WEBVTT NOTE Machine-generated transcript; not human-reviewed. NOTE Canonical transcript: https://opentheory.net/transcripts/conscious-black-holes-qualia-infinity/ 1 00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:29.980 Hey everyone, welcome back to Waking Kosmos, Adrian here. Today I'm joined by Mike Johnson from the Qualia Research Institute, where they're looking at really one of the most enduring mysteries in philosophy of mind, which is how do we say anything about why it is that experiences like the red of roses, or the smell of roses, or the taste 2 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:36.460 taste of cinnamon, have their very unique ways of appearing in consciousness, what we call their 3 00:00:36.460 --> 00:00:44.400 qualia. Why do we experience red as having this very specific qualia? And of course, going beyond 4 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:49.920 maybe conjuring up a kind of evolutionary explanation about the signal that the color 5 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:55.380 red might have had at different points in our evolutionary history about what's out there in 6 00:00:55.380 --> 00:01:01.680 the world. But to go beyond that and talk about these very distinctive topologies of experience, 7 00:01:01.880 --> 00:01:09.980 which seem to defy language. And that's really the mystery that Mike is focusing on. And he's 8 00:01:09.980 --> 00:01:14.520 going to talk about a theory that he and his colleagues at the Qualia Research Institute 9 00:01:14.520 --> 00:01:22.440 are exploring, which could potentially open a significant door into this space. It's called 10 00:01:22.440 --> 00:01:24.240 the symmetry theory of valence. 11 00:01:25.380 --> 00:01:31.780 And in this theory, the valence of an experience, which is essentially how positive we interpret an 12 00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:38.820 experience to be, is a function of its internal symmetry. So Mike and his colleagues are identifying 13 00:01:38.820 --> 00:01:47.960 symmetry as an important access point into this space of qualia, of experience. In the second half 14 00:01:47.960 --> 00:01:54.320 of today's episode, we discuss some of Mike's broader metaphysical views, including how any 15 00:01:54.320 --> 00:01:55.360 sufficiently critical theory of the qualia of experience can be used to identify the symmetry. 16 00:01:56.380 --> 00:02:04.100 can be directed at anything, including cosmological phenomena like black holes and even the Big Bang. 17 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:09.840 So I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as I did. Remember, if you're enjoying these 18 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:16.240 open-minded conversations about consciousness and reality, you can support Waking Cosmos on Patreon 19 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:21.660 and help me turn this into a full-time project. And for those of you who are already supporting 20 00:02:21.660 --> 00:02:28.540 my work, thank you for your kindness and generosity. Alright, I started out today by 21 00:02:28.540 --> 00:02:33.340 asking Mike, why should we care about the mystery of consciousness? 22 00:02:35.860 --> 00:02:43.520 So the question is, why is consciousness such an important topic? I think it's the important topic. 23 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:51.500 I think that all questions of morality and value ultimately resolve to questions about 24 00:02:51.500 --> 00:02:51.640 consciousness. 25 00:02:51.660 --> 00:03:01.300 And it's kind of embarrassing that we don't actually have any really good theories in this space. 26 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:06.940 You and I met at the Tucson Science of Consciousness Conference this year, 27 00:03:07.040 --> 00:03:11.160 and I think it would probably be fair to say that this is the most prestigious 28 00:03:11.160 --> 00:03:15.900 consciousness conference that there is at the moment. So what did you think about the 29 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:19.480 conference this year? Did you feel like the discussion about consciousness is 30 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:21.420 moving in a positive direction? 31 00:03:22.220 --> 00:03:28.580 Yeah, I think so. I think of this in terms of where on the process of turning consciousness 32 00:03:28.580 --> 00:03:36.400 research from alchemy into chemistry are we. And I would say that we're still fairly close 33 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:42.400 to alchemy, but there are some tantalizing hints of maybe there are some things that 34 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:50.240 we can formalize and empirically test. The most intriguing themes at the conference for me 35 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:59.020 all formalism. So some of Giulio Tononi's grad students were there and talking about IIT. 36 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:03.740 And we can talk about what is IIT. It's a form of panpsychism, right? 37 00:04:04.220 --> 00:04:11.280 Yes, yes. And it's a way of formalizing what it would feel like to be a system. And that system 38 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:21.160 can be anything. You can apply IIT to a person, a dog, a car, an alien, and you get a well-formed 39 00:04:21.660 --> 00:04:25.580 So it's a very powerful approach to understanding consciousness. 40 00:04:26.020 --> 00:04:32.860 And it's based on the amount of integrated information that a system is capable of having. 41 00:04:33.100 --> 00:04:37.820 Yep, that's right. Brains have a lot of this sort of integrated information. There's a lot 42 00:04:37.820 --> 00:04:42.480 of integration between the neurons. One way to think about integration is how much each part 43 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:47.760 of the system is causally affected by the other parts. And brains have a lot of that. 44 00:04:48.760 --> 00:04:51.320 Whereas, you know, something like a chair has 45 00:04:51.320 --> 00:04:51.640 very little integration between the neurons. And so it's a very powerful approach to understanding 46 00:04:51.660 --> 00:04:56.260 very, very, very little. So IIT does imply panpsychism, 47 00:04:57.460 --> 00:04:59.880 which would imply that everything 48 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:09.000 is at least a little bit conscious, but there would be horrendous orders of magnitude of difference between like a chair and a dog, for instance. 49 00:05:09.580 --> 00:05:19.780 Right. Presumably we wouldn't identify a chair as having consciousness because it is itself not integrated. It's just kind of a collection of matter that we have a functional use for. 50 00:05:20.120 --> 00:05:23.720 Right, right. There's really no functional integration in a chair. 51 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:39.180 So it's quite interesting that the general discussion about consciousness at the moment and at the highest levels of academia, we're taking this view that consciousness is something real and probably an important part of the way that the world is organized. 52 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:48.120 Yeah. I think it's slowly catching on and I think it's catching on because literally it's the only way to make progress. 53 00:05:48.460 --> 00:05:52.200 That if there's something to be explained, 54 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:59.960 the correct approach to it is let's formalize this. Let's formalize this thing that we're trying to explain. 55 00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:06.820 Whereas I think in years past people were more in favor of just trying to explain it away. 56 00:06:07.140 --> 00:06:10.140 And in that case then formalism would be the wrong approach. 57 00:06:11.100 --> 00:06:15.300 Right. So you've described yourself as a qualia formalist. 58 00:06:15.380 --> 00:06:16.480 Yes. That's right. 59 00:06:16.660 --> 00:06:22.820 So can you explain what that means and maybe include within that an explanation of what qualia is? 60 00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:28.700 Yeah. So qualia are the components of subjective experience. 61 00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:39.100 So I'm having the qualia of a little bit of pressure on my skin, a little bit of warmth from the air. 62 00:06:39.900 --> 00:06:44.220 I've got some green qualia and some white qualia and so on. 63 00:06:44.340 --> 00:06:51.180 And to say that I'm a qualia formalist means we should be able to precisely, 64 00:06:51.440 --> 00:06:53.160 in a very, 65 00:06:53.840 --> 00:07:00.180 rigorous way, we should be able to talk about what sort of sensations I'm having mathematically. 66 00:07:00.680 --> 00:07:03.900 To put this in, you know, big language, 67 00:07:04.590 --> 00:07:10.740 we should be able to derive a mathematical object that's isomorphic to my phenomenology. 68 00:07:10.840 --> 00:07:13.460 And that just means that it represents it perfectly. 69 00:07:13.960 --> 00:07:20.100 Right. And so by reducing phenomenology to a mathematical structure, 70 00:07:20.340 --> 00:07:23.500 that's not a materialist move. 71 00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:24.120 Not necessarily. 72 00:07:24.360 --> 00:07:26.620 You're still a realist about consciousness, 73 00:07:26.840 --> 00:07:32.940 but you're saying that this is the suchness of certain kinds of experience like redness and blueness. 74 00:07:33.080 --> 00:07:38.900 It should be a part of an intelligible map of qualia that we can understand 75 00:07:38.900 --> 00:07:46.900 and we should be able to expect that mathematics would be a place in which we could explore qualia. 76 00:07:47.460 --> 00:07:51.620 Right. And that's as far as I need to go, 77 00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:53.700 in terms of what assumption I'm making. 78 00:07:53.720 --> 00:07:55.720 I think there are a lot of assumptions that are required from my work. 79 00:07:55.860 --> 00:07:58.720 But yes, let's talk about this mathematically. 80 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:05.020 Personally, though, I'm kind of partial to something on the order of dual aspect monism, 81 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:13.760 where the physical world and the phenomenological world are sort of two shadows cast by underlying reality. 82 00:08:14.140 --> 00:08:17.360 Right. And that's really what I'm sympathetic with as well. 83 00:08:17.520 --> 00:08:21.380 So the classic view of that might be Russellian monism, 84 00:08:21.380 --> 00:08:22.980 or maybe the idea that, 85 00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:25.240 the world as it is, 86 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:30.080 is constituted from maybe exteriors and interiors, 87 00:08:30.220 --> 00:08:32.220 and that they imply each other. 88 00:08:32.820 --> 00:08:33.920 Right, right. 89 00:08:34.100 --> 00:08:38.300 And so if we assume that and take a look at physics, 90 00:08:38.560 --> 00:08:45.540 there are a lot of very, very wonderful, crisp, predictive formalisms in physics. 91 00:08:46.100 --> 00:08:48.620 And so to be a qualia formalist, 92 00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:49.300 it's just saying, 93 00:08:49.420 --> 00:08:52.880 well, maybe we should try to apply that same sort of thinking, 94 00:08:53.720 --> 00:08:55.940 scientific outlook to qualia. 95 00:08:56.260 --> 00:09:00.160 So I'm fascinated by your symmetry theory of valence, 96 00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:02.780 which you've been developing for several years. 97 00:09:03.100 --> 00:09:07.880 So it's a theory about qualia and an approach to understanding why qualia 98 00:09:07.880 --> 00:09:13.600 or specific experiences have distinct kinds of textures that they do, 99 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:16.180 which is currently a huge mystery. 100 00:09:16.400 --> 00:09:23.480 And you framed this as kind of the problem that we are immediately confronted with after we solve, 101 00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:25.000 the hard problem of consciousness. 102 00:09:25.980 --> 00:09:26.660 Right. 103 00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:31.500 There's this question of if we could figure out consciousness, 104 00:09:31.660 --> 00:09:34.280 if we got a good quantitative theory of consciousness, 105 00:09:34.620 --> 00:09:35.660 then what? 106 00:09:35.880 --> 00:09:38.400 So at the Qualia Research Institute, 107 00:09:38.620 --> 00:09:42.580 we focus a lot on the interpretation problem. 108 00:09:42.840 --> 00:09:49.200 If I could figure out some mathematical object that represented what it feels like to be you, 109 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:53.620 then how can we use that for useful things? 110 00:09:53.720 --> 00:09:56.080 One way to frame this is, 111 00:09:57.480 --> 00:09:59.900 what's the first line in the Rosetta 112 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:00.660 Stone of consciousness? 113 00:10:01.060 --> 00:10:01.780 I love that. 114 00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:07.320 Yeah. Another way to frame it is what is the C. elegans of qualia? What is the simplest 115 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:16.260 place to start? It's a big problem in that no one really knows. And if we could figure 116 00:10:16.260 --> 00:10:24.300 out just where to start, that would be halfway to solving it. And at QRI, we think we know 117 00:10:24.300 --> 00:10:32.160 where to start. And that's with this idea of emotional valence, or how pleasant or unpleasant 118 00:10:32.460 --> 00:10:38.760 an experience feels. So you have these two domains. You have the mathematical domain. 119 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:46.280 So if you have a quantitative theory of consciousness, it tells you something mathematical about 120 00:10:46.940 --> 00:10:53.260 the phenomenology of a system. And then you have the phenomenological domain. 121 00:10:54.320 --> 00:11:00.940 And that's talking about what qualia does the system have. And there's this big issue 122 00:11:00.940 --> 00:11:06.940 of how do you map between these? How do you point to something in the math domain and 123 00:11:06.940 --> 00:11:11.100 then connect it to something in the domain of phenomenology? 124 00:11:11.780 --> 00:11:21.900 The approach that I've taken is to link symmetry in the mathematical domain with emotional 125 00:11:21.900 --> 00:11:22.540 valence. 126 00:11:24.300 --> 00:11:25.100 And that's the phenomenological domain. 127 00:11:26.220 --> 00:11:31.540 Valence being how positive we interpret an experience to be, right? 128 00:11:31.640 --> 00:11:32.480 Yes, that's correct. 129 00:11:32.780 --> 00:11:39.860 And so you've identified valence and then symmetry as a particularly interesting natural 130 00:11:39.860 --> 00:11:41.580 kind. Is it a natural kind? 131 00:11:41.900 --> 00:11:47.800 Yeah. So Plato and Aristotle talked about natural kinds and trying to carve reality 132 00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:53.320 at the joints. And this is, of course, it is the problem in consciousness research. 133 00:11:54.300 --> 00:11:59.560 Where do you even start? What words fit the contours of reality? And we do think that 134 00:11:59.560 --> 00:12:05.980 emotional valence is well defined across all conscious experiences and the simplest 135 00:12:05.980 --> 00:12:06.640 place to start. 136 00:12:06.980 --> 00:12:14.740 Right. I think typically people tend to lump valence in with the whole spectrum of emotions 137 00:12:14.740 --> 00:12:20.540 that humans are capable of having and presumably many other species. But you're saying actually 138 00:12:20.540 --> 00:12:24.280 valence is a fundamental action. 139 00:12:24.340 --> 00:12:27.120 in the space of qualia, right? 140 00:12:28.220 --> 00:12:36.740 Right. So emotions are complex. So Lisa Barrett has this interesting paper, Are Emotions 141 00:12:36.740 --> 00:12:42.620 Natural Kinds? And her answer is no, that they're complex bundles of phenomenology, 142 00:12:43.180 --> 00:12:52.000 behavior and dynamics. And it's very messy and complicated. But what I'm saying is that 143 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:57.740 emotional valence is a building block of emotions. It's this atomic thing that you can build 144 00:12:58.220 --> 00:12:59.420 over complicated things out of. 145 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:07.220 And you've suggested that this in some sense corresponds to the mathematical symmetry that 146 00:13:07.220 --> 00:13:08.480 is occurring in the brain. 147 00:13:08.760 --> 00:13:16.460 That's our hypothesis. Essentially, harmony in the brain feels good. Full stop. That is 148 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:23.920 literally what feels good. Now, that's not to say that listening to high harmony stimuli 149 00:13:24.380 --> 00:13:27.540 or high constant stimuli always feels good. 150 00:13:28.220 --> 00:13:28.600 Right. 151 00:13:29.580 --> 00:13:36.280 But that's due to boredom causing dissonance in our brain so that we move on. 152 00:13:36.760 --> 00:13:44.520 So boredom is the brain introducing dissonance? That's interesting. Could you say more about that? 153 00:13:44.880 --> 00:13:53.860 So when the brain is too good at predicting its inputs, it gets bored. And it tells you basically, 154 00:13:54.180 --> 00:13:58.200 hey, you know, this is not worth paying attention to as much as before. And then it's like, oh, I'm 155 00:13:58.220 --> 00:13:58.740 bored. 156 00:13:58.740 --> 00:14:06.280 So there's this explore versus exploit dichotomy. And boredom is kind of advanced technology 157 00:14:06.280 --> 00:14:10.780 that the brain uses in order to shift from exploit back to explore. 158 00:14:11.320 --> 00:14:18.400 So we've already got software programs that can create very beautiful music just by implementing 159 00:14:18.740 --> 00:14:24.160 the underlying mathematics that music employs. So do you think that by using this theory 160 00:14:24.160 --> 00:14:27.800 about valence, we'd be able to create music that was 161 00:14:28.420 --> 00:14:32.080 algorithmically optimized to be like the most positive music that we could listen to? 162 00:14:32.500 --> 00:14:38.760 And presumably, if we could do that, what we'd get would be pretty extraordinary. So 163 00:14:38.760 --> 00:14:42.160 yeah, I'm curious what genre of music you think that would be. 164 00:14:42.900 --> 00:14:49.160 Yeah, that's a great question. I would say, I mean, first of all, just a disclaimer 165 00:14:49.160 --> 00:14:54.500 that everyone's brain is a little bit different. So there might not be one piece of music that 166 00:14:54.500 --> 00:14:55.420 works equally well. 167 00:14:55.880 --> 00:14:56.360 Right. 168 00:14:58.220 --> 00:15:00.000 So I think that's a really important question, which is, if this thinking about valence 169 00:15:00.060 --> 00:15:04.400 is correct, what accounts for our different tastes in things like music? 170 00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:12.340 Right. Essentially, I want to say the biggest component of this is what kind of 171 00:15:12.920 --> 00:15:18.960 mind music is already going on inside your head. And you want to harmonize with that. 172 00:15:19.940 --> 00:15:26.780 You may prefer songs with a rhythm or a tempo that's kind of calibrated for that. 173 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.760 Hey, if you like heavy metal music, maybe something really interesting and maybe a little 174 00:15:32.760 --> 00:15:40.020 dissonant is going on in your head already. And I mean, it's also a function of what mood are you in 175 00:15:40.020 --> 00:15:45.040 right now. And some moods, you might like heavy metal and some moods, you might like something 176 00:15:45.040 --> 00:15:54.400 more upbeat or... But very importantly, the same thing is going on in the head of somebody who's 177 00:15:54.400 --> 00:16:02.220 listening to heavy metal and enjoying it versus listening to techno or dance or club or blues and 178 00:16:02.220 --> 00:16:09.380 enjoying it. And that's harmony in the brain. So you've suggested that it's kind of the 179 00:16:09.380 --> 00:16:18.180 mind's goal to have more harmony. What does being in a state of high symmetry or high harmony 180 00:16:18.740 --> 00:16:23.240 do for the brain? How does it orient a mind towards 181 00:16:24.400 --> 00:16:29.500 expanding or developing consciousness? Does it have a kind of role or is it just a fact about 182 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:37.720 the way that mind exists in a kind of metaphysical sense? Yeah. So I would say it is a background 183 00:16:37.720 --> 00:16:44.180 kind of physical law, like gravity is universal. The symmetry theory of valence would be universal 184 00:16:44.760 --> 00:16:53.520 through in humans, in dogs and dinosaurs and conscious aliens. I would also say that just from 185 00:16:54.400 --> 00:17:02.280 an evolutionary perspective, that harmony in the brain seems to be a success condition. 186 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:07.720 It's something that maybe we're not programmed to experience a lot, 187 00:17:08.300 --> 00:17:16.160 but we are programmed very, very heavily to seek it out because it's linked to what causes 188 00:17:17.020 --> 00:17:24.380 temporary harmony in the brain, such as eating a lot of calories or having good things happen to 189 00:17:24.400 --> 00:17:32.680 you or accomplishing your goals. The brain is geared toward that being a success condition. 190 00:17:33.020 --> 00:17:39.260 I guess what I'm still slightly unclear about is if we have this success condition and let's say 191 00:17:39.260 --> 00:17:44.740 that we do achieve it from time to time, does that then serve to be an optimal state to then 192 00:17:44.740 --> 00:17:51.000 make further inferences? And is there a kind of intrinsic value about a lot of symmetry and 193 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:54.380 harmony, which projects in some teleScript orScript orScript orScript orScript orScript orScript orScript 194 00:17:54.400 --> 00:18:01.580 of mind in a positive direction. Right. Well, this gets into the question of can we get to 195 00:18:01.580 --> 00:18:10.640 ought from is. Ethics. Right. Ethics. I think this is the bridge that if we say, okay, 196 00:18:11.300 --> 00:18:20.840 all value boils down to consciousness and value of consciousness is based on the emotional valence 197 00:18:20.840 --> 00:18:28.680 of the experience. And the emotional valence is wholly dependent on the symmetry of the 198 00:18:28.680 --> 00:18:35.860 mathematical representation. Then it doesn't take much of a jump from there to say, okay, 199 00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:42.140 this actually gives us a prescriptive understanding of what we're here to do. 200 00:18:42.520 --> 00:18:50.000 There's a lot of evolutionary pressures and so on. But if we're here to optimize the universe's 201 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:50.460 qualia, 202 00:18:51.080 --> 00:18:57.620 then we should focus heavily on symmetry and valence. Yeah, I would generally agree with that. 203 00:18:57.820 --> 00:19:03.600 And I don't think we can easily get away from the fact that all value and meaning are realized in 204 00:19:03.600 --> 00:19:09.720 conscious experience. I know I always say it, but maybe that's a necessary part of the universe. But 205 00:19:09.720 --> 00:19:15.500 consciousness is the way that value is realized in the world. And as we're starting to recognize 206 00:19:15.500 --> 00:19:20.820 this and begin to integrate it collectively, to me, this is leading us to orientate 207 00:19:20.840 --> 00:19:27.900 our choices and our ethics toward this vast, unrealized possibility space of possible 208 00:19:27.900 --> 00:19:34.580 conscious experiences, which are as real in many ways as tomorrow morning. So I think we can see 209 00:19:34.580 --> 00:19:41.980 ourselves in the present moment as making choices that prune away branches from what we are capable 210 00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:48.240 of realizing in that space. Right. I like the way that you put that, that they're as real as tomorrow 211 00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:49.880 morning. Thanks. 212 00:19:50.840 --> 00:19:58.040 I think it's really important to just know what's out there, to have a map of consciousness or the possible 213 00:19:58.880 --> 00:19:59.960 state space of conscious 214 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:08.220 experience because we really don't right now, we don't even know how good the future could be because we don't have this map. 215 00:20:08.820 --> 00:20:17.240 Right, and in a sense I think we can say that by definition we don't know what the value is that can be realized in this possibility space. 216 00:20:17.720 --> 00:20:26.000 But the one thing I think that we can know in the sense that saying that it's real is that we know that there is incredible value that could be realized in consciousness. 217 00:20:26.260 --> 00:20:29.000 And we also know at the same time, that sophisticated 218 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:40.740 As sophisticated and complex and developed as we are, we in all likelihood only occupy a very tiny corner in terms of the space of mind that could exist. 219 00:20:40.980 --> 00:20:44.960 And so there's an enormous space to be realized. 220 00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:56.240 I think that the possibility space of consciousness is in a very important sense our birthright. 221 00:20:56.760 --> 00:20:58.980 And we just have to figure out how to do that. 222 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:02.180 And figure out what kind of thing it is and how to navigate it. 223 00:21:03.420 --> 00:21:12.540 Is it the case that we could be equally concerned about the space of consciousness or optimizing the qualia of the universe? 224 00:21:13.320 --> 00:21:17.880 Even if, for example, materialism was the case, if we went in the direction of Dennett, 225 00:21:18.020 --> 00:21:24.800 we could still say well you know for all practical purposes consciousness exists and the things that we care about are in consciousness. 226 00:21:25.800 --> 00:21:28.980 Even if the way that we ultimately formalize that is as a 227 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:35.720 some kind of illusion. And I'm not a big fan of that view, but it strikes me that even if that's 228 00:21:35.720 --> 00:21:40.920 the case, we'd still have many of the same intuitions about ethics, because it would still 229 00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:50.480 reduce to concerns about conscious experience. Well, when I say consciousness, and when someone 230 00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:56.480 like Dennett says consciousness, we seem to be saying two different things. In a sense, I think 231 00:21:56.480 --> 00:22:04.500 you're right, that we can both at least use the same words in a conversation and seem to make 232 00:22:04.500 --> 00:22:10.880 sense. But on a more deeper level, they chart out very, very, very different universes. 233 00:22:12.180 --> 00:22:21.740 If consciousness is real, is formalizable, then moral value is objective. Whereas if consciousness 234 00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:25.700 is this kind of high-level abstraction, 235 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:34.300 or leaky reification, then there's nothing objective about it. And we're kind of left to 236 00:22:34.300 --> 00:22:40.360 our own devices as to how to navigate this. And it sort of precludes any systematizing 237 00:22:40.360 --> 00:22:49.100 of this field. I think that if you want to point to a specific part of the brain and say, 238 00:22:49.220 --> 00:22:56.380 that's where the magic happens, then we do need a consistent story about how the magic happens, 239 00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:05.500 and I think any consistent story about how the magic happens will also be panpsychist. 240 00:23:06.180 --> 00:23:12.260 So let me ask you this. Do you think that panpsychism gives us a kind of a more intelligible 241 00:23:12.260 --> 00:23:19.320 account of reality? Does panpsychism make sense of, in addition to why it is that we have conscious 242 00:23:19.320 --> 00:23:24.920 experience, but other mysteries or unknowns that we have in science and about the universe? 243 00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:34.720 Right. So this question of what exactly should we be aiming for is important. And some people 244 00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:40.840 think that, well, a good theory of consciousness should match my intuitions. And I think that 245 00:23:40.840 --> 00:23:46.320 that isn't always a reasonable assumption. I think reality could have some surprises 246 00:23:46.320 --> 00:23:54.100 in store for us there. But I think that how I would put it is that a good theory of consciousness 247 00:23:54.700 --> 00:23:56.180 will be consistent. 248 00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:04.160 Such that, for example, gravity is a consistent theory. And ideally, it should be able to make 249 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:13.020 novel predictions, bold novel predictions that we can try to falsify, and hopefully predictions 250 00:24:13.020 --> 00:24:18.180 which we can't get to if we don't assume consciousness is real. 251 00:24:18.920 --> 00:24:25.060 Do you have any intuitions about what kinds of predictions that panpsychism could make, 252 00:24:25.180 --> 00:24:26.460 which perhaps could even be... 253 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:27.040 verifiable? 254 00:24:27.900 --> 00:24:36.320 Right. So Giulio Tononi's IIT does make some predictions in terms of which systems 255 00:24:36.320 --> 00:24:43.060 are conscious and which brain states are conscious. It can predict which people can wake up from 256 00:24:43.060 --> 00:24:49.420 comas based on the kind of background level of consciousness in their brain. It does this 257 00:24:49.420 --> 00:24:54.480 by sort of ringing the brain like a bell with TMS and then... 258 00:24:54.480 --> 00:24:55.900 Transcranial magnetic stimulation. 259 00:24:56.480 --> 00:24:59.880 That's right. That's right. And then seeing how long it rings, 260 00:25:00.180 --> 00:25:04.200 how long it takes to get back to whatever state it was in. 261 00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:13.560 And they're doing much, much better than anyone else predicting who will wake up from a coma, which is really impressive. 262 00:25:14.100 --> 00:25:19.880 So at QRI, we're trying to add another element to this. 263 00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:27.200 So our work is compatible with IIT, but we also add emotional valence to the mix. 264 00:25:28.120 --> 00:25:39.160 So for instance, we think that we have a method by which you can put somebody in a neuroimaging system like an fMRI, 265 00:25:40.020 --> 00:25:45.480 and we can objectively tell you how happy or sad they are. 266 00:25:45.820 --> 00:25:55.220 Right. And yeah, this strikes me as something that could be amazingly useful and could fundamentally change how we interact with each other. 267 00:25:55.220 --> 00:26:05.160 I mean, if it was possible for us to have a kind of representation of what other people's mental states are in, and our own as well, of course, 268 00:26:05.760 --> 00:26:09.140 there would certainly be times when this would be something that we would want to share. 269 00:26:09.320 --> 00:26:13.000 And obviously, there would be many times when we would probably want to keep this private. 270 00:26:13.040 --> 00:26:21.700 But assuming that your theory is correct, and the degree of harmony in our brains does correspond to how positive we feel, 271 00:26:22.460 --> 00:26:25.200 imagine technologies which will eventually change. 272 00:26:25.220 --> 00:26:29.740 But if they actually come out of that recognition, they could be abused. 273 00:26:29.960 --> 00:26:35.020 But I can imagine that fundamentally changing how we interact with each other. 274 00:26:35.540 --> 00:26:42.200 And in another respect, I think if we could glimpse at more of the experience of other people, 275 00:26:42.300 --> 00:26:46.760 and maybe the pain that other people are in and other beings, 276 00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:50.780 I imagine that we would be much more quick to help them. 277 00:26:50.920 --> 00:26:53.440 And who knows what this technology would look like. 278 00:26:53.560 --> 00:26:55.200 But I think if we had a focus on the focus of the focus. 279 00:26:55.220 --> 00:27:01.560 sense of someone's emotional valence in real time it's kind of an extraordinary impact on the way 280 00:27:01.560 --> 00:27:09.520 that we interact with each other right like a 21st century mood ring exactly yeah and if there is an 281 00:27:09.520 --> 00:27:15.240 objective fact of the matter about how we feel and if if we can kind of find the right lens by which 282 00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:24.320 to view this and i think um atisoi's work and qri's work constitutes that lens um then that 283 00:27:25.340 --> 00:27:33.820 change human interaction and to just take a step back if it's possible to do what iit claims to be 284 00:27:33.820 --> 00:27:39.140 able to do which is simply to point at things in the world and be able to say yes this system is 285 00:27:39.140 --> 00:27:44.900 conscious and to a certain degree this is of course not something that we know how to do at 286 00:27:44.900 --> 00:27:49.800 the moment you know i just assume that you're conscious because you seem conscious and you know 287 00:27:49.800 --> 00:27:54.520 maybe i have a 10 percent less confidence that an animal has consciousness and 288 00:27:55.220 --> 00:28:00.700 things get a little bit more squirrely when i look at a plant or a cell but my intuition 289 00:28:01.860 --> 00:28:05.480 philosophically is that there's a lot of consciousness going on in the world around us 290 00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:11.940 but if we could have a formal way of knowing that and develop what tononi calls the qualia scope 291 00:28:12.700 --> 00:28:18.020 and look around the world and see where consciousness is being instantiated in the 292 00:28:18.020 --> 00:28:23.840 world i mean that would be huge maybe even transform society and you know specifically 293 00:28:25.220 --> 00:28:30.320 in coma patients like you were saying we would be able to know if there was someone 294 00:28:30.320 --> 00:28:38.140 still inside there is there a conscious mind inside that brain or are these anesthetics truly 295 00:28:38.140 --> 00:28:42.680 effective in the way that we think they are or are they just simply blocking memory for example 296 00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:47.840 and so formalism about consciousness give us a lot of answers to questions that we really care about 297 00:28:47.840 --> 00:28:55.180 but this additional step a formalism about valence that could be the first line of the 298 00:28:55.220 --> 00:29:00.760 rosetta stone of consciousness so yeah it's definitely fascinating and even if it turns 299 00:29:00.760 --> 00:29:06.080 out to be incorrect that would be independently interesting as well because we'd be able to ask 300 00:29:06.080 --> 00:29:12.500 why and if not a mathematical symmetry then what sort of formalism should we be pursuing 301 00:29:12.500 --> 00:29:19.900 yeah well it's it's building a new science and i always go back to the alchemy to chemistry example 302 00:29:19.900 --> 00:29:25.140 it's a good one yeah yeah and it's this idea of you know alchemy was 303 00:29:25.220 --> 00:29:31.500 like clearly something cool was happening there but people were very very confused about exactly 304 00:29:31.500 --> 00:29:38.300 how to think about reality and then over time and with a lot of effort we you know figured out this 305 00:29:38.300 --> 00:29:45.440 periodic table and you know electron shells and it started to become systematic and i think we're 306 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:51.720 we're just at the beginnings of that in consciousness and it's incredibly exciting i i 307 00:29:51.720 --> 00:29:54.360 wake up in the morning and i see it i'm like 308 00:29:55.220 --> 00:29:59.040 what kind of thing can we systematize today or or this year 309 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:00.540 Nerd. 310 00:30:01.860 --> 00:30:02.420 Absolutely. 311 00:30:04.760 --> 00:30:08.960 Yeah, it's amazing to me that we find ourselves at this time in history. 312 00:30:09.060 --> 00:30:15.960 It's quite exciting, really, to live in a time where we haven't actually got answers to these really fundamental questions. 313 00:30:16.260 --> 00:30:23.020 And in many ways, we're not even really asking the question in the right way yet in terms of ethics. 314 00:30:23.020 --> 00:30:36.440 And we don't really know how to delineate from the kind of parochial ethics that we've got as a result of our evolutionary history as primates and particular kinds of cultural idiosyncrasies that we have. 315 00:30:36.580 --> 00:30:46.960 And those ethical norms, for example, which may be universalizable and they may apply to societies of minds wherever they're instantiated in the universe. 316 00:30:47.020 --> 00:30:51.940 And yet we don't have any way of thinking about that clearly yet. 317 00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:52.780 Yeah. 318 00:30:53.020 --> 00:31:02.340 I mean, just in the last 10 years with IIT coming onto the scene, we're beginning to be able to ask the right questions. 319 00:31:03.700 --> 00:31:10.120 And it is exciting to be living in an era with real questions that haven't been answered yet. 320 00:31:10.860 --> 00:31:16.980 And I would agree that asking the correct questions is at least half the battle. 321 00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:23.000 I feel like a lot of people haven't kept up on the literature and realized how 322 00:31:23.020 --> 00:31:24.300 quickly things are moving. 323 00:31:25.580 --> 00:31:27.460 And there's a lot hanging in the balance. 324 00:31:27.560 --> 00:31:28.580 There's a lot at stake. 325 00:31:28.940 --> 00:31:34.160 There's a non-trivial chance that the whole enterprise of life on this planet could come to an end. 326 00:31:34.380 --> 00:31:49.860 There's at least a certain degree to which it's true to say that solving these problems, this navigation problem of ethics, for example, of what it is we're trying to achieve together here in the universe is going to be important for the survival of the entire enterprise itself. 327 00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:53.000 And so the extent to which we can do what you're doing is going to be very important. 328 00:31:53.020 --> 00:31:58.720 you're advocating which is to orient ourselves to how do we optimize qualia in the universe 329 00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:07.200 we're moving beyond this very species specific parochial view about human preferences to this 330 00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:13.280 space of consciousness which is in many ways what we really are would you agree with that 331 00:32:13.280 --> 00:32:20.640 is consciousness what we really are yes um absolutely and and i would consider myself a 332 00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:28.320 qualiaist in in terms of uh like what is real what should be optimized i think a lot is hanging 333 00:32:28.320 --> 00:32:35.660 in the balance here so um nick bostrom talks about in super intelligence that there are trade-offs 334 00:32:35.660 --> 00:32:44.600 that we can make um in terms of increasing efficiency and um sort of with the with 335 00:32:44.600 --> 00:32:50.420 transhumanism and advanced technology and ai then more things are on the table there are 336 00:32:50.420 --> 00:32:50.620 more things that are on the table and more things are on the table and more things are on the table 337 00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:57.580 that we can trade for greater efficiency and he makes this uh he has this wonderful quip that 338 00:32:57.580 --> 00:33:05.600 we should make sure not to trade off the wrong things uh and by which he means consciousness 339 00:33:06.380 --> 00:33:13.160 because then we might end up building a disneyland with no children i love that it's very similar to 340 00:33:13.160 --> 00:33:19.080 what um uval noah harari says at the end of his book homo deus he basically says you know at some 341 00:33:19.080 --> 00:33:20.480 point if we keep moving down this 342 00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:26.540 hyper technological path which is presumably inevitable we can't change course really even 343 00:33:26.540 --> 00:33:31.900 if we wanted to and at some point we're going to be confronted with the choice of what do we value 344 00:33:31.900 --> 00:33:38.800 most information processing or consciousness and of course it's a rhetorical question because the 345 00:33:38.800 --> 00:33:43.080 answer is without consciousness we don't really have the we don't have a perspective by which to 346 00:33:43.080 --> 00:33:50.100 gauge the value of the answer and so oh yeah i wanted to ask you uh this it relates to um 347 00:33:50.640 --> 00:33:55.980 what what you're talking about here so because it seems more or less um more and more that we're 348 00:33:55.980 --> 00:34:03.260 outsourcing our cognition into technology uh for example you know with our phones nobody really 349 00:34:03.260 --> 00:34:07.580 thinks that our phones are conscious right but you know we're all glad that we don't have to 350 00:34:07.580 --> 00:34:12.840 remember phone numbers anymore so i guess what i'm interested in getting your opinion about is 351 00:34:12.840 --> 00:34:18.320 what do you think is kind of the optimal line when it comes to outsourcing our cognition could we go 352 00:34:18.320 --> 00:34:19.820 too far with this and 353 00:34:20.640 --> 00:34:28.120 we certainly want consciousness there at some level right i do think that there are things that 354 00:34:28.120 --> 00:34:37.480 we shouldn't outsource just if we outsource more and more to unconscious processes then pretty soon 355 00:34:37.480 --> 00:34:43.280 we won't be useful consciousness won't be useful that which actually has value won't be useful 356 00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:48.700 so this is really uh another one of your areas which you've spent quite a lot of time thinking 357 00:34:48.700 --> 00:34:50.520 about and you mentioned to me 358 00:34:50.640 --> 00:34:55.020 that one of the initial reasons which brought you out here to the bay area was 359 00:34:55.020 --> 00:35:00.000 ai safety and so why is ai safety something that you've given 360 00:35:00.280 --> 00:35:01.440 a lot of attention to. 361 00:35:02.560 --> 00:35:08.900 So I tend to believe that AI is dangerous, both in terms of a GI, artificial general 362 00:35:08.900 --> 00:35:11.460 intelligence, and just narrow AI. 363 00:35:11.660 --> 00:35:14.780 You can do a lot of damage with computers, basically. 364 00:35:15.560 --> 00:35:18.400 And the smarter the computer is, the more damage you could do. 365 00:35:19.280 --> 00:35:23.800 So yeah, I moved out to the Bay to focus on AI safety. 366 00:35:23.800 --> 00:35:31.500 I then sort of realized that consciousness was even less studied than AI safety. 367 00:35:32.180 --> 00:35:35.960 And I felt like it was my duty to help change that. 368 00:35:36.540 --> 00:35:40.540 An open question here is, what do we do after we win? 369 00:35:40.660 --> 00:35:48.120 If we figure out how to build very intelligent AI, and we basically have a blank check to 370 00:35:48.120 --> 00:35:53.320 live in any sort of future that we want, what sort of future should we want to live in? 371 00:35:53.880 --> 00:35:56.440 And I think this goes straight back to consciousness. 372 00:35:56.640 --> 00:36:03.780 To understand this, we have to understand what has value, what the possibility space 373 00:36:03.780 --> 00:36:04.140 is. 374 00:36:04.700 --> 00:36:05.820 Yeah, I very much agree. 375 00:36:06.160 --> 00:36:09.440 And, you know, I think there is this real question that, you know, what are we going 376 00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:12.760 to do when we have computers which are more intelligent than we are? 377 00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:17.680 And, you know, what kind of potential risks and gains, like, could be waiting for us down 378 00:36:18.100 --> 00:36:19.120 the AI path? 379 00:36:19.720 --> 00:36:23.220 And I certainly think that we should take very seriously the idea that some kind of 380 00:36:23.220 --> 00:36:23.780 self-sufficiency, you know, is a very important part of the AI, and that we should be able to 381 00:36:25.800 --> 00:36:30.080 If it gets loose, so to speak, it could be enormously destructive. 382 00:36:30.500 --> 00:36:35.960 And of course, you know, there's Nick Bostrom's example in which a rampant artificial intelligence 383 00:36:35.960 --> 00:36:39.860 turns the entire cosmic horizon into paperclips. 384 00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.420 And people love that example. 385 00:36:42.600 --> 00:36:48.000 But the much more immediate concern, presumably, is the risk that a superintelligence would 386 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:55.780 pose to us if it wasn't aligned with either our preferences or intrinsic interests of 387 00:36:56.800 --> 00:37:04.400 consciousness to develop and rarify. Right, so I think human survival is 388 00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:12.180 important. I also think that sort of the grand arc of what kind of qualia are 389 00:37:12.180 --> 00:37:19.000 instantiated by the universe is the important thing. And I think that we're 390 00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:25.120 in a very critical time point right now. I actually think that if we don't solve 391 00:37:27.580 --> 00:37:35.740 AI, then there's a grand opportunity cost there. And it's possible that that 392 00:37:36.760 --> 00:37:43.900 future will be permanently less good than if we do solve consciousness before 393 00:37:43.900 --> 00:37:45.140 we develop AI. 394 00:37:45.700 --> 00:37:52.180 I suppose if super AI is sort of inevitable, I guess the challenge that we 395 00:37:52.180 --> 00:37:55.820 have is to direct it to becoming something that we wouldn't mind replacing 396 00:37:55.820 --> 00:37:56.380 us. 397 00:37:56.800 --> 00:37:59.920 Right. And you know, whether or not it has consciousness seems to be central to 398 00:37:59.920 --> 00:38:00.100 that. 399 00:38:00.980 --> 00:38:06.640 I think that's very important. So there's this question of a, how do we prevent 400 00:38:06.640 --> 00:38:12.000 AI from killing us and using our atoms for something else? And that's a problem. 401 00:38:12.500 --> 00:38:19.820 But also, if we figured out that to some extent, how do we teach AI how to be kind 402 00:38:19.820 --> 00:38:26.620 to us, how to be benevolent? And there are all these approaches from what's called 403 00:38:26.800 --> 00:38:31.700 indirect normativity. And it's just kind of looking at how humans treat each other, 404 00:38:31.820 --> 00:38:38.740 and then extrapolating that for teaching an AI. And I think that's a very imperfect 405 00:38:38.740 --> 00:38:40.640 approach for a lot of reasons. 406 00:38:40.840 --> 00:38:45.580 It's very specific to our particular time and species and so on. 407 00:38:45.700 --> 00:38:53.380 Right. There's this big divide in ethics on this question. And it's this question of, 408 00:38:54.200 --> 00:38:56.680 is goodness preference satisfactory? 409 00:38:56.800 --> 00:38:57.540 Right. 410 00:38:57.540 --> 00:39:04.340 Like, if you want some ice cream, I give you some ice cream, and then you're happy. 411 00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:12.300 So should we define things in terms of satisfying people's preferences? Or should we define 412 00:39:12.300 --> 00:39:19.480 things in terms of making sure they have good qualia? I'm of the second camp. I think that 413 00:39:19.480 --> 00:39:24.260 people often don't know what they want, or what they want won't actually make them happy. 414 00:39:24.500 --> 00:39:26.360 And we can have second order desires. 415 00:39:26.800 --> 00:39:30.640 About our preferences, like that maybe we know that ice cream isn't that good for us. 416 00:39:30.780 --> 00:39:36.720 Sure. But even that doesn't directly connect to phenomenology. And I think phenomenology is what 417 00:39:36.720 --> 00:39:38.320 literally actually matters. 418 00:39:38.640 --> 00:39:43.840 And with respect to this question in ethics, that what we should care about is either 419 00:39:43.840 --> 00:39:50.700 satisfying our preferences, or as you mentioned, creating good qualia. Is creating good qualia, 420 00:39:50.780 --> 00:39:56.780 is that synonymous with developing the possibility space of consciousness that we're, 421 00:39:56.800 --> 00:39:59.080 capable of sampling the value of? 422 00:39:59.520 --> 00:40:00.000 I 423 00:40:00.120 --> 00:40:01.700 would generally agree. 424 00:40:02.080 --> 00:40:08.580 So I'm working on a post about utopia and what makes a good society. 425 00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:16.260 And my conclusion is that there are two components to this and people usually only focus on one 426 00:40:16.260 --> 00:40:17.060 or the other. 427 00:40:17.700 --> 00:40:20.880 But we really do need to bring in both. 428 00:40:21.160 --> 00:40:27.280 And the first component is just having a functional civilization, a working society in which 429 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:30.680 people can engage in positive some dynamics. 430 00:40:31.140 --> 00:40:36.680 And so being able to keep the lights on, you can't have nice things without civilization. 431 00:40:37.560 --> 00:40:47.020 And then the follow up to that is that just living in a healthy society does not necessarily 432 00:40:47.020 --> 00:40:49.340 or causally make people happy. 433 00:40:49.680 --> 00:40:52.700 Obviously, I think it would very much contribute to this. 434 00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:57.580 But I think in that sense, if we have a social 435 00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:04.760 surplus, if our society is running well, and then we can decide what to put our surplus 436 00:41:04.760 --> 00:41:10.420 in, I think it makes a lot of sense to optimize the universe's qualia. 437 00:41:11.510 --> 00:41:15.700 I think that's what literally has intrinsic value. 438 00:41:16.040 --> 00:41:17.020 Good qualia. 439 00:41:17.520 --> 00:41:21.600 And good qualia is more than just a lot of valence. 440 00:41:21.860 --> 00:41:23.440 It's how do we... 441 00:41:23.890 --> 00:41:27.980 I suppose we have to leave the interpretation of what is good qualia. 442 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:29.680 And what is not good qualia to consciousness itself. 443 00:41:30.700 --> 00:41:31.460 Right. 444 00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:37.560 I think that it's kind of early days to say anything very firmly. 445 00:41:37.820 --> 00:41:47.040 But I think that a good starting point here would be experiences that have very high emotional 446 00:41:47.040 --> 00:41:47.540 valence. 447 00:41:47.880 --> 00:41:54.620 If the thing that ultimately matters in the universe is positive valence, is our 448 00:41:54.620 --> 00:41:57.980 goal in some sense to tile the entire universe? 449 00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:10.380 I think there's this separation of philosophically what the correct answer is, and practically 450 00:42:11.020 --> 00:42:12.320 what we should do today. 451 00:42:12.900 --> 00:42:17.460 And I think these diverge on this question. 452 00:42:17.680 --> 00:42:23.640 I do think that experiences with positive valence are literally what seems to have value. 453 00:42:24.380 --> 00:42:27.780 And yes, we should optimize for that. 454 00:42:28.400 --> 00:42:30.740 But only in the longest of terms. 455 00:42:31.020 --> 00:42:37.480 I mean, it would be easy for humankind to just decide, oh, let's optimize for positive 456 00:42:37.480 --> 00:42:37.920 valence. 457 00:42:37.940 --> 00:42:42.160 We kind of burn ourselves out in this flash of light, and then everything's dark. 458 00:42:43.500 --> 00:42:47.280 I'm more of a fan of taking the long view. 459 00:42:47.660 --> 00:42:50.520 Taking the long, long, long, long view. 460 00:42:50.740 --> 00:42:52.180 The cosmological perspective. 461 00:42:52.240 --> 00:42:54.340 The cosmological perspective, exactly. 462 00:42:54.920 --> 00:42:57.060 And seeing the value in... 463 00:42:57.060 --> 00:42:57.330 Yeah. 464 00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:03.260 The value in civilization, in things that keep things working, that keep the lights 465 00:43:03.260 --> 00:43:03.480 on. 466 00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:08.960 I like to say that without civilization, we can't have any nice things. 467 00:43:10.700 --> 00:43:15.120 Let me ask you this, because it's something which I perhaps don't quite fully understand 468 00:43:15.120 --> 00:43:18.520 about this view of positive valence. 469 00:43:19.020 --> 00:43:23.320 So there's two things about it which I perhaps don't probably understand. 470 00:43:23.420 --> 00:43:27.500 The first thing is that we can certainly feel very good. 471 00:43:27.520 --> 00:43:27.980 We can feel very good. 472 00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:29.500 And it be to our detriment. 473 00:43:29.860 --> 00:43:37.380 So we can become addicted to opium or something like that, and we can wither away, but we're 474 00:43:37.380 --> 00:43:38.220 in total bliss. 475 00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:45.180 And on the other hand, there's a lot of challenging experiences, let's say, which aren't associated 476 00:43:45.180 --> 00:43:48.220 with a lot of positive valence and may feel pretty rough. 477 00:43:48.760 --> 00:43:55.600 And yet, at a later time, we metabolize those experiences having enormous amounts of value. 478 00:43:56.380 --> 00:43:57.400 I think so. 479 00:43:57.400 --> 00:43:57.520 Yeah. 480 00:43:58.080 --> 00:43:59.580 Suffering can be redemptive. 481 00:44:00.060 --> 00:44:02.120 It can put us on a better path. 482 00:44:02.520 --> 00:44:07.500 It can allow us to grow in ways that we would not have grown without it. 483 00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:11.540 Which isn't to say that we should fall in love with suffering. 484 00:44:12.120 --> 00:44:17.180 I think it serves a very important functional role in the human psyche. 485 00:44:17.680 --> 00:44:23.460 And also just, I mean, if you're at a local maxima, then to get anywhere better, you have 486 00:44:23.460 --> 00:44:25.380 to go down before you get up. 487 00:44:26.420 --> 00:44:27.980 At the same time, you're not alone. 488 00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:40.500 things about human experience do hurt a lot. So if we can replace those things with things that 489 00:44:40.500 --> 00:44:47.500 fulfill the same function, but are more pleasant, less unpleasant, less painful, then that would be 490 00:44:47.500 --> 00:44:55.840 kind of a viable path forward. I think our brains are pretty good at using suffering for 491 00:44:55.840 --> 00:45:00.000 kind of redemptive purposes often, but 492 00:45:00.100 --> 00:45:13.780 you also have edge cases where things break. You know, you have people who suffer from depression for 30 years. You have a grieving process which lasts a decade or 493 00:45:13.940 --> 00:45:18.300 So, I think that, um, not all suffering is redemptive. 494 00:45:19.020 --> 00:45:26.500 And if we focus on those forms of non-redemptive suffering, uh, that's the low hand for it 495 00:45:26.500 --> 00:45:26.600 here. 496 00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:32.220 But I want to take a bit of a left turn here because I really want to get into some of 497 00:45:32.220 --> 00:45:35.160 your cosmological, uh, speculations about consciousness. 498 00:45:35.300 --> 00:45:39.160 And you've agreed to talk about these even though, you know, we're definitely in the, 499 00:45:39.160 --> 00:45:41.340 well into the realm of, of speculation. 500 00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:44.040 But that is kind of what this podcast is about. 501 00:45:44.200 --> 00:45:46.940 And so this is, it's definitely a place for open-mindedness. 502 00:45:47.060 --> 00:45:52.540 So, uh, and I find particularly, uh, some of what you've, uh, speculated about in the 503 00:45:52.540 --> 00:45:55.300 appendix of your paper, uh, absolutely fascinating. 504 00:45:55.300 --> 00:46:01.460 And so, and it's the idea that, you know, if qualia is in some sense all around us, uh, 505 00:46:01.600 --> 00:46:05.740 for example, if some essentially idealist or panpsychist theory of consciousness is 506 00:46:05.740 --> 00:46:11.620 true, then there's presumably a lot more experience that's going on in the universe than just 507 00:46:11.620 --> 00:46:13.880 us or, or even life on this planet. 508 00:46:14.220 --> 00:46:17.260 And of course, we're not just talking about aliens. 509 00:46:17.420 --> 00:46:22.660 Uh, and I think for example, you speculated that the big bang, uh, probably felt pretty 510 00:46:22.660 --> 00:46:23.100 awesome. 511 00:46:23.440 --> 00:46:24.740 Can you talk about that? 512 00:46:25.300 --> 00:46:25.740 Yeah. 513 00:46:26.380 --> 00:46:33.660 So, um, yeah, just to, to touch on the speculative nature of this, um, I kind of stuffed all 514 00:46:33.660 --> 00:46:36.660 this stuff in the, uh, the last appendix of my paper. 515 00:46:36.760 --> 00:46:41.360 Um, I definitely wanted to include it, but, uh, it wasn't sort of core to my argument. 516 00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:48.940 So for, uh, for listeners who maybe are a little leery of, you know, biting the whole 517 00:46:48.940 --> 00:46:55.080 bullet here, you know, you don't, you don't have to, but at the same time, if we have 518 00:46:55.300 --> 00:47:03.820 a, um, sort of an objective theory of consciousness that properly crisply formal theory of consciousness, 519 00:47:04.140 --> 00:47:08.080 then we should be able to apply it to anything literally. 520 00:47:08.300 --> 00:47:14.260 And so the same theory of consciousness, which gives us a crisp formal result, if we pointed 521 00:47:14.260 --> 00:47:22.900 at a human brain should give just as good of a result, just as precise a result if we 522 00:47:22.900 --> 00:47:25.280 pointed at, you know, a dog or a dog. 523 00:47:25.300 --> 00:47:28.240 A dinosaur, a chair, a tree. 524 00:47:28.900 --> 00:47:37.280 Um, but it should also give good result if we pointed at cosmological phenomenon, right? 525 00:47:37.720 --> 00:47:41.120 Such as the big bang or such as stars or black holes. 526 00:47:41.360 --> 00:47:46.280 So this would be the qualia scope that Tononi talks about, right? 527 00:47:46.620 --> 00:47:51.320 So we take our qualia scope and we start directing it out into the cosmos. 528 00:47:51.840 --> 00:47:55.080 Where do you see the consciousness lighting? 529 00:47:55.140 --> 00:47:55.280 Yeah. 530 00:47:55.300 --> 00:47:57.000 Coming up in this field of view. 531 00:47:57.500 --> 00:47:58.180 Right. 532 00:47:58.360 --> 00:48:05.200 So assuming that, uh, Tononi is right in that integrated information is kind of the magic 533 00:48:05.580 --> 00:48:06.840 that generates consciousness. 534 00:48:07.640 --> 00:48:11.680 Then in my appendix, I list a number of possibilities. 535 00:48:12.500 --> 00:48:16.580 One is maybe big things have a lot of qualia. 536 00:48:16.660 --> 00:48:24.260 So maybe stars, but especially black holes, there's just so much mass in a black hole. 537 00:48:26.300 --> 00:48:35.400 if they have hair, so to speak, that could sort of encode integrated information or allow integrated information, 538 00:48:35.760 --> 00:48:40.220 then presumably it does feel like something to be a black hole. 539 00:48:40.560 --> 00:48:45.260 So there's something about black holes which could have integrated information. 540 00:48:45.620 --> 00:48:50.840 Certainly they have information, but integrated information in a black hole. 541 00:48:50.840 --> 00:48:56.340 Right. I think based on what we know about black holes, that's a live possibility. 542 00:48:57.100 --> 00:49:00.540 And presumably it would be stretched across the surface. 543 00:49:00.980 --> 00:49:06.280 Right. And potentially it could be a lot more conscious than any one person. 544 00:49:06.500 --> 00:49:07.040 Wow. 545 00:49:07.520 --> 00:49:11.100 And to an extreme order of magnitude, perhaps. 546 00:49:11.500 --> 00:49:12.060 Yeah. 547 00:49:12.120 --> 00:49:13.020 Many orders of magnitude. 548 00:49:13.620 --> 00:49:20.580 I really want to get back to why it is that you speculated that the Big Bang could have felt really good. 549 00:49:20.840 --> 00:49:30.080 And if so, was that the kind of omega point and that we are sometimes just living in the aftermath of that and the main event has already passed? 550 00:49:30.540 --> 00:49:35.860 Right. So I do mention that in my paper as, you know, very speculatively. 551 00:49:36.920 --> 00:49:40.900 I like how you assign probabilities to some of these things as well. 552 00:49:41.200 --> 00:49:43.020 Status, highly speculative. 553 00:49:43.520 --> 00:49:48.820 Sure, sure. You have to. But I felt like it was wrong not to go there. 554 00:49:49.380 --> 00:49:50.500 So there's this. 555 00:49:50.840 --> 00:49:56.060 This idea of eternal inflation, that the Big Bang is sort of ongoing. 556 00:49:56.320 --> 00:49:59.700 It's this infinite process that doesn't get depleted. 557 00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:05.500 This special sort of matter that's decaying into normal matter but doesn't itself deplete. 558 00:50:07.400 --> 00:50:26.060 And this tends to be described in the literature as a very high symmetry process. And so if there is consciousness associated with this process, then I'm speculating, and this is complete speculation, but it should probably feel pretty good. 559 00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:30.160 That would be the understatement of the century. 560 00:50:30.600 --> 00:50:38.620 Right. Do you have a view about where the universe might be heading with respect to the development of qualia? 561 00:50:38.740 --> 00:50:49.460 Could it be that we could be heading towards another kind of singularity of infinite complexity of consciousness and mind at some point if, say for example, 562 00:50:49.700 --> 00:50:57.940 and I feel like I speculate about this a lot on this podcast, but could it be that life eventually saturates the entire universe 563 00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:05.640 in some way and optimizes all of the matter in the universe and maybe it creates Max Tegmark's perceptronium? 564 00:51:05.860 --> 00:51:12.640 How do you see the idea that everything is in some sense inevitably heading toward a kind of conscious omega point? 565 00:51:14.220 --> 00:51:23.620 Yeah. I outline a few possibilities in the paper of if humans aren't the center of qualia in the universe. 566 00:51:23.820 --> 00:51:27.980 That if there's more qualia than just human qualia out there, then where's the higher quality? 567 00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:28.140 How do you see the universe operating? 568 00:51:28.360 --> 00:51:36.340 Large scale phenomenon like black holes, small scale phenomenon like virtual particles popping in and out of existence all the time, 569 00:51:37.260 --> 00:51:47.640 quantum fuzz is one way to describe that, and then the past, the Big Bang, if it created any qualia, it would be creating a lot of qualia 570 00:51:47.640 --> 00:51:56.840 and the future, that it could be that the universe is just starting to wake up and there's a lot of qualia in its future. 571 00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:01.760 I tend to think of a U-shaped curve. 572 00:52:02.000 --> 00:52:05.740 I think it's plausible that the Big Bang created a lot of qualia. 573 00:52:06.060 --> 00:52:10.720 And then we are sort of a qualia god chatter. 574 00:52:11.260 --> 00:52:12.220 I love it when you say that. 575 00:52:12.520 --> 00:52:16.960 Yeah. Re-coalescing 14 billion years after the main event. 576 00:52:17.660 --> 00:52:24.140 And then I think this process could accelerate and the U could go back up. 577 00:52:24.380 --> 00:52:27.700 And in some sense, that might be another Big Bang. 578 00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:28.500 In a way. 579 00:52:28.560 --> 00:52:32.340 So this would be a, what was the name of that cosmology? 580 00:52:32.580 --> 00:52:34.280 The Big Bounce. 581 00:52:34.380 --> 00:52:37.700 But it's a big bounce between omega points of consciousness. 582 00:52:38.400 --> 00:52:43.080 Yeah. I mean, in general, I just want to say that this is very speculative. 583 00:52:43.600 --> 00:52:51.080 But I'm always willing to bite the bullet and kind of plug things in and see where we get. 584 00:52:51.300 --> 00:52:57.980 And I think that you do get some interesting implications for cosmology. 585 00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:04.720 And long term future thinking, depending on what theory of consciousness is true. 586 00:53:05.480 --> 00:53:12.620 Right. So in principle, we should be able to extrapolate any formalized theory of consciousness all the way out into cosmology. 587 00:53:13.040 --> 00:53:14.200 Right. Right. Exactly. 588 00:53:15.080 --> 00:53:18.580 Let's return to the symmetry theory of valence. 589 00:53:18.700 --> 00:53:20.860 And perhaps you could re-summarize it briefly. 590 00:53:21.360 --> 00:53:23.720 What do you see is next for this theory? 591 00:53:23.840 --> 00:53:26.080 And how do you see it being tested? 592 00:53:26.420 --> 00:53:26.900 Right. 593 00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:35.480 So just to summarize briefly, the symmetry theory of valence suggests that harmony in the brain literally is pleasure. 594 00:53:36.220 --> 00:53:37.560 That's the short version. 595 00:53:37.740 --> 00:53:41.280 The somewhat more formal version is that... 596 00:53:41.280 --> 00:53:42.320 It's a very short version. 597 00:53:42.540 --> 00:53:43.240 Yeah. Yeah. 598 00:53:44.580 --> 00:53:50.780 Symmetry in the mathematical representation of phenomenology literally is pleasure. 599 00:53:51.820 --> 00:53:55.140 And that's a metaphysical truth in a way. 600 00:53:55.320 --> 00:53:55.940 Right. 601 00:53:56.040 --> 00:53:57.340 That would be true. 602 00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:03.880 But if you look at the theory of the universe across all conscious beings, whether they're humans or aliens halfway across the galaxy. 603 00:54:04.360 --> 00:54:06.540 Like a law of the universe, like gravity. 604 00:54:06.840 --> 00:54:09.600 And this is a theory which is testable. 605 00:54:09.780 --> 00:54:10.440 Right. 606 00:54:10.580 --> 00:54:15.280 And that's what kind of makes it special. 607 00:54:15.540 --> 00:54:17.040 Because it's testable. 608 00:54:17.120 --> 00:54:17.700 It's falsifiable. 609 00:54:18.600 --> 00:54:23.460 So we're saying that harmony in the brain feels good. 610 00:54:23.740 --> 00:54:24.140 Just... 611 00:54:24.140 --> 00:54:31.480 that is what feels good. So if we can put somebody in an fMRI and measure this, the amount of 612 00:54:31.480 --> 00:54:38.540 harmony in their brain, we should be able to tell how happy they are even better than they can. 613 00:54:39.420 --> 00:54:43.320 Right. I was going to mention this earlier when we first talked about this. You know, people's 614 00:54:43.320 --> 00:54:47.920 own self-reporting of their experience isn't always the best indicator of what they're 615 00:54:47.920 --> 00:54:53.120 experiencing. So, for example, you know, we could be wrong about how stressed we are. 616 00:54:54.140 --> 00:54:57.980 It's a surprise when people have a nervous breakdown because they're not fully aware of 617 00:54:57.980 --> 00:54:59.920 just how much stress they're in. 618 00:55:00.380 --> 00:55:05.640 And yet to say that we may not necessarily be the best judge of our own conscious experience 619 00:55:06.220 --> 00:55:07.760 seems very counterintuitive. 620 00:55:08.220 --> 00:55:09.060 Right, right. 621 00:55:09.260 --> 00:55:14.440 I mean, in the short term, we're going to have to use people's self-reports as the 622 00:55:14.440 --> 00:55:16.960 gold standard just to validate the theory. 623 00:55:17.160 --> 00:55:20.640 But in the long run, I think we can improve on that. 624 00:55:20.900 --> 00:55:21.260 Yeah. 625 00:55:21.260 --> 00:55:28.240 Yeah. And again, this is a substrate independent view about the nature of consciousness. So it's 626 00:55:28.240 --> 00:55:35.060 an approach to looking at qualia, which doesn't necessarily force us to pick a team when it comes 627 00:55:35.060 --> 00:55:41.520 to our particular theory of consciousness. And you choose to plug in Tononi's integrated 628 00:55:41.520 --> 00:55:47.160 information theory into this because it makes the right kinds of prediction. But in principle, 629 00:55:47.160 --> 00:55:51.840 we could have a different view about what consciousness is. And we could still, 630 00:55:51.860 --> 00:55:57.740 in principle, plug this into the symmetry theory of valence and see how it works. 631 00:55:58.520 --> 00:56:07.420 Right. We're pretty careful to be theory agnostic in terms of we don't have to pick a horse 632 00:56:07.420 --> 00:56:15.820 in order to talk about the interpretation problem. We assume that trying to derive a 633 00:56:15.820 --> 00:56:17.140 formalism for consciousness is a very important thing. And we don't have to pick a horse in 634 00:56:18.160 --> 00:56:18.260 order to talk about the interpretation problem. We assume that trying to derive a formalism is 635 00:56:18.260 --> 00:56:25.860 the correct approach. But we don't assume anything about which specific formalism might be true. 636 00:56:26.100 --> 00:56:34.240 So integrated information theory is probably the leading theory right now. But it could be true, 637 00:56:34.260 --> 00:56:41.700 or it could be false. And we don't necessarily have a need to come down on the other side there. 638 00:56:41.860 --> 00:56:46.940 Right. So to bring in another potential theory of consciousness, 639 00:56:48.160 --> 00:56:53.800 maybe we believe that we need a quantum theory of consciousness and that it's important that our 640 00:56:53.800 --> 00:57:01.140 theory of consciousness pays attention to the quantum level of reality and all of the weird and 641 00:57:01.140 --> 00:57:08.320 interesting stuff that happens down there. And if so, Hamroff and Penrose might be getting closer 642 00:57:08.320 --> 00:57:15.140 with their orchestrated objective reduction theory of consciousness. So if this turned out to be 643 00:57:15.140 --> 00:57:18.140 the right formalism or closer to the right form of consciousness, then we might be able to do a lot of 644 00:57:18.160 --> 00:57:24.720 to the right formalism. Could we plug this into your symmetry theory of valence? Would that work? 645 00:57:25.880 --> 00:57:35.500 Yes. So orchestrated object reduction, ORC-OR, is definitely a player in this space. 646 00:57:35.940 --> 00:57:38.440 Maybe we ought to summarize it very briefly. 647 00:57:38.860 --> 00:57:48.060 Yeah. Essentially, with ORC-OR, consciousness is the collapse of quantum superpositions in the brain, 648 00:57:48.160 --> 00:57:52.640 especially having to do with the microtubules of neurons. 649 00:57:53.160 --> 00:57:55.060 It's also a panpsychism as well. 650 00:57:55.400 --> 00:58:05.240 Yes. I think that ORC-OR is in an interesting position in that it has a lot of the pieces 651 00:58:05.240 --> 00:58:14.260 of the puzzle to formula or attempt to formula phenomenology. But it doesn't make the final leap. 652 00:58:14.420 --> 00:58:18.140 It gets 90% of the way there. But it's still a formula. And so I'm going to spend a little bit of time 653 00:58:18.160 --> 00:58:26.300 it just doesn't go all the way. So IIT has this really clever way to draw the boundary 654 00:58:26.300 --> 00:58:33.620 of a conscious system, and then it takes the information inside this boundary, and then it 655 00:58:33.620 --> 00:58:39.920 rearranges it to represent phenomenology in order to precisely represent what it feels like to be 656 00:58:39.920 --> 00:58:47.720 that system. But ORCOR, it draws the boundary around a conscious system, but it doesn't do 657 00:58:48.160 --> 00:58:55.860 with the information in the boundary. It doesn't output a formal representation of phenomenology 658 00:58:55.860 --> 00:59:03.940 like IIT does. And I don't think that there's anything intrinsically holding ORCOR back 659 00:59:03.940 --> 00:59:08.580 on this. Penrose and Hamaroff just haven't made that final step. 660 00:59:08.880 --> 00:59:14.540 Right. So in principle, ORCOR could be developed to make this more clear boundary. 661 00:59:14.860 --> 00:59:17.920 I think so. And I would certainly encourage them, 662 00:59:18.160 --> 00:59:23.060 to do that. Cool. Let's finish this off somehow. 663 00:59:23.960 --> 00:59:29.160 Psychedelics and QRI? Yeah. Let's talk about psychedelics and QRI. 664 00:59:29.440 --> 00:59:34.360 What is to you so interesting about psychedelics and what it can teach us about qualia? 665 00:59:35.480 --> 00:59:42.120 Yeah. So a lot of times when a system is functioning normally, a lot of its internal 666 00:59:43.000 --> 00:59:47.700 workings are hidden. And psychedelics are interesting in that they 667 00:59:48.160 --> 00:59:56.240 perturb systems in fairly predictable ways, repeatable ways. And then suddenly things 668 00:59:56.240 --> 00:59:59.720 aren't working normally and things that you just took as 669 01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:13.980 as givens as eternal facts about consciousness or the mind are suddenly different. So they're a very useful tool by which to try to chart out the state space of consciousness. 670 01:00:14.820 --> 01:00:26.380 Right. One of the things that strikes me about the psychedelic experience is how it's an example of just how wired we are to experience symmetry, especially in the visual aspect. 671 01:00:28.000 --> 01:00:41.420 So if you're going to have a very potent psychedelic experience, the one thing that you rely on is that you're going to be experiencing a lot of symmetry and a lot of tessellating patterns and a lot of apparent meaning in those patterns. 672 01:00:41.760 --> 01:00:47.960 Perhaps that suggests that, you know, maybe symmetry is representative of the structure of the mind in some fundamental way. 673 01:00:48.320 --> 01:00:56.800 Yeah. My colleague Andrés Gómez-Emilsson and also someone by the name of Steve Lahar 674 01:00:56.800 --> 01:00:57.180 Yeah. 675 01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:09.800 have looked into this symmetry and psychedelic connection as well. I think there's something there. And I think there's sort of the brain naturally sort of tries to 676 01:01:10.880 --> 01:01:20.280 symmetrify things, symmetrify inputs, in a sense, trying to compress them with specific symmetry patterns. 677 01:01:20.960 --> 01:01:21.660 Right. 678 01:01:21.740 --> 01:01:25.940 And I think with some psychedelics, you can kind of viscerally experience that. 679 01:01:25.940 --> 01:01:27.040 Right. 680 01:01:27.500 --> 01:01:39.210 If the symmetry theory of valence is the appropriate way to go about understanding how it is that we feel the ways that we feel, and especially under psychedelics, 681 01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:52.300 potentially an application for symmetry theory of valence is that we could take someone that was having, for example, a particularly challenging psychedelic experience, 682 01:01:52.380 --> 01:01:55.920 and we could introduce or try and 683 01:01:55.940 --> 01:01:58.560 evoke more symmetry in their experience. 684 01:01:59.220 --> 01:02:13.020 Yeah, there's a lot there. I think it's absolutely true that if the symmetry theory of valence is true, it should have a lot of immediate practical applications. 685 01:02:13.420 --> 01:02:18.720 And I think, you know, rescuing people from bad trips would be a good example. 686 01:02:19.240 --> 01:02:23.800 I could imagine a good NowThis video about, like, new theory of qualia. 687 01:02:23.800 --> 01:02:23.940 Yeah. 688 01:02:24.320 --> 01:02:29.260 Saving people from the precipice of infinity at Burning Man this year. 689 01:02:29.460 --> 01:02:30.260 Right. Right. 690 01:02:30.620 --> 01:02:37.600 Of course, you'd have to have, like, Andreas there with some sand plates on top of some speakers and showing people. That would really… 691 01:02:37.600 --> 01:02:44.620 Yeah. We sort of already do this. I think that, like, set and setting are seen as very important. 692 01:02:44.840 --> 01:02:53.780 And the set and setting that are often encouraged are very sort of harmonious, not distanced. 693 01:02:53.800 --> 01:02:58.340 So this idea is already in play. 694 01:02:58.860 --> 01:03:08.140 But one thing that it could maybe offer over and above what's out there right now is more of a multimodal approach 695 01:03:08.560 --> 01:03:15.600 and trying to harmonize the different patterns of symmetry that you're exposed to. 696 01:03:15.700 --> 01:03:22.700 If you have some sort of a visual pattern and then you have some sort of a different audio pattern, 697 01:03:23.800 --> 01:03:32.760 it's important not just to have them be symmetrical or harmonious, but to have them symmetrically or harmonious with each other. 698 01:03:33.060 --> 01:03:33.560 Right. 699 01:03:33.780 --> 01:03:43.880 And I think that keeping the symmetry theory of valence in mind as you undergo a journey could itself have a lot of use. 700 01:03:45.060 --> 01:03:49.480 Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining me today and having this conversation. 701 01:03:49.860 --> 01:03:52.000 I find the way that you think fascinating. 702 01:03:53.800 --> 01:03:57.640 I'm very intrigued by your research with symmetry and valence. 703 01:03:58.480 --> 01:04:04.440 Where can people go to find out more about your work and ideas and the Qualia Research Institute? 704 01:04:05.140 --> 01:04:09.640 Yeah. So just let me say thank you as well for having me. 705 01:04:09.680 --> 01:04:10.160 Real pleasure. 706 01:04:10.400 --> 01:04:11.060 Yeah. Thanks. 707 01:04:11.500 --> 01:04:16.420 You can check out our work at qualiaresearchinstitute.org. 708 01:04:16.560 --> 01:04:21.080 We have a blog on there and kind of our core research. 709 01:04:21.080 --> 01:04:28.520 My colleague, Andres Gomez-Emelson, has a blog at qualiacomputing.com, which is also excellent. 710 01:04:28.780 --> 01:04:31.640 I'll put links to all those in the descriptions as well. 711 01:04:32.300 --> 01:04:36.660 Well, Mike, thanks again for joining me on the Waking Cosmos podcast. 712 01:04:36.880 --> 01:04:39.840 And I really hope we can do this again sometime soon. 713 01:04:40.180 --> 01:04:40.740 Thanks. 714 01:04:40.860 --> 01:04:41.340 Me too. 715 01:04:43.100 --> 01:04:48.820 Okay. I hope you enjoyed today's episode with Mike Johnson from the Qualia Research Institute. 716 01:04:48.820 --> 01:04:53.160 If you're listening on YouTube, let me know what you thought about today's topics in the comments. 717 01:04:53.420 --> 01:04:56.500 And if you enjoyed this episode, hitting like helps us out. 718 01:04:56.600 --> 01:05:00.000 And if you're not already, now is also a great time to subscribe and 719 01:05:00.200 --> 01:05:16.880 join us on this adventure. Remember if you want to support Waking Cosmos and these open-minded conversations about consciousness and reality, you can help me turn this into a full-time project by supporting me on my Patreon page and the link to that is in the description. Thank you. 720 01:05:17.240 --> 01:05:27.040 Alright, I will see you next time for more episodes of Waking Cosmos, exploring the nature of consciousness, reality, and life's place in the universe. 721 01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:30.320 That's about it from me. I hope you have a beautiful day.