 If our nature of reality is truly the one indivisible, indescribable whole that we are and that the nature of reality is truly that consciousness that is experiencing itself across these eight billion dissociative boundaries and that the the idea then would be I'm curious what you think would it be fair to use an analogy like a dreamed symphony been playing around with this I'm curious what you think that we are that that that unity that unity of a symphony and that each one of us in the symphony is playing a different instrument I'm playing the cello you're playing the clarinet someone else is playing the sax someone else the drums and that we're even people that are playing the same instrument are playing different melodies or harmonies and that actually your son right Cosmos a musician right yes yeah okay and so the the the idea is that if I'm if and by the way the conductor is like an is an attractor so there's like a you know the the mathematical system is where comp the there's a mathematical attraction for our complex system to evolve towards this attractor which which could be like a auroboros or something like you know an automata orthogenesis to recursive function or something but the point is that like is the dream symphony analogy a good way for us to understand like if I'm playing more out of tune let's say my cello I'm playing more out of tune that's because I'm serving to myself but if you're playing your clarinet and you're playing it in tune that's because you're playing service to other and so the other so the idea is that we are going through some sort of a a dream symphonic artistic oneness evolution and that we can both integrate into the symphony and differentiate like in calculus of our unique contribution how do you how does that dream symphony analogy for the nature of reality resonate it does rather assume that everything is working together to start with I mean the symphony orchestra they have to have a shared agenda to play to have a symphony together and excuse me it's it's not immediately obvious that there is at least as far as whole of humanity is concerned a shared symphony I mean the president of the United States and you know the various figures and Islamic fundamentalist movements etc. I mean the there's so many different points of view the you know Hindu nationalists in India, you know, Chinese ascending their power etc. It's not clear that everyone sees themselves as part of a coordinated symphony of humanity. And for the dream symphony to I think people would have to sign up to be part of a dream symphony orchestra for this particular metaphor to work is not obvious that's the case. You could argue that there are underlying creative forces that I mean I myself think there are working through history and that conflict is part of it, and that the conflict plays its part in the creative evolution of things. A personal example of when my book science set free came out my Ted talk my Ted X talk in 2013 the called the science delusion was taken down by 10 from their main website because of protests from militant materialists PZ Mars and Jerry coin who are both militant Richard Dawkins type and Ted tried to suppress this talk or at least hide it completely unsuccessfully and but this attack from these people who wanted to stop me having a platform led to an enormous controversy on the internet. The result is that at least 6 million people have seen this talk now, whereas before their protests and you buy 30,000 had seen it. So they were playing their part and you know I don't have a kind of personal hostility to people like Jerry coin and stuff I mean they're playing their part in this drama, but dream symphonies also include dissonances. I mean music's not all harmony, and you know the dissonance is a part of it. So it may be that there that Jerry coin is part of this dream symphony without realizing it. Okay. Okay, so it could also be fair to say that not only is it that we may have different national agendas across the planet in parts of the symphony but also just that in general within the symphony the playing out of tune is not only when you're trying to like hoard things in service to self mentality, but it's also when you are being militant in one specific dogma. And yeah, I think that's very interesting. Thank you for pointing that out. Okay. And of course people may also play out of tune out of sharing competence. So, Robert, I want to ask you on a, on a, on a telos perspective. Given the fact that artificial intelligence is now significantly for deeper emergence. So our virtual realities which are kind of, in a sense, when you, when you immerse yourself in one for an extended period of time, you in a sense could say that. Well, how am I not already in one, how is this not already one. So we have AI we have VR we have simulation technology simulation theory, what could it be that we're these technologies are triangulating on the same thing in the sense that in the western spirituality has been saying for the longest time that the dreamer the ultimate dreamer of infinite consciousness ends up in this dream that we're in now wakes up and then goes right back into another dream as in the or boros continues so is the what is the telos is the West focus on AI VR simulation tech, could that be what John smart calls the Transcension Hypothesis when we go inward into these substrates and that we continue the oral boros and that we keep going through more and more big bangs and that that is our in that is our that that's our attractor is that the telos what do you think about that. Well, I think that there's, there's a sense in which artificial intelligence virtual reality, you know, are expanding the realm, certainly of what machines can do and also have things like games and whatnot. And I think there's a parallel exploration going on, which is non technological through this, the renewed research on psychedelics. Because psychedelics are a way of opening up the imaginable world, particularly the visionary ones I mean, I wasca LSD mushrooms and so on, which have an enormously liberating effect on the imagination for many people. Well, for everyone and I'm not advocating indiscriminate use of psychedelics and especially not encouraging people to anything illegal I mean I have to say these disciplines. But the fact is that that, as well as this exploration. So I got a parallel exploration going on. And in fact, in places like Silicon Valley, the exploration through psychedelics is often happening in the same people who are engaged in the, especially in computer graphics and visualizing things and virtual reality. I think here we've got this expanded range of explorations that aren't based on technology. I mean, personally, I think they're more fun when they're not based on technology I mean I'm not very technological myself. I think there's another exploration of consciousness, which after all has happened in the East through meditative techniques it's happened in the West through meditative techniques I mean a contemplative Christianity in middle ages and since then in the Catholic and the orthodox tradition monks and nuns, living in his daughters some of them spend hours a day in meditation and prayer and they're exploring realms of consciousness. And they're not just exploring their own consciousness the whole point is that through meditation and these spiritual practices, you come into contact with other forms of consciousness. That's the whole point of my recent books and the most recent one being ways to go beyond and why they work. There's seven different spiritual practices which have been scientifically investigated and are about exploring these realms of consciousness beyond our normal everyday consciousness. So I think what's exciting at the moment is there's a new phase of spiritual evolution beginning through the widespread availability of spiritual practices and scientific studies of them. There's also all these amazing technological adventures and I think that they're complementary I don't think it's one or the other. Yeah, there's a big convergence that is happening there. And whatever the telos ends up being wherever the tractor of the complex system is heading. Inevitably, in order to be happy and have great well being and have good amounts of peace and collective prosperity and individual flourishing. One needs to embody what you write about in ways to go beyond where you where you talk about specifically also the practices of doing things like meditation. I think people also forgot that even the word yoga means union in Sanskrit it's not holding stretching positions, and it means union with the divine, whatever your unique combinatoric is with the divine. But also gratitude is such a prominent one that is so important and it's the way that science and spirituality are converging which you've written about so much, going out in nature.