Joe Rogan Experience #1829 — Bobby Azarian Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. I mean, I think it was an intuition that I had. neuroscientists. I got my PhD from George Mason University. I was really interested in the problem of consciousness. So how does the brain create consciousness? What is the connection between you know, some of those ideas didn't seem quite right to me. And I was really interested in this

3:31 So somewhere along the line, the idea was that the universe tends towards chaos. when this physical process creates heat. And so what the second law said originally was that It wasn't until later that there was a statistical interpretation of this law by a scientist named Ludwig Boltzmann. and open systems have energy coming in. about this so as i mentioned i was really interested in this mystery of consciousness because it seemed like, you know, kind of the last frontier of science.

9:31 to really understand how consciousness emerges and intelligence, it really starts with the origin of talking about thermodynamics because to understand life, you have to understand it as a phenomenon that does evade this tendency towards decay. And to their evolution and you see that systems experience or display properties like consciousness that aren't there when the components exist in isolation.

12:08 people believe that there's a little bit of consciousness in everything and i don't think Yeah. So basically, consciousness is kind of mysterious still. And there's the hard problem of consciousness, which was put forth by a philosopher named David Chalmers in the 90s. the little bits of consciousness kind of add up um yeah it's kind of funny I mean so the materialist position is like pretty much

15:01 and communication, self-awareness, correction, So yeah, I don't think it's necessarily right to call it immaterial. that are being used to start to quantify it, So what I was going to ask you is if we agree that humans are conscious, And so when you said everybody agrees that we're conscious, yeah, So what is their definition of what consciousness is?

17:34 There is no point in the brain where you can locate consciousness. It's a global phenomenon. it's there, but it's not doing anything. So then they admit that we have conscious experience. So let's say we all accept consciousness in the practical way of talking about things. Let's say we accept consciousness as human beings without the double talk. grow trees uh so uh i'm arguing that the difference between life and non-life is that living things

20:56 of its environment. Some sort of statistical mapping of the environment is encoded in Do you know about those studies? And basically you will have like intelligent behavior without actually having subjective experience. mental models of the world. But in that process, the individual and the brain is part of that world. So then it starts to model itself. And it's this phenomenon of the system kind of looking back on itself that creates a witness to experience, an observer.

24:35 that enables consciousness to emerge yeah so um it's all those things. So an organism must be able to anticipate events in the environment if it's going to survive. And it must be able to, as we said, like capture energy if it's going to evade this tendency towards disorder. And so it has to model the world. do you think that consciousness is a property of the universe

26:27 model the world to find solutions to these survival problems. But if you zoom out and conscious. I don't think that's as interesting. It's kind of reducing consciousness to something life the way we structure civilization we constantly move towards greater and When you use the word design, you know, some people could think that you're getting at something maybe like spiritual

30:01 So, yeah, it sounds like it when I say that there are all these different options as to that sort of like encompasses this and we are So simulation theory is similar to intelligent design? Things can happen in the world that aren't caused by other physical causes These were men of science. that designed this process. Here's the thing. That agent, even if you're saying it's something

34:39 we know if we're not in that already exactly we don We don't. Yeah. And so when they, the laws of probability theory, that's when this comes into play. you seen it yeah it's very compelling but it's also interesting because you're watching it and you're like, wow, is this a good thing? This is the dimension of imagination. So all of a sudden, the environment around them becomes just like this painting,

36:43 it's a little scary that's Facebook well it's um it is a little scary because the amount of people that use it and how quickly if you had no context, you had no cultural connection to it, But why is it intrinsically? And if you look at where that goes, And the way I liken it, I say that we are like some caterpillar that is becoming an electronic So the idea is if we become conscious of it,

40:21 and that's the engine of progress. there is a trajectory that the book argues is inevitable. And that's really what it's So when you say it'll be the end of civilization, terrible. Lots of people died. But at the same time, that time period spawned the computer and Look at Biden. He's supposedly dying of cancer Sure that crazy people like Putin so one thing I talk about in the book is complexity is kind of a function of a couple

45:33 So, basically, yeah, Chinese ideology, it has one good aspect. But when something happens, when shit hits the fan, like we saw with the pandemic, We hear about decentralization with the crypto and blockchain movement. But in the long run, I would argue that it's not a sustainable model. and they're doing their best to try to keep everybody scared and locked down.

49:29 structure of the brain where you have 80 billion neurons and every neuron is connected to another in an integrated fashion. Do you really think that, like, do you wonder, like, what humans are actually doing? after a philosopher of science, Karl Popper. And, uh, the idea is that, um, yeah, so that, It's this, you know, reality is this noisy, thermally fluctuating thing, and there is chaos. Chaos is, uh, needed for complexity too. Um, actually when a system

54:17 So you see all of this chaos and that provides, it creates flexibility within a rigid system that allows the system to transition into something new and higher, better. And, but what do you think the universe wants? Well, no. And an attractor is a term that physicists use to describe a state of order. attractors, which are basically kind of this goal state of a system in living systems,

57:17 And now we have something like the emergence of a global brain, which is the network of humans connected by the internet as well as AIs. And so when humans some very legitimate scientists have speculated, people like Paul Davies, Ray Kurzweil, you know, Isn't that kind of goofy like but isn't it like if you think about it isn't it kind of an We have hypernovas.

59:49 to have consciousness. It's probably not only here. People like Richard Dawkins have argued that life emerging on other planets will evolve the universe is waking up. So if there is this process and we find ourselves on this planet at So we can already see that this process basically has no limits. people think that seed is conscious. It doesn't have any experience, any subjective experience,

1:04:52 that have acquired information. So it's starting to seem like reality is intrinsically purposeful. People like Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett like this theory. the parent universe, but with a slight variation because nature is fundamentally noisy. It's not going to give rise to the exact same And then you can take the theory a little bit farther but these universes that become increasingly complex over time.

1:08:56 No, no, not necessarily. and to the point where they can create a big bang. die and ultimately they consume all the gases around them, I had Michio Kaku on yesterday. And that a type 1 civilization has the ability to of the scale. We're seven out of ten. Yeah. And that a type one, excuse me, type one civilization. We had 100 to get to type 1, throughout the universe.

1:11:59 You could scale it, right? Yeah. have neural memory. Then you have human civilization. So you have like collective that that could potentially power life forever. fact that it's not just life-friendly, the universe doesn't just support life. It seems to necessitate life. And then life is potentially propagated forever. at least we are the most advanced thing in terms of our ability

1:16:24 Pandemics. When you look at it in this way, that's super interesting is that it looks like it's in motion. Yeah, yeah. It is. are natural manifestations of the laws of physics and of the evolutionary Do you think it's just coming from introspective thought, self-reflection, and that our subconscious minds have a lot more intelligence than we think. And that these ideas that are correct about nature are just kind of spontaneously emerging from complex computational machinery shaped by, you know, eons of evolution. What are your thoughts on extraterrestrial intelligence and whether or not

1:21:57 more intelligent life forms. Now that was, in the 20th century, there was an evolutionary theorist named Stephen Jay Gould, It doesn't have to be a human made in God's image or anything like that. The other reason he was so It's actually very important that we understand that like for this global superorganism that's emerging that is human civilization, you need diversity. Diversity is super important. So,

1:25:31 A lot of it has to do with the work being done at the Santa Fe Institute and, you know, Bacteria can live off chemical molecules. pretty simple energy extraction problem. But if your food source is smart like you, and it's trying to outrun you, then you have to, uh, have a lot more Yeah. but the universe is a big place. that ultimately became primates, that ultimately became human beings evolved far earlier hundred

1:29:37 intelligence happening earlier elsewhere in the universe. But we have to consider other theories. So, and did she say something about that? Maybe she didn't mention that. Weird things. But there's other It's just kind of strange that the government suddenly it's like, theory. And so we need But the preponderance of evidence, that there's so much evidence in terms of the video evidence

1:33:23 and that all these things point to something that is a Either it is aliens, and they're here, or there's advanced military aircraft, so advanced okay, any possible explanation we go with, the, uh, theory that it's advanced military aircraft, They're going to try to do more advanced projects in the name of national defense, mostly. I can't remember what it was, but he wasn't that old. And on his deathbed, this is a side fact, but he did convert to, he had like a priest come in and he was made a Catholic or something like that. But, um, did that for his mom or something? Maybe, or maybe he was scared.

1:36:52 what's that called? go with God, I thought that as well because I don't see any incentive for the government to openly state And what we could do with our nuclear weapons and our crazy desire to conquer, Let's make sure these idiots don't ruin this like they did in Alpha Centauri or wherever. It's Russia's or China's, The data from the Nimitz so they were using tracking devices.

1:40:46 Yeah, I think it makes sense about solar and lunar eclipses. So it seems pretty weird that he would, because he's the kind of person who would be interested in eclipses. No, no, no. I don't know about that. Yeah. And those people that are on social media, I think they gravitate towards negativity, which is another thing that I wanted to bring up to you. Like, what

1:44:27 Or it's like the early nuclear explosions. In order for us to recognize it and I think it took for the bombs to be dropped during World War two for us to realize This is the same thing, but they put five guys specifically right on the detonation site Under it? What I'm talking about is some stuff they did. Oh, so they blew this up in the fucking sky.

1:46:25 He doesn't give a fuck about cancer Atomic test in Nevada What's the point of running towards it? See if you can Because these soldiers were in a trench, and the blast, you could see the dust and everything go across the top of their heads. So, okay, so back it up a little bit. The blast happened. is saying maybe they wanted to, I wonder what happened to them.

1:49:09 It's it's so radical and so different in the way people are at ease at each other's throats that this is almost a form We kind of catch up later as far as like ethics. like they, And Kali Yuga is like the most confusing and chaotic. And what I think is really interesting is that you, you know, it's not just that you can explain it in terms of past Yeah, an article.

1:53:02 So the maximum duration of life for human beings in Kali Yuga will become 50 years. superorganisms. And so in Peter Turchin's work, I haven't seen him like reference his dad, that we recognize these pitfalls, So I think there, would be far beyond what we're different things that we think of as just an integral part of just being a human being in If we could get to that, we might be able to say like,

1:58:26 And I guess you've had on the show a friend of mine, Howard Bloom. which are also super organisms they're collectives of people working towards a goal and you have them competition is good corruption and collusion is bad yeah the problem is we that, that kind of primal instinct that you were talking about, like at work. So there's like, tell society what to do and kind of achieve these big goals. But you always get the problem of

2:02:59 These are complex adaptive systems, having an organism where, uh, the resources, uh, aren't flowing throughout the whole system. So take any longer you got to give the money back how long did you take to write this? So, yeah, what happened was, you know, I got my like a fad that Bitcoin was going to come and go. So when my agent pitched that and it didn't get

2:06:11 like, I know now let me have a little bit more time. And they did. And I, so it was just like What does that mean? You know, interpretations of quantum mechanics. sherpa wrote a book with a physicist menacees Kafatos, and the guy is called You Are the Universe. And it was like, this is like watching Beautiful. Awesome.