Chasing Consciousness

What exactly are time and space? What are the implications of them not being as they seem? What is the relational interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? What are the implications of its leading to no universal laws of nature?   In this Episode we have the non-linearity of space and time to get our heads around. In Episode #28 with physicist Paul Davies we talked about the implications of Einstein’s work in general, and in this episode we delve deeper into the implications of relativity, particularly of time, but also of space and extension. A subject that our guest has worked on extensively.   Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist who works mainly in quantum gravity research, heading up the Quantum Gravity Group at the Centre de physique Theorique in Aix-Marseille in France. He is also passionate about the philosophy and history of science, so a perfect guest for this show.  Rovelli has written many popular science books, including the bestseller ‘The order of Time’ which we’ll be focussing on today. We’re also going to discuss today the release the his new book ‘Helgoland’, which champions his favourite Relational Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Being such a philosophical scientist I’m also going to ask him about Intuition, Buddhist philosophy and psychedelics.    What we discuss:  00:00 Intro  08:05 Time is local not universal  12:32 ‘Block time’ is a bad analogy  13:20 The apparent ‘flow’ of time from the past to the future  18:00 Entropy’s relationship to time  21:15 Is time an illusion?  26:00 Matter and its extension is also relative  27:00 Space is curved  28:00 Back holes are full of space  30:35 Our most obvious intuitions may not be correct  31:00 Quantum Mechanics: Nature is radically and violently different from our intuition  36:00 Probability Matrices and margins of uncertainty  38:00 The wave particle duality and probability distributions  39:00 Why the relational interpretation is the best  46:00 Science is how you think about reality, not just maths  53:00 Our obsession with final truth is illusory, a silly dream  57:00 Buddha’s Dependent Origination + Nagarjuna’s emptiness  01:02:00 Intuition and altered states of consciousness  01:06:00 Psychedelics, insights and jumps of imagination  01:17:00 A scientific theory of meaning   01:26:00 An intro to Loop Quantum Gravity theory   References:  ‘Helgoland: The Strange and Beautiful Story of Quantum Physics’ , Carlo Rovelli  'The Order of Time’ , Carlo Rovelli  ‘The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika’ , Nagarjuna  Empedocles - Greek philosopher  7 Brief Lessons in Physics’ , Carlo Rovelli  ‘Reality is not what it seems’ , Carlo Rovelli 

Lori Williams, expert in Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV), discusses the top-secret Stargate remote-viewing program, successful experiments during the Cold War, the importance of blindness in remote viewing, the challenges of remote viewing future events, the concept of living in a virtual reality, resistance to new ideas, skepticism and belief, and recommendations for further exploration

In this episode we have the fascinating proposition that what we call reality is in fact a hallucination we all agree on, to consider. We’ve already heard in this second series in Episode #28 from physicist Paul Davies on ‘The implications of Einstein’, that indeed matter is energy and as such the world we see as solid objects with space between them, isn’t truly like that. We’ve also heard from cognitive scientist Don Hoffman that we see the world optimised for ‘fitness’ in the evolutionary sense, and not for truth i.e not to see it as it actually is. So in the same vein in this episode we’re going to find out from a brilliant neuroscientist that we are in what he calls a ‘controlled hallucination’. That neuroscientist is none other than Anil Seth. Anil Seth is a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He is also the co-director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He has published over 100 scientific papers and is the editor-in-chief of the Oxford University Press publication ‘Neuroscience of Consciousness’. His TED talk ‘Your brain hallucinates your Conscious reality’ has more than 11 million views. His new book ‘Being You: a new science of consciousness’, which expands on most of what we’ll discuss today, is a Sunday times top 10 best seller, and a New statesmen, Economist and Bloomberg book of the year. I’ve wanted to speak with Anil since I heard about his theory, as it seemed to match some of my worries about the disconnect between what we perceive and what is actually there, and how much of what we see is coming from our own mental and biological state, and our biases at the time. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro 05:41 A ‘prediction machine’ perceiving from the inside-out, as well as perceiving sensory info outside-in. 10:00 Interoception: predictions about the body for self-control/regulation 14:00 The rubber-hand illusion: the prediction machine is not perfect 19:00 The risk of our best predictions being considered truth rather than hypothesis 23:00 Cultural humility about differences in our perceptions and beliefs 24:15 Why we call reality is a ‘controlled hallucination’ 31:30 The body has shaped the predictive brain for survival 34:00 Brain body bidirectionally vs reductionism 37:30 Supervenience 38:00 Can different levels of description be primary to each other? 46:00 The self is illusory References: Anil Seth's best seller, ‘Being you’ The Perception Census - Call for participants Immanuel Kant’s idea: Noumenon, ’the world is hidden behind a sensory veil’ Pareidolia - seeing patterns in things The Dream machine - Interactive flickering light experiment

The podcast explores the concept of free will and its connection to mindfulness meditation. They discuss the experimental evidence for the existence of free will and its implications for personal moral responsibility. The guests, including Susan Blackmore, share their insights on the illusion of free will and its compatibility with consciousness. The podcast also delves into the concept of dependent origination and explores the connection between separateness and oneness. They discuss the concept of form and emptiness and the challenge of studying consciousness without mental constructs.

In this episode we explore a User Interface Theory of reality. Since the invention of the computer virtual reality theories have been gaining in popularity, often to explain some difficulties around the hard problem of consciousness; but also to explain other non-local anomalies coming out of physics and psychology, like ‘quantum entanglement’ or ‘out of body experiences’.  As you will hear today the vast majority of cognitive scientists believe consciousness is an emergent phenomena from matter, and that virtual reality theories are science fiction or ‘Woowoo’ and new age. One of this podcasts jobs is to look at some of these Woowoo claims and separate the wheat from the chaff, so the open minded among us can find the threshold beyond which evidence based thinking, no matter how contrary to the consensus can be considered and separated from wishful thinking. So who better than hugely respected cognitive scientist and User Interface theorist Don Hoffman to clarify all this. Donald D Hoffman is a full professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine, where he studies consciousness, visual perception and evolutionary psychology using mathematical models and psychophysical experiments. His research subjects include facial attractiveness, the recognition of shape, the perception of motion and colour, the evolution of perception, and the mind-body problem. So he is perfectly placed to comment on how we interpret reality. Hoffman is also the author of ‘The Case Against Reality’, the content of which we’ll be focusing on today; ‘Visual Intelligence’, and the co-author with Bruce Bennett and Chetan Prakash of ‘Observer Mechanics’. What we discuss: 11:20 Seeing the world for survival VS for knowing reality as it truly is 13:30 Competing strategies to maximise ‘fitness’ in the evolutionary sense 21:30 The payoff functions that govern evolution do not contain information about the structure of the world 29:30 Space-time cannot be fundamental 37:45 A User-Interface network of conscious agents 41:30 A virtual reality computer analogy 53:30 User Interface theory VS Simulation theory 01:08:00 The notion of truth is deeper than the notion of proof and theory 01:17:30 Is nature written in the language of Maths? 01:27:00 Consciousness is like the living being, and maths is like the bones 01:44:00 Being and experiencing being may co-arise 01:48:00 Different analogies for different eras References: Donald Hoffman - ‘The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes’ Nima Arkani-Hamed - ‘Space-time is dead’ Nima Arkani-Hamed - 'Reductionism is dead' Local Realism is false Noncontextual realism is false Don Hoffman - Objects of Consciousness paper Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

What are the implications of Einstein’s predictions? Has our understanding of reality integrated the implications of this thinking? His General and Special theories of relativity have completely changed the way we see gravity, energy, mass, space and time, even size - but how? Physicists may find it easy to understand what his ideas mean; like this quote “The distinction between the past, the present and the future is nothing but a stubbornly persistent illusion”. But for us, the general public, just thinking that the the arrow of time is an illusion, is enough to give us a bad headache and leave us wishing that Newton was right after all. But that’s not what we do on Chasing Consciousness, our mission is the same as always, to update our world view to match new theories. Now this sounds like no small feat, but have no fear, all will be be clarified by a man with a skill for presenting complex ideas in a way we can all understand, one of the worlds most published popular science writers, Professor Paul Davies. Paul Davies is a Cosmologist and Professor of Physics and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. His work has covered topics as far reaching as Cosmology, Quantum Fields and Astrobiology, with a sprinkling of the Search for Extra terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and cancer research to boot. He’s the bestselling author of almost thirty popular science books, his many awards include the Templeton Prize and the Faraday Prize of the Royal Society. He is a Member of the Order of Australia and even has an asteroid named after him! Quite a career! His new book ‘What’s eating the universe’, that covers many of the topics we’ll touch on today, is out now. What we discuss in this episode: 00:00 Intro 08:00 ‘The universe is about something’ 16:00 The warping of space time 22:00 The implications of gravity slowing time 31:25 Time and Space are relative, and can change and move like matter 36:00 Arrow of time VS Block time - ‘Time is just there’ 38:30 Matter is energy or Mass is a form of energy 42:00 The table isn’t solid, its mostly empty space 44:30 Did time start at the Big Bang? 49:00 Time doesn’t flow universally, it’s what clocks measure 52:00 3 big origin problems: the universe, life and consciousness 1:03:00 John Wheeler - the ‘bendy rubber’ analogy of space time 1:05:00 Einstein’s famous quotes explained 1:08:00 Intuition according to Einstein References: Paul Davies ‘What’s Eating the Universe: And other cosmic questions’ An Einstein Ring (A warping of space time) Full Isaac Newton quote, ’Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external’ St Augustine quote ‘The world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time’ Nima Arkani-Hamed ‘Space Time is Dead’ lecture (from 14.20) John Wheeler ‘Pregeometry’ Mach’s Principle

How can out of body experiences be explained? What theory of reality could accomodate such a phenomenon? Today we have the extraordinary topic of the science and physics of Out of Body Experiences to get our head around! Many brain scientists have reduced this common experience to a mix of physiological and brain chemical effects, maintaining that no perceiving consciousness actually leaves the body, rather it is a form of hallucination and distortion of body schema. Not knowing when these experiences will spontaneously occur has made them hard to study in the lab. However, certain researchers have developed a method for inducing the experience, allowing for deeper study. Following that study some new theories of reality have developed that could include such an experience and even others like Near Death Experience or NDE, and Controlled Remote Viewing which we’re evaluating in this second series. One such scientist is our guest today physicist Dr. Tom Campbell! He’s an experimental physicist who’s worked for over 20 years developing US missile systems for the Department of Defence, specialising in developing cutting edge technology, large-system simulation, technology development and integration, and complex system vulnerability and risk analysis. He began researching altered states of consciousness with Bob Monroe at Monroe Laboratories in the early 1970s. He helped design experiments and develop the Binaural Beats technology for creating specific altered states, and became an experienced test subject and trainer too. After many years studying consciousness, and out of body experiences he wrote the book ‘My Big TOE’, as in ‘Theory of Everything’, which describes his model of existence and reality from both the physical and metaphysical points of view. PART 1: Testing Out of Body Experiences 00:00 Intro 06:00 Balanced left right brain thinking 09:00 Out of Body Experience is a bad term, but neutral 13:00 Consciousness is not projected from the body 21:30 Testing Bob Monroe’s OBE phenomena 32:00 The experiment that confirmed it was real 36:00 Alpha Numeric information is not the same type as image, pattern or metaphor 46:00 The weirdest stories Tom’s encountered 55:00 Non-embodied consciousnesses encounters 01:05:00 Binaural beats to aid getting out of body explained 01:20:00 Theta brainwave is the state you need to be in to explore your consciousness PART 2: The physics of Tom’s ‘My Big T.O.E’ (Theory of Everything) 01:25:00 Consciousness evolves by lowering entropy, finding more order and structure Full show notes at Chasingconsciousness.net References: My big TOE book series Monroe Institute MBT events (binaural beats) ‘On testing the simulation’ One of Tom's scientific papers Tom's You tube channel MBT

Why is Panpsychism gaining popularity? Is it coherent to say consciousness emerged out of non-consciousness? What can we deduce from a universe fine tuned for life? In this episode we have the important job of finding out what Panpsychism is all about, and why the philosophical position is gaining more and more traction in philosophy, but even with physicists and other scientists. The idea that consciousness is the fundamental nature of the physical world is by no means a new one, and it does seem to resolve some of the problems of how consciously experiencing lifeforms could have evolved out of non-conscious non-living material. But most materialists balk at the idea and consider it absolutely bonkers, for reasons we’ll find out as we attempt to pay respect to the criticisms of the position too. So fortunately, to navigate this tricky philosophical quagmire we have one of the best known and most passionate supporters of panpsychism, author and professor of philosophy at Durham University Philip Goff. Philip’s research focuses on how to integrate consciousness into our scientific worldview. He argues that the traditional approaches of materialism, that consciousness can be explained in terms of physical processes in the brain; and dualism, that consciousness is separate from the body and brain, face unresolvable difficulties. His first academic book, Consciousness and Fundamental Reality was published in 2017 and his first book aimed at a general audience, Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, was published in 2019. He also has a podcast, Mind Chat, which he rightly hosts with a philosopher of a completely opposite point of view. And he’s involved in a book of essays on consciousness which will be out this year called ‘Is Consciousness Everywhere? Essays on Panpsychism’, which is a collection of essays by scientists and philosophers published in Journal of Consciousness Studies. The contributors include Carlo Rovelli, Sean Carroll, Lee Smolin, Anneke Harris, Christoph Koch, and Anil Seth, several of whom appear in this series of Chasing Consciousness. What we discuss 00:00 Intro 06:00 The unanswerable questions 09:30 Panpsychism explained 12:30 %32 of philosophers are now opposed to materialism 19:30 Neural correlates don’t describe the subjective contents of experiences 21:10 Arguments for Panpsychism 23:00 Consciousness from Non-consciousness: the evolutionary problem 26:20 Materialist counter arguments 44:45 Public observation and experiment is not the full story 54:30 Block Universe implications for panpsychism 01:06:45 Meaning, value and mystical experiences References: Galen Strawon: why he believes Panpsychism Eric Schwitzgebel ‘Crazyism’ article Sabine Hosselfeld “Electron’s don’t think” article David Chalmers on Consciousness might collapse the wave function Full references and show notes at Chasingconsciousness.net

In this episode we learn everything we need about how food relates to our mood and state of mind. We’re going to lay out the fundamentals of how different food groups and qualities of food influence directly our mental and physical health; how the gut species depletion and inflammation are key consequences of the changes we’re seeing in western industrial diet, and we can counter that tendency with some simple tricks. Alex Laird is a medical herbalist with more than 20 years' clinical experience. Trained in biomedicine and plant pharmacology, she treats patients in the only NHS herbal clinic based in a UK hospital at Whipps Cross, and she is a fellow and council member of the College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy (CPP). She worked with Breast Cancer Haven UK for 20 years, using nutritional therapies for cancer. Alex has undertaken clinical research, is a visiting lecturer, has published numerous research papers, and is the co-founder of the charity Living Medicine. She is also the author of the new book ‘Root to stem’ which talks about seasonal foods and remedies for strong health and immunity that can be found growing literally in the hedgerow around your house! Please buy me a coffee if you're enjoying the show here What we talk about: 05:00 An epiphany with nature 07:00 Nutritional Psychiatry and the Gut microbiome 08:40 Evolution with unrefined foods VS modern refined sugars 17:00 The need for minerals and phytonutrients 13:10 High protein/ lo-carb approaches 18:10 Variety is key, the research says 20:20 Phytotherapy 21:20 Inflammation explained 26:30 Acidification and pH in the body 33:00 The gut microbiome 40:00 Reciprocity in nature and life: Feeding diversity 44:00 Crucial gut and fecal microbes via vaginal birth 46:00 Contact with soil and pets (spores, fecal microbes) 46:30 Immune response load needed regularly to maintain health 48:30 The overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals 50:20 Gut disbiosis explained and solutions 55:50 Immunity evolved alongside bacteria and viruses and needs their load 58:30 Supporting Innate and adaptive immunity 1:00:00 Germ theory 2.0? - healthy immune response load 1:04:00 The ‘Root to Stem’ philosophy - Diversity, reciprocity, interconnectivity 06:00 Our relationship to the seasons sustained by seasonal foods 06:55 Reconnecting to nature, ourselves and to community 01:09:10 Plant medicines we might not be aware of 01:10:25 Phytonutrients explained 01:15:30 Dietary fibres and prebiotics 01:18:10 Fermented foods and probiotics 01:24:00 Connection to nature 01:28:00 Sacred = in service to life References: Alex Laird’s association 'Living Medicine' Breast Cancer Haven UK Graham Rook, Old Friends Hypothesis, UCL Karin Moelling - ‘Viruses, more friends than foes’ Tim Spector, British epidemiologist and gut microbiome specialist The College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy www.thecpp.uk www.herbalalliance.uk European Scientific Cooperative on Phytotherapy www.escop.com  Association of Foragers  https://foragers-association.org

Audio Note: There’s a short background sound at 10 mins, it only lasts for 5 mins and it was during an important a point about the role of feelings in reasoning, which was too crucial to the topic to cut out. In this episode we have the fascinating topic of understanding how feelings play a part in reason and consciousness. We’re also going to be learning how feeling is different from sensing, and if internal feelings and homeostasis, which evolved far earlier than other elements of our perceptual systems, can tell us anything about the evolution of human consciousness. To get to grips with this we the hugely influential Portuguese neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. Damasio is professor pf Psychology, Philosophy and Neurology at the University of Southern California and the founder of their important ‘Brain and Creativity Institute’. He’s written many important books like ‘Descartes Error: Emotion, reason and the human brain’ and just out the subject of most of our discussion today, ‘Feeling and Knowing: Making minds conscious’. I’m extremely grateful to previous guest Jonas Kaplan, who works for professor Damasio at USC, for arranging this interview. Check out his fascinating interview Episode #9 ‘The Backfire Effect’ on the neuroscience of belief. Please donate a cup of coffee if you're enjoying the show What we discuss in this episode: 00:00 Intro 02:49 The importance of creativity in science and life 08:30 Creativity can be slow, not always a flash of intuition 09:12 Brain and body are intertwined in the creation of consciousness 14:00 The importance of emotions to reason 17:00 Homeostasis explained 19:15 We have feelings to provoke us to get something that we need 21:15 Feeling is different from sensing 28:00 Sensing predates the nervous systems and feelings in evolution 31:50 Consciousness is related to feelings and they allow knowing 33:15 Artificial intelligence will not be conscious and feeling, but could copy vulnerability 36:28 AI didn’t evolve from surviving like us 38:15 It’s not just the brain - from the start it’s been interrelated with the body 40:30 Will robots suffer? 42:20 There’s no Hard Problem of Consciousness, it’s just physical evolution 47:00 Does awareness of awareness have an evolutionary reason? 48:30 The feeling system is ancient and early in our conscious evolution 51:30 Consciousness isn’t an illusion it’s a representation of your self and the world 53:13 The mind instinctively creates maps and patterns, even ones that don’t exist References: ‘Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious’ 2021 ‘Descartes’ Error: Emotion, reason and the human brain’ 1994