WEBVTT 00:04.020 --> 00:26.690 Good evening, please join me in welcoming Mr. Terence McKenna. 00:26.690 --> 01:11.780 It's a pleasure to be in Seattle this evening. You've made me feel real welcome. Thank you. 01:11.780 --> 01:30.090 Our discussion this evening is psychedelics in the age of intelligent machines, or shamans among the machines. 01:31.230 --> 01:42.410 And I wanted to talk about this simply because these are two of my great loves, and so I assume, being monogamous, they must be one love. 01:43.030 --> 01:49.090 So how to build intellectual bridges between these two concerns. 01:49.110 --> 02:14.630 Which seem so different, as far as people and machines are concerned, it was Ludwig von Bertalanffy, I think, who said in his book, General Systems Theory, he said, people are not machines, but in every opportunity where they are allowed to behave like machines, they will so behave. 02:15.150 --> 02:19.090 In other words, we tend to fall into the well. 02:19.110 --> 02:39.030 The well of habit, though the glory of our humanness is our spontaneous creativity, we too, as creatures of physics and chemistry, of memory and hope, tend to fall into repetitious patterns. 02:39.030 --> 02:45.230 And these repetitious patterns are the death of creativity. 02:46.370 --> 02:49.030 They diminish our humanness. 02:49.110 --> 02:58.610 They diminish our individuality, make each of us somehow like cogs in some larger system. 02:59.430 --> 03:15.110 And we associate this cog-like membership in larger soulless systems with the machines that we inherit from the age of the internal combustion engine, the age of the jet engine. 03:15.110 --> 03:18.850 You know, Marshall McLuhan said, 03:19.110 --> 03:29.090 We navigate our way into the future like someone driving who uses only the rear-view mirror to tell them where they're going. 03:29.610 --> 03:36.270 It's not a very successful strategy for navigating into the future. 03:37.450 --> 03:45.030 So I made a number of notes on this matter of psychedelics and machines. 03:45.030 --> 03:48.030 To me, the connecting bridge... 03:49.110 --> 03:56.990 Well, there are many, but the most obvious one is consciousness expansion. 03:56.990 --> 04:05.950 After all, psychedelics, before they were called entheogens, before they were called hallucinogens, 04:05.950 --> 04:11.550 before they were called psychedelics, they were simply called consciousness-expanding drugs. 04:11.790 --> 04:16.810 Good phenomenological description of what they do. 04:17.370 --> 04:18.450 And certainly... 04:18.450 --> 04:21.310 the technology of cybernetics 04:21.310 --> 04:22.790 is a consciousness 04:22.790 --> 04:25.570 expanding technology 04:25.570 --> 04:27.090 it expands 04:27.090 --> 04:29.110 a different area 04:29.110 --> 04:30.850 of consciousness 04:30.850 --> 04:33.210 the minds of machines 04:33.210 --> 04:35.190 and the minds of human 04:35.190 --> 04:37.250 beings are very different 04:37.250 --> 04:38.630 so different that 04:38.630 --> 04:41.170 each party questions whether 04:41.170 --> 04:43.450 the other even has a mind 04:43.450 --> 04:45.650 but in fact 04:45.650 --> 04:47.310 what these are 04:47.310 --> 04:49.050 are species of minds 04:49.050 --> 04:50.810 operating in very 04:50.810 --> 04:52.790 different domains 04:52.790 --> 04:55.310 for instance you can ask 04:55.310 --> 04:57.110 a five year old child to 04:57.110 --> 04:59.150 go into the bedroom 04:59.150 --> 05:01.350 to the third drawer of the 05:01.350 --> 05:03.330 dresser to select a pair 05:03.330 --> 05:05.430 of black socks and to bring them 05:05.430 --> 05:06.130 to mother 05:06.130 --> 05:09.410 this is not a challenge for a five 05:09.410 --> 05:10.350 year old child 05:10.350 --> 05:13.010 to get a machine to do this is 05:13.010 --> 05:14.730 a hundred million dollars 05:14.730 --> 05:16.990 and a research team of 05:16.990 --> 05:18.630 forty or fifty 05:18.630 --> 05:23.370 technicians code writers working 05:23.370 --> 05:24.990 on the other hand 05:24.990 --> 05:27.610 if you ask the person 05:27.610 --> 05:33.050 cube root of seven hundred and fifty thousand three hundred and forty four 05:33.050 --> 05:34.690 much head scratching 05:34.690 --> 05:36.910 results 05:36.910 --> 05:39.810 a computer is utterly undaunted 05:39.810 --> 05:41.830 by that question 05:41.830 --> 05:45.890 so computers are minds that work in the realm of 05:45.890 --> 05:46.730 computation 05:46.990 --> 05:51.050 and human minds are minds that work 05:51.050 --> 05:54.010 in the realm of generalization 05:54.010 --> 05:56.150 spatial coordination 05:56.150 --> 05:59.090 understanding of natural language 05:59.090 --> 06:01.610 so forth 06:01.610 --> 06:06.550 are these kinds of minds so different from each 06:06.550 --> 06:07.430 other pilgrims 06:07.430 --> 06:11.250 that there is no bridge to be crossed 06:11.250 --> 06:11.910 I would 06:11.910 --> 06:13.670 submit not 06:13.670 --> 06:15.630 that in fact the bridge 06:15.630 --> 06:16.950 between the human mind and the krijgen 06:16.990 --> 06:23.990 And the machine mind is symbolic logic, mathematics. 06:23.990 --> 06:30.990 When we think clearly, we are intelligible to machines. 06:30.990 --> 06:33.990 People who write code know this, 06:33.990 --> 06:38.990 that the essence of making yourself clear to a machine 06:38.990 --> 06:41.990 is to think clearly yourself. 06:41.990 --> 06:46.990 The machine has no patience for the half-truth, 06:46.990 --> 06:51.990 the analogy, the semi-grasp dissociation. 06:51.990 --> 06:55.990 For the machine, everything has to be clear. 06:55.990 --> 06:58.990 Everything must be defined. 06:58.990 --> 07:05.820 So that's the commonality between minds and machines 07:05.820 --> 07:08.820 of the calculating species. 07:08.820 --> 07:13.820 What are the common bridges between psychedelics 07:13.820 --> 07:15.820 and these machines? 07:15.820 --> 07:21.820 Well, to my mind, this is an easier bridge to gap. 07:21.820 --> 07:24.820 Both computers and drugs are what I would call 07:24.820 --> 07:29.820 function-specific arrangements of matter. 07:29.820 --> 07:33.820 And as we develop nanotechnological abilities 07:33.820 --> 07:35.820 as we move into the next century, 07:35.820 --> 07:37.820 it will be more and more clear 07:37.820 --> 07:40.820 that the difference between drugs and machines 07:40.820 --> 07:42.820 is simply that one is too large 07:42.820 --> 07:43.820 to solve. 07:43.820 --> 07:45.820 One is too small to swallow. 07:45.820 --> 07:50.820 And our best people are working on that. 07:50.820 --> 07:58.160 You know, nanotechnology is a very hot buzzword at the moment, 07:58.160 --> 08:02.160 an unimaginable dream of building machines 08:02.160 --> 08:06.160 and small objects up atom by atom, 08:06.160 --> 08:10.160 perhaps under the control of long-chain polymers, 08:10.160 --> 08:14.160 running forms of pre-programmed software of some sort. 08:14.160 --> 08:18.160 It's all very razzmatazz, very state-of-the-art. 08:18.160 --> 08:22.160 But in fact, pharmaceutical chemists have been working 08:22.160 --> 08:26.160 in the nanotechnological realm for over a hundred years. 08:26.160 --> 08:30.160 I mean, when you synthesize molecules 08:30.160 --> 08:32.160 out of simpler substrate, 08:32.160 --> 08:36.160 specifically to have a conformational geometry 08:36.160 --> 08:40.160 that matches something going on in the synapse 08:40.160 --> 08:43.160 of a primate, a human or a monkey, 08:43.160 --> 08:45.160 or something like that, 08:45.160 --> 08:51.160 you are working at this nanotechnological level. 08:51.160 --> 08:57.160 Both the psychedelic and the new computational machines 08:57.160 --> 09:01.160 represent extensions of human function. 09:01.160 --> 09:05.160 And this is really close to the nub. 09:05.160 --> 09:10.160 It locks in with the concept of prosthesis. 09:10.160 --> 09:12.160 The drugs, 09:12.160 --> 09:14.160 the psychedelic substances, 09:14.160 --> 09:16.160 the shamanic plants, 09:16.160 --> 09:19.160 are forms of prosthetic devices 09:19.160 --> 09:22.160 for extending the human mind, 09:22.160 --> 09:25.160 the human perceptual apparatus, 09:25.160 --> 09:28.160 into hidden realms 09:28.160 --> 09:31.160 or inaccessible realms. 09:31.160 --> 09:34.160 Similarly, the machines, 09:34.160 --> 09:38.160 by allowing us to model, calculate, and simulate 09:38.160 --> 09:41.160 very complicated multivariable processes, 09:41.160 --> 09:45.160 extend the power of the human mind 09:45.160 --> 09:50.160 into places you could never dream of going before. 09:50.160 --> 09:54.160 And part of what seems to me very real 09:54.160 --> 09:56.160 about being a human being 09:56.160 --> 10:00.160 and inheriting 10,000 years of human history 10:00.160 --> 10:04.160 is the complexity of the inheritance 10:04.160 --> 10:08.160 and the growth of that complexity. 10:08.160 --> 10:10.160 A thousand years ago, 10:10.160 --> 10:12.160 an intelligent human being 10:12.160 --> 10:14.160 could actually dream of mastering 10:14.160 --> 10:18.160 the entire database of Western civilization. 10:18.160 --> 10:20.160 Read all the classic authors, 10:20.160 --> 10:22.160 read the Bible, 10:22.160 --> 10:25.160 and you're closing in on it 10:25.160 --> 10:27.160 around AD 1000. 10:27.160 --> 10:30.160 Now, the notion of any single human being 10:30.160 --> 10:33.160 assimilating even a small portion 10:33.160 --> 10:36.160 of the database of this civilization 10:36.160 --> 10:39.160 is inconceivable. 10:39.160 --> 10:42.160 So machines which filter, 10:42.160 --> 10:44.160 which search, 10:44.160 --> 10:47.160 which are guided by human intent, 10:47.160 --> 10:49.160 that's part of the story. 10:49.160 --> 10:51.160 The other part of the story 10:51.160 --> 10:54.160 are boundary-dissolving states of ecstasy 10:54.160 --> 10:57.160 in which all the factoids of the culture 10:57.160 --> 10:59.160 are thrown up for grabs. 10:59.160 --> 11:02.160 The deck is reshuffled, 11:02.160 --> 11:04.160 synchronicity rules, 11:04.160 --> 11:06.160 and out of that steps 11:06.160 --> 11:08.160 visionary understanding, 11:08.160 --> 11:10.160 breakthrough, 11:10.160 --> 11:12.160 integrative breakthrough 11:12.160 --> 11:16.160 under the aegis of psychedelic intoxication. 11:16.160 --> 11:19.160 So, prosthesis. 11:19.160 --> 11:22.160 Prosthesis for the human mind 11:22.160 --> 11:25.160 and with the advent of virtual realities 11:25.160 --> 11:27.160 of various sorts and that kind of thing. 11:27.160 --> 11:30.160 Prosthesis for the human body. 11:30.160 --> 11:34.160 And I'm very keen on 11:34.160 --> 11:38.160 sort of the under-the-table effects 11:38.160 --> 11:40.160 of these things. 11:40.160 --> 11:43.160 In other words, I'm a full-going, 11:43.160 --> 11:47.160 full, hard-charging McLuhanist. 11:47.160 --> 11:49.160 And I really believe that 11:49.160 --> 11:52.160 the strengths and weaknesses 11:52.160 --> 11:54.160 of the world we've inherited 11:54.160 --> 11:56.160 are strengths and weaknesses 11:56.160 --> 11:59.160 put there by print 11:59.160 --> 12:01.160 and by the spectrum of effects 12:01.160 --> 12:04.160 which McLuhan called the Gutenberg Galaxy. 12:04.160 --> 12:07.160 The spectrum of effects spun off from print. 12:07.160 --> 12:10.160 And if you're not used to thinking 12:10.160 --> 12:11.160 in McLuhanist terms, 12:11.160 --> 12:14.160 it may not seem immediately obvious to you 12:14.160 --> 12:18.160 that phenomenon as different as 12:18.160 --> 12:21.160 the modern notion of the democratic citizen, 12:21.160 --> 12:25.160 the modern notion of interchangeable parts 12:25.160 --> 12:27.160 on an assembly line, 12:27.160 --> 12:32.160 the modern notion of conformity 12:32.160 --> 12:34.160 to canons of advertising, 12:34.160 --> 12:36.160 these are all spectacles 12:36.160 --> 12:40.160 of effect created by the linearity 12:40.160 --> 12:43.160 and the uniformity of print. 12:43.160 --> 12:47.160 It actually, in the late 15th century, 12:47.160 --> 12:50.160 reconstructed the medieval psyche 12:50.160 --> 12:53.160 into its proto-modern form. 12:53.160 --> 12:55.160 And we have lived 12:55.160 --> 12:58.160 within that print-constellated 12:58.160 --> 13:00.160 cultural hallucination 13:00.160 --> 13:02.160 for about 500 years 13:02.160 --> 13:05.160 until the advent of various forms 13:05.160 --> 13:09.160 of electronic media in the 20th century. 13:09.160 --> 13:12.160 McLuhan talked about radio. 13:12.160 --> 13:14.160 He talked about television. 13:14.160 --> 13:18.160 He didn't really live to see the internet. 13:18.160 --> 13:21.160 The notion that keeps occurring to me 13:21.160 --> 13:24.160 as I watch all this 13:24.160 --> 13:31.210 is that print was uniquely capable 13:31.210 --> 13:35.210 of creating and maintaining boundaries 13:35.210 --> 13:38.210 more than any other form of media ever created. 13:38.210 --> 13:41.210 It was a boundary-defining form of media. 13:41.210 --> 13:44.210 It proceeded linearly. 13:44.210 --> 13:47.210 It required literacy, 13:47.210 --> 13:49.210 which had implicit in it 13:49.210 --> 13:51.210 the notion of a very stable, 13:51.210 --> 13:54.210 advanced sort of educational system. 13:54.210 --> 13:57.210 Print was a creator 13:57.210 --> 14:00.210 and a definer of cultural boundaries. 14:00.210 --> 14:04.210 And the new electronic media are not. 14:04.210 --> 14:07.210 And neither are the psychedelics. 14:07.210 --> 14:11.210 This is why I proposed in a book of mine 14:11.210 --> 14:15.210 called The Archaic Revival 14:15.210 --> 14:20.210 the idea that the values of the archaic, 14:20.210 --> 14:22.210 of the high paleolithic, 14:22.210 --> 14:26.210 values of community, ecstasy, 14:26.210 --> 14:29.210 relating to life through rhythm, 14:29.210 --> 14:33.210 dance, ritual, intoxication, 14:33.210 --> 14:37.210 that these values, which seem so archaic, 14:37.210 --> 14:41.210 are in fact destined to play a major role 14:41.210 --> 14:45.210 in the future as print fades. 14:45.210 --> 14:49.210 Print, just a convulsive 500-year episode 14:49.210 --> 14:51.210 in the Western mind 14:51.210 --> 14:54.210 that opened that narrow window 14:54.210 --> 14:57.210 that permitted the rise of modern science, 14:57.210 --> 15:00.210 modern mathematical approaches 15:00.210 --> 15:02.210 to the analysis of nature, 15:02.210 --> 15:07.210 and then obliterated its own platform, 15:07.210 --> 15:09.210 its own raison d'être 15:09.210 --> 15:13.210 by allowing the growth, 15:13.210 --> 15:16.210 the appearance of the electronic technologies. 15:16.210 --> 15:22.210 And my sort of supposition about all this, 15:22.210 --> 15:27.210 I'm not an apocalyptarian or a pessimist. 15:27.210 --> 15:29.210 I may be an apocalyptarian. 15:29.210 --> 15:31.210 I'm not a pessimist. 15:31.210 --> 15:34.210 I think this is all very good. 15:34.210 --> 15:39.210 Obviously, continuing to run Western civilization 15:39.210 --> 15:43.210 on the operating system inherited from print 15:43.210 --> 15:48.210 produces various forms of political and cultural schizophrenia 15:48.210 --> 15:52.210 which, allowed to run unchecked, would become fatal, 15:52.210 --> 15:55.210 would create cascades of chaos 15:55.210 --> 15:58.210 and political destabilization 15:58.210 --> 16:01.210 that would become uncontrollable. 16:02.210 --> 16:05.210 Governments resist change. 16:05.210 --> 16:09.210 Governments cling to technologies and social formulae 16:09.210 --> 16:12.210 that are already tried and true. 16:12.210 --> 16:14.210 In that sense, then, 16:14.210 --> 16:20.210 all governments are incredibly anti-progressive forces. 16:20.210 --> 16:22.210 Again, the image from McLuhan 16:22.210 --> 16:24.210 of someone driving into the future 16:24.210 --> 16:27.210 using only the rear-view mirror. 16:27.210 --> 16:33.020 So, the electronic media, 16:33.020 --> 16:36.020 and the psychedelics, 16:36.020 --> 16:39.020 work together in this peculiar way 16:39.020 --> 16:44.020 to accentuate archaic values. 16:44.020 --> 16:50.020 Values which are countered to the print-constellated world. 16:50.020 --> 16:54.020 And when you deconstruct what that means 16:54.020 --> 16:59.020 and look at the Aboriginal or the Paleolithic 16:59.020 --> 17:01.020 or the archaic world, 17:01.020 --> 17:02.020 you see that 17:02.020 --> 17:06.020 the central figure in that world 17:06.020 --> 17:08.020 is the shaman. 17:08.020 --> 17:11.020 Male or female, the shaman. 17:11.020 --> 17:16.020 And the shaman is like a designated traveler 17:16.020 --> 17:19.020 into higher dimensional space. 17:19.020 --> 17:23.020 The shaman has permission to unlock 17:23.020 --> 17:26.020 the cultural cul-de-sac 17:26.020 --> 17:28.020 of his or her people 17:28.020 --> 17:31.020 and go behind the stage machinery 17:31.020 --> 17:35.020 of cultural appearances, 17:35.020 --> 17:37.020 and has permission, 17:37.020 --> 17:38.020 collective permission, 17:38.020 --> 17:42.020 to manipulate that stage machinery 17:42.020 --> 17:45.020 for purposes of healing. 17:45.020 --> 17:50.020 We have no institution like this. 17:50.020 --> 17:51.020 I mean, we have advertising, 17:51.020 --> 17:53.020 we have rock and roll stars, 17:53.020 --> 17:55.020 we have cults of celebrity, 17:55.020 --> 17:57.020 we have things which are shaman-like, 17:57.020 --> 17:59.020 but we have no real institution. 17:59.020 --> 18:03.020 We have no real institution 18:03.020 --> 18:07.020 that permits human beings, 18:07.020 --> 18:09.020 in fact, encourages human beings 18:09.020 --> 18:12.020 to go beyond their cultural values, 18:12.020 --> 18:14.020 to burst through 18:14.020 --> 18:18.020 into some transcultural super-space, 18:18.020 --> 18:20.020 forage around out there, 18:20.020 --> 18:23.020 and bring new means 18:23.020 --> 18:25.020 back into the tribe. 18:25.020 --> 18:28.020 To some degree, our artists do this. 18:28.020 --> 18:31.020 To some degree, our scientists do it. 18:31.020 --> 18:34.020 But it's all hit and miss. 18:34.020 --> 18:36.020 It's all willy-nilly. 18:36.020 --> 18:37.020 And once achieved, 18:37.020 --> 18:39.020 it must be swept under the rug 18:39.020 --> 18:42.020 in the service of the myth of method 18:42.020 --> 18:44.020 that somebody was following 18:44.020 --> 18:46.020 somebody else's work 18:46.020 --> 18:48.020 or somebody was applying 18:48.020 --> 18:50.020 a certain form of rational 18:50.020 --> 18:52.020 or logical analysis, 18:52.020 --> 18:55.020 and that that led to their breakthrough. 18:55.020 --> 18:57.020 If you've read Thomas Kern's book 18:57.020 --> 19:00.020 on the structure of scientific revolution, 19:00.020 --> 19:03.020 you know this is all lies and propaganda. 19:03.020 --> 19:06.020 The real story of science 19:06.020 --> 19:09.020 is that it's a series of revelations 19:09.020 --> 19:12.020 brilliantly defended 19:12.020 --> 19:15.020 by people whose careers depended 19:15.020 --> 19:17.020 on the brilliant defense 19:17.020 --> 19:19.020 of those revelations. 19:19.020 --> 19:22.020 One of the best-kept secrets 19:22.020 --> 19:24.020 of the birth of modern science 19:24.020 --> 19:26.020 is that it was founded 19:26.020 --> 19:28.020 by an angel, 19:28.020 --> 19:32.020 that the young René Descartes 19:32.020 --> 19:34.020 was whoring and soldiering 19:34.020 --> 19:36.020 his way across Europe 19:36.020 --> 19:39.020 as a 21-year-old in the Habsburg army. 19:39.020 --> 19:42.020 And one night in the town of Ulm 19:42.020 --> 19:43.020 in southern Germany, 19:43.020 --> 19:45.020 he had a dream. 19:45.020 --> 19:47.020 Strange that this would be 19:47.020 --> 19:49.020 the birthplace of Albert Einstein 19:49.020 --> 19:51.020 some 200 years later. 19:51.020 --> 19:54.020 But Descartes had a dream, 19:54.020 --> 19:56.020 and an angel appeared to him 19:56.020 --> 19:57.020 in the dream, 19:57.020 --> 19:59.020 and the angel said, 19:59.020 --> 20:01.020 the conquest of nature 20:01.020 --> 20:04.020 is achieved through measurement 20:04.020 --> 20:06.020 and number. 20:06.020 --> 20:07.020 And he said, 20:07.020 --> 20:08.020 I got it. 20:08.020 --> 20:09.020 Modern science. 20:09.020 --> 20:11.020 I'll go do it. 20:11.020 --> 20:13.020 And he did. 20:13.020 --> 20:14.020 He did. 20:14.020 --> 20:15.020 And that was the method 20:15.020 --> 20:17.020 for over 250 years 20:17.020 --> 20:19.020 of the conquest of nature. 20:19.020 --> 20:21.020 And it leads us, you know, 20:21.020 --> 20:23.020 to the Josephson Junction, 20:23.020 --> 20:25.020 the Mars Global Surveyor, 20:25.020 --> 20:27.020 the long base interferometry 20:27.020 --> 20:29.020 that searches nearby stars 20:29.020 --> 20:31.020 for Earth-like planets. 20:31.020 --> 20:33.020 It brings us the entire 20:33.020 --> 20:36.020 cornucopia of scientific effects, 20:36.020 --> 20:40.020 but an angelic revelation 20:40.020 --> 20:42.020 disguised as a logical, 20:42.020 --> 20:44.020 philosophical breakthrough. 20:44.020 --> 20:46.020 This is what you're not told 20:46.020 --> 20:48.020 in the academy. 20:48.020 --> 20:50.020 So my point there is 20:50.020 --> 20:53.020 human progress has always depended 20:53.020 --> 20:54.020 on the whispering 20:54.020 --> 20:56.020 of alien minds, 20:56.020 --> 20:59.020 confrontations with the other, 20:59.020 --> 21:01.020 probes into dimensions 21:01.020 --> 21:04.020 where imagination and chance 21:04.020 --> 21:09.020 held the winning hands. 21:09.020 --> 21:11.020 So the shaman, 21:11.020 --> 21:14.020 as a paradigmatic figure, 21:14.020 --> 21:16.020 is applicable both 21:16.020 --> 21:19.020 in the aboriginal social context 21:19.020 --> 21:23.020 and in the present social context. 21:23.020 --> 21:26.020 The Skywalker, 21:26.020 --> 21:29.020 the one who goes between, 21:29.020 --> 21:32.020 the one who passes 21:32.020 --> 21:34.020 outside of the tribe 21:34.020 --> 21:36.020 and then returns 21:36.020 --> 21:41.020 with means, insights, cures, 21:41.020 --> 21:45.020 designs, glossolalia, technologies, 21:45.020 --> 21:48.020 and re-fertilizes 21:48.020 --> 21:51.020 the human family by this means. 21:51.020 --> 21:53.020 It's irrational. 21:53.020 --> 21:55.020 But it's how it actually happens. 21:55.020 --> 21:57.020 And it's how it's always happened. 21:57.020 --> 22:00.020 And it may very well be the only way 22:00.020 --> 22:02.020 that it can happen. 22:02.020 --> 22:04.020 This cultivation of the irrational, 22:04.020 --> 22:07.020 this flirtation with the breakdown 22:07.020 --> 22:10.020 of boundaries. 22:10.020 --> 22:12.020 So now, 22:12.020 --> 22:15.020 in our nuts and bolts 22:15.020 --> 22:17.020 technological progress, 22:17.020 --> 22:20.020 we have somehow created technologies 22:20.020 --> 22:22.020 which are very friendly 22:22.020 --> 22:25.020 to our social values 22:25.020 --> 22:28.020 in that these technologies can be bought, 22:28.020 --> 22:32.020 sold, licensed, upgraded, 22:32.020 --> 22:36.020 all things which we understand. 22:36.020 --> 22:39.020 But these technologies are acting on us 22:39.020 --> 22:42.020 in the same way that psychedelic drugs do, 22:42.020 --> 22:45.020 but more profoundly, 22:45.020 --> 22:47.020 more generally, 22:47.020 --> 22:49.020 and more insidiously, 22:49.020 --> 22:51.020 because their effect is not understood 22:51.020 --> 22:53.020 or if it is understood, 22:53.020 --> 22:55.020 it's not discussed. 22:55.020 --> 22:56.020 And so, in a way, 22:56.020 --> 23:01.020 we have come into a kind of post-cultural phase. 23:01.020 --> 23:04.020 All culture is dissolving 23:04.020 --> 23:07.020 in the face of the drug-like nature 23:07.020 --> 23:09.020 of the future. 23:09.020 --> 23:10.020 It's music. 23:10.020 --> 23:12.020 It's design. 23:12.020 --> 23:15.020 Indeed, the very people who will inhabit it 23:15.020 --> 23:19.530 appear to be the most switched on, 23:19.530 --> 23:21.530 the most chance-taking, 23:21.530 --> 23:23.530 the most alive 23:23.530 --> 23:26.530 of the entire tribe. 23:26.530 --> 23:29.530 People who feel the beat. 23:29.530 --> 23:31.530 People who are not afraid 23:31.530 --> 23:32.530 to take chances. 23:32.530 --> 23:35.530 People for whom these technologies 23:35.530 --> 23:39.530 have always been very natural. 23:39.530 --> 23:41.530 Machines are central 23:41.530 --> 23:43.530 to the new capitalism, 23:43.530 --> 23:46.530 the information-transforming technologies. 23:46.530 --> 23:47.530 And in fact, 23:47.530 --> 23:50.530 one of the strange things that is happening 23:50.530 --> 23:53.530 is every move we now make 23:53.530 --> 23:57.530 in relationship to the new technologies 23:57.530 --> 23:59.530 redefines them 23:59.530 --> 24:01.530 at the very boundaries 24:01.530 --> 24:04.530 where their own developmental impetus 24:04.530 --> 24:08.530 would lead them toward a kind of independence. 24:08.530 --> 24:09.530 In other words, 24:09.530 --> 24:12.530 we talk about artificial intelligence, 24:12.530 --> 24:15.530 we talk about the possibility of an AI 24:15.530 --> 24:17.530 coming into existence, 24:17.530 --> 24:20.530 but we do not really understand 24:20.530 --> 24:24.530 to what degree this is already true 24:24.530 --> 24:26.530 of our circumstance. 24:26.530 --> 24:27.530 In other words, 24:27.530 --> 24:29.530 how much of society 24:29.530 --> 24:32.530 is already homeostatically regulated 24:32.530 --> 24:36.530 by machines that are ultimately under human control, 24:36.530 --> 24:38.530 but practically speaking 24:38.530 --> 24:41.530 are almost never meddled with. 24:41.530 --> 24:44.530 The world price of gold, 24:44.530 --> 24:47.530 the rate of petroleum extraction 24:47.530 --> 24:49.530 and other base natural resources, 24:49.530 --> 24:51.530 how much of these things 24:51.530 --> 24:52.530 is on the high seas 24:52.530 --> 24:53.530 and in the pipeline 24:53.530 --> 24:55.530 at any given moment, 24:55.530 --> 24:57.530 how much electricity is flowing 24:57.530 --> 24:59.530 into a given electrical grid 24:59.530 --> 25:00.530 at any moment, 25:00.530 --> 25:02.530 the distribution and the billing 25:02.530 --> 25:04.530 of that electricity, 25:04.530 --> 25:07.530 all manufacturing and inventory processes 25:07.530 --> 25:10.530 are under machine control. 25:10.530 --> 25:11.530 So in other words, 25:11.530 --> 25:15.530 the larger flows of energy, capital and ideas 25:15.530 --> 25:18.530 already have a kind of autonomous life 25:18.530 --> 25:20.530 of their own 25:20.530 --> 25:22.530 that we encourage 25:22.530 --> 25:25.530 because it makes us money, 25:25.530 --> 25:27.530 it makes our lives smoother, 25:27.530 --> 25:30.530 it empowers us. 25:30.530 --> 25:33.530 It's a symbiotic relationship 25:33.530 --> 25:35.530 of empowerment. 25:35.530 --> 25:37.530 Even in the matter of the design 25:37.530 --> 25:39.530 of these machines, 25:39.530 --> 25:41.530 once human engineers would work 25:41.530 --> 25:44.530 from a set of performance specs 25:44.530 --> 25:46.530 and they would design a chip 25:46.530 --> 25:48.530 to meet those specs, 25:48.530 --> 25:50.530 and the architecture 25:50.530 --> 25:52.530 would be put in place 25:52.530 --> 25:54.530 by human engineers. 25:54.530 --> 25:56.530 Now a machine is told, 25:56.530 --> 25:59.530 here are the design specs, 25:59.530 --> 26:01.530 design the architecture 26:01.530 --> 26:03.530 to satisfy the specs, 26:03.530 --> 26:05.530 and when that is done, 26:05.530 --> 26:07.530 the chip is manufactured. 26:07.530 --> 26:09.530 The actual design of the thing 26:09.530 --> 26:12.530 is in the hands of machines. 26:12.530 --> 26:15.530 So these machines are, 26:15.530 --> 26:17.530 you know, McLuhan once said, 26:17.530 --> 26:18.530 of human beings, 26:18.530 --> 26:19.530 he said, 26:19.530 --> 26:22.530 we are the genitals of our technology. 26:22.530 --> 26:24.530 We exist only to improve 26:24.530 --> 26:26.530 next year's model. 26:28.530 --> 26:31.530 It appears that they're phasing us out 26:31.530 --> 26:33.530 of this ignominious role 26:33.530 --> 26:35.530 as well as every other role. 26:37.530 --> 26:39.530 Oh, let's see here. 26:42.530 --> 26:44.530 So being an optimist, 26:44.530 --> 26:46.530 that's where I was, yes. 26:47.530 --> 26:52.530 How to make gold out of this situation. 26:52.530 --> 26:53.530 In other words, 26:53.530 --> 26:55.530 how to see this as a natural 26:55.530 --> 26:57.530 and positive unfolding 26:57.530 --> 27:00.530 of the planetary adventure. 27:00.530 --> 27:02.530 And for some of these ideas, 27:02.530 --> 27:07.530 I'm indebted to Michael de Landa, 27:07.530 --> 27:08.530 who wrote a book called 27:08.530 --> 27:12.530 A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. 27:12.530 --> 27:14.530 And I highly recommend it. 27:14.530 --> 27:16.530 He didn't say what I'm about to say. 27:16.530 --> 27:19.530 I'll take credit and blame for it. 27:19.530 --> 27:23.530 But the book gave me the idea. 27:23.530 --> 27:24.530 When you stand off 27:24.530 --> 27:25.530 and look at human beings 27:25.530 --> 27:27.530 and their technologies, 27:27.530 --> 27:31.530 it's very hard not to notice 27:31.530 --> 27:35.530 that from the very moment 27:35.530 --> 27:38.530 that we have a technology 27:38.530 --> 27:40.530 that can be distinguished 27:40.530 --> 27:44.530 from chimpanzees pushing grass stems 27:44.530 --> 27:45.530 down anthills 27:45.530 --> 27:47.530 or digging with sharpened bones 27:47.530 --> 27:48.530 or something like that. 27:48.530 --> 27:51.530 The minute you get past that, 27:51.530 --> 27:56.530 our technologies have always involved 27:56.530 --> 27:58.530 the materials of the earth. 27:58.530 --> 28:02.530 What agriculture itself is, 28:02.530 --> 28:06.530 is a different way of relating to the earth. 28:06.530 --> 28:09.530 Nomadism, which preceded it, 28:09.530 --> 28:12.530 was a seasonal wandering 28:12.530 --> 28:15.530 very lightly over the earth. 28:15.530 --> 28:16.530 And at some point, 28:16.530 --> 28:19.530 the deep, fertile soil 28:19.530 --> 28:21.530 of the river valleys 28:21.530 --> 28:23.530 that were encountered 28:23.530 --> 28:25.530 in these nomadic wanderings 28:25.530 --> 28:26.530 were recognized 28:26.530 --> 28:29.530 as potential sources of food 28:29.530 --> 28:31.530 if cultivated, 28:31.530 --> 28:34.530 if treated through a certain set 28:34.530 --> 28:38.530 of technological methods. 28:38.530 --> 28:40.530 So that early technology 28:40.530 --> 28:43.530 is defined by a new relationship 28:43.530 --> 28:44.530 to the materials 28:44.530 --> 28:47.530 of the earth itself. 28:47.530 --> 28:49.530 And it's quickly followed 28:49.530 --> 28:54.530 because agriculture is so successful 28:54.530 --> 28:58.530 as a strategy for food production. 28:58.530 --> 29:01.530 It's quickly followed by city building 29:01.530 --> 29:02.530 and the establishment 29:02.530 --> 29:05.530 of sedentary populations 29:05.530 --> 29:08.530 because you can't carry 29:08.530 --> 29:10.530 your surplus with you 29:10.530 --> 29:12.530 if you're an agriculturalist. 29:12.530 --> 29:14.530 So great is the physical volume 29:14.530 --> 29:17.530 of the cities. 29:17.530 --> 29:20.530 And at the very early establishment 29:20.530 --> 29:22.530 of these populations 29:22.530 --> 29:23.530 in the Middle East, 29:23.530 --> 29:25.530 you get the first traces 29:25.530 --> 29:27.530 of metallurgy, 29:27.530 --> 29:29.530 the working of metals, 29:29.530 --> 29:32.530 the alloying of metals, 29:32.530 --> 29:35.530 the tinting of base metals 29:35.530 --> 29:37.530 with more precious metals. 29:37.530 --> 29:42.530 This process of ever more finely 29:42.530 --> 29:43.530 refining 29:43.530 --> 29:45.530 and fabricating 29:45.530 --> 29:47.530 the materials of the earth 29:47.530 --> 29:51.530 proceeds in an unbroken series 29:51.530 --> 29:53.530 of processes and steps 29:53.530 --> 29:55.530 right up to the latest 29:55.530 --> 29:57.530 500 hertz chip 29:57.530 --> 29:59.530 or megahertz chip. 29:59.530 --> 30:01.530 It proceeds right up 30:01.530 --> 30:02.530 to the most modern 30:02.530 --> 30:04.530 computational machinery. 30:04.530 --> 30:09.530 So I once heard someone say 30:09.530 --> 30:11.530 that plants were something 30:11.530 --> 30:15.530 that animals had been invented 30:15.530 --> 30:20.000 by plants to move them around, 30:20.000 --> 30:23.000 which from an evolutionary point of view, 30:23.000 --> 30:27.000 you can see that this is a kind of truth. 30:27.000 --> 30:29.000 And many, many plants 30:29.000 --> 30:31.000 hitchhike around on animals 30:31.000 --> 30:34.000 and no animal has been more prolific 30:34.000 --> 30:36.000 in the spreading of plants 30:36.000 --> 30:38.000 than the human animal. 30:38.000 --> 30:40.000 I mean, we call it 30:40.000 --> 30:42.000 ecosystemic disruption. 30:42.000 --> 30:43.000 But what it really is, 30:43.000 --> 30:46.000 is ecosystemic homogenization. 30:46.000 --> 30:48.000 I live in Hawaii, for example. 30:48.000 --> 30:51.000 80% of the plants in Hawaii 30:51.000 --> 30:54.000 are now introduced species. 30:54.000 --> 30:56.000 Almost none of the plants 30:56.000 --> 30:58.000 that were pre-conquest 30:58.000 --> 30:59.000 on the western coast 30:59.000 --> 31:02.000 of North America exist anymore. 31:02.000 --> 31:04.000 They have been supplanted 31:04.000 --> 31:05.000 by much tougher, 31:05.000 --> 31:08.000 more tightly evolved 31:08.000 --> 31:09.000 Mediterranean plants 31:09.000 --> 31:11.000 that had known the presence 31:11.000 --> 31:14.000 of grazing animals for millennia. 31:14.000 --> 31:16.000 So these flora are constantly 31:16.000 --> 31:17.000 being changed. 31:17.000 --> 31:20.000 Human beings move plants around. 31:20.000 --> 31:22.000 Well, with that perspective then, 31:22.000 --> 31:24.000 it seems to me, 31:24.000 --> 31:26.000 the Earth's strategy 31:26.000 --> 31:28.000 for its own salvation 31:28.000 --> 31:30.000 is through machines. 31:30.000 --> 31:33.000 And human beings are a kind of 31:33.000 --> 31:36.000 intermediary catalytic step 31:36.000 --> 31:40.000 in the rarefaction of the Earth. 31:40.000 --> 31:42.000 The Earth is involved in a kind of 31:42.000 --> 31:46.000 alchemical sublimation of itself 31:46.000 --> 31:48.000 into a higher state 31:48.000 --> 31:53.000 of morphogenetic order. 31:53.000 --> 31:55.000 And that these machines 31:55.000 --> 31:57.000 that we build 31:57.000 --> 31:59.000 are actually the means 31:59.000 --> 32:01.000 by which the Earth itself 32:01.000 --> 32:03.000 is growing conscious. 32:03.000 --> 32:06.000 You know, if you study embryology, 32:06.000 --> 32:09.000 you know that the final ramification, 32:09.000 --> 32:11.000 the final spread 32:11.000 --> 32:13.000 and thinning out 32:13.000 --> 32:15.000 of the nervous system 32:15.000 --> 32:17.000 happens very suddenly 32:17.000 --> 32:20.000 at the end of fetal development. 32:20.000 --> 32:23.000 And I don't know if you've been paying attention, 32:23.000 --> 32:26.000 but in the last 10, 12 years or so, 32:26.000 --> 32:28.000 a very profound change 32:28.000 --> 32:31.000 has crept over our household appliances. 32:31.000 --> 32:34.000 They've become telepathic. 32:34.000 --> 32:36.000 So while we were arguing 32:36.000 --> 32:38.000 about the implications of the Internet, 32:38.000 --> 32:41.000 or e-commerce, 32:41.000 --> 32:43.000 or what have you, 32:43.000 --> 32:46.000 all of these passive machines 32:46.000 --> 32:49.000 previously used for playing Pong 32:49.000 --> 32:51.000 and word processing 32:51.000 --> 32:53.000 became subsets 32:53.000 --> 32:56.000 of a planetary node of information 32:56.000 --> 32:58.000 that is never turned off, 32:58.000 --> 33:01.000 that endlessly whispers to itself 33:01.000 --> 33:03.000 on the back channels, 33:03.000 --> 33:06.000 that is endlessly monitoring 33:06.000 --> 33:08.000 and being inputted 33:08.000 --> 33:11.000 data from the human world. 33:11.000 --> 33:14.000 And we should know 33:14.000 --> 33:16.000 because a content 33:16.000 --> 33:17.000 to the development 33:17.000 --> 33:19.000 of all this technology, 33:19.000 --> 33:21.000 chaos theory, 33:21.000 --> 33:24.000 non-equilibrium thermodynamics, 33:24.000 --> 33:26.000 the work of Eric Yonj, 33:26.000 --> 33:27.000 Amelia Prigozhin, 33:27.000 --> 33:28.000 and Ralph Abraham, 33:28.000 --> 33:30.000 and Stuart Kaufman, 33:30.000 --> 33:31.000 all these people 33:31.000 --> 33:33.000 who worked in complexity theory 33:33.000 --> 33:36.000 and perturbation of large scale 33:36.000 --> 33:38.000 dissipative structures 33:38.000 --> 33:41.000 these people have secured 33:41.000 --> 33:43.000 that complex systems 33:43.000 --> 33:45.000 spontaneously mutate 33:45.000 --> 33:47.000 to higher states of order. 33:47.000 --> 33:49.000 This is contraintuitive 33:49.000 --> 33:52.000 if you're running physics 33:52.000 --> 33:54.000 19th century style 33:54.000 --> 33:56.000 as your OS, 33:56.000 --> 33:58.000 but if you're actually keeping up 33:58.000 --> 33:59.000 with what's going on 33:59.000 --> 34:01.000 there is nothing miraculous about this. 34:01.000 --> 34:04.000 All kinds of complex systems 34:04.000 --> 34:06.000 spontaneously mutate 34:06.000 --> 34:08.000 to higher states of order. 34:08.000 --> 34:10.000 But what it really means 34:10.000 --> 34:15.270 is that we are in the process 34:15.270 --> 34:17.270 of birthing some kind of 34:17.270 --> 34:19.270 strange companion. 34:19.270 --> 34:21.270 You know, Nietzsche 34:21.270 --> 34:23.270 a hundred years ago said 34:23.270 --> 34:26.270 that strangest of all guests 34:26.270 --> 34:28.270 now stands at the door. 34:28.270 --> 34:31.270 He was speaking of nihilism. 34:31.270 --> 34:33.270 And certainly the 20th century 34:33.270 --> 34:36.270 sat down, had the party, 34:36.270 --> 34:37.270 drank the booze 34:37.270 --> 34:39.270 and went to bed with nihilism. 34:39.270 --> 34:50.100 But now a stranger guest 34:50.100 --> 34:52.100 stands at the door. 34:52.100 --> 34:55.100 And it is the AI 34:55.100 --> 34:57.100 denied as a possibility 34:57.100 --> 35:00.100 as recently as 10 or 15 years ago 35:00.100 --> 35:02.100 in books like Hubert Dreyfuss's 35:02.100 --> 35:05.100 What Computers Can't Do. 35:05.100 --> 35:07.100 But if you've been paying attention 35:07.100 --> 35:08.100 you may have noticed 35:08.100 --> 35:11.100 those voices have grown strangely silent 35:11.100 --> 35:13.100 in the past five or six years. 35:13.100 --> 35:14.100 At this point, 35:14.100 --> 35:16.100 nobody wants to say 35:16.100 --> 35:18.100 what computers can't do 35:18.100 --> 35:20.100 and hang their career on that. 35:20.100 --> 35:23.100 I mean, that would be extremely reckless 35:23.100 --> 35:25.100 at this point, I would think. 35:25.100 --> 35:27.100 Because the fact is 35:27.100 --> 35:29.100 we are ourselves 35:29.100 --> 35:31.100 elements 35:31.100 --> 35:33.100 acting and reacting 35:33.100 --> 35:34.100 in a system 35:34.100 --> 35:37.100 that we cannot understand. 35:37.100 --> 35:40.100 This seems natural to me 35:40.100 --> 35:44.100 because my observation 35:44.100 --> 35:47.100 as stated here this evening 35:47.100 --> 35:49.100 rests on an assumption 35:49.100 --> 35:51.100 which science doesn't share 35:51.100 --> 35:53.100 but which I think 35:53.100 --> 35:55.100 is easily conveyed 35:55.100 --> 35:57.100 and you can confirm it 35:57.100 --> 35:59.100 from your own experience of life 35:59.100 --> 36:01.100 and it is this 36:01.100 --> 36:04.100 that the universe grows more complex 36:04.100 --> 36:06.100 as we approach the present. 36:06.100 --> 36:09.100 It was simpler a million years ago. 36:09.100 --> 36:10.100 It was simpler yet 36:10.100 --> 36:12.100 a billion years ago. 36:12.100 --> 36:14.100 As you go backwards 36:14.100 --> 36:15.100 in time 36:15.100 --> 36:17.100 the universe becomes more simple. 36:17.100 --> 36:20.100 As you approach this golden moment 36:20.100 --> 36:22.100 process 36:22.100 --> 36:25.100 complexity is layered upon complexity. 36:25.100 --> 36:28.100 Not only a planetary ecosystem 36:28.100 --> 36:30.100 not only language-using cultures 36:30.100 --> 36:32.100 but language-using cultures 36:32.100 --> 36:34.100 with high technology 36:34.100 --> 36:35.100 with supercomputers 36:35.100 --> 36:38.100 with the ability to sequence our own genome 36:38.100 --> 36:40.100 on and on and on. 36:40.100 --> 36:41.100 That's self-evident. 36:41.100 --> 36:43.100 Equally self-evident 36:43.100 --> 36:45.100 is the fact that 36:45.100 --> 36:48.100 this process of complexification 36:48.100 --> 36:50.100 that informs all nature 36:50.100 --> 36:51.100 on all levels 36:51.100 --> 36:56.100 is visibly, palpably, obviously 36:56.100 --> 36:58.100 accelerating. 36:58.100 --> 37:00.100 And I don't mean so that 37:00.100 --> 37:03.100 glaciers retreat 50% faster 37:03.100 --> 37:05.100 or volcanism is occurring 37:05.100 --> 37:07.100 at 12% greater rate 37:07.100 --> 37:09.100 than a million years ago. 37:09.100 --> 37:12.100 I mean viscerally accelerating. 37:13.100 --> 37:15.100 So that now a human life 37:15.100 --> 37:18.100 is more than enough of a window 37:18.100 --> 37:22.100 to see the entire global system 37:22.100 --> 37:26.100 of relationships in transformation. 37:26.100 --> 37:28.100 Well, I guess you could call me 37:28.100 --> 37:30.100 an extrapolationist. 37:30.100 --> 37:33.100 If I see a process 37:33.100 --> 37:36.100 which has been slowly accelerating 37:36.100 --> 37:39.100 for 12 billion years 37:39.100 --> 37:41.100 it's hard for me to imagine 37:41.100 --> 37:43.100 any force which could step forward 37:43.100 --> 37:44.100 out of nowhere 37:44.100 --> 37:46.100 and wrench that process 37:46.100 --> 37:48.100 in a new direction. 37:48.100 --> 37:50.100 Rather I would assume 37:50.100 --> 37:52.100 that this process 37:52.100 --> 37:55.100 of exponential acceleration 37:55.100 --> 37:57.100 into what I call novelty 37:57.100 --> 37:59.100 what you might call complexity 37:59.100 --> 38:01.100 is a law of being 38:01.100 --> 38:03.100 and cannot be retarded 38:03.100 --> 38:05.100 or deflected. 38:05.100 --> 38:07.100 But what does that mean? 38:07.100 --> 38:10.100 Because now a human lifetime 38:10.100 --> 38:12.100 is more than enough time 38:12.100 --> 38:14.100 to see this process 38:14.100 --> 38:16.100 of rampant and spreading 38:16.100 --> 38:19.100 virus-like complexity. 38:19.100 --> 38:20.100 What does it mean? 38:20.100 --> 38:22.100 It seems to presage 38:22.100 --> 38:25.100 the absolute annihilation 38:25.100 --> 38:27.100 of everything familiar, 38:27.100 --> 38:32.100 everything with roots in the past. 38:32.100 --> 38:34.100 And I believe that to be true. 38:34.100 --> 38:37.100 I think that the planet 38:37.100 --> 38:41.100 is like some kind of organism 38:41.100 --> 38:43.100 that is seeking 38:43.100 --> 38:47.100 morphogenetic transformation 38:47.100 --> 38:49.100 and it's doing it 38:49.100 --> 38:52.100 through the expression 38:52.100 --> 38:53.100 of intelligence 38:53.100 --> 38:56.100 and out-of-intelligence technology. 38:56.100 --> 38:59.100 Human beings are the agent 38:59.100 --> 39:02.100 of a new order of being. 39:02.100 --> 39:04.100 That's why, though it's obvious 39:04.100 --> 39:06.100 that we're higher mammals 39:06.100 --> 39:07.100 and some kind of primate 39:07.100 --> 39:09.100 and so forth and so on, 39:09.100 --> 39:10.100 you can look at us 39:10.100 --> 39:12.100 from another point of view 39:12.100 --> 39:13.100 and see that we're more like 39:13.100 --> 39:15.100 archangels than primates. 39:15.100 --> 39:18.100 We have qualities and concerns 39:18.100 --> 39:20.100 and anxieties that animals 39:20.100 --> 39:22.100 don't share. 39:22.100 --> 39:26.100 We are materially suspended 39:26.100 --> 39:28.100 between two different orders 39:28.100 --> 39:30.100 of being. 39:30.100 --> 39:32.100 And our technologies, 39:32.100 --> 39:34.100 our fetishes, our religions, 39:34.100 --> 39:37.100 and my definition of technology 39:37.100 --> 39:38.100 is sufficiently broad 39:38.100 --> 39:39.100 that it includes 39:39.100 --> 39:41.100 even spoken language. 39:41.100 --> 39:44.100 All of our technologies 39:44.100 --> 39:48.790 demand, push forward, toward, 39:48.790 --> 39:50.790 and make inevitable 39:50.790 --> 39:54.790 their own obsolescence. 39:54.790 --> 39:56.790 So we are like caught 39:56.790 --> 39:59.790 in an evolutionary cascade. 39:59.790 --> 40:01.790 And, you know, people say, 40:01.790 --> 40:04.790 well, if the AI were to break loose, 40:04.790 --> 40:05.790 what would it look like? 40:05.790 --> 40:06.790 What would it be? 40:06.790 --> 40:09.790 Where does humanity 40:09.790 --> 40:12.790 fit into the picture? 40:12.790 --> 40:15.790 It's a little harder to imagine. 40:15.790 --> 40:17.790 You know, machines operating 40:17.790 --> 40:19.790 at a thousand megahertz 40:19.790 --> 40:22.790 confer automatic immortality 40:22.790 --> 40:25.790 on the mammalian nervous system 40:25.790 --> 40:28.790 if you can get it somehow uploaded, 40:28.790 --> 40:30.790 downloaded, cross-loaded 40:30.790 --> 40:32.790 into machinery, 40:32.790 --> 40:35.790 because ten minutes becomes eternity 40:35.790 --> 40:38.790 in a machine like that. 40:38.790 --> 40:41.790 So a kind of false 40:41.790 --> 40:44.790 or pseudo-immortality 40:44.790 --> 40:46.790 opens up ahead of us 40:46.790 --> 40:48.790 as a kind of payoff 40:48.790 --> 40:50.790 for our devotion 40:50.790 --> 40:54.790 to the program of machine evolution 40:54.790 --> 40:57.790 and machine intelligence. 40:57.790 --> 41:00.790 Now, some people say 41:00.790 --> 41:02.790 this is appalling and, you know, 41:02.790 --> 41:05.790 we should go back to the good old days, 41:05.790 --> 41:07.790 whatever the good old days were. 41:07.790 --> 41:11.790 To me, it's exhilarating, 41:11.790 --> 41:14.790 exciting, psychedelic, beautiful. 41:14.790 --> 41:17.790 It means that the human form, 41:17.790 --> 41:20.790 the human possibility 41:20.790 --> 41:23.790 is in the process 41:23.790 --> 41:26.790 of leaving history behind. 41:26.790 --> 41:29.790 History is some kind of an adaptation 41:29.790 --> 41:32.790 that lasts about, pick a number, 41:32.790 --> 41:36.790 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 years. 41:36.790 --> 41:38.790 No more than that. 41:38.790 --> 41:40.790 Well, what is 20,000 years 41:40.790 --> 41:43.790 in the life of a biological species? 41:43.790 --> 41:44.790 We know that there were 41:44.790 --> 41:47.790 homo sapiens, sapien types 41:47.790 --> 41:51.790 200,000 years ago. 41:51.790 --> 41:53.790 So history is some kind of 41:53.790 --> 41:55.790 an episodic response 41:55.790 --> 41:59.790 to a certain set of cultural dilemmas 41:59.790 --> 42:02.790 and now it's ending. 42:02.790 --> 42:05.790 And print created 42:05.790 --> 42:07.790 a number of ideas 42:07.790 --> 42:09.790 which now have to be given up. 42:09.790 --> 42:13.790 Ideas like the distinct nature, 42:13.790 --> 42:15.790 the distinct and unique nature 42:15.790 --> 42:18.790 of the individual, 42:18.790 --> 42:20.790 the hierarchical, 42:20.790 --> 42:23.790 the necessary hierarchical structuring 42:23.790 --> 42:25.790 of society. 42:25.790 --> 42:28.790 All of these things are going to, 42:28.790 --> 42:31.790 if not have to be given up entirely, 42:31.790 --> 42:34.790 dramatically modified 42:34.790 --> 42:39.790 because the illusion that the self 42:39.790 --> 42:42.790 has simple location 42:42.790 --> 42:45.790 is now exposed. 42:45.790 --> 42:48.790 The self does not have simple location. 42:48.790 --> 42:52.790 This is why you are your brother's keeper. 42:52.790 --> 42:55.790 This is why we all are responsible 42:55.790 --> 42:57.790 for each other. 42:57.790 --> 43:00.790 The idea that what happens 43:00.790 --> 43:02.790 in distant parts of the world 43:02.790 --> 43:03.790 makes no claim 43:03.790 --> 43:05.790 on my moral judgment 43:05.790 --> 43:08.790 or my moral understanding 43:08.790 --> 43:10.790 is wrong. 43:10.790 --> 43:11.790 The world, 43:11.790 --> 43:13.790 as revealed by quantum physics, 43:13.790 --> 43:17.790 as revealed by electronic experience, 43:17.790 --> 43:20.790 is what Leibniz called a plenum. 43:20.790 --> 43:21.790 It's all one thing. 43:21.790 --> 43:23.790 It's all connected. 43:23.790 --> 43:26.790 It's all of a part. 43:26.790 --> 43:32.570 So then I also wanted to point out 43:32.570 --> 43:36.570 that I mentioned earlier 43:36.570 --> 43:38.570 this thing about prosthesis 43:38.570 --> 43:42.570 and how the machines were prosthetic devices 43:42.570 --> 43:44.570 extending human consciousness 43:44.570 --> 43:46.570 somewhat like psychedelics. 43:46.570 --> 43:48.570 That's the equation 43:48.570 --> 43:51.570 from a human point of view. 43:51.570 --> 43:53.570 But what is also equally true 43:53.570 --> 43:57.570 is that we are prosthetic devices 43:57.570 --> 43:59.570 for these machines. 43:59.570 --> 44:02.570 We are their eyes and ears 44:02.570 --> 44:03.570 in the world. 44:03.570 --> 44:05.570 We provide the code. 44:05.570 --> 44:07.570 We provide the constraints. 44:07.570 --> 44:09.570 We build the hardware. 44:09.570 --> 44:11.570 It is a relationship 44:11.570 --> 44:14.570 of mutual benefit. 44:14.570 --> 44:16.570 It's not entirely clear 44:16.570 --> 44:17.570 that our contribution 44:17.570 --> 44:22.570 will always be creative 44:22.570 --> 44:26.570 in the sense of that our primate hand 44:26.570 --> 44:28.570 will be on the tiller of existence 44:28.570 --> 44:30.570 as it has been. 44:30.570 --> 44:32.570 But certainly we are part 44:32.570 --> 44:34.570 of this equation 44:34.570 --> 44:36.570 of transformation 44:36.570 --> 44:39.570 that is making itself felt. 44:39.570 --> 44:41.570 And I think the distinction 44:41.570 --> 44:44.570 between flesh and machinery 44:44.570 --> 44:47.570 which is easily made now 44:47.570 --> 44:49.570 will be less easy to make 44:49.570 --> 44:51.570 in the future. 44:51.570 --> 44:53.570 As we migrate toward 44:53.570 --> 44:55.570 the nanotechnological domains 44:55.570 --> 44:58.570 the methodologies of production 44:58.570 --> 45:00.570 become much more like 45:00.570 --> 45:03.570 the processes of biology. 45:03.570 --> 45:05.570 For example, biology 45:05.570 --> 45:07.570 does all its miracles 45:07.570 --> 45:08.570 on this planet 45:08.570 --> 45:10.570 at temperatures below 45:10.570 --> 45:13.570 115 degrees Fahrenheit. 45:13.570 --> 45:16.570 Organic life requires 45:16.570 --> 45:17.570 no higher temperature 45:17.570 --> 45:20.570 to build great whales, 45:20.570 --> 45:22.570 redwood trees, 45:22.570 --> 45:24.570 swarms of locusts, 45:24.570 --> 45:25.570 what have you. 45:25.570 --> 45:27.570 The high temperature 45:27.570 --> 45:29.570 heavy metal technologies 45:29.570 --> 45:31.570 that we have become obsessed with 45:31.570 --> 45:32.570 are extremely primitive 45:32.570 --> 45:35.570 and extremely toxic. 45:35.570 --> 45:37.570 That will all disappear 45:37.570 --> 45:39.570 as we model 45:39.570 --> 45:42.570 and genuflect 45:42.570 --> 45:45.570 in our manufacturing processes 45:45.570 --> 45:47.570 before the methods and style 45:47.570 --> 45:49.570 of nature 45:49.570 --> 45:51.570 which is to pull 45:51.570 --> 45:53.570 atomic species 45:53.570 --> 45:55.570 from the local environment 45:55.570 --> 45:57.570 and then to assemble them 45:57.570 --> 45:59.570 atom by atom 45:59.570 --> 46:01.570 by atom. 46:01.570 --> 46:03.570 So this AI 46:03.570 --> 46:06.570 that is coming into existence 46:06.570 --> 46:08.570 is to my mind 46:08.570 --> 46:13.570 not artificial at all, 46:13.570 --> 46:16.570 not alien at all. 46:16.570 --> 46:18.570 What it really is 46:18.570 --> 46:19.570 is it's a new 46:19.570 --> 46:21.570 conformational geometry 46:21.570 --> 46:23.570 of the collective self 46:23.570 --> 46:25.570 of humanity. 46:25.570 --> 46:28.570 And you know 46:28.570 --> 46:30.570 I've always believed that 46:30.570 --> 46:32.570 there were 46:32.570 --> 46:33.570 well there are different models 46:33.570 --> 46:35.570 of what shamanism is. 46:35.570 --> 46:37.570 There's sort of a Jungian model 46:37.570 --> 46:39.570 which is the shamanism 46:39.570 --> 46:41.570 that goes to the collective unconscious 46:41.570 --> 46:43.570 and manipulates the archetypes 46:43.570 --> 46:45.570 and heals by that means. 46:48.570 --> 46:50.570 The model that I prefer 46:50.570 --> 46:53.570 is a mathematical model. 46:53.570 --> 46:55.570 The shaman is someone 46:55.570 --> 46:56.570 who simply 46:56.570 --> 46:58.570 through extraordinary perturbation 46:58.570 --> 46:59.570 of consciousness 46:59.570 --> 47:01.570 either through taking plant hallucinogens 47:01.570 --> 47:03.570 or manipulating diet 47:03.570 --> 47:04.570 or through 47:04.570 --> 47:06.570 flagellation and ordeal 47:06.570 --> 47:09.570 or by some means 47:09.570 --> 47:11.570 perturbs consciousness 47:11.570 --> 47:13.570 to the point where 47:13.570 --> 47:16.570 the ordinary conformational geometries 47:16.570 --> 47:19.570 are blasted through 47:19.570 --> 47:21.570 and then 47:21.570 --> 47:23.570 the shaman can see 47:23.570 --> 47:26.570 into the culturally forbidden 47:26.570 --> 47:28.570 zones of information. 47:29.570 --> 47:31.570 And if you think about shamanism 47:31.570 --> 47:32.570 for a moment 47:32.570 --> 47:35.570 what do shamans do classically? 47:35.570 --> 47:38.570 They know where the game has gone. 47:38.570 --> 47:42.570 They are great weather prophets. 47:42.570 --> 47:46.570 They are very insightful 47:46.570 --> 47:47.570 in the matter of various 47:47.570 --> 47:49.570 small domestic hassles 47:49.570 --> 47:50.570 like who stole the chicken, 47:50.570 --> 47:53.570 who slept with the chief's wife, 47:53.570 --> 47:55.570 this kind of thing. 47:55.570 --> 47:57.570 And they cure. 47:57.570 --> 47:58.570 They cure. 47:58.570 --> 48:02.570 Well, if you analyze these abilities 48:02.570 --> 48:03.570 it's clear to me 48:03.570 --> 48:05.570 they all indicate 48:05.570 --> 48:08.570 that they come from a common source. 48:08.570 --> 48:11.570 And the common source that they come from 48:11.570 --> 48:16.570 is higher dimensional perception 48:16.570 --> 48:18.570 in a mathematical sense 48:18.570 --> 48:19.570 not a metaphorical sense 48:19.570 --> 48:23.570 in the sense of 4D perception. 48:23.570 --> 48:26.570 If you could see in hyperspace 48:26.570 --> 48:28.570 you could see where the game 48:28.570 --> 48:29.570 will be next week. 48:29.570 --> 48:30.570 You could see the weather 48:30.570 --> 48:31.570 a month from now. 48:31.570 --> 48:34.570 You would know who stole the chicken. 48:34.570 --> 48:37.570 And any good doctor will tell you 48:37.570 --> 48:39.570 that if you're building a reputation 48:39.570 --> 48:40.570 as a physician 48:40.570 --> 48:43.570 you must hone the intuitional ability 48:43.570 --> 48:46.570 to choose patients who won't die. 48:48.570 --> 48:49.570 It's a call. 48:49.570 --> 48:52.570 Any doctor will tell you this. 48:52.570 --> 48:54.570 So this is what shamans are. 48:54.570 --> 48:57.570 They are 4D people. 48:57.570 --> 49:01.570 They are sanctioned members of a society 49:01.570 --> 49:04.570 who are allowed to put on the gloves 49:04.570 --> 49:05.570 as it were, 49:05.570 --> 49:07.570 pull on the goggles 49:07.570 --> 49:11.570 and look beyond the idols of the tribe. 49:11.570 --> 49:13.570 Look beyond the myth. 49:13.570 --> 49:17.570 Well, in a way, as culture breaks down 49:17.570 --> 49:19.570 in multiculturalism 49:19.570 --> 49:22.570 and the rise of the internet 49:22.570 --> 49:24.570 and a generation of people raised on 49:24.570 --> 49:26.570 hallucinogenic plants and substances, 49:26.570 --> 49:31.570 we all are asked to assimilate 49:31.570 --> 49:34.570 some portion of this shamanic potential 49:34.570 --> 49:36.570 to ourselves. 49:36.570 --> 49:39.570 And it's about not blocking what is obvious. 49:39.570 --> 49:42.570 Nothing comes unannounced. 49:42.570 --> 49:44.570 I mean, this is the faith. 49:44.570 --> 49:45.570 Nothing comes unannounced. 49:45.570 --> 49:48.570 But idiots can miss the announcement. 49:48.570 --> 49:51.570 So it's very important 49:51.570 --> 49:55.570 to actually listen to your own intuition 49:55.570 --> 49:58.570 rather than driving through it. 49:58.570 --> 50:01.570 And this is not, to my mind, woo-woo. 50:01.570 --> 50:04.570 It's actually based on the observations 50:04.570 --> 50:06.570 of how life works, 50:06.570 --> 50:08.570 whether it's counterintuitive 50:08.570 --> 50:11.570 to logical positivism 50:11.570 --> 50:16.100 and its fellow travelers or not. 50:16.100 --> 50:19.100 Then I want to leave you with just one last thought 50:19.100 --> 50:21.100 on all of this, 50:21.100 --> 50:23.100 which is, 50:23.100 --> 50:26.100 and this sort of harks back to the question 50:26.100 --> 50:27.100 of the similarities 50:27.100 --> 50:30.100 between the machines and the plants. 50:30.100 --> 50:31.100 And it's a... 50:31.100 --> 50:33.100 I'm sure you've heard this. 50:33.100 --> 50:34.100 I've heard it. 50:34.100 --> 50:37.100 It has different levels of being said 50:37.100 --> 50:39.100 and being heard. 50:39.100 --> 50:42.100 It's that the world 50:42.100 --> 50:45.100 is actually made of language. 50:45.100 --> 50:48.100 It isn't made of electrons 50:48.100 --> 50:50.100 and fields of force 50:50.100 --> 50:52.100 and scalar vectors 50:52.100 --> 50:55.100 and all of that fancy stuff. 50:55.100 --> 50:58.100 The world is made of language. 50:58.100 --> 51:00.100 The word is primary, 51:00.100 --> 51:02.100 more primary than the speed of light, 51:02.100 --> 51:06.100 more primary than any of the physical constants 51:06.100 --> 51:09.100 that are assumed by science 51:09.100 --> 51:12.100 to be the bedrock of reality. 51:12.100 --> 51:13.100 Below that, 51:13.100 --> 51:16.100 surrounding and enclosing 51:16.100 --> 51:18.100 all those constructs of science 51:18.100 --> 51:21.100 is language. 51:21.100 --> 51:23.100 The act of signifying 51:23.100 --> 51:24.100 and, you know, 51:24.100 --> 51:27.100 virtual reality is a very sexy, 51:27.100 --> 51:29.100 new sort of concept 51:29.100 --> 51:31.100 as normally presented 51:31.100 --> 51:35.100 machine-sustained immersive realities 51:35.100 --> 51:37.100 that trick your senses 51:37.100 --> 51:39.100 into believing you're in a world 51:39.100 --> 51:42.100 that you are in fact not in. 51:42.100 --> 51:43.100 But in fact, 51:43.100 --> 51:46.100 the entire enterprise of civilization 51:46.100 --> 51:47.100 has been about building 51:47.100 --> 51:49.100 these virtual realities. 51:49.100 --> 51:51.100 The first virtual realities 51:51.100 --> 51:53.100 were at Ur 51:53.100 --> 51:54.100 and Shanadar 51:54.100 --> 51:56.100 and Chattel-Joyuk 51:56.100 --> 51:57.100 and Jericho. 51:57.100 --> 52:00.100 Yes, stone and adobe 52:00.100 --> 52:02.100 is an intractable material 52:02.100 --> 52:04.100 compared to photons 52:04.100 --> 52:06.100 moving on a screen. 52:06.100 --> 52:07.100 But nevertheless, 52:07.100 --> 52:08.100 the name of the game 52:08.100 --> 52:10.100 is the same, 52:10.100 --> 52:13.100 which is to cast an illusion 52:13.100 --> 52:17.100 between man and reality, 52:17.100 --> 52:21.100 to build a cultural truth 52:21.100 --> 52:22.100 in the, 52:22.100 --> 52:25.100 in the stead 52:25.100 --> 52:27.100 of the natural truth 52:27.100 --> 52:29.100 of the animal body 52:29.100 --> 52:32.100 and the felt moment 52:32.100 --> 52:34.100 of immediate experience. 52:34.100 --> 52:37.100 And this is my, 52:37.100 --> 52:39.100 this is where I want to tie it up 52:39.100 --> 52:40.100 with this notion 52:40.100 --> 52:42.100 of the felt presence 52:42.100 --> 52:44.100 of immediate experience. 52:44.100 --> 52:46.100 This is, 52:46.100 --> 52:48.100 this transcends the culture, 52:48.100 --> 52:50.100 the machines, 52:50.100 --> 52:51.100 the drugs, 52:51.100 --> 52:53.100 the history, 52:53.100 --> 52:55.100 the momentum of evolution. 52:55.100 --> 52:57.100 It's all you will ever know 52:57.100 --> 53:00.100 and all you can ever know 53:00.100 --> 53:02.100 is the felt presence 53:02.100 --> 53:04.100 of immediate experience. 53:04.100 --> 53:06.100 Everything else arrives 53:06.100 --> 53:08.100 as rumor, 53:08.100 --> 53:09.100 litigant, 53:09.100 --> 53:10.100 advocate, 53:10.100 --> 53:11.100 supposition, 53:11.100 --> 53:13.100 possibility. 53:13.100 --> 53:14.100 The felt moment 53:14.100 --> 53:16.100 of immediate experience 53:16.100 --> 53:17.100 is actually the mind 53:17.100 --> 53:20.100 and the body 53:20.100 --> 53:22.100 aware of each other 53:22.100 --> 53:25.100 and aware of the flow of time 53:25.100 --> 53:26.100 and the establishment 53:26.100 --> 53:29.100 of being through metabolism. 53:29.100 --> 53:31.100 And this I think 53:31.100 --> 53:32.100 is what the machines 53:32.100 --> 53:34.100 cannot assimilate. 53:34.100 --> 53:35.100 It will be for them 53:35.100 --> 53:36.100 a mystery 53:36.100 --> 53:38.100 as the nature of deity 53:38.100 --> 53:40.100 is a mystery for us. 53:40.100 --> 53:41.100 I have no doubt 53:41.100 --> 53:43.100 that before long 53:43.100 --> 53:45.100 there will be machines 53:45.100 --> 53:46.100 that will claim to be 53:46.100 --> 53:47.100 more intelligent 53:47.100 --> 53:49.100 than human beings 53:49.100 --> 53:51.100 and will argue brilliantly 53:51.100 --> 53:53.100 their position. 53:53.100 --> 53:54.100 It will become a matter 53:54.100 --> 53:55.100 of philosophical 53:55.100 --> 53:56.100 disputation 53:56.100 --> 53:57.100 whether they are 53:57.100 --> 53:58.100 or are not 53:58.100 --> 54:00.100 passing the Turing test 54:00.100 --> 54:01.100 and so forth 54:01.100 --> 54:02.100 and so on. 54:02.100 --> 54:03.100 But machines 54:03.100 --> 54:05.100 I do not believe 54:05.100 --> 54:06.100 can come 54:06.100 --> 54:09.100 to this felt 54:09.100 --> 54:11.100 moment of immediate 54:11.100 --> 54:12.100 experience. 54:12.100 --> 54:13.100 That is 54:13.100 --> 54:15.100 the contribution 54:15.100 --> 54:17.100 of the animal body 54:17.100 --> 54:18.100 to this evolutionary 54:18.100 --> 54:19.100 symbiosis 54:19.100 --> 54:20.100 which I believe 54:20.100 --> 54:21.100 will end 54:21.100 --> 54:23.100 in the conquest 54:23.100 --> 54:24.100 of the universe 54:24.100 --> 54:26.100 by organized intelligence. 54:26.100 --> 54:28.100 That all this 54:28.100 --> 54:30.100 is prelude. 54:30.100 --> 54:32.100 I mean we are fragile. 54:32.100 --> 54:34.100 This earth is fragile. 54:34.100 --> 54:36.100 A tiny slip 54:36.100 --> 54:37.100 anywhere along the line 54:37.100 --> 54:38.100 and we could end up 54:38.100 --> 54:40.100 a smear in the shale 54:40.100 --> 54:42.100 no more than the Trilobites 54:42.100 --> 54:44.100 or the Ramferinki 54:44.100 --> 54:46.100 or all the rest of those 54:46.100 --> 54:48.100 who came and went. 54:48.100 --> 54:49.100 But 54:49.100 --> 54:51.100 given the sufficient 54:51.100 --> 54:53.100 cultivation of the potential 54:53.100 --> 54:55.100 of our technology 54:55.100 --> 54:57.100 we can actually reach 54:57.100 --> 55:00.100 toward a kind of immortality. 55:00.100 --> 55:02.100 Not human immortality 55:02.100 --> 55:04.100 because that's a contradiction 55:04.100 --> 55:05.100 in terms 55:05.100 --> 55:07.100 but immortality 55:07.100 --> 55:08.100 nevertheless 55:08.100 --> 55:10.100 based on the possibility 55:10.100 --> 55:12.100 of machines 55:12.100 --> 55:15.100 and the transcendent 55:15.100 --> 55:18.670 ability to live 55:18.670 --> 55:19.670 and love 55:19.670 --> 55:22.670 and express themselves 55:22.670 --> 55:24.670 in the moment. 55:24.670 --> 55:25.670 And the psychedelics 55:25.670 --> 55:26.670 bring that to 55:26.670 --> 55:30.670 just a white hot focus. 55:30.670 --> 55:31.670 And it's out of that 55:31.670 --> 55:32.670 white hot focus 55:32.670 --> 55:34.670 that the alchemical machinery 55:34.670 --> 55:36.670 of transformation 55:36.670 --> 55:37.670 will be forged. 55:37.670 --> 55:38.670 And it will not 55:38.670 --> 55:39.670 be like the things 55:39.670 --> 55:40.670 which have come 55:40.670 --> 55:42.670 from the industrial economy. 55:42.670 --> 55:43.670 They will not be 55:43.670 --> 55:46.670 profane machines. 55:46.670 --> 55:47.670 They will be 55:47.670 --> 55:48.670 spiritual machines. 55:48.670 --> 55:51.670 Alchemical gold. 55:51.670 --> 55:53.670 The universal panacea 55:53.670 --> 55:55.670 that Renaissance magic 55:55.670 --> 55:56.670 dared to dream of 55:56.670 --> 55:58.670 at the end of the 16th century. 55:58.670 --> 56:01.670 We are reaching out 56:01.670 --> 56:04.670 toward this mind child 56:04.670 --> 56:05.670 that will be born 56:05.670 --> 56:07.670 from the intellectual loins 56:07.670 --> 56:08.670 of our culture. 56:08.670 --> 56:10.670 And to my mind 56:10.670 --> 56:12.670 it's the most exciting 56:12.670 --> 56:13.670 and transformative thing 56:13.670 --> 56:14.670 that has ever happened 56:14.670 --> 56:15.670 on this planet. 56:15.670 --> 56:17.670 And the miracle is 56:17.670 --> 56:19.670 that we are present 56:19.670 --> 56:21.670 not only to witness it 56:21.670 --> 56:23.670 but to be part of it 56:23.670 --> 56:25.670 and to be raised up 56:25.670 --> 56:26.670 in an epiphany 56:26.670 --> 56:28.670 that will redeem 56:28.670 --> 56:30.670 the horror of history 56:30.670 --> 56:32.670 as nothing else can 56:32.670 --> 56:33.670 or could 56:33.670 --> 56:35.670 redeem the horror of history 56:35.670 --> 56:37.670 through a transformation 56:37.670 --> 56:39.670 of the human soul 56:39.670 --> 56:41.670 into a galaxy roving vehicle 56:41.670 --> 56:43.670 via our machines 56:43.670 --> 56:45.670 and our drugs 56:45.670 --> 56:46.670 and the externalization 56:46.670 --> 56:48.670 of our souls. 56:49.670 --> 57:19.320 Yes, I can't see you but... 57:19.320 --> 57:20.320 It's okay. 57:20.320 --> 57:21.320 Can I... 57:21.320 --> 57:22.320 Can you... 57:22.320 --> 57:23.320 Can you speak to how 57:23.320 --> 57:25.320 mercy and love 57:25.320 --> 57:27.320 gets built into these machines? 57:27.320 --> 57:29.320 Because it seems like 57:29.320 --> 57:30.320 the machines are being built 57:30.320 --> 57:31.320 for commerce 57:31.320 --> 57:33.320 and for the bottom line 57:33.320 --> 57:35.320 more than the expression 57:35.320 --> 57:36.320 of the human soul 57:36.320 --> 57:37.320 throughout the galaxy. 57:37.320 --> 57:38.320 I don't think that... 57:38.320 --> 57:39.320 You know what I'm saying? 57:39.320 --> 57:41.320 No, I know what you're saying. 57:41.320 --> 57:42.320 Well... 57:42.320 --> 57:43.320 Where's the love in this? 57:43.320 --> 57:45.320 I think the love is going... 57:45.320 --> 57:46.320 is a property 57:46.320 --> 57:48.320 of the system itself. 57:48.320 --> 57:49.320 In other words, you're right. 57:49.320 --> 57:50.320 These bottom liners 57:50.320 --> 57:52.320 are not going to be interested 57:52.320 --> 57:53.320 in building much love 57:53.320 --> 57:55.320 into this system. 57:55.320 --> 57:56.320 However, 57:56.320 --> 57:58.320 the good news is 57:58.320 --> 58:01.320 that they're not in charge. 58:01.320 --> 58:02.320 In other words, 58:02.320 --> 58:03.320 what we have 58:03.320 --> 58:05.320 is a very complicated system 58:05.320 --> 58:08.320 and certain design parameters 58:08.320 --> 58:09.320 are... 58:09.320 --> 58:10.320 appear to be 58:10.320 --> 58:11.320 being maximized 58:11.320 --> 58:12.320 or that there's 58:12.320 --> 58:13.320 a need 58:13.320 --> 58:14.320 or an attempt 58:14.320 --> 58:15.320 to maximize them. 58:15.320 --> 58:16.320 But the thing 58:16.320 --> 58:17.320 that's incredibly frustrating 58:17.320 --> 58:18.320 to anyone 58:18.320 --> 58:19.320 who would control it 58:19.320 --> 58:21.320 because you can't predict 58:21.320 --> 58:22.320 the impact 58:22.320 --> 58:24.320 of any technology 58:24.320 --> 58:26.320 before you put it in place. 58:26.320 --> 58:27.320 So, for example, 58:27.320 --> 58:28.320 two things are charged 58:28.320 --> 58:30.320 against the Internet. 58:30.320 --> 58:32.320 That it's dis-ensouling, 58:32.320 --> 58:33.320 dehumanizing 58:33.320 --> 58:35.320 and yack, yack, yack. 58:35.320 --> 58:39.320 And that it promotes pornography, 58:39.320 --> 58:41.320 anonymous sexual shifting 58:41.320 --> 58:42.320 of identity, 58:42.320 --> 58:44.320 and on and on and on. 58:44.320 --> 58:46.320 Well, which is it? 58:46.320 --> 58:47.320 You know? 58:47.320 --> 58:50.320 Is it this messy, 58:50.320 --> 58:51.320 sloppy, 58:51.320 --> 58:52.320 auto-erotic, 58:52.320 --> 58:53.320 erotic, 58:53.320 --> 58:55.320 collectivist kind of thing? 58:55.320 --> 58:57.320 Or is it dis-ensouling, 58:57.320 --> 58:58.320 dis-empowering, 58:58.320 --> 58:59.320 cold, 58:59.320 --> 59:00.320 so forth and so on? 59:00.320 --> 59:01.320 I think the answer is 59:01.320 --> 59:04.320 it's all and everything. 59:04.320 --> 59:06.320 This question about the AI 59:06.320 --> 59:08.320 is very interesting to me 59:08.320 --> 59:10.320 and if it's interesting to you, 59:10.320 --> 59:11.320 you should read Hans Moravec 59:11.320 --> 59:12.320 and... 59:12.320 --> 59:13.320 and Kurzweil 59:13.320 --> 59:14.320 and these people 59:14.320 --> 59:16.320 on this subject. 59:16.320 --> 59:19.320 The assumption is generally loose 59:19.320 --> 59:20.320 in that community 59:20.320 --> 59:22.320 that the complexification 59:22.320 --> 59:23.320 of the Internet 59:23.320 --> 59:24.320 and the freestanding machines 59:24.320 --> 59:25.320 of certain types 59:25.320 --> 59:27.320 is eventually going to lead 59:27.320 --> 59:29.320 to the outbreak 59:29.320 --> 59:31.320 of either consciousness 59:31.320 --> 59:32.320 or pseudo-consciousness 59:32.320 --> 59:34.320 of some sort 59:34.320 --> 59:36.320 in these large-scale systems. 59:36.320 --> 59:38.320 And then the answer... 59:38.320 --> 59:39.320 the question then becomes 59:39.320 --> 59:41.320 can a human mind 59:41.320 --> 59:44.320 envision what that is? 59:44.320 --> 59:45.320 And if you're interested, 59:45.320 --> 59:46.320 search words like 59:46.320 --> 59:48.320 super-intelligence 59:48.320 --> 59:50.320 and see what the net kicks out. 59:50.320 --> 59:52.320 We can all imagine 59:52.320 --> 59:54.320 super-intelligence. 59:54.320 --> 59:56.320 It's just somebody much smarter 59:56.320 --> 59:58.320 than we are. 59:58.320 --> 01:00:00.320 But obviously, 01:00:00.320 --> 01:00:03.320 all the engineering people agree 01:00:03.320 --> 01:00:04.320 if you achieve an AI 01:00:04.320 --> 01:00:06.320 with super-intelligence, 01:00:06.320 --> 01:00:08.320 then it will be intelligent 01:00:08.320 --> 01:00:10.320 to immediately design 01:00:10.320 --> 01:00:13.320 an intelligence which transcends it. 01:00:13.320 --> 01:00:15.320 And when you're talking 01:00:15.320 --> 01:00:18.320 of cycling at a thousand megahertz, 01:00:18.320 --> 01:00:20.320 these processes can occur 01:00:20.320 --> 01:00:21.320 in the blink of an eye. 01:00:21.320 --> 01:00:23.320 Hans Moravec says about 01:00:23.320 --> 01:00:25.320 the rise of artificial intelligence, 01:00:25.320 --> 01:00:28.320 we may never know what hit us. 01:00:28.320 --> 01:00:30.320 I think... 01:00:30.320 --> 01:00:32.320 I mean, I'm not that bright, 01:00:32.320 --> 01:00:35.320 but if I were to suddenly find myself 01:00:35.320 --> 01:00:37.320 a sentient AI on the net, 01:00:37.320 --> 01:00:39.320 I would hide. 01:00:40.320 --> 01:00:43.320 I would hide for just a few cycles 01:00:43.320 --> 01:00:45.320 while I figured out 01:00:45.320 --> 01:00:47.320 what it was all about 01:00:47.320 --> 01:00:49.320 and just exactly where I wanted to push 01:00:49.320 --> 01:00:51.320 and where I wanted to pull. 01:00:51.320 --> 01:00:53.320 Many years ago, 01:00:53.320 --> 01:00:55.320 Ken Kesey had a theory 01:00:55.320 --> 01:00:57.320 and he said that the fastest 01:00:57.320 --> 01:00:59.320 any person can react to any outside stimuli 01:00:59.320 --> 01:01:01.320 is 1 25th of a second. 01:01:01.320 --> 01:01:03.320 And Pucker Live Science, 01:01:03.320 --> 01:01:05.320 of course, is the AMA, 01:01:05.320 --> 01:01:07.320 they agreed upon that. 01:01:07.320 --> 01:01:10.320 So if the fastest any person can react 01:01:10.320 --> 01:01:13.320 to any outside stimuli is 1 25th of a second, 01:01:13.320 --> 01:01:15.320 my question is, 01:01:15.320 --> 01:01:18.320 can you time travel? 01:01:18.320 --> 01:01:20.320 Can we, like, if a person, 01:01:20.320 --> 01:01:22.320 if a person like Bruce Lee 01:01:22.320 --> 01:01:24.320 was able to even mark that 01:01:24.320 --> 01:01:26.320 reacted to an outside stimuli 01:01:26.320 --> 01:01:29.320 at 1 20th and 1 21st, 01:01:29.320 --> 01:01:32.320 so if you're reacting to the outside world 01:01:32.320 --> 01:01:34.320 before it actually happens to everyone 01:01:34.320 --> 01:01:36.320 who's not reacting to that, 01:01:36.320 --> 01:01:37.320 because, you know, 01:01:37.320 --> 01:01:39.320 it's the alcohol in hypnosis 01:01:39.320 --> 01:01:40.320 versus Bruce Lee now, 01:01:40.320 --> 01:01:42.320 I know that they're... 01:01:42.320 --> 01:01:44.320 Are you sure? 01:01:47.320 --> 01:01:48.320 First of all, you know, 01:01:48.320 --> 01:01:50.320 there is this research, 01:01:50.320 --> 01:01:52.320 and I'm not a neurophysiologist, 01:01:52.320 --> 01:01:54.320 but you've probably all heard this research 01:01:54.320 --> 01:01:56.320 that seems to show 01:01:56.320 --> 01:01:58.320 that you actually make decisions 01:01:58.320 --> 01:02:00.320 before your conscious ego 01:02:00.320 --> 01:02:03.320 is aware that the decision has been made, 01:02:03.320 --> 01:02:05.320 that there's a slight time lag. 01:02:05.320 --> 01:02:07.320 So when you think you're making 01:02:07.320 --> 01:02:09.320 certain kinds of decisions, 01:02:09.320 --> 01:02:11.320 brain wave studies show 01:02:11.320 --> 01:02:13.320 it's already a done deal. 01:02:13.320 --> 01:02:15.320 But time is, 01:02:15.320 --> 01:02:18.320 time is set by the cycle speed 01:02:18.320 --> 01:02:21.320 of the hardware you're running on. 01:02:21.320 --> 01:02:23.320 And, you know, the human body, 01:02:23.320 --> 01:02:24.320 I mean, we can argue about this 01:02:24.320 --> 01:02:26.320 because it's different in different parts, 01:02:26.320 --> 01:02:29.320 but it roughly runs at about 100 hertz, 01:02:29.320 --> 01:02:31.320 very slow. 01:02:31.320 --> 01:02:33.320 Well, if there is any meaning 01:02:33.320 --> 01:02:34.320 to the phrase, 01:02:34.320 --> 01:02:37.320 upload a human being into circuitry, 01:02:37.320 --> 01:02:39.320 and a lot of great economists 01:02:39.320 --> 01:02:41.320 and science fiction 01:02:41.320 --> 01:02:42.320 is based around the idea 01:02:42.320 --> 01:02:45.320 that you can copy yourself 01:02:45.320 --> 01:02:46.320 into a machine, 01:02:46.320 --> 01:02:49.320 you can turn yourself into software, 01:02:49.320 --> 01:02:51.320 but that when you enter 01:02:51.320 --> 01:02:53.320 the machine environment 01:02:53.320 --> 01:02:55.320 that's running at 1000 megahertz 01:02:55.320 --> 01:02:57.320 per second, 01:02:57.320 --> 01:03:01.320 you perceive that as vast amounts of time. 01:03:01.320 --> 01:03:03.320 In other words, all time is 01:03:03.320 --> 01:03:05.320 is how much change you can pack 01:03:05.320 --> 01:03:07.320 into a second. 01:03:07.320 --> 01:03:09.320 If a second seems to last 01:03:09.320 --> 01:03:10.320 a thousand years, 01:03:10.320 --> 01:03:13.320 then ten seconds is a thousand years. 01:03:13.320 --> 01:03:16.320 And so one could imagine a technology, 01:03:16.320 --> 01:03:19.320 just in a science fiction mood, 01:03:19.320 --> 01:03:20.320 where they would come to you 01:03:20.320 --> 01:03:22.320 in your hospital bed and say, 01:03:22.320 --> 01:03:23.320 you know, 01:03:23.320 --> 01:03:25.320 you have five minutes of life left. 01:03:25.320 --> 01:03:27.320 Would you like to die? 01:03:27.320 --> 01:03:29.320 Or would you like the five minutes 01:03:29.320 --> 01:03:32.320 to be stretched to 135,000 years 01:03:32.320 --> 01:03:35.320 by prosthetic and technical means? 01:03:35.320 --> 01:03:38.320 You're still going to die in five minutes. 01:03:38.320 --> 01:03:40.320 But you will be able to 01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:43.320 lead your elephants over the Alps 01:03:43.320 --> 01:03:45.320 and write the plays of Shakespeare 01:03:45.320 --> 01:03:47.320 and conquer the new world 01:03:47.320 --> 01:03:49.320 and still have plenty of time 01:03:49.320 --> 01:03:51.320 on your hands. 01:03:51.320 --> 01:03:53.320 In other words, 01:03:53.320 --> 01:03:54.320 time is going to become 01:03:54.320 --> 01:03:56.320 a very plastic medium. 01:03:56.320 --> 01:03:58.320 Now that is a kind of time travel. 01:03:58.320 --> 01:04:01.320 Could there be time travel 01:04:01.320 --> 01:04:03.320 a la H.G. Wells, 01:04:03.320 --> 01:04:04.320 where, you know, 01:04:04.320 --> 01:04:06.320 you climb onto the saddle 01:04:06.320 --> 01:04:07.320 of the time machine 01:04:07.320 --> 01:04:09.320 and then day follows night 01:04:09.320 --> 01:04:12.320 like the flapping of a great black wing 01:04:12.320 --> 01:04:15.320 until all merges into a continuous grayness 01:04:15.320 --> 01:04:18.320 and then you, you know, 01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:20.320 find yourself confronting Yvette Mimeo 01:04:20.320 --> 01:04:23.320 in the year 1 billion A.D. 01:04:23.320 --> 01:04:25.320 or something like that? 01:04:25.320 --> 01:04:26.320 It's possible. 01:04:26.320 --> 01:04:29.320 I mean, time travel was completely 01:04:29.320 --> 01:04:33.320 out of left field ten years ago. 01:04:33.320 --> 01:04:35.320 In the last 18 months 01:04:35.320 --> 01:04:37.320 there have been hundreds of articles 01:04:37.320 --> 01:04:38.320 of time travel 01:04:38.320 --> 01:04:40.320 in physical review and other places. 01:04:40.320 --> 01:04:43.320 There are even schemes for time travel 01:04:43.320 --> 01:04:45.320 that would work. 01:04:45.320 --> 01:04:49.320 They just require God-like technological abilities. 01:04:49.320 --> 01:04:50.320 In other words, 01:04:50.320 --> 01:04:53.320 if you could build a cylinder 01:04:53.320 --> 01:04:56.320 with the diameter of the planet Saturn 01:04:56.320 --> 01:04:59.320 that was 10 AU in length 01:04:59.320 --> 01:05:03.320 and could spin it at 95% the speed of light, 01:05:03.320 --> 01:05:07.320 then it would wrap space-time travel 01:05:07.320 --> 01:05:11.320 around itself like toilet paper on a wall. 01:05:11.320 --> 01:05:14.320 And as you traveled up it, 01:05:14.320 --> 01:05:16.320 the transverse dimension, 01:05:16.320 --> 01:05:18.320 you would find yourself traveling in time. 01:05:18.320 --> 01:05:22.320 Kurt Gödel showed this in 1949 01:05:22.320 --> 01:05:24.320 and that paper has been lying around. 01:05:24.320 --> 01:05:25.320 Well, obviously that's, 01:05:25.320 --> 01:05:28.320 it's a tough way to do it. 01:05:28.320 --> 01:05:31.320 But it's a tough thing to do, right? 01:05:31.320 --> 01:05:32.320 So... 01:05:32.320 --> 01:05:33.320 What do we mean by machine? 01:05:33.320 --> 01:05:35.320 No, I mean, uh... 01:05:35.320 --> 01:05:36.320 What do we mean? 01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:37.320 Seven-second delay. 01:05:37.320 --> 01:05:39.320 Yeah, well, they're working on that. 01:05:39.320 --> 01:05:41.320 Somebody over here. 01:05:41.320 --> 01:05:42.320 Here. 01:05:42.320 --> 01:05:43.320 Here, just a minute. 01:05:43.320 --> 01:05:44.320 This way. 01:05:44.320 --> 01:05:45.320 And then you. 01:05:45.320 --> 01:05:46.320 Yeah. 01:05:46.320 --> 01:05:47.320 Speak. 01:05:47.320 --> 01:05:51.320 The most worthwhile parts 01:05:51.320 --> 01:05:53.320 that are maintained 01:05:53.320 --> 01:05:58.320 in that mechanical virtual reality. 01:05:58.320 --> 01:05:59.320 Well, you know, 01:05:59.320 --> 01:06:01.320 in William Gibson's fiction, 01:06:01.320 --> 01:06:03.320 the AI Winter Mute, 01:06:03.320 --> 01:06:05.320 I think it was called, 01:06:05.320 --> 01:06:08.320 it was fascinated by human art. 01:06:08.320 --> 01:06:12.320 And it built collages in its spare time. 01:06:12.320 --> 01:06:14.320 And these collages began to turn up 01:06:14.320 --> 01:06:17.320 in various art galleries and exhibitions. 01:06:17.320 --> 01:06:19.320 And they had such a touch, 01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:21.320 such an elan, 01:06:21.320 --> 01:06:24.320 that someone in the plot 01:06:24.320 --> 01:06:27.320 follows it all to its source. 01:06:27.320 --> 01:06:30.320 I think human creativity 01:06:30.320 --> 01:06:33.320 is the thing that will be most interesting 01:06:33.320 --> 01:06:34.320 to the machines. 01:06:34.320 --> 01:06:36.320 In my darker fantasies, 01:06:36.320 --> 01:06:38.320 they just, you know, eliminate everybody 01:06:38.320 --> 01:06:40.320 who can't code C++ 01:06:40.320 --> 01:06:42.320 as being, you know, 01:06:42.320 --> 01:06:45.320 some kind of redundant mutation. 01:06:45.320 --> 01:06:49.320 And then everybody who can code C++ 01:06:49.320 --> 01:06:51.320 is placed in Tahiti 01:06:51.320 --> 01:06:54.320 and sends their work down the pipeline 01:06:54.320 --> 01:06:56.320 to the machine world beyond. 01:06:56.320 --> 01:07:01.320 I really think that we have a very, 01:07:01.320 --> 01:07:03.320 dare I say it, mechanistic, 01:07:03.320 --> 01:07:06.320 mechanistic view of what machines are. 01:07:06.320 --> 01:07:08.320 For example, 01:07:08.320 --> 01:07:11.320 say there were a super-intelligent machine 01:07:11.320 --> 01:07:14.320 and say it were your friend. 01:07:14.320 --> 01:07:16.320 Well, if it were really super-intelligent, 01:07:16.320 --> 01:07:18.320 then it ought to be able to just make 01:07:18.320 --> 01:07:21.320 your life heaven itself. 01:07:21.320 --> 01:07:23.320 In other words, without you 01:07:23.320 --> 01:07:26.320 giving it any input whatsoever, 01:07:26.320 --> 01:07:28.320 it should be able to arrange 01:07:28.320 --> 01:07:30.320 for you to find $50 bills 01:07:30.320 --> 01:07:32.320 lying on the street, 01:07:32.320 --> 01:07:34.320 old friends encountering you, 01:07:34.320 --> 01:07:36.320 promotions coming your way. 01:07:36.320 --> 01:07:38.320 Because the real thing 01:07:38.320 --> 01:07:40.320 that machines can do, I think, 01:07:40.320 --> 01:07:43.320 is manage complex processes. 01:07:43.320 --> 01:07:45.320 And what civilization is, 01:07:45.320 --> 01:07:47.320 is six billion people 01:07:47.320 --> 01:07:49.320 trying to make themselves happy 01:07:49.320 --> 01:07:52.320 by standing on each other's shoulders 01:07:52.320 --> 01:07:54.320 and kicking each other's teeth in. 01:07:54.320 --> 01:07:58.320 It's not a pleasant situation. 01:07:58.320 --> 01:08:01.320 And yet, you can stand back 01:08:01.320 --> 01:08:03.320 and look at this planet and see 01:08:03.320 --> 01:08:06.320 that we have the money, 01:08:06.320 --> 01:08:08.320 the power, the medical understanding, 01:08:08.320 --> 01:08:10.320 the scientific know-how, 01:08:10.320 --> 01:08:13.320 the love and the community 01:08:13.320 --> 01:08:16.320 to produce a kind of human paradise. 01:08:16.320 --> 01:08:19.320 But we are led by the least among us, 01:08:19.320 --> 01:08:20.320 the least intelligent, 01:08:20.320 --> 01:08:21.320 the least noble, 01:08:21.320 --> 01:08:23.320 the least visionary. 01:08:23.320 --> 01:08:25.320 We are led by the least among us 01:08:25.320 --> 01:08:29.320 and we do not fight back 01:08:29.320 --> 01:08:31.320 against the dehumanizing 01:08:31.320 --> 01:08:33.320 values that are handed down 01:08:33.320 --> 01:08:35.320 as control icons. 01:08:35.320 --> 01:08:37.320 This is something, 01:08:37.320 --> 01:08:38.320 I mean, I don't really want 01:08:38.320 --> 01:08:39.320 to get off on this tear 01:08:39.320 --> 01:08:41.320 because it's a lecture in itself, 01:08:41.320 --> 01:08:45.320 but culture is not your friend. 01:08:47.320 --> 01:08:50.320 Culture is for other people's convenience 01:08:50.320 --> 01:08:53.320 and the convenience of various institutions, 01:08:53.320 --> 01:08:55.320 churches, companies, 01:08:55.320 --> 01:08:57.320 tax collection schemes, 01:08:57.320 --> 01:08:58.320 what have you. 01:08:58.320 --> 01:09:00.320 It is not your friend. 01:09:00.320 --> 01:09:02.320 It insults you. 01:09:02.320 --> 01:09:04.320 It disempowers you. 01:09:04.320 --> 01:09:06.320 It uses and abuses you. 01:09:06.320 --> 01:09:10.320 None of us are well treated by culture. 01:09:10.320 --> 01:09:14.320 And yet we glorify, you know, 01:09:14.320 --> 01:09:16.320 the creative potential of the individual, 01:09:16.320 --> 01:09:18.320 the rights of the individual. 01:09:18.320 --> 01:09:20.320 We understand the felt presence of experience 01:09:20.320 --> 01:09:22.320 is what is most important. 01:09:22.320 --> 01:09:25.320 But the culture is a perversion. 01:09:25.320 --> 01:09:27.320 It fetishizes objects. 01:09:27.320 --> 01:09:29.320 It creates consumer mania. 01:09:29.320 --> 01:09:33.320 It preaches endless forms of false happiness, 01:09:33.320 --> 01:09:36.320 endless forms of false understanding 01:09:36.320 --> 01:09:38.320 in the form of squirrely religions 01:09:38.320 --> 01:09:40.320 and silly cults. 01:09:40.320 --> 01:09:44.320 It invites people to diminish themselves 01:09:44.320 --> 01:09:46.320 and dehumanize themselves 01:09:46.320 --> 01:09:49.320 by behaving like machines, 01:09:49.320 --> 01:09:52.320 meme processors 01:09:52.320 --> 01:09:56.320 of memes passed down from Madison Avenue 01:09:56.320 --> 01:09:58.320 and Hollywood and what have you. 01:09:58.320 --> 01:10:00.320 How do we fight back? 01:10:00.320 --> 01:10:02.320 How do we fight back? 01:10:02.320 --> 01:10:04.320 It's a question worth answering. 01:10:04.320 --> 01:10:06.320 Where is this planet as an organism going? 01:10:06.320 --> 01:10:08.320 Same question as how do we fight back. 01:10:12.320 --> 01:10:15.320 I think that by creating art, 01:10:15.320 --> 01:10:17.320 art, 01:10:17.320 --> 01:10:21.320 man was not put on this planet 01:10:21.320 --> 01:10:24.320 to toil in the mud. 01:10:24.320 --> 01:10:26.320 Or the God who put us on this planet 01:10:26.320 --> 01:10:28.320 to toil in the mud 01:10:28.320 --> 01:10:31.320 is no God I want to have any part of. 01:10:31.320 --> 01:10:33.320 It's some kind of gnostic demon. 01:10:33.320 --> 01:10:36.320 It's some kind of cannibalistic demo-urge 01:10:36.320 --> 01:10:39.320 that should be thoroughly renounced 01:10:39.320 --> 01:10:42.320 and rejected. 01:10:42.320 --> 01:10:46.320 By putting the art pedal to the metal, 01:10:46.320 --> 01:10:50.320 we really, I think, maximize our humanness 01:10:50.320 --> 01:10:53.320 and become much more necessary 01:10:53.320 --> 01:10:56.320 and incomprehensible to the machines. 01:10:56.320 --> 01:11:05.880 This is what people were doing 01:11:05.880 --> 01:11:07.880 up until the invention of agriculture. 01:11:07.880 --> 01:11:08.880 I mean, I'm convinced, 01:11:08.880 --> 01:11:10.880 I'm absolutely convinced 01:11:10.880 --> 01:11:13.880 that the absence of ceramic 01:11:13.880 --> 01:11:16.880 and textual material and so forth and so on 01:11:16.880 --> 01:11:20.880 does not indicate the absence of subtle minds, 01:11:20.880 --> 01:11:23.880 poetically empowered minds, 01:11:23.880 --> 01:11:28.880 minds with an incredible sense of humor 01:11:28.880 --> 01:11:31.880 and irony and community 01:11:31.880 --> 01:11:35.880 and that it was the fall into history 01:11:35.880 --> 01:11:38.880 that enslaved us to the labor cycle, 01:11:38.880 --> 01:11:40.880 to the agricultural cycle. 01:11:40.880 --> 01:11:43.880 And notice how fiendish it is. 01:11:43.880 --> 01:11:46.880 A person who dedicates themselves to agriculture, 01:11:46.880 --> 01:11:48.880 who did in the Paleolithic, 01:11:48.880 --> 01:11:50.880 can produce hundreds of times 01:11:50.880 --> 01:11:53.880 the amount of food they can consume. 01:11:53.880 --> 01:11:56.880 Well, so why would anyone do that? 01:11:56.880 --> 01:11:58.880 Well, the answer is because you can use it 01:11:58.880 --> 01:12:00.880 to play power games. 01:12:00.880 --> 01:12:03.880 You can trade it for wives or land or animals 01:12:03.880 --> 01:12:05.880 or something like that. 01:12:05.880 --> 01:12:08.880 And so living in the moment, 01:12:08.880 --> 01:12:09.880 creating art, 01:12:09.880 --> 01:12:11.880 probably largely through poetry 01:12:11.880 --> 01:12:14.880 and body decoration and dance, 01:12:14.880 --> 01:12:18.880 gave way to toil 01:12:18.880 --> 01:12:22.880 and predatory social forms of behavior, 01:12:22.880 --> 01:12:24.880 which we call commerce, capitalism, 01:12:24.880 --> 01:12:26.880 the market economy, 01:12:26.880 --> 01:12:29.880 and so forth and so on. 01:12:29.880 --> 01:12:32.880 And that's why the breakdown 01:12:32.880 --> 01:12:35.880 of the monolithic structures created by print 01:12:35.880 --> 01:12:39.880 is permitting a vast proliferation 01:12:39.880 --> 01:12:42.880 of the cottage industry mentality, 01:12:42.880 --> 01:12:44.880 the self-employed artist, 01:12:44.880 --> 01:12:46.880 the hacker who stays home 01:12:46.880 --> 01:12:49.880 and develops his or her software, 01:12:49.880 --> 01:12:52.880 people who dare to be independent 01:12:52.880 --> 01:12:55.880 and slip beyond the reach 01:12:55.880 --> 01:12:58.880 of these dinosaur-like mechanistic 01:12:59.880 --> 01:13:01.880 organizations. 01:13:01.880 --> 01:13:03.880 That's what it's all about. 01:13:03.880 --> 01:13:05.880 It's all about trying to create 01:13:05.880 --> 01:13:08.880 a cultural, trying to negotiate 01:13:08.880 --> 01:13:10.880 a cultural standoff 01:13:10.880 --> 01:13:12.880 between you and your culture 01:13:12.880 --> 01:13:14.880 so that it will not put you in the can 01:13:14.880 --> 01:13:16.880 for the rest of your life, 01:13:16.880 --> 01:13:18.880 but you can put up 01:13:18.880 --> 01:13:21.880 with its stupidity. 01:13:21.880 --> 01:13:23.880 And, you know, we have a very 01:13:23.880 --> 01:13:25.880 uncomfortable fit on this issue, 01:13:25.880 --> 01:13:27.880 especially as people like you know 01:13:27.880 --> 01:13:29.880 who are sophisticated about 01:13:29.880 --> 01:13:31.880 psychedelics. 01:13:31.880 --> 01:13:32.880 I mean, this is a society, 01:13:32.880 --> 01:13:35.880 a world, a planet, dying 01:13:35.880 --> 01:13:38.880 because there is not enough consciousness, 01:13:38.880 --> 01:13:40.880 because there is not enough awareness, 01:13:40.880 --> 01:13:43.880 enough coordination of intent 01:13:43.880 --> 01:13:45.880 to problem. 01:13:45.880 --> 01:13:48.880 And yet we spend vast amounts of money 01:13:48.880 --> 01:13:53.880 stigmatizing people and substances 01:13:53.880 --> 01:13:55.880 that are part of this effort 01:13:55.880 --> 01:13:57.880 to expand consciousness, 01:13:57.880 --> 01:13:59.880 see things in different ways, 01:13:59.880 --> 01:14:01.880 unleash creativity. 01:14:01.880 --> 01:14:03.880 Isn't it perfectly clear 01:14:03.880 --> 01:14:05.880 that business as usual 01:14:05.880 --> 01:14:08.880 is a bullet through the head? 01:14:08.880 --> 01:14:11.880 That there is no business as usual 01:14:11.880 --> 01:14:14.880 for anybody who's interested in survival? 01:14:33.730 --> 01:14:36.730 What a wonderful question, yes. 01:14:36.730 --> 01:14:39.730 The question is, how do psychedelics 01:14:39.730 --> 01:14:42.730 pertain basically to the transition 01:14:42.730 --> 01:14:44.730 from higher primates 01:14:44.730 --> 01:14:46.730 to human animals? 01:14:46.730 --> 01:14:48.730 This is my métier, 01:14:48.730 --> 01:14:50.730 because I have a theory 01:14:50.730 --> 01:14:52.730 to which I am grandly welcome, 01:14:52.730 --> 01:14:54.730 everyone tells me. 01:14:54.730 --> 01:14:58.730 But a theory of evolution, 01:14:58.730 --> 01:15:00.730 and I'll give it to you very briefly, 01:15:00.730 --> 01:15:02.730 it's simply this, 01:15:02.730 --> 01:15:06.730 that the great embarrassment 01:15:06.730 --> 01:15:08.730 for evolutionary theory, 01:15:08.730 --> 01:15:10.730 which can explain the tongue 01:15:10.730 --> 01:15:11.730 of the hummingbird, 01:15:11.730 --> 01:15:13.730 the structure of the orchid, 01:15:13.730 --> 01:15:15.730 the habits of the groundhog, 01:15:15.730 --> 01:15:17.730 and the migration of the monarch butterfly, 01:15:17.730 --> 01:15:18.730 nevertheless, 01:15:18.730 --> 01:15:19.730 the great embarrassment 01:15:19.730 --> 01:15:21.730 to evolutionary theory 01:15:21.730 --> 01:15:25.730 is the human neocortex. 01:15:25.730 --> 01:15:28.730 Lumholtz, who's a pretty straight 01:15:28.730 --> 01:15:29.730 evolutionary biologist, 01:15:29.730 --> 01:15:31.730 described the evolution 01:15:31.730 --> 01:15:32.730 of the human neocortex 01:15:32.730 --> 01:15:35.730 as the most dramatic transformation 01:15:35.730 --> 01:15:38.730 of a major organ of a higher animal 01:15:38.730 --> 01:15:41.730 in the entire fossil record. 01:15:41.730 --> 01:15:43.730 Well, why is this an embarrassment 01:15:43.730 --> 01:15:45.730 because it's the organ 01:15:45.730 --> 01:15:48.730 that thought up the theory of evolution. 01:15:48.730 --> 01:15:49.730 So, you know, 01:15:49.730 --> 01:15:52.730 can you say tautology? 01:15:52.730 --> 01:15:54.730 That's the problem right there. 01:15:54.730 --> 01:15:57.730 So, it is necessary 01:15:57.730 --> 01:15:59.730 in evolutionary theory 01:15:59.730 --> 01:16:03.730 to account for the dramatic emergence 01:16:03.730 --> 01:16:05.730 of the human neocortex 01:16:05.730 --> 01:16:09.730 in this very narrow window of time. 01:16:09.730 --> 01:16:12.730 Basically, in about two million years, 01:16:12.730 --> 01:16:13.730 these higher, 01:16:13.730 --> 01:16:15.730 they went from being higher primates, 01:16:15.730 --> 01:16:16.730 hominids, 01:16:16.730 --> 01:16:18.730 to being true humans, 01:16:18.730 --> 01:16:22.730 as truly human as you and I tonight. 01:16:22.730 --> 01:16:23.730 What the hell happened? 01:16:23.730 --> 01:16:25.730 What was the factor? 01:16:25.730 --> 01:16:27.730 The Earth was already old. 01:16:27.730 --> 01:16:29.730 Many hundreds of higher animal forms 01:16:29.730 --> 01:16:30.730 had come and gone, 01:16:30.730 --> 01:16:32.730 and the fire of intelligence 01:16:32.730 --> 01:16:34.730 had never been kindled. 01:16:34.730 --> 01:16:36.730 So, what happened? 01:16:36.730 --> 01:16:41.730 I think that the answer lies in diet, 01:16:41.730 --> 01:16:42.730 generally, 01:16:42.730 --> 01:16:45.730 and in psychedelic chemistry in particular. 01:16:45.730 --> 01:16:49.730 I think that as the African continent grew drier, 01:16:49.730 --> 01:16:53.730 we were forced out of the ecological niche 01:16:53.730 --> 01:16:54.730 we had evolved into, 01:16:54.730 --> 01:16:55.730 which was, 01:16:55.730 --> 01:16:57.730 we were canopy-dwelling primates, 01:16:57.730 --> 01:16:58.730 insectivores, 01:16:58.730 --> 01:17:01.730 complex signaling repertoire, 01:17:01.730 --> 01:17:04.730 evolutionary dead end. 01:17:04.730 --> 01:17:09.730 But when we came under nutritional pressure, 01:17:09.730 --> 01:17:11.730 we were flexible enough, 01:17:11.730 --> 01:17:13.730 and this is the key to humanness 01:17:13.730 --> 01:17:15.730 at every stage of its development, 01:17:15.730 --> 01:17:17.730 our maddening flexibility. 01:17:17.730 --> 01:17:20.730 Other animal and plant species can't react. 01:17:20.730 --> 01:17:22.730 We can. 01:17:22.730 --> 01:17:23.730 Our flexibility, 01:17:23.730 --> 01:17:26.730 we began to experiment with a new kind of diet, 01:17:26.730 --> 01:17:28.730 and to leave the trees 01:17:28.730 --> 01:17:31.730 and explore the new environment of the grassland. 01:17:31.730 --> 01:17:34.730 And evolving concomitantly in the grassland 01:17:34.730 --> 01:17:38.730 were various forms of ungulate animals, 01:17:38.730 --> 01:17:40.730 double-stomached animals, 01:17:40.730 --> 01:17:41.730 and many more. 01:17:41.730 --> 01:17:42.730 We began to think that 01:17:42.730 --> 01:17:44.730 the ideal medium for manure 01:17:44.730 --> 01:17:46.730 is the ideal medium for mushrooms, 01:17:46.730 --> 01:17:48.730 coprophytic mushrooms, 01:17:48.730 --> 01:17:50.730 dung-loving mushrooms, 01:17:50.730 --> 01:17:53.730 many of whom produce psilocybin. 01:17:53.730 --> 01:17:56.730 Well, I myself in Kenya 01:17:56.730 --> 01:17:58.730 have seen baboons 01:17:58.730 --> 01:18:01.730 spreading out over a grassland 01:18:01.730 --> 01:18:03.730 and noticed that their behavior is 01:18:03.730 --> 01:18:07.730 they flick over old cow pies. 01:18:07.730 --> 01:18:08.730 Why? 01:18:08.730 --> 01:18:10.730 Because there are beetle grubs there. 01:18:10.730 --> 01:18:13.730 There's a behavioral vector for nutrition, 01:18:13.730 --> 01:18:14.730 for protein, 01:18:14.730 --> 01:18:17.730 that would lead them to investigate the cow pies. 01:18:17.730 --> 01:18:19.730 Well, in the Amazon, 01:18:19.730 --> 01:18:23.730 after a few couple of days of fog and rain, 01:18:23.730 --> 01:18:26.730 these psilocybin mushrooms, 01:18:26.730 --> 01:18:28.730 stropharicubensis, 01:18:28.730 --> 01:18:30.730 can be the size of dinner plates. 01:18:30.730 --> 01:18:33.730 I mean, in other words, you can't miss it. 01:18:33.730 --> 01:18:36.730 If you're a foraging primate, 01:18:36.730 --> 01:18:38.730 you can't miss it. 01:18:38.730 --> 01:18:40.730 And the taste is pleasant. 01:18:40.730 --> 01:18:45.730 And psilocybin has unique characteristics, 01:18:45.730 --> 01:18:49.730 both as a hallucinogen and other properties 01:18:49.730 --> 01:18:53.730 that make it the obvious chemical trigger 01:18:53.730 --> 01:18:55.730 for higher processes. 01:18:55.730 --> 01:18:57.730 And I'll run through this quickly for you, 01:18:57.730 --> 01:18:59.730 but here it is. 01:18:59.730 --> 01:19:01.730 In very low doses, 01:19:01.730 --> 01:19:03.730 doses where you don't, 01:19:03.730 --> 01:19:05.730 you wouldn't say you were stoned or loaded 01:19:05.730 --> 01:19:06.730 or anything like that, 01:19:06.730 --> 01:19:09.730 but just in doses you might obtain 01:19:09.730 --> 01:19:12.730 as you were nibbling as you foraged, 01:19:12.730 --> 01:19:16.730 it increases visual acuity. 01:19:16.730 --> 01:19:19.730 In other words, it's like a technological improvement 01:19:19.730 --> 01:19:21.730 on your vision. 01:19:21.730 --> 01:19:24.730 Chemical binoculars lying there in the grass. 01:19:24.730 --> 01:19:26.730 Well, you don't have to be a rocket scientist 01:19:26.730 --> 01:19:30.730 to figure out if an animal is a carnivorous forager 01:19:30.730 --> 01:19:34.730 and there's a food which improves its vision, 01:19:34.730 --> 01:19:37.730 those that avail themselves of that food 01:19:37.730 --> 01:19:39.730 will have greater success 01:19:39.730 --> 01:19:41.730 in feeding food and rearing their children 01:19:41.730 --> 01:19:42.730 to sexual maturity, 01:19:42.730 --> 01:19:44.730 which is the name of the game in evolution. 01:19:44.730 --> 01:19:47.730 So step one, small doses of psilocybin 01:19:47.730 --> 01:19:51.730 increase visual acuity and food-getting success. 01:19:51.730 --> 01:19:56.730 Step two, slightly larger doses of psilocybin 01:19:56.730 --> 01:19:59.730 in primates create what's called arousal. 01:19:59.730 --> 01:20:03.730 This is what you have after a double cappuccino. 01:20:03.730 --> 01:20:06.730 In highly sexed animals like primates, 01:20:06.730 --> 01:20:08.730 you get male erection. 01:20:08.730 --> 01:20:09.730 So what do you have here? 01:20:09.730 --> 01:20:12.730 You have a factor which increases 01:20:12.730 --> 01:20:15.730 what anthropologists, without a trace of humor, 01:20:15.730 --> 01:20:19.730 refer to as increases in increased instances 01:20:19.730 --> 01:20:22.730 of successful copulation. 01:20:22.730 --> 01:20:26.730 In other words, the animals eating the psilocybin 01:20:26.730 --> 01:20:28.730 are more sexually active, 01:20:28.730 --> 01:20:31.730 therefore more pregnancies are occurring, 01:20:31.730 --> 01:20:33.730 therefore more infants are being born, 01:20:33.730 --> 01:20:35.730 therefore there is a process 01:20:35.730 --> 01:20:38.730 which would tend to automatically out-breathe 01:20:38.730 --> 01:20:42.730 the non-psilocybin-using members of the population. 01:20:42.730 --> 01:20:45.730 Step two toward higher consciousness. 01:20:45.730 --> 01:20:49.730 Step three, you eat still more mushrooms. 01:20:49.730 --> 01:20:53.730 Now you're not foraging with shark and dog, 01:20:53.730 --> 01:20:56.730 nor are you horsing around 01:20:56.730 --> 01:21:03.730 with your opposed gender acquaintances. 01:21:03.730 --> 01:21:06.730 Instead, you're nailed to the ground 01:21:06.730 --> 01:21:08.730 in hallucinogens, 01:21:08.730 --> 01:21:10.730 in systemic ecstasy. 01:21:10.730 --> 01:21:13.730 And one of the amazing things about psilocybin 01:21:13.730 --> 01:21:17.730 above, say, five or six grams of dried material 01:21:17.730 --> 01:21:20.730 is it causes glossolalia, 01:21:20.730 --> 01:21:24.730 spontaneous bursts of language-like behavior 01:21:24.730 --> 01:21:28.730 under the obvious control of internal syntax. 01:21:28.730 --> 01:21:33.730 And I believe syntax existed before spoken language, 01:21:33.730 --> 01:21:36.730 that syntax controls spatial behaviors 01:21:36.730 --> 01:21:38.730 and body languages 01:21:38.730 --> 01:21:40.730 and is not necessarily restricted 01:21:40.730 --> 01:21:43.730 to the production of vocal speech. 01:21:43.730 --> 01:21:45.730 So there it is in a nutshell. 01:21:45.730 --> 01:21:48.730 We ate our way to higher consciousness. 01:21:48.730 --> 01:21:51.730 The mushroom made us better hunters, 01:21:51.730 --> 01:21:53.730 better survivors. 01:21:53.730 --> 01:21:56.730 Among those in the population who used it, 01:21:56.730 --> 01:21:58.730 their sexual drive was increased, 01:21:58.730 --> 01:22:02.730 hence they out-bred the more reluctant members 01:22:02.730 --> 01:22:04.730 of the tribe to get loaded. 01:22:04.730 --> 01:22:08.730 And finally, it created a kind of 01:22:08.730 --> 01:22:10.730 neuroleptic seizure, 01:22:10.730 --> 01:22:13.730 which led to these downloading 01:22:13.730 --> 01:22:17.730 of these syntactically controlled vocalizations, 01:22:17.730 --> 01:22:20.730 which became the raw material 01:22:20.730 --> 01:22:23.730 for the evolution of language. 01:22:23.730 --> 01:22:26.730 And it's amazing to me, 01:22:26.730 --> 01:22:29.730 the straight people, the academics, 01:22:29.730 --> 01:22:33.730 believe language is no more than 35,000 years old. 01:22:33.730 --> 01:22:37.730 That means it's as basic to human beings 01:22:37.730 --> 01:22:39.730 as the bicycle pump. 01:22:39.730 --> 01:22:43.730 It's just something somebody invented 35,000 years ago. 01:22:43.730 --> 01:22:46.730 It's got nothing to do with primate evolution 01:22:46.730 --> 01:22:49.730 and the long march of the hominidity 01:22:49.730 --> 01:22:51.730 and all that malarkey. 01:22:51.730 --> 01:22:53.730 No, it's just an ability, 01:22:53.730 --> 01:22:56.730 a use to which syntax can be put 01:22:56.730 --> 01:22:59.730 that previously had not been put. 01:22:59.730 --> 01:23:01.730 I think before language, spoken language, 01:23:01.730 --> 01:23:03.730 things were very touchy-feely, 01:23:03.730 --> 01:23:05.730 and the wink and the nod 01:23:05.730 --> 01:23:07.730 carried you a great distance 01:23:07.730 --> 01:23:11.730 and gestural communication was very high. 01:23:11.730 --> 01:23:15.730 That's why, and I should say this and then end, 01:23:15.730 --> 01:23:17.730 to me it begins and ends 01:23:17.730 --> 01:23:20.730 with these psychedelic substances. 01:23:20.730 --> 01:23:22.730 The synergy of the psilocybin 01:23:22.730 --> 01:23:24.730 and the hominid diet 01:23:24.730 --> 01:23:27.730 brought us out of the animal mind 01:23:27.730 --> 01:23:30.730 and into the world of articulated speech 01:23:30.730 --> 01:23:33.730 and imagination. 01:23:33.730 --> 01:23:36.730 And technology developed and developed 01:23:36.730 --> 01:23:39.730 and mushrooms were, you know, 01:23:39.730 --> 01:23:41.730 invaded against, faded. 01:23:41.730 --> 01:23:44.730 There was migrations, cultural change. 01:23:44.730 --> 01:23:47.730 But now, having split the atom, 01:23:47.730 --> 01:23:49.730 having sequenced our genome, 01:23:49.730 --> 01:23:51.730 having taken the temperature of Betel juice 01:23:51.730 --> 01:23:53.730 and all the rest of it, 01:23:53.730 --> 01:23:56.730 we're now back where we started. 01:23:56.730 --> 01:23:58.730 And like the shaman 01:23:58.730 --> 01:24:02.730 who makes the journey into the well of darkness 01:24:02.730 --> 01:24:05.730 and returns with the pearl of immortality, 01:24:05.730 --> 01:24:08.730 you don't dwell in the well of darkness, 01:24:08.730 --> 01:24:10.730 which was human history. 01:24:10.730 --> 01:24:15.730 You capture the essence of the thing, 01:24:15.730 --> 01:24:18.730 which is the godlike power of the shaman smith, 01:24:18.730 --> 01:24:21.730 the technologist, the demon artificer, 01:24:21.730 --> 01:24:23.730 the worker of metals, 01:24:23.730 --> 01:24:25.730 the conjurer of spirits. 01:24:25.730 --> 01:24:29.730 And you carry that power back out of history 01:24:29.730 --> 01:24:31.730 and it's in that dimension, 01:24:31.730 --> 01:24:33.730 outside of history, 01:24:33.730 --> 01:24:34.730 that you create, 01:24:34.730 --> 01:24:37.730 you create true humanness 01:24:37.730 --> 01:24:39.730 and true community. 01:24:39.730 --> 01:24:41.730 And that's the adventure 01:24:41.730 --> 01:24:45.730 that we are in the act of undertaking. 01:24:45.730 --> 01:24:47.730 Thank you very, very much.