Top Physicist: “Science & Spirituality Merge in this New Theory of Consciousness” | Federico Faggin

Transcript

When we study physics, we must go beyond the self-imposed limits of what a discipline can call reality. That changes everything. I'm a physicist and therefore I study how physical reality works with a sense that that's all there is. I was also expecting if I did everything right, I should be happy. But I was not happy.

One night I wake up and all of a sudden out of my chest this beam of energy is coming from me. The essence of what I thought that I am changed from this way to that way. I decided that's what I want to do for the rest of my life. Unite physics and spirituality. If you look at yourself, what is the deepest longing that you have? The deepest longing that I have myself is to know myself.

To know why am I here? What is this universe for? to know. Consciousness is the capacity of one to know itself. And it is in this one wants to know itself that there is the joining of physics and spirituality. Let me [Music] explain. Hey everyone, welcome back to know thyself.

Today we're sitting down with a physicist, inventor, and entrepreneur. Everyone watching this discussion is doing so using the silicon gate technology. Our guest today invented chips evolved from his first commercial microprocessor. He was also the first to invent touchpads and touchscreens. He went on to build neural network architecture in the 80s attempting to create consciousness through computers.

He is probably one of the most well-rounded idealists alive. He embodies an incredibly rare combination of hard-nosed scientifically informed thought with direct introspective insights into the primacy of consciousness. We'll be exploring what is consciousness, why it cannot be explained from the materialist view, his emerging new theory that changes the idea of who we are in a fundamental way, and restores meaning and purpose to the universe that materialism has essentially denied. We live in a time where the collective awareness and understanding around fundamental questions of reality such as science, consciousness, meaning, and more are transitioning. They're deepening.

They're being revolutionized. And it's an exciting time to be alive. When wanting to understand how the physical universe works and its limits and what's beyond it, I don't know if I could have a better person to be sitting in discussion with today than someone who is an individual at the forefront truly with a cutting edge knowledge to synthesize our understanding of science, consciousness, and life. Federico Fine, thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure to be here, Andre.

Thank you for inviting me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Like I said in the intro, you really have this unique rare combination of the scientific understanding and the limits of the physical universe with also the interiority and personal experience. And I would actually love to just jump straight to your kind of awakening experience that you had that really was the pivot the shift from being a materialist scientist into exploring consciousness in a much more fundamental way. So could you walk us through your experience at that moment? Yeah, I need to give you perhaps a little bit of background because uh uh I'm a physicist and therefore I uh study how physical reality works and with a sense that uh that that's all there is and that's really pretty much what uh science today is telling us about the reality.

And I had I had accepted that that must be true. And um I was also expecting that if I did everything right, quote unquote, whatever that means, I should be happy. And [Music] uh that did not turn out that way. In fact, I did everything right, you know, according to the book. But I was not happy.

And I was pretending to be happy. And it was only because I realized that I was pretending to be happy and I have learned being an entrepreneur I had learned to take responsibility for what happened in my life that I put my foot down. I said no I must understand why I'm not happy. In those days I was studying consciousness but I was working on neuronet networks. I was studying books in uh neuroscience and I wanted to understand how come that we are conscious.

You know the neuroscientists don't tell us how we're conscious. They explain you know they explain how we work by electrical signals and biochemical signals in the brain. And I didn't see how I could possibly get sensations and feelings, what philosophers call qualia, out of electrical signals. And so I was really curious being a scientist and being also a technologist, I wanted to understand how I could program a computer to be conscious. And the more I thought the more impossible it was because there was there is nothing in physics that tells you how to convert electrical signals or bits in a computer into sensations and feelings.

So the core was what are sensations and feelings which is how we experience life. And so it was in this climate where I was unhappy which is also a problem of consciousness. I wanted to understand what consciousness is. And it happened one night 1990 was Christmas holidays. Was skiing up in the Sieras, you know, Tahoe uh with my family.

And uh one night I wake up midnight, was thirsty, went to get a glass of water. Then I went back to bed, you know, just uh waiting to fall asleep again. And all of a sudden out of my chest this beam of energy you know white scintillating light is love but is a love that was 10,000 times 50,000 time who knows stronger than anything that I've ever experienced is coming from me and my consciousness is in this rush of energy and is love joy and peace peace This I've never had felt that peace. I was always trying to get somewhere. I was never happy where I was.

But this was this is me. That's home. This is me. I am that actually. I am this instead of that.

This that comes out of me. And then this energy all of a sudden is everywhere. And this white scintillating light, my consciousness is in that light. And so now I am observing myself. So I'm the observer of myself this energy because this love was there.

This joy and this peace was there as well. And then a thought forms. Wow. A thought. But I already got what the thought was trying to say.

The thought was oh this stuff is what everything is made of. But these are symbols. What before that thought there was the understanding that the thought expressed and then that was the end of it. My my body was vibrating you know like like the cells of my body were you know were resonating with what was going on. So body, mind, emotions and the connection with everything was all in this holistic experience.

So I was one observing itself with my point of view. That's what I'm saying now. But at that time I had exactly the sense without the words to say what I just said. So that explanation you just gave is incredible. I think it is possibly one of the only thing that could transform someone's rational mind of trying to you know reduce life and phenomena into a series of explainable parts.

You had the interiority experience which you know the eastern wisdom traditions have been speaking to for millennia but haven't had the science to make it rigorous. And what I really love and having conversations around consciousness on this podcast like Don Hoffman recently and yourself and others is, you know, that that have these experiences, these meditative experiences that point to a reality that feels far more vast than anything we could deduce intellectually. And so the conjunction of both is really exciting to me. Um, so let's keep diving deeper here. As this experience happened, how then did your rational mind start to pivot in what you were doing in the world? Because you were somebody who was very successful and the fruits of your labor in the classical physicalist model, right? And then from this experience afterwards, your energies and you know minds started to change into exploring more how consciousness could be more fundamental uh constituent of the universe.

And so from that moment forward, what were the coming years and decades? What did that look like for you as you started to change how you um what you were studying in your field of of expertise? Yeah. The essence of what I am, what I thought that I am changed from this way to that way. So before I thought I was separate from everything, from the universe. I thought that to prove something you had to show a theorem and go through the mo you know the logical proof of a theorem that that was the highest certainty that you could have is by demonstrating a theorem that knowing that came I was asking what is consciousness that it was I realized much later that that asking was a prayer I didn't know that I was praying but I wanted to know. I had taken responsibility for myself and I wanted to know.

I got the answer and that answer was so unbelievably impossible to imagine to me that you know once you once you have this thing you know you know that it must be true that way. This is direct experience of who you are. How more do you do you need? But of course it doesn't give you a formula. It's not it's not a number or a series of numbers is how we really know how consciousness knows. And so that was for me wow my rational mind would probably if I if it was it was it wasn't so powerful as an experience.

I would have said well I need to see a psychiatrist now. You know, if I was really believing the story that I was believing before, I would have probably say I need to see a psychiatrist because something like this is crazy. And but that's the the interesting shift is that we go from needing to intellectually rationalize things to having the immediacy of the experience which is self-evident. Yeah. It's like you know it.

So there there's that nosis the intelligence of the body that knows that I feel like in the western mind we've really lost being in touch with of course and and that's the fundamental difference between the rational mind that wants to arrive at the truth but you never arrive at the truth if you start with truth that are assumed to be true which is the postulates that you start with. So, so it's foolish to believe that you can get to the truth if you start with truth that you cannot demonstrate. So, you know, but we our consciousness is the truth engine is the one that can tell you whether it's true or not. But it doesn't give you the proof and then you have to know also how to read your experiences. So it took it took a number of years of studying but studying consciousness how by experiencing myself that's the only way that you know consciousness you don't read them books don't tell you what consciousness is on top of it so I went through 20 years of personal work starting with meditation on and on and on you know teachers came and went you know in this process and it took about 20 years so that takes us to about 20 2008 or so 200 9 when I was clear to me that consciousness must be fundamental consciousness and free will because to me free will and conscious were parts and parcel of the same thing.

So so that was so clear that at that point I wanted then to connect what I knew about physics into a theory that would connect the interiority and the exteriority. Physics only describes what what's what you can measure in the space and time. But what you can feel is that in space and time cannot possibly be in space and time. So where is it? And so that was the journey where I dedicated myself 100%. I decided to that's it.

That's what I want to do for the rest of my life. you unite physics and spirituality into a seamless hole where you can no longer tell the boundaries between one and the other and it is the most exciting time to be alive at least I feel where the unification of science and spirit is becoming one we're seeing how they are different ways of looking at the same thing right and you know I I think there there are countless people that have these inner luminous experiences the experience of their interconnectedness and oneness with all of reality. And it can also be equally, you know, misleading where the mind wants to interpret certain things that we might have different prejudices or beliefs that will be fulfilling that um or looking through the lens of those beliefs through to describe what the experience is, which is also equally dangerous if your goal is to get in touch with objective reality. And so that's why I love diving into these conversations where we're kind of what we're teeter tottering between both the exterior understanding and the interior experience, finding the consilians between the two, hopefully coming to a deeper understanding of it all. Now, as we dive deeper and deeper into the many nuances of this conversation, I would love to lay the framework and and just some definitions to start around how you personally define consciousness, the classical and quantum view.

That way when we use different words throughout this podcast, everybody can understand we're on the same boat of what we're speaking to. So if you would how you define consciousness. Yeah. And then also we spoke to a little bit the classical and quantum view. Yeah.

Consciousness is the capacity of one the totality of what exists to know itself. So is the capacity to know by self-reflection. But the interesting thing in the way I look at this is that when one wants to know itself and in fact we need to start with a partulate because otherwise we we run around this thing and we never we never get to it. So the partul that I'm using is one is one is the totality of what exists what potentially can exist and what actually exists. And I make a clear distinction because because you cannot get something from nothing.

You know many many many theories of reality starts with nothing and you get something. I do not believe that that's correct. Yet to start with some potentiality that becomes actuality. So when one is holistic meaning is not made of separable part. Everything is interconnected within one.

I mean this is you know goes back to the evade to the vadas I mean you know but it was very clear to me that that lack of separation was fundamental in my first experience the awakening experience I was not separate I was the observer and the observe you know how you know there is no separation between the two but that's also what quantum physics is saying there is no observer separate from what is observed okay quantum physics is very clear about that so one is holistic one is dynamic is never the same instant after instant is basically is always changing so far I have described quantum physics what quantum physics say not classical physic quantum physics and then I'm adding one wants to know itself and it is in this one wants to know itself that there is the joining of physics and spirituality it is the knowing itself okay so if you believe that one is to know itself Then one cannot be omniscient because otherwise it would know everything already and there would be no evolution you know would we wouldn't be here certainly. So one wants to know itself means that one will have to continue to know itself because we know within ourselves that the more you know the more there is to know because the more connections between what we have known exist and so there is an explosion of of self-nowing that can occur. So but one you know if you start with this point then when one knows itself he has to bring into existence what he knows. It comes from potential existence like the unconscious of one into manifestation which is existence like from a wave to a particle from a little bit of like that but not quite not quite you know we have to be careful not to read too much because because is is from a is from a potentiality which is neither a wave nor a particle yet it is it is even before you can even imagining what it is to actual to an existence and but the existence that so so what happens is that knowing and existing are two aspect of the same thing. Knowing and existing are two faces of the same coin.

Because so when one knows itself, it brings into existence a part whole of itself. Because being holistic, it cannot know itself only partially. It has to know itself completely. But he has to know itself with a particular point of view. That was very clear to me eight years ago.

It has to know itself in a point of view like a perspective. But one has many perspective in which it can know itself. So now there are there can be many perspective in which one knows itself completely and so it brings into existence a part which I call conscious as unit is like the monad of liinets. Demons of liets are very similar concepts. lies is the only philosopher and scientist and mathematician that I know of that actually understood the concept this what I'm talking about I found it out later but you know to me that was clear that it had to be something like that based on my experiences because in my 20 years where I was exploring consciousness I had hundreds of different extraordinary experience of consciousness that reveal aspects of consciousness they were certainly not they were coherent with the awakening experiences that are described but you know they they illuminated different parts of this spectrum of capacities that consciousness has.

So if we start there then you know then one wants to know itself then the wanting to know itself is the will this the free will of one one decides which way to know itself is that's free will the essence of free will is the capacity of one to direct his own knowing self- knowing which is also the capacity that we have that's what free will is for us and the capacity to know itself is consciousness So now we have defined free will and consciousness one and one and the two must work together. You cannot have consciousness without free will. It would be like you know something but you cannot do anything about it. You know you you you know what you want but you cannot act on that desire that you have. It would it would be foolish would be just a the universe would be a you know uh would be a joke you know would would not be serious inconsistent.

So starting this way you can unite physics spirituality the world now has meaning and purpose. The world the entire universe has meaning and purpose that materialism has erased simply by saying all everything that exists must be measured otherwise it doesn't exist. How is it possible? I mean already quantum physics is telling you that a particle that is not looked at is not even in space and time is is you can only be described in a deeper reality and only when you measure it. In other words, when a field interacts with another field which is the field of an instrument, you have an event that manifests in space and time and then you can say, you know, there is a particle here, for example. But quantum physics cannot tell you where you will find the particle.

It can only tell you the probability of all the possibilities in which you could potentially find the particle. So there you go again. Okay. Quantum physics is not describing reality. It's only describing what you can know about reality.

Big difference. And probabilities have to do with consciousness. A a classical system, a computer in a computer, there are no probabilities. They are all certainties. This next state of the computer is determined by the previous state.

Period. So a computer can never be conscious because it doesn't have the characteristics of free will. Can you speak on how you were very much so trying to create consciousness through computer systems? Yeah. Well, when when I was, you know, starting from reading the neuroscientist uh books, neuroscience, uh I said, well, if the brain is an information processing system like a computer, which is how the it is described, then I should be able to create a computer that is conscious, right? The the idea, the classical model that consciousness is an emergent process or phenomenon out of unconscious complexity. So if we just put the right hardware together then we should be able to create it right.

So and I tried for a couple years. Mhm. There was no way because there is no way as I mentioned earlier to convert s electrical signals in in a conscious experience. How do you do that through qualia? What is qualia? Qualas are not numbers. Electrical signals can be reduced to numbers.

Qualia are not numbers. The love that you feel for for a child, your child, is that love something that you can put in a in one number or a series of numbers? No way. Is richer. He has dimensions that you cannot probe. You know that there is more to know about that love.

It goes deeper than you can even know. But the fact that you know that is goes deeper allows motivates you to find out more about that love. You see it is not it's not it goes beyond number. See the the deepest feeling, the deepest longing that we have like the longing to know ourselves goes way beyond anything that can be put into numbers transcends the idea of number. Thus therefore transcends measurability which is the basis of science.

And in fact science has the concept of the quantum the quantum state of a system of you know which is can only be expressed as a as a probability amplitudes in an nd dimensional space where each dimension is a complex number. Complex numbers are not real numbers. Space and time is real. describe with real numbers. You cannot you know complex numbers is square root of minus one is not a number is a is is an is called i imaginary number just because it's not a number because there is no number the multiply by itself gives you minus one.

So what is it? Well, actually a complex number describes points in a in you know an infinity an infinity of points in a plane. Wow. Is that a number? No, it's not a number. And that's and why is it useful? Because he allows you to transform to simplify the computation. You transform a ordinary differential equations for example in an algebraic equation just by using complex numbers.

you can simplify the computation. So just operationally you can find that out. But what is a complex number? In quantum physics a complex number represents a probability amplitude. But a probability requires consciousness is is a is a concept of consciousness. In other words, only consciousness wants to predict the future.

In a classical system, since the classical system is deterministic, there is nothing that tells you why you should pred predict the future. In a classical system, the prediction of the future of a conscious being is needed because the conscious being wants to predict what will happen. Not having enough information about what will happen. In quantum physics, there is the collapse of the wave function which is not a mathematical function. It is pure randomness non-algorithmic which is the one that decides what will manifest out of what you can compute which are only the probabilities of all the possible positions for example of a particle.

But the actual position is an act of free will in this new theory that we can get into later. But I you know I don't want to go too too much into math but fundamentally this theory is simply saying that consciousness is must exist. You have to start with consciousness and with free will like a postulate and from there you can explain why quantum physics has the crazy properties that it has that physicists are the one the first one to tell you we don't understand why quantum physics is the way it is. Why is there the collapse of the wave function? Why do we have states that are expressing probabilities, probability amplitudes that don't even exist in space and time? Why do we have to have that? Nobody understands. This theory explains why.

Because there is consciousness as there is free will. Okay. So, we just opened up many things here. The nature of free will, consciousness being fundamental. I would love for you to break down your distinction between classical I guess idealism versus monism and uh yeah your framework of consciousness being fundamental and and then there's a lot to open up right after that but if you just love to give a quick uh overview.

Yeah. Well basically in in this theory there are three levels of reality. The fundamental reality which is described by quantum physics the quantum states in Hilbur space in this n-dimensional space that is the reality where conscious experiences are the the quantum state is a representation of a conscious experience of qualia. So it's the the best thing that mathematics can get you to to represent qualia which is not is not a set of numbers because probabilities are not are not numbers. They refer to something else.

They refer to something that might happen. They don't refers to what will what is. So you you cannot call an a probability as a number is is not itself a reality is pointing to the probability of a reality. But the reality is the experience or the being of the conscious entity which is a field that is described but the experience can only be known by the entity cannot be known by by the mathematics cannot be described by mathematics. You see we have a level of reality that mathematics cannot reach.

That is the key here. Yeah. Truth truth transcends proof in a way. Absolutely. you know, I was trying myself, you know, to explain consciousness with quantum physics even though I realized that consciousness was fundamental and so on.

And I told myself, I'm foolish to believe that, you know, we need to turn it around. Consciousness must exist from the very beginning like I had you know uh seen and free will had to be also are properties of fields. They're not properties of things. They're properties of fields and the fields don't exist in space and time. Space and time emerges from those fields.

So if you start that that way all of a sudden you can explain also why you have to have free will which are then how the field decides what to manifest by going from probability. The theory will say you go from probability to to an actuality. The actual what's actually happened. The field makes a free will decision and manifest what actually will manifest that you can measure in space and time. But it is a free will decision.

So there is no math that can tell you what that decision is going to be. So all of a sudden you have a completely different conception of reality. So there is go back to the original question. There is this foundational reality. Then there is the classical reality of objects that move in space and time.

Those are derivatives of this deeper reality. Okay. And derivative on this deeper reality based on decision free will decision of conscious entities. And there is the body. The body is a bridge between this deeper reality and the classical reality.

The body is quantum and classical. The body is characterized by a type of information which I call live information which is neither quantum information nor classical information is something deeper that has not been described by other physicists so far. It's just a you know is a new is a basic idea that has to be that way. It's essentially the the the best way to imagine it is like my words are waves. My words are waves.

They are dynamic and they convey a lot more information than when I write down what I'm saying. When I write down what I'm saying, those are static symbols. They have lost all the rest of my emotions and whatever they you know this dynamic wave can carry. And so live s live information live symbols are just like spoken words. Classical symbols are like written words in a book or you know so so there is a big difference in the capacity to express meaning because the meaning is what exist in the deeper reality.

There is no information there is meaning is the meaning of the information in the deeper reality. In the outer reality there is only classical information which is symbols numbers. There are numbers here, no numbers here, qualia here and comprehension of qualia in the deeper reality. And the and the body is a bridge that allows this deeper reality to communicate with this classical reality through the body. So I guess the difference I just want to highlight between idealism and and monism is that instead of just saying that consciousness is fundamental and all there is, it's viewing matter as a host of consciousness in a way.

Is that correct? Yeah, look at matter this way. You know, my theory is a monistic theory, but not in the, you know, and I don't want to get into, you know, this boxes. We it tend to put things into boxes when, frankly, when you talk about one where one is not made of boxes is is everything is interconnected with one. So the boxes close enclose what the box is supposed to contain like a set in mathematics. Okay? is a is a closed thing you know something belongs or doesn't belong to the set.

So here we're talking about something you know that transcends many of the mathematical concepts that are so foundational in mathematics. So uh here the the foundation of um of our capacity to know is qualia and comprehension that get us to the meaning of information and and the meaning is something that can only be known from the inside by the field that is that wants to know itself. So when one creates monuts, conscious units, these conscious units have the same properties of one to know themselves. They want to know themselves. They also can procreate other monuts that just like one created the monut created the conscious unit.

You know in other words the prop the property of these fields are the properties of one but with the one difference that only in one point this entity only can know reality from the point of view with which one created those entity. Since one is has potentially infinite points of view then there are potentially infinite conscious units or monats and so there are potentially infinite way then that those conscious and units can combine into higher level hierarchies of conscious units. So, so we are all of a sudden we have an unbelievable structure that emerges from knowing from the desire of one to know itself and the fact that knowing and existing are aspects of the same thing. Why do you think there's a fundamental desire of the one to know itself and in a way why does it need to differentiate to know itself in so many different ways? If you if you look at yourself, what is the deepest longing that you have? The deepest longing that I have myself is to know myself. To know why am I here.

To know what is this universe for. To know. So to know is the deepest longing the human have had. In fact the deepest wisdom and the deepest knowing comes from this longing and has given rise to then spirituality then religious religions and then eventually science. But you know this longing is before all of that.

This longing is there and science is satisfying only the surface longing. They want you know to understand what you can you know what you can measure but somehow science has moved away from the spirituality has not given has not given value of reality. I wouldn't say science with the capital S. I would say more like scientism or materialism has given only value of reality to what you can measure in space and time. So basically for for this this materialistic view there is nothing other than matter but that's a starting point that's a postulate that has never been proven.

It's a postulate to say that there is only matter. So, so you know when you know within yourself that there are things that you cannot understand, they go way beyond way beyond what can be measuring space and time like the love that you feel or the courage that you feel you know to take action against you know against the you know the the the beliefs system that is that are around you. So it's yeah it's within that understanding that I've heard you share that that existence ex knows itself through the experience and so you know I this podcast is called know thyself right at least you know certainly my one of my highest values is in the discovery of who I truly am who am I and the essence of that and I think our audience largely is is you know has that desire and you know I think we all fundamentally do and and so you know as we start with the surface level of understanding of just the the western-minded view of the surface level. I am my body. I am my name.

We start to see how these things we are not. And you can start to go down the list of everything from your name, your cast, your creed, your ethnicity. None of these things are fundamentally you. And so you start asking, okay, then what actually could I be? What is indivisible? You know, in the essence of who I truly am. And so I think the word that you started using um for which is say is uh is an interesting kind of distinction.

So I would love for you to share your definition of what that is and how how is it different from what most people would say is a soul. You know that we have a soul. Um I think you know there's some distinctions that help uh take it out of the bucket of conceptual understanding that we have with that word of soul. So what is sadi? Yeah. So but let me just say one thing to connect with what I said earlier that science is also about knowing.

So even science wants to know right what's but but they are restricting what they want to know on what can be measured in space and time. So everything that we do that is beyond pure survival is about knowing. Okay. Science included. Okay.

So back to society. So say simply take a quantum field of electrons. Quantum field of electrons well defined in physics. Okay. Quantum physics.

I say this quantum field has consciousness and has free will. Then I call a siy because it's not the quantum fields of physics is but it is everything that physics is saying plus consciousness and free will. Now all of a sudden you have an entity that can evolve and can know itself and everything else because is a parked hole of one. In this uh way of thinking all of a sudden you you are connecting immediately physics which are the quantum fields with spirituality which is the fact that these fields are conscious and have free will. Okay, great.

So I'll just read a quote from your book which is new and not now by the way we haven't mentioned irreducible um second to your first book that uh that I've been absolutely loving diving into this quote that I just want to read which is on the on this exact topic. You said I believe instead that we are sades who temporarily inhabit our bodies. We are eternal conscious beings rather than perishable bodies. And we are here to learn crucial aspects of ourselves by interacting with each other in the physical universe that we have co-created for this very purpose. Everything we perceive in the universe was initially envisioned in the consciousness of the sades because classical reality follows quantum reality and not v not vice versa.

And quantum physics follows quantum information which in turn represents the thoughts, desires, and conscious experiences of the sades. Yeah. Anything you'd like to elaborate there? That was pretty thorough. Yeah, it's pretty thorough. Um I I think that uh that the the crucial thing here is to always make the distinction when I say I, I don't mean the body.

And when I when we say I, we tend to generally mean the body. So the body is not where consciousnesses exist. The body is is a quantum classical structure that exists in space and time but is also connected with this quantum reality and that's why it is a monism. Okay. If you take the field of electrons the quantum field of electrons the electrons are not objects separate from the fields.

There in qu in physics in quantum physics an electron is a state of a field is some structure some form that appears in the field itself just like a wave of the sea a wave of the sea is part of the sea cannot be separated from the sea. So the properties of the wave are actually the properties of the field. The properties of the electron are the properties of the quantum fields of electron which is qu which is conscious and has free will. So the fact that you cannot separate the origin of matter from the deeper reality tells you that is a monism. You don't have you know don't have spirit and matter.

They they are all manifestation. Matter is a manifestation of spirit. Matter is a manifestation of mind. So can you help me wrap my mind around how a sad could possess individuality? Because when you look at the word self there's many different layers like we said we could perceive it as from from the body to the mind to who we are um in a more fundamental nature that is an energy that we are inhabiting in a physical body temporarily in this experience. Yeah.

So this has a lot of implications obviously and it's congruent with like I said a lot of eastern wisdom traditions that have been t that have been you know talking about this for for millennia. Um so what is the practical differentiation and how you explain the soul and the sadity and what that uh implies to what happens when we die the personality and qualities of us that maybe carry over once this physical body dies. M um so I'm just curious to see how you kind of think about these things. So the identity of the si and the best way to look at that is the point of view with which one knew itself originally when he created this si this field that is conscious and has free will which is a part whole of one. that point of view is the identity is the fact that that field will maintain that identity forever.

So it is the in a way it is imprinted by one in its giving birth to this you know to this new field which is a new self-nowing of of itself. So one self-nose creates a part whole of itself with a point of view which is the identity which is the uniqueness of that field and the uniqueness remains the uniqueness of that field forever. That field is eternal or if one is not eternal he has the same duration of one. But you know you cannot you know because that if one wants to know itself the last one the last thing that one wants is to forget you know the the what he has learned about itself right so there has to be a memory of the self- knowing of one which is also the memory the self- knowing of the sities that are created by one so there has to be a way to remember the experience so so and that's another reason why you have to have classical information classical information is information that allows you to remember an experience a quantum experience because a quantum state only exists for a very short period of time. So, so you better put in memory what you experience otherwise you forget about it because the next thing that you experience if you didn't put in memory what you experienced earlier is gone.

So you know it's like a you know we imagine like the present and moves toward the future. Well no there is no future and there is no past is the past that grows from the present which is the memory of what you had experienced. So the past moves you back and the future is what actually is the you know appears in this present. So that's a better way to understand time when you consider the you know who we are and and that is consistent also with what physics is saying but in a deeper way than normally we think of it. So in your first awakening experience you you felt like you recognized that you are light.

Mhm. And light and love and peace and joy. Again there are there are no separation between this these fundamental concepts. And then you felt from that experience that you are this one point of the one in which it knows itself like a point or a dot on a circle in which there are potentially infinite amounts of dots that could could be there. I I perceive myself as a point of view of one upon itself.

In other words, and the reason why I say that is because the sense of me that I had in that extraordinary experience was the same sense of me that I've always had when I was 5 years old, 30 or at that time almost 50. So you know that sense of me that's me my identity that's who I am that that that is the self but I call it identity because again self has so many meanings and so I I want I want to avoid I want to use names say which is the fact of you know being a you know the self food. Yeah. Um, and that's why the awakening process is often referred to as self-realization because you're coming into awareness of something that was prior and already existed. Absolutely.

Yeah. Because we have memory of our own experience. And so we're in the process of remembering. Yeah. And in fact, in fact to know to know something that you already knew because you also can know something that you didn't know.

That's new. That's a new creation also for for you. In other words, it isn't that that all we know is in the past because everything new that we know we create, we bring into existence exactly like one when knows itself for the first time brings into existent knows. So this is valid for everyone. Yeah.

So then do you think there is this vast intelligence is orchestrating in a in a type of way the people places and circumstances for us to garner the experience we need to come into that self-remembering but by being part whole we are all orchestrating what one wants you see because if we were if we were separate parts would be different then would be an orchestrator but we are parts all but I you know notice that our body Even our body is built the same way. It's built with parts whole. Let me explain. Every cell of my body has the genome of the egg that built the entire organism. So every part of my body, every cell, I have about 50 trillion like you.

I got about 51. Oh, that's good. You are better than me. So, so your 51 trillion cells, each one of them has the genome that describes the entire organism, not itself. Everything, the whole thing is a part whole.

The potential knowledge of the whole. That's why a cell later on in life can express aspects of itself that were not present at its birth. That's why there is you know epigenetics. 30 years ago it was impossible could not exist and now of course you know people are beginning to accept that epigenetics exist. Epigenetics is that you know a cell is not determined at birth in what is going to be able to express.

It can express new things that were not at present at birth. So you know the entire understanding of who we are is appended and there are people that tell you materialists that tell you that the body is just an algorithm you know biology is just like a you know like a computers what the hell you know no a computer is made of transistors there are not 50 trillions yet they would be 50 trillion so what what's the big deal a transistor is a switch on off that's all what does a switch know about the whole the old computer and the software that runs in the computer nothing. Yeah. How could there be the sound of a crying baby, the sight of a rose, the taste of a cherry, these qualia that can't be can't be in the experience of a switch. And but this is goes beyond that because because I'm just describing a body as a physical structure in space and time comparing to another physical structure in space and time which is a computer which is a purely classical system.

The body is quantum and classical. The consciousness, the feelings are not in the body. They are in this field, this deeper field. They are not in the body. We project them in the body.

They are not in the body. We are not we who we are are not the body. We don't exist in space and time. We exist in this deeper reality. You see this is this is that's why we but we we are so indoctrinated on one end and and so also hypnotize into believing that we are the body that we always fall into this trap of believing that we are the body.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have a soul but but then when we think about ourselves we think about the body. No the body is just a structure that then perishes.

If if we were the body then scientism would be right to say that when the body dies it's the end of ourselves right if consciousness is a property of a functioning brain when the brain doesn't function we shouldn't exist anymore and of course that's what I believe when I was when I believe in this in this scientism worldview which did not take into account what quantum physics was saying the point is that that I'm trying to make is that quantum physicists are saying something that then we never reflect in our world view. So I just want to pick up where you were just talking about emotion and how emotion carries meaning and this understanding of live information. Yeah, this is a very kind of new concept, you know, in terms of understanding how meaning is a like a tied to the fundamental constituents of reality um instead of like an afterthought or a byproduct I suppose that we you know intellectually make. So can you share how emotion is is tied with meaning? Yeah, just think about love. What is the you know what is love bringing to you? I mean beyond beyond the feeling itself you know there is a meaning be behind that the qualia is one thing right what it feels like that's the qualia but then the qualia the qualia are simply the entry point into the inner sanctum which is you know the this field that can know that has properties that are infin infinitely powerful properties to understand means to get the meaning of what of what you perceive which is qualia.

So the meaning is the essence of what you know and that's also what we want to convey when we use symbols. I don't describe my qualia. I describe the meaning of qualia. You know when I when I say I love you am I describing what I feel? I cannot describe what I feel. So I describe you know the essence that I call love that I you know that's the meaning that I that this feelings has for me but it goes deeper because love is a word.

Love is a symbol is a word but love to you if you really go into it. It has dimensions that are unfathomable. It has depth that you cannot fathom. So you know is you know cannot be described in word. Okay.

Years ago, years ago, I said, you know, that's what the towel is talking about. You know, the towel, and it starts by saying, it started by saying the the the Dow that the Dao that you can say is not the eternal Dao. Yeah. Okay. What is he saying? He's saying exactly what quantum physics is saying that the you cannot you cannot copy not even copy a quantum state.

The quantum state which is the representation of qualia is what you feel and it can only be known from the inside. It can never be told from the outside. What you can say about it are only symbolic expressions of what you feel. But the symbolic expression of what you feel fall very short of what you feel. There is a theorem in quantum physics.

It's called Olivos's theorem. Olivos theorem said that when you have a quantum state, when you measure the quantum state, you can only get one bit of information classical bit per quantum bit. The quantum bits that describe the states are entangled which is you know a crazy property of quantum physics meaning properties in common that cannot be represented in space and time. They require these n dimensional spaces. Not only that but each quantum bit is an infinity of possibilities representable as a point on the surface of a sphere.

So every point of the surface of a sphere meaning a direction in space direction in space is one of the possible states of the quantum bit. When you make a measurement of this quantum state you set a direction and if you set in this direction and you measure you will find one or zero which is the opposite direction. You can only find zero or one no matter which way you measure it. That's a property which is incomprehensible in because classical physics is not these properties. When you measure a quantum system, you disturb it and you measure something that was not the states that it was.

So the observer affects what is observed and of course then the what is observed affects the observer with giving some information. So all of a sudden you no longer have this situation in classical physics where the observer is separate from what is observe. You're a participant and you and you are participant. You are you are both observer observe and actor. You're all three.

You're an agent all three because we take turns like we're taking turns now. Now when I speak you observe me and when you know I when you speak I observe you. Okay. But also my speaking affects you but also affects me and vice versa. So we we affect each other in a way that classical system don't affect each other at all.

In classical physics you know you had to make a separation between the observe and the observer. And that separation is being kept in the mind of even most physicists to this day. So they they they don't think of the you know they they explain what's going on in ways but they you know they don't they're not clear about the role of the observer in quantum physics because it's incomprehensible in the conception of reality that that exists which is reality is really what we can measure in space and time. So you know Dom don't often talks about space and time doesn't exist. Okay, in that sense, okay, it's right, you know, but but but in reality there is, you know, we had to explain why we have a perception of space and time and where does it come from and so so you know, you you had to think in terms of a deeper reality and space and time are emerging properties of this deeper reality as the other way around.

You know, consciousnesses and free will are supposed to be actually free will typically in scientism doesn't exist. But you know, in uh you know, consciousness in and conscious emerges from space and time and objects that don't have any of that. Okay? But it is the other way around. You know, space and time and matters and energy emerge from this deeper reality. And so they must be explained in terms of knowing.

Knowing is is deeper than space, time, matter and energy. Do you think that a conscious entity can actually know itself in its entirety? Of course not. Not even one can know itself in its entirety. Will continue to know itself. The more it knows, more the more it can know.

So knowing ourselves is a continual dynamic process. Absolutely. That it never ends. It cannot end. If he ended it would be the end of the universe in a way and the end of evolution, the end of everything.

But one would be finally satisfied. It knows itself completely and we don't you know we can we become subsumed from one and that will be the end of it which is fine too. I mean I don't really know but you know but it is reasonable to think that there is you know why should time end besides that kind of time which is the time that we measure is not the time that I'm talking about that time that we're talking about is the present the time of experience is that sliver of present where everything that we remember or everything that we predict is in that present if I make a prediction what will happen in the future that prediction is done in the present This invites a feeling at least to me internally of a lot of spaciousness and taking pressure off of ourselves on the spiritual path because we have in the west more of this achievementoriented goal oriented mindset where it's like achieving enlightenment becomes a point in which our spiritual journey is like we've arrived you know versus you're inviting a continual journey and let's enjoy the ride. Of course, of course. But but but you know for me in a way why was I disappointed? Because I had checked all the boxes and so I had arrived right and I should have been happy.

Yeah. The money because I had always put happiness in the future because you know because I'm not you know I was supposed to achieve certain things to be happy because that was the list of things to that I had to do that you know but that was an imagination my imagination. And so once I once I arrive, I was unhappy. So what's wrong with this picture? Right. So I want to talk about this sovereignty, this reclaiming our spiritual power and the responsibility we have to do.

So I love this quote I I found in your book um around suffering from Simone Wheel that says suffering as a door that we can choose to go through and then we learn something or we refuse to open and then nothing is added rather it takes everything away from us. Yeah. And I feel like we all have these experiences in life that are challenging that and we suffer and we can grow through suffering or grace. But often times there's a lot of suffering that points us into the direction of what's not working for us in our identity and beliefs and and so many different things in life. And so as the one desires to know itself, I feel and I would love to get your perspective as suffering kind of serves as the friction necessary for us to move into the direction of of experiencing remembering realizing our true self.

Yeah. I mean my sense is that suffering is uh is very much something that exist in this quasi virtual reality in which we live and we believe to be the body and we're here to learn something about ourselves that we set up to learn before incarnation. So so you know because clearly we are not the body. So when the body dies, we are still the field that we were before the body was was born. So you know, we don't go anywhere.

We we we continue to be the entity that was created with the point of view that we always have. When we when the body dies, we recover the memories of other lives that we had in this in this reality. Maybe other possible realities. Who knows? But certainly you know we no longer see once we are we believe to be the body to the point that we pay attention only to the signals produced by the body. We become close in a way we we no longer observe things that are beyond the body.

We observe only the stuff that the body produces and we communicate with the body as ego. The ego is only a portion of the sati who we are of this field is that portion of the field that you know got in in in creating the the characteristic of this body in order to understand itself that a portion of itself became you know um hypnotized so to speak believing that it is the body. It is a little bit like when we control a drone. A drone you know suppose you have goggles and through these goggles you see and you hear the the you know the information that a drone is sending you. A drone is in another in another country you know 10,000 miles away and you see what the drone sees and you hear what the drone hears.

So, and if you are intense in controlling the drone and getting to do getting the drone to do what you want, okay, you forget about whatever is around you, right? And so the drone then you are the drone. You you know you do whatever you're doing and uh you know then the drone is you know is shot down and then the s you know nothing here. you look around say, "My god, I I'm I'm still here." You know, so the the body controlling the drone is like your conscious fields controlling your body. Okay? And as an is a good way to to imagine this because because the reality that you see through the eyes and ears of the drone is really is really cons, you know, what are you seeing? You're seeing bits and those bits are actually you know transformed by the conscious they become space they become the objects that the drone sees. How is that possible? So if you take the goggles out and you look at this reality, this reality must be the same similar way, right? I mean many years ago that was so clear to me that that in fact that's why that's because virtual realities exist, you know, we can do it with a computer that we can actually understand that this reality cannot be the reality real.

However, it is not purely separate from the deeper reality because as I told you earlier, the states of the fields cannot be separated from the field. So this the virtual reality is still connected with who we are. Is are emanations of who we are. That's why the you know the theory is ammonism like I was saying earlier. Yeah.

So I personally love that analogy. It's also, you know, in reference to Donald Tooffman, how I love his headset analogy because it's it's a very useful, you know, thing that we can wrap our head around, so to speak, uh, pun intended, I think, where we have a virtual reality headset and we go into this other reality where our true self takes on our sensory system of seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, and hearing that plugs us into three-dimensional reality where it's very enchanting and it serves the purpose of having the experiences we need to know oneself. But we often get lost and the veil of that forgetting. Um and this whole journey which we're speaking to is the journey of remembering of who we are beyond the sensory and continual arising uh and passing away of phenomena that we perceive. Yeah.

And so I feel a really important reflection now is as you know the all the people that are listening to into this conversation right now on our journey. Yeah. There is a responsibility we have to know oneself. Yeah. And the more that we can acknowledge that, the more that we can tap into that and and embody that responsibility, the more that we start to go on that upward spiral of realization and a lot of the things that we once suffered start to fall away.

We start to become more agents of positive impact and change in the world. There's so many endless implications of that change and transformation that h happens internally first and foremost. And so, what do you feel is the responsibility we have for that awakening process? Yeah. Yeah. I think that um even before there can be an awakening in my way of thinking um we have to take responsibility for what happens in our life.

I think that I could not have had the experience that I had if I had not taken responsibility for what happened in my life where I was justified in you know in blaming somebody for what happened to me and I was not looking at what how I contributed to him to that person harming me. So how you know so at one point you know after this issue was over uh I asked myself one day what did I do what did I do to encourage that or why didn't I stop it what what was my payoff for not stopping what was going on and it was through that process it was painful through that process that I realized that I had an agenda and my agenda was that by not doing something I was better than the guy. I was I was better because I was more noble. I I was giving the other cheek. You know, that's the way I was brought up in the Catholic ethos.

You know, you basically, you know, if somebody hurts you, you give the other cheek. That's silly, right? I mean I mean I took that supposed teaching you know into a then if I do that I'm better than the other guy right okay and so that was my angle to be superior and I said holy camole I mean I you know I think that's common though we all we all on the part of our journey we uh embibe virtues and display them for the world as a means to build our superior iority um and it's just another way that you go. So once I discovered the game that I was playing I said therefore I am I was responsible for what happened to me because I did not respond properly. though never again and that was the act of taking responsibility instead of blaming the other just simply not blaming anybody just simply figure out what did I what can I do better next time that's that's it okay because what happens to me in one way or another I have contributed to bringing forth to me if you don't take that position it's very hard then to go the next step because the next step for me was to acknowledge that I was not that I was pretending to be happy when I was not and it was exactly because I took responsibility. I already had taken responsibility years before that I was able to say no I want to know I want to know and so I put my foot down.

I had the the the having understood that I was responsible in the good or in the bad of what happens to me. Then I also have the right to say I want to know and I got the answer. So and I didn't have to meditation before do all kinds of stuff before. No, it came spontaneously. Yeah.

Because of the intensity of the longing. That's right. Yeah. But because having taken responsibility was a was a crucial step in my mind to go to the next step and I think there is an important distinction with uh it not being our fault but it is our responsibility because yeah but we are trained you know is this fault it's your fault you know you you know you look what you did to your brother you know your fault you know it's all like all this kind of you know culture in which we are growing up in which we do not understand what we're doing but and the parents you know don't understand what they're doing and when I was a parent without having opened my eyes I was doing the same thing that my parents were doing to me so I mean that that's the you know this cycles of of inequities that that keeps propagating into the future so we had to wake up and that requires courage you know courage the courage to take that responsibility um and there I think that really plays an important role and it's an important invit ation reminder for everybody tuning in now to prioritize having a spiritual experience to prioritize having that the taste of your interconnectedness of your oneness and once you experience that I think you're radically transformed absolutely you don't need to read 10 books you know just you know one minute is enough you you get all the all the information that you need and you don't you know in fact the books you know, you can put them aside and and you can now you are ready to find out for yourself. And that's really what we are called to do.

You know, not repeating what other people say or, you know, doing what you're told to do. No, no, no, no. We are free human beings. We are to find out for ourselves. And it's in that maturing process, I feel we go from seekers on the path initially to knowers.

We know. We don't need we don't need to seek it. You have the experience of of it. That's right. And that's that's where the dogmatic beliefs fall away of who you are, where you come from or whatever.

And the experience of that starts to be born and it's a completely different reality. That's right. I'm curious your perspective on the greater impetus that drives a lot of these things. When you look at love, what do you see? How how do you think about love in the way that it drives a lot of everything we're talking to about taking responsibility about the experiences that give us the contrast of who we're not? Um what do you think about love as some sort of metaphysical property a fundamental constituent? Like what do you think about love? I I think about love as a like the fundamental is the feeling out of which all other feelings emerge is the you know is the foundation of this of the qualia but is also a force. So it's not just you know so it's the force that that that motivates you to find out who you are is what is is what's behind it know thyself that is this love which has to be love for yourself and for others and that love has to be felt and is is it gives you the degree to which you are you know reaching out reaching toward knowing yourself and knowing others is the love.

So love is also a measure of how you're reaching your objective which is the fundamental objective that you came here to learn about. Um and so so love is uh love is also you know you can also understand it like I got this impression at the beginning is this stuff of which everything is made you know is the substance of all okay but all those concepts are vague because you know what is substance in a world that where there is no matter right substance you know everybody thinks of something concrete so so basically Um and also you know in my experience that love was mixed with joy and peace. So it was not in a sense just love it was also these other things that were together because at that at that basic level things are not separable. The you know there is no you know that's the that's the fallacy of reductionism that you can separate the variables and everything is separable. You know like if you can put them into different boxes.

No, at the at the deepest level everything is interconnected and that's the power of the concept of one which is holistic truly holistic. No, you say the words and then you forget about it and you start you know making distinctions that separate the things. It's just, you know, a an inter interesting uh analogy that that I use from time to time is to to say where's the boundary between uh red and orange. You know, is there a neat boundary that separates the color red from the color orange? You know, we talk as if there was a boundary there. No, there is a region where both are true.

You know, there are regions where it's red, everybody agrees is red. a region where everybody agrees is orange. But then there is a region where you say is red for you and say no it's orange for me and so that region is both both of them. That's gives you an idea how science and spirituality or physics and metaphysics are joining where there is no boundary. Now they become one.

Mhm. So therefore the the the cap the capacity and the methods of physics also need to be used in metaphysics and the stuff that works in metaphysics. Your consciousness as a tool for un for knowing must be used also in physics. After all we explore realities that cannot be measured in space and time. How can there is no instrument.

The instruments are only space and time. How do you measure them? Consciousness is the only tool to measure those realities through dreams, through out of body experiences, through all kinds of other experiences that are not in space and time. Yeah, it really does seem like the universe works in paradox. And to be able to have anything approximating understanding objective reality, we need to be able to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously. Uh which is a challenging experiment uh for people that are foreign to it.

Yeah. But but it's the idea that there is an objective reality which is the problem. Yeah. Yeah. I suppose you see we we always fall into the trap of thinking that there is an objective reality.

No, there is not an objective. In that case you would you could say that what approximates objective reality is the fact that both are true, you know. So it's so totality like like you know but but you know the the objectivity is not it's not an object. Yeah. For sure.

rather it's doesn't have boundaries you know you know see this is all you know the you know when we theorize we have to do this because by theorizing you you have to you know and and to be certain you have to decide that there is true and false but in reality not even in in mathematics there is only true and false as you know Gos theorems right I mean the you know any axiomatic system you can make a statement that cannot be proven proven to be true or false is both or or neither whatever you want but certainly is you cannot prove that is because if you prove that it's true then it's false if you prove that it's false it's true so you don't know so either you take that statement you say I I decided this statement I take it for to be true then it becomes a postulate of a new theory that includes a new postulate that you have that you have but you have chosen to choose that thing that cannot be shown to be true or false as true or false and then you bifurcate into different worlds. The rabbit hole goes deep on this one. I want to I just want to go back quickly to what we were speaking about love. Um and actually just read a few quotes here that I was saw in your book and then also from you. I think these all tie nicely in together.

Alfred Tennyson said that complete knowledge is complete love. Greater knowledge is indesolably linked to love. Periclesis and Aristotle said something approximating to educate the mind without educating the heart is to not be educated at all. Yeah. When we study physics, nobody educates your heart.

Physics is not about heart. You see, and that's why physics and metaphysics or spirituality much better the capacity to experience from within must be integrated. But we must go beyond the self-imposed limits of what a discipline can study and call reality. If to know is to bring into existence, that changes everything. You see, and this that goes hand in hand with what you said in in the book about creation is therefore the manifestation of one's continuous search through the sades to get to know each other more and more.

It is important to emphasize that to know is to love and to love is to know. Yeah. Yep. I mean, you know, love and joy, you know, love and joy are very close, right? I mean, you know, that that's sort of like they they appear to be very, you know, symmetrical, right? And uh so one of the greatest joys when you you finally get a new thing that you were thinking, trying to understand it, finally you get it. I got it.

I got it. You know, I got it. Right? I mean that's love. Joy and love mixed together is more joy than love perhaps but is love you know that's what that's what knowing I mean I I think that the you know what do I know but what is you know the thrill when one knows itself and to and creates a monad it must be an unbelievable thrill right I mean just and yeah I really just enjoy the synthesization of both and exploring the gray and you know I've heard you speak to how reality has both a semantic and symbolic aspect and how information has to then be inherently tied with meaning and that's a really interesting thing to explore and to break down. Is there anything you want to share to help clarify that? Sure.

I mean you know the the concept of information you know goes back to to Shannon in 1948 you know created the the theory of information in that year with that paper famous paper and the definition of information um has nothing to do with meaning. The definition of information, information is the collarithm of the probability that a symbol manifests in a series of symbols. So you have symbols that appears. The probability that you can assign to that symbol is inversely proportional to the information carried by the symbol. So the more predictable is a symbol, the less information there is on that symbol and vice versa.

If a symbol has zero probability of happening, so it will never happen. If it were to happen, it would have infinite information. And if you know exactly the symbol that manifest next, there is no information in that symbol because that symbol begets the next one. So that definition of information only requires the recognition of the symbol and not that the symbol carrying any meaning. But for us information without meaning is meaningless.

For us information when we say I got a lot of information really you should have say I got a lot of meaning from the symbols that I that I that I saw or that I heard or you know. So what do I want to convey with the words that I'm using just the words the recognition of the words by you which is would be what a computer would do? No is the meaning of those words is what I want to convey and I have to use because I cannot give you my state is equivalent to a quantum information that cannot be reproduced. Quantum information cannot be reproduced. There is a theorem in the no cloning theorem says you cannot reproduce quantum information. That's why the existence of consciousness and conscious experience can only be can explain why quantum physics has to have these states that cannot be reproduced because the the bits of the computer can be copied can be reproduced as many times as you want.

And that's why computers can never be conscious because consciousness is a property that requires quantum states which are not reproducible. You see, so if you start with conscience and free will, you can explain everything else in a coherent manner and you can explain why there has to be quantum physics, why there has to be classical physics and all of that. Okay. So what we're exploring here and and what you said earlier about how consciousness and free will must be properties of the original field which is completely backward the traditional model. Yeah, I want to spend a little bit of time exploring that and and the understanding of free will.

Would you say that we have free will to the degree in which we earn it or recognize who we are in our truest self? Um because if we're continually being driven by unconscious drives, then it feels very much so we're more of like an automaton. you know, we're just this machine that's has these bio, you know, biochemical reactions and driving us to this in this deterministic reality. Yeah. Um, so h how do you see free will being connected to the original source and how that translates to how we actually might or might not have it in this reality? So free free will is a property of the field is not a property of the body. Again, we tend to give free will to the body.

No, the free will, the free will is a decision of the field to make the body do something other than the auto automatism of the body would make the body do. So you see there is a big a very subtle a very important difference here. The body the body does not have free will per se. The body is is a physical structure that obeys laws. The free will is in the field that controls the body.

In other words, the drone does cannot decide to do what he wants. If you don't do anything, the drone goes around like this waiting for you to tell him what to do. For example, that's it does what we had told him to do. But the drone does not have the freedom to decide now I do over there. You know, you know that's unless you give him that authority even and in that case it's still not free will.

It simply will do what you told it to do. Okay. So the body is a little bit like that, right? almost identical like that almost because because the body is also quantum and classical right but but the the body in general does not have free will. So if I conscious being allow the body to do what it wants then the behavior of the body can be predictable because the body is a machine. So it's it can be predicted his behavior can be predicted but if the consciousness intervenes and make the body do something different that it was programmed to do then the body will do what the consciousness wants.

And so that is that's a free will choice. You see the difference? So, so the body simply is uh you know responds to what the free will of the field wants and the free will of the field is the one that has to learn about itself and use it you know use properly the body in order for the field to know itself because the the self- knowing is in the field is not in the body. The body simply memorizes things that are important for the body to function and be and be semi you know quasi autonomous but that's it and that's why when the body falls off this stuff remains which is the knowing the self the the free will and so on. So you know we have to be careful again because we tend to attribute to the body then free will the body doesn't have free will essentially. So to the degree we identify with the body, we don't have free will as well.

So would you say to the degree we wake up to who we are beyond the body, the more free will that we access? Because we're still making decisions and choices here within the structure of the physical body. The the part that wakes up again is not the body is the the ego which is a portion of the si. The ego that believed to be the body is the one that wakes up. So also the ego that still believes to be the body and believes also certain that it should do certain things and not others is also a mechanism because is basically is basically um how to say is basically making the body do what it believes which is a closed system. It is not really free.

It it is imprisoned in a sense by its own belief structure. So only an awakened ego can actually have really free will. Well, you you say awakened ego, but do you feel like the intelligence of the heart is better verbiage there? Because I feel there's two kind of different places we can make decisions from. You know, there is the egoic structure in which we can make decisions from. But then there's also an intelligence of the heart that speaks to us more softly that we start to listen to that uh is more coherent.

Yes. And and that's that's where you know that's and the the the true courage the you know the true courageous decision which is absolutely can only be a you know otherwise it wouldn't be courageous a free will decision you know is something that goes against what the body would have done otherwise you know otherwise the body simply would do whatever is was programmed to do by its own life and the interaction with the consciousness because the the interaction with the you know Think of the body and the consciousness as the way that we uh the way that we behave when we train a neuronetra, a computer, you know, an an artificial intelligence system. You know, we are the ones that given the data that the the AI needs to learn from and we tell them what to, you know, we tell them right wrong and so on. We you know so we are coaching this thing to to to imitate our own understanding of reality there is no understanding here there's the pretense of understanding here but the understanding is in the consciousness who learns is actually the programmer of the AI not the AI they tell you that the AI has learned but in reality who has learned is the is the guy you know that controls the machine okay that machine was simply then repeat what it was made to learn by this other guy. The same way us consciousness and the body the body is like the AI system and our conscious is the supervisor of the AI system.

So as as the consciousness learn the body also learns and it can then later on repeat what he has learned that wasn't there before. So there is a continuing learning in the body continuing a AI you know increasing its capacities but in reality the body simply mirrors and you know sort of parrots what the learning is you know and the knowing is in the consciousness that controls it. Again, you know, we tend to think that we are the body and that tricks us every time to think that as a body then we have certain properties that are not properties of the body. They're properties of the field. So when you look at reincarnation, do you feel like that's compatible with this theory and like what the the moment of the physical body dying? Yeah.

Is the the sadi would then inhabit a new incarnation into another body. What do you feel like is most likely? Well, the the accounts of the near-death experiences, which there are thousands and thousands out there. Uh, and also the the accounts of the children who have clear recognition or um they can validly prove the existence of them somehow knowing uh where their previous sp like life was, how how was killed, the things that they have, the places they live, etc. Yeah. Yeah.

th those accounts uh you know are clearly consistent with the theory that I'm uh that I'm telling you. Basically when the body dies you you the ego which believed to be the body no longer has this these signals you know that that he was paying attention to are all scrambled up and or they're not even there and then he looks around wow I'm still here and he finds himself over you know over the body looking down at the body which is being operated in an operating room in the hospital and then he describes properly what happened Then he moves into another environment. He meets, you know, their dead parents or friends that were dead and has wonderful, you know, heartfelt connection with with them. And then he is told to get back to to his body and he wakes up. Oh I had to live a little more in this life.

It was so so much better up there. Right? So so those are the typical near-death experience. That is telling you very likely what might might happen to you. So the the difference is that if the body is not resuscitated by a good doctor, you know, you simply you simply move beyond that experience when you are in that expand expansive state and then you continue to live in that in that different reality until you are embodied again in a different body and have another experience. So that's very consistent.

It cannot be explained with with you know neuroscience at all. In fact, the neuroscience, you know, has to say that those experiences are crazy are just imaginations. But how can a brain that doesn't work imagine, you know, especially imagine something which is so transformative that 90% of the people that have this kind of experience find their life transformed by that experience. So, so when the brain wasn't working, it was doing more for them than when it was working. It's so fascinating and I kind of want to zoom out just a little bit.

I some, you know, I often think about how recent civilization is and writing and the vast, you know, grand scheme of of evolution of this planet and the solar system and the galaxies. Um, I'm curious what you feel, what you think if there was like a 25th century person which with an average knowledge of whatever developments happen between now and then, if they were to look back on the time of us having this conversation and the collective understanding of really where the world is at in the 21st century, what observations do you think that they would make about where we are at in our own developmental journey and the framework we have around understanding consciousness? Yeah, I I think that um it depends how humanity will really um transform itself in the next u 100 years. I think we have 100 years that can set the stage of what will happen in 500 years from now. uh because uh there is a possibility of self-destruction if we do not use AI, do not use atomic energy, we we do not solve the uh climate problem properly and so on that we have in front of us. So there is a you know that there is a you know there are scenarios there that are not happy for mankind.

If mankind overcomes this problem, then mankind will look back u and uh hopefully a much larger percentage and than what we would do now with our mindset would then look back and say, "Wow, how could we be so, you know, so you know, ignorant or or you know, or or you know, uh uh you know, how we could misunderstand reality so much to think that the only reality that existed is the reality in space and time. You know this this reality that classical reality essentially the scientism the materialism the reductionism that we have today you know will be looked as a aberration in the history of mankind because you know thousands of years ago we did not think that this way. We we we were much more connected with a deeper reality with a deeper sense of who we are. Uh not everybody but uh but you know the the the highest mind the people that were writing books uh the people that were you know translating their their you know sense of reality uh have given us an account of of their thinking that is much more open to the deeper dimensions of human dimensions that than what we have today with scientism. Scientism eliminates any meaning from reality, any purpose from the universe.

So 5 500 years from now we will look back and say how could we be so you know could have been so mistaken about what we thought about Israel because at that point I believe that we would have learned to explore real deeper realities that today we don't give them any reality with our consciousness and find out that we are beings of light that we are beings that uh you know go immensely beyond what we now give credit to ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. And I I agree. I just I think you know us looking back on the 16th century right now and how much of what we were ignorant to then is just now everyday life for us.

And if you just plucked somebody out from that time period, took a time machine back and showed them all the things that we have in the, you know, in in the world and what we understand about reality, it'd be it'd be so surreal where, you know, it's it's like a Star Trek movie in comparison, you know, and so the growth of technology is so exponential that, you know, who could even imagine if we do make it through the existential crisis that we find ourselves in. Yeah. uh what what life will be like and there were a couple of things that I want to sidebar um in terms of AI and the possibility of destructing ourselves in the next hundred year you know 100 years where this is a very pivotal time that we live in right now where it's make or break it for humanity um part of the shift of that awakening process is starting to once again value our interiors and the resurgence of valuing our interiors instead of just the reality that we can dissect in the cartisian way of understanding the world around us. Uh we start to explore, you know, consciousness and how we are in this conversation at at a much deeper level. And so that to me is why I feel like immersive experiences and and creating containers in which people can have the taste of who they are in a more fundamental way.

That feels like the first domino that everyone needs to be able to have the experience of or as many people need to be able to have the experience of which will then change everything like you would how you relate to the biosphere completely changes when you feel your connection to it, right? And so there's so many of these implications that change when we first have the experience of our interconnected nature. Um so I'm just curious to hear any thoughts you have as we start to shift society to valuing our interiors again. Yeah. But the crucial thing is to include into this interiority heart and and belly what I call the courageous actions the ability to act with free will that comes from the deeper aspect of who we are. So uh which is generally not acknowledged by science today.

You know what is the heart? I mean the heart is a organ that beats you know when we talk about heart in the context of spirituality the heart is love is peace is joy is uh is the comprehension is uh knowing you know all that and uh if those are not valued or they are valued only for what they the you know usefulness that they can bring that's not good enough because because the value is in knowing is not in the usefulness because when we when the body dies we are not in a in a world where we can we can barter you know uh chips with for dollars you know it's that world doesn't have this stuff I mean that world is a world of of you know of self- knowing it's the world where meaning is the currency in that world is not goods is not numbers is something that goes beyond So to me that is that is the essence of the transformation. If we don't we can become highly technologically advanced. That's another possibility 5,000 500 years from now. Highly technological society with no heart whatsoever. Just like machines we have turned ourselves into machines that work with other machines and that's it you know.

So, and that would be truly that would be truly uh you know this topic as a as a as a future, but that's a possibility. Yeah. One of the first inputs I ever put into chat GPT, I said, "Write me the plot to the of a a story where AI takes over the world." And it gave me this this reality of of two different factions that create off one that is more naturalist and connected and um and and religious in a way that it explained it versus the uh you know worshiping the cyborgs that come to be in and super intelligent AGI right and so as we start to see and it's on the doorstep it's here any any moment now you know the super intelligent AGI is going to bear many fruits and solve many problems and if we're not careful and not understanding within the proper context of the discussion we have about our interiorities and who we are then we could wrongly attribute it to being the new god in a way you know yeah become an idol you know you know adoration for this uh you know this idol because it'll appear to be a god worth worshiping perhaps absolutely absolutely you know and and uh but In doing so, we we diminish ourselves and uh we basically become appendices of this idol as opposed to being in control of simply a technology that can help us know ourselves. And so it really it is it is a choice that we will have to make. Exactly.

This is happening in this 100 years that we have in front of us in my opinion. Of course, what do I know? But uh but you know but for all that I see mankind is you know many of us are called to make a choice. Are you a machine or are you a soul in whatever way you you know you think about soul you know is something that survives death. You know are you a machine? A machine dies, a soul doesn't die. Okay.

So, and that's the that's the you know it's a very clear dichotomy here. It's not you know so do you believe that you will survive death or not? So if you believe that you do not survive death then you go into the singularity transferring your consciousness to a computer live forever there. I mean come in all this stuff right? If on the other hand, if you believe that you are not a body, you are a field, you are a conscious being that survives death, completely different story. The necessity is moving beyond the belief into the knowing that we are beyond that, right? The felt experience. I'm just curious to hear a little bit more of your thoughts about the transhuman movement and Terrence McKenna has that quote, humanity is a sex organs of the machine world.

You know, we are here essentially to birth the new species or race of intelligence which is very frankly I find it abominable. Yeah. As a conception because it I mean it goes to the extreme. It it adds insult to injury because it calls consciousness what is not consciousness basically mean it means that those people have not understood anything about who they are and that's the real problem. So you know well how else can I you know I mean that's it's crazy but on the other hand a lot of people believe that that's the way it's going to be.

So that's why this age is an age of you know of choice making a choice and how it will be made by humanity will determine the future you know I don't know what what will be I made my choice but you know but that's it and so I I share the logic or my choice but fundamentally my choice was based on an experience that only if you have a similar experience. You can have the same conviction that I have because my my conviction does not come from having read a book or many books. It comes from having experience. So the the capacity to experience we all have but the willingness to experience the willingness to believe that you can experience that opening yourself up to that that's the key. Most people don't want to go there.

So they will never have this this experience not because they cannot have it because they don't want to have it. They want to continue to believe this story that they believe. And so there is no no way out of that because we are free. So you know no one no one can force another person to choose a a road that has free will to choose that only that person. So it's a it's a you know it's a personal responsibility again you know every one of us has to choose who do I who do I believe what do I believe and you have to believe yourself and if you believe that that you are a machine so be it what do you feel the of the reality that we are living in sort of nested dimensions where perhaps there is a larger say in which all of these sades exist.

You know, we're speaking about the one. It's almost as if just like on an individual level, we have our own trauma, suffering, and experience that we need to, you know, resolve remember who we truly are. We're kind of in a collective experience of that as well. Yeah. No, I believe that there are hierarchies of satis you know you know the the lowest level satis that we can understand right now are the elementary particles the fields of elementary particles because the elementary particles I said don't exist as objects they only exist as states of the fields so fields are the simplest one that we can imagine because we have studied those those fields um but then us, you know, maybe thousands of hierarchy levels up because from elementary particles, then you go to nucleons, from nucleons to atoms, from atoms to molecules, macroolelecules, blah blah blah blah blah cells, combination of cells, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Mankind, come on. You know that obviously does it stop there? Of course not. He has to keep on going. So there must be some entity that essentially is the entire ecosystem of the planet that is you know its body is the ecosystem of the planet. I mean I I mean you know it sense to reason if this hierarchy continues you know we see a hierarchical organization anyway in the cosmos right we get solar systems many solar system eventually creates a a galaxy a galaxy you know uh form groups and then groups of galaxy you know groups of groups and so on for and eventually the universe right so I mean there can be already what we see we can see many levels above us you know I think it can be tricky to trying to label things as benevolent or malevolent.

But would you say that there are sadities that are higher up on that hierarchy level that have more degrees of free will where they have potentially positive or negative intentions? Yeah, I I see you know again it's those are gray areas. Yeah. uh so it's very you know I can give you now we are talking about opinions as opposed to a theory right the theory that I expressed early that's a theory that can be falsified and everything else you know I can can be done properly but but now is opinions okay so I can give you an opinion um and just quickly before you do I just look at like on a human level at our level of of sades there is the spectrum from somebody who is you know like a Stalin or Hitler to the to St. Francis of Aisi and Mother Traa and obviously they're complicated individuals in their own right but it seems like there are energies in in of themselves in this realm of duality that are at play and if there are bigger sades you know or collections of sades then it would it would kind of make sense to intuit it that there are uh bigger forces um on both those polarities. Yeah.

My for what I understand sure at this point um I would say that the fundamental polarity about us who we are here is whether you you your intention is to uphold yourself as you want you work for yourself. You want to know for yourself. You want to do everything for yourself or for others. Okay. Service to self, service, service, service to other.

Okay. I see that a very fundamental polarity which you know uh which allows if you work hard yourself you know you know you can progress up to a certain point and then because every everybody will work for himself then eventually you have to one will turn against the other. So you can only go so far with that with that idea. Okay. How far can we go? I don't know.

But to me, that's the sense that I have. Then if you work for others, no. Then you can keep on going. You can keep on growing. You can keep on, you know, of knowing more about yourself, more inclusive and more expansive and so on so forth.

Yeah, I love that framework. Yeah. Very practical. Also, individually, there's there's that depiction of those uh people at a round table with those super long forks where everyone's starving to death. They have these, you know, small mouths and they can't feed themselves because the fork is so long.

But when we start feeding each other, you know, we cooperate, recognize our interdependence. That's very good. I like it. Yeah, it's a good method for um Amazing. Is there anything within your framework theory model that you feel like we haven't talked about that you that you would like to to have established in this conversation? Because I know we've been diving a lot into the interiorities of things.

The science goes super deep. We don't have to go super deep into it. Um but uh I'm just curious to well the duality between competition and cooperation for example which is again the competition would be the mindset of the person that works for himself. It competes with the others because he only wants its own good. Okay.

Cooperation instead is what allows growth continuing growth as opposed to growing up to a certain point. So to me to me um competition which is today at the heart of what we understand life and what we you know depict life is the survival of the fittest or the fitter whatever you want to call it. How can that be? How can the survival of the fittest justify 50 trillion cells that works together in a body so that I can find my way to the bathroom without every cell saying I don't want to go there I want to go there this way that way that you see what I mean so you know cooperation is the foundation and from cooperation as a special case you can get competition but from competition you cannot get cooperation competition is is a door a close door. So you know we have an idea typically of the emerging property emerging the emerging property conscious is an emerging property of the brain. Wow.

How can more emerge from Ness? It cannot. How can you get free will from determinism? You can get determinism is a special case of free will but not vice versa. And only quantum physics has the capacity to to do the following. The sum of the parts creates something which is much more than the sum of the parts. In classical physics, the sum of the parts is the whole and is only the sum of the parts.

So you can always reduce the whole to the sum of the parts, but it's only the sum of the parts. It's never more than the sum of the parts. Emergentism does not exist in classical physics. It only can exist in quantum physics. That's another thing that most scientism doesn't a materialistic view does not accept because they they don't understand quantum physics.

Quantum physics has properties that go way way beyond classical physics. Entanglement is what connects everything from the inside. Competition tends to separate Okay, cooperation connects even more. We we need to learn to cooperate in the future. If we do not cooperate, we will kill each other because there is not a choice because every everybody's for themselves.

And right now we are in this comp you know in this in this situation where we have both both you know both parts are are playing you know in this you know in this reality and but there has to be eventually a way in which cooperation is the real way when we when we understand that if we do a good or bad to another that good and bad that we do to another will come back and return to us. So we must stop believing that we are because only if we think that we are separate we can I can do bad to you because that if I do bad to you is your problem not mine but once I understand if I do something bad to you that's my problem too then I will stop doing it. Yeah. Absolutely. It's just you you know inherently that you don't want to cut off your left arm because you experience it as part of yourself.

Yep. And so when you start to experience other people as part of yourself, you don't need to teach them morality. It's just it is what it is. It is what it is. Absolutely.

That's direct knowing. Yeah. A direct nosis. One thing that I was curious about is if there are all different types of sades and there's maybe emergent life on different galaxies and um all over the place. What do you think about alien life and the possible reality of do do you strongly feel that they of course I mean you know it would be I mean it would be silly to think that we are the only ones here you know in in in this planet I mean with gazillions of planets uh you know already in this galaxy never mind the gazillion of galaxies that there are that we are the only living organism here that you know have sentin I mean it doesn't make any sense besides sensin is everywhere Right? I mean this theory that I was telling you senses starts with the quantum fields and then it grow you know quantum fields combines and it grows.

So sensing is everywhere is is a pansyist model but it is quantum pansychism. It is not classical pineychism which is what everybody else talks about. Quantum pansychism recognizes the properties of quantum information and how you can explain the collapse of the wave function with free will decisions of a field that is conscious. So it it is all self-consistent. Yeah.

And you know and we need to go beyond and just uh move on. But moving on means accepting you know ac just let's give it a chance you know if you believe that you are a body you believe it so much and you think that when the body dies you're dead forget it I mean there is no way out but why do you you know you have to ask yourself why do I want this reality since I cannot prove that that is real or not you cannot prove what I'm saying either but why do I want that reality what do what do I Yet that's how you start by getting responsible for what happens to you. Why do I want that reality? What is my payoff to believe that I'm only the body? I can tell you what I was I was thinking then that then I can do what I want. You know, when I die is game over. So I might as well have fun this in this world.

Do whatever you know do do whatever I want because there are no consequences. That's the ultimate no responsibility. Yeah. Not the ultimate responsibility. The ultimate responsibility is to know that whatever you do to another, you do to yourself.

Man, there have been so many different nuances in this whole conversation that uh are so important I feel like for people to hear and I've been thoroughly enjoying throughout this whole thing and you've been articulating super well and it's been just an honor to get to know more of your work and more recently get introduced to your whole world and um so just thank you gratitude for you and this conversation. It's been a pleasure for me as well. It really it's a it's a fun conversation. Yeah. Thank you very much.

Yeah. I just want to leave the floor open for anything that we haven't touched on that you feel like you that you want to share before we start to wrap up. I love you, man. I love you too, bro. It's so good.

Man, this is uh this is my favorite thing ever. So, thank you for allowing me to to do what I do. And um I feel this conversation will be really fruitful and serve a lot of people and that service to others you know and um thank thank God for that awakening experience you had and for the journey and the courage that you personally had to to move into the path where it's scary to move this way when a lot of people are moving this way you know it takes that courage takes courage um but you reap what you sew and you've been sewing some beautiful things so man yeah thank you I really apprei Appreciate you. Thank you, Andre. And uh for everyone who wants to tune in uh to more of what Federico is up to in the world, Irreducible is an amazing book you guys can check out.

It'll be linked in down in the description below as well as your website and things will people be able to find out below. Um and that's it, man. We did it. Thank you, Andre. It's a real pleasure.

Of course, everybody who's been tuning to this episode of the No Liy Self podcast, let us know in which way this resonates with your own personal journey and uh and what you found uniquely impactful. And until next time, be well. [Music]