1 00:00:00,14 --> 00:00:01,38 I'm Don Hoffman 2 00:00:01,38 --> 00:00:07,72 and I'm at the University of California at Irvine in the department of cognitive sciences with joint appointments in 3 00:00:07,72 --> 00:00:14,43 philosophy in computer science as well and I try to integrate all of those disciplines in the work that I do and when. 4 00:00:17,12 --> 00:00:26,82 When you integrate all these disciplines how does this add up to something new. Well in the field of cognitive science I'm studying visual perception. How do we see a 3D World. 5 00:00:27,07 --> 00:00:31,93 How do we see the colors of objects the shapes of objects the motions of objects. 6 00:00:32,03 --> 00:00:36,17 What are the processes that are going on inside of our brains when we do that 7 00:00:36,86 --> 00:00:41,22 and it turns out about a third of the brain's cortex is engaged just in vision. 8 00:00:41,44 --> 00:00:43,55 So when you simply open your eyes and look around the room. 9 00:00:44,21 --> 00:00:47,82 Billions of neurons and trillions of synapses are springing into action 10 00:00:49,06 --> 00:00:55,81 and so one of the things we try to do in the cognitive neuroscience is just understand what's going on why all of this 11 00:00:55,81 --> 00:00:57,29 horse power. 12 00:00:57,31 --> 00:01:04,49 A third of your highest processing horse power is involved in visual perception that's a bit surprising So the question 13 00:01:04,49 --> 00:01:08,6 is why do we need to have that much horse power in something that seems so simple. 14 00:01:08,87 --> 00:01:10,86 Just open your eyes and see the world 15 00:01:11,62 --> 00:01:18,99 and it turns out that we have to do a lot of computation because in some sense we're creating the worlds that we see. 16 00:01:19,54 --> 00:01:26,13 And so computer science comes into it because we need to understand from a computational point of view what's going on 17 00:01:26,13 --> 00:01:30,1 when you open your eyes and see the shapes of objects the colors and the motions of objects. 18 00:01:30,17 --> 00:01:31,56 You're not just seeing them. 19 00:01:31,58 --> 00:01:42,6 You're actually creating a virtual reality in in some sense for yourself you're a reality engine. 20 00:01:42,61 --> 00:01:49,01 Is this true or is this your theory? What I'm saying now is pretty widely accepted in cognitive neurosciences they they almost every cognitive 21 00:01:49,01 --> 00:01:54,67 neuroscientist will say that we are constructing what we see. In real time. 22 00:01:54,89 --> 00:02:01,13 So you close your eyes you just see a gray field you open your eyes and it looks like you're just seeing a 3D. 23 00:02:01,13 --> 00:02:07,55 World with objects and colors emotions as it is just like taking a snapshot. 24 00:02:07,57 --> 00:02:09,8 But most cognitive neuroscientists will say 25 00:02:09,8 --> 00:02:15,44 but that's not what's going on was happening really is that within about one hundred milliseconds about one tenth of a 26 00:02:15,44 --> 00:02:18,39 second you're creating the 3D 27 00:02:18,39 --> 00:02:23,55 World around you you're creating the objects and the colors and the motions you're doing it so quickly 28 00:02:23,55 --> 00:02:27,83 and apparently so effortlessly that you're you know taken 29 00:02:27,83 --> 00:02:34,29 in you think you're just seeing the world as it is that would say that's the majority the vast majority view in 30 00:02:34,29 --> 00:02:41,51 cognitive neuroscience right now that we construct what we see. And so computer science comes into it in part because. 31 00:02:42,49 --> 00:02:47,48 To make sure that we understand what we're doing that our theories about the construction process are accurate. 32 00:02:48,01 --> 00:02:52,75 It's good for us to try to build them to actually build robotic vision systems that work. 33 00:02:52,92 --> 00:02:56,63 So if you have a theory about how you see the 3D Structure of objects. 34 00:02:56,71 --> 00:03:02,96 Well then build it and if you can actually have a computer that has video cameras giving inputs into the computer 35 00:03:03,77 --> 00:03:08,37 and then software in the computer that creates inside the computer the 3D 36 00:03:08,37 --> 00:03:13,56 Model of the object that is what you think it should have done then maybe you've got a good theory. 37 00:03:13,68 --> 00:03:18,36 So the computer science comes in in the following way. We're trying to reverse engineer. 38 00:03:19,69 --> 00:03:21,67 What's going on in the human brain. 39 00:03:21,69 --> 00:03:27,16 Well enough that we can then implement it in a computer vision system and build robotic visions 40 00:03:27,16 --> 00:03:32,06 and if you can do that in that that's an existence proof that you might actually have a good theory 41 00:03:33,02 --> 00:03:38,76 and then the philosophy. Is that the new theory is that your theory 42 00:03:38,78 --> 00:03:48,06 That's actually the person who is most famous for sort of pushing this point of view is a guy named David Marr who was 43 00:03:48,06 --> 00:03:53,38 a professor at MIT the late seventy's and early nineteen eighties. 44 00:03:54,3 --> 00:04:00,01 And David Marr he was in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT and in what's now. 45 00:04:00,14 --> 00:04:02,64 The brain and cognitive sciences department. 46 00:04:02,66 --> 00:04:06,73 And he was the one that he had a background in mathematics and neuroscience 47 00:04:06,73 --> 00:04:13,44 and worked in the AI lab Marvin Minsky invited him to come there because Marr had this new point of view that we should 48 00:04:13,44 --> 00:04:15,93 you know vision is a constructive process 49 00:04:15,93 --> 00:04:21,09 and we need to understand the mathematics of the construction well enough that we can actually build it. 50 00:04:21,2 --> 00:04:27,58 So if you can build working systems robotic systems then which is in your contribution to artificial 51 00:04:27,58 --> 00:04:35,81 intelligence then that will really show that you understand what's going on when we open our eyes and see. What is exactly what you are looking for 52 00:04:38,77 --> 00:04:55,74 In the construction of vision. Yes. Our perspective of reality. So well what Marr got us into what David Marr. 53 00:04:55,75 --> 00:05:03,52 Got to feel to think about is trying to get our understanding of human vision human visual processing so rigorous that 54 00:05:03,52 --> 00:05:09,63 we can actually build robotic vision systems so that means that that what seems to us like an immediate perception of 55 00:05:09,63 --> 00:05:13,89 shapes and colors and motions is in fact a sophisticated computation. 56 00:05:13,91 --> 00:05:20,97 And so that's where the computer science comes in we actually want to take raw images coming in from video from like 57 00:05:20,97 --> 00:05:26,86 video cameras which is just a bunch of numbers if you look at it it's just an uninterpretable array of numbers. 58 00:05:27,47 --> 00:05:37,06 Millions of numbers so the idea is that we want to build robotic vision systems that will take for example video 59 00:05:37,06 --> 00:05:40,69 from cameras into the computer and that video. 60 00:05:40,73 --> 00:05:47,64 If you look at it is just an array of numbers millions of numbers you look at it it's who knows what it means it's just a 61 00:05:47,64 --> 00:05:52,83 bunch of numbers and you want to take those numbers and then create a world. What. 62 00:05:53,44 --> 00:05:58,2 That those numbers are trying to describe to you like a boy riding a bicycle eating a hot dog 63 00:05:58,2 --> 00:05:59,82 or whatever might be going on there. 64 00:06:00,14 --> 00:06:05,86 So so to do that you can see going from those numbers to a three dimensional world with colors and objects 65 00:06:05,86 --> 00:06:08,4 and boys riding bicycles is not a trivial thing. 66 00:06:08,62 --> 00:06:11,16 And so that's what robotic vision 67 00:06:11,16 --> 00:06:17,54 and computer vision has been doing ever since David Marr really got us going in this direction in the late mid to late 68 00:06:17,54 --> 00:06:21,02 ninteen seventies. and It was his work that got me into this field. 69 00:06:21,2 --> 00:06:25,61 I read his work when I was an undergraduate and said Where is this guy I'd like to work with him 70 00:06:25,61 --> 00:06:26,8 and I ended up going 71 00:06:26,8 --> 00:06:34,48 and being a student at MIT so so I were I got the pleasure of working with David Marr for a couple years the last two 72 00:06:34,48 --> 00:06:36,99 years of his life until he died of leukemia. 73 00:06:37,79 --> 00:06:43,22 While I was still a graduate student but he said he set the field on this on this new path 74 00:06:44,12 --> 00:06:51,3 and ever since then there have been the majority of the field has been trying to build rigorous mathematical models 75 00:06:51,3 --> 00:06:52,08 that you could in principle 76 00:06:53,04 --> 00:07:00,37 or in practice actually build robotic vision systems from so now I've got an intelligent vision system on my car partly 77 00:07:00,38 --> 00:07:06,82 as a result of this kind of work they can see if I'm on the on the road. Going over the lines and so forth. 78 00:07:06,87 --> 00:07:12,85 It will beep at me so we're starting to get intelligent vision systems coming out of this where the the car itself can see. 79 00:07:12,26 --> 00:07:12,85 in three D. 80 00:07:13,25 --> 00:07:19,62 So so this is the result of this long decades long effort of trying to understand mathematically 81 00:07:19,62 --> 00:07:27,39 and precisely how what why we have to spend a third of our brains cortex all that horsepower in seeing the 3D 82 00:07:27,39 --> 00:07:32,93 World and objects and colors. Now where we're really understanding that. So that's the standard view. 83 00:07:33,08 --> 00:07:34,38 I mean there are some dissenters 84 00:07:34,38 --> 00:07:50,78 but I would say it's by far the the majority view that we create what we see we construct the worlds that we see. 85 00:07:51,62 --> 00:07:53,63 Doesn't that mean that people's minds are like robots, like machines. You could a lot of people in artificial 86 00:07:53,63 --> 00:08:00,08 intelligence would say exactly that that we are machines we're just carbon based machines. So that 87 00:08:00,14 --> 00:08:03,82 Would be the standard view in artificial intelligence we we are complex machines 88 00:08:03,82 --> 00:08:07,99 and they would say that we should not take that as an indication that we're not valuable 89 00:08:07,99 --> 00:08:17,72 but we are just carbon based machines and we can reverse engineer the algorithms that are going on in the brain. 90 00:08:17,94 --> 00:08:23,99 Once we reverse engineer those algorithms from the neural networks of the brain then we can implement them in 91 00:08:23,99 --> 00:08:30,76 artificial neural networks for example in in silicon and so we transfer from carbon to silicon. But the algorithms. 92 00:08:30,89 --> 00:08:35,9 If we've done it right are still the same or close to the our algorithms that are that are in the brain. 93 00:08:36,05 --> 00:08:37,96 So that's sort of the idea 94 00:08:37,96 --> 00:08:48,04 and then the idea then is that those algorithms do a good job of Truthfully reconstructing the true shapes the true 95 00:08:48,04 --> 00:08:52,73 colors the true motions of objects in the world. That's the standard view. 96 00:08:52,8 --> 00:09:04,24 So it's not my view now but that is the standard view. 97 00:09:05,93 --> 00:09:15,9 So what is your view. Well my my view is that we do construct what we see so I agree with the field with the majority of the field that we 98 00:09:15,9 --> 00:09:20,92 construct in real time all the shapes colors and motions and objects that we see. 99 00:09:20,93 --> 00:09:25,53 But I don't think that we're reconstructing the truth. 100 00:09:25,66 --> 00:09:34,55 So everybody in my field pretty much believes that we're reconstructing a good faithful reproduction of the true shapes 101 00:09:34,55 --> 00:09:40,04 and colors and I don't think we are. Instead I think that what's going on is. 102 00:09:41,25 --> 00:09:44,21 It's more like a desktop interface on your computer. 103 00:09:45,59 --> 00:09:49,09 So if you have an icon for say you're writing a file 104 00:09:49,09 --> 00:09:52,15 or editing a photograph so you're writing an e-mail to a friend. 105 00:09:52,37 --> 00:09:59,29 And the icon for that file is blue and rectangular and in the middle of your screen. 106 00:10:00,14 --> 00:10:05,37 That doesn't mean that the file itself in your computer is blue and rectangular 107 00:10:05,37 --> 00:10:11,03 and in the middle of the computer that that's a silly notion anybody without that doesn't understand what the desktop 108 00:10:11,03 --> 00:10:13,53 interface is for. 109 00:10:13,55 --> 00:10:19,89 And I think that that's what we have our perceptions are like that desktop interface so space and time 110 00:10:20,77 --> 00:10:24,51 are the desktop three dimensional space as you perceive it in time are the desktop 111 00:10:24,51 --> 00:10:33,42 and then physical objects like a glass or a car a spoon. These are all just icons in that three dimensional desktop. 112 00:10:33,57 --> 00:10:39,7 And the point of the interface the desktop and the icons is not to show you the truth. 113 00:10:39,88 --> 00:10:44,65 The point is really to hide the truth right. If you had to know in the case of the computer. 114 00:10:44,67 --> 00:10:50,48 If you had know all the diodes and resistors and voltages and you know magnetic fields. 115 00:10:50,92 --> 00:10:55,9 If you had to know all that and deal with that you'd never finish writing your e-mail to your friend. 116 00:10:55,93 --> 00:11:02,71 So you don't need to know the reality you want it in fact the desktop interface is there to hide that reality reality 117 00:11:02,71 --> 00:11:18,6 gets in the way of what you really need to do. And so. It's very mind-boggling. So what you see is just an interface. It's not real. That's right. 118 00:11:18,69 --> 00:11:25,64 What you see the whole three dimensional world that we perceive and all the physical objects that we perceive 119 00:11:25,64 --> 00:11:40,42 and all their properties are just like the the colored icons on your desktop. So where we are right now. We are sitting on the couch. I think. I think you're sitting on a couch. That's right 120 00:11:40,59 --> 00:11:49,81 And that's that's a very useful belief was very useful for me to know if you know to think that the icon is the file 121 00:11:49,81 --> 00:11:54,94 and I can just double click on the file and it will open what I drag the file to the trash can. I can delete it. 122 00:11:55,08 --> 00:12:02,42 So it's very it's a very nice and useful fiction allows me to do what I need to do. But it is just a useful fiction. But it allows me to see you as a person sitting on the couch. 123 00:12:04,75 --> 00:12:21,92 In a house and there's a picture on the wall. that's right. and a glass of water. But you are telling me that somehow I am fooling myself. 124 00:12:21,92 --> 00:12:28,21 You're fooling yourself if you believe that what you're seeing is a true replication of what is there 125 00:12:28,21 --> 00:12:32,29 when you don't look. so I do think that there is an objective world 126 00:12:32,29 --> 00:12:35,95 and I think there is a reality that exists whether or not I. 127 00:12:36,14 --> 00:12:40,46 I'm here and whether or not I'm looking so there is some objective reality. 128 00:12:40,77 --> 00:12:49,23 But the chances that my perceptions are reconstructing part of that reality. So I'm seeing the truth. 129 00:12:49,85 --> 00:12:56,57 The chances are actually you can prove are zero and the argument comes from evolution. 130 00:12:56,73 --> 00:13:17,88 So I started looking at evolution by natural selection and what it has to say about perception. We come to that a little bit later. OK sure. So for our viewers 131 00:13:20,66 --> 00:13:49,92 If you say everything around us is a representation. The idea that I can look around and see everything a an interface like on a computer. that it represents maybe something else And you don't even know what it represents. 132 00:13:52,58 --> 00:14:00,04 Yeah that's it's a very alarming point of view. Yes. 133 00:14:01,43 --> 00:14:06,38 Yes So this this point of view is quite surprising the idea that what you're seeing 134 00:14:07,36 --> 00:14:17,19 when you look around you see a fireplace you see a cup you see people. I see a beautiful woman and she is not beautiful. Well what you. 135 00:14:17,22 --> 00:14:25,57 Yes What you're seeing is a representation that you construct. For one purpose. 136 00:14:25,59 --> 00:14:30,83 The representation is there to keep you alive and to guide your behaviors. 137 00:14:30,95 --> 00:14:35,49 So that you can stay alive long enough to reproduce it's an evolutionary hardware that we can go into 138 00:14:35,49 --> 00:14:45,78 but the whole point is just like the desktop interface on your computer. You can end you sentence. 139 00:14:49,88 --> 00:15:27,76 and then I'll continue my sentence to the end and then stop. But I want to stick to this alarming idea because that's. In the beginning of this portrait people want to know how this ends. The alarming idea that whatever you see around you is the representation of what you think is not the truth and different from other people's representations. 140 00:15:29,47 --> 00:15:33,45 Yes well it. So exactly. 141 00:15:33,62 --> 00:15:39,68 So what you see from this point of view what you're seeing when you see shapes of objects and their colors 142 00:15:39,68 --> 00:15:48,15 and their motions in a 3D World around you is simply your interface your representation it's not the truth. 143 00:15:49,18 --> 00:15:52,34 It's it's there to keep you alive long enough to reproduce. 144 00:15:53,78 --> 00:16:00,07 There is a question Do other people see the same thing that you do and the answer is probably their perceptions 145 00:16:00,14 --> 00:16:03,64 Are very very similar. So if I am seeing a red rose. 146 00:16:03,66 --> 00:16:04,32 And you look at it 147 00:16:04,32 --> 00:16:09,9 and you say that there is a red rose there's a good chance that your experiences of the Red Rose are very very similar 148 00:16:09,9 --> 00:16:15,83 to to my experiences and the reason is not because there's an objective red rose in the world. 149 00:16:16,35 --> 00:16:23,6 But because whatever the objective world is when I interact with it. I construct an interface. 150 00:16:23,81 --> 00:16:26,56 That's very similar to the interface that you construct 151 00:16:26,56 --> 00:16:30,55 when you interact with that world because we're members of the same species. 152 00:16:30,79 --> 00:16:35,61 We're not exactly the same your genes are slightly different from mine. There are mutations. 153 00:16:35,63 --> 00:16:38,13 And so we're not going to see exactly the same thing. 154 00:16:39,29 --> 00:16:44,17 And there are cases where we actually know this for a fact in the case of color perception we know that roughly one 155 00:16:44,17 --> 00:16:51,52 third of men have one ... for the red photoreceptor and the other two thirds have a different ... 156 00:16:51,52 --> 00:16:56,18 and they actually see the red orange yellow end of the spectrum a little bit differently from each other. 157 00:16:56,3 --> 00:17:00,31 It's a measurable difference so we know that there are differences in the D.N.A. 158 00:17:00,31 --> 00:17:03,77 Which lead to measurable differences in the interface. 159 00:17:04,32 --> 00:17:23,61 But nevertheless we could we could say that our perceptions are substantially similar. 160 00:17:25,71 --> 00:17:34,4 How do we know what we see? How do we know if we see the truth. So if I see a snake. 161 00:17:35,39 --> 00:17:42,6 For example you might say well you know if you think that that snake is just an icon on your interface. 162 00:17:43,07 --> 00:17:45,91 Why don't you touch it. Why don't you play with it because it will bite you. 163 00:17:46,09 --> 00:17:53,34 And after you're dead you we will know that that snake was more than just an icon in your desktop interface it's real 164 00:17:53,34 --> 00:18:00,1 it's a real part of objective reality. And I wouldn't touch that snake. For the same reason. 165 00:18:00,14 --> 00:18:07,73 I wouldn't take my blue rectangular icon on my screen and drag it carelessly to the trash can on my screen. 166 00:18:09,81 --> 00:18:11,81 I don't drag it carelessly to the trash can. 167 00:18:11,93 --> 00:18:18,3 Not because I take the icon literally the file is not literally blue and rectangular but I do take it seriously. 168 00:18:18,51 --> 00:18:21,31 If I drag that icon to the trash can. I could lose. 169 00:18:21,54 --> 00:18:25,16 Who knows how much you know a year of work if it's a long paper I'm writing or a book or something. 170 00:18:25,46 --> 00:18:29,14 Could be a lot of work that I lose. So the interface. 171 00:18:29,16 --> 00:18:35,09 I don't take it literally like the files are blue and rectangular but I do take it seriously. 172 00:18:35,29 --> 00:18:39,52 In the same thing is true about our perceptions in our everyday life. So if I see a snake. 173 00:18:39,93 --> 00:18:44,54 That's an icon I better take quite seriously if you see a snake. Don't touch it. 174 00:18:44,64 --> 00:18:50,67 If there's a train coming down the tracks don't step in front of it. So I take my my perceptions quite seriously. 175 00:18:51,33 --> 00:18:57,94 But it's a logical error. To then say We must therefore take them literally. 176 00:18:58,5 --> 00:19:01,11 That doesn't follow the fact we take them seriously 177 00:19:01,11 --> 00:19:06,29 and must take them seriously does not entail that we have to take them literally that's a logical error 178 00:19:06,29 --> 00:19:12,6 but it's one that we seem to be inclined to as a species we know that we have to be very very if you see a cliff don't 179 00:19:12,6 --> 00:19:17,44 step off if you see a car don't step in front of it so we know that we have to take our perceptions quite seriously 180 00:19:17,44 --> 00:19:22,28 and it's just natural for us. Somehow as human beings to say that means that we're seeing the truth. 181 00:19:22,7 --> 00:19:27,84 Well no it doesn't it doesn't mean that at all psychologically it does but logically it doesn't. 182 00:19:27,84 --> 00:19:32,31 And so that's the the error that we all fall into. It's. 183 00:19:32,32 --> 00:19:39,1 It's very interesting very human error one that I feel mean this is very very unnatural for me as well I mean I know I assume 184 00:19:39,1 --> 00:19:46,09 that because the car could hurt me. It's real. but no the car is just my interface to something out there. 185 00:19:46,2 --> 00:19:50,91 I don't know what it is and my interface is telling me certain behaviors I better do 186 00:19:50,91 --> 00:19:56,61 or not do so that that whatever that real world is out there doesn't have impacts on me that I don't like. But what is it then. 187 00:20:01,91 --> 00:20:10,28 If you can't take it literally but you can get hit by this car so there is something out there. the car is just the interface. that's right. 188 00:20:10,33 --> 00:20:14,68 So the first step then is that if you buy this interface idea space and time 189 00:20:14,69 --> 00:20:23,92 as we see them are not the nature of reality physical objects so matter momentum mass position all this stuff 190 00:20:23,92 --> 00:20:32,05 that's not the nature of reality either. So the first step then is to just say what we thought was reality isn't reality. 191 00:20:32,06 --> 00:20:35,95 There is some reality that's out there and the first step. 192 00:20:35,99 --> 00:20:39,49 And we actually don't know what it is right as scientists we don't know what it is 193 00:20:39,49 --> 00:20:46,57 and it's best for us to just recognize that we don't know what it is that even the very language of our perceptions the 194 00:20:46,57 --> 00:20:52,55 language of space and time the language of matter position momentum spin 195 00:20:52,55 --> 00:21:00,77 and so forth is in fact the wrong language to describe reality. You can't possibly describe reality in that language. 196 00:21:01,47 --> 00:21:06,32 In in the same way that for example suppose I had a class A computer science class 197 00:21:07,1 --> 00:21:09,7 and I gave the students the following assignment. 198 00:21:09,87 --> 00:21:16,31 You can only use the language of the pixels on the desktop screen of your interface that's the only language you can 199 00:21:16,31 --> 00:21:22,07 use the pixels and I want you to use that language to describe exactly how a computer works. 200 00:21:22,14 --> 00:21:26,28 What's really going on inside a computer that's the only language. Well good luck. Everybody's going to fail. 201 00:21:26,39 --> 00:21:28,16 You can't use the language of pixels. 202 00:21:28,32 --> 00:21:34,88 It's the wrong language to describe the voltages and magnetic fields and so forth. That's that's inside the computer. 203 00:21:35,09 --> 00:21:42,63 Similarly if we try to use the language of space and time and matter and motion particles 204 00:21:42,63 --> 00:21:45,51 and so forth to describe ultimate reality. 205 00:21:45,53 --> 00:21:52,61 We're guaranteed to fail because that language does not have the possibility to describe the truth of the world 206 00:21:52,61 --> 00:22:00,79 around us as scientists then we have to step back and ask what language might work. 207 00:22:00,81 --> 00:22:09,33 It's also possible by the way that we don't have the concepts necessary to describe reality right. 208 00:22:11,5 --> 00:22:21,2 We don't expect that monkeys have the language and the knowledge the concepts needed to understand quantum mechanics. 209 00:22:22,28 --> 00:22:24,25 No one would ever try to teach quantum mechanics to a monkey. 210 00:22:24,31 --> 00:22:30,31 They simply lack the concepts that are needed to even address the subject and it's quite possible that homo sapiens 211 00:22:30,31 --> 00:22:37,68 our species has not evolved the concepts that are needed to understand the true nature of reality. 212 00:22:37,7 --> 00:22:45,38 Now I can't dismiss that possibility. I mean we're just another species like the monkeys. I don't want to give up. 213 00:22:45,55 --> 00:22:50,32 I mean as a scientist. I'm not going to say. Therefore I'm just you know let's let's have a drink and not worry. 214 00:22:50,79 --> 00:22:52,1 I'm going to say let's let's try 215 00:22:52,1 --> 00:22:57,91 but we need to be very very aware of the possibility of limitations in our conceptual system. 216 00:22:58,51 --> 00:23:00,7 And limitations from our perceptual system. 217 00:23:00,87 --> 00:23:08,08 What's very clear to me is that the the perceptual language that we've evolved has no chance of being the right 218 00:23:08,08 --> 00:23:10,33 language to describe reality. 219 00:23:10,35 --> 00:23:16,99 No chance that we can actually show that. the probability that our language of perception is the right language to 220 00:23:16,99 --> 00:23:50,93 describe reality is zero is precisely zero. So what you are telling me what I see around me is not the truth. Then I think you're the smart guy probably you're right but I don't understand. But what do your colleagues say? 221 00:23:51,74 --> 00:24:02,69 Well most of my colleagues believe that our perceptual systems evolved to tell us the Truth about reality around us. 222 00:24:02,92 --> 00:24:05,85 Not all of the truth. No one thinks that we see all of the truth. 223 00:24:05,95 --> 00:24:11,75 We can only see light in a narrow band we can't see cosmic rays or X-Rays or you know radio waves. 224 00:24:11,81 --> 00:24:16,36 So no one believes that we see all of reality but most of vision scientists 225 00:24:16,36 --> 00:24:22,66 and cognitive scientists think that our perceptual systems have evolved to report the truth because they feel that. 226 00:24:24,4 --> 00:24:29,94 Sensory systems that report the truth give you a competitive advantage against 227 00:24:29,94 --> 00:24:35,5 when you're competing with other organisms so the organisms that see reality as it is are more fit 228 00:24:35,5 --> 00:24:39,58 and more likely to pass on their genes to the next generation. 229 00:24:39,59 --> 00:24:45,22 So that's the standard view in every generation the organisms that saw a reality. 230 00:24:46,06 --> 00:24:48,94 More closely the way it is had a competitive advantage 231 00:24:48,94 --> 00:24:54,11 and were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for their sensory systems to the next generation. 232 00:24:54,57 --> 00:25:00,57 So after thousands of generations we can be pretty confident that we're the offspring of those who saw more truly in 233 00:25:00,57 --> 00:25:06,24 each generation. So we can be confident that we see reality as it is not exhaustively but truly. Are you on your own? 234 00:25:09,12 --> 00:25:12,67 I'm not completely on my own. I would say. 235 00:25:12,68 --> 00:25:22,91 My estimate is that maybe five percent of my colleagues might be you know game they might believe 236 00:25:22,91 --> 00:25:26,69 that we're not seeing reality as it is 237 00:25:26,69 --> 00:25:32,86 and some very very very good colleagues so Jan Koenderink for example from the Netherlands. 238 00:25:32,88 --> 00:25:35,56 Arguably the brightest vision scientist alive today. 239 00:25:36,13 --> 00:25:42,28 Does agree with me he thinks that evolution by natural selection does not favor true perceptions 240 00:25:42,28 --> 00:25:49,81 and that we just have interface perceptions in a number of my colleagues that I've talked with initially are quite 241 00:25:49,81 --> 00:25:50,1 skeptical 242 00:25:51,26 --> 00:25:57,86 and they even have the you know the reaction I thought you were a smart guy until you said that is really a stupid idea 243 00:25:57,86 --> 00:26:00,04 that we don't see reality as it is. But 244 00:26:00,14 --> 00:26:03,87 After talking with them for an hour or two about evolution and the mathematics. 245 00:26:03,98 --> 00:26:11,63 Then a lot of my colleagues do these come around to say well OK maybe I mean at least I can't reject this idea out of 246 00:26:11,63 --> 00:26:11,82 hand. 247 00:26:12,02 --> 00:26:21,19 But I think it's catching on my hope is actually not so much to get my generation of scientists to to follow this idea 248 00:26:21,19 --> 00:26:25,31 but to get the graduate students the next generation that's what I'm really after 249 00:26:25,31 --> 00:26:31,54 and they seem to be quite open to it the next generation of scientists the young scientists have seen the Matrix. 250 00:26:31,73 --> 00:26:38,61 They've seen movies like that their minds are more open to the possibility that we don't see reality as it is 251 00:26:38,61 --> 00:26:42,79 and I think that the next generation is going to really catch on to this and 252 00:26:42,79 --> 00:26:47,92 when we have. right now our desktops on our computers are flat but very very soon. 253 00:26:48,06 --> 00:26:51,22 We're going to have holographic desktops you'll be interacting with a 3D 254 00:26:51,22 --> 00:26:53,8 desktop you pull open your laptop and they'll be a 3D 255 00:26:53,8 --> 00:26:58,57 Virtual world that opens up in front of you and you'll be moving icons around in 3D 256 00:26:58,57 --> 00:27:02,18 and Suddenly the idea that a 3D 257 00:27:02,18 --> 00:27:10,3 World could just be a virtual world just an interface and not the truth will become not a strange weird idea 258 00:27:10,3 --> 00:27:15,99 but part of your everyday experience every time you open your laptop so I think that you know what I'm saying right now. 259 00:27:16,08 --> 00:27:16,54 I mean. 260 00:27:17,2 --> 00:27:23,22 In fifteen twenty years people will ask why was that so hard for people to even understand back then is so silly. 261 00:27:27,66 --> 00:27:36,94 So what happens to the truth then is first we have to be very very careful in our claims about truth. 262 00:27:36,96 --> 00:27:40,86 Any of the normal language we use of space and time and matter 263 00:27:40,86 --> 00:27:48,85 and particles is almost surely the wrong language in the dimension that it's possible that we don't have the right language 264 00:27:48,85 --> 00:27:54,53 that none of our concepts are adequate. But I don't want to be a solepsist. 265 00:27:54,81 --> 00:28:00,07 So a solepsist from the philosophical point of view is someone who claims that nothing exists. 266 00:28:00,14 --> 00:28:10,18 Except me in my perceptions. I'm not a solepsist I think that there does exist something besides me in my perceptions. 267 00:28:10,19 --> 00:28:19,55 And I have to first say I don't know what it is so as a scientist right off the confession is now that I've given up 268 00:28:19,55 --> 00:28:25,04 space and time and matter and physical objects as the nature of reality by I honestly don't know 269 00:28:25,04 --> 00:28:33,19 what the nature of objective reality is but as a scientist. It's my job to theorize I can make proposals. 270 00:28:33,21 --> 00:28:34,59 I'm probably going to be wrong 271 00:28:34,59 --> 00:28:43,56 but the idea in science is to make specific precise mathematically precise if you can mathematically precise proposals 272 00:28:43,56 --> 00:28:44,25 about the nature of reality. 273 00:28:45,4 --> 00:28:47,01 Knowing full well that you're probably wrong 274 00:28:47,82 --> 00:28:51,7 but being so precise that you can then do experiments to prove that you're wrong 275 00:28:53,21 --> 00:28:58,82 and then figure out how you might change your theory so that you can get something that's not quite as wrong. 276 00:28:58,84 --> 00:29:07,71 So that's what I've been working on and the direction I'm pursuing is motivated in the following way. 277 00:29:10,6 --> 00:29:17,04 Perhaps I know nothing. There's a good chance that everything I believe is false but if I know anything at all. 278 00:29:20,19 --> 00:29:26,82 I know that I'm experiencing headaches smells sounds visual perceptions 279 00:29:26,82 --> 00:29:33,68 and so forth as experiences not as a truth about an external world just as my experiences. 280 00:29:33,85 --> 00:29:38,57 So a headache is a good example because a headache is you know something that no one else can see 281 00:29:38,57 --> 00:29:41,63 and you can't see my headache I can't see your headache I can't experience it. 282 00:29:42,19 --> 00:29:48,15 It's my own personal experience and it's real as an experience. 283 00:29:49,03 --> 00:29:51,26 It's not real as a claim about the external world 284 00:29:51,26 --> 00:29:56,63 but it is real as an experience to me if you said oh your headache isn't real. I'd be very angry with you. 285 00:29:56,67 --> 00:30:05,4 It is real headache and you know I might need aspirin for it. So my idea is to say I could be wrong about everything. 286 00:30:06,76 --> 00:30:13,86 But if I'm not wrong. If I'm wrong about experiences about having experiences then it's really game over. 287 00:30:13,88 --> 00:30:16,9 There's not really any place I can go. 288 00:30:16,92 --> 00:30:20,48 So I'm going to start with that I'm going to start with there are experiences 289 00:30:22,24 --> 00:30:31,64 and so have a mathematical model of what I call a conscious agent something like me they can have experiences conscious 290 00:30:31,64 --> 00:30:40,08 experiences of smells and tastes and colors and sounds. Is that the structure of consciousness. 291 00:30:47,92 --> 00:30:59,83 Yes the mathematical structure of it. That's what I was about to describe. Science of observation with the six elements. 292 00:30:59,98 --> 00:31:15,3 So I'll try to describe them informally. 293 00:31:15,35 --> 00:31:23,26 So the idea then is to have what I call a conscious agent that has conscious experiences sights smells sounds 294 00:31:23,26 --> 00:31:28,96 and tastes that can then make choices based on what it experiences 295 00:31:30,79 --> 00:31:39,41 and then once it's made a choice about what it wants to do it can then act on the world whatever that world is and then 296 00:31:39,41 --> 00:31:46,78 that world will again affect our experiences so there's a loop between the world affecting my experiences my experiences 297 00:31:46,78 --> 00:31:52,77 affecting the decisions I make about how to act and then those actions down working on the world. 298 00:31:52,77 --> 00:31:53,18 It's a loop 299 00:31:54,2 --> 00:32:00,22 and then I also think about having a counter for every experience I have I can have my own little personal time which 300 00:32:00,22 --> 00:32:07,07 is a counter of the experiences and in I've discussed it here informally but we've made this a mathematical model 301 00:32:07,07 --> 00:32:13,25 and what we're trying to do is to develop this will we call theory of conscious agents in having networks so the so the 302 00:32:13,25 --> 00:32:18,79 idea is there is a universe that exists independent of me whether or not I existed. 303 00:32:19,42 --> 00:32:25,94 But it's a universe of consciousness of conscious agents agents that have experiences make decisions 304 00:32:25,94 --> 00:32:35,14 and act interacting with each other so so I'm just one. I'm one participating in this. 305 00:32:35,24 --> 00:32:38,33 And in fact I'm not just one i'm when we look at the whole theory. 306 00:32:38,47 --> 00:32:42,87 I'm perhaps an infinite lattice of these conscious agents all interacting. 307 00:32:44,64 --> 00:32:49,31 But and then so are you so as everybody is not just one can't you're one conscious agent 308 00:32:49,31 --> 00:32:53,48 but you're also two roughly corresponding to the two hemispheres of your brain 309 00:32:54,72 --> 00:33:21,03 and then within each hemisphere more conscious agents to perhaps an indefinite indefinitely large number. So our own consciousness doesn't exist but we are bodies who are influenced by another consciousness 310 00:33:21,05 --> 00:33:23,6 That's right. So this theory. 311 00:33:23,74 --> 00:33:25,89 Again I could be wrong 312 00:33:25,89 --> 00:33:33,19 but what I'm proposing is that consciousness is fundamental it's the fundamental nature of reality and 313 00:33:33,2 --> 00:33:39,82 but I don't want to just have that be some kind of loose. You know semi spiritual kind of idea. 314 00:33:40,33 --> 00:33:42,19 I'm trying to get a mathematically precise idea. 315 00:33:42,34 --> 00:33:47,55 So what do I mean by consciousness I'm getting a mathematical model of what I mean by consciousness that's absolute 316 00:33:47,55 --> 00:33:54,13 precise mathematically precise and I call this mathematical model conscious agent and then it turns it. 317 00:33:55,11 --> 00:33:58,65 It's all works out very very well actually the mathematics is all is quite clear 318 00:33:59,5 --> 00:34:07,00 and we've published a paper with the mathematics has been out for a couple years. So you can describe consciousness as an equation. 319 00:34:07,02 --> 00:34:11,82 Yes and as dynamical systems and we can write down the equations of the dynamics. 320 00:34:11,92 --> 00:34:14,75 It's a very very rich mathematical area. 321 00:34:15,19 --> 00:34:19,4 So you mean most of the time when you hear people say I think consciousness is fundamental. 322 00:34:19,45 --> 00:34:22,39 It's more about well this meditating hold hands and 323 00:34:22,39 --> 00:34:27,9 and things like that that what I'm trying to do is to take that idea and make it very very rigorous. 324 00:34:27,98 --> 00:34:32,84 Here's a mathematical model of consciousness. These are the equations of the dynamics. 325 00:34:32,85 --> 00:34:40,39 So the goal is to get a mathematically precise model of consciousness that we can then use. 326 00:34:41,19 --> 00:34:46,41 To solve one of the biggest unsolved problems in science the so-called mind body problem. 327 00:34:46,42 --> 00:34:52,01 This is a problem that has perplexed human beings for thousands of years. 328 00:34:52,6 --> 00:34:56,88 And that is what is the relationship between our conscious experiences. 329 00:34:57,49 --> 00:35:04,73 The taste of garlic the smell of an onion the sound of a trumpet and our physical bodies the physical world. 330 00:35:05,00 --> 00:35:12,82 What is that relationship. How should we understand it. Most neuroscientists and philosophers of mind today are. 331 00:35:12,99 --> 00:35:20,37 Trying to solve that problem by saying that neural activity in the brain is the foundation. That's the reality. 332 00:35:20,52 --> 00:35:29,71 So neurons in space and time physical objects and their dynamics create or are they're identical to consciousness. 333 00:35:29,86 --> 00:35:34,71 So somehow when you get a complicated system of neurons somehow their dynamics 334 00:35:34,71 --> 00:35:37,81 or their properties boot up consciousness 335 00:35:38,99 --> 00:35:46,22 but the surprising thing is that we've never been able to get a theory of of how that could be there are ideas maybe 336 00:35:46,22 --> 00:35:52,28 some how information theoretic properties of the dynamics of neural networks. 337 00:35:52,44 --> 00:35:57,51 Maybe somehow those could boot up consciousness we do have correlations right we know that 338 00:35:57,51 --> 00:36:04,39 when you're conscious your brain has certain information theoretic properties of its dynamics that's certainly true. Now you turn it around 339 00:36:06,33 --> 00:36:14,66 By saying. It's the other way. The mind-body problem you didn't solve it so far. That's right. 340 00:36:16,15 --> 00:36:21,6 So instead of going from physics to the consciousness I'll start with consciousness and get physics I'll go the other way. 341 00:36:27,03 --> 00:36:31,35 Can you say that again. Yeah so. 342 00:36:31,74 --> 00:36:38,74 So most neuroscientists and philosophers of mind are trying to start with properties of neurons neural networks 343 00:36:38,74 --> 00:36:45,59 and neural activity and to try to then get a theory of how consciousness could emerge from that 344 00:36:45,59 --> 00:36:48,93 or somehow be identical to that neural activity. 345 00:36:48,95 --> 00:36:53,27 And there are a lot of ideas about how we might get a scientific theory. 346 00:36:54,18 --> 00:37:01,8 Information theoretic properties of of the dynamics certain quantum properties of microtubules maybe certain you know 347 00:37:01,8 --> 00:37:05,92 frequencies of firings of neurons and things like that. 348 00:37:07,16 --> 00:37:12,78 But there's not yet been any scientific theory that's actually been proposed which says. 349 00:37:12,99 --> 00:37:19,45 This neural activity with these say information theoretic properties has to be the taste of chocolate. 350 00:37:19,46 --> 00:37:26,38 It could not be the taste of a strawberry it could not be a headache and these are the mathematical reasons why. 351 00:37:26,42 --> 00:37:29,82 So we need laws that take us from neural activity. 352 00:37:30,22 --> 00:37:32,37 Whatever the properties of neural activity are that we want to propose 353 00:37:32,37 --> 00:37:38,85 or the foundation takes us from those properties of the neurons into the specific conscious experiences 354 00:37:38,85 --> 00:37:47,38 and explain exactly why this neural activity lawfully must be that conscious experience that has never been done. 355 00:37:47,54 --> 00:37:51,59 So there. So it when I say there are no scientific theories. That's what I'm saying. 356 00:37:51,67 --> 00:37:56,84 No one has ever proposed laws that say this neural activity. 357 00:37:56,85 --> 00:38:01,89 Based on this law must be the taste of chocolate it could not be the smell of garlic. 358 00:38:02,9 --> 00:38:10,2 Nothing is is even close to trying to do that. So I'll put it very boldly there are no scientific theories. 359 00:38:10,22 --> 00:38:15,37 That start with a physical description of the brain neural activity and give you consciousness. 360 00:38:15,55 --> 00:38:20,47 There's nothing remotely plausible and there are no good ideas about how that might be done. 361 00:38:20,54 --> 00:38:24,84 That's the state of play and we should be very very frank about it. There are no scientific theories. 362 00:38:24,92 --> 00:38:32,07 There are no remotely plausible ideas about how to do that and that's what got me thinking about this. I mean I tried. 363 00:38:32,16 --> 00:38:38,88 I'm a physicalist but at heart like everybody else but when everybody's failing deeply 364 00:38:38,88 --> 00:38:43,94 and I have no good ideas no one has any good ideas about how to start with a brain and get consciousness. 365 00:38:44,49 --> 00:38:45,73 I decided let's try the other direction. 366 00:38:46,06 --> 00:38:51,5 So let's try to solve the mind body problem with a theory of consciousness on its own terms. 367 00:38:51,92 --> 00:38:53,55 So first start with consciousness 368 00:38:53,55 --> 00:39:01,16 and say propose as a scientific hypothesis that consciousness is fundamental get a mathematical model of it 369 00:39:01,16 --> 00:39:04,03 and then solve the mind body problem. The other direction. 370 00:39:04,41 --> 00:39:06,21 So instead of starting with physics 371 00:39:06,21 --> 00:39:12,87 and getting consciousness start with consciousness mathematically described not a hand wave a mathematical model of consciousness. 372 00:39:12,99 --> 00:39:15,23 and get back all of quantum physics 373 00:39:15,23 --> 00:39:22,32 and relativity theory that's that would be solving the mind body problem in the other direction. So you're combining theory. That's right. 374 00:39:22,39 --> 00:39:24,56 So ultimately we as a scientist. 375 00:39:24,63 --> 00:39:31,25 We want one theoretical framework that covers everything we know right from the physicalist point of view what most 376 00:39:31,25 --> 00:39:36,00 people are you want to start with what we know about physics you know string theory relativity theory and so forth 377 00:39:36,8 --> 00:39:38,73 and then neural networks and their activity 378 00:39:38,73 --> 00:39:42,86 and get consciousness out so we have one big picture that of the universe that gets it all in 379 00:39:42,86 --> 00:39:49,54 we haven't been able to do that because we can't get consciousness in so I'm trying to start with a mathematical 380 00:39:49,54 --> 00:39:55,93 model of consciousness and its dynamics and then see if I can't get out. You know string theory. 381 00:39:56,45 --> 00:39:57,29 Quantum gravity 382 00:39:58,08 --> 00:40:04,32 and maybe ideally make some new predictions that the physicists haven't made if I can do that then we're off to a real 383 00:40:04,32 --> 00:40:07,41 scientific adventure. 384 00:40:08,3 --> 00:40:13,47 A breakthrough Yeah it would be it would be a scientific breakthrough if we could if we could do that because partly because it 385 00:40:13,47 --> 00:40:19,36 would be unifying two things that we've never been able to unify namely consciousness or conscious experiences 386 00:40:19,36 --> 00:40:24,07 and what we take to be the physical world. If this unification works. 387 00:40:24,3 --> 00:40:34,28 What it would reveal is what we took to be an independent objective space time physical reality is simply a species 388 00:40:34,28 --> 00:40:42,06 specific user interface and different species will have evolved different user interfaces. 389 00:40:42,22 --> 00:40:44,97 Maybe they don't use space and time. Maybe they don't use color. 390 00:40:45,14 --> 00:40:50,84 Maybe they use senses and formats of interfaces that we can't even imagine. 391 00:40:51,24 --> 00:40:59,58 And it's very easy for us to blow out our imagination. But isn't that then the reason why we still survive. Right. 392 00:41:00,42 --> 00:41:05,17 So we have our interface in terms of space and time and objects snakes 393 00:41:05,17 --> 00:41:08,02 and trains that we have to avoid to keep us alive. 394 00:41:08,29 --> 00:41:13,49 That's it's evolved to keep us alive but there are many ways to stay alive. Right. 395 00:41:13,52 --> 00:41:21,44 Evolution shapes different organisms for different niches with different gambits different strategies for staying alive. 396 00:41:21,73 --> 00:41:23,78 Ours is just one of millions. 397 00:41:24,16 --> 00:41:30,41 We we know there have been many many millions of species that have lived even just on this one planet. 398 00:41:30,95 --> 00:41:39,51 And we know that the nature of their perceptual experiences in general is very very different from ours. 399 00:41:39,53 --> 00:41:44,35 There are snakes that see in infrared. 400 00:41:44,37 --> 00:41:49,37 You know fish that see electric fields 401 00:41:49,37 --> 00:41:56,47 and sense electrical things that we can't even imagine what it would be like and even birds for example that have four 402 00:41:56,47 --> 00:42:05,54 color receptors. We only have three Try to imagine a specific color that you've never seen before. 403 00:42:08,27 --> 00:42:13,55 Nothing happens right. You can't even imagine a specific concrete color that you've never seen before. 404 00:42:13,92 --> 00:42:22,13 And yet apparently pigeons are in a a richer color world they're experiencing colors that perhaps no human can even 405 00:42:22,13 --> 00:42:30,34 imagine and there are animals that even have more color receptors the mantis shrimp has ten or more color receptors. 406 00:42:30,79 --> 00:42:40,67 So try to imagine their color I can't even imagine it in some sense. My my sensory systems are a window on the world. 407 00:42:40,69 --> 00:42:41,98 But they're also a prism. 408 00:42:42,97 --> 00:42:45,42 I can't actually see outside of it 409 00:42:45,42 --> 00:42:52,76 and I can't even concretely imagine perceptual experience outside of it I can do it abstractly I could imagine 410 00:42:52,76 --> 00:42:58,84 abstractly a world that's not three dimensional I can imagine a four dimensional world I mean Einstein did that. 411 00:42:59,2 --> 00:43:01,88 And it's hard but you can you can imagine a four dimensional world 412 00:43:01,88 --> 00:43:07,47 or you know mathematicians can go to any dimension you want. We can go there. 413 00:43:07,48 --> 00:43:12,79 Conceptually but nobody not even the most brilliant mathematician can concretely. 414 00:43:12,99 --> 00:43:19,93 imagine in their mind a four dimensional world just like you can't imagine concretely a specific new color 415 00:43:19,93 --> 00:43:27,48 that you've never seen before. So our our desktop interface is a species specific interface. 416 00:43:28,13 --> 00:43:29,91 It's our window on the world. 417 00:43:29,92 --> 00:43:38,05 It's our way to stay alive it gives us the symbols we need in our particular niche homo sapiens has taken a particular 418 00:43:38,05 --> 00:43:44,7 kind or set of niches. The paramecium E. coli all these various organisms. 419 00:43:44,77 --> 00:43:49,37 They have different issues they don't need the same user interface that we have so the interface is going to vary 420 00:43:49,37 --> 00:43:56,07 widely from from from organism to organism. But if I'm correct about this conscious agent thesis. 421 00:43:56,43 --> 00:44:03,15 It's consciousness all the way down different different user interfaces that are allowing different conscious agents to 422 00:44:03,15 --> 00:44:20,78 do what they need to do. But in their own format. So it's possible that different worlds exist together. That's right that I see. But you and I we are in the same world. You agree on that right. 423 00:44:22,34 --> 00:44:26,53 You and I have very very similar interfaces is my assumption. 424 00:44:26,57 --> 00:44:33,44 Again as a scientist I can never say I know for sure. Because it's a specieslike interface what you said. Exactly right. We are the same species 425 00:44:34,88 --> 00:44:43,16 I think So because you and I are members of the same species. 426 00:44:44,32 --> 00:44:50,66 It's reasonable for me to assume. Are we. yes that's right. Well that the yeah it's interesting. 427 00:44:50,86 --> 00:44:54,42 My my perceptions have classified you as being similar to me 428 00:44:54,42 --> 00:44:58,35 but again it's fallible as a scientist I never can say for sure. 429 00:44:58,73 --> 00:45:05,26 Anything I can only give probabilities of about my statements but I think it's highly likely that 430 00:45:05,27 --> 00:45:12,73 when I'm interacting with you I'm interacting with someone who's perceptions whose interface is. 431 00:45:12,99 --> 00:45:20,62 Very very similar to mine. There's no way for me to actually prove that your experiences are identical to mine. 432 00:45:21,55 --> 00:45:26,75 In fact I have a mathematical proof that I published about eight years ago that actually proves that we that we can't 433 00:45:26,75 --> 00:45:34,02 do that. So it's actually a theorem that there's no way for us to verify that your experiences. 434 00:45:34,04 --> 00:45:45,16 Are the same as mine even. Do you think the fact that I find it very hard to understand what you are trying to explain to me that we use a different interface. 435 00:45:45,18 --> 00:45:51,7 You know the fact that I. You're more intelligent. Well I wouldn't say that I would say that the fact that maybe what I'm saying is a little 436 00:45:51,7 --> 00:45:52,37 difficult for you 437 00:45:52,37 --> 00:45:57,88 or other people to understand is not so much a matter of a difference of the user interface that we have 438 00:45:57,88 --> 00:46:04,87 or a difference in intelligence. It's more just a matter of a difference in what we spend our time thinking about so. 439 00:46:05,24 --> 00:46:10,88 So for example if if someone is crocheting I've never done any crocheting 440 00:46:12,23 --> 00:46:16,93 and so things that are obvious to someone who spent their life crocheting are not obvious to me I could know I couldn't 441 00:46:16,93 --> 00:46:23,07 pick up the darning needles and the threads and do it. 442 00:46:23,09 --> 00:46:26,28 I wouldn't say that the person who is crocheting a smarter than me or dumber than me. 443 00:46:26,3 --> 00:46:29,38 They just have had a different you know thing that they focused on 444 00:46:29,38 --> 00:46:32,24 and so the same thing here with the user interface idea. 445 00:46:32,41 --> 00:46:41,42 It's difficult to understand partly because our species seems to want to think that what we experience is the truth. 446 00:46:41,46 --> 00:46:44,42 So we seem to have that inclination. 447 00:46:46,05 --> 00:46:53,41 But I do think that you are very very similar to me in your in your perceptual experiences and but I could be wrong. 448 00:46:55,56 --> 00:47:02,93 And I do know it's it's a theorem that even if in every experiment you behave exactly the same way as me. 449 00:47:03,13 --> 00:47:04,1 So in every experiment. 450 00:47:05,52 --> 00:47:08,57 Same color perception you give exactly the same answers as me 451 00:47:08,57 --> 00:47:14,03 and we even do brain scans in your brain is behaving exactly the same way. As mine. 452 00:47:14,05 --> 00:47:19,5 You might say well that must prove that your color experiences are identical to mine and it turns out. 453 00:47:19,72 --> 00:47:21,17 No it doesn't prove that they're identical. 454 00:47:21,33 --> 00:47:28,3 It makes it likely from my point of view as a scientist that they're the same but it's not a proof. 455 00:47:28,39 --> 00:47:28,74 Well 456 00:47:28,74 --> 00:47:33,84 and in fact that might be one thing we could talk about is something called synesthesia So these are people who see 457 00:47:33,84 --> 00:47:39,72 when when you see you just see but they also maybe hear something or if they see a letter they see a color 458 00:47:40,68 --> 00:47:42,88 and so this mean these These are real people. 459 00:47:43,08 --> 00:47:48,76 This is not real science fiction it's a synesthesia is real people that have what we call mixing of the senses 460 00:47:48,76 --> 00:48:01,23 but that really shows that our user interface could be very very different. So we could talk about that. Yeah. Then. 461 00:48:06,82 --> 00:48:07,12 That's right. 462 00:48:07,31 --> 00:48:17,64 So it's one thing to say that our perceptions don't report the truth that they're just user interface 463 00:48:17,64 --> 00:48:19,57 and anybody can say that in you might ask. 464 00:48:19,66 --> 00:48:25,59 Well what's the logical argument on what grounds are you making such a wild claim. And. 465 00:48:25,6 --> 00:48:33,7 The argument is based on evolution by natural selection most researchers in my field have the argument that I mentioned 466 00:48:33,7 --> 00:48:41,41 earlier that. Those of us who saw reality as it is had a competitive advantage compared to those who don't.