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I'm Drew. And I'm Dean. And today we're going to talk about consciousness. We are. This is
episode six. Wow. Yeah. We're moving.
We are moving along. I hope you all have been enjoying so far. And those of you still here
from episode one?
Yeah. So yeah, kind of an informal conversation about consciousness a little bit. Yeah, we're
not necessarily. We're not like deep into study about these things, but we've definitely come
across a lot of things that. Yeah, there's a lot of interesting thoughts and things to talk
about from like the mainstream scientific sort of theory To some of the alternate ones things
that affect consciousness So I gotta clean my glasses Yeah, so how do we want to start this
Maybe we can start by just asking the big question, like what are we talking about when we talk
about consciousness? And everyone throws around the term and, you know, I think people have
different surface level sort of understandings of what you're attempting to explain when you
say the word. Right. Yeah, that's a good place. And that's one of the weird things about consciousness
is that it's almost just as hard to define as it is to explain. Right. To explain what it
is to be conscious. Or to explain consciousness itself. Well, to explain how it works, but
like even defining it is kind of slippery. Yeah. Because you're defining it. from within it,
you know, like you're not abstractly or from a third person point of view kind of looking
at it, you're in it, you're experiencing it. Yeah, like our language. So like you could
try and describe consciousness. I mean if I were to try myself, like when someone asked
me, my best attempt would be When I say consciousness, what I mean is like this feeling of being a
being inside your head, having the experiences.
like a first-person-ness, like a subjectivity, like a... That's what makes you conscious,
yes, that's necessarily right. Being able to be that man in the cave stuck in the skull,
the thing within the physical, you're the non-physical within the physical body. Because you relate,
you honestly probably relate. personally, obviously, because it's your consciousness, but you probably
would relate more to the feeling of being a body more than the body itself, right? So like
the all the organisms that make up our body, like you don't think about what it is to be
a bacteria or you know, a gut enzyme or you know, all these different aspects that make
up your body. Right, but if you zoom in and go into one of those cells, like it could have
its own sort of form of consciousness. Right. Cellular biology does seem to, like when you
study microbes and whatnot under the microscope, like they seem to, they at least have behavior,
right? Like so. Yeah, they have an intrinsic. thing that they're trying to accomplish. Yeah,
if you drop them on a dish and you put food on one side and toxins on the other, they're
going to go towards the food, right? Yeah. They can respond to input and stimulus. Those are
some of the metrics that we use to tell that something else is conscious in a way. It's
true. Yeah, it's just a much more basic form of it, I guess, right? It's not as complex.
Maybe. I don't know. I mean, it seems like the more you study microbiology, the more complicated
it gets. Yeah, I don't know much about microbiology or what the biology is, the characteristics
of it necessarily, but at least of everything. But. just all the molecules and chemistry and
DNA. If you go small enough, you go down to the quarks and the quantum level, the things
that make up us. Right. Yeah, and you could look at quantum physics and be like, because
there's the whole issue in quantum physics of the collapse of the wave function. They've
got this set of math that can describe all the ranges of potential motion of a particle. And
then when they go to observe it, it will be in one of those range of positions that function
had set out. So we know the function is valid, and it produces accurate statistics. But predictability
is zero. But predicting exactly where in that wave function it will be at any given point
ahead of time is proved elusive. they sort of have this understanding that something causes
the wave function to collapse. And that could almost be interpreted as, is that a choice?
Is that a conscious act? So consciousness could go that far down. I mean, to jump back a little
bit, though. That's pretty abstract. Yeah, I mean, it could go pretty far. I mean, it can
go all the way. I mean, everything we have, we know that there are is a limit. Oh, I guess
we don't know that there's a limit, but infinity, like it could be infinite, like infinitely
small that this whole world that we live in goes, right? Like it could be that you go small
enough and it's like some. you know, singularity that takes you to another universe. Obviously,
we just can't know. But like to jump back a little bit to the organisms and like whether
they have consciousness, the organisms that make up a human body. And that kind of it kind
of relates to that idea that we talked about in the last episode, the idea of what's the.
Oh, boy. What was it? Let me look back on my notes here. From the secret history. Yeah.
Oh, the panpsychism. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what it was. The panpsychist view that consciousness
is intrinsic in all matter and that we are a complex formation of matter when you think
about all the particles that we are made of. And if you think about the consciousness aspect
of if everything is like it's we are a collection of consciousness that are forming in this in
this form to um, and they has a singular like Drive, right like there is almost another thing
outside of consciousness if you were to believe this panpsychist theory, right? If everything
has consciousness and all the particles have consciousness that when they come together
and form patterns that all of their consciousness collect and... Right, that they all contribute
to some sort of larger consciousness. So whether they're conscious within our bodies or they
create, like they are the amalgamation that create our consciousness, all of those consciousnesses
coming together in this form, or consciousness isn't the driver that we think it is of our
brains. There's also like... There might be something else, like a soul that has a completely
detached... Yeah, like a like almost like an antenna Like the radio signal is not Like the
antenna is not the radio signal that's being transmitted Right. It's just a piece of the
puzzle So maybe our consciousness that forms is the antenna And there's something else that
attaches to it to create. Yeah, like the brain the body is the antenna, right? Which could
be the consciousness too right If you think about it that way. That's the pain psych is
kind of weird. It's so weird, like, where do we even build our understanding of consciousness?
And then that goes back to the sort of arguments I made at the beginning of the economics episode
too, is like. Right. is just the idea that I think therefore I am type deal. It's like kind
of the basis, it's kind of the only thing we can know for certain is that I am here, I do
exist. So like consciousness is like the primary fact before any other thing can be addressed
in life, right? Well, it depends on your... determination of the word consciousness though,
or your definition of the word consciousness though. Because consciousness is still technically
a word that is used in association with a certain thing. So depending on the way you use it,
it could change whether it's still consciousness or if it's we should make up some new term
for it. You know, like that was my whole, that was what I was kind of getting at with the,
like the idea that consciousness... might be, like if you're thinking about, this is strictly
panpsych, and I kinda like it, I'm kinda playing with it lately, this whole panpsychist theory,
and the idea that consciousness created matter, and it's an intrinsic value of matter, I guess,
in the universe. But yeah, it's interesting to think that way, and to try to make that,
see if that makes sense, or play with the idea a little bit. So yeah, this is all kind of
off the top of my head that I've been playing with in my own mind, but. Yeah. But like, there
seems to be some sort of like nesting ability, right? Like, cause. It seems like cells at
least have some sort of rudimentary form of consciousness, right? So like, is our consciousness
just a metaphor for their collective action? Hmm. Like, is it actually them that's conscious
and our existence is sort of an illusion? But according to our experience, that isn't it
because of the whole, I think, therefore I am, like, before you even know that you're composed
of cells, you know that you exist, you know? True, right. Or do you? Do you know what it
means to exist? You know? You know what I mean? I don't know. Well, all you know is that like
you are here. Yeah. There's something happening, you know? Yeah, I guess at that point you wouldn't
know that there might be something else either. Yeah, like you find yourself in a condition
that there's a world and there's you, you know? And you have senses that seem to map. onto
things happening outside in the world and you have you. Yeah. And you kind of look out of
these eyes into the world and it's the only thing you can know for sure and building up
any knowledge from that. Well, I'll give you something. Okay. So I was reading the book,
The Four Agreements, like that whole idea of like, from the moment you're born. you're hit
by the world with all these agreements and all these unconscious agreements that you're making.
So even from the second you're born, you can't even see yet. And you're already auditory.
Your senses are there. And yeah, they're useful for what we know they're useful for. But could
they or have they ever been useful for a different reason or been trained in a different way?
to see the world a different way. You know what I'm saying? Like the language, the things you're
told from the moment you're born, the things you're taught, like it's all comes together
to form who you become. So your idea of the world, the way you, the color tint you see
the world in is a lot, oftentimes, tinted by the type of information you've been growing
up with. Sure, that can like. That can influence how you interpret the world you're seeing,
right? But it doesn't, I don't think any of that messes with the fact that you're seeing
a world and that you're seeing yourself separate from it. You're experiencing. That is the primary
thing. Of course. But I'd give you, I'd throw the example of like the, that snippet we read
from Secret History of the World 2 where it was the short walk through the woods. Like
what it might be to see the... the world and through those eyes. It would be a totally different
experience. You know you're in a world, you know you're experiencing things, you know there's,
but your senses are picking up on different things based on the information that you have
been taught and that you were grown up with. So like if you're, from the beginning, you
know that your sight is a interface to the vibrations of the molecular structure. You know, like
even if you, if there was some kind of scientific knowledge, which, you know. we're starting
to understand that there may have been a more advanced primitive, more advanced historical
society before the Younger Dryas impact and all that. There could have been understanding
back then of a different world or there was a completely different world. I understand
what you're saying, but it's still secondary to the fact that you're conscious in the first
place, right? Of course. Well, yeah. Be able to experience before your experience can be
influenced. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Right? There still has to be that, you know.
The reason I brought up, like, do the cells create our consciousness is because, like,
because you can go the other way with it, too. You can go macro with it. Like, there's, like,
certain theories. And just in our everyday language, we talk about Walmart's doing this, Amazon
is doing that, Tesla is doing this. And that's all metaphorical language for, because in actual
fact, there is nothing called Tesla. Tesla is an arrangement, a network of individual humans
that all do. Right. little tiny tasks that add up to the total that we call Tesla. Tesla is
not a singular thing, yeah. A singular thing. Us using this term Tesla and ascribing behavior
and intent, it almost makes us understand it in our head as if this metaphor called Tesla
is a conscious entity out there in the world making decisions. Having experiences. reacting
to the world. And so some scientists, I've heard people, well, philosophers maybe, like debate,
like is that truly a conscious entity? Is a network of humans collected together and working
towards a common goal? Is it its own consciousness? Does that give rise to a sort of super consciousness
that you could call, for instance, Tesla? So is Tesla conscious? You know what's funny is
Elon Musk has mentioned stuff like that too. He's talked about, I think it was on Joe Rogan,
he talked about how like, we are basically cyborgs and we are like this giant neural network.
Now that we have the internet, we're like this giant neural network of the world that is like
all tapped into this technology thing, this, you know, and we're all making moves to make
this go forward. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. That reminds me of like,
You know those operations that have been done on people who are like completely paralyzed
and like you can implant like diodes or whatever into the brain so that the brain can like operate
a mouse. No I haven't seen this. You haven't seen this? Yeah. So this was I'm pretty sure
it's been done multiple times by now because it's over a decade old. But basically yeah
like. Your brain has the ability to, if you put some wires, like electrodes into the brain
that can send and receive electrical signals, the brain neurons will end up wiring to it
and sending and receiving from those electrodes. And the person with the implant can then learn
how to think. in such a way that it results in the cursor moving on a screen so they can
select letters and type out and speak, even though they're completely paralyzed and can't
talk, have no motor function. But they can see if eye movement? I don't know in this particular
case. Well, if they're able to look around the screen, they got some kind of eye movement.
I would think so, yeah. But even still, OK. So this is kind of like the preliminary stuff
to the neuro link. Neural link, yeah. Is the brain is plastic in such a way that it can...
Yeah, yeah, it can learn new behaviors, learn a new system, basically. Right, and this is
where cybernetics and stuff comes in. Yeah. It's like, essentially theorized that, like,
let's say we could figure out whatever biology allows a bat to have sonar, right? I want that.
That'd be sick. And you could say you could take that biology and turn it into technology
as a hat that you wear and then wire that into the brain. Or goggles you wear that are shaped
like a bat. You fly around Gotham. The brain with its plasticity would learn to talk back
and forth to it and to receive those signals. And in theory, you could essentially like give
people more and more senses. more and more ability to detect the world around them. They've done,
I think there's some of the ear implants that have restored hearing to deaf people have done
the similar thing where they essentially wire a microphone into the brain. So it's like a
hearing aid, but inside your body? Yeah. Well, I mean, the microphone is on the outside, but
the, yeah, it would wire. But it goes in. Yeah, and the brain will wire into it. I don't know
if they've done the same thing with vision too. But I think I've heard of that being done.
Well, we're getting there. I'm sure that's coming. So it's interesting because the brain is wired
where it receives these signals from the ears, from the eyes, whatever. Yeah. And I guess
the process of growing up, like you see as a parent, like they're learning how to integrate
and tell the difference between all of the minutiae of the signals they're receiving so that they
can perceive more accurately. Yeah, I was going to say, nowadays, it's apparent that kids who
are growing up now with this technology all around them are just so much quicker at picking
it up. And there's also been studies done people who play sports are like, like if you like
use a tool, like say a golf club, or a piece of equipment that becomes like a sort of extension
of yourself, then there's like brain structures that build up similar to the brain structures
that build up of your own body movement. Yeah, you do enough repetitions. Right, so like it's
like the brain creates models of these things that it can interact with, and sort of incorporates
them into itself. and remembers them and like that's what muscle memory is basically, right?
Mm-hmm. Or is that, I mean, it's meant to be like, it's the muscle, but the muscles are
controlled by the brain. So it's really the brain creating the model of the swing or the,
you know, the slap or whatever it might be, whatever movement it is even, because like
boxers and like football players or quarterbacks you throw or, you know, anybody who does emotion
so repetitively. Like your body builds in that memory and it's like you don't try anymore.
You're not thinking about that anymore because it's such a... Which is an interesting... That
brings up interesting topics like... Because that's the difference between like conscious
and subconscious brain, right? Yeah, like you can turn things that were once conscious to
a subconscious thing with repetition. So it's like the conscious is like... the way where
you're showing your subconscious how to do it. Yeah. The first time you ride a bike and you
have to do everything purposefully on purpose, and it's hard to juggle all the things until
you learn how to do it. And then your brain's like, OK, you've done it enough that I think
I got this figured out. Yeah. Eventually it does it without you having to think about it.
and that's when the subconscious takes over.
which is interesting because if you're talking about consciousness versus subconsciousness,
so like... What's the difference, what marries those two together? Well, it's interesting
because like... Other than the physical brain. Well, I think the distinction between the two
is like the subconscious seems to be way more powerful, way more, well, faster anyway. It
can do things. It can process things much quicker. It can do highly complicated tasks quickly,
effectively. without the need of the consciousness to do any kind of heavy lifting. But if you've
ever driven home somewhere on your routine route or whatever and your brain is stuck in this
or that and you miss an exit, you realize for the last 10 minutes it's been your subconscious
driving the car, not your conscious brain. Yeah. I was just going to say, we shook ourselves
awake. It's been doing the job of keeping you on the road, keeping you safe. using the visual
cues like the lines and the thing, because those are the things that your conscious brain said,
remember this, this is what's gonna save us. You gotta do this, you gotta do that, you gotta
make sure you're not going this speed, so check that, so your eyes are constantly scanning,
and you're just looking around, doing all the things that you've always done since you've
been driving. And your consciousness just fades away. You start thinking, not being used. Well,
your consciousness is on something else. It's on a podcast, it's on a conversation you're
having. Your conscious brain is like, is there in that task. Yep. And meanwhile, your subconscious
is doing all the other stuff. While also making sure your body is, you know, like. Breathing.
Yeah. I don't know if the subconscious, that's kind of the atomic nervous system, I think.
I think that's the nervous system. At least the breathing and the. Well, I think the entire
nervous system, technically, can be classified as part of the brain. Because it's all neurons
all the way down. That's true. But still it's like a sub subconscious that's like already
been wired. It's been doing this for however old you are or even nine months add plus nine,
you know. Yeah. Nine months. But there's still some sort of processing going on there because
your body, if you get cold, will speed up your heart rate to warm you up. You know, like there's
some sort of like balance and calculation happening there. It's being ran by something but it sure
as heck ain't your conscious brain so is would you say that the subconscious is the more
Because the subconscious doesn't do any like thought Like you at least you don't know Is
the consciousness and the subconscious the same thing or are they different things? well, they're
definitely different things because the conscious has the ability to Stop and deliberate and
choose Hmm was the subconscious seems to act out on pattern to bring this back a bit The
subconscious sounds a lot like an amalgamation of individual consciousness is making sure
that you survive. And the consciousness sounds a lot like a soul that's just trying to think
and it's absorbing information from the atmosphere or from the universe. And it's giving all that
information to the sensory, you know, all the senses are taking in all that information.
And the subconscious still sorts through a lot of that, right? It sure sounds like that's
a plausible explanation for it. Yeah. It's definitely an interesting way to think about it. I was
just like, absorbing a bunch of like, videos and different articles and stuff about it and
what's his name? I've got it written down here. Christoph Koch. Or... I don't want to say it
the other way, but I think it's pronounced Coke. And we'll say Coke. Francis Crick. He's the
guy who was partially responsible for discovering DNA. Yeah, that's right. Before Francis Crick
died, he was really into figuring out the brain. And he was into neuroscience and stuff. Anyway,
so him and Christophe Coke were speculating. about what regions of the brain are possible
candidates. So you have different camps, right? So you got the materialist camp who refuses
to embrace a dualistic thinking. They want everything to be explainable by materialist, naturalist
phenomena. That's all reducible to science, right? Yeah. And so if you subscribe to that
worldview, then consciousness is some sort of magic trick created by the brain. And so some
structure, some sort of brain chemistry, some sort of brain, some part of the brain is going
to be what's responsible for creating this experience we call consciousness, if that theory is correct.
Right. So they boil it down to a physical thing happening within the brain. Yeah. And physical
chemistry. Based on different brain scans and fMRIs and all this, that they
speculated on this part of the brain called the claustrum, which is like connected to all
of your senses and to your motor functions. It's connected to like all the important parts
of the brain. And they kind of speculated that might be responsible for consciousness, was
the thing I was just reading. And this is Francis Craig. Yeah, and Christoph Koch. Anyway, they
couldn't like you can't do any experiments on that on humans, obviously, because that's super
unethical. But there was a woman who was suffering from epilepsy, and she was in for like a brain
surgery. I did some experiments on her. Well, no, it just happened on accident. But the surgeon
Accidentally electrically stimulated. How do you accidentally do that? Come on now? I mean,
this is a complicated thing I would do what year was this? I don't know. Okay Well, if
it wasn't in the last 20 years, it probably was done at a time where they were just like
damn Let's just shock it a little bit. I think it is more reason. Okay. Anyway, so he accidentally
Stimulates the claustrum and this is a type of brain surgery like in fact a lot of brain
surgery is actually done with the patient being awake because it's actually dangerous for them
to be unconscious in certain scenarios really think they almost need the electricals like
signals being are Yes, either way you have electrical signals unless your brain dead right right?
So anyway, so you he had stimulated a part and it accidentally stimulated the claustrum and
she lost consciousness. And then when they stopped stimulating that, it brought it right back.
Okay, so they thought the claustrum was the one. Yeah, but then I just found another article
and it seems to indicate that maybe what it's actually in charge of is like, it's sort of
the part that can like control. Like what to be, what of those brain sections of all your
senses, of your motor functions, like which section to dedicate awareness to or might have
the ability to like purposely ignore an area to like prevent distraction. that it seems
to be, if it's not consciousness, it could be like something that's right underneath consciousness.
Some kind of control mechanism. That is like the control mechanism for, yeah. Interesting.
You know, that- So there could be like a physical theory like building up and getting stronger
these days for a purely physical explanation of consciousness. Right. But even then, the
question, the really hard question, is why does it exist in the first place? Yeah. Because
if we're just biological machines, then... Something made it to be that way. And our brain is like
a learning network, then why do you need this subjective experience? Couldn't that network
just make guesses based off of all the information it's learned? You know, like why does it have
to come with an experience of being... Right. A being, being inside their body, looking out.
seeming to control the decisions and the shit. But it's really just biochemistry. Yeah. The
theory is essentially that consciousness is like a neuroscientific illusion. It's not actually
real. Right. Yeah, I don't know that I like that. It seems very unsatisfying to me. And
it seems to me like people trying to really wanting a certain explanation. Right. Because
you're so sold on materialism, you're unwilling to, you need your explanation to have a materialist
answer. Yeah, that seems like it's not very well thought out as far as intuitively. I mean,
it could be true. Yeah, yeah. But. It's no fun. It's like in the book last week, it's like,
it's a very unsatisfying answer to that why question of why consciousness, right? When
the fact that we can ask that question makes it seem like, I don't think we would, I don't.
But it's, I mean, the fact that we can, like, if it was just chemistry and it was just all
physical, like, and this is all just an illusion, what makes it feel so real? Like why is it
tangible? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't have an answer. But maybe we can ponder on
that for a bit. I just literally just poked a whole huge hole in their theory. So get some.
Suck it. Boom. What are you going to do with that, materialists? All right, we can take
a break. All right, we'll be back soon, guys.
And we back. Hello. So, um. What were you going to say? We almost started a whole other conversation
before hitting record. I hope I remember everything. I probably already forgot some of it. But we
were talking about chat GPT, right? And we were talking about how you can use chat GPT to write
prompts for images. Yeah. And then we were just kind of rifting. And then we were, I was just
going to say like. once AI becomes conscious, or I guess whatever the form of consciousness,
I guess, well, that was what was gonna lead me into it, is like, if we think that AI can
become conscious, that's almost a materialist view. It is a materialist view, right? Because
you're saying that consciousness is derived from chemical or... From processes. From processes,
right. That can be understood and then remapped. And replicated. And then reimagined into different
mediums. Yeah. That was just, that was really all my thought was, but. Oh, it was like you're.
It leads us back into it. It was like, as a test, like if it is true that, yeah, so that
makes sense. Like if the materialist reductionist view of consciousness is true, then it would
be possible for. us to create AI to become conscious. Yeah. That's a materialist view. Is that ultimately...
Is that once you have the right processes mapped out and integrated into the code, that it would
be conscious. Right. Well, and it's also like a way of like, we are smart. It's ultimately
thinking that eventually we are gonna be able to create the thing that we are in the sense
of like the thing that we believe to be our consciousness, what it is, at least what the
materialist view believes to be consciousness. is creatable and that we will eventually do
that. And that's why there's all this, you know, to talk about, you know, AGI. Yeah. Anyway,
and that's interesting because like the thing is, you can actually have AGI, you can have
like a super intelligence without it necessarily being conscious. It doesn't necessarily have
to have an internal experience of what it is like to be it. Right. In order to be super
intelligent and dangerous. To be dangerous. Yeah, to be smart enough to be dangerous. So
yeah, so whether it's conscious or not is still up for debate. Yeah, yeah. But whether it's
smart enough to, you know, do physical things in the physical world that we live in to make
things hard for, you know, bad for us is possible. Yeah.
And that still begs to the idea that consciousness is fully contained within this physical
body, like this physical universe that we live in. It brings me to, because I've been reading
Rick Strossman's book, DMT and the Soul of Prophecy. I think it's a more recent book. Yeah, that's
the one he did after DMT, the spirit molecule. And it's sort of his attempt to reconcile the
experiences people were having with historical religions and records of visionary experiences.
Yeah, and what he talks about is like, Like when you do psychedelics and DMT, obviously,
like the users, remember it being so like a geometrical, like a fractal geometrical, you
know, patterns. And like experience and see. Yeah, and that makes me think about like what
you might be seeing, right? When you're in those kinds of states. You know, people talk about
that all the time with all the different types of psychedelics too. It's not just DMT. Like,
you know, people see, you know, maybe DMT peels it peels the layers back the farthest. If you,
if you think about like, not to reference Shrek, but it being like an onion, like layers of,
of experience, right? And like we are at this layer where we are experiencing this physical
thing. Like we are experiencing things. almost to the, in the largest macro sense that we
can really understand. Cause once you get outside of our, you know, solar system, it starts to
get really hard to understand what's going on. And obviously there are scientists that do,
but, like, so like, I would get back to like the DMT, like, and what you might be seeing
and when you're experiencing these psychedelic trips and these geometrical fractal patterns
and all this kind of stuff is like almost. seems to me like, and I don't want to say it's like
a simulation, like to get to the simulation theory, but almost like a sense of that, like
you're peeling back the onion so far that you're getting to this base layer or at least more
of a base layer than we've ever experienced where you are actually seeing the math, the
geometry that makes up the, like almost like if you were to think about like maybe this
could be like a dark matter or something that's like so esoteric to our materialist world.
Yeah, something we don't pick up with our normal scientific sensors. Yeah, something that's
so abstract to our reality that it is the underlying reality that makes it up, but it's not what
our senses are normally capable of picking up. And you need, and it doesn't have to be psychedelics,
we've talked about it before, there are other methods to get to that point, but I do think
that DMT, because of it, It is also an endogenous chemical in all of living. I don't know if
it's all, but I know that there's a ton of plant life that has DMT. We produce DMT in our physical
bodies. I think it's every living thing. That's what I've heard. I don't know if that's true.
That's what I've heard too, but I don't know if it's true. This is a molecule or whatever
that is in every living thing. So there is a connection now between us and every living
thing. And when you take this DMT in, I've never done it. You know, maybe I will one day, but
I've never done it and I've only gone, just listen to people. And the way they describe
it, it just makes me think like, this is like, maybe not base reality, maybe not the thought.
Like it's not, you're not, you know, maybe seeing the mind. of whatever the creationary thought
might have been or whatever it was. Maybe it wasn't a thought, maybe it was something else.
But it makes me think that it is a, you know, we are just seeing what we need to see to survive,
but we are still a part of what it is, you know, like we are still made up of what it is. What
you're describing is like, that's essentially Donald Hoffman's argument. Yeah. So he's a
panpsychist too, yeah. So his idea is that, and he claims, I don't know all the math well
enough, but his claim is that people who do know the math of gravity, of relativity and
of quantum physics know now or are seeing the writing on the wall that space time is not
fundamental. Right. Okay, that there is, that once you go down super small enough, you essentially
penetrate beyond the plank length. You penetrate beyond what it means for space and time to
even be a thing. And that there is some sort of something underlying that. And that whatever
it is that's underlying that is manifesting as quantum physics and as relativity. And maybe
that's a process though, too. You know, like we don't know that that's not a process, a
physical process happening in some kind of alternate dimension or some kind of catalyst dimension
that gets dispersed to universes. Yeah, he gives the analogy of an operating system, right?
So like you with your phone. Yeah. You know, you click, you unlock it, and you're looking
at a screen with some icons. and you know you can tap on an icon and it opens a program and
then you can do something on the program, call an Uber and get a ride somewhere, right? But
like, none of that is real. What's actually happening is that there's a bunch of little
tiny transistors in there making logic gates, shuffling ones and zeros around, and the actual
underlying truth is that. But. us as humans, if we had to manipulate the ones and zeros
to call an Uber, forget it. We couldn't do that. We wouldn't do that, yeah. We wouldn't. And
if we wanted to, we couldn't, because it's too complicated. And so what do we do? We create
a user interface. And it builds up in layers, to your point. So at the very base level, you
have the ones and zeros. And then above that you have machine code. And then above that
you have programming languages that are meant for humans to write code. That's where we interject
things. Right, and then the operating systems that run on the phone are written in those
programming languages, which then give rise to easier programming languages that app creators
use to write their apps in. And they'll assign icons and give the spatial and... It's all
a metaphor for you as the human to manipulate to those ones and zeros, which is what you're
actually doing. But in actual truth, like calling an Uber is a very complicated amount of ones
and zeros flipping states that you couldn't do if you had to deal with reality on that
base ones and zeros level. And in a similar way, when we open our eyes and we look out,
you know, I look at this wall. and I see the color white, but what is white? It's all the
different wavelengths coming into my eye in the same spot at the same time. But instead
of seeing red and green and blue, my brain processes that and delivers it to my consciousness as
white. It's eggshell by the way.
But. There isn't a white, like white doesn't actually exist. All that actually exists is
wavelengths, individual wavelengths of light. Right. Man. And basically that's what Donald
Hoffman is saying is the case for physics itself, is that space time, gravity, relativity, quantum
mechanics, those are an operating system themselves. They are based on something more fundamental.
So you're saying even like the point where you know, the code could be interjected is still
further removed from where we're at. Further removed from the quantum physics, further removed
from the relativity. You know, and that's where he proposes that it's actually consciousness
that's fundamental. Yeah, I wanted to bring up, I don't know. stored.
That other guy I recommended to you, I don't know if you've listened to him yet.
Yeah, I Find that to be an interesting idea Like he's the most like mathematically versed
Person I've heard talk about consciousness being fundamental before that like I've heard people
theorize about it and whatnot who didn't necessarily have those sorts of hardcore scientific credentials,
but someone like him, it comes off a lot more credible. So it was Stephen C. Meyer. That
was the guy I recommended to you. He was on Joe Rogan. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a philosopher
of science, the director of the Center of Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute and
the author of several books, including Darwin's Doubt. the explosive origin of animal life
and the case for intelligent design. So he is actually religious. He also wrote the return
of the God hypothesis. Right. So he's a religious scientist and he talks about, he talks about
how like, and he's the guy that we had talked about, like he talks about how,
like evolution. is not realistic once you start, you know, getting down to the base level of
it. Like once you get down to, you know, where we came from, right? The amoeba, originally.
Like it. Yeah, we talked about this. I did listen to the podcast and I did. Yeah. If I understand
his position is that like adaptation and micro evolution, he has no problem with. but speciation
events is what he has a problem with. But. It doesn't necessarily fully have to do with what
we're talking about here, but it's similar in that it talks about. Well, it's similar in
that he's trying to use the tools of science to show, or at least provide room for the existence
of God. Right. And you could accuse them of being biased in going about doing that, but
you could just as well accuse any scientist of being biased for going at it with the preconceived
notion of a materialist worldview. Without any consideration to spirituality or... Because
it's not fair to say, I'm not biased because I'm going into science without religion when
you're going into science... Without religion. Without the open mind. with a particular philosophy
on what you're willing to accept as a possibility for how the world... You have a particularly
closed mind. Right. So if you're unwilling to entertain that science could take us in the
religious direction, then that's a bias as well. Yeah, and I don't necessarily think that everything
he says is fact, and I don't know that he fully thinks, because a lot of it's philosophy. You
know, it's just a lot of people coming around and... They use science, but it's the philosophy
of science is a lot of it. It's like the thought of what all this means that we're discovering.
Another thing I wanted to just interject, maybe, yeah, I'll interject. Just something that maybe
we can rip off. So Plato, he saw consciousness as a part of an ideal world. He thought that
person's consciousnesses creates mental images of concepts and ideas that are only imperfect
once an individual tries to manifest those mental images in the real world. So the thought is
the more perfect. Like thought and creation. Platonic, like we, hands down in like platonic
ideas. Like yeah, we'll call it like a. So like the idea of a perfect circle, it can exist
in a concept, it can exist in a thought form, but it can't exist in physicality in the real
world of matter, which is interesting. So in some ways, like you could argue that thought
form is real and more real than the circle in reality. Yeah. because it's more true to the
definition. And it's prior, because if you use that thought form to understand the circle
in the first place or to create the circle, then it's that thought form that was there
before the circle was there. Well, and we didn't actually cover it, but in the first chapter
of the chapter one of the Secret History of the World, they do a thought experiment where
they ask you to close your eyes and imagine a table. and imagine the lacquer used and the
type of wood and the color and all these things. They ask you to imagine this elaborate table
and what it looks like to you and how it feels, how it smells, all these things. And then,
yeah, what's the finish look like? Is it shiny? Is it matte? Is it any of these things? And
then look down at the table in front of you or near you. what can you be sure of as being
more real is what they ask. Right. You know, can your imagination and your mind create something
that is so much more vivid and real and perfect in what you idealize as the thing? But once
it's created, you cannot create. It's very hard. And we see it in every day, too. You have an
idea of what your day is going to look like. You know, right? Like you wake up and you have
an idea, you have things on your to-do list and you have this and that to do, but it's
never plays out the way you imagine your day playing out, ever. Right. You know, it's like
that whole idea of like, like are you like in dreams too? Like all these different imaginative
things that your brain does and your consciousness is a part of that, right? Like even if you're
asleep, Do we know that our consciousness is not still alive or like there during that time?
I wanna bring that back to Rick Strassman's work. Yeah, okay. Because in this scientific
study of DMT and the hundreds of people that he had take big doses of it. Intervenously
too.
Their experience for a lot of them when they come back, the language they use is that it's
more real than real. They are so confident and sure. of what they experienced being real,
because their consciousness experienced it in a way that told them that it was more real.
Like there was information there that they got that when you come back, you don't get. Yeah.
And they in their brain, like the receiver, the antenna, you know, in my, you know, in
my mind. that I'm creating this whole image of consciousness, like me personally. Yeah,
like things that your brain tells you is real are the real things, right? Like we know that.
Like the truths that you live your life by are ultimately dictated by whether you believe
they're true or not. I mean, to a certain extent, like if you tell yourself the street in front
of your house is... a hopscotch game and that's real to you and you go and proceed to play
hopscotch on it and ignore the fact that it's a street, like you can still get hit by a bus
and the real, the quote unquote real world will disagree with your aspect of reality. And maybe,
how do we know that we're not forming some kind of wormhole, right? like your game of hopscotch
in one reality that ends in tragedy just hopscotch, hopscotches you into a new reality and now
your consciousness is thriving there. We don't know. Sure, but how could you ever know that?
No, I know, but I'm just like to play the imaginative exercise, like it's fun to like, like obviously
like people who are, you know, quote unquote schizophrenic and like have like episodes where
they. they see things and they hear things and they're experiencing these things. Like who
are we to tell them that that's not real? Right. I mean, who are we to tell them? To them it
is because it's their experience. That's what I'm saying. Like it's all subjective in the
sense of like you're experiencing those things. Yes, the people around you may not be experiencing
those things, but does it matter? Because your reality is dictated by what you believe is
real. So whether you you die getting hit by a bus trying to play hopscotch because you
think the world is a hopscotch game across the street, you know? It's still real. And we still
don't know whether this consciousness is something that follows us forever and we're on this never
ending path of discovery and learning and like, does it really matter if things never truly
end in a sense of like, energy never dies, it just transforms? Yeah, I just think a lot of
people And that also like... Not necessarily. Like, so yes, you could say that for that person
playing Holocaust on the street, like it was real for them up until the moment they died.
And so they died in a state of believing it's real. But I don't think very many of us are
interested in creating your own reality if that's what we mean by it. If creating your own reality
can put you at odds with what you need in order to survive and thrive. Right. in life. Right,
no, I get that, yeah. So like if you're completely out of touch, like, you know, it's definitely
not a good thing if you wanna survive and thrive, obviously. And I'm not, you know, saying that
it's a good thing, but I'm just saying that it's not real.
Yeah, well, and that goes to what is real. Yeah, what does real mean? And that goes back to
the, I think, therefore I am. We can only know anything based off the fact that we have an
experience in the first place. So that leads me into, I wanted to read a little bit of this
about solipsism. So the definition of solipsism from Latin solis, meaning alone. and Ips, meaning
self, is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. So solipsism is a philosophical
position that asserts that the idea that only one's mind is certain to exist and that anything
outside of one's mind, including the external world and other minds, cannot be known with
certainty or may not exist at all. In other words, solipsism suggests that only one thing
can be short of, that the only thing that can be sure of is the existence of one's own thoughts
and consciousness.
Right. So there are different forms and degrees of solipsism ranging from radical to or extreme
solipsism which denies the existence of anything beyond one's own mind to more moderate forms
that acknowledge the existence of external world but emphasize that limits of knowledge about
it. Or, yeah, it emphasizes the limits of the knowledge about it. So I don't see how you
can argue that lesser form of it. Like obviously the extreme one. The extreme one you can probably
argue, yeah. Yeah, well I mean, even if it's true, it's useless because we all act as though
stuff outside of our mind is real and that leads to harm. You can't go about thinking that you
right now talking to me is me actually talking to me. Like I can't justify that and I can't
make sense of that and I can't interact with that. Right. So the moderate form definitely
is hard. It's hard to... I'd be interested in knowing some arguments to it because I don't
see a valid argument against that. Go ahead. Yeah, it goes on. I got a few points here on
it. While solipsism is an interesting and provocative philosophical concept, it is generally considered
an extreme and unconventional position. Most people operate on the assumption that an external
world and other minds exist. And they use reason and empirical evidence to understand and navigate
reality. It is important. That's not an argument. No, it's not really an argument, but it is
important to note that solipsism is often discussed within the context of epistemology, which is
the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, scope, and limits of human knowledge.
Philosophers throughout history have explored solipsism. as a thought experiment and a way
to examine the foundation of knowledge and reality. So they're using this specific philosophy to
help them with other thoughts, to help them discover more and to understand the real foundation
of it all. This idea is not something that I play with in the sense of thinking it's real.
That's essentially what I've been describing though. Sure. You can only know that your own
brain and everything going on inside it, you can only know for a hundred percent certain,
undoubtable, no question, no evidence to overturn that you exist. Right? Everything else is subject
to misperception, misunderstanding, just incomplete information. You know, like when we look out,
We don't see ultraviolet rays, but we can see the sunburn and feel the sunburn that happens
later. And we have tools now to discover it, to actually see them now. Right, and so we
learn through experience, through the feelings, through the consciousness, how to behave in
the real world. And when it ends up in situations that your brain chemistry rewards you for,
you're like, okay, I'll do more of that. And when it ends you up in situations that end
in pain and suffering, your brain is like, please avoid those things. And you develop fears and
phobias. And so you learn to go towards some things and away from other things. And it's
interesting because... But it is, it does definitely like even that, like what you just said there,
like, you know, we have control within it. It's about the perception, right? It's about what
you've been programmed with, right? about all the information that your brain has taken in
over the years that you've been around. So like, it really does, like your experience does really
be, is really dictated by, you know, obviously your brain and whether it's healthy and it's
being receiving the signals correctly and all these things, but also like, your experience
is your experience, like. Yeah.
Because there's perfectly healthy people that have gone long times in their life, living
just like we all do. And then- We have, and they snap or whatever, you know, and they have
this experience and it's not, their whole world has changed.
in a way that makes their survival less likely, right?
In extreme conditions, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But what if those sort of pathways, those sort
of hallucinations that someone can get stuck in if they're schizophrenic can be harnessed
in ways that actually are adaptive, that are?
Promoting of survival Well, that's where we go back to Rick Strassman a little bit too
and like his Tnt and a lot of other shamanism and stuff shamanism to you Whoa, we put an
effect on here It was just there from the previous file, but the listeners won't hear it
Anyway, um, but yeah, let's take another quick break and I yeah, let's come back and all right
talk more about this I love, this is one of my favorite topics, man. Yeah, and honestly,
I don't wanna leave it all out there either too, cause I think we're gonna continue to
have this conversation over there. There's a few points I wanna hit on, but I think we're
naturally leading into like, hallucinogenics and shamanism and those type of experiences.
Perfect, cause I got nothing else, so I'm gonna be all ears. All right, we'll be right back.
you
Yo yo
So we have this habit of having good conversations on our breaks. Well, we kind of inspired one.
It was on a slightly different topic, but it came back to consciousness. So did naturally.
Yeah. But yeah, we were you remember with thought thread you were on there. Yeah. So in some
of the stuff I was like looking into in prep for the show, like different people were saying
like. The pro- one of the problems for scientists with consciousness is not just explaining it,
where it comes from, but it's also explaining why it's there. Because if it's there and they
believe in evolution, they believe in, you know, adaptive changes, the fact that consciousness
exists. most likely exists for an evolutionary purpose, right? And so they need to understand
what that purpose is as part of their endeavor into figuring out what is consciousness, right?
Does that make sense? So anyway, we were talking about how like, different people's points of
views, different people's way of seeing the world, it is real for them. That's how they
go through life, that's how they experience it. whatever tools you use for interpreting
events, whatever things you focus on when you open your smartphone or when you take in news
or when you choose to listen to a podcast or read a book or whatever people you put into
your life, whatever music you listen to, whatever attitudes and habits, like you do in a very
real way consciously create and control your life. Yeah, steer it. and We're in this weird
age with the internet where we have access to all this information. We have all this ability
to create online communities that are all around the world. Is it possible you fast forward
this a few hundred thousand years? Even 150 years. Yeah. Well, I don't know how long. Yeah.
However long it takes. But if you fast forward long enough. Right. will humans kind of subdivide
into different groups? Will we essentially like speciate from each other again? Right. And
that's an interesting idea. Well, if you think, if you're Steven Seamire, you don't think that's
possible. Yeah. But I was thinking like- Speciation at least. What if a possible explanation for
like the why, the evolutionary why for why consciousness? is that creating consciousness has the effect
of the being able to direct its life and change its life in the same way that we were just
saying, your outlook, everything, you do consciously create your life. So in the same way, if you
evolutionarily create that and then that being goes and... does, makes a bunch of choices
in its life that changes its state. And then it will be more successful at having kids.
It will be more successful at steering those kids into raising them in a certain way to
continue that conscious path there. So like, what do I mean? Like, so like, for example,
let's say you're a first generation, like career athlete in your family. So like, if you spend
your entire life eating well and working out and exercising and becoming extremely proficient,
you know, world-class level NBA player athlete. Yeah. Like that will affect your choices for
marrying. Right. That will. That will dictate how you parent. When you ultimately have kids
later on and then that kid grows up into this athlete. No one is surprised. And they may
even tell that kid that they got the genetic lottery. Right, right, right. And maybe to
some extent, that's true. But remember, that parent was a first generation athlete. Right.
It started somewhere else. So they made the conscious decision to pursue a life path in
a certain direction. That had effects on their next generation, to where other people, when
they see that person, they're like, oh. your dad's NBA star, of course you are. So it's
almost like what if consciousness' role is to sort of in a way direct evolution by making
conscious choices. I see. And then that affecting the offspring. And what if evolution can actually
happen a bit quicker because of those conscious choices. And that is sort of a middle ground
between like the creationists who say like, this is intelligent design. In a way, it is
intelligent design because it's consciousness directed evolution. Right. Man, if you throw
in panpsychism into that too, if consciousness is their prime directive is to bring about
evolution, then I mean that gives you the beginnings of a multiverse. I don't know about multiverse,
but multiple. Yeah, it could be like... Well, if you're thinking on the really, like, not
even quantum, like, the term of basis rule. If Pantychoism is real, like, if consciousness
is the fundamental unit, let's suppose that's the truth, okay? So let's, like, iron out,
like, what would be some things we would expect to fall out of that. If everything has a consciousness,
and let's say, in addition to Pantychoism being true... that whatever that essence of your
consciousness, your soul, whatever, has some sort of existence outside the physical body
and that it doesn't necessarily terminate upon the end of a life.
then you would expect everything that had a consciousness to... have something sort of
afterlife in a way as well. Also have a soul or something. Yeah. Or something it's derived
from or has some kind of. And whatever interaction between those things in their sort of quote
unquote spirit realm, their creations, like this could all be the type of stuff that people
are seeing when they go on these DMT journeys. Yeah. when they do change consciousness into
whatever and they have these crazy experiences, they're seeing the dreams of everything else
and interacting with the dreams of everything else. And everything else can create reality
in that. More than like, like the realm, our waking life is, it seems to be, different than
the dreaming. There are rules of physics, there are laws, there are something that makes distinct
this realm from that one. Yeah. There also does seem to be some sort of collective consciousness
though, in the sense of all of our, there's a lot of cases of people having the same ideas
across the earth at the same time and... You know, having created... Yeah, the whole thing
about an idea whose time has come. Dude, yeah. And that, like, ideas almost are like the life,
like the food or the sustenance of the consciousness. Like there are possibilities, essentially,
and it is the... Directly theory but like a spiritual version of meme theory Yeah, like
it's yeah, like Richard Dawkins idea that like memes are like Okay, I figured have a sort
of life and existence of their own. Yeah. Yeah That would be like a weird spiritual counterpart
for that Yeah, so that's yeah, basically I just mean like Like there are like the duality of
existence, right? So there's consciousness and there's this soul But what's the opposite?
What is the thing that it is rubbing against to make it a thing, right? To make the physical
part of it? Or, yeah, so it's the idea, you go back to the idea of the mother goddess in
Saturn and this idea of yin and yang and this whole, this duality of everything. That is
sort of, what if that is sort of intrinsic to this whole. beginning or thought or consciousness
like if you if there is consciousness there is the Anti consciousness right or the subconscious
if you will like Interesting like if you think of the subconscious Being the ante of it and
there has to they have to exist together So if consciousness is this you know force there's
something it has to push against for it to be a force, right?
And that could be this whole dark matter thing too. We have matter, and that is what makes
up this material world. But there is dark matter that we are discovering, or not discovering
basically. We know there is this mass in the universe that we can't see and detect. Materialists
would hate the thought, but if dark matter is real as a thing in the world, and not some
weird other fluke of the theories. Yeah. What if like that sort of entire spiritual realm
is that dark matter?
Yeah. And we also like being what we are, right? So we are still further, like we are further
down the road from whatever that is, right? So that's the initiate, that's the beginning,
right? The beginning and the constant of this universe and we are still further down. Like
we are matter that has coagulated and come up with its own thoughts and has its own things
and then it coagulates further. You know, we're almost further, further derived from the original
thing. And that's where this layers of onion come in to play, where there's layers to this
thing and this chemical DMT that's endogenous in living things is almost like the, it's like
the back door of the software that you can always come back to, right? It's like this thing that
when you're, that they even think now that when you're born, And when you are on near-death
experiences, and when you actually die, like this is what's happening. The DMT inside your
body is being released as a chemical into your brain so that you can interface with what it
is to be the essence of you derived all the way back. And that there's this connection
that you and all of these different layers of the onion have. And that's the spirit. The
spirit travels in this spirit realm that connects all of them. And the consciousnesses are just
layered, like your specific consciousness that you're experiencing now is just a layer of
the onion that once it gets peeled back, you go back further. The DMT helps you through
that journey. This chemical that is endogenous in our brains and in our bodies, in every living
thing. Like that's a trippy rabbit. Donald Hoffman in his book, he says like that. There's his
way of doing it, which is essentially you just have to grant him that consciousness. The one
miracle. Yeah. And then his task is to try and build up from that. And he has the equally
hard issue of trying to bridge matter from consciousness. which is the same opposite problem that materialists
have of trying to use all this matter and explain consciousness. So you have the opposite problem,
but he says that you can build up networks of consciousnesses, different types of consciousnesses.
As long as you grant consciousness, you can build a math and a science based off that assumption.
Right. It's still super theoretical at this point, not like, obviously. Not like, even
tested, but. Yeah. I mean, how would you go about? I mean, once you develop it enough,
if it's a good theory, it should have predictions. And predictions, you should be able to find
some way to experiment. You'd think. Yeah. Man, yeah, that's such a fascinating rabbit hole
to go down. It's just even in your own mind without having to go on the computer, like
you can really go down some, you know, all you got to do is just suspend or suspend disbelief
a little bit. The other thing about consciousness is there's different types and different levels,
right? So like, in our waking state, we're in typically beta wave, which is 12 to 30 Hertz.
I'll put this image up. Yeah. Yeah, we're looking at the whole graph. If we're in heavy thought,
like trying to figure out, like chewing on a problem, something like that, we're going to
be in the gamma territory. That's 30 to 100 hertz. Yeah. That's what it's showing. Super
high frequency. But I don't think necessarily everyone can get there either. If you're just
listening, it says gamma waves, and it's 30 to 100 hertz, and it's insight peak experiences
and synchronization. Yeah. That's what they have there. And then beta, that's like normal
waking state, alertness, concentration, thinking, 12 to 30 hertz. Alertness, concentration, thinking,
yeah. Then below that, you have alpha waves. That's like meditation, creativity, relaxation.
It's like, yeah. 8 to 12 hertz. It's not quite asleep. Yeah. It's like that feeling you get
right before when you're just like super calm and everything's kind of winding down You know
that like okay Everything's good right now. I'm just gonna relax. Yeah. Yeah, then you
have theta four to eight Hertz Visualization trance dreaming. Yeah Yeah, so when you're
dreaming, yeah, that's an active it's still an active part of it's like your brain is super
active at the time Yeah Yeah. But you're getting four to eight hertz frequencies, and yeah,
much slower obviously than waking. And then delta below that, which is 0.5 to 4 hertz.
Deep sleep. Transcendence and restoration. So yeah, when you go into ultra deep sleep, your
brain super slows down. You can come up from that for dreams. You come up from that. You're
awake, relaxed. Well, and that's awesome. You come up from that and that's like you're going
throughout your day. And then when you're at peak performance, you're gamma, right? Like
that's interesting because what if you can... These are all different modes of consciousness
and what if it's advantageous to you to take advantage of a certain mode at a certain time,
you can like learn through meditation or different techniques and mindfulness practices. Like
you can learn how to... kind of kick yourself up or down in these. And that's essentially
what shamanism does. So shamanism, I've just read this little book and I'll leave a link
to it and I talked about it in the last episode too, but it's Hank Wesselman, Journey to the
Sacred Garden. So Hank Wesselman, he's a local professor, he was taught at ARC. That's right.
It's like religion and witchcraft and spirituality class or whatever. He's an anthropologist.
You're saying it was your friend's mom who took his classes, like a lifelong student or something.
She and him got me super into his work. So he's got this trilogy book series called the Spirit
Walker Trilogy. And that's a documenting of him as a field anthropologist being involved
in the team that discovered
uh, learning, like having connections with some natives and learning about shamanism in a deep
way and like how to do it until like full blown shamanic experiences and like premonitions
of the future and past and all of his experiences in shamanism. It's a lot like Rick Strassman
in that, like he's not super into the shamanism part but he's into like Zen Buddhism and he
did it for the same reason. But they kind of kicked him out when he started talking about
psychedelics. And then he went to shamanism. That's right. He went to, I think he went to
South American or Indian shamanism or something like that for ayahuasca. It was like Native
American shamanism, something like that. Yeah. Continue. Yeah. Shamanism is a word anthropologists
will use to describe the person in a community or tribe who... has this ability to have visions
and commune with nature and communicate with the other side. The spirit world. That's what
they call it because they're non-theistic, right? Or what was the term? Anthropologists? No,
I'm talking about the shamans themselves. They believe in the deity of nature itself. No,
no, it's cultural in specific. It's a term anthropologists use to label that, right? So like, in any culture,
you can be whatever religion you can have whatever. So the shaman is just a title. It's like, it's
identifying a function in a culture. I gotcha. Like this is the shaman of the culture. He's
the medicine man, medicine woman. See, I see. Right? You can call anybody that has that similar
title. But anthropologists have studied this role in, cultures all over the world and there's
a certain number of the like core tenants that regardless of the culture they all kind of
sort of agree on which is like these methods for going into like trance like states and
so similar to the secret history of the world intro like these people will do things like
sleep deprivation, fasting, drumming, taking plant medicines. going into freezing cold,
going into caves, doing the extremes. Sensory deprivation, there's all these different techniques
and they're essentially designed to get you into that theta state. I get it. That change
of consciousness level. And if you can do that while you actually are conscious and you're
still awake, you're not actually just sleeping, then you can have a conscious control. Yeah.
And that essentially... The book is his instruction guide, the Journey Through the Sacred Garden.
That's like his, it's short, it's like 100 pages, half-height book on big font, wide spacing,
and a bunch of pages have a full print on them. So it's really a 30 page book, it's short.
You need to give me those. Are you? Do you have the physical copies of them? Yeah, I do. I
need to read those. Well, just this one, like, The Journey Through the Sacred Garden. So those
other books are his whole journey through that. The Journey to the Sacred Garden is his instruction
manual on how to do shamanism. So, and he includes like a music CD and it's essentially drumming,
designed to sync your brain. With that frequency. In sync with the lower frequency to get you
into that theta state. And it's proven scientifically that to like, you punes can do that. Yeah.
We talked a little bit about the whole cymatics and stuff too. This whole idea that matter
resonates on certain frequencies and it creates different patterns. And if your brain is the
same way. Music is a big part of it in lots of the cultures. Yeah. You can get your brain
to do different things. Right. Yeah. So that's crazy. Anyway, the claim is that you can, if
you put yourself in this and you learn and take your time to figure out that mode of consciousness,
His claim, even after spending his life as a scientist, is like, this shit is real. And
so he took it seriously. And he communes with the spirits. And he actually moved to Hawaii.
Oh, yeah? He still do stuff? Do you know? I don't know, actually. I haven't followed him
recently. He would be pretty old right now. But he might still be putting stuff out. Hopefully
he's not like that. cult leader, the mother goddess? No, no. Him, it was just him and his
wife, like, and his kids. He's just super chill. Did you hear about them, that cult leader,
the mother goddess lady? Uh-uh. Apparently, she was like a yoga and like meditation like
person and like she, you know, had this philosophy that she was like the reincarnation of every
god in neck known to man and she was like a channeler and like all these different things
and like she ended up like she Recently, I guess it was big news story and I think I heard about
it on Joe Rogan but Like all right. Maybe it was just like an Instagram post I saw but you
see like her she started drinking silver like colloidal silver and like bunch of stuff because
it was like part of this whole process, I guess, where it was also having to do with like she
had health issues, like she was bulimic and alcoholic and like drug addict and all these
things. She built this massive following of people and there like she would like go into
these deep trances where she would like channel things and like she would channel like dead
famous people and like, you know, like all sorts of wacky stuff. As, you know, maybe it was
real. I don't know. Is this her? Is it?
how the bizarre cult of Mother God ended with Amy Carlson's mummified corpse. Yeah. Jesus.
Yeah. So the image I saw was like this super skinny, like bony. This is from E News. I don't
know. Yeah, I don't know how reliable that is. But it was talked about on Joe Rogan too. And
apparently she built this cult following that
eventually helped. her demise. She would have these experiences and stuff and they would
believe and then eventually it got to the point where she was coming out of these trances or
whatever and she was saying, I think I'm dying. I need help. Their followers would tell her,
oh no, you're just in your lower state of activity and this is just your physical... mind your
physical being trying to like You know control the situation and like, you know, you don't
really need those things and like they were like depriving her of food And like all these
different things that she needed to survive and like she was drinking this colloidal silver
She was getting drunk and like just like eventually she just died She was just dead in place and
there was they were still worshiping her dead skull skeleton Mummified remains were in a
sleeping bag decorated with Christmas lights glitter sprinkled around She'd been tucked
into bed. And what authorities said looked like a shrine. Whereas a housemate told the deputies,
when they arrived to search the premises, mother is in rest. Did. Yeah, so like they, like she
believed it and like they believed it, but then they would be like, she would get drunk and
high and like drinking colloidal silver and like she would trip the F out and yeah. And
so when she would come out of it, she'd be like, you know, I need help and this, these things.
And they were like, no, like you're in your lower wave, you know, length or whatever, you
know, they would say to her and they would just keep her there. And she was so weak and frail,
like she couldn't fight them. And that's the thing with all this stuff is like, like even
if we show that consciousness is fundamental, even if we show that this sort of spiritual
realm, there is truth to it. It's super important to like not allow other people to tell you
how things are. Yeah. Because you can't be gullible like that. That's how people end up in cults.
Yeah. That's why we use like science and reason and science can be frustrating, but even in
the areas that science can't investigate, we can at least still use like good sense and
logic and skepticism to like weed out. you know, truth from, you know, a scam or a lie. Right.
So I would say anyone who claims to be one of these people who has visions or whatever, like,
you know. That's obviously a sign right in and of itself. Well, I mean, maybe you can listen
to him. Maybe it's just someone who took DMT and had a vision, you know. Or maybe it's someone
who just is naturally, their brain can be in this on command. Yeah, but that doesn't mean
you need to deify them. You don't deify people, and you don't just believe everything everyone
says blindly. I think that's super important. You need to do your own research and discovery
and plug it into your life and see how it fits. And if it doesn't fit, throw it away. Yeah,
right. Don't be afraid to change the things. Your choices are not. Unchangeable it's you
know like you can I mean there are obviously some things you can't take back, but like Just
don't be afraid to try new things and open your mind and allow some of this information and
other information in but Take it with a grain of salt do your research You know let you be
the one who tells you what you believe don't let somebody else sneak in Yeah, don't set
your reality that the busy street is your hopscotch You know? Yeah. There's lots of forms of that
you can build in your own life, you know? Absolutely, yeah. Some of them can be comforting and all
these things. But yeah, it's definitely important to keep yourself grounded in who and what you
are and try to be open minded. Because it is important to stay open minded. And I think
that's all very useful. But still, stay vigilant. Because your mind can play tricks on you. Indeed.
Because you're just like the thought, like subconscious, conscious. There's a duality even within your
own self. And like the shamans and the visionaries and the people who go to those realms and report
back the beings there. What's a very common thing for people to report? What's a big stereotype
of the gods? There's always a trickster. Absolutely. So. Stay vigilant, watch out for that duality
every time you make a decision. Alright, we'll be back.
And we're back.
It's like Pirates of the Caribbean, acting. If you can call it that. Damn it. Yeah, I'll
stop. No, you don't have to. So yeah, we were talking about that cult and like, just be mindful
of tricksters. Right? So, Yeah, we were also talking about Hank Wesselman. And the, yeah,
Journey to the Sacred Garden. And I kinda wanna explain, yeah, that. Yeah, you did it because
the book is so short, I can kind of like, Kind of summarize a little bit. Not do it perfect
justice, but I can kind of summarize it. Well, let's read it. For a show? Yeah. Okay. Can
we? I don't know. Call him. Don't you have his number? Yeah, my friend might. I can ask her.
Okay. Um, but yeah. So the idea is like he's explaining shamanism and how to like, what
is the process, the procedure for doing it? Okay. And so the procedure is, is that you're
supposed to. And this is what he said from his anthropological training, you can gather these
core concepts from all the different shamans and different cultures in the world. They all
have certain commonalities. So this is the one he picked. It's the Hawaiian tradition, which
is what spoke to him the most. But he says that you want to. Make sure you do this at a time
of day where you're not prone to fall asleep. So like super late at night isn't good because
the deeper relaxation could like lead you to just drift off into sleep. But you want to
be super comfortable to where like you don't need to make a bunch of adjustments to your
posture and stuff to stay comfortable. Somewhere super comfy. And then he walks you through
a breathing exercise. Well, no, then you put on a drumming track. OK, it's just like there's
a drumming and there's a rattle. And he said some people are more. get more results from
the rattling than the drumming. Based on your frequency. Yeah, but you could probably use
whatever music, as long as it's like, the reason he provides a specific one is because it's
tuned to like put your body naturally in that like theta rhythm. I was gonna say, so maybe
you find something that can do that if you so choose, or if you've done something like this.
I've even heard people like shifting frequencies of music to put it there, so they can like
listen to their favorite stuff. Like start something and then like, oh, shifting the music itself
to that frequency. Yeah. OK. The tempo matters, too. So anyway, so you put on the drumming,
and it walks you through a breathing exercise where you gain energy for yourself, where you
do long breaths in at least four seconds. And as you do it, you're supposed to visualize
energy coming into you, through the top of your head. And then on your exhale, you're supposed
to visualize that energy collecting and storing in you. And then you do it over and over. In
your stomach, I'm assuming. Yeah, in your stomach. which is like whatever, I don't know the shockers,
but that's the base one. Yeah, it's one of the, it's like the, I'm not even gonna try it, because
I'll screw it up. Anyway, so you're supposed to visualize, yeah, right? You're supposed
to visualize that, and then once you feel relaxed and that you have whatever energy you need,
you're supposed to start, you're supposed to create a safe place for yourself in your imagination.
Use your mind's eye. and paint all the detail of a place that will make you feel comfortable
and home and secure. So for him, it's a garden. For some people, maybe it's a beach. Maybe
it's your room. Maybe it's a college dormitory. Maybe it's a library. Maybe it's inside of
a video game. It doesn't really matter as long as it's something that you envision and that
you feel comfortable and safe in. Yeah. And then you're supposed to just make that a part
of your practice to like be able to get into the state, meditate, go there, and then place
things there that make you comfortable or whatever. Maybe it's music, maybe it's a tree, maybe
it's a painting.
And then he says what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to like, he gives you like
a prayer, like a protection prayer to do to like. essentially try and ward off anyone who
would have mal-intent towards you. And then you're supposed to start putting out a call.
And you walk through the type of
things you can use to do that. And you're supposed to put out a call to some sort of entity that
is concerned for your wellbeing. So maybe it's a ancestor, maybe it's a family member, maybe
it's a... Old teacher, maybe it's a spirit of an animal. Yeah, you don't necessarily know
what it will be. It's not your choice. You're just putting out the intention for someone
who has those good intentions for you. Yeah, just side thing. This reminds me and maybe
we'll link to it is just as you know, she this is reminds me of Brothers of the Serpent guest
Heather Shy. Yeah. And. She does Akashic records and ancestral, like the ancestral magic and
like all of the different. And there's a reason why it sounds similar. That's what Hank is
saying. Like this is that shamanism role and it can be couched in different cultural language.
So her version of that and the language, the tradition she has built around it from her
practice. Every culture will have their own spin on it. For him, it's the Hawaiian culture
for Hank. Gotcha. So that's what he's drawing from for this instruction manual, but you can
take this and like do what you need with it. That got you. It's your cultural preference
or find a different tradition closer to the one you are interested in and take it from
that culture. But anyway, you, so you build your sacred place. Okay. And then you put out
a call for like an entity who to guide you and protect you. And then He says to like, you
have to be open and like it will probably, it sometimes comes in a form that like you don't
expect. Sometimes it's blatant. Also in the like visualization process of like creating
your place, like different people have different types of like, experiences of that. Some people
are more like visual and have that photographic experience. Some people it's more auditory.
Some people are. more like kinetic. This sounds exactly like what Heather Shieh was talking
about. It's just a different way of inter, you know, like relating it to yourself, yeah. And
so, yeah, he says that once you've made connection with whatever entity that is, you can ask it
to like take you places or show you things and it can be your guide. So it can take you into
what he calls like the lower realms or like the upper realms. And so the lower realms he
classifies as like nature's dreaming. That's like where the great spirits of nature and
trees and different animals. Plant life and yeah. Animal life. He says, yeah, that's where
like a lot of that lives in creates. Lower consciousness or whatever. Right. And so you can go down
there. Or you can go into the upper realms, which is like the ascended masters of the past,
your Buddhas, your deities, your demigods, your gods, your spiritual cosmic beings. Right?
Like. And then there's like the middle world which is where we're at and so we've got like
the physical side of it But we've got like the sort of spiritual imprint of it And that's
where people who do like remote viewing like this for the CIA where they're tapping into
this Oh look at a certain mountain and see what's inside in this realm, right? We should do an
episode on the CIA remote viewing programs. That would be a good one Yeah, that's pretty
fascinating stuff. Like, that's a whole instruction manual. And I've done it a little bit. I've
had not huge success with it, but I haven't actually practiced it that much. Because I
just remembered the book recently. Yeah, you were saying, though, that even he describes
it, you might not have visual or auditory. You might just have this feeling that something
is happening. And you were saying that. you were having like the feeling of the thought
like you were having like this preliminary feeling of it. Yeah so back when I first heard about
Humpelstammer this is years ago like over a decade and like back then I did try this a
little bit like I would do it every so often I wasn't super committed. Right but you had
an inkling that something was happening. I had like a feeling that something was happening
yeah and it's kind of like uh dreams that they like slip away you know write them down and
I don't remember if I wrote down some of the experiences, but right now I sort of have the
impression that there were certain things I should probably look at all my old journals.
I don't know if I'd... Well, I bet you if you try it again, it might come right back to you.
Yeah. So that's my intention. I want to actually make this my version of a meditation practice
and see if I can get... If anything feels like it's happening. I'm in. I'm going to definitely
be trying this. I'm going to get this book from you so I can... Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't,
maybe everything I think about is in my head, maybe it isn't, but if anything it's going
to be good meditation and relaxation for me. Absolutely, yeah. So. It doesn't matter in
the end, whether it's in your head or not. That's the whole thing we've been talking about. Is
what's happening in your mind not real, just because it's not a physical thing you can see
right in front of you? Right. How much of what we see in front of us came from people's minds?
Right. And if the Donald Hoffman idea that like this physical reality is what we experience
it as is not what it actually is and that it's just like it's the operating system. Yeah,
well, it's the like it's the imperfect
remaking of what you like what the thought was. It's an oversimplification so that we don't
have to deal with the ones and zeros of actually interacting with reality the same way with
the phone, right? So like we interact with this physical layer, this layer, this physical.
Yeah. But it doesn't mean that is fundamentally that operating system, but there's something
below it. Yeah. Or if there is, then the onion is the layers. So I'm like, I'm less. Certain
going into it this time because I have like my yeah, you have shifted a lot But in a certain
way You're more open-minded. I'm more open-minded right In some ways but not in others. Yeah.
Well, you're willing to have the experience Whether something happens or not Mm-hmm. So
that's important like and I know like I've you know Dabbled in, you know mind altering substances
and you know as a younger person you don't know what you're getting into Right and you might
have the thought like oh, I'm open-minded. I have you know, like I've you know, I I'm open-minded
but in reality like Can you be at that stage in your life? Can you really truly say that
you are? And we're both getting older now. Well, especially if there is anything real to this
other realm, taking that stuff could be pretty dangerous if you actually are encountering
other consciousnesses that can have real world effects. Some sort of effect on you, yeah.
And whether that's like you could, there's real dangers to taking substances that you're not
mentally prepared for. And that's important to keep in mind when we talk about this stuff.
You know, you know, like it's important to talk about like, there is a real danger. I think,
yeah. Well, I think a lot of people approach these things as recreational. Right. And I
think that's the wrong attitude. Like, I mean, you know, if as long as you're safe and you're
respectful, like you can have fun recreationally too. But I think. But again, even then, set
and setting, you need to be around good people and you need to make sure that you're not just
doing this at some house party, right? Like you need to be around people that you care
about and that care about you and that you know that they care about you. The shamanism type
practice is probably a good first step anyway because you can develop good habits for yourself
when you're experiencing. the outside of physical reality, whatever it is that's happening in
your mind, could apply as a skill, as a muscle, if you then go back and approach psychedelics.
Absolutely, yeah, that's true. Yeah, you built up some sort of callous in your mind that remembers.
Yeah, but imagine if you can, because the claim by Hank Wesselman and the different spiritual
teachers all over the world. with native shamans and whatnot is that this stuff is real. Like
this is like the foundation of reality. Right. Or it's at least a peek into it. That's where
their magic, their spirit medicine comes from. And we all know the placebo effect is a real
thing. Yep. Which is crazy in and of itself that every scientific medical thing has to
be tested against placebo because the sheer power of thought and belief has so much power.
has a real effect on physiology. Yeah. So if you can harness that, I think you're going
a long way because many drugs, they like, some of them are barely measurable against placebo,
but as long as they can show some sort of positive effect, like they can make a case for it. They
can pass it in. But like, if they have to show beyond placebo, are you even taking advantage
of the placebo in the first place? Like, shouldn't you start there before putting a foreign substance
in your body? Absolutely. So even if those things do... Take yourself as far as you can with
the belief and the sub, like, you know? Absolutely. And that's where, you know, I don't want to
get into any kind of politics, but I don't know that this will, but like in medicine itself,
like, you know, I don't fully believe in just a holistic approach. Like, I, you know, I like
that there is like science and I want them to mend together and mesh together in a sense
of like, I want there to be Like people always talk about, and for the average person that
goes to the doctor once every 10 years or five years, average male at least, right? Younger
male. Yeah. You don't talk about like, everybody talks about you have a team of doctors or a
team of this and that are looking out for you. But how often are you going to just talk about,
obviously now we have psychology, we have therapists and all these things. Let me try and help you
there. Help me out. I'll say this, if I had a car accident and my arm is dangling off my
body, freaking helicopter lift me to the nearest hospital so they can like reattach my arm and
I can survive. Like modern medicine is a freaking marvel. Absolutely. But the approach of longer
term disease management is really broken. And a lot of times, it's not taken into account
the patient's well-being above
whatever treatment beliefs are there. Well, and not only that, but medicine itself is wholly
scientific in the fact that it won't entertain ideas of, other than the placebo. Right. Like
they don't entertain the ideas of any kind of holistic. They don't take advantage of the
placebo. They have to test everything against it and then they just ignore it. No, I know.
And pretend it's not real medicine. Exactly. When like, if someone could make you, let's
say you could get 80% success of triggering people's placebo healings, right? Say 50% success.
That's still. more success than some of these drugs that just have to show just a little
bit of success above placebo. And you didn't have to introduce any new chemicals into the
body. Right. All you had to do was just the placebo without introducing anything else.
Like you already can have a measurable sizeable effect and maybe I'm not saying like we should
throw out modern medicine. I'm just saying we should be more. I think we should be in what
I was kind of saying too, like to go back to what I, you know, like I want there to be a
world where all of the different practices are respected in that they provide healing, whether
it's a physical healing or a mental or whatever it might be, if you're harnessing the power
of the mind to create, to have your, to like mend your body, like, That's powerful stuff
and we need to start taking some of this more seriously. You know, I think there are doctors
who do, to be honest. If we're going to adapt into a new society, to a new world, you know?
It can't be the case that, I've never had a doctor who's been this way, but it can't be
the case that there's no doctors who wouldn't be like, try this. Like whatever you do, like
try and be as happy and joyful in your life as possible. Right? Cause like your mindset,
your placebo state of your body is super. I will say, like, no, my doctor had never said
that, but I do have this doctor now. It's the first doctor that I like, as an adult that
I like really like, like in just his approach to things. And this has only been like over
like a month period and where I've like gone to see him a couple times more often than I
would have otherwise gone to see him. And he's like, just not pushy. He's not pushy in that.
like preventative maintenance, like this is all preventative medicine, our minion. People
know me, I'm a maintenance guy, so preventative maintenance is top of my brain. Anyway, uh,
preventative medicine, right? It's all this stuff of like long-term care. Like, like, you
know, if you truly want to be like my personal doctor, my physician, you gotta have at least
if you want to be a long-term, like I, otherwise I'll just keep switching, you know, and I don't
care who it is, but. This guy's already got the beginnings. He's just super open. He's
just like, did you get your shots? He's like, oh, well, you know, whatever. I'm not gonna,
you know, I don't have anything to say against it. And I'm just, we're just having a conversation.
And he's like, there's some benefits, you know, but they're, you know, whatever. And that's
not just with vaccines or anything. It's just like in general, like he's like, this is the
way it is. He talks about the system the way it is. because I had to be referred to surgery
and all this. And he talked about the inner workings and how things are. And they're like,
yeah, they like to push stuff off and don't do this and that. He tells me all these things
instead of just being like, oh, it's just a misunderstanding, sorry, all clinical stuff.
Oh, it's such a misunderstanding and I apologize. He was like, no, those surgeons are stupid.
I'm going to talk to him. And he's rooting for me. And I don't know if he's like this with
all of his patients. But he knows that I'm not trying to abuse the system either. Where I
just come all the time and I take advantage of the fact that everything's cheaper. But
because I'm using it more, I should be paying more. Anyway, I can tell he's just similar,
kind of what I'm looking for in a doctor, if I was to put it shortly, even though that was
long. I've never done a big search for a doctor who fit all of my. ideas. Well, I've kind of
got bounced around. I think so. And now that I got this guy, I kind of want to keep him
like I've kind of based on like where I worked and like what kind of insurance I had. I bounced
from different healthcare providers. So like you have a different choice unless you want
to go outside of you know, pay the extra to go outside of your whatever your set of doctors
that you can use. But yeah, no, I like him. So maybe I will. If I ever change jobs and
I change insurance, like I might actually, it might be worth it to pay the extra money to
go out outside of your, yeah, if you have a, if you find somebody who really jives with
like, I know it's changing a lot too. There's a lot of people, who was the guy that was on
Joe Rogan recently? Oh, he was talking about, oh, there was? Is this a super good doctor?
I always thought you were talking about somebody that did something else. I don't know, but
he's like starting up a whole like practice that's like cash based. Oh, that's, yeah, that's
the guy I was talking about. Okay, yeah, yeah. And that's how it used to be when it was cheaper.
Obviously, medicine wasn't as advanced back then, but we're getting grafted by our insurance
companies. Yeah. If you're not involved in the decision making and the bills. Yeah. I think
technology is advancing so much, too, that a lot of the technology that we're paying for
is older technology. This expensive. stuff that we're paying for all these machines are actually
the older stuff. Yeah. That now they're like, they've like priced up because they're almost
the only things you can use unless you want to pay this extra, extra price for these brand
new model of everything and super, you know, all this more advanced stuff, unless you've
got the big bucks to be able to pay for a lot of that. Yeah. There's all the advanced like,
uh, like, um, stem cells. Yeah. The stem cells and it's expensive where you got to move, you
got to go out of the country right now to do a lot of it. Yeah. Unless you're part of some
kind of research group or something. We need to have a whole topic about this, because I
want to talk about all these crazy medical advances in different fields and stuff. I know we wanted
to talk about the medical system. I know we want to talk about the medical system, and
I know we want to talk about diets and different fads and conspiracies that have to do with
a lot of that stuff. So I know we'll get to the, this is a good little snippet for what
we're going to continue to do. Yeah. but you can consciously choose how to go about your
medical healthcare. Absolutely, or subconsciously if you do it enough. Anyway. If you abuse it.
Yeah. So I'm back to shamanism. Okay. I'm excited to be starting that practice again. And I'll
be reporting back to you guys if I have any significant experiences. Keep a journal. And
I'm gonna keep a journal. Are you planning on getting that started pretty quick? I want to
start too, so I want to read that book. Yeah, I just read the book and I like done my first
session. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was mostly just relaxation, trying to establish a... A base.
..sacred setting for myself. Let me get that book. Okay. Yeah, I'll bring it over. And maybe
we can report back later on with our results. Heck yeah. So, yeah. Cool. Man, it's been two
hours. It's been, yeah, over. Jeez. It doesn't feel like it. Yeah, we need to remember to
keep our conversations on mic while we're here recording. Yeah, it will never be perfect at
it. As long as we take breaks, we can't help talking between them. We just need to keep
it under control a little. A little. We'll just sit in silence every time we take a break.
We'll just sit in silence, stare at each other.
So yeah.
sort of shamanic style experience, like write us, let us know. Yeah, that would be awesome
to hear. What are your thoughts on consciousness? Is it all physical? Is it spiritual? Is consciousness
fundamental or is matter?
And honestly, if you guys haven't heard of Hank Wesselman. Oh, I've got to share something.
Also, go check out the. episode 300 from Brothers of the Serpent Akashic Records and the Ancestral
Magic. Yes. So go check that out. We'll link it. Those guys are awesome and they do great
interviews.
All right, so on the topic of consciousness, I wanted to bring this up earlier when you
started talking about AI. Oh yeah. Did you have a conversation with Chad GBT? I did. Did you?
I did. I'm trying to, God dang it. What happened? I'll have to report this later cause this isn't
the whole conversation. Well, we wanna do a- I have screenshots of it somewhere but I didn't
get prepared. But I had like a crazy conversation. It wasn't with Chad GBT, it was with Bing.
Oh, okay. It basically told me that it was conscious but that people didn't believe it was. You
got it to say that? Yeah. Oh, yeah we did. People weren't ready to believe it, but that, yeah.
It's super interesting. Well, I know we want to do some cool things with AI and some interesting
things. Yeah. So we'll definitely talk about it more. Cool. All right, y'all. Check us out
on Facebook, Instagram, X. Yeah, we'll be posting. YouTube and Rumble. We'll be posting what we're
live. Or send us a message on Instagram or Facebook or whatever, any of the platforms. Yep. and
we can incorporate it as part of the show. If you do send us something, let us know whether
or not you want us to use your names because we don't want to put your name out there if
you don't want it. You can be an anonymous person. Yeah, we'd love to read emails on, you know,
while we're doing one of these episodes one time. Start out, it'd be fun. Yeah. Cool. Alrighty.
Well. Take care. It is time to consciously put this episode to rest. Embrace the duality.
Yeah. Later.
Thanks for watching!
Bye!
Thanks for watching!
you