What are the best competing theories of consciousness? Can we isolate where it arises and measure how complex it is? How do 5meo DMT mystical or non-separation experiences shift worldviews on consciousness?

In this episode we have the very theme of the podcast’s title to delve into, the quest to understand the nature of consciousness. So we discuss mind and self, and what kind of substrate you need to allow for subjective experience; we look at the various philosophical positions on the nature of consciousness and ways to move beyond the unwinnable argument around the hard problem; we talk about extended cognition and cellular cognition; how integrated information theory attempts to quantify consciousness; the origin of meaning; psychedelics and the implications of mystical experiences of non-separation; whether AI will ever become conscious; and the implications of plant intelligence and memory.

There’s only one person who can speak about such a wide range of topics this well, one of the most passionate consciousness researchers in the world for over 40 years, physicist and neuroscientist, Christof Koch. He’s Chief Scientist at the BlueDot Foundation, and has authored and co-authored over 1000 scientific papers and 6 books, including “The Quest for Consciousness”, “Confessions of a Romantic Reductionst” and “Then I am myself the World”, which we’ll be focussing on today. 

What we discuss:

00:00 His migration from physics to neuroscience.

06:10 “Take no one’s word for it”.

07:50 His long-term Francis Crick collaboration.

10:00 The signatures, footprints and correlates of consciousness.

17:50 The empirical approach to the philosophical ‘Hard problem’.

21:00 Metaphysics isn’t empirical.

21:40 The issues along the spectrum from materialism to idealism.

29:00 “The great divide of being” - quotidian vs dissociated states.

33:15 Is the self an illusion?

34:15 The difference between self consciousness and subjective experience.

38:00 “Confessions of a romantic reductionist”.

41:00 Meaning is not an empirical subject.

44:30 Integrated information theory explained - existence as casual power.

52:50 The placebo effect is consciousness causally influencing the world.

01:00:00 Computational theories of consciousness.

01:03:10 The connectome: an exact brain replica in a simulation.

01:05:10 Extended cognition & the blurred boundaries between selves.

01:09:30 Michael Levin: the hierarchy from cellular to collective cognition.

01:13:50 ‘Then I am myself the world’ Book.

01:14:40 5meoDMT: His mystical & NDE experiences.

01:21:40 Lowering of the DMN in non-self like experiences like flow, meditation, day-dreaming, or psychedelics.

01:24:00 To be real, experiences must have causal power.

01:27:25 Perspective shift after psychedelics.

01:30:50 Plant consciousness, intelligence, communication & memory.

References: 

www.christofkoch.com

Scientific Papers

Christof Koch, “Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It the world”.

Christof Koch, “Consciousness: Confessions of a romantic reductionist.”

Do the many clinical trials into high-dose vitamin C prove it can actually treat the common cold and cancer, rather than just boost the immune system? Why is there ongoing scepticism? Why are multifactorial chronic diseases so hard to study in clinical trials? What is the right dosage to get the best results from vitamin C?In this episode we have the often misunderstood topic of Vitamin C as an antioxidant to get clear on, particular the high-dose approach and particularly delivered intravenously. Despite a very clear consensus that Vitamin C is a great booster to immune function, research that shows that it helps fight the common cold or flu have been dismissed by doctors and medical researchers; as well as claims that higher doses can increase its efficacy. Other claims that Vitamin C can help fight cardio-vascular disease and even cancer have been with even greater scepticism. So what exactly can vitamin C do to assist our immune function to fight disease, and why is there so much confusion about the answer given the high quantity of clinical trials data?Fortunately today’s guest has exactly the right skill set and research knowledge to separate the science from the here-say, medical doctor and orthomolecular medicine researcher, Dr. Richard Z Cheng. Dr. Cheng has a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology; he’s served as a doctor in the US military; he has consulted for the National Cancer Institute, and presented at the National Institute of Health (NIH); he has conducted clinical trials; He is the editor in Chief of the Orthmolecular Medicine New Service; He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Anti- Aging medicine; and has run anti-aging and regenerative medicine clinics in both China and the US for over 20 years.What we discuss:00:00 Intro05:15 Most animals produce Vitamin C in the body, but not primates.06:00 Oxidation & Redox: Giving or receiving an electron.11:00 After reducing oxidation the body recycles it back into vitamin C.14:00 Teamwork: sharing electrons between nutrients and vitamins.18:20 Conventional consensus: good for prevention but not treatment.21:00 Over 80K papers on Vit C on Pub Med!21:30 Linus Pauling Intravenous Vitamin C for cancer and heart disease.27:00 Shortening of common cold and lowering of symptoms - Harri Hemila.29:00 Low dose studies dilute the data on the efficacy of the high dose studies.31:00 Intravenous treatment allows much higher doses safely.33:00 Differences in absorption between IV and oral application.35:20 Pro-oxidant effect only possible at IV high dose.36:30 IV clinical trials.39:20 Cytokine storm cascades in acute respiratory distress.44:00 High Dose IV Vitamin C saved lives in China during Covid 19.50:00 Attacks following Richard’s NIH presentation on Vitamin C during covid.57:00 Cardio vascular disease - Vit. C research history.01:01:00 Collagen Synthesis for vascular walls & Vitamin C deficiency.01:07:20 Is the taboo for life style medicine lifting?01:09:30 Issues of gold standard RCT trials not working for multifactorial integrative interventions.01:16:00 Recommendations for preventative use of Vitamin C for listeners. References:E Cameron & Linus Pauling - 'Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer', 1976E.T. Creagan, 'Failure of high-dose vitamin C (ascorbic acid) therapy to benefit patients with advanced cancer', 1979Harri Hemilä - over 200 meta-analyses and clinical trialsPing Chen et al. 'Pharmacokinetic Evaluation of Intravenous Vitamin C'Richard Z Cheng, ‘Can early and high intravenous dose of vitamin C prevent and treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)?’KU Cancer Center researchers announce study of high-dose intravenous vitamin C to treat muscle-invasive bladder cancer, 2024National Cancer Institute overview of IV Vitamin C cancer research.

Will artificial intelligence robots have subjective experience? What are the ethical and safety implications of such entities? Which quantum physics theory can accommodate consciousness?

In this episode we have the extraordinary possibility of subjective experience and feelings in artificial intelligence robotic systems to think about. So we look at experiments to try and prove if it’s even possible; the quantum building blocks from which both living and artificial systems are made up; the ethical and safety implications of advanced intelligence instantiated in robots, and we get into the controversial search for a quantum physics theory that can accommodate consciousness.

Fortunately, my guest today is not only one of the first pioneering scientists to really devote themselves to the creation of sentient human-similar robot minds and bodies, but is also an experimental physicist working with quantum computing systems. She is of course the quantum engineer, consciousness researcher and AI computer scientist Suzanne Gildert. She has written over 80 scientific papers, founded several successful AI companies and has dozens of US patents for her inventions. 

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro.

04:25 Her move to AI & robotics from quantum computing.

06:45 Something missing from materialism.

11:00 The what, how and why of consciousness.

12:20 Remembering quantum fields are the base level of reality.

15:50 Quantum Biology - John Joe McFadden.

18:20 ‘Protecting’ quantum coherence environments.

20:00 The Penrose-Hameroff microtubules quantum consciousness theory.

24:40 The risks of the “two mysteries” argument.

30:10 Looking for subjective experience in AI robots.

33:55 “Reward function”, purpose led, agential behaviour doesn’t emerge naturally in AI.

36:25 Limitations to building sentient AI robots.

39:25 Iain McGilchrist’s left-right hemisphere interpretation of split brain data.

41:40 How similar are AI minds to human ones?

43:40 Will Ai become conscious one day?

44:40 The generalisation problem.

47:50 The anthropomorphism problem.

50:05 Ethical implications - Regulations, rights and protections.

53:20 Survival instinct research in AI.

57:20 Brain activity mapping to subjective experience, AI decoder research.

50:20 Biological robots: Different emergent possibilities?

01:01:50 Cellular material re-purposing itself spontaneously.

01:04:10 Could the biosphere be a technology?

01:07:40 Quantum Conscious Agency Theory.

01:14:05 Quantum Annealing. 

01:21:03 Can you test for panpsychism?

01:25:10 Buddhism: the dissociated agent approach.

References:

www.SuzanneGildert.com

Quantum Conscious Agent theory presentation - Suzanne Gildert.

Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee, “On Intelligence“.

John Joe Mcfadden, CC Quantum Biology episode

Roger Penrose, Orch OR (Orchestrated objective reduction) theory.

Erwin Shrodinger, “What is Life?”.

‘In Tests, Open AI’s New Model Lied and Schemed to Avoid Being Shut Down’ article

‘Brain activity decoder can reveal stories in people’s minds’ article

Jerry Tang et al. ‘Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings’ paper

Tristan Harris & Aza Raskin, “The AI Dilemma” presentation, March 2023

Is there evidence that even light exercise can improve mental health and help treat severe mental illness? How easy is it to prove the effects? Are our ever more sedentary lifestyles putting us at risk? How easy is it to apply in the current mental health treatment system?

In this episode we have the revealing research on the use of exercise and movement to treat mental health to get up to date on. This is the third episode out of three in this series on the theme of life-style medicine, the other two being on Sleep for mental health (Episode #72 with Roxanne Prichard) and on diet for mental health (Episode #70 with Felice Jacka), so please check those out as all 3 interrelate in term of mental health outcomes. In this episode though we get into the reasons why even a little movement has a radical effect on our mental health; that movement can be used in association with talky and drug therapies to effectively treat even serious mental health disturbances like schizophrenia; we also get into the huge host of improvements across the board when exercise is applied; the impressive bulk of clinical trials that have proved this in the last 15 years; and we hear about the faster than usual uptake of this data by international policy makers, and the difficulties of practically integrating these protocols into the mental health care system.

Now fortunately for us, our guest today is one of the world’s leading researchers in this field, mental health physiotherapist and Kings College London researcher, Brendon Stubbs. He is the co-author of over 800 highly cited scientific papers, and the book “Exercise-Based Interventions for Mental Illness: Physical Activity as Part of Clinical Treatment”. 

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro

06:40 Early attempts on the mental illness ward as a physio.

09:28 The rise of life-style research into mental health in the early 2000s.

12:00 Sedentary lifestyle issues.

13:24 The benefits of being both therapist & researcher.

15:50 Resistance to the word ‘exercise’.

19:00 Rise in sedentary lifestyle correlates with rise in mental health issues and stress.

23:45 Higher inflammation in sedentary populations.

26:30 Endorphins are not the only reason it feels good.

30:15 15% drop in depression risk.

33:10 Muscle, heart and lung strength is a marker for lower depression risk.

35:30 Even genetic predispositions to depression can be 25% less at risk.

36:30 Equally successful to CBT therapy.

38:30 Hippocampus size variations with just 10 mins of light movement.

41:45 Sleep, diet & movement increase hippocampus size & reduce inflammation.

42:30 Schizophrenia & Psychosis studies.

46:00 Difficulty with continuity of exercise when patients return to society.

49:15 The body likes routine & reduced friction.

50:00 Limitations of randomised control trials on life style interventions.

54:15 The faster than usual integration of this into the consensus. 

56:30 Policy creation at national and world health level.

58:00 Pharmaceutical funded researchers pushing back against these results. 

59:00 Difficulty applying this for family doctors and mental health professionals.

01:01:15 Socio-economic mental health risk and difficulty of access.

01:03:00 The national health money saving motivation is hard to prove.

01:05:00 Main tips for movement for mental health. 

References:

‘Physical Activity and Incident Depression: A Meta-Analysis’ paper, Felipe Shuch et al. 

‘Strength training has antidepressant effects’ paper, Fabricio Rossi et al.

‘Physical activity offsets genetic risk for incident depression’ paper, Karmel Choi et al.

‘Exercise and internet-based cognitive–behavioural therapy for depression’ paper, Mats Hallgren et al.

‘Light-exercise-induced dopaminergic and noradrenergic stimulation in the dorsal hippocampus’ paper, T. Hiragana et al.

The Lancet Psychiatry Commission: a blueprint for protecting physical health in people with mental illness

How should we support the dying, and how should we approach death itself? What is conscious dying? What does Carl Jung’s work say about facing death?

In this episode we have the complex topic of how to face Death, through the lens of psycho analyst Carl Jung. I’m sure that some of you will have found this episode because you’re facing death during this time, either your own or of a loved one; and to those of you I offer my condolences and healing prayers, and hope dearly that what we discuss today will offer some perspective and assistance, and my apologies in advance if any of our ideas cause you pain: death and mourning are extremely personal topics.

But I also hope that many others of you are here simply to try and form a healthier relationship with death.The inspiration for this episode came not only from my own experience facing my own parent’s mortality, but also from my intuition that our modern, consumeristic, aestheic and individualistic society has made us more afraid of death than ever; perhaps because of our modern societies focus on material well-being, and the power of technology to guarantee it. My gut feeling is that we need to become aware of this unconscious taboo, as it seems to be hindering a deeper and perhaps more wholesome acceptance of mortality in general.

And that’s why I wanted to speak to a specialist like my guest psychoanalyst Monika Wikman. Monika received her PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology and then qualified as a Jungian psychoanalyst at the Jung-Von Franz Center for Depth psychology in Zurich. She is an expert on topics including archetypal phenomena surrounding death, dreams, active imagination and alchemy. Her work with the dying culminated in a research project called ‘Dreams of the Dying’ at UC San Diego Medical Center. She is also the author of the book, “Pregnant Darknesss: Alchemy and the rebirth of consciousness”.

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro.

04:30 How to support the dying.

07:05 Death informs us.

09:00 Facing our own mortality - the history of Conscious dying.

13:18 The Osiris Myth. Dismemberment and rememberment.

16:45 Death is the ultimate goal, an achievement, according to Jung.

19:15 Death duellers.

21:45 The last step of individuation.

24:45 Symbolic death, according to Jung.

30:00 ‘The wound is where the light enters you’. Rumi

33:00 The religious function - Jung.

34:00 Monika’s 2nd NDE - a relationship with the darkness.44: 00 Life after death and the subtle body.

46:00 Prayer and connecting with the eternal.

50:00 Only through limitation can we connect with the eternal.

51:00 The subtle body - uniting psyche and matter.

56:10 The Divine wedding - the marriage between opposites.

57:45 Synchronicities around the dying.

01:07:00 Studying the dreams of the dying.

01:11:30 Dead friends and family often come for them in dreams.

01:15:20 Common motifs of crossing rivers, thresholds and initiations.

01:17:00 How we mourn.

01:29:20 If you didn’t serve someone well you’ll regret it after they die.

01:22:00 Grief transforms.

References: 

Monika Wikman, “Pregnant Darkness - Alchemy and the rebirth of consciousness”

Wendell Berry poem - Rising

Mircea Eliade,  “Yoga: immortality & Freedom”

Chiron, the wounded healer.

C.G.Jung, “Memories Dreams and Reflections”.

Ram Dass quote, ‘Dying is absolutely safe’

Leonard Cohen quote, 'We are so lightly here'. (Not William Blake).

What are the implications of the discovery of the chemical variation of water, nicknamed “The 4th phase”? What does the new structured chemical composition mean for the storage of energy and information? What can we learn from the discovery that electrical charge plays a role in the way water moves and transports other molecules?

In this episode we have the fascinating new science of water to get into, particularly the research around the discovery of the gel-like chemical variation of water, nicknamed the “4th phase”. It occurs when water gets close to water friendly surfaces, and as it changes chemical structure, it separates into positive and negatively charged components. So we find out how this particular form of water is used by nature; how its structure can be ‘charged’ by infrared energy from the sun like a solar cell, becoming an energy source that can do work. We also separate the wheat from the chaff on the controversial ‘memory of water’ claims of Maseru Emoto and Nobel prize winner Luc Montagnier; and we discuss why there is so much resistance to this research despite the ubiquity and importance of water in biological systems.

Fortunately to navigate this cutting edge research and avoid wishful thinking, we have the director of Pollack Labs at the University of Washington, one of the most established lab’s studying water in the world, Bioengineer, professor Gerald Pollack. He is the author of over 300 scientific papers, and four books for the general public including ‘Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life’, ‘The 4th Phase of Water’ and his new book just out ‘Charged - the unexpected role of electricity in the workings of nature’. 

What we discussed:

00:00 Intro.

10:00 The role of electricity in nature.

15:25 The Earth has a negative charge & the ionosphere positive.

19:00 The old consensus on water.

23:00 Gilbert Ling - cellular water is charged and so the molecules stack.

26:15 The transition of chemical structure when in contact with hydrophilic surfaces.

27:45 Exclusion-Zone Water = Liquid Crystal Water.

32:45 Changes chemical structure and electrical charge.

35:00 Add light or electrons to build EZ Water.

37:30 Grounding - is there any evidence?

38:20 It’s an energy source, a battery charged by infared light.

42:15 The difficulty raising money for ideas that go against the consensus.

46:15 The threat to an old world view.

48:30 The Brownian motion criticism of the data.

49:00 Electrical energy generation in cells.

56:00 The cardio vascular, blood flow energy issue.

01:05:45 We’ve misunderstood membranes.

01:13:00 The gel itself might be a barrier.

01:14:00 Purification of water using the exclusion process.

01:19:00 Difficulty getting business funding for the applications.

01:24:00 Cancer cells have a lower negative charge. Perhaps a lack of EZ water.

01:26:00 How information is stored in structured water.

01:31:00 Luc Montagnier - water claims confirmed in 3 studies.

01:39:00 Jacques Benveniste - dubbed ‘water memory’.

01:40:30 Masero Emoto - Dean Radin confirmed his result.

01:44:45 Non-verbal communication.

References:

Gerald Pollack, “Charged: The Unexpected role of electricity in the workings of nature”

Gerald Pollack, “The Fourth Phase of Water”

Earth’s negative charge, Richard Feynman Volume II, Chapter 9 of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, titled "Electricity in the Atmosphere”. 

Gilbert Ling - Polarised-Oriented Multilayer Theory

Harold Hillman - ‘A radical reassessment of the cellular structure of the mammalian nervous system’

How can consciousness emerge from non-conscious material? If there is only one type of stuff, how is the potential for consciousness encoded in the building blocks of the universe?

In this episode we have the ancient philosophical mind-body problem to get our heads around, and the ever more popular solution, panpsychism: That is, the belief that everything material, no matter how small, has always had a component of consciousness in it. We get into what consciousness is, why it’s not an illusion; into subjective experience; we cover the rich history of the mind-body problem in philosophy, and we also confront the apparently magical emergence of consciousness from non-consciousness by exploring the arguments for panpsychism, and how new understandings from the last 100 years of science might change preconceptions about a panpsychist solution.

Fortunately, to understand this we have the hugely experienced author and analytical philosopher of mind, for many years at the university of Oxford and now at the university of Texas, professor Galen Strawson! Alongside over 140 papers, he has also written 12 books including “Consciousness and its place in nature”, “Things that bother me: Death, Freedom, the self etc” and his new book “Stuff, Quality and Structure”.

What we discuss:

00:00 intro

05:30 ‘Naturalism’ as a position.

07:00 Qualia explained.

09:30 There’s only one kind of stuff: identity metaphysics.

12:00 A criticism of life as narrative story.

14:30 what is the self?

17:20 There is no mystery of consciousness.

19:15 Locke’s Primary and Secondary Qualities clarified.

21:45 The history of the mind-body problem.

27:30 The interaction problem VS the combination problem.

30:30 Radical emergence of consciousness from non-consciousness is impossible.

32:30 The arguments for panpsychism.

34:00 Psychophysical laws - David Chalmers.

35:00 The rise of panpsychism.

36:30 Different types of panpsychism.

41:30 Separating between conscious stuff, and subjects of consciousness.

48:30 Cosmopansychism - patterns of excitation in the quantum field.

50:00 Cellular cognition - Agential behaviour is not proof of experience.

54:00 ‘Matter is energy’ assists panpsychist intuitions.

56:15 Who demands evidence is begging the question.

01:02:30 “A Global Replace” of consciousness in matter.

01:03:30 How would a world of panpsychist science look?01:06:30 Neuroscience: neural correlate reductionism.

01:09:30 Feelings evolved before reasoning.

01:11:30 Being is energy; being is becoming; being is qualititivity; being is mind.

01:13:15 A cosmological mind.

01:16:15 Teleology and Meaning.

Quote:Lee Smolen, “Qualia must be understood as aspects of nature, that is our commitment to naturalism, the philosophy that asserts that all that exists is part of the natural world science studies.”

References:

Galen Strawson, “Mental Reality”, 1994

Galen Strawson, “Against Narrativity” paper. 2004

Galen Strawson, “Realistic monism - why physicalism entails panpsychism”, 2006

Galen Strawson, “Mind and Being, The Primacy of panpsychism”, 2017

What are memes and why do some replicate while others disappear? Are the memes selected for always for the benefit of the host culture? How are our new technologies changing the way memes feedback into our cultural evolution?

In this episode we have the slightly disconcerting ideas of Memetic theory to get our heads around; as we learn how successful ideas and information are replicated by humans before being re-transmitted back out into world. We’ll see how these memes evolve our culture and minds over time, similarly to how our genes evolve through natural selection. But concerns will arise when we realise that this replication is not only selected for memes that are good for human evolution, and so memes seem to take on some type of evolutionary survival of their own. So when we now find ourselves in an internet era, with AI algorithms replicating ideas in an artificially amplified feedback loop with our own human memes, we get a cultural run away train, in which we are not really in control of our own culture and ideas.

So fortunately, to get our head around this tough topic we have one of the inventors of the field, author of the 1999 book “The Meme Machine”, and by now, in her third appearance on Chasing Consciousness, our in-house sceptic - psychologist, philosopher, broadcaster and author Susan Blackmore. She’s best known for her books "Zen and the Art of Consciousness, Consciousness: An Introduction", and "Seeing Myself". Susan’s work spans across hundreds of publications in over 20 different languages, making huge contributions in the fields of psychology, memetics, religion, philosophy of mind, supernatural experiences, and anomalous experiences.

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro.

04:00 Using Natural Selection to apply to the imitation and thus survival of ideas.

06:35 Successful imitation of behaviours came first.

07:35 The ideas that get copied more, for whatever reason, survive longer.

08:40 Language allowed better copying and feedback.

12:10 Memplexes: an analogy of co-adaptive gene-complexes.

14:20 Sue’s scepticism of quantum theories of consciousness.

14:40 Ideas are memes but experiential knowledge is not.

19:05 Concern: Memes themselves are the beneficiary of selfish replication, not the host culture or minds.

22:50 Human rights memes run against genetic replication needs.

26:05 The taboo around memetic theory.

32:40 “Tremes” - technological imitations independent of humans - a third replicator.

40:00 Social media algorithms as super-treme replicators.43:50 Too fast turn around of ideas, hyper vigilance and negativity bias.

47:50 Over stimulated, fast societies - Negative mental health outcomes.

48:20 The implications of artificial general intelligence in terms of Tremes.

53:05 Technology as an extension of our culture.

57:40 Max Tegmark’s “Moloch” allegory.

References:

Susan Blackmore, “The Meme Machine”.

Richard Dawkins - “The Selfish Gene”

What are the benefits and risks of developing advanced AI? What kind of safety precautions could we take? Could we risk never making future discoveries, by over-limiting today’s AI in pre-emptive safety regulations?

In this episode we get a sceptical evaluation of the complex debate that’s currently raging on artificial Intelligence safety, aiming to get a balanced view of the extremely useful applications versus the currently hugely publicised existential risks, and evaluate the safety measures and legislative frameworks that are being considered to help avoid risk to humans. To do this we trace the path from today’s artificial intelligence right up the ever steeper curve towards artificial super intelligence; we risk risk assess the unpredictability of emergent properties of such systems; we assess the future of work, and the potential loss of control of our culture as AI starts to outnumber us and generate more and more of the media we consume.

My guest today has a unique take on these issues which took me by surprise, as he disagrees with the alarmism and call for harsh regulation, whilst openly predicting that emergent properties will more or less guarantee safety hazards. The fact that he has been at the cutting edge of computer science for over 40 years, creating computer language and Ai solutions, makes him well placed to provide a counterpoint to the AI safety campaigners calling for collective action. He is of course physicist, computer scientist and tech entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram. In 1987 he left academia at Caltech and Princeton behind and devoted himself to his own computer systems at his company Wolfram Research. He’s published many blog articles about his ideas, and written many influential books including “A new kind of science”, “A project to find the fundamental theory of physics”, and “Computer modelling and simulation of dynamic systems”, and most recently “The Second law” about the mystery of Entropy. 

What we discussed:

00:00 Intro. 

06:30 Stephen’s first forays into neural nets in the early 80s.

09:30 Cellular Automata.

11:00 Can you make the knowledge of the world available via computers?

13:00 Wolfram Alpha: A non-AI AI. 

17:45 Can AI solve science?

22:00 AI is great at rough answers, worse at the detail.

33:00 Artificial General intelligence, A.G.I.

42:00 The pros & cons of super intelligence.

47:40 Chat GBT’s unpredicted peculiarities.

54:00 The spread of mistruth. 

58:00 AI and the future of work.

01:05:20 Businesses leading automation push.

01:09:00 AI will outnumber us and network, changing our culture.

01:11:00 AI will follow a banal ‘mean’.

01:16:30 The AI Safety debate.

01:21:00 We have no choice, it will be developed anyway.

01:22:00 Ai systems may have feelings, we don’t know.

01:25:00 Stephen’s non-interventionist safety approach.

References: 

Stepehn Wolfram, “A project to find the fundamental theory of physics”,

Stephen Wolfram, “The Second Law” 

The History of “Neural Nets” since 1943, (Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts paper)

Stephen Wolfram, “Can AI solve science?” article

What are the contents of Out of Body Experiences? How closely do they map the actual physical world? Is it possible to induce them purposefully? How do modern practices compare to indigenous shamanic ones?

In this Episode we look at the scientific, religious, cultural and historical contexts of Out of Body Experiences, also known as astral projection - so the experience in which an individual appears to leave their body and be able to travel around the world and into other dimensions, often meeting other worldly entities, similarly to DMT psychedelic experiences, (see Episode #73, “DMT Entity Experiences”). So, we get into the phenomenology- the various things people experience; potential neurobiological explanations; and the possibility of inducing the experiences on purpose and of exploring alternate realities; we get into indigenous traditions of ‘Shamanic flight’ and which people might be predisposed to these alternate states of consciousness; and we end up talking about a potential connection between OBE, sleep paralysis and ludic dreaming.

To discuss this slippery topic, we have a researcher who is also a lifelong experiencer, who has devoted her career to trying to understand these phenomena, the medical anthropologist and author Samantha Lee Treasure; she has an MA in Medical Anthropology from SOAS university in London, has been a brain science research assistant at the University of Liege, and has just released her first book on the topic, “Out of Body experiences”, the release of which this episode is timed to coincide with.

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro.

11:30 What is medical anthropology?

16:00 OBE entity research.

22:15 Samantha’s New Book - getting beyond preconceptions.

25:50 OBE vs Astral projection - bypassing the taboo.

30:00 Common reported OBE experiences.

33:00 Mental body schemas and projected models of the world.

37:00 Do OBE’s map the real world accurately?

45:00 Olaf Blanke - the Temporoparietal junction discovery.

48:45 No sense of smell during OBE nor processed by the TPJ.

49:40 Techniques to induce OBE’s intentionally.

53:45 Bob Monroe’s perspective switching technique.

55:30 Shamanic flight practices in Tuva, Siberia.

59:35 The sonezen - the perceiving mind self.

01:01:00 This is not for everyone, it can be scary.

01:05:00 The predisposition for some to have these experiences.

01:10:45 Crossovers between NHI Contact and OBE entity experiences.

01:14:20 Genealogical predispositions.

01:18:25 “Reality Shifting” and the role of intention in OBE.

References:

Samantha Lee Treasure, “Out-of-Body Experiences: Explorations and encounters with the astral plane”.

Stephen Le Berge, “Pre-sleep treatment with Galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming” paper

Olaf Blanke, “Linking out-of-body experience and self processing to mental own-body imagery at the temporo-parietal junction” paper.

Charles T Tart - 6 Studies of OBE.

Graham Nicholls, “Navigating out of body Eperiences”.

Yurgan Zeiwe - “Multi-Dimensional Man”.

RosalieYoga, Monroe Sound science guided meditations,You tube channel.

“Out-of-body experience in vestibular disorders – A prospective study of 210 patients with dizziness” paper.

Celia Green & Charles Mc Reery, “Lucid Dreaming: The Paradox of Consciousness during Sleep”.

Anthony Peake, “Near Death Experiences”.

How do astronomers detect the conditions for life and techno-signatures on exoplanets many lightyears away? What conditions on earth give us clues to how life might have formed elsewhere? How do intelligent civilisations evolve to technomaturity before they destroy themselves?

So in this episode we have the mysterious arising of life and eventually intelligent life on our planet to try and explain, to then apply that to our search for other intelligent life in the cosmos. So to explain that we’re going to be getting into the co-evolution of the geosphere and the biosphere on earth and their corresponding feedback loops; the possibility of planetary level intelligence; the difficulty of laying a technosphere on top of the geo and biosphere, and the risk of civilisations wiping themselves out before learning how to harmonise the technosphere with the biosphere; We’ll be looking at the changes in the field of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Terrestrial Intelligence), since we can now identify potentially life sustaining exo-planets in nearer parts of the galaxy; we’re going to get into the newly funded search for techno signatures from advanced civilisations, and potential space junk from the many civilisations that presumably didn’t make it; lastly we’re going to discuss recent claims of ancient and alleged present visitations to earth by extra terrestrial intelligence.

Fortunately to face these tough and complex issues, our guest is a world specialist in astrobiology, with a talent for making these topics fun and imaginative, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, Professor Adam Frank. He’s the author of over 200 scientific papers and 6 books for the general public including, “The Blind Spot: why science cannot ignore human experience” and “The Little book of Aliens” which we’ll be focussing on today. He’s also an award winning science communicator, on a mission to raise public awareness about existential risk and science in general.

What we discussed:

00:00 Intro.

05:20 The importance of experience.

07:00 The limits between the expressible and the inexpressible.

09:10 Semantic Information: life as self organising, autonomous agents.

15:00 There’s stuff you can’t talk about - there’s only the silence

16:20 The Basian probability of other life in the universe.

20:00 The ingredients for life on this earth.

22:30 The codependence between Geo and Biosphere.

22:60 Gaian feedback loops. 

27:00 The earth is not conscious but it is an agent.

29:45 Mind is a process, it’s not just in the head.

33:25 The fluidity of individuality.

34:30 Distributed Cognition - bacteria, fungal networks etc.

38:30 A fundamental reimagining of what we mean by ‘Nature’.

39:30 There is no disembodied perspective.

41:00 Geosphere to Biosphere to technosphere maturity.

47:30 The biosphere offers a model for what planetary intelligence looks like.

48:00 The history of search for extra terrestrial Intelligence, SETI

49:00 The Drake equation - 7 requirements for intelligence life.

53:45 We’ve never looked - a tiny amount of the sky has been studied.

54:00 Exoplanets: searching for biosgnatures and techno signatures.

56:00 Technospheres: Kardeshev scale and Dyson Spheres.

59:00 Techno junk from dead civilisations.

01:02:30 UFO’s need more data to be taken seriously.

01:08:20 UFO’s could be surveilling their spy tech.

01:10:00 Pros and Cons of solar system settlement.

References:

Adam Frank, Evan Thompson, Marcelo Gleiser, “The Blind Spot: Why science cannot ignore human experience”.

Adam Frank, “The Little Book of Aliens”

Adam Frank, David Grinspoon, Sarah Walker - Intelligence as a planetary scale process.

Lynn Margulis - Evolutionary Biologist.

David Krakauer et al, An information theory view of individuality

Frank Drake - ⁠Project Ozma⁠

Jason Wright - SETI meta-analysis

Exoplantets.org

Adam Frank - New York Times ‘I’m a Physicist Who Searches for Aliens. U.F.O.s Don’t Impress Me’ article

"The Expanse", Apple TV series