0:00 Oh my god, I've been wrong. I've been wrong. It's all it's it's all mental. It's all phenomenal. >> Once neuroscientist Christoph Ko thought of himself as a romantic reductionist. But that was before he took psychedelics. >> Whatever remained of me experienced some sort of universal consciousness that I profoundly experienced as being hyperreal, more real than than than everyday [music] realities. I love this topic because I have experienced this hyper reality feeling as well. What I made of it afterwards is this. I may be hallucinating reality right now. In this video with Kristoff Ko and Bernardo Castro, we discuss how to take mystical experiences serious but with rigor. Isn't it strange that different people including western educated people but also people from let's say Brazil you know indigenous people that have aoska experiences there there are certain universals there's always these views of jungles there always tends to be these
1:02 contorted snake like architectures there there is some form of consensus well it's more limited but in psychedelic experience as well they can have geometry they can be very specific in their qualities there is no evolutionary reason for that for that stuff to [music] be there. Could we build mind technologies that help us break out of spaceime? I mean, it sounds like science fiction. >> If you could build a quantum cubit system that you could put into superp position with your cubits, assuming you have them in your brain, then you could literally expand your consciousness because now you got these extra entangled cubits. >> And if that's true, that would trigger a mass revolution just among experimentalists. Every university in the world would establish a department of quantum biology.
1:51 Warm welcome at the Asencia Foundation's YouTube channel. I'm sitting down in Angelber, Switzerland and at my table I have Kristoff K and Bernardo Castro. Warm welcome both both of you. >> Thank you. And we had wonderful discussions, one on you, one with you, um, Kristoff, a year ago, and of course Bernardo, we've spoken a lot about consciousness and metaphysics. And my opening question actually to both of you, what what brings us together here? Because we'll share content about the event we are hosting here, but I'd like to hear from both of you what what brings us at this table. >> Do you want to start? >> Yeah. Okay. Um um I think the original idea arose from a recognition that um consciousness is a little more complicated than we thought especially when we have firstperson experiences that tend to contradict some of the assumptions we've made before about metaphysics the nature of the universe and all that. Um another thing that particularly interests me is that I've
3:01 noticed that um you know we have two great unknowns in science today. you know what is the nature of matter or physical entities and what's the nature of mind or consciousness in the phenomenal sense and um the the best theories um for both today one in foundations of physics and the other one in the neuroscience of consciousness both leverage information theory >> very heavily so you have that in foundations of physics with the physics of first person perspective and the no-go theorems and all that and in the areas of interpretation of interpretations of quantum mechanics and in neuroscience of course the leading theory integrated information theory makes heavy use of the information theory um and to me that is interesting that u both accounts we seem to be using the same mathematical instrumentation does it point to some commonality here so I'm very interested in trying to figure out whether the other workshop participants can identify some some
4:04 bridge between the two domains right because at the end of the day nature is only one right we divide things in different fields of study but nature is only one thing physics neuroscience it's all nature right um so I think these commonalities can can suggest some interesting avenues >> very interesting yeah and so in whereas in understanding mind and ma and matter we used to think of an objective outside world with with physicality that is observer independent that doesn't really work at least in quantum mechanics we experimentally see that reality doesn't it doesn't work like that and in consciousness and neuroscience we also have that hard problem right that we cannot point to matter in brain giving us mind so Kristoff um how do you reflect on what Bernardo just said and what to you is the importance of this meeting bringing to together scientists to sort of explore what Bernardo just said there's a proximal and a distant distal reason for this conference the
5:01 proximal one is that I had an extraordinary experience two and a half years ago. Um it's called a mystical or non-dual experience that left me totally discombobulated about the nature of reality that prompted me to contact reach out to Bernardo and then I spent several days. He kindly invited me to his town and to his home in fact and I became acquainted with his writing on um on idealism particular channeling Arto Schopah who I grew up with as a as a as a German because I've what I experienced right I mean what I experienced was sort of what he would say the will you know you can think of it in different ways cosmic consciousness uniform some sort of universal whatever ever remained of me experienced a some sort of universal consciousness that I profoundly experienced as being hyperreal, more real than than than everyday reality. So it really shifted the tectonic plates of my ontology, my metaphysics, which at age 67 when it happened is not that common, right? By
6:09 the time you get my age, your belief in what exists, what doesn't exist, you know, is is quite firmly established. But this this certainly I said, "Oh my god, I've been wrong. [laughter] I've been wrong." It's all it's it's all mental. It's all phenomenal. And and then of course, you know, this comes together with with my particular obsession which has always been consciousness and the inability of of physicalism to describe to properly fit consciousness into the framework of physicalism. As you said, how can a piece of matter, love and hate or fear or dream or desire? Um and then even with a challenge within physics of describing what is actually the physical. It used to be very easy, right? This is the physical. This has position and and and I mean location and momentum. But now with quantum mechanics, you know, the relational comes back, right? It's now also both the relationship between things and things don't even exist in isolation. So
7:01 the question is does this also does this also apply for two consciousness? H what interests me when we spoke last year already could sense your onlogical shock and I also then thought as a person there probably is sort of a a a Kristoff before that experience and a Kristoff after right that's at least >> most certainly >> and yeah and I that was that was clear at that moment is there also a before and after as a scientist Kristoff >> well I've become much more open so I I used to write I used to deride for instance the relevance of quantum mechanics next to brain science. You know, I always argued the brain the brain is wet and warm. And if you look at, for example, quantum computers, they typically have to operate a tiny fraction of a degree above zero, absolute zero, 100 times colder than in outer space. So, it's extremely unlikely that anything in the in the brain could could provide that environment. But a we don't know. And anything that's not
8:00 ruled out by by and by physics, we should test. That's the great thing about science, right? That's what makes it so powerful. If we ask the right, if we ask nature the right question in the right way, we can get an answer yes or no. So for instance, it makes me much more willing to engage to work with with a whole bunch of collaborators exploring the idea is do we need quantum mechanics to understand something about the brain or the is the brain an entirely classical system? >> So so you did change, you became more open-minded, but you didn't become flaky, right? Because there are people there who have a mystical experience and suddenly they think they have the license to use concepts imprecisely and talk in terms of metaphors alone and everything's possible and that didn't happen to you. Your values are are still the same rigor clarity, conceptual clarity and the power of evidence and all that. >> I mean that's why we we we're convening
8:52 this meeting, right? to see what's the best science today is there are there empirical accessible ways to to get at these questions because also I had this debate with so I voice now these opinions more often and then people say well there also these people typically they they're in closed wards that claim they've seen god or they are god right there are lots of people claim I'm Jesus you know how how does this differ and it differs of course in degrees but not in absolute because you You know, you can have this experience, but then there's this famous book written by the American Buddhist called after the ecstasy, the laundry. So, you experienced everything. You talk maybe to God, but the next day you still have to take out the trash and pay taxes and all of that, right? Or in my case, I'm still a scientist, so I still want to see, can I prove some of these things that I experienced using scientific method rather than just going around the
9:45 country and say, "I've seen the light. Repent. Repent. [laughter] I've seen the light." >> Yeah. Because there are people like that and and some philosopher yesterday she she said in fact but but really epistemic can you tell the difference >> between you and those well the only way you can tell operational do I go back to my life or do I end up becoming a preacher or a madman in fact >> I I can see a very clear difference >> yes >> because I have had the experience with both >> with mad man >> with you and people who >> lose their marbles >> yeah and that's also Bernard why by their models or their marbles. They're marbles. >> Well, they also lose their models >> and that too. And their values they they sort of depart from >> the values that characterize good science and analytic philosophy. And that's also I guess why you are right so cautious when it comes to uh going into PI phenomena and and the more the more woo fringe stuff where I mean if you look at studies being done or
10:45 just the comp compatibility of it with idealism it would be sort of it's very interesting stuff but I always sense with you a sort of cautiousness there right for perhaps that reason that you want to >> yeah maybe maybe in some cases that's unfair. Yeah. >> Um but I think abandoning caution. Okay. Then then you what are you doing then? Right? Then then look either everybody has to have a mystical experience and then you can abandon caution because everybody will know by direct acquaintance. Right? But as for as long as we are not there and we need to use language to communicate then I think we do have the moral scientific philosophical responsibility to be conceptually clear to be rigorous in what you're saying to be precise in what you're saying formulating our hypothesis precisely not abandoning empirical evidence as if it didn't count anymore just because one part of empirical evidence which is our experience says something it doesn't mean that you
11:44 abandon all the rest so yes I do think this is important for As long as not everybody's enlightened and we still need the language to >> but isn't it true even let's say everyone had mystical experience then we still shouldn't throw >> our values away >> well for instance consider we still >> we all dream >> right and in dreams we all fly and walk through walls and talk to long lost or dead friends and relatives and pets right but we we don't say oh of So it means they it still exists in a real physical sense and we can actually fly and so let's do experiments on how can we possibly fly right >> I agree that's correct and so we still have to do all the good science and the reasoning to make sure that what what sort of what is it we can learn from these experiences right what knowledge can we take from a mystical experience besides yeah I had it and this is a question that William James already asked this is not a new question right what sort of knowledge have we acquired
12:45 doing such an experiment and How can we use it? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Because that interested me in in the invitation text to the the workshop we we will be hosting here. You mentioned sort of as a third reason sort of the first one was just the hard problem of of consciousness in neuroscience. Second one sort of the problem of physicality being observer independent in quantum mechanics. And then thirdly you said people have these deep mystical type experiences that you call sort of the knowledge of acquaintance. And I find that super interesting because you are sort of saying there to me that that as a as as scientists we need to not only take this serious as an object of study but see it as a perhaps even a way of gaining information about nature and >> reality. >> Reality yeah but how then because that and that to me is just an exciting exciting question. Well, so first uh for instance, one way to study the phenomena itself, what is it? So mystical experience is a very
13:44 broad term and some people use it in a very different way than I would. There's for example a questionnaire called the MQ30. It's a questionnaire used in psychology and particularly now in psychedelic research. So most clinical trials that use psychedelic like psilocybin or DMT like in an aruascar use this uh uh MEQ30 and they for example ask questions on a scale of one to five. Have you experienced oceanic boundlessness? It's a question. Now what exactly is that? >> Most people have no idea but it sounds sort of okay. I felt like an ocean. So you know >> the difference between the four and five is not [laughter] funny like four. No five. Well, and so and how does it relate to other culture? We know that mystical experience, you know, predates the 20th century by thousands of years, right? You can go back to Plato, there's an instance of it. People have it in different cultures. Buddhists have them in a meditative context. They're
14:40 near-death experiences that are very similar, not the same, of course, and the induction is certainly very different, but you can get to these experiences through very different routes. In fact, people have invented an amazing variety of different techniques like dark retreat. You go in a dark cave for days. You get food once a day and that's it. So, you're just by yourself in a dark cave. There's no medium, no no phones, no books, no nothing. People can have profoundly transformative, that's another name, mystical or transformative experience can have profound transformative experiences. Now how does their phenomenology compare to the psychedelic induced mystical experience or to the religious the classical mystical experience of course religious in fact we all acquainted from in the new testament Saul >> the persecutor of Christians right on his right ride to Damascus famously fell off his donkey and had a vision and turned him into St. Paul Christianity
15:40 greatest apostle right and and many people have reported these scientists have reported the aesthetic or mystical experience so is there something common what is it what is the the core nature and then and then again what is it we can we can learn from and from these experiences there's a famous thought experiment in in philosophy of mind by what's his name Jackson >> the the Australian philosopher Jackson Mary the color scientist >> the color line scientist yeah >> so so this this thought experiment You have Mary, a scientist of the 23rd 23rd century. She knows everything there is to know about color, how wavelengths strike our cones, you know, the photo receptor in the eye, how that information passes up to the visual cortex, how it's processed, and how, you know, why we push this button or why we say, you know, this is light orange and and and this is sort of yellow. But she's never seen color because her parents are cruel and make her grow up
16:33 in a in a gray um environment. And now for the first time she opens the door and goes into the world and sees a blue sky and a red rose. So the question is has she learned something? And what is the nature of what she's learned? Because she knows all about the physics of wavelength and the the neocience of color. So she so in some sense you could say well doesn't she know what blue is except she's never seen blue. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It's a little bit like knowing well people have had mystical experience but I personally have never had them. I just know the description of him and I know what the brain does on a mystical experience. >> I would submit it makes all the difference. Of course, >> yeah, >> but some philosophers argue no, there's no difference or there's only procedural knowledge that you learn. >> I find that position amazing, almost psychiatric, but okay, let me >> but it's funny because I I think so many people intuitively would say of course
17:31 you gain new knowledge like directly intuitively say of course new knowledge. The blue sky is not the description of the blue sky. But somehow in philosophy uh we and in analytic philosophy because you also said Kristoff in the invitation segment we are gaslighted. you use that term which is like [laughter] it's like okay like an analytic philosophy in the 20th century has gaslighted this us into believing that sort of aralia aren't real are just >> some philosophers like Dan Dennett bless his soul who passed away or like the churchlands have effectively try to cancel consciousness fact with a goal of with the explicit goal Pat church has written about it to eliminate consciousness from the discussion of educated people. She articulated this belief. Well, in the 22nd century or whenever when we truly know it, no one will talk about conscience anymore. Just like no one talks about Floiston anymore, right? We know that that that wasn't the case. And consciousness is
18:29 also going to be eliminated. In fact, her position is called eliminatism. Danet famously calls it illusionism, right? It's all a big illusion, right? So, yeah, they try to cancel consciousness, trying to gaslight us into believing my pain. It's just behavioral disposition. It's just sort of neurons firing and some hormones being released in a blood streaming me moaning. You know, if I have toothach moaning and avoiding eating on that side of the of my jaw, but there's nothing like this bloody awful pounding tooth mer. >> Yeah. Yeah. You know, analytic philosophy was founded in the early 20th century with the noble goal of ensure ensuring that we think clearly and correctly with conceptual clarity with proper logical reasoning step by step. That was the the the delightful and and and worthwhile goal of analytic philosophy. But it can also be used as a tool to construct incredibly acrobatic and contorted conceptual models that give people
19:34 intellectual permission to believe whatever position they prefer to believe. >> Yeah. >> Or to believe things don't exist. >> Which is one of the most unlikely >> Yeah. things. And Bernardo, getting back to what you started with, like this this this notion you have now that within neuroscience and foundations of physics, information is starting to play play a key role. I think it's nice for people to to hear from you and unpack what we mean with information and and what I'm hinting at is that we have a sort of a a classical Shannon sense of information when we think of computers and processing and that we all have are acquainted with. But in quantum mechanics, information is something different right? >> Yeah. Yes. Shannon information was created to instrumentalize the theory of communication. Actually, Shannon's original 1948 paper had the word communication in the title. Um, but of course that was just the beginning of information theory. Since then we've
20:37 learned a thing or two and we've managed to increase the you know the the the mathematical apparatus and the conceptual dictionary involved in information theory. Uh so when I mentioned information theory as it applies to IIT and foundations of physics I meant more than just Shannon information. But in all cases >> what I'm about to say is not a universal opinion. >> There are people who think information is a thing. Um I think it's abundantly clear that information is a description. Information is not a thing. Information is a way to describe the number and type of possible states a system can take on. Right? Um in in in in classic in ancient Greek there is this word usia which refers to a thing which has independent experience. It's not derived from other things. It's not an abstraction from other things. It's a thing that stands alone has own existence. Um information clearly clearly is not ana just as a dance is not a noia. It's a behavior of
21:46 the dancer just like a ripple is not ana it's a behavior of the lake. >> I can can go on and on citing examples of that behaviors and descriptions are not us. >> Yeah. Um there is out there u there are out there people who think information is a thing but that's not the sense in which I'm using the information. What I find curious is that um the reason we seem to have gotten down to the level of information theory both in the neuroscience of consciousness and in foundations of physics is that um we had to abstract away from our metaphysical baggage. You know all this stuff we thought were things turn out not to be things. You know matter is not really concrete. You know at the end of the day you reduce everything to fields. What are fields? Well they are defined in terms of their effects which is a very nice way to make a mathematical definition that doesn't define what the thing is at all. Right? It's defined in terms of its effects. Uh so we had to
22:45 abandon all of that metaphysical baggage and go back to information theory which abstracts all of that away but it's still not ana >> it's still not the numinal it's still not the thing in itself and um the question that I find so intriguing for this workshop is could the usa that information is referring to both in foundations of physics and in IIT the neuroscience of consciousness Could it be the same thing? Are we talking about the same fundamental states of nature that underly both consciousness and the physical world? >> And because as Kristoff highlights, um the boundaries of our epistemology, you know, neuroscience here, physics there, it's for our convenience because no human being can know everything. So we cut the field of our epistemology in little chunks that we can absorb and sort of digest, right? But out there there's just the world. So it's entirely plausible that neuroscience and foundations of physics they are hinting
23:49 at the same numinal state. >> But does this imply that the information what's the relationship between well I guess we're going to explore that right the relationship between information as used for example in IIT and in information as used in foundational of quantum mechanics particularly relational quantum mechanics. Do do we expect them to be the same? >> No, not necessarily, but they could be hinting at the same thing. >> Oh, and yet a third thing, a thing, a third description that may be better for both that would unify them both. >> Well, information is itself not a thing in my in my view, right? So, could could those descriptions be pointing at the same numinal states? Because the the other question that I'm concerned about empirically does this what does this imply about the underlying the physics underlying the brain? Can we you know can we just do we have to of necessity assume that the brain of course it's trivial subject to
24:53 the laws of quantum mechanics as is any other piece of furniture of the universe. But does it exploit the the the the powerful aspects of quantum mechanics like superposition and entanglement? And if it doesn't, as most people think, most people think the brain is a perfectly classical object, you know, describing classical physics. If that's the case, would would this interesting convergence between information theory usage in IIT and in quantum mechanics still be relevant? >> I think it would still be. It's a matter of >> what is the range of the effect, right? Ultimately, everything is quantum. Brains classical or not, everything is quantum. The question is for how long and how wide can a superposition state persist? >> Yeah. And you can ask are they re so consciousness seems to occur in us at the time scale of 100 milliseconds let's say and involves relatively large part of the brain. I mean this is empirical data. So that seems to suggest it must
25:49 operate you know across centimeters in a in a in a in a mechanism that's at room temperature o over hundreds of milliseconds. So the question that there's this question is quantum mechanics is entanglement and or superposition relevant for that or does it all average out all the quantum effects? They all average out. It's a level of fear. We know they are in effect at the level of single photo receptor detecting single photons that involves quantum mechanics. But once you get really inside the brain, are there any quantum mechanical effects? >> There is new evidence suggesting that it that it has. But let's assume it doesn't. >> Even if it doesn't, the brain is still a quantum system. One that decoheres quicker than the relevant time scale for changes of conscious states, but it's still a quantum system. Quantum system. So I would say >> as a but we don't need quantum mechanics to describe the glass. >> No, but it's still quantum mechanical.
26:45 You may abstract away the tortoise details of quantum mechanics because you get laws of large numbers that kick in. So we can simplify things by using classical [clears throat] descriptions. But fundamentally that too is a quantum system. You say Bernardo just for people to to I love the two of you discussing this but >> like [snorts] for all practical purposes right that what what physicists say for all practical purposes you can say like quantum effects average away and then we are classical and that's what I think most of neuroscience doesn't need to go quantum right there's so much we can explain in our brains we don't need quantum theory >> but now I mean you've had a mystical type experience um so Roger Penrose sees certain mathematical ical uh problems being solved by human brain that computers cannot do and then they say oh wait a minute this I cannot account for classically now let's go quantum right that's that's how it usually goes that
27:39 we make this step from from from the classical explanation to the quantum uh explanation is that sort of >> look the point I'm trying to get across is this even the answer is no it does not matter the brain is a formal system unlike what sir Roger maintains by the way I think sir Roger is correct in this specific case. But for to be conservative, let's assume he's not. Let's assume that there are no relevant quantum effects in the brain that persist to the level that is relevant to consciousness. It's still a quantum system that you can't describe it classically only raises the next question which is by what mechanisms does a system that is inherently quantum appear and is describable as classical. Now we can talk about decoherence and but but decoherence is not >> a quantum theory in the sense that >> operationally it only works if you start from the assumption that the world around your quantum system is classical and then the coherence would say and
28:45 this is not a very accurate way of describing it so give me some poetic license here uh because I cannot write down equations but the coherence is like saying the information in the quantum superposition. If the quantum system is touched by a classical system, that information is sucked into the classical world and becomes diluted. It didn't disappear. But because the classical world is so much more massive than the quantum system, the information in the superposition becomes non retrievable. >> The degrees of freedom become >> correct. But the whole thing rests on the starting point. The world is already classical. But how did the world become classical to begin with? What decohered the classical world >> motion at 300° Kelvin? >> You would in principle and that goes back to Vanoyman interactions between systems would only lead to larger superpositions. So the coherence is is an operationally very useful thing but it doesn't give you answers that apply
29:52 at the cosmic scale that there are some very good reasons to think that the universe is a quantum system and that entanglement applies at all scales. So everything is entangled with everything else. So it's an operational thing. It doesn't give us ultimate answers. >> Wait, but why is it then that so unfortunately we have one person hm who couldn't come. He's the head engineer. He's a physicist and the chief engineer of Google's quantum comput lab. And they build quantum computers very successfully. They now like the equivalent of 100 logical cubits. And um they keep them at 10 mill° Kelvin. Okay, that's 100 times colder than outer space. That's 10,000 colder 10,000 times colder than the room temperature here. And they do that because any tiny molecular motion will break down will cause their cubits to break down and become entangled with their physical surrounding. So >> and therefore they decoher >> therefore they decoeree. So how can you say everything is in superposition?
30:57 >> No, I'm not saying everything is in a superp position. That's the thing. The classical world clearly is not in a superp position. The question is why is it not in a superp position? How did how did it come not to be in a superposition? The coherence doesn't answer that. It assumes that. It presupposes that. >> Um so that's that's the point. Even the classical world is still inherently quantum unless we >> define an arbitrary dualistic >> boundary in nature. Everything is quantum. So even if the brain is quantum, it has become seemingly classical by means of quantum presence. >> Here's quantum and the other side of boundary is a classical world. >> You're saying this operation who imposes this operation? [clears throat] >> This is an operational an operationally very useful idea that presupposes that boundary but it doesn't explain why the boundary exists in the first place. This Bernardo isn't this sort of for people to understand this is
32:00 at the heart of the measurement problem. This is at the heart of Wignner's friend scenario. These these paradoxes that we or the Heisenberg cut where do I put the cut of of the quantum classical you can always draw a larger box that I'm outside. So so basically you're saying it's still from a larger perspective it is still quantum and >> yes but but look if you run an interference experiments in experiment in a classical system you will not see the interference. So it is not in a superposition. And yet everything is quantum. >> So how come it's not in a superposition? So that it's not in a superposition is obviously the outcome of some quantum process because the world is quantum. So even though the brain even if even under the assumption that it's completely classical in the way we can describe it effectively, it still raises the question of well why is it then classical? Because fundamentally it is quantum. M >> everything is fundamentally quantum
32:59 right if somebody tells you that it's not the case that the world is fundamentally dualistic classical and quantum >> then then that person would have then the theurden >> the burden of argument to make sense of that >> yeah and isn't there a way out of this I mean isn't the you've written a paper with Hartwood Nathan right and you were working with him on on sort of a quantum theory of consciousness that relates to integrated information theory, right? Maybe nice for if you to unpack that a bit, Kristoff, sort of your work on quantum right now. >> Yeah. So, this is um a hypothesis that that it's it's primarily the work of Hart Naven. um that the idea is that there's something right about Penro's original insight but it's not the collapse of uh wave function that creates what Penrose calls the moment of now of consciousness but it's a superposition and the reason for that argument is that if you look in multi-bit systems let's say three cubits and they go into superposition and then
34:08 they collapse you could use that in that collapse if you um if you have a protocol established with another observer to communicate faster than light which would violate special relativity to get around that you say no it's not the superp position and and it's not the collapse it's going into superp position that gives rise to consciousness and this is fully compatible with the average multiorlds interpretation because it says yes you you know so the multiverse that any any time that a system goes into superp position. There are really multiple worlds that split off. In one world, you know, you you follow the cat is dead in the shruding experiment. In the other world, the cat's alive. There's nothing there. >> Nothing special here. You just you just follow this world. It follows shreddinger's equation. Well, you go from a from a cat to dead cat because you know there this little apparatus, you know, the radioactive atom in the little box that Shreing has thought
35:06 experiment involves um decayed and that's all there is to it. And so the idea would be if you have big systems like us that presumably our conscious is very complex that contains many object you would need many many bits to describe the richness of this experience. This involves a system that has I don't know let's say a thousand cubits and then um so then in superp position so in principle there are two to the thousand different universes. This is a little bit the problem I have. It's it's incredible frequent in terms of the entire multiverse is logically consistent. So it turns out many physicists really like the multi because it's so consistent with physics. But it says that at any moment things go into superposition. There's this endless amount of u of universes once they collapse and you collapse into one or the other the the other state. >> But but it is logical consistent with with our experience leaving aside the fact that it creates this untold number
36:07 of universe that can never interact. Right? They're not in spa. they don't superimpose in space in this highdimensional Hilbert space. Um and now what we're trying to do there are certain predictions like one prediction is if you could build a quantum cubit system that is in superposition that you could put into superp position with your cubits assuming you have them in your brain then you could literally ex and they're entangled you could literally expand your consciousness because now you got these extra entangled cubits. Okay, that's not something we we're both in a position right now to experimentally do. So therefore, right now what we're doing, we're doing this interesting experiment just to test in a totally empirical way to what extent um quantum mechan to what extent nuclear spin. So nuclear spins is a quantum mechanical property of certain isotopes like xenon. Xenon turns out it's a it's a rare gas, right? And it's also an anesthetic. It's a well-known anesthetic.
37:08 It's stable because it had eight outer electrons, which means it does it does it's not bioreactive. It doesn't interact with anything in your body, which is good news for you. People don't use it because it's expensive except for certain circumstances. And there are some claim that different isotopes in particular isotope number 129, xenon 129 and 131 have lower anesthetic potency in mice than xenon 128 and 130. Chemically all four are exactly the same. So chemically you can't understand isotope is the same molecule. >> It's the same molecule. The difference is they have one or two or three or four more neutrons inside the nucleus. But from the outside, from a chemical point of view, right? Because you know at these temperatures we interact, you know, the where what's relevant is really the the the state of the outer electrons um that the outer shell they all have eight electrons. So chemically you can't tell them apart. And if it's
38:07 true that biology in general or the brain in particular can tell these different isotopes apart, it is most likely due because some have nuclear spin which is tiny in terms of its magnetic difference whe in terms of its energy difference whether the spin is pointing up or down. But empirically if this is true that would be a real headscratcher and if that's true that would within a few years would trigger a mass revolution just among experimentalists every department every university in the world would establish a department of quantum biology and then ultimately what do you think Bernardo this is interesting right >> it's a purely empirical thing >> yeah but this is like a very neat way to test uh quantum effects in our brain it's a neat way right it's it's it's experimentally very lean. You you just because you molecular just the molecular machinery in our bodies. It's the same molecule the different isotope. The only difference is a quantum difference. And
39:07 if we then see a different effect, it would strongly point to a quantum >> a causal chain that picks up on particular. >> Yeah. What do you think? Yeah, >> I would be extremely surprised if this turns out to be true because as as Kristoff said, it's about the outer orbitals. All chemical reactions are about the outer orbitals. Are they complete or not? So, carbon is the molecule of life because it wants to borrow four electrons from its neighbors. That's why it forms coalent connections and reacts to creates molecules and on all the machinery of life. uh but if you have all the outer orbitals complete they don't want to borrow or lend electrons then from the outside >> nothing should happen and the number of neutrons in the nucleus should not make the least difference neutrons are also charged and neutral that's why they're called neutrons so you don't even have an electromagnetic field difference >> popping to the outside >> magnetic though it's different in a
40:06 magnetic field they would they would behave differently and as I said what you know Maybe this goes back to the origin of life and you know if you're a microbe a single cell and you could pick up you were sensitive to to to this quantum effect somehow that would give you a little bit more efficiency you know in the struggle for life then you know it could be a basic property. There are a few puzzling effects. There is this the bird the mo the best known one is probably the sense. So bird can navigate you know when they migrate over very large distances. This involves an interaction between photons at night when they navigate by starlight or sometimes by moon and the magnetic field. And there the most popular hypothesis for that is a so-called radical pair hypothesis that would involve a pure quantum mechanical effect. That's probably right now the closest we have come. It's still not 100% nailed down. There isn't a Nobel Prize yet yet. There might well be once
41:04 it's fully nailed down. So there are few indications like that that quantum mechanics might possibly relevant for at room temperature. >> Yeah. >> So life would have evolved to tune into this extremely faint quantum effect. That would be the hypothesis. >> That's correct. That are much that are tiny. Yes. But you know any edge that you can have look life's been around since roughly 3 point the planet's what 4.35 billion years old it formed within the first billion years. So 3.3 billion years you had all the planet to do all these parallel evolution. So we simply don't know at this point what is possible. >> We had sort of on our channel >> and again the great thing is this might be wrong but you can test it. Yeah, but but even spin you know it is a quantum effect in the sense that everything is a quantum effect but it doesn't require superposition. We are not talking about superpositions or interference experiments here. So in that sense
41:59 >> baby steps baby steps but it reinforces what I was arguing earlier even a completely classical brain is a quantum system. >> Yeah. No, you I >> and yeah, just to say it's nice to refer to a video we did with Anita Goel, who's also a participant at this workshop who's sort of working on establishing quantum effects in the nanom machines that reunite DNA. That all has to do with the coherence of these these these time scales. If if we see coherence along time scales longer than sort of the the the operating mechanisms of these nanom machines, it's it's plausible to assume that effects that that there is this effect. But one step back because you brought all of this up in your hypothesis with Artmoot Naven um namely that qualia and consciousness has to do with the formation of a superp position and not the collapse of it which is the position of of Roger Penor. Bernardo I'm curious how you reflect on that sort of just turning flipping that around.
42:59 >> Yeah. So um so the the what Kristoff said could it be that instead of what um Penrose suggests that consciousness has to do with the collapse of a superp position that it has that conscious has to do with the formation of a superp position the the >> I think that is eminently plausible. Yeah. Okay. >> If we >> if we I'm a committed empiricist but also to subjective experience as part of your empirical data. If you introspect and look at the nature of conscious state, let me give you an example. Imagine you get a job offer and you love Essential Foundation and you never want to leave Essential Foundation because it's the best place in the world. But you get this super tempting job offer, people dangling a lot of money in front of you. And then for a couple of days, you don't know what you're going to do, whether you're going to leave or go. You are Schrodener's cat dead and alive. you're staying and you're going. So, um,
43:57 from that perspective, of course, this is an extremely loose u comparison that I'm making here, but that's all I have to go on, right? I don't have anything more precise to go on. So, on the basis of this extremely loose comparison, my sense of plausibility, I would rather associate conscious states with superpositions than with a collapse. >> Yeah. And that of course is compatible also with with Federrico Fine's ideas that that the fields themselves are are conscious quantum fields. But if that leads as as you are suggesting with Harmon if that leads to a more aaratian interpretation of quantum mechanics so the many worlds interpretation then I'm I was a bit puzzled because I found that sort of very uh elegant when I read your paper. I said, "Oh, yeah, of course." But then I thought, "Oh, wait a minute. Isn't the many worlds sort of suggesting that I'm sitting with you like physically sitting with you in another universe having a slightly different conversation other universe?"
44:56 >> I just I cannot imagine that and just seems so weird. And then I started having this discussion with an LLM about it. [laughter] >> That's a nice >> no all to say reason with me. I said, "Rason with me. If I want to interpret the Avaratian uh interpretation of quantum mechanics from a more perspective, how can we do that?" All to realize that we still have a metaphysical question. I can have a multiverse in consciousness. So, I'm curious how your thought what your thoughts are here. I mean, do you believe like in a physical aatian sort of interpretation? >> So, consciousness is definite, right? So, any one conscious experience, I see this, right? Yeah. I can see superposition. So I can look for example through these two glasses and see a superposition but it is a particular type of experience. So every experience in fact one of the axioms of IT every experience is definite. It is the way it is. Even if it's vague I'm driving
45:52 around in a fog I can't see things. It is what it is right >> it's definite in its vagueness. >> Yes. Yeah. So in that sense it has to be definite. It cannot be I don't know what it would mean to have two distinct conscious experiences. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I agree. Yeah. >> Right. And and so um yeah we we we revolt intellectually and also I also to a certain extent physically against the idea that every time there's a superp position there all these universes branch off you know and there's this infinite number but think about they exist in these highdimensional Hbert space. They don't physically right now there isn't sort of a ghostly version of me that has it that that went to bed already or ghostly ghostly form of me that on the way up here had an accident and is sitting with crutches and all the possible other variation you know it's boras many the garden of many forking path >> it's difficult but there's logically as the physicists like to point out nothing
46:52 in fact hund way he would hear he would say no in fact the fact that our computers are so vastly f the quantum computers can compute vastly faster you know the for certain types of algorithm than conventional machine is a living proof because the way he thinks about it essentially you have all these parallel universes where you're doing where the computers is doing its calculation and then at the end you force it to collapse in this one universe >> I I understand that I understand that particularly for people working on quantum computing because you see quantum computers are not applicable in general. They are applicable to particular classes of problem um namely NPcomplete problems for which you cannot derive a a solution through steps of mathematical derivation or calculation but you have to test all possible solutions to see which one works >> right. Um and in some cases the space of all possible solutions is such that it would take your computer the lifetime of
47:55 many universes uh to statistically have a chance of finding the correct one. But quantum computers find those solutions relatively quickly like ours days. And of course, the only conceptually clear way we have to think about how that is possible is to imagine that there are countless parallel quantum computers in countless parallel universes. Each one of them testing one of the possible solutions >> and then one of them will find it. >> But you only need to power your one machine, your one computer. Yeah. So, >> and the rest you get for free. So look, I understand the temptation >> because it's it's it's the only handy way to think about what a quantum computer is doing. I I understand it. >> But I am too committed to empiricism. I'm too committed to the notion that science is about modeling what is empiric modeling and predicting what is empirically available as opposed to imagining what is fundamentally not empirically available. Okay. Especially
48:59 when it's an it's extraordinarily hypothesis. >> But wait, but you do admit that those quantum computers exist and do these things at speed that no super conventional supercomputer can match. >> I admit that. I admit that thinking in terms of parallel universes is operationally useful. I admit even that our primate brains currently do not have another way uh to think about that. But I do not think our epistemic limitations as monkeys should translate into the most inflationary ontological hypothesis conceivable to the human. How do you then [laughter] but of course how do you then >> what would be a better story for quantum computers to to just understand what what they are doing. Then it is sort of monkeys finding a technology to shoot something on and machine they build and they they get the answer back and then we have this myth about what has happened. But I mean >> the the the better story the question you're asking now is the same question
50:01 as what is the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics. >> So quantum computers are not creating a new problem that sort of focuses the the the space of the possible interpretations. No, we are just seeing a sort of practical reflection of problems that were already there. We don't know what >> what happens >> what it means to say that quantum mechanics quantum mechanics has two fundamentally distinct processes a linear one the evolution of Schroinger's equation and a completely nonlinear one which is the collapse. The jury is still out whether there is such a thing as collapse at all. It may be just an illusion. You know cubism for instance would say there is no collapse. >> Yeah. Um, so I'm I'm I'm not surrendering to many worlds yet. I think the concept could we we we briefly discussed about this sort of but but do you see a way to sort of have a sort of idealist take on the Aaratian view? You think it could it fit in in within an
51:03 idealist perspective if you would just say those many worlds are are in consciousness and of course it's all consciousness branching off. >> Of course. So I I don't have the opinion I have because I am or I'm not an idealist. It it's it's my commitment to this to this idea that the job of science is not to invent something that is not empirically accessible but to model and predict what is empirically accessible. I I'm too committed to that to because it's handy for us to think of quantum computers as infinitely parallel quantum computers. We I I acknowledge this is very hand well in practice uncountable. It's very handy. It's extreme. It's a geometrical explosions of quantum quantum computers. Yeah. Theoretically it's finite but it's big. >> It's it's it's just >> beyond mindboggling. Yeah. >> Um, the fact that it's handy for us to think of a quantum computer in those terms, I don't think it should translate into breaking away from this commitment to
52:11 science as a way to model and predict empirical observations as opposed to inventing what it's not empirically accessible. >> In fact, the more popular quantum computers become, the more the this explosion, right? Because if there are a million quantum the independent generators infinity of universe >> it's [laughter] it's it's an explosion of empirically undetectable stuff >> right our our empirical universe becomes this in I mean tiny little thing so the fraction of univer you know we only live in one and the fraction the denominator becomes exponentially larger every single second there's some there's some superposition here here's a >> logically consistent. >> Here's what I think is a healthier way to go about it. The history of science is the history of convenient fictions. We imagine things and the universe behaves as though those things were true and therefore that allows us to make predictions easily. Like Newton imagined
53:14 gravity as an invisible force that acted instantaneously at a at a distance. We put a man on the moon based on this convenient fiction. But we can't pin down the orbit of Mercury based on that convenient fiction. So we invented another convenient fiction which is spacetime is a fabric that you can bend and twist in the presence of mass. >> The vast majority of scientists wouldn't call it a fiction. Right? The vast majority of scientists believe that there is something known as a truth and we our theories become better and better at describing it. >> The history of science contradicts this. The history of science is the is the history of replacing old convenient fictions and adopting new ones. Of course, every generation thinks that their convenient fiction is actually true, >> right? But even even the fabric fabric of spacetime, if you look at loop quantum gravity, that's reformulated. >> But we don't we don't know whether loop quantum gravity is the right theory. But I hear you.
54:09 >> So, but my point is to think of quantum computers as parallel computers in countless parallel universes is an operationally handy, convenient fiction. And as such we should embrace it. Yeah. But we shouldn't mistake it for an ontology. >> Like like again for all practical purposes it's it's it's good to think >> quantum computers behave as though countless copies of it existed in parallel universes >> and we can access them >> and and we can operate on the basis of this convenient fiction until >> slick >> until we find Mercury and the orbit of Mercury for which this convenient fiction doesn't work and then we have to come up with a better one. So I'm happy with that. But I I I I can't make a ontological commitment to ever Russian multiverses. It it it goes to the core of my values. [laughter] >> Ah yeah. >> But of course if you've ever had um certain types of experiences where you in your mind you experience bizarre things
55:13 it's easy to interpret that oh you're now visiting these different universes. Oh, I am not against the hypothesis of parallel universes. I am against the motivation for postulating parallel universes because of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. So you could have quantum univer parallel universes that are there but have nothing to do with a varian interpretation multiverse multiverse. But you were you said something important just a couple sentences sentences ago that many Many scientists believe they can hit on truth and they're in search of truth and then they of course they they they might forget that there's something like metaphysics and that you there's stuff there there's a modeled and and your model of it, right? And that you forget about all of that and then then you think you found truth and you say that's just your next convenient fiction. Then comes another one and then >> oh you find another kind of truth. You can correctly predict what the universe
56:14 will do. That's true. >> Yeah. But the the the question I think when you say when you say then Kristoff you have these these these moments when you think I now experience it it directly I have a direct experience what you call sort of a direct acquaintance with it right so these mystical type experiences and I intuitively I I have had those experiences myself it's very hard to come back from them and not to think that you had a direct acquaintance with truth in a way you never had before And then a couple of weeks later then you tell Yeah. >> No, it fades. >> Years later, >> years. Yeah. >> Years later. I just this morning got an email from an an old student of mine who said, "Yeah, he had something similar 2007, you know, 18 years ago." He says still is as vivid as the next day and he thinks about it every day. No, these experiences can stay. They don't have to. But many people report they stay with them for decades of until the end of the life. Yes. And I am in that sense
57:16 a platonist. I do believe there's some truth. The qu is an epistemic one. Can we access this truth? Would we even know the truth at an abstract level? I I can see that I'm not sure we would know. You know, if somebody wrote down the complete theory of everything that physicists look for, you know, would people would the would referees let it pass? Would they say, "Well, you know, there's this issue and that issue and your equations are too long. Anyhow, they don't fit my you know, the journal style. You have to shorten it." Um [laughter] but but on and and I'm totally with you when you have one of these experiences there's no doubt in your in your from your experience that this is the beat that you are at the beating heart of the universe there's something I call it hyperrealization in contrast to there's a psychiatric symptom it's called e well there are two variants it's depersonalization or derealization derealization what I'm talking about people come to the doctor and say I know
58:14 this is fake. I live in a I had a friend a good friend who had this based uh he got triggered by marijuana a strong marijuana joint for the next two days he ran around among others telling me why he was living in a simulation because the map he had there was some road missing and he said this is where they screwed up I know this is fake and and he finally had to go we had to bring him to the clinic they gave him antiscychotic um medication sometimes the only way you can get out of this is by ECT this you know, electro convulsive therapy. >> There was a story two years ago of this American Alaskan airline pilot who tried to shut down the two um the two engines of his of his plane because he thought four days earlier he' taken psychedelics. He had this episode of derealization where he thought he was living in a dream and he believed that if he pulled the plug on the airplane the airplane crashes then he'll wake up and you know that's derealization. But
59:13 what's what's typical what can be very typical of these um mystical experience that you feel the opposite hyper realization you feel this is it this is the truth of the matter I've now encountered ultimate reality and then you spend your rest of your life trying to make sense of this ultimate reality >> yeah and I love this topic because I have experienced this hyper reality feeling as well what I brought back what I made of it afterwards is is clearly I hallucinate things in a in a psychedelic trip, right? I hallucinate that my walls may my walls may be may be melting but if I record my walls they were not melting, right? Could I hallucinate hyper reality? And then my conclusion was yes, I could. But then look at the implication of this. I may be hallucinating the reality of it right now. If my mind is capable of doing that because there is something slightly different from serotonin cursing through my brain, then why couldn't that happen
1:00:19 with serotonin instead of psilocybin or psilocine? Right? >> The only counterargument I would have most of the time, what do you see here? >> A red glass. >> What do you see? >> A red glass. >> And I also see a red transparent class. So most of the time reality is like this, right? But then there of course limiting cases like do you know the dress? >> Yeah, I know it. >> Okay. So do do you know what? The blue the blue golden dress. >> Blue golden dress. Yeah. We can put it on screen for people who don't know. It was like a viral. It went viral a couple of years ago. >> Yeah. 2015. So roughly I can't remember. Roughly half people see it white gold like me. Yeah. >> And the other half of people are diluted. They see it blue and black. Right. And it's just [laughter] Bernardo, what color did you did you do you remember? >> Blue and black. Unbelievable. My point. And and it's not it's not that you have to think about it that you sort
1:01:14 of infer. It's an immediate sensory >> uh judgment. It's very immediate. And it's unlike those you know the these bastable illusion old woman young lady. >> It's it's different. Now >> so it's not always the case that we have consensual reality, right? Do you know that >> or the colors of the the rectangles in a checkerboard with a shadow projected on that one also that's too even if you know it's an illusion you look at it and >> yeah but that everyone yeah >> that one everyone has but everyone has okay you know I read recently read anil Seth's book and he explains it that was like eye opening and it's funny even now because I I think I can explain why both of us see it blue and you saw it like golden >> because it has to do with the people uh rise early in the morning. So it has to do the assumption has to do with the overall brightness that your brain assumes the overall brightness or being it's dark then you tend to see it I
1:02:13 think is black and blue and if the overall assumption implicit bias you know in terms of beige the the prior bias is it's bright then you see it white and >> and you could say like outside person and inside I I guess you're more like on the outside and on the camera our camera's white balance >> inside we go outside now with the with the >> Oh, you can shift it. >> Yeah. >> You you put your white balance on inside lighting and then when we go with the same camera outside, it looks blue
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