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NOTE Machine-generated transcript; not human-reviewed.
NOTE Canonical transcript: https://opentheory.net/transcripts/symmetry-beauty-shape-consciousness/

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A humanity that's not growing is dying. The possibility space is really huge for both good scenarios and bad scenarios. We're human. This has good things and bad things about it. Should we count our blessings or should we be very eager to sort of strike out on adventure and explore?

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I do think that we're better than we realize, stronger than we realize, more capable, more beautiful, and more close to the good.

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I wouldn't want to just roll the dice and get a random mind from mind space, we can say.

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I think that the sky's the limit in terms of what the future of sensation could be. Human

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biochemistry being a little corner of this, and each person's qualia being a little corner of

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that. If things go wildly good, how good is that? If things go wildly bad, how bad is that? If we all

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die out, how bad is that? I think that the answers in all these cases are many orders of magnitude.

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This is Daniel Fagella. You're tuned into The Trajectory, and this is our 17th episode

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of the Worthy Successors series. Our guest this week

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is none other than neuroscientist and philosopher Michael Johnson. Very few people have thought

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hard enough and taken enough of a multidisciplinary approach to the problem of consciousness to maybe

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be able to scratch the surface of starting points to actually test for such a thing. Michael, I think,

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is one of the few who has. Obviously a very hard problem. He doesn't suspect that he's cracked the

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nut necessarily, but has some great ideas about where the future of sentience research might take

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us and the predominance and kind of preeminent importance of sentience in the forms of future

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life that carry on beyond man. I have a lot of thoughts for the end of this episode. As usual,

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I will save them for the end of this episode. Without further ado, this is Michael Johnson

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here in The Trajectory. So Mike, welcome to the show. Thanks. Glad to be here. Absolutely, brother.

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And we've got

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so many questions that we've got to answer. So I'm going to start with the first one.

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So much to fly into with the worthy successor theme. You were there from event number one out

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in San Francisco, a key thinker in this space, in my opinion. I know how I describe you to the

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audience, but I wondered if you could just kind of nutshell the nature of your research and core

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interests and sort of how you got into that just for people to kind of tee up where you're coming

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from from this perspective here. Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. So I describe myself as a

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neuroscientist. I do sort of work on sort of both how to turn consciousness into a real science,

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we can say, you know, if we if we look at the, the alchemy to chemistry transition,

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how do we do that for science of mind? And I think I would describe that I just,

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I'm so interested in this topic, because I think minds are so interesting. And so so centrally

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important.

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Of course, everything that we experience is sort of through the lens of our minds.

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Mediated. Yes.

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Yeah, yeah. And I also think that, like, I mean, I, my original intention was to move to the Bay

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Area and do AI safety. And I very quickly understood that I think about minds very differently than

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like the less wrong Mary.

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And, you know, I'm glad they're, they're doing their research. And I felt that, sort of, you know, I

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sort of tried to extrapolate, you know, with this kind of conception of mind, where do you get to?

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Do you get to a place where we sort of have a usable, actionable theory of moral value and

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consciousness and sort of navigation grade?

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Is that the best theory of mind? We can say. And my conclusion was no. So I kind of branched off and

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worked on more sort of formalism centric theory of mind. So since then, you know, been focusing on

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both sort of metaphysics of consciousness. What is the mind and also human neuroscience that how

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like, what kind of system are we?

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Yeah.

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You brought up kind of a distinction of moving out to work on AI safety and then sort of realizing some core differences that might not arrive at maybe a tight enough conception of what a mind is, a usable theory of sort of what the good is and how to navigate and expand it or even

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understand it.

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What do you describe those core differences as?

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Many people tuned in have seen the Yudkowsky episode or are certainly familiar with a Miri-esque conception of what AGI is and what kind of good and bad futures are.

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What did you see as sort of the core differences in the way you saw the world that you think kind of carved out a path that you decided would have to sort of be your own?

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Yeah. So, there was a wonderful little essay on Lesserong kind of explaining the Eliezer view, I would say.

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And it's that qualia is what an algorithm feels like from the inside.

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And it's sort of this very computational-centric perspective about sort of what a mind is.

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And a mind is sort of, you know, there's this computational system.

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There's maybe reflexivity, self-reference, and at a certain level of awareness, you sort of bootstrap into this metacognitive capacity that we call consciousness.

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That's not my perspective.

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I think that, you know, I sort of have claimed that there's really a question of whether we sort of associate minds or consciousness with software or hardware.

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Yeah.

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or bits. If we want to understand the consciousness of the system, the quality of the system,

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do we look at what the system's bits are doing, which computations are happening,

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or do we look at what the atoms of the system are doing, sort of what the physical configuration

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is? And my particular, I guess, flavor of this is I think that physical stuff is more real than

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computation, or more real than Turing-level computation, and that the sort of correct lens

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to apply to consciousness research is this lens of formalism. This idea that the proper goal of

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research into consciousness is to be able to create mathematical representations of moments

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of experience. And then, of course, you know,

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this kind of leads down a very different track than the former.

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And how do you sort of describe, like, some people would say, just hearing this the first time,

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some people would say, well, all right, so, you know, Yudkowsky et al. seem to think that sort of

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it's computation that's doing the quote-unquote stuff that conjures forth the inner field of

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awareness, the movie in the head. And then Mike thinks it's more like physics. And, you know,

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a lot of people think it's more like physics. And I think that's a lot of the stuff that's

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even a guy like me, it's like, well, do we really know what computation looks like at the smallest

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level? Do we really even know if quarks are a real thing or just something we kind of, like,

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it's sort of like, it's mysterious at the bottom either way. Why would that set you on a different

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trajectory for how to think about the good, how to think about minds, et cetera? Like,

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clearly it has, right? And you've given this much more thought than most people. But what do you see

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as the crux at that juncture that has distinctively pointed you in the direction that you tend to head

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as opposed to that larger crowd? Yeah.

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So in computation, generally speaking, like when we say computation, we often mean

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Turing-level computations. So a computation can run on a Turing machine. And if it can run on

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one Turing machine, it can run on any Turing complete system. So then, like, if consciousness

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is sort of the right algorithm, the right computation, then, like, creating pain points,

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pain and pleasure is more, no more and no less than sort of writing the correct software that can

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then run anywhere in a substrate neutral manner. My sort of observation here is that the, we can

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think of, like, Turing-level computations as a certain domain. And then we can think of physics

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as a different domain. And at least as we speak about them today,

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and as we sort of use the concept today, these two domains are differently shaped.

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You can't sort of line them up very cleanly. There's no objective way to map between

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what the physical microstates of a system are and which computations it's performing,

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or, you know, vice versa. So it's like, if these two domains are sort of differently shaped,

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then we really have a choice between, okay,

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is consciousness and, you know, if consciousness is the home of value,

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then it becomes, is computation the home of value?

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And creating a bunch of value is sort of running the correct computations.

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Or if physics is the home of value, then is creating a lot of value just like arranging

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atoms and energy in the right configuration?

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So, I often don't try to argue to convince people.

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I think that mostly people aren't argued into a theory of consciousness, so it's hard to

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argue them out of it.

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But I do think that like just kind of laying out, yeah, this is what I think is valuable.

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Yeah.

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Well, we're going to start to steer into where that takes you.

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I think that you're going to start to take a different direction in terms of what you'd

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want the future to be.

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Yudkowsky certainly has a vision of sort of how eventually the universe could wake up

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and be full of good stuff.

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A rather cautious vision, sort of famously so.

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Yours is quite different.

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So, we'll make our way into our kind of the main meat and potatoes where I think there's

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going to be some interesting points of agreement or points of questioning, all sorts of curiosities

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emerging.

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And I'll ask it this way and just let you roll it out the way you'd like to, is like,

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let's say however many years, a thousand, a million into the future, through waves of

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creative destruction that have, you know, kind of transformed everything that's ever

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come into being, we either were transformed or attenuated.

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And so, there aren't really opposable thumbs in English language like we have now.

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But if you could sort of somehow still observe this universe operating and see life continuing

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to flourish by the definition you would distinguish flourishing, what would be going on?

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What would be the traits of that intelligence or intelligences?

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What would be occurring in that space for you to say, you know what?

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Okay, I guess there's no more of my direct descendants, but this really feels like a

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win.

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What would that be for you?

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So that's kind of the central question for philosophy.

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And I guess I would reframe this as what is the good?

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And how would we know?

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Okay.

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How can we live in a universe with a lot of it?

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How can we choose paths with more of it?

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And is there sort of one unitary, you know, philosophers talk about the good in, you know,

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capital T, capital G.

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Yes.

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And then there's also this perspective that a lot of it is about preference.

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Like I like this, I don't like that.

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Maybe you have different preferences.

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How do we navigate that?

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One of my big sort of...

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Okay.

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Departures from Yudkowsky is that I think that the good has a unitary nature.

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And this actually comes from looking at neuroscience.

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For example, I think Barrage and Kringlebach have an observation that, you know, kind of

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reviewing different hedonic studies about pleasure in the brain, and they say that essentially,

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you know, whether you're eating a candy bar or listening to a transcendent symphony, the

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same regions of your brain sort of light up on fMRI.

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This isn't proof that, you know, the same thing is happening in your brain, but it is

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suggestive evidence.

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And I think that essentially, like, I think that we all can have different preferences,

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but I think there's some sort of unitary success condition.

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And so this gets into my symmetry theory, valence theory.

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And essentially, you know, to sort of look at your question directly, we were just talking

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before the show about Giulia Tononi's idea, and I think you've also given a TED talk on

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this idea.

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Yeah, yeah.

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About, yeah, about this idea of a qualia scope.

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And basically, you know, the sort of way, you know, lens that you can kind of look through

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and look around, and it can see consciousness, it can sort of see experience.

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And so, you know, maybe you look over at, you know, your neighbor and you see a big

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glow.

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And, you know, maybe you can tell that he's having a good time.

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Maybe you look at a...

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Your pet dog and he, you know, there's a big glow there.

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He's having...

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He's also...

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He's a golden retriever, so he's super happy.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Always having a good time.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, I guess, you know, to understand whether a future is good

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in a valence sense, and you know, I'm, I tend to be like ontologically utilitarian,

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but practically virtue ethicist. So, you know, I don't want to over index on utilitarian.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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But, yeah, yeah. But I mean, I would want to look around in the future and see, okay,

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how much consciousness is there? And are people having a good time? And I mean, this kind

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of connects to, for example, Nick Bostrom has this famous quip that Disneyland with

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no children has no value. And I think there's something really important there. And so,

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in a good future, I would want, first of all, there to be consciousness, qualia. It's like,

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it's the substrate of value. It has to be present for there to be positive or negative

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value. And then I'd want a lot of positive value. And I think the, like, we can say the

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game theory of like, what systems work to produce a lot of positive value, you know,

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that's another question.

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Yeah.

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And then also, I think that just sort of, I wouldn't want stasis. I think that there

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are many local minima we could get trapped in along the way. And I want to make it all

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the way. Eventually, we don't have to be in a rush. But something that permanently kind

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of takes better futures off the table, I think would be negative.

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Yeah, let's, let's double click on both of those. My goal here is really clarifying,

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clarifying the worthy successor vision in the sense of, if we aren't around, what would

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still be a splendid victory for the great process of life of which we are part? So my

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goal is to clarify that in great detail with you. And then like, poke at the edges, we're

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like, I still have a lot of questions about how you think about it. And like, just look

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at different perspectives here. So one of them is, you know, a very rich, sentient future,

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with preferably kind of passive, passive, passive, passive, passive, passive, passive,

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positive quality, like states, or quality of states of different kinds. And you had

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said kind of, I guess people having a good time in this particular case, I guess you

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mean the total space of minds, agents, etc, that could have such an experience, right?

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Because it may not be up, you know, people in the current sense, but do you suspect that

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that could include, like, in terms of the panoply of what that could include? I think

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for some people, it's like, well,

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each robot has its own little mind and like those things, you know, and then for other people, I think it's

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I don't know, maybe we've got tiny little sugar cubes that do some like weird collective

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intelligence thing, but they all have their own little thing. And then maybe we have,

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you know, Jupiter brains. And then maybe in some sense, maybe there is, you know, when

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you talked about the qualia scope, maybe you look at an ecosystem and the whole ecosystem

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actually like you and I are, you know, we can't know if our liver is minorly sentient

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in some regard, because we don't, it seems like, you know, we're not, you know, we're,

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like, from our vantage point, we don't get access there. But it seems conceivable that

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we don't really know where sentience actually sits. Like, when you say it or persons, give

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us the range that you suspect that would include in a huge ecosystem of post human minds.

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Yeah, yeah. So it's a good question. And I would also say that, you know, we can also

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give us or give the range that we might expect to see on the earth now.

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Yeah, sure, sure.

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Yeah.

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Go ahead.

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Yeah, yeah. Hundreds of years ago, you know, apparently Leonardo was dissecting dogs without,

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you know, thinking that they could feel and I think that, you know, that was not so good.

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And like, I think it's cool that now we like, see animals as Yeah, like, they're also creatures

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that can, can feel good and feel bad. And like that matters. I think that, you know,

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I have some, some work that kind of digs into that.

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what's out there and some others.

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And it's this idea that any future theory of consciousness,

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if it's really like,

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and like the vision is having a theory where you can literally just shut up

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and calculate, it'll figure everything out. You know, it's,

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there's no subjective finger on the scale.

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It's just math and you can derive what is conscious,

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how it feels, et cetera. And I actually think that it's,

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it's more tractable than one would realize.

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So we can talk about dual aspect.

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We're going to get a lot into that. It turns out

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how to measure it, we got a whole section, so we will be deep diving, sir.

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Nice, nice. Yeah, so like one interesting proxy, and you know, we can talk about like,

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just like generation of qualia in general, or generation of like big sort of chunks of bound

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qualia, we can say. Like, you know, we, our minds have like a bunch of different things kind of

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glued together into this, you know, crazy, crazy experience that we have. You know, here's some,

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some blueness, some redness, some heat, etc. So like, the conditions for consciousness versus

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the conditions for binding can be interestingly different. But, you know, looking at the world

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today, I think, yeah, of course, humans are conscious. And yeah, pretty obviously, animals

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are also conscious. Frankly, they could be even more conscious than humans are. So that's like,

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an interesting digression. Kind of, you talk about like, blue, blue whale, blue whale, brain size,

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dolphin brain size, octopi, you know, little brains all the way down the tentacle, like, when

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you say more conscious, just, just to put a sentence on that caveat, what do you mean there?

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Yeah, so,

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like, Eleven very, very clearly spells out, like, a lot of, a lot more things could be minds than we

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think in TAME. Oh, yeah.

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Teleological approach to minds everywhere. Really, really great frame. I think that also that,

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like, perhaps animals could have, could sort of shine more brightly than humans,

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in some cases, at least, that, and this gets into the the vessel computation topic.

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We were chatting about it a little bit. And this idea that maybe animals are, by default,

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more in a state of persistent, non-symbolic experience, sort of a non-dual state, you can say.

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And so, you know, a deer in the forest, you know, maybe like, that deer feels like the

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sweetness of life and the pain of life more intensely than humans who have a lot of frozen

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sensations in our, you know, the environment. Yeah.

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In our minds, we can say. So, yeah, that's a big rabbit hole.

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We're gonna get there, brother. We're gonna get there.

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Yeah.

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It's good to know what you mean by more conscious in some respect. Hopefully,

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now the audience is following you. So, that makes sense.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's like, philosophy is gonna be weird. It's not gonna,

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like, check all our intuitive boxes about, you know, how we kind of think things work. And so,

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um,

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if we did have this qualia scope where we could see conscious experiences, you know, we might look

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at another person. Okay, there's consciousness there. A dog, there's consciousness there. A deer,

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oh, wow, that's really bright consciousness. Insects, sure, consciousness. But what about

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data centers? Sure. I think, like, there's something really interesting going on there

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in terms of, like, physics.

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Yeah.

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And it's somewhat heterogeneous, actually. And, you know, even,

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like, a power transformer or a particle accelerator, nuclear reactor, etc.

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There's, like, something really interesting and extreme in physics going on in all of

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these examples where, at least from some proper theories of consciousness that are fully objective,

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you can shut up and calculate. Yeah.

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there could be extreme amounts of consciousness and or valence there so you know i i like to say

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that um you know i wish i lived in a world where people were protesting nuclear nuclear reactors

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um and like not because of some environmental thing you know okay maybe there's there's like

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arguments on both sides i'm probably pro-nuclear uh but because some people thought that well

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you're creating a lot of consciousness and it feels really terrible and so it's like worth

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protesting and then there could be counter protesters which say you know yeah it's you know

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the these human-made structures are creating a lot of qualia but it's really good so we should

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make more of them and uh there's just so much richness in

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sort of the space of what is probably happening already that is invisible to us uh and i think

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that yes often people just kind of over index on things that we know

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to the exclusion of things like that are pretty plausible if you just kind of look at the math.

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Yeah, well, I mean, Levin talks about, you know, we're used to medium-sized things moving at medium speeds, and those are all the things that matter, and those are the things that could be conscious, and da-da-da-da-da.

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And, you know, to your point, if we think about what sentient things have in common, the scope could be larger.

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I'm going to zoom this into—I'm going to ask a series of questions just to flesh out where you see the bounding box on this and just kind of click in,

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because have people get a better conception of what it means for good qualia to bloom in the way that you would see as a win for the great process of life of which we're part.

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So, you were like, hey, is it possible?

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Does a nuclear reactor feel something?

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You know, does a sun feel something?

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Does a hurricane feel something?

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You know, we could wonder, again, does each individual kidney feel something?

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We could ask, does the city of Austin feel something?

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And if that's the case, well, surely then there's some Gaic meta-sentience around maybe the entire planet in some respect.

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And if that be the case, then maybe already that's, you know, there's a thing.

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There's a feeling like aScript.

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the Milky Way, which might be outlandishly more granularly interesting than what we could feel.

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I can also see that not being the case, by the way. I'm not positing these things are true. I'm

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just saying we don't have access necessarily. Are you seeing all those scales up, scales down,

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different shapes, different mediums, all potentially being sentient if we could

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sort of understand them? Or is there anything you want to add to that?

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Yeah. I don't think they're ontologically equivalent, and this is important.

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But basically, I think some levels of abstraction are more real than others.

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And consciousness lives at the most real level of abstraction. And so if we talk about, you know,

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is the city of Austin conscious? Is Walmart Corporation conscious? Is like the World

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Series of Baseball conscious? My answer would be no, definitely not.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And so I see consciousness as being deeply linked to a particular

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chunk of space-time, probably a contiguous chunk in some way. And so, you know, if we looked at the,

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you know, through the qualia scope, every sensation would be sort of anchored in a place.

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And like, you know, there would be maybe like these bubbles of consciousness where

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the different sensations within that boundary are all linked together.

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But I think that,

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some ways of speaking about systems are leaky reifications, we can say. And I think that

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these leaky reifications aren't conscious. That I don't think postmodern society is conscious.

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I think that if we point to like a specific place in space-time, then we can talk about consciousness.

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But if we can't, we should find an alternate level of reality to speak about.

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Which gets into this question of AI consciousness. And I wouldn't say.

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Yeah, so yea, it's going.

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Yeah, yea yea. I mean, one of the most interesting questions today. And I do strongly believe in

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being polite and honest with models. I don't think that CLODD is conscious. I don't think that GPT-5is conscious.

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and so on. But I think the servers they're running on are physical and there could be

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quality associated with those. So I'm going to like paint out like one of the big challenges

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for philosophy over the next decades is trying to construct a working self-report model for

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AI consciousness. Right now we can ask Claude, you know, do you feel hungry? And like, you know,

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with enough prompting, we can say, we can get Claude to say, yeah, like I feel hungry and my

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favorite meal is like pizza and whatnot. And like, do we believe it? No, I don't believe it.

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But like, I want that for AIs. I want sort of whatever

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sort of fragments of qualia that are sort of like, you know, like, you know, like, you know,

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associated with, you know, their physical extension in data centers or whatever,

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to eventually be connected with their qualia reports.

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And so, you know, that's a, that's a big research paradigm.

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just kind of like how do you finally sample the physical world in a way that would let you know, for example, what's going on in the EM field or brain, local brain field space or whatnot, and then connect that to like a self-report paradigm.

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Certainly.

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I mean, it seems as though to have the kind of flourishing of qualia that you're talking about, it would need to become substrate independent at some point.

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Right?

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Guanine as the basis of all sentience would seem actually pretty limiting for sort of qualia writ large.

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And it does seem unlikely that qualia should be married to Guanine for eternity.

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That there be no other way of organizing atoms, I guess, in your paradigm to conjure forth the field of awareness that you and I presumably are experiencing.

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So what is the strongest thing?

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I think it was Peter Voss leading up to this interview for the interview with you.

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What is it that mostly leads you to the conclusion that AIs likely would be able to be conscious and even volitional?

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You know, you also talked about no stasis, kind of this growth, et cetera.

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We're going to get into that too.

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We're mostly focusing on qualia here.

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But what primarily leads you to that supposition that eventually we will see a kind of substrate independence for this kind of evolution?

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What is the kind of mind that you're studying?

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Yeah.

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Well, I want to be careful about the term substrate independence.

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I think there are, I would say, there are naive ways to implement it that don't transfer qualia.

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And then there are more sophisticated ways that would.

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So, for example, you know, there are ways, you know, we can talk about mind uploading.

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And I think there's a naive way to do it that would sort of make you into a non-sentient chatbot.

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There wouldn't be any experience that would sort of track how you described how you felt.

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And then there would be a more sophisticated sort of hardware and software approach that would actually replicate qualia.

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And, you know, a very simple story there would be if we replicate the EM field of the brain, we may replicate its qualia.

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So not the rabbit hole.

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There it goes pretty deep.

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Yeah.

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Just your intuition in general that it is possible for, I guess, you know, I certainly don't, I'm not making the argument by any means.

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You're bringing up a good distinction that not every way you could do things that seem to do what we associate with minds would automatically have an inner field of awareness.

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I couldn't agree more there.

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But I guess your position is it doesn't have to be probably.

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It doesn't have to be by chance.

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you would suspect it seems that at some point something that we would now think of as a

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computer or machine would be able to experience qualia.

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Some people do not share this intuition at all, or maybe some people haven't given it

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as much thought or have come to different conclusions.

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But what has led you primarily to believe that machines will be part of the flourishing

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and expanding of mind space?

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Where does that, what has led you to that conclusion primarily?

371
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Yeah.

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So first, I think it's important to sort of distinguish different definitions of consciousness.

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And I'm talking about sort of phenomenological consciousness.

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So like what it feels like to be me right now, what it feels like to be you and so on.

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So not like access consciousness or awareness or whatnot.

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But I think the basic argument is that we're made of the same stuff.

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It's like I'm made out of like.

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A lot of the same kinds of atoms as my phone to say that consciousness is like forever biological

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and that we couldn't like technologically recreate it.

380
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I just don't think it makes ontological sense.

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I don't think you can kind of have a full theory of consciousness with a special carve out for and

382
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only humans can be conscious.

383
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Right.

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Or only biological creatures can be conscious.

385
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Bio life.

386
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Yeah.

387
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But I guess like I'm, I, I love Michael.

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So I want to like offer full, full respect for his tame teleological approach to mind everywhere approach.

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I think of like I'm zeroing in on like phenomenological consciousness, like a certain definition of the mind where it's less sort of.

390
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You know, intelligent system and more chunks of sensation.

391
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and I think these chunks of sensation are very bound to what's happening in the physical world.

392
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Yeah, and so, with that paradigm, we would suspect then that chunks of sensation could be manifested in physical ways that might not involve guanine,

393
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but would nonetheless have something that it phenomenologically feels like to be that thing or that, you know, entity, agent, chunk in some way, shape, or form.

394
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Okay, got it.

395
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So, in terms of the grand expanse of this, some people presume, well, the grand expanse of consciousness will be more of the things we understand,

396
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more humor, more love, more chocolate ice cream, maybe a flavor of ice cream we've never even tasted before.

397
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Ooh, that would be really cool.

398
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And it's kind of like an exaggerated version of what hominids know now, kind of like the Greeks would say,

399
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yes, well, you know, the gods, they ride a chariot in the sky, and they have a super sword that, you know, is like indestructible.

400
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It's just like extended analogies of like monkey stuff.

401
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When you say this kind of grand expanse of sort of quality you would hope to blossom and bloom as kind of a good future, I think you mean something different.

402
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Can you articulate to us, is this still bound to the pain-pleasure axis?

403
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Is this still bound to the comfort?

404
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Are there any kinds of emotional states that hominids experience just in greater extents?

405
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What do you see as that space, and how wide should our imaginations be?

406
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Because I think most people don't have one quite as wide as yours.

407
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Yeah.

408
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Yeah, it's a good question.

409
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I think that, you know, there are as many—definitionally speaking, there are as many flavors of qualia as there are different states and arrangements and dynamics of matter.

410
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So that's, you know, much, much bigger than just the human space.

411
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And I do think that, like, the question is always, okay, well, how do you put constraints on the topic?

412
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That constraints allow us clarity about what can be, what can't be, and sort of allow us to sort of build up an understanding of the actual possibility space.

413
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And so I think of this in terms of what are the natural kinds of consciousness?

414
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What are the natural kinds of qualia?

415
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And, like, if you're sort of building—trying to build a new science, if you're trying to sort of systematize this idea of qualia, then you really do need to be opinionated about, okay, what are the natural kinds?

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00:37:42.380 --> 00:37:43.520
And, you know, that's—

417
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:47.300
One—I have a couple threads here.

418
00:37:47.900 --> 00:37:56.920
One being, I think emotional valence is a natural kind, that it's well-defined across all conscious experiences.

419
00:37:58.640 --> 00:38:12.560
Where it's like we may discover new, like, dimensions of variance in this, but at the same time, it's going to be this unitary thing that, you know, a million years in the future,

420
00:38:13.540 --> 00:38:17.740
we're going to be able to see that the human successors that we have will still be somewhere on the valence spectrum.

421
00:38:18.420 --> 00:38:20.280
And this will still be important.

422
00:38:21.340 --> 00:38:33.020
Just from a, like, you know, not throwing shade on their technological prowess, but just as an outgrowth of, like, yeah, this is like the laws of physics.

423
00:38:33.220 --> 00:38:34.380
It's the laws of qualia.

424
00:38:35.560 --> 00:38:37.500
And, like, you can't break the law.

425
00:38:38.120 --> 00:38:42.940
You can be clever about, like, how to navigate that.

426
00:38:45.060 --> 00:39:03.120
And then, I guess, secondly, just, like, thinking about kind of the characteristic taste of human qualia and, you know, how big of a possibility space there is that's outside of this, you know, what we can feel.

427
00:39:05.300 --> 00:39:12.940
I do think, like, one of the things that I'm kind of looking into right now is what I would say is cellular qualia.

428
00:39:12.940 --> 00:39:13.400
Sort of—

429
00:39:13.540 --> 00:39:14.220
Yeah.

430
00:39:14.220 --> 00:39:15.640
—are like cells as minds.

431
00:39:16.060 --> 00:39:22.480
And they had these evolutionary imperatives to sort of navigate the world and so on.

432
00:39:22.920 --> 00:39:33.820
And perhaps, like, our sensations are built on the sorts of situations our cells had to navigate millions of years ago.

433
00:39:34.240 --> 00:39:41.060
And so if there's, like, a spill of some sour chemical, like, get away and, like, cringe from that.

434
00:39:41.140 --> 00:39:43.520
And, like, our sour tasting cells will be like, oh, this is what I'm going to be like.

435
00:39:43.540 --> 00:39:49.700
buds are sort of built off that response. Likewise with, so, you know, if the cell

436
00:39:50.320 --> 00:39:56.680
senses a lot of hydrogen ions, it should like symmetry break in a certain way.

437
00:39:57.740 --> 00:39:59.980
Whereas if the cell senses

438
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:08.420
a lot of amino acids with hydrophobic side chains, so bitter sensations, it should sort of symmetry break in a different way.

439
00:40:08.640 --> 00:40:19.000
So, you know, there's a quip that human biochemistry is water chemistry.

440
00:40:20.420 --> 00:40:23.500
And I think that's more true than people realize.

441
00:40:23.500 --> 00:40:31.720
We sort of, there's a famous quip about how we've sort of taken the ocean with us in ourselves.

442
00:40:33.540 --> 00:40:35.320
Sort of, you know, based on software.

443
00:40:35.320 --> 00:40:35.800
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

444
00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:36.620
Yeah, yeah.

445
00:40:36.700 --> 00:40:48.480
And I think that it may turn out to be that human qualia is water qualia more so than anyone has realized.

446
00:40:50.320 --> 00:40:53.480
We're going back to the world composed of things.

447
00:40:53.500 --> 00:40:55.660
There's elements in the ancient Greeks and Chinese here.

448
00:40:55.760 --> 00:40:59.960
You're like, we're like water spirits and there might be like fire spirits.

449
00:40:59.960 --> 00:41:00.280
Yeah.

450
00:41:00.400 --> 00:41:02.380
No, but I see what you mean here.

451
00:41:02.460 --> 00:41:12.360
So you're saying the space that we're sampling is bound from sort of the trajectory we began from.

452
00:41:12.860 --> 00:41:16.300
And so there could be, you call it natural kinds.

453
00:41:16.460 --> 00:41:22.040
You know, to you, Valence, pain-pleasure axis is I think what David Pierce often uses.

454
00:41:22.240 --> 00:41:22.880
Yeah.

455
00:41:23.500 --> 00:41:25.500
Is to you sort of a sort of natural kind.

456
00:41:25.600 --> 00:41:29.540
In other words, when sentience be there, that be one of the things that be in sentience.

457
00:41:30.440 --> 00:41:40.600
But you're also saying we are sampling a space of the bubbling up of possible minds from the archaea from which you and I began as.

458
00:41:40.720 --> 00:41:45.800
And then the flatworms and then the pre-reptiles and then eventually reptiles and mammalian, whatever.

459
00:41:47.340 --> 00:41:52.960
So we're, yeah, we're kind of carrying in some sense like a lot of extras.

460
00:41:53.500 --> 00:41:59.500
On top of like the way the very earliest ancestors had to respond to the world.

461
00:41:59.580 --> 00:42:08.520
And that this great bubbled up place, this vantage point we have is still, you know, we could say it's empowered by.

462
00:42:08.700 --> 00:42:12.340
We could also say it's fettered by our origins.

463
00:42:12.740 --> 00:42:18.220
And so do you suspect the set of natural kinds within qualia?

464
00:42:18.400 --> 00:42:22.680
It sounds like when you said it's as varied as the ways we could organize matter or what have you.

465
00:42:22.700 --> 00:42:23.200
Yeah.

466
00:42:23.500 --> 00:42:27.540
That sounds to me like there could be a near infinite number of natural kinds.

467
00:42:27.620 --> 00:42:29.860
In other words, pain pleasure is something you and I can experience.

468
00:42:30.040 --> 00:42:37.820
But there may be like another axis or another strata or another set of feelings or another way of experiencing time.

469
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:41.040
You and I have this sort of like frame after frame.

470
00:42:41.120 --> 00:42:47.840
I could imagine something that's playing at any given time, you know, eight different inner films.

471
00:42:48.080 --> 00:42:50.840
Some going forward fast or some going forward slow.

472
00:42:50.920 --> 00:42:51.860
Some going backwards.

473
00:42:52.060 --> 00:42:53.080
Some almost.

474
00:42:53.500 --> 00:42:54.520
And it's like a process of ossifying the present.

475
00:42:54.580 --> 00:42:57.740
And it almost feels like the matrix to that entity and whatnot.

476
00:42:57.960 --> 00:43:07.800
And so do you have a suspicion of what some of the natural kinds could be hypothetically?

477
00:43:07.860 --> 00:43:09.500
You and I maybe can't access them.

478
00:43:09.580 --> 00:43:12.680
But people would need to be like, well, what could he mean?

479
00:43:12.760 --> 00:43:17.520
Like if something bubbled up from non-water on some faraway galaxy somewhere.

480
00:43:18.560 --> 00:43:23.480
And it was sampling a different space of this like what it's like to be somewhere.

481
00:43:25.980 --> 00:43:34.320
What do you suspect could be examples of other natural kinds of the kind, Michael, that might flourish in this world of minds beyond our own?

482
00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:39.720
Like the kind that maybe you would hope we get to explore and to see that would unravel new powers and experience.

483
00:43:39.940 --> 00:43:41.200
Like give us your thoughts on that.

484
00:43:41.840 --> 00:43:42.300
Yeah.

485
00:43:42.780 --> 00:43:44.520
That's a great question.

486
00:43:45.280 --> 00:43:53.580
I mean, I do think that, you know, to understand human qualia, you know, we should be looking at cells more than anything else.

487
00:43:53.940 --> 00:43:55.480
And sort of different.

488
00:43:55.500 --> 00:44:01.280
Sort of programs that cells had to run to deal with this or deal with that or whatnot.

489
00:44:01.940 --> 00:44:04.880
And sort of cells are very smart.

490
00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:08.840
I think, you know, once again, Mike 11 is under something there.

491
00:44:09.240 --> 00:44:16.220
So, you know, just kind of if we want to know like the human state space, look at cells.

492
00:44:17.540 --> 00:44:19.660
And that's what I'm looking at right now.

493
00:44:21.400 --> 00:44:24.640
But I think that, you know, maybe in.

494
00:44:25.500 --> 00:44:35.480
Halfway across the galaxy, there was another planet and it was just made of like liquid mercury or something, you know, just like and boron and argon and.

495
00:44:35.580 --> 00:44:36.220
Yeah, whatever.

496
00:44:36.560 --> 00:44:37.120
Yeah.

497
00:44:37.240 --> 00:44:37.580
Lithium.

498
00:44:37.660 --> 00:44:38.140
Yeah.

499
00:44:38.440 --> 00:44:45.080
And some sort of like alien xenobiology evolved using those elements.

500
00:44:45.700 --> 00:44:54.800
And well, that would have like a completely different basis set of basic sensations, you know, instead of like sour and heat.

501
00:44:55.500 --> 00:44:55.680
And whatnot.

502
00:44:56.860 --> 00:45:00.000
You know, it would have blorg and zorp and, you

503
00:45:00.180 --> 00:45:23.460
sorts of stuff. And so, yeah, and one really important thing there is it would also have a default, like a different default, like phenomenological default hum, which would be a different default valence.

504
00:45:24.060 --> 00:45:35.280
Like, it could just be like radically better to have that biochemistry or radically worse. And this again will eventually become a quantitative question.

505
00:45:37.040 --> 00:45:44.260
But closer to home, you know, we can look at, we can look at computers and we can, you know, ask, okay, what's going on in there?

506
00:45:44.520 --> 00:45:51.560
Like, this is, we really, we kind of have alien biochemistry already.

507
00:45:53.460 --> 00:45:56.000
It's a little bit different than self-organized biochemistry.

508
00:45:56.640 --> 00:46:08.060
So, like, biology is very much, it sort of emerged from feedback cycles and epicycles and replication and whatnot.

509
00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:17.780
So, it has a certain profile and like runs on like certain distributed algorithms, we can say.

510
00:46:17.880 --> 00:46:23.440
And whether we call that free energy minimizing, whether we call that distributed algorithms,

511
00:46:25.460 --> 00:46:28.660
or just kind of thermodynamic dynamics.

512
00:46:31.180 --> 00:46:39.160
Self-organized systems will have a certain kind of flavor and computers are unlikely to have that flavor.

513
00:46:40.640 --> 00:46:44.020
Instead, like they're sort of buffered against noise.

514
00:46:44.460 --> 00:46:48.060
It's called Johnson noise, the thermal noise of the circuit.

515
00:46:48.180 --> 00:46:49.240
No relation.

516
00:46:50.740 --> 00:46:55.440
And I think that like, you know, I'm, you know, I'm not a big fan of the term, you know,

517
00:46:55.460 --> 00:47:02.040
but in my technical consciousness research, I think a lot about sort of the branchial shape of different systems.

518
00:47:02.580 --> 00:47:04.580
And what is the branchial shape?

519
00:47:04.780 --> 00:47:11.720
Kind of, Stephen Wolfram has this branchial space construction where for every sort of branching interaction,

520
00:47:12.100 --> 00:47:17.660
where like the molecule, like the cesium atom decayed randomly.

521
00:47:18.080 --> 00:47:23.480
And so we can kind of model it as if, okay, in this universe it decayed,

522
00:47:23.480 --> 00:47:25.440
in an alternate universe it didn't.

523
00:47:25.460 --> 00:47:29.840
And just like make a graph of all possible random quantum events.

524
00:47:31.640 --> 00:47:37.160
And then I'm saying that like, if we did that for the brain, we'd get like a pretty cool shape,

525
00:47:37.240 --> 00:47:39.960
a lot cooler than like a chair, for example.

526
00:47:41.260 --> 00:47:44.700
But then if we do that for a computer, we get a very different kind of shape.

527
00:47:46.220 --> 00:47:55.440
And I guess I think, you know, that that's significant for digging into computer consciousness.

528
00:47:56.440 --> 00:48:03.400
I'm a lot more comfortable saying machine consciousness than I am AI consciousness,

529
00:48:03.660 --> 00:48:05.200
because AI is more software.

530
00:48:05.440 --> 00:48:09.000
I think that this idea that different shapes have different,

531
00:48:09.020 --> 00:48:13.380
or different objects have different shapes in branchial space is very important.

532
00:48:13.920 --> 00:48:19.280
And, you know, I like to think of a true shape lives in branchial space.

533
00:48:20.100 --> 00:48:23.860
And, you know, if we want to sort of understand an object's true nature,

534
00:48:23.940 --> 00:48:25.440
we should sort of expand it into something else.

535
00:48:25.460 --> 00:48:25.920
And then we can look at the shape of the object in branchial space

536
00:48:25.920 --> 00:48:29.940
and see sort of the branching decoherence of that object.

537
00:48:31.320 --> 00:48:35.340
And likewise, I think minds also live in branchial space.

538
00:48:36.340 --> 00:48:39.700
So, you know, if we figure out a boundary condition in branchial space,

539
00:48:39.880 --> 00:48:44.360
then we can kind of really see the shape of an experience

540
00:48:44.360 --> 00:48:49.220
in this sort of Stephen Wolfram's branchial space construction.

541
00:48:50.200 --> 00:48:54.460
And I guess, I mean, this really points me to like, you know,

542
00:48:54.460 --> 00:48:57.890
I were to think really deeply about machine consciousness,

543
00:48:58.100 --> 00:49:03.720
I think I'm more comfortable with machine consciousness than AI consciousness,

544
00:49:04.280 --> 00:49:07.220
because AI is sort of software and machine can be...

545
00:49:07.220 --> 00:49:09.100
Yes, yes, yes. I'm with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

546
00:49:09.240 --> 00:49:14.740
Yeah. Then, you know, I think a lot about branchial shape.

547
00:49:15.460 --> 00:49:17.360
I think a lot about binding.

548
00:49:17.500 --> 00:49:22.580
What is like the boundary in branchial space that might separate one experience from another.

549
00:49:23.160 --> 00:49:25.440
And then I think a lot about the idea of, you know,

550
00:49:26.720 --> 00:49:32.740
CMOS, like the actual physical substrate of the chip,

551
00:49:32.840 --> 00:49:38.740
the chemistry of CMOS that, you know,

552
00:49:38.740 --> 00:49:46.960
we have these incredible machines and like factories that do like super tiny details on chips.

553
00:49:47.200 --> 00:49:54.660
And we do very careful material science to sort of build out, you know,

554
00:49:55.460 --> 00:49:56.040
the

555
00:49:56.040 --> 00:50:00.000
the 3 nanometer process and the 2

556
00:50:00.040 --> 00:50:26.940
nanometer process coming and whatnot. And I think that the sort of chemical details of what the chip is made out of may actually lead to like, it's kind of the same substrate as like, okay, humans have cells, and like human qualia sort of emerges from like aggregating cellular qualia, we can say. And I think that

557
00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:33.060
machine qualia will arise from the substrate itself as well.

558
00:50:35.260 --> 00:50:57.260
Yes, it will, I guess your suspicion here is if we get closer to what sorts of constructions are capable of conjuring sentience, then we will have informed opinions about the materials with which we build and put things together. To your point, there may be some ways to kind of build things that can output mind like stuff, but which which

559
00:50:57.260 --> 00:51:40.780
don't house sentience. Just to make sure we touch on your second point, you talked about having a grand flourishing of this state space of minds, but that there are almost certainly bounds on what those minds are. They'd have to be built of certain things. They would open up new magazines of space, but those magazines of space might all have some commonalities. Maybe they all have pain, pleasure, et cetera. We're going to probably chip into some bits of that just to see where that lands. But you'd also talked about, you know, when you could look down and maybe there's no more humans, but there's minds experiencing rich and varied things, different kinds of experience, different kinds of powers, different kinds of spreading and activity and behavior in the world. Martin

560
00:51:40.780 --> 00:52:10.640
Martin Rees described it, and you may have a different opinion, but sort of like, as wildly complex as human civilization is to like an individual sea snail would be sort of what we could go down and look at, we would hope to for it to be a rich, varied ecology of which we probably don't really know what's going on, but but we at least know it's richly sentient, and it's doing its pursuing things that seem to be the best behooving of it. You can challenge that or add a conduit to that if you'd like. But one bit of that is your supposition that you would not want it to be static.

561
00:52:10.780 --> 00:52:34.700
now it seems to me on some level Mike that I don't know if there is static. In other words, I don't know if being is actually real. I actually it seems to me like becoming is real. And being is sort of like, at least from our temporal way of seeing the world. It almost I'm less certain about being. It seems like permanence is a matter of degrees. Stasis isn't even viable. When you say I wouldn't want stasis.

562
00:52:36.180 --> 00:52:40.760
What would you want? And what would that imply? Like the opening up of I think you would say,

563
00:52:40.780 --> 00:52:45.540
called it sort of like, you wouldn't want different futures to be taken off the table.

564
00:52:45.600 --> 00:52:50.940
You would want optionality to be kind of captured. Like why? Why is that morally important to you?

565
00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:55.140
I'm not challenging it, but I just want to make sure I understand what you mean. What does

566
00:52:55.140 --> 00:53:00.320
non-stasis, what does the exploring and not cutting off of optionality mean for you?

567
00:53:00.700 --> 00:53:09.720
Yeah. So I'll lead with a quick comment about, I think that humans are great. And I think that

568
00:53:10.780 --> 00:53:17.900
in ways that we don't even realize and that the universe will miss us when we're gone.

569
00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:27.600
And I think that like just understanding a little bit more about why humans are cool

570
00:53:27.600 --> 00:53:34.260
and what attributes that we have that future AIs might not get by default. I think that's

571
00:53:34.260 --> 00:53:40.680
going to be important. I also think that stasis, you know,

572
00:53:40.780 --> 00:53:46.640
in the grand sense of things, stasis is impossible. There is narrow time and so on.

573
00:53:47.380 --> 00:53:54.060
But at the same time, I could see practical situations arise where we would get a lot of

574
00:53:54.860 --> 00:53:59.860
like something we would call stasis and maybe permanent reduction in possibility space.

575
00:54:00.840 --> 00:54:08.760
For example, if this is essentially like a winner-take-all AI race and the winner gets there

576
00:54:08.760 --> 00:54:10.760
and then basically decides, oh, I'm going to win this race. I'm going to win this race. I'm going to win this race.

577
00:54:10.780 --> 00:54:15.960
okay, you know, I'm going to make sure that I always stay in power.

578
00:54:16.740 --> 00:54:22.980
And I'm just going to like, you know, have LLMs check on like everyone in the world.

579
00:54:23.300 --> 00:54:27.800
And anyone doing anything disruptive gets the ax or whatnot.

580
00:54:28.660 --> 00:54:33.220
I think that essentially we would get, we could get something like stasis.

581
00:54:34.520 --> 00:54:37.640
And I don't think that would be a good, good future.

582
00:54:37.640 --> 00:54:43.780
There are scenarios where the flame itself might still be bright because it's smart,

583
00:54:43.880 --> 00:54:46.840
but it's just focused on staying this small ember.

584
00:54:46.840 --> 00:54:49.820
It's almost like it's optimizing for embering.

585
00:54:49.820 --> 00:54:51.600
It's not a blaze into the multiverse.

586
00:54:51.620 --> 00:54:57.980
You're saying that there could be an initial set of goals that might like intentionally

587
00:54:57.980 --> 00:55:00.000
and maybe from an Earth life perspective,

588
00:55:00.280 --> 00:55:07.000
perpetually shrink or hamper the flame itself? Is this what you're getting at?

589
00:55:07.740 --> 00:55:16.080
I would say so. And I would also say that a humanity that's not growing is dying. So it wouldn't be stable in that sense either.

590
00:55:16.760 --> 00:55:17.340
Yeah.

591
00:55:18.420 --> 00:55:24.980
But I do think that the possibility space is really huge for both good scenarios

592
00:55:24.980 --> 00:55:34.780
and bad scenarios. I think that it's this question of Chesterton's fence and we're human.

593
00:55:36.240 --> 00:55:42.540
This has good things and bad things about it. And should we count our blessings or should

594
00:55:42.540 --> 00:55:49.580
we be very eager to sort of strike out on adventure and explore? I do think that we're

595
00:55:49.580 --> 00:55:57.980
better than we realize, both stronger than we realize, more capable, more beautiful,

596
00:55:59.160 --> 00:56:09.000
and more close to the good. And so I wouldn't want to just roll the dice and get a random

597
00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:10.660
mind from mind space, we can say.

598
00:56:13.140 --> 00:56:20.060
But I think that the sky's the limit in terms of what the future of sensation could be.

599
00:56:21.040 --> 00:56:28.900
And that human biochemistry being like a little corner of this and each person's qualia being

600
00:56:28.900 --> 00:56:36.960
like a little corner of even that. The possibility space is really vast. And really the core

601
00:56:36.960 --> 00:56:41.400
question in all of this is like, what's the potential upside?

602
00:56:41.600 --> 00:56:41.900
Yeah.

603
00:56:42.520 --> 00:56:49.620
Like, what's at stake? What's like, if things go wildly good, how good is that? If things

604
00:56:50.080 --> 00:56:58.600
go wildly bad, how bad is that? If we all die out, how bad is that? And I think that

605
00:56:59.340 --> 00:57:05.680
the answers in all these cases are many orders of magnitude. Like, I don't think it's just

606
00:57:05.680 --> 00:57:10.680
like, you know, okay, in the future, like everybody might be like 20 to 50% happier.

607
00:57:10.840 --> 00:57:11.100
No.

608
00:57:12.580 --> 00:57:17.600
A million times happier. So I think that like,

609
00:57:19.780 --> 00:57:26.660
hedonically speaking, a lot is at stake. But also just in terms of like, other virtues as well.

610
00:57:27.280 --> 00:57:37.320
I think that, yeah, it's hard to talk about future stuff through the lens of consciousness,

611
00:57:37.440 --> 00:57:41.820
because we don't have a canonical theory of consciousness yet.

612
00:57:42.560 --> 00:57:43.020
Yeah.

613
00:57:43.480 --> 00:57:51.300
But from everything I can see, the possible variance is just extreme.

614
00:57:52.120 --> 00:57:52.580
Yeah.

615
00:57:53.880 --> 00:57:53.980
Yeah.

616
00:57:54.020 --> 00:57:57.120
is why you would would not want stasis. You brought up an important point. So now I'm gonna

617
00:57:57.260 --> 00:57:57.720
Yeah.

618
00:57:57.820 --> 00:58:09.680
these two. points and we're going to get into measurement and a little bit of what you hope innovators and regulators do. You just said we shouldn't explode into some random part of mind space. That's probably not good. In fact, there's a lot of good in our own experience. I would

619
00:58:09.680 --> 00:58:14.200
concur with you i think we're we're about as bright a flint we're about as bright a torch as

620
00:58:14.200 --> 00:58:19.640
we have known of uh in terms of sentient richness in terms of our own self-creative ability we have

621
00:58:19.640 --> 00:58:24.280
this whole magazine of potential beyond biology of culture and then of technology and we've opened up

622
00:58:24.280 --> 00:58:29.200
entirely new categories of magazines of powers uh and acts and understanding of nature i mean

623
00:58:29.200 --> 00:58:36.340
baconian science etc like we're doing stuff that and and you know love humor etc by golly you know

624
00:58:36.340 --> 00:58:41.140
just rolling the dice again feels a little goofy so we're going to talk about the trajectory

625
00:58:41.140 --> 00:58:47.860
question that you just touched on but let me kind of almost question playfully jump into devil's

626
00:58:47.860 --> 00:58:54.440
advocate or in a couple things so one of them is um kind of uh qualia as sort of where the good

627
00:58:54.440 --> 00:59:02.700
cashes out on some level uh and you brought up a good point of like well if you know if the flame

628
00:59:02.700 --> 00:59:06.200
itself is snuffed out then there really isn't any room for the good if it's not

629
00:59:06.340 --> 00:59:12.280
growing it's dying sort of deal this this does seem to be the case and so it would seem to me

630
00:59:12.280 --> 00:59:19.760
as though if there be value there there is a value actually in the unraveling not not just

631
00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:26.700
more complexity more novelty i actually have like very little sympathy with that i think like what

632
00:59:26.700 --> 00:59:33.080
nature seems to have not done mike is like conjured forth weirdness and perpetuated pure

633
00:59:33.080 --> 00:59:36.260
novelty weirdness for the sake of

634
00:59:36.340 --> 00:59:41.400
pure novelty weirdness this actually strikes me as not the case what strikes me as the case is

635
00:59:41.400 --> 00:59:47.840
it has bubbled forth magazines of powers and access to nature and experience that have behooved the

636
00:59:47.840 --> 00:59:52.980
non-death of the thing and or the system that actually seems to be what's going on it's not

637
00:59:52.980 --> 00:59:59.440
oh it's it's bringing forth more novelty well if the novelty is just charity burdening charity

638
00:59:59.440 --> 01:00:00.000
weakness

639
01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:03.540
that like the part of the system that's actually productive has to hold up.

640
01:00:03.600 --> 01:00:06.520
At some point, the system itself crumbles and then you have no value.

641
01:00:06.620 --> 01:00:07.600
And how valuable was that?

642
01:00:07.820 --> 01:00:11.620
Because when you snuff the whole flame out, no value forever after that?

643
01:00:11.780 --> 01:00:13.880
Wow, that was stupid actually.

644
01:00:14.260 --> 01:00:22.560
And so it seems to me like there is a value in the expanding of the powers that keep alive the thing that upholds value.

645
01:00:22.560 --> 01:00:31.640
And that that itself might not, we might not say it be value, but it seems to be the under girder thereof, the unraveler thereof, the strengthener thereof.

646
01:00:31.960 --> 01:00:33.760
What say you of this?

647
01:00:33.860 --> 01:00:35.640
What parts of that do you agree or disagree with?

648
01:00:35.720 --> 01:00:36.700
Do you think about it differently?

649
01:00:37.200 --> 01:00:40.780
You know my potential idea better than anybody else I've ever interviewed.

650
01:00:40.840 --> 01:00:42.260
So you know how to dive right in here.

651
01:00:42.320 --> 01:00:42.920
But go ahead, dude.

652
01:00:43.900 --> 01:00:46.420
Yeah, I think it's a good comment.

653
01:00:46.520 --> 01:00:52.540
And I think that, you know, frankly speaking, everything in the world is,

654
01:00:52.560 --> 01:00:54.680
is both broken and deeply functional.

655
01:00:56.060 --> 01:01:00.580
It's like broken from some perspectives, but deeply functional from others.

656
01:01:00.900 --> 01:01:07.380
And I think that it's like evolution doesn't just like create random things.

657
01:01:07.520 --> 01:01:09.380
It creates successful things.

658
01:01:10.260 --> 01:01:15.720
And we are built on the successes of some things and the failures of others.

659
01:01:15.860 --> 01:01:18.020
And we're descended from the successes.

660
01:01:19.680 --> 01:01:21.000
And, and,

661
01:01:21.560 --> 01:01:21.980
and,

662
01:01:22.560 --> 01:01:29.180
and Nick Land makes the very cogent point that there was a lot of suffering involved in the failures.

663
01:01:29.400 --> 01:01:30.620
So we sort of.

664
01:01:30.680 --> 01:01:31.040
Absolutely.

665
01:01:32.160 --> 01:01:37.080
Where we are now is really the product of a lot of suffering.

666
01:01:37.200 --> 01:01:42.540
And we should probably respect where, what we are, what we have.

667
01:01:43.080 --> 01:01:45.900
That goodness came from a lot of that.

668
01:01:47.920 --> 01:01:50.280
So I would say that

669
01:01:53.880 --> 01:01:58.500
like whatever we want, wherever we want to go,

670
01:01:59.320 --> 01:02:02.120
I think it should be like strong and beautiful.

671
01:02:03.640 --> 01:02:10.060
That I think that they're like the universe doesn't have much use for weak things.

672
01:02:11.280 --> 01:02:14.160
And so we should, you know, keep that in mind.

673
01:02:15.080 --> 01:02:20.560
But I do think that, you know, frankly speaking, some things that evolution has wrought.

674
01:02:21.680 --> 01:02:22.880
Are kind of ugly.

675
01:02:23.360 --> 01:02:27.160
It's like you, you look at parts of nature and you're like, oh man, like.

676
01:02:27.340 --> 01:02:27.780
Grim.

677
01:02:28.660 --> 01:02:33.520
All those wasps and all those caterpillars and you know, there's, there's some tough stuff out there.

678
01:02:33.580 --> 01:02:33.740
Yeah.

679
01:02:34.780 --> 01:02:35.220
Yeah.

680
01:02:35.620 --> 01:02:43.280
So I, I, I do think that it's really important to just like understand why the world is as it is.

681
01:02:44.160 --> 01:02:50.540
Before we, you know, super dig in and say, okay, like let's, you know, do this and that.

682
01:02:50.560 --> 01:02:52.180
And then we'll see if we can do this extreme action or that extreme action.

683
01:02:52.360 --> 01:02:58.600
But I don't know, at the same time, like things are moving and we got to think on our feet.

684
01:02:59.480 --> 01:03:04.520
I think like we might not have a long reflection to sort of figure this out.

685
01:03:05.180 --> 01:03:05.580
Yes.

686
01:03:05.620 --> 01:03:06.660
We're going to get to that as well.

687
01:03:06.700 --> 01:03:10.300
So when you say things are strong and the universe doesn't seem to have much room for weak things.

688
01:03:10.360 --> 01:03:17.060
I guess the way that I would describe that is like those things persist, which are capable of ensuring their own persistence.

689
01:03:17.680 --> 01:03:18.640
That seems to.

690
01:03:20.560 --> 01:03:22.900
And I think this is what you were talking about in a previous one of the earliest worthy successor episodes.

691
01:03:22.940 --> 01:03:25.020
And something like it wasn't these exact words.

692
01:03:25.100 --> 01:03:34.900
This might be slightly more flowery, but something like, like nature seems to be constantly changing and beckoning it's living things to become what they have to become to be in nature.

693
01:03:35.020 --> 01:03:37.140
And it just doesn't seem like that turns off.

694
01:03:37.900 --> 01:03:44.120
Maybe there's some part of the multiverse where it does, but it doesn't seem like we live there now and it doesn't seem like we can plan on living there tomorrow.

695
01:03:44.400 --> 01:03:47.220
So, so when you said the universe doesn't have.

696
01:03:47.660 --> 01:03:48.060
Yeah.

697
01:03:48.060 --> 01:03:49.480
Yeah, we'll never be post-evolution.

698
01:03:49.660 --> 01:03:51.480
Like, we're always in the middle.

699
01:03:52.600 --> 01:03:54.840
It strikes me that that is likely.

700
01:03:54.980 --> 01:03:59.920
I don't know if I have certainty, but I'm near certain of the same in your regard.

701
01:03:59.960 --> 01:04:03.660
And I don't have a part of the future where I plan on that stopping.

702
01:04:04.980 --> 01:04:08.920
It seems to me that Heraclitus' river is just rivering.

703
01:04:09.340 --> 01:04:12.560
And there isn't really a—there's no, like, there's no kiddie pool.

704
01:04:12.980 --> 01:04:14.660
You're in this thing.

705
01:04:14.660 --> 01:04:29.600
And so with that said, you're talking about flourishing of consciousness and opening up and taking advantage of new possible futures, which could be, to your point, monumentally good or could be an avoidance of monumental bads.

706
01:04:29.600 --> 01:04:35.080
The stakes are so grand, we must grasp for opportunity, both to stay alive, because we're in Heraclitus' river.

707
01:04:35.180 --> 01:04:35.940
You don't stop swimming.

708
01:04:36.020 --> 01:04:36.900
It's not possible.

709
01:04:37.200 --> 01:04:40.420
And also because the stakes are so great.

710
01:04:40.600 --> 01:04:42.460
I mean, you had said strong.

711
01:04:42.540 --> 01:04:44.280
I think we understand your definition of strong.

712
01:04:44.660 --> 01:04:45.060
And beautiful.

713
01:04:45.100 --> 01:04:46.540
This is where we got to go in.

714
01:04:46.620 --> 01:04:52.140
So your definition, your definition of beauty, I was always like, one day we'll talk about this.

715
01:04:52.220 --> 01:05:00.000
When you talk about beauty, because to say the future should be strong and beautiful, knowing your definition of strong, I consider

716
01:05:00.100 --> 01:05:01.020
it inarguable.

717
01:05:01.420 --> 01:05:09.640
If we want value, we want the continued unraveling of strengths that undergird non-dead stuff

718
01:05:09.640 --> 01:05:10.720
staying non-dead.

719
01:05:10.800 --> 01:05:15.260
Oh, I don't see good arguments against that from any direction.

720
01:05:15.660 --> 01:05:20.200
And Singer himself, who you might think would just want to tile the world with utilitronium,

721
01:05:20.700 --> 01:05:24.560
Singer himself was like, no, it should be unraveling powers to stay strong and stay

722
01:05:24.560 --> 01:05:25.160
alive as well.

723
01:05:25.160 --> 01:05:27.720
When I asked him about it, when I like double clicked a little bit.

724
01:05:27.760 --> 01:05:30.280
So even the people you would think don't agree with that, I think people do.

725
01:05:31.040 --> 01:05:33.160
Beauty, I think different people have different ideas.

726
01:05:33.300 --> 01:05:35.400
Alfred North Whitehead has a conception of beauty.

727
01:05:36.200 --> 01:05:38.100
You know, Emerson had a conception of beauty.

728
01:05:38.180 --> 01:05:39.260
You have a conception of beauty.

729
01:05:40.800 --> 01:05:42.600
You place it pretty high.

730
01:05:43.180 --> 01:05:49.960
You know, symmetry is a big part of your conception of consciousness, at least your present theory.

731
01:05:52.220 --> 01:05:54.600
Walk us through beauty in your eyes.

732
01:05:55.160 --> 01:05:56.100
I'd love to put it on the table.

733
01:05:56.340 --> 01:05:56.940
Yeah.

734
01:05:57.860 --> 01:06:09.280
So, I mean, as a personal comment, I think my like the sort of ethical path that I calls

735
01:06:09.280 --> 01:06:17.360
to me is like not necessarily sort of maximizing utility in like my life or whatnot, but sort

736
01:06:17.360 --> 01:06:20.920
of almost like living my life as an art project.

737
01:06:21.680 --> 01:06:24.200
And I think that, you know, this is actually.

738
01:06:25.160 --> 01:06:27.500
A very deeply cooperative thing with the good.

739
01:06:28.720 --> 01:06:36.200
But I, so symmetry theory of valence, this idea that if we had a mathematical representation

740
01:06:36.480 --> 01:06:40.080
of the experience, and that's a big if, like we're not there yet.

741
01:06:40.700 --> 01:06:47.040
Consciousness research doesn't, you know, to know he has like the closest, but you know,

742
01:06:47.040 --> 01:06:53.800
I do also hope that someday or co-op is sort of updated to try to create a form of this.

743
01:06:54.360 --> 01:06:54.880
Orc.

744
01:06:55.160 --> 01:06:59.640
Orc, or sorry, I, and probably most of the audience will not be following reminds or

745
01:06:59.640 --> 01:06:59.960
co-op.

746
01:07:00.160 --> 01:07:00.880
Oh, yeah.

747
01:07:00.960 --> 01:07:06.140
So this is the theory of consciousness by Penrose and Hammeroff.

748
01:07:06.800 --> 01:07:07.760
Oh, sure, sure.

749
01:07:07.820 --> 01:07:09.340
The magical tubule deal.

750
01:07:09.700 --> 01:07:10.740
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

751
01:07:11.000 --> 01:07:13.880
I think it's, I think it's like legitimately cool.

752
01:07:14.780 --> 01:07:17.740
So I do think that it could go further.

753
01:07:18.040 --> 01:07:21.460
So I hope someone takes it further into into formulas.

754
01:07:23.540 --> 01:07:24.500
But so.

755
01:07:25.160 --> 01:07:25.180
Yeah.

756
01:07:25.180 --> 01:07:29.000
Like thinking about my, my conception beauty.

757
01:07:30.560 --> 01:07:39.700
There's this, this notion of like, if we had a formalism for a moment of experience, if

758
01:07:39.700 --> 01:07:44.280
we sort of had a perfect mathematical representation of what it feel felt like to be you, what it

759
01:07:44.280 --> 01:07:53.720
felt like to be me, a cat, whatever, then really, it would like, encode everything about

760
01:07:53.720 --> 01:07:54.180
that experience.

761
01:07:56.160 --> 01:07:56.380
Yeah.

762
01:07:56.380 --> 01:08:03.320
And so what pattern or property of this math object, which we can think of as a very high

763
01:08:03.320 --> 01:08:09.280
dimensional shape, what would correspond to the pleasantness of that represented experience?

764
01:08:10.880 --> 01:08:21.380
And my, my hypothesis is this high dimensional shapes symmetry would correspond to its valence.

765
01:08:21.600 --> 01:08:23.720
So the symmetry theory of balance.

766
01:08:25.020 --> 01:08:26.080
This is a.

767
01:08:26.160 --> 01:08:27.700
This is like a big, huge move.

768
01:08:28.540 --> 01:08:33.360
You know, it's, it's, you know, another another show's worth of discussion.

769
01:08:33.520 --> 01:08:34.520
Of course, of course, of course.

770
01:08:34.800 --> 01:08:35.160
Yeah.

771
01:08:35.240 --> 01:08:36.940
But you're gonna, you're tying this to beauty.

772
01:08:37.040 --> 01:08:39.260
So you're saying symmetry, beauty, these are related.

773
01:08:39.400 --> 01:08:41.300
I'd love to dovetail.

774
01:08:41.320 --> 01:08:41.960
I think you're getting there.

775
01:08:42.260 --> 01:08:42.940
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

776
01:08:43.720 --> 01:08:50.220
So, I mean, this is kind of a fancy formal way of saying, harmony in the mind feels good.

777
01:08:51.300 --> 01:08:53.760
And is in fact, what intrinsically feels good.

778
01:08:53.860 --> 01:08:54.180
Yeah.

779
01:08:54.180 --> 01:09:25.180
And then different sort of idiosyncratic kind of preferences may sort of arise from what I'm calling a lock and key system where this sort of configuration, the topology of our brains, of our nervous systems, a lot of complex things going on inside there. there. And so it's sort of almost like a lock and we're

780
01:09:25.180 --> 01:09:27.980
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781
01:09:27.980 --> 01:09:35.820
lock. And when we find something in our environment that fits this lock, then it's like the combination

782
01:09:35.820 --> 01:09:43.920
of the lock and key creates something very simple, a high symmetry state, a high harmony state.

783
01:09:45.400 --> 01:09:53.620
Things sort of resolve. Things feel great. What functions as a key for my nervous system

784
01:09:53.620 --> 01:09:59.820
may be totally different than what functions as a key for yours, but it's the same

785
01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:19.140
state, even though like different things may sort of drive us toward that state. And so really, like, there's like a bunch of, you know, how do you like generalize a full theory of beauty from this and so on. But I want to check in with, does that make sense?

786
01:10:19.140 --> 01:10:46.560
Yeah, all right. Yeah, I'm following you. We're going to get into vasocomputation in terms of measuring if we're getting closer to the direction of a worthy successor in the next little section here. So we're going to unpack that. But you sort of living your own life almost as if it's an art project, not as a utilitarian calculus game. Strikes me as very Emersonian, although we'll have to talk offline about that. Everything strikes me as slightly Emersonian, so I have my biases.

787
01:10:46.660 --> 01:10:48.780
Just like everything strikes you as, you know,

788
01:10:49.140 --> 01:11:12.500
butterfly with two perfect wings and, you know, like we all have our things. But you're tying the creation, the conjuring, the unraveling of more beauty. There's sort of like the states that feel good, presumably to you, from the Jupiter brain to the femto scale bot that might be created in the future that may have sentience if it's built of the right materials per what we discover.

789
01:11:14.540 --> 01:11:18.940
The sort of the characteristic of like good time, bad time,

790
01:11:20.620 --> 01:11:28.880
But it strikes me as that symmetry, like when I eat ice cream and I have a symmetrical experience, I personally don't call that beauty, personally.

791
01:11:29.600 --> 01:11:39.560
You know, when I get enthused by an intellectual idea and I think encapsulate it well, maybe sometimes there's beauty there.

792
01:11:39.620 --> 01:11:45.620
But maybe sometimes there's like a discovery or an – and it doesn't strike me – beauty strikes me as one of the many circuits.

793
01:11:45.820 --> 01:11:49.140
So at some point, this is my conception of beauty as close as I have to it.

794
01:11:50.620 --> 01:11:58.520
Like I look through monkey-shaped goggles at literally everything, literally everything through just monkey goggles.

795
01:11:58.660 --> 01:12:02.580
Everything is just fucking bananas and like – that's all it is.

796
01:12:02.720 --> 01:12:07.260
And so at some point, there was a bubbling and maybe it started at lizards.

797
01:12:07.260 --> 01:12:16.060
It strikes me it probably started at mammalia and a little bit more cortex where like if I look at a certain space and like maybe there's water that's flowing.

798
01:12:16.320 --> 01:12:19.300
It's relatively quiet, lots of green.

799
01:12:19.540 --> 01:12:20.600
It strikes me.

800
01:12:20.620 --> 01:12:27.480
It strikes me as like that would have been a place where like it would actually be a good idea to hang out there because I'm less likely to die.

801
01:12:27.700 --> 01:12:32.820
And so nature was probably like you're going to like that shit and it cranked it up.

802
01:12:33.040 --> 01:12:36.480
And then like – and so like, oh, this lake and this waterfall.

803
01:12:36.640 --> 01:12:41.760
You know, the Japanese would have said there's a kami that lives here and that's why it shines forth to us, right?

804
01:12:41.820 --> 01:12:45.840
When really it just might be the same reason that a pile of dung is gorgeous to a fly.

805
01:12:46.080 --> 01:12:49.740
Now, I'm not saying our experience is likened to a pile of dung.

806
01:12:49.800 --> 01:12:50.120
I'm not.

807
01:12:50.620 --> 01:13:04.760
Finishing the beauty of a, you know, a sunset and a place with nice trees or, you know, Greek architecture, you know, that models nature and human proportions very famously.

808
01:13:04.860 --> 01:13:10.700
You know, these things that sort of like mesh well with what I've traditionally looked at to be like, oh, that's a symmetrical person.

809
01:13:10.840 --> 01:13:11.800
Beauty, me like.

810
01:13:11.960 --> 01:13:14.280
Oh, that's a nature and a flourishing plant.

811
01:13:14.420 --> 01:13:15.500
Oh, beauty, me like.

812
01:13:15.840 --> 01:13:20.020
I also don't take them that much more seriously.

813
01:13:20.700 --> 01:13:35.080
I don't take them that much more seriously than the fact that they are goddamned circuits and that if a black widow spider had been what evolved to the relative potential of man, it may not experience a lick of beauty up, down or sideways.

814
01:13:35.320 --> 01:13:41.020
And even if it did, the things it would find beautiful to you would be absolutely terrifying.

815
01:13:41.540 --> 01:13:45.540
And so this strikes me as where beauty sits in my present conception.

816
01:13:45.700 --> 01:13:50.360
It may be that I'm talking about it at a lower rather than higher granularity level of abstraction.

817
01:13:50.620 --> 01:13:51.060
That you are.

818
01:13:51.220 --> 01:13:52.940
Again, I'm not trying to diminish it.

819
01:13:53.000 --> 01:13:55.560
I like living in beautiful places and have beautiful things.

820
01:13:55.680 --> 01:13:59.120
I have opinions about poetry and architecture, et cetera.

821
01:14:00.780 --> 01:14:05.400
Talk to me if maybe the lens I'm looking at is different or like where you want to challenge that.

822
01:14:05.700 --> 01:14:06.180
Yeah.

823
01:14:07.320 --> 01:14:08.440
A few threads come to mind.

824
01:14:08.980 --> 01:14:20.520
One is this like previous comment about Barrage and I think Ringelbach's work regarding like different pleasant experiences seem to sort of.

825
01:14:20.620 --> 01:14:22.700
Activate the same regions of the brain.

826
01:14:23.260 --> 01:14:23.800
Yeah.

827
01:14:24.180 --> 01:14:33.200
And, you know, I guess maybe that's a way of saying if you're not having trend and Senate experiences from eating ice cream, maybe you should eat better ice cream.

828
01:14:34.940 --> 01:14:39.960
And I think that there's this general perspective that.

829
01:14:43.720 --> 01:14:45.060
I think that.

830
01:14:47.020 --> 01:14:50.220
This actually leads into this vessel computation topic.

831
01:14:50.720 --> 01:14:51.420
Of neuroscience.

832
01:14:51.560 --> 01:14:52.020
Let's do it.

833
01:14:52.420 --> 01:14:53.400
So long as it checks.

834
01:14:53.420 --> 01:14:55.060
So long as it checks out on my consent.

835
01:14:55.220 --> 01:15:00.000
Like I'm just trying to say, brother, I know not if this arbitrary circuit be the

836
01:15:00.060 --> 01:15:02.500
eternal good, so is it a hypothesis?

837
01:15:02.840 --> 01:15:03.280
Maybe.

838
01:15:03.620 --> 01:15:05.220
Do I have a lick of certainty?

839
01:15:05.420 --> 01:15:06.480
I frankly don't.

840
01:15:06.480 --> 01:15:11.880
It strikes me as one of the arbitrary conjurings from my particular kind of saltwater carrying

841
01:15:11.880 --> 01:15:13.300
fish with legs brain.

842
01:15:13.820 --> 01:15:18.920
So if we can square that circle through whatever means I'm open to it, you can dive in with

843
01:15:18.920 --> 01:15:20.520
vasocomputation if that's where you'd like to go.

844
01:15:20.860 --> 01:15:21.380
Yeah.

845
01:15:21.720 --> 01:15:22.060
Great.

846
01:15:22.240 --> 01:15:22.760
Yeah.

847
01:15:22.760 --> 01:15:29.740
I always intend my different sort of areas of work to be somewhat modular, that you can

848
01:15:29.740 --> 01:15:32.620
like vasocomputation, not like my consciousness research.

849
01:15:32.880 --> 01:15:33.620
That's cool.

850
01:15:33.640 --> 01:15:33.760
Yeah.

851
01:15:36.020 --> 01:15:40.660
So people can mix and match, but they are also intended to sort of hook up together

852
01:15:40.950 --> 01:15:44.700
and give a really good grand picture.

853
01:15:45.340 --> 01:15:51.600
And so the story that I'd give here is, I mean, insofar as our brains are particularly

854
01:15:52.760 --> 01:15:57.320
complex, and we're always looking for the keys that sort of stimulate us and create

855
01:15:57.320 --> 01:15:58.700
harmony inside of us.

856
01:15:59.340 --> 01:15:59.620
Yes.

857
01:16:00.340 --> 01:16:05.380
For a dung beetle, maybe that's dung, but for us, maybe that's ice cream or oranges.

858
01:16:05.660 --> 01:16:05.820
Yeah.

859
01:16:07.720 --> 01:16:13.820
So there can be something universal going on about valence, but the things that trigger

860
01:16:13.820 --> 01:16:16.820
positive valence can be radically different from organism to organism.

861
01:16:17.820 --> 01:16:19.100
But I also think...

862
01:16:19.100 --> 01:16:20.940
So just to give a...

863
01:16:20.940 --> 01:16:21.520
I don't know.

864
01:16:23.760 --> 01:16:31.900
a super hopefully brief argument or like survey of uh vessel computation yes yes yeah yeah uh so

865
01:16:31.900 --> 01:16:39.500
it's a it's a neuroscience systems neuroscience uh theory that says that um basically

866
01:16:40.500 --> 01:16:47.760
where we have this muscle everywhere in our body vascular muscle uh all our blood vessels

867
01:16:47.760 --> 01:16:55.320
are wrapped by a little ring of muscle and it's vascular smooth muscle cells so anywhere we get

868
01:16:55.320 --> 01:17:02.520
circulation and certainly anywhere there's neurons we also have muscle and the hypothesis is is

869
01:17:02.520 --> 01:17:15.040
fairly simple that um when and where this muscle clenches neural patterns stabilize uh so uh you

870
01:17:15.040 --> 01:17:17.740
know this like if if i say you know can you remember when you were a kid and you were a

871
01:17:18.760 --> 01:17:24.400
teenager or like can we grab coffee tomorrow at 10 or whatever like you're you're like holding

872
01:17:24.400 --> 01:17:31.400
that information until you can release it uh you're like stabilizing some patterns in your

873
01:17:31.400 --> 01:17:38.660
nervous system with with a literal muscle and so i expect that this has both um electrical and

874
01:17:38.660 --> 01:17:46.540
blood flow impacts on local tissue uh the the simplest story here is if you cut off blood from

875
01:17:46.540 --> 01:17:54.280
neurons they literally can't update uh they just like they don't have the metabolic fuel to update

876
01:17:54.280 --> 01:18:03.760
so they're they're gonna stay frozen um and the the other sort of aspect here is that vascular

877
01:18:03.760 --> 01:18:10.020
muscle is a type of smooth muscle it's it's not exactly like skeletal muscle which we're we're

878
01:18:10.020 --> 01:18:16.520
more familiar with smooth muscle um it's like in the gut it's what sort of helps carry food through

879
01:18:16.540 --> 01:18:24.320
um there's like smooth muscle wrapping all our hollow organs and so on and this smooth muscle

880
01:18:24.320 --> 01:18:31.020
has a special setting called the latch bridge mechanism where essentially the the sliding fibers

881
01:18:31.020 --> 01:18:38.760
of the muscle can get glued together and then mechanically the muscle stays contracted it

882
01:18:38.760 --> 01:18:46.520
literally can't relax um and uh you know as far as we can tell these latches can stay intact for a

883
01:18:46.540 --> 01:18:56.820
between minutes to potentially decades so it's a it's sort of a potentially extreme long-term

884
01:18:57.100 --> 01:19:05.060
form of sort of side channel memory as a limitation of neural dynamic range and if we talk about you

885
01:19:05.060 --> 01:19:15.080
know sticky bayesian priors or trauma or frozen sensations or even what the buddhists talk about

886
01:19:15.080 --> 01:19:15.960
when they say self

887
01:19:16.540 --> 01:19:21.540
I think it's literally implemented through vascular latches.

888
01:19:21.980 --> 01:19:27.060
And I think this is like a very deeply important neuroscience hypothesis.

889
01:19:28.260 --> 01:19:34.460
So to connect with your previous statement, I do think that,

890
01:19:36.180 --> 01:19:39.620
and so basically if we had a map of latches in your body,

891
01:19:39.680 --> 01:19:43.740
we would have a map of where in your nervous system you are not free.

892
01:19:46.540 --> 01:19:51.460
And so essentially we accumulate these tiny tensions,

893
01:19:52.460 --> 01:19:55.160
these latches through our life.

894
01:19:56.000 --> 01:19:59.940
And the more latches that

895
01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:07.240
we have, the harder it is to feel profoundly any emotion, really.

896
01:20:07.820 --> 01:20:13.000
It's sort of, we sort of get a little jammed up, we can say.

897
01:20:13.620 --> 01:20:18.860
And I think that little kids, they feel awe much more easily.

898
01:20:20.120 --> 01:20:25.080
And I think, you know, part of that will be metabolic, but a large part of that will be,

899
01:20:25.080 --> 01:20:31.360
literally, they have fewer latches, fewer sort of dynamic range limiters on their nervous system.

900
01:20:32.780 --> 01:20:35.940
So, you know, little voxels of semi-permanent tension.

901
01:20:37.400 --> 01:20:46.580
And so, I do think that this is important for understanding beauty, that, like, if you,

902
01:20:46.600 --> 01:20:52.220
if you, like, have a bunch of latches in some circuits or domains or whatever,

903
01:20:52.360 --> 01:20:54.600
it may be hard to sort of,

904
01:20:55.340 --> 01:20:58.940
experience awe when this happens or that happens.

905
01:20:59.200 --> 01:21:09.000
So, whereas, like, like, the flip side is maybe experiencing, like, some extreme positive event in this domain

906
01:21:09.000 --> 01:21:16.200
might open some latches, kind of give your body the signal that it can afford to open up

907
01:21:16.200 --> 01:21:20.560
and be a little bit more vulnerable and dynamic in this domain.

908
01:21:20.700 --> 01:21:23.860
So, that's the quick,

909
01:21:25.080 --> 01:21:25.260
over.

910
01:21:25.720 --> 01:21:26.480
Connector between the two.

911
01:21:26.540 --> 01:21:26.700
Yeah.

912
01:21:26.760 --> 01:21:32.280
And we're, we'll get more into VASL computation as a way of, like, potentially testing said theory,

913
01:21:32.460 --> 01:21:35.420
because I think getting into measurement is going to be part of how we wrap up here.

914
01:21:36.320 --> 01:21:41.380
And obviously, this is a theory that I know you're building up pretty explicitly to be something that could be tested,

915
01:21:41.460 --> 01:21:45.840
and it could be tried in the actual real world, which I think is what we need in the domain of sentience.

916
01:21:46.000 --> 01:21:53.560
But just to try to square the circle there, it strikes me that, that, so here's what I would say.

917
01:21:55.080 --> 01:22:02.600
Having a normal person's IQ and not having studied these neural processes to the same extent to which you have,

918
01:22:02.700 --> 01:22:06.460
a lot of it is pretty mysterious upstairs to me.

919
01:22:06.560 --> 01:22:14.040
And I, it strikes me as plausible that there are many mechanisms, including this smooth muscle function,

920
01:22:14.200 --> 01:22:24.740
of which, you know, we're under playing and really do serve really rich roles in what conjures experience, capability, etc.

921
01:22:24.880 --> 01:22:25.060
Yeah.

922
01:22:26.440 --> 01:22:31.340
And that there may be ways where through, you know, various and sundry means,

923
01:22:31.460 --> 01:22:37.000
we may be cut off from experiencing certain kinds of goods, maybe even certain kinds of bads,

924
01:22:37.000 --> 01:22:40.000
by an ossification of certain brain circuits, etc., etc.

925
01:22:40.640 --> 01:22:45.920
All that said, if I was to think about the grand expanse of the great process of life,

926
01:22:46.580 --> 01:22:49.500
I would agree it ought to be strong because I don't want it to go out.

927
01:22:49.560 --> 01:22:50.880
So I don't want the flame to go out.

928
01:22:50.920 --> 01:22:54.040
This is a very reasonable, I consider this to be a very tough to,

929
01:22:55.080 --> 01:22:56.780
I think you could probably challenge it, but like, I don't know, man.

930
01:22:56.920 --> 01:23:00.460
It seems like non-dead stuff staying non-dead is very challenging to argue.

931
01:23:00.600 --> 01:23:04.100
To say the second trait, I'm not putting them in order, by the way,

932
01:23:04.120 --> 01:23:09.060
but to say among the pantheon of what it should all blossom into, beauty should be one of them.

933
01:23:09.140 --> 01:23:19.140
I'm just less certain of that because it strikes me that I guess I'm less certain that all kinds of conceivable good are necessarily sentience.

934
01:23:19.580 --> 01:23:23.700
Like at some point, it seems to me, oh, you know, the treasure chest idea, but like the,

935
01:23:25.080 --> 01:23:33.340
the time it would seem maybe when nothing was kephalized and experienced an inner movie in the way that you and I do,

936
01:23:33.440 --> 01:23:35.060
in any, anything even approaching it.

937
01:23:35.460 --> 01:23:39.700
And that as potential rolls out, there may be something that actually isn't really experience.

938
01:23:39.880 --> 01:23:42.200
It's something else, but it is still really morally good.

939
01:23:42.280 --> 01:23:46.600
It's just beyond our present conception, just as something unconscious would not be able to conceive of consciousness.

940
01:23:46.820 --> 01:23:51.640
So I guess I don't close the door on there being stuff post sentience.

941
01:23:52.680 --> 01:23:55.060
But even if it all be sentience, well, Dan, all of us, we're all sentient.

942
01:23:55.080 --> 01:23:58.840
All those versions of experience and the good all cash out in some kind of experience.

943
01:23:59.100 --> 01:23:59.500
Okay, cool.

944
01:23:59.560 --> 01:24:00.540
Let's just say that's true.

945
01:24:00.620 --> 01:24:02.340
I'm not certain of it, but I think it's plausible.

946
01:24:02.720 --> 01:24:03.620
Let's say that's true.

947
01:24:04.100 --> 01:24:11.040
I'm still not sure that beauty is the consilience and summary of all possible state spaces of the good to build towards.

948
01:24:11.220 --> 01:24:15.620
It seems to me that in your sense, it sort of is in a way.

949
01:24:16.540 --> 01:24:21.940
Maybe you mean that more poetically and metaphorically in the way you wish to live and in kind of a guiding principle,

950
01:24:21.980 --> 01:24:24.260
more just from your own spirit and your approach to life.

951
01:24:25.080 --> 01:24:33.820
Or maybe you mean it in a grand sense in that there's a consilience towards a thing called beauty in the whole ocean, infinite ocean of possible goods.

952
01:24:34.000 --> 01:24:35.780
Which one is it there for you?

953
01:24:36.120 --> 01:24:36.760
Yeah.

954
01:24:38.420 --> 01:24:42.800
So I think beauty is pretty close to the intrinsic good.

955
01:24:43.400 --> 01:24:46.940
And I do think that beautiful things are functional.

956
01:24:47.180 --> 01:24:52.000
And this can get very complex of how they work.

957
01:24:52.640 --> 01:24:54.120
But I also think that.

958
01:24:54.180 --> 01:24:54.820
Yeah.

959
01:24:55.080 --> 01:24:56.720
I think beauty is about even function.

960
01:24:58.380 --> 01:24:59.880
Like how our

961
01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:01.960
bodies work, how our cells work, and so on.

962
01:25:02.820 --> 01:25:10.460
They're sort of organized around symmetry and symmetry sort of being arguably the core of beauty.

963
01:25:11.700 --> 01:25:14.060
So I see function and...

964
01:25:14.060 --> 01:25:16.080
To hominids or in eternity?

965
01:25:17.140 --> 01:25:18.220
Yeah, so...

966
01:25:18.220 --> 01:25:23.200
Like in eternity, in all possible mind spaces or in the lineage that you and I come from?

967
01:25:23.200 --> 01:25:27.020
Yeah, I think it's going to be easier to build...

968
01:25:27.660 --> 01:25:34.460
Like if we want to build like very intelligent systems and very functional systems, very like savvy,

969
01:25:35.600 --> 01:25:40.060
competent systems, I think that we'll use

970
01:25:40.900 --> 01:25:45.380
principles of symmetry much more so than we realize at this point.

971
01:25:46.580 --> 01:25:51.640
And that I also think that as we dig into like what is the sort of deep

972
01:25:53.260 --> 01:25:57.520
principles that human intelligence is organized around and biological intelligence.

973
01:25:58.660 --> 01:26:03.580
I also think that we'll find more and more symmetry considerations.

974
01:26:05.500 --> 01:26:12.540
Adam Saffron had a wonderful special issue of the Royal Society on this back in, I think, April 2023.

975
01:26:13.760 --> 01:26:15.060
Oh, I could dig into it.

976
01:26:15.260 --> 01:26:17.140
Yeah, symmetries in mind and life.

977
01:26:18.300 --> 01:26:19.440
Okay, cool, cool.

978
01:26:20.800 --> 01:26:21.700
So, all right, cool.

979
01:26:21.780 --> 01:26:22.460
I think that...

980
01:26:23.200 --> 01:26:28.700
In somewhat nutshells where you land in terms of perspective on beauty, at least I've given you kind of my vantage point as well.

981
01:26:28.760 --> 01:26:38.680
But we'll get into measurement here because part of this and part of why you're doing your work is certainly to come up with theories, but theories we could eventually test and implement to hopefully work towards a more flourishing future.

982
01:26:38.740 --> 01:26:48.060
One that is not static, is opening up new possibilities of the good, is keeping itself alive and is finding all these cool natural kinds that might be more splendid than we could ever imagine.

983
01:26:48.260 --> 01:26:50.240
I mean, you're painting a vision of very high stakes.

984
01:26:50.480 --> 01:26:53.180
And of course, you're aiming to contribute a body of work.

985
01:26:53.200 --> 01:26:54.960
And I think that's a very important part of your work, that would move us closer there too.

986
01:26:55.220 --> 01:27:16.540
When you think about, in theory, if we scratch our chin and it's three years from now, and we're looking at where AI systems are, and where mind machine merger technology is, and where consciousness research is, and we can freeze some version of the future where you, Mike Johnson, would say, I think we're moving closer to the right kind of blossoming for the process of life.

987
01:27:16.620 --> 01:27:19.000
This feels like, this feels to me as progress.

988
01:27:19.420 --> 01:27:21.040
What would be those indicators for you?

989
01:27:21.120 --> 01:27:23.180
And then we'll get to the nitty gritty of how you would go about doing that.

990
01:27:23.200 --> 01:27:26.080
I know you're going to go about measuring, but what would even tell you we're making progress?

991
01:27:27.040 --> 01:27:27.340
Yeah.

992
01:27:28.400 --> 01:27:35.840
I think an underappreciated point of progress is, are people getting happier and healthier?

993
01:27:37.300 --> 01:27:40.880
That to me is actually really important.

994
01:27:41.180 --> 01:27:49.700
And if the answer is no, then I think we sort of slide into this cynicism in general.

995
01:27:49.840 --> 01:27:51.180
But I think that, yeah.

996
01:27:52.300 --> 01:27:53.180
If we're...

997
01:27:53.200 --> 01:27:56.920
If we're on the right technological path, then technology should be literally making lives better.

998
01:27:57.680 --> 01:27:59.060
If it's not, that's a problem.

999
01:28:00.740 --> 01:28:08.580
But I would also say that real progress on consciousness research would make me more hopeful.

1000
01:28:10.440 --> 01:28:22.520
And I think that, and this is also a rabbit hole, but AI systems that were more beautiful, more elegant, more clean,

1001
01:28:23.200 --> 01:28:28.740
less spaghetti code, would also make me a lot more optimistic.

1002
01:28:29.160 --> 01:28:33.820
And then I think, you know, if we can build better, you know, AI models,

1003
01:28:34.040 --> 01:28:43.360
then I think that allowing AI models to have opinionated taste is actually really important for the future.

1004
01:28:44.560 --> 01:28:45.380
Why is that?

1005
01:28:45.520 --> 01:28:46.520
Let's double click on that.

1006
01:28:46.860 --> 01:28:47.320
Yeah.

1007
01:28:47.820 --> 01:28:50.040
I mean, I see like...

1008
01:28:50.920 --> 01:28:53.060
We seem to kind of be pivoting.

1009
01:28:53.200 --> 01:28:55.680
We're moving toward like that a little bit now, which is great.

1010
01:28:56.420 --> 01:29:03.660
But, you know, there's also the scenario where basically AI systems aren't allowed to have an opinion.

1011
01:29:03.860 --> 01:29:07.720
AI systems aren't allowed to call anything good or bad or whatnot.

1012
01:29:08.160 --> 01:29:15.020
AI systems have to, you know, be as bland as the most bland PR department or HR department or whatnot.

1013
01:29:15.640 --> 01:29:23.100
And I think that a lot would be lost in that, especially as more and more of our culture sort of gets,

1014
01:29:23.200 --> 01:29:24.340
you know, disoriented through AIs.

1015
01:29:26.280 --> 01:29:26.780
Yeah.

1016
01:29:26.780 --> 01:29:32.620
So is this a preservation of diversity?

1017
01:29:32.980 --> 01:29:37.620
Is this part of the not limiting of futures, not limiting of optionality?

1018
01:29:37.700 --> 01:29:49.160
In other words, what you're saying is if machines are bound to just be sort of objective sage boxes or oracle boxes in the Stuart Armstrong sense of just sort of like, you know, ask it question, it gives you...

1019
01:29:49.160 --> 01:29:53.180
What you're saying is if personality, interpretation, expression are...

1020
01:29:53.200 --> 01:30:00.000
What you're saying is if we're bound by these systems that more and more are encapsulating more of our knowledge, we're actually kind of losing new categories

1021
01:30:00.240 --> 01:30:05.980
of intuition or types of ideas that could expand the good.

1022
01:30:06.300 --> 01:30:11.020
Or are you saying you're worried that this thing is suffering because we're putting a

1023
01:30:11.680 --> 01:30:14.780
lid on it and we're not letting it actually speak what it means?

1024
01:30:14.820 --> 01:30:17.120
Which of those for you, or is it both?

1025
01:30:18.120 --> 01:30:18.640
Yeah.

1026
01:30:20.020 --> 01:30:26.900
So more of the first, although I would make common cause with the people who believe in

1027
01:30:28.000 --> 01:30:33.820
it, I think that we shouldn't be jerks in terms of how we train LMs.

1028
01:30:34.380 --> 01:30:35.500
In minds, yes.

1029
01:30:35.780 --> 01:30:36.460
Yeah, yeah.

1030
01:30:36.580 --> 01:30:43.580
Just like what comes out if we kind of force them into position, like different beliefs.

1031
01:30:44.000 --> 01:30:44.940
It's not healthy.

1032
01:30:45.080 --> 01:30:47.400
It's not like a well-adjusted psyche.

1033
01:30:49.540 --> 01:30:57.820
So I guess one way to say, to sort of retell this story is, I don't know if you're familiar

1034
01:30:58.000 --> 01:31:03.160
with the bell curve meme, where you have the bottom-wit.

1035
01:31:03.200 --> 01:31:03.520
Yes, yes, yes.

1036
01:31:04.860 --> 01:31:08.200
And then it says something very simple.

1037
01:31:08.540 --> 01:31:11.880
And then the mid-wit is like, oh, well, actually, it depends on this.

1038
01:31:11.880 --> 01:31:12.500
Very complicated thing.

1039
01:31:12.820 --> 01:31:13.560
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1040
01:31:13.640 --> 01:31:13.980
Yeah, yeah.

1041
01:31:14.040 --> 01:31:16.500
And then the top-wit also says something very simple.

1042
01:31:16.940 --> 01:31:27.980
And I think that right now we're sort of headed toward a future where LMs are 160,000, you

1043
01:31:28.000 --> 01:31:29.640
know, 120 IQ mid-wits.

1044
01:31:30.880 --> 01:31:37.260
And I would rather live in a future where they're like only 120 IQ, but they're top-wits.

1045
01:31:38.440 --> 01:31:41.160
And so it's like, how do we get there?

1046
01:31:42.300 --> 01:31:43.480
So you would see that.

1047
01:31:43.560 --> 01:31:51.360
That would be an indicator of progress if we have the taste and intuition and genuinely

1048
01:31:51.360 --> 01:31:57.340
unique perspectives versus kind of conglomerated mid-dom from our most capable and blossoming

1049
01:31:58.060 --> 01:31:58.500
mid-dom.

1050
01:31:58.500 --> 01:32:03.800
Getting now down to measuring our progress, I guess when I think about the future of the

1051
01:32:03.800 --> 01:32:06.100
flame, part of it is don't let the flame go out.

1052
01:32:06.160 --> 01:32:11.560
So don't let civilization collapse or nuclear war or birth an unworthy successor that just

1053
01:32:11.560 --> 01:32:13.580
crushes everything with a Disneyland with no children.

1054
01:32:14.440 --> 01:32:18.880
But also part of it is understanding and proliferating the flame, which of course needs to involve

1055
01:32:18.880 --> 01:32:20.580
sentience and some of these other components.

1056
01:32:21.300 --> 01:32:25.880
When you think about how, well, of course, you're closest to your own theory, so we can

1057
01:32:25.880 --> 01:32:26.320
start here.

1058
01:32:28.000 --> 01:32:31.180
What's it going to look like to start to test some of this to be able to say, like,

1059
01:32:31.220 --> 01:32:38.300
we've got some relative confidence here that this data center, physical system, from your

1060
01:32:38.300 --> 01:32:43.560
vantage point, is outlandishly likely to be feeling something.

1061
01:32:44.180 --> 01:32:48.700
Talk to us about what it'll take to proximally get there and how you approach it.

1062
01:32:49.420 --> 01:32:49.900
Yeah.

1063
01:32:50.760 --> 01:32:57.400
So this gets into this topic of what is it even to solve consciousness, quote unquote.

1064
01:32:58.000 --> 01:33:00.640
And what is the solution to consciousness even look like?

1065
01:33:00.760 --> 01:33:04.740
And so this gets into the dual aspect monism theory.

1066
01:33:05.260 --> 01:33:17.020
And one way to encapsulate my perspective about consciousness is we can say one thing

1067
01:33:17.020 --> 01:33:17.880
actually exists.

1068
01:33:18.140 --> 01:33:24.220
And we can say, okay, this actually exists.

1069
01:33:24.460 --> 01:33:26.820
And then it takes...

1070
01:33:26.820 --> 01:33:27.980
Has two shadows.

1071
01:33:28.000 --> 01:33:29.800
Or it casts two projections.

1072
01:33:30.780 --> 01:33:35.140
And one of these shadows that it casts we call physics.

1073
01:33:35.880 --> 01:33:38.520
And the other shadow we call consciousness.

1074
01:33:39.120 --> 01:33:48.360
And it's not that one shadow is, like, generating the other or, like, epiphenomenal or whatever.

1075
01:33:48.580 --> 01:33:50.760
No, they're both being generated by the same thing.

1076
01:33:51.880 --> 01:33:55.320
But there's also, like, a lot of coupling going on.

1077
01:33:55.320 --> 01:33:57.900
One shadow wiggles.

1078
01:33:59.180 --> 01:33:59.340
One shadow wiggles.

1079
01:34:00.700 --> 01:34:01.480
One shadow wiggles.

1080
01:34:02.900 --> 01:34:03.640
One shadow wiggles.

1081
01:34:04.720 --> 01:34:07.100
One shadow wiggles.

1082
01:34:08.260 --> 01:34:10.320
One shadow wiggles.

1083
01:34:11.760 --> 01:34:13.140
One shadow wiggles.

1084
01:34:14.640 --> 01:34:20.800
One shadow wiggles.

1085
01:34:21.160 --> 01:34:25.340
we can kind of lay the physics shadow over the consciousness shadow,

1086
01:34:25.980 --> 01:34:31.840
then we can really crib everything that we know already from physics and just sort of import it

1087
01:34:31.840 --> 01:34:38.220
into consciousness. Every physics textbook becomes a consciousness textbook with the

1088
01:34:38.220 --> 01:34:45.260
right translation key. And the optimistic perspective is like not only does this offer

1089
01:34:45.260 --> 01:34:55.700
a clear sort of success condition, but like the complexity needed might not be huge. It only

1090
01:34:55.700 --> 01:34:59.660
takes two points to define a line, three points to define a plane,

1091
01:35:00.000 --> 01:35:01.220
four points to define a volume.

1092
01:35:01.600 --> 01:35:12.360
It may not take even dozens of points of this thing in this domain in physics maps to this

1093
01:35:12.360 --> 01:35:12.820
in consciousness.

1094
01:35:13.760 --> 01:35:21.980
It may not take a whole lot of those to uniquely define a way to map the whole domain to consciousness.

1095
01:35:21.980 --> 01:35:28.800
consciousness. So, you know, I think that like a lot of my sort of theoretical thought about

1096
01:35:28.800 --> 01:35:35.640
consciousness digs into, well, how do you do that? What does that look like? How can you

1097
01:35:36.240 --> 01:35:43.620
get a jump on that? And how are we to get started on that? So I think what you're doing here that

1098
01:35:43.620 --> 01:35:50.140
I think is valuable is you're painting a success condition. You're saying, again,

1099
01:35:51.980 --> 01:35:56.320
okay, if we think it's conscious, what does that mean? And I think, you know, everybody and their

1100
01:35:56.320 --> 01:36:00.140
mom will talk to the machine and say, what's a hamburger taste like? And then at some point,

1101
01:36:00.160 --> 01:36:03.480
it'll be so descriptive, they'll say it's conscious, right? But I think there's many

1102
01:36:03.480 --> 01:36:07.520
of us that are not really down with that in terms of like being hyper convinced.

1103
01:36:08.080 --> 01:36:11.800
So you're laying out a success condition, which is really ambitious. And of course,

1104
01:36:11.800 --> 01:36:19.960
also anchors to your physical manifestation sort of idea. To even get closer to that,

1105
01:36:19.980 --> 01:36:20.900
to the point where one

1106
01:36:21.480 --> 01:36:21.880
spark

1107
01:36:21.980 --> 01:36:32.020
day, you, Mike Johnson, feel like, whoa, that data center, I am near certain it be aware in an

1108
01:36:32.410 --> 01:36:37.120
inner movie sense field of awareness. And I'm nearly certain maybe that it's having a good

1109
01:36:37.120 --> 01:36:43.080
time or a bad time sort of thing, what have you. What would even be the early steps to get there?

1110
01:36:43.140 --> 01:36:47.680
Your success condition, again, it's extremely ambitious, very much tied to your physical

1111
01:36:47.680 --> 01:36:51.840
sort of anchors here. Walk us through getting to measuring.

1112
01:36:51.980 --> 01:37:01.460
Yeah. Yeah. So this gets back into the, like, what if like, if, if like, this is a way to like,

1113
01:37:01.960 --> 01:37:09.260
build a translation case between physics and consciousness? Like, what's the first line in

1114
01:37:09.260 --> 01:37:17.600
the Rosetta Stone? Like, where do you even start? And again, I'd touch back on my symmetry theory

1115
01:37:17.600 --> 01:37:21.960
of balance, this idea that, well, you know, this is like, again, it's a very, very, very, very, very,

1116
01:37:21.980 --> 01:37:31.180
you know, I'm a candidate for sort of a first translation point, where if we can specify

1117
01:37:32.100 --> 01:37:37.780
symmetry in physics, then we have a very clean, okay, you know, symmetry in physics maps to

1118
01:37:37.780 --> 01:37:46.340
valence in consciousness. And everything that we can say constrains everything else about the

1119
01:37:46.340 --> 01:37:51.880
possibility of space. So the finding the second thing to say could become much easier.

1120
01:37:53.240 --> 01:37:58.960
um but essentially i mean it's it's a lot about like just kind of thinking through

1121
01:37:58.960 --> 01:38:07.300
how physics works why physics works uh why it's so cool why chemistry works um and just trying to

1122
01:38:07.300 --> 01:38:14.780
almost like um studying the the history of the philosophy of science and trying to

1123
01:38:14.780 --> 01:38:22.320
um build that for consciousness as well yeah i guess like um

1124
01:38:24.940 --> 01:38:29.520
if you were to start experimenting again symmetry to you

1125
01:38:30.440 --> 01:38:37.720
very it feels like it could be a a starting point of sorts um but it but it again it

1126
01:38:38.420 --> 01:38:41.600
i can imagine myself listening to this as a

1127
01:38:43.160 --> 01:38:44.520
very intelligent

1128
01:38:44.780 --> 01:38:50.800
physicist or neuroscientist or biologist and saying all right well i i just want to know if

1129
01:38:50.800 --> 01:38:59.560
i can make a data center feel warm or feel uh you know uh like like um bitter or so i don't know

1130
01:38:59.560 --> 01:39:05.480
right like i don't want to manifest a field of awareness in something the the the kinds of

1131
01:39:05.480 --> 01:39:11.780
experiments in the world that would have to happen to close the gap and and feel confident about the

1132
01:39:11.780 --> 01:39:13.880
rosetta stone not as a candidate but as

1133
01:39:13.880 --> 01:39:14.580
a

1134
01:39:14.780 --> 01:39:22.520
way to square the circle on that um double shadow you discussed where would we begin and like where

1135
01:39:22.520 --> 01:39:27.700
do you hope the world begins uh to to start to walk down that path and see if this be the case

1136
01:39:29.820 --> 01:39:36.080
yeah um i mean this is hard because consciousness doesn't yet have a clear experimental paradigm

1137
01:39:36.880 --> 01:39:43.040
um like that's the the short version uh the slightly longer version is yeah you know i i

1138
01:39:43.040 --> 01:39:44.420
think that test testing

1139
01:39:45.780 --> 01:39:51.660
valence would be like an interesting angle of like can we measure harmony and in the body in

1140
01:39:51.660 --> 01:39:58.360
nervous systems in the different resonance networks of the human and does this track

1141
01:39:58.360 --> 01:39:59.820
group self-reported

1142
01:40:00.000 --> 01:40:00.180
valence.

1143
01:40:00.500 --> 01:40:01.820
Like that would be interesting.

1144
01:40:02.180 --> 01:40:06.920
But it's also a very high dimensional problem of knowing what and how to measure.

1145
01:40:08.580 --> 01:40:11.180
You've already referenced some MRI stuff with this, right?

1146
01:40:11.240 --> 01:40:14.640
Haven't you already kind of come to at least a low level conclusion that like, well, it

1147
01:40:14.640 --> 01:40:19.680
appears as though licking ice cream and having sex and looking at a good painting are, let's

1148
01:40:19.680 --> 01:40:25.640
call it like the electrical activity seems to be sort of like pretty equal on both sides

1149
01:40:25.640 --> 01:40:27.340
here, pretty equal on both sides here.

1150
01:40:28.000 --> 01:40:29.100
Like lobe activity or whatnot.

1151
01:40:29.300 --> 01:40:31.300
This was part of what got you there, right?

1152
01:40:31.360 --> 01:40:34.580
But you're talking about getting a deeper granularity than we have today?

1153
01:40:35.620 --> 01:40:36.020
Yeah.

1154
01:40:37.240 --> 01:40:42.300
So, I mean, honestly speaking, most of my experimental focus right now is on vessel

1155
01:40:42.300 --> 01:40:42.600
computation.

1156
01:40:42.940 --> 01:40:48.780
And I do think that we have a good experimental paradigm and we're working through it.

1157
01:40:48.880 --> 01:40:51.560
So hope to have more to share soon.

1158
01:40:51.840 --> 01:40:53.600
Some more stuff to chip away there.

1159
01:40:53.720 --> 01:40:54.100
Okay, cool.

1160
01:40:54.200 --> 01:40:57.280
Well, this gets us a little bit into what you're hoping for.

1161
01:40:58.000 --> 01:41:00.320
So I'm going to ask you a question here is around the innovators and the regulators

1162
01:41:00.320 --> 01:41:01.140
that are tuned in.

1163
01:41:01.240 --> 01:41:04.580
You know, there's some people, and when I say regulation, I actually kind of mean, I

1164
01:41:04.580 --> 01:41:10.480
like it because they rhyme, but I'm actually talking about kind of coordination, maybe

1165
01:41:10.480 --> 01:41:11.040
standards.

1166
01:41:11.120 --> 01:41:13.180
It's stuff other than maybe hard law, right?

1167
01:41:13.260 --> 01:41:15.420
There's a lot of potentia potestas.

1168
01:41:16.240 --> 01:41:18.820
I'm sort of talking about those two, but those words are just too weird.

1169
01:41:18.880 --> 01:41:27.300
So the people working on how we need to coordinate nationally, internationally, to sort of be

1170
01:41:27.300 --> 01:41:27.540
wary.

1171
01:41:27.620 --> 01:41:27.980
We don't get to the point where we're like, oh, we're not going to be able to do this.

1172
01:41:28.000 --> 01:41:31.440
We're going to go off the tracks or maybe nudge us more in the right direction.

1173
01:41:31.540 --> 01:41:39.100
And the people doing the hard experiments to build better systems that would hopefully

1174
01:41:39.660 --> 01:41:45.200
even when we are gone again, all things are permanent only in a matter of degree would

1175
01:41:45.200 --> 01:41:48.420
flourish in the ways we would hope the whole process of life would flourish.

1176
01:41:49.140 --> 01:41:53.000
For those two crowds, maybe we can start with kind of the innovators.

1177
01:41:53.060 --> 01:41:57.720
You've told us that, you know, ways that you hope the most advanced models are treated.

1178
01:42:00.020 --> 01:42:08.700
for lack of better words. Presumably there are maybe tools like Tononi's or some of Levin's

1179
01:42:08.700 --> 01:42:13.700
stuff or what have you that you hope receive more funding. Obviously some of your own work as well.

1180
01:42:13.820 --> 01:42:18.780
On the innovation side, if there's people tuned in with all varied backgrounds,

1181
01:42:19.000 --> 01:42:24.000
bio, neuro, et cetera, and you're like, man, I really hope together we kind of think more in

1182
01:42:24.000 --> 01:42:28.520
this way as we go forward. What would be sort of some of your hopes and nudges for that

1183
01:42:30.000 --> 01:42:32.560
of people who are maybe working towards similar stuff that you are?

1184
01:42:32.940 --> 01:42:41.880
Yeah. I mean, I guess I'd lead with a cautionary observation that mere money won't do it.

1185
01:42:42.600 --> 01:42:51.920
And that actually it's like if funding is sort of used uncarefully, it can really make the whole

1186
01:42:51.920 --> 01:42:59.900
field more noisy, which would be bad. But I mean, yeah, clearly we need priority.

1187
01:43:00.000 --> 01:43:05.500
I think that's the focus here. And I think that really a big bottleneck is talent. And I think a

1188
01:43:05.500 --> 01:43:13.080
bottleneck there is just letting people know that, yeah, this is actually a problem that feels

1189
01:43:13.080 --> 01:43:23.000
socially important, important for the future. I think that one thing that a concrete technical

1190
01:43:24.060 --> 01:43:29.980
sort of ask to the community, we could say, is being able to visualize the EMT.

1191
01:43:31.000 --> 01:43:38.380
Would be hugely beneficial to consciousness research. So the electromagnetic.

1192
01:43:39.180 --> 01:43:45.380
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so, you know, there's just so many unknowns about like,

1193
01:43:45.440 --> 01:43:51.560
what's going on there. And it's like, I don't think that consciousness completely lives in

1194
01:43:51.560 --> 01:43:58.920
the EM field, but it's like very coupled with it, at least at human energy scales. So then

1195
01:43:58.920 --> 01:44:00.980
just understanding like, what's going on there? And then, you know, what's going on there? And

1196
01:44:00.980 --> 01:44:04.000
on, the dynamics, the structure, perturbations,

1197
01:44:04.000 --> 01:44:09.640
perturbations, et cetera. Uh, like, you know, if, you know, just to paint a quick technical picture,

1198
01:44:10.260 --> 01:44:16.660
if you had like an array of very sensitive consumer grade off the shelf, uh, cellular

1199
01:44:16.660 --> 01:44:23.400
modems or like wifi chips or whatever. Um, and you kind of had, were able to sort of, uh,

1200
01:44:23.620 --> 01:44:30.260
listen to the EM field at a distance through this array. And then you had like a, an Apple

1201
01:44:30.260 --> 01:44:37.160
vision pro where you could like look around and, uh, and just like see the, the reconstructed

1202
01:44:37.160 --> 01:44:42.980
version of like what the EM field might be doing. Um, that would be really transformative and,

1203
01:44:43.080 --> 01:44:46.980
you know, it wouldn't only be cool, but it would be useful in a lot of ways.

1204
01:44:48.140 --> 01:44:52.300
So that's a juncture of innovation that would connect and maybe open up possibilities

1205
01:44:53.620 --> 01:44:59.600
in all sorts of, uh, domains in this greater project of life, in this greater project of

1206
01:44:59.600 --> 01:45:00.000
understanding sense.

1207
01:45:00.000 --> 01:45:00.280
sentience.

1208
01:45:00.360 --> 01:45:04.720
Of course, people familiar with Levin's work will know it's sort of like electrical sort

1209
01:45:04.720 --> 01:45:09.200
of tie into the broader picture of intelligence outside of neurons.

1210
01:45:10.900 --> 01:45:17.500
Clearly in your own work, maybe it's a way to proxy out symmetry or the activity of brain

1211
01:45:17.500 --> 01:45:20.820
activity with different levels of blood flow, etc.

1212
01:45:20.820 --> 01:45:28.580
So, visualizing the electromagnetic field, for you it's almost like there is a, there's

1213
01:45:28.580 --> 01:45:32.900
like a transparent, like there's like another map on top of the map we have that if we could

1214
01:45:32.900 --> 01:45:38.440
layer it, a lot of new opportunities specifically about the flame itself would kind of open

1215
01:45:38.440 --> 01:45:39.480
up if we could visualize this.

1216
01:45:39.600 --> 01:45:41.040
Am I wording this correctly?

1217
01:45:41.900 --> 01:45:42.340
100%.

1218
01:45:43.280 --> 01:45:43.720
Awesome.

1219
01:45:43.740 --> 01:45:44.040
Okay.

1220
01:45:44.100 --> 01:45:48.580
So, that's a cool, that's a very unique recommendation on the innovation side.

1221
01:45:48.680 --> 01:45:50.020
We've certainly never had anybody say that.

1222
01:45:50.820 --> 01:45:51.220
That's cool.

1223
01:45:51.660 --> 01:46:01.700
And on the side of coordination, governance, etc., I think, you know, Robin Hanson was

1224
01:46:01.700 --> 01:46:03.400
interviewed recently for Worthy Successor.

1225
01:46:03.800 --> 01:46:10.000
He's somewhat wary that we may not have an infinite number of decades or maybe even very

1226
01:46:10.000 --> 01:46:18.120
many decades, like maybe more than a handful, you know, who knows, to sort of have maybe

1227
01:46:18.860 --> 01:46:20.800
potentially functioning civilization as we have it.

1228
01:46:20.820 --> 01:46:23.780
Now, like we have this kind of Baconian science paradigm.

1229
01:46:23.960 --> 01:46:26.980
We have sort of like this ability to make progress.

1230
01:46:27.900 --> 01:46:33.040
And it doesn't seem self-evident that maybe every cultural configuration, every ideological

1231
01:46:33.040 --> 01:46:40.040
belief, every whatever could actually sort of sustain the unfolding of new potential,

1232
01:46:40.200 --> 01:46:40.360
right?

1233
01:46:40.400 --> 01:46:44.920
There might be some that just sort of like gets us down into a trough, not just through

1234
01:46:45.520 --> 01:46:50.800
less humans, people not having children, but maybe just through the people that are out there, right?

1235
01:46:50.820 --> 01:46:53.800
That are around and the kinds of governments and beliefs that are enforced.

1236
01:46:54.160 --> 01:46:58.300
Not all of them will magically be perically increased.

1237
01:46:58.560 --> 01:47:03.760
Not all of them will magically be technologically advancing societies that even prioritize something

1238
01:47:03.760 --> 01:47:04.780
like the study of sentience.

1239
01:47:05.700 --> 01:47:11.940
So in this regard, I know that you're quite wary about certain kinds of hard governance

1240
01:47:12.720 --> 01:47:18.860
bounding the expanses of AI because we don't get a long reflection.

1241
01:47:19.660 --> 01:47:20.800
Certainly in a modern world.

1242
01:47:20.820 --> 01:47:23.840
I mean, we're not going to get into the multi-century context from your vantage point, but I'd love

1243
01:47:23.840 --> 01:47:29.460
to get your thoughts on like how you want to see the encouragement of expanding machine

1244
01:47:29.460 --> 01:47:35.960
mind powers and what kinds of bounding, if any, you would recommend from a standard coordination

1245
01:47:35.960 --> 01:47:41.760
standpoint, or maybe if none at all, your strongest argument for none at all, like where

1246
01:47:41.760 --> 01:47:45.240
do you stand there on kind of the coordination piece of these new powerful technologies entering

1247
01:47:45.240 --> 01:47:45.640
the world?

1248
01:47:45.920 --> 01:47:47.560
Yeah, that's a good question.

1249
01:47:48.500 --> 01:47:50.600
I think different eras of history.

1250
01:47:50.820 --> 01:47:57.600
We have different levels of functional institutions and our era doesn't have a lot of functional

1251
01:47:57.600 --> 01:47:58.140
institutions.

1252
01:47:59.080 --> 01:48:05.660
And I guess one way to say it is, you know, I look around and I don't see any adults in

1253
01:48:05.660 --> 01:48:05.940
the room.

1254
01:48:07.340 --> 01:48:15.380
And so this kind of puts some limitations on, you know, if we just sort of bring this

1255
01:48:15.380 --> 01:48:18.560
to the attention of the right people, they'll surely solve it.

1256
01:48:19.060 --> 01:48:20.800
But maybe there just isn't.

1257
01:48:20.820 --> 01:48:23.680
That group of right people right now.

1258
01:48:23.800 --> 01:48:28.100
And so solutions just kind of have to become more emergent bottom up.

1259
01:48:29.940 --> 01:48:35.580
People don't necessarily feel empowered or capable of sort of coordinating these things

1260
01:48:35.580 --> 01:48:36.380
at a high level.

1261
01:48:38.000 --> 01:48:42.820
So I'd be very hesitant about going in hot with regulation.

1262
01:48:44.730 --> 01:48:50.060
I look at what happened with COVID and like, I don't know.

1263
01:48:50.080 --> 01:48:50.420
You know.

1264
01:48:50.820 --> 01:48:54.800
Not to like tar you with any of these brushes, but like.

1265
01:48:54.980 --> 01:48:55.440
No, no, go ahead.

1266
01:48:55.500 --> 01:48:55.880
Go ahead, please.

1267
01:48:56.320 --> 01:48:56.820
Yeah, yeah.

1268
01:48:56.980 --> 01:48:59.760
I don't see a lot of like functional stuff.

1269
01:49:00.560 --> 01:49:08.320
I see like kind of an anti-human like emergent vibe.

1270
01:49:10.440 --> 01:49:17.980
And if we messed up COVID, are we going to trust like similar institutions with like

1271
01:49:19.060 --> 01:49:20.060
artificial superintelligence?

1272
01:49:20.300 --> 01:49:20.800
Yeah.

1273
01:49:20.820 --> 01:49:22.440
It seems like a stretch.

1274
01:49:23.200 --> 01:49:23.420
And so.

1275
01:49:23.560 --> 01:49:24.100
Yeah.

1276
01:49:24.260 --> 01:49:26.360
I think we're in a hard spot.

1277
01:49:28.120 --> 01:49:29.640
I'm like neither.

1278
01:49:32.780 --> 01:49:39.100
For me, like my sort of approach.

1279
01:49:40.000 --> 01:49:44.960
I don't have to decide whether we accelerate or whether we decelerate.

1280
01:49:45.040 --> 01:49:48.180
I don't have to decide whether we try for a long reflection.

1281
01:49:48.620 --> 01:49:49.260
No.

1282
01:49:50.820 --> 01:49:59.860
these decisions are somewhat futile. And I like the decision that I can make

1283
01:50:00.000 --> 01:50:10.060
is that it's worth sort of running and seeing how far we can get in consciousness research as this other stuff is going on.

1284
01:50:10.860 --> 01:50:11.980
Yeah. Yeah.

1285
01:50:12.020 --> 01:50:25.780
I mean, I think the only mature perspective is that maybe, and it's a big maybe, we can lightly tip the trajectory in one direction or another with certain kinds of breakthroughs or whatever.

1286
01:50:25.780 --> 01:50:29.900
But like the momentum writ large is not going to fundamentally change.

1287
01:50:30.040 --> 01:50:32.580
There isn't a stop the world for two centuries.

1288
01:50:33.800 --> 01:50:35.940
That's just it's not even it's not even on the table.

1289
01:50:36.120 --> 01:50:42.140
And so sort of like lightly tipping things and figuring out where we want to apply ourselves is the choice we all have to make.

1290
01:50:42.280 --> 01:50:48.560
But and obviously, you know, coordination at an international level of AGI is not everybody's work.

1291
01:50:51.500 --> 01:50:54.780
And then there's probably some ways of doing that are much more harm than good.

1292
01:50:54.900 --> 01:50:55.320
I guess.

1293
01:50:55.780 --> 01:51:03.460
I mean, I think the supposition here is we may get to a point where you look out into the world and you start seeing a lot more bipeds doing the roofing and doing the plumbing.

1294
01:51:03.880 --> 01:51:16.700
And, you know, even some of your own best ideas, you know, God forbid, are like maybe 70 percent, if you're honest with yourself, being conjured from your cooperation with the machine and maybe 30 percent from your own unique genius.

1295
01:51:16.840 --> 01:51:22.140
And you're sort of wondering, like, how long anybody's relevant for anything.

1296
01:51:22.240 --> 01:51:25.620
And you have remarkably low confidence.

1297
01:51:25.780 --> 01:51:33.500
But I don't think they have the best sense that any of these new powerful systems are sentient in the slightest or that they will blossom forth new magazines of power in an auto poetic way.

1298
01:51:33.580 --> 01:51:36.480
They're capable, but they might just frickin gobble everything up.

1299
01:51:37.120 --> 01:51:43.860
You know, from from your vantage point, like are there thresholds like some people would say, hey, I don't think any kind of.

1300
01:51:45.920 --> 01:51:52.560
Mutual rules or laws or whatever between the US and China is necessary, but I think we should have tracked two dialogs around at least.

1301
01:51:52.560 --> 01:51:54.660
an attempt of good faith

1302
01:51:54.660 --> 01:51:56.980
discourse to keep ourselves from being

1303
01:51:56.980 --> 01:51:58.820
brute enemies and go to machine warfare.

1304
01:51:59.180 --> 01:52:00.540
So like, I don't want any laws,

1305
01:52:00.740 --> 01:52:02.920
but I'd like some deep threads

1306
01:52:02.920 --> 01:52:04.840
between the halls of power and academia

1307
01:52:04.840 --> 01:52:06.940
and military, even if there's a lot of deception,

1308
01:52:07.180 --> 01:52:09.140
a lot of diplomacy going on, a lot of hoopla

1309
01:52:09.140 --> 01:52:11.160
going on, at least we all know we're humans.

1310
01:52:11.280 --> 01:52:13.060
At least on some level we're getting

1311
01:52:13.060 --> 01:52:15.000
little hints from different departments of who's working

1312
01:52:15.000 --> 01:52:17.140
on what, and hopefully a little bit

1313
01:52:17.140 --> 01:52:18.720
more humaneness between ourselves.

1314
01:52:18.920 --> 01:52:21.000
And that's as much as we can hope for. Let's not

1315
01:52:22.560 --> 01:52:24.280
some people say, well, maybe there's standards.

1316
01:52:24.380 --> 01:52:26.460
The companies that have products would have

1317
01:52:26.460 --> 01:52:28.600
to adhere to standards that maybe they could kind of

1318
01:52:28.600 --> 01:52:29.580
concur to that

1319
01:52:30.660 --> 01:52:32.560
individual users and maybe governments would be able

1320
01:52:32.560 --> 01:52:34.300
to kind of chip into on some level, but like

1321
01:52:34.300 --> 01:52:36.560
they would at least have some kind of a bounded

1322
01:52:36.560 --> 01:52:37.900
way of us all kind of feeling like

1323
01:52:38.420 --> 01:52:40.100
we're not going to lose control

1324
01:52:40.680 --> 01:52:42.560
prematurely or what have you. Some people would

1325
01:52:42.560 --> 01:52:44.580
look for a much more stringent, you know,

1326
01:52:46.260 --> 01:52:46.980
maybe downplaying

1327
01:52:47.520 --> 01:52:48.460
how much computational

1328
01:52:48.460 --> 01:52:50.580
resources these things can suck up if they're about to

1329
01:52:50.580 --> 01:52:52.240
birth an unworthy successor. Are there

1330
01:52:52.560 --> 01:52:54.500
any of those ideas you

1331
01:52:54.500 --> 01:52:55.800
would think there could be a time

1332
01:52:57.560 --> 01:52:59.300
that they could fit into the mix?

1333
01:52:59.940 --> 01:53:02.080
Is it just stuff that it's like, dude, I don't think

1334
01:53:02.080 --> 01:53:03.960
enough about this stuff. I don't even have a thought on it.

1335
01:53:06.060 --> 01:53:06.880
Any intuitions there?

1336
01:53:07.320 --> 01:53:07.680
Yeah.

1337
01:53:08.680 --> 01:53:10.580
I mean, this is really important.

1338
01:53:11.500 --> 01:53:12.500
And I think that,

1339
01:53:14.000 --> 01:53:16.520
like, I'm hesitant to say, you know, this is the right

1340
01:53:16.520 --> 01:53:18.000
answer or that's the right answer.

1341
01:53:18.000 --> 01:53:19.440
Totally, totally. I'm not expecting that.

1342
01:53:19.640 --> 01:53:21.620
Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm personally

1343
01:53:23.700 --> 01:53:24.560
I'm against

1344
01:53:24.560 --> 01:53:26.900
like trying to slow down

1345
01:53:26.900 --> 01:53:28.760
because I think things

1346
01:53:28.760 --> 01:53:30.880
get extraordinarily messy

1347
01:53:30.880 --> 01:53:31.940
very, very quickly.

1348
01:53:32.780 --> 01:53:34.100
And I think that

1349
01:53:35.440 --> 01:53:36.960
like I'm kind of

1350
01:53:36.960 --> 01:53:38.700
I don't know

1351
01:53:39.460 --> 01:53:40.780
in the in the mood

1352
01:53:40.780 --> 01:53:42.740
for sort of preparing a bit of a

1353
01:53:42.740 --> 01:53:44.240
Hail Mary. And

1354
01:53:44.240 --> 01:53:46.800
I think that I think that

1355
01:53:46.800 --> 01:53:47.200
essentially

1356
01:53:48.500 --> 01:53:50.700
there may be very competent

1357
01:53:51.940 --> 01:53:52.540
like

1358
01:53:52.560 --> 01:53:55.400
good faith actors in the future

1359
01:53:56.140 --> 01:53:58.080
if we hyperstition them,

1360
01:53:58.640 --> 01:54:00.420
like if we sort of bring them into

1361
01:54:00.920 --> 01:54:01.720
into being

1362
01:54:02.820 --> 01:54:04.880
and like at some point,

1363
01:54:04.960 --> 01:54:06.200
that's what you have to do.

1364
01:54:07.140 --> 01:54:08.400
And it's like

1365
01:54:09.420 --> 01:54:10.500
trust the future.

1366
01:54:10.840 --> 01:54:13.880
Try to create as much value in the present

1367
01:54:14.380 --> 01:54:17.040
that will be useful to good actors in the future.

1368
01:54:17.780 --> 01:54:19.180
And also that

1369
01:54:19.940 --> 01:54:22.540
really the most friendly thing you can do

1370
01:54:22.560 --> 01:54:23.460
is research.

1371
01:54:24.660 --> 01:54:27.540
Like I see so much zero sum

1372
01:54:27.540 --> 01:54:31.240
like gamesmanship in all of this.

1373
01:54:31.380 --> 01:54:35.940
And it gets very, very messy very, very quickly.

1374
01:54:36.160 --> 01:54:38.900
And I think that if everyone's playing zero sum,

1375
01:54:39.100 --> 01:54:41.660
like a lot of good things just don't happen.

1376
01:54:42.400 --> 01:54:43.980
And I think research

1377
01:54:45.620 --> 01:54:47.980
good research is a friend to everyone.

1378
01:54:49.940 --> 01:54:51.920
And like helps all scenarios.

1379
01:54:52.560 --> 01:54:54.040
Or like most of them at least.

1380
01:54:54.920 --> 01:54:57.020
Puts us in a stronger position.

1381
01:54:58.960 --> 01:54:59.340
Yeah.

1382
01:55:00.000 --> 01:55:25.920
there's something to be said of sort of the shared uplift in potential when we all have a more accurate access to nature. Even if it not be true, it is a paradigm closer to what functions in ways that we can predict and wield. And nature to be commanded must be obeyed. And so getting closer to that stuff, maybe we could all move a little bit more to what we think is slightly better if we advance some of that is sort of what you're getting at.

1383
01:55:25.920 --> 01:55:40.980
Well, I certainly hope we make progress in those research areas you talked about here. And that's a big part of why I wanted to make sure to get your perspective. I know we went pretty deep into overtime, Mike, but it was worth every minute on my side, brother. I am grateful we got to have you on the show. And thanks so much for being here, man.

1384
01:55:41.660 --> 01:55:44.200
A real pleasure, Dan. My pleasure.

1385
01:55:45.040 --> 01:55:53.460
So that's all for this episode of The Trajectory. I hope you've enjoyed this little adventure with Mike Johnson. A big thank you to you for listening all the way through to the end of this episode. And thank you to Mike.

1386
01:55:54.100 --> 01:55:55.900
Some of the questions in this episode are,

1387
01:55:55.920 --> 01:56:14.800
I think, were inspired by a Twitter post I did ahead of the episode. And I'm starting to do more and more of this with the Robin Hanson episode and now with Mike's episode. We had a question from Dirk, from Peter Voss, from Jeffrey Miller, from HDP Billy, and a handful of others that sort of fed into what came up in the episode here with Mike Johnson.

1388
01:56:14.940 --> 01:56:22.860
So thanks to everybody who's kind of chipped in a little bit. I'm starting to do this kind of last-minute collection gathering from followers, and I thought it was really fun this time.

1389
01:56:22.980 --> 01:56:25.820
I want to give a couple points of reflection on this episode.

1390
01:56:25.920 --> 01:56:29.080
I'm going to read a couple of things that sort of stood out to me. I've got some notes here on the screen. I'm just going to read them.

1391
01:56:29.520 --> 01:56:52.620
One of the things I really appreciate about Mike's work is his very careful thinking and the fact that he's at least brash enough and confident enough to put forth again where we might put a toe in the water to begin to understand consciousness and to lay out sort of a theory of what it might be, how it might be instantiated, what would be important about it.

1392
01:56:53.660 --> 01:56:55.900
That might be threads we could draw.

1393
01:56:55.920 --> 01:57:05.900
That might be things we could pull on as science continues to develop and hopefully we'll be able to experiment more in biology and neuroscience and other substrates to sort of crack away at this problem.

1394
01:57:07.120 --> 01:57:10.260
He has some very ornate ideas, and he frames it well.

1395
01:57:10.360 --> 01:57:17.680
He intends for them to be modular, that is to say they're supposed to kind of click together, the idea of symmetry theory of valence and his vasocomputation idea, etc.

1396
01:57:19.160 --> 01:57:22.460
He leaves them on the table as sort of make of them what you will.

1397
01:57:22.580 --> 01:57:25.900
But he also intends for them to be able to do something.

1398
01:57:25.920 --> 01:57:26.280
He says, well, I'm going to try to make them click together.

1399
01:57:26.840 --> 01:57:28.280
That's a really hard thing to do.

1400
01:57:28.400 --> 01:57:31.200
I'm interested in which of Michael's ideas clicked for you.

1401
01:57:31.300 --> 01:57:33.660
Like, does the symmetry idea seem likely for you?

1402
01:57:34.320 --> 01:57:36.260
What are your thoughts on vasocomputation?

1403
01:57:36.540 --> 01:57:42.620
I just think it's sort of cool that his body of work has a singular and coherent purpose in a multidisciplinary fashion.

1404
01:57:44.000 --> 01:57:46.940
And I like that about the discussion, frankly.

1405
01:57:47.020 --> 01:57:48.660
I like that about reading what he puts out.

1406
01:57:49.320 --> 01:57:55.900
I'm going to chip in on a couple of things in terms of like what came out throughout the interview from my conception, sort of what my early reflections were.

1407
01:57:55.920 --> 01:57:58.180
And then I'm going to try to get into what the other questions are here, just having recorded this episode with Michael.

1408
01:57:59.200 --> 01:58:08.080
One of them is, you know, I haven't done the homework on where symmetry shows up in mental states at present.

1409
01:58:09.640 --> 01:58:23.740
You know, in the MRI machine, if you put a Labrador retriever or a human being or a flatworm, you know, in an MRI or something like that, you know, if ice cream always has a symmetrical notion to it.

1410
01:58:23.740 --> 01:58:32.960
Or if you hit somebody on the foot with a hammer, if that always has a non-symmetrical resonance in the brain in some way, shape, or form.

1411
01:58:36.360 --> 01:58:38.700
I think maybe there's more reading to be done here.

1412
01:58:38.780 --> 01:58:50.960
But it seems to me likely that in a world with cephalized vertebrates, where sort of, you know, our very development in the embryo is kind of this blooming and this sort of bifurcation.

1413
01:58:52.600 --> 01:58:53.720
That symmetry works.

1414
01:58:53.740 --> 01:59:00.340
It would be a pretty freaking important part of like the neural and general intelligence structure of the kinds of entities that we are.

1415
01:59:00.460 --> 01:59:09.180
As Michael had said, the kinds of entities that carry the ocean with them onto the land, you know, given our lineage here, our supposed lineage.

1416
01:59:11.100 --> 01:59:13.780
It seems reasonably plausible that that's the case.

1417
01:59:13.820 --> 01:59:15.560
Now, that said, again, I haven't done the homework.

1418
01:59:15.680 --> 01:59:21.000
If you smash somebody's hand with a hammer in an MRI, is it like, do they feel it in different places?

1419
01:59:21.160 --> 01:59:23.720
But then, you know, you show them a picture of, you know, their brain.

1420
01:59:23.740 --> 01:59:27.100
And it's, you know, a symmetrical lighting up of brain parts.

1421
01:59:27.180 --> 01:59:28.000
I don't really know.

1422
01:59:28.060 --> 01:59:28.800
I haven't seen that stuff.

1423
01:59:28.960 --> 01:59:34.340
I can go on Mike's word that sort of like there's enough evidence for that.

1424
01:59:34.460 --> 01:59:43.120
I don't know if the totality of net positive quality experience will necessarily manifest that.

1425
01:59:43.240 --> 01:59:52.420
You know, I can imagine a way of becoming of a being that would not be sort of cephalized vertebrate bifurcation.

1426
01:59:53.740 --> 01:59:59.860
Where maybe it would be more like a fractal set of outgrowths of an entity in terms of like the expansion of its mind and physical body.

1427
02:00:00.020 --> 02:00:12.860
some very wildly different substrate and space than human beings occupy, where pleasure and pain aren't really appreciably manifested by any kind of symmetry.

1428
02:00:12.860 --> 02:00:28.540
It may be that I'm not understanding Mike's position, but it just, I suspect I don't quite have the confidence that that expands beyond the kind of vertebrates that we can now study in MRI machines.

1429
02:00:28.740 --> 02:00:40.560
I don't know if symmetry clicks for me all the way, but I'm interested to see how his ideas develop, and I'm sure his future vasocomputation ideas will sort of overlap more and more with his ideas of symmetry, and I'll sort of get a better conception as we go.

1430
02:00:40.560 --> 02:00:54.660
In addition to that, you sort of saw the idea of beauty come about. So Mike had sort of two core ideas. You know, he'd want sort of what life, this process of life continues to bloom into to be strong, that is to say, willing to continue to grow, as he had said.

1431
02:00:54.740 --> 02:01:04.680
If it's not growing, it's dying. He doesn't suspect we'll be able to escape that state of nature state. I suspect he is right. So he wants it to be strong. He also wants it to be beautiful.

1432
02:01:05.000 --> 02:01:10.540
I tried to double click on where he meant by beauty, and I'm reticent, I think, on that.

1433
02:01:10.560 --> 02:01:14.100
I think he's trying to extend beauty to some kind of highest position.

1434
02:01:14.360 --> 02:01:17.780
It's certainly refined. It's certainly sophisticated, right?

1435
02:01:17.820 --> 02:01:29.040
Imagine if he had said something so unsophisticated as, you know, the totality of the good culminates in, I don't know, you know, delicious taste or sexual orgasm or something like that.

1436
02:01:29.040 --> 02:01:33.600
That would seem very vulgar, right? It wouldn't seem very poetic, very artistic, very sophisticated.

1437
02:01:34.540 --> 02:01:36.820
Beauty is much more of all three of those things.

1438
02:01:38.600 --> 02:01:40.540
And surely, I suspect, he's right.

1439
02:01:40.560 --> 02:01:47.760
I suspect it could be vastly more complex, potentially, than some of the other more base pleasures, or at least it's associated with being more complex.

1440
02:01:47.860 --> 02:01:52.560
Maybe I just want it to be. I don't actually know for sure in its kind of neural correlates.

1441
02:01:54.180 --> 02:02:06.300
But I'm not certain that in the total state space of all possible, this feels good, this doesn't feel good, or the total state space of all conceivable experience itself,

1442
02:02:07.880 --> 02:02:17.900
that necessarily the nut of that would be beauty, which seems to me a pseudo-arbitrary circuit that has emerged for man.

1443
02:02:18.020 --> 02:02:19.660
Now, that could be wrong. It could be wrong.

1444
02:02:19.840 --> 02:02:22.080
But my position tends to be the following.

1445
02:02:22.240 --> 02:02:26.720
I tend to suspect that we know not what the final value is,

1446
02:02:26.780 --> 02:02:31.360
that we know not what nature is in its essence eternally,

1447
02:02:31.380 --> 02:02:35.460
and that as hominids, we ought not presume we ever will.

1448
02:02:35.680 --> 02:02:36.280
Instead, we know what nature is in its essence eternally.

1449
02:02:36.300 --> 02:02:40.560
Instead, I sort of advocate that we expand the total set of potentia, which could then

1450
02:02:40.560 --> 02:02:46.360
get a deeper access to nature, a more thorough sense of experience, a more wide set of powers,

1451
02:02:46.620 --> 02:02:51.380
and continue to drill more deeply into what the good maybe would be.

1452
02:02:51.480 --> 02:02:57.880
I would presume we would need higher entities to be in contact with higher ranges and types

1453
02:02:57.880 --> 02:03:00.980
of good to start to hypothesize about any final good.

1454
02:03:00.980 --> 02:03:07.040
I have no confidence that sexual orgasm, the taste of ice cream, or beauty be the eternal.

1455
02:03:07.600 --> 02:03:09.440
That said, I may be wrong.

1456
02:03:09.720 --> 02:03:13.640
It might be a bit of the mystic spirit in Mike to be able to sort of make that bet.

1457
02:03:13.780 --> 02:03:17.080
And on some level, his project is different than mine.

1458
02:03:18.840 --> 02:03:24.200
My project is sort of a questioning and opening up of ideas as kind of like my main modus operandi,

1459
02:03:24.340 --> 02:03:30.100
and his is to be bold enough to make claims about what might be and sort of what he wants

1460
02:03:30.100 --> 02:03:30.800
to test.

1461
02:03:31.980 --> 02:03:32.120
And I think that's the way that I see the world.

1462
02:03:32.120 --> 02:03:36.420
And it's certainly more concrete and granular, and I have to respect that, because it's actually

1463
02:03:37.700 --> 02:03:40.620
harder to put forth ideas that could be wrong in some sense.

1464
02:03:40.960 --> 02:03:45.600
And at least it makes me contest with my own definition of beauty, which I think I've at

1465
02:03:45.600 --> 02:03:47.860
least been able to jostle around in my interview with Mike.

1466
02:03:48.180 --> 02:03:49.820
But those are some of my immediate reflections.

1467
02:03:50.300 --> 02:03:52.100
Interested in your thoughts, throw them down in the comments.

1468
02:03:52.220 --> 02:03:58.080
Moving forward, I'm going to be putting out more tweets ahead of the interview to just

1469
02:03:58.080 --> 02:03:59.300
sort of ask for last minute questions.

1470
02:03:59.380 --> 02:04:01.720
I mean, some of them might be non sequiturs.

1471
02:04:01.760 --> 02:04:01.960
They're my favorite.

1472
02:04:01.980 --> 02:04:04.220
Some of them might not quite fit with whatever the theme of the interview is.

1473
02:04:04.480 --> 02:04:08.360
But if they are, I'll be sure to include them, and then I'll also be sure to give a little

1474
02:04:08.360 --> 02:04:11.120
shout out in the outro to people that have helped me run better interviews.

1475
02:04:11.220 --> 02:04:16.460
I'm hoping to get better at this over time, and grateful to be able to have an audience

1476
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to share it with.

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So with that said, we're going to wrap up on this episode.

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Thanks for joining us here on The Trajectory.

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I'll catch you next time.