Karl Friston: The Brain's Suprising Energy | The Tyler Wagner Show #1052

Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today we have Carl Friston with us, so welcome to the show, man.

It's great to be here.

You too. So yeah, tell me a little bit more to kick us off. Tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

I'm a professor of neuroscience at University College London. My day job is essentially to make sense of brain imaging data or human brain mapping data to understand the functional anatomy of the brain. And at the weekends I do theoretical biology and specifically theoretical neurobiology, things like the free energy principle and active inference.

Okay, you know, it's so crazy right now, so I have to ask. I had different questions in mind, but I just had a flash. Is my uncle— he came over a few years ago and he, he did this to me and my brother. And I don't know if it's the exact thing that we're talking about today, but he basically, he had like these caps and it had like kind of little needly kind of things all over it. And then he, he like put some— I I don't— it wasn't oil, but it was something that he like put on it, like kind of like this on all of them. And then he put it on our head and then we had to like focus, relax. And then he— it was like our brain waves or something. And then he was able to tell us a lot about how our brain works based on that fluctuation. Is that what— is that the same thing?

That's exactly— well, it's one of, uh, and probably one of the more interesting ways of peering inside your skull to see how your brain works. Yeah, absolutely, that, that sounds like electroencephalography or EEG. And it was gel.

Um, yes, gel, it was gel.

Yeah.

Oh my God, yo, that— and I remember too because it was so funny, like, it took it— for some reason with that gel and the way that it like screws or something— it's not a screw, but the way that that works, you have to get it perfectly kind of right on all of them. So to get it set up, it took a while because it was like out of range or whatever. So that was interesting. It took like, I don't know, 30 minutes to 45 minutes just to get it like set properly. I don't know if that's normal or not, but that's how it happened.

That's very old school. Nowadays, people would use something called MEG. So instead of electrical sensors that require a good conductivity between the electrode and the skin, you use magnetic fields. So you don't actually have to faff around with the gel. So you just put your head in a helmet or sometimes optically pumped magnetometers that don't require the gel. So more modern versions of that kind of technology are much more convenient. But I remember when I was younger, I had to do that with— for research, you'll spend hours getting the connectivity with the gel right. Okay.

Connectivity. That's what— okay, I can't, I can't wait to tell him. I'm going to obviously send him this interview, right? We're not— for some reason I did not do that comparison before. And then as soon as you like started talking, I, I just saw his face in my head. Um, so how did you like, what were you doing before you got into this space? Like when you were younger, I'm assuming you didn't, uh, predict that you would be doing anything like this. So what, what were you thinking you were going to be doing? And then how did you fall or get into this space?

Well, interestingly, I'm doing exactly what I wanted to do when I was about 14 or 15. So, so, wow. Okay, it's taken a long time to actually create the time and the space to focus on what I wanted to do when I was a schoolboy, which is mathematical psychology, all the maths, the calculus, the mechanics of how the brain works. Um, so I studied physics and then became a doctor, um, and then a psychiatrist, and then got into research at the age of 28. Um, and that research over the past 10 years has subsumed my day job and my, uh, more theoretical, um, aspirations.

Wow. So 14, 15. Okay, now wait a second. So the better question that would be before 14, 15, how did you come up— like, how did you know? Because that's a young age to, like, be so clear on what you want to do. So what happened to you in your life, or what book did you read to know at that age that this is what you wanted to do?

The books I read— that's a really great question. The books I read were the books that my parents would either leave around or make me read. And one of my parents, my mother, was a nurse but fascinated by psychology. So she used to make me read all sorts of popular and academic psychology books. My father was a bridge engineer and had a fascination with mechanics and relativity and all things scientific and mathematical. So he would make me read things like Sir Arthur Eddington's Space-Time and Gravitation. So I think the mixture of the two, having been exposed to these perspectives on how the world works, ended up with me wanting to apply the spirit of engineering and mathematics to the problem of psychology and how we work, or how our brains work at least.

Got it. No, that makes sense. Um, so then I'm curious because I was reading something too, uh, it was something like associated with schizophrenia, and I'm, I'm just saying that to trigger something else, is that what are— with this, with what you've done with like brain mapping and stuff, what are some of the kind of biggest discoveries, I guess, is the question? Like what— when you were doing research at 28 and doing all these things, like What were you trying to figure out, I guess? And then based on the answer to that, what were some of the biggest things that you did figure out from it?

Yeah, well, that's a big question. Um, so, um, but to just to take you back to say the late, um, 1980s, early 1990s, it was at this point that I entered research and having just qualified as a psychiatrist with a special interest in and responsibility for people with schizophrenia. But they, you know, in response to your question, at that point, all that we knew about the anatomy, the functional anatomy, the organization of the brain was what we knew from either animal studies or what's called neuropsychology, which is essentially what you lose in terms of your functionality and capability if you damage part of your brain through a stroke or through some invasive injury. So for the first time with brain mapping that arrived at that point in time, we were able to measure the responses of the brain during certain perceptual acts like looking at color versus not color through being in different brain states or attending to this or attending to that or to moving and not moving, for example. So for the first time, we were able to test the hypotheses based upon animal work, electrophysiology and neuropsychology, and demonstrate two key principles of brain organization. So the first one was functional specialization, the idea the little parts of your brain are specialized to particular things. For example, this part of the brain might be responsible for doing, for seeing color or processing color. This part of the brain might be involved in generating, say, words in a verbal fluency test. This part of the brain may be involved in the analysis or processing of visual motion. So everything that we do, everything that we have to possess to be sentient creatures and to enact sentient behavior relies upon all this functionality. So the question was, was this functionality localized to particular parts of the brain, or was it distributed everywhere? So in fact, we were able to show— when I say we, the entire community over that decade was able to show that this hypothesis, this principle of functional specialization and segregation of that functionality to particular brain areas, was actually true. You know, we could show for the first time that when people saw color pictures, this part of the brain lit up, activated, got excited, started processing, but not any other part of the brain. That was a key thing. You could only say that when you had the whole brain imaged at once. That became known fondly, or perhaps not, as blobology. So you may remember, you'll see on the news activation blobs, hotspots, heat maps of the brain in action, and less kindly, sort of neocartography. This, you know, the notion that, you know, you can palpate the skull and, you know, discern somebody's capabilities with, you know, feeling little, little lumps and exuberances. And then the next big thing was, okay, so we've identified the brain is this compendium, this, this architecture of specialized regions, but how do the different regions talk to each other? And this was the question of functional integration. So it's functional specialization or differentiation of function, and then integration, the connectivity, nowadays known as the connectome. So most of the discoveries and the work over the ensuing or the subsequent decade were about understanding the principles of connectivity and the architectures that were underwritten by that connectivity. And one important one, of course, is the notion of how the surface of the brain speaks to deep structures in the brain, how different surface or cortical brain structures are organized hierarchically. And that notion of a hierarchical architecture has subsequently proved absolutely central for understanding the message passing in the brain and the way that you make sense of your sensory data and select the plans and the actions that you will then commit to, that determine how you actually behave, talk, think, cogitate.

Gotcha. No, and I remember now I'll probably keep referencing it just because it was how we started off. But now with my uncle, that's how it was, is basically he would ask questions and then based on some things I would say, I guess he was looking at where, what parts in my brain were lighting up. Or some— I'm sure there's way more to it, but that was like part of it. Um, so were you— is it safe to say— I just want to make sure I'm saying this right— that like you— were you the first to like discover this, or how does this— how does this work? Or like, what's the origin? You were doing research and then you and a team are— uh, yeah, you were definitely at the forefront, or are you literally the person that discovered it?

I think I was a young person at the forefront of a tide of discovery. So my particular contribution was the mathematics that enable you to create X-rays of functionality. So to analyze— so I imagine that your uncle was looking at occipital alpha, which is— occipital means back of the brain. Alpha is a particular rhythm of brain activity, about 10 Hz, 10 fluctuations every 10 times a second. And that can be modulated depending upon whether you are attentive, whether your eyes are open or closed. So just by looking at the idling rhythms of the brain, you can tell a lot about different brain states and what you're actually doing. To actually make those assertions, though, there's a lot of statistical mathematics and probability theory, which goes into taking these data from outside the head and then effectively reconstructing the dynamics and the activity that goes on inside the head. And that mathematics is what I was responsible for.

Got it. That makes sense. Very, very important part of it, I would say. My dad— I know it's different. My dad's an accountant, so he loves numbers. I, I, I'm not a numbers guy, so I cannot relate to this, but I like it. We need people like you, that's for sure. Um, so going back to the schizophrenia thing, like, what, um, so let's just actually, let's run through this scenario. Let's say somebody had schizophrenia and they're struggling to obviously cope with it or deal with it. Is this like the mapping Could discovering where the issue is help that patient to potentially— I don't know if schizophrenia is curable or if it's like a pill that deters it or something, but do you see the question? I'm kind of like—

Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, there are a number of really important questions there. So first of all, I mean, schizophrenia, You know, it can be a devastating illness, but it, certain symptoms and signs of schizophrenia do respond to different kinds of therapy. And it also has a natural time course. So, you know, typically it would come on in late adolescence and look different at different stages in your life. And usually it's less florid as you get older. So, you know, it's not all bad news, but it can be a devastating illness. In response to your question about, you know, how would you use an understanding of functional brain architectures or brain imaging or neuroimaging to get at the pathophysiology, the aberrant physiology, the message passing, the processing in the brain that might undergird some of the symptoms and signs of schizophrenia, The answer to that comes in two flavors. So it could have been that there was a particular part of the brain that was broken. And certainly people very early on were looking at abnormal frontal lobe activations and responses to particular tasks in people with schizophrenia. However, within a few years, and with reference and deference to some very early ideas about the nature of schizophrenia. And I'm thinking here about sort of 19th century great thinkers like Wernicke and Bleuler, both of whom emphasized a disconnection. So remember before we had the functional specialization and the functional integration, and it may well be that schizophrenia is a failure of the integration, the failure for one part of the brain to talk to another part of of the brain. So Wernicke had something called the subjunction hypothesis, which was the notion that you could explain, um, in those days what was called dementia praecox, uh, in terms of an abnormality of communication between the wires that connect different parts of the brain, uh, what's called the, the axons. Um, whereas Bleuler was sort of more functional and emphasized a disintegration of the psyche of a disintegration of mental life. So it'd be very difficult if you had schizophrenia to think in a coherent and linear way. The kind of disconnection that we're talking about also can lead to delusions and hallucinations, you're believing things are true when they are not, seeing things that are there when they're not actually there. And I sort of highlight those florid psychotic symptoms because they speak to an important conception or understanding of how the brain works, which is the notion of the brain as an inference machine, as an organ that is trying to make sense of data by making inferences, by, by testing hypotheses, you know, is that a cat or is it a bird? Or is there somebody behind me or not? So using the sensory information that we sample with our eyes and with our ears and, you know, everything, all our senses, including our interception, using that information to find the best explanation for what's going on out there beyond our sensory organs, is beyond our sensory epithelia. So if that's our job, which is to make sense of our world, then schizophrenia could be understood as a failure of that kind of inference. So if you were a statistician, how could you make a bad inference? Well, you could infer that there was an effect of this treatment or an effect of this group difference when it wasn't there, and that would be a Type 1 error. And that's exactly like somebody seeing something that is not there, or believing that somebody else has a particular intentional stance towards them which they don't have, or that the person on the television is talking to them personally as opposed to, you know, just broadcasting the news. So these, you know, this these particular florid psychotic symptoms fit very comfortably with a failure of the message passing and the functional integration, the right kind of connectivity that enables brains to make sense of the sensorium, of all the visual and the auditory, tactile, and interoceptive information it has at hand. So that direction of travel I mean, obviously there are many people and many perspectives, you know, that underwrite that notion of the brain as a failure of integration or a disconnection-like syndrome. But certainly a lot of momentum to the idea was derived from the early days of brain imaging in people with schizophrenia.

Got it. That's so interesting. So how much— trying to think which one I want to ask first. Let's go to this one first. For what about with addiction? Like, has there been discoveries using this with like helping people with addiction? Or even if it's not helping, more so discovering certain patterns of how certain people's brains work? And if they work in this way, then they're more susceptible to addiction? Like, has stuff like that been discovered?

Yes. No, I get an excellent question. So, so at this point, the application of brain mapping is really, as you say, to discover the underlying mechanics and machinery and the message passing, the architecture, which is what I mean by a functional anatomy or architecture. So if you think about, you know, studying the brain like studying the heart, we have to understand how does the heart work, how is it wired, how does it pump, you know, what is its function. We know much less about the mechanics of the brain than we do the heart, but we know, we know a lot. And a lot of, a lot of the insights obtained about functional anatomy actually derive from people with disorders like schizophrenia, like addiction, very much in the same spirit as neuropsychology when people actually have a brain lesion or a cerebral vascular accident like a stroke. So addiction is particularly interesting because it speaks to a failure of motivated behavior or an abnormality of motivated behavior that, you know, People who are addicted may not necessarily want to take drugs, but they feel compelled to. So it's a really important syndrome, state of being that tells you a lot about the— or is it— it tells you a lot about the motivated behavior, value learning, and how that might be implemented in the brain if you could actually look at those differences in brain responses when comparing people with and without addiction. So that whole line of research rests upon a number of ways of understanding functional integration. And one important player in this is the chemicals that are used to transmit signals from one part of the brain to the other part of the brain. And in this instance, the parts of the brain responsible for deciding what to do and actually executing the plan that you have selected, for example, take drugs. And those chemicals are important to identify and understand because, of course, it is those neurochemical— it is that form of changing the connectivity that is amenable to change with drugs. So, you know, it is interesting, you know, just think about being addicted. You can be addicted to a number of things, but largely it's— you're addicted to drugs. And it's interestingly, it's usually the drugs that affect these neurochemicals, these neurotransmitters that are responsible for defining what you're going to do next, your selection of the plans and the policies you're going to commit to, what you find valuable, what you find rewarding. So there's been an enormous amount of work in brain imaging, looking at the basis of learning and responding to rewards or motivated behavior. And that has increased our understanding of the role of various transmitters that has fed into a corpus of knowledge which now can be used to think about appropriate treatments for people with addictive behavior.

That is okay. So now, now I'm actually understanding a lot more. Meaning of the sense of the brain mapping and like what it is, is it's more about like, like you said, like you have to know how something works to be able to even attempt to fix it, right? Um, the thing with an addiction, I've, I've discovered just through all the interviews I've done and being an entrepreneur myself and then just knowing a lot of entrepreneurs, there seems to be some sort of correlation there. Um, and maybe I'm making it up, but just based on the data I have from all the people I've talked to there's this thing. I'm just curious if you've come across this or what your thoughts are on this, where— so an entrepreneur that has success, I should say successful entrepreneur, it can be very like tunnel visioned and focus on like, say, Jeff Bezos, right? Let's just use the most big example, or Elon Musk or something. They, in a sense, you would maybe say that they have addictive behavior but it has been turned into a good— like it's been funneled through a good path. But, and I've heard this, for example, he talks about it publicly, Grant Cardone. I live down in Miami. He's got like billions of real estate, pretty well-known guy, but up till 25, he was addicted to drugs and like all these things. And he talks about it publicly, which is why I'm okay with sharing that. So I'm just— have you come across or noticed any similarities between, like, people that have addictive personalities and also, though, extremely successful people? But it's, it's more of the thing of, like you said, if they can get that part of the brain that connects with the other part to actually take action on what the plan is, those addictive people, if they funnel it towards a good thing, it is like a— it's almost like a power. Like there is power in being an addict, as weird as that sounds. Does that make any sense?

No, absolutely.

Okay, I'm trying to get— um, so yeah, I'm just curious if you've noticed or if there is in fact a correlation.

I'm sure there is. I'm sure there is. Um, I mean, you, you, I think you, you articulated that beautifully. As a psychiatrist, I'm making a connection here in terms of what you were saying between addictive and obsessional and compulsive behavior. And I think that that obsessional and compulsive behavior is not pathological universally. And indeed, we all need to be slightly obsessive and compulsive in order to get anything done. I'm certainly obsessive-compulsive in many aspects of my behaviour, and I need to have that to be a rigorous scientist. And I would imagine to be a successful entrepreneur, you certainly need to have that rigour and that focus and obsessional attention to what— to the global strategy or to the detail. I don't think it matters. The fact that you've got that ability to commit and to be compelled to pursue things through in the same way that an addict might be compelled to take some addictive drug. But, you know, the ability to stick at something I think is absolutely, absolutely central to success or changing you or your relationship with the world or indeed changing the world. There is also a sense that a lot of these very successful people are also, you know, slightly on the spectrum as well. Um, and, um, there are certain overlaps between some, um, severe, say, um, Asperger's or autistic, uh, um, syndromes and, um, the kinds of quality and the focus that you would require to actually persevere and get things done. Yeah, so, so again, you know, just moving away from addiction per se, and even away from Obsessional Compulsive Disorder, if it is a disorder, um, you know, one can see the same kinds of traits, um, in things like, you know, autistic spectrum disorder, Asperger's syndrome, and the like. And I, I, you know, I sometimes— I'm not sure whether I do joke, but But it may or may not be a joke, but I certainly celebrate my more autistic traits, you know, trying to avoid too many people and just getting, creating the space to focus on something, you know, single-minded rather, you know, your autistic fashion is the only way you actually, I think, make a difference and get things done.

So that's, yeah, it's I've had multiple people in my life and I have no idea, I've never, but they've said that like, hey, you might be a little bit on, and these are not like qualified individuals. So it's just like a, it's a sentence that's been thrown out. But based on what you just said, I tend to, I mean, I love doing interviews, but if I had to choose between like going to a party or like staying in and just hyper-focusing on like one thing, I mean, I stay in. Even living in Miami, there's, and there's a lot of parties, I stay right here pretty often. So if that's one of the traits, then that kind of would make sense. But regardless, I have no clue. Um, another question for you would be, is if you were to give a percentage, um, how much do we understand the brain? Like 1% or like, like how much do you think is like unknown? Because it's the only thing, right, that it's studying itself. Which I think is the reason why, like, you know, studying the heart, well, this is thinking about— so even though it's connected, it is different. But this is studying this, which makes it the most complex thing to study, I would imagine.

Yeah, no, I think that's a, you know, a very nice observation that there's something quite unique about the brain trying to understand itself. And then, you know, You could even invoke a sort of Gödel-esque argument that that's an impossible job. That sort of the self-recursion speaks to the mathematics of, you know, there are certain things you just cannot prove or understand or demonstrate formally, at least mathematically or logically. And I suspect that a complete understanding of me understanding my own brain is absolutely impossible. Simply because it is so recursive. And so you want a percentage. I'm going to cheat because, you know, it really depends upon at what level or what scale you want an answer. And perhaps the, you know, one way out of answering that question would be to ask— I mean, you can't answer this, but, you know, is what kind of answer would you want when asked, "How does the brain work?" or "What is it like to be me?" You know, what kind of answer would satisfy you? Would it be a mathematical answer? Would it be an info diagram? Would it be an answer cast in terms of chemistry, or would it be an answer— Great point.

Yeah, no, no, because there's so— that— okay, I love— see, that's why I love the podcast. That's cool, man. I get what you're saying. So I, I— the way I was asking, and this— I know it's impossible probably to answer, but I was, I was thinking like fully encompassing. And I'll give a little context. So have you heard of like, um, it's, it's kind of new-ish, but, um, for like depression and stuff, uh, ketamine has been, um being— apparently it has like huge success rates. It was actually just on like— and whether you find him credible or not, pretty well known. It was like on Dr. Oz pretty recently. Um, I have a doctor down here in Miami that does it, and like almost all of his clients have had success. But the point of bringing that up is ketamine, uh, in the way that he's done it— and I didn't go, I just honestly was curious to try it, just to be honest, but, uh, I didn't go for necessarily a particular reason, was more like how— and hallucinogens, right? And I've heard like Jordan Peterson talk about this, if you're familiar with him. Like these type of things, I feel like just reflect back to us how little we know. You know what I mean? Because the ketamine journey was so— I couldn't even describe it to you. I can't even give you a word of it. Like it was nuts. While I was there, I was trying to think like and remember. And then as soon as it was over, like my doctor was like, how was it? I'm like, I don't know. You know, like I was, I was on the moon and now I'm not, you know. So like, I don't know. And then like mushrooms or something like, you know, the whole world mold. So, you know, with that, the question's kind of like, is it? And this is where people get into the conversation of, Is it actually the drug making that happen, or is it indeed unveiling, and that is reality? Now, I don't think reality necessarily is like us, you know. Who knows though, I guess. But is it like— is reality more like mushrooms or more like without mushrooms? But then the question's like, well, what's reality, you know? And then you go down that rabbit hole. But so sorry, I'm going all over. But I guess my question is like encompassing all brain things, would you say we're like even at 1% of understanding what is going on? And if you can't answer, I totally respect.

That's fine. The answer is probably much more complete than you might have guessed.

Oh, really?

Oh yeah, it's 42%. No way.

Oh, yes. Wait, tell me. I think you're messing with me, but I'll give it.

No, no, it's 42%. But your— those examples are brilliant. You know, so certainly ketamine has a profound role both therapeutically and diagnostically. So you can actually induce very transient psychotic states, which people do experimentally to create, if you like, a very transient instantaneous schizophrenia and study brain responses in that particular state. It goes away very, very quickly. But more interestingly are the hallucinogens you spoke about, the psychedelics, you know, things like psilocybin and magic mushrooms. And there's a lot of interest at the moment in terms of these drugs and their therapeutic potential, both in terms of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy but also in terms of their neuroplasticity. And the way that they work is exactly, or speaks exactly, to your series of questions about what is reality. And of course, you answered the conundrum by saying, well, you know, what is reality is the reality. And if you— if we sort of just backtrack to an early part of the conversation where I was talking about the brain making sense of data, testing hypotheses as a, a statistical organ, an organ of inference. Another way of expressing that is to say that it is a fantastic organ in the sense that it is generating fantasies, hypotheses, illusions that could be true, and some of them are sufficiently reinforced and evidenced by the data that you sample So it could be that all our reality is a fantasy. And some people have attributed this to like, you know, controlled dreaming or controlled hallucination. And I, you know, I would subscribe to that completely, that all of what we perceive as reality is just the brain's best guess and best explanation to make sense of all the sensory data. And interestingly, including the hypothesis or the fantasy that you are you, you are a being, you are a person. It is possible to experience the world without the notion of selfhood. It's called depersonalization syndrome, and it's also the state of mind that you can induce with things like psychedelics. So your notion of what's reality, you know, is it in a psychedelic state or is it, you know, in a normal waking state, or is it reality during a dream? That's another state of mind you can be in. Of course, all these realities are different kinds of realities, but they're all the brain trying to make sense of its internal machinations and specifically the sensory inputs to which it is, you know, exposed and has to go and actively sample. So you may ask then, well, what's the point in dissolving your carefully crafted illusional fantasy that I'm a person and this is the way that the world works, and that's my reality. Well, in some instances, you know, if you've got yourself into a state of mind where that's not working for you, then it may be quite good to dissolve that particular reality and allow your mind to explore other realities and other ways of being and other models or hypotheses or fantasies about the kind of person I am, indeed if I am a person. And that, that sort of notion underwrites or motivates one view of, um, assisted psychotherapies where you actually use these drugs deliberately to dissolve your reality just so you can explore other hypotheses and other options. So if you've had that experience, that's a real gift because not many people actually have the opportunity to see how fragile and how constructed their sense of self and sense of reality is, um, you know, and imagine what it would be like, you know, if your 5 minutes of ketamine experience didn't go away and, you know, became prolonged. That would be— no, you know, that might— you would— you may enjoy it, but from my point of view, you, you'll be probably diagnosed as Schizophrenic, you know?

Yeah, I would need help. I would need immediate help. I'd call you right away. I'd be like, I'm coming to London, I need your help right now. That's terrifying. But yes, with mushrooms, maybe it would be the thing with what you just described there of like, um, and actually some, uh, for some reason Eckhart Tolle is coming to mind. Like a lot of self-help authors that talk about being in the present moment and like meditation and stuff they would, you know, even sober, let's say the word, you can get to that state. And I think that's what they kind of mean by being in the present moment, that you're not noticing any difference between yourself and the world. It's all one connected thing. And I think with mushrooms and hallucinogens like that, that to me was my biggest eye-opener with that is like, And again, that's like what is reality type thing. But when you're on those, you do— one of the biggest things I realize is you see, you notice how like the universe almost has a rhythm and a heartbeat. Like if you look at a tree, it like looks like it's kind of breathing, like it's kind of like going like this. So it almost looks like it has its own heartbeat, which when you're not on it, you obviously do not see that or notice that. So it's like, is it there? Is it not there? Here's some— and out, you know, Alan Watts? Have you ever heard of Alan Watts? Okay, he's kind of like a spiritual teacher guy, and he says, he's like, the sun is only bright because of like our eyes, right? So the sun wouldn't be bright if we didn't have eyes, right? So because it's all like in a comparison way, so I wonder, like, if we didn't have brains, would that— so the question would be like, and this is impossible answer, I'm just thinking that if we didn't have brains, would any of this actually be what it is? Or is it actually a synergistic— like, the ocean is there, I'm looking at it in Miami, but without my brain, would it actually be there? You know what I mean? Is that— I don't know, like, I think so. But also, if no brains were there, would any of this be there? Because, you know, it has to be somewhat synergistic, right? Yeah.

Yeah, you need to be a philosopher. You need to have to call each other.

Yes, this, this is because you're bringing this out of me. I'm not normally— I mean, sometimes, but this is fun. So, um, but yeah, imagine a world without Obviously we wouldn't be able to walk around— like, the brain does so many things, but I just mean what— well, actually, wait, so if you look at the— I mean, a tree doesn't have a brain, so there are living things that are not brain-centered or heart-centered. Yeah, I don't know, it's like the tree doesn't see the ocean, although it definitely recognizes water.

Yes, I was just thinking that, but it probably doesn't have a sense of self. So, you know, you and I are particular kinds of things that make sense of our world, and we can move in that world very rapidly, whereas the tree doesn't have that opportunity. It still shows phototropic behavior and can still send its roots out very, very slowly, but we have to contend with a world where we are in charge of what we sample. So we have to plan how we move our bodies and indeed how we move our autonomic nervous systems to, you know, do our physiology and our homeostasis. And I think, you know, the fact that we have to make sense of data that we are actively in charge of, that leads to this hypothesis: I am a person. So I don't think a tree would actually need that hypothesis. So it still experiences wetness, you know, through its roots and the like. But to come back to your— that was another question which does not have an answer, but it is a question which— I love those.

Those are the best ones, right?

They are the best ones. You really should get a philosopher on. And shout about this one because, you know, that's, as I understand it, that's sort of, you know, a realist versus a skeptical argument. So you're either the kind of philosopher who thinks that there's a world out there, there's a physical reality out there, and we are engaged with that, we sample it, we measure it, we are part of that, we may be synchronized with it. And then there is another camp that is skeptical about the world out there, that everything, everything that we think is reality is actually constructed. It's just a fantasy that only lives inside our heads, including you, I'm afraid. So from my point of view, or me from your point of view. So it's a really big question. I would answer it by avoiding the question to a certain extent, but actually really emphasizing the importance of measurement and inference. Yeah, from a purely physicist's point of view, you can accommodate— when I say you, I mean, you know, the good and great in physics can completely describe all of physics as a consequence of measurement, of observation, you know, things like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle through to, you know, through to gauge theories that rely upon metrics where metrics are the things that you measure. So if physics, if the, you know, assuming we are realists and there is a physical world out there, there is an ocean, over South Beach or, you know, then it only comes into existence when it is measured. So that's a non-philosophical, that would be a physics argument. So, you know, the centrality of this notion of measurement and observation is highlighted by things like, you know, Schrödinger's cat and that thought experiment. It's all about measurement, observation, and inference. So I think that that's where the— if there is an answer to your question, that's where it will lie. It will lie in the importance of the observer. And of course, we are the observer, and we also have this fantasy that we are things, and it's me doing the observation. We don't need that. Tree can observe, but the tree has to be up there to do the observation.

Yeah, I love it. That's— it's— I love this. Um, very interesting, man. Well, look, I want to, uh, I want to leave it, uh, to you. And you've kind of motivated me. Maybe I'll get on somebody who does— like, I'll do a philosopher and maybe somebody in physics. Um, that would be interesting. Um, so yeah, I want to leave it to you though. Like, where, where can people find you? Social media, website? Um, and I appreciate you coming on. I really enjoyed the conversation.

I think so have I. You've asked some very challenging questions. Now, you can't find me on social media. Remember, I'm celebrating, possibly joking or not, being autistic. So like you, I gotta avoid all the parties, stay in my house and do my gardening, do my thing.

Awesome. Okay, no, that's perfect, man. Well, we'll post about you though on our end. But we will not, uh, we will not give how people can contact you though, because we know you're going to be at the Garden, so that's where you belong. Thank you again for coming on, man. I really appreciate it.

Well, thank you. That's great. Thank you very much indeed.