Consciousness - A User's Guide

I, V, M. And in connection with that, we have a very delightful topic today to go with the very delightful set of hosts, namely. Let us actually celebrate the fact that the world has been doing the same thing. Without needing to resort to the A, the future of the last three years.

Our land is far away. It's been very difficult for the four of us. It's actually not the distance. It's the time zone.

Ever since we get to move to Canada, it has become new, un-found land. Thanks, sir. Jeez. Oh, man, I missed that.

If you want, I can pull up the pandemic. I'm not going to be the one to the other. One to the other one to the other. Sorry, no.

Yes, sir. You were saying. He was setting up the delightful host starting with most delightful host, namely me, because I am the one who's listening. I mean, I mean, 90% of listeners are here for you, Hina.

Okay. I'm feeling so nice. My interest is swelling with pride and I am conscious of an elevated sense of importance. Oh, what a beautiful segue.

So please welcome, co-host Chuck, Srikit, and Tony. And my question to all of you guys is, what is your first conscious? What do you first remember as something which you felt or you remember? So for me, it was, I guess I must have been three or four, I think.

And I had, so we had one of those, I was staying in the time and we had one of those washing machines that used to dispense very hot water. I'm not sure if they do that anymore. You mean a kitty? And we used to keep it in the bathroom.

No, no, no, no. Not for consumption. Not for consumption. This is the most definitely ways.

And for some reason, we had it, we kept it in the bathroom. And because hot water would be dispensed, it was kind of like a rule that you don't go into the bathroom when the washing machine is on because it can scallop your feet. Of course, I was too young to take off the innocence of these instructions and I somehow managed to open the door I went in and I absolutely burnt my feet. And I distinctly remember going in yelling and my next memory was lying on a doctor's table with my feet, the underside of my feet were full of bubbles.

I want to say, and I'm pretty sure and I couldn't walk for about a week after that. This was the earliest thing that I ever thought about being mindful. It's a painful memory. I get the whole painful memory thing is a theme here because I mean for me as well, I mean, I might have been the same three or four around the time.

I unfortunately never had the pleasure of having my grandparents around because they passed away almost all well before I reached any level of consciousness. And the earliest memory I have is of my paternal grandfather passing away, like not him specifically. I don't remember much about him, but I remember this very vivid scene of my mother sitting on a bed and crying. And like a whole bunch of people are having to go and solar and all that stuff.

And it's also one of the few memories I have of someone picking me up. Like my dad was holding me and like I have this memory of being in his arms and being held up, which is also a rare memory to have. So yeah, I mean, it was it was that was my earliest problem because I was probably the youngest. Then I have a lot of happy memories from childhood, but yeah, this is the earliest one I'm assuming.

Yeah, let's salvage this and just get into one of the sappy memories, please because I feel like we're going to turn it over here. Yeah, I feel like we're actually telling a story to some people in school. So I had got to school and I was telling people about a completely fictional made up story of a ghost in a well. Everybody's hooked to every word because I've given a lot of detail.

And everyone's like, well, detail cannot be possible for a ghost in a well. And I've said that, oh, yeah, that ghost is there. She has nice hair. She does this.

And she does that. And I've like, freaked out a whole bunch of kindergartners over there. So yeah, that was a really happy memory for me at least. Sorry, I was just listening to this.

I was recounting the same thing in another podcast. The worst memory I had. We just paid them much more. I have something similar actually.

I remember I was absolutely petrified when I was going to school for the first day. I always knew that this thing existed. It was very very very drop me off. I was like, absists.

What? No, no, no, school school. Business school. That thing.

That same. Yeah. Yeah. I distinctly remember suddenly my fear of changing into a ray.

I have audience now and getting up on top of the table and you for reports are to be believed and tight spanking for my parents later. That I threatened to slip in front of the people. Anything for an audience check anything. Anything for an audience?

Hey, you did that too. I think you and I have both like how we built our advice from them. Then they will give us two of our points and they will be happy. Take the power point and go to the speaker close off.

Wow. I'm not sure. I would go in the country enough of this. Enough of all this.

How are these questions? I think the timeline is fully muddled. But I think the first one of the first memories that I have is my, I remember I had five imaginary friends. One friend was called Paul me.

I don't remember the other four names. But I distinctly remember my elder brother telling me that your imaginary friends are imaginary. And I'm like, huh? No way.

Then I had to ask my mom. And I think then I realized that you never have any imaginary friends. They were actually real good. I believed in them.

Anyway, so I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still have a bunch of guys who I like this stuff with in my head. Yeah, absolutely.

I also realized that anyone has like, I was not wise. Yeah. Great. Oh, I was going to be a pretty good segue into the conversation actually.

The seven and a half, by the way, you realize that a seven and a half minute is that we have been recording till now. Everything that we said is absolutely perfect for the four. Like, imagine if somebody is looking in class like a post-member, he was somebody dying. Like, it's just like stuff that we had.

Remember the certified ends? Basically, we've all gone to therapy. That would be great. Last start.

But no, he was all like. It was awful. You know what? Is the topic of imaginary friends?

I didn't exactly have imaginary friends, but I had like these set of hand-me-down wrestlers that my cousin had given from the boy. Like these wrestling figurines and stuff like that. And I used to, so I did exactly have completely imaginary friends, but I used to believe that these guys were real. Like, I used to believe that these guys were actually like, they had, I built storylines for them while they fought and all that stuff.

Like, so yeah, I mean, I... Of course, one is just absolutely amazing. However, whenever we do this, somehow the other random stories are linked to the actual topic. I have a lot of other questions to make on that.

Oh, yeah. I can't believe I realized that. I can't believe I realized that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we used to be, so I think I was in school in probably three of us, three of us. I was in the old Jurassic Park craze was like at its absolute peak. So we had a bunch of guys who were like absolutely crazy about dinosaurs. And I remember one of our friends had little dinosaur figurines and he'd given me one of those.

And it ended up becoming one of my little like prized possessions. And he said that this will give you good luck and I was like, okay, whatever. So I brought some, but in like out of friendship and all that I used to keep it with me and I used to say that, okay, this dinosaur brings me good luck. Years later, I told the story to Divya and she found absolutely hilarious.

Oh, good. So good. Listeners can't see this. So can you describe what you were saying?

You were saying that you're like, I think, in the colorful, they go, sorry. And then colorful, they go, yeah. With the face for some. Don't, sorry.

And it's not like. Yeah, it's got a tiger, a coconut tree, a fish. So Taylor, sorry. Taylor, sorry.

Yeah, it's all the first day there was light that it was good. So yeah, I remember when when I was going up there was a Krishna temple next to our house and someone used to take me there every day. to take me there every day. And I remember a man, just his feet tapping to the beat of whatever budget was being sung.

And I just remember that foot, I was just thinking about it. And I just remember that foot going up and down beating time. So that's, you know, that's like, it's filled my mind now. And that's a great segment of the topic that we're going to talk about today, which is consciousness.

So we all have this feeling of being us. That's where our memories start from. So that is when, like, for example, Chuck, you said your feet got burnt, your feet got burnt. So you remember that happening to you or Shikith remembers somebody dying and you noticing that somebody is passed away and you know, everything that, or Tony realizing that, you know, he has friends, but no one else knows about it.

So it's inside his head. And this is something which I've been off late, really thinking a lot about. And of course, many people have thought about it and have not been able to come to any sort of conclusion or understanding. So there are several layers of this.

And I'd like to just sort of go over these things with all of you. So what does consciousness mean to you? What is the state of being Chuck and I? Shikith or Tony, what does that mean?

What have you ever thought about it? Have you ever ruminated on what? Whether there is an inner hue apart from your body and apart from your physical self? Yeah.

The voted question. Yes, this is. I used to think about it. There's a lot.

Yeah, I mean, there's a simple one. Then I stopped thinking and started listening to podcasts to policy. This is scary. It's like six, seven years.

So I think over a period of time, I've consciously tried not to think about it to probably be and just get caught up in the day to day things. But it's a deep question. I haven't considered it for quite a while. Actually, I used to think about it.

I don't know. I suppose. Yeah. I thought about it in the context of there was this one.

There's this YouTube channel with it's a time YouTube channel called the Dictionary of Oupskia or Sorrows. And that is a they basically take these like basically like a German has all these complex words, right? It's not just German. All the lot of lot of different languages have complex words like that.

And there's one Japanese world called Mori, right? And I'm maybe getting the wrong. I don't know. I'll have to double check it and whatever.

But I think it's Mori, Mori is MRI, which is about the feeling to want to capture a moment while it's passing by. Right. And it talks about how we kind of like the entire generations of session we're taking pictures and taking all of these moments and like capturing them in that particular sense. And that's more because the moment is so spectacular that you don't want to let it go.

And so therefore you whip out your phone and like start capturing that moment. But it also then talks about it from the perspective of while you're capturing that moment, you're not really experiencing it. Right. You're just so busy capturing it that you never got the first time experience or that you only got the memory that you captured on your phone.

And you can like live it through that in some ways. And that's when I was going through that was when I experienced like a whole bunch of I mean, I was thinking about my consciousness and myself in like experiencing these moments. Like now we are there is there is such an inherent anxiety of like having to share a moment while it's happening that we tend to ignore experiencing a moment at that very point of time. So and in that context, I've been like when I'm experiencing something amazing, right?

I tend to I very consciously now and it's a more recent development. I've very consciously now try to stay as present as possible where I'm like, okay, I am in this moment now. Let me just immerse myself in this moment. Forget about every other aspect of this moment, including my anxieties, my thoughts, my intrusive, whatever is going on.

And like experience this moment because then I will enjoy this moment a lot more in my memories than I will with any phone of any sort. Right. And when that memory is ready to go, it's fine. Right.

Like it's okay to let that memory go at that time, but I have enjoyed it when it existed. So from that context, you also start thinking about yourself and thinking about it from the perspective of what is it that you truly enjoy doing. Right. And what is it that you truly like doing?

Like a lot of people. And I think if you look at the, I mean, I know it's a slight deviation from our topic, but if you look at like the so-called Instagram generation of today, it's actually the joy is not in the moment, but the joy is in someone else's validation of your moment. And that's where you have kind of like shifted that entire focus of what you enjoy from the moment to others, telling you, oh, what a moment you enjoyed. Right.

So that's what I mean for me, like consciousness is about being true to understanding what is it that you really enjoy. It's fine to enjoy the other part. And then you become like a photographer or you become a person who's actually capturing these moments. But a whole bunch of people are now sacrificing enjoying a moment for capturing it in some ways.

So that's one thing when you just told me that that just gave you the idea. Yeah, that's beautiful. It actually reminds me, I mean, that's something that I've been thinking about a lot as well. And I think I discussed with that the only art in that one point of time.

It's about just deeply listening, deeply reading, deeply watching something without destruction, the way I listen to music right now, actually. So actually, I don't know if you guys can see, but I moved my entire expensive headphone set up away from the computer. I actually listened to it over there away from the internet. So I mean, that's kind of like my little copch right now.

But and it also reminds me of the conversation that we had through some of those years ago. So kind of that is what being the moment. Yes, no rather being the moment and all that is an extension. I mean, I think that's a very interesting question.

I think consciousness, I think, if I were to simply put it, I think it's an experience that you have of living life that nobody else can, you know, like, you see, the same thing, he goes to something. I can go to the exact same thing in the exact same setting. We can put everything else the same, right? We might be going to the same office doing the exact same thing for the exact same client, wearing the same thing, having pre-gaming in the same way, and listening to a band which we have heard only together the same number, and we will still have a very different experience both of us, even if we are somehow magically in the same spot as well.

So I think that is really what I think that gets to the crux of what consciousness really is. I think it's a unique experience that you have, and it is impossible for somebody else to kind of experience. And this leads to all those kinds of questions that I'm sure everybody has thought of at some point of time, right? How do I know that all of you are really existing, just like how you think that, you know, I'm real, maybe you're the only person who actually exists and everybody else is just a simulation as it works.

We will obviously get into David Chalmers and his philosophy at some point of time during this conversation. But I think that's quite simply what it is. And that leads to all the fascinating questions. What else has consciousness?

Is it only humans? Do animals have consciousness? Is these two things that an animal like a cat or a dog does, but then do a meepa? How has consciousness?

If you go down to that level, does this one? Does this spot just? Does this spot just doesn't have a physical? It's a singularity.

Yeah. It's a singularity. Yeah. Oh, that's right.

Wow. That's right. That's right. Oh, he's very good.

Give me a nice. Give me a nice. What do you mean? We are going with this?

Yeah. There's this old, Harry, my host song. We have answered your question. I remember one phrase in that.

It was clear as much, but it covered the ground, the confusion that they had go around. So this is pretty much in that territory, right? It's clear as much, but it covers the ground. So the first, the guy who first is greeted with thinking, operating it into words, I'm sure a lot of people have thought about it, was Renee Descartes.

Right? So Descartes said that famously, Kajito Ergosam, and I found out about Kajito Ergosam by reading asterisk comics, all things. So in asterisk the legendary, that is a password. Yes.

And then what the hell is Kajito Ergosam? This was pre-internet age. And then I come across the regular, they can't say, wow. And so Descartes point was this, that everything is in your head.

And you can't tell whether it's a dream or its reality, because we have very realistic dreams. So how do you object to be known? So Descartes, the card's answer is you can't. And all you can know is that you think.

And therefore he says, I think, therefore I am. And that's it, nothing else. And then he's stretching a little bit. I just went up to the rehash the joke I once said, because it's very apt at this point, which is one of the most complex jokes I've heard, is that a philosophy professor is telling his students, he says, OK, I'm going to tell you a story.

Your horse walks into a bar. And the bartender asks, so will you have a whiskey? And the horse says, I think not, and two feet disappears. Right?

And all the philosophy students start tituring at that particular point of time. And obviously there's a feature like that. And he's like, the reason I told you this joke without revealing the punchline was because it would be otherwise putting Descartes before the horse. Yeah.

One of those ones, yeah. Yeah, then he got it before the horse. So yeah, it was necessary because we had this at this point of time. Please continue.

And so everyone who got that joke needs to be seriously worried because you're not supposed to get the joke. Yeah. So Descartes was like that. Right?

So Descartes, and he very stressed it out to say that if everything exists, even when you are not there, that means there is a God who exists and we all exist in his mind or something like that. So he covered a little bit of theology. But later generations were able to kick the theology out, but they were not able to kick this concept out. For a lot of people, there was a clear distinction between mind and matter.

So and then after a period of time, as the knowledge, much, much later, actually say several hundred years later after Descartes, when people realize how the brain function and how thinking happens, they found many curious and interesting things. One of the most curious and interesting is there is this thing called a corpus callosum, which connects two hemispheres of the bit. So in people who have very severe epilepsy or something, one of the procedures people used to try, they don't try it any longer, was to cut the corpus callosum. So it did not seem to affect the functioning of the individual, but you actually, it's a big connection of no fiber, then you just cut it right through the middle.

So the two hemispheres which would communicate through the corpus callosum, now left and right hemisphere are pretty much independent. They are communicating through other non-caught-plus callosum connections, but a corpus callosum is cut. And for these people, they found that they had two conscious cells. So the left brain had its own consciousness and the right brain had its own conscience.

And then a lot of clever experiments should demonstrate that. People had the corpus callosum cut. They would give them some question, which was a left-brain specific question, like a medical thing. And then you would ask the other side, the question, and the other side would not know that the other question was asked to something about.

So it was very intriguing. And the other thing that made things even more intriguing was the discovery or invention of LSD. So LSD, apparently it does all the sense of cells. So people reported an altered state of consciousness, which challenged the entire conception of consciousness.

And when you said that one brain type of thing, and there's always this classical trope of like cartoons and animals, your angel popping outside of one side, they will pop outside of it. Does it have to do with left and right brain? Is it just right? No, that's just right.

Actually, that's just conscious of because we all have that. You know that you mustn't do something, but you are tempted to do it. And then you have a little bit of an internal tip. Oftentimes we are just trying to maximize the game theoretical.

Yeah, so we just continue on the... One second, I was saying, I just like it when Narain said LSD altered state. Tony went off into... What really?

And both of you. And obviously, so I think that should be... Just saying. But you didn't say that.

I mean, just saying. I mean, just continuing on Narain's angle of... I mean, very left off with the kick out and that angle of God coming in. And I think, as you said, future philosophers dropped that angle of God.

And I've mercifully studied a little bit of this context in the university. And the future version of this, which was a really interesting concept, which came up in postmodernism, which is called deconstruction. It all comes down to this concept. So Jacques Derrida is the father of deconstruction.

And he actually came up with this entire thing saying that there is no... So he was very anti... What is that? School of Haudhaire atlastrada.

Existentialism. Existentialism, yes. Pro-objectivism. Yeah, objectivism and existentialism saying everything has a great meaning.

He first retrash that. He said nothing has meaning. The only way meaning exists is with, like you said, chuck perspective and difference. Right?

Meaning is in the... Yes, that's what... In the difference and the perspective of the people. So for example, when I see the word house, you have an image of house that pops up in your head.

I have an image of house that pops up in my head. And say if you go to construct those houses, that's why those two houses would be different. Because we have different images of them. So the difference only exists in our brains.

The difference can only exist in the world because there's difference in brains and difference in people. Unless you went to school in the 90s and asked to dole landscape and everything. That's exactly it. That is one way, which is what postmodernism also talks about is how all the older structures are trying to put everything towards a greater...

Humans have always had a drive to unify everything. Like to say that, okay, there is one leader, there is one school of thought, that is superior to everyone, there is one god, there is one everything. What deconstruction and its very essence is that the world is filled with difference. And those differences are what make us tick.

If everyone thought the same way that we won't exist, I think therefore I am, is the core of that. We need to all think differently. If we all think the same, then we are all just one. We are not individuals anymore.

And therefore that whole difference aspect of postmodernism comes into play and saying that our difference is essential for us to actually have that plurality of thought. It is the plurality of difference that allows for humankind to exist and progress the way it does. If we all start thinking the same way, then it's only going to be key. We are basically like reducing ourselves and eliminating ourselves from the equation if you are not able to see something new.

Yeah. Whoa, let's just wake up from that little dream, snap back to reality by which I need a break. And then we will get back to the simplified discussion on consciousness. It feels like everyone is talking about two things right now.

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Each episode starts with the game of Pickleball and once the rallies are done, the real topic is. Serving it up with Sanya, watch and listen on YouTube and wherever you get your favorite podcast. So I'm assuming then that one conclusion from that school of thought is that this is what makes humans different from all of the species that exist. We don't understand what this means in their context and their words.

That's a dog. No, it's a dog. Yeah, no, not. I don't think it's about the right thing.

There's a huge school of thought which says that animals also have consciousness. Yeah. Right. So at one level, there is.

So what do you mean by consciousness? So that's what David Chama said. Easy problem of consciousness and the hard problem of consciousness. The easy problem of consciousness is things like feeling pain or maybe feeling pleasure even or whatever it is.

There are new chemical circuits. Right. So there is a reward and punishment mechanism. So you've got something hard and immediately you get an alert in your brain and some neurochemical, those kind of things.

And similarly with pleasure, you've got a really good meal or something really delicious to eat and something else is triggered. So those can be explained away and it is quite easy to imagine all living organisms are feeling that including amoeba bacteria. Yeah. Right.

So that's how the world operates. That's how life explains everything. But there is another hard problem of consciousness which as Tony said, does a dog know it's a dog. Like a human knows it's a human or we, you know, the level of understanding that we have about our self.

Do animals have that? Do other creatures have that? So that is that's a difficult question. Yeah.

And by extension is fascinating to think that there is there could be a higher creature and they use higher in quotes here. That says look at these poor humans. They don't know that they are dashed. Just like we think this dog doesn't know it's a dog.

So there could be other larger intelligence. You know, I don't know what to complain or so yeah, intelligence or whatever. So it's fascinating to think that way. But yeah, I think David Chama said that hard question that see defines it is fascinating right now.

This is astonishing long guardian long read which I link out in the notes of this episode which anyone who's interested in this show definitely read. He also last year wrote a I think 600 page book on consciousness called reality plus which is a bit of a slog to get through to be honest. But I think one of the points that he was making was that this is also at a time when there was all the school around the metaverse and virtual reality and all that sort of thing which you know, the 2021 version of high and back in the day where he his point was he virtual reality quite put on an Oculus or whatever. Whatever you see that is also real because you are experiencing it.

So the point he was trying to make is that anything that you experience is real whether it is what we classically called real as in this physical table in front of me or whether it is bits and bytes that you're seeing on your reality or vision pro or whatever it is. Ultimately, your brain is interpreting these signals etc. Therefore, there is real feeling therefore it is real. This is his basic premise that he goes and slobs on for about 600 pages.

But I think it's a hint of truth to that. So, is it real because you? It's a logical endpoint of making these two. Is it real because you experienced it or is it real because your brain has created it?

I think that's the point that he was making. Yeah, exactly. Yes, he and I think he uses dreams as an example as well. So if and even if we live in a simulation like many scientists think that we actually do very matrix like it doesn't matter.

It is still real because we at some level are experiencing this as well. Neo before he knew that he was in the matrix felt all those emotions which as any other human would so those are very, very real. I guess the other point that he was kind of trying to make is we see this dichotomy between real and virtual because now we have access to that kind of technology maybe 20 30 years back when you know something like an Oculus or reality or whatever you know whatever it couldn't be fathomed by somebody in the in say 1910 or 1850. It would have been so out there.

There was no benchmark to compare real versus something else. But now that we are enlightened now that Facebook has become meta and has enlightened all of us to the possible existence of the meta was now we can say it is this real. So it's more debate about what is real anymore and it takes consciousness. Reality is a different debate consciousness is slightly different.

Okay. So yeah, there's a link to each other. I think you perceive inside your mind. But so a lot of reality deals with how we connect a sense data.

So we get we get all our input from our senses and how we connect that to the external world. So that's that's what and we have experiments and we know that our senses are fallible and we have experiments to you know, so sort of balance out that fallibility and make more accurate measurements. So that's a separate space and that's important for different kind of philosopher. There is another branch.

There is another bunch of philosophers who say that consciousness is really, you know, just a construct. So there is no real reason. We've just we've just built this feeling of consciousness as a part of the neurochemical process in our brain and that it has more real higher. And the consequence of this is that artificial intelligence systems can also be conscious at some point of time if they are not already.

So that 20, you say. Yeah. Yeah. But I think he's not in that case.

So he's like a yeah. Yeah. So people are spoke by a lot of serious people are spoke by the idea that AI might be conscious and they define AI consciousness as the ability of AI systems to decide for themselves and act according to feel to decide an actor. So that's that's what scares people.

So if you have a sufficiently advanced AI system which has decided what its terminal goals are, it will take any instrumental goal in order to achieve a terminal goal. But I'm saying that like is the AI system deciding its own terminal goal or is it created for it. So now somebody created some terminal goals for the AI system and the AI system and the customer and comp. Yeah.

No, it's now let us say the AI system has the ability to alter it and change it and you know sort of evolve those terminal goals into. So the terminal goals that would have been set by the designer would not have been very precise. Could perhaps perhaps they're not very precise and an evolved system makes it you know sort of clarifies everything. And let us say you told it to sort of make make houses or.

It's really and having it figure out that my terminal goal is to get it all human beings. So if it figure that out on its own, it also knows that it you know one of the terminal goals it could have is self preservation. And it is smart enough to realize that if it tells the humans that its goal is to exterminate, the human will try to exterminate. So it won't tell and will take whatever steps required to achieve that terminal goal including hiding stuff from humans that kind of thing.

It's like we've had AI's for instance, a plate chess or play you know go or whatever. But what if there's an AI that's put in a world like let's say GTA right and basically said like there is no real thing that you have to do there. It's a world and now you figure out shit for yourself and it could like turn into the most evil thing conniving planning thing that you have no control over. So if you take GTA yeah and arm it with real world tools, you know GTA has some strange objective right so you really don't know nobody really knows what people many programmers have slapped together many objectives on to the GTA thing so nobody really knows.

And it could you know just decide for itself that here these humans are just getting in the way let's get in that. So the point was yeah so is that consciousness is that so and that's actually it's very dark and very interesting fascinating thing but very dark. And if you if you listen to a very persuasive member of that school of thought you will come away thing you know you'll sort of give away your trousers and because the world is going to go no point and then we go walk into the sunset. Keep away your trousers and walk into the sunset.

We here on simplified have a habit of linking everything back to evolution at some point of time so I'd like to think that is a combination of consciousness and humans unique ability to feel and perceive emotions. This unique kind of combination that have some kind of role in our evolution you know in the way we have evolved and you know all that the whole telling stories thing which Shara is a fan of doing anything that's something there like this combination of emotion and consciousness. Before the scientific era right so before science became a method and people so there's the scientific method is pretty radical so you have experiments you try to determine and you have hypothesis you prove them and you know this is the world we live it but just a few hundred years before that. It was completely people used to be burnt for witchcraft people you know they used to you just say that somebody is possessed and killed them or randomly people would do bad things to each other and people would live in object poverty because there was no technology at all so if there is any drought or any you know any failure in any kind of a system.

One hundred and thousands of people just bubonic play people dropping like flies. What happened to consciousness then what people still conscious what they feeling things what was life you know just as rich and meaningful for them as it was for us. You have this entire thing you have no idea how anything you know every morning the sun rises because the grace of some God and every day it sets because of you know the machinations of some devil and you are at the mercy of all these forces is that consciousness different from what you and I experience. It's a different question I'm not.

Yeah this is I read something maybe in maybe Thomas himself said this whether the collectives have a consciousness you know like whether a swarm of bees together maybe individually they don't have this combination of consciousness and emotions as we do but together as a collective do they and this is being taken to the extreme by some philosophers who have also. Suggested that the entire universe has a consciousness which might seem far fetched to some which might seem you're kind of natural to those who believe in a higher power whether it's a God or otherwise but that's also kind of fascinating to me like we are used to consciousness at her individual human level and maybe that's only because we don't know what you know what is happening maybe the closest I can think of his praise in the forest they often say right the roots of the trees are the original Internet and it kind of make me think that maybe individually is not conscious by itself but entire forest or grow of trees is kind of conscious as a collective. It's kind of then it extends consciousness from being just one entity to say a collective. Maybe simplify for the conscious.

So the concept of the collective ecosystem actually puts the tree back and I don't know if you're being metaphorical. If a tree falls in a forest and once they're like they're actually falling in a forest the blockchain will record it. Yes we know which one of us is post-astimatastar. Zen coins for the modern age.

Maybe we should totally do one Zen coins for the modern age of the book. I think before we... I know that's fascinating like the forest or new things is like a self-sinking thing. It's something out of an animated movie.

You've seen so many of these kids like Toy Story or something. It's when all these objects are there together and the human is out of the room that these things quote and quote come to life. So what is conscious sense is coming to life? I often thought like we are actually just a bunch of atoms that just happen to come together in some sense.

We are also a collective in some sense. So again all great questions to think about with over your antioxidant of choice. I don't think there are going to be any answers out of this consciousness or something that is... It would be so awesome.

If an army of philosophers couldn't figure it out and force simplify hosts, crack the problem of consciousness like this sort of thing. And okay it's a solid problem now. Refer to this in my episode. No no no.

The reality would be like we finished we saw the problem of this thing and all of us forgot what I got locals. Maybe local files are... We local files are consciousness. Just on philosophy and therapy which is added right there's actually a friend of us.

I don't want to name them unless I have taken the consent. But basically he went to a therapist and basically the therapist said stop reading philosophy books then you'll be okay. He stopped doing it and he was back to me. Okay actually.

Sometimes it's awesome. I agree actually. I stopped reading the lecture and I became happy. One of the first interactions, a sort of conversation I had with Sheila.

We were just engaged. She came out to my house and I very proudly showed her my bookshelf. And there were a lot of really heavy books. So I had like the collect.

So there was a three or four books on philosophy. There was a book called History of the Spent Philosophy, Big Thing by Bertrand Rassolven. So Sheila looked very suspiciously at them. And she asked me why do you have such big books?

So I in an attempted levity I said that I read all these big books because I hope to sound smart and girls will get attracted to me. Or some such who are attempted levity. And then Sheila told me that instead of reading those books if you had bench pressed them you would have gotten more than that. So yeah, that was.

That's the truth of life. Now that we have got one in story out of the way. Do you have any quotes from Woodhouse or Westminster on consciousness? He's like GPD.

That is a terminal goal of simplified right to bring back Woodhouse Court Center. Yes, there is one very funny author. At least he used to be funny in earlier books. And he sort of went out the name Richard Garden.

So Richard Garden wrote a series of books. Called the Doctor series. So the titles were Doctor in the house. Doctor H.C.

Doctor. Whatever doctor this and doctor that. So in the standard thing is there is a protagonist. His name is Miles Grimstick.

And Miles Grimstick is sort of learning to become a doctor in all the. And he's a very incompetent guy. So you know, and he stumbles through life and he's experienced something very funny. In other videos, Woodhouseian sort of sense of humor.

So one of these things, Miles Grimstick has gone for a Y-virus. And it's a very interesting thing. So one of these things, Miles Grimstick has gone for a Y-virus and anesthesia liver. And the Doctor asked him, what are the three stages of anesthesia?

And Miles Grimstick said, awake asleep in date. So that's a bit of consciousness like that. So we'll end this with one thing. So now in a sense, you failed to in your human ability to come up with Woodhouse.

So it's a very interesting thing on consciousness. I went to I went to Chazu Hiddhipur which I have a subscription for. And I asked you to write a two minutes script for me between Bernard and Humphrey from Yes, and Mr. Unconsciousness.

I'll skip to the good parts of it to where Humphrey says, Oh, Bernard, you occupied, et cetera. Humphrey says that's quite a leap from your typical service. But I suppose it is, but it's a fascinating concept. Consciousness, I mean, what really defines our awareness and comprehension of reality?

Ah, the question, well, Bernard, in my opinion, consciousness is rather like government. And organized chaos shaped by perceptions, experiences, and the sprinkling of serenity. Organized chaos, but uncles contradictory, not at all considered this way. Our government is essentially an intricate web of bureaucracy, conflicts and diplomacy.

Yes, out of this chaos emerges, order and stability. It goes on to a whole bunch of other things which is shockingly, shockingly like, it doesn't become funny at any point, but it's just like Humphrey and Bernard would talk. So, now they still get points. I don't know your experience with it.

It's almost impossible to get chat-gippity to be fucking. So, is that the last? I think this is another episode for another episode for another day. But let's be conscious humans.

I think we'll be in our vote. Consciousness of time also. So, now, it's one of us. Let's meet again.

So, now, I'm going to say, yeah, easy one. Stay safe. Stay conscious and stay simplified. Yeah, bye.