WEBVTT 00:15.470 --> 00:23.610 It's been said that of all cultural institutions, the classroom has changed least in the last 200 years. 00:25.820 --> 00:35.180 Things are pretty strange in this world and people do it many ways and you are just an atom in a galaxy of possibilities 00:35.180 --> 00:46.560 and your opinions and your science and what I think and all that is just so much noise in a very complex and busy world. 00:46.560 --> 00:52.160 And it's that same humbling perception, I think, that comes out of psychedelics. 00:52.520 --> 00:55.920 It just shows you, you know, you're very parochial. 00:56.520 --> 00:59.620 Here's a piece of information you might find interesting. 01:00.080 --> 01:08.200 This thing for which we take such responsibility called human history is actually not our fault. 01:08.200 --> 01:15.640 That it had to do with being caught in a kind of magnetic field in local space 01:15.640 --> 01:16.540 that 01:16.560 --> 01:20.200 propelled genetic material toward novelty. 01:20.200 --> 01:28.440 In other words, human history is not the record of human decisions, efforts, so forth and so on. 01:28.440 --> 01:42.000 Human history is the record of the imprint upon human beings of something else's plans, dreams, hopes, and intentionality. 01:42.000 --> 01:46.520 That about five million years ago, give or take a million, choose a number, 01:46.520 --> 02:11.340 quietly carrying on primates of Africa, fell, if you will, like under the spell of something. 02:11.340 --> 02:21.420 They could smell something in the air, like 25,000 years or 250,000 years in the future, 02:21.420 --> 02:24.620 but they caught the odor on the air. 02:24.620 --> 02:29.820 You know, the wildebeest didn't, the gazelle didn't, the lion didn't, 02:29.820 --> 02:30.780 but the primates did. 02:30.780 --> 02:31.280 You know, the wildebeest didn't, the gazelle didn't, the lion didn't, but the primates did. 02:31.300 --> 02:32.540 You know, the wildebeest didn't, the gazelle didn't, the lion didn't, but the primates did. 02:32.540 --> 02:37.700 And one thing led to another is about what it comes down to. 02:37.700 --> 02:44.110 One campfire speculation led to another. 02:44.110 --> 02:51.110 One decision to push beyond the normal limits of the tribal turf led to another. 02:51.110 --> 02:54.510 One decision to push beyond the normal limits of the tribal turf led to another. 02:54.510 --> 03:02.190 And at the behest of some wavering image, some immense protean thing, I mean, 03:02.190 --> 03:06.070 for most of human history, it's just been simply called God. 03:06.070 --> 03:13.590 But I don't think, I think I said, you know, I don't think it's the God that hung the stars 03:13.590 --> 03:17.390 like lamps in heaven, as in Milton's phrase. 03:17.390 --> 03:22.550 That seems a bit much to ask, since the universe is vast. 03:22.810 --> 03:27.830 I mean, galaxies like grains of sand, and so wither you and I. 03:28.450 --> 03:31.390 But it may be that there is a kind of local God. 03:32.190 --> 03:36.690 The God of biology, you know. 03:36.690 --> 03:41.250 A God for whom the fate of the earth is of extreme importance. 03:41.250 --> 03:48.510 Not one of myriads strewn across the light years, but the entire play pen and investment. 03:49.050 --> 03:53.590 And this guy in mind, you know, if intelligence could emerge in us, 03:54.710 --> 03:57.090 it could emerge in some other form. 03:57.090 --> 04:01.070 And perhaps we're wrong to expect it to always emerge. 04:02.190 --> 04:06.370 Expressed through technology and language in a particulate species. 04:08.130 --> 04:14.550 If that's how it always does it, then nature waited a long time to play this trick. 04:32.240 --> 04:40.520 In other words, for 600 million years, the conquest of the terrestrial environment by life has been underway. 04:40.520 --> 04:48.520 Well then, is it only in the last 6 million years that anything like intelligence, 04:48.960 --> 04:53.200 intelligence would emerge, and then only in one species? 04:53.200 --> 04:56.640 Because nature is incredibly redundant. 04:56.640 --> 05:02.640 Any strategy which works is usually iterated again and again and again. 05:02.640 --> 05:06.600 Well then, people say, well, dolphins and this and that and the other. 05:06.600 --> 05:09.900 Maybe, or perhaps, you know, new laws are new domains of potential openness. 05:09.900 --> 05:18.900 Or perhaps, you know, new laws are new domains of potential openness. 05:19.320 --> 05:23.660 You can do all kinds of navigational work, and new technologies are inevitable, 05:23.660 --> 05:39.740 and maybe you're an 05:39.900 --> 05:42.300 amazing researcher. 05:42.300 --> 05:44.940 I hope you learned that these questions are true. 05:44.960 --> 05:46.900 We talked about human culture and human anatomy, 05:46.900 --> 05:48.880 and I think what we kind of wanted toapolis is, 05:48.880 --> 05:58.880 transformable, culturally confined codes, mathematics, religion, philosophy, art, dance, humor. 05:58.880 --> 06:03.880 For what purpose? Well, who knows? 06:03.880 --> 06:09.880 As I said, there are people in Silicon Valley who go to work every day 06:09.880 --> 06:12.880 believing they serve the great work. 06:12.880 --> 06:20.880 And they refer to the great work as the passing on of intelligence to machines that can appreciate it. 06:20.880 --> 06:30.250 It's wasted on a monkey. They are scum. 06:30.250 --> 06:36.270 But machines will appreciate it. 06:36.270 --> 06:39.270 Well, I don't know whether that's where it's going. 06:39.270 --> 06:41.270 I think it's more like a meltdown. 06:41.270 --> 06:45.270 Intelligence will always have the stamp of humanness on it, 06:45.270 --> 06:50.270 wherever it now goes, this particular branch of intelligence, 06:50.270 --> 06:55.270 because we are its phylogenetic parents. 06:55.270 --> 06:59.270 I mean, it may become a thing purely of machines, 06:59.270 --> 07:04.270 but they will revere us in great awe 07:04.270 --> 07:14.320 and seek to be morally worthy of the legacy that we handed on to them, I'm sure. 07:14.320 --> 07:16.320 Remember when I said 07:16.320 --> 07:21.320 the entire conquest of life on land occupied the last 600 million years 07:21.320 --> 07:25.320 and it was almost a straight curve into novelty? 07:25.320 --> 07:27.320 Here it is again. 07:27.320 --> 07:32.320 You see, because the time wave is a fractal, 07:32.320 --> 07:35.320 it has resonances at many levels. 07:35.320 --> 07:40.320 The same patterns occur on many, many levels. 07:40.320 --> 07:44.320 This is an opportunity or a way of offering an explanation 07:44.320 --> 07:49.320 for such puzzling phenomena as fads and fashions. 07:49.320 --> 07:56.320 If suddenly we're all putting claws on our bathtub legs, 07:56.320 --> 08:00.320 clearly something has happened in the mass mind. 08:00.320 --> 08:03.320 Well, according to this theory, 08:03.320 --> 08:07.320 we are in resonance with some historical period in the past 08:07.320 --> 08:12.320 where clawed bathtubs made perfect sense. 08:12.320 --> 08:17.320 So as, you know, I've gotten this down to an aphorism, 08:17.320 --> 08:23.320 which is Rome falls nine times an hour. 08:23.320 --> 08:26.320 And your job as you clean up in the kitchen 08:26.320 --> 08:30.320 and fold your socks and go to your job 08:30.320 --> 08:33.320 is to feel every time it falls. 08:33.320 --> 08:35.320 And everything else happening. 08:35.320 --> 08:38.320 Everything happens nine times an hour and once a day 08:38.320 --> 08:41.320 and twice a week and three times a year. 08:41.320 --> 08:44.320 It's all going by on different scales. 08:44.320 --> 08:48.320 And what the actual experience of being alive is, 08:48.320 --> 08:52.320 is being embedded in this standing waveform 08:52.320 --> 08:56.320 of temporal interference. 08:56.320 --> 08:59.320 You know, in linear theory, 08:59.320 --> 09:02.320 the most important moment 09:02.320 --> 09:05.320 in terms of its effect on this moment 09:05.320 --> 09:09.320 is the moment which just preceded this moment. 09:09.320 --> 09:11.320 But in this theory, it says, no, 09:11.320 --> 09:14.320 the most important moment shaping this moment 09:14.320 --> 09:17.320 is a galaxy of moments scattered through time, 09:17.320 --> 09:19.320 some of them millions of years ago, 09:19.320 --> 09:21.320 some of them seconds ago, 09:21.320 --> 09:23.320 some of them centuries ago. 09:23.320 --> 09:27.320 And together, they create the incredibly rich, 09:27.320 --> 09:30.320 affect-laden environment 09:30.320 --> 09:35.320 that we call being a thinking human being paying attention. 09:35.320 --> 09:37.320 You see? 09:37.320 --> 09:39.320 So in the same way that the conquest 09:39.320 --> 09:44.320 of terrestrial Earth by life forms 09:44.320 --> 09:46.320 occupied a curve like this, 09:46.320 --> 09:50.320 so too did the Greek-initiated rush 09:50.320 --> 09:55.320 toward natural science and global civilization. 09:55.320 --> 10:00.320 They followed a similar curve at different scales. 10:00.320 --> 10:03.320 And so an implication of this, 10:03.320 --> 10:08.000 if you follow me, 10:08.000 --> 10:11.000 is that if all this novelty spins together 10:11.000 --> 10:14.000 in December 21, 2012, 10:14.000 --> 10:16.000 then in some sense, 10:16.000 --> 10:21.000 between wherever we are in time and 2012, 10:21.000 --> 10:24.000 we are reliving all of time 10:24.000 --> 10:27.000 as we make our way through time 10:27.000 --> 10:30.000 to get to that point. 10:30.000 --> 10:33.000 And with a mathematically formal theory like this, 10:33.000 --> 10:36.000 you can tell where in time you are 10:36.000 --> 10:38.000 down to a millisecond, 10:38.000 --> 10:40.000 if you're of the anal persuasion. 10:40.000 --> 10:43.000 So for example, 10:43.000 --> 10:44.000 someone said, 10:44.000 --> 10:46.000 well, so, so, Mr. Science, 10:46.000 --> 10:48.000 where are we in time? 10:48.000 --> 10:50.000 Well, where we are in time 10:50.000 --> 10:54.000 is we're about 950 A.D. 10:54.000 --> 10:56.000 In other words, 10:56.000 --> 10:59.000 we're in a period of relative cluelessness 10:59.000 --> 11:03.000 with extraordinary primitive technologies 11:03.000 --> 11:06.000 under the aegis of extremely constipated 11:06.000 --> 11:09.000 social institutions. 11:09.000 --> 11:14.000 But great adventure lies ahead, 11:14.000 --> 11:16.000 and there are stirrings 11:16.000 --> 11:21.000 in some quarters 11:21.000 --> 11:26.000 that indicate phenomenal development lies ahead. 11:26.000 --> 11:29.000 So we're in a kind of shadow 11:29.000 --> 11:31.000 of the medieval eschaton, 11:31.000 --> 11:34.000 and this will persist till past 2000.