Ep 890 - Consciousness Shmonsciousness P3: The Wren Wrestlemania Wrebuttal
Baby steps. This is Infants on Thrones.
Adam:I'm looking for the further light and knowledge father promised to send me.
Glenn:Baby steps. Baby steps.
Wren:Look for the good in everyone. Hey, Glenn. Thanks for your response on your podcast responding to my thoughts about consciousness. I think that maybe the phrase consciousness is fundamental, excites the two of us in different ways. I think you're very excited about the first part, the consciousness is part, and I'm excited or interested somewhat in the second part, is fundamental.
Wren:And I think that that has us talking past each other a little bit or maybe trying to bring up separate points to come to different conclusions. When I talk about the conversation being a dead end, I'm really referring to the is fundamental part being a dead end. And I'm sorry to be ivory tower about it, but when we talk about what it means for something to be fundamental, for me, it means some very specific things because, you know, I had to research what fundamental things were for a long time. And when I talk about having to catch up to the conversation, what I'm specifically talking about is understanding the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and why the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is the de facto paradigm right now in academia and in all modern quantum mechanics research. Because, you know, you made the point that people at university, I guess physicists specifically, don't don't ever question or don't ever don't ever question the base assumptions of the of of physics, I guess, or specifically the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Wren:And we, of course, do actually, you know, when we're covering quantum mechanics or when we did cover quantum mechanics, the conversation got brought up quite a lot. And we talked and discussed and had a lot of lectures about what the underlying assumptions were for quantum mechanics. And let me just talk shop maybe a little bit or or talk about it more explicitly. So quantum mechanics almost inevitably always comes back to the double slit experiment. And I know you're familiar with the double slit experiment.
Wren:Just about everybody is where you have two slits and you pass a beam of particles through the two slits and you end up with a, a wave pattern on any kind of detector behind the two slits. And, if you cover up one of the slits, then it's no longer a wave pattern that you detect. You actually detect a particle dispersion pattern or a normal distribution as if the particles you were sending through the double slits were were particles and not waves. But when you have two slits, then you get a wave, pattern. And so it seems like your beam of electrons or your beam of photons or anything really, is a wave.
Wren:So, you know, you have this inevitable question of are these things waves or are they particles? And you can do a bunch of experiments to to try to figure that out. But ultimately, physicists in the early twentieth century came up with this concept of the what's called the wave function. And the wave function is a mathematical description of what's happening in this double slit experiment. And really any any wave like particle like system anyways.
Wren:So the wave function is a mathematical expression. When you manipulate the wave function, when you do operations on the wave function using group theory, then you can determine all kinds of statistical probabilities regarding the wave function. And, most notably, there was Schrodinger who came up with the Schrodinger equation, which is applying the Hamiltonian operator to the wave function such that you're able to, pull out the energy and momentum probabilities of, your wave particle structures. Anyways, the Schrodinger equation basically solves everything about the double slit experiment. Right?
Wren:Or it explains all the observations you make with that type of an experiment. The Schrodinger equation, you know, this Hamiltonian operator acting upon the wave function, it explains all kinds of experimental and natural phenomenon that you can observe in the lab, in nature. And it's very, very successful at giving a mathematical description of what you're observing, what your eyes are showing you, what your data is showing you. It's a very successful equation. It's works to predict stuff very, very well.
Wren:So what does it mean though? That's the big question that physicists had at the early twentieth century. And that's the big question that all physics students have and all physics professors have is what the hell does the Schrodinger equation even mean? Like, what's how do we interpret this solution? And so, you know, they had a lot of debates about it and have been having debates about it, for a long time because the solving the Schrodinger equation implies that there is no determinism in the universe, that your statistical, results are not deterministic.
Wren:And that is doesn't sit well with scientists because scientists like to believe that there's an objective reality and they subscribe like to they like to explain the universe materially, without having to invoke the supernatural.
Glenn:Hey, Ren. Thanks for the response. I'm sitting in the backyard again, this time with no dog whining in the background. You might hear some bells chiming because it's a little windy, and maybe some of the other, outdoor ambient sounds of this living conscious nature that we're all embedded in. But I wanted to break in right here, first of all, to say thank you again for the thoughtfulness that you brought to your response.
Glenn:I I didn't really feel like we were talking past each other, but I don't mean to invalidate that you felt that way. I I feel like we're doing something pretty meaningful here, like all conversations like this. I I guess maybe this is a way that I've shifted a bit since in the fifteen years of Infants on Thrones, like, coming in and doing smackdowns and things like this. Now I'm I'm more interested in, trying to understand other people's differences from mine than trying to impose my way of seeing things on others and being like, what? I don't get it.
Glenn:This is how I see it. I anyway. So the experiences that you and I have are different. And, you know, you've spent, what, how many years immersed in the language of logic and physics? You've got a PhD in physics.
Glenn:And I've spent years immersed in language of stories and emotion and belief systems and, you know, there's similarities, there's differences, but we've both trained ourselves in these different forms of, like, pattern recognition, and we're working with different tool kits. But, again, I don't see that as a problem. I just see it as, a, I don't know, a kind of collaboration. So not as a debate or an argument. I'm not trying to change your mind or anybody's mind and, like, enjoying sharing my experience and then hoping to hear other people's experience as well.
Glenn:But the the funny thing is, though, I think we do end up changing each other by doing that even when we're not trying to just because our brains are like these sponges that just absorb information, and then that becomes a factor when our thalamus is allowing what comes in to become conscious or not, but that's a little deep aside. So the reason I paused it here is because there was something as you're talking about the double slit experiment and the discomfort that it causes for scientists. You mentioned that solving Schrodinger Schrodinger's equation implies that reality is not deterministic, and this makes scientists uncomfortable because they like to believe in objective reality, and they don't want to invoke anything supernatural. And, like, when I heard you say that, I got all tangled up a little bit because it it it just seemed like this might be an area where our perspectives are diverging a little bit, and I'll talk about that in a minute. Before I get to that, I wanna say why I care about all this because you you mentioned at the beginning, like, you think I'm more interested in consciousness and you're more interested in fundamental.
Glenn:Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. That might be a way of saying that. Like, for me, in my work as a therapist, I often sit across from people who are, I don't know, confused, we might say, about what's happening inside them.
Glenn:They're in pain. They're stuck. And part of that stuckness comes from a kind of internal dissonance. There's something going on beneath the surface that they can't quite see or name, but it's definitely shaping what they do actually feel. It's impacting their relationships.
Glenn:It's impacting their choices, their beliefs, and they can be really frustrated. They don't know why they're acting a certain way or why they can't feel joy, for example, or why their thoughts keep spiraling. And I think in those cases so what if consciousness isn't just something that we have, but what if it's something that's happening both within and around us all the time? So what if subjective experience isn't just an emergent glitch riding on top of a deterministic machine, but part of the system's architecture. So, like, what if the things that we feel, our fears and our insights and our emotional responses are just as real as our neurons and just as structured as any wave function?
Glenn:I mean, I think that's why I care about these questions because they help me hold space for the parts of people that don't show up on the MRIs or on the spreadsheets, and they give me permission to treat subjectivity as real. And I imagine that your motivations are different, and I can't say exactly what they are. Only really you can do that. But from what you've shared so far, it sounds like your curiosity is rooted in the challenge of solving real problems in physics, problems that demand precision, problems where even a single loose assumption can unravel years of work. And you've trained yourself to be careful with language, careful with logic, and careful with inference.
Glenn:And that's the discipline that you live in, and I completely respect that. So I wanna be clear. I'm not challenging your expertise or I'm or trying to fix science or trying to fix physics. And when I mentioned the ivory tower thinking earlier, I wasn't trying to be dismissive. I was expressing a frustration that I have about what I see are unexamined dogmas that become walls that prevent inquiry.
Glenn:And, you know, like, I I'm glad you gave me that example of when you were in graduate school and you guys would challenge assumptions all the time. I I I don't mean to imply that scientists aren't human and they they don't ask questions. I I was talking about how in Lights On, Annika Harris' one of her main points is to say, let's challenge this assumption about the nature of consciousness whether
The Dodo Man:or
Glenn:not it's it's fundamental to reality. So this kind of brings me back to why I stopped right here in the conversation because the part that you said about determinism and objective reality really stood out to me. So you said that the nondeterministic nature of quantum mechanics makes some scientists uncomfortable because they prefer objective reality and they don't wanna lean into the supernatural. But this is where I get a little tangled up because for me, objective reality doesn't require determinism. Does it?
Glenn:It doesn't require predictability. It just requires presence. It requires that something is happening whether we understand it or not or we can predict accurately what's gonna happen. Something is still happening. It's just I didn't totally understand all of the things that are going on in it, so I wasn't able to predict it accurately.
Glenn:That doesn't mean that there's something wrong with reality. Maybe it's my models of prediction. There's some variables that are hidden and unseen that just I'm unable to perceive. And this is where Donald Hoffman really helps me. And also David Eagle Eagleman, which was he was interviewed by Annika Harris, and he talks about the Umwelt a lot and the way that the brain has you know, perceives a fraction of the world around us, you know, only a fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, for example.
Glenn:But we see what we need to see in order to survive, and it doesn't mean that just because we can't see it, it's not part of objective reality. And and so I kind of applying the same things here to determinism. I just when I heard you say that, you're like, it proves that it's a nondeterministic, and scientists don't like that because they like objective reality. I'm like, well, why why does that make it any less objective when you've got these split? I don't know.
Glenn:Maybe I just don't understand the terminology. But if we go back to the the double slit, this is the thought that I'm having. If you will entertain my thought experiment here. From a from a muggle. I'm a muggle, Ren.
Glenn:If a photon hits a screen, like, in in one place instead of another, and we weren't able to really predict it with certainty where it was gonna hit, It doesn't make it less real. It doesn't mean that it's supernatural. It just means that we're dealing with a form of behavior that's probabilistic or maybe even responsive in some way that we just haven't been able to figure out and model. So I came up with this metaphor a little while ago. This painter that is just this master painter.
Glenn:He can paint anything he wants. So good. So good that he just gets bored with it, and he wants some variety. And so he does something to the tip of his brush so that he makes the tip of his brush unpredictable. It can lean to the left or lean to the right or, you know, push hard or soft or, you know, the the individual bristles can swivel around in any direction.
Glenn:And so he can do these big deterministic strokes with his arm and, you know, paint, but when he pulls his hand back, he's surprised by what he sees because the tip of his brush is you know, it's got a will of its own kind of thing. I wanna be careful with this metaphor. I'm not trying to smuggle in Jesus or God or anything like this. I I'm saying that the painter in this case is the universe itself and all of these individual forces that make up existence interacting together, which I see are as deterministic forces. And so I like to call this painter, of course, Leonardo determinist Vinci.
Glenn:You see? You got it right there? Leonardo determinist Vinci and then this little tip of whimsy on the tip of his paintbrush. But it's a metaphor for this idea of emergent complexity that has within it an element of subjective experience. So it's not all 100% deterministic or all 100%, like, unpredictable, but it's a blending of these things.
Glenn:And that's why you see this random dispersal pattern in the that we we just don't know why it goes, but maybe I know this is gonna sound like contrary. It's gonna sound ridiculous, but maybe the photons that are involved in this double slit experiment have some kind of a felt experience. They can feel what it is like to be observed. And maybe they prefer to go this way or that way or whatever. It's just like a little teeny tiny variation.
Glenn:And, yeah, scientists don't like it because it means we can't predict it, but there's so much that we can't predict. But it doesn't make it not real, and it doesn't mean that it's magical to accept that there's a mystery that's having a real effect, and we don't know what it is. So at least that's my approach with it. Anyway, I'm gonna go back to what it is that you're saying.
Wren:They subscribe like to they like to explain the universe materially, without having to invoke the supernatural. And, so a lot of people tried to come up with other explanations or interpretations of of this solution, and maybe even offer up other solutions. Famously, the probably most successful alternate interpretation or alternate mathematical formulation that you can come up with to solve, or to explain observations is David Bohm's pilot wave theory, which which saves determinism at the cost of locality. So if you use the math that David Bohm came up with, then you are no longer assuming that there's a thing called locality. Meaning, space itself, doesn't matter.
Wren:And, if you're using Schrodinger's equation, you're kind of saying time doesn't matter. Anyways, these are it's hard it's hard to to talk about it without, writing equations down and, like, explaining terms and the equations.
Glenn:Alright. I'm pausing again, because there's something you just said about how it's hard to talk about this stuff without actually writing down the math. And that really stood out to me because I imagine that for you and for people who are fluent in that language, Mathematics is more than just numbers or calculations or something that gives you a headache. It's a precise system of symbols and relationships. And when you understand the grammar of it, when you know how the symbols interact, you can use it to describe incredibly complex ideas in a very compact, succinct, elegant way.
Glenn:So it's a shared language among people who speak it. So I guess my first question to you is, do you see it that way? Like the way that I just described it. Do do you think that mathematics is a kind of, like, universal communication tool, a symbolic system that helps translate intuition and observation into something that can be understood across minds? Or I don't know.
Glenn:Do you see it any differently? Like, maybe more fundamentally, like, it's something deeper than a symbolic language, that it's something intrinsic to the universe itself rather than just the way that we model it or describe it. And then there's the second part of my question because mathematics, powerful as it is, is still, at least in the way that I see it, a human creation, the symbol like a symbolic system built through human perception and then filtered through the limits of our cognition, our nervous system, our brains. You know? So that makes me wonder, does that also limit what mathematics can actually describe?
Glenn:Can it ever truly be objective? You know? Or is it like we're all trying to pull ourselves up from our own bootstraps? You know what I mean? Is it always gonna be shaped by the contours of how we experience the world, or will it be able to help us discover things outside of our limited ability to perceive?
Glenn:And asking these questions, I'm not saying that it makes it any less useful. It obviously works in ways that I just barely even understand. It predicts, it explains, it connects, but is it the same thing as truth, or is it a tool that helps us get closer to something real while still being shaped by our own filters. Anyway, I'd love to hear you elucidate. Is that the right word?
Glenn:Just talk about that a little bit, because it's not something that I've studied formally. In fact, I was so excited when I took humanities classes that I didn't have to go the math route. But anyway, I'm curious what you think.
Wren:Those are the best theories. Right? Like, the the best theory is Schrodinger's equation. Right? The the best model is Schrodinger's equation.
Wren:It works really well. It works all the time. It predicts everything. Nobody really knows what it means. So they kinda came up with the the Copenhagen interpretation of what it means, which is don't think about it just since the math works, it works.
Wren:Let's do math and figure out all these other problems, basically. So, you know, we we talk about other implications that the Schrodinger equation might have all the time in physics, or we did in university. I mean, you are right that I don't know that consciousness isn't fundamental. But at the same time, there are an infinite number of other things that I don't know are not fundamental. Right?
Wren:Like, don't know that tachyons don't exist. Like, I don't know that for sure. I believe that tachyons don't exist. But I don't know that they don't exist. Same as like, I don't I don't think that consciousness is fundamental, but I don't know that it's not.
Wren:But that's I mean, that that doesn't that doesn't give any credence to the idea that consciousness is fundamental because
Glenn:Alright. So here we go. Let's let's pause on that line again for a second. That doesn't give any credence credence to the idea that consciousness is fundamental. And, you know, I'm not arguing that it deserves credence in a strict scientific sense.
Glenn:What I'm more interested in is whether it deserves consideration. And I'm interested in this idea of paradigm shifts, which is kind of at the heart of what Annika Harris is doing in Lights On that I was kinda so excited about. So, like, whether it's worth using speculative imagination to explore what it might mean and to follow that good question that you asked earlier, so what? Because, you know, like, first of all, what do we actually mean when we say consciousness is fundamental? I'm definitely not saying that electrons are throwing parties or they're making plans behind the scenes.
Glenn:I'm not trying to anthropomorphize nature, but I am pointing to the fact that our ability to feel, to be aware, to experience anything at all evolved from something. And maybe it didn't just flip on like a light switch one day in the brain. Annika Harris puts it really well in Lights On. The idea that it's strange to think consciousness just emerges at some threshold of complexity. That starts sounding like we're conflating human level awareness with something much more basic, the sheer felt sense of being, which as she says might be, like, you gotta be there kind of phenomenon.
Glenn:You know? Something that can't really be proven externally, but it's still very real. So that makes me think about the way that you compared the idea of fundamental consciousness to tachyons. And I understand the logic that you're using there. Like, I think what you're saying is just because we don't know something doesn't make it credible.
Glenn:Right? Something like that. But I don't think that those two things carry the same weight, consciousness and tachyons being fundamental because I've never had someone show up into therapy that's in distress over tachyons. But I have sat with countless people trying to understand why they feel the way that they do. Their conscious experience, their felt sense of existing and processing information and their thoughts and all these things that are tied to consciousness.
Glenn:And often the thing that helps them isn't certainty, like not a precise certainty that you could detail with a mathematical equation. It's just simply knowing that there's some kind of reason even if they don't understand it and that they're not crazy for feeling the way that they do. Their pain isn't random, that their nervous system is responding to something real even if they can't name it. People say things like, know, oh you're depressed or you're whatever, well, you shouldn't feel that way, you know, you you should be like this, you shouldn't be thinking those kinds of thoughts, you know, you know, all this stuff. You shouldn't, you shouldn't.
Glenn:But the truth is, if you are, then you are and you do. And if you do, then there's a reason. And that's where the idea of felt experience being foundational, not in a grand cosmic sense, but in a grounded internal sense, I think can make a real difference because it can create space for compassion and coherence and healing. So, again, I'm not asking for scientific credence of this, but I do think that the idea is worth considering and exploring because I think the ramifications are profound and it matters. Anyway, back to you.
Wren:What is it that what is it that consciousness being fundamental, what observations does it explain that the Schrodinger equation doesn't explain? Right? That's I mean, it doesn't it's not about whether or not consciousness is not fundamental. It's about if consciousness is fundamental, what observations does it explain that we can't explain with the Schrodinger equation?
Glenn:Oh, I loved that. That so that was such a great question. What would consciousness being fundamental actually add to the Schrodinger equation? So if I'm thinking about that, maybe it wouldn't add anything to the equation itself, but it might explain why the wave function collapses the way that it does. Because right now, all that we can say is it collapses unpredictably.
Glenn:But what if that unpredictability isn't just randomness? What if it's responsiveness? What if the indeterminism that we see isn't noise, but it's the imprint of a felt experience at the most basic level of reality, like not a human mind making choices, but a system feeling its context and responding, like a system that has been evolving to do this for a long long time that goes way beyond. Like it's it's way older and wiser in that sense of the way that it processes information than our conscious personality or ego, which is something that grew out of it. So I I don't think that anything that I'm suggesting here in this exploration would change the math and of course I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to math, but it might change what we think that the math is describing and it might change the way that we feel about the way that things should or shouldn't be.
Wren:What observations does it explain that we can't explain with the Schrodinger equation? When Copernicus started thinking that the Earth revolved around the sun, he didn't do that just because he thought it was a fun idea or a fun thought experiment. There were actual physical observations of the stars that were not able to be explained by by the previous model of the universe, Aristotle's model of the universe or right? There was like parallax of the stars that wasn't explained by a heliocentric model of the universe. There was the retrograde the retrograde motion of the planets that, could not be explained good enough by a heliocentric model of the universe.
Wren:There was, the phases of Venus. Those these were real observations that, astronomers at the time, you know, they couldn't explain with the assumption that, excuse me, not heliocentric. I'm sorry. Geocentric. They were these are assumptions that were not explainable by Earth being at the center of the universe.
Wren:Right? So what are the observations if you're saying that quantum mechanics is incomplete or the Schrodinger's equation is incomplete? What are the observations that consciousness is a good contender to explain?
Glenn:Oh, yes. Copernicus. I I love that you brought up Copernicus here, Ren. Because you talked about how Copernicus didn't just speculate. He proposed a new model because certain observations couldn't be explained by the existing geocentric views.
Glenn:Parallax, retrograde motion, the phases of Venus, real observations that pointed to a deeper structure. And honestly, I think that's kind of where we're seeing or kind of what we're seeing with the double slit experiment. Not something that is wrong with quantum mechanics because we can't predict it, but that we're still sitting with these observations that don't fit cleanly into our current intuitive understanding of what reality is. So that blurry edge between, like, wave and particle and the influence of observation, the collapse of possibility onto actuality, these aren't glitches. The math works.
Glenn:But what if the math is describing something weirder than we've really allowed ourselves to imagine? So, no, I'm not saying that consciousness is here to fix the Schrodinger equation, and I'm not claiming that something's missing or even needs to be fixed. What I am wondering though is that, like with Copernicus, if a shift in perspective, a paradigm shift could help us better understand why the current model feels so strange in the first place. And maybe someday in the future, people will look back and say something like, you know, for the longest time we assumed that consciousness wasn't fundamental. We thought subjectivity was just a byproduct of complex matter.
Glenn:But then we began noticing these patterns, these relationships, these relational behaviors, these unpredictable outcomes that weren't just chaotic, they were responsive. And once we started considering felt experience not as an emergent fluke, but as part of the underlying fabric, things started making more sense. And so maybe that shift wouldn't just change the way we look at physics, but it would change our ethics or our economics, our interpersonal relationships. Because when we start seeing reality as felt experience all the way down, we also start paying more attention to the impact of our actions on others, on each other, on the ecosystem, on the future. And we stop thinking in terms of control and extraction without any consequences, and we start thinking in terms of resonance and reciprocity and homeostasis.
Glenn:And we begin designing systems that don't just optimize for efficiency, but they optimize for coherence and well-being for balance between inner and outer realities. Getting inspired here? Am I inspiring you? Inspiring me. But in that future, like, maybe therapy, you know, what I'm interested in, this whole consciousness question isn't just about individuals, but it could be how do we hold space for culture wide dissonance.
Glenn:Maybe the economy isn't just a machine, maybe it's a nervous system that responds to, like, tariffs and stuff. Maybe the climate change isn't just an external crisis. It's
Wren:a
Glenn:sign that the planet is feeling something, and we're finally starting to listen. So that's the kind of future that I'm interested in imagining, you know, if we ever do look back and say that was the shift, that's when we started to feel reality differently. And to me, that's exciting and definitely worth exploring.
Wren:Quantum mechanics is incomplete or the Schrodinger's equation is incomplete. What are the observations that consciousness is a good contender to explain? Right? I mean, there are observations that aren't explained by the standard model right now. The biggest one is the discrepancy between general relativity in the Standard Model.
Wren:But, you know, there's all kinds of there's like the super high energy neutrinos that are discovered every once in a while. Nobody can really explain those with the Standard Model. There is, the asymmetry in the universe, in terms of matter versus antimatter that's not explainable with the Standard Model. There is, the the large or the the red dot galaxies that have been discovered by the James Webb Telescope that, are not explainable. This is not those those aren't explainable, not by the standard model, but by, the current, understanding of whatever the Hubble constant is.
Wren:But, you know, when you come to to quantum mechanics, the I mean, we've we've built billion dollar machines to smash particles together, and the Standard Model has been able to explain all of the results of those experiments without invoking consciousness. So is there an observation that you're aware of, that is not explainable by the Standard Model, but could be explainable if we assume that consciousness is fundamental.
Glenn:Alright. So you're asking here if I have an observation. I mean, I guess it's a fair question. And we could ask what is it that you mean when you're asking if I have an observation because from what I understand of it, the standard model does an incredible job of explaining external behaviors, but doesn't really explain why experience happens at all. So if you're asking me to, like, say I've observed a rogue particle or some math breaking anomaly, no, I don't have that.
Glenn:But if you're asking what felt consciousness might help explain, then I'd say this, why does measurement even matter? Why does observation collapse a wave function? Why does awareness even in its most minimal implicit form seem to make any difference at all? And I don't think that's just a philosophical curiosity. I think it's baked into quantum mechanics itself.
Glenn:It's the role of the observer where the the role of the observer is one of the system's unresolved observations. And I'm not saying that consciousness fixes the math, but maybe it's been part of what we've been observing all along and we just haven't recognized it for what it is, if that makes any sense. And something else I've noticed, not in a lab, but in life, this idea that our brains have two modes, like a left brain, more logical, analytical, structured, and a right brain, more intuitive, relational, open to uncertainty. And to me, when I think about it this way, the standard model feels more left brained and quantum mechanics feels more right brained. And yet they both coexist.
Glenn:They are both real. They both give rise to our experiences. So maybe consciousness doesn't need to add anything to the equation. Maybe it just explains why the whole thing can feel so beautifully contradictory. And one more thing, maybe not an observation in the scientific sense, but something that I can't stop noticing.
Glenn:Even in this very moment as I'm speaking, air molecules are moving. Sound is rippling. This voice, my voice is really just pressure variations moving through a field of matter causing tiny movements in your speaker creating waves in the air that move toward your body and press against your eardrum and your body translates that into meaning. Like when met when Jesse is sniffing around in the air looking for that ball that I hide for her in the mornings, She's not looking, she's sniffing. She's feeling for the shapes of molecules, these invisible molecules in the air with her nose.
Glenn:And those molecules, they bend and they drift and they spread depending on heat, humidity, motion, and then they fit into these olfactory sensors if the shape is right. And I find myself wondering, how do they do all these things and, like, how do they know? How does a molecule sense what is hot or cold? How does it respond so precisely to the tiniest shift in temperature, pressure, or proximity? It doesn't need a nervous system to feel in the way that we do, but it still responds.
Glenn:It adapts, it dances, and it bends, and it moves in resonance with the world around it. And isn't that a kind of felt experience? Not conscious awareness in the human sense, not I think, therefore, I am, but it's a sensitivity and a relational aliveness. So I don't know, Ren. Does that count as an observation?
Wren:So is there an observation that you're aware of, that is not explainable by the Standard Model but could be explainable if we assume that consciousness is fundamental? I mean, Donald Hoffman at least understands that to even talk about that, you need to invent a whole new type of mathematics that doesn't currently exist. And he's been working on trying to invent that mathematics. It's been slow going, but until he does invent the that mathematics, the the there's no more to really be said about consciousness being fundamental. Thank you for listening to Infants on Thrones.
Wren:Infants on Thrones.
Glenn:Alright. And I just wanna pause here again too on this line where you said that there's not really anything more to say about consciousness being fundamental until Donald Hoffman invents new math. So okay. Let's just stop now and just shut up and put our hands in our pockets and, you know, like, don't know. But, like, maybe you're right in the world of physics in terms of shifting equations or forming a theory.
Glenn:Maybe there isn't anything more to say there. But from where I'm sitting, from this interest that I have in mental health and just kind of, like, homeostasis at a environmental level. I don't know. I think there's a lot to say whether Hoffman gets the math right or not because every day I'm sitting with people who are trying to understand what it is that they're feeling. People who don't know why they react the way that they do.
Glenn:People who think that something must be broken in them. And people who look at them and go, I can't understand that person, so there must be something wrong with them. You know, like, when people think that there's something broken in them, it's just you know what that's like. Right, Ren? But if there's really, a pattern, this imprint that's a system responding to inputs in ways that we just haven't fully recognized yet, then you don't have to say you're broken.
Glenn:You say you're responding to things in ways that I don't understand, but I can be more compassionate about. So I you know, like, if I'm thinking about myself here, I've come to recognize in myself that I carry this almost constant unconscious feeling that I'm somehow in the red, that, like, I'm on the debit side of life's balance sheet. And I don't think that that's true that I really am, but I feel that way unconsciously. And I think it's a result of neglect and emotional abuse and other kinds of abuse and, you know, and I use abuse in the very generalized terms. There's a lot of gradations of abuse, but it's just kind of impact.
Glenn:It's the way that life has impacted me. I I love the phrase, the kaleidoscopic imprint of life upon the fabric of mind. I I just I love that phrase because we've all got this different way that we've absorbed like a sponge all of the experiences in our life, and the way that I've absorbed the process. This is that I always kinda feel like I'm not enough, like I I'm not quite worthy. You know, I wonder where that would come from, that I that I haven't done enough to really be worthy until I'm stand at the judgment bar of God and I'm told you're worthy.
Glenn:You know, like, whatever those things that were reinforced over and over and over again, I carry that with me, and I haven't always known that I was carrying that with me. This isn't something that I consciously chose as a way to, like, imprint on myself. It just it's there. And what's been helpful to me is I've just become more aware of my own internal biases and that they aren't a defect. It's not that there's something wrong with me and I should be different.
Glenn:It's that my brain is doing exactly what it's evolved to do, to make sense of the world through my felt responses in it. And those felt responses shape the meaning that I attach to everything. So when you say that there's nothing more to say, what I hear is that there's nothing more to say officially in the realm of physics, but, you know, nothing that could be publishable, nothing quantifiable. It wouldn't stand up to a peer review. But I think there's still plenty more to explore and plenty more to feel through because if consciousness, if felt experience is part of what we're made of, then we're never done talking about it.
Glenn:And we don't need new math to ask, what's shaping the meaning that I'm making right now. What's my nervous system responding to that I haven't consciously noticed yet? What am I feeling before I even know that I'm feeling it? And that's what I think therapy is, and that's what I think healing is. So that when I have a thought that comes up and I'm aware, oh, wait.
Glenn:I I tend to slant towards the debit thing. I can look at it, and I can then ask myself, is this thought coming up really true? Is it really considering all the factors, or is this part of my unconscious automatic processing that if I just, without thinking about it, just pass it along and I'm just like a relay in the world, what am I putting out there that what impact it might have on somebody because I'm feeling like I have to defend myself or, you know, I'm being slighted in some way or, you know, like, and then I get aggressive and I get snarky and, you know, and just kind of perpetuate patterns that I'd rather heal. So, anyway, that's what I had to say about that.
Wren:The question about what consciousness is is a really open ended question and one that is fun to speculate on kind of endlessly. And I think that that's what, you know, is exciting, or or something that you've meditated on quite a lot. But you said in your response some things, that I think maybe reveal a more interesting question. Like, when you were saying, if you have a worldview that a materialist worldview, that consciousness doesn't matter, that, there are things that are not conscious. It can foster ideas that, because other things are not conscious, maybe there's people who aren't conscious or people who aren't anyways, you're kinda saying that having a materialist worldview or or this understanding, that things are are not conscious.
Wren:It can kinda lead to a type of nihilism where you stop caring about other people and you only care about the stuff that is interesting to you, I guess, or something like that. And I think that that is, it reminds me a lot of the scriptures when in Doctrine and Covenants or something, when they're talking about how when people reject the gospel, they become a law unto themselves. And I like that scripture because I really do feel like I am Allah unto myself. That is to say, I don't feel like my beliefs that humans are valuable or, like, basically, my belief that humans have inalienable human rights. Right?
Wren:If we take it back to the founding of our country, The United States, Founding Fathers framed the constitution with the belief that humans are endowed by their creator with inalienable human rights or inalienable rights. And for them, the rights of humans came from a creator. But for me, I don't believe in a creator. I believe human rights are innate unto themselves, that you don't need a creator to know that humans have rights. And similarly, I don't need a higher order to the universe or a deeper explanation for what consciousness is to believe that humans are important.
Wren:Right? Like, consciously make the decision that all humans are important, not because of some belief in harmonious universe or that, you know, every snowflake is special, but because I choose to be and so it's my law. It's a law that I have made unto myself that I choose to value other people. And I choose to believe that other people have rights. And I choose to believe that there is good in the world and I want to do good.
Wren:That morality and that sense of justice, you know, is is a decision that I've made. And I don't I don't need to justify it. I don't need to rationalize why it's important, because it is to me, and that's that's how I live my life these days, I suppose. Anyways, I don't know what you think about that.
Glenn:Alright. And thank you so much for sharing that, Ren. I'm happy to tell you what I think about it because I I think it plays perfectly into what we've been discussing here, what I've been thinking about, how our choices, our morality, and our values are influenced by these underlying mechanisms. As I was listening to what you're saying, I noticed a strong emphasis in your response about the absence of a creator, which kinda reminded me of that Jesus smuggling concept. You know?
Glenn:And I wanna clarify that, yeah, while I do believe in a creator, quote, unquote, I'm not here to try to argue about beliefs being right or wrong or to try and convince you of, you know, like, you're seeing it wrong. My way of seeing it's right. Because, mean, I think, basically, everybody has an incomplete view of things, like, severely incomplete. But when I'm speaking of a creator, the creator that I believe in, I'm really referring to the universe itself. A system that's been creating and evolving since the big bang or perhaps even through multiple big bangs as some recent theory suggest.
Glenn:So this ongoing process of creation which led to the formation of solar systems and planets and eventually life forms capable of self awareness and reflection. In this view, the creator isn't a single entity with a specific plan who's gonna punish you if you deviate from it, but it's rather the sum of countless interactions and relationships among sentient feeling components of the universe. And these interactions give rise to patterns and systems that support life and consciousness. And to me, this perspective ties beautifully into the idea of inalienable rights. Rights that emerge from time tested ways of being and relating that have proven beneficial for the continuation and flourishing of life.
Glenn:For instance, the stable conditions on earth such as its distance from the sun and its axial tilt have allowed complex life to develop. These conditions are not random. They're part of a larger pattern of creation that endows us with the right to exist, to think, and to feel. And it creates and it shapes us our our meaning making abilities. Like, this recent neuroscience research showed how our brains process consciousness.
Glenn:It's a new discovery that was published in Nature and talking about the thalamus, which is this deep brain structure, and it plays a crucial role in filtering okay. It's called the gateway, like filtering which thoughts we become aware of and which ones don't. To me, this is like the biological, neurological underpinnings of confirmation bias or even if you're talking about belief shaping reality and, however, if you wanna call it magical or woo woo or whatever, like, I think that there are these neurological constraints that unconsciously, this thalamus, it lets in certain things and it keeps things out. So this discovery emphasizes that our conscious experiences aren't just passive occurrences, but they're actively regulated by our brain's structures. It's what Aneel Seth calls a controlled hallucination, and, I'm fascinated by Anil Seth's work.
Glenn:He he's somebody that Anika Harris interviews as well. And all of this aligns with my experience as a therapist where I see how unconscious processes shape our perceptions and behaviors because, you know, like me recognizing that I'm always in the red, you know, like, this isn't a conscious choice, but it's a pattern that's formed by my past experiences, and then I internalize that. And so if I can understand that these feelings are rooted in adaptive responses rather than personal failings, it's it's just more empowering that way. I think part of it is calming me down so I'm not so worked up in this fight or flight, and I can be more in my parasympathetic nervous system, that rest and replenish and nurturing mode where I have greater access to this metacognitive ability to reflect and be aware and to think about what it is that I think and to feel about what it is that I feel. So, anyway, thanks, Ren.
Glenn:Thanks for spending the time as you're recovering from your surgery to reflect on these ideas with me and to kinda share this back and forth, this learning out loud experience. And, yeah, Cool.
Wren:I just wanted to give a quick response to what you'd said. I mean, you know, I did go to a pretty huge party school.
The Dodo Man:You know, I I read a couple of books and I've been to a pretty good school. And I'd like to think that your respect for me would be enough to know that this man doesn't seem like a dodo.
Wren:A pretty huge party school. And I I just think it's maybe interesting that maybe did you never think that all of my physics cohort people didn't get loaded on the weekends and talk about Okay. What really even is the universe, man?
Glenn:That means that our whole solar system could be like one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being. Oh, this
Wren:is too much.
Glenn:That means that one tiny atom in my fingernail could be be one little tiny universe. What are the universe? Could I buy some pot from you?
Wren:But anyways, thanks for the response. And I feel you don't have to respond to this if you don't want to. It's no big deal. It's been fun talking. But I'll talk to you later, and I hope you have a great week.
Wren:Oh, WrestleMania was last weekend, the last two days. It was really great. I don't know if you got caught it, but I mean, it wasn't as good as last year's WrestleMania, but it was pretty good. Joe Hendrie came out to fight Randy Orton. That was amazing.
Wren:Amazing moment. Becky Lynch came back. She's the man. It's always good to see Becky Lynch. That was a great moment.
Wren:But yeah. John Cena, what a what a douche. Can you believe it? Yeah. Anyway, talk to you later.
Wren:Thank you for listening to Imprints on Thrones. Imprints on Thrones.
