Transcription
Imagine that you control a drone. The drone looks at that reality where it is, sends me information, and I get the conscious experience of what the drone is seeing. That conscious experience is not in my body; it is in my consciousness.
A scientific theory that basically states that our body is operated like a drone from a conscious quantum field, which would mean that experience, qualia, is not in your head. The qualia do not exist in the body; they exist in the field. Okay, people will find this, um, crazy idea. It is crazy, but it is much closer to the truth.
Federico Fagin invented the first CPU, the touchpad, and worked on the first neural nets, which gave him the hope of creating conscious AI. It took me 30 years to figure out that mathematics is created by consciousness, and therefore, I cannot explain consciousness with mathematics. Many physicists think that there are emerging properties in the purely classical world. It cannot be emergentism; it requires quantumness. Like some other renowned physicists, Fagin is convinced that consciousness cannot be a classical phenomenon and has to be quantum. But his theory of quantum consciousness goes beyond any theories on the table. We have to go way beyond Schrödinger's equation. We had to go into the Roka's equation, but even beyond that, we had to go to quantum fields and quantum information. And quantum information goes beyond the concepts of quantum fields. In fact, the only physicist that's been able to show that quantum physics is derived from quantum information is an Italian physicist, Giacomo Mauro Darano. He showed that you can derive all the equations of quantum physics from quantum bits.
Federico Fagin reached out to Mauro Darano, and together they published a paper, and Federico wrote this book. If they are right, not only will they have an accurate theory of consciousness, they will also solve the mystery of the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Quantum information is the representation of inner experience, and the collapse of the wave function is the representation of my free will. What more do you want?
That's crazy. That's crazy. Um, let's try and really understand this. Welcome to the Asenia Foundation YouTube channel. Thanks for watching, and may I ask you to like and subscribe, as it really helps us to grow our channel. Now, this interview was recorded when Federico visited the Netherlands to present his new book, "Irreducible." A link to the book and scientific papers are in the description below. And in his book, Federico describes how a deeply personal experience led him to start investigating consciousness. Therefore, I found it interesting to start our conversation with this personal experience. Of course, after that, we go into the theory itself. In the chapter marks below, you can see the topics we discussed. Now, without further ado, here is Silicon Hero and Consciousness Pioneer, Federico Fagin.
Fedo, can you tell us about a pivotal moment in your life, namely the experience you had at Lake Tahoe? Do I pronounce it correctly? Yes. During your Christmas holiday days of 1990? Yeah. I wasn't happy, you know. And I reached everything that the world says that if you do all this stuff, you should be happy, and I wasn't. I realized that I was faking being happy because I needed to because I was running a company. I had to be enthusiastic and everything else, but I was dying inside. So what's going on? What's wrong with this picture? And so consciousness, then, was, you know, became center stage in my life. Understanding that this consciousness was somehow also connected with feeling, you know, desperate inside. So what's going on? So I wanted to understand what consciousness is. So that's when, you know, and I wanted to understand it for my own sake, for not to do something about it, not to monetize, not to make a new technology. Because before, it was all about, you know, doing something. And now, all of a sudden, I turned my attention inside because of the suffering. And it was in this climate that I had this extraordinary experience of consciousness.
Now, I can go to this Tahoe night, you know, in 1990, during the Christmas holidays. We had a home up in Tahoe, which is a lake. Tahoe is a beautiful lake, 2500 meters, and there are mountains, and skiing is great. Um, and so, you know, one night I woke up at midnight, you know, I was thirsty, went to get a glass of water, and went back to bed. And was just, you know, just waiting for, you know, go back to sleep, thinking nothing. And all of a sudden, out of the chest, just a, you know, just energy was coming out of my chest. But it was love. And it was love that was never felt before. It was, it was love that was coming from me. How can love come from me? I mean, you know, it was unthinkable that love could come from me, you know. And it was 10,000 times more powerful than any love that I felt before. I mean, and in fact, never felt that love because it was unconditional love. Now I have a name for it. It was love period. It was it. Yes, it was coming from me, but it was love. And it was light. It was a white light, scintillating. It was, you know, like sparkles, you know. And it was coming out. And then it explodes, and it's everywhere. But it's everywhere, but my consciousness is there too. So not only my consciousness is within me, but is also outside of me. And all of a sudden, I realize, I am that. So I am the observer and the observed simultaneously. But I retain my point of view. I retain my identity. I was still the same kid, 5 years old or 3 years old kid that I was then, and so, and that I am now. And so that identity was so my the only thing on me that remained was that point of view. And then I realized, oh my God, this stuff is the stuff of which everything is made. Everything comes from this stuff. And my body was hot. It was vibrating, you know, like the cells of my body were resonating with this thing. The, you know, of course, the emotion, the feelings was love, joy, and peace because this stuff felt like that's me. I'm at home. This is me. So I'm finally home. This is the, you know, this is home. But and so it was all mixed up. So you cannot separate this stuff, you know, love, joy, and peace. And then the mind was aligned, saying, this is the stuff of everything is made. So I'm everything, but also the observer of everything. So I'm a point of view of one with which one knows itself. And now is the centerpiece of this new theory of consciousness that, um, we may talk later about. Yeah. Beautiful. I was a physicalist. I thought, you know, basically, you know, materialist, because I study physics, you know. And everybody knows consciousness comes from matter. Perhaps we don't know how, but has to come from matter. What else can it come from? So I mean, that was the mindset that I was. So all of a sudden, how can you know? No, this is before matter somehow, you know. So this must be the beginning of it. So, you know, that changed it. And that, you know, that started me in a completely different, I went orthogonal in terms of my personal development and thinking while I was running Synoptics. So that was fine, but I spent from that point on 30 to 40% of my time trying to understand what happened and studying, doing meditation, you know, figuring, you know, anything that I could understand to understand what happened. But that picture, actually, is the end. Is now I can explain with this new theory of consciousness, I can explain exactly what happened and exactly why that is correct. Every single one of us is a field that is both the observer, the observed, and the actor. Every one of us is a field, and it doesn't exist in this field. This field does not exist in space and time. Space-time exists within these fields that we are. It is us. So this changes the paradigm, right? But we need a change of paradigm because otherwise, if we are machines like scientism is telling us we are, we are going to be taken over by the machines, the artificial intelligence that people will control, powerful people control, and through those machines, they can control us. If we don't change our mind of who we are, it will become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy because we have not done the personal work to understand who we are. And we are not machines. The body is a machine, but it's a machine that is infinitely more complex than the computers because it is a quantum and classical machine. It is not a machine like a computer. Just to, you know, it's simple to understand that every cell of my body is a part-whole of the body. What do I mean by that? Every cell of my body has the genome of the egg that created the entire organism. So every part of my body has the potential knowledge of the whole. In this case, the whole is just the body. So we are holographic. We are holographic. We are made of parts. All we have 50 trillion cells, each has the potential knowledge of the whole organism. So a cell, which is a part, can change within its own life by taking advantage of the potential knowledge of the whole. That's why epigenetics exists. 20 years ago, if you said epigenetics, they would have put you into the corn as a, you know, as a crazy guy. Okay, now we know that epigenetics exists because every part is a part-whole. So we, as human beings, we are fields which are part-whole of one, the totality of what exists. Same pattern repeated at different scales. Very nice. We are going deeper right now, and I think it's good for people to understand this comes from the architect of the first microprocessor. If we have that cell, that part-whole, as you mentioned, and we have a modern-day microprocessor that many people attribute sort of the same intelligence or complexity to because that's the idea, right? Because it's just so many connections, so much computing power, so many people think we will achieve sort of cell-like and then, of course, organism-like intelligence. Can you just, on the ground level, make that comparison, the cell versus the microprocessor?
A microprocessor is made of switches: on, off, on, off, on, off. What does this switch know about the whole? The old computer? Nothing. It doesn't know anything. The most all that it could possibly know is that it's open or closed. But it can do nothing else. Every cell of my body is connected to the whole through these quantum fields because a cell is a quantum-classical thing. It's not a classical thing. It has been studied as biochemistry by biologists. It's an informational system of a kind that we have still to understand. The foundation is quantum and classical. Quantum and classical. Nobody understands how life works. It goes way beyond what we understand. We think it's a mechanism, and that's because those cells remain connected with the fields because they're made of particles. And quantum physics is telling us that particles are not objects; particles are states of a field. They cannot be taken away from the field; they are not separable from the fields. They are like a wave of the sea cannot be taken out of the sea.
But what many people, I think, and this we really need to clarify, I think, okay, in a cell, we have proteins bumping around, which are in the end complex molecules. In a computer, we have electrons that are also particles. What exactly makes the molecules, the particles within the cell, quantum-classical, and a computer purely classical? Because I'd say, okay, aren't there quantum effects as well in computers that connect them to that field you were talking about?
Yeah, but the quantum effects are incoherent, and they cancel out. So the quantumness is canceled out. The bit, the bit is the average of quantum phenomena. They cancel out, and therefore, it's a first of all, the bit is not a physical thing. It's an abstraction that we have created. What is zero and what is one? We have determined. And as long as within the system, the zero and the one, as the simplest possible symbols, can be recognized as zero and one, that's all that is needed. So if you maintain that coherence, but it's a classical coherence because the zero and the one are classical information that can be reproduced. A quantum bit cannot be reproduced. A quantum bit, when you measure the quantum bit, you get zero or one in the direction in which you measure it. But you have to set the direction because if you don't know the direction, whichever any direction that you choose, you will find zero or one. It's the Olivos theorem that says that the maximum information that you can get from a quantum bit is a classical bit. The quantum bit cannot be known. The not-cloning theorem says that you cannot clone even a quantum bit. Yeah, once we want to know the quantum state, it will collapse in a state which is a zero or one, and we are in a classical world. Classically. So quantum information cannot be reproduced. Quantum information cannot be reproduced. Classical information can be reproduced. We are quantum fields are what we feel within. Can be represented by quantum information. But the what we feel goes beyond the representation. The representation is mathematics. It's the map. What we feel is the territory. It is what we feel. It is only within the field. That's how we know the meaning is within us. It is within the field. It is not in the information. Physics, the information in physics has no meaning. And the problem with the current worldview is that if you start with this type of information, there is no meaning, then you cannot conclude that the universe is without meaning and purpose just because you have started that way. But in fact, if you start with quantum information, people cannot explain why you cannot copy quantum information. Why can I not copy quantum information? Then the new theory says consciousness and free will are foundational. Cannot be explained with anything simpler. But if you start with that, you can explain why quantum physics must be the way it is. Exactly. The up, the again, a, you know, again, the, you know, the silicon gate technology turning around the problem. And you go from here to there instead of going from there to here. And there is collapse of the wave function, which are our free will's decision of the field of the various fields that are interacting and creating this thing that emerges from these fields. The particle is not separable from the fields. It is integral to the fields. Then they forget about it. Then they think of the particle, little ball. The people who study biology think that the cell is classical. It is not classical. Yeah. They think of the rule of large numbers, right? Because quantum effects are on a sort of subatomic particle level, and it filters out, it cancels out, and then we have the classical world. Which is out. Inside the cell, they work together to create these structures that they don't even understand that that is going on right now. They don't understand how this cell works as a totality. You know, we are instructed not to understand, and we are going through blinders. We don't understand. I mean, there is, for example, about 10 years ago, you know, so a few, a few physicists and biologists, but people with strong knowledge of physics, started saying, hey, but but, you know, life, there must be something quantum in life. Oh, forget it. Not possible. Okay. And they were ostracized. And, you know, eventually, there is a very small circle, you know, quantum biology is called now. People that's trying to understand life as a quantum phenomenon. They are still ostracized, but at least now they have some money to do research. But for 10 years, it was like, you know, everybody knows the, you know, I mean, these dogmas of the sort of the orthodoxy of science, you know, are impeding us to really make progress, you know. And it's time to stop this. But, you know, there is a strong desire for the, you know, for this orthodoxy to keep this materialist and reductionist framework that has shown that it's no longer valid. Everybody knows. I mean, people, they really think, but they don't want that because it's power. And how, but, but, but if we go back, I really like when you talk about sort of, because I think that's the real nuts and bolts. We go into the eukaryotic cell, and we see the proteins, we have the DNA, we have all the action going on in a cell, which is tremendously complex. But we think we can reduce it to first principles because we know what those molecules do to each other, and then it's just a rule of large numbers, which will give us sort of the action of the cell and will build up to the organism. But you're saying that on that level, quantum effects are playing a role, which make action within the cell indeterministic and even a free will decision?
Absolutely. But the free will decision is not in the cell. It's in the fields that control the cell. See, I was mentioning before, right, that a particle like an electron doesn't exist separate from the fields. It's a state of the field. From physics' point of view, ontology is in the field. It's not in the particles because the particles, you know, are integral to the field. So they come and they go. If a particle existed, it wouldn't disappear, right? But an electron can appear and disappear. But it is a state of a field that appears or disappears. There is nothing more. The part, there is no particle. But physicist, the particle physicist, but I see the particles. No, you don't see the particles. You see the effect of the state of the field on this classical world, and then you see something. But that is not a particle. That is the effect of something that was amplified and, you know, huge number of times to give you what you call a particle.
And to clarify this for people, when we talk about quantum and classical, the classical world is the world of matter that we know that seems to behave deterministically. And the quantum world, of course, is a world of probabilities, of multiple states being possible at once. And how exactly do they relate? If you say quantum-classical, so what bit of our body is classical? Of course, my body, it doesn't evaporate while I'm sitting here. So that would make it classical. But my thoughts are quantum? Yes.
Okay, so first of all, there is no clear boundary between classical and quantum. In other words, we again want to put things into boxes. That's the first mistake. There are no separate boxes. One is holistic. The reality, deeper reality, is holistic, means it's not made of separable parts. And it's not made of separable concepts, which is even deeper. So even true or false is an approximation of reality, valid under certain conditions, like one and zero are valid for a certain temperature and pressure of the computer. If you change the temperature, it doesn't work anymore because that distinction can no longer be valid. In a world where there is continuity, there is everything is connected with everything else. So, but we don't want that world because you cannot control that world. So the problem now is a problem of power and control behind this desire to have a deterministic and reductionistic world, which is the materialist philosophy, which is it's time to abandon that because quantum physics already saying that that doesn't work. You know, according to quantum physics, the universe is holistic. It's not made of separable parts. Everything is connected. Everything is connected from the inside. But according to most physicists, there is no inside because every, you know, they think that all that exists is actually what you can measure. But that is not possible. Nobody can understand why quantum computers work because their actual operation cannot occur in space-time. It must occur in what is called Hilbert space. But Hilbert space is supposed to be a mathematical abstraction. So how can you do operations in an abstract space of mathematics? You see, it's incoherent. But nobody wants to think deeply about this stuff because nobody has ever taught how to think deeply about stuff. They want to solve the problem. Give me the equation. I'll solve the equations. But the equations are created by consciousness. It is consciousness that creates mathematics, not mathematics that creates consciousness. It took me 30 years to figure out that mathematics is created by consciousness, and therefore I cannot explain consciousness with mathematics. And I realized that I was trying to do the same because I was taught that way. I had to turn it around again. Turn it around.
And we can only touch, let's say, but we can touch sort of at the outer surface of consciousness with mathematics. It's our own understanding of ourselves. So would the Schrödinger wave function, which describes sort of the state of a quantum system, is that touching on the outside of consciousness? Is that as close as we can get with mathematics?
Oh, of course, of course. In fact, you know, we have to go way beyond Schrödinger's equation. We had to go into the Roka's equation, but even beyond that, we had to go to quantum fields. So, and quantum information. And quantum information goes beyond the concepts of quantum fields. In fact, the only physicist that's been able to show that quantum physics derives from quantum information is an Italian physicist, Giacomo Mauro Darano, University of Pavia. And it took me 15, 20 years to do that. And it showed that you can derive all the equations of quantum physics from quantum bits. So you remember probably about John Wheeler, you know, it from bit. He had the original intuition that information had to be more profound, more deeper than matter. It from bit. So the bit was deeper, but it should have said it from qubit. But never mind, because the deeper information is quantum information. And Darano and his collaborators proved that you can derive quantum physics from quantum information. Yeah.
So quantum information now becomes the ontology. Based on Darano's work, what would be a way for people to understand what quantum information really is?
Is basically, instead of having bits, you know, arrangements of bits, you have arrangements of quantum bits. A quantum bit, imagine a quantum bit as one of an infinite possibilities that can be represented as a point on the surface of a sphere. So you have a sphere, every point on the surface of the sphere, which would correspond into a direction in 3D, is one of the possible states. So a qubit implies an infinity of states. But when you make a measurement, only you can find zero or one. So, and you cannot, when you make a measurement, you disturb this quantum bit. So you don't, you basically, you disturb it in the direction in which you make the measurement, and you get zero or one. And that's it. Yeah. In any direction that you measure, you get zero or one. But you don't get zero one repeatedly. You get it with some probability. So, so the quantum physics doesn't tell you what the next state is. It only can tell you the probability of all the possible states that you can measure. So in the case of a quantum bit, it tells you, if you measure in this direction, let's say, it tells you the probability that you get a zero or one. But it doesn't tell you that you get a zero or one. So the fundamental difference between quantum physics and classical physics is that quantum physics is indeterminate, meaning it doesn't tell you, it only can tell you probability. But not the probability of what you will measure. No, the probability of all the possible things you can measure. Okay. And the, to go from this probability field to what you will measure, there is no physics. There is the collapse of the wave function. It's just a way of saying that we don't know, basically. You go from, you have an interaction between the fields and an instrument that does a measurement, and somehow in this interaction, you get one state. But, but that state that you get, you can only know the probability, and you don't know how you get that state. Not only that, but we know that that state is random. But also their randomness is not algorithmic. It is beyond algorithms. And that's the rub. That's where, that's where free will is in this theory. With Darano, we say free will is what is happening. What we call collapse of the wave function is a free will decision of the field of whatever particle you're measuring. And because that's interesting, because I always thought, because the rule of large numbers, when we do quantum measurements over and over, a thousand times, then we get again a probabilistic, sorry, a deterministic world, because you then just get a wave function that will give you certainty. But inside the cell, you only get one. You do one thing at a time. You don't repeat the things. Yeah. Now I get it. That's crazy. That's crazy. Um, let's try and really understand this. Okay, classical information is information we can share because it's like a written word that we can kind of show around. I cannot show around what I'm feeling right now to all of you. So the moment I speak a word, I've made a feeling I had, I've turned it into classical information.
That's right. You take something which is private, that cannot be reproduced, can only be represented by quantum information. But the representation is not what you feel. The representation of reality is not reality. A theory of reality is not reality. Okay. So what you feel, only you feel. Not the body. You, the field, can actually know. And you know inside. And what you can say about what you feel is a small part of what you feel. Olivos theorem, one bit per quantum bit. And the quantum bits are entangled, so they have states in common. The bits don't have states in common. Zero or one. There is nothing else. But quantum bits may have states in common, meaning that the probability, the two probabilities are connected. And to show this connection, you cannot do. You have to describe the quantum state in Hilbert space, which is an N-dimensional space with complex dimensions, where the dimensions are complex numbers. You know, it's just enough to give you a headache, right? But that's what you need. You cannot represent them in this way. So what does it mean that there is a deeper reality where the feelings and the fields exist? The meaning of information exists? That, and from that world, you have this world that is a classical world where you can get classical information. And we think that the only world, that world that exists, is this world. But this world we have constructed with our bodies, and it's a way to look at it. I think you have this metaphor yet in in Silicon. Would it be like consciousness being the field writing a book, and the book itself is our space-time dimension, our body sitting here? Or a film recording a film and showing it? The film shown on the screen of perception.
Yeah, but but the book emerges into into this three-dimensional reality. But but the writer of the book is in a deeper, vaster reality, not in the book. It's not in the book. And my body here, my body here is a sentence in that book. The body is a symbol. It's a symbol of a complexity which is unfathomable for now. Okay, people will find this, um, crazy idea. It is crazy, but it is, it is much closer to the truth than what you get from the scientism. Yeah.
Because that I wanted to ask, if we, it's crazy, but quantum theory is crazy. So if we have the other explanation, if we don't want to go to consciousness, if we say, no, it's still matter all the way down, how then, where do we then end up with in interpreting quantum mechanics? Then we have to go like many worlds, or how?
There is no interpretation that anybody can agree on for 100 years. No, I mean, this problem has been discussed for 100 years, and there is no interpretation whatsoever about quantum physics. Couldn't we say there's a multiverse with everything possible being possible in other dimensions?
Yeah, but but but does it explain anything? What, what is it explaining? When I say consciousness and free will must be taken as foundational as a postulate, okay? But why do I say that? Because postulates ought to be self-evident. The condition to accept the postulate is a self-evident. Why is a self-evident? Because you and I are conscious. You and I know that we have limited, but we have free will. Limited, but we have it. So we know already that. How can you explain free will and consciousness with something that doesn't have either? You cannot explain it. How can you explain consciousness with math when it's consciousness that created math? When can you explain free will with something that doesn't have free will? You see, it's foolish to think that you know that you can explain, you know, more with less. And today we talk about emerging properties. You know, we explain everything with emergentism. What does it mean emergentism? How can you get more with less? You cannot. You can be, you can get less from more. You can get determinism from indeterminism. You can get unconsciousness from consciousness, not the other way around. And that's so simple and so common sense. But science doesn't want to go there. Why scientism doesn't want to go there? Because you lose your power. Because if I know the equations, I'm more than you. And that's not acceptable. Because nobody knows the equations. Because they're in. There is no equations that describe free will. Free will is an act that no laws can tell what the free will can give you. And people want to predict the future. Their safety is in the prediction of the future. Their sense of power is in prediction. The future, you cannot predict the future because it's based on free will. No, nobody wants to go there right now. But that's the only way to go to be safe from this idea that we are machines and the artificial intelligence will best us.
Your postulate of free will, you experience free will. Isn't that just an illusion? I mean, does free will truly exist, or is it something we think we have?
Why do people that say this? You have to ask them, why? Why do you insist that there is no free will? What do you get by insisting that there is no free will? Think deeply about that. What do you get by thinking that there is no free will? That you do not have any free will? Why do you want that? And if you answer that question, they have to answer that question. But if they answer that question, they will find out more about themselves. And eventually, they will have to agree that they have a hidden desire to control, to have power, because they know the equations. They know more than you. That's the point. I mean, I was there. I was, you know, I had taken the same courses. I learned the same physics. And if I did not have this experience that told me that I'm more, I couldn't be here saying these things. But now I can. You know, with this experience, I was able to invert our understanding and pointing the way to a different way to understand. So, you know, if it will be found to be, but don't say there is just because you don't want to even think about it. And that's the problem today. People, the first time they hear a wrong, a wrong word from them, they shut off and not, you know, they don't even want to think about it. But actually, the reason why we know is because we're conscious. The reason why we know is because we're conscious. Because consciousness is what allows us to know. Computers don't know. It's foolish to think the computers understand. They don't understand. There is no meaning in the bits. The meaning can only be quantum. Can only be something that exists in the fields. It doesn't even exist. Existing quantum information. Quantum information can only represent what we know is meaning. You see, mathematics stops there for now. But there is a new math to be developed to go from qualia, qualia, which is sensations and feelings, that can be represented by quantum information. Quantum information cannot represent the meaning. They represent the qualia, that's all they can do, which is how we feel. But qualia is the beginning of the inner journey. Qualia are the bringers of meaning. And we look for meaning, first comprehension, and then meaning. Comprehension gets you to meaning. Meaning is the essence of comprehension. Meaning is what you get after you got it. You know, I got it. I understand it now. That's beyond comprehension. Your comprehension is a path to meaning. And meaning is the ontology. The ontology is in the meaning, in the experience, and what we feel, and what we know from within, not outside.
If you say meaning is the ontology, so meaning is what ultimately exists in our universe?
Yeah. Yeah. But in order to make it more understandable, I start with a postulate. I start this all basic reframing with the postulate because I'm joining science and spirituality. I'm joining the outer and the inner. Science is about the outer world, but meaning, experience, consciousness, free will is about the inner world. And right now, they are separate. There is the spiritual people that, you know, think that this exists. But, you know, physics, you know, the scientist say that doesn't mean. These guys look at those guys, say matter doesn't care. You know, so there is this separation now between science and spirituality. This way of thinking brings them together. They integrate them. Don't just oppose them. They integrate. They become one. They become one. So how do we start? So if we want to start like a new theory, I start with a postulate because you had to. Because you can never, you can never start with something that is true because you have shown to be true. You have to start with postulates. Even in math, you start with postulates taken to be true. And they had to be self-evident.
Your ground assumption. Ground assumption. But but that ground assumption has to be self-evident. The ground assumption of quantum physics, they are so self-evident that you have to study 10 years before you say, oh yeah, they are evident. Not self-evident. They are evident after 10 years. So they don't pass the test of self-evidence to me. Okay, now I'm going to tell you a postulate that is self-evident. One, the totality of what exists. One, the totality of what exists has three properties: dynamic, dynamic means it's never the same instant after instant. It's holistic, means it's not made of separable parts. And so far, I have described the universe described by quantum physics. Yeah, as all this three, you know, it's all the resist dynamic, holistic. I add one more thing: one wants to know itself. One wants to know itself. Now, this comes from perennial philosophy. "Know thyself" was in the, you know, in the Delphic temple, you know, it was part of the, you know, part of the Greek, some of the Greek philosophers. But the Vedas were saying the same thing. All the basic experiences of the deeper, the people that went deeper into the understanding of reality come to the same general conclusion that there is one that has those properties and wants to know itself. If I look within myself, what do I want to know? When I was suffering, who am I? Why am I here? Why am I suffering? That's what it means, I want to know myself. So we all want to know ourselves. We all deep down. Then we forget about it because we can do nothing about it. So we go, you know, we go, we try to solve the problem by going outside ourselves, and then we lose ourselves, like I did. And then, you know, so if we start there, as it, you know, is it self-evident? It was, it is self-evident to me. And if you think a little bit, it's self-evident to you that that's what you want. Okay. So wanting means free will. Because if you are a machine, what, what do you want? As a machine, the next state of the machine is already defined by the algorithm. What do you want? Doesn't make any sense. I don't want anything. But the question doesn't even make sense. There are no questions to a machine. There are only answers to a machine. So, and to know itself, one must be conscious. Because conscious is what allows one to know itself. So you have defined free will and consciousness. And why are those self-evident? Because you are conscious and you have free will. And I am conscious and I have free will. So more self-evident than that, what is there? And if I start there, I can explain quantum physics by that postulate. I can explain what physicists in 100 years have not understood. Quantum information is the representation of inner experience, and the collapse of the wave function is the representation of my free will. What more do you want?
I think it's a great theory because in bridging, as you say, science and spirituality, the two are thought very distinct and very separate, right? Because the, um, well, it makes me think I interviewed Donald Hoffman, who you know, right? I think your foundation supports his work, for about five years. And he said something that stuck with me, that he said that all these spiritual traditions that, in a sense, are saying what you are saying, that consciousness is fundamental, one wants to know itself, and then we have all the incarnation stories of the gods who incarnate, etc. So we know those stories. But the fact that they've always remained so elusive, so mystical, he said, is nothing to be proud of. We should be like more concrete. We have also our rational faculty, we have science. So we now need to approach this with our sort of scientific mindset. So is that what you're trying to do here?
What is more concrete than what I just said? Yeah. And can it lead? I mean, you know, now with, if you start here, we can show the science that, that not science, the quantum physics out of which everything else emerges. In fact, quantum information, because the quantum state that is representation of our experience is what then eventually determines the outer world. Okay, so I show that by starting with the, with something that is kind of, haha, you know, but it doesn't get you anywhere. Actually, it needs the physics that exists. And now from there, we go. We already solved the other problems. I'm not changing anything of physics. I'm reinterpreting completely what physics has been talking about. What do you want more? Is that, is that Dawn wants to explain consciousness with mathematics? And you can't do that because consciousness creates mathematics. I wanted to do the same thing for many years, and then I found out that I was wrong. That it is consciousness that explains math. And therefore, you go from consciousness to math. You cannot go from math to consciousness. Because where does math come from otherwise? Is what, who created math? God? What, come on. Yeah. How does math exist? It's our creation in human mind. You bet.
Fedo, you have, it was your intuition that led to your inventions that have changed the world. I think it's fair to say that, or helped change the world. Now you have this grand intuition, your theory about consciousness. How can this also lead to technology or to something tangible? Can it be tested? Is it falsifiable?
Of course, it is. In fact, the next step for is to now that I have a theory which is absolutely perfect in meaning, it can be falsified. It can make, you know, predictions, and you can test the prediction. Can you name one?
Oh, yes. I can predict you know, the trees are conscious. And I can make experiments that show that trees are conscious. Okay. And trees have no brain. So consciousness that is supposed to be coming off our brain, it comes off a tree that has no brain. Look at that. What do you think of that? It's amazing. Yeah. Is this being done? I will do that. Yeah. I cannot tell you how because I, you know, I have to prove it. And don't worry about it. I will do that. And, um, [Laughter] all right. Okay. Trees are, yeah. But you actually have a, a method, a scientific method of of testing this?
Yes. I will not, not discuss it any further. I will say, you know, would you agree with me that if I do that, I have disproven the consciousness is a product of the human brain or of the animal brain? Definitely. Is that good? All right. I will do that. That's a deal. Then you have proven that it takes cells, right? Then we are sort of on a cellular level. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. I would prove that. Yeah. You're sure of that? Absolutely. Take me to task. I'll get it. I can guarantee you that I will get it. The something that people say they don't, they cannot say anything. They will not have any objection anymore. See, entanglement took over 30 years to prove that entanglement exists after the first experiment showed it exists because people didn't, scientists didn't want entanglement. Einstein didn't want entanglement. So everybody, you know, Einstein, how can Einstein be wrong? So for 50 years, you could do the experiments, okay? Finally, when you could do experiments, the first experiment that proved that Al Aspe with got the Nobel Prize three years ago, four years ago, was anyways, he did that. Okay, then, oh, you did wrong. You couldn't do, you know, blah, blah, blah. It took more than 30 years after that to, you know, cancel all the objections, you know, show that the objections were not valid, and finally everybody now has to accept that there is entanglement. But nobody can explain it. Entanglement is what connects everything from the inside. It's what allows the world to be holistic, which is already what quantum physics is saying. Yeah.
Are you predicting, I mean, many people think of AI as sort of an invention that you were at the birth of, right, with your work on neural networks? That's, yeah, back in the 80s, second part of the 80s. Yeah. People now think that AI will cause a paradigm shift. What, what's your response to that? Do you think that AI?
No, only this theory will cause a paradigm shift. And not because I'm, it's a theory that I developed, but only by changing the understanding of who we are, can change a paradigm. In fact, the paradigm ends with AI. This paradigm of scientism ends with AI because AI is saying we machines will be better than us, which is crazy. Why does anybody want AI despite that? Why does anybody want AI to be better than us? But AI cannot be better than us because creativity is non-algorithmic. It's not changing things randomly. And, you know, because besides, even if AI gives you a good idea, AI doesn't know that it is a good idea. You recognize the good idea of AI. Still needs your consciousness, with your understanding, with your comprehension. And that's why AI can help us. And I applaud what has happened with AI, but not the AI bests us, and not the way AI, unfortunately, will be used to monetize us. That's not acceptable.
I agree. I agree. I think you would also fully agree to this quote by Nikola Tesla, right? The, he has this famous saying that the moment science will start studying consciousness more, will be achieved in a decade than in the whole history of science.
Absolutely. Because we change the way we are. You know, thoughts are more important than stuff, right? I mean, from the inside, you get the outside, not vice versa. And science doesn't recognize the existence of the inside because consciousness is a phenomenon of the brain. The brain makes decisions that inform your consciousness. We don't know what it is, but it doesn't have any causal power. So who cares? Once we people are convinced that there is that we are conscious, that we are fields, that when the body dies, we don't die. I mean, that's good news, right? I mean, you know, people want you to discharge your consciousness and experience in the computer and live forever, for Christ's sake. I mean, you know, you know about transhumanism? I mean, you know, I mean, why do we need to do that? Besides, you need to have a lot.
Of money to pay for a billion years of electricity to keep you alive in a computer. So this is only a good recipe for very rich people, right? To live forever on a computer. You know, the computer sucks energy, right? So to make you live forever, you have to have a lot of money before you die to give to people that tell you that you continue to die. Are you sure that you will be continued to die in a computer? You know, a thousand years later?
I, I fully agree. Where could this, where could this lead to? If that Tesla quote is true, if we would fully dedicate ourselves in trying to understand consciousness with your theory, even build technology with it, where could we be in a decade? I mean, could we break out of spacetime? Could we sort of live forever? What, what are once you understand that that consciousness is beyond matter, beyond this space and time? We already know that we can explore this world by going out of body with our consciousness, and millions of people, they go out of body, explore other realities. Consciousness is the tool for knowing, infinitely more powerful than any instrument that we have ever built. We build billions of dollar instruments to find out what the particles, you know, are doing. But consciousness is far, far richer. So we, we basically then can begin to explore the universe, the invisible universe, the invisible. What mystics and, and sort of, uh, sages and, and, and in religions have been doing for thousands of years. But also a bit in a way that sometimes led to, um, the waging of wars because people want again, sort of, um, use it for for politics. Can we transcend that then? What is the ultimate dream you have for society?
But when you understand who you are, you know that the only way to work together is cooperation, not competition. Today, there is only competition. Today, the purpose of life is the survival of the fittest. Is there anything worse than that as a purpose of life? Besides, if you ask me, how do you define fitness? The only definition that would give you is, oh, fitter is the one that survives. So what kind of a law is that? The survival of the what survives? I mean, it's, it's tautology. It's not even, it's, it's not even informative. So we believe, but, you know, that that definition of life is so wrong because it basically impedes you to be cooperative, impedes you, impedes us to work together to understand. But once you have a direct experience of who you are, when you are the observer and the observed, you know directly who you are. And when you know that, you know that only cooperation is the game. We have to work together. That's the only way. So competition will die off just by that experience. I cannot be competitive after that experience. It is impossible. You know, competition, this, this, not the competition. The competition that is allowed is that competition that allows me, not not me to win, me to be better than what I was the day before. Yeah, exactly. Because only competition that makes wants to know itself. And it's only one. Then also, uh, you're competing with, with one. Is one? Yeah. But that's not competition. There is, there is actually the, the urge to self to be more than you were.
If we have one on the ultimate level, and in, in, in the quantum fields, in unified field, right? How then do we have, uh, how do we get to the many? How do we get to sort of on a still on a quantum level, you, you call, you talk about Saties, right? How does one get to different or gazillions of Saties? Yeah. So, so if we start from that, uh, principle, that that postulate, then one, you know, one wants to know itself, right? So the moment that one knows itself, he has to know completely itself because it's not made of parts. It cannot know a part of itself. He has to know the totality of itself. But to know itself, he has to, you know, he has a flash. It cannot happen in different times. It has to happen in an instant that knows itself to in its own totality. In that instant, it creates a part-hole of itself, just like a meiosis, right? The splitting of. Absolutely. That's where life takes form. Life is the reproduction of one. It's so fundamental that it is the reproduction of one. One knowing itself creates another one. Part-hole, though, because it creates many. So it cannot be the totality. So it cannot copy itself. But it creates what it saw, what he got, what he understood itself to be. That's the identity of the field. The one is created. It's not a copy, you say? But it is a part-hole. It's, yes, one is looking at itself in one direction, and one is infinite direction in which he can know itself. The next time that he looks itself in a different direction, is another part-hole, is another monad. Leibniz, got it, right? Leibniz was the only philosopher, scientist, mathematician, technologist. I mean, it was an incredible mind. He got it right. He understood that. But it was before quantum physics. It was, you know, it was way before, you know, we could make sense of it. But he got it right. And I call him, you know, before I knew, you know, of, because I didn't study philosophy. I got into what philosophers have been saying by inner experiences and then thinking about it, trying to understand them scientifically, and understanding rationally. And I found that many people have said the same things that that I came up through this process, to this inner process, not by reading books and repeating what I read.
So the Sati, that is sort of the Sati, is what I call. I call a field that is conscious and has free will and wants to know itself. I call him Sati to distinguish them from the quantum fields, which don't have consciousness, free will, and don't want to know themselves. So, but they have all the characteristics of the quantum fields in, in, in the terms of what you can explain of them based on physics. But they go beyond that because their inner life, you know, is beyond physics. So physics can only explain qualia, which is the entry point to the inner world. But from qualia to meaning, as I said, there is comprehension, then meaning is all new physics. And new physics can, can only go up to a certain point, and then you have to leave even physics. It's got to go to what we now call metaphysics, but it's what can only be known from the inside. But, you know, it will take many centuries to go through. But the, the key thing, though, it shows that physics now is incomplete because it doesn't even allow the inner world to exist. And the, the reason why they struggle for 80 years to, to unify quantum physics and general relativity is because the, the fundamental concepts of time, space, matter, and energy are wrong. Then they're almost right, but they're not exact. You know, not close to the, not so close to the truth that they allow you to bridge those, you know, to bring together into a unified physical field what is now two separate, two separate, you know, one is a set of fields, and the other one is the, you know, spacetime, yeah, and gravity, yeah.
And if we say the Sati is, uh, um, the Sati is who we are. Yeah, exactly. It's who we are, right? And, and, and is a quantum field with, with this characteristic. Yeah, but an identity. The identity is the identity. My identity is how one has seen itself when it created me. Yeah. Oh, exactly. You're like a, a, like a frame at a, the universe. Yeah. Imagine, you know, it's a beautiful way to understand this. Imagine that you have a multi-dimensional thing, okay? Is a multi-dimensional object. Multi-dimensional meaning in N, where N is potentially infinite dimensions. How can you know this object? You can know this object by looking at this object through all the dimensions that are orthogonal, that allow you to look at this object. Each, each look, you see something. Then the next look, you look. So you're doing a tomography, graphy of an N-dimensional thing. So is one doing a tomography on itself? You see, yeah.
And what happens? I mean, for people to understand, what happens when we die? And the Sati, we don't go anywhere because we never were in the body. It's the body that dies. We don't, we don't die, but something, something changes, right? So because the Sati, of course, yeah. The Sati that sees a portion of the Sati called ego, is the portion of the Sati that thinks to be the body. When the body, and so it looks at the information that the body provides about what, about this other world seen through the body. So the, you know, our senses, our brain, you know, takes information from here. But most small part of information. I mean, just just visual, the visual thing that we see, you know, is this narrow band, right? I mean, if I had cell phones instead of eyes, I would actually now be able to listen in to the 30,000 conversations that are going on that are here, here, here, here, here. They're all here, yeah. And I could see them, I could hear them, I could, you know, do this. But I only see this band. There is no, you know, there is no communication in this band. There are other stuff. And we see this world, we construct it with the body. The body, the output of the body, which is in the cells, is quantum. That out, that quantum output is what the fields perceive as color, for shapes, sounds, and so on. The qualia, the qualia do not exist in the body. They exist in the field. And the qualia is this, are representable with quantum state. Quantum state is how the quantum field transforms, translates this information in this, which is I call it live information. It's a type of information that has not been studied at all, not even imagined at all, which is in between quantum information and classical information. It is the, the stuff that makes the cell work. Because if you take an electron, take an electron, an electron is matter, energy, and information. Can you separate these three in an electron? Is it element particles? There you go. So they are connected. They, yeah. And it's like in, in the cells, there's no distinction between hardware and software, right? They are like totally mingled. That's right. In, in a computer, they are separated because a computer is a deterministic, reductionistic structure, yeah. Not a cell, not, not the deeper aspect.
But basically, you're saying, so when the moment I die, the, the everything, consciousness remains, just this narrow-banded avatar, like, uh, VR headset said that expands like? Well, basically, you know, I, I look, I kind of say in the book, uh, irreducible. You know, I, I explained this by saying, imagine that you control a drone. You know, we are a body controls a drone. There is in Afghanistan, you know, watching around and semi-autonomous. So I don't have to worry about to, you know, I only have to, to express where I wanted to go. So high-level language, you know, say move right or whatever, drop the bomb or whatever, you know, because that's what we do with drones in these days. But, you know, so, so, but anyway, so, so now the drone looks at that reality where it is, sends me information, and I get the, I get the conscious experience of what the drone is seeing. That conscious experience is not in my body. It's in my consciousness. And based on that and based on my free will, I tell the drone what to do. The drone doesn't know anything. Now, take this image. Oh, and when they, you know, somebody shoot it down, you know, shoot it down, you know, you were so focused on that drone that you only saw what the drone was seeing because you were piloting it and you were concentrated. Then when the drone doesn't send you, you look around, you say, oh my God, there is another world here. You see, yeah. That's that's the same thing. The ego, the ego, when the body dies, you know, it doesn't look at the signals of the body anymore. And he looks around, oh, I'm, wow, look at this.
And is it then, I mean, is it then are we sitting there then say these level quantum saying, okay, let's go in again. Here's another headset, try this one on. And there we are again, and a baby? And perhaps. But I cannot tell you what happens afterwards. But, but certainly, but certainly there are lots of, you know, near-death experiences that are actually, you know, giving you evidence of what I'm saying. You know, people that arrive at the hospital, heart doesn't beat, brain doesn't have any electrical signals. They are clinically dead. They're not dead, clearly, if they are resuscitated. But, but they are, for all practical purposes, dead, okay? And they have an experience in the hospital. They see themselves in the operating table. They later tell what's going on while the brain has no electric signal, the brain is not functioning. So how can you be outside of the body looking down at your body in the operating table? It cannot be explained, right? But of course, now people say, the scientists say, well, it's a fantasy, come on, it's impossible. So that's it. But that's what they do. Then they move outside of the, you know, they move in a different environment. They meet people, you know, their parents that were dead, and friends that were dead. In some cases, they meet a friend that was dead, that they didn't know that he was dead. Then when they woke up, wake up, they find out that that he died the day before and they didn't know. And they met this person in that reality. Vaster reality. They have an experience of expansion, of love, and joy, and peace. And then somebody tells him, here to go back because you haven't done what you were, what you came to this world to do. And then they wake up in the post.
But in that sort of drone metaphor, trying to understand this, I've always, what sort of, uh, what I had to understand, okay? So if my body is this drone or or avatar or just a headset, then say the moment it dies, what headset are you putting on to have like just hover around and in this, this in-between space? Is that another headset or another? That's a good question. I mean, I, I'm asking that question. And there may be, in fact, it's likely that there is another body. I mean, people that have studied this thing talk about an astral body, exactly, stuff like that, or etheric body. And, uh, you know, so clearly there is another body if this is true. But I believe it's true. I actually went out of body too. So I know that is not imagination. You know that you are a body, like when this energy came out of me, it was energy. It was, it was physical. It was not, you know, it was not imagination. It was physical, like a, like a hydrant. How can I make it up? So there are lots of levels to, uh, to get to one. There are, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I mean, the, the quantum field of electrons is in this theory, is conscious and has free will, and he, and he, and he knows itself. Look at the, you know, and the, then what are the electrons doing? The electrons are the symbols that the quantum field uses to communicate with other fields. All the electrons in the universe, how many electrons are in the universe? 10 to the 82, 83, 85? I don't know, but numbers that are unimaginable. Just the field of electrons, and all these electrons are its communication to the other fields to know itself. How many quantum fields are there or can there be? 17. Yeah.
I'm, I'm asking because people, you also, um, call it Quip, right? Quantum Information Panpsychism. Yeah. And panpsychism is of course, um, I know your version of it is different, but is sort of being criticized for the fact that you have the combination problem. Right? Why? Oh, the, there is no combination problem. The combination problem only in classical psychism. People never have a theory. Nobody had a theory of quantum psychism. The combination problem is not a problem in Quip, in Quantum psychism. When you combine states, quantum states, you create a new state which is more than the sum of the parts. You can do that infinitely. You can keep on doing, keep going. You can keep on going. Of course, you can. So we have solved that problem. And people that, people that that say that they don't understand, they don't understand what they're saying, or they don't understand what we, what we have developed this theory. Quantum, you know, the combination problem is solved completely. Yeah. It's, it's classical psychism that doesn't solve the problem because in classical physics, the, the, the whole is only the sum of the parts. You cannot create a whole that is more than the sum of the parts. And that's why I was criticizing emergentism before, because people, many physicists think that there is emerging, emerging properties in the purely classical world. It cannot be. Emergentism requires quantumness. And they don't realize because there is no boundary between classical and quantum. And so there is a seeing from quantum, you go to classical, and then they call emerging property as if it came from the classical. No, it comes, every creation comes from the quantum world, from the inner world.
Is there an end point to the universe in a sense that can one? No, you already said that the moment it knows itself, it splits off again in another part-hole. So this will keep on going forever in this theory? Yes. Uh, I, you know, but who knows, right? I mean, but, but certainly there is no, you know, there cannot be any end. And the reason is that, you know, that yourself, the more you know there, the more there is to know. Because to know more, you make connections, new connections. And as you make new connections, you open up, you open up other possibilities. So it, it is an explosive thing. And in again, purely this is hypothetical, but I, I think they have possible legs. Why is space expanding faster than light at the edges? You know, because it's basically, there is ever space is like a balloon that that inflates. And this is the very, you know, inflation. No, the inflation was the early part of the universe. This is not called inflation. This is just the, you know, this is just this is a consequence of having found that there is the university is expanding exponentially at the, at the horizon. So which can only be explained if there is a, the, the, the universe is is growing. The space is growing from within. Okay. In, in my model, my model, space is the memory of the self-knowing of one. And because one knows ever more about itself, space must inflate, must grow exponentially. And, you know, that, you know, that quantum states only exist within a very narrow present. So in order to remember your experience, you must put it into long-term memory. That's our theory also is selling that very clearly. So now this present enriches itself of all the past that you have experienced. But when you want to experience the past, you can only experience that in the present. So experience can only exist in the present.
Here you, here you and Bernardo can shake hands as well. And, okay. So free will is fundamental. Consciousness is, and the universe wants to know itself. But does it also create a consciousness, a Sati, in that as a sort of a purpose? Do you think you were born with a certain purpose? Or sort of that? I think so, yeah. I think so. And, and the reason why I am at peace with myself and happy about, you know, my life, what I do, is because I, I know that I'm doing what I came here to do. I know it, you know, because how can I, you know, I wake up with new ideas. Why, you know, but they all connect. All this stuff that I'm talking to you about, you know, it's like my mind keeps on running around, finding where there are holes and in understanding is not complete or whatever, you know. Why am I doing that? It's beautiful. And, and what it sort of rings with me is that that the universe then somehow is thinking, okay, let's look to me because it's one from this different perspective. And let's really do that. Let's become Federico. Let's become Hans. Let's become. That's right. And, and really look at ourselves from that perspective, from that perspective. And then, you know, but then then you and I can know each other, can enter into resonance by communicating. Because I cannot directly give you what I know and what I feel, right? And likewise for you. So we had to communicate. And that communication brings into inner resonance. And if we keep on doing that, after a while, we, if we can create the same state internally, you and I, from that unity of state, then the, just like the quantum superposition, then you get a new entity. But that new entity does not destroy who we are. Basically, we, we can create another society like us, like one creates, because we have the same properties of one, right? Except with one point of view instead of the multiplicity of points of view of one. So I create, I can create another another Sati like myself, but not copy myself. So when the, this, when we reach that, you and I create another society, and the two join, and they become one, which is with the two points of view join, the two points of view, mine and yours, you know, that now become a new combined point of view that now has its own life. And, you know, it proceeds. What that takes, what that takes is like truly connecting. You said coming, becoming into resonance, which is something different than just exchanging classical information, right? Yeah, that's right. But that, that resonance means is a new quantum state. We are building a new quantum state, which is the a common understanding. The common understanding creates a new society of a higher level. So we create higher Saties. So we are a very high level, but there are still many levels above us. And this is where things can take off. Because if we look at the world right now, at AI, we're talking classical information. We're shutting ourselves off behind screens, sharing classical information with our bits. It's not this information you're talking about. Not at all. And, and, and besides, we gave that knowledge to the computer, didn't build it itself. I mean, we we gave him the data, we exposed him to that information, even if it's, oh, in order to do everything by itself, yeah, sure, yeah. Tell me about it. It's all, I mean, and yet it's very useful. So I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm actually happy with if if AI was used properly, it could speed up our, our self-knowing and everything else very rapidly. But I'm afraid that if we don't change, it will not be used in this form. Yeah, that's all. Thank you so much, Federico. Um, my pleasure. Yeah, it's been a great talk. Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. [Music]