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.000 the darkness. If you were the movement of your soul, 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.160 and the cause of that movement procede you, then how 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.040 could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.320 you be anything other than a slave to the darkness 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:36.640 that comes before? Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.199 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.720 today's episode is mostly going to be an interview with 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.960 the Canadian author are Scott Baker, best known for his 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:49.280 Second Apocalypse saga, Robert, how would you characterize that? Well? 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.680 I think that quote that I read there from his 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.320 first book in the series, The Darkness That Comes Before, 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.880 sums it up rather nicely. I was first turned onto 0:00:57.880 --> 0:00:59.960 the work of our Scott Baker back in two thousand seven, 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.760 and I hadn't read anything quite like it at the time, 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.360 and I really haven't read anything quite like his work 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.400 since then. His first novel, The Darkness That Comes Before, 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.759 cast the reader into a dark fantasy world and invokes 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.440 the Holy Wars of our own world, token esque evil 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.120 factional in fighting worthy of Frank Herbert's Dune and a 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.040 deep philosophical core, And we're actually gonna be getting into 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.920 not so much his science fiction and fantasy but a 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.360 recent philosophy paper of his that sounds kind of odd, 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.600 though We will discuss his science fiction and fantasy a 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.119 fair amount. Don't don't worry about that if you're a fan, 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:36.800 but we're really going to be focusing on our Scott 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:40.679 Baker's recent paper on alien philosophy, published this year in 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.960 the Journal of Consciousness Studies. Yes, you heard that right, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.480 alien philosophy. We will get back to that in just 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.360 a little bit. Yes, on alien philosophy. This is a 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:55.040 wonderful thought experiment and sort of a reverse engineering of 0:01:55.120 --> 0:02:00.120 human philosophy via the consideration of a fictional convergeon ale 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.040 in species and what's sort of philosophical systems they might 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.720 create to make sense of their own existence. Yeah, so 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.640 in the past we've actually speculated about possible characteristics of 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.640 alien life forms. We did this in that episode Grizzly 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.320 Bears from Outer Space. Do you remember that? Yeah, like, 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.760 would aliens have eyes? Would they have hands? How large 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.160 or intelligent life forms? Generally? Where there was there was 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.320 a paper back then that tried to use some statistical 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.120 analysis to say, you know, it's really more likely, given 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.120 certain planet sizes and gravity and stuff, that aliens are 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.960 going to be pretty big. Um. But this is always 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.960 a tricky game because if you are a reasonable person, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.519 you have to admit that if alien life exists somewhere 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:45.400 out there, there's every chance that it could just totally 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.720 defy your expectations. We we don't always know what to expect. 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.800 We can't be certain about much, but it is always 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.640 fun to play the game. Okay, if we just start 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:59.520 with a few fairly safe assumptions, what can we deduce 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.560 about what types of life are possible? And one of 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.320 those fairly safe assumptions is that whatever alien life exists, 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.400 it's going to be the product of evolution by natural selection. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.120 I think it would be incredibly surprising if it turned 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.320 out to not be the product of evolution by natural selection, 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.320 meaning it's going to be a system that somehow incodes information, 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.639 makes copies of itself through that information, and the copies 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.840 survive and make their own copies at differential rates. And 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.640 from these humble premises you can actually start to make 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.000 a lot of interesting guesses about what types of life 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.240 are more possible or more common than others. And so 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.520 we've already tried this with biological and ecological traits in 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.560 the past. But in this new paper, Our Scott Baker 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:49.840 chases this this phenotype problem really deep. He goes on 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:54.520 to guests, what are the philosophical projects that intelligent alien 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.080 life forms would wonder about? What big questions would they 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.040 share with us? What hang up so they really likely 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.080 to dwell upon. Yeah, it's a fascinating paper and if 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.680 you want to read it in full, I'll include a 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.600 link to it on the landing page for this episode 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:11.640 is Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. And I 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:13.680 should also point out that the first six books in 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.240 the Second Apocalypse saga, including the first trilogy, are currently 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.599 out there and just about any reading format you desire, 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.000 and this summer Our Scott Baker brings it all home. 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:25.760 He's gonna follow up last year's The Great Ordeal with 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.799 the Unholy Consults, which is gonna be out July eleven 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.479 from Overlook Press. And if you're not ready to commit 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.880 to a multi book series, his standalone novels Neuropath and 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.559 Disciple of the Dog are out there as well. Robert, 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.960 I know you warned me about neuropath well, as as 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.960 we'll explore in the interview, Baker himself warns everybody about neuropaths, 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:46.120 so be sure to tune in for that section of 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.480 the conversation. Just a few quick notes about this episode. 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.160 First up, this is a phone interview. We're in Atlanta 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.640 and Scott chatted with us from the wilds of Canada 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.560 in the midst of a thunderstorm. So, uh, everything's not 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:00.479 going to be necessarily as crisp as a you reually is, 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.800 but we think the content is is definitely worth sticking 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.839 around for. Secondly, I bring up a couple of details 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:11.000 from the Second Apocalypse saga that I think bear quick explanation. First, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.919 there's the ink Ai. Now, this is a hedonistic alien 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:18.560 species that descends upon the world in ancient times undying. 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:23.320 They're devoted to selfish indulgence, limitless pleasure, and a cataclysmic 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.400 scheme to shield themselves from judgment. And then there are 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.080 the non Men. This is an all male race of 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.760 humanoids that essentially serves as the waning elder race the 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:37.839 elves of Baker's world, only far darker and interestingly inhuman 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.679 in many respects, both in body and in mind. And finally, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:43.919 there's a tiny bit of cursing in this episode, but 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.599 it's polite Canadian cursing, and we bleaped it all out 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.200 for you. All Right, Well, i'd say, without further delay, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:06:05.240 maybe we should get into our conversation with our Scott Baker. Hey, Scott, 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.599 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Thanks for taking 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:09.680 time out of your day to talk with us here 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.560 about your new paper on alien philosophy, as well as 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.560 uh your works of fiction, which I know personally have 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:19.320 been a lot to me over the years. I'm I'm 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.040 a big fan of the Second Apocalypse saga. I loved 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.520 an Neuropath and Disciple the Dog as well. So we 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.000 want to welcome you to the show. And I believe 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.600 Joe has the first question here related to on alien philosophy. Well, actually, 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.320 I mean, I guess we should start just by Scott. 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:38.960 Is there anything you'd like to tell our audience about yourself? 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.919 Just introduce yourself and then second we'll we'll get to 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.120 the meat of the paper. I'm a farm boy who 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.760 grew up in southwestern Ontario and uh ended up falling 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.359 in love with Lord of the Rings and Conan the 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:57.120 Barbarian at a preposterously young age and just never grew up. 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.120 What's your opinion on the Millius movie? It has to 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.680 be the one written by alver Stone. Yeah yeah, Ernie. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.680 All right, So we wanted to get into the idea 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.280 of your your paper about alien philosophy. Could you just 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.000 start by as succinctly as you can explaining what your 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.000 motive for writing this paper was and what your basic 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.080 conclusions are. Okay, So, I mean I kind of backed 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.760 into philosophy. Um, my original my original degree program I 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:33.640 took at university was languages and literature, and it quickly 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.560 became apparent to me that I was barking up the 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.440 wrong tree. And so the question for me was basically 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:45.600 how to transition my literature degree into something more philosophical. 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:50.800 So I did a critical theory graduate degree, and in 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.720 that case, I found myself knee deep and all these 0:07:54.720 --> 0:08:00.720 philosophical traditions, ten thousand different interpretations of the same bloody thing. 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.000 I think the best way to put it is dismayed. 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.320 There's just so much confusion. It seemed like there was 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:14.040 so much obvious obtuscation. I so it quickly came to 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:18.880 the conclusion that something profoundly wrong lay at the heart 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:24.280 of traditional philosophy, and I just endeavored to be as 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.880 honest and as ruthlessly skeptical as I could and try 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.600 to figure out what that something wrong was. And aude 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.440 alien philosophy is basically the answer I've been able to 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.440 come up with after about twenty years of studying and 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:42.040 researching the topic, both informal university contexts and UH and 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.679 on my own. And the idea, in a nutshell is 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:51.120 simply that we human beings simply did not evolve the 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:57.480 capacity to reflect upon ourselves and our experience in any way, 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.480 shape or form that would allow us to answer theoretical 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:06.280 questions regarding our experience. And when you really look at 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.880 you know the question empirically in terms of cognitive neuroscience, 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.360 for instance, and you see the way in which the 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:18.760 brain constantly windows information, constantly just selects a little bit 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.200 of information from this process, a little information from that process, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.240 a little information from that process. You discovered the brain 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.040 really is a giant bottleneck machine that is bend on 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:33.640 selecting only what it needs. And on alien philosophy gives 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:38.199 us a sort of picture of how we can understand 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:44.960 that bottleneck machine such that it explains the morass of 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:52.520 traditional philosophy of mind are you know, epical inability to 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.760 figure out what the hell is going on inside of 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:57.959 our own heads? So in the paper you you make 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.360 this distinction you just talked about and you you mentioned 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:05.120 the idea of causal cognition versus heuristic cognition, right, Uh, 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.400 basically having a true understanding of the workings of things 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.240 in in a sort of deep information way, versus having 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:15.160 a you know, on the fly, good enough understanding of 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.199 things that gets us through everyday life and that we're 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:23.520 constantly using the ladder to try to get at the former. Um. 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.320 A question I sort of wonder about. Is the former 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.760 to me, sounds like it is best executed in science. 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.880 If we're trying to get causal cognition, it's when we 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.760 you know, put these tools on our inquiries, like scientific 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:42.040 investigatory tools. And so does that leave any room for philosophy? 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.560 Do you think that there is really any good philosophy 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.280 to be done or really should it just be science 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:54.800 and everything outside of science is misapplying these heuristic models 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.559 we have. Um, yeah, I mean I think there's definitely 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:02.080 good philosophy. I mean, uh, Um, it's not the death 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:06.360 of philosophy or theoretical speculation. I mean, there's no way 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.920 to kill that. Um. What for me it signals the 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.240 end of is a certain type of philosophizing, which just 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.120 happens to be the majority of philosophizing since the ancient Greeks, 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:21.200 which is the idea of actually using heuristic cognition to 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.400 try to get to the truth of heuristic cognition, using 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.760 these shortcuts, these ways of actually avoiding knowledge of what's 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:33.880 actually going on to solve problems as a means of 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:38.320 getting at what's going on. And that's the philosophy that 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:44.040 does That is the philosophy that's caused the bulk of 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:47.480 our confusion today. So how much of philosophy do you 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:51.400 think is really just sort of backward looking ex post 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:56.000 facto justification for our biases. So the way I look 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.839 at it is we have this capacity to metacognize. We 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:05.440 have these ancestral abilities to basically pick things from the 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:10.720 stream of experience and think about them and change our 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.480 behavioral responses to the world on the basis of them. 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.640 So think about Christmas with your relatives. You know, everyone 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:27.079 has that family member who says something that you jest. Oh, 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.120 you got to say something about it, but you know 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.439 if you do, it's going to ruin the whole night. 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.240 And then it's a great example of meta cognition at work. 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:37.679 You know you're gonna say something, and then all of 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:42.000 a sudden, Wait a second, Scott, he's an soul. Everyone 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.080 knows he's a whole. You don't need to tell everybody 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.040 he's in sool. If you tell everybody's, well, then the 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.760 whole night's ruined. Right, Your reproductive chances go flying out 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:56.040 the window. That sounds weird. It doesn't know, But meta 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.720 cognition consists of a suite of practical tools. There's no 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:04.240 a in the world that we evolved the meta cognitive capacity. 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:08.760 We needed to do much more than a handful of 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.320 practical things on the fly. And what philosophical reflection does 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:18.320 is it it basically takes those tools, repurposes them, and 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:23.160 asks them to solve questions. There's just simply no way 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.120 they could possibly solve them. But since we lack the 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.480 ability to even see how little ability we have when 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.360 it comes to man cognition, we have no sense of 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.679 constraints or limits or whatever, and so we're confunded by 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.840 this constant illusion of transparency. It seems like, yes, if 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.120 only I think hard enough on this, Yes, if only 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:47.840 I get my concepts arranged just right. Yes, if only 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.280 I abandoned the metaphysics a presence, Yes only I abandoned 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.320 the mirror major on and on and on it goes. 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.360 Everybody thinks that there's a way to use philosophical reflection 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:07.360 to solve or the problem with human experience. So, uh, Scott, 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.720 in the paper you seem and the way you just 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.240 described it now, you definitely do seem to be trying 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.800 to use this idea of imagining what alien philosophy looks 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.479 like in order to reverse engineer our own human philosophy 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.239 to better understand how we've arrived at our philosophical traditions. 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.240 But I'm also just really interested in that speculative project 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:33.640 trying to literally imagine what an information processing organism orbiting 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.160 a faraway star might think about, what hard problems would 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.040 they encounter and how would they deal with them? And 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.160 so I wonder if I could ask you just a 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.160 few crazy kinds of questions that you don't even address 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.920 in the paper. Uh. I started off thinking, like, you know, 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.600 would could you imagine that there would be an alien 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.840 Hagel or an alien Wittgenstein. But these are kind of 0:14:54.840 --> 0:15:00.040 stupid questions because I think these philosophers necessarily exist in 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.000 a tradition, if you know what I mean, Like they're 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.640 reacting to all the philosophers that came before them, and 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.160 so it's sort of silly to try to imagine if 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:12.280 that history of philosophy would be recreated on other planets. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.040 But you can't imagine other fields of philosophy and how 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.240 they would be created. So I'm trying to think, like, 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.920 what would alien meta ethics look like? Is there anything 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.960 that we could guess, uh that that would form the 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.000 basis of how aliens would think about, you know what, 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.760 they're where their sense of right and wrong comes from. 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:34.960 But this is a really hard question to ask. I mean, 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.800 part of the reason why I took so much care 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:45.160 to uh underscore how how really you know, plausibility of 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.880 alien philosophy was all I was after. It's just simply 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:53.360 because asking the question of alien philosopy earnestly, you know, 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.280 um is really difficult, simply because you've got to assume 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.000 so much convergence just to just get off the ground 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:04.400 I mean have to that they use language in similar 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.560 ways that we as we use language for instance. Um, 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.440 So if you grant all that, if you grant convergence, 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:17.120 as I call them in the paper, then I think 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.320 meta ethics would look like a giant mess the way 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:27.640 meta ethics looks like in contemporary philosophy, justly because when 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:32.560 it comes to where we stand in these various super 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.600 complicated systems that nature has us pinned in, we just 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:42.040 have no access to the information we need. So what 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:47.800 we really have to rely on is basically these blind guesses, 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:52.480 you know, these simple heuristics, these little tricks that have, 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:57.360 for whatever reason, um, preserved our ancestors in the past. 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:04.520 Now these tricks are just simply uh, they're literally invisible 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:09.520 to us, even though they actually are the foundation of 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:15.360 guiding our behavior through these super complicated natural natural environments. Now, 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:20.639 any creature like the human is stuck in the exact 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:27.320 same informational bind. They're stuck in a shallow information environment. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.160 They have these tools for picking out those handles, those 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:36.120 features of the environment that actually help them get along 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:41.440 or get on or get it on, um, but they 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:46.520 actually have no way of isolating those simple heuristics as 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.919 simple heuristics, no way of understanding where they stand in 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:54.520 these superordinance systems. They're just they're blind, and even worse, 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.840 they're blind to their blindness. So every time these aliens 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:02.680 would attempt to solve ethical questions what is ethics, They're 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.600 going to run into the same sets of illusions and 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:10.439 problems that beset human philosophers. They're going to confuse the 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:16.640 load in scape of ethical concepts as being a sort 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.600 of autonomous system as being all there is. They're going 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:24.520 to think that they've actually solved something, even though all 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.640 it takes is another person to ask the exact same 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:31.479 question to arrive at, in some cases, radically different answer 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.520 following what seemed to be very similar intuitions. So those 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.240 two things I think they're gonna are going to strand 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.200 them as effectively as we've been stranded by meta ethics. 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.840 I can imagine a skeptical objection to what you're saying, Um, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.200 that would be okay, you're right that we are, by 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:53.440 nature shallow information consumers. We don't have deep knowledge about 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.959 the world in order to get along in a natural setting. 0:18:57.680 --> 0:18:59.960 But you can definitely look at the way we've loved 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.359 ridged the weak tools. We do have to do amazing 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.600 things in say science and technology, like we can build 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.920 an international space station, and that has nothing to do 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:14.720 with our ground level survival and reproduction. We've just managed 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.680 to sort of bootstrap up some very basic survival tools 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:23.200 into incredible products. Why would you think that we couldn't 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.359 do the same thing with these hard problems, like like 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:32.080 met ethics or natural philosophy or understanding the mind that 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.280 we do with science and technology. Well, I mean I 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.280 actually think that you know a lot of the say 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.520 you know norms of science. I actually see these things 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:45.520 as technology. I mean I see them as basically ways 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.000 of turning, you know, spinning tools out of our own 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.720 brains if you will. I mean the idea of the 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:57.280 idea isn't that we can't use heuristic cognition in novel ways. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.919 I mean we literally, I think we literally evolved to 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:06.000 do exactly what philosophers do, which is just simply trying 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:11.640 to recast, repurpose that our existing cognitive capacities in order 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:16.640 to solve um different kinds of problems. The problem with 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.399 meta ethics in particular is it doesn't really have anything 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.800 to do with that process. So ethical thought it has 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.760 given us a lot of great ideas that we've been 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:31.800 able to institutionalize in ways that have been tremendously tremendously 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:37.720 beneficial um to humanity. But there's no way of actually 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.800 realizing that that's the case short of putting those tools 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:48.320 into application. I mean, I would argue that the type 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:55.359 of norm toolmaking that humans have just done so fantastically 0:20:55.440 --> 0:21:00.000 well is actually a completely different process than the process 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:06.960 that underwrites meta ethical thought. I mean, problems get solved 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:12.320 when we actually discover a new simple heuristic that allows 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.080 us to get along with each other in some way, 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:20.000 shape or form. But when you actually ask the fundamental 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:25.480 nature of ethical thought, and you begin by looking at 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.439 all these terms, all this norm talk as referring to 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:34.239 posits that actually plays some role in some kind of 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:39.639 economy transcendental economy or a normative economy, or an anomalous 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:44.439 economy or an autonomous economy outside of the circuit of nature. 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.680 No one's gotten anywhere, no one's the through anything. I mean, 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:53.720 the all the dilemmas that confronted the ancient Greeks are 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:58.879 still confronting modern philosophers today. And that's just simply because 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:05.560 constitutes an attempt to apply these simple heuristics not to 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:10.480 practical problems in the real world of politics and social interaction, 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.640 but to the theoretical problem of ethics itself. All right, 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:16.560 now it's time to take a quick break, and when 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.639 we come back, more of our conversation with our Scott Baker. 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:25.840 So maybe I've got one more and then I'm going 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:28.879 to throw back to Robert here. Uh So, I wanted 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:33.800 to go to a footnote in your paper about alien philosophy. Um, 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.560 you say that because we evolved in ecologies that didn't 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.119 give us access to deep information, you know, we just 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.400 knew enough to get along. You write, quote, My fear 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.000 is that the provision of this information is likely to 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.760 crash the effectiveness of many of our tools. A good 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.560 deal of my fiction is devoted to exploring different crash scenarios. 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:55.639 So I wondered if you could explain a little bit 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:58.000 more what you mean about the idea of a crash 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:02.440 scenario and how you explored so when you understand that 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.359 the bulk of our cognition is heuristic, that it really 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:10.119 relies on these kinds of guesses that we're making with 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.919 the lack any sort of deep understanding of the actual 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:20.840 physical structure of the environment around us. You realize that 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:25.800 that guesswork depends upon an invariant background. So a perfect 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:30.520 example would be AI for instance. So human beings we 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:37.000 evolved to manage unbelievable amount of complexity. We we evolved 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.840 to solve the most complicated systems that we know of 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:46.359 in the universe, basically each other, without actually knowing the 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:50.119 first thing about what's going on in brains or or 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:56.560 ecologies or or what what have you. So heuristics solved 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:01.000 by taking things for granted in their environments. So that 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:06.200 means the only cognition can be properly function is if 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:10.359 those things that it takes for granted actually obtained in 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:14.320 its environments. So if you look at that last year, 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:18.480 there was the first fatality ever attributed to a self 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:22.840 driving car, and I think it was a Tesla Um 0:24:22.920 --> 0:24:27.280 and the unfortunate fellow was driving on an incline and 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.520 a truck was crossing his path. He was watching Harry 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:36.919 Potter on his dashboard. He had his autopilot on his car. 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:42.200 Now the autopilot actually read forward, and the white truck 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:45.680 crossed what was actually white sky. This is what they 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:50.520 think happened, and as a result, the truck's trailer qued 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:54.719 open space to the computer, and so the car just 0:24:54.800 --> 0:24:59.600 drove right underneath the truck trailer. Um, that's exactly what 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:04.520 happen when the environment doesn't cooperate with a heuristic problem 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:09.919 solving system. If that system cannot discriminate between white truck 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:15.520 white sky, then it just sees sky. And so that's 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:19.040 actually a perfect example of a crash space where you 0:25:19.080 --> 0:25:22.760 have a cognitive system that requires the environment to be 0:25:22.920 --> 0:25:26.520 a certain way in order to properly solve the problem. 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:30.640 When the environment is changed or varies in a way 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:33.760 that it cannot accommodate, then you literally have a car 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:38.400 crash in that case. Now, that obtained as much for 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:42.040 self driving cars as it does for human social cognition. 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:46.320 So my big fear with AI generally is that you 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:50.600 and I evolved to solve each other um over literally 0:25:50.640 --> 0:25:55.280 the history of life on this planet. We're enormously complicated, 0:25:55.880 --> 0:25:59.399 and yet we're so finally attuned to one another that 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:03.240 we can make unbelievable predictions as to each other's behavior 0:26:03.720 --> 0:26:09.320 and reliability and so forth. Now, what happens when you 0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:14.240 take that ecology and you start injecting all these little 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:20.520 artificial agencies that are literally designed to cue your heuristic 0:26:21.240 --> 0:26:24.680 social positive systems out of school, right for some sort 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:28.640 of commercial advantage. Now, all of a sudden, you find 0:26:28.720 --> 0:26:33.000 human beings using these systems that are exquisitely designed to 0:26:33.080 --> 0:26:36.240 make sense of other human beings. Now we're using these 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:41.040