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18. Experiencing The Stars In Every Moment
52 Plays2 years ago
Even if these microphones were not in front of us, we would be doing the same thing. Discussing the topics that we hold dear to our hearts. Ideas that have profoundly changed who we are and how we think. Join me in todays discussion, where Joe and I get into why the space-time paradigm may be doomed, as the great Donald Hoffman has been so eloquently explaining as of late, and we talk about the profundity of psychedelics, and some of the lessons that can be learned from these deep, meaningful experiences.
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Music By Nathan Willis RIP
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Transcript
Introduction & Philosophical Impact
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pursuit of Infinity. Even if these microphones were not in front of us, we would still be doing the same thing, discussing the topics that we hold dear to our hearts, ideas that have profoundly changed who we are and how we think. And I'm willing to bet that if you're here, these types of philosophical and awe-inspiring topics have had an impact on your life as well.
Space-Time Paradigm & Donald Hoffman
00:00:22
Speaker
So join me in today's discussion where Joe and I get into why the space time paradigm may be doomed as the great Donald Hoffman has been so eloquently explaining as of late. And we talk about the profundity of psychedelics and some of the lessons that can be learned from these deep and meaningful experiences.
00:00:41
Speaker
But before we get to it, show us some support. If you like what we do, the easiest way to do that is to subscribe and leave us a five star review on your platform of choice. And if you're feeling extra altruistic, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash pursuit of infinity. We're also on Instagram. So give us a follow and reach out to us there at pursuit of infinity pod.
00:01:04
Speaker
We have some exciting stuff coming, including our YouTube channel, which is very close to being launched. So stay tuned. And without further delay, thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoy today's episode.
Materialism vs. Conscious Realism
00:01:41
Speaker
this week I was like just frustrated I was listening to like a lot of podcasts like Rogan had on that the Japanese guy scientists I was listening a couple like scientists like like two on Rogan and I forget the other podcast but I was getting frustrated because I was like
00:01:56
Speaker
Nobody is working from the basis of idealism or something like that. All these guys, they're brilliant, but they're still working from a materialist paradigm. So I was like, it just gets frustrating. I'm like, you're not asking the right questions. You got to work from an idealist paradigm. But that's why today I had so much relief. When I saw on Lex Friedman, he had Donald Hoffman.
00:02:25
Speaker
And after listening to that podcast, dude, he's like my favorite guy now. He's like my spirit animal.
00:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, I remember a while ago, I was, uh, I think it was when we were getting a lot into Kurt J. Mungal's podcast, uh, theories of everything. Um, I remember I was even thinking like, man, I wish that Donald Hoffman would be on this guy's show. And I guess you were telling me that he actually does have two episodes with him, but he just seems to say all of the things that I want to say, but I don't know how.
00:02:59
Speaker
Like he just gets it. He's brilliant.
Perceptions of Science
00:03:02
Speaker
And it's awesome because I'm not like super scientifically minded, but I like, you know, listening to that. And it was awesome to hear somebody who's like a brilliant scientist, like talk about this stuff. And, uh,
00:03:21
Speaker
Because sometimes you'll hear me, I'll talk. It's not what I'm trying to do, but it'll sound like I talk down on science or say call out problems I see. But I'm not trying to diss on science. Because the way I see it is there's three different kinds of science, basically, what the word means. So there'd be one popular science, which is...
00:03:47
Speaker
basically what you'd ask somebody like a layman what science is like somebody that doesn't know much about science like just like oh that's the truth that's like where we you know just our our barometer of truth and like not a real in-depth look at what science really is and then like the second would be like your standard materialist scientist like knows all the intricacies of science and how it's not so simple like knows like
00:04:13
Speaker
basically, you know, they're scientists, they know what it's all about. And it's not so simple as like, it's just truth once it becomes scientifically accurate. And then the third, which is like, why I love Donald Hoffman, I think he falls into this is like, like,
00:04:31
Speaker
science plus basically which would be like a guy that's like combines mysticism with science so like a scientist and a mystic like somebody who basically these guys now that are doing the consciousness work because mind-blowing to me how through so much time all like they just call it the heart problem of consciousness and don't really
00:04:53
Speaker
dive into it.
Consciousness as Fundamental
00:04:54
Speaker
So that's like the third level as I'm calling it is like Donald Hoffman talking about you know the consciousness aspect of it because I'm somewhat of like I guess an idealist I don't know like basically as I talked about before like consciousness being fundamental not matter and yeah I want to talk about Donald Hoffman a little bit because that's what he's all about. He calls I think yeah he calls his he's not an idealist
00:05:21
Speaker
I heard him say that and he was saying he's not an idealist because idealism comes with some baggage of basically being kind of anti-science, which I don't know if that's true. Maybe it's just like a stigma that's stuck with it. And so he doesn't call himself an idealist. He calls himself his philosophy is conscious realism. That's what he calls it.
00:05:45
Speaker
But it basically – he was saying that consciousness is fundamental, whereas a materialist thinks time-space is fundamental. And the one quote he texted me today is like – it's not his quote. I think – I forget who it came from, but it's good. Time-space is doomed or it's dead or whatever. But yeah, he knows what's up. He basically, like I said,
00:06:13
Speaker
Consciousness is fundamental over time space. And that's our space time. But that leads to like the whole thing that I talk about a lot too, which is that consciousness isn't, from this perspective, if this were true, that like consciousness doesn't come from the brain. Because if consciousness is fundamental, then and space time isn't,
00:06:40
Speaker
the brain is in space time. So that would make everything within space time, like not fundamental. So it's not producing the consciousness. You know what I mean? Like the neurons aren't the causal effect, actually, the consciousnesses.
00:06:53
Speaker
And what he, what he goes into is, I mean, space time essentially is space and time and how they relate. And if you go, I believe he said he used, it was what 10th into the negative 33. Um, like that would be.
00:07:10
Speaker
in space and then 10 to the negative 43 would be the time. And if you get to those levels, because when you look at space time, you know, you're based, you're basing it off of like size. So if you get to those, those levels that it's so small, um, there becomes literally no definition of space and time. They become irrelevant. So what his work is, is essentially looking beyond that what exists.
00:07:38
Speaker
beyond the realm where space and time don't have any sort of meaning or applicability.
Critique of Reductionism
00:07:45
Speaker
What I like about him too is which I've always like felt this way and it's like the my opinion one of the problems with the popular science, the materialist, physicalist view is they their method, the methodology is reductionism. And
00:08:07
Speaker
The interesting thing is that quantum mechanics and all this stuff has actually proved that this stuff doesn't work. But it just shows how long it takes a culture and even people in science to move on from a paradigm. Because what I've been saying is there has to be a paradigm shift. The way that we interact with reality and the way we see reality. And we're still stuck in this.
00:08:33
Speaker
this physical physicalist paradigm where we view everything as matter. And the easiest way to describe it was for me is to think of reality as mind, not matter. You know, like the substance is mind. Well, I think what Hoffman is, he's not saying that
00:08:53
Speaker
I think he's saying that a new paradigm has to be adopted if we're going to look for deeper truths in reality but he specifically does say that space time isn't going anywhere. Because it's been extremely useful to us and it's probably going to birth many more technologies and many more ways of being that we can even fathom yet.
00:09:12
Speaker
Because space-time is a really great paradigm, but what it's not great for is describing reality. And I think that certain scientists, certain researchers and explorers, they, they seek to define reality. And those are the ones who are going to have to look past space-time and look past these paradigms, but I don't see a problem with, you know,
00:09:36
Speaker
the science that's happening now, even if it does remain sort of within this, this so-called doomed paradigm, because I only see it being doomed in a way where you're trying to define reality as like a theory of everything.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So like, yeah, I'm talking about, you know, the spiritual aspect of life. And it's like a way for our culture to understand it instead of because we all carry this baggage from religion, we hear spirituality, we think religion, think of war, we think
Religion, Spirituality & Materialism Clash
00:10:06
Speaker
of all the bad stuff that goes along with it. We think that it's not true sciences, like science says that there's no God under the materials paradigm. But yet, like, the, the physicalist paradigm,
00:10:20
Speaker
is awesome. It's super pragmatic, like you said, for technologies and stuff like that. And that's like you said with Hoffman, he's not saying get rid of it, still use it like, you know, for the pragmatic aspect of it. But to gain a deeper understanding, something's got to change because in the materialist paradigm, there's like certain
00:10:42
Speaker
certain questions that just die, like they just die in the water, you can't answer them. It's like a dead end. And consciousness, which is, in my opinion, fundamental, is just kind of pushed to the side, which is crazy. It's like the opposite of what, you know, what I think you should be looking at if you're looking at like the deep answers of, you know, who am I? What am I? This type of stuff.
Gödel's Theorem & Human Understanding
00:11:05
Speaker
If you ask yourself the question is, are we capable
00:11:09
Speaker
of discovering and understanding the true nature of reality. I think you have to look at Gödel's incompleteness theorem and it seems that any place that you stand from is going to have
00:11:24
Speaker
something missing or it's like there's a veil or like tinted glass or something like that. It just always going to be something that you're peering through that stands between you and true reality. So it's, it's so mind bending to me to think that there are ways for us to discover the true nature of reality, but can we really understand it from a human perspective?
00:11:54
Speaker
Yes, that's interesting. And that's where like, I think there's from like a standard state of consciousness, there's always so much we can hold on to, you know, like you I think
00:12:09
Speaker
through altering your consciousness, you can gain insights that are as big as it gets. But the thing is, if you look at reality and it's infinite, that means with Girls Incompleteness Theorem, he originally stated that with mathematics, there's an infinity of math. You can do math forever. There'll never be
00:12:32
Speaker
like an end to it. So I feel like it's the same with understanding. I think it's like unlimited, basically, there's always more to understand. But I do believe that you can access a state of consciousness to experience the whole of of yourself. Because I think that's the key to understanding. It's all it's about understanding yourself. And to further expand on girdles incompleteness theorem, his
00:13:01
Speaker
his essential thesis was that there are two theorems of mathematical logic that are concerned with the limits of provability in formal axiomatic theories. So what that means to me is that
00:13:18
Speaker
the limits of provability lie within a circle. And at the center of that circle is essentially where you're standing. So wherever you move, that circle of provability is going to move with you. And it's always going to remain outside of where you are, of where you're standing. So there's always going to be something outside of your current understanding that's based upon the principles that you're observing reality from.
Subjective Reality Debate
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Um,
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's so interesting to think about like perception in general because part of me thinks like, okay, because there's the idea of kind of like what you're saying that you're not looking at true reality now because basically our evolution didn't design us in a way to see truth. We're like designed with defense mechanisms and survival tools.
00:14:14
Speaker
But this is where everything gets paradoxical because at the same time, I think that what we're looking at now is absolute truth and it has to be. But this goes into the point of, is there such thing as an objective reality? Part of me wants to say that I don't think there is an objective reality. All there is is what consciousness is doing at that time.
00:14:39
Speaker
And it's interesting because like, this might be a little off topic, but, um, I was just hearing about this guy today that, um, he had a synesthesia. I think that's what it's called by your senses. Um, like you, let's say like taste sounds or something like your senses mix up. So there was this guy.
00:15:02
Speaker
his instead of tasting like what we call tastes that experience he had a touch response so like when he would taste a food he would feel an object he wouldn't experience what we call taste so like let's say he'd eat you know a banana or you know what I remember an example mint he ate mint and he saw like a
00:15:26
Speaker
a glass object like and he would feel it like you feel like the coldness of it, what it was made of like he felt this big cylindrical glass something.
00:15:37
Speaker
But that's how we experienced taste by a touch sensation, which is insane. And the crazy thing about it is this guy became like a world-renowned chef. Like this guy was like incredible at putting food together and making amazing dishes because he had a whole different experience of what eating was, what taste was. Like, so he was basically, instead of how we would taste flavors and mix, oh, this should taste good with that. He was like putting pieces, like physical objects together, basically with this taste.
00:16:06
Speaker
which is crazy. And I guess that kind of goes into what I'm saying. It makes you think about what perception is. That's not objective for us. So I think objectivity might be like an illusion.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah. And even just the slightest change in your perception changes your mode of consciousness so much. And what Hoffman would say was that the evolutionary tools that we have are the way that we, that we observe the world are just perceptions and they are, they're not just like slightly off when it comes to reality or truth.
00:16:47
Speaker
He would claim that they are completely void of any of it. And it's not even that we're perceiving slight amounts of truth or just the amount of truth that we need to, to intake in order to survive or in order to move throughout the world. It's that we are in taking a complete and utter illusion through our perceptions. And that to me is it's both.
00:17:10
Speaker
magical, amazing, and it's difficult to wrap my mind around as well. And yeah, you said it, you said it just right there, but this is the thing about it is. I think I'm not sure I just started like listening to him basically today. Um, but I think he kind of claims that there is an objective reality, like the way reality is.
00:17:36
Speaker
outside of all the perception. And that's the only part where I think twice, like I agree with everything he says and it was like, it's all fantastic. And he's, he puts it all so brilliantly with scientific
Local Realism & Consciousness
00:17:47
Speaker
language. This is great for people to understand in our culture, but I, this is where it kind of, there's a conflict to me because it consciousness being fundamental.
00:18:01
Speaker
Who gets to choose what consciousness being aware of the reality is the true reality? You know what I mean? Because in order to – you were talking about perception. Something has to be perceived to exist because this was also proven. He talks about how local realism isn't true which means basically that an object doesn't exist unless you're looking at it.
00:18:25
Speaker
So like, as you look around, you're creating everything like it. And when you're not looking at it, it's destroyed, created, destroyed. So if consciousness is fundamental, how, like what is behind the, what you're perceiving now as a true reality, because it has to have a perceiver. Like it has to be a perceiver and who is the one that makes it true. And then to even further that a little bit.
00:18:52
Speaker
I think the nail in the coffin with all this is that there's like the non-dualist look at it, which is there is no object and subject. So it's just what it is. So meaning truth is what you're directly experiencing right now. So that's why I don't know if there is something under it that is considered objective reality.
00:19:17
Speaker
So then there's the panpsychists view where like each particle, each object, each, you know, every single physical thing in the universe has like a little sliver of consciousness within it. And I think Hoffman would say that that isn't necessarily how it is. I think what he says is that there is some sort of fundamental
00:19:41
Speaker
Like reality where consciousness is primary, but it's not as if each object or each particle has consciousness. It's more that consciousness creates the particle. Like you're saying, like if, uh, I think one of his examples was if I look at you right now, I'm just seeing like your face and your skin and this and that.
00:20:04
Speaker
And like, if I look into your brain, I can see your neurons, but the second I look away from your brain, those don't exist anymore. Like you were saying, it's a create and destroy type of thing. So I agree with you on that. It's, it's hard for me to. To like place consciousness as, cause when you, when we say consciousness is fundamental that I say that out of a feeling that I have gotten from experiences that I've had.
00:20:34
Speaker
Not necessarily through any sort of scientific research. It's like he's trying to take a concept that lies outside of the scientific realm and is normally.
00:20:47
Speaker
observed by mystics, spiritual people. And he's, he's trying, he's trying to fit it into a scientific paradigm. And I think he does a really, really great job of it. But I mean, I'm not a scientist, nor am I some kind of spiritual guru. So it's really, it's tough for me to, to make sense of where to place consciousness within a primary situation.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah, he's great at it. Like, cause he, it's interesting how you can get to, if you want to call it truth or just your perspective, how you can get at it in multiple ways. Like you can, you can get there to, through a rational, logical, scientific way, like using the scientific method and all that, or you could get to it from looking within, like you probably get there with math, whatever. It's like a deluxe. Um, but I want to go back for a second. Um,
00:21:42
Speaker
panpsychism I have a beef with panpsychism because to me it feels like they had like a kind of a aspect of the truth or an aspect of what reality truly is but they're like they didn't dive in they just dip their toe in like so they're still pandering to the materialist paradigm like they still can see the problem with
00:22:11
Speaker
Materialism is why there's the hard problem of consciousness is because they can't figure out how consciousness emerges. So with, uh, conscious realism, it takes the opposite. So in, uh, yeah, like materialism, they, their miracle quote unquote would be, uh, uh, space time. So they can't explain it, but they claim that as fundamental and it's the opposite with, uh, conscious realism. He takes consciousness as fundamental and that's his miracle consciousness emerging.
00:22:41
Speaker
And see, my problem with panpsychism is it's still materialist. It's still physicalist. So they give consciousness to every little
00:22:53
Speaker
aspect and then as it goes up, up, up, it explains why we are conscious and intelligent. But I think it works the opposite way. I think that instead of intelligence being built from the bottom up, I think intelligence is from the top down. So I don't think that it takes a bunch of
00:23:14
Speaker
intelligent molecules and this and that to create us, our intelligence. I think that we are intelligent and as we look down and down, we just see more consciousness. But you know what I mean? I think that intelligence is
00:23:30
Speaker
It's nature is from the top down. I don't think that you need to build, like put a bunch of random things together that creates the intelligence. I think it's like, you kind of maybe look at like, I don't know if you'd want to say God or whatever, but I think that the intelligence is, it's built from the top, not, uh, not like the sum of a bunch of particles.
00:23:56
Speaker
I think what you're referring to is more of a theory of emergence, where you look at all of the things that make up, you know, human awareness or human consciousness, and you observe all of those things and individually, they shouldn't really mean anything. But then when you put them together in some weird way, um, consciousness emerges from them. I think the panpsychist view,
00:24:26
Speaker
Uh, I think you're right about the fact that panpsychism still, it still does its work within the space time structure. Um, but I think that it's not materialist in the same way that, um, the brain and producing consciousness is, I think it's more as if it, it considers consciousness to be fundamental.
00:24:56
Speaker
probably in the same way that space time is fundamental. And it's more of like the, the particles, the neurons, the, the chemicals that make up all of life, depending on what chemicals are interacting together, you have an emergence of different forms of consciousness or different ways in which that living being can tune into this greater field of consciousness. So.
00:25:25
Speaker
I don't – I understand what you're saying, and I do think that if you're going to go to the Donald Hoffman approach and say that space-time is doomed, then panpsychism has some major flaws. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of botched my explanation a little bit, but…
00:25:47
Speaker
But yeah, so like you said, with panpsychism, it's still physicalist because it takes into account, it still thinks that consciousness is just the result of a chemical soup.
00:25:58
Speaker
Well, I think it, it says that maybe the type of consciousness, um, or the way that. The individual species brains can sort of interact with consciousness is different, but I don't think that panpsychism, well, it definitely doesn't say that consciousness is a result of like it's created by the brain.
00:26:22
Speaker
It doesn't. I thought it said that consciousness comes from the brain. It's more that consciousness is a field and each object, each particle, each brain, depending on its makeup, tunes into consciousness in different ways. Right. So the brain is like.
00:26:39
Speaker
It's more that it that the brain is tuning into a field kind of like a TV like a TV doesn't create. Like channels and programs and you know and broadcasts but the TV is depending on how it's made up right as the components in the tools to tune into the field the broadcast field in general.
00:27:00
Speaker
Right. So I wonder I get what you mean. That's right. I was I don't know what I was thinking. But so I wonder if that means in the panpsychist view, if when the brain is like if there's life after death.
00:27:13
Speaker
Like, do you need the, uh, do you need that antenna? Like the, the brain, do you need that to experience? Are you the consciousness or are you the material brain? You know what I mean? I think that's a really good question as to like what a panpsychist thinks happens when you die, because I think panpsychism is a scientific sort of theory in a way. Like it's a way to like.
00:27:41
Speaker
It's a way to put science around consciousness being fundamental, but I'm not sure it really deals with what would happen after death.
00:28:00
Speaker
FaceTime, it kind of claims both in a sense, which is weird. A unity of dualities, maybe? I mean, does one have to be primary over another? I guess it would. By definition. By definition, it would be. Because basically, what I'm saying is that the brain is basically an illusion. That consciousness is creating your brain.
00:28:24
Speaker
Yeah, you explained the pants, like it's pretty good. I guess I made a lot of assumptions and I didn't, I just don't like that. It's like, it's gaining popularity, but it doesn't get the perfect, like it doesn't really get the whole grasp of like, for instance, what Donald Hoffman talks about. Yeah, it's very interesting. And I think it's, it's definitely like on the right track.
00:28:49
Speaker
And one of the things that I do like about panpsychism is that it doesn't really go deeper than its claims can go. And it doesn't make too many assumptions because it doesn't really claim to have too many answers, if that makes sense.
Panpsychism & Universal Consciousness
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, yeah, it's a start and it makes sense. I'm going to quick read what the definition is. Uh, panpsychism, the doctrine or belief that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness. I mean, I think that is a legit, uh, hypothesis. Yeah. In my opinion, yeah, it is legitimate hypothesis and it is on the right track, but, um,
00:29:40
Speaker
We've talked about this a little bit and maybe it goes, it takes a different turn from Donald Hoffman even, but kind of what I've started to gather is that I don't think each thing has consciousness. Like I talked about this a little bit, like how we project our knowledge onto the world by saying that we own our consciousness, like it's my consciousness, your consciousness, and
00:30:08
Speaker
Like ownership isn't a property of the universe. It's something that, it's a concept that we create. So like you say you own your car, but somebody else can just jump in your car and take it. And it's still the same car, but it's not your car anymore. You know, like ownership is something we place on top of reality. So I, part of me thinks that consciousness, and this is in the absolute level, I definitely believe this, that consciousness is one.
00:30:37
Speaker
And it's just kind of, it has multiple perspectives, basically. So what if we said instead of my consciousness or owning consciousness in that way, what if we said that each particle, each physical material piece of the world interacts with consciousness in its own way? Because I think the,
00:31:03
Speaker
The thing that panpsychists are saying essentially is like a materialist would say that a rock doesn't interact in any way, shape or form with consciousness because it's not, you know, living in the same way that we are. But I think a panpsychist would say that every single object in some way interacts with consciousness, maybe doesn't own or have consciousness. Like it doesn't think or something, but.
00:31:30
Speaker
It somehow enters the field of consciousness in some way within its chemical buildup. Right. And that's like a big one that I think is unexplained with panpsychism. I think you're right. And from what I remember from hearing a panpsychist talk was that.
00:31:48
Speaker
Let's say like a rock. I'm not sure how they directly define it, but has some relationship with consciousness, but isn't conscious as in it doesn't have an experience. So it's kind of weird. It kind of goes back on itself a little bit, but I would say that the rock is consciousness in a sense. If you think of God, just think of it as an infinite mind.
00:32:15
Speaker
and everything in that mind is built of consciousness, like the formless or the form is consciousness itself. So the way I look at it is I don't look at us as antennas for consciousness to like tune into it necessarily, but more of consciousness being the entirety of the experience. So like a dream, for example,
00:32:45
Speaker
They see it's weird because it's easy for us to wrap our minds around a dream. And like an idealist says that reality is mind, not matter. And in a dream, it's easy for us to say, oh yeah, that's mind. Like when I'm in my dream, that's not real matter. Like that's just mind. And that's what I think of as like reality itself. I mean, it's like matter is like a basically just an effect of the dream.
00:33:15
Speaker
Or it's like a property of the dream. Like, and then you can, in certain dreams, there's different physics and different stuff going on. So I think it's the easiest way to look at it is as if it were a dream. But yeah, it's strange to me that we can easily wrap our mind around dreams being mine, but reality couldn't be.
00:33:35
Speaker
And it's also interesting to me how much in our culture dreams are dismissed, that we don't think too hard about them or we don't really understand their value or what's happening. But in a dream, you experience reality. It's just a different state of consciousness. And it's just strange to me. Dreams are like any other state of consciousness to us. Any altered state.
00:34:04
Speaker
is looked at as lesser than the waking consciousness, the waking awareness that we have, because we value the things that we gain from our physical life. And we look down upon drug experiences and meditation, spiritual experiences and dreams. We look down on that, on that kind of stuff constantly in this culture, because it doesn't align with
00:34:33
Speaker
our value systems.
00:34:35
Speaker
And yeah, it's, it's interesting the way you said it too. Like, like, yeah, well, we put like value on different states, but what we're not understanding is that consciousness is like always flowing. Like it's alive or whatever, however you want to say it, but like you're, you are always in an altered state of consciousness. Like when you're hungry, you're in an altered state of consciousness. When you're angry, when you're happy. That's what I'm saying. Basically what I would say is the only thing that exists are states of consciousness.
00:35:05
Speaker
And it's never still, it's always in motion, it's always changing. And I don't think the brain is fundamental at all in that. That's why I believe that when you die, you...
00:35:21
Speaker
It's not the end. Like consciousness is eternal. So you might lose your, like your ego will die. This thing that you and I are in these bodies may be like, and maybe you won't remember it, but consciousness will continue. What state that will be is the question. Yeah, that is the question. So what does it mean to you?
00:35:43
Speaker
Personally just with what you've experienced with what you know what you've read. What does it mean to you that consciousness lives on? Well, I would say from
00:35:58
Speaker
Like, I don't know. Well, I would say, okay, like a materialist, for some reason, they think that the brain has consciousness. So the brain goes away, the consciousness goes away. I would like to say it might sound ridiculous, but I know that consciousness is eternal. And the way I know that is from my DMT experience, where I had like a telepathic communication for a bit, but also
00:36:24
Speaker
I experienced eternity, like it happened in a moment. And then, so I know that eternity is always happening. It's like, right.
Ego vs. Consciousness
00:36:35
Speaker
It'll always be now forever, right? Like you can never think of a time in your life where you could say, Oh, it's not now. Now it's later. Now it's previous. Like it's always now forever. And that's what eternity is. And when I experienced eternity, I understood that
00:36:50
Speaker
Oh, I've been eternal this whole time and it's always going to be that way. And like, and you feel it in such a profound way that there's no doubt about it. You can't like come out of the trip and be like, Oh, that was just a crazy trip. That was a wild thought. But like the experience of eternity.
00:37:09
Speaker
is it proves to you that you're already doing it now. You're just in a specific state and you are the thing. It's not like people like to say that you always want to, it's like our nature to always create a layer of separation between everything. So first you say, uh, I am a person in the universe.
00:37:31
Speaker
And then you'd be like, oh, well, no, I'm a, I'm a part of the universe, but that you're still, that's a little layer of separation. You take it one step further and it's like, no, I'm not a part of the universe. I am the universe. Like there's no like part, like I am this thing. This is what I am. I was birthed from it or however you think it happened, but you are the universe. You're not separate from it. You, every bit of you is that you're built from it, like from the universe.
00:37:58
Speaker
You know where I think that concept starts, that separation of not being able to really fathom saying I am the universe is, it goes back to like, you can tell some people that we are animals, we are a species of animal and they'll look at you like you're crazy because they think that we are humans and they are animals.
00:38:21
Speaker
But I think the very first thing you have to accept about humans is that we are just another type of animal. And if you can't grasp that, then when somebody says to you, I am the universe and you are the universe. I think what they, they think you mean is that like, I can experience the stars at any moment. Like I am as giant as the, and like, yes, you are. Cause we are literally the universe, but there's.
00:38:51
Speaker
There's a problem with the language that we use to describe things just inherently whenever we tried to talk about big things like that. And like I said, a lot of people can't even understand the fact that like we're animals, let alone that like we are stars and we are the universe. Like I am human. Like, see, that's an idea. And the interesting thing about it is.
00:39:18
Speaker
You didn't think of that idea. So that was an idea that you were given and you held on to. So now you're a biological human, but you didn't realize that. And I like to say realize rather than learn or whatever, because when you realize something, it kind of gives a tone of truth to it. Like you realize it and you're like, okay, now I know.
00:39:36
Speaker
And this is one of the things that I think is so important and I just love is epistemology.
Epistemology & Knowledge
00:39:44
Speaker
So epistemology is basically like the knowledge of knowing.
00:39:49
Speaker
how you know things and it's interesting because I do it everybody does it you walk around with all this stuff in your head acting like you know it and you don't know it you just believe it or think it or as an idea you were given and I think it's a good exercise to check yourself always especially even on something that you are sure about like
00:40:11
Speaker
It's interesting people get aggressive over the flat earth and like, is it a globe or is it flat? And the real answer to that is you don't know. Like I don't know that. So obviously based on everything I.
00:40:27
Speaker
have been taught and based on my faith the earth is round but it's powerful when you could admit to yourself that you don't know technically you don't know and there's no way that you could unless you were out in space and like you saw the earth as a ball but the thing is we do that with everything we think we know these things but when you break it down think how do i know it
00:40:50
Speaker
You can say that about anything like, how do I know I'm human? Well, I was taught I'm human. I look at myself and I look like this. And you just have all these ideas floating around in your head that you were given. And then you walk around with the faith that they're true. So like people get so mad when you talk about flat earth and like say the people on the other side do the same thing that gets definitely flat. Um, but you could, and that is actually true from a certain perspective. It is flat, but not as its totality maybe, but
00:41:19
Speaker
Once you can admit to yourself that you don't know that, I think that's powerful. And that's why epistemology is so great because it really makes you think about what is true and what isn't. And it makes you understand the only way to truly know something is basically through experience. Like you can't know a thing even with all the evidence in front of you because you didn't find the evidence, you didn't build the case. I mean, you can only know it if you know it and to understand that
00:41:49
Speaker
I don't know that the earth is round. It's pretty, it's pretty powerful. Yeah. And you know, the whole human thing, it reminds me of, I think it was Alan Watts. I was listening to him talk about dogs.
00:42:04
Speaker
And he said something along the lines of like dogs, like they think that they're human. Like every animal thinks that it's human because it's the, it's the center of its, of its reality. And it looks at us and like, what are these weird looking like bipedal things walking around with no hair? You know, what's that thing? That's not a human. Like I'm human because the concept of human isn't.
00:42:29
Speaker
hairless monkey, the concept of human is us. What I am. What I am. That's the concept of what a human means. It's not an identification. It's not a biological identification. That's why you could say a dog thinks that it's human because in its reality, it's the center of everything.
00:42:47
Speaker
And then it's the interesting thing is like, and let's, we could even give into it and say, okay, this body I have is a human body. I mean, still, you didn't figure that out. You didn't come up with it. It was the name given to you. Um, but the beauty is to realize that even if you are human, whatever you actually aren't human, your, your body.
00:43:09
Speaker
A body is human or like the thing that your ego is contained in is human because the thing that you actually are isn't human at all. The thing that observes the human is what you are. So like when you close your eyes and put your awareness on itself, putting awareness on awareness is your true nature. It's what you really are. So like.
00:43:35
Speaker
I like to get
00:43:50
Speaker
being silent and not thinking about anything like a standard meditation, you solely focus on one thing like with all your might. So I'll do it with my fingers. I'll press my two fingers together and close my eyes and just feel that feeling and put all my concentration on it until there's nothing left in my head and I kind of just become that feeling.
00:44:11
Speaker
And after that, this is a tougher one in my opinion to do the concentration. I think it's harder than meditation. So I just sit there with my fingers pinched and just become that sensation. And then the key is to do that on awareness.
00:44:27
Speaker
So that how you put your awareness onto that sensation, you try to put that awareness on itself. And then you get to a place of what you actually are, which is awareness, really. It's like the witness, you know, and you can, you can find yourself in a place where you're not identifying as your thoughts, which is,
00:44:54
Speaker
kind of huge because we think that we are our thoughts. We think that we are our preferences. But when you realize that you aren't those things fundamentally, and I know like that to a lot of people, it kind of sounds like woo woo. But again, it's one of those things that English, any kind of language doesn't really describe accurately, at least coming from me, especially some people would do a very great job, but
00:45:22
Speaker
It does, it seems that you can, you can observe your thoughts and if you can observe your thoughts, you are not them. So you're not who you think you are. You're not who you've convinced yourself your whole life. You are, you're, you can identify yourself with the witness of that. And I mean, God knows what that is.
00:45:43
Speaker
Yeah, that soul or something.
Psychedelics & Self-Discovery
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's one word you could use for it. That's a, but yeah, that's interesting. I, that's the, like the first huge insight I'd say I got from psychedelics is that I'm not what I thought I was. Cause like just being taught
00:46:04
Speaker
Uh, like you taught like, uh, I'm a human. Uh, my name's Joe. Um, this is, I am the guy who likes the color black and I like this car and that's who I, like, you just, like you said, it's your preferences. But then you basically, you, what you learn is what you've said is you, this whole time is just your ego, which is a finite, you know, a finite thing. It's not a.
00:46:28
Speaker
It's not the essence of what you really are because the ego can die and like you can experience the ego die. They call ego death. Like you could basically experience what people would call physical death, but it's technically not physical death because your body lives on, but it's the experience of it basically, which is, you know, the thing that you identified with the ego dying and you living on and that's one thing that I got from, uh,
00:46:57
Speaker
the DMT trip, it was interesting because when I had my, you know, whatever God experience, I would call it, um, I came out of it and I basically almost only, like the second half of it was so profound and incredible and most beautiful moment of my life that that's almost all I remembered. I remembered, you know, a rebirth aspect and the unity, but
00:47:22
Speaker
I forgot what happened before that. And the second time I did DMT I remembered right away. Like as soon as I got to that spot and that time I fought it honestly. I just wasn't prepared properly. But I forgot that in order to get to that place of
00:47:39
Speaker
you know, unity of, like of eternity. I had to like go through like death. It was like, Oh no, I'm fucking dying. And like, it was as real as you could, you know, it was beyond real. Like, so I forgot I had to go through that to get to the other side. And as I was going through that the second time, I fought it and I didn't get to the other side. Yeah. What's funny about a DMT trip is that going in, you think, yeah, it's only going to be a few minutes, so I'll be fine. You know?
00:48:09
Speaker
But then you don't realize that in that few minutes you have to die. Or you're going to have a bad time because that same time that you had your God experience, I think I smoked it right before you. And I had the same type of thing.
00:48:25
Speaker
And then, like you said, the time that we did it after that, I had the same type of experience you did. We weren't really in the right frame of mind. We just really wanted to do it. Yeah, just for the sake of it. It wasn't the best circumstances, but it was the same thing. We both had the same experience that we kind of forgot that we had to die and then fought to die, like fought to not die, and then just had a really strange, uncomfortable experience.
00:48:53
Speaker
But that's the key to all psychedelics is to surrender and plus have the proper state of mind going in. That was our biggest mistake. Yeah, because the state of mind is going to determine your ability to surrender to what you're being shown. You know, if you're in a.
00:49:08
Speaker
a state of mind where you're open to being shown certain things. And it's not even like I was shown anything specific. It was just what I, what I like to describe it as like when I have rough times, it's almost like I'm being shown, at least like through psychedelics, I'm being shown too much reality and I can't handle how much reality I'm being shown. Cause it's just tearing apart.
00:49:34
Speaker
Everything that I think that I know that I am, because when you come out of a psychedelic experience from second to number one, your, your ego is already, you know, back in charge and it's already solidifying what it thinks it knows. So by the time you go back into it again, it's like you said, you forget that you have to surrender to that type of.
00:49:55
Speaker
death, rebirth experience. And it's so difficult, especially if you go in with a mind state where you're not fully open to surrendering to what could potentially be shown to you. Yeah, I totally agree. And that's the thing. It's interesting. Like cause psychedelics, they're so subjective. Like to me, it's interesting how like when I was younger, I was able to take psychedelics and like just kind of have fun and
00:50:26
Speaker
And I hear like, you know, I know people that'll take them like recreationally and just like have a good time or whatever, but that can't happen anymore. Like, like for me now and for I feel like a lot of people that might do this work and, you know, use psychedelics as a tool and, you know, do what we're talking about here.
00:50:44
Speaker
You have to have courage. It's like an act of courage to do these. It's not like a fun party night. It's like, you're going to really go through it. And it's just like a way to explore everything within you and like all the fears, all these things that you didn't even know you had, they're all going to come out. So.
00:51:04
Speaker
I think it's important with doing psychedelics is if you go into the trip knowing that for the last month or whatever you're doing in your life that you did what you're supposed to do. Meaning, I've always had my best experiences when I've been sleeping well, eating well, drinking a lot of water, exercising, taking care of myself so I'm in a proper state of mind. Then I go into the experience.
00:51:33
Speaker
And it seems to always affect it. For instance, even just not working out, I think it affects my trips. I think when I go in, there's some part in the back of my head that knows I should have been working out, and then it comes up in some shape or form during the experience.
00:51:50
Speaker
My advice is like, and that's the beautiful thing, like they've taught me this too, like take care of yourself and then you'll be rewarded when you come back here, when you come back into the experience and then you get, you know, beauty and way less like trauma because, you know, these strips can be trauma. If you're having a bad time and you're stuck in a loop of infinity, it's not going to be good for you, you know?
00:52:16
Speaker
I mean, hopefully you come out and learn something, but from what I've found is surrender and take care of yourself and then you have a good time.
00:52:25
Speaker
And just be prepared, you know, whenever, and again, I think I've said this like a hundred times, but whenever somebody asks me if I would recommend them doing psychedelics, I always say no.
Research & Risks of Psychedelics
00:52:37
Speaker
What I do recommend is that you look into psychedelics, deeply research them and what they have to offer because they'll open your mind up to the possibilities of the universe. And at absolute least that is a very valuable thing.
00:52:49
Speaker
And if you feel like you can go into it and do it after the research, then by all means, it's your life, you know, go do it. Um, there's vast benefits that can come from it, but it's a risk. It's a psychological risk. As long as you know where you're getting your stuff from. I find it so interesting that like the people that take them kind of flippantly and like recreationally.
00:53:17
Speaker
Like, don't you think it's kind of crazy? Some people will take them and have an experience that seems nothing like what I experienced. Like it, it really amplifies what you are or what you have to offer or what you're willing to take. Like it'll amplify those things. It's super dose dependent too. And like, if you're educated on psychedelics, if you've done heavy doses, light doses, and you kind of know what's going on with, with that world.
00:53:45
Speaker
then it's okay to take like a small dose and to, and to have fun with, you know, whatever. Um, but I mean, I have a hard time with that. Even when I do take low doses now, it always brings me into that world, that realm. Well, yeah, that's what I'm getting at because like, I can take a low dose and it still will be the same type of thing. Just not as intense. Um,
00:54:12
Speaker
But it's interesting. I feel like it's like a gate and once you open the gate, you can't close it. So like after you have like an ego death or a certain experience or even just the more you know about reality, like, or, you know, the more of a deep thinker you may be or something. Um, I think that's how,
00:54:35
Speaker
I think once you open the gate, it won't close and once you start diving into the spiritual aspect of them and not just the recreational, I think it changes the experience forever. I think it changes what it does because I know in my experience, I used to be able to take an eighth of mushrooms and still have a profound experience. There's no getting around that.
00:55:00
Speaker
But it was less self, like less self exploration. Now it's like purely exploring deep aspects of myself and reality. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Um, even at lower doses and to be quite honest, I take mushrooms so infrequently that when I, whenever I do it, I tend to do a pretty high dose and I think subconsciously.
00:55:29
Speaker
It sort of, it brings out the part of me that like the explorer in me, because even if I do want to have like a good time, like my idea of a good time is exploring my consciousness, you know, a much better time than taking a little bit and like watching some colors on a TV. Like that to me, isn't quite as fun as exploring reality and.
00:55:53
Speaker
When I, when it does come on, it always brings me to that place and it just, it takes me to a state of mind where I'm connected to what feels like
00:56:09
Speaker
everything. I mean, I don't it's just it's such a hard thing to describe. And like you said, it's so it's, it's so introspective. Things come up and things come out and you explore parts of your mind that you didn't even know were there, you know, lead singer of Linkin Park Chester Bennington, before he killed himself, he had said something along the lines of
00:56:37
Speaker
Like when he was talking about his depression, he said that there's a lot of dark alleys in your mind, a lot of dark alleys that you don't want to go down and that you avoid. And that resonated with me because I think psychedelics.
00:56:53
Speaker
give you a flashlight so you can explore those dark alleys. And you can explore them in a way that's beneficial to you. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's a perfect analogy. And yeah, that's why, I mean, it's no coincidence that now they're doing all these studies and they're finding how beneficial these psychedelics are for depression and addiction and anxiety and stuff. And that's just the surface.
00:57:21
Speaker
I think with psychedelics, when you first start doing them, if you're doing them for like self help or whatever, like your depression, the first couple of times you're doing them, you're going to have to deal with all your baggage and that's where you get all this help where you're going to
00:57:39
Speaker
you know, start dealing with your depression and you know, you're going to come out on the other end and feel better. And once you've done that enough, and you're not depressed anymore, like relatively in your life, like you've done the work, then you go into a trip and you don't have the baggage. And that's where you get to explore like just the beauty of yourself and the beauty of reality. Think once you get rid of that baggage, then there's like another level to the experience. Because I know people that
00:58:10
Speaker
that will do psychedelics and from what I'm told of their experiences, they're very self-absorbed in the experience, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with this, but it seems like it's always work about them like, oh, I had to deal with a certain part of my life. I went back to when a loved one died or whatever it may be, and they're dealing with that.
00:58:35
Speaker
Once that's not really there, then it, I think it opens up another layer to access about like something a little more mystical. And it's like, it's definitely you, but it's not you in the sense that your ego is you. Yeah, definitely dependent on the substance. And yeah, I think when you can, when you get over yourself, it, it becomes a different experience. Like you said, you, you begin to be able to explore.
00:59:03
Speaker
deeper and bigger questions than just what you should have done in your life and how you should have handled this or that or what this person meant to you. Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to say. And that's when the last year or two, that's where I really got to explore that. And then that just opened my mind up to so many different ideas.
00:59:24
Speaker
It makes you realize that the world that you live in is basically fucking magic. Like it's like not what you thought it was because I think back to like, you know, basically my whole life I walked around thinking like this is reality and I already know it all. Like I've had thoughts when I was younger that.
00:59:44
Speaker
that there was like nothing more to know. And as far as like the big questions, I thought the ones I didn't know can't be known. Like in the materialist paradigm, especially it's like, there's no real answer. I'm an atheist. Like it's just this material reality. There is no why like a lot of nihilism involved there too. And then you experience psychedelics and you realize, wow, there's actually no end to what I could know. It's infinite. And.
01:00:12
Speaker
And it's amazing and beautiful. It just blows my mind when I think back to...
01:00:19
Speaker
how my worldview has changed so much and basically all due to, you know, psychedelics and kind of just, you know, working on myself.
Psychedelics & Reality Perception
01:00:30
Speaker
They go hand in hand, you know, meditating, you know, cleaning up my act with like everything, even, you know, food, exercise, all that. It's like, it opened up so many possibilities. And now it's like, life is a different thing than it was when I was younger.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, when you like explore the realms of wonder that psychedelics offer you, it opens up answers to questions in the form of higher questions, which means that the thought process that
01:01:07
Speaker
is sort of depressing when you think like, I know everything. There's nothing left to know. There's nothing left to learn. Like what questions are there to ask? Because there's, you know, there's no way of knowing. But when you realize that you can ask a question and you can receive an answer in the form of a higher question, and that goes on forever and ever.
01:01:29
Speaker
There's no end to the amount of beauty, wonder and magic you can experience as a human in this world. Yes. That's perfectly put. And it allows you to ask questions that you didn't even know were possible questions. Yeah. It's just, and the magnitude, like, like you said, it's, it goes on forever.
01:01:51
Speaker
So there's nothing off limits either. It's like you can experience, like we were talking, I talked about it a little bit before the synesthesia, like you can, like even something as crazy as that, like I've tasted color, which was absolutely insane. Like it's just, these are things that don't make sense.
Magic & Mysticism in Reality
01:02:13
Speaker
And even a small experience, I mean, that's a big experience in my opinion, but something as, you know,
01:02:21
Speaker
Something as trivial as that is like mind blowing and it just, I don't know. It just showed me like.
01:02:29
Speaker
that I'll never be bored again in my life. Like, you know, cause I remember I'd have a lot of times where I'd be bored and it's insane because this, everything you look at is magical. Like it's, it's a mystical reality. It's not a physical organized system, just a structured, you know, rigid thing. It's, it's something far more beautiful than that. And speaking of boredom too.
01:03:00
Speaker
It's funny when you're in the depths of a challenging experience. One of the things that I've learned from that is to appreciate boredom because all I wish is that when I'm, when I'm traveling down the spiral into hell and I'm experiencing all of the sorrow of the whole universe, I just wish I was on my couch on my phone board. And it makes me.
01:03:27
Speaker
appreciate those moments so much because why should the universe be so perfectly compatible with everything that we're seeing and we're doing? Like why should I wake up in the morning and my car is still outside? The particles that are in my car are still the same place where I parked them. This whole thing that is reality works out so well because when you're in the depths of an experience that's blowing your consciousness apart, you realize that it doesn't have to be this way.
01:03:56
Speaker
No, you can experience the opposite of that and like it works. It teaches you too that you are the creator of your experience. So like you can have a hellish experience on psychedelics and you can have a hellish experience in your day to day life. It kind of shows you that.
01:04:16
Speaker
You are it. There's no pointing fingers at anybody else. You get to curate your reality and your experiences. So if you're, you know, having a bad time in life.
01:04:29
Speaker
You can change that yourself. Obviously that, you know, some people are having issues and there's outside forces at hand, but the key is you could still change it. And like, I've learned that through experiences in my trips, like it's basically the surrender, especially. Cause I've found myself in like, I don't know, all I could call it is like a death loop where like I'm experiencing like what feels like it'll never end. And I'm just going through like these cycles of like dying and fighting it and dying and fighting it.
01:04:57
Speaker
And then I surrender and I'm having a beautiful experience. So like nothing changed except for my state of mind that went from a hellish experience to just beautiful serenity. And like, you could take that with you in your day to day life. And, you know, when you, you're a little more introspective in your day to day life, you can understand, I'm speaking for myself, I can understand that.
01:05:20
Speaker
Usually, I can change the situation entirely just based on maybe a couple actions and just especially my state of mind.
01:05:36
Speaker
of a psychedelic experience is you can see God. It sounds like a little extravagant and might sound crazy to some people who haven't experienced it before, but you can see God in everything. You can look at the carpet. You can look at an ashtray and you can, or you can look at like a kaleidoscope video on YouTube or something. And you see, you experience God through what you're looking at, which
01:06:03
Speaker
Like in all normal sense making should not be.
01:06:09
Speaker
You could see that everything is absolutely perfect always. And when you see God and everything else and you find God in yourself, like it sounds crazy to say that you saw God in, you know, uh, Xbox controller or something. But in those moments, you're looking at reality in an entirely different way. And you see that everything is perfectly like designed, I guess you'd say it's just,
01:06:37
Speaker
absolute perfection and nothing can change that. Even if you're feeling like it's not that way, it just is that way.
Relativity & Perfection in Reality
01:06:46
Speaker
And I think that's another benefit from psychedelics is it helps understand just the relativity of reality itself. Things aren't just a way. It's relative to everybody and relative to every situation.
01:07:05
Speaker
The obvious one that people go to, the duality of good and bad, you understand that those are relative. There is no good or bad. It's all…
01:07:18
Speaker
I mean, capital G good, I guess you'd say in a sense. It's because it's perfectly designed, even though if you're looking at it in a negative sense, there's like a higher purpose, I guess you could say, or just the perfect synchronicity happening. And it all feels like it's purposeful, like there's something behind it, a meaning. And with that realization of relativity,
Conclusion: Love as the Universal Force
01:07:46
Speaker
comes compassion, compassion for yourself, compassion for everyone around you. And for some reason, it just feels like love. Yes. I was just thinking that same thing. It's like it taught me that love is the driving force of the universe. And everybody is always acting out of love. Even when they do something that you may consider horrible. It's like it's just a question of what they're loving.