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Marwa interviews Curt Jaimungal on UFOs, Religion, God, Free Will
February 15, 2024
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Marwa El-Dewini has a podcast on soft robotics, where she interviews people like Gary Nolan, Jacques Vallee, and Michael Levin. She recently interviewed me on Heaven, Hell, the cognitive perils of both Eastern and Western interpretations of religion, free will, that is randomness versus non-determinism, and even UFOs. Her channel is in the description. Check it out. Yeah, these are great questions. So I, well, yes, I think life is random. But random doesn't mean
Yeah, I think life is non-determined. So there's a distinction between something being not determined and something being random. Usually those are conflated. But random technically means that we have a probability distribution and non-determined just means it's not determined. If you have the halting of an arbitrary Turing machine is a non-determined problem, but it's not random. There's no probability distribution on this on this problem.
Does this arbitrary Turing machine halt? This is something that Scott Aronson talks about when he talks about free will. He says that many of the people who are against free will make the mistake that they'll say, look, you're either determined or you're not determined. So you either the laws of physics actually determine you or they're not, in which case they're quantum mechanical and thus they're random. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, there's, there's a difference. You're either determined or you're not determined. Sure.
But you can't then go from you're not determined to you're randomly determined. That's different. Randomness is a subset of non determinants of non deterministicity or not of being non of being non deterministic. Sorry. But it's unknown if randomness is an inclusive subset. So it's the entire subset or if it's smaller, it's unknown.
How would like to perceive yourself if you recognize yourself for the first time? I think that's like sort of experiment based on your conversation. So how you perceive yourself? So how would I perceive myself if I was to encounter myself for the first time? For the first time, yeah. So it's a good question. Yeah, well, what I would say,
I'm someone who takes a, I think it's called a battering ram, a battering ram to problems that are either impenetrable, you can't, you can't move through them, or, yeah, they're impervious or, or that I'm taking a battering ram to a sunflower seed, like the answers are so simple, that it's foolish to use such tools.
Did you find the truth or the reality for existing? I think that's a question. Not even close. Yeah, not even close. Not even close. At least I don't think so. Maybe it's in front of one's nose the whole time. That's something that people say in the more spiritual circles, but I don't think so. Yeah, but I'm curious about this. Your materialistic world view change it to spiritual and how this the transitioning? Yeah, I wouldn't even say that I'm that I'm
That I've dropped materialism and that I've gained spiritualism. I won't even say that. I think both the idealist mindset, so the one that thinks consciousness is fundamental and the one that thinks material is fundamental, also something physical and dead is fundamental, both suffer from the same left brain issues of abstraction. I think they're both the same theory or the same framework. They just use different words. I think it's a reductionist framework. I'm not a reductionist.
So do you still believe that maybe there's a God or nothing in that case? Yeah, there could there indeed could be a God that there's no, I'm not taking that off the table. I take that possibility extremely seriously. And what other beliefs that you think that to change it in you, then she will be covering these topics that there's any other beliefs that change it in you? Man, more like. These are great questions there. These are extremely deep questions, so
These are delusive questions. Let me think about let me think about how to answer this. Well, OK, let me take something mathematical. So in math, there's math is based in logic. It's usually based in classical logic, which means something's true or something's not true or that you can. If something. There's something called the law of the excluded middle, so either not a is the case or or a is the case.
And that if you have both of them, then you have what's called the principle of explosion and anything is true. I don't know. I don't buy classical logic. I also don't buy intuitionist logic. So intuitionist is generally thought of as the alternative to classical logic. There's something called paraconsistent logic.
Which is Grand Priest is the current Grand Priest is a professor of logic. He's the current popularizer of it, or the current proponent of it major proponent of it. It says that, yeah, you can have a and not a and still not explode. And he says that that's actually how our thoughts work, because we're inconsistent people. So look, if our brains are computational, why is it like, are you saying? Are you saying that you're a rational person, but yet you're inconsistent? Thus, you should believe anything.
If what you are, if you believe yourself to be
a rational computationally driven person, and it's classical, then you should believe anything, you should technically explode. So sorry, logically, technically explode. Not physically explore like mentally explode. But yet we don't. So why not? Maybe it's because we're either not computational. Okay, that's one possibility. Maybe it's because if we're computational, it's not on the same classical logical foundation.
And so that's a grand priest would would lie there. Maybe a third option is that we're actually not inconsistent. I don't know who would say that there would have to be an an arrogant person, an extremely haughty person who believes plenty about themselves. By the way, that's a technical term, an arrogant, an arrogant agent is a technical term. It means that they don't have any contradictions in their beliefs or the sorry, it means they believe that they don't have contradictions in their belief.
So Raymond Smollin is a mathematician who outlined all these different types of reasoners and an arrogant reasoner is one that believes this super interesting Mara. There's something called doxastic logic, the logic of belief. Super interesting. I can't wait to explore that some more on the channel, but he's exploring, okay, what are the consequences of doxastic logic, different belief logics? And one of them is, look, what happens if you believe
that you're not inconsistent. Sorry. Yes, that's correct. What happens if you believe that you're not inconsistent? Well, anyway, you can. There are various paradoxes around this. So I want to also ask you what are the most challenging discords in the channel? Like it's very challenging and maybe, yeah, maybe recent or the start that very challenging topic in the channel they have covered so far.
Chris Langan was one that took quite some time to prepare. So Chris Langan is someone who is an extremely bright individual who didn't go to university and he has an unexampled theory of everything, everything, sorry, called the CTMU, the cognitive theoretic model of the universe. It's impenetrable, it's unfathomable, or maybe he's taking something that's ineffable and putting words to it.
But either way, so is anyone else who believes they have a philosophical theory of everything or a metamathematical theory of everything. And he does. And it took some time for me to go through. And see, most people who develop toes, they're either a string theorist, a physical toe person or a loop quantum gravatist who believes that eventually they'll get to the standard model. Or they're just one or two people working in isolation.
I know what that's like to be just so lonely working on something like... I know what it's like to be lonely. And what happens is that for these people working on their toes like Chris Langan or Stephen Wolfram or Eric Weinstein, some people will say, yeah, but why can't you explain your toe to me simply? The reason is that they've gone off into many tangents in their own mind where something makes total sense to them, but they've done so alone because academia is not kind to them for whatever reason.
or because, well, for whatever reason. And so it's as if they're developing their own field. And now Mara, when you interview someone, your podcast is at least titled about soft robotics. But if you're interviewing someone in any field that isn't your own, and you're unfamiliar with it, it sounds like gibberish. Even like the first year level sounds like gibberish. Like what is a Krebs cycle? And what is
What is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis? Like these are actual words, but they sound like they're just made up. And someone would say, well, why don't you explain it to me? In order to explain something simply, you often need to go through this decocting process of several different professors explaining it to one another and having students and explaining it to them over the course of years, having a variety of other people in that field, explain it to one another, and then come up with books.
and books and books, even Einstein, when he came out with special relativity, said, I can't explain my own theory in 5000 words, there was some contest where there's like, explain special relativity in 5000 words, that's actually plenty of time. 5000 words is plenty, even 1000 words is plenty. He's like, I can't do it. And it's because there wasn't that back and forth and decocting process between different researchers. So these people like Stephen Wolfram, Eric Weinstein and Chris Langan, they're off in their own world in large
In large part, they're off in their own world. It doesn't mean they're wrong. It just means you have to take the time to go to their island and look around and ask questions about the trees and familiarize yourself with the place. For me, Chris Langan was one of the most difficult. Thomas Campbell was also difficult because he said, you need to do this sort of meditation in order to understand my theory and you need to do it for at least two months. And so I just I did it.
I did his version of meditation for two months or at least two months. And so just as a time sync, that was the most difficult. Since you mentioned academia, I want to ask you about that later, but maybe I agree with the sentiment about academia and since I'm coming from it, it's very difficult. And I'm curious about your point of view in general, as you talk to many people, but what do you think about academia just like from your world view about
Yeah. I think it's an amazing place and it has its cons as well. There's pros and cons. So there are broadly two classes of people. There are the academic types that are the hard-nosed scientific types. And I understand that I'm excluding the humanities and other portions of the university for this. So I'm familiar with STEM. So let's just
There are those types of rigorous, exact, high-fidelity people. Then there are the more imprecise, hand-wavy people on the spiritual side that are touching on something meaningful. Academia is almost about removing meaning. Mathematics is all about abstracting away.
And each side, the spiritual crowd and the academic side, they tend to not like one another. The academic side sees the spiritual side as being irresponsible and making too many large claims and especially abusing quantum, the word quantum, and then the spiritual side thinks the academic side is just
brainwashed and they're too rational and too logical and there's so much more that's outside that and both sides are both sides have a correctness about them. Something I don't like about the academic side is that it crushes spirits around the time when they're 22 to 27 they're like hey do your PhD when you're your most creative and what this means is like you specialize when you're your most creative
Rather than here, I'm going to continue to pay you to learn, not research. Research is different. You have to output something to research. And that's something many people don't know. They think, oh, I researched this topic. What do you mean? I looked it up on Wikipedia. Academics don't mean that when they say research. Research means what you find on Wikipedia was sourced by the research. Like the research is the what's on Wikipedia is the output of research.
rather than the process of research. I like the creativity part because I think it's just a bit of stifling. I feel that when you mentioned Eric Von Stein and others, they aren't on all islands. I didn't know that creativity part is just difficult. And I mean, because for you, where do you find this creativity and freedom? Where do you find it through the channel? What it means to you, the creativity here?
Yeah, for me, I would say that I'm interested in being a generalist specialist. So we're in this world where you have to be more and more specialized. And we used to have like someone that I admire tremendously is Leonardo da Vinci. I feel like such a resonance with his character. So firstly, he integrated several disparate fields.
He wasn't he was self taught. Now, of course, he had a mentor in the artistic domain, but he was more than just just a painter. He. He was prideful, even though he hid it, he didn't like to talk about himself. He was almost unboundedly curious. So there's so many qualities of his that I I jive with. There's no Renaissance man any longer or Renaissance woman.
There's no renaissance person, because you have to specialize. The academic world is you need to get hired. In order to get hired, you have to have a history of publication. In order to publish, you need to tackle a problem that's achievable, not achievable and interesting, but still not fantastically interesting. Otherwise, it would be so difficult to make progress unless you get lucky. There are just a few, a handful of situations where that occurs. Most of the time you
You take something on that your advisor is knowledgeable enough in that your advisor has their own point of view. You tend to adopt something that's similar to your advisor and you, your exploration is now only if it aids my PhD. So I'm just realizing this now. So Leonardo da Vinci, he couldn't stand trapped birds, birds in cages. He would buy birds that were in cage, like spend his own money, even though he's poor.
He was so poor, he would almost lie about his resume to the Medici's, who were the people who would fund him. He'd be like, I will make you weapons of war. I will design your streets. He mentioned like every single thing else except being an artist. Artist was last because he's like, okay, that's what will get me hired. He used his money even as a pauper, essentially, to buy birds and then free them. Academia in some sense is taking a bird that right when they're supposed to learn to fly and putting them in a cage.
But it's not as if like I'm criticizing it but I don't know of an alternative. Like you need, academia is a money-making institution as well. How the heck else are you supposed to get some money if you're not going to produce outputs? How are you going to produce outputs if you're not tackling interest, sorry, tackleable problems? So it's not as if I'm saying something that's unheard of in academia and it's not as if I'm saying something controversial or even so deleterious to academia's reputation. I appreciate this point.
But also another topic about, I think, since I had a developer in the broadcast and he was also had the sentiment about academia and they don't like to talk about taboo topic like UFOs or things like that. From your channel, the UFOs discussions, how was the variation of the responses to this topic? It's sensational to that to something contradict what we know, maybe in religion and I
I'm curious about the contradictions and the feedback that you received about the this topic. Yeah. Yeah, on air. There's always sorry, off air, many of the people who you would think of as just, I don't want to give it away, but too many but but hard nosed again, hard nosed mathematicians or physicists, they would then ask me about the topic like Kurt, like, what have you learned about so and so I'm like, why don't you ask me that on air, like show that you're actually interested, because people have this
idea that it's something that's scorned and it is scorned publicly so there's a concept called an called oh boy it's it's a an illusion of sorts oh i've forgotten the term i'll come back to it but anyhow there's basically the the concept even though i've forgotten the word collective collective illusion
The collective, a collective illusion is one where you believe other people to hold this belief. And so you publicly state that you also hold that belief, even though you don't and no one does. So an instance, an example of this would be in the 1960s, many, most white people were apparently against segregation, but they thought their neighbors weren't. And so they would say, I am, I am for segregation. I want there to be segregation. It turns out that no one, well, the majority of people didn't want that. So it was a collective illusion.
And I have a feeling that the stigma in the UFO world is a collective illusion. It's that we have to say, because we want to appear, we want to give the pretense of being intellectual and perspicacious. So we're like, hey, look, I'm this keen shrewd academic. I'm going to discount the UFO topic, even though if you check my browser history, I'm extremely interested in it. So I have a feeling that something like that is going on.
Maybe I'm just since this topic, did you had any paranormal activity? I don't know, like experience in your life, something unusual that you didn't even know what it is. You mentioned you already. Yeah, I have plenty that's unusual, but I wouldn't call it paranormal. No. But do you believe about this abduction stories? Because that's another part. Do you believe these stories or the people you talk with? Like, do you think it's real or or just illusion?
Yeah, I believe that the people who are saying that it's real art. I believe that many of them are being truthful. I believe that many of them are not being truthful. I don't know how to discern, although I. Oh, but but I but it doesn't matter. There's a mixture, just like there's a mixture of of truth in any domain. And sorry, truth telling and honest and honesty in any domain. What do I make of that? I don't know what to make of it.
I don't think it's as simple as a PsiOpt. Some people say it's a psychological operation that the government is just lying to you. I don't think it's so simple. I think there may be something else going on. If it's a terrain explanation, so nothing that's paranormal or extraterrestrial or even terrestrial, but from some millions and millions of years ago, I would consider that, by the way, to be non-terrain, so an explanation that doesn't involve our government or ourselves or black projects and so on.
I don't know if it's as simple as a psychological operation. And even if it were to me, that itself is so fascinating. Like it would be the largest by orders of magnitude, the largest psychological operation that's that's been done in history. And by the way, it's illegal for the US government to do that. So there's some wild violations of of American rights occurring if one thinks it's a psych, it's a Psyop. But some people will say,
Oh, it's obviously it's obviously a sign up and then they'll just end it. I'm like, that's like saying it's obviously just, oh, it's obviously just there's obviously slavery happening in the government. Okay. What do you mean? Like, are you not interested in that? Is that not interesting? Or worth investigating further? It's obviously child sacrifice. Okay.
I guess I ask you, do you think life is random? And do you believe in heaven or hell? I think that's a question always just pop in mind that I'm curious what you think. Do you think life is random sometimes? Yeah, these are great questions. So I well, yes, I think life is random. But random doesn't mean yeah, I think life is non-determined.
So there's a distinction between something being not determined and something being random. Usually those are conflated, but random technically means that we have a probability distribution and non-determined just means it's not determined. So there are, so for instance, if you have the halting of an arbitrary Turing machine is a non-determined problem, but it's not random. There's no probability distribution on this, on this problem.
Does this arbitrary Turing machine halt? This is something that Scott Aronson talks about when he talks about free will. He says that many of the people who are against free will make the mistake that they'll say, look, you're either determined or you're not determined. So either the laws of physics actually determine you or they're not, in which case they're quantum mechanical and thus they're random. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, there's, there's a difference. You're either determined or you're not determined. Sure.
But you can't then go from you're not determined to you're randomly determined. That's different. Randomness is a subset of non determinants of non deterministicity or not of being non of being non deterministic. Sorry. But it's unknown if randomness is an inclusive subset. So it's the entire subset or if it's smaller, it's unknown. Anyway, you asked about heaven and hell.
I my present deliberation and I will put an asterisk on that. So it's my current model or current thinking is that I doubt I don't think hell exists, at least not in the way that it is portrayed as a fiery place. As for heaven, I don't know, there's some traditions that say heaven is here right now, if only you would recognize it. So I think that's from
Jesus said the kingdom of God lays before you if only but men do not see it something like that. I don't know. No, it's difficult to to. Yeah. You're asking like some of the questions that does heaven and hell exist? Yeah, that's a it's a question that people have debated for for millennia. Yeah, that's a great response. We don't know. Great.
That's right. Why did you cry in the podcast with Leo Gara? Yeah, I don't. And what do you think about his teachings? I don't recall. Yeah, I don't recall. As for Leo's teachings, I think that the idealist frame of mind is a left brain that's gone awry and doesn't recognize that it's a left brain phenomenon. So the left brain from Ian McGilchrist's work sees abstractions and commonalities. It sounds like, oh, isn't that good? Isn't that loving?
No, there's love and distinction and naming something and pulling something out and being particular. So what I mean by that is racism is a left brain phenomenon or can be viewed like that. Why? Because it's saying you are going to treat like you're just an arbitrary member of your race. You're the same as anyone else. Whereas the right brain is about this situation is different than a situation that came prior, or this is this
Lip balm isn't just any lip balm, it's Kurt's lip balm. Kurt is different or Marwa is different than someone else. You'll see that many of the people who are attracted to the Eastern mode of thinking, firstly, they have a Western interpretation of what the Eastern mode of thinking is. This is something I spoke to Anand Vaidya about, who studied Eastern philosophy and is Indian and understands the Vedic tradition. He says that what we think of as non-dualism,
is this watered-down Western version, and the East is actually far more variegated than just non-dualism. In fact, materialism is more prevalent in Vedism. So in the Hindu scriptures then, I don't think Vedism is the same as the Hindu scriptures, but for the sake of just glossing over this point as an approximation, in Vedism, materialism is more prevalent than the non-dualism, and we don't think so. And part of that's the marketing, since the
40s or 50s from India, one of India's prime ministers actually said, we're going to make non-dualism, the pizza of India, meaning like this almost a quote, meaning that we think of Italy, we think of pizza. And that idea is like, it would be such a shame if we went to India, you went to Italy, and all you thought was this is great pizza. And so that's what's happened with non-dualism. But we don't think that we think because we've heard since the New Age, since the
Since the 60s with the hippies and the New Age sort of enlightenment with psychedelics, we think that, okay, whoa, if I take this psychedelic, if I do meditation, I'm going to get some insight that's an insight about fundamental reality and look, oh, wow, it comports with what people have been thinking about for thousands of years.
One of the oldest religions.
Why does this argument from antiquity, oh, the Vedas said this thousands of years ago, mean anything? Thirdly, the Buddhist tradition contradicts the Vedic tradition and some people want to pick and choose, but Buddhism believes in the impermanence of the soul and the Vedic traditions is heavily about rituals and praying and also the karma and the rebirth of the soul, like the reality of the soul and the individualness of the soul.
Again, I'm saying certain interpretations but the point is that there's no single interpretation and we think there is.
People who are on the more mathematical end with an analytical mindset, much like myself, are drawn to these misinterpretations of the Eastern perspective because they're heavily left-brained, but we don't think they are. We think because we're so egotistical and don't realize we are. We think, wow, look how enlightened I am. I'm actually being creative and spiritual. No, you're falling prey to more of your
Maybe I want to ask you which
To be honest, what I think is usually what I think is most accurate is what I don't know. So I don't know this guy, his name is Graziano, Graziano's I don't know his theory. And so from what I read about it,
I think is extremely interesting. I don't understand higher order theories of consciousness. I don't know what they are. So I find them interesting. Now, you said, which one do I believe in? And I'm talking about which ones I find interesting. So there's a distinction there. But at least momentarily, I ascribe more reality to what I find interesting. But that's false. I'm just saying that because it sounds poetic. I don't know. The answer is I don't know. I can't talk about what I think is the case, but I can talk about what intrigues me.
And what I find piquant is what I don't know or what I'm studying, what I'm about to study. I, by the way, I'm going to be doing something called the iceberg on consciousness theories. So I'm extremely excited about this. If you don't mind, can I explain the ice? Yes. Right. Right. Great job. Great job. You have done your homework. So the iceberg on string theory is something I'm working on right now. I'm so I love I didn't think I would love
string theory as much as I as I do. That doesn't mean that I think string theory is correct. Like I love string theory in the same way that I love The Office, the show The Office. I don't think The Office is correct. I don't think chess is correct, but I love chess. I don't think that the pawns move like like people who are pawns don't move forward and then they can only attack at angles. But it's interesting. And so string theory to me is extremely intellectually interesting.
And also, by the way, even if it's a wrong route, I think there's something extremely fruitful about being specific and being incorrect. So that's something that that's one of the reasons why the academic side, when they criticize the spiritual side as being wrong and pursuing what's false. I'm okay with that. Let them let them do so because so much that's fruitful can be revealed from the corpse of something false. So to me, it doesn't matter if it's if it represents reality or not.
Well, it's intriguing to me anyhow. So the iceberg format is one where you take, it's like you're doing an excavation onto a whole field. So soft robotics, there are many topics of soft robotics. So the surface level topics would be, well, what is a soft robot? What is a robot? What, what are the challenges with movement? Why doesn't matter?
Okay. The number two would be, I don't even know number two that comes up to the, that that's for you to say, that's for what people who are researchers in the field know about. Then number three is what specialized researchers in the field know about. These are different layers, like a layer of the iceberg. The iceberg format is going through and you explore ever more specialized knowledge where you start with what's common and perhaps known to the majority of people who went to university or, or, or watch the discovery channel documentaries and popular science books.
Read them at least. So I'm doing one on string theory and I would like to do one on consciousness theories. This way we get a whole overview of the vast array of consciousness theories.
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Okay, so we were closing by a few questions. Did you receive any criticism about your style for introvert? To be honest, all I found is really positive and and you seem to be very genuine and honest to that what I can see. But did you receive any criticism like and how you deal with that? Yeah, I received plenty of criticism that that I that that's fruitful. So actually,
I'm extremely lucky that the majority is few and far between. But I read almost every single comment to me between me and my wife. We read every single comment. Some of them would say, especially my older interviews, Kurt, you talk too much, like stop talking. Another one was I would go, hmm, yeah, whatever. And it was a bit too much. And I'm like, OK, I didn't even notice that. And so I've learned to just nod silently like a
Now it's more natural, but before I had to consciously restrict myself, putting my hands behind my back, essentially, tying them. Yeah. No, it's a positive overall, that what I can also see.
Also, maybe the question about you mentioned with your episodes Mike Levin about the that you're a gomophobe and you wish the robot could clean since this podcast also for robotics that the kind of robots you wish to have like do you think will be useful for you? Like, I'm just curious about that. Yeah. Yes. So
What I want invented and I hope you or someone who's been on your podcast or someone who gets inspired from your podcast, what I want you all to invent quick is what can clean washrooms? At least for me, I just feel bad, horrible for janitors, feel horrible for them. Also taking care of the elderly. It seems like we're going to have an extreme problem with many people not having kids. Even when you have kids like your child, you look at your parents, we're not like our cultures used to be. Our cultures used to respect the elderly, like actually respect them, not just view them
Yeah, so we'll need some robots to take care of people, especially the older people, or it would be maybe we don't need them, but it would be extremely useful to have them. I like the rabbit. Have you seen the rabbit that was announced as CES?
Okay, I'll send you a link about that. So maybe the another question about the difficult times, how we deal with difficult and hard times. That's just like you started out in your your cell. I don't know if did you have these moments and how you deal with them? The difficult moments? Yeah. Yeah, I've had I've gone through years and years and years of depression.
like seven years or six years of my life was just wiped out from depression while I was in university. Yeah, I'm sorry that, uh, but I think that's, uh, you know, imagine it's hard. That's okay. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like there was a good period there where, where I was suicidal.
Part of what got me out
What I should have held myself to and I was indolent and I was shiftless I Started watching I started yeah, I watched Tony Robbins and I listened to how one's body can affect one state I started working out I Started I started a film
I've had many goals. I started to have much more drive. I didn't have much drive. That's a bit false. I mean, I've always had drive. I've always been doing something and attacking it with much of my effort, but not as much. I could have squeezed more out of that orange.
Yeah, also, I put so much attention on women so much that when they wouldn't want me, it would crush me like you wouldn't believe like crush me. So then detaching my own happiness. Yes, my own happiness from I don't want to say from others. I don't I think that's that's a bit false. Like there's many books now like
Don't give an F about what other people think. I think that's a bit, I think you should care deeply about what people think. I think you're connected to people. But there is such a thing as caring about what people think in the wrong way or too much, just as much as there is about caring too little. And to be honest, it's unclear. Like this is, it's like, this is the
Some people will. Well, I think that's enough. But this is thank you so much. I would say that you come across as someone who, first of all, intellectually honest and sincere, and I appreciate opening up about that. So thank you. Yeah, maybe the last question here, given what you said, what is the goal, I think, that you want to achieve in your lifetime? I think that's something
So Richard Feynman had on his blackboard when he died, what was left there in the corner was solve every problem that's ever been solved. So for me, I have something similar. Learn every theory that's ever been theorized. It's much more impractical. His was about solving something.
In essence, I want to know more about math, physics, logic and philosophy than any other person ever. Period. So, we'll see.
▶ View Full JSON Data (Word-Level Timestamps)
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"text": " The Economist covers math, physics, philosophy, and AI in a manner that shows how different countries perceive developments and how they impact markets. They recently published a piece on China's new neutrino detector. They cover extending life via mitochondrial transplants, creating an entirely new field of medicine. But it's also not just science they analyze."
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"text": " Where senior editors argue through the news with world leaders and policy makers in twice weekly long format shows. Basically an extremely high quality podcast. Whether it's scientific innovation or shifting global politics, The Economist provides comprehensive coverage beyond headlines. As a toe listener, you get a special discount. Head over to economist.com slash TOE to subscribe. That's economist.com slash TOE for your discount."
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"text": " Think Verizon, the best 5G network is expensive? Think again. Bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. Now what to do with your unwanted bills? Ever seen an origami version of the Miami Bull?"
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"text": " Jokes aside, Verizon has the most ways to save on phones and plans where you can get a single line with everything you need. So bring in your bill to your local Miami Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal."
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"text": " Marwa El-Dewini has a podcast on soft robotics, where she interviews people like Gary Nolan, Jacques Vallee, and Michael Levin. She recently interviewed me on Heaven, Hell, the cognitive perils of both Eastern and Western interpretations of religion, free will, that is randomness versus non-determinism, and even UFOs. Her channel is in the description. Check it out. Yeah, these are great questions. So I, well, yes, I think life is random. But random doesn't mean"
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"text": " Yeah, I think life is non-determined. So there's a distinction between something being not determined and something being random. Usually those are conflated. But random technically means that we have a probability distribution and non-determined just means it's not determined. If you have the halting of an arbitrary Turing machine is a non-determined problem, but it's not random. There's no probability distribution on this on this problem."
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"text": " Does this arbitrary Turing machine halt? This is something that Scott Aronson talks about when he talks about free will. He says that many of the people who are against free will make the mistake that they'll say, look, you're either determined or you're not determined. So you either the laws of physics actually determine you or they're not, in which case they're quantum mechanical and thus they're random. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, there's, there's a difference. You're either determined or you're not determined. Sure."
},
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"text": " But you can't then go from you're not determined to you're randomly determined. That's different. Randomness is a subset of non determinants of non deterministicity or not of being non of being non deterministic. Sorry. But it's unknown if randomness is an inclusive subset. So it's the entire subset or if it's smaller, it's unknown."
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"text": " How would like to perceive yourself if you recognize yourself for the first time? I think that's like sort of experiment based on your conversation. So how you perceive yourself? So how would I perceive myself if I was to encounter myself for the first time? For the first time, yeah. So it's a good question. Yeah, well, what I would say,"
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"text": " I'm someone who takes a, I think it's called a battering ram, a battering ram to problems that are either impenetrable, you can't, you can't move through them, or, yeah, they're impervious or, or that I'm taking a battering ram to a sunflower seed, like the answers are so simple, that it's foolish to use such tools."
},
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"text": " Did you find the truth or the reality for existing? I think that's a question. Not even close. Yeah, not even close. Not even close. At least I don't think so. Maybe it's in front of one's nose the whole time. That's something that people say in the more spiritual circles, but I don't think so. Yeah, but I'm curious about this. Your materialistic world view change it to spiritual and how this the transitioning? Yeah, I wouldn't even say that I'm that I'm"
},
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"text": " That I've dropped materialism and that I've gained spiritualism. I won't even say that. I think both the idealist mindset, so the one that thinks consciousness is fundamental and the one that thinks material is fundamental, also something physical and dead is fundamental, both suffer from the same left brain issues of abstraction. I think they're both the same theory or the same framework. They just use different words. I think it's a reductionist framework. I'm not a reductionist."
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"text": " So do you still believe that maybe there's a God or nothing in that case? Yeah, there could there indeed could be a God that there's no, I'm not taking that off the table. I take that possibility extremely seriously. And what other beliefs that you think that to change it in you, then she will be covering these topics that there's any other beliefs that change it in you? Man, more like. These are great questions there. These are extremely deep questions, so"
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"text": " These are delusive questions. Let me think about let me think about how to answer this. Well, OK, let me take something mathematical. So in math, there's math is based in logic. It's usually based in classical logic, which means something's true or something's not true or that you can. If something. There's something called the law of the excluded middle, so either not a is the case or or a is the case."
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"text": " And that if you have both of them, then you have what's called the principle of explosion and anything is true. I don't know. I don't buy classical logic. I also don't buy intuitionist logic. So intuitionist is generally thought of as the alternative to classical logic. There's something called paraconsistent logic."
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"text": " Which is Grand Priest is the current Grand Priest is a professor of logic. He's the current popularizer of it, or the current proponent of it major proponent of it. It says that, yeah, you can have a and not a and still not explode. And he says that that's actually how our thoughts work, because we're inconsistent people. So look, if our brains are computational, why is it like, are you saying? Are you saying that you're a rational person, but yet you're inconsistent? Thus, you should believe anything."
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"text": " If what you are, if you believe yourself to be"
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"text": " a rational computationally driven person, and it's classical, then you should believe anything, you should technically explode. So sorry, logically, technically explode. Not physically explore like mentally explode. But yet we don't. So why not? Maybe it's because we're either not computational. Okay, that's one possibility. Maybe it's because if we're computational, it's not on the same classical logical foundation."
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"text": " And so that's a grand priest would would lie there. Maybe a third option is that we're actually not inconsistent. I don't know who would say that there would have to be an an arrogant person, an extremely haughty person who believes plenty about themselves. By the way, that's a technical term, an arrogant, an arrogant agent is a technical term. It means that they don't have any contradictions in their beliefs or the sorry, it means they believe that they don't have contradictions in their belief."
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"text": " So Raymond Smollin is a mathematician who outlined all these different types of reasoners and an arrogant reasoner is one that believes this super interesting Mara. There's something called doxastic logic, the logic of belief. Super interesting. I can't wait to explore that some more on the channel, but he's exploring, okay, what are the consequences of doxastic logic, different belief logics? And one of them is, look, what happens if you believe"
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"text": " that you're not inconsistent. Sorry. Yes, that's correct. What happens if you believe that you're not inconsistent? Well, anyway, you can. There are various paradoxes around this. So I want to also ask you what are the most challenging discords in the channel? Like it's very challenging and maybe, yeah, maybe recent or the start that very challenging topic in the channel they have covered so far."
},
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"text": " Chris Langan was one that took quite some time to prepare. So Chris Langan is someone who is an extremely bright individual who didn't go to university and he has an unexampled theory of everything, everything, sorry, called the CTMU, the cognitive theoretic model of the universe. It's impenetrable, it's unfathomable, or maybe he's taking something that's ineffable and putting words to it."
},
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"text": " But either way, so is anyone else who believes they have a philosophical theory of everything or a metamathematical theory of everything. And he does. And it took some time for me to go through. And see, most people who develop toes, they're either a string theorist, a physical toe person or a loop quantum gravatist who believes that eventually they'll get to the standard model. Or they're just one or two people working in isolation."
},
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"text": " I know what that's like to be just so lonely working on something like... I know what it's like to be lonely. And what happens is that for these people working on their toes like Chris Langan or Stephen Wolfram or Eric Weinstein, some people will say, yeah, but why can't you explain your toe to me simply? The reason is that they've gone off into many tangents in their own mind where something makes total sense to them, but they've done so alone because academia is not kind to them for whatever reason."
},
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"text": " or because, well, for whatever reason. And so it's as if they're developing their own field. And now Mara, when you interview someone, your podcast is at least titled about soft robotics. But if you're interviewing someone in any field that isn't your own, and you're unfamiliar with it, it sounds like gibberish. Even like the first year level sounds like gibberish. Like what is a Krebs cycle? And what is"
},
{
"end_time": 727.602,
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"start_time": 701.749,
"text": " What is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis? Like these are actual words, but they sound like they're just made up. And someone would say, well, why don't you explain it to me? In order to explain something simply, you often need to go through this decocting process of several different professors explaining it to one another and having students and explaining it to them over the course of years, having a variety of other people in that field, explain it to one another, and then come up with books."
},
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"text": " and books and books, even Einstein, when he came out with special relativity, said, I can't explain my own theory in 5000 words, there was some contest where there's like, explain special relativity in 5000 words, that's actually plenty of time. 5000 words is plenty, even 1000 words is plenty. He's like, I can't do it. And it's because there wasn't that back and forth and decocting process between different researchers. So these people like Stephen Wolfram, Eric Weinstein and Chris Langan, they're off in their own world in large"
},
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"text": " In large part, they're off in their own world. It doesn't mean they're wrong. It just means you have to take the time to go to their island and look around and ask questions about the trees and familiarize yourself with the place. For me, Chris Langan was one of the most difficult. Thomas Campbell was also difficult because he said, you need to do this sort of meditation in order to understand my theory and you need to do it for at least two months. And so I just I did it."
},
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"text": " I did his version of meditation for two months or at least two months. And so just as a time sync, that was the most difficult. Since you mentioned academia, I want to ask you about that later, but maybe I agree with the sentiment about academia and since I'm coming from it, it's very difficult. And I'm curious about your point of view in general, as you talk to many people, but what do you think about academia just like from your world view about"
},
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"text": " Yeah. I think it's an amazing place and it has its cons as well. There's pros and cons. So there are broadly two classes of people. There are the academic types that are the hard-nosed scientific types. And I understand that I'm excluding the humanities and other portions of the university for this. So I'm familiar with STEM. So let's just"
},
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"text": " There are those types of rigorous, exact, high-fidelity people. Then there are the more imprecise, hand-wavy people on the spiritual side that are touching on something meaningful. Academia is almost about removing meaning. Mathematics is all about abstracting away."
},
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"end_time": 897.978,
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"start_time": 868.37,
"text": " And each side, the spiritual crowd and the academic side, they tend to not like one another. The academic side sees the spiritual side as being irresponsible and making too many large claims and especially abusing quantum, the word quantum, and then the spiritual side thinks the academic side is just"
},
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"end_time": 923.234,
"index": 33,
"start_time": 898.439,
"text": " brainwashed and they're too rational and too logical and there's so much more that's outside that and both sides are both sides have a correctness about them. Something I don't like about the academic side is that it crushes spirits around the time when they're 22 to 27 they're like hey do your PhD when you're your most creative and what this means is like you specialize when you're your most creative"
},
{
"end_time": 945.759,
"index": 34,
"start_time": 923.456,
"text": " Rather than here, I'm going to continue to pay you to learn, not research. Research is different. You have to output something to research. And that's something many people don't know. They think, oh, I researched this topic. What do you mean? I looked it up on Wikipedia. Academics don't mean that when they say research. Research means what you find on Wikipedia was sourced by the research. Like the research is the what's on Wikipedia is the output of research."
},
{
"end_time": 972.756,
"index": 35,
"start_time": 946.101,
"text": " rather than the process of research. I like the creativity part because I think it's just a bit of stifling. I feel that when you mentioned Eric Von Stein and others, they aren't on all islands. I didn't know that creativity part is just difficult. And I mean, because for you, where do you find this creativity and freedom? Where do you find it through the channel? What it means to you, the creativity here?"
},
{
"end_time": 998.166,
"index": 36,
"start_time": 974.155,
"text": " Yeah, for me, I would say that I'm interested in being a generalist specialist. So we're in this world where you have to be more and more specialized. And we used to have like someone that I admire tremendously is Leonardo da Vinci. I feel like such a resonance with his character. So firstly, he integrated several disparate fields."
},
{
"end_time": 1027.329,
"index": 37,
"start_time": 998.677,
"text": " He wasn't he was self taught. Now, of course, he had a mentor in the artistic domain, but he was more than just just a painter. He. He was prideful, even though he hid it, he didn't like to talk about himself. He was almost unboundedly curious. So there's so many qualities of his that I I jive with. There's no Renaissance man any longer or Renaissance woman."
},
{
"end_time": 1052.944,
"index": 38,
"start_time": 1027.551,
"text": " There's no renaissance person, because you have to specialize. The academic world is you need to get hired. In order to get hired, you have to have a history of publication. In order to publish, you need to tackle a problem that's achievable, not achievable and interesting, but still not fantastically interesting. Otherwise, it would be so difficult to make progress unless you get lucky. There are just a few, a handful of situations where that occurs. Most of the time you"
},
{
"end_time": 1080.776,
"index": 39,
"start_time": 1053.643,
"text": " You take something on that your advisor is knowledgeable enough in that your advisor has their own point of view. You tend to adopt something that's similar to your advisor and you, your exploration is now only if it aids my PhD. So I'm just realizing this now. So Leonardo da Vinci, he couldn't stand trapped birds, birds in cages. He would buy birds that were in cage, like spend his own money, even though he's poor."
},
{
"end_time": 1111.203,
"index": 40,
"start_time": 1081.288,
"text": " He was so poor, he would almost lie about his resume to the Medici's, who were the people who would fund him. He'd be like, I will make you weapons of war. I will design your streets. He mentioned like every single thing else except being an artist. Artist was last because he's like, okay, that's what will get me hired. He used his money even as a pauper, essentially, to buy birds and then free them. Academia in some sense is taking a bird that right when they're supposed to learn to fly and putting them in a cage."
},
{
"end_time": 1140.128,
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"start_time": 1112.79,
"text": " But it's not as if like I'm criticizing it but I don't know of an alternative. Like you need, academia is a money-making institution as well. How the heck else are you supposed to get some money if you're not going to produce outputs? How are you going to produce outputs if you're not tackling interest, sorry, tackleable problems? So it's not as if I'm saying something that's unheard of in academia and it's not as if I'm saying something controversial or even so deleterious to academia's reputation. I appreciate this point."
},
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"end_time": 1165.401,
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"start_time": 1140.623,
"text": " But also another topic about, I think, since I had a developer in the broadcast and he was also had the sentiment about academia and they don't like to talk about taboo topic like UFOs or things like that. From your channel, the UFOs discussions, how was the variation of the responses to this topic? It's sensational to that to something contradict what we know, maybe in religion and I"
},
{
"end_time": 1193.285,
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"start_time": 1166.032,
"text": " I'm curious about the contradictions and the feedback that you received about the this topic. Yeah. Yeah, on air. There's always sorry, off air, many of the people who you would think of as just, I don't want to give it away, but too many but but hard nosed again, hard nosed mathematicians or physicists, they would then ask me about the topic like Kurt, like, what have you learned about so and so I'm like, why don't you ask me that on air, like show that you're actually interested, because people have this"
},
{
"end_time": 1218.251,
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"text": " idea that it's something that's scorned and it is scorned publicly so there's a concept called an called oh boy it's it's a an illusion of sorts oh i've forgotten the term i'll come back to it but anyhow there's basically the the concept even though i've forgotten the word collective collective illusion"
},
{
"end_time": 1249.258,
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"start_time": 1219.616,
"text": " The collective, a collective illusion is one where you believe other people to hold this belief. And so you publicly state that you also hold that belief, even though you don't and no one does. So an instance, an example of this would be in the 1960s, many, most white people were apparently against segregation, but they thought their neighbors weren't. And so they would say, I am, I am for segregation. I want there to be segregation. It turns out that no one, well, the majority of people didn't want that. So it was a collective illusion."
},
{
"end_time": 1275.538,
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"start_time": 1249.735,
"text": " And I have a feeling that the stigma in the UFO world is a collective illusion. It's that we have to say, because we want to appear, we want to give the pretense of being intellectual and perspicacious. So we're like, hey, look, I'm this keen shrewd academic. I'm going to discount the UFO topic, even though if you check my browser history, I'm extremely interested in it. So I have a feeling that something like that is going on."
},
{
"end_time": 1303.712,
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"start_time": 1276.015,
"text": " Maybe I'm just since this topic, did you had any paranormal activity? I don't know, like experience in your life, something unusual that you didn't even know what it is. You mentioned you already. Yeah, I have plenty that's unusual, but I wouldn't call it paranormal. No. But do you believe about this abduction stories? Because that's another part. Do you believe these stories or the people you talk with? Like, do you think it's real or or just illusion?"
},
{
"end_time": 1331.578,
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"start_time": 1304.292,
"text": " Yeah, I believe that the people who are saying that it's real art. I believe that many of them are being truthful. I believe that many of them are not being truthful. I don't know how to discern, although I. Oh, but but I but it doesn't matter. There's a mixture, just like there's a mixture of of truth in any domain. And sorry, truth telling and honest and honesty in any domain. What do I make of that? I don't know what to make of it."
},
{
"end_time": 1359.309,
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"start_time": 1332.261,
"text": " I don't think it's as simple as a PsiOpt. Some people say it's a psychological operation that the government is just lying to you. I don't think it's so simple. I think there may be something else going on. If it's a terrain explanation, so nothing that's paranormal or extraterrestrial or even terrestrial, but from some millions and millions of years ago, I would consider that, by the way, to be non-terrain, so an explanation that doesn't involve our government or ourselves or black projects and so on."
},
{
"end_time": 1388.08,
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"start_time": 1361.425,
"text": " I don't know if it's as simple as a psychological operation. And even if it were to me, that itself is so fascinating. Like it would be the largest by orders of magnitude, the largest psychological operation that's that's been done in history. And by the way, it's illegal for the US government to do that. So there's some wild violations of of American rights occurring if one thinks it's a psych, it's a Psyop. But some people will say,"
},
{
"end_time": 1408.985,
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"start_time": 1388.609,
"text": " Oh, it's obviously it's obviously a sign up and then they'll just end it. I'm like, that's like saying it's obviously just, oh, it's obviously just there's obviously slavery happening in the government. Okay. What do you mean? Like, are you not interested in that? Is that not interesting? Or worth investigating further? It's obviously child sacrifice. Okay."
},
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"end_time": 1435.367,
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"text": " I guess I ask you, do you think life is random? And do you believe in heaven or hell? I think that's a question always just pop in mind that I'm curious what you think. Do you think life is random sometimes? Yeah, these are great questions. So I well, yes, I think life is random. But random doesn't mean yeah, I think life is non-determined."
},
{
"end_time": 1463.473,
"index": 53,
"start_time": 1436.049,
"text": " So there's a distinction between something being not determined and something being random. Usually those are conflated, but random technically means that we have a probability distribution and non-determined just means it's not determined. So there are, so for instance, if you have the halting of an arbitrary Turing machine is a non-determined problem, but it's not random. There's no probability distribution on this, on this problem."
},
{
"end_time": 1490.265,
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"start_time": 1463.968,
"text": " Does this arbitrary Turing machine halt? This is something that Scott Aronson talks about when he talks about free will. He says that many of the people who are against free will make the mistake that they'll say, look, you're either determined or you're not determined. So either the laws of physics actually determine you or they're not, in which case they're quantum mechanical and thus they're random. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, there's, there's a difference. You're either determined or you're not determined. Sure."
},
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"text": " But you can't then go from you're not determined to you're randomly determined. That's different. Randomness is a subset of non determinants of non deterministicity or not of being non of being non deterministic. Sorry. But it's unknown if randomness is an inclusive subset. So it's the entire subset or if it's smaller, it's unknown. Anyway, you asked about heaven and hell."
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"text": " I my present deliberation and I will put an asterisk on that. So it's my current model or current thinking is that I doubt I don't think hell exists, at least not in the way that it is portrayed as a fiery place. As for heaven, I don't know, there's some traditions that say heaven is here right now, if only you would recognize it. So I think that's from"
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"start_time": 1546.715,
"text": " Jesus said the kingdom of God lays before you if only but men do not see it something like that. I don't know. No, it's difficult to to. Yeah. You're asking like some of the questions that does heaven and hell exist? Yeah, that's a it's a question that people have debated for for millennia. Yeah, that's a great response. We don't know. Great."
},
{
"end_time": 1606.647,
"index": 58,
"start_time": 1576.681,
"text": " That's right. Why did you cry in the podcast with Leo Gara? Yeah, I don't. And what do you think about his teachings? I don't recall. Yeah, I don't recall. As for Leo's teachings, I think that the idealist frame of mind is a left brain that's gone awry and doesn't recognize that it's a left brain phenomenon. So the left brain from Ian McGilchrist's work sees abstractions and commonalities. It sounds like, oh, isn't that good? Isn't that loving?"
},
{
"end_time": 1633.968,
"index": 59,
"start_time": 1606.698,
"text": " No, there's love and distinction and naming something and pulling something out and being particular. So what I mean by that is racism is a left brain phenomenon or can be viewed like that. Why? Because it's saying you are going to treat like you're just an arbitrary member of your race. You're the same as anyone else. Whereas the right brain is about this situation is different than a situation that came prior, or this is this"
},
{
"end_time": 1659.906,
"index": 60,
"start_time": 1634.343,
"text": " Lip balm isn't just any lip balm, it's Kurt's lip balm. Kurt is different or Marwa is different than someone else. You'll see that many of the people who are attracted to the Eastern mode of thinking, firstly, they have a Western interpretation of what the Eastern mode of thinking is. This is something I spoke to Anand Vaidya about, who studied Eastern philosophy and is Indian and understands the Vedic tradition. He says that what we think of as non-dualism,"
},
{
"end_time": 1688.166,
"index": 61,
"start_time": 1660.606,
"text": " is this watered-down Western version, and the East is actually far more variegated than just non-dualism. In fact, materialism is more prevalent in Vedism. So in the Hindu scriptures then, I don't think Vedism is the same as the Hindu scriptures, but for the sake of just glossing over this point as an approximation, in Vedism, materialism is more prevalent than the non-dualism, and we don't think so. And part of that's the marketing, since the"
},
{
"end_time": 1716.681,
"index": 62,
"start_time": 1688.592,
"text": " 40s or 50s from India, one of India's prime ministers actually said, we're going to make non-dualism, the pizza of India, meaning like this almost a quote, meaning that we think of Italy, we think of pizza. And that idea is like, it would be such a shame if we went to India, you went to Italy, and all you thought was this is great pizza. And so that's what's happened with non-dualism. But we don't think that we think because we've heard since the New Age, since the"
},
{
"end_time": 1737.176,
"index": 63,
"start_time": 1717.79,
"text": " Since the 60s with the hippies and the New Age sort of enlightenment with psychedelics, we think that, okay, whoa, if I take this psychedelic, if I do meditation, I'm going to get some insight that's an insight about fundamental reality and look, oh, wow, it comports with what people have been thinking about for thousands of years."
},
{
"end_time": 1749.002,
"index": 64,
"start_time": 1737.978,
"text": " One of the oldest religions."
},
{
"end_time": 1772.619,
"index": 65,
"start_time": 1749.275,
"text": " Why does this argument from antiquity, oh, the Vedas said this thousands of years ago, mean anything? Thirdly, the Buddhist tradition contradicts the Vedic tradition and some people want to pick and choose, but Buddhism believes in the impermanence of the soul and the Vedic traditions is heavily about rituals and praying and also the karma and the rebirth of the soul, like the reality of the soul and the individualness of the soul."
},
{
"end_time": 1780.367,
"index": 66,
"start_time": 1774.718,
"text": " Again, I'm saying certain interpretations but the point is that there's no single interpretation and we think there is."
},
{
"end_time": 1806.254,
"index": 67,
"start_time": 1780.998,
"text": " People who are on the more mathematical end with an analytical mindset, much like myself, are drawn to these misinterpretations of the Eastern perspective because they're heavily left-brained, but we don't think they are. We think because we're so egotistical and don't realize we are. We think, wow, look how enlightened I am. I'm actually being creative and spiritual. No, you're falling prey to more of your"
},
{
"end_time": 1831.323,
"index": 68,
"start_time": 1806.254,
"text": " Maybe I want to ask you which"
},
{
"end_time": 1859.377,
"index": 69,
"start_time": 1831.527,
"text": " To be honest, what I think is usually what I think is most accurate is what I don't know. So I don't know this guy, his name is Graziano, Graziano's I don't know his theory. And so from what I read about it,"
},
{
"end_time": 1890.265,
"index": 70,
"start_time": 1860.384,
"text": " I think is extremely interesting. I don't understand higher order theories of consciousness. I don't know what they are. So I find them interesting. Now, you said, which one do I believe in? And I'm talking about which ones I find interesting. So there's a distinction there. But at least momentarily, I ascribe more reality to what I find interesting. But that's false. I'm just saying that because it sounds poetic. I don't know. The answer is I don't know. I can't talk about what I think is the case, but I can talk about what intrigues me."
},
{
"end_time": 1920.486,
"index": 71,
"start_time": 1890.811,
"text": " And what I find piquant is what I don't know or what I'm studying, what I'm about to study. I, by the way, I'm going to be doing something called the iceberg on consciousness theories. So I'm extremely excited about this. If you don't mind, can I explain the ice? Yes. Right. Right. Great job. Great job. You have done your homework. So the iceberg on string theory is something I'm working on right now. I'm so I love I didn't think I would love"
},
{
"end_time": 1949.121,
"index": 72,
"start_time": 1920.93,
"text": " string theory as much as I as I do. That doesn't mean that I think string theory is correct. Like I love string theory in the same way that I love The Office, the show The Office. I don't think The Office is correct. I don't think chess is correct, but I love chess. I don't think that the pawns move like like people who are pawns don't move forward and then they can only attack at angles. But it's interesting. And so string theory to me is extremely intellectually interesting."
},
{
"end_time": 1977.619,
"index": 73,
"start_time": 1949.428,
"text": " And also, by the way, even if it's a wrong route, I think there's something extremely fruitful about being specific and being incorrect. So that's something that that's one of the reasons why the academic side, when they criticize the spiritual side as being wrong and pursuing what's false. I'm okay with that. Let them let them do so because so much that's fruitful can be revealed from the corpse of something false. So to me, it doesn't matter if it's if it represents reality or not."
},
{
"end_time": 2002.534,
"index": 74,
"start_time": 1978.746,
"text": " Well, it's intriguing to me anyhow. So the iceberg format is one where you take, it's like you're doing an excavation onto a whole field. So soft robotics, there are many topics of soft robotics. So the surface level topics would be, well, what is a soft robot? What is a robot? What, what are the challenges with movement? Why doesn't matter?"
},
{
"end_time": 2032.039,
"index": 75,
"start_time": 2003.012,
"text": " Okay. The number two would be, I don't even know number two that comes up to the, that that's for you to say, that's for what people who are researchers in the field know about. Then number three is what specialized researchers in the field know about. These are different layers, like a layer of the iceberg. The iceberg format is going through and you explore ever more specialized knowledge where you start with what's common and perhaps known to the majority of people who went to university or, or, or watch the discovery channel documentaries and popular science books."
},
{
"end_time": 2049.821,
"index": 76,
"start_time": 2032.346,
"text": " Read them at least. So I'm doing one on string theory and I would like to do one on consciousness theories. This way we get a whole overview of the vast array of consciousness theories."
},
{
"end_time": 2066.937,
"index": 77,
"start_time": 2050.196,
"text": " Football fan, a basketball fan, it always feels good to be ranked. Right now, new users get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. The app is simple to use. Pick two or more players. Pick more or less on their stat projections."
},
{
"end_time": 2082.295,
"index": 78,
"start_time": 2066.937,
"text": " Anything from touchdown to threes, and if you're right, you can win big. Mix and match players from any sport on PrizePix, America's number one daily fantasy sports app. PrizePix is available in 40 plus states including California, Texas,"
},
{
"end_time": 2103.968,
"index": 79,
"start_time": 2082.534,
"text": " Florida and Georgia. Most importantly, all the transactions on the app are fast, safe and secure. Download the PricePix app today and use code Spotify to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code Spotify to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. PricePix. It's good to be right. Must be present in certain states. Visit PricePix.com for restrictions and details."
},
{
"end_time": 2132.381,
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"start_time": 2108.2,
"text": " Okay, so we were closing by a few questions. Did you receive any criticism about your style for introvert? To be honest, all I found is really positive and and you seem to be very genuine and honest to that what I can see. But did you receive any criticism like and how you deal with that? Yeah, I received plenty of criticism that that I that that's fruitful. So actually,"
},
{
"end_time": 2161.288,
"index": 81,
"start_time": 2132.79,
"text": " I'm extremely lucky that the majority is few and far between. But I read almost every single comment to me between me and my wife. We read every single comment. Some of them would say, especially my older interviews, Kurt, you talk too much, like stop talking. Another one was I would go, hmm, yeah, whatever. And it was a bit too much. And I'm like, OK, I didn't even notice that. And so I've learned to just nod silently like a"
},
{
"end_time": 2185.009,
"index": 82,
"start_time": 2162.073,
"text": " Now it's more natural, but before I had to consciously restrict myself, putting my hands behind my back, essentially, tying them. Yeah. No, it's a positive overall, that what I can also see."
},
{
"end_time": 2206.8,
"index": 83,
"start_time": 2185.265,
"text": " Also, maybe the question about you mentioned with your episodes Mike Levin about the that you're a gomophobe and you wish the robot could clean since this podcast also for robotics that the kind of robots you wish to have like do you think will be useful for you? Like, I'm just curious about that. Yeah. Yes. So"
},
{
"end_time": 2236.937,
"index": 84,
"start_time": 2207.329,
"text": " What I want invented and I hope you or someone who's been on your podcast or someone who gets inspired from your podcast, what I want you all to invent quick is what can clean washrooms? At least for me, I just feel bad, horrible for janitors, feel horrible for them. Also taking care of the elderly. It seems like we're going to have an extreme problem with many people not having kids. Even when you have kids like your child, you look at your parents, we're not like our cultures used to be. Our cultures used to respect the elderly, like actually respect them, not just view them"
},
{
"end_time": 2264.684,
"index": 85,
"start_time": 2237.261,
"text": " Yeah, so we'll need some robots to take care of people, especially the older people, or it would be maybe we don't need them, but it would be extremely useful to have them. I like the rabbit. Have you seen the rabbit that was announced as CES?"
},
{
"end_time": 2292.176,
"index": 86,
"start_time": 2267.09,
"text": " Okay, I'll send you a link about that. So maybe the another question about the difficult times, how we deal with difficult and hard times. That's just like you started out in your your cell. I don't know if did you have these moments and how you deal with them? The difficult moments? Yeah. Yeah, I've had I've gone through years and years and years of depression."
},
{
"end_time": 2320.896,
"index": 87,
"start_time": 2292.654,
"text": " like seven years or six years of my life was just wiped out from depression while I was in university. Yeah, I'm sorry that, uh, but I think that's, uh, you know, imagine it's hard. That's okay. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like there was a good period there where, where I was suicidal."
},
{
"end_time": 2349.377,
"index": 88,
"start_time": 2326.442,
"text": " Part of what got me out"
},
{
"end_time": 2376.766,
"index": 89,
"start_time": 2350.708,
"text": " What I should have held myself to and I was indolent and I was shiftless I Started watching I started yeah, I watched Tony Robbins and I listened to how one's body can affect one state I started working out I Started I started a film"
},
{
"end_time": 2396.664,
"index": 90,
"start_time": 2378.148,
"text": " I've had many goals. I started to have much more drive. I didn't have much drive. That's a bit false. I mean, I've always had drive. I've always been doing something and attacking it with much of my effort, but not as much. I could have squeezed more out of that orange."
},
{
"end_time": 2430.23,
"index": 91,
"start_time": 2401.135,
"text": " Yeah, also, I put so much attention on women so much that when they wouldn't want me, it would crush me like you wouldn't believe like crush me. So then detaching my own happiness. Yes, my own happiness from I don't want to say from others. I don't I think that's that's a bit false. Like there's many books now like"
},
{
"end_time": 2457.005,
"index": 92,
"start_time": 2430.811,
"text": " Don't give an F about what other people think. I think that's a bit, I think you should care deeply about what people think. I think you're connected to people. But there is such a thing as caring about what people think in the wrong way or too much, just as much as there is about caring too little. And to be honest, it's unclear. Like this is, it's like, this is the"
},
{
"end_time": 2489.292,
"index": 93,
"start_time": 2460.282,
"text": " Some people will. Well, I think that's enough. But this is thank you so much. I would say that you come across as someone who, first of all, intellectually honest and sincere, and I appreciate opening up about that. So thank you. Yeah, maybe the last question here, given what you said, what is the goal, I think, that you want to achieve in your lifetime? I think that's something"
},
{
"end_time": 2516.852,
"index": 94,
"start_time": 2490.265,
"text": " So Richard Feynman had on his blackboard when he died, what was left there in the corner was solve every problem that's ever been solved. So for me, I have something similar. Learn every theory that's ever been theorized. It's much more impractical. His was about solving something."
},
{
"end_time": 2535.998,
"index": 95,
"start_time": 2518.814,
"text": " In essence, I want to know more about math, physics, logic and philosophy than any other person ever. Period. So, we'll see."
}
]
}No transcript available.