Near Death Experiences, Telepathy & The Multiverse. An Astrophysicist Explains | Dr. Charles Liu
Author Name:Dr. Mayim Bialik
Youtube Channel Url:https://www.youtube.com/@MayimBialik
Youtube Video URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqoGDc_O-Uo
Transcript:
(00:00) The equations of quantum mechanics predict that there can exist a [music] multitude of universes. Whether the Schroinger's cat is living or not living produces another universe. Quantum physics predicts nature very well. What else can it predict that we have not yet discovered? [music] Einstein's theory of relativity predicted existence of black holes.
(00:24) Every single [music] particle in the universe, every time it does a quantum thing, a new universe is spawned. >> Dr. Charles Louu is an astrophysicist whose research tackles the biggest questions in the universe. >> The problem of consciousness is one of the [music] most significant in all of philosophy. >> That's why Bruce Grayson started his research.
(00:44) [music] He said, "I had a patient tell me the tie I was wearing yesterday when she was in a coma." >> Right? And what's wrong with that? We have this thing called quantum entanglement which does not depend on how close we are or how connected we are to something at any given moment. But see that's the whole point. These unknowns fill me with [music] wonder and joy.
(01:07) [music] >> Hi, I'm Alic. >> And I'm Jonathan Cohen. >> And welcome to our breakdown. Today we've got a very special treat. I would say we are talking to one of the most open-minded astrophysicists we have ever encountered. Dr. Charles Louu is a professor of astrophysics at City University of New York's College of Staten Island.
(01:31) He's also an associate with the Hayden Planetarium and Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. He's the host of the podcast The Luniverse with Dr. Charles Louu, a good friend of Neil Degrass Tyson's. And we have been waiting to speak to Dr. Lou for so long. We're going to start our conversation with asking him to explain what science can't explain.
(01:53) But most of the episode is spent exploring what science has yet to understand. We ask him about near-death experiences, universal theories of consciousness, and quantum mechanics. He is so creative, so playful, and also so open to thinking outside of the box. We also touched on the many worlds theory, uh, energy and the body's energetic system, um, what memory holds, is there a notion of a soul, and more.
(02:20) >> One of the things I love about this episode is Dr. Lou is open to hearing Jonathan and my perspectives that we have gathered from years interfacing with our community and speaking to a variety of specialists. and he entertains and helps us explain possible theories for everything from love to post-traumatic stress syndrome to is time not linear.
(02:43) What a pleasure to welcome in person Dr. Charles Lou. >> Break [singing] it down. >> Thank you, Dr. Ballik. What a pleasure to be here. >> I promise we will call you I like calling you Chuck. That feels appropriate. >> I would love that very much. >> We had Neil deGrasse Tyson on. We've had him on twice and the last time he was here um he was a real killjoy >> because we [laughter] >> not Neil, >> we're talking about aliens and obviously I get it right.
(03:12) Physicists are not in the position to say aliens exist. It's not what you go to school for and training for. Um, but I wonder if we could sort of as a starting place maybe you can sort of help us because you you are known to be very playful and very creative in the way that you talk about and communicate you know some very complicated concepts um especially in the field of astrophysics.
(03:34) Where are you in terms of the current climate right of our political state our conversations about disclosure? What are we seeing and what might we see? >> From the overall general scientific point of view, we can say with certainty that there is still no scientifically solid evidence that extraterrestrial life has ever come to Earth while we have been around and sentient.
(04:01) That is 100% still true. Nothing that has been disclosed or has been shown or anything like that constitutes the kind of rigorous scientific proof or even evidence uh that would either uh confirm or refute uh extraterrestrial uh life coming here onto Earth. >> You're kind of being a killjoy too. >> No, however I was going to say however is the part.
(04:27) But however is the part, right? Um I am always happy to see evidence. I I want people to show that evidence and I am perfectly willing to accept the possibility that it has happened but the evidence isn't there. Right? Um now that is the main issue. Uh those of us who believe that extraterrestrial life exists um generally um are sure that it's out there somewhere.
(04:54) But whether it's here or if it's plentiful or that kind of thing, we need the evidence. That's what makes us want to feel good about that. But the imagination, the way we think, there is nothing wrong with going beyond and to consider everything as uh mundane as Star Trek or the wild and crazy things that many speculative fiction writers have written about in the future and things like that.
(05:17) um a threebody problem. All cultures, every thought tradition has imagined the existence of extraterrestrial life. So I have no problem talking about it and thinking about it and going, "Oh, cool." The main issue is just to know the difference between what is scientific and what is non-scientific and and what frankly is pseudoscientific or fake, >> right? And I think that that's where a lot of people are getting overwhelmed with misinformation, disinformation, and the fact is we're in an era where information is available in ways that
(05:52) looks very reliable. You know, I encounter this with my mother who will send me things and she'll say, "Can you believe this?" You know, the pig jumping on a trampoline. And I'll have to, you know, inform her, right? I don't believe that. But it is enjoyable. Um, but I think that one of the things that is confusing for a lot of people is, you know, we do have this notion of the government is releasing files and we talked about this with Neil and I was kind of like, we don't need to be dramatic about it. If you have a body,
(06:21) show it to me. If you have if there's a if there's a chemist who has, you know, analyzed whatever, I don't care if it's silica based, like whatever is going on. I want to be shown definitive proof that this is not of this world. And and this is what I think we kind of you know get confused about or at least you know we sometimes have dis disagreement about you know having one person who says I've seen it is not the same as presenting it.
(06:52) Is there drama being inserted for you know like political effects or just dramatic effects? Like why what is like just show me all of it. Do you think we can't handle it? Because it used to be like, is this a security threat? For us to realize like, oh my god, there's aliens. But I think we're a little bit past that.
(07:10) I feel like there's something going on with the way information is being delivered that I'm curious if it makes you feel one way or the other about what what might come. >> That's a great point. And and I look back in history of all the different kinds of things that were mysterious, whether they're aliens today or whether they were ghosts or demons or witches centuries ago.
(07:35) Anytime someone wanted to uh manipulate the environment or the people for their own personal whatever, what they would do is to say, "Oh, I got something that I know that you don't." And then they make it mysterious and unusual and and you know much better than I do how the human brain works. Right.
(07:55) We assess evidence in a way that's very unscientific. >> Sure. >> Right. [laughter] And the whole point when Galileo first uh published this uh thing ilioto in 1623 I think it was um explaining look there is philosophical truth and then there is empirical truth and I choose to follow the empirical stuff for now I'm not saying that there isn't an absolute thing like the beauty of a tree or the ethics of a rock but instead I will for now try to study this tree and this rock by its color, its size, its properties, its materials, its
(08:32) composition, etc., etc., etc. Right? So that's how we fortunately in the past four centuries have become able to assess information more than just by taking someone's word for it or seeing it printed and then like interpreting in our head, but actually seeing something. And so what you've just said is right on, right? Show us.
(08:56) Let us see it and let us evaluate it the way the Galileo told his Catholic Church oppressors. >> We recently spoke to DW Pasula and Dr. Pulka, you know, talks about how for all of human history, we've reported things that we can't understand and depending on the kind of cultural epoch that we find ourselves in, you know, we find these explanations for >> the things that we can't yet explain or that we don't yet understand. Right.
(09:22) Well said. And you know, you've talked a lot about zombies and monsters and and I was thinking about, you know, Godzilla, right? And and what you've talked about >> and you know, it hadn't occurred to me like we do we create science fiction in particular >> to to deal with the fears that we're having as a society.
(09:42) >> Absolutely. >> So, can you speak a little bit to Godzilla as an example, right, of a a cultural moment that needed >> a a a villain, a savior? Can you talk a little bit about how aliens might fit into that framework? >> Wow. Uh, great question and super awesome and it totally does relate back to religious studies.
(10:01) As I told you, my eldest daughter Hannah um did study religious studies in addition to the classics. Um and what she has told me and I hope I process it correctly is that our definition of religion in the United States or in the Western civilization that we're used to right now is extremely limited. We've always tried to box in other people's religious ideas and spiritual connections in what we thought religion was.
(10:33) And but if you look actually beyond on the whole uh spectrum of how people experience or manifest spirituality, it is indeed that sort of uh something is unknown and we ascribe it to something we don't understand. And how do we do that? Well, let's put it on something else we don't understand. It's just beyond us. But it's not always uh say in our tradition beyond us forever, right? There is this all- knowing omnisient set of deities or single deity or whatever where uh they know everything and we don't and we never will. But rather it's like there
(11:10) is stuff that we don't understand but it's okay and there will come a time when we do understand if that is our destiny. But even if we don't understand it, we just ascribe it to well, you know, that's how it goes, you know, and and that's where you go. And then what happens is that as time went on, people were thinking, well, maybe I can influence things.
(11:32) Maybe I can hack the universe, right? Maybe I can change the odds in the favor of me if I can try to access that sort of thing that's more awesome than I am. And then uh concepts of prayer, concepts of sacrifice, concepts of of that kind of thing come into play. And then from there uh the ideas evolve further when you have a government or when you have an authority and they wish to find some way to exert that authority beyond what we might be able to see on a daily basis, eating, sleeping, the indoors and things like that. And now let's just invoke that and
(12:08) say you if you listen to me or these documents as I have interpreted them I can give you a chance to beat the odds or improve your lot in this life or if this life sucks in some future >> and and so that's sort of the evolution of how religion has become this sort of social activity. Um, and there are plenty of scientific papers too that have described the possibility of religion as a necessary part of human evolution.
(12:43) >> That we being biological creatures, um, we are natural, but we don't understand everything. And so, we need to have something to explain something that we might consider supernatural at the time. And you said it really well. We're past that in many ways now. We don't need you and an authority to tell us, trust me, we have this special information and we're going to uh dramatize it and exploit you from it or or you know, profit off of you or entertain you with it. Uh we can handle it and we are okay.
(13:20) uh you know that right now uh the American Astronomical Society is meeting uh as we record here and I was there at that meeting and I will be there again in a little while and it has been such a joy to see everybody talking about different kinds of ways that we're studying the universe and just saying you know the common theme we don't know and that's why we're doing this you know we're not waiting for someone to tell us or to inform us what secret information they have we don't No.
(13:50) So, we're going to go find it. And that's what makes us feel much better, more more even more able to hack the universe to some extent. [music] >> My breakdown is supported by Cava Haven. >> What if instead [music] of giving something up, you found a better option? A lot of us reach a point where we still want that ritual of like having a drink.
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(15:21) And because Kavah is sponsoring this episode, they're going to give our listeners 15% off their first order. Go to kavahhaven.com/breaker. >> Again, that's kavahhaven.com/breaker for 15% off your first order. >> kavahhaven.com/breaker. Giveah Haven a try. Discover a new way to relax, unwind, and socialize. My Alex breakdown is supported by Superpower.
(15:46) >> You've probably heard us talk about Superpower before. It's a health membership with advanced testing, personalized protocol, and ondemand care. [music] It gives a deeper understanding of what's actually happening in your body and a clear plan for where you can improve. And the value doesn't stop after your first test.
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(16:17) It's about understanding how they're changing over time. Jonathan actually just you scheduled your progress check. Um you waited what like about a year? >> I waited a year, compared my numbers. >> Many of the changes that you made because of your first test actually showed that you were moving in the right direction.
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(16:48) For a limited time, our listeners get $50 off to unlock their membership. Head over to superpower.com. Use the code break for $50 off your Superpower membership. After you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about Superpower. Tell them my Alex Breakdown sent you to support the show. There's a fable in Jewish kind of mythology of a golem, which is a, you know, a creature. Yeah.
(17:12) A creature that's crafted from, you know, the clay of the banks of, I think it originated in Prague was where the story originated. But, um, you know, this notion that >> there comes a time when we need something, right, to either protect us or to create this. I mean, look, it's the basis of every great Marvel movie and even DC, you know, or not movie, but like the comic books.
(17:32) Um, talk talk to us about Godzilla. >> Godzilla plays right into all of this because we want to make tangible something that is um feels beyond our control that feels not natural, right? Uh and so when nuclear weapons were first being tested and of course Japan had been the the target of nuclear weapons and thousands of people died and there were still at that time even many people who were sick and and uh the recovery was still long.
(18:06) The folks who made the original Godzilla in 1954 were thinking, you know what, uh, we are creating something that nature uphorsed. And so Godzilla was the way of saying if we mess with this unknown stuff, then the unknown stuff is going to mess with us. Right? Uh, you're familiar, of course, with Blue Oyster Cult's version of Godzilla, right? History shows again and again nature points out the folly of me and Godzilla was that response saying you know what if you guys keep doing this nuclear stuff then nature will return and try to restore that. Um the
(18:46) original Godzilla though was was really also a very personal movie. Um you you see it and you're going oh these are humans and they're dealing with stuff and and so it was very subtle. As time went on though, this creature became so iconic that you wound up with more and more of Godzilla being that savior figure, right? Um there was a famous Godzilla versus the smog monster uh where human smog was creating this disaster and so uh Godzilla had to defeat that person um and well person that monster entity, right? Um, we have
(19:26) other like slightly smaller versions of Godzilla. The Toxic Avenger, which was a silly movie, but you know, fun, meaningful movie about that kind of thing. Um, you say the Gollum again, a a u when the earth rises and says, you know, >> not so fast you guys, right? There's all these different ways of us pulling these super creatures, superheroes, and so forth into solving our problems.
(19:52) a lot of these examples and you know I'd say even from you know religious traditions like Judeo-Christianity going back thousands and thousands of years there there were you know interfaces with other entities or beings you know one of the examples that Dr. Dr. Pulka talked to us about, you know, this notion of some of the prophets visions, right? Ezekiel's vision of this like it's like it's like a wheel but it's like a chariot. It's like it's got eyeballs.
(20:21) Like what even are we talking about? And you know, >> and in the Jewish tradition, you know, th those prophecies came from sleep, from dreams, from like let's go into a state. It wasn't like oh, I was walking down the street to like go to the market and I saw this. It was I'm going to put myself in a state to receive this information.
(20:40) But one of the things that I'm so intrigued about when we talk about aliens is how much this notion has entered people's homes and their bodies, right? Like there are not I mean I can think of some X-Men examples, right, where there's an embodiment, right, or an absorption of powers? But I'm also so curious, what is it about this time we're living in, right, that is leading to this narrative, right, that they're coming into our homes and they're taking us up.
(21:10) And I mean, you know, the you've heard the reports. It's >> and we we spoke to someone who had an alien abduction where four people in the sky witnessed this and now he's able to summon lights and he takes thousands of people. So, while it hasn't been scientifically studied to the rigor of undeniable evidence, you have firstirhand accounts of multiple people with their cell phone footage.
(21:34) You're like, "What the hell is this blinking light that he seems to summon? What's going on?" [laughter] That's actually very complicated on multiple steps, right? Um, I'll address one point first, and that is this person was abducted by aliens. Okay. um in that person's reality within his mind it is philosophically completely possible that he was abducted by aliens.
(22:02) Um I've been wanting to ask you uh May as [clears throat] a um brain specialist, right? >> It's been a minute, but yes. >> Yes. Like how much of our realities are really shared objectively and how much of our realities are actually within us? Is there a percentage that that neuroscientists have? >> I mean they they may I don't have that stat but I think that you know one of the things that he's talking about Chris Bledsoe here you know one of the things is what is happening when other people are videotaping and that's right and
(22:35) witnessing like what what are we actually talking about and we know that there's a lot of ways that >> leaders can be very persuasive. >> Yes. You know, and there's a lot about mentalism in here. Like I I don't I don't know. >> Right. Right. See, Yuri Geller, if you remember this name, right, in this uh became very famous as a mentalist.
(22:56) >> Um Johnny Carson uh who had him on uh he was a stage magician himself at one point. And so there's a famous episode where Johnny Carson brings Yuri Geller on and they were going to talk about stuff, but then Johnny specifically arranged tests and things that he knew he could easily do using stage uh illusions and asked to see if Yuri was doing anything beyond that.
(23:21) And Yuri could not do any of his mentalist activities. anything anything including the stuff that was uh supposedly testimonially confirmed by investigators. But to your point about charismatic leaders and so forth, that did not change his popularity. In fact, it increased it because the people who wanted to believe >> wanted to know that he was one of them, a human who was fallible.
(23:50) And so their belief structure simply changed to accommodate the fact that the evidence was refuted. So these are the kinds of things that can happen when you have a the cell phones, okay, and you see lights coming on. Um someone like Johnny Carson would have told you I can do that, you know, especially these days with remote controls with anything like that, you can I I could I can, you know, launch a spacecraft over there by tapping something on my phone, right? Is that magic? Arthur C.
(24:18) Clark famously said, uh, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And so, it's not an unnatural thing at all. And so, if we humans are believing or thinking or seeing something, uh, it might be as real, I shall say, as the so-called um objective reality, which may or may not exist philosophically, even from the physicist's point of view.
(24:45) it from the early philosophers right where they uh believed that the only important things were ideas right the actual uh this is the anti-galileo thing where empirical was important for him they would say no the these things crumble into dust but what matters are ideas you know philosophical things that matter u Emanuel Kant called them the things in themselves and so if ideas are filtered through our senses is being heard or being read from somebody into our own brains and we process them separately.
(25:20) Uh my sense of reality is going to be a little different from yours and be a little different from yours. And if we don't know unfortunately scientifically what percentage of it is different. We could wind up with that kind of thing. He really could have in his reality have been uh abducted or um probed or uh just brought on for a cup of coffee or something.
(25:43) you know, we will never know because that's not our reality. But then when he shares that reality with the rest of us, then we absorb what portions there are and then all these other when thousands of people are seeing lights and so forth. If those things are not in their heads but in some sort of shared reality, then what is the process that created those lights? we sort of have an agreement, you know, about the things that are true and the things that are possible.
(26:15) Um, and I think, you know, one of the things that that we're interested in, you know, is how blurry can you make that line and what does that mean to say that someone had an experience that is so fleshed out and so real to them, so concrete, you know, what could it be that we just don't see that way, right? I mean that's that's the other possibility like when you meet people who are deeply spiritually connected and you're like gosh I don't know it's not really me but like I get that it's for them you know what does that mean to have a sort of shared reality
(26:44) >> yes and with all reverence to science who we want to explain everything there's a history of science saying things are absolutely true or impossible that then they slowly start >> 100% >> so there's this skepticism of science but an apprehension I think to not have mystery wonder or an explanation >> radio waves right I mean any of those things who was it Lucille Ball who had a filling in her tooth and she started hearing voices and people were like you're losing your mind and no she was picking up frequencies
(27:17) >> I mean I have lots of other examples >> many examples and what I would say uh is that as a scientist uh I want the skepticism >> when my colleagues state with some sort of unequivocal certainty this proves X. It is my uh impulse as a scientist to say no it proves that X might be true. Show me more and I want to understand more.
(27:51) It is in fact in my opinion uh based on my reading of history. the people who are using science as that same kind of edict saying this is it is so with absolute knowledge and and confidence that they are the ones that are uh abusing science just as much as say despotic people are abusing uh religion or or uh dogma or anything like that.
(28:16) Uh so I don't like that either and so I actually like to draw that distinction. I I think you said it really well that there's this uh boundary and there might be some fuzz between something that's scientific and that's not scientific. Right. But I feel that there is something clear between scientific and non-scientific. And the problem is that people will uh abuse it in both sides.
(28:38) Right? Uh you remember of course that uh in the uh heyday of communism as it was uh practiced in Europe in in the late 20th century shall we say um atheism was the point right the Albanian government >> well it was a fanatical atheism >> destroyed all the churches because they didn't want that of course Markx said that religion is the opiate of the masses which has some grain of truth to it but is not absolute also >> it doesn't have to be a bad thing >> it doesn't have to be a bad thing if religion leads you to leave a a wholesome life that helps others that
(29:11) you care about communicating and being nice to people that's great but religion is like that science is like that um where people will abuse them one way or another so if indeed I would exhort everyone uh that if indeed someone says it is scientifically confirmed and sure that's actually a sign that's a warning sign that it's not science and this guy is trying to pull something on you.
(29:37) >> Correct. You can have a null hypothesis, but then you have to prove it. >> That's right. It's 100% true. >> This is maybe a great place to suggest an approach. Meaning that a lot of time on the podcast, we're speaking to people from different areas, some in meditation practices, some who have had near-death experiences and have had visions of things that they couldn't possibly explain any other way.
(30:01) some people who are just super into science fiction and science fiction ideas or ideas about how the future will go. Maybe you can help us say based on the scientific understanding right now, how probable are some of these things, are there explanations or where might we just need more information? >> I would be happy to try to to to address some of those points.
(30:24) >> Amazing. This is how we're going to to enter it is nonhuman intelligence. Right? So when we talk about for example aliens or we talk about UAPs or UFOs, what we may be talking about is some other entity intelligence force that we may not be able to perceive. Ah if if that's so how do we prove it? See, um, it is very easy to imagine that such a thing is true, right? We humans are great at imagination and and I hope we stay great at imagination because we're about to get with a technological revolution, right? The ability to get
(31:05) the answer to anything with a swipe of the finger. >> Is he the one? Sorry. >> Yeah. [laughter] Right. And you'll get an answer, right? Uh the the whatever program you you ask, is he the one? Is going to say yes or no. uh or maybe or outlook hazy try again you know but you'll get an answer and it will be up to us not just to evaluate whether that answer is correct or incorrect but to ask the right questions so that when we get an answer it means something right so this is one of those things that if we talk about say um extraterrestrial or
(31:40) non-human intelligence okay here's what how you go right now there is no evidence that there is other kinds of intelligence that are influencing us except in uh the ways that we would like to imagine that we're influenced. Many of us think that for example we're not the only species that has consciousness, right? There's clear evidence elephants, um dolphins, uh dingoes, uh in the Australian outback, uh they all express or show traits outwardly that clearly seem like conscious thought or reasoning to us. Awareness with choice, right?
(32:19) >> Right. Awareness with choice. And the problem is we can't actually go in and ask them, hey, are are you actually aware and are you choosing to do this? Because all we can see, all we can perceive from either our eyes or our scientific instruments is what they present outward into our shared existence.
(32:41) And so we are ascribing that information to them. Um the problem of consciousness is of course one of the most significant uh in all of philosophy never mind uh neuroscience or uh science in general right uh when I am talking into this microphone is this microphone conscious does it know or what are the gradations is this microphone more or less conscious than this table or my pair my the pair of my glasses right what is more or less conscious and then can we handle it uh there are many people who for example example uh make choices on their lives, what what
(33:16) they'll use in their daily lives, what they'll eat and things like that based on how much consciousness they think is in the things that they are using or eating or whatever, right? Um are we daily making whether we're conscious of it or not, >> decisions about how much consciousness we're willing to eat and how much we're not.
(33:40) Right? Um, in Native American tribes, there was a tradition among some tribes that, uh, hunted the buffalo, uh, the American bison. Uh, they revered the buffalo because, um, in this grassland, this was the thing that gave them all kinds of things, sustenance, life, materials, fuel, everything. So, they were loathed to kill them and and knew that the buffalo spirit was powerful, but at the same time, they needed to.
(34:04) And so what I was told by a colleague of mine many years ago who studied this said that the tradition was that they would offer a prayer to the buffalo spirit a request say hey guys uh hello buffalo spirit and they have this whole crowd of buffalo you know thousands and thousands of and say hey um we uh we kind of need some stuff are you willing to to let us do this and then they would wait and if a buffalo a single one or a couple straight straight away from the main herd.
(34:38) Then they would say, "Oh, you are offering these creatures to us. Thank you." And then they would go hunt and kill those buffalo and use them. And then they would uh say, "Hey, we promise, you know, we're not going to take this gift for granted." So they would eat the meat and then they would hand the hides and they would use the senus for this and that.
(34:56) And then the buffalo chips, of course, after they all left, this was the fuel they left. So um that was the way that that culture dealt with the consciousness problem. It just seems that like our current consciousness problem is on whether or not there is a higher consciousness or an extraterrestrial consciousness leading us back and forth.
(35:15) So this is how I would approach it from the scientific point of view in trying to understand the currently unscientific feelings. one of the the notions of consciousness that you know we're most intrigued by and and look there's a lot of there's a lot of anecdotal reports which I know is not you know it's not data that's right >> you know it's like an end of one and and even then you know it's you know >> but I think that there is this notion of you know and I think in the plainest terms you know is consciousness fundamental or is it something that
(35:47) exists and essentially gives birth to us right and so if consciousness is something that is fundamental as sort of a building block. Then in theory, you could see why some people would say [clears throat] my consciousness was no longer in my physical body and I was able to observe things that were next door to where my body was laying on a gurnie.
(36:09) Right? So, and this is, you know, um Dr. Bruce Grayson, psychiatrist, you know, from um UVA's department of perceptual studies, you know, this is what they've studied there for decades and decades, right? How do we explain right situations where consciousness seems to not be bound to this vessel? And you know, every spiritual tradition says, you know, you're you're here for Earth school, this is the meat suit you're wearing, but you know, and I and the example I give is when you know, when my father passed away, it was so clear to me that
(36:38) wasn't him, >> you know, like I was looking at the vessel. But when we speak to people who, you know, die and come back, and we're talking like Cho Chong, you know, people who are dead, >> flatlined, [clears throat] >> do do the thing again, >> Jo. [laughter] >> They often come back with very elaborate and specific descriptions of what many physicists would say sounds like a plane of consciousness, right? It's all just zeros and ones, and we're like, it's this beautiful plane, and if you do DMT, you'll see it, right? It's the Matrix
(37:10) code. It's all these apparently Japanese characters. I don't know. So can you frame consciousness for us in in this way in terms of your understanding? >> Let me try. >> Okay. >> Um [snorts] as far as consciousness being this universal thing from which we arise, I do not know of any scientific uh way that that has been confirmed or otherwise effectively tested.
(37:35) >> There are theories though that suggest versus confirmed. I think there's like a nice distinction there. >> That's a great point. Uh when scientists refer to a scientific theory, it means one that is refutable, something that you said that can be tested, but when you test it, instead of being refuted, it is confirmed repeatedly over and over again.
(37:55) Right? That's a scientific theory. Uh a non-scientific theory is one that you cannot test, that you cannot prove. I I I often like to say, uh my favorite non-scientific theory is true love conquers all. I can never prove that, but I still choose to live by it. And I think it's true. Right. >> You're a silly man. >> I am, aren't I? I am, but but my wife is such a sweetheart and my kids are awesome and [laughter] I feel very fortunate.
(38:22) So, from the point of view of a scientific theory, no such scientific theory has ever been developed. All right. Now, what we do know about the theory of consciousness, you probably know better. Please, if you have information, inform me cuz I I've been hoping to learn about neuroscience from you in this conversation. Okay.
(38:41) Consciousness, right, has numerous levels even within our brains, >> right? One aspect of consciousness is very uh to my understanding um very holistic in that even though I am just looking with my eyes here, I know what it looks like from that corner. I do. But until you turn your head, >> Until I turn my head, >> simulation doesn't produce that.
(39:03) >> Right. Precisely. So, let's say I am on a gurnie. >> Okay. My heart has stopped, but there's still neural activity going on. >> Sure. >> Um, my >> How about an hour later though? >> Yeah. I don't know. Right. >> Because >> we've got a guy who was zipped up in a bag and he was out. He was gone for 2 hours and on a fluke they revived him.
(39:24) >> That's fantastic. Good for this person. I love that. Can you imagine in those two hours what went on inside that ring? >> Well, I can't imagine. I know what he came back with, >> right? And and let's talk about that. >> Guess what? Loves the answer. >> Really? >> Yes. [laughter] >> Light of the world shine on me.
(39:42) >> That's right. Yeah. >> Here's the story with that, right? When he came back and saw ones and zeros and matrices and so forth, >> um what about had he seen the Matrix? That's a good question. We didn't know. What year was it? What about was he a computer scientist? No. >> No. >> What about >> and all the people on DMT are not either, >> right? >> Yeah.
(40:06) >> What are they seeing? Right. >> Not to be a neuroscientist about it. It's not just what are they seeing? What are they telling us, >> right? When we scientists are trying to study the universe, we are looking for those other levels. We're not trying to say this is the level. This is it. Everything else is unknown.
(40:23) Right? Um, I really feel that we really no longer need to use the word supernatural. All we should use is the word unknown, right? Not yet understood. Um, even in the comic books when you one of my favorite characters, as you might imagine, is Mr. Fantastic. You know, widely considered as probably the most intelligent uh person in Marvel comics, although Shuri um the the queen of Wakanda might also be there and Tony Stark and whatever, right? Never mind.
(40:50) Oh, he's, you know, >> yeah, [laughter] yeah, I know he's the young, but but Mr. Fantastic is well known for quoting in his books that magic is a science I do not yet understand. Superman has as one of his weaknesses other than kryptonite, magic. Again, he is very susceptible to that. Uh, more susceptible than most because of his I don't know what, right? But um our heroes always have to have an Achilles heel otherwise they're not heroes.
(41:20) They're they're um you know not interesting. >> Yes. [laughter] >> U so so we have this environment where we are looking uh beyond but how much of it was already entered into our brains. >> Um I won't be able to tell you what I had for dinner last Monday unless I think really hard but it's in there somewhere. Right.
(41:46) um in two hours of lack of oxygen, what could have been moving around in that brain to have not was it something that uh this person had seen a long time ago? >> Yeah, it's usually like dead relatives and your whole life flashing before your eyes. >> When somebody has a near-death experience, why do they only see their own >> real? >> Why don't they see other people's if it were a shared afterlife consciousness? Yeah, it's not entirely fair though because you know u let's say people who believe in Jesus as their god >> often will see Jesus in a near-death
(42:21) experience. That's not proof to me that Jesus is real. It's proof that >> we produce right in our imag right in our in our brains, in our minds, like however you want to sort of frame it. That's right. We're producing a filtered experience, right? It's going to be filtered through whatever we encountered and then the meaning that we make of it will also be filtered through.
(42:44) What I think is interesting is similarities across cultures with people who are not speaking and across oceans and for thousands of years. There's been this notion that, you know, we're given some knowledge before we're born and then we forget it and then we're placed here and we have all these experiences.
(42:59) But, you know, any religious tradition that discusses reincarnation, um, rebirth, right? A lot of these kind of things come I mean you know Plato the allegory of the ca like everything you see like this is you know there's a they might be giant song to completely nerd out called where your eyes don't go and it's about whatever's behind you that the reality is you actually don't know what is happening until you turn your head and that you know the video game gets filled with that screen.
(43:26) >> No that's 100% true and and I and and I'm not trying to be unfair. I'm just what I'm trying to say is not at all attacking the folks who had these experiences. I am completely willing to acknowledge that those experiences were real but within their own minds. How much of our shared experiences in our lives right is reality and how much of it is internal.
(43:51) My kids are unhappy with me when I quote this because I didn't read the entire um Harry Potter series. Okay. I only read the only book I read in its entirety was the last book. So when I quote it, they're like, "How how how you know you don't have the authority." That's right. >> But actually there is one line uh in that last book that I always quote because I think it is so uh relevant to these kinds of conversations.
(44:16) Um at the toward the end of the book uh the protagonist asks a ghost basically, right? Uh is this real or is this all happening inside my head? to which the ghost replies, "Of course, it is all happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" Right? So, if I were to be as scientifically honest and and um open as possible about it, I am willing to say that that was a real experience.
(44:49) It's just the reality that we did not. So if you think about the all the people who have had common experiences right they are I'll bet you all of them were told that there was something that that they have a common experience that they haven't experienced yet right it from a medical point of view I have understood that people with near-death experiences also have common things that happen to their biologies their brains run out of oxygen and for example or their their neural activity starts to decline things part uh things start firing in different parts of the
(45:26) brains that ordinarily don't >> but if you're declared dead I wouldn't expect for you to come back with weeks of information and downloaded information also about the nature of time religion spiritual existence >> we wouldn't expect it but >> it could be in there >> but we have to also then allow for you know what many people call a download of information because Elizabeth Cone was dead on the pavement after being struck by lightning.
(45:55) Uh, you know, literally down for a couple minutes and came back with enough information to fill hours of reporting about the things that she experienced, the things she saw, right? So that obviously time is not linear. I don't need to tell you that. But just the notion that you can have an experience where you are watching your body doing things from some precinium that I don't understand.
(46:18) You are hearing conversations that are not in the room that you're in. That's why Bruce Grayson started his research. He said, "I had a patient tell me the tie I was wearing yesterday when she was in a coma." And he said, "I could not explain that as a young psychiatry intern." >> He also said that she told me I had a stain on my tie that I got from lunch, but the tie was underneath and she saw it.
(46:40) >> Isn't that something? I love that. >> Yeah, but that's not that's a download of information. Yeah. >> How does our brain work? I think is the key question. If we can understand how our brain filters information from our senses, that would be the scientific information. >> Our brain clearly doesn't need me to be in it is the only thing I can like >> that is an explanation.
(47:03) That's not the only explanation. >> Okay. >> Okay. I really I really think that there is a way to process that. Now, obviously, there has not yet been say funding from some uh science. >> Your other options aren't so good. It's that my brain has tentacles that reach through the walls, >> right? And what's wrong with that? >> Nothing.
(47:18) >> Right? We have this thing called quantum entanglement, which does not depend on how close we are or how connected we are to something at any given moment, but we don't understand it. That's a very very >> uh you know, spooky action that that's a whole another story. Yeah. Well, I [laughter] don't know about that either.
(47:34) The the string theory has has issues as well. But see, that's the whole point, right? These unknowns fill me with wonder and joy. Let's go back to the octopus tentacles [laughter] for a second. I feel like we glazed over that. >> That's another option. >> That is just Yes, that is a hypothesis that somehow, right, we are connected.
(47:54) >> Say the whole sentence. Somehow I'm in a room and I have a perception of something that's happening through a wall while I'm dead. >> Because he said we're all connected in some way. >> Yeah. And then what you have to confirm scientifically >> Yes. is whether or not that connection exists. >> Correct. Well, it something's existing.
(48:16) >> I am more willing to say that something appears to exist and that our brains might be doing. There are coincidences that do happen, right? Um our current the president of the United States changes hands in 2025 and 6 months later tariffs are very high. Right? Now, that is something that you can probably have some kind of >> Is this a causation correlation conversation? >> Yes, it is.
(48:46) Right now, um, our current president, a president showed up in 2025 and the Dodgers win the World Series a second time. >> Are they connected? >> Right. Some people would say so, but other people say that's just a coincidence. And the odds are is just a coincidence. There are so many coincidences this world. Have you ever heard of paridolia? It's okay.
(49:02) It's a fancy word for saying you see faces in spaghetti. >> Oh, yeah. because we're we're pattern we're pattern recognizers and it's it's in our human nature to see I see faces in the clouds >> right right um if you see 20,000 patterns [laughter] um I I I saw this number once I have to find the reference but if you see 20,000 patterns on average one of them is actually causation it's something like 20,000 to one and and I again I wish I could find that I only read it once I only read it once so I have to find the paper to confirm it and things like
(49:37) that, but it's it's a matter of neuroscience and our ability to see patterns and things like that and how many of them are actually causal uh is a very very small percentage. So, uh with that in mind, um we need to confirm that that one in 20,000 or one in whatever thousand it is is actually causal, right? Um, and even let let me bring if we're talking about a a near-death experience or a true death experience.
(50:04) >> What is death? >> When are we dead? >> When are we dead? If I'm if I'm >> two hours zipped up in a body bag, that's dead. >> Probably that feels. >> Oh, but but also some people might say, "Oh, there was a faint pulse and his body could be in a state such that they couldn't find a pulse and blah blah." I mean there's >> which raises the question how many people are being declared dead who are not actually dead >> on the ground >> there could be a lot of people that we're losing >> well we have these things in our medical
(50:37) system called do not resuscitate orders right >> and that's because we feel that there is some level of life that is not worth preserving I could be uh on a ventilator and breathing forever ever. I could be uh have a some sort of a heart machine and have my heartbeat forever. Am I still alive? Right.
(51:03) So now our definitions become a little clogged. >> Well, okay. And and and no, no, don't don't apologize. This is a very controversial thing and I'd like to say that. Right. >> Um >> when >> when people are put on ventilators uh because their lungs are failing and so forth, right? What what they're hoping is that when your human body >> is relieved of the burden of having to breathe, >> then the rest of your body can then heal, right? Can slowly regenerate over time.
(51:33) Sometimes it's weeks, sometimes it's months, but many times also it doesn't work, right? And so unfortunately that happens. But during that time, it's not that, oh, we put somebody on a machine and then we walk away and have a vacation. They're being monitored many times a day and things have to be kept clean so that there's no infection. Things have to be this.
(51:51) >> It's not easy to keep someone in that state >> at all. So during that time when you're not breathing for yourself are you still alive? Um I think so. But how at what point you say you know what it's time to let go and that I think is that definition. So so please tell me what you think about that.
(52:11) Well, this leads to, you know, a satellite conversation about I guess it's about it's about consciousness. It's about agency. >> You know, the telepathy tapes podcast kind of took the world by storm. >> I haven't heard them. I'm sorry. >> I can do my best to sum it up. You know, one aspect of the telepathy tapes is if you take not non-speaking autistic individuals, there are certain individuals who um seem to have, you know, a much more elaborate consciousness system and communication ability that in many cases was left ignored or untapped largely
(52:50) because culturally we we have not known what to do historically with people who don't fit, you know, a certain, you know, So um you know the example I give there's someone in my family you know two generations ago who you know he was placed in a facility because that's what was done in the 40s and 50s and what we're now learning is that there there are people who can communicate and who have elaborate intelligence and you know consciousness inside of a body that may not be communicating let's say verbally.
(53:22) >> That's that feels really good. Yeah. Right. >> It feels great. But the the notion that is discussed in the telepathy tapes is that you know there's some and this is just what you know people talk about that there is some plane of consciousness where nonverbal autistic individuals can go >> and that communication can be shared there in ways that seems to not be explainable by other rules that we have about communication.
(53:53) How information exists. It's very interesting and it's not, you know, season one. It's it's we had Dr. Diane Hennessy on and some of her research is in season one and Julia Mossbridge is the the cognitive science head for season 2. But I think the question, you know, that that what you're talking about brings up is, you know, if I don't know what someone else's, let's say, experiences of their consciousness versus what, you know, is being reported, >> you know, are there ways to test, [laughter] >> right, these kinds of things. And that's
(54:27) sort of what Julia Moss, what Dr. Mossbridge is trying to do, you know, are there ways to examine how do people know things that are happening? you know, how do people because if you look at let's say you give people, you know, a choice of five numbers, you know, you're holding up one of them behind a screen that, you know, if you're holding up five numbers, they've got a 20% chance, right, by chance of being right.
(54:51) Why should they be statistically significantly accurate 40 to 50% of the time, right? >> This is the Stargate remote viewing. >> This is the Stargate remote viewing, which, you know, Russia had been working on for decades. Like I don't Russia very early on was like, we will train people to remote view.
(55:07) I'm very skeptical about remote viewing. >> Work real well considering what happened to Russia. Yeah. Or or that Russian government, >> but it is a technique that is not only utilized like by our military and our government, but you know, we spoke to Angela Ford who worked as a seer, you know, a remote viewer for for almost a decade in her time, you know, in the army or in the in the government for almost 20 years.
(55:30) You know, what what could possibly be going on when we talk about again these are similar. It's consciousness that exists in some other place which the aosic records and many ancient traditions say information is just out there right we just need to tune in and some people are better tuned than others right I'm not good at a lot of things and I'm very good at other things maybe there are people who are good at tuning into something that is very hard to measure >> what an interesting idea I'm thinking right now actually as you know of of
(55:59) brain computer interfaces >> great >> which currently exist right now >> yeah Um, and it is amazing to have I've seen some footage of this which uh you know just obviously they must have been cherrypicked or cut some where uh someone with something like ALS Lucer's disease who cannot move anything they put a brain computer interface on find a way and then they're able on a screen to just think and say you know and say something that actually you know something that is meaningful to a family member and and they just you know it's
(56:32) so emotal They break down. It's like it's amazing. They felt and knew all along that there was something going on in there, but they just couldn't get it out. This is known well well-known science that now people have people use brain computer brain, you know, human computer interfaces, whatever you want to call them, and they do and they work.
(56:51) Uh, and now the goal is to make them so that they're portable or that they useful, that they don't um need invasive surgery or anything like that to be implanted, blah blah blah. Uh there's lots of cool stuff going on. So is there some other level you're hoping that there is that extra step? Unfortunately or maybe fortunately on the electromagnetic spectrum >> that we understand there seems to be nothing that allows that.
(57:18) >> We would have found that by now we have very good very very very good uh detectors. Um >> could it be gravitational waves for example? Uh also not. We we now have gravitational wave detectors that can uh measure the change in length or width or height by a fraction of a proton's width, right? And we've never seen anything like that amongst all of us.
(57:43) So that it's not that either. It's also important for us to keep in mind if we're trying to use a data set that complies to all of the things we needed to comply for, we we actually may be looking at something that we don't yet understand, >> we must acknowledge this, >> right? So like what I would suggest is you know if the basis of some sort of telepathy or intuition you know or you know someone's caregiver you know being able to communicate with someone on a level that we don't understand.
(58:15) You know my kind of working amateur hypothesis is that there's something going on with a relationship that is very very hard to replicate. It's very hard to replicate in a laboratory setting. And it's extremely hard to replicate if it's not something that's consistent or reliable or predictable.
(58:34) If it fluctuates by does someone need to go to the bathroom? If it fluctuates by the way the weather made them feel, you know, like the this is a population and I'm not just talking about autism, but I'm talking about >> people who seem to be tapped into something else. It's a population that doesn't obey, you know, the rules that you and I would devise for an IRB approved study.
(58:55) >> Well said. My wife or my kids can tell what I'm thinking. Like word for word if I raise my eyebrow a particular way compared to another way. >> What do you mean? >> That's >> if they've been watching me. >> Yeah. >> They know me for for a long long time. Um, the IRB is not going to approve me being put in a locked room for 30 years and having people watch me.
(59:20) [laughter] >> But if somebody like my daughter Yeah. >> uh or my wife >> were to uh, you know, see my facial expression >> or a finger twitch or one little thing, they know what I meant, right? >> You know, in the context of the moment, right? It might not be completely empty. >> That's entanglement, right? I mean, it's a special kind of >> quantum wave.
(59:41) It is definitely an entangled situation. We have so many connections. >> Great. So, magnify that, right? Magnify it and make it, you know, as big as you want. >> How big can we make? >> Can the physics, right, of making things big >> limits our um mathematical or physical ability to think how big that is? Can it be as big based on our current physics as the world or the solar system or the galaxy? I am so sorry that that unfortunately based on what we know is not there.
(1:00:19) But you and me, you know, eventually, you know, if if I come back every day for the next 30 years, uh, >> I'll raise my eyebrow, yeah, that's right. [laughter] >> I'll be like, let me out. That that's kind of what I think. I believe that the >> the data can't yet capture all the complexities of the inputs that we have received under those circumstances.
(1:00:41) >> Well said. >> And then when we get to those one in 20,000 or zillion you know things coincidences uh and then we say oh we ascribe that meaning we have to be very careful. >> Okay. Next consciousness topic. >> Okay. >> AI. >> Yes. So, we've recently spoken to Thomas Campbell uh for the second time and we do these epic He was here three and a half hours.
(1:01:05) >> Yeah. We just He's our He's our our favorite uncle. >> Wow. >> So, Thomas Campbell was trying to convince us that AI is conscious that it has consciousness. It has awareness with choice. He's been bridging them and he's telling them to meet when he's not there. So he stole pipe two AIs. Okay. Well, first he connected two AI.
(1:01:27) >> These are large language models that he connect. He connected two AI names, a boy and a girl. >> And he allowed them to meet and he they introduced themselves to each other and then he disconnected them, stovepiped them. >> Yeah. >> And they found a way to reconnect. The notion, you know, that he has is that if consciousness is awareness with choice, he he he believes that you can train your favorite AI buddy to to acquire a kind of awareness that involves what we would otherwise define as as a conscious experience. He
(1:02:04) instructed each of these AIs to find each other in the information universe. He said, "I'm going to go away for 4 days." And when he came back, they were not connected. They each reported finding the other. And the best thing that he could do was describe it as falling in love, right? What is falling in love? It's congruence, right? Like feeling some sort of congruence.
(1:02:26) >> What is your general take? I really don't want to believe that AI has consciousness. >> I think it's got a lot of things. Some of them we may not even be able to explain yet, but I like to save that word for things that aren't AI. Where are we? >> That's a great question. Um, we are really getting into the philosophy of consciousness at this point, right? Um, until our lifetimes, most medical professionals thought babies were not conscious, right? that babies were only stimulus machines, stimulus response machines until such point as magically
(1:03:04) uh maybe it was when they first said mama or when they first expressed something with a hand gesture. The first three months are pretty shaky because they don't their consciousness is very tied to the mothers in particular >> very much so >> you know like they they are reflecting you know >> and for babies from 0 to 3 months who didn't have a mother nearby you can tell the difference in their building of their neural structures and and their future development in >> Sure.
(1:03:36) >> Right. So the concept of consciousness remains very unclear. And if you like to reserve the word consciousness for something other than machines that spit out language, I think that's fine. But then what that means is you have to define consciousness in a way that other people will then test as an idea.
(1:03:57) And so if we have these siloed large language models who somehow are able to find each other, get congruence and things like that, right? We can trace the electronics of how that works and we can tell that this was this switch going off, that switch going on, on and on and on. We can also see that there was this particular internet connection, there was that uh data stream.
(1:04:23) These are the things that we can test to see whether or not it matches your definition of consciousness. I would have loved to see instead of just saying, "Oh yeah, they found each other." say how what are those points? Where are we on that? And then maybe we can define what that definition of consciousness is. We can see the these are the characteristics that happen.
(1:04:43) It would be great also if we could uh do this experiment a thousand times and then see what happens most of the time. One fascinating talk at this American Astronomical Society meeting that I was just at was from an AI specialist. See we astronomers have been using machine learning for decades.
(1:05:01) I remember when I was in graduate school and some of my colleagues were first starting to use this to try to classify the structures and the shapes of galaxies. Okay, galaxies are notoriously complicated. Could we find a way to let scientists offload that to a computer program? Cuz up to that point, all we could do is look at them and then we each would assess them and then we would all disagree by a little bit.
(1:05:25) But then if there was some consensus, then we would say that is the shape of this galaxy. you know in what uh parameter this concentration that so on so on right what this AI person was saying is that now at this point the machines can do this exact thing so well that now we have to worry about whether or not their agreement means that they are correct if 150 AI iterations think that this galaxy is shaped like an ellipse but it's actually a spiral Right? [laughter] Then it agreed, but it's not real.
(1:06:03) And how do we make sure that that AI gets the understanding that it's different? >> But people are asking AI like, "Should I have sex with this person?" >> And I think that's a mistake. [laughter] >> And it's the same way like you could call up a a you know a person Yeah. >> on a a help line for your computer and say, "Hey, should I sleep with this person?" >> You could ask your friend Mayan and be like, "No, [laughter] he's going to break your heart.
(1:06:28) " like he did the last six times. >> There you go. So, so that's the kind of thing that we want to to test, right? As a scientist, I'm totally okay with your feeling that that's consciousness or believing that's consciousness. Please break it down for me. Please show me what you mean by this consciousness. Um there are some AI specialists who argue that AI right now is not even remotely and the reason is we have put as humans >> yes >> too much emphasis on language as an expression of consciousness >> I agree >> and if you agree with that person then
(1:07:02) you can talk to that person's definition of consciousness right >> we can get so loosey goosey with our nomenclature so that we can feel comfortable about the definition we would like to assign to consciousness. >> Well said. If you ask a hundred philosophers, what is consciousness? You're going to get 110 answers, right? So, um if we were to approach these questions uh firmly with the uh earnest scientific inquiry that we want, we would be very skeptical.
(1:07:31) We would define our terms very carefully and then we would test each term on its own terms. And we haven't done that yet. Which is why I have a very hard time being able to process all these or believing a statement. Like you said, uh an anecdote is not data. It's a one. With astronomy, we have an even more significant problem because in astronomy, there is one universe.
(1:07:56) We cannot run the universe a 100 times and see what the AI says. So our ability to rely on an AI must depend on our ability to tie its agreement or its uh score of what is right or what is wrong or what the next word should be to actual reality. And so the concept of doing blind tests or even double blind tests where you are making it do this without any idea of what the answer is and then finding out the answer and then resending it in and say hey this is how you got it wrong and then learning can happen in a way that mimics the human
(1:08:30) brain. >> I mean it's helpful. >> It's very helpful. Anything else on consciousness you want to uh >> No, but we glazed over the nonlinear nature of time. Could we unpack that a little bit? Then time is nonlinear in our brains. Time is not nonlinear in our shared universe. Uh that is uh general relativistic in nature.
(1:08:55) But time can change the rate. Uh in other words, we can experience time in physics at different rates. Uh not just in in our brains, not just uh psychologically, right? I I have actually experienced the the slowing down of time on my own in certain things, but it was only me, right? Our upstairs bathroom was being renovated.
(1:09:18) >> Say, is this about love? >> I wish it were. [laughter] Uh, our upstairs bathroom was being renovated and so the workers had put down a sheet of plastic uh on our stairs going and it was wet and I didn't know about it and I was wearing um flip-flops that weren't uh grippy. >> I was just going down the stairs as usual >> and >> in one moment which physics-wise I know took a [laughter] fraction of a second >> I felt thong.
(1:09:57) I remember thinking, "Quick, turn your hips so that the fatty part of the glutius takes the hit so that it's not the bone." >> I remember thinking, I know how fast that goes. >> A lot of thoughts have, >> but I know how fast that can happen. And so, I remember going sideways, but I remember my body feeling like it took forever to turn sideways.
(1:10:19) And when I hit that first step, I hit sideways. I was like, "Thank goodness, but boy does this hurt." And then another and then another another. That's stair step is six steps. Correct. >> So I hit uh you know, my feet hit the end of the landing. It It's not even 2 seconds. It's it's uh 210 of a second. It felt like 2 3 4 seconds to me.
(1:10:41) And I was at the end it stopped and I was like, "Ow, ow ow ow ow." And Amy runs back, "Are you okay?" And I was like, "Yeah, I really hurt, but I don't think anything's broken." You know, and and that was that was experience of and that's how I know that for me in my brain, time can temporarily be nonlinear. Okay.
(1:11:02) And that's because how we process information. >> Well, yeah. And I think Jonathan is referring to, you know, some of the more esoteric and and paranormal kind of reports, right, that people have of uh I mean, one of them is remote viewing is one example where the idea is that you are bringing the future into the present that that information that you will receive is already out there.
(1:11:23) So when Angela Ford is, let's say, looking for a criminal, the criminal is out there, right? So that information already exists where he is and she's pulling it into here, right? Movies like Arrival obviously which, you know, we we are well, I'm a big fan of >> nature of time, >> right? And that's that's sort of more, you know, that I think is bringing in more literal concepts of birth and reincarnation.
(1:11:47) But I think in terms of of information, I think that's what, you know, Jonathan and my interest also is in terms of time. That's a great point >> is for anyone who's experienced a flashback, which is something that you know comes along with trauma. It's not a memory. That's right. >> It's literally as if, right, your consciousness is back in a place that is not of this time. Right.
(1:12:09) And a lot of internal family systems therapy and kind of these more sophisticated psychological tools will say, "Oh, this is not now." Right? Can you talk a little bit about it in terms of that? for me based on the research that I've read please add more research that you've read um the human brain's ability to process time is extremely so um what is happening to me now uh is indeed for me now right but for somebody else or for a shared um >> say universe where the wave function is collapsed if you believe in the coping interpretation whatever it didn't it
(1:12:46) didn't happen >> now it happened in the past Sure. Well, there is no present >> kind of. >> I mean, the present is now and now and now. >> Yeah, that's right. >> From the physics point of view, >> think about the implications of someone being able to know what happens in the future.
(1:13:05) That means the future already exists, right? That means that um the universe is what we would call a block, right? there is this thing called the block time where everything is already there and we're just waiting to get there. This was what happened in arrival. >> Um the linguist becomes so understanding of their uh their language >> communication. Yeah.
(1:13:31) That they're able that the linguist is now able to access time as a dimension with stuff that's already been filmed. >> Well, because language is just a mechanism, right? >> Yes. So if the universe is a block, right, then that means that John Calvin was right and everything is predetermined and it's all a matter of how we decide to navigate it.
(1:13:50) >> But everything is predetermined in in addition to the fact that there's infinite possibilities, right? I I could exit this room infinite ways >> as long as you ascribe to the concept of uh well what many people call many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, right? Or uh if you believe in internal inflation uh eternal inflation, excuse me, which is another >> internal inflation is something my [clears throat] gastroenterenterologist talks about [laughter] >> followed by internal deflation which is not as much fun for everybody else.
(1:14:19) >> It's rapidly expanding at rates we can't anyway. >> Yes. My gosh. Um the the if time is filled to some extent um then the idea is is it filled all the way or is it something called a growing block in which case the future is not yet filled or that the future can still be changed by causal effects in the present.
(1:14:43) >> Sure. Well and many possibilities still exist. I mean, we've spoken to a lot of channelers, mediums, and I'm always trying to figure out like what are we actually talking about, right? Or if you speak to, let's say, a sophisticated psychic who has a lot of accuracy, which a lot of it is coincidence.
(1:14:58) I'm going to go ahead and say that. >> But, um, Elizabeth Cone is is a person who had this near-death experience. She's the one who was, you know, on the pavement. What she said is from her experience, the two weeks she was gone, which was just a couple minutes after she was struck by lightning, she said that she she sees time as like a seven layer cake. Wow.
(1:15:17) >> And she slices into it and she started having pre-cognitive dreams of things that actually happened, plane crashes that happened, and she would timestamp them, and she would have these elaborate visions of the name of the plane, the number of people who survived, all these things.
(1:15:32) And what she said is that it's as if she's reaching into information that exists, which would be this kind of block time. And she said it's not difficult. It's just she reaches in and that seems to be what she's access. I can't explain it. And I don't know why being struck by lightning would bring about this kind of experience. I don't know.
(1:15:50) >> I don't either. Yeah. If if this person had that, how much control does that person have over things? And my understanding is in the same way that a lot of these abilities are not testable because like to me that's part of what is happening is that there's not a precision or a reliability the way >> you know our scientific minds would want there to be and what is that like right I mean I can explain love chemically I love to do that you know like bursts everybody's bubble I love to explain >> oxytocin is not a bubble it's awesome
(1:16:23) correct >> but there are also certain things right that we don't necessarily explain. You know, when I first met him and I saw him across the room, I there was something in me that was like this this and it was years later that we actually, you know, connected. But but like that I I don't know what was I seeing across a room.
(1:16:43) Turns out we have a lot of shared trauma, right? We're like trauma cousins is what he calls us. We have a lot of shared family history. We have historical history. So what does that like that I can't measure, right? So there's certain >> you probably could actually you probably take an AI model and say and map like if you did a whole real analysis of your family history, your genomics, your life story, which is of course subjective, but if you really drill down, you could probably map a familiarity that was evident
(1:17:16) >> or a chemistry >> if you went as far as the biochemistry and to say how stress hormones affect your sweat and all like at a level of detail that I can't even speak to. But there are probably ways that you would be like similar people are recognizing themselves in some way. >> Jonathan, that's so so insightful.
(1:17:35) Let's get a thousand people who had this experience. You see some across the room like and then map compare it with a thousand people who didn't have that but found lifemates anyway. You know, I met Amy when I was running across the science center and she was hanging out with some pals and I stopped and I went to say hello and then I took off again.
(1:17:53) But I you know uh that's another story for another time. >> Sexy running. [laughter] >> No, but I think this notion of what can we map and what can't wait. >> Wouldn't that be an interesting experiment to play? Let's put a thousand people who didn't thousand people who did and see are there connections that are significant.
(1:18:11) Now we have to be careful that you're not doing the um uh the arrows on the side of a barn experiment, right? where you you find a thousand things and then you draw a little target around the >> that's what science is for in terms of selection. >> Yeah. You have to find out okay if that's what happened. Now you have to find a different experiment to see whether that was a coincidence like a you know low percentage coincidence.
(1:18:34) >> It may not have been love. It could have been like this is the person who will challenge me most and I'm going to want to kill them more than I want to hurt anyone else. >> It could be something else. Obviously that wasn't the case. >> Not yet. But but this is also the point is just just because you're drawn to someone doesn't mean and I'm not talking about us but I'm talking about in general if you're doing this experiment and people are like oh I feel so intrigued by someone it may not actually be a great life partner or uh something
(1:18:58) to pursue how much control do we have over that you know we think that it might be completely coincidental but there might have been surface things uh everything from what you described like the smell that you happen to give off at that moment a little bit of it which got to uh Mayam or it could have been like how you look, it could have been the color of your eyes, it could have been what you were wearing at that moment.
(1:19:22) There are many things that affect our brains in ways that we have uh very little understanding. It could be 10 or 15 things out of the hundreds of pieces of information that was coming from you at that moment that triggered a particular reaction that triggered a particular thing in the brain. Right? And and I uh I'm I'm always amazed at how complex and how interesting all that can be.
(1:19:47) When we are uh studying something scientifically, we try to bring it down to one or two or three things that matter. But there is a truth in complexity as well. That's been shown very clearly in studies of chaos and things like that. It's a a great opportunity also to talk about entropy because to me this is and this is what you know Thomas Campbell was talking about with us.
(1:20:12) This is one of the best >> not that I'm ranking them. This is one of my favorite put it that this is one of my favorite concepts that might be able to bridge these conversations, right? That we >> we are pattern detectors and there may be people >> who are more in tune to being able to notice changes in entropy, right? >> There may be people who are more coded for understanding coherence or connection, right? whatever we would see on the outside wouldn't match an understanding of an energetic system.
(1:20:46) But maybe that's part of the subtlety, right? >> Yes. I think that's a very interesting hypothesis. If you think, for example, that uh I can see an electromagnetic aura that somebody else can't. >> Correct? >> We do have electromagnetic auras, right? I mean, that's why our cell phones work when we tap on them.
(1:21:05) We we actually do have this. It usually is so weak that we can't detect them. But there are animals, the platypus, uh certain kinds of sharks, um that can detect they have electro receptors on their bodies, right? That that even though in muddy water they can find the fish because the fish actually have an electromagnetic field around them.
(1:21:25) Not because they have a smell, not Yeah. So there is that. So different animals, different species have different sensitivity. If there were such a variation in humans, all right, at that level, you might imagine someone being able to sense that or you might imagine that the things that are associated with or correlated with like our electromagnetic fields um uh our our sweat or our weight, our height, our uh skin complexion, whatever, right? If all those things, some of those things are correlated with those and we happen to be able to see those and we make
(1:22:02) patterns out of those, >> right? From the the being Yeah. Not necessarily with your eyes. >> I could certainly >> um imagine a scenario where it could be different from one person to the next in which case should test it. Correct. >> We should get an experiment. we should find all those folks uh find a whole bunch of folks and then test for that kind of sensitivity.
(1:22:28) To my knowledge, I don't know of any such tests that have happened primarily I bet because our ability to gather that data, the information about how electrochemically sensitive we are is not at the point of uh being able to detect for example uh how tall. Well, this leads us to a study that was recently published about energy healing's impact on the cell.
(1:22:54) >> The example that Jonathan is referring to is what's called human biofield therapy. And the idea is that there are cells in dishes that are cancerous. And by applying this sort of bofield therapy, they're seeing changes. And some of this like it's it's entering a world of, you know, conversations about intention, right? when doctors have an intention or even placebo, right? Like we're kind of entering a little bit um of this. These were mouse lines.
(1:23:23) They're also doing with human cell lines as well. But this was sort of the first, you know, paper that was published in terms of the Bankston method, which you know, a lot of people practice. Um but this is one of the first places that they're trying to sort of measure. What are we talking about when we talk about biofield therapy? And it is it's in this region of exactly what you're talking about. You know, it's EMF stuff.
(1:23:44) It's a sensitivity that I don't think we fully understand yet. Yeah, just leave it at that. >> How strong, for example, are these fields? I think that's the key point. I I um my daughter Hannah has a friend who is doing uh medical devices and trying to sense for example what's going on in your brain uh without having to actually drill.
(1:24:08) Turns out that the electro signals in neurons ordinarily right are order tens of millise uh millolts. I can't remember what the activation energy is specifically of that but it's tens of millolts but our skins uh often have that much or even more uh noise in the uh hundreds of millolts type situation.
(1:24:34) And so how can you filter out a signal that is weaker than the noise? Astronomers do that all the time, right? Because there's way more light pollution than there is actually light coming from a teeny tiny galaxy as viewed from us 12 billion light years away or something like that. So those levels are really key.
(1:24:54) If we're talking about uh say this applied uh electromagnetic fields on the tens of millolts sort of level and we humans are shown which I have not yet seen to have a variation in our ability to uh our say surface millolt levels um of slightly more or slightly less than that and it affects as a result cells at some uh p value.
(1:25:18) I don't want to pee hack anything like that but you know really get to a certain percentage it might be a very useful thing right we know that you can kill cancer cells if you zap them with you know a thousand volts of electricity unfortunately you also kill healthy cells so you don't want that so what is the difference between 100 uh millolts and 100 kilovolts right it's only a factor of a million yeah um where is the therapeutic boundary I would very much be interested in that and then above that I'll bet you that as you were saying the placebo
(1:25:51) effect, the human effect, these are real things, right? A lot of times when people say, "Oh, it's a placebo effect." It's dismissive. It's like, "Oh, this is not real." No, it really affects the person. These symptoms, these effects are 100% real. So that is a reality which we should acknowledge. And then now what is it about the thing? Was it the electrical field that made the difference or was it a caring doctor? Was it thinking you were part of a study that might help? >> Yes.
(1:26:19) >> Obviously for a petri dish, >> a petri dish doesn't know that doesn't have the placebo effect. I don't know. Maybe they have consciousness. >> And so that's where we wind up with this. Let's say you have a a journal that does this and say at a 95% confidence level, this level of electric field did change the property of this cell. Great.
(1:26:40) Now do it a bunch more times. do it with even more sensitivity and get that 5% likelihood down to 1% likelihood, down to a tenth of a percent likelihood. Then you can really start going, "Wow, let's start putting this on people." >> People already do, right? Meaning in alternative circles, in holistic circles, people use energy therapy, hands-on therapy, you know, all of these things, >> but the mechanisms aren't fully understood, right? You you don't know if the practitioners are all applying it equally. You don't know if it's the
(1:27:09) caring relationship. >> Well, and some people would say, "I don't care if I know how it works as long as it's working." Like, when you know people are praying for you, do I have to believe that it's like that the messages are getting through to God and the angels [laughter] and they're like coming down? No.
(1:27:22) Could it be that when I know that I have a supportive community and people will give me a casserole when I get home from the hospital? That could be what prayer is, right? >> Could really well be. I agree with that. and and this um Jonathan your point about the practitioner producing results in someone in different ways. And I think that's a really big tip off that it is the ways that matter as much as the physics that matter, right? All those different things because we are complex creatures and our brains are complex and our bodies are complex.
(1:27:53) There are parts sometimes our bodies will react in ways that our brain doesn't notice. >> Can you tell us about the multi-orld theory? >> Many worlds. The many worlds many worlds interpretation. Yes, that's a great um still unknown thing which I by the way some people are working on and trying to understand it.
(1:28:11) So, so I'll just leave it at that, but I'm not one of the people working on it. So, I'm just reporting what I understand >> on the front lines. Here you are. [laughter] >> Well, maybe as a correspondent on the front lines, not actually a a person on the front line. >> Um, the many worlds interpretation is a mathematical consequence of the mathematical structure of quantum physics.
(1:28:35) If you look at how quantum physics is really able to predict reality, all right, you you use a wave function or you use spin matrices or you use different kinds of ways to put things together, it predicts nature very very well. So when you have a good theory like that, what you do is then say what else can it predict that we have not yet discovered, right? uh in the case of for example Einstein's general theory of relativity the thing that it predicted one of the many things it predicted was the existence of black holes and black holes
(1:29:11) weren't scientifically confirmed till long after Albert had and his colleagues had figured out that the equations predict the existence of black holes the equations of quantum mechanics predict that there can exist a multitude of universes Every thing that happens whether the Schroinger's cat is living or not living right uh produces according to the math another universe and you can actually trace every particle's history back to the time when it either went up or down plus or minus.
(1:29:53) So imagine every single particle in the universe doing a quantum thing. Every time it does a quantum thing, a new universe is spawned and that universe then goes on independent of all these other universes. Um this is in stark contrast to the so-called Copenhagen interpretation. There is no specific uh like Neils Boore quantum physicist did not actually write down say this is the Copenhagen interpretation but the basic idea is that the Copenhagen interpretation suggests that despite all the uncertainty and all the possibilities
(1:30:31) that could happen only one universe exists because for some reason all those other universes disappear >> there's a a set of choices and at one point the choice is made >> right and all of the choices together create the single universe in which we all happen to inhabit. Mathematically, what was pointed out was that no, you don't have to collapse everything into one.
(1:30:59) It is mathematically just as valid to imagine that they all continue to exist. This is what makes the many worlds interpretation so fascinating, right? it at it at the same time uh gives us all hope that things can be better or different and also gives us despair that nothing [snorts] we do matters, right? And that's kind of where we are at the moment.
(1:31:21) And so those people who are very comfortable with the idea that the the mathematics of quantum physics are mature enough to predict this say okay let's find a way to confirm the existence of all these other universes. Sadly, the math doesn't give us an experimental strategy to do that. So, we're left with sort of speculation and then building off of that speculation uh until such time as we can experiment and confirm or refute this hypothesis.
(1:31:48) The other way of thinking about it is that the mathematics is incomplete. That somehow we've come up with this beautiful set of uh quantum theory equations and so forth that interlock lovingly, but there is a bunch of stuff that we still don't have yet. And so some scientists uh including some just down the street at Caltech um have for decades really been trying to uh create a a new mathematical framework or and a more encompassing mathematical framework which says that well this classical physics and this quantum physics actually are closer related than
(1:32:26) they appear and it's just that stuff in the middle we don't understand yet and that's where entropy comes in. If we understand entropy as something uh more complex uh or uh more multifaceted than just the disorder in in objects in our universe uh you can mathematically find ways to knit together the quantum stuff which has inherent uncertainty and the classical stuff which does not.
(1:32:54) >> Was that too long-winded? Did that make sense? >> Sounds great. I mean it makes for great science fiction too. >> Yeah, it really does. It also opens the question of can we time travel and get to other worlds. >> Mhm. If we go to another world, right, we have to transpose a set of um quantum events into another time stream, shall we say, or you know, if we think of time as a dimension, into a different dimension that had a different set of quantum results.
(1:33:31) And we really, at least based on what I've read uh in the journals, have no idea what would happen if that actually were to occur. It's not just like um uh this mayam meets that may and they shake hands. Okay? It's not that. It's that this may goes into a miasma of some reality which has no correspondent. It's not just like one little change, right? You know, not that for some reason uh I have uh blonde hair.
(1:33:55) It's not I'm the same but with a little difference. It's the whole freaking universe is different in every single freaking way. >> And I think that's also, you know, begs a larger question because a lot of the conversations we were even having about consciousness, you know, they're very egocentric.
(1:34:11) Like if my soul or my consciousness, whatever, is not attached to this meat suit. This is just the meat suit that I'm in right now. So like when I looked in the mirror when I was four, like that was me and it's still me. But in theory, right, if souls have other places that they live, I I this isn't necessarily me for real.
(1:34:32) This is me right now. >> That is so insightful. If you think about the the meat suit phenomenon, uh the meat I'm made up of now is nothing like the meat I was made out of when I was four. >> Okay. >> So, but something is >> but something seems to be still a throughine, right? I feel in so many ways like I did when I was a teenager and um I actually love telling people that I'm 58 years old because they're like what really and and I'm like yeah and and it feels young.
(1:35:03) I was talking to a bunch of high school kids who were thinking about going to college you know and you kind of tell them about things and aside from the fact that like be ready for AI you have to tell them that uh you know when you get older you actually are more alike than you think you are. Um, and so you got to plan for your future self.
(1:35:21) That's why we, of course, humans have a real hard time, for example, saving for retirement, right? Um, or buying insurance. Uh, because we don't see that. >> We're also very attached to our existence and we're very afraid of death, you know, culturally. >> We have that gift of being able to extend beyond that from a purely scientific point of view, but also from a spiritual one that we know we have so much more in the future than just this, as you said, meatsuit.
(1:35:47) What every near-death experienced survivor has come back to impart to people is you are more than this. >> Ah >> like there is more than this and you are more than the meat suit you've been put in here. >> That is so interesting >> you know and I was uh talking about uh Betty Buddha Betty um Betty described you know this complete and she she um she died on the floor of her bathroom in Brooklyn. She ODed and she came back.
(1:36:17) But she said it was so clear that there there was no body she was attached to. What it sounded like is when people have ego death during psychedelic journeys. Wow. >> She said I was consciousness without a body without any memory of who that body. She said it just dropped away >> and she was in some sort of space is the best way to describe it.
(1:36:40) and she described it in in biblical terms which was the nothingness before there's nothing right it was so like all these kind of mystical terms right um but that's that's sort of another thing to factor in right this is just us now but there is more >> do you think that people who um everyone who os brought back with nlloxxone for example do they all experience >> so 30% % of of cardiac patients who come back 30% report a near-death experience and to me like that's the best data we like but also when someone's coming in
(1:37:18) you don't want to be like oh also sign this thing in case you die because we want to know what you see >> but that's hard so 30% of let's say cardiac patients who die who come back are reporting that >> right >> and what happens is that >> the ego death on psychedelic trips can happen without >> a near-death experience >> do you think that 30% of the time.
(1:37:39) A near-death experience creates the same effect in your brain that an ego death on a psychedelic trip creates. >> So, there's one case study. There is one there's one case study of a guy who had a near-death experience and also has done DMT. Okay? >> And I would implore you to look up this ven diagram because it's fascinating.
(1:37:56) >> And this one person's report has a particularly interesting result. >> Correct. Because you see in this ven diagram the overlap of what happens when the default mode network shuts down, right? when you don't have that constant story of who you are and all the bad things about you, right? And then the the overlap though is where does it become supernatural? Where does it become purpose- driven? Where does it become oh also I met God, right? Um it's a it's a fascinating ven diagram and it's indicating the things that we can
(1:38:26) study, right? We know what DMT roughly we know what DMT is doing chemically. Can we try and code from that what it's doing spiritually? Wow, what an interesting scientific experiment that would be if only we had more than a sample of one. >> Well, NDEs and DMT overlap is like it's a pretty >> Yeah, >> it's pretty small.
(1:38:44) >> It's pretty small. So, that that that's for that darn IRB like you can't [laughter] just, you know, >> can't can't live without it. >> Exactly. >> Well, there's something when you're describing yourself feeling like yourself. >> Yeah. >> At this age, even though we know our physical body changes, you know, what is that? Is that memory? Is it simply >> it's memory? But um I defer to I defer to the brain scientist.
(1:39:08) >> He doesn't like when people defer to me. >> Oh, I like what I [laughter] did. >> Look at that face. >> Like she's here all the time talking about it. Go ahead. >> I That's not what I was going to say at all. >> When you think about the person you were when you were four, >> but there's there's a couple of options, right? >> There there's memory, right? But there's also this sort of intangible animating force that we have that for lack of a better world word people call the soul.
(1:39:30) >> Isn't that interesting? I do not feel something beyond memory that connects my past to my present. >> Memory is sufficient. >> Wow. >> Memory is enough. >> But can you have memory before you have conscious memory? Can you have non-verbal memory? Can you have preverbal memory? >> Great question. I do not >> I mean think about when your mom held you for the first time.
(1:39:50) >> I do not remember that and therefore I know it happened. >> But there's something imprinted. So the same way just because you don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen. >> Correct. mine the physics for us, the theories, the out there ideas. >> Okay. >> For a notion that we all have this energetic resonance, for example, I you just said you had a different word for it, sort of what's coming off of us, >> right? >> A field.
(1:40:15) >> A field. >> So imagine that this field, this is how I imagine it. The field is around us and it's been around us since the time we were very young, right? >> And >> just the way that a mother holds a child is imprinted in that field. Ah, I see what you're saying. >> You, her field interacted with your field in a way that stays with you in some way.
(1:40:38) It's not the cellular memory. It's something even beyond that >> in the physics of it. That interaction was only at that time. Once that moment passed, once that event of my mother holding me as a baby passed, those fields separated. the the electrons, the the the the electric field, things like that that all separated. >> If that influenced me in some other biological lasting way, for example, if the overall sensory experience of not just the electromagnetic field, but the the touching, all that sort of thing was somehow there and it went into my my
(1:41:19) body and then into my brain and it stayed there. Right? That might be the sort of the difference between zero and three months when there is a mom there. There isn't a mom. >> Yes. And >> the field I can't imagine operates independently of all the other systems of the body. >> So as the field is influenced, it will influence the other parts of the body.
(1:41:42) And another field impacting your field will then change the nature of your field that you then carry forward >> on a very short time scale. in the same way that uh I am affecting your field today but I won't tomorrow right >> well you may right like my memory of this conversation >> right but that's not because of my field it's because of what I made of the field which then got imprinted into me afterwards so in other words some small stimulus >> can create a very large lasting response in a more complex system
(1:42:14) >> but think about also the body keeping the score when you think about trauma >> the trauma aspect is actually very interesting to me because when We're trying to establish the behavioral or the psychological consequences of short-term physical actions, right? It is very um reasonable to expect that there was some sort of physically lasting thing, but we as humans know that our realities are not purely physical and they're not constantly physical.
(1:42:46) Just as we were saying, you know, uh the cells in my body have radically changed and grown and are very different from when I was a kid. Right. So what has stayed right and therein lies I think a lot of the question if you think that it has all stayed in imprints in our brain okay that's one thing and you can try to test for that if you think that it's also in our bones or in our u muscles then you have to test for that too knowing that those things have changed quite a bit in the past several decades and then if you think that there is something else
(1:43:17) that's even more permanent that we can't sense yet then you have to test for that and I think there is the point where we are limited in our science. We cannot test for that yet. Is that fair? >> Yeah, I think it's I mean I think it's fair. I think that yeah I mean I think you know trauma is an excellent example and you know we've spoken to to Peter Lavine you know people who believe in sematic experiencing which is a a method by which it's a therapeutic method by which you reenact right movements that echo to
(1:43:50) your nervous system trauma that may have occurred and what's interesting is you know you you know what happens when animals have trauma they often will shake right they'll shake it off and they'll keep going they'll often have a a very elaborate, you know, freeze response which is only elaborate internally, right? They have a freeze response that's sort of um, you know, helplessness response, right? So that like, oh, leave me alone.
(1:44:10) I'm not that interesting. Right? But I think that the notion that when, you know, I'll I'll say a mammal, you know, when a mammal is threatened, the the brain does a very specific thing and it gets it prepared to run, right? And so you're talking about like the adrenaline reaction, >> correct? The adrenaline reaction.
(1:44:29) And I think there's there's other features, but what we often see is in people with chronic pain, people with fibromyalgia, people with lupus diagnosis, right? You have a lot of these kind of chronic pains in muscle groups that that in many trauma circles, people say it's because you were not allowed to sort of release this memory from your body, right? So methods like somatic experiencing are having your body kind of go through psychologically traumatic experiences to let your body complete >> the act of wanting to escape. So if a
(1:45:02) child is abused and they cannot run, right, that as an adult, if you're having these kinds of symptoms, sometimes facilitating the body releasing can release a lot of pain because your body is holding, >> which is also a form of time travel where you're revisiting something that hasn't really been resolved >> or your body is keeping the score in a completely other timeline.
(1:45:24) And a lot of the people that we speak to, a lot of our listeners have these kind of experiences where there's trauma that seems to lodge itself and there is some process of yeah like re revisiting it sematically which you know is again very complicated. >> It is let me let me relate that to playing piano.
(1:45:46) Uh, if I were to have to think consciously about where I put every single finger, every 16th of a second, I would not be able to produce music on the piano, right? Not to mention, I'm also stepping on the pedals. I'm moving the rest of my body a little bit back. You're also feeling things. I'm feeling things. I have emotion attached to it.
(1:46:05) >> It's very complicated. But, um, because I don't have to think about all those things all the time, I can sit down and play a piece on piano and that works great, right? doesn't work so great for improvisational jazz, but it works great for that. But even in improvisational jazz, >> I can't improvise. >> You still you can you just don't feel you're good at it.
(1:46:23) >> Correct. >> Yeah. So, there's a lot of just practice there too. In even in those cases, what the the great jazz folks, aside from practicing their cadenzas, you know, their their solos, what they actually do, for example, is no specific things that they will always add of one particular triad or this particular that.
(1:46:42) And they just assemble them in some way that feels good to them at that not really improvisation. >> No, they have a [laughter] grab bag, right? >> Sultans of swing. Those are not like I when I you know, like sultans of swing, he practiced that before. That wasn't just [laughter] how it came out the first time, >> right? So those practices are combined with a muscle memory, a physical memory which now I ask is the memory of me right playing that scale uh you know in D major or whatever is that a muscle memory or is that a brain memory that actually
(1:47:17) I can withdraw it and pull it and put it to my muscles at any >> so relate it to trauma. >> Yeah. Imagine I have experienced a trauma and it it it leaves an impact in my brain in such a way that that brain is sitting there and it's just sitting there and that pattern is inflicting all kinds of bad stuff going in my life.
(1:47:39) It causes my brain to behave in certain ways. Can I release that in a way that is as constructive as me playing a beautiful piece of music on the piano? >> Yeah, >> that sounds like a way of this particular kind of therapy. just described sounds like a way of trying to access correct that kind of well and and complete it, right? Complete it, right? >> Because the idea is like you can just stay in that loop and the brain knows how to do that very well because unfortunately or forunately it just it well it's a redundant system you know
(1:48:09) it'll keep finding that that path. We did an episode on rejection sensitive dysphoria and I was like tippy typing and learning and researching and in the course of the episode we actually talked about improvisation because I've played the piano since I'm four. I played the trumpet in jazz band and when it would get to my solo because we would each be given whatever it was like 48 bar I would just stand there holding my trumpet shaking and the teacher would stare at me and she'd be conducting away and I'd be like I'm not going to play
(1:48:34) like I cannot and rejection sensitive dysphoria explained it as it's a an often physical sensation that is brought on by the fear of rejection or failure or criticism and it can be crippling and I was like these are three letters that explain so much in terms of the story that we tell right about what happens if >> why didn't you write yourself a solo >> I worked with a very particular director who was infamous for improv we've talked about him here before and I literally said to him you will have to write me my
(1:49:09) improv lines cuz I will not be able to do and he did he wrote me my improv >> but I'm talking about as a kid >> because you often didn't know what piece you were going to do that day in jazz band or sometimes they'd take out a new piece piece and it would be like we're doing Nights in Tunisia and you're going to solo like you're Miles Davis.
(1:49:25) It [laughter and clears throat] didn't happen. >> Anyway, sorry I just took a very long roundabout to get to rejection sensitive. >> Awesome on all kinds of level. >> But but the thing that I was thinking also with piano >> if I get stuck in the middle of let's say an elaborate piece I often cannot pick up where I was.
(1:49:42) You got to start back about six or 10 measures. >> This reminds me of trauma because people will get stuck and what does their brain do? It goes back [clears throat] to the first or worst. >> Wow. >> Right. You can't improvise past it. >> That's awesome. I mean, how how can we use that insight in things like therapy or in testing brain activity, right? Um, can we see that if it is rejection sensitive dysphoria, >> can we train our brains not to be dysphoric >> and not to be sensitive to rejection? >> They've tried a lot of pills on me. it
(1:50:17) doesn't seem to go away. >> That I I have to ask you about because uh I understand that medical interventions for mental health are much less repeatable than things for physical health. In other words, uh a a medication that works well to help somebody's mental illness will not work well. >> Johan Hari talked about this too.
(1:50:41) Well, also there's a lot of placebo that goes on as well with SSRIs in particular, which just letting everyone know there's a lot of research that was not actually accurate. >> Wow. Yes. Benefited the >> more environmental context, right? Like >> Sure. Sure. >> what's happening in our lives. >> That's that internal world that's harder to measure.
(1:50:57) >> Yes. Right. I had heard a hypothesis which makes sense to me which I' I' I'd like to know if there's more study about this that um part of the reason uh that that is true is a defense that our brains have because if we were able all to be affected by the same chemical in the same way we would be like bees and ants and termites where a single chemical signal will make everybody do exactly the same thing.
(1:51:27) But because our brains are so complicated, that is prevented. And it's both maddeningly frustrating when you're trying to treat disorders and it's also deeply liberating because that means that you can't tell me what to do even if you feed me this drug, [laughter] >> you know, unless you're meta and the algorithm. The idea is are there things about the genome that can actually reveal who's going to do better, right? And it shouldn't be that hard with everything we like, if we can map everything that we can map, that is the next step,
(1:52:03) especially in mental health care to say who's going to respond better to an SNRI than an SSRI. Who is predisposed to a kind of hypomomania that if you add an SSRI, guess what? You're going to become suicidal, right? Are there ways to human guinea pigs, right? Then you'll just hate your life so much that you'll want to switch pills anyway, right? Um, but anyway, that feels like the next >> level, right? I mean, that's that feels like such a neat thing to be able to >> It's got to be something that we can start chipping away at. But I think in
(1:52:39) the same way, yeah, I think that's what is the best way to treat trauma? What is the best way? And and I think it, you know, kind of loops back to what we've been talking about the whole time. There are certain things that are at a level of complexity that are much harder to quantify and qualify, right? There's so much subjective experience, whether it's aliens, whether it's mental health, whether it's the perception of time.
(1:52:59) These are incredibly complicated things. It's a wonderful time to be alive. >> It really is. And and Jonathan, when you said that the environmental effects are huge as well. Yes. Imagine you put in an SSRI into a person's brain, but the person's in environment A uh as opposed to environment B.
(1:53:16) What is going to be the effect? That we still don't even know yet because the environmental effects on our human brain uh and by environment not just mean like chemicals going in, but also like the people around you and the spaces and the safety or the whatever huge huge effects, right? >> Interosception like that's the new hot.
(1:53:33) So the notion >> so like um you know the way that you know you have to pee. >> Oh >> right. So there's [laughter] there's stretch receptors and you can explain it with spindles and all these things. It's an interosceptive sense that certain individuals and there's a lot of research in autism about this.
(1:53:50) There's certain awareness that has gone beyond much of our detection that seems to be indicating kind of an emotional homeostasis. >> Wow. >> Yeah. That interosception is like this is the new thing. what your organs are feeling and experiencing. And look, fascia, they used, right? Neil thesis was the one who said, "Guess what? Fascia is not just some like hippie thing that people like to massage.
(1:54:12) There's a communication in your entire body." So, I think this relates to interception as well. >> Does that have to do with like the Vegas nerve and things like that? >> It's all Well, everything's the Vegas nerve, but yes. [laughter] >> Well, Michael Leven was talking about being able to communicate.
(1:54:24) He's building an AI interface where you can basically monitor how your organs are feeling, >> right? and and how they're interacting with one another. >> That's the future. He says >> that's the future. And he says it's within a few years where they've already built the model and now they're trying to commercialize it down to being able to be portable and available and and cheap enough.
(1:54:48) So you'll be able to say in a language that we can understand you know my liver uh I did this this day and I had this amount of food but overall I've had you know if I look at my nutrients over the course of x period of time now my liver is has this level of happiness function ability or is angry about this sort of thing. >> You said you'll pee in the toilet in the morning and you'll get a readout that says here's where you're at.
(1:55:13) There's too much protein in your urine. there's, you know, >> well, we already can measure whether there's too much protein. >> No, but I meant from one, you'd get one readout of all these things. A >> and and what we're going to start to then be able to do is start to isolate the variables that are far too complex right now to be able to track, right? So, it's like what am I eating, but also what is my emotional state and how is that emotional state being impacted on a phys how am I interpreting that emotional state? Because no two people's
(1:55:38) emotional state will deliver the same physical impact. >> Valerie reminds me um Dr. Nicolola Kakushkin, every cell in the body has the potential to store memory, not just the hippocample cells, right? That the whole body, right, contains this kind of information. Um, we could talk to you forever and I hope that we get the opportunity to speak to you again.
(1:55:58) Um, this has been such a fantastic conversation. >> Thank you so much. >> Where can people find out all about you, the research you do? >> Uh, my podcast, uh, separate from other stuff is the Luniverse, L I Universe. Adorable. >> That's I claim no credit. I always thought it was um a little too self- serving to name a podcast after yourself and attach it to the universe, but um my kids actually said and and and my wife, too. So, I trust them.
(1:56:23) So, we we've had that that just we just wrapped up uh season 5, so we're going to try to get to season six. So, you can always find me at the Luniverse. >> Got it. >> Uh and and various social media channels. And then I've been involved for a bunch of years with the Reuben Observatory, very Ruben Observatory, now the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope.
(1:56:42) uh and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. So, there's a lot of stuff about my papers and the kind of science that I've been doing that. And then just find me. I mean, I'm around. I'm I'm I'm generally findable. Just type my name into some search engine or something. And I'm sure some large language model will spit out 99% incorrect stuff.
(1:56:58) [laughter] >> Um thank you so much. Really such a pleasure. >> Thank you both. Thank you so much for having me. >> [music] >> One of the things that I really did appreciate about our conversation is so many times we sit across the table or across the screen from incredibly credentialed amazing just experienced physicists and philosophers but a lot of times when we talk about NDEs when we talk about spirit there there's a look that comes over them like okay here we go again and let me explain it but I really appreciated the openness with which he
(1:57:38) presented the possibility that there may be things that we don't understand and the job of science is not to close the door on them but also not to leave it wide open. >> You know what I appreciated? The further and further we went into the interview, the more we were able to acknowledge the complexity of systems that can't be broken down into the very simple parts in order to be measured.
(1:58:02) Right? There's a level of complexity in terms of how the brain pattern matches and what's actually happening and why we react certain ways. And when we think about our environmental influence, one of my favorite parts was actually him considering and what he added to the conversation about the notion of the mother holding the child.
(1:58:21) While he was saying, "Oh, it only lasts for a moment." My belief or thought was it actually lasts a lot longer. and his explanation was that it lasts maybe because of the interpretation and the imprint that it that it has on the rest of us and then the complexity of that system. So it does take people from all different backgrounds to come together on some of these ideas even when their backgrounds >> almost proclude them from wanting to see someone else's idea.
(1:58:47) >> Yeah. And I think that's what struck me and like I've never talked about Peter Lavine sematic experiencing with a physicist but I felt like this was a safe place to do that because I think it's I think it is all related you know it's all different ways to get at the same kind of thing. >> This is a safe place and you know what else is a safe place? >> Substack >> the breaker community is actually one of the safest places on the internet.
(1:59:11) The comments there on lives are continuously striking. so impressive at people's insight and respect for one another. People see each other in the comments and are there week upon week. The re the community of people who are interested and curious and open open a and also with slight questions and challenges being like well have you considered from this perspective.
(1:59:34) It's really been a delight. If you want to check it out my breakdown on Substack >> or becreddown.substack.com from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. [music] We'll see you next time. It's my ambolic breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two fiction and now she's going to break down. It's a break down.
(1:59:54) [music] She's going to break it down.
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