WEBVTT

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Can you hear? Everybody can hear? Good. Well, I like to lead with good news, so let me assure

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you that at no point this evening will I read from or quote the poet Rumi. It's a pleasure

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to be in Sacramento. It's a pleasure to be in California. I lived here for about 30 years

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before moving out about eight months ago. Lived over in Occidental, so I sort of feel

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like this is a hometown congregation. You may have seen the story in the bee this morning.

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It was a reasonable detailing of my theory of evolution. I noticed that one expert wouldn't

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even give his name to allow his no comment to have attribution.

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Gentlemen, this is no way to behave in the face of an ideological revolution. Anyway,

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and plus it isn't even my weirdest idea, but that was left unmentioned, thankfully, in

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the article. But since the article dealt so specifically

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with evolution, I'm going to read it to you.

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Okay.

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And because that probably is my best candidate for entree into any kind of respectability,

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something I crave intensely in every atom of my body, I thought I would discuss it

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with you this evening and try and make it seem a little less absurd than my critics

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might make it seem.

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First of all,

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let me lay out for you the nature of the problem. Right now, the nature of the problem

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is finding the damn phone and shutting it off.

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No, the nature of the problem is that evolutionary theory tells us that we are some kind of advanced

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animal of some sort, and science has waged a noble struggle to find the damn phone. And

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the fact that this is the case is simply the moral of the directorial thought.

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The different kind of people we know about będą we have a certain set of human beings

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that are not completely human. They do this sort of thing. They discard the idea of the

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human being. There is a topic which is very interesting in the medical field, the cross-neurological

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field, and that is that human beings can, through the power of science, free themselves from

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the power of science.

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Mutually, they can be as ordinary as they can be, and they can be believed to be

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under such mental control.

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It is as if they are the only human being in the world that is not under such kind

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of spiritual control as humans are, in the sense that someone who is an individual

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being, but is not an individual being, is in fact a child, but is not an individual.

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And yet, there is, after it's all said and done, the sense that if we are an animal, we are a very, very peculiar sort of animal.

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Indeed, a unique animal, an animal capable of language and coordinated planning, an animal not bound to a particular social or sexual style.

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We have monogamous human societies, polygamous societies. This is very different from animals.

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We have poetry, we have mathematics, we have drama, a whole spectrum of effects that is far from anything that we find in animal organization.

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And this problem has fascinated me for a long, long time, as it's fascinated a lot of people.

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Because...

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Because, obviously, it's a great embarrassment to the theory of evolution that it can't account for human consciousness.

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Because, after all, human consciousness produced the theory of evolution.

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So you see, it's a significant failure there.

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So, obviously, if you accept the basic rules of the evolution,

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then it will cause some kind of neural

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But you also have this idea of the un-ideal, that you can do it, and you can do it.

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Yes, you can do it.

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Yes, you can do it.

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And so, then you have this idea of the secondary game,

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which are that there is random mutation.

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Which means gene drift, mixing of genes through sexual reproduction.

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Cosmic rays which cause birth defects and mutations, this sort of thing.

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And natural selection.

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And these two factors,

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account for praying mantises, chipmunks, tropical rainforests, but not us.

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And the reason is that we emerge too quickly from the background of the rest of ordinary

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nature.

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In the space of about two billion years, the human brain doubled in size.

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And Lumholtz, who is an orthodox evolutionary biologist, calls this the most dramatic transformation

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of a major organ of a higher animal in the entire history of life.

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And it happened to us.

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It happened to that very organ that is responsible for the theory of evolution.

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So what extraordinary confluence of...

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.

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...factors could have come together there to take essentially an arboreal monkey, an

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ape of some sort, that had been at an evolutionary climax in the canopy of the rainforest for

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a couple of million years.

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What extraordinary set of factors could then set that creature marching down the road

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toward Elvis.

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Elvis, the internet, Bill Clinton, and all the rest of it.

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Well, you would imagine, or I imagined when I first started thinking about this,

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that there must be some huge edifice of established theory

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that we have to go up in there and blow up.

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Surely somebody has staked out this ground

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and made some kind of an argument about human consciousness.

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Well, in terms of science, not, or almost not.

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I mean, in terms of religion, it's simple.

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I mean, God made us from the clay of the earth.

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In terms of science, the best shot is pretty weak soup from my point of view.

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Here's what science is telling us.

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That when you throw something, you have to plan.

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Because once you let go of whatever it is you're throwing,

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you can no longer control it.

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And so because we were small and weak and hunted in packs,

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we learned to throw like hell

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at very large, onrushing, woolly fellow mammals of various sorts.

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And you had to plan your throw.

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Consequently, we developed brain capacity.

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We had the ability to do this, and had enough left over

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to invent quantum physics, paint the Mona Lisa,

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invent the phonetic alphabet, philosophy, religion,

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and all the rest of it.

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In other words, it was the coordination of the hand

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and the eye to the throwing arm,

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this is what the orthodox folks tell us,

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that gave us this extra brain capacity that we sort

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of then managed into human civilization.

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Well, notice this.

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That this would make the pinnacle

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of the evolutionary ladder the gum-chewing,

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big league baseball pitcher.

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Because, you know, he can put that pill right across the plate

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at high speed time after time.

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As somebody who learned everything they know

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about sadomasochism in PE class, I'm not really ready

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to embrace that.

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I'm not ready to embrace this theory.

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It definitely runs against my paradigm.

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So I've built another story.

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And it, to my mind, meets the objections, answers the question,

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where did consciousness come from?

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But instead of doing it very nicely and neatly, it raises,

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in the very act of answering this question, other questions.

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Maybe more closer to home.

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Questions that reflect on our social organization, our politics,

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how we treat each other in the here and now.

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Even with implications for the future.

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But we'll get to that.

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For the moment, let me just run through this for you.

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There's a sort of a basic situation that all theories

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of evolution have to come to terms with.

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And this is that our remote proto-hominid, primate, ape ancestors lived and developed in Africa.

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If you have a non-African theory of human origin, and there are such things, but the evidence is strongly against you.

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If it were stock, I'd sell. The evidence is pretty strong that whatever happened that brought us out of the animal body, it happened in Africa.

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Well, all animals tend to, and plants for that matter, tend to reach evolutionary climax and occupy a niche and stabilize in that niche.

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Cockroaches, ants achieve this.

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Hundreds of millions of years ago, and have not changed greatly since.

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Most of biology is this iterative occupation of a climaxed niche.

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Very little of biology is the pushing forward into radical new forms, new species, still rarer, new genera.

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For that, there has to be disruption.

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There is this prosperity of some sort of the environment.

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And it can be the meandering of a river, or an asteroid strike, or the retreat of a glacier, something which creates open land.

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Well, for many, for five, six million years now, the African continent has been slowly drying.

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And 3 million years ago, it was covered by rainforest.

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At the equator.

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And in the interstate.

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from east to west, and that was the environment of the human ancestor types.

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They were canopy-dwelling, they were fruit-eating, they ate some percentage of insects, composed

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their diet.

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They had a pack signaling repertoire that was fairly complicated by animal standards.

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And there they were, happily living in the canopy.

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But Africa began to dry up, and they came under nutritional pressure.

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Now simpler animals, insects for example, when their food source is withdrawn, they

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usually buy the farm.

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They don't have much flexibility of diet.

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If you've ever tried to raise caterpillars into butterflies for your children, you know

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that if you give the caterpillars the wrong leaves, they just can't make any sense out

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of it, and they die.

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More advanced animals, when confronted with dietary pressure or disappearance of ordinary

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food supplies, before they give up the ghost, they will...

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...

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... experiment with other food sources in the environment.

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Now the reason this isn't normally done is thought, the reason animals are conservative

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in their food choices, it's thought to be a way of avoiding mutational influences in

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the form of tertiary chemicals, toxins, viruses, and things like this, that would be in the

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food, in unusual foods.

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One of the things that accompanies our acquisition of consciousness is gastronomy.

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The appreciation of flavor.

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The approach to food that makes it an art.

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Animals don't do this.

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They're just trying to get enough protein to keep the old engines running.

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The notion of flavoring is counterintuitive to animals.

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And flavoring's probably...

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... probably, in part, a mutagenic influence to our diet.

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When our remote ancestors came under environmental pressure, their environment was shrinking,

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the rainforest was being replaced by grasslands, and nutritional pressure, their ordinary diet

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of fruit and insects was being restricted, they began exploring this new environment

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of the grasslands.

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and this is the era of knuckle walking

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turning into bipedalism

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it's the era of the coordination of binocular vision

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so forth and so on

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there was a paper published recently

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which anticipates my point

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but I can't wait to hit you with it

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a paper published recently

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about canopy dwelling monkeys

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who only leave the canopy

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for the acquisition of one particular food

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and the food they will come to the ground for

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and risk predation is mushrooms

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so it seems perfectly reasonable

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to suggest that our remote ancestors

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exploring the new environment of the grasslands

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would have encountered

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as you would if you were to go to the tropics

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psilocybin containing mushrooms

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growing in the desert

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dung of cattle

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many dung growing so-called coprophytic

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coprolitic mushrooms

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produce psilocybin

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among them stropharia cubensis

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which is one of the largest

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and pandemically distributed

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of these mushrooms

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I'm sure that our early ancestors

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also tested other kinds of food

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they were testing everything

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they were digging for corms

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with pointed sticks

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and I'm sure there were many

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ecological and medical disasters

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as a consequence of this

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for instance

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the birth control steroids

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in modern birth control pills

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are produced by diascoria vines

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grown on plantations in Mexico

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well diascoria is the family of sweet potatoes

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imagine a hungry band of primates

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that come upon a patch of sweet potatoes

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that are heavy in these steroids

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it would raise holy havoc

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with their reproductive cycle

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it would interfere with menstruation

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ovulation

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lactation

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fertility

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and human genetic history

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is the story of many such encounters

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with mutagenic influences in the environment.

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Most of them catastrophic, detrimental, lethal.

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But in some few cases, there would have been solitary results,

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advantages conferred upon the animals that accept these new foods into their food chain.

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And I want to particularly emphasize psilocybin because I believe it's the key.

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You see, we're looking for some kind of factor which could have exploded the human brain size

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at a rate ten times faster than evolution normally takes place.

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So it's going to be an unusual situation.

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Perhaps the need to throw a boulder a distance accurately,

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or perhaps contact with an unusual food item or drug-containing plant.

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But.

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It was something unusual.

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If it weren't unusual, it wouldn't have taken this planet a billion and a half years

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to bring forth its first intelligent species.

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Well, so let's look at psilocybin then in a little more detail.

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It has a number of properties not specifically related to its psychoactivity

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that make it an ideal candidate for a catalyst

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for the emergence of consciousness in an advanced animal.

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First of all, and at the early stage of human invasion of this new grassland environment,

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proto-hominid invasion, I should say, we were testing foods.

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We would certainly have tested this food.

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I've seen these things the size of dinner plates in the Amazon after a rain, and they are silvery

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with blue and purple shadows.

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They are the most dramatic thing in the environment,

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whether you know anything about them as psychoactive agents or not.

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Certainly, they would have been tested for food.

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I've seen baboons in Kenya investigating cow pies and flipping them over

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because beetle grubs nestle underneath them, so cow pies are a natural vector for hungry baboons.

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So that everything is in place.

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It's trivial to suggest otherwise, I would maintain.

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Okay, the first quality of psilocybin, which isn't specifically related to its psychoactivity,

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is that in small doses, doses that are the kind you might obtain if you were just sort of eating it along with

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little roots, grass roots, small bugs, you know, so forth and so on,

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visual acuity is improved.

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Specifically, edge detection is improved.

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Well now, it seems to me you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if you're in a highly competitive evolutionary environment

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in grassland, an environment characterized by large predators hunting cats, and also characterized by small ungulate prey,

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an environment characterized by large predators hunting cats, and also characterized by small ungulate prey,

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that having an increased sensitivity to edge movement might make the difference between whether or not you live to tell the tale,

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or you become somebody's dinner, or it would certainly make the difference between going home empty handed

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and taking dinner home with you.

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So a factor which enhanced edge detection on those animals accepting that food supply

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and then putting itself into their plate types,

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that's an easy pass I would recommend,

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is fidgeting, Romanian turtle diving,וט

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chain, they would have a slightly increased chance of evolutionary success as opposed

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to the non-silocybin members of their group.

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And this increased hunting success would tend to outbreed the non-silocybin-using members

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of the group.

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At slightly higher doses, in highly-sexed animals like primates, all alkaloids are what

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are called CNS stimulants, central nervous system stimulants.

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That means that they produce arousal.

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And in sexually extremely active animals like primates, arousal means erection, usually

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from sexual activity.

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In the male, usually followed by hanky-panky, what anthropologists and primatologists call

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successful instances of copulation.

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Well, again, what is this?

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It's a second factor tending to outbreed the non-silocybin-using members of the population.

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They're now definitely moving to the rear of the parade.

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They don't have as much hunting success.

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They don't have as much food for themselves and their offspring.

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They're not having as much sex, so they're not having as many offspring.

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And in terms of rising and falling numbers, those that have some allergy, prejudice, or

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fear of the mushroom are just being shunted out of the breeding population.

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Well, at still higher doses, approaching effective doses.

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In other words, 4 grams dried and up, or 45 grams wet and up, hunting is out of the

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question.

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Sex is something you can consider, but it's out of the question.

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And you are basically nailed to the ground in a state of mind which we, for all of our

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sophistication, our logical positivism, our superconducting, supercolliders, and

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all the rest of it, haven't a clue as to what it is, what it means, what its implications

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are.

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The full-blown psychedelic experience of which we can only speak in terms of religious

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hierophany, epiphany, apocatastasis, and all those other great Greek words, ataraxia,

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you know.

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In other words, we like it, but we don't understand it, and it is, therefore, the

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basis for religion.

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Well, so right there, you have a three-step process driven by nothing more than hunger

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and curiosity that leads remote primate ancestors to a confrontation with what Rudolf Otto called

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the holy other, the holy, the non-holy.

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And who is the reason for all of that?

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Well, the of this is the transcendent, the powerful and the natural, and the luminous,

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the transcendental.

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And you know, this is on slightly less firm ground, but in my own personal experience,

24:40.240 --> 24:47.060
and having collected psychedelic experiences lifelong, I feel confident in saying that

24:47.060 --> 24:54.780
meaning. Speaking in tongues is what Christian fundamentalists call it, but they don't have

24:54.780 --> 25:02.840
monopoly on it. It's ancient. It occurs in all cultures. It's shamanic. And what it is,

25:02.860 --> 25:12.540
is it's a kind of neurological seizure where linguistic organization spontaneously is verbalized.

25:12.540 --> 25:20.520
No animal does this. It must have something to do with the acquisition of language by human

25:20.520 --> 25:30.280
beings. And what I think is going on is that probably language was entertainment long before

25:30.280 --> 25:38.580
it was meaning. That it's a kind of tuneless singing. And that having discovered that we

25:38.580 --> 25:42.500
could make an almost endless repertoire of small mouth noises,

25:42.540 --> 25:52.300
we did this for each other, for amusement, for to pass the time. I mean, God knows there was a lot of

25:52.300 --> 26:01.680
it. And it probably was very late in the evolution of this ability that some very tight assed,

26:01.680 --> 26:11.340
rational type said, you know, we could attach a specific meaning to a specific sound. And then

26:11.340 --> 26:12.500
every time I made the sound, I made the sound. And then every time I made the sound, I made the

26:12.500 --> 26:12.520
sound. And then every time I made the sound, I made the sound. And then every time I made the

26:12.520 --> 26:13.300
sound. And then every time I made the sound, I made the sound. And then every time I made that sound,

26:13.300 --> 26:16.520
you'd know what I meant and then you could go and get it for me.

26:18.240 --> 26:21.760
You see?

26:21.760 --> 26:28.540
It's the sort of, it's the as long as you're up, get me a grant theory of language.

26:30.540 --> 26:42.480
So that's the basic idea. And I really believe that some time in the last 50,000 years,

26:42.480 --> 26:50.620
before 12,000 years ago, a kind of paradise came into existence.

26:51.020 --> 26:59.100
A situation in which men and women, parents and children, people and animals,

27:00.100 --> 27:07.660
human institutions and the land, all were in dynamic balance.

27:07.660 --> 27:12.680
And not in any primitive sense at all.

27:13.280 --> 27:16.000
Language was fully developed.

27:16.720 --> 27:19.280
Poetry may have been at its climax.

27:19.940 --> 27:27.120
Dance, magic, poetics, altruism, philosophy.

27:27.640 --> 27:35.540
There's no reason to think that these things were not practiced as adroitly as we practice them today.

27:35.540 --> 27:43.920
And it was under the aegis of the boundary-dissolving influence of psilocybin.

27:44.500 --> 27:45.840
We were nomadic.

27:46.540 --> 27:50.260
We were breeders and caretakers of cattle.

27:50.740 --> 27:52.700
We worshipped a great goddess.

27:53.080 --> 27:58.480
We followed a yearly round in a vast grassland cut by crystal streams

27:58.480 --> 28:02.040
that were washing down out of the higher altitudes.

28:02.040 --> 28:05.300
And we were probably black as your hat.

28:05.300 --> 28:07.300
For that matter.

28:07.300 --> 28:09.300
And it was great.

28:09.300 --> 28:15.300
Well, if it was so great, what happened?

28:15.300 --> 28:25.300
Well, the very forces which created this situation, and you will recall what it was.

28:25.300 --> 28:27.300
It was the drying of the African continent.

28:27.300 --> 28:29.300
Forcing us out of the trees.

28:29.300 --> 28:31.300
Forcing us to change our diet.

28:31.300 --> 28:35.300
Forcing us to accept a dung growing mushroom.

28:35.300 --> 28:41.300
And there were other factors forcing us into consciousness as well.

28:41.300 --> 28:48.300
When we became omnivorous, the first form of consciousness is having the point of view of your prey.

28:48.300 --> 28:53.300
Predatory animals have the highest form of animal consciousness.

28:53.300 --> 28:55.300
Big cats.

28:55.300 --> 28:58.300
But it's a consciousness of the exterior world.

28:58.300 --> 29:01.300
Psilocybin forced us beyond that.

29:01.300 --> 29:05.300
Into consciousness of the imaginal world.

29:05.300 --> 29:10.300
The world of the imagination inside our heads.

29:10.300 --> 29:15.300
What happened was the mushroom faded.

29:15.300 --> 29:18.300
The climate changed.

29:18.300 --> 29:22.300
What had been everywhere became seasonal.

29:22.300 --> 29:25.300
Moved into the rain shadows of mountains.

29:25.300 --> 29:31.300
Became the prerogative of a special class of people called shamans.

29:31.300 --> 29:34.300
Who were like the designated hitters.

29:34.300 --> 29:40.300
For dealing with the hyperspace of the mythos.

29:40.300 --> 29:50.300
In other words, over millennia, the connection went from available to everyone all the time.

29:50.300 --> 29:53.300
To ever more tenuous, ever more tenuous.

29:53.300 --> 29:56.300
Finally faded out entirely.

29:56.300 --> 29:59.300
It's even more complicated than that.

29:59.300 --> 30:03.300
Because surely people would have, as they saw this happening.

30:03.300 --> 30:07.300
Make attempts to preserve the mushroom.

30:07.300 --> 30:10.300
And in a world without refrigeration.

30:10.300 --> 30:16.300
The only effective way to do this is preservation in honey.

30:16.300 --> 30:18.300
You can dry mushrooms.

30:18.300 --> 30:23.300
But in a world without hermetically sealed peanut butter jars.

30:23.300 --> 30:27.300
Drying is a very short term strategy for preservation.

30:27.300 --> 30:32.300
The only thing which will really work is preservation in honey.

30:32.300 --> 30:35.300
The problem there is.

30:35.300 --> 30:37.300
That honey itself.

30:37.300 --> 30:39.300
Especially aboriginal honeys.

30:39.300 --> 30:41.300
Which have a lot more water in them.

30:41.300 --> 30:45.300
Than what you get in those little plastic bears at the A&P.

30:45.300 --> 30:48.300
Aboriginal honeys are very runny.

30:48.300 --> 30:50.300
And so what do they do?

30:50.300 --> 30:55.300
They themselves have the capacity for turning into a psychoactive substance.

30:55.300 --> 30:57.300
Alcohol.

30:57.300 --> 31:01.300
But alcohol promotes a completely different set of cultural values.

31:01.300 --> 31:04.300
And attitudes than psilocybin.

31:04.300 --> 31:09.300
Psilocybin is a boundary dissolving hallucinogen.

31:09.300 --> 31:17.300
Mead alcohol gives an enhanced sense of verbal acuity.

31:17.300 --> 31:21.300
In the presence of lowered sensitivity to social cues.

31:21.300 --> 31:23.300
In other words.

31:23.300 --> 31:27.300
One can make an ass of oneself.

31:27.300 --> 31:32.000
But now I want to backtrack for a minute.

31:32.000 --> 31:36.000
I will return to this thing about the loss of the mushroom.

31:36.000 --> 31:38.000
But there's something that I want to go over with you.

31:38.000 --> 31:41.000
That's really important in all this to me.

31:41.000 --> 31:42.000
And that is.

31:42.000 --> 31:50.000
This isn't simply the story of how an intoxicant promoted consciousness.

31:50.000 --> 31:54.000
And then we fell into history by losing that intoxicant.

31:54.000 --> 31:57.000
And went on to other intoxicants.

31:57.000 --> 32:01.000
With consequences to be evaluated.

32:01.000 --> 32:02.000
It's that.

32:02.000 --> 32:04.000
But it's more.

32:04.000 --> 32:09.000
Because psilocybin had a very, very peculiar effect.

32:09.000 --> 32:12.000
Over and above what I've mentioned so far.

32:12.000 --> 32:15.000
And it is this over and above effect.

32:15.000 --> 32:19.000
That makes my theory so controversial.

32:19.000 --> 32:24.000
And academics, I think, so phobic of it.

32:24.000 --> 32:29.000
Because it rips open a whole can of worms.

32:29.000 --> 32:32.000
And this is the problem.

32:32.000 --> 32:40.000
All primates clear back to squirrel monkeys and old world monkeys.

32:40.000 --> 32:44.000
All primates form dominance hierarchies.

32:44.000 --> 32:54.000
This means that the sharp fanged hard bodied young males control everybody else.

32:54.000 --> 32:55.000
The women.

32:55.000 --> 32:56.000
The elderly.

32:56.000 --> 32:57.000
The sick.

32:57.000 --> 32:58.000
The children.

32:58.000 --> 32:59.000
The intellectuals.

32:59.000 --> 33:09.000
Everybody finds their place somewhere in this dominance hierarchy run by these dominant alpha males.

33:09.000 --> 33:11.000
We are no different.

33:11.000 --> 33:18.000
We also, as we sit here this evening, operate under this kind of a social organization.

33:18.000 --> 33:19.000
I mean we complain about it.

33:19.000 --> 33:20.000
We analyze it.

33:20.000 --> 33:22.000
We are aware of it.

33:22.000 --> 33:24.000
But we live under it.

33:24.000 --> 33:25.000
It's how it is.

33:25.000 --> 33:27.000
So here is my suggestion.

33:27.000 --> 33:38.000
That what psilocybin did was it changed behavior.

33:38.000 --> 33:42.000
It interfered with primate behavior.

33:42.000 --> 33:52.000
Specifically, it interfered with this tendency to form monogamous pairs and dominance hierarchies.

33:52.000 --> 33:56.000
And so the ordinary tendency of the primates to organize.

33:56.000 --> 34:03.000
To organize themselves that way was interrupted.

34:03.000 --> 34:07.000
Medicated out of existence if you like.

34:07.000 --> 34:09.000
Vaccinated against if you like.

34:09.000 --> 34:14.000
By the presence of psilocybin in the diet.

34:14.000 --> 34:25.000
And this over emphasizing or chemical accentuation of sexuality occasioned by the arousal.

34:25.000 --> 34:28.000
Of the psilocybin.

34:28.000 --> 34:33.000
Was sufficient to dissolve the ordinary tendency toward monogamy.

34:33.000 --> 34:39.000
And replace it with an orgiastic sexual style.

34:39.000 --> 34:42.000
Or they coexisted simultaneously.

34:42.000 --> 34:43.000
I mean who knows.

34:43.000 --> 34:44.000
We weren't there.

34:44.000 --> 34:46.000
It's sort of the way I imagine it.

34:46.000 --> 34:49.000
Is that at every new and full moon.

34:49.000 --> 34:52.000
There were group mushroom parties.

34:52.000 --> 34:54.000
Which basically simply got out of hand.

34:55.000 --> 34:57.000
Regularly.

34:57.000 --> 35:03.000
And so the monogamous pair bond would be under pressure.

35:03.000 --> 35:06.000
If not completely eliminated.

35:06.000 --> 35:09.000
Many cultures have this even to this day.

35:09.000 --> 35:14.000
I mean in a sense Mardi Gras is a festival where the rules are dissolved.

35:14.000 --> 35:19.000
And nobody is supposed to go to their spouse the Monday after.

35:19.000 --> 35:24.000
And say you know was that you I saw dressed as Marie Antoinette.

35:24.000 --> 35:29.000
And because you know the rules are there is permission to break the rules.

35:29.000 --> 35:32.000
And many societies do this.

35:32.000 --> 35:37.000
The result of an orgiastic style like that.

35:37.000 --> 35:43.000
Is men cannot trace lines of male paternity.

35:43.000 --> 35:47.000
And so there is a tremendous social glue.

35:47.000 --> 35:53.000
A tremendous force for the cohesion of community.

35:53.000 --> 35:57.000
Men don't then think in terms of my children.

35:57.000 --> 35:59.000
They think in terms of our children.

35:59.000 --> 36:01.000
The children of the group.

36:01.000 --> 36:06.000
And under the aegis of this group.

36:06.000 --> 36:10.000
This polymorphic sexual style.

36:10.000 --> 36:17.000
Group child care and extended family rearing.

36:17.000 --> 36:22.000
We produced everything that we think of as human.

36:22.000 --> 36:23.000
That we value.

36:23.000 --> 36:24.000
Our art.

36:24.000 --> 36:25.000
Our music.

36:25.000 --> 36:26.000
Our philosophy.

36:26.000 --> 36:28.000
Our sense of each other's worth.

36:28.000 --> 36:30.000
Body painting.

36:30.000 --> 36:31.000
Tattooing.

36:31.000 --> 36:32.000
Piercing.

36:32.000 --> 36:38.000
All the accoutrements that distinguish us from animal existence.

36:38.000 --> 36:42.000
Were put in place when we had a different kind of mind.

36:42.000 --> 36:44.000
Than we have now.

36:44.000 --> 36:48.000
We didn't have a mind that favored role specialization.

36:48.000 --> 36:50.000
And male dominance.

36:50.000 --> 36:51.000
And anxiety.

36:51.000 --> 36:52.000
And sobriety.

36:52.000 --> 36:54.000
Over female sexual activity.

36:54.000 --> 36:58.000
Related to feelings of male ownership.

36:58.000 --> 37:00.000
That all came later.

37:00.000 --> 37:06.000
We became human beings in this other world of values.

37:06.000 --> 37:08.000
And psychological attitudes.

37:08.000 --> 37:10.000
Problem is.

37:10.000 --> 37:11.000
That as I say.

37:11.000 --> 37:13.000
The mushroom faded.

37:13.000 --> 37:16.000
But by the time it had faded.

37:16.000 --> 37:21.000
We were no longer the wordless symbiotes.

37:21.000 --> 37:22.000
Of cattles.

37:22.000 --> 37:27.000
The barely sentient hunters of the African plain.

37:27.000 --> 37:30.000
By the time we were finished with the mushrooms.

37:30.000 --> 37:32.000
We had language.

37:32.000 --> 37:35.000
We had social institutions.

37:35.000 --> 37:38.000
But what we began to lose.

37:38.000 --> 37:40.000
Was you know.

37:40.000 --> 37:43.000
You can get as wet eyed as you want about it.

37:43.000 --> 37:45.000
But respect for each other.

37:45.000 --> 37:48.000
A sense of each other's individuality.

37:48.000 --> 37:50.000
A sense of love.

37:50.000 --> 37:52.000
A sense of community.

37:52.000 --> 37:53.000
And it must have been.

37:53.000 --> 37:57.000
Though it happened over a long period of time.

37:57.000 --> 38:00.000
Very much like what we're living through now.

38:00.000 --> 38:03.000
A sense that people are you know.

38:03.000 --> 38:04.000
No damn good.

38:04.000 --> 38:06.000
And getting worse.

38:06.000 --> 38:07.000
A sense that you know.

38:07.000 --> 38:10.000
Why can't we be as we once were.

38:10.000 --> 38:12.000
Where is our sense of each other.

38:12.000 --> 38:16.000
Where is our ability to care for each other.

38:16.000 --> 38:18.000
So forth and so on.

38:18.000 --> 38:20.000
I wrote a book called.

38:20.000 --> 38:23.000
The Food of the Gods.

38:23.000 --> 38:25.000
In which I tell this story.

38:25.000 --> 38:27.000
In the first third of the book.

38:27.000 --> 38:28.000
That I've just told you.

38:28.000 --> 38:30.000
And then I show.

38:30.000 --> 38:34.000
That what history is essentially.

38:34.000 --> 38:37.000
Is a careening.

38:37.000 --> 38:39.000
Out of control effort.

38:39.000 --> 38:42.000
To find our way back.

38:42.000 --> 38:46.000
To this state of primordial balance.

38:46.000 --> 38:49.000
One of the things that marks us as humans.

38:49.000 --> 38:51.000
That is unique.

38:51.000 --> 38:54.000
Is our obsessions with drugs.

38:54.000 --> 38:57.000
Our ability to addict.

38:57.000 --> 38:59.000
We addict.

38:59.000 --> 39:02.000
Not only to substances.

39:02.000 --> 39:05.000
We addict to each other.

39:05.000 --> 39:08.000
We addict to ideologies.

39:08.000 --> 39:09.000
Marxism.

39:09.000 --> 39:12.000
Christianity.

39:12.000 --> 39:13.000
Skinkism.

39:13.000 --> 39:15.000
As practiced in Washington.

39:15.000 --> 39:17.000
Whatever.

39:17.000 --> 39:18.000
And we addict.

39:18.000 --> 39:20.000
To each other.

39:20.000 --> 39:21.000
You know.

39:21.000 --> 39:22.000
I mean.

39:22.000 --> 39:23.000
I am a romantic.

39:23.000 --> 39:24.000
With the best of them.

39:24.000 --> 39:26.000
But I can't help noticing.

39:26.000 --> 39:27.000
That a broken heart.

39:27.000 --> 39:30.000
And heroin withdrawal.

39:30.000 --> 39:34.000
Show very similar presentations.

39:34.000 --> 39:35.000
Really.

39:35.000 --> 39:36.000
Insomnia.

39:36.000 --> 39:38.000
Sweating.

39:38.000 --> 39:41.000
Sense of diminished self esteem.

39:41.000 --> 39:43.000
Hysteria.

39:43.000 --> 39:44.000
You know.

39:44.000 --> 39:46.000
It's very very similar.

39:46.000 --> 39:47.000
We.

39:47.000 --> 39:48.000
A psychologist.

39:48.000 --> 39:49.000
Looking at a person.

39:49.000 --> 39:50.000
With an addictive syndrome.

39:50.000 --> 39:51.000
Will say.

39:51.000 --> 39:52.000
Well you were damaged.

39:52.000 --> 39:53.000
In childhood.

39:53.000 --> 39:54.000
There is some trauma there.

39:54.000 --> 39:55.000
That you're.

39:55.000 --> 39:56.000
You're trying to.

39:56.000 --> 39:57.000
Compensate.

39:57.000 --> 39:58.000
You're trying to compensate.

39:58.000 --> 39:59.000
Well I'm not that keen.

39:59.000 --> 40:00.000
On all this.

40:00.000 --> 40:01.000
Psychologizing.

40:01.000 --> 40:02.000
But I do think.

40:02.000 --> 40:03.000
That.

40:03.000 --> 40:04.000
We could apply this model.

40:04.000 --> 40:05.000
To ourselves.

40:05.000 --> 40:06.000
On a grand scale.

40:06.000 --> 40:07.000
We were essentially.

40:07.000 --> 40:08.000
Torn.

40:08.000 --> 40:09.000
From.

40:09.000 --> 40:10.000
Our lives.

40:10.000 --> 40:11.000
From.

40:11.000 --> 40:12.000
Our lives.

40:12.000 --> 40:13.000
From.

40:13.000 --> 40:14.000
Our lives.

40:14.000 --> 40:15.000
From.

40:15.000 --> 40:16.000
Our lives.

40:16.000 --> 40:17.000
We were essentially.

40:17.000 --> 40:18.000
Torn.

40:18.000 --> 40:19.000
From.

40:19.000 --> 40:20.000
The.

40:20.000 --> 40:21.000
Gaian.

40:21.000 --> 40:22.000
Womb.

40:22.000 --> 40:23.000
Thrust.

40:23.000 --> 40:24.000
Into.

40:24.000 --> 40:25.000
The.

40:25.000 --> 40:26.000
Birth.

40:26.000 --> 40:27.000
Canal.

40:27.000 --> 40:28.000
Of.

40:28.000 --> 40:29.000
History.

40:29.000 --> 40:30.000
And expelled.

40:30.000 --> 40:31.000
Sometime.

40:31.000 --> 40:32.000
Around.

40:32.000 --> 40:33.000
The.

40:33.000 --> 40:34.000
Fall.

40:34.000 --> 40:35.000
Of.

40:35.000 --> 40:36.000
The.

40:36.000 --> 40:37.000
Roman.

40:37.000 --> 40:38.000
Empire.

40:38.000 --> 40:39.000
Into.

40:39.000 --> 40:40.000
The.

40:40.000 --> 40:41.000
Cold.

40:41.000 --> 40:42.000
Hard.

40:42.000 --> 40:43.000
World.

40:43.000 --> 40:44.000
Of.

40:44.000 --> 40:45.000
Modern.

40:45.000 --> 40:46.000
Science.

40:46.000 --> 40:47.000
And.

40:47.000 --> 40:48.000
There.

40:48.000 --> 40:49.000
Are.

40:49.000 --> 40:50.000
Things.

40:50.000 --> 40:51.000
Out.

40:51.000 --> 40:52.000
There.

40:52.000 --> 40:53.000
You.

40:53.000 --> 40:54.000
Know.

40:54.000 --> 40:55.000
Alcohol.

40:55.000 --> 40:56.000
The.

40:56.000 --> 40:57.000
Whole.

40:57.000 --> 40:58.000
Morphine.

40:58.000 --> 40:59.000
Family.

40:59.000 --> 41:00.000
So.

41:00.000 --> 41:01.000
Forth.

41:01.000 --> 41:02.000
And.

41:02.000 --> 41:03.000
So.

41:03.000 --> 41:04.000
But.

41:04.000 --> 41:05.000
These.

41:05.000 --> 41:06.000
Things.

41:06.000 --> 41:07.000
Always.

41:07.000 --> 41:08.000
Have.

41:08.000 --> 41:09.000
Con.

41:09.000 --> 41:10.000
Sequences.

41:10.000 --> 41:11.000
There's.

41:11.000 --> 41:12.000
A.

41:12.000 --> 41:13.000
Price.

41:13.000 --> 41:14.000
To.

41:14.000 --> 41:15.000
Be.

41:15.000 --> 41:16.000
Paid.

41:16.000 --> 41:17.000
Charles.

41:17.000 --> 41:18.000
Johnson.

41:18.000 --> 41:19.000
Watson.

41:19.000 --> 41:20.000
Went.

41:20.000 --> 41:21.000
In.

41:21.000 --> 41:22.000
The.

41:22.000 --> 41:23.000
Early.

41:23.000 --> 41:24.000
1950s.

41:24.000 --> 41:25.000
And.

41:25.000 --> 41:26.000
Found.

41:26.000 --> 41:27.000
These.

41:27.000 --> 41:28.000
Mushrooms.

41:28.000 --> 41:29.000
And.

41:29.000 --> 41:30.000
Brought.

41:30.000 --> 41:31.000
Them.

41:31.000 --> 41:32.000
Out.

41:32.000 --> 41:33.000
And.

41:33.000 --> 41:34.000
Then.

41:34.000 --> 41:35.000
Albert.

41:35.000 --> 41:36.000
Hoffman.

41:36.000 --> 41:37.000
Who.

41:37.000 --> 41:38.000
Had.

41:38.000 --> 41:39.000
Earlier.

41:39.000 --> 41:40.000
Discovered.

41:40.000 --> 41:41.000
LSD.

41:41.000 --> 41:42.000
Synthesize.

41:42.000 --> 41:43.000
The.

41:43.000 --> 41:44.000
Compound.

41:44.000 --> 41:45.000
And.

41:45.000 --> 41:54.840
mowed this field and moved on it's that science has never really been here we

41:54.840 --> 42:02.520
haven't looked at the implications of diet on early human evolution we don't

42:02.520 --> 42:08.700
have a theory for the evolution of consciousness of any consequence and yet

42:08.700 --> 42:14.960
you know the factors I've laid out for you increased visual acuity and impact

42:14.960 --> 42:20.840
on sexual and social behaviors a triggering of glossolalia like phenomena

42:20.840 --> 42:26.240
in the presence of a boundary dissolving psychedelic experience these are

42:26.240 --> 42:32.580
catalysts sufficiently dramatic that inculcated into a cultural style I think

42:32.580 --> 42:40.460
they explain a great deal about where we came from and who we are now the the

42:40.460 --> 42:44.940
irony of all of this is that we don't

42:44.940 --> 42:52.000
live in a society that has made all practically any discussion of this

42:52.000 --> 42:57.660
illegal certainly if I were to end this lecture by handing out doses of

42:57.660 --> 43:06.560
psilocybin I would be gently taken by the elbow and led away forever the

43:06.560 --> 43:14.920
Western mind is particularly phobic of this of this subject

43:14.940 --> 43:18.340
I mean we have bent our laws so that people

43:18.340 --> 43:23.280
can jump out of airplanes in the pursuit of thrills so that they can bungee

43:23.280 --> 43:30.900
cord off major highway bridges and freeway overpass is so concerned are

43:30.900 --> 43:38.960
we to fulfill society's need for thrills but this is something else it wonderful

43:38.960 --> 43:39.940
b fallait

43:39.940 --> 43:43.740
vent from thisром

43:43.740 --> 43:43.880
mundo

43:43.880 --> 43:44.480
us

43:44.480 --> 43:44.740
see you

43:44.740 --> 43:52.880
believe unfairly. I think that when you examine the situation, it's possible to understand very

43:52.880 --> 44:01.800
clearly why this is such a social issue. Because what these things do, if you look, and now I'm

44:01.800 --> 44:08.760
slightly broadening my wrap to include other psychedelics besides psilocybin, but psilocybin is

44:08.760 --> 44:16.780
certainly true in all cases. What these things do, if you had to generalize 100,000 psychedelic

44:16.780 --> 44:21.860
experiences, the ones where people thought they were God, the ones where people had to be taken

44:21.860 --> 44:29.340
to the ER room and have their stomach pumps, all of them, if you generalized, what these

44:29.340 --> 44:38.020
substances do is they dissolve boundaries. They dissolve boundaries. If you love it, you'll love

44:38.020 --> 44:38.240
it.

44:38.240 --> 44:45.220
If you hate it, you'll hate it. But that's what they do. They dissolve boundaries. Now, the reason

44:45.220 --> 44:55.080
this provokes a lot of social anxiety is because all societies are about the maintenance of

44:55.080 --> 45:02.240
boundaries. It doesn't matter whether you're, you know, a stockbroker in New York, a Zen monk in

45:02.240 --> 45:08.080
Kyoto, a Hasid in Jerusalem, your society is held together by boundaries.

45:08.240 --> 45:17.200
And definitions and anything which dissolves those boundaries and introduces relativity into

45:17.200 --> 45:24.920
cultural modeling is felt to be threatening because we like to believe that our reality is

45:24.920 --> 45:33.000
somehow sanctioned, that this is how it should be. But in fact, you know, that's just a cultural

45:33.000 --> 45:38.220
judgment. All cultures think that their culture represents a sanctioned reality.

45:38.240 --> 45:49.440
It doesn't. It just represents the current download of the, their linguistic enterprise.

45:49.440 --> 45:59.620
The, at the core of the Western anxiety about boundaries is something that we are very proud of,

45:59.620 --> 46:09.440
that we believe we invented. We call it the ego. Sometimes we call it the democratic individual.

46:09.440 --> 46:10.440
We, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we,

46:10.440 --> 46:28.620
we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, got broke from copied truths and

46:28.620 --> 46:33.580
world dividedness with a packet of Two Locals .

46:33.580 --> 46:36.100
It turns out it wasn't.

46:36.100 --> 46:37.520
inaire 14.

46:37.520 --> 46:39.400
?One minute break.

46:39.400 --> 46:42.160
the citizen, the individual.

46:42.160 --> 46:46.840
We want nothing of tribalism, still less of collectivism,

46:46.840 --> 46:49.160
and God forbid, nothing whatsoever

46:49.160 --> 46:51.460
to do with communism.

46:51.460 --> 46:57.640
See, all these things set us going.

46:57.640 --> 47:03.220
But in fact, the ego is appropriate only

47:03.220 --> 47:05.060
to a certain point.

47:05.060 --> 47:07.740
I mean, yes, we need egos so that when

47:07.740 --> 47:11.580
you take someone to dinner at a reasonable restaurant,

47:11.580 --> 47:15.360
you place food in your mouth, not their mouth.

47:15.360 --> 47:18.180
This is what the ego is for.

47:18.180 --> 47:19.500
It tells you who pays.

47:25.240 --> 47:28.980
But in fact, what the ego is is the return

47:28.980 --> 47:33.740
to consciousness of this psychic structure related

47:33.740 --> 47:37.260
to the patterns of dominance.

47:37.260 --> 47:41.920
And the way I think of the ego is it's like a cyst,

47:41.920 --> 47:46.080
or a calcareous growth, or a tumor that

47:46.080 --> 47:49.200
gets going in the personality.

47:49.200 --> 47:53.760
And if not treated, it becomes chronic.

47:53.760 --> 47:55.840
And then there is no cure.

47:55.840 --> 47:59.460
There can only be a certain amount of maintenance

47:59.460 --> 48:02.380
and medication of it.

48:02.380 --> 48:07.100
But it's incurable, except unless we resort

48:07.100 --> 48:09.860
to not only non-prescription drugs,

48:09.860 --> 48:13.280
but drugs currently illegal.

48:13.280 --> 48:16.760
In other words, the psychedelics,

48:16.760 --> 48:19.420
through this boundary dissolving function,

48:19.420 --> 48:23.260
dissolve that boundary as well.

48:23.260 --> 48:26.920
And so they promote a larger sense of the world

48:26.920 --> 48:34.260
than the values of capitalism, competitiveness, object

48:34.260 --> 48:36.500
fetishism, property acquisition.

48:37.100 --> 48:42.440
And the bottom line, empower.

48:42.440 --> 48:50.060
So the issue, as was always sensed since the 60s forward,

48:50.060 --> 48:54.920
I think, is not simply an issue of religious freedom,

48:54.920 --> 49:00.020
or an issue of an eccentric minority social practice being

49:00.020 --> 49:06.420
tolerated by the majority the way they tolerate handing out

49:06.420 --> 49:06.900
pamphlets.

49:06.900 --> 49:15.860
it's in airports or something like that. The issue is, in fact, what kind of people shall

49:15.860 --> 49:25.220
we be? And then what kind of society shall we put in place? And that's why my theory

49:25.220 --> 49:34.320
of evolution is not simply a dry footnote on an issue that involves anthropologists,

49:34.320 --> 49:44.820
primatologists, and biologists, but it turns into a political issue. Because our unhappy,

49:45.380 --> 49:54.700
addicted, ego-driven condition has become not simply the source of our own unhappiness,

49:55.060 --> 50:02.200
that was bad enough, but now it's the source of great discomfort and dislocation for all

50:02.200 --> 50:04.300
life and human society.

50:04.320 --> 50:18.920
We are out of control. We are, basically, severely addicted to things, and cannot stop

50:18.920 --> 50:27.940
ourselves. And we know, or we should know, that there is not enough petroleum, heavy

50:27.940 --> 50:33.460
metal, and so forth and so on, in the planet to give all the thing-addicts, to give all

50:33.460 --> 50:34.300
the things-addicts, to give all the things-addicts, to give all the things-addicts, to give

50:34.300 --> 50:38.280
all the things-addicts, to give all the things-addicts, all the things that we know

50:38.280 --> 50:45.180
they must have in order to be happy. We have spread this intellectual virus from

50:45.180 --> 50:53.520
pole to pole, to Turkmenistan and Barneo, to the upper Amazon and to the Tajiks. Everybody

50:53.520 --> 51:02.720
wants kids. Everybody wants the pause that refreshes. What are we going to do about

51:02.720 --> 51:03.440
this?

51:03.440 --> 51:10.480
Well, so far, we've been treating it like an endless garden party. There's no serious

51:10.480 --> 51:16.400
plan on the table to deal with this at all.

51:16.400 --> 51:24.040
I think that the momentum of human history is pushing us inexorably toward some kind

51:24.040 --> 51:33.100
of day of reckoning, in which we are either going to have to turn consciously toward brutality

51:33.100 --> 51:43.440
and selfishness, and say, well, let India go. Let Bangladesh go. Triage costs too much.

51:43.440 --> 51:49.140
Can't possibly fix the problem. In order to maintain our locked compounds and our fifty

51:49.140 --> 51:59.730
channels of television and the endless availability of arugula, we have to let India go.

51:59.730 --> 52:04.310
We're going to have to turn that way. In other words, each consciously participate in a

52:04.310 --> 52:17.150
choice to brutalise the human enterprise, or we're going to have to seriously talk about

52:17.150 --> 52:24.050
very major restructurings of our society. I don't really know how we do that. I was

52:24.050 --> 52:28.550
living in Northern California a couple of years ago, when they wanted to close an air

52:28.550 --> 52:33.610
base near here, and the newspapers were filled with weeks for weeks with announcements they

52:33.610 --> 52:34.170
were being blamed for. They were saying, we ought to go to the playoffs, we ought to

52:34.170 --> 52:40.270
analysis of whether Western civilization could absorb this hammer blow at the very heart

52:40.270 --> 52:45.770
of its institutions of closing one friggin' air base, for crying out loud.

52:45.770 --> 52:51.490
That's not my idea of major change, you know?

52:51.490 --> 52:55.990
We may have to give up some of our pretty things.

52:55.990 --> 53:06.930
We may have to discipline some of the irresponsible social philosophies that run amok among us.

53:06.930 --> 53:10.910
And no, I don't mean the advocacy of psychedelic plants.

53:10.910 --> 53:19.430
I mean the Roman Catholic Church's position on population control in the Third World.

53:19.430 --> 53:25.930
The Germans take quite a knock for the Holocaust, but the Catholic Church manages to push

53:25.930 --> 53:25.950
away.

53:25.990 --> 53:31.930
They push more people into death, disease, and degradation every year than the Holocaust

53:31.930 --> 53:35.030
managed in its entire show.

53:35.030 --> 53:42.510
And it's thought rather crass to even mention the fact.

53:42.510 --> 53:50.090
It seems to me as long as these Catholic bishops can show their face in public that we are

53:50.090 --> 53:52.830
in complicity with mass murder.

53:52.830 --> 53:55.930
It's not pleasant news, but what are you going to do about it?

53:55.930 --> 54:02.930
Islamic fundamentalism, another bunch of knotheads with an anti-human agenda.

54:07.230 --> 54:09.850
What are we going to do about this?

54:09.850 --> 54:16.850
Are we going to go gently into that good night of planetary chaos, extreme distortion

54:17.430 --> 54:24.430
of class structure, defense of what we have at any cost against those who have nothing?

54:25.930 --> 54:30.470
There doesn't seem to be any other plan on the horizon.

54:30.470 --> 54:36.510
Arthur Kessler, who probably never thought he would be quoted by Terence McKenna, a very

54:36.510 --> 54:38.450
conservative character.

54:38.450 --> 54:44.950
You'll recall he was a Marxist who turned on Marxism and led a very interesting intellectual

54:44.950 --> 54:45.950
life.

54:45.950 --> 54:50.930
He wrote a book 30 years ago called The Ghost in the Machine.

54:50.930 --> 54:55.930
And he made a case similar to mine but a little simpler.

54:55.930 --> 55:01.910
He observed, human beings are hardwired for homicide.

55:01.910 --> 55:08.130
This is what we do best because this was something we had to do, apparently, at some point in

55:08.130 --> 55:10.470
our past, at least in Kessler's view.

55:10.470 --> 55:13.490
He didn't believe in a mushroom paradise.

55:13.490 --> 55:19.650
But he reached the same conclusion that I have, which is, we need a pharmacological

55:19.650 --> 55:32.510
intervention on antisocial behavior, or we are not going to get hold of our dilemma.

55:32.510 --> 55:40.270
There have been dystopias based on drug intervention on aggressive behavior.

55:40.270 --> 55:45.150
You all remember Brave New World, where every time anybody raised their voice, they were

55:45.150 --> 55:48.770
given a gram of Soma and told,

55:48.770 --> 55:49.630
A gram is better than a gram.

55:49.630 --> 55:51.750
A gram is better than a gram.

55:51.750 --> 55:56.630
And so nobody ever had a thought in their head, well, that's a terrible drug.

55:56.630 --> 55:58.630
Let's not introduce that.

55:58.630 --> 55:59.630
Uh-oh.

55:59.630 --> 56:02.770
The bad news is, we've had it for decades.

56:02.770 --> 56:05.570
It's called television.

56:05.570 --> 56:14.290
We have millions of people in larval, low-awareness lives in their little condominium apartments,

56:14.290 --> 56:18.610
just ladling this garbage into their minds.

56:18.610 --> 56:18.750
The average American would not be able to do that.

56:18.750 --> 56:24.310
The average American watches five and a half hours of TV a day, so imagine how much time

56:24.310 --> 56:26.310
these people watch.

56:26.310 --> 56:29.690
I mean, to think of that as human at all.

56:29.690 --> 56:32.670
If that were a drug, we'd be up in arms.

56:32.670 --> 56:40.270
If people were loaded at home with that level of mental condition, day after day after day,

56:40.270 --> 56:42.750
we would do something about it.

56:42.750 --> 56:47.870
So my, I don't have, I can't.

56:47.870 --> 56:57.670
I don't want to propose a grand solution, but I do think that it is pregnant with implication

56:57.670 --> 57:03.070
that here at the end of the 20th century, with all of these problems hammering down

57:03.070 --> 57:11.990
on us, the news comes from the rainforests and the deserts that these aboriginal people,

57:11.990 --> 57:17.430
while we made the descent into history and got the top quark and planted the flag on

57:17.430 --> 57:22.050
the moon and all that, they kept the faith.

57:22.050 --> 57:33.870
And they have a materia medica, a tool box, that can carry us back into a connection with

57:33.870 --> 57:34.870
the planet.

57:34.870 --> 57:41.850
Now, the question might be asked, why do you have such overwhelming faith in what is

57:41.850 --> 57:44.790
after all a substance, a drug?

57:44.790 --> 57:49.470
I mean, don't psychedelics just cause you to see pretty...

57:49.470 --> 57:56.370
pictures and patterns and tally up your gains and losses and then you come down

57:56.370 --> 58:03.630
and that's it and the answer is no what is mysterious here and I mentioned it in

58:03.630 --> 58:08.310
the early part of my talk what is mysterious here is this thing we call

58:08.310 --> 58:14.370
the psychedelic experience those people nailed to the ground around the

58:14.370 --> 58:22.050
campfires 50,000 years ago they didn't know what it was and when we go in there

58:22.050 --> 58:29.330
armed with our Heidegger and our Husserl and our Wittgenstein and our

58:29.330 --> 58:35.330
Merleau-Ponty we don't know what it is either there has been no progress in

58:35.330 --> 58:41.330
60,000 years in reducing the psychedelic experience to a known quantity it is as

58:41.330 --> 58:44.330
terrifying as awesome as ecstatic as

58:44.370 --> 58:53.910
irreducible to us as it was to them well what is that as secular people we

58:53.910 --> 59:02.190
rarely experience religious awe especially of the uncontrollable sort I

59:02.190 --> 59:11.090
believe that what makes the psychedelic experience so central is that it is a

59:11.090 --> 59:14.050
connection into a larger

59:14.050 --> 59:14.310
connection into a larger

59:14.310 --> 59:14.350
connection into a larger

59:14.350 --> 59:21.590
modality of organization on the planet which is a fancy way of saying it

59:21.590 --> 59:30.850
connects you up to the mind of nature herself the planet is not just a

59:30.850 --> 59:37.930
hodgepodge of competing species that's the old evolutionary model that's been

59:37.930 --> 59:44.290
obsolete for decades the new evolutionary model is that where we see

59:44.290 --> 59:55.290
species nature sees only a gene swarm genes moving at various speeds being

59:55.290 --> 01:00:01.410
transferred around a large percentage of them by sexual propagation but a

01:00:01.410 --> 01:00:06.990
large percentage of them by asexual and vegetative propagation and still others

01:00:06.990 --> 01:00:13.030
by more exotic methods of propagation such as go on in the fungi and the

01:00:13.030 --> 01:00:14.230
bacteria

01:00:14.230 --> 01:00:22.450
The world is a gene swarm, and people like Lynn Margolis and James Lovelock

01:00:22.450 --> 01:00:28.190
have been suggesting for years that the Earth is a kind of thermostatic self-regulator.

01:00:28.550 --> 01:00:31.070
Well, if you carry that idea far enough,

01:00:31.510 --> 01:00:38.170
thermostatic self-regulator is a way of saying a kind of computational engine,

01:00:38.170 --> 01:00:47.370
a kind of computer, a kind of mind, a kind of mind, the Gaian mind.

01:00:47.690 --> 01:00:55.330
The reason those mushroom-eating, orgiastically behaving people worshipped a great horned goddess,

01:00:55.930 --> 01:01:00.710
the reason they imaged the numinous other as feminine,

01:01:00.710 --> 01:01:07.710
was because they had a connection into a kind of overarching intelligence

01:01:08.470 --> 01:01:13.270
that they instinctively and intuitively felt to be feminine.

01:01:13.810 --> 01:01:19.190
And we retain this in our languages as the idea of Mother Nature

01:01:19.190 --> 01:01:23.210
and the femininity of the land and so forth and so on,

01:01:23.310 --> 01:01:26.970
but it's just become a distant metaphor to us.

01:01:26.970 --> 01:01:34.350
I think our intelligence is a source of toxicity to nature

01:01:34.350 --> 01:01:37.390
and discomfort to ourselves.

01:01:37.390 --> 01:01:44.390
Unless our values are based on planetary values,

01:01:45.170 --> 01:01:48.950
are linked to the values of the rest of nature.

01:01:49.350 --> 01:01:57.030
And that means we need to fit ourselves more appropriately into the scheme of things

01:01:57.030 --> 01:01:59.390
by limiting our numbers,

01:02:00.570 --> 01:02:06.390
by limiting our extraction of natural resources,

01:02:06.390 --> 01:02:06.970
and by limiting our consumption.

01:02:06.970 --> 01:02:07.030
And that's the way we're going to do it.

01:02:07.030 --> 01:02:07.090
And that's the way we're going to do it.

01:02:07.090 --> 01:02:07.370
And that's the way we're going to do it.

01:02:07.370 --> 01:02:07.530
And that's the way we're going to do it.

01:02:07.530 --> 01:02:10.170
And toxification of the environment.

01:02:11.570 --> 01:02:21.170
We need to realize that there is a hegemony of life on the planet,

01:02:21.790 --> 01:02:24.890
not necessarily a hegemony of intelligence.

01:02:25.570 --> 01:02:28.850
Intelligence is not a license to trample.

01:02:29.630 --> 01:02:34.770
The proper role of intelligence in a planetary ecology

01:02:34.770 --> 01:02:36.690
is that of gardener,

01:02:36.690 --> 01:02:43.370
caregiver, and maintainer of balance.

01:02:44.390 --> 01:02:48.200
Well, so where do we go?

01:02:48.300 --> 01:02:51.400
And what do psychedelics have to say about that?

01:02:51.980 --> 01:02:57.740
Well, I believe that psychedelics show us something

01:02:57.740 --> 01:03:07.040
which capitalist, consumer, fetish-oriented society

01:03:07.040 --> 01:03:09.580
doesn't want us to know.

01:03:10.600 --> 01:03:14.780
What psychedelics show us is the incredible richness

01:03:14.780 --> 01:03:21.600
of our minds, that you, little you,

01:03:21.600 --> 01:03:27.260
can produce more art in a 20-minute burst

01:03:27.260 --> 01:03:32.700
of hallucinatory intoxication than the Western mind

01:03:32.700 --> 01:03:35.840
has produced in the last 500 years.

01:03:36.660 --> 01:03:40.600
Our socially created space is incredibly important.

01:03:40.600 --> 01:03:46.660
We have Picasso's contribution and Pollock's contribution

01:03:46.660 --> 01:03:52.180
and everybody's contribution, but it altogether is as nothing

01:03:52.180 --> 01:03:56.080
compared to the richness that resides in each one of us

01:03:56.080 --> 01:03:58.600
a half inch behind your eyebrows.

01:03:59.420 --> 01:04:02.720
We are told, you know, oh, well, if you want beauty,

01:04:02.880 --> 01:04:04.440
you have to own a Lexus.

01:04:04.900 --> 01:04:08.600
Or, you know, if you want a sense of satisfaction,

01:04:08.600 --> 01:04:10.380
then you need a triple car.

01:04:10.600 --> 01:04:12.900
Or, you know, if you want to be in a garage,

01:04:12.900 --> 01:04:15.100
then you need a garage, on and on.

01:04:15.100 --> 01:04:19.100
This is absolutely not true.

01:04:19.100 --> 01:04:24.100
These are substitute addictions that will never satisfy

01:04:24.100 --> 01:04:27.100
for the genuine article, and the genuine article

01:04:27.100 --> 01:04:30.100
is a connection into the Gaian mind.

01:04:30.600 --> 01:04:35.600
Well, I don't believe or expect for a moment that ever again,

01:04:35.600 --> 01:04:40.580
naked, tattooed, and joyous, we will herd our cattle

01:04:40.580 --> 01:04:41.580
to America.

01:04:41.580 --> 01:04:43.580
I mean, there are six million of us.

01:04:43.580 --> 01:04:45.580
That chance has been blown.

01:04:47.580 --> 01:04:54.080
But what can we do to ameliorate our situation?

01:04:54.080 --> 01:04:58.080
Well, I have always been an optimist.

01:04:58.080 --> 01:05:02.080
I'm more optimistic right now than I have been for a long time

01:05:02.080 --> 01:05:04.580
because sometimes when you're an optimist,

01:05:04.580 --> 01:05:07.580
you're an optimist simply on principle.

01:05:07.580 --> 01:05:10.580
You believe it's going to turn out all right.

01:05:10.580 --> 01:05:13.580
But you don't see how it possibly could.

01:05:13.580 --> 01:05:20.580
I'm beginning to see how it possibly could turn out all right.

01:05:20.580 --> 01:05:28.580
And my notion is, first of all, I follow in my thinking

01:05:28.580 --> 01:05:34.580
about shamanism, and I follow the great historian of religion,

01:05:34.580 --> 01:05:39.580
Mersi Eliade, who got it almost all right except that he never embraced

01:05:39.580 --> 01:05:40.580
psychedelics.

01:05:40.580 --> 01:05:42.580
He thought they were decadent.

01:05:42.580 --> 01:05:45.580
But that was just his French-European education,

01:05:45.580 --> 01:05:47.580
and he came too early.

01:05:47.580 --> 01:05:51.580
But anyway, Eliade wrote a book called Shamanism,

01:05:51.580 --> 01:05:56.580
and then he subtitled it The Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.

01:05:56.580 --> 01:05:59.580
Now, he wrote the book in French.

01:05:59.580 --> 01:06:06.580
In French, technique has a connotation that it doesn't have in English.

01:06:06.580 --> 01:06:09.580
It means both a way to do things,

01:06:09.580 --> 01:06:12.580
and it means technology.

01:06:12.580 --> 01:06:18.580
Later, the French sociologist Jacques Ellul wrote a book called Propaganda.

01:06:18.580 --> 01:06:22.580
And the little banner under which his book flew,

01:06:22.580 --> 01:06:25.580
which is printed right on the frontispiece,

01:06:25.580 --> 01:06:29.580
is he says there are no political solutions,

01:06:29.580 --> 01:06:32.580
only technological ones.

01:06:32.580 --> 01:06:35.580
The rest is propaganda.

01:06:35.580 --> 01:06:38.580
And then he spends 200 pages explaining what he means

01:06:38.580 --> 01:06:43.580
by political solutions, technological solutions, and propaganda.

01:06:43.580 --> 01:06:47.580
By Ellul's understanding, I agree.

01:06:47.580 --> 01:06:50.580
I think ideology is toxic.

01:06:50.580 --> 01:06:52.580
All ideology.

01:06:52.580 --> 01:06:55.580
It's not that there are good ones and bad ones.

01:06:55.580 --> 01:06:58.580
All ideology is toxic.

01:06:58.580 --> 01:07:04.580
Because ideology is a kind of insult to the gift of human free thinking.

01:07:04.580 --> 01:07:07.580
I mean, if you adopt some ideology,

01:07:07.580 --> 01:07:10.580
Christianism, Mormonism, it doesn't matter,

01:07:10.580 --> 01:07:13.580
then you have all the answers.

01:07:13.580 --> 01:07:16.580
You just go and look in the catechism.

01:07:16.580 --> 01:07:18.580
Well, I don't know why they issued you a brain.

01:07:18.580 --> 01:07:21.580
They could have just given you the catechism.

01:07:24.580 --> 01:07:31.580
Technology, as the counterpoint to ideology,

01:07:31.580 --> 01:07:33.580
is a very different animal.

01:07:33.580 --> 01:07:36.580
Now, right now, we're going through a technophobic phase,

01:07:36.580 --> 01:07:41.580
because people think technology means exploding nuclear power plants

01:07:41.580 --> 01:07:46.580
and irradiated food and TV.

01:07:46.580 --> 01:07:51.580
But all technology really means, in the McLuhan sense,

01:07:51.580 --> 01:07:54.580
is the extensions of man.

01:07:54.580 --> 01:07:57.580
The extensions of man.

01:07:57.580 --> 01:08:01.580
And so language is a technology.

01:08:01.580 --> 01:08:03.580
Shamanism is a technology.

01:08:03.580 --> 01:08:05.580
Psilocybin is a technology.

01:08:05.580 --> 01:08:11.580
And certainly the internet is a technology.

01:08:11.580 --> 01:08:15.580
It's slowly, I think, dawning on a number of people

01:08:15.580 --> 01:08:21.580
that if we're talking about how lisinogen says consciousness expanding drugs,

01:08:21.580 --> 01:08:24.580
then the only difference between a drug and a computer

01:08:24.580 --> 01:08:28.580
is that one is slightly too large to swallow.

01:08:30.580 --> 01:08:34.580
And our best people are working on that problem.

01:08:34.580 --> 01:08:36.580
Even as we speak,

01:08:36.580 --> 01:08:40.580
the drugs of the future will be much more like computers.

01:08:40.580 --> 01:08:44.580
The computers of the future will be much more like drugs.

01:08:44.580 --> 01:08:47.580
And I think what we have to recognize

01:08:47.580 --> 01:08:54.580
is that we are in a very brief and low-energy technical phase in technology.

01:08:54.580 --> 01:09:01.580
Basically, we're at the tail end of the petrochemical steam era.

01:09:01.580 --> 01:09:03.580
And where we are headed

01:09:03.580 --> 01:09:12.580
is toward the solid-state, fiber-optic, global community of the internet.

01:09:12.580 --> 01:09:16.580
And when I was in San Francisco two weeks ago,

01:09:16.580 --> 01:09:20.580
the buzz was all about VRML,

01:09:20.580 --> 01:09:24.580
the virtual reality markup language

01:09:24.580 --> 01:09:27.580
whose protocols are being set now

01:09:27.580 --> 01:09:30.580
so that we will be able to build websites on the net

01:09:30.580 --> 01:09:32.580
that you can put on your helmet

01:09:32.580 --> 01:09:34.580
and walk around in.

01:09:34.580 --> 01:09:39.580
Sun Microsystems is about to introduce something called Hot Java,

01:09:39.580 --> 01:09:43.580
which will let you build and interact with your website

01:09:43.580 --> 01:09:45.580
without going through your server.

01:09:45.580 --> 01:09:49.580
Bandwidth is broadening as we speak.

01:09:49.580 --> 01:09:56.580
The whole world is being brought into the domain of electricity.

01:09:56.580 --> 01:09:58.580
And you may not know it,

01:09:58.580 --> 01:10:01.580
but Marshall McLuhan thought that this was the descent

01:10:01.580 --> 01:10:03.580
of the Holy Ghost.

01:10:03.580 --> 01:10:06.580
As a convert to Catholicism,

01:10:06.580 --> 01:10:09.580
he sort of went the opposite direction of me.

01:10:09.580 --> 01:10:11.580
As a convert to Catholicism,

01:10:11.580 --> 01:10:15.580
he decided that the descent of the third person of the Trinity

01:10:15.580 --> 01:10:18.580
and the worldwide spread of electricity

01:10:18.580 --> 01:10:21.580
were the same event.

01:10:21.580 --> 01:10:25.580
So, I think that what we have to do

01:10:25.580 --> 01:10:28.580
is dematerialize culture

01:10:28.580 --> 01:10:30.580
in every way possible.

01:10:30.580 --> 01:10:35.580
And that means pharmacologize culture,

01:10:35.580 --> 01:10:39.580
computerize culture,

01:10:39.580 --> 01:10:42.580
network culture,

01:10:42.580 --> 01:10:45.580
virtualize culture,

01:10:45.580 --> 01:10:50.580
and make of it, thereby,

01:10:50.580 --> 01:10:56.580
a tool for the production of our poetic flights,

01:10:56.580 --> 01:10:59.580
a technology for the putting in place

01:10:59.580 --> 01:11:02.580
of our dreams as exhibits

01:11:02.580 --> 01:11:04.580
that we can show each other.

01:11:04.580 --> 01:11:06.580
This is what it is.

01:11:06.580 --> 01:11:08.580
This is what technology can be

01:11:08.580 --> 01:11:11.580
in the service of boundary dissolution.

01:11:11.580 --> 01:11:14.580
In the service of boundary maintenance,

01:11:14.580 --> 01:11:17.580
you get hydrogen bombs and sarin.

01:11:17.580 --> 01:11:21.580
In the surface of boundary dissolution,

01:11:21.580 --> 01:11:24.580
you get psychoactive substances

01:11:24.580 --> 01:11:26.580
and the internet

01:11:26.580 --> 01:11:28.580
and sexual experimentation.

01:11:28.580 --> 01:11:30.580
In the surface of boundary dissolution,

01:11:30.580 --> 01:11:32.580
you get virtual experimentalism,

01:11:32.580 --> 01:11:34.580
social justice,

01:11:34.580 --> 01:11:35.580
tolerance,

01:11:35.580 --> 01:11:37.580
and community.

01:11:37.580 --> 01:11:40.580
And the choice is to be made

01:11:40.580 --> 01:11:42.580
on an individual level

01:11:42.580 --> 01:11:44.580
by each and every one of us.

01:11:44.580 --> 01:11:47.580
I don't advocate a mass outbreak

01:11:47.580 --> 01:11:49.580
of psychedelic use.

01:11:49.580 --> 01:11:53.580
I think these things are a private matter.

01:11:53.580 --> 01:11:55.580
The only thing comparable to them

01:11:55.580 --> 01:11:58.580
in our human experience is our sexuality.

01:11:58.580 --> 01:12:00.580
This is a private matter.

01:12:00.580 --> 01:12:01.580
How we define it,

01:12:01.580 --> 01:12:02.580
how we express it,

01:12:02.580 --> 01:12:03.580
how we act it out,

01:12:03.580 --> 01:12:04.580
who we do it with,

01:12:04.580 --> 01:12:06.580
what we think about it,

01:12:06.580 --> 01:12:09.580
and what we choose to say in public about it

01:12:09.580 --> 01:12:12.580
is all in our hands.

01:12:12.580 --> 01:12:17.580
I do not think that the government,

01:12:17.580 --> 01:12:20.580
under the guise of some phony,

01:12:20.580 --> 01:12:23.580
alarmist, pseudo-scientific rhetoric,

01:12:23.580 --> 01:12:25.580
should attempt to control

01:12:25.580 --> 01:12:27.580
the evolution of consciousness.

01:12:27.580 --> 01:12:28.580
After all,

01:12:28.580 --> 01:12:33.580
if these things truly are consciousness expanding,

01:12:33.580 --> 01:12:36.580
it doesn't take too much intelligence

01:12:36.580 --> 01:12:40.580
to realize that it is the absence of consciousness

01:12:40.580 --> 01:12:42.580
that is causing our flirtation

01:12:42.580 --> 01:12:46.580
with extinction and planetary disaster.

01:12:46.580 --> 01:12:50.580
If there is any way to raise consciousness,

01:12:50.580 --> 01:12:55.580
diet, drug, machine, sexual practice,

01:12:55.580 --> 01:12:57.580
mantra, yantra,

01:12:57.580 --> 01:12:59.580
whatever it is,

01:12:59.580 --> 01:13:03.580
we should be furiously exploring and applying it.

01:13:03.580 --> 01:13:06.580
Because if we should fumble the ball,

01:13:06.580 --> 01:13:08.580
if we should actually,

01:13:08.580 --> 01:13:12.580
where our ancestors over thousands of generations

01:13:12.580 --> 01:13:14.580
did not fail,

01:13:14.580 --> 01:13:16.580
if we are to fail,

01:13:16.580 --> 01:13:20.580
the magnitude of the tragedy will be immense

01:13:20.580 --> 01:13:23.580
because failure is not inevitable.

01:13:23.580 --> 01:13:26.580
It is not inevitable

01:13:26.580 --> 01:13:28.580
that we should fail.

01:13:28.580 --> 01:13:33.580
There are ideas, personalities, technologies

01:13:33.580 --> 01:13:35.580
available right now

01:13:35.580 --> 01:13:40.580
which, if honestly explored and implemented,

01:13:40.580 --> 01:13:44.580
could rescue the human enterprise

01:13:44.580 --> 01:13:47.580
from the disgrace that hovers over us.

01:13:47.580 --> 01:13:50.580
We don't want this to end in a toxified garbage pit

01:13:50.580 --> 01:13:53.580
ruled by Nazis,

01:13:53.580 --> 01:13:56.580
which is the way we may well be headed.

01:13:56.580 --> 01:14:00.580
The Gaian mind has always been there.

01:14:00.580 --> 01:14:02.580
Nature originally,

01:14:02.580 --> 01:14:05.580
through the plants and shamanism,

01:14:05.580 --> 01:14:09.580
provided the tools for us to access

01:14:09.580 --> 01:14:13.580
this incredible natural database.

01:14:13.580 --> 01:14:16.580
Through the vicissitudes of history,

01:14:16.580 --> 01:14:20.580
previous generations lost the key

01:14:20.580 --> 01:14:23.580
in Western society.

01:14:23.580 --> 01:14:25.580
Since the 1960s,

01:14:25.580 --> 01:14:29.580
the key has been refound.

01:14:29.580 --> 01:14:32.580
It's a matter of great social controversy.

01:14:32.580 --> 01:14:36.580
It's a matter of great risk

01:14:36.580 --> 01:14:38.580
to those who take it,

01:14:38.580 --> 01:14:41.580
how they will be viewed by their peers.

01:14:41.580 --> 01:14:43.580
But there is no longer,

01:14:43.580 --> 01:14:46.580
ignorance is no longer an excuse.

01:14:46.580 --> 01:14:49.580
Anthropology in the last hundred years

01:14:49.580 --> 01:14:51.580
has laid at our doorstep

01:14:51.580 --> 01:14:53.580
the tools necessary

01:14:53.580 --> 01:14:56.580
for an archaic reconstruction

01:14:56.580 --> 01:14:58.580
of society

01:14:58.580 --> 01:15:02.580
and human values

01:15:02.580 --> 01:15:05.580
within that society.

01:15:05.580 --> 01:15:07.580
It's inconceivable

01:15:07.580 --> 01:15:10.580
that Western industrial capitalism

01:15:10.580 --> 01:15:12.580
could run on another five hundred

01:15:12.580 --> 01:15:15.580
or a thousand years.

01:15:15.580 --> 01:15:19.580
It will not continue as it has.

01:15:19.580 --> 01:15:21.580
It will deteriorate

01:15:21.580 --> 01:15:23.580
under the pressure of recent

01:15:23.580 --> 01:15:25.580
resource scarcity.

01:15:25.580 --> 01:15:28.580
And what few democratic values

01:15:28.580 --> 01:15:30.580
we have obtained,

01:15:30.580 --> 01:15:32.580
what little space

01:15:32.580 --> 01:15:34.580
for reasoned discourse

01:15:34.580 --> 01:15:36.580
has been created,

01:15:36.580 --> 01:15:38.580
will be the first

01:15:38.580 --> 01:15:40.580
to be swept away.

01:15:40.580 --> 01:15:43.580
So it's very, very important

01:15:43.580 --> 01:15:46.580
that people take back their minds

01:15:46.580 --> 01:15:50.580
and that people analyze our dilemma

01:15:50.580 --> 01:15:52.580
in the context of the entire human story.

01:15:52.580 --> 01:15:55.580
From the descent

01:15:55.580 --> 01:15:57.580
onto the grassland

01:15:57.580 --> 01:16:00.580
to our potential destiny

01:16:00.580 --> 01:16:03.580
as citizens of the galaxy

01:16:03.580 --> 01:16:05.580
and the universe.

01:16:05.580 --> 01:16:08.580
We are at a critical turning point.

01:16:08.580 --> 01:16:09.580
And as I say,

01:16:09.580 --> 01:16:10.580
the tools,

01:16:10.580 --> 01:16:12.580
the data

01:16:12.580 --> 01:16:14.580
that holds the potential

01:16:14.580 --> 01:16:15.580
for our salvation

01:16:15.580 --> 01:16:17.580
is now known.

01:16:17.580 --> 01:16:18.580
It is available.

01:16:18.580 --> 01:16:19.580
It is among us.

01:16:19.580 --> 01:16:21.580
But it is misrepresented

01:16:21.580 --> 01:16:23.580
It is slandered.

01:16:23.580 --> 01:16:25.580
It is litigated against.

01:16:25.580 --> 01:16:28.580
And it's up to each one of us

01:16:28.580 --> 01:16:30.580
to relate to this situation

01:16:30.580 --> 01:16:33.580
in a fashion that will allow us

01:16:33.580 --> 01:16:35.580
to answer the question

01:16:35.580 --> 01:16:37.580
that will surely be put to us

01:16:37.580 --> 01:16:39.580
at some point in the future.

01:16:39.580 --> 01:16:40.580
Which is,

01:16:40.580 --> 01:16:41.580
what did you do

01:16:41.580 --> 01:16:44.580
to help save the world?

01:16:44.580 --> 01:16:47.580
Well, I'll knock off now.

01:16:47.580 --> 01:16:48.580
I'll sign books.

01:16:48.580 --> 01:16:50.580
We'll take like a ten minute break

01:16:50.580 --> 01:16:51.580
and then we'll come back

01:16:51.580 --> 01:16:53.580
and do questions.

01:16:53.580 --> 01:16:54.580
Thank you very much

01:16:54.580 --> 01:17:09.150
for your attention, Pastor.

01:17:09.150 --> 01:17:11.150
And that in fact,

01:17:11.150 --> 01:17:13.150
what we're involved in here

01:17:13.150 --> 01:17:14.150
at the end of the 20th century

01:17:14.150 --> 01:17:18.150
is some kind of accelerated

01:17:18.150 --> 01:17:20.150
forward escape

01:17:20.150 --> 01:17:23.150
into transformation.

01:17:23.150 --> 01:17:25.150
And I,

01:17:25.150 --> 01:17:27.150
when I lecture that subject,

01:17:27.150 --> 01:17:29.150
I more or less imply

01:17:29.150 --> 01:17:31.150
that it's inevitable.

01:17:31.150 --> 01:17:32.150
In other words,

01:17:32.150 --> 01:17:33.150
it's not that we have to do

01:17:33.150 --> 01:17:35.150
X, Y, or Z,

01:17:35.150 --> 01:17:37.150
that it's on track.

01:17:37.150 --> 01:17:38.150
I think it is on track,

01:17:38.150 --> 01:17:40.150
but I also think there's

01:17:40.150 --> 01:17:42.150
a place for the kind of politics

01:17:42.150 --> 01:17:44.150
we discussed this evening.

01:17:44.150 --> 01:17:45.150
Because as the world

01:17:45.150 --> 01:17:47.150
gets crazier and crazier,

01:17:47.150 --> 01:17:49.150
a lot of people are going to get

01:17:49.150 --> 01:17:51.150
very, very anxious.

01:17:51.150 --> 01:17:53.150
This thing in Oklahoma City

01:17:53.150 --> 01:17:54.150
is an example of people

01:17:54.150 --> 01:17:56.150
getting anxious.

01:17:56.150 --> 01:17:59.150
So what needs to be done

01:17:59.150 --> 01:18:02.150
is to spread the idea

01:18:02.150 --> 01:18:06.150
that anxiety is inappropriate.

01:18:06.150 --> 01:18:07.150
It's sort of like

01:18:07.150 --> 01:18:09.150
we who are psychedelic

01:18:09.150 --> 01:18:11.150
have to function as sitters

01:18:11.150 --> 01:18:13.150
for society.

01:18:13.150 --> 01:18:17.150
Because society is going to thrash

01:18:17.150 --> 01:18:19.150
and resist

01:18:19.150 --> 01:18:21.150
and think it's dying

01:18:21.150 --> 01:18:23.150
and be deluded

01:18:23.150 --> 01:18:25.150
and regurgitate

01:18:25.150 --> 01:18:26.150
unconscious material

01:18:26.150 --> 01:18:28.150
and so forth and so on.

01:18:28.150 --> 01:18:30.150
And the goal

01:18:30.150 --> 01:18:31.150
and the role then

01:18:31.150 --> 01:18:33.150
for psychedelic people I think

01:18:33.150 --> 01:18:35.150
is to try and spread calm.

01:18:35.150 --> 01:18:36.150
I'm very convinced

01:18:36.150 --> 01:18:37.150
that things are going to get

01:18:37.150 --> 01:18:39.150
a lot nuttier than they are

01:18:39.150 --> 01:18:41.150
and they're a lot nuttier now

01:18:41.150 --> 01:18:43.150
than they have been for a while.

01:18:43.150 --> 01:18:45.150
But it isn't,

01:18:45.150 --> 01:18:48.150
it doesn't mean the bad people

01:18:48.150 --> 01:18:49.150
are winning

01:18:49.150 --> 01:18:50.150
or that we're going to fumble

01:18:50.150 --> 01:18:52.150
the ball or anything.

01:18:52.150 --> 01:18:54.150
The mushroom said to me once,

01:18:54.150 --> 01:18:55.150
it said,

01:18:55.150 --> 01:18:56.150
this is what it's like

01:18:56.150 --> 01:18:58.150
when a species departs

01:18:58.150 --> 01:19:00.150
for the stars.

01:19:00.150 --> 01:19:02.150
It's a birth thing.

01:19:02.150 --> 01:19:04.150
It's complicated.

01:19:04.150 --> 01:19:06.150
If you had never seen

01:19:06.150 --> 01:19:07.150
a human birth

01:19:07.150 --> 01:19:08.150
and you came around

01:19:08.150 --> 01:19:10.150
the corner of a building

01:19:10.150 --> 01:19:11.150
in your daily round

01:19:11.150 --> 01:19:13.150
and it was happening,

01:19:13.150 --> 01:19:16.150
it vibrates medical emergency.

01:19:16.150 --> 01:19:18.150
I mean, blood is being shed,

01:19:18.150 --> 01:19:20.150
tissues stretched,

01:19:20.150 --> 01:19:22.150
it doesn't,

01:19:22.150 --> 01:19:23.150
you really have to have

01:19:23.150 --> 01:19:25.150
your chops together

01:19:25.150 --> 01:19:27.150
to step back and say,

01:19:27.150 --> 01:19:28.150
how wonderful,

01:19:28.150 --> 01:19:29.150
new life,

01:19:29.150 --> 01:19:32.150
new life coming into the world.

01:19:32.150 --> 01:19:35.150
Because, you know,

01:19:35.150 --> 01:19:37.150
that's not the vibe of it.

01:19:37.150 --> 01:19:39.150
And I think that's the circumstance

01:19:39.150 --> 01:19:41.150
that we're in.

01:19:41.150 --> 01:19:43.150
This is the birth canal

01:19:43.150 --> 01:19:45.150
to a new order.

01:19:45.150 --> 01:19:46.150
And at the moment,

01:19:46.150 --> 01:19:48.150
it looks like suffocation,

01:19:48.150 --> 01:19:50.150
constriction,

01:19:50.150 --> 01:19:52.150
limitation,

01:19:52.150 --> 01:19:54.150
possible death.

01:19:54.150 --> 01:19:58.150
But we need to inform ourselves

01:19:58.150 --> 01:20:01.150
and get a big perspective.

01:20:01.150 --> 01:20:02.150
And there's no way

01:20:02.150 --> 01:20:04.150
to get a big perspective

01:20:04.150 --> 01:20:05.150
like education

01:20:05.150 --> 01:20:08.150
and psychedelic experiences.

01:20:08.150 --> 01:20:10.150
If we can see history

01:20:10.150 --> 01:20:11.150
for what it is,

01:20:11.150 --> 01:20:14.150
it's a 25,000-year

01:20:14.150 --> 01:20:17.150
nearly instantaneous transition

01:20:17.150 --> 01:20:19.150
from one state of being

01:20:19.150 --> 01:20:20.150
to another.

01:20:20.150 --> 01:20:21.150
And yes,

01:20:21.150 --> 01:20:23.150
there are 1,500 generations

01:20:23.150 --> 01:20:24.150
of people

01:20:24.150 --> 01:20:27.150
who live in that

01:20:27.150 --> 01:20:30.150
paper-thin transition time.

01:20:30.150 --> 01:20:32.150
But when it's over,

01:20:32.150 --> 01:20:33.150
it's over.

01:20:33.150 --> 01:20:35.150
And we will leave history behind

01:20:35.150 --> 01:20:37.150
the way you dump

01:20:37.150 --> 01:20:38.150
a used placenta,

01:20:38.150 --> 01:20:40.150
I'm sure.

01:20:40.150 --> 01:20:41.150
Yeah?

01:20:41.150 --> 01:20:42.150
I wonder,

01:20:42.150 --> 01:20:44.150
is there any reliable information

01:20:44.150 --> 01:20:45.150
on the relationship

01:20:45.150 --> 01:20:46.150
between psychedelics

01:20:46.150 --> 01:20:49.150
and early Christianity?

01:20:49.150 --> 01:20:51.150
Reliable information

01:20:51.150 --> 01:20:52.150
on psychedelic use

01:20:52.150 --> 01:20:54.150
in early Christianity?

01:20:54.150 --> 01:20:56.150
The answer is no.

01:20:56.150 --> 01:20:57.150
I mean,

01:20:57.150 --> 01:20:59.150
there is a book

01:20:59.150 --> 01:21:00.150
by John Allegro

01:21:00.150 --> 01:21:01.150
called

01:21:01.150 --> 01:21:02.150
The Sacred Mushroom

01:21:02.150 --> 01:21:03.150
and the Cross.

01:21:03.150 --> 01:21:05.150
He was a very respected

01:21:05.150 --> 01:21:06.150
Dead Sea scholar

01:21:06.150 --> 01:21:08.150
till he wrote that book.

01:21:10.150 --> 01:21:12.150
And that basically finished

01:21:12.150 --> 01:21:14.150
his career as a classicist.

01:21:14.150 --> 01:21:16.150
He says some incredibly

01:21:16.150 --> 01:21:17.150
provocative things

01:21:17.150 --> 01:21:19.150
in that book.

01:21:19.150 --> 01:21:21.150
To judge whether he's right

01:21:21.150 --> 01:21:22.150
or wrong,

01:21:22.150 --> 01:21:24.150
you would have to be

01:21:24.150 --> 01:21:26.150
an Assyrian philologist.

01:21:26.150 --> 01:21:29.150
About which I know nothing.

01:21:29.150 --> 01:21:31.150
So to the lay person,

01:21:31.150 --> 01:21:32.150
it seemed to be

01:21:32.150 --> 01:21:34.150
quite an impressive book.

01:21:34.150 --> 01:21:35.150
But apparently,

01:21:35.150 --> 01:21:38.150
to his specialist colleagues,

01:21:38.150 --> 01:21:40.150
it was sloppy thinking

01:21:40.150 --> 01:21:41.150
and a travesty

01:21:41.150 --> 01:21:43.150
and reason to deny tenure.

01:21:47.150 --> 01:21:49.150
Saint Augustine

01:21:49.150 --> 01:21:51.150
was a Montanist

01:21:51.150 --> 01:21:53.150
before he,

01:21:53.150 --> 01:21:55.150
no, he was a Manichean.

01:21:55.150 --> 01:21:57.150
Before he converted

01:21:57.150 --> 01:21:58.150
to Christianity.

01:21:58.150 --> 01:22:00.150
And he mentions

01:22:00.150 --> 01:22:02.150
that Manicheans

01:22:02.150 --> 01:22:04.150
forbade the use

01:22:04.150 --> 01:22:05.150
of mushrooms,

01:22:05.150 --> 01:22:06.150
the eating of mushrooms.

01:22:06.150 --> 01:22:07.150
It doesn't say

01:22:07.150 --> 01:22:08.150
the use of mushrooms.

01:22:08.150 --> 01:22:11.150
But the ancient Middle East,

01:22:11.150 --> 01:22:13.150
we don't know very much

01:22:13.150 --> 01:22:16.150
about psychedelic sacramentalism.

01:22:16.150 --> 01:22:18.150
It may have been there.

01:22:18.150 --> 01:22:20.150
It may not have been there.

01:22:20.150 --> 01:22:22.150
Absence of reference

01:22:22.150 --> 01:22:24.150
is not proof of absence

01:22:24.150 --> 01:22:27.150
because of cult secrecy

01:22:27.150 --> 01:22:29.150
and other factors like that.

01:22:29.150 --> 01:22:31.150
We do know that the,

01:22:31.150 --> 01:22:32.150
or we feel

01:22:32.150 --> 01:22:34.150
we're on firmer ground

01:22:34.150 --> 01:22:35.150
in saying

01:22:35.150 --> 01:22:38.150
that the Greek mystery religions

01:22:38.150 --> 01:22:42.150
emphatically probably were psychedelic,

01:22:42.150 --> 01:22:45.150
especially the Eleusinian mysteries,

01:22:45.150 --> 01:22:47.150
the mysteries which were practiced

01:22:47.150 --> 01:22:50.150
on the plain outside of Athens

01:22:50.150 --> 01:22:53.150
every year for over 2,000 years.

01:22:53.150 --> 01:22:56.150
And everybody who was anybody

01:22:56.150 --> 01:22:58.150
in the ancient world

01:22:58.150 --> 01:23:00.150
made the journey to Eleusis

01:23:00.150 --> 01:23:03.150
to celebrate the greater mysteries

01:23:03.150 --> 01:23:05.150
which were celebrated in September.

01:23:05.150 --> 01:23:07.150
Interesting approach

01:23:07.150 --> 01:23:08.150
to psychedelics there.

01:23:08.150 --> 01:23:10.150
You could only

01:23:10.150 --> 01:23:12.150
legitimately participate

01:23:12.150 --> 01:23:14.150
in the mystery at Eleusis

01:23:14.150 --> 01:23:16.150
once in your life.

01:23:16.150 --> 01:23:18.150
So imagine if you

01:23:18.150 --> 01:23:21.150
had a single high-dose

01:23:21.150 --> 01:23:23.150
psychedelic experience

01:23:23.150 --> 01:23:25.150
under ideal conditions,

01:23:25.150 --> 01:23:26.150
in other words,

01:23:26.150 --> 01:23:27.150
in darkness,

01:23:27.150 --> 01:23:29.150
under the care of experts,

01:23:29.150 --> 01:23:31.150
and then the rest of your life

01:23:31.150 --> 01:23:33.150
you had to sort it all out

01:23:33.150 --> 01:23:34.150
based on what happened

01:23:34.150 --> 01:23:36.150
that one evening.

01:23:36.150 --> 01:23:39.150
It was extraordinarily powerful

01:23:39.150 --> 01:23:40.150
for the ancient world.

01:23:40.150 --> 01:23:42.150
Eventually it was destroyed.

01:23:42.150 --> 01:23:44.150
Alaric the Visigoth,

01:23:44.150 --> 01:23:46.150
who was a barbarian,

01:23:46.150 --> 01:23:47.150
but that didn't stop him

01:23:47.150 --> 01:23:50.150
from being a convert to Christianity.

01:23:50.150 --> 01:23:53.150
Alaric the Visigoth,

01:23:53.150 --> 01:23:56.150
burned Eleusis

01:23:56.150 --> 01:23:58.150
on his way to North Africa

01:23:58.150 --> 01:24:00.150
to burn other things.

01:24:00.150 --> 01:24:02.150
Yeah?

01:24:02.150 --> 01:24:03.150
I was wondering, Terrence,

01:24:03.150 --> 01:24:04.150
if you had a chance to read

01:24:04.150 --> 01:24:05.150
The Emperor's New Mind

01:24:05.150 --> 01:24:08.150
by Roger Penrose, I think.

01:24:08.150 --> 01:24:10.150
It's an argument against the idea

01:24:10.150 --> 01:24:14.150
of AI, artificial intelligence.

01:24:14.150 --> 01:24:15.150
And whether you were able

01:24:15.150 --> 01:24:17.150
to follow his argument,

01:24:17.150 --> 01:24:18.150
because I would take it

01:24:18.150 --> 01:24:19.150
that you'd probably be opposed

01:24:19.150 --> 01:24:21.150
to his argument.

01:24:21.150 --> 01:24:22.150
I haven't read the book,

01:24:22.150 --> 01:24:26.150
I like Roger Penrose's early work.

01:24:26.150 --> 01:24:28.150
He's saying artificial intelligence

01:24:28.150 --> 01:24:30.150
is impossible.

01:24:30.150 --> 01:24:32.150
Yeah, based on,

01:24:32.150 --> 01:24:34.150
and he goes through the Turing,

01:24:34.150 --> 01:24:36.150
and I heard you bring it up once.

01:24:36.150 --> 01:24:38.150
The Turing test.

01:24:38.150 --> 01:24:39.150
The Turing test

01:24:39.150 --> 01:24:40.150
for artificial intelligence,

01:24:40.150 --> 01:24:43.150
and he also brings in

01:24:43.150 --> 01:24:46.150
the incompleteness theorem.

01:24:46.150 --> 01:24:47.150
Oh, Gödel's

01:24:47.150 --> 01:24:49.150
incommensurability thing.

01:24:49.150 --> 01:24:51.150
Maybe a little on that.

01:24:51.150 --> 01:24:52.150
A little Gödel's

01:24:52.150 --> 01:24:53.150
incompleteness theorem.

01:24:53.150 --> 01:24:54.150
Gödel, please.

01:24:56.150 --> 01:24:59.150
In two-four time.

01:24:59.150 --> 01:25:03.490
Well, I don't have

01:25:03.490 --> 01:25:05.490
a particularly strong opinion

01:25:05.490 --> 01:25:07.490
one way or another on AI.

01:25:07.490 --> 01:25:10.490
I certainly think computers

01:25:10.490 --> 01:25:12.490
can be a lot more intelligent

01:25:12.490 --> 01:25:13.490
than they are

01:25:13.490 --> 01:25:14.490
before we settle the question

01:25:14.490 --> 01:25:15.490
of whether they can pass

01:25:15.490 --> 01:25:17.490
the Turing test.

01:25:17.490 --> 01:25:19.490
You all know the Turing test

01:25:19.490 --> 01:25:21.490
is this test.

01:25:21.490 --> 01:25:23.490
Alan Turing was a mathematician.

01:25:23.490 --> 01:25:25.490
He figured it out during World War II,

01:25:25.490 --> 01:25:26.490
and it's basically

01:25:26.490 --> 01:25:29.490
if you call X on a telephone

01:25:29.490 --> 01:25:31.490
and you can't tell whether X

01:25:31.490 --> 01:25:34.490
is a person or a machine,

01:25:34.490 --> 01:25:38.490
then X passes the Turing test.

01:25:38.490 --> 01:25:39.490
And every year,

01:25:39.490 --> 01:25:42.490
they have Turing tests

01:25:42.490 --> 01:25:45.490
where judges converse

01:25:45.490 --> 01:25:47.490
by telephone with computers

01:25:47.490 --> 01:25:49.490
and people

01:25:49.490 --> 01:25:50.490
and try and decide

01:25:50.490 --> 01:25:52.490
which are the computers

01:25:52.490 --> 01:25:54.490
and which are the people.

01:25:54.490 --> 01:25:57.490
And it's still pretty easy

01:25:57.490 --> 01:25:59.490
because the people

01:25:59.490 --> 01:26:01.490
exhibit exasperation,

01:26:01.490 --> 01:26:03.490
incorrect information,

01:26:03.490 --> 01:26:05.490
misinterpret the question,

01:26:05.490 --> 01:26:07.490
and so forth and so on.

01:26:12.490 --> 01:26:14.490
There are some wild thinkers

01:26:14.490 --> 01:26:18.490
out there, far wilder than me,

01:26:18.490 --> 01:26:19.490
of, you know,

01:26:19.490 --> 01:26:21.490
if you want to read a wild book,

01:26:21.490 --> 01:26:25.490
read Hans Moravec's book,

01:26:25.490 --> 01:26:26.490
Mind Children,

01:26:26.490 --> 01:26:28.490
The Future of Human

01:26:28.490 --> 01:26:30.490
and Artificial Intelligence.

01:26:30.490 --> 01:26:32.490
There's a book.

01:26:32.490 --> 01:26:36.490
And I'm having a memory lapse here.

01:26:36.490 --> 01:26:38.490
Help me out, Tipler.

01:26:38.490 --> 01:26:39.490
I said help me out

01:26:39.490 --> 01:26:40.490
with a memory lapse.

01:26:40.490 --> 01:26:41.490
You don't have to read my mind,

01:26:41.490 --> 01:26:43.490
for God's sake.

01:26:43.490 --> 01:26:45.490
Yes.

01:26:45.490 --> 01:26:47.490
Thank you, Creon.

01:26:47.490 --> 01:26:50.490
Tipler's book is,

01:26:50.490 --> 01:26:55.490
the end of all speculation

01:26:55.490 --> 01:26:57.490
where artificial intelligence

01:26:57.490 --> 01:26:59.490
is concerned.

01:26:59.490 --> 01:27:03.490
I think machine-human interfacing

01:27:03.490 --> 01:27:05.490
is very important.

01:27:05.490 --> 01:27:07.490
I think that the debate

01:27:07.490 --> 01:27:08.490
about whether a computer

01:27:08.490 --> 01:27:09.490
can think like a human being

01:27:09.490 --> 01:27:11.490
is kind of not very interesting.

01:27:11.490 --> 01:27:13.490
Computers think like computers.

01:27:13.490 --> 01:27:16.490
Already, vast amounts

01:27:16.490 --> 01:27:18.490
of what we call human society

01:27:18.490 --> 01:27:19.490
are entirely run

01:27:19.490 --> 01:27:21.490
by machines,

01:27:21.490 --> 01:27:23.490
including very important

01:27:23.490 --> 01:27:25.490
financial sectors,

01:27:25.490 --> 01:27:28.490
market decisions,

01:27:28.490 --> 01:27:31.490
resource extraction decisions,

01:27:31.490 --> 01:27:33.490
inventory resupply decisions

01:27:33.490 --> 01:27:35.490
that feed clear back

01:27:35.490 --> 01:27:37.490
from the warehouse to the mine.

01:27:37.490 --> 01:27:40.490
In other words, machines say

01:27:40.490 --> 01:27:42.490
how much tin should be extracted

01:27:42.490 --> 01:27:44.490
and at what rate,

01:27:44.490 --> 01:27:45.490
and therefore to a certain degree

01:27:45.490 --> 01:27:47.490
say who should come to work

01:27:47.490 --> 01:27:48.490
and who shouldn't

01:27:48.490 --> 01:27:50.490
on certain days.

01:27:50.490 --> 01:27:54.490
A lot of design work of circuitry,

01:27:54.490 --> 01:27:56.490
engineers will simply tell a computer

01:27:56.490 --> 01:27:59.490
what the circuit should do

01:27:59.490 --> 01:28:01.490
and leave the actual architecture

01:28:01.490 --> 01:28:04.490
of the circuitry to machine decision.

01:28:04.490 --> 01:28:06.490
This means, you know,

01:28:06.490 --> 01:28:08.490
more and more parts of the human world

01:28:08.490 --> 01:28:10.490
are being over,

01:28:10.490 --> 01:28:13.490
given over to machines to design.

01:28:13.490 --> 01:28:15.490
But when you see how much of the world

01:28:15.490 --> 01:28:17.490
looks like the arrival concourse

01:28:17.490 --> 01:28:20.490
of an international airport,

01:28:20.490 --> 01:28:22.490
having computers design the world

01:28:22.490 --> 01:28:26.490
might not be a bad idea.

01:28:26.490 --> 01:28:30.490
Definitely computers figure in our future.

01:28:30.490 --> 01:28:32.490
I mean, I wasn't joking when I said

01:28:32.490 --> 01:28:34.490
drugs and computers are migrating

01:28:34.490 --> 01:28:35.490
toward each other.

01:28:35.490 --> 01:28:38.490
I can imagine a world,

01:28:38.490 --> 01:28:40.490
and this is not the ultimate world

01:28:40.490 --> 01:28:41.490
by any means,

01:28:41.490 --> 01:28:43.490
a world five, six, seven years

01:28:43.490 --> 01:28:44.490
in the future

01:28:44.490 --> 01:28:46.490
where the equivalent of today's

01:28:46.490 --> 01:28:49.490
advanced Macintosh

01:28:49.490 --> 01:28:51.490
would be something you glue

01:28:51.490 --> 01:28:53.490
on your thumbnail

01:28:53.490 --> 01:28:56.490
and communicate with that way.

01:28:56.490 --> 01:28:58.490
And, you know, beyond that lie,

01:28:58.490 --> 01:29:02.490
you know, enormous computational

01:29:02.490 --> 01:29:04.490
and data-accessing abilities

01:29:04.490 --> 01:29:11.490
that may be accessed through implants.

01:29:11.490 --> 01:29:13.490
We're going to have to decide, you know,

01:29:13.490 --> 01:29:15.490
how much of the monkey

01:29:15.490 --> 01:29:18.490
we want to take with us into the future.

01:29:18.490 --> 01:29:22.490
We don't want to take the homicidal killer.

01:29:22.490 --> 01:29:28.490
We don't want to take the male dominator.

01:29:28.490 --> 01:29:32.490
But we, it would probably be a mistake

01:29:32.490 --> 01:29:36.490
to leave the body entirely behind.

01:29:36.490 --> 01:29:39.490
After all, the body gives us

01:29:39.490 --> 01:29:41.490
our orientation in the world

01:29:41.490 --> 01:29:43.490
and our sense of ourselves

01:29:43.490 --> 01:29:48.490
as somehow coextensive with animal life.

01:29:48.490 --> 01:29:52.490
But how much of what we call human

01:29:52.490 --> 01:29:54.490
is really human

01:29:54.490 --> 01:29:56.490
is going to be a major topic

01:29:56.490 --> 01:29:58.490
for discussion

01:29:58.490 --> 01:30:00.490
from here to the end of time.

01:30:00.490 --> 01:30:02.490
Yeah, in the back.

01:30:02.490 --> 01:30:04.490
Two questions on ecstasy.

01:30:04.490 --> 01:30:06.490
Number one, what's your take on MDMA

01:30:06.490 --> 01:30:09.490
and what's the optimum grams to take

01:30:09.490 --> 01:30:12.490
to achieve sexual ecstasy?

01:30:12.490 --> 01:30:15.490
Sexual ecstasy on ecstasy?

01:30:15.490 --> 01:30:17.490
No, sexual ecstasy on mushrooms.

01:30:17.490 --> 01:30:18.490
Oh, on mushrooms.

01:30:18.490 --> 01:30:20.490
Oh, I see.

01:30:20.490 --> 01:30:23.490
Well, first about MDMA.

01:30:23.490 --> 01:30:25.490
Well, there is no doubt

01:30:25.490 --> 01:30:27.490
that from here to the end of time,

01:30:27.490 --> 01:30:29.490
whether it be 18 years

01:30:29.490 --> 01:30:31.490
or a thousand years away,

01:30:31.490 --> 01:30:33.490
science is going to produce

01:30:33.490 --> 01:30:36.490
more and more psychoactive drugs.

01:30:36.490 --> 01:30:39.490
There are psychoactive drugs on the shelf now

01:30:39.490 --> 01:30:41.490
waiting for human testing

01:30:41.490 --> 01:30:45.490
and government approval around the world.

01:30:45.490 --> 01:30:47.490
We cannot explore the brain,

01:30:47.490 --> 01:30:50.490
we cannot explore neurochemistry

01:30:50.490 --> 01:30:52.490
without these drugs being

01:30:52.490 --> 01:30:54.490
a natural consequence

01:30:54.490 --> 01:30:57.490
of this program of research.

01:30:57.490 --> 01:31:00.490
MDMA is a cyclicized amphetamine

01:31:00.490 --> 01:31:03.490
like MDA, like mescaline,

01:31:03.490 --> 01:31:06.490
which is a naturally occurring

01:31:06.490 --> 01:31:09.490
compound of this type.

01:31:09.490 --> 01:31:13.090
In the hands of a skilled doctor,

01:31:13.090 --> 01:31:15.090
a skilled psychotherapist,

01:31:15.090 --> 01:31:19.090
MDMA leads to conflict resolution,

01:31:19.090 --> 01:31:22.090
insights into relationships,

01:31:22.090 --> 01:31:24.090
this sort of thing.

01:31:24.090 --> 01:31:26.090
I'm not entirely convinced

01:31:26.090 --> 01:31:28.090
that it's the silver bullet

01:31:28.090 --> 01:31:30.090
for these conditions.

01:31:30.090 --> 01:31:33.090
Every drug that has made its way

01:31:33.090 --> 01:31:37.090
onto the alternative culture scene

01:31:37.090 --> 01:31:41.090
has first billed itself as a love drug.

01:31:41.090 --> 01:31:44.090
That's an unfailing market ploy

01:31:44.090 --> 01:31:47.090
to get a drug to the forefront

01:31:47.090 --> 01:31:49.090
of public attention.

01:31:49.090 --> 01:31:52.090
Cannabis was sold to us as a love drug.

01:31:52.090 --> 01:31:55.090
LSD, psilocybin,

01:31:55.090 --> 01:31:59.090
ibogaine, MDMA

01:31:59.090 --> 01:32:01.090
is no different.

01:32:01.090 --> 01:32:03.090
MDMA does promote

01:32:03.090 --> 01:32:05.090
a certain kind of empathy,

01:32:05.090 --> 01:32:07.090
not a whole lot of

01:32:07.090 --> 01:32:10.090
vigorous sexual activity.

01:32:10.090 --> 01:32:14.090
In terms of what dose of psilocybin

01:32:14.090 --> 01:32:17.090
leads you into a sexual

01:32:17.090 --> 01:32:19.090
rather than a visually acute

01:32:19.090 --> 01:32:24.090
or visionarily ecstatified situation,

01:32:24.090 --> 01:32:28.090
I would say for a 145 pound person,

01:32:28.090 --> 01:32:31.090
probably two to three grams

01:32:31.090 --> 01:32:36.090
is this agitated, sexually active,

01:32:36.090 --> 01:32:38.090
or if no sex is happening,

01:32:38.090 --> 01:32:40.090
maybe dancing and drumming

01:32:40.090 --> 01:32:41.090
in other words,

01:32:41.090 --> 01:32:45.090
thoroughly aroused, busy, active dose.

01:32:45.090 --> 01:32:47.090
As the dose rises,

01:32:47.090 --> 01:32:49.090
you know, activity slows

01:32:49.090 --> 01:32:51.090
and finally you just want to sit down

01:32:51.090 --> 01:32:53.090
and then finally you just want to lay down

01:32:53.090 --> 01:32:56.090
and then you're into the other phase.

01:32:56.090 --> 01:32:58.090
Behind you there was another question.

01:32:58.090 --> 01:33:00.090
Yeah, I was going to say that

01:33:00.090 --> 01:33:02.090
John Lilly has an interesting

01:33:02.090 --> 01:33:04.090
kind of speculation about the future

01:33:04.090 --> 01:33:06.090
possibilities of solid state entities

01:33:06.090 --> 01:33:08.090
in his autobiography The Scientist.

01:33:08.090 --> 01:33:09.090
But I was really curious

01:33:09.090 --> 01:33:11.090
if you have anything to say

01:33:11.090 --> 01:33:13.090
or know about the credibility

01:33:13.090 --> 01:33:14.090
of the author William Cooper

01:33:14.090 --> 01:33:15.090
who wrote a book called

01:33:15.090 --> 01:33:17.090
Behold a Pale Horse.

01:33:17.090 --> 01:33:18.090
Do you know that book?

01:33:18.090 --> 01:33:22.090
This is the flying saucer debunker.

01:33:22.090 --> 01:33:25.090
And isn't he the one who said

01:33:25.090 --> 01:33:27.090
that he was the CIA guy

01:33:27.090 --> 01:33:29.090
for a long time?

01:33:29.090 --> 01:33:34.090
Well, this is slightly off the track

01:33:34.090 --> 01:33:36.090
or might seem to some people

01:33:36.090 --> 01:33:38.090
to be slightly off the track.

01:33:38.090 --> 01:33:41.090
I don't know William Cooper's book.

01:33:41.090 --> 01:33:44.090
I regard that whole flying saucer thing

01:33:44.090 --> 01:33:47.090
as a civil war in a leper colony.

01:33:47.090 --> 01:33:55.090
But I do think having been,

01:33:55.090 --> 01:33:56.090
like probably most of you,

01:33:56.090 --> 01:33:58.090
very interested in flying saucers

01:33:58.090 --> 01:34:00.090
from the time I was a kid

01:34:00.090 --> 01:34:02.090
and I grew up when it was all happening,

01:34:02.090 --> 01:34:04.090
a couple of years ago

01:34:04.090 --> 01:34:06.090
I accepted an invitation

01:34:06.090 --> 01:34:08.090
for the first time to go to a flying saucer

01:34:08.090 --> 01:34:10.090
conference.

01:34:10.090 --> 01:34:12.090
If you've never been to one

01:34:12.090 --> 01:34:14.090
and you're interested in flying saucers,

01:34:14.090 --> 01:34:16.090
go.

01:34:16.090 --> 01:34:18.090
You will have more insights

01:34:18.090 --> 01:34:20.090
into the phenomenon

01:34:20.090 --> 01:34:22.090
in a conference like that

01:34:22.090 --> 01:34:24.090
than in ten years of studying it

01:34:24.090 --> 01:34:26.090
because what's perfectly clear

01:34:26.090 --> 01:34:28.090
is that these people are

01:34:28.090 --> 01:34:31.090
self-selected for gullibility.

01:34:31.090 --> 01:34:34.750
And it's not their fault.

01:34:34.750 --> 01:34:37.750
It's just that the ticket

01:34:37.750 --> 01:34:38.750
through the front door

01:34:38.750 --> 01:34:40.750
is, you know,

01:34:40.750 --> 01:34:41.750
would you believe this?

01:34:41.750 --> 01:34:42.750
Would you believe this?

01:34:45.750 --> 01:34:48.750
I think probably what happened,

01:34:48.750 --> 01:34:50.750
historically speaking,

01:34:50.750 --> 01:34:52.750
is that, you know,

01:34:52.750 --> 01:34:55.750
in 1947 when the first UFOs were seen,

01:34:55.750 --> 01:34:58.750
it was a weird world.

01:34:58.750 --> 01:35:00.750
The explosion of the atom bomb,

01:35:00.750 --> 01:35:03.750
the work toward the hydrogen bomb,

01:35:03.750 --> 01:35:05.750
people didn't know.

01:35:05.750 --> 01:35:07.750
Einstein and Truman and all this,

01:35:07.750 --> 01:35:08.750
they didn't know

01:35:08.750 --> 01:35:10.750
what it really meant.

01:35:10.750 --> 01:35:12.750
They thought that it is conceivable

01:35:12.750 --> 01:35:15.750
that the solar system is monitored

01:35:15.750 --> 01:35:16.750
and it is conceivable

01:35:16.750 --> 01:35:18.750
that this is the switch

01:35:18.750 --> 01:35:20.750
which turns on the monitor

01:35:20.750 --> 01:35:22.750
and brings attention.

01:35:22.750 --> 01:35:23.750
I mean, they were in awe

01:35:23.750 --> 01:35:24.750
of the atom bomb

01:35:24.750 --> 01:35:25.750
and they realized

01:35:25.750 --> 01:35:26.750
they were tampering

01:35:26.750 --> 01:35:28.750
with cosmic forces.

01:35:28.750 --> 01:35:30.750
And then at this moment

01:35:30.750 --> 01:35:32.750
of cosmic awe

01:35:32.750 --> 01:35:35.750
and realization of tampering,

01:35:35.750 --> 01:35:36.750
they begin to get reports

01:35:36.750 --> 01:35:37.750
of spacecraft,

01:35:37.750 --> 01:35:39.750
entering the skies of Earth

01:35:39.750 --> 01:35:41.750
and interacting with human beings.

01:35:41.750 --> 01:35:43.750
Well, what they did,

01:35:43.750 --> 01:35:46.750
the CIA had just been founded in 48

01:35:46.750 --> 01:35:47.750
and so forth and so on.

01:35:47.750 --> 01:35:48.750
What they did

01:35:48.750 --> 01:35:51.750
is they put a lot of time and effort

01:35:51.750 --> 01:35:54.750
into infiltrating all these groups

01:35:54.750 --> 01:35:55.750
that claimed knowledge

01:35:55.750 --> 01:35:57.750
of what was going on.

01:35:57.750 --> 01:36:00.750
And as a survivor of the new left,

01:36:00.750 --> 01:36:01.750
I can tell you

01:36:01.750 --> 01:36:03.750
when the government gets interested

01:36:03.750 --> 01:36:04.750
in infiltrating,

01:36:04.750 --> 01:36:05.750
I mean,

01:36:05.750 --> 01:36:06.750
there were,

01:36:06.750 --> 01:36:10.750
two out of every three members of SDS

01:36:10.750 --> 01:36:12.750
was a government informant

01:36:12.750 --> 01:36:15.750
at the height of its membership.

01:36:15.750 --> 01:36:17.750
So I believe that what happened

01:36:17.750 --> 01:36:19.750
was these flying saucer groups

01:36:19.750 --> 01:36:21.750
were massively infiltrated

01:36:21.750 --> 01:36:22.750
by the government

01:36:22.750 --> 01:36:24.750
in the course of its

01:36:24.750 --> 01:36:27.750
pursuing its constitutional obligation

01:36:27.750 --> 01:36:30.750
to maintain the public welfare.

01:36:30.750 --> 01:36:34.750
And by 54 or 55,

01:36:34.750 --> 01:36:36.750
the government was put

01:36:36.750 --> 01:36:37.750
in a position

01:36:37.750 --> 01:36:38.750
that was perfectly convinced

01:36:38.750 --> 01:36:41.750
that whatever flying saucers were,

01:36:41.750 --> 01:36:43.750
they did not pose a threat

01:36:43.750 --> 01:36:45.750
to the integrity of the air defenses

01:36:45.750 --> 01:36:47.750
of North America.

01:36:47.750 --> 01:36:50.750
And that was their real concern.

01:36:50.750 --> 01:36:53.750
But bureaucracies are weird creatures.

01:36:53.750 --> 01:36:54.750
They really exist

01:36:54.750 --> 01:36:57.750
only to perpetuate themselves.

01:36:57.750 --> 01:36:58.750
So at some point

01:36:58.750 --> 01:37:00.750
inside these agencies,

01:37:00.750 --> 01:37:02.750
they must have had to face the fact

01:37:02.750 --> 01:37:05.750
that they had massively infiltrated

01:37:05.750 --> 01:37:08.750
a bunch of very flaky people.

01:37:08.750 --> 01:37:09.750
And now their choice

01:37:09.750 --> 01:37:11.750
was to either end the program,

01:37:11.750 --> 01:37:13.750
tell the budget people

01:37:13.750 --> 01:37:14.750
that no,

01:37:14.750 --> 01:37:15.750
they wouldn't be needing

01:37:15.750 --> 01:37:18.750
that 10 million dollars this year,

01:37:18.750 --> 01:37:20.750
or keep going with it

01:37:20.750 --> 01:37:23.750
because they now had a group of people

01:37:23.750 --> 01:37:26.750
self-selected for gullibility.

01:37:26.750 --> 01:37:27.750
And that group of people

01:37:27.750 --> 01:37:29.750
became the victims

01:37:29.750 --> 01:37:31.750
of every chemical experiment,

01:37:31.750 --> 01:37:33.750
weird technology,

01:37:33.750 --> 01:37:34.750
propaganda,

01:37:34.750 --> 01:37:36.750
experiment,

01:37:36.750 --> 01:37:37.750
and so forth and so on,

01:37:37.750 --> 01:37:39.750
because their friends and relatives

01:37:39.750 --> 01:37:41.750
had already written them off

01:37:41.750 --> 01:37:46.750
as completely untrustworthy.

01:37:46.750 --> 01:37:47.750
Who would believe them

01:37:47.750 --> 01:37:50.750
no matter what story they told?

01:37:50.750 --> 01:37:51.750
So I really felt

01:37:51.750 --> 01:37:55.750
I was among severely damaged people.

01:37:55.750 --> 01:37:57.750
And it wasn't their fault.

01:37:57.750 --> 01:37:59.750
It's that they had become

01:37:59.750 --> 01:38:00.750
part of something

01:38:00.750 --> 01:38:02.750
that had become part of something

01:38:02.750 --> 01:38:04.750
that had become part of something.

01:38:04.750 --> 01:38:06.750
And they never really

01:38:06.750 --> 01:38:08.750
had a fighting chance.

01:38:08.750 --> 01:38:09.750
Do strange lights

01:38:09.750 --> 01:38:11.750
haunt the skies of Earth?

01:38:11.750 --> 01:38:13.750
You bet their booties they do.

01:38:13.750 --> 01:38:15.750
But the flying saucer cults

01:38:15.750 --> 01:38:17.750
are a social phenomenon

01:38:17.750 --> 01:38:19.750
and largely unrelated

01:38:19.750 --> 01:38:23.750
to whatever this anomaly is.

01:38:23.750 --> 01:38:25.750
Yeah?

01:38:25.750 --> 01:38:28.750
Dr. Buckminster Fuller

01:38:28.750 --> 01:38:29.750
often spoke of the

01:38:29.750 --> 01:38:31.750
femoralization of technology.

01:38:31.750 --> 01:38:32.750
Do you think there will come a time

01:38:32.750 --> 01:38:34.750
when we are going to see

01:38:34.750 --> 01:38:35.750
something indistinguishable

01:38:35.750 --> 01:38:36.750
from our technology?

01:38:36.750 --> 01:38:37.750
And would that be

01:38:37.750 --> 01:38:38.750
sort of apotheosis

01:38:38.750 --> 01:38:39.750
that you speak about

01:38:39.750 --> 01:38:40.750
in your books?

01:38:40.750 --> 01:38:41.750
No, I think it would go

01:38:41.750 --> 01:38:42.750
the other way,

01:38:42.750 --> 01:38:43.750
that we're moving toward a time

01:38:43.750 --> 01:38:44.750
when our technology

01:38:44.750 --> 01:38:47.750
is indistinguishable from us.

01:38:47.750 --> 01:38:48.750
In other words,

01:38:48.750 --> 01:38:54.750
I don't want us to all turn into

01:38:54.750 --> 01:38:56.750
7,180 AV.

01:38:56.750 --> 01:38:59.750
That doesn't seem like a good idea.

01:38:59.750 --> 01:39:00.750
But on the other hand,

01:39:00.750 --> 01:39:02.750
I could imagine

01:39:02.750 --> 01:39:04.750
as a hopeful scenario

01:39:04.750 --> 01:39:06.750
a future world

01:39:06.750 --> 01:39:07.750
of, let's say,

01:39:07.750 --> 01:39:09.750
500 or a billion

01:39:09.750 --> 01:39:13.750
healthy, happy, well-fed people

01:39:13.750 --> 01:39:17.750
of all races, political persuasions,

01:39:17.750 --> 01:39:18.750
gender preferences,

01:39:18.750 --> 01:39:20.750
and so forth and so on.

01:39:20.750 --> 01:39:23.750
And those people would

01:39:23.750 --> 01:39:24.750
essentially live

01:39:24.750 --> 01:39:27.750
as our archaic ancestors did,

01:39:27.750 --> 01:39:30.750
very little material culture,

01:39:30.750 --> 01:39:33.750
very nomadic,

01:39:33.750 --> 01:39:35.750
but if you could transport yourself

01:39:35.750 --> 01:39:39.750
into the body of one of these people,

01:39:39.750 --> 01:39:40.750
you would discover that

01:39:40.750 --> 01:39:42.750
when they close their eyes,

01:39:42.750 --> 01:39:46.750
there are menus hanging in space.

01:39:46.750 --> 01:39:48.750
In other words,

01:39:48.750 --> 01:39:50.750
the computer that was

01:39:50.750 --> 01:39:52.750
on the back of the thumbnail,

01:39:52.750 --> 01:39:54.750
five years later,

01:39:54.750 --> 01:39:56.750
that computer moves into being

01:39:56.750 --> 01:39:58.750
a kind of an implant,

01:39:58.750 --> 01:40:00.750
a black contact lens

01:40:00.750 --> 01:40:02.750
that is sewn into your eyelids

01:40:02.750 --> 01:40:04.750
at age six,

01:40:04.750 --> 01:40:05.750
so that when you close your eyes,

01:40:05.750 --> 01:40:07.750
you're actually looking

01:40:07.750 --> 01:40:09.750
at an interface.

01:40:09.750 --> 01:40:12.750
And the entire database

01:40:12.750 --> 01:40:14.750
of the culture

01:40:14.750 --> 01:40:16.750
could be placed there.

01:40:16.750 --> 01:40:17.750
You see, really,

01:40:17.750 --> 01:40:18.750
what computers are doing

01:40:18.750 --> 01:40:20.750
is they're making what we call

01:40:20.750 --> 01:40:22.750
the collective unconscious

01:40:22.750 --> 01:40:24.750
conscious.

01:40:24.750 --> 01:40:25.750
All data,

01:40:25.750 --> 01:40:27.750
all images

01:40:27.750 --> 01:40:30.750
are potentially accessible

01:40:30.750 --> 01:40:31.750
through

01:40:31.750 --> 01:40:33.750
the network.

01:40:33.750 --> 01:40:34.750
And, you know,

01:40:34.750 --> 01:40:36.750
I'm still getting used

01:40:36.750 --> 01:40:39.750
to the idea of the network myself.

01:40:39.750 --> 01:40:40.750
Like, I keep thinking,

01:40:40.750 --> 01:40:43.750
oh, I have this timeline,

01:40:43.750 --> 01:40:45.750
I could get somebody's chronology

01:40:45.750 --> 01:40:47.750
and put it at my website,

01:40:47.750 --> 01:40:49.750
and then I remember,

01:40:49.750 --> 01:40:50.750
no, no,

01:40:50.750 --> 01:40:52.750
all I have to do is point

01:40:52.750 --> 01:40:54.750
to their website.

01:40:54.750 --> 01:40:58.750
I don't have to copy or move anything.

01:40:58.750 --> 01:41:00.750
If there is one list

01:41:00.750 --> 01:41:02.750
that's all the world needs,

01:41:02.750 --> 01:41:04.750
anybody else who needs that list

01:41:04.750 --> 01:41:06.750
can point to it

01:41:06.750 --> 01:41:08.750
from their website.

01:41:08.750 --> 01:41:10.750
So the speed

01:41:10.750 --> 01:41:12.750
at which new structures

01:41:12.750 --> 01:41:14.750
can be created

01:41:14.750 --> 01:41:16.750
is astonishing.

01:41:16.750 --> 01:41:18.750
I mean, almost literally overnight,

01:41:18.750 --> 01:41:20.750
you can build a website

01:41:20.750 --> 01:41:22.750
and begin to point

01:41:22.750 --> 01:41:24.750
at other websites

01:41:24.750 --> 01:41:26.750
and bring resources

01:41:26.750 --> 01:41:28.750
into yours.

01:41:28.750 --> 01:41:30.750
This is a technology

01:41:30.750 --> 01:41:32.750
which is going to turn out

01:41:32.750 --> 01:41:34.750
to not be what people think it is.

01:41:34.750 --> 01:41:36.750
It's going to be a technology

01:41:36.750 --> 01:41:38.750
for showing each other

01:41:38.750 --> 01:41:40.750
the inside of our heads,

01:41:40.750 --> 01:41:43.750
for showing each other our dreams.

01:41:43.750 --> 01:41:45.750
You know, one thing I didn't talk about

01:41:45.750 --> 01:41:47.750
in the main part of the lecture

01:41:47.750 --> 01:41:49.750
is that psychedelics

01:41:49.750 --> 01:41:52.750
are catalysts for language.

01:41:52.750 --> 01:41:54.750
They speed up and catalyze

01:41:54.750 --> 01:41:57.750
the language formation process.

01:41:57.750 --> 01:42:00.750
And a culture cannot evolve

01:42:00.750 --> 01:42:02.750
any faster

01:42:02.750 --> 01:42:05.750
than its language evolves.

01:42:05.750 --> 01:42:07.750
And it cannot be

01:42:07.750 --> 01:42:09.750
any more glued together

01:42:09.750 --> 01:42:11.750
than the bandwidth

01:42:11.750 --> 01:42:14.750
that its languages will tolerate.

01:42:14.750 --> 01:42:17.750
And so what this technology

01:42:17.750 --> 01:42:19.750
that is putting in place

01:42:19.750 --> 01:42:20.750
is going to mean

01:42:20.750 --> 01:42:22.750
is the way in which

01:42:22.750 --> 01:42:24.750
it will dissolve boundaries

01:42:24.750 --> 01:42:26.750
is by making us transparent

01:42:26.750 --> 01:42:28.750
to each other.

01:42:28.750 --> 01:42:29.750
I mean, I can imagine

01:42:29.750 --> 01:42:31.750
a child of the future.

01:42:31.750 --> 01:42:33.750
We all bring home

01:42:33.750 --> 01:42:35.750
our drawings

01:42:35.750 --> 01:42:37.750
to stick on refrigerators

01:42:37.750 --> 01:42:38.750
and things like that.

01:42:38.750 --> 01:42:39.750
In the future,

01:42:39.750 --> 01:42:40.750
we won't stick them

01:42:40.750 --> 01:42:41.750
on refrigerators.

01:42:41.750 --> 01:42:42.750
We will stick them

01:42:42.750 --> 01:42:43.750
in our website.

01:42:43.750 --> 01:42:44.750
And everything

01:42:44.750 --> 01:42:46.750
will go into our website.

01:42:46.750 --> 01:42:47.750
And by the time

01:42:47.750 --> 01:42:50.750
we're 25 or something,

01:42:50.750 --> 01:42:52.750
our website will be the size

01:42:52.750 --> 01:42:53.750
of the American Museum

01:42:53.750 --> 01:42:55.750
of Natural History.

01:42:55.750 --> 01:42:58.750
And you can wander through it.

01:42:58.750 --> 01:43:01.750
And as a gesture of intimacy,

01:43:01.750 --> 01:43:03.750
you can invite someone else

01:43:03.750 --> 01:43:04.750
to wander through it.

01:43:04.750 --> 01:43:06.750
Well, that's who you are.

01:43:06.750 --> 01:43:09.750
It's your imagination.

01:43:09.750 --> 01:43:11.750
And I think, in a sense,

01:43:11.750 --> 01:43:13.750
I've said at times

01:43:13.750 --> 01:43:14.750
that the cultural enterprise

01:43:14.750 --> 01:43:16.750
is an effort to turn ourselves

01:43:16.750 --> 01:43:18.750
inside out.

01:43:18.750 --> 01:43:20.750
We want to put the body

01:43:20.750 --> 01:43:23.750
into the imagination.

01:43:23.750 --> 01:43:25.750
And we want the imagination

01:43:25.750 --> 01:43:28.750
to replace the laws of physics.

01:43:28.750 --> 01:43:29.750
With these technologies,

01:43:29.750 --> 01:43:31.750
we can probably do that.

01:43:31.750 --> 01:43:33.750
But it'll have to run

01:43:33.750 --> 01:43:35.750
on psychedelic design principles

01:43:35.750 --> 01:43:37.750
or it's certain to be a mess.

01:43:37.750 --> 01:43:38.750
Yeah?

01:43:38.750 --> 01:43:40.750
Yes, what could you tell us

01:43:40.750 --> 01:43:41.750
about the problems

01:43:41.750 --> 01:43:42.750
that some people experience

01:43:42.750 --> 01:43:43.750
with the digestibility

01:43:43.750 --> 01:43:44.750
of the mushrooms

01:43:44.750 --> 01:43:46.750
and how it can lead to pain

01:43:46.750 --> 01:43:48.750
and some discomfort

01:43:48.750 --> 01:43:50.750
and sometimes to like

01:43:50.750 --> 01:43:52.750
a nightmarish type experience?

01:43:52.750 --> 01:43:53.750
Well, first of all,

01:43:53.750 --> 01:43:55.750
let me say this.

01:43:55.750 --> 01:43:57.750
There are several mushrooms

01:43:57.750 --> 01:43:59.750
which contain psilocybin

01:43:59.750 --> 01:44:01.750
which grow in cow dung.

01:44:01.750 --> 01:44:03.750
What I urge people to do

01:44:03.750 --> 01:44:05.750
if you're serious about this

01:44:05.750 --> 01:44:08.750
is to grow your own.

01:44:08.750 --> 01:44:11.750
This is moderately self-serving

01:44:11.750 --> 01:44:12.750
because I wrote a book

01:44:12.750 --> 01:44:13.750
about how to grow

01:44:13.750 --> 01:44:15.750
your own mushrooms.

01:44:15.750 --> 01:44:17.750
But there are many such books.

01:44:17.750 --> 01:44:19.750
You don't have to buy mine.

01:44:19.750 --> 01:44:20.750
You only need it

01:44:20.750 --> 01:44:22.750
if you want the best one.

01:44:24.750 --> 01:44:26.750
But you see here,

01:44:26.750 --> 01:44:28.750
and Stamets' book is excellent.

01:44:28.750 --> 01:44:30.750
And if you want to go large scale,

01:44:30.750 --> 01:44:32.750
Stamets' book is the one.

01:44:32.750 --> 01:44:34.750
But let me say something then.

01:44:36.750 --> 01:44:38.750
After the brain,

01:44:38.750 --> 01:44:41.750
the stomach is the most heavily

01:44:41.750 --> 01:44:44.750
innervated organ in the body.

01:44:44.750 --> 01:44:47.750
And anxiety has a way

01:44:47.750 --> 01:44:50.750
of cropping up as a stomach ache.

01:44:50.750 --> 01:44:53.750
So it's, a lot of people

01:44:53.750 --> 01:44:55.750
have anxiety in the first hour

01:44:55.750 --> 01:44:57.750
of taking mushrooms.

01:44:57.750 --> 01:44:59.750
And they believe that something

01:44:59.750 --> 01:45:01.750
in the mushroom is giving them

01:45:01.750 --> 01:45:03.750
gastric distress.

01:45:03.750 --> 01:45:04.750
It really isn't.

01:45:04.750 --> 01:45:07.750
It's more like a case of butterflies

01:45:07.750 --> 01:45:09.750
on an empty stomach.

01:45:09.750 --> 01:45:11.750
Because you should take mushrooms

01:45:11.750 --> 01:45:13.750
on an empty stomach.

01:45:13.750 --> 01:45:17.750
You can try a suppository.

01:45:17.750 --> 01:45:19.750
You can try another drug

01:45:19.750 --> 01:45:21.750
if you want.

01:45:21.750 --> 01:45:22.750
But there is,

01:45:22.750 --> 01:45:24.750
in this psychedelic business,

01:45:24.750 --> 01:45:26.750
something to be said

01:45:26.750 --> 01:45:28.750
for simply disciplining

01:45:28.750 --> 01:45:30.750
your hind brain.

01:45:30.750 --> 01:45:32.750
Also, you can suppress

01:45:32.750 --> 01:45:34.750
nausea with cannabis.

01:45:34.750 --> 01:45:36.750
So, you know, a mixture

01:45:36.750 --> 01:45:38.750
of self-discipline,

01:45:38.750 --> 01:45:41.750
pharmacological steering,

01:45:41.750 --> 01:45:44.750
so forth and so on.

01:45:44.750 --> 01:45:47.750
If you have a severe reaction

01:45:47.750 --> 01:45:49.750
to the mushroom,

01:45:49.750 --> 01:45:51.750
you probably shouldn't take it.

01:45:51.750 --> 01:45:53.750
I mean, after all, it is a fungus.

01:45:53.750 --> 01:45:55.750
And as mammals,

01:45:55.750 --> 01:45:56.750
we have developed

01:45:56.750 --> 01:45:58.750
some pretty strong

01:45:58.750 --> 01:46:00.750
allergenic reactions

01:46:00.750 --> 01:46:02.750
to fungi, some of us.

01:46:02.750 --> 01:46:05.750
And certain reactions

01:46:05.750 --> 01:46:07.750
to psilocybin are not

01:46:07.750 --> 01:46:09.750
psychedelic reactions,

01:46:09.750 --> 01:46:12.750
like enormous sweating

01:46:12.750 --> 01:46:14.750
or something like that.

01:46:14.750 --> 01:46:16.750
That's more an indication

01:46:16.750 --> 01:46:17.750
of an allergy.

01:46:17.750 --> 01:46:18.750
If you're going to get

01:46:18.750 --> 01:46:19.750
into psychedelics,

01:46:19.750 --> 01:46:21.750
one of the things you have to do

01:46:21.750 --> 01:46:24.750
is learn your way around.

01:46:24.750 --> 01:46:26.750
Psychedelic sophistication

01:46:26.750 --> 01:46:27.750
doesn't mean you took

01:46:27.750 --> 01:46:29.750
everything there is

01:46:29.750 --> 01:46:31.750
in combination with everything

01:46:31.750 --> 01:46:33.750
else there is

01:46:33.750 --> 01:46:34.750
at high doses

01:46:34.750 --> 01:46:36.750
with your friends

01:46:36.750 --> 01:46:38.750
at rock concerts.

01:46:39.750 --> 01:46:42.750
It means that you figured out

01:46:42.750 --> 01:46:44.750
what worked for you

01:46:44.750 --> 01:46:46.750
and then really put the pedal

01:46:46.750 --> 01:46:48.750
to the metal.

01:46:48.750 --> 01:46:49.750
You know?

01:46:49.750 --> 01:46:50.750
Yeah?

01:46:50.750 --> 01:46:52.750
I recently came across

01:46:52.750 --> 01:46:54.750
David Tennyson's work

01:46:54.750 --> 01:46:55.750
on forwardly rearranged

01:46:55.750 --> 01:46:57.750
monatomic elements.

01:46:57.750 --> 01:46:59.750
And you found that these

01:46:59.750 --> 01:47:01.750
monatomic heavy metals

01:47:01.750 --> 01:47:03.750
conduct active superconductors,

01:47:03.750 --> 01:47:04.750
conduct light and force

01:47:04.750 --> 01:47:05.750
through our nervous system.

01:47:05.750 --> 01:47:06.750
Are you familiar with

01:47:06.750 --> 01:47:08.750
his work at all?

01:47:08.750 --> 01:47:09.750
No.

01:47:09.750 --> 01:47:11.750
You've stumped the star.

01:47:12.750 --> 01:47:14.750
I mean, I'm interested

01:47:14.750 --> 01:47:16.750
in organic superconductivity

01:47:16.750 --> 01:47:17.750
and room temperature

01:47:17.750 --> 01:47:19.750
superconductivity.

01:47:19.750 --> 01:47:21.750
But I don't know his work,

01:47:21.750 --> 01:47:23.750
so I can't comment on it.

01:47:23.750 --> 01:47:25.750
You said he's going to be

01:47:25.750 --> 01:47:26.750
coming out with a book

01:47:26.750 --> 01:47:27.750
in six to nine months

01:47:27.750 --> 01:47:28.750
called Ormes,

01:47:28.750 --> 01:47:29.750
O-R-M-E-S,

01:47:29.750 --> 01:47:30.750
Ormes,

01:47:30.750 --> 01:47:31.750
which is orderly rearranged

01:47:31.750 --> 01:47:34.750
monatomic elements.

01:47:34.750 --> 01:47:36.750
I'm sure it will find its way

01:47:36.750 --> 01:47:37.750
to my desk.

01:47:37.750 --> 01:47:38.750
Now all these hands.

01:47:38.750 --> 01:47:39.750
Oh, he should be the guy,

01:47:39.750 --> 01:47:40.750
you tell me.

01:47:40.750 --> 01:47:42.750
All right.

01:47:42.750 --> 01:47:45.750
How much of our consensus reality

01:47:45.750 --> 01:47:47.750
do you think is based on

01:47:47.750 --> 01:47:49.750
inexorable physical laws

01:47:49.750 --> 01:47:50.750
and things that aren't

01:47:50.750 --> 01:47:51.750
of our own creation?

01:47:51.750 --> 01:47:54.750
And how much, if any,

01:47:54.750 --> 01:47:56.750
is subject to change without notice

01:47:56.750 --> 01:47:59.750
simply based on a consensus belief

01:47:59.750 --> 01:48:01.750
of what should be

01:48:01.750 --> 01:48:07.240
or what is going to be?

01:48:07.240 --> 01:48:08.240
Well, I mean,

01:48:08.240 --> 01:48:11.240
this is sort of where I'm at.

01:48:11.240 --> 01:48:12.240
I mean, as you were

01:48:12.240 --> 01:48:13.240
asking the question,

01:48:13.240 --> 01:48:15.240
I was, my tendency would be

01:48:15.240 --> 01:48:17.240
to say none,

01:48:17.240 --> 01:48:18.240
that none of our reality

01:48:18.240 --> 01:48:21.240
is based on inexorable physical law.

01:48:21.240 --> 01:48:23.240
But I only want

01:48:23.240 --> 01:48:25.240
that to be true.

01:48:25.240 --> 01:48:27.240
I'm not sure it is true.

01:48:27.240 --> 01:48:28.240
Whitehead used to,

01:48:28.240 --> 01:48:29.240
he had this thing about

01:48:29.240 --> 01:48:32.240
what he called stubborn facts.

01:48:32.240 --> 01:48:33.240
And he said,

01:48:33.240 --> 01:48:35.240
there are some stubborn facts,

01:48:35.240 --> 01:48:37.240
and you can cut your philosophy

01:48:37.240 --> 01:48:38.240
any way you want,

01:48:38.240 --> 01:48:39.240
but if you don't take account

01:48:39.240 --> 01:48:41.240
of the stubborn facts,

01:48:41.240 --> 01:48:44.240
you'll have a problem.

01:48:44.240 --> 01:48:46.240
A lot of reality

01:48:46.240 --> 01:48:48.240
is made of language.

01:48:48.240 --> 01:48:50.240
How much?

01:48:50.240 --> 01:48:52.240
I'm not sure.

01:48:52.240 --> 01:48:54.240
But my hope is

01:48:54.240 --> 01:48:56.240
that a great deal

01:48:56.240 --> 01:48:58.240
is made of language.

01:48:58.240 --> 01:49:00.240
Rupert Sheldrick,

01:49:00.240 --> 01:49:01.240
who's a good friend of mine,

01:49:01.240 --> 01:49:02.240
and we sort of think

01:49:02.240 --> 01:49:04.240
along the same lines,

01:49:04.240 --> 01:49:06.240
he believes that there are not

01:49:06.240 --> 01:49:08.240
inexorable physical laws,

01:49:08.240 --> 01:49:09.240
that there are just

01:49:09.240 --> 01:49:12.240
very old habits.

01:49:12.240 --> 01:49:13.240
He would think of

01:49:13.240 --> 01:49:14.240
the speed of light

01:49:14.240 --> 01:49:18.240
as a very old habit.

01:49:18.240 --> 01:49:20.240
These physical constants

01:49:20.240 --> 01:49:22.240
may be changing.

01:49:22.240 --> 01:49:23.240
We don't know.

01:49:23.240 --> 01:49:25.240
I mean, take the speed of light.

01:49:25.240 --> 01:49:26.240
We've measured it

01:49:26.240 --> 01:49:29.240
on one planet since 1906,

01:49:29.240 --> 01:49:32.240
and cheerfully extrapolate it

01:49:32.240 --> 01:49:33.240
to every corner

01:49:33.240 --> 01:49:34.240
of the known universe

01:49:34.240 --> 01:49:36.240
with no sense that there might be

01:49:36.240 --> 01:49:40.240
a problem there at all.

01:49:40.240 --> 01:49:41.240
Yet, you know,

01:49:41.240 --> 01:49:43.240
if you're a critic of this,

01:49:43.240 --> 01:49:46.240
you can look at the speed of light

01:49:46.240 --> 01:49:48.240
as measured from 1906,

01:49:48.240 --> 01:49:49.240
and you will notice

01:49:49.240 --> 01:49:50.240
that the values

01:49:50.240 --> 01:49:52.240
have been slowly going up.

01:49:52.240 --> 01:49:55.240
It's apparently going slightly faster

01:49:55.240 --> 01:49:57.240
than it was a century ago.

01:49:57.240 --> 01:50:00.240
Well, people just dump on that

01:50:00.240 --> 01:50:01.240
and say,

01:50:01.240 --> 01:50:03.240
no, no, you poor moron,

01:50:03.240 --> 01:50:04.240
you don't understand.

01:50:04.240 --> 01:50:07.240
It's that the instrumentality

01:50:07.240 --> 01:50:09.240
has become more precise,

01:50:09.240 --> 01:50:11.240
and so the measurement

01:50:11.240 --> 01:50:14.240
may have changed slightly.

01:50:14.240 --> 01:50:15.240
Oh, yeah?

01:50:15.240 --> 01:50:16.240
Well, it seems to me

01:50:16.240 --> 01:50:17.240
in that case,

01:50:17.240 --> 01:50:19.240
the points should cluster.

01:50:19.240 --> 01:50:21.240
How come the more recent ones

01:50:21.240 --> 01:50:23.240
are faster than the earlier ones

01:50:23.240 --> 01:50:25.240
consistently?

01:50:25.240 --> 01:50:26.240
In other words,

01:50:26.240 --> 01:50:28.240
it's not that we're getting measurements

01:50:28.240 --> 01:50:30.240
which cluster around a value,

01:50:30.240 --> 01:50:31.240
it's that we're getting measurements

01:50:31.240 --> 01:50:33.240
which are going out this way,

01:50:33.240 --> 01:50:35.240
toward faster.

01:50:37.240 --> 01:50:39.240
I think language is the key

01:50:39.240 --> 01:50:41.240
to making reality.

01:50:41.240 --> 01:50:42.240
I think our language

01:50:42.240 --> 01:50:45.240
is a very weak language.

01:50:45.240 --> 01:50:46.240
Computer languages

01:50:46.240 --> 01:50:48.240
may be more powerful.

01:50:48.240 --> 01:50:50.240
You know, VRML

01:50:50.240 --> 01:50:51.240
or mathematics

01:50:51.240 --> 01:50:54.240
but I believe the world

01:50:54.240 --> 01:50:55.240
is made of language.

01:50:55.240 --> 01:50:57.240
That's the magical belief,

01:50:57.240 --> 01:50:59.240
but then the challenge

01:50:59.240 --> 01:51:00.240
to that belief is,

01:51:00.240 --> 01:51:01.240
okay, wise guy,

01:51:01.240 --> 01:51:02.240
so how come the world

01:51:02.240 --> 01:51:04.240
isn't the way you say it is?

01:51:04.240 --> 01:51:07.240
Well, that's ungenerous.

01:51:11.240 --> 01:51:12.240
I think because

01:51:12.240 --> 01:51:14.240
it doesn't work quite like that.

01:51:14.240 --> 01:51:18.240
Consensus is set by societies,

01:51:18.240 --> 01:51:20.240
by millions of people.

01:51:20.240 --> 01:51:22.240
Reality is a phenomenon

01:51:22.240 --> 01:51:27.240
of many linguistically operating subsystems.

01:51:27.240 --> 01:51:28.240
Maybe if you and I

01:51:28.240 --> 01:51:30.240
were stranded on a desert island,

01:51:30.240 --> 01:51:32.240
we could get a reality going.

01:51:32.240 --> 01:51:33.240
We probably could,

01:51:33.240 --> 01:51:35.240
but it would surely be shattered

01:51:35.240 --> 01:51:37.240
when somebody showed up

01:51:37.240 --> 01:51:40.240
to take us home again.

01:51:40.240 --> 01:51:42.240
Over here.

01:51:42.240 --> 01:51:44.240
Why were findings the only ones

01:51:44.240 --> 01:51:45.240
that used the mushrooms?

01:51:45.240 --> 01:51:46.240
And secondly,

01:51:46.240 --> 01:51:48.240
is there any written documentation

01:51:48.240 --> 01:51:49.240
of this mushroom?

01:51:49.240 --> 01:51:54.240
The documentation,

01:51:54.240 --> 01:51:55.240
well, there wouldn't be

01:51:55.240 --> 01:51:57.240
anything written, of course.

01:51:57.240 --> 01:51:58.240
It's earlier than that,

01:51:58.240 --> 01:52:00.240
but the documentation,

01:52:00.240 --> 01:52:02.240
it is well known

01:52:02.240 --> 01:52:04.240
that the Sahara was wetter

01:52:04.240 --> 01:52:05.240
in the past.

01:52:05.240 --> 01:52:08.240
Even as recently as Roman times,

01:52:08.240 --> 01:52:09.240
Pliny called it

01:52:09.240 --> 01:52:11.240
the breadbasket of Rome.

01:52:11.240 --> 01:52:14.240
And we know that human populations

01:52:14.240 --> 01:52:16.240
were out there.

01:52:16.240 --> 01:52:19.240
We, in the Tesselli,

01:52:19.240 --> 01:52:21.240
in the plateau of southern Algeria,

01:52:21.240 --> 01:52:23.240
there are rock paintings,

01:52:23.240 --> 01:52:26.240
ruprestris paintings,

01:52:26.240 --> 01:52:28.240
that show shamans

01:52:28.240 --> 01:52:30.240
with mushrooms

01:52:30.240 --> 01:52:32.240
sprouting out of their bodies

01:52:32.240 --> 01:52:34.240
and in their hands.

01:52:34.240 --> 01:52:36.240
So we have mushroom use,

01:52:36.240 --> 01:52:39.240
we have evidence of mushroom use

01:52:39.240 --> 01:52:42.240
at the era of the great horned

01:52:42.240 --> 01:52:45.240
Paleolithic goddess.

01:52:45.240 --> 01:52:48.240
The presence or absence

01:52:48.240 --> 01:52:50.240
of monogamy and polygamy

01:52:50.240 --> 01:52:52.240
is debatable.

01:52:52.240 --> 01:52:54.240
So I, however,

01:52:54.240 --> 01:52:57.240
the archaeology of this area

01:52:57.240 --> 01:53:00.240
has not been well studied

01:53:00.240 --> 01:53:02.240
and won't be soon.

01:53:02.240 --> 01:53:04.240
Thanks to Islamic fundamentalism,

01:53:04.240 --> 01:53:06.240
Algeria is no place

01:53:06.240 --> 01:53:08.240
to do archaeology right now.

01:53:08.240 --> 01:53:10.240
Now, to the first part

01:53:10.240 --> 01:53:11.240
of your question,

01:53:11.240 --> 01:53:13.240
why was it human beings

01:53:13.240 --> 01:53:15.240
who ate the mushrooms?

01:53:15.240 --> 01:53:17.240
Well, the question is,

01:53:17.240 --> 01:53:19.240
why did they eat the mushrooms?

01:53:19.240 --> 01:53:23.240
Well, to use the mushrooms

01:53:23.240 --> 01:53:26.240
as a doorway to higher intelligence,

01:53:26.240 --> 01:53:28.240
you would have had to already come

01:53:28.240 --> 01:53:30.240
a certain distance down the path

01:53:30.240 --> 01:53:33.240
of higher animal organization.

01:53:33.240 --> 01:53:35.240
We were bipedal.

01:53:35.240 --> 01:53:40.240
We had a pack signaling repertoire.

01:53:40.240 --> 01:53:42.240
We had binocular vision.

01:53:42.240 --> 01:53:44.240
And the reason we used the mushrooms

01:53:44.240 --> 01:53:46.240
was because we were under

01:53:46.240 --> 01:53:48.240
nutritional pressure.

01:53:48.240 --> 01:53:50.240
There may have been other animals

01:53:50.240 --> 01:53:52.240
under nutritional pressure,

01:53:52.240 --> 01:53:55.240
but they may have been more tightly

01:53:55.240 --> 01:53:58.240
bound to their original diet,

01:53:58.240 --> 01:54:00.240
or they may simply have had

01:54:00.240 --> 01:54:02.240
behavioral organization

01:54:02.240 --> 01:54:04.240
that the mushroom couldn't

01:54:04.240 --> 01:54:06.240
dissolve or break through.

01:54:06.240 --> 01:54:08.240
There has been talk among

01:54:08.240 --> 01:54:11.240
evolutionary biologists about

01:54:11.240 --> 01:54:13.240
if there were no primates

01:54:13.240 --> 01:54:14.240
on this planet,

01:54:14.240 --> 01:54:16.240
what order of animals

01:54:16.240 --> 01:54:20.240
might occupy the conscious niche

01:54:20.240 --> 01:54:22.240
or be able to come in there.

01:54:22.240 --> 01:54:24.240
And interestingly,

01:54:24.240 --> 01:54:28.240
raccoons are candidates.

01:54:28.240 --> 01:54:33.240
Raccoons have well positioned eyes.

01:54:33.240 --> 01:54:36.240
They have a very complex hand.

01:54:36.240 --> 01:54:40.240
And years and years ago,

01:54:40.240 --> 01:54:42.240
I used to grow mushrooms

01:54:42.240 --> 01:54:45.240
and I grew them by my own method,

01:54:45.240 --> 01:54:46.240
naturally.

01:54:46.240 --> 01:54:47.240
In jars.

01:54:47.240 --> 01:54:49.240
And I would have waste rye

01:54:49.240 --> 01:54:51.240
infected with jars.

01:54:51.240 --> 01:54:54.240
I mean, jars infected with

01:54:54.240 --> 01:54:56.240
mycelium permeated rye.

01:54:56.240 --> 01:54:58.240
And I would put it out on the back porch

01:54:58.240 --> 01:55:00.240
at night, or I did once.

01:55:00.240 --> 01:55:02.240
And I awoke in the middle of the night

01:55:02.240 --> 01:55:04.240
to this terrific racket.

01:55:04.240 --> 01:55:06.240
And there were raccoons

01:55:06.240 --> 01:55:08.240
on the back porch.

01:55:08.240 --> 01:55:10.240
They could smell the rye

01:55:10.240 --> 01:55:12.240
infested with the psilocybin

01:55:12.240 --> 01:55:14.240
containing mycelium.

01:55:14.240 --> 01:55:16.240
They could unscrew

01:55:16.240 --> 01:55:18.240
the lids and

01:55:18.240 --> 01:55:20.240
plunge their mitts

01:55:20.240 --> 01:55:22.240
into this stuff.

01:55:22.240 --> 01:55:24.240
And as I turned on the lights,

01:55:24.240 --> 01:55:26.240
I saw these little bandit

01:55:26.240 --> 01:55:28.240
faces with this

01:55:28.240 --> 01:55:30.240
mycelial crumbs

01:55:30.240 --> 01:55:32.240
on their little

01:55:32.240 --> 01:55:34.240
upturned muzzles.

01:55:34.240 --> 01:55:36.240
And they didn't,

01:55:36.240 --> 01:55:38.240
they wouldn't back off.

01:55:38.240 --> 01:55:41.650
They would,

01:55:41.650 --> 01:55:43.650
the other thing was they were standing up

01:55:43.650 --> 01:55:45.650
on their hind legs.

01:55:45.650 --> 01:55:46.650
So they were standing on their hind legs,

01:55:46.650 --> 01:55:48.650
holding a jar,

01:55:48.650 --> 01:55:50.650
holding the stuff,

01:55:50.650 --> 01:55:52.650
and tottering toward me.

01:55:52.650 --> 01:55:54.650
So,

01:55:54.650 --> 01:55:57.900
I just took

01:55:57.900 --> 01:55:59.900
one look and backed

01:55:59.900 --> 01:56:01.900
off.

01:56:01.900 --> 01:56:03.900
And for the rest of

01:56:03.900 --> 01:56:05.900
the evening,

01:56:05.900 --> 01:56:07.900
you could tell that they were

01:56:07.900 --> 01:56:09.900
approaching the orgiastic

01:56:09.900 --> 01:56:11.900
boundary.

01:56:11.900 --> 01:56:13.900
Because the carrying on

01:56:13.900 --> 01:56:15.900
the sexual squeaking

01:56:15.900 --> 01:56:17.900
and squealing and

01:56:17.900 --> 01:56:19.900
thumping and pounding

01:56:19.900 --> 01:56:21.900
going on in the back yard

01:56:21.900 --> 01:56:23.900
was just incredible.

01:56:23.900 --> 01:56:25.900
So,

01:56:25.900 --> 01:56:27.900
you know,

01:56:27.900 --> 01:56:29.900
they might be interesting

01:56:29.900 --> 01:56:31.900
test animals

01:56:31.900 --> 01:56:33.900
to put through this.

01:56:33.900 --> 01:56:35.900
Yeah?

01:56:35.900 --> 01:56:37.900
Male Speaker 1 John

01:56:37.900 --> 01:56:39.900
Millay based his

01:56:39.900 --> 01:56:41.900
passport to Macedonia largely on

01:56:41.900 --> 01:56:43.900
the very great Celtic countries,

01:56:43.900 --> 01:56:45.900
which you obviously are familiar with.

01:56:45.900 --> 01:56:47.900
I wanted to

01:56:47.900 --> 01:56:49.900
have your comments

01:56:49.900 --> 01:56:51.900
on the numinous nature

01:56:51.900 --> 01:56:53.900
of the UFO phenomenon

01:56:53.900 --> 01:56:55.900
with regard to the Celtic faith,

01:56:55.900 --> 01:56:57.900
the Greek fairy faith,

01:56:57.900 --> 01:56:59.900
and the role that this phenomenon,

01:56:59.900 --> 01:57:01.900
which I think you referred to

01:57:01.900 --> 01:57:03.900
as the other earlier in your talk,

01:57:03.900 --> 01:57:05.900
has in the transformation

01:57:05.900 --> 01:57:07.900
that you're describing

01:57:07.900 --> 01:57:09.900
in the future.

01:57:09.900 --> 01:57:11.900
John Millay Yes,

01:57:11.900 --> 01:57:13.900
Jacques Vallée was a UFO researcher

01:57:13.900 --> 01:57:15.900
and the book that was mentioned,

01:57:15.900 --> 01:57:17.900
Passport to Magonia,

01:57:17.900 --> 01:57:19.900
he talks on the subject.

01:57:19.900 --> 01:57:21.900
He's gone through a lot of changes

01:57:21.900 --> 01:57:29.080
about it.

01:57:29.080 --> 01:57:31.080
The numinous,

01:57:31.080 --> 01:57:33.080
I think what's going on

01:57:33.080 --> 01:57:35.080
is that

01:57:35.080 --> 01:57:37.080
in a sense

01:57:37.080 --> 01:57:39.080
there is leakage

01:57:39.080 --> 01:57:41.080
from the future.

01:57:41.080 --> 01:57:43.080
This is a broad subject

01:57:43.080 --> 01:57:45.080
and it's late in the evening,

01:57:45.080 --> 01:57:47.080
so I'll give it to you

01:57:47.080 --> 01:57:49.080
in headlines.

01:57:49.080 --> 01:57:51.080
But basically,

01:57:51.080 --> 01:57:53.080
science takes the position

01:57:53.080 --> 01:57:55.080
that nature is without purpose.

01:57:55.080 --> 01:57:57.080
In other words,

01:57:57.080 --> 01:57:59.080
nature has no goal.

01:57:59.080 --> 01:58:01.080
Nature proceeds forward

01:58:01.080 --> 01:58:03.080
according to the unfolding

01:58:03.080 --> 01:58:05.080
of chance and necessity.

01:58:05.080 --> 01:58:07.080
But I don't believe this.

01:58:07.080 --> 01:58:09.080
I think nature is an engine

01:58:09.080 --> 01:58:11.080
for the conservation

01:58:11.080 --> 01:58:13.080
of novelty

01:58:13.080 --> 01:58:15.080
and that nature's purpose

01:58:15.080 --> 01:58:17.080
is to generate

01:58:17.080 --> 01:58:19.080
ever greater novelty.

01:58:19.080 --> 01:58:21.080
And that in fact

01:58:21.080 --> 01:58:23.080
history

01:58:23.080 --> 01:58:25.080
is the dawning

01:58:25.080 --> 01:58:27.080
realization that we are about

01:58:27.080 --> 01:58:29.080
to descend down

01:58:29.080 --> 01:58:31.080
a very steep novelty

01:58:31.080 --> 01:58:33.080
sink, as it were,

01:58:33.080 --> 01:58:35.080
into immense

01:58:35.080 --> 01:58:37.080
amounts of novelty.

01:58:37.080 --> 01:58:39.080
And this is why we image

01:58:39.080 --> 01:58:41.080
the other in the 20th century

01:58:41.080 --> 01:58:43.080
as the extraterrestrial.

01:58:43.080 --> 01:58:45.080
Because out of the unconscious

01:58:45.080 --> 01:58:47.080
comes this image

01:58:47.080 --> 01:58:49.080
of the other

01:58:49.080 --> 01:58:51.080
as the extraterrestrial.

01:58:51.080 --> 01:58:53.080
I think we are

01:58:53.080 --> 01:58:55.080
in the presence

01:58:55.080 --> 01:58:57.080
of what I call

01:58:57.080 --> 01:58:59.080
the transcendental object

01:58:59.080 --> 01:59:01.080
at the end of time.

01:59:01.080 --> 01:59:03.080
And that religions call it

01:59:03.080 --> 01:59:05.080
the messiah

01:59:05.080 --> 01:59:07.080
or the matreya.

01:59:07.080 --> 01:59:09.080
Secularists call it

01:59:09.080 --> 01:59:11.080
utopia.

01:59:11.080 --> 01:59:13.080
Millenarians call it

01:59:13.080 --> 01:59:15.080
something else.

01:59:15.080 --> 01:59:17.080
Mushroom enthusiasts

01:59:17.080 --> 01:59:19.080
something else.

01:59:19.080 --> 01:59:21.080
But that we are in the presence

01:59:21.080 --> 01:59:23.080
of the transcendental object

01:59:23.080 --> 01:59:25.080
back through history.

01:59:25.080 --> 01:59:27.080
Especially recent history.

01:59:27.080 --> 01:59:29.080
But any person

01:59:29.080 --> 01:59:31.080
encountering

01:59:31.080 --> 01:59:33.080
this backward moving

01:59:33.080 --> 01:59:35.080
shadow of the transcendental

01:59:35.080 --> 01:59:37.080
object will attempt

01:59:37.080 --> 01:59:39.080
to interpret it in

01:59:39.080 --> 01:59:41.080
cultural terms that they

01:59:41.080 --> 01:59:43.080
can relate to.

01:59:43.080 --> 01:59:45.080
So if they happen to be a French peasant

01:59:45.080 --> 01:59:47.080
in the 11th century

01:59:47.080 --> 01:59:49.080
they will assume

01:59:49.080 --> 01:59:51.080
that it's the Virgin Mary.

01:59:51.080 --> 01:59:53.080
If they're a sexual

01:59:53.080 --> 01:59:55.080
scientific rationalist

01:59:55.080 --> 01:59:57.080
in the 20th century

01:59:57.080 --> 01:59:59.080
they will assume

01:59:59.080 --> 02:00:01.080
it's a spacecraft

02:00:01.080 --> 02:00:03.080
of some sort.

02:00:03.080 --> 02:00:05.080
The Celts

02:00:05.080 --> 02:00:07.080
and their relationship

02:00:07.080 --> 02:00:09.080
to little people

02:00:09.080 --> 02:00:11.080
and an invisible world

02:00:11.080 --> 02:00:13.080
this is a generally held

02:00:13.080 --> 02:00:15.080
belief that they are

02:00:15.080 --> 02:00:17.080
exemplifying that is worldwide.

02:00:17.080 --> 02:00:19.080
Which is that the dead

02:00:19.080 --> 02:00:21.080
are somehow co-present

02:00:21.080 --> 02:00:23.080
in the space of the living

02:00:23.080 --> 02:00:25.080
except to those

02:00:25.080 --> 02:00:27.080
who have the gift

02:00:27.080 --> 02:00:29.080
of second sight

02:00:29.080 --> 02:00:31.080
or are magically empowered

02:00:31.080 --> 02:00:33.080
or shamanically

02:00:33.080 --> 02:00:35.080
adept.

02:00:35.080 --> 02:00:37.080
The last thought

02:00:37.080 --> 02:00:39.080
I should leave you with this

02:00:39.080 --> 02:00:41.080
and it's an adumbration

02:00:41.080 --> 02:00:43.080
of this question

02:00:43.080 --> 02:00:45.080
but it also has deeper implications.

02:00:45.080 --> 02:00:47.080
The model that you're usually

02:00:47.080 --> 02:00:49.080
given of the psychedelic experience

02:00:49.080 --> 02:00:51.080
is a religious model.

02:00:51.080 --> 02:00:53.080
That the mysteries

02:00:53.080 --> 02:00:55.080
of religion

02:00:55.080 --> 02:00:57.080
Hindu, Buddhist or something

02:00:57.080 --> 02:00:59.080
are somehow illuminated

02:00:59.080 --> 02:01:01.080
by this boundary dissolving

02:01:01.080 --> 02:01:03.080
experience.

02:01:03.080 --> 02:01:05.080
My model is a little different

02:01:05.080 --> 02:01:07.080
a little cooler

02:01:07.080 --> 02:01:09.080
and I think a little more

02:01:09.080 --> 02:01:11.080
formal and it's this

02:01:11.080 --> 02:01:13.080
that consciousness

02:01:13.080 --> 02:01:15.080
is an omnidirectional

02:01:15.080 --> 02:01:17.080
threat detection response.