00:00:05.000 So I don't know what Lulli has told you so far.
00:00:14.000 And my friends have been trying to get me to read your book for
00:00:20.000 And I finally, I got a copy in the mail like three days ago.
00:00:24.000 And I read it all in all at once a couple of days ago.
00:00:31.000 I have, actually, I have so many things to talk to you about that I
00:00:37.000 And I think what's most interesting is that we have really
00:00:43.000 So I mean, I've read up as much as I click about all your
00:00:47.000 And, you know, it's, I really appreciate your, your
00:00:51.000 scientific background and your theoretical physics and that stuff
00:00:55.000 I'm a curious layperson about, but I don't have a strong
00:01:02.000 But, you know, I don't have the kind of deep context to really
00:01:12.000 What I wanted to talk to you about is about optimism.
00:01:17.000 And I find that, and I think that I found quite amusing is throughout
00:01:29.000 And I was hoping to dig into that with you a little bit.
00:01:36.000 So what people know me on Twitter for and on the internet for
00:01:40.000 is just kind of a, I'm known as the guy who tries to cultivate
00:01:47.000 the sort of digital intellectual coffee house sort of space,
00:01:53.000 where I invite friends from all over the world, different
00:02:01.000 I want the help accelerate progress in every sense.
00:02:06.000 And reading your book, I find myself thinking, yes, I want more
00:02:14.000 And, yeah, I just would like to hear from you about your
00:02:20.000 experiences doing that, you know, kind of like,
00:02:27.000 Oh, I mean, okay, I guess what I would be most curious about
00:02:31.000 is, how did you, how do you think about, let's say,
00:02:44.000 Is it a very deliberate choice that word of, you know?
00:02:51.000 Peroculism, I've recently discovered that that the word
00:02:56.000 Peroculism doesn't really exist in languages other than English.
00:03:01.000 You know, it's originally meant having something to do with the
00:03:06.000 parish or with the local religious authorities as opposed to the
00:03:18.000 In English, it has come, and that word exists in many languages.
00:03:24.000 But in English, it has come to have and is much more often now used
00:03:29.000 in a figurative sense to mean having to narrow a horizon,
00:03:37.000 especially having to narrow an intellectual horizon.
00:03:43.000 And I should say that having a broad horizon is not a virtue in itself.
00:03:56.000 What I mean by Perocul is, if it is a point of view or a way of thinking
00:04:10.000 And one of my motto is, all problems are Perocul.
00:04:24.000 so that I don't know if that's what you wanted.
00:04:32.000 I really like that you just said that, you know, having a broader
00:04:36.000 horizon is not necessarily optimal in a sense, right?
00:04:41.000 Because I've encountered people over the years who they almost
00:04:46.000 seem to sometimes, you know, like, so they, they begin with the
00:04:55.000 And which again, like, I think you pointed out, it's not, it's
00:05:01.000 But like, I found, I found people sometimes using it almost as a
00:05:05.000 distraction from dealing with some particular problem that they
00:05:11.000 And then it's kind of like, we have some problem that we need to
00:05:14.000 solve, but because it's challenging or difficult or whatever,
00:05:19.000 it becomes tempting to try and kind of frame the problem in a
00:05:25.000 much more broad and vague way, such that it can't really be
00:05:29.000 solved maybe, but like, it's, it's, it's really cool that you
00:05:33.000 mentioned that because I think it's been challenging to find
00:05:37.000 an intuitive way to convey that to people that sometimes,
00:05:40.000 like, so the general case seems to be that people tend to frame
00:05:45.000 their problems too narrowly, but there's also this kind of
00:05:50.000 And they, they, instead of addressing the challenges in front
00:05:53.000 of them, they kind of just get distracted from it and seek broader
00:06:01.000 I mean, it leads, it leads to infinity eventually.
00:06:05.000 If you're, like, if you're writing computer program, you want
00:06:10.000 And you think, oh, well, maybe it would be better if I made it more
00:06:19.000 And then you say, well, I could make it even more general.
00:06:22.000 And then then I'll go into tools to help me abstract and so
00:06:26.000 Eventually, the thing you actually wanted to do is have two
00:06:32.000 And another thing that I wanted to discuss with you was your
00:06:38.000 So I consider myself very much a fan of creativity.
00:06:42.000 And, and I love that you also seem to appreciate that.
00:06:52.000 It's like, like, so it's like science is progressed by creative
00:07:01.000 And I find, and even very recently, I've gotten into kind of,
00:07:05.000 kind of boring and frustrating disagreements about, you know,
00:07:17.000 So one of my riffs is that, you know, to some degree, all creativity
00:07:22.000 is, is a remix or like, you know, like, like just rearranging
00:07:27.000 what you have, but also you ask new questions that you couldn't
00:07:37.000 Right. And everything is based on existing things.
00:07:40.000 But, but mixing around and varying them then to fit the problem.
00:07:47.000 And it's again, I run into a similar problem again, where if the other
00:07:53.000 person in the conversation, or you know, if it's, if we are
00:07:57.000 working, trying to solve a problem together, and someone gets kind of
00:08:02.000 fixated on what a creative solution would look like.
00:08:06.000 It's, I think it's one of those traps where people try to heart the,
00:08:18.000 how would you say like a, like a encapsulation of the, the challenge ahead of
00:08:23.000 them. And I sense that you would have had experience persuading people
00:08:29.000 to adjust their, their point of view to be more constructive.
00:08:35.000 Have you? I'm projecting like maybe I, I generally speaking,
00:08:40.000 I, I don't want to like, I don't want to influence people.
00:08:50.000 I, I don't want to save the world, or, or save people.
00:08:57.000 Some guesses about how the world works, how thinking works, how physics works,
00:09:04.000 And in some cases, I've thought about it a lot.
00:09:07.000 And, and I think that some existing ideas about this are wrong.
00:09:13.000 And so I'm like, but that's wrong because so and so.
00:09:20.000 But then I, the object of the conversation, I think,
00:09:34.000 persuading people is nice, learning things from other people is nice.
00:09:42.000 That's not even the main purpose to me of a conversation.
00:09:48.000 The, the main purpose is just the, the fun of exchanging ideas.
00:09:53.000 And yeah, you call that learning something, but it's not, it's not necessarily, you know,
00:10:05.000 So what, what, so even now talking about this with you, like,
00:10:09.000 if the, the perspective that you hold, it feels unusual.
00:10:13.000 It feels like, you know, it's refreshing to, to talk with someone who kind of,
00:10:20.000 I'm not trying to change the world or trying to, you know, like not,
00:10:27.000 And I find that that's, you know, I wish that were more common.
00:10:30.000 And I find that it's not as common as I wish it were.
00:10:36.000 I used to approach a lot of conversations with, why don't you see my point of view?
00:10:43.000 And I think over time, I have come to, all right.
00:10:47.000 You know, if, if, where we are in this conversation, it's not moving.
00:10:52.000 You know, it's not, it's not, we're not having fun.
00:10:55.000 I should just find someone else and kind of keep looking for new people to play with,
00:11:02.000 And, um, I'm curious about how, you know, it's a do you share that assessment
00:11:08.000 that it's not very common? And do you have like the hypothesis for why it's not that common?
00:11:19.000 And, and I think the reason is like, like all, or nearly all, um,
00:11:31.000 It comes from, um, aspects of wrong epistemology or wrong philosophy of knowledge
00:11:37.000 that are embedded in culture, in language and everything.
00:11:41.000 So that we, we, we will take them for granted unless we really think about them.
00:11:46.000 And, uh, you know, that this is what Carl Popper did for us.
00:11:50.000 He, uh, he realized that, that, uh, there are various things that are deeply wrong
00:11:58.000 So for example, um, one thing that would, that would, that would already do
00:12:03.000 what you're talking about, that would already make people make that mistake,
00:12:07.000 is what Popper calls the bucket theory of the mind.
00:12:16.000 Knowledge is a kind of fluid, which one can transfer from one person to another.
00:12:22.000 And then, if you, if you think of knowledge that way,
00:12:30.000 And it, you, you, you, you automatically start thinking of a conversation
00:12:35.000 as being a task of transferring something from your mind into the other person's mind,
00:12:47.000 And if it goes wrong, it's because either the, the, the, the, the fluid was polluted.
00:12:54.000 The knowledge fluid was, it was polluted with, with bad stuff.
00:12:59.000 So because the person receiving it is too stubborn to open their mind to it.
00:13:10.000 Completely, uh, defines away the fact that, um,
00:13:24.000 So this concept of knowledge as a fluid removes the idea that,
00:13:29.000 that, that, that, uh, minds are built creative and critical.
00:13:33.000 When you've removed those two things, you can be trying to do something or not.
00:13:43.000 Yeah, that's a, and it's a, it's a very zero sum.
00:13:50.000 So when I was, when I was reading your book, I was struck by how, you know, um,
00:13:55.000 at one point, you even just casually mentioned, like,
00:13:58.000 something as simple as a nuclear fusion reactor that we, our current knowledge doesn't allow us to do.
00:14:06.000 And, I mean, that was just kind of a throwaway point.
00:14:08.000 And reading that, I found myself thinking, yes, like,
00:14:11.000 that like, why do I not go about my day thinking nuclear fusion reactors are possible?
00:14:21.000 And, uh, you know, it's, it's such a, it's such a, it's,
00:14:27.000 it's a trip to realize that I have already been kind of inhabiting these, like,
00:14:33.000 limited spaces in my, in my mind about what is possible and what is not.
00:14:37.000 So it's an imagination deficit in a way, right?
00:14:47.000 it's like, what we just described, which is most people kind of, um,
00:14:51.000 not being very creative in their conversations or thinking or not being very imaginative,
00:14:56.000 that's kind of, it's, it's, it's, it's something to be a little bit sad about maybe,
00:15:01.000 or something to be just kind of slightly disappointed by, but at the same time,
00:15:05.000 what you pointed out is that of the vast majority of human history,
00:15:09.000 it seems like most people were not capable of that probably,
00:15:16.000 And yes, they were, they were severely disabled in that respect. I mean,
00:15:21.000 never completely, all humans always have been creative and able to improve.
00:15:29.000 But, you know, when you've, when you've got, uh, the weight of a static society,
00:15:35.000 right, uh, bearing down on you and, and when you do think of something,
00:15:41.000 never to think that and therefore you must be wrong, you know,
00:15:46.000 Then it's no wonder that, that very little progress was made,
00:15:56.000 where, where they had, you know, inconceivably little, um,
00:16:16.000 Wasn't even a human. It was, uh, previous species.
00:16:24.000 Somebody invented fire, which takes, takes a hell of a lot of doing.
00:16:28.000 Um, you have to be able to think very abstractly.
00:16:33.000 There's a terrible joke that goes something like, um,
00:16:35.000 the person who invented fire was probably burnt at the stake for it.
00:16:43.000 Which is kind of a, you know, it's, I think that is a, like,
00:16:48.000 I think there's a general theme of, I think even with, you know,
00:16:53.000 With, and like, when, when he came up with, uh, ammonia,
00:16:56.000 you're simultaneously in rent for fertilizer and dynamite,
00:17:03.000 as a, as a scientist trying to create more knowledge and,
00:17:08.000 and grappling with the implications of, you can't entirely control
00:17:13.000 how other people are going to use that knowledge, right?
00:17:19.000 what are your thoughts about that about, you know, kind of a,
00:17:26.000 I think it's not at all, um, unlikely that the person who invented fire,
00:17:38.000 they probably wouldn't have invented burning at the stake by then,
00:17:44.000 And there would have been a non-trivial argument for,
00:17:48.000 because that person would have had to violate some tradition to do this.
00:17:54.000 And, uh, the violating tradition would have been dangerous.
00:17:58.000 So it's like, you know, one person decides to mess around with, you know,
00:18:02.000 it's thought that they first fire was made by very,
00:18:07.000 varying a spear hardening technique where you rub the tip of the
00:18:12.000 spear, you know, and somebody else might have, might have decided to,
00:18:22.000 And, uh, that would have been a bad idea as we now know, but,
00:18:33.000 So it's not obvious that the first two or three or 10 uses of fire didn't do harm.
00:18:43.000 Um, and, um, so it's true of all knowledge, all creativity is dangerous.
00:18:54.000 Um, and, um, I mean, it's, it seems tried to say it, but,
00:19:01.000 Staticity, not creating knowledge is worse than dangerous.
00:19:08.000 That, that, that's the only thing we could do that is guaranteed to.
00:19:19.000 You, you, without the culture of learning and solving new problems,
00:19:22.000 eventually it's inevitable that some problem will be insoluble and crush you.
00:19:31.000 So it's, it's, it's funny because I'm thinking now about how, you know,
00:19:34.000 so I've, I've always been, um, kind of paying lip service to the idea of creativity.
00:19:47.000 because I like music and art and all those things.
00:19:50.000 But like, I almost had the, I had a moment where I had to step back and think about it,
00:19:55.000 where I realized that when you encourage people to be creative,
00:19:59.000 you are in, in that like two steps down the line.
00:20:02.000 You're encouraging them to, to do things that may be taboo,
00:20:05.000 to do things that may be culturally interesting.
00:20:07.000 So you're, you're, like you said, it's dangerous.
00:20:10.000 So it's, you're advocating for people to do dangerous things.
00:20:14.000 And again, it's like that, and, and when I then recoil a little bit at that thought,
00:20:19.000 that tool is informed by this cultural infrastructure of,
00:20:31.000 but without the ability to do soft problems, that's bigger bad.
00:20:40.000 So it's, it's a, it's an interesting challenge.
00:20:50.000 I mean, not necessarily, you know, like, like forcing people,
00:20:53.000 but like demonstrating that small danger and creativity is good.
00:21:04.000 One thing is that people should be free to choose.
00:21:13.000 You know, if, if you, if you've got a lot of money, like if you're a billionaire,
00:21:18.000 you can, you can either, like invest your money,
00:21:24.000 make sure that your business is, is, is secure.
00:21:29.000 It's, you know, in its supply chain and in its customer base and,
00:21:34.000 And then eventually sell your stake and retire and so on.
00:21:47.000 you have to borrow a lot more money so that you risk,
00:22:00.000 You, you risk being criticized because you're violating tradition.
00:22:12.000 I don't want to give people advice to where to put themselves on them.
00:22:28.000 But, but I'm aware that they are taking a risk and I,
00:22:43.000 So one of my friends asked me to ask you about,
00:22:56.000 you don't want to tell someone else how much risk they should take,
00:23:20.000 I sense that you have the same instinct sort of.
00:23:48.000 although it's true that you're also self coercing in that case.
00:23:52.000 You also need techniques of medical science and so on.
00:24:18.000 which isn't caused by other humans' creativity,
00:24:27.000 which is not caused by the creativity of other humans chasing you,
00:24:41.000 I don't know whether I can say very much about this.
00:25:38.000 And any bad theory can be improved by thinking.
00:25:45.000 If you're prepared to expand your horizon to include that possibility.
00:25:59.000 seemingly negative feelings out of, out of nowhere.
00:26:03.000 there is a part of the self doing the loathing of the rest of the self.
00:26:08.000 And the part that's doing the loathing is the authority that has been granted.
00:26:12.000 It is some part of your mind that you've granted authority.
00:26:17.000 You should question that authority as before authorities.
00:26:26.000 Um, another thing I kind of just wanted to share with you was, uh, I was reading this part about, um, how, uh, you pointed out that.
00:26:35.000 You know, so people often describe, oh, space is, um, uninhabitable and hostile to humanity.
00:26:42.000 And you pointed out that, oh, you know, source of most of the, in most of the earth.
00:26:50.000 And, um, you know, whether or not a space is hostile is a function of the knowledge that the person has or people have in terms of how to get water.
00:27:02.000 I wanted to share with you that this seems to be also true for cultural knowledge.
00:27:08.000 So the example I recently, um, encountered was, uh, do you know, Trevor Noah?
00:27:17.000 And so he was, he was born, um, to, uh, to a black mom and a white dad in South Africa when apartheid was happening.
00:27:31.000 He observed that, you know, because he, he doesn't fit into one of the dominant groups that is around him.
00:27:38.000 And so, like, people would not know how to treat him.
00:27:42.000 And, like, they would be, they would treat him with hostility until he can speak their language.
00:27:48.000 And the moment he speaks their language, suddenly he's, he has the cultural knowledge.
00:27:53.000 He, he can speak their, their civil lives, right?
00:27:58.000 And now they welcome him and they love him and, and it's, uh, it's, you know, that's why he's a comedian.
00:28:03.000 And it's, it's how he, he charms people and stuff.
00:28:06.000 And yeah, so the ability to charm a hostile audience is, is knowledge the same, it feels to me.
00:28:13.000 It's almost the same way, like knowing how to get water out of the ground.
00:28:17.000 For example, kind of, uh, helps people survive.
00:28:22.000 Yeah, which is such a, again, for me, that was a trip.
00:28:25.000 Like, really the, and it, you know, I, when I was reading your book, I was thinking all of these things, seemingly different things.
00:28:32.000 They all fit into this, they, they are like branches on the same tree of explanations and conjunctures, right?
00:28:40.000 It's just like, how do I get people to like me or treat me fairly?
00:28:45.000 What is the art theory of who I am and how do I?
00:28:48.000 And it's the same method of figuring stuff out, which is, which I find very.
00:29:03.000 Well, it's, it's, it's partly, uh, it's a two way street to a large extent.
00:29:10.000 The, the, I culture can be more or less amenable to welcoming.
00:29:24.000 Organists, people who don't speak the language, or people who don't understand the customs or whatever.
00:29:45.000 And I think it's, it's not, it's not an accident that.
00:29:51.000 The most successful societies are also the most tolerant ones or vice versa.
00:29:59.000 The ones who have somehow solved the problem of how to accommodate.
00:30:13.000 So, well, the, you know, the big example is the United States where, which had its, it's melting pot policy.
00:30:21.000 But also Britain is, is, is, is tremendous mixture of different cultures.
00:30:31.000 And I don't know much about Singapore, but I think Singapore.
00:30:38.000 I mean, people have, you know, that's, that's friction.
00:30:40.000 But, you know, it's, I think it's a constructive friction overall.
00:30:44.000 Like, it does feel like over the decades people have gotten better at.
00:30:53.000 I mean, you always hear stories from people who don't get along.
00:30:56.000 But in general, I think, you know, just having more people with different backgrounds and different points of view and different.
00:31:15.000 I mean, as I said, it, it's, it's definitely a net positive in itself.
00:31:19.000 But like, the overall culture must make this possible.
00:31:31.000 So I, I, I like to think of myself as someone who, who grew up on the internet.
00:31:35.000 And the internet is almost kind of a, you know, it's a wild and crazy, chaotic space.
00:31:41.000 And the interesting thing is there are new people coming online who weren't online, not too long ago.
00:31:46.000 So for example, I have some friends in, in several different countries in Africa in, like, in Nigeria and Kenya in South Africa.
00:31:56.000 And the interesting thing to me is, they have, so they have generally very young and they are very optimistic about politics.
00:32:04.000 I mean, again, like when I say this now, I can imagine someone showing up in the comments saying, like, you know, they, they'll always be people who, you know, like, like you said, you, you pointed out very much so that, you know,
00:32:14.000 we will never solve all problems because there'll always be new problems and there'll always be Christians and all those things.
00:32:20.000 But it's, it's so refreshing just to encounter someone who, you know, it's, it's kind of new to the political process in a sense.
00:32:29.000 Like in terms of like, like being, like, in your early 20s and new to contemplating, just how a better form of governance maybe can lead to more,
00:32:43.000 like, like, which is again related to what you're saying about, like cultural infrastructure, which is just, it's, and me from halfway across the planet when I witnessed these people being optimistic in contrast with, let's say, people from maybe older countries that have gotten a bit more pessimistic maybe like just the,
00:33:04.000 I guess what I'm getting at is the, the simple presence of an optimistic person just being optimistic without even trying to persuade you or anything, but just being optimistic in of themselves.
00:33:17.000 It's so powerful to experience and like, I feel like reading your book, I got some of that as well, just witnessing kind of how you think.
00:33:25.000 Thanks. Thanks. It's a very nice thought in general and about my. Thank you. Yeah. So I am eager to, eager to share with more of my friends, because I think that.
00:33:37.000 Yeah, it's, it's so much better than telling people what they should do, because if, like, you know, you get it right.
00:33:47.000 It's, it's, it's like so the, the, like you mentioned the bucket analogy, I think the, the different metaphor is the, the fire analogy. Have you heard that one, like the kind of.
00:34:00.000 So I think someone said, I can remember who I feel like there's multiple people who've been quoted this and they said like education is not the filling of the, of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire, meaning like so you ignite their curiosity and then they will go on to.
00:34:16.000 I mean, it's more like trying to avoid putting out the fire and obviously.
00:34:25.000 Children will be unable to learn to speak. Right. Yes, you can't say.
00:34:35.000 Well, to a child who hasn't yet learned what go and put and trash mean. Yes. And, and, and, yeah, nobody has to force their children to learn to, to language.
00:34:51.000 But, the, the fire is already burning. Yeah. And that plus the grammar plus the meanings plus the connotations plus the cultural significance of everything. What you're allowed to say what you're not allowed to say they're learning all that along with those 20 words per day.
00:35:16.000 And, and nobody's there's no curriculum. They're no standardized tests or maybe they do have them now, but that.
00:35:28.000 And, and it just happens. And so when you say, you know, the role of the teachers to light that fire.
00:35:36.000 Yeah, the first thing is so important without the fire. Right. So it's yeah. And it is, it does seem unfortunate that we haven't yet. I mean, yeah, I tell you, look at it right. So on one hand, I think.
00:35:51.000 Oh, it's unfortunate that we still seem to put out a lot of fires. But on the other hand, like, the, you know, most of human history was like that. And we are seeing the beginning of infinity. Right.
00:36:03.000 Yes, which is, which is exciting. And yeah, so I wanted to also ask you kind of, I mean, so I have some notes here of stuff to ask you one thing something to ask us.
00:36:15.000 I want to know what it like inside your head, which is, you know, it's this super big question that's kind of not technique. It's like a.
00:36:25.000 Solvable, but, you know, like, I'll give it an analogy, which is so I play the guitar. I play music. I'm not very good at it. I'm pretty decent at it.
00:36:36.000 But when I see a virtuoso, like a real musical genius performing, I can see that they don't think about what they're doing. Like, it's, it's, and I see that the way the hands move, I can tell that, you know, they have a feeling and the feeling is expressed through the fingers and into through the sound waves and emotions and whatever.
00:36:59.000 And I can, I can kind of approximate because like when I practice, I get glimpses of that. I'm like, Oh, I kind of feel, I feel like I'm, I'm getting across a message. I have to think a little bit and sometimes I have moments of flow.
00:37:12.000 And I feel like, Oh, okay, so that's what I can try to imagine what it would be like to be so fluent that I don't have to think at all. And I'm just.
00:37:22.000 And I, you know, when I was reading, you know, just even, even your first chapter and I was reading about like just how you were laying out kind of a history of philosophy in a sense, or history of knowledge and kind of the misconceptions and how like, you know, I, I was, I was surprised even at how, how confidently you were able to say things like, let me pick out a sentence.
00:37:51.000 Like, we never know any data before interpreting it through theories. I underlined that and I'm like, Oh, that's, that's true. Like, that sounds like, so when I read a sentence like that I'm like, that's, that's an assertion.
00:38:04.000 And then I read it. I'm like, thinking about it. I'm like, that makes sense though. And then I have to process it for a while. Yeah, that's true.
00:38:10.000 And it's, it's, it's so interesting to, you know, so I guess I'm curious about your, your, your experience as a thinker as a writer as a person who makes a princess right or makes conjectures.
00:38:24.000 And, you know, I just, I just read this, this Paul Graham essay very recently where he was talking about how essays seem very confident.
00:38:34.000 But the reason that they're confident is not kind of born out of like false bluster, but basically because they've thought about it a lot and they've kind of like, they've, they've checked out all the possible ways in which they might be wrong and then they remove those wrongs.
00:38:47.000 And so by the time they publish it, what you see is that one sentence, but what you don't see is all the, what if they were wrong, what if like other questioning.
00:38:55.000 And I kind of want to hear you hear your experience with that like with conjectures and criticism and like your own personal experience.
00:39:04.000 Like, you know, I guess I would start this, do you remember your earliest questions as a child even like, what were your, how did you start?
00:39:14.000 I do remember some early questions, I don't know whether they are very illuminating. By the way, there's a, there's a theory of the mind of consciousness and so on, which, which is, which highlights
00:39:33.000 self awareness. In fact, some people, some people even use self awareness as, as the definition of consciousness and so on and then they get very surprised when a dolphin can recognize its own reflection in a mirror.
00:39:50.000 Like, oh my god, dolphins, dolphins have the same as we do. I don't think, I don't think that thinking about one's thinking is often very helpful. I mean, there are special situations where it is, but, but I think this thing about being in the flow that you mentioned.
00:40:13.000 That happens when you are thinking about the subject, the music or the problem or whatever it is you're thinking about.
00:40:26.000 Yes. That is occupying your consciousness and you are not there. Right. Yes. Yes.
00:40:34.000 That's, that's so, that's so funny. Yeah. That's true.
00:40:38.000 So, and I think, children tend to be like that unless they're brought up against a thing that that forces them to think about themselves.
00:40:53.000 So, one of the first things I remember is, I had just been taught, I previously been taught to count up to 10 and this was in nursery school and then we taught how to how to go up to 100.
00:41:15.000 I remember being driven home in the car and in the car thinking, does this go on or not.
00:41:27.000 Of course, you know, a lot of mathematicians have thought that question and I didn't solve it.
00:41:33.000 And then I, I, well, I don't know, maybe I did solve it. I came to the conclusion that the answer is yes, it does go on forever, but I didn't have really an argument about that.
00:41:48.000 I suppose it was just the having seen how you could go from 10 to 100.
00:41:57.000 That's why the same thing, but apparently our committees.
00:42:09.000 I read the part where you mentioned that he seemed to not want to universalize.
00:42:17.000 Yeah, I invented these bigger and bigger huge numbers, but it was always by this ad hoc parochial method. Yeah, which could have been extended infinitely, but he just didn't.
00:42:34.000 Yeah, so I, there, I think I say in the book, I think he may have been wanting a an authoritative permission from the culture or something.
00:42:49.000 Right. Yeah, it's not like that kind of infinity.
00:42:56.000 I remember, so, you know, I'm a huge Richard Feynman fan as well, and I was almost shocked a little bit when I saw that that you pointed out that he Feynman made a mistake when he was describing kind of like the future of physics and that, you know, and like one of Feynman's core.
00:43:15.000 Like the phrase that's tattooed in my brain is, you know, we should not, the first rule is you shouldn't fool yourself and you're the easiest person to fool, right. He says that and then he goes on to make that kind of almost casual mistake that's such a gigantic mistake in a sense.
00:43:32.000 I'm, I'm writing in the margins or no, like, if Feynman himself was not able to resist that, like what chance to do I have, but you know, it's, it was, it was.
00:43:44.000 Well, just because he made a mistake doesn't mean he wasn't able to resist it.
00:43:49.000 You know, all Feynman's works are really just transcripts of stuff he said. Right. How do you know that he didn't change his mind the next day.
00:44:02.000 That's true. That's true. Yeah. So we shouldn't be trying to not make mistakes. Right. They should be making interesting mistakes and
00:44:09.000 absolutely make more and more new and more interesting mistakes and I love the way you put that. What if we call theories misconceptions right because everything is a misconception and we just have slightly better and better misconceptions.
00:44:30.000 So what, what would you say is the problem on your mind right now in your, in the shower or when you're going about you're working on a new book.
00:44:41.000 Yes, I am. I'm working on the like what will be the third in the trilogy. Nice.
00:44:50.000 I mean, I don't know how long it's going to take. It always takes longer than I think. Oh, yeah. My previous two books took a hell of a longer than I thought. So I can't tell when it will be finished, but it will talk more about
00:45:09.000 the issues of the mind and how the mind works. I mean, you know, we don't know how the mind works, but it is rising in psychology and how psychology is connected to physics and computation and, and there'll be stuff about constructors and, and so on other things that I have thought about since then.
00:45:31.000 Those things raise fascinating problems like, you know, constructors, for example, there's the technical theory of them, which is very challenging. And then there's the application of the universal constructor.
00:45:45.000 And then there's what the constructor tells us of what constructive theory tells us about knowledge and so on. And then how it will affect.
00:45:53.000 How the universal constructor will affect the economy. Right. And, and how can whether constructive theory will be at all useful in making real construct.
00:46:10.000 Like for my layperson friends and for me actually, how, how would you describe what a universal constructor is just a casually.
00:46:19.000 The universal construct of the idea, I think was invented by John von Neumann back in the 1940s or something. It is a machine could say a robot.
00:46:32.000 All right, which can be programmed. Is that's a programmable robot. Right. That can be programmed to convert some stuff into some other stuff.
00:46:43.000 Right. So can convert, let's say, a pile of metal.
00:46:49.000 And plastic into a car. Right. That would be an example of a construct programmable constructed.
00:46:56.000 Simple programmable is is important here because you can just have a constructor as well. But the real power of the theory comes with programmable constructors. And then a universal constructor, which is a programmable constructor.
00:47:10.000 That can convert anything into anything that's permitted by the way the transition is permitted by the laws of physics.
00:47:19.000 Right. So if it's, if the laws of physics allow it, it can do it. Yeah. And usually a universal constructor would do an arbitrary task by first building another constructor, which builds another construct.
00:47:32.000 Right. Right. As this book by Larry Niven, where he describes this as the problem of how to build the tools to make the tools to make the tools.
00:47:46.000 Right. Interesting. Yeah. Oh, but this randomly remembered that, so my wife was in China for like several years ago for some trade fair. And like, they have these massive trade fairs where they do sell the huge, like, robot factory robots that make the robots that make other things. And it's just, she was, she was describing her sense of like, like how her mind was blown when, you know, you see the objects that you see a can of soup.
00:48:14.000 And you're like, oh, I wonder how the kind of soup was made. And you visualize, oh, it's an factory the cans are coming up, but you don't think you don't naturally think what made the thing that makes the cans of soup.
00:48:26.000 Right. And I guess a universal constructor would be able to produce those things at at will for like a space colony or something and just whatever is required.
00:48:36.000 From scratch, that's the thing where when you get to a universal constructor, you have this jump to universality where suddenly the repertoire.
00:48:46.000 Instead of being a larger repertoire like, you know, for example, a giant machine that makes robots, right, and you can program it like a different kind of robot.
00:48:56.000 But it'll make it out of it won't go and mind the raw materials. Yeah. And so on. But a universal constructor will be able to do that. It will it will be able, you know, if necessary, it will be it will be able to build a rocket, which will go to an asteroid, which
00:49:14.000 would remind the rare elements, which will bring them back, you know, so on. When I find the, and the difficulty of doing a particular task then becomes only once you've got a universal construct in it.
00:49:34.000 So everything becomes programming. Right. Right. And then once, once everyone is, once everyone is very skilled at programming, then it's what you can imagine to be the most.
00:49:48.000 I don't think you can, you can be infinitely skilled. I mean, there's there'll, there'll always be scope for more and more and more skill. Yeah, more and more knowledge. Yeah, how to how to solve different manufacturing tasks, but when you've written a program for the universal constructor.
00:50:06.000 That's it, whether you want one of the item or a trillion, as long as you own the raw materials, you know, if you stick, I'm it to steal someone else's raw materials, they'll be.
00:50:20.000 So if you own that asteroid, then there is, once you've programmed how to make one of the objects, you've programmed how to make any number. So we have a, our intuition about what manufacturing is will have to change.
00:50:42.000 Well, yeah, up to up to the time of the universal instructor wanting more of something always meant more effort. Right. More human.
00:50:56.000 Because it's you, you are to have the theoretical knowledge as well, you, you as well, the program, you know, how to do things, but it always required human effort as well, once there's universal constructor, then making one is the same as making a million.
00:51:11.000 And, and this will completely change the nature of the economy in ways that we totally can't predict at the moment, but it's amazing. Right. When I find myself thinking is what you're describing. So if we, if we remove the universal aspect of the constructor.
00:51:28.000 You know, the present day status quo, like to someone from 20,000 years ago, like our current circumstances would seem like a very grand constructor made up of organizations and people and, and, you know, supply chains and, you know, you put in an order.
00:51:46.000 And then once once we had emails, for example, like so before emails and after emails, like the, the human scale constructor suddenly had like a big leap forward like suddenly you can put in orders quicker.
00:52:01.000 And yeah, so this sounds like basically singularity stuff right like it gets to the point where.
00:52:07.000 I don't actually believe in the singularity, but, but it doesn't matter exponential growth. Yeah, is is mind boggling enough. Right. Yeah, functionally. Yeah, even even I think that's a quote. That's something like was it from you.
00:52:20.000 I think just reading your books. That's probably you say that people. Yeah, it was you people who can't imagine what they would do if more than two times. Yeah, income.
00:52:29.000 Like, you kind of know what you would do if you had. That's a quote from David Friedman actually. Right. And then if you had 10 times your income, you would have to fundamentally reimagine what you would do. Right.
00:52:42.000 It's not just like yeah. So if I double my income. Yeah, we're renovating my kitchen. I would, you know, I have stuff. I've stuff in my mind.
00:52:48.000 But if I had like then like a hundred times more I have to. Oh my god. Like what am I going to have to re conceptualize everything. Yes, it might not be so good. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true.
00:53:03.000 Well, that's actually that's actually an interesting. I wonder if I wonder if there are parallels between that and when we go all the way back to when we're talking about like fire and a new technology where because in both cases.
00:53:18.000 More money or new knowledge like having new it's like having the new ability to do something you couldn't do before. And like, how do you it's dangerous, I guess to figure out what's going to happen.
00:53:33.000 We have made yourself a target, a target in some way. Right. Yeah, people. Well, if you got there by solving problems that you had, then you will already have the kind of mental infrastructure to know what to do with the hundred times the income. Right.
00:53:50.000 Because you have a project in, you know, and so on. But, but if you, if you, if you're not, if you like, if you inherited it. Yeah.
00:54:04.000 If you, if you inherited more money than you know what to do with then it's dangerous. I mean, people do get unhappy from things that sometimes they get happy.
00:54:15.000 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's volatile. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's unpredictable. And by the way, I think this is maybe going off the tangent, but I read recently about about Silicon Valley billionaires keeping their children away from tech.
00:54:36.000 And you know, not letting them have mobile phones and that kind of thing. I think that's a terrible idea. Oh, one of the great difficulties of being rich and having children right is is bringing the children onto the on ramp of how to live.
00:54:54.000 And they're going to be happy with a lot of money. They might be able to do it because, as I said, they got there for a reason. That's true. And the, the, the absolute opposite of giving them help is keeping them away from it.
00:55:10.000 The way from the, the, the, the money, the technology, the, the song. They, and you know, I think in the past.
00:55:25.000 When there have been very rich people, and sometimes there have been dynasties or rich people, like, you know, the Rothschilds or, or, yeah. Royal fan of this time. Yeah.
00:55:40.000 Well, no, that's different because they was solving a different kind of problem. But if we just talk about people in, in, well, the industrialized economy. Right.
00:55:57.000 Sometimes the dynasty thing worked. But more often the offspring of the very rich person didn't know what to do. Right. They couldn't continue the rich person's work. Nor could they do something new.
00:56:14.000 Right. And so this is the stereotype of them like wasting their money and then the generation after that is back to normal.
00:56:22.000 Interesting. And, and, you know, if you wanted to, if you, I think, you know, far be it for me to tell people what to do. Right.
00:56:33.000 But I think that if you're a super rich person and you have children.
00:56:41.000 One of the major challenges facing you is to give your children the means of being rich and happy, which means being rich and creative. Right. Right.
00:56:55.000 And being being rich can if you don't have that knowledge, if you're not creative, it can make you kind of not able to make progress. It doesn't look like a, you know, poor person who's unable to be creative will stop.
00:57:15.000 But a rich kid who is unable to creative be creative will just be unhappy. Right. Right. That is an interesting way of framing it and I like, yeah, that's interesting.
00:57:29.000 And it's, it's slightly surprising that this isn't a solve problem in a way, like, you know, like when you, when you, so they have like financial planners and stuff right when you make that much money people come to you if you know here's how you manage like somebody should be okay and here's like the concerns for people with this amount of network like
00:57:49.000 you know, I'm sure they have like private tutors and stuff like for the air. Well, yes, but the trouble is they have conventional educational theory.
00:57:59.000 Oh, yeah. And so they will think of the problem in completely the wrong terms.
00:58:06.000 It's true. Wow. I like how quickly you that that was obviously that's true. Yeah, that makes sense. That is unfortunate because like you said, we earlier on, you know, if we had creative wealthy people then they are, they would be well positioned to make a accelerate us towards
00:58:27.000 the world. Yes. Right. That is it. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, but they are, they are an enormous public good and and we could do it a lot more.
00:58:46.000 Wow, that's a lot to think about. That is, you know, I think the one of the last things that I haven't gotten to ask you about yet that's in my notes is about the idea of
00:58:56.000 about the idea of of rational versus anti rational memes, which.
00:59:01.000 Yes. Let me try anti rational. I like to say yeah. Yeah. So let me try and make sure that I understand it properly. So my and I'm now I'm going from memory here. But so an anti rational meme is something that is an idea that's sticky meaning that people people who receive that idea keep it.
00:59:24.000 It makes them act not in their interests. Is that what would you correct.
00:59:29.000 So both rational and anti rational mean by being memes memes means that they're sticky that it's already in the in the thing rational and anti rational memes achieve their stickiness by kind of opposite methods.
00:59:44.000 The anti rational memes achieve their stickiness by depriving the the holder of the ability to criticize them.
1:00:02.000 Yes. Yes. That's right. It sets up an authority, but it sets up an untrenched authority.
1:00:09.000 So that so that what it thoughts that go along that in the direction of maybe I should behave differently, always get stuck always get diverted into no I can't know that's bad no no I'm I'm a bad I would be a bad person.
1:00:26.000 Whatever that I will go to hell right that kind of thought and because the thoughts get diverted into that kind of channel.
1:00:40.000 They can't critic get round to criticizing the thing that says do do this behave in this way or don't behave in this way whatever whatever the meme says the so and that that's how and of course being a meme it it has to among other things.
1:01:02.000 Not only does it prevent you from criticizing, but it it compels you to install the meme into other people.
1:01:11.000 Yes, yeah, so otherwise it wouldn't be a meme if it was just in if it was just in one mind, it would just be a hang up.
1:01:21.000 To be a meme it's got to be transferable to other people and usually we only call something a meme if it's readily transferable into lots of other people.
1:01:31.000 The rational mean is is the opposite it's one that survives criticism not disables criticism.
1:01:42.000 It's one which thrives in a critical environment because as it were because it's true because it's useful.
1:01:48.000 So people adopt it because they can improve their lives by by using that idea or acting on that behavior or you know whatever so then so.
1:02:03.000 Well, I've interrupted you but no, no, this is what I want to understand so.
1:02:09.000 So the difference between anti rational I mean so okay so anti rational means have that kind of self protective mechanism the meme has a protective mechanism and it spreads whereas the rational meme is welcomes criticism because and I guess the so the thing about the rational
1:02:28.000 it has a certain proof of work in a way there's something within that meme that persists despite criticism right so it has to be I mean like I think you mentioned something about.
1:02:41.000 It's not even despite criticism the criticism.
1:02:46.000 What helps to correct the errors otherwise that there if you just try to copy a meme blindly right out criticism right then mistakes will will have.
1:03:01.000 And eventually it will not be the same mean if the meme is if a rational meme reproduces faithfully because it's being criticized and the the the criticism itself is what makes the meme sticky as you put it right right.
1:03:23.000 That makes it unchanged otherwise it would gradually change and for an anti rational meme what makes it sticky is that the criticism is disabled right and so anti rational means do evolve by kind of dummy evolution in the same way that genes evolve.
1:03:43.000 Anti rational means do not stay the same for thousands of generations right and that's right what you just described it's almost intrinsically cause for optimism right because dumb.
1:03:58.000 I think that evolves through dumb replication should not be I mean I don't know it feels it feels I mean I have I need to I'm sure if you work out the math in a way or like you gave me out yes there might be some circumstances where maybe the anti rational memes over power the.
1:04:14.000 Me by sure for you maybe but if as long as the anti rational memes survive like eventually they will they should win out in a feels it feels the rational means survive yes yes right yeah that's that's a.
1:04:31.000 Yeah that's reminding me of how I once had a funny thought which is that a lot of people play at their optimism meaning they aren't fundamentally optimistic or they haven't like.
1:04:45.000 It's not about whether or not they're really optimistic it's just that they feel that being pessimistic it's not nice like socially and so they feel like I should carry I should say optimistic sounding things like oh you should you should be hopeful for the future but you don't really believe in it it's not true it's not grounded in honest belief.
1:05:04.000 It's always funny to encounter these things where oh like if that's true, then you should be optimistic it's just it's like this therefore that's like logical.
1:05:14.000 Thing have you encountered that like kind of a talking to somebody that you realize that they're not actually optimistic until.
1:05:23.000 Sure, whether I have either way I think it's much more common for people to be cynical right in other words artificial pessimism hmm kind of right they're not really pessimistic that they just like the stance.
1:05:42.000 Right, I guess certain politicians have an artificial optimism.
1:05:49.000 Yeah, and because in that context cynicism is.
1:05:56.000 Usually not not beneficial to a politician sometimes they are you know if you if you have a profits of doom right they can be cynical and and be popular because of it I don't know.
1:06:11.000 That's interesting wow okay I think I have exhausted most of my of my questions for you and.
1:06:21.000 I wonder if there's any anything that I can kind of get get have like a like overarching theme I guess I guess the big picture thing I wanted to talk to you about was optimism with and.
1:06:34.000 Yeah, I feel like we've addressed those things I guess what what like like if I can get you to kind of have like a closing remarks on.
1:06:46.000 In the world and you know like for whoever watches, but what's like your.
1:07:07.000 I'm just I am encouraged by this conversation.
1:07:21.000 Coming from different intellectual directions I forget how you put it you put it very nicely yeah we have different I think we come from the same intellectual direction.
1:07:33.000 Right, trying to be trying to be yeah trying to be rigorous trying to be honest trying to be correct trying to criticize.
1:07:41.000 Yeah yeah that that's a very happy thing for me to hear and it's a wonderful thing to close on I think I would encourage everyone who watches this whether it's on YouTube or whatever the check out the beginning of infinity it's a great book and.
1:07:59.000 And I will look forward to your next one when it when you eventually done with it.
