 You gave you gave a really good just bit there a moment to go on how the The the conscious Agent does not see the I think this this is extreme point, but like the rain of photons that are coming right now and this big Field of nitrogen and oxygen molecules in front of my face The electromagnetic spectrum that we only see from 400 to 700 nanometers on The fact that we Don't see any of those things is precisely Be because we potentially designed it this way so that we could Act in the ocean of that we're in To have Experiences because if you couldn't have those experiences if you were blocked by the ocean of the electromagnetic spectrum and the sea of Oxygen and nitrogen that you're in does that generally about right to right from an evolutionary point of view that would be the kind of argument that you You want to evolve sensory systems Tell you what you need to know to act in ways that will keep you alive, but then you know that will keep you fit, but You want to do it as cheaply as possible right every Calorie that you spend on Perception is a calorie that you have to go out kill something and eat it to get that calorie So there are selection pressures for up to to dumb things down to Keep our senses as simple as possible Given the the other pressure of they have to be complicated enough to accurately report fitness At least more accurately and more fitness than than your competition There's there's nothing that in evolutionary theory that says that you are perfect about seeing fitness either right so I'm not I'm not being The areas that says we're we have vertical perceptions of even fitness payoffs. There's there's nothing vertical here anywhere We we have what we call satisfying solutions and evolution right is good enough To just beat the competition and so so and from that point of view from evolutionary point of view and again You can see my attitude is look I'm not saying that evolution by natural selection is true But I'm saying we have no better theory right that that is the best theory we've got so so until we have a better theory We've got to take it very very seriously in what it says and then try to break it, right? I mean be I can't so we have to respect it really study it and then also try to break it So so what that theory is saying is yeah There's no selection pressures for you to do everything quite to the contrary All you need to do is be a little bit better than the competition And so why should we see that the deep structure of your atomic nuclei or the the wavelength structure of photons and so forth and and the fact that we in science you know Run into these things is is interesting what we're doing is We're studying our headset Right our headset has evolved with certain Structure to it what we have is a space time that we perceive intuitively, you know three dimensions of space and one dimension of time But when we actually study our perceptions more systematically we realize those you know Einstein comes along and and comes up with surprising features about our interface that eventually lead to Posing that there's a minkowski structure to space time and then eventually even a curved space time He comes up with a curved space time And then when we so what's happening is we're taking the language of our senses the language of our interface that was evolved and What science is do has been doing is studying our interface. We haven't been studying Objective reality. We've been studying our interface and a structure and even microphysical particles like quarks and blue-ons and leptons Or The physicists will tell you they're just what they call irreducible representations of the Poincare group But that means that they're they're representing symmetries of space time we have this Space-time format for our headset and particles are just representations of the symmetries of that of that formatting system and so So yeah, we haven't seen all this stuff and Until science came along and it and what science has been doing is systematically exploring our headset And and and it's taken a lot of hard work, right? You thousands of brilliant scientists working really really hard which gets back at your main point Which in some sense from evolution? We weren't evolved to see this. Otherwise, it wouldn't be that hard We would just see it. So so why it just takes like it takes an Einstein It takes you know, we the people who actually figured this stuff out We we view them as absolute geniuses right the being that because in some sense The rest of us mortals would never have even thought of that and so there are a few of us Like the Einstein's and the John wheelers and and and so forth who have these really deep insights And then the rest of us, you know, feel smart by association Yeah, it absolutely a power law of Brilliant people that have pushed the edge of what is known one billion people have been uncommon and 99 billion people have been common and Yeah, and the ones that are uncommon are the ones that make the mutations on that universal constructor That were a part of and then that tape then a hundred years later. We're all flying airplanes, you know Style Yeah, the the the other the other thought for me around The perception as you were indicating a moment ago, which I think is really valuable is that when When when one augments their user interface when one augments their perception In a sense what they do is they they kind of like climb the ladder of abstraction but What happens is they like they see the world in a higher resolution like when when we're talking about the electromagnetic spectrum in the sea of Oxygen nitrogen etc. That is that's here the photons, etc All that all that we're we're we've done is we've conceptualized these things Then we've stored it, but then we don't continue seeing it all the time. So yeah So so this is a key insight I think is you rise to the levels of abstraction of knowing this and then you store it as a concept so like you double click in you see the higher resolution and Then what you do is you zoom back out and you've stored that data and then you go about your the rest of your The whatever the function is and like you described earlier, there's many ways up this mountain So we're not just saying that it is only Procreation, but that is definitely high and truth is also high the more that you know About truth the greater chance you have of getting a mate as well But people that are tuned specifically towards of fitness payoffs like you indicated Versus just truth payoffs fitness payoffs will win out over that But there is there isn't an overlap there But I appreciate that that understanding of Upgrading perception and then and then holding that as abstract concepts that you can access any time versus not even having But yeah, that that's a good point in the sense that even the best of scientists when they Reach some deep new understanding like quantum theory and you find that that these new electrons and photons are in Superposition states and they get entangled and so forth The best and brightest, you know like a Richard Feynman will say look If you think you understand this you don't understand this no one understands this This is just this is mind-boggling stuff And so these geniuses who who are at the forefront of understanding of working on it We'll say that it just shatters all of your your Intuitions and from an evolutionary point of view you could say well, no surprise being we weren't in some sense evolved to understand the subatomic World and so our concepts and intuitions just aren't matched to it And when we get there we get there by mathematics, right? We're forced to these conclusions because we we try to get some mathematics that will explain our experiments When we get the mathematics and finding oh wow finally an equation that matches the data So what does this equation entail it entails that are you you got to be kidding me? That means that there's superpositions that there is entanglement I don't even know this is and so you then you have the really brilliant people going I have no idea what this really means all I know is that that's what the math Is saying and my intuitions are are are boggled and so so that's that's where we are on that and They're in terms of perceiving the truth and and and getting mates Yeah mentioned From an evolutionary point of view there is an interesting for our species There's an interesting sexual selection pressure so a Male that Has special linguistic or cognitive abilities can by showing off Perhaps be more attractive to females. That's just one way that you can show off You can also show off by being physically strong right and fast or muscle There's a number of ways of showing off but but there are some selection pressures for for women to be more attracted to to males with better displays of cognitive abilities and and that can lead not necessarily to truth but to just Making up really impressive stories and and just trying to look impressive. So so the alphabet soup logical fallacy Right. So so they're they're you know just Performing in a way that makes you look impressive may or may not be necessarily moving toward the truth now in the case of an Einstein, right? but if you've stored this data like if you've stored the quantum field around the tree with the exchange that is happening of Photosynthesis between the human and the tree in terms of o2 and co2 if you've stored that data If you've stored also how you eat the apple that's went through the Photosynthetic process of making the glucose and then you eat that and you go through the cellular respiration process if you've stored these pieces of data And you know them and you can recall them. They give you a scientific and a spiritual Fitness advantage in that sense over other potential mates for whoever that that doesn't know that data Absolutely in the following sense, I mean knowing that kind of stuff. I know things that Could change my behaviors that I would eat more healthily and and and be more healthy that way or I could devise new technologies that allows me and my tribe to beat the others and And therefore be more fit in that so absolutely. That's one thing that's driven Science is the need for technologies to fight other human beings So a lot of I mean so and and it works, right? It's you know, the United States is the world's superpower not because We're the smartest people or the strongest people or the bravest people. We just happen to have the best technology that that's that's it that's So it's really in that sense the fitness In evolutionary sense goes now with great technology in the past it was You know who knew how to throw sticks and rocks better and then figure out levers and then bows and arrows, right? That was a you know bow and arrow unbelievable technology gives you an incredible advance until the other tribe figures out Oh, look what they did and they so now you get this arms race. And so that is so you're right that there is in some sense this Fitness payoff for better and better technologies absolutely and and that Is one of the selection pressures a sexual selection pressures women will be impressed not just with brawn But also with brain in our species. Yeah So so interesting on that point Let's Let's talk about and everything that we just mentioned would it be fair to say that those are upgrades in Perception in your multimodal user interface that these are Upgrades that we can make like if your dashboard sees like from the old-school days of how to make the bow and arrow Or from today's modern day Maybe you know how to use Python to program a computer that maybe that if you have those little icons on your multimodal user interface that maybe then in this interface theory of perception if I can perform some Emesis and I can learn how to do the bow and arrow or I can learn how to do the Python programming and add that to my multimodal user interface perception that then then that is The upgrades in perception augmentations in perception that enable me to climb those ladders of Fitness and abstraction and truth and stuff like that. That's right It's it's an upgrade not in the sense of the basic hardware of the brain, right? The hardware of the brain that you got is what you've got, but you can because our our brains are Have evolved to be learning algorithms and we learn and build models and If a lot of other people around us that we see have figured out models that we might not have figured out on ourselves We can effectively be more smart because we can instead of figure ourselves We can just adopt their model now We have their model even if we weren't smart enough to actually figure it out ourselves And so as our population has gotten bigger seven billion or eight billion and so forth. Yeah, you know, right? There's there's a We have that many people out there There's gonna be some some real geniuses who will come up with big ideas like there'll be and Einstein and we all talk about Einstein and there are a billion other people that we're not gonna talk about from from 1905 That that and but the the zero to one and then the one to many as Peter Thiel would say That's right, but there is the I'll Tell the opposite side of this now and that's it's it's quite remarkable Our brains in some sense are not upgrading they're downsizing that's right The what is it is it the volume of a tennis ball we've lost in the last 20,000 years, that's exactly right so the peak was 15 20,000 years ago and apparently then what seems to be going on Well, what what is going on in the data is that they can measure the the volume of the skulls the cranium So that you can measure, you know, the brains are gone But you can see the volume that they occupied and so you can actually measure and we've lost in the last 15 20,000 years 10% 15% of our our brain volume of the The about the entire volume of a tennis ball is gone so it's it's Truly stunning and and apparently we got smart enough 15,000 years ago to create a culture and With agriculture we started to get now with to support agriculture you need to bring a Bigger social group with small social groups of hunter-gatherers, but now you need to bring together bigger social groups And you had to have a bigger division of labor because you know, we had to be you tending the crops Working on the crops We could then we needed people to defend the crops because the hunter-gatherers are going to come through and just try to steal it From you, right? So you got to now you have to have a standing army They can't be always doing the crops and so you get this division of labor that's coming out But once you get a division labor I don't have to be smart about everything now if I'm a hunter-gatherer me and my small group We have to do everything or we die, right? We have to make our clothes We have to take care of ourselves when we're sick everything that we need we've got to do ourselves We're still from somebody and but you know in a greater selection pressure for being a polymath 20,000 years ago and then the slowly we've relieved those selection pressures Today where you're just exchanging the sheet of paper for the apple instead of growing it yourself IQ of 70 and just go to the store and get my food As you know, I mean IQ of 70 probably you know during the 15,000 years ago I would have been run over it so it's you know, it's so It's a use it or lose it Kind of situation or use it you only get it if you need it and since I don't need to do everything I don't need to be a genius at everything as much as before I'm not and so our brains are being downsized as also we're at least you know, we have this access to the Internet and we're moving into the genetic engineering the neural prosthetic age is that we're getting Potentially the assistance of these AGI coaches and we can maybe learn how to augment our working memory to 20 Plus or minus two and maybe we can abstractly reason such novel concepts that have never been thought of before and But so maybe there is a way to kind of bounce back from that loss maybe That would be that would be good and Yeah, yeah Let's let's this is good that that was a good bit on those augmentations. I definitely think that There's many other Augmentations that that exists like entheogens is a is a prominent augmentation that exists Deep the depth of meditative experience is the deepest steps of those as well augment one's perceptions also enable them to really Understand what the pause is instead of being so reactive they can they know how to slow down and just observe and then Which is game-changing for your relationships with your family your friends your co-workers people online blah blah and so all of a sudden Just from something that doesn't appear to have a high fitness payoff, right? It doesn't appear to have a high fitness payoff But really when you learn how to pause instead of immediately react It gives you tremendous fitness payoff Downstream I would agree in the sense that especially like in our society right now, right? most of us Aren't facing on a daily basis Immediate threats to our our bodies Like it is, you know, of course, I mean there are many murders in the United States and around the world But but it's you know as as Pinkers pointed out and Stephen Pinker and some of his books on the rate of Homicide is dropped dramatically over the centuries dramatically and and so we have the luxury now of Not having to look over our shoulders every moment, you know Worrying whether some other human being from another tribe is going to be attacking us or so forth and so so it's it's it's interesting that if you're in a situation where you're in a war zone and There are imminent threats all the time then being Anxious and being alert is very very fit, right? It's very very important Eventually that anxiety and the cortisol that it produces will kill you But it won't kill you today and it will keep you alive today. So in that sense is more fit, but now We have this luxury We're not an imminent threat They're not imminent danger So if we're in the state of high stress and anxiety and so forth producing cortisol all the time We are unnecessarily shortening our lives if I was in a war zone I would be necessarily shortening shortening my life but to stay alive today so so with meditation and so forth we can move into a greater sense of peace and Reduced stress and anxiety we can reduce our cortisol levels and we can enjoy that that state of life now It's because of our you know from an evolutionary point of view We are programmed With a stress system right we have an amygdala. We have all they're there Because that's what kept us alive. We are the offspring of those who are anxious enough to be able to face the threats Successfully, right? So that's why we have this proclivity to be anxious There are variations amongst but as I mean there's this video. I saw some a National Geographic Show about nature or something with a bunch of monkeys in the wild But they're all the monkeys are up in the trees and in Putin hollering and so forth except for one This one monkey was this really relaxed laid-back monkey out in the grass on You know and while they're filming they happen to Some tiger or panther comes along and guess who he got. Yeah. Yeah that that relaxation gene just went out of the gene pool it was the only it was only the monkeys that were uptight and Scared enough to stay in the trees. That's that that passed on their genes. And so so we we're the offspring of those who were Are you know anxious enough? So so an evolutionary point of view. Um, there's a clean reason Why? most of us face Stress and anxiety even when we don't have to what we feel it when we don't have to so evolution You know programmed us that way but but meditation Is something that we can now do when we have the luxury of not being in a war zone Not being attacked all the time. Then we can you know, take the bull by the horn and say look I don't need to Be anxious all the time even though I've been programmed by natural selection to be anxious I I can choose to meditate and literally reprogram my brain circuits to be more relaxed And I will enjoy my life more in and statistically I will live longer Yeah, there's there's many variables in our user interface that sometimes seem to Not have a high fitness payoff, but they're Because most of the high fitness payoffs just appear to be the short term gratifications and also the Things involving money But the things that are sometimes involving learning How to do things that are maybe thousands of years old like learning how to Investigate your own consciousness and awareness and calm down and be become more peaceful and joyful that Doing that doesn't seem to immediately have a monetary or fitness payoff But it but I think there are many things like that that exists that get you closer to to truth Get you closer to peace and joy That actually do give you better downstream fitness payoffs because that's the thing is that mates given procreation Men and women both that don't have as Keen of an interest for truth There they in a sense it feels like there's less soul There there's more soul with people that have a depth of interest in truth And also we as a society need to do a better job at creating the economic Incentives that make it so that young children can explore metaphysics and consciousness As a profession and get paid for it too So if there's you know money intertwined with truth more carefully then maybe some of those conscious agents could win Over people that just focus on fitness and money. So yeah, absolutely and Again, as I said before, you know, I as a scientist. I'm always just sort of Saying what different theories entail, right? And so I've been very very careful to say that this is what evolutionary theory entails and so forth But but I don't necessarily believe the theory but now what you're saying is very interesting. Suppose You know now forget evolutionary theory Suppose that there's a deeper theory in which consciousness is fundamental And in some sense, maybe the ceramics of consciousness is really what it's about is the exploration of consciousness That's what's really Yeah, meaningful in this deeper realm of consciousness, right and and so Perfect say right Then puts a very different spin on the whole meditation thing than the spin I just gave right the spin I just gave was from an evolutionary point of view which says It's just a way of countering the the built-in anxieties that we have and So that would that was that was you know bracketed within that theory. So now I'll put that theory aside and say, okay That's what that theory entailed But there's this other framework entirely different in which consciousness is fundamental and it's what it's all about So in that case in meditation might not be just a side little issue to make us more comfortable Be that that's Only that's when we really wake up to what we're really about that Maybe we're immersed in a game, but the point of the game isn't to win the game Maybe the point of the game is to wake up. Yeah Realize who we are and maybe playing the game is a way Of more more deeply understanding Who we are as conscious beings and and so maybe most of us just don't wake up in this game So but again notice, I'm not saying that I know that this is true And and that's the key thing dogmatism from my point of view is the is the The worst thing we we could ever have yeah Buddhism assuming that I know the truth is the way you stop inquiry So so I always want to say this is now I'm bracketing it with this theory in a theory in which consciousness is fundamental Then it would it would have this different spin on things. And so that's what we we should always Even if that was right, you can never know that you're right. That's the weird thing about this So this is the human condition We can never know for right. We can find out many cases that were deeply wrong But but we can never so there's this deep humility that we need to have anything We claim um It's rather well, I like to think about it I I propose the theoretical framework in which I want to speak and then say within that framework This is what it entails. But of course the theory could be wrong. So here's here's what evolution entails Here's what the theory in the which consciousness is fundamental entails But but maybe both theories are deeply deeply wrong. And so then let's talk about a different framework, right? And and so that's how we We yes, yes The theories as opposed to being attached to them. Yes. It's an anti dogmatic kind of point of view. It's more Exploring and and if we assume that we know then we cut off Inquiry and we can't learn if you know if you're certain that you know then you're not going to be motivated to learn Yeah, this is paramount um balancing excitement with uh non dogmatism because you have to have confidence in What edge you're trying to push and you have to have humility as well Exactly. You're exactly about that. That's that's the knife edge. I agree with you See it's not easy for us to to maintain that but it's really critical. It's so so critical um, but because especially Sometimes young people are are trying to push with confidence something that may be Actually really critical to get to the edge and beyond the edge But then there are influences of maybe parents or community or friends that are just hating on them Um, moving that forward and so the there's also the importance of of that of that confidence encouraged to to get To to that edge and to to push it and rocket it forward. It's very important Oh, absolutely. I think that that you've touched on a really important point I mean, so the the theory that I'm working on right now. I'm excited about it I've I've got energy. You know, I think I'm on to something But and so you and you need to have that kind of energy and that kind of enthusiasm to push forward, right? but then I always step back and go, but of course I could be wrong. I mean, I hope I'm not but you be but you know You have to have that that that dual understanding about the whole situation. So yeah, be motivated be excited But but not dogmatic. That's the knife edge. Yep. Yep Those are some of the codes that we are archiving from the dirty bath water is the dogmatism and the fundamentalism and we're Taking the baby out that the scientific method. We're taking out the Hierophonies these sacred divine communions and experiences objective ones that people do have and sharing those better