The Basement: Danny Goler | The Laser Experiment and the Code Inside

Today I'm talking with Danny Gooler. A few years ago, Danny was on DMT when a being that looked like a frog appeared in his room and taught him guitar chords he didn't know how to play. That's when he became sure DMT beings are real.

The Anunnaki engineered the human race and built the pyramids. Now they've been reassigned to remote guitar lessons. What's next? Conversational Portuguese. Neil point.

So he spent years trying to prove it. Eventually, he shined a cheap red laser at the wall and saw symbols.

A red laser reveals the source code of reality. Every cat on Earth has been chasing that dot for decades. It turns out the vicious little hell beasts were reading human. We got to stop him. We could be setting up the planet of cats. Damn you. Damn you to hell. He calls it the code of reality. Now thousands of strangers have tried it and see in the same code. Today we're covering whether reality is a simulation, his cosmology, and how free will might really work.

Uh, if this is a simulation, I'd like to lodge complaint. Uh, the graphics on my fishbowl haven't gotten a single update since I moved in.

Oh, complaints go in the circular file. And the console, a holographic control panel that opens up in his living room or any room every time he smokes DMT. And other people have seen this console. It's wild. This conversation gets deep, probably too deep for me. But after we talk, I'll come back. I'll break down what I can. I'll verify what I can. And I'll also tell you what I couldn't verify. Let's go down to the basement.

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Danny Gooler, welcome to the basement.

Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.

Um, boy, I don't know where to begin. Actually, I do, but I have a lot of questions for you. I'm excited that you're here. Um, first, what is it like when you're on national television in American Ninja Warrior and you're jumping for the monkey peg and you and you don't land it? What is that? What's going through your mind?

Oh, honestly, that one I didn't feel bad at all because uh that year for some weird reason that first obstacle where you spin with the thing uh it took out most veterans. So I I basically I was one of the finalists. I actually came to Vegas that year. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So but the funny thing is that later uh I I spoke to some climbers and I had no idea. I didn't even train for this thing and they told me, "Dude, you you need to lock your elbows." And I had no idea. And apparently, you know, locking your elbows is the secret, but I was just hanging for my dear life from the beginning. So I was, if you look at that footage, I was holding to like could hold no more. Like my fingers were still holding as I was falling. Uh, and the the one thing that is a little disappointing in that is because the next obstacle was the last one, which was the warped wall, which for me is back then a parkour practitioner for years. I could do it in my sleep, like with my eyes closed. I could just climb it just by stepping up without even running. But I I was still one of the finalists, which was fun. So yeah, the Ninja Warrior was fun. I did a couple of years.

You did a couple of years.

Yeah. Uh so how do you go from um actor parkour free running filmmaker to exploring reality? How I mean I took a lot of detours in life. Let's just call it that. Uh I think I was always it sounds very uh loaded but I think I I think I was born to be a physicist probably and I just never really completed school. Uh but the way that I think and everything that I fold into my framework of the world is I'm approaching everything in terms of what we can know and to what degree which is a very kind of like physicist way of thinking about it. And obviously I'm not placing myself in the same category cuz what is required to actually be a physicist is way more than just an attitude. It's also sitting your ass down for 8 years and knowing things beyond you know.

Um, but uh, so it's not really that weird that I found myself in this found myself in this position to me. Uh, but everything I did in Hollywood was more like let's try it. Like I everything I did in my life I did it that way. The day before I moved to LA from Indiana by the way. Um, I was supposed to go to New York and the last second I just changed my mind. I was like let's go to LA. I've never been there. And that's how and I stayed there for 15 years basically. So everything I did was kind of like when it felt right, I just kind of went for it.

Um, and you know, I've done I was still a very small fish in how it I didn't do anything like on a major stage. I I I rub shoulders with people that are very very successful. Um, but it became very clear to me that that whole world there's glass ceilings that I don't like because I saw like we're not going to mention names when I I met some like actual A-listers and I saw how they have to answer to other people. I mean, it's still very impressive to get to where on that level,

Sure. But it was very clear to me they're not calling the shots and there's there's always like this like kind of like there's only so far you can go. I don't know why it kind of turned me off from that whole world. So, I I you know, I just kind of started exploring other things. And as fate would have it, right around that time, I kind of started stumbling into these ideas that eventually led me to what I'm known for today. I it's I totally agree about Hollywood is the A-listers in order to make it to that level and I tell people this you have to have a certain type of type A cutthroat kind of mentality which I didn't have when I was there and there are you're in glass boxes everywhere constantly answer answering to people agents and managers and that's why this medium is so exciting is because we can just do it ourselves now we don't need anybody

Yeah, yeah, it's the true freedom and I think people should exploit more to be honest.

Totally agree.

Yeah.

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I loved it. in in in 2017, 3 years before the laser, you published contemplations of of meaning.

Wow. You went digging. This was just like a tiny

[laughter]

thing that I wrote for uh almost Yeah. It was for Steam, right? Was Yeah. Yeah. I remember now.

Yeah. I mean, what resonated with me in that essay um which people can go find. It's it's a quick read is how you described creativity as a creative person. and how you described it as rediscovering something that you're not really creating like it was always there and that kind of resonated with me. Is that how you you feel?

I think we're Yeah, I think we're coming back to remembrance. And one time we uh me and my now wife, we went hiking in the Rockies and we throughout the whole hike uh we were thinking about we're basically imagining ourselves in real time as God remembering what it was like when God still, you know, was like all these like different paths that led to it basically. And I was like, what if it's actually what's happening? Like we are one of these memories that God has of whatever reality is. And it it put a different emphasis on everything. Everything was more shiny. Everything was more meaningful and deep. Uh, and also I think our connection grew from that from that interaction. We just started dating back then. So I think there's something to that. I think that ultimately reality rediscovers itself. But on the other hand, I'm I'm I'm totally on board. And I also like the idea that maybe the the cutting edge of what is possible in the universe is as a surprise to it as it is to the node that registers that experience like ourselves. That that's a pretty cool thought as well. Like if you had a novel thought, what if the universe never thought of it either? Like it thought it through you. There's some there's a deep connection there as well.

There is that I I hadn't considered that. That's really interesting. I don't know if you know Eric Warro's work, but he's he's very influential on me. Um, I recommend Time Loops is a great book. You you'd love you'd love this guy.

And he talks about creativity as your future self sending memories essentially back through time that you're premembering this creativity.

That's amazing. Yeah. There's something about there's something about as as as a creative person yourself, you that's that's why it resonates. I feel like cuz the experience of coming up with these creative things is very unique and it's not like anything else. It has a feeling attached to it that that when you have it, you know it, but it's very hard to put your finger on it because it has this like sense of novelty which is you know if you want we can always get into it in the conversation but like that that to me actually is what separates what AIs are doing and what we're doing to my mind actually what we do is that that's the central point. So, but it will always require this kind of an agent like ourselves to have this first initial creative moment and then you can use AIS to actually move it way faster along the chain of you know does it hold water? Does it result in some kind of an automation or something like what results it can bring in the world. So you can accelerate that process, but that first initial creative moment, there's something very unique about it because I do think it comes from some kind of a eternal soup of of everything basically.

Now I have to go off off script.

I have to go off

[laughter]

script because I really like that. Um, so AI at predictive models, LLM as they stand now really can't be creative because they're trained on stuff that's already been invented. So it's nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes nine. Do you think AI will get to the point where it can be creative? And if they can, does it is it sensient?

I don't think so, but I'm willing to be wrong about it. So, there's a this famous uh moment between David Deutsche and Sam Alman when he asks Deutsch about this conviction that he has, which is along the lines of what you just voiced, and I I belong to the same camp. So, he basically Sam asks him, would you be surprised? Would you be willing to concede? I think he said that if it comes up with some kind of a theoretical framework that we really haven't considered before, will it convince you that it can? And Deutsch conceded, yeah, of course. So, I'm in the same camp. If it does something like that, I'm willing to be wrong about it. But my my intuition is that which which is part of a much deeper awareness that I came to, which is that we are that AGI. So, this is what this is. This simulation is the alignment happening. So, we're being aligned basically. And these AIs, they basically internal tools your reflections of what's possible for us. So you can ask it to just answer your emails, but you're missing the point. You you can use it to interact with the with the infinite tapestries of meaning within you faster and in a way that builds a much more coherent picture as a whole. So you can, you know, if if you come up with the right questions, you can actually get to places with it that you couldn't have possibly come without it because this you simply don't have the you don't have the capacity, right? But because it is just as you very correctly said, I think uh it is just the totality of everything that humans currently know.

You now at your disposal in addition to your thought and ideation, you have everything that humans know. You just have to know where to look so to speak. Right. Right.

Yeah. So that to me is the exciting part

with the full admission that if we misuse it and just keep doing it like a do this for me, do that for me then yeah then you're going to get dumber like you actually don't but that will be the indicator of what you are. So like because it is the perfect mirror for us. People always said, "Oh, if I can't just get that genie in a bottle." Right here it is. That's literally the genie in the bottle. anything you want, anything. But you got to the final frontier is your imagination. And most people don't realize that if you get card launch to do anything, that's actually the hardest position to find yourself in.

Sure. What question to ask the genie is hard.

Yeah. Some limitations is actually nice. When somebody gives you some prerequisites of the game, it's actually very relieving and people don't realize it. It's uh I've been uh I've voiced it a few times recently, but I I think it's a really good It was It was kind of mind-blowing to me like the illustration was so simple. It was when Jordan Peterson was on Joe Rogan and he demonstrated it to him in real time. He basically told Joe, "Your turn." And obviously Joe froze, so obviously he was playing a bit of a stick, but it was effective. He said, "Your turn." And then Joe just looked at him like, "Why are we what are we doing? This is stupid." Right? Uh he didn't say anything, but that was his face. And then he's like, "What? Okay, what? What?" Like, "Okay, just tell me." Basically, Joe says, "Okay, I got it. Just tell me the thing." And then Jordan goes, "Well, it's interesting. I just allowed you to play the infinite game. Your turn." And yet, the first thing your brain is doing is looking for the rules. You You want me to tell you what are we doing, right? So, he said, "The number of rules for ultimate freedom is not zero." I thought it was very profound. And I think there's something there. So, it's almost like it's trying to teach us how to be less and less constrained constrained by different factors and still come up with something creative to do next. That's really what is being tested here, I think.

Does this tie into your your two game theory about the puzzle versus the finite versus the infinite?

The the finite versus the infinite, the collaborative versus the competitive. Yeah, they're basically the same thing. So like if you it expresses itself. So the infinite has to be expressed in games that can survive for longer periods of time. And my proposition is that the competitive game is awesome. It's very energizing but it's energizing in small bursts.

That's the finite game.

Exactly. You are it within a a a closed set that game makes sense. within an open set, that game stops making sense because you have to rely because part of the first game, the the competitive game, part of it sometimes ag part of the game is trying to eliminate other agents and just throw them off the board. You can't trust that for thousands of years.

No.

But if you're part of a species that is energized and is excited by the collaborative prospect just for the sake of that, just like, oh my god, I'm going to show up this morning. I'm going to work with these amazing people. we're going to build this insane structure in space or go to another planet. Yeah, it's going to take 2,000 years, but we're working towards it, right? So that if that's the attitude that is that is pumping through the veins of a civilization of that kind, then all of a sudden you can trust the game and you can trust it indefinitely. And I also think this is why these concepts of alignment have to include that part which is why kind of you know ethics and all of these kind of like the ten commandments like just the moral framework is so important because the way we're trying to solve the alignment problem currently in AI research is that we're basically trying to say I call it infinite um uh ethical whack-a-ole.

Well let me slow you down the alignment problem just define that for the audience.

Yeah. So, so in AI research there's something called the alignment problem which is basically how do you make sure that Claude or Chad Gap don't just squash us when they become Skynet. Right. Right.

Um

and then the way they're trying to go about it is that ethical whackamo I'm mentioning which is like you just you try to target a specific situation. uh the reason it's not sustainable and not realistic to solve that way because just like with the genie in a bottle if you solve this thing three other things that you didn't foresee because of it will pop up and that will be a problem right the reality of it is that in an infinite universe for all intents and purposes you have infinite kinds of scenarios that can arise and you can't possibly predict all of them so the only thing you can rely on is you need to create some kind of a framework or a system or a simulation that trains good people because the definition of a good person is someone who to the best of their ability considers more than just themselves in that particular situation. They just think and the extent to which they include more and more than just their own agency. They would I would define them as better and better people, right? Because you can trust that kind of attitude. What you're essentially asking isn't like how can I think of all the possible scenarios that can go wrong and solve them in advance? That's impossible.

Mhm.

How do you create an agent that cares enough to actually be an awareness of how these things can go wrong and then try and steer the other way, right? Not just for themselves, but for others.

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So I think that's essentially the kind of simulation we're in and and all of a sudden all of these you know uh the I guess religious and spiritual ideas all of a sudden make sense like yeah like if you don't pass that alignment problem you don't become you don't reformulate yourself as the whole we're all one and all that stuff and you don't actually get to play the bigger game and there's stages to this like even within our universe I think that the reason that the distances between stars are so enormous are exactly for this reason that even before you get to play in some multi-dimensional game or whatever even just in our physical universe is like here's all this real estate that you can see how do you get there and right now we're only thinking about it in terms of technical problems what I don't think we realize that in order to actually solve that you can't just solve the technical problem you also have to solve the interpersonal problem because that would allow you to step into the collaborative game but not in a performative sappy kind of way but in a real way and then all of a sudden the kinds of technologies required to do that would probably be a piece of cake cuz even the ideation would be collaborative

y and I think that's when the mind this is where all this kind of unification goes but you can't get there unless you're willing to unify if you're acting out of fear out of lack again all of these like very kind of like chewed up spiritual concepts that float around now but they're true like if if you don't get there you simply don't get to play that bigger game

totally get it Um, and I think I think AI is going to help us with that. And uh, a little bit later I want to talk to you about uh your your thoughts and theories on cosmology. Before we get there, um, you're born in Moscow, raised in Israel, served in the military.

Mhm.

Then LA. We're thinking about New York,

Indiana, then LA.

Ind Indiana. LA. So when someone asks you where you're from, what do you say? America. There's There's actually never It's weird because I never felt like I belonged and I never really felt a sense of home or even the feeling of just like being a part of anything. Uh I wasn't like a I definitely had issues with authority, but it wasn't to an extent of like, you know, rebellion, you know, on on like very extreme levels. I did get in trouble with the law a little bit when I was younger, for sure. But like it wasn't like on, you know, on like crazy levels. But America was the first place ever. Well, I remember when I became an actual citizen, when I actually became an American and got naturalized, I I don't remember the last time I felt so much elation.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. So, so it is a little uh painful for me to watch how many Americans uh don't like this country because maybe because I had to make an effort to be here. Uh there's nothing that I'm more proud to be a part of and more proud to call myself than an American, which is something that is not very it's not trending right now, but I but that that's a that's a real feeling in me. So

it's trending. It's trending with me. Um, I didn't expect you to say that.

Yeah.

I I I thought we were going to go back. I thought you were going to say Israel. That's really nice that you consider yourself an American. I'd love to

No, I sorry I'm cutting you off. That that's important for me to say. So like obvious for the obvious reasons with everything that's going on right now, it's kind of you know it's very painful to watch because of the amount of lies that I see being propagated online.

Yep.

On but for fairness there's a reason why I left Israel. It wasn't the reason that most people would that hate Israel currently think that it is because it isn't almost none of those things. But there is some cultural things that I'm I don't jive with. Like there's just it just I don't feel like I belong to that kind of way of seeing things. Can you give an example without

Yeah, people people are definitely very rude very often. Um, there's this kind of like uh

bravado that you can say that is arising from the stress of the situation of being in that in that position.

That makes sense.

Which I can understand.

Sure.

Um

you're always on edge.

Always on edge. um in actually, it's it's it's such a difficult thing to outline because you h you kind of have to be there to understand it. There's nuances there but there is a lot of uh aggression towards one another but the and this is where it kind of like gets very dicey because the aggression the aggression is not of the bloodthirsty kind that people kind of imagine, right? It's like a very kind of like interpersonal low-key thing that does can get a lot like on a personal level and at the same time somehow the reverence for life and helping each other and helping even people that are you know you sometimes consider enemies is unparalleled like literally it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world and that's a very difficult thing to outline so I usually stay away from this part of the conversation because I see that the emotional charge around it is just too great for people to be able to observe any real information about it.

Um, true.

The what?

That's true.

Yeah. So, but for me, I'm I'm, you know, I'm hopeful about the world because I do think that

ultimately the only thing we can do is the best from where we're sitting right now. So, me worrying about like what is the ultimate state of affairs, it it's kind of like worthless because there's nothing I can do about certain things. But in the little pockets that I do occupy in my day-to-day, I try to do my best to, you know, promote the kind of behavior that I would love to see in others. And I do everything I can that none of it is performative. That that's really important. Very often people act a certain way without being that way. And I think that is one of the more corrosive uh parts of how we do things today because online everything is so you know inviting the performance part of it.

Yep.

But I think that there is a way to drop more into the present moment and the body and the one-on-one to see what it actually is like to just truly care about the immediate experience with another human.

So let me ask you cuz in uh researching your work I see duality in you and tension everywhere. Um, in a good way. In a good way.

No, I don't.

In a good way. So, when you talk about performance, you're an actor, filmmaker, all of that.

Do you ever find yourself,

this is not a snarky question because I'm also an actor.

Do you ever find yourself in a performance and you have to kind of

check yourself and and and like dial it back?

No, not anymore.

Not anymore. But you used to. Uh I think to the to any degree that what the thing is that so the thing that needs to be outlined here is that everybody does it to certain degrees they're not aware of yes and only when you do become aware of it became clear to do that you were performing

so to the extent that I can observe in myself um and medit meditation had a big part of it is because it's easier to actually how you practice how to actually notice yourself to deeper and deeper degrees um there's a certain flow flow state that is associated with actually just being here truly

and willing to air out your thoughts truthfully in that moment even if it comes off the wrong way. And the more you practice to do that and trust it, it doesn't always go well by the way, but the more you do that and you realize, oh, I was not demolished by this, the easier it is to do. And that's the tool that I've I've found to that is the most effective. So very often I would like come up with a um let me think of if I can think of an example. Well here's the thing like for example it it that example is a little um broad but it but everybody can associate with this. Very often in a conversation it all of a sudden become becomes clear to you like what how you can potentially either omit certain information or just steer the conversation in your favor. And even not even in ways that are conniving or like it's just like I don't have to go there and I just won't. But at the same time, you know that maybe the other person would actually benefit from going there. If I assessed it inside of myself before, I wouldn't enter that part because why do I need to bother right now? I will.

Now you will.

Yeah. If I feel like it truly is and I don't necessarily want to spend the energy or the time, obviously I have to assess would I have that energy. But if I feel that truly the person would benefit from this, even though I have no idea how we're going to navigate this, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to burn the boats. I'm just going to say it right away before I have the time to like assess like should we, should we not, I will just say it. And then there's you're here now. Now you have to talk about it. And then so things like this and then and then eventually over time it became clear to me what is the the truly kind of beneficial thing in a lot of these instances. So to the extent that I can muster in that moment I am trying to be a good person in the same definition I used before trying to consider more than just myself in that moment but truly like and I don't even care if the person will understand that that's what's happening. I know that I know that that's what I was doing. Uh, and then if it goes in the wrong direction, then you learn from that and you say, "Oh, interesting. Okay, well, maybe not always bringing everything else like and then you just keep dialing it in." But it it is it it does imply more more emotional pain sometimes than you necessarily have to go through.

Well, yeah. What would what would interactions be like if everyone did this?

I think a lot better.

You do?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I We're not talking about just like saying the thing. It it has to also come with an understanding of what the person is. It it takes some practice. People who say things like, well, I'm just being real. It's like, well, no, because the other part of being real is also considering trying to discern the person the person's readiness to hear certain things. And if you if you've done none of the work to try and figure it out, it's not their job to all of a sudden to all of a sudden handle certain levels of understanding if they never even thought about that. Now, you just shattered their world, right? So like you did you did you didn't do any service for no one like you you just felt like it was for you. You wanted to feel a certain way.

That's right.

And this is and this is why it's such a it's such a difficult So this it's it's a very difficult ground to to walk on because the truth of it is truly just in the moment which sounds you know super kind of cheesy but but it's true. Like it it really is just in that moment and in no other moment. like the truth about whatever this exact moment would look like with a slightly different person in a slightly different time can be radically different.

Sure.

Because of whatever exactly in that moment, not just, you know, in the grander scheme of things.

So, it is I I would consider it to some degree an art.

Uh, and I think some people are naturally better at it than others. I was definitely not good at it. I I got I think I had some disabilities of of I don't know if disability is the right word, but I I had some tilt to my cognition in such a way that I would I would constantly step on someone's toes without realizing it. Something would go wrong in a social setting and I wouldn't understand what just happened.

I'm not good at this.

Yeah.

I'm not I'm not good at this.

Yeah. And then I learned that that if I if I can just put my honest best foot forward, somehow things started working differently and I noticed it. I noticed like people relax. I was like, "Ooh, why did they relax? What happened?" I think there's something very deep inside of us that recognizes predatorial attitudes. And sometimes people don't even realize that they carry predatorial attitudes. So for example, I had a case where I grew up and I had a pretty like you know childhood was not very it was fine like I wasn't like you know there was definitely some stuff that people would nowadays call like things reasons for trauma but nothing on the level of like your parents being addicted to heroin or anything like that but there's definitely a lot of pain that came from some things in the childhood that then later I saw were translating to a very aggressive attitude towards others which was just a defense mechanism cuz I realized is the second you go violent, people respect and then they just back off. Right?

So then that was my safe space. And then one day a really good friend of mine who I've now known for 30 years, he pulled me to the side one time because we had to do we were we were working in the same company and he basically pulled me aside and he said, "Hey man, I I just I have to bring it to your attention. When you talk to people, they're literally afraid of you." And that hurt me so deeply because that's the it's such an isolating especially when you're not trying to be if you're trying to be a mobster that's a great thing if somebody tells you that right it's like oh good but I was so I was trying to connect so imagine you trying your best to connect with people and what comes out of it because I was basically talking to them like that you know and it was like this very kind of like just I'm watching you it was a lot of that right but for me it was I didn't feel like I was doing that so imagine what a shock that was to hear You must have really trusted him to make I mean you made a life change there.

Yeah. I mean it was it was very hurtful. It was very painful but he did me a huge solid and I and I realized oh wow okay so the and and it was it was right before I really entered any real serious spiritual seeking. Back then it was very clear to me that any spiritual attempt is just like it's for the weak. You know it's just people just they they can't handle the finality of life. All that jazz right? Um and then I that's right before I started I I I think the first entry was actually echartole. It was right before kind of like I read uh a new earth and then I was like wow this actually makes a lot of sense like in a very simple way right and then I started looking there and then

I remember you telling a story somewhere where uh you were gifted an acro book and you were kind of annoyed by it.

Yeah.

Like it's this is nonsense. It was a woman I was seeing. Um, and you know, a pretty girl gifts you something, you take it. But I was begrudgingly took it. And I just threw it on the, you know, I was like, "Okay,

I felt the same way about Tully until I read it and I was like,

"Holy shit.

Holy shit." Yeah,

he's right. It's all

And then I went on a on a crazy ride finding out who he was because it's so important for me who's speaking the words. You can say so much about the person which by the way speaking about all the stuff that not specifically but like really anything in the world that people are watching. I know it's really hard to kind of follow the big events. Don't don't follow the people. Watch the people. You can say so much. You can see so much by the micro expressions of the people involved in saying the thing. And you can still stray. You can still have like a person who's actually really well-intentioned and they just they they just don't know how to express themselves well. But for the most part, you can see you can see if there's like an actual attempt to harm. There's a there's a there's a thing there. If you look closely, you can see that. And it's hard to not project. But anyways, I digress. That that that that part was so key for me when I was watching Echart because after I read the book, I was like, "Okay, hold on. Let me find out." I started watching interviews with him and I mean it's I mean Echart is just like is like a holy person. You know what I mean? It's like you you watch that person, he's like, "Oh, come on." Like this is ridiculous.

His audio books are amazing.

Yeah. So there's this calm and peace and love and you can feel it. So I was like, "Oh my god, this is" and and I had a struggle for for years. I was like,

"Yeah, but I want

I want the like I want I want nice things. I want pretty girls. I want like I want that." And Exactly. But but back then it was

I was in my 20s. I was still kind of like finding my you know how what does that mean? If you're spiritual it means you can't do this or you can't do that. And over time, you start to understand, of course, that's totally okay. And you and you just and you just find your rhythm.

What what message do you think she was trying to send to you? She was trying to tell you something by giving you that book.

I think she was influenced by his first book and she gifted me the second. I think that's what happened. But maybe, who knows? Yeah. Like I never, you know, it's funny. Till this day, I never thought about that what you just asked me, which is super interesting. Huh. I can probably reach out and ask. That's interesting.

She Yeah, she did you a great service.

Yeah. Um, I want to know about conversations around the kitchen table with your grandfather's a physicist. Your grandmother's was she was a chemist and then found spirituality.

Uh, yeah, she was a a Christian, but I always say she wasn't one of these like uh zealous Christians. She was a very spiritual Christian. Mhm.

She was one of these people that I find found out only later through conversation with my mom that she she had these like weird abilities like she could, you know, somebody would come with this cyst and she would like put her hand above it and it would like go away in a couple of days, things like this.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what my mom told me. So yeah. Um, but yeah, basically I was raised by them because when I was born, my mom was still going to school and uh my grandfather started describing to me like black holes and these things since I was very little and I don't know who came what came first my predispensation to imagine the ed the edges of the universe all the time or him telling me things about it or the other way around but it was very like that just image like if we go all the way to the edge of the universe. Okay, what's what's outside of that? Like what is that? I I literally projected myself there almost physically all the time. I was just like, okay, we can crack it. Like

[laughter]

if you step outside, what do I see? It's like, you know, it's like, what is that? What does outside mean? So um these ideas were I I couldn't I could never find any trajectory of thought that was more worth worth of my attention like never and I think that's the thing that followed me throughout my life with all my experiments and doing things and I just I think I was hungry to understand what life has to offer when I found psychedelics obviously it was a big revelation because I realized oh okay so you can actually change like quite substantially Uh, but then this is why I think I tried so many different things in life to see what what lands and what it actually feels like to experience life through that lens. I occupied very different philosophical positions in terms of how much I'm convinced that that's what it is. And it's only when you go through these levels of convictions that you truly understand what it's like to hold that position because there's everything changes. Your lens, your mannerisms, the way you talk to people, all of it. It's all well Sterence McKenna used to say it's all operating systems and it's completely true like you can you can now that I'm older when you find this stability inside you can actually just interplay and you can just change them without identifying with any of them. So it's actually relatively easy for me to understand how people kind of come at the world from this other position. And I think a big proportion of that was actually even though it sounds like two completely different worlds and they have nothing to do with one another, physics and human experience, but to me it was clear that whatever that is had to have some deep connection to how it's how it's possible to experience it. I didn't have, you know, the granularity in terms of like is it the same thing or something like that, but it it was very clear to me that there's like a strong relationship there.

Sure. philosophy and physics are are really connected.

Yeah. And and some physicists would disagree with this, which I think is just egregious. It's egregious that they would. It's just, you know, um I don't know if you're familiar with the toe podcast, the theories do everything podcast with Kurt Jungle. Phenomenal. And I think he put the right emphasis on it when he says like

physicists can't help but being informed by philosophy all the time. They just don't realize it.

Absolutely true.

Yeah.

Absolutely true. Um, interesting that you said that you wanted to solve what was outside the universe. Talk a little bit about when you were a UFO kid and you went down the Bob Lazar rabbit hole and your disillusionment with disclosure.

As as a tiny side note that you know my whole stick with 42, right? That it follows me everywhere. The number 42 Guide to the Galaxy.

Yes.

You can't see it from your angle probably in the same way. Right in this camera. Are you kidding me?

No.

Tilt your head to the right? No. No. To the right. Like here.

Go like this. Do you see the handle of the camera?

Yes.

Under the handle. Keep going right with your head.

Oh my goodness. It's 42.

It's framed and there's nothing. Look, I'll take a picture of it.

Oh my god. It's on my list.

[laughter]

It's on my list. That look Oh my god. It's d Look at this. I'll show you exactly how it appears for me. Look at this.

[laughter]

Wow.

Um,

[laughter]

synchronicities are a real thing.

Yeah. It never stops.

Last week I was I was having synchronicities for like two or three straight days. So many that even my wife was nervous. I'm like, look, the simulation is busy right now. Things

[laughter]

are happening.

said, "I feel it. Something's going on."

"You, I'm sorry I'm taking you on so many side tangents. You know what happened to me when I landed here yesterday?"

"What?"

"I get in the car, in the Uber from the airport, and all of a sudden the theme, not the thing, the opening music of The Matrix starts playing." [laughter] "Like that thing. I was like, 'What? No.' Like,"

"As I put my butt down, I was like, 'What the?' And then I'm like, 'Where is it playing?' And then I realized I still have my headphones in. It's playing in my phone, but then my phone is just on lock screen. Somehow I did, I did not do this. It opened YouTube. It went, you know how they have the free movies sometimes? Yeah. It found The Matrix, which was free that day, yesterday." [laughter] "And it started playing it right when I sat in the..."

"I was like, 'This is wild.'"

"It's wild. When you look for it, there, it's everywhere."

"But I wasn't looking for it. It's just, it's just, it found you."

"The Matrix. Like, what?" [laughter]

"I can't believe 42 is right over my shoulder."

"Right there. Framed. Perfectly."

"Framed."

"Yeah."

"Oh, goodness. Sorry, I, I, I threw you off of the..."

"No, it's, no, it's super fun. Um, yeah, disclosure, disillusionment. I want, I want your thoughts on that."

"Disillusionment. Oh, with, with Bob Lazar and the whole thing. Yeah."

"Basically, I, I made a very conscious choice. Uh, you know, I was obviously fascinated. I always wanted to be abducted."

"You wanted to be..."

"Oh, I wanted to be abducted."

"No, you don't."

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I could not wait. I said, 'If they take me one way, I can't wait to go.' Like, I wanted to see another world. Like, how weird it is would be worth anything. It's just like I just wanted to see that."

"Right."

"Um,"

"Well, you, I mean, obviously you know Andrew Gallimore very well. He was here just a few days ago."

"Yeah."

"He makes a good argument that abductions are just, um, possibly an endogenous DMT experience."

"Possible. I, I don't, I personally don't find similarities between the reports of DMT and the, and the what they are."

"I don't either."

"Yeah. I, I think they don't sound or look at all the same. Um, but again, who knows, right? Like, ultimately, who knows? Uh, and even if they were, as a kid, I, I knew nothing about that. All I knew is that I want to go to another planet, and that sounded like a legitimate way to do that if that's real. Right. So, when the Bob Lazar story came out, obviously, just like everybody is, it captured my imagination. And by the way, to anybody who's a little younger today, what you might not understand is that back then there were not, there was no social media or like a billion stories like that."

"No."

"There was one."

"It was one."

"So it was just this like object of interest for basically everybody."

"Yeah. I have chills just still remembering the first time you saw him in shadow talking about stuff."

"It was insane. And I was a kid. I was,"

"I was like, probably 16 or something like that."

"Yeah, that was like '83 or something like that."

"'83. Oh, no. '83 is when it happened. So, no. I, yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I heard about it in the '90s, so I was already going through kind of like a refurbished version of it, probably. No, no. I was born in '83. So then, um, so anyways, I, I was, you know, obviously fascinated. But then as time went by and I got older, part of that philosophical swing was very much from this like very wonder-filled kind of attitude towards life to like, 'Eh, you know, things are what they are. Probably just the physical universe.' That kind of stuff, right? But not in a, not in like a magic-dissolving way, but just kind of like, 'Yeah, it's fine. Like, the universe is the universe. It's all good.' Like, it's amazing. And that was the attitude, right? And then I remember in 2012, because of all of these like, what I call 'around the cornerism,' which is like, 'It's coming. It's coming.' It's been like this basically since the beginning."

"Yeah. We're still there."

"Yeah. And as long as it's coming, you can sell books, you can sell movies. And I'm not even speaking out of a cynical position. All the power to you. Capitalism is great. Go make money. It's all good. But if you're purposefully holding it in that realm, then you're not a good person. Then you're actually doing something that is just for your benefit, right? If the thing is there and you're not creating it and you're making money on top of it, great. If you're keeping the thing alive to make money, that's a different story. And again, I don't even do the whole like finger-pointing and blaming. I'm just like, I just disengage. Just like, I just don't care about that kind of a way of being, right?"

"As soon as I see that you have a book out, I, I don't trust you. So, I, I feel you, but I'm like, I'm not in that camp. If somebody writes a really interesting book about something that truly is there and we don't understand, that's all great and I have no problem with people making money. People work hard. Writing a book is not an easy thing. It's all good. It's the keeping the mystery alive when you know it's no longer a mystery or at least you have enough information to know it's not a mystery. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm saying if that's your attitude, right? Uh, so, there was something about that. There was a dissolution with that kind of way of doing things and I just didn't have any more energy for it. So I decided very consciously before December 21st, 2012, that if the Mayan calendar amounts to exactly nothing, right on time, I'm just going to stop with this whole, not just aliens, just everything. I'm just done. I don't care. Like, I just don't care. Like, I, I don't engage with that part of human thought anymore. And that's what I did. Of course, nothing happened. And then I just stopped interacting with it."

"Um,"

"You just turn the, turn the switch."

"Yeah, it's done. It was just enough. It was just enough. It's like, how many arguments do you need to have in a relationship before you go, 'Okay, just, I don't want this anymore.' And, uh, it wasn't an argument, but it was a whole intent and purpose is a thing that kind of pulls you by your nose infinitely. And there's just more important things in life, you know. Uh, I was interested in what, in fact, is true. And that is what I'm interested in today. So I stopped interacting with it altogether. And this is why when the things that started happening to me started happening to me with DMT and all that stuff that was coming in contact with, for all intents and purposes, the real thing, at least for me. Like, 'Oh, you can actually interact with these beings and whomever they are and they're actually alien. They don't look like humanoids. They straight up look like aliens. Feel like aliens. It's, it's such a different universe, which is what you would expect an alien to be, right?' So then I, you know, that, that took me on a completely different ride into something that I could actually put my, I put, I could put some stock in it because I had direct access to it. It wasn't a thing in the news or a formulated narrative. It was like, 'Oh, I can just go and see it and then I can decide for myself what do I think that is.' But that was so different than the kind of, and sorry, I don't mean to offend anyone, but like this, for me, it's just like a very caricature version of, you know, of what this whole thing is. It's just, it's too close to how humans would imagine it. You see what I'm saying?"

"I do."

"Yeah."

"Um, disengaging was a great idea. By the way, in 15 years, you haven't missed anything. Nothing's happened."

"Um, I think people are surprised by this is that, um, the practice came first. So before DMT, you did Vipassana."

"No, DMT I did first."

"You did first?"

"But, but, but I did Vipassana and then started doing it. And I think the, the second or third retreat, I came back and that, that extra thing happened to me. So it was all of a sudden, change the trajectory of the DMT for me."

"Did you do the full 10 days?"

"Yeah. Yeah. You have to do the 10-day the first time."

"What is that? Just like, people don't know how this is."

"Amazing. I could not recommend something more. It's available everywhere. It's free. I mean, it's donation-based, but like, who doesn't have a few bucks to spare, right? It's like,"

"What is it?"

"Uh, it's the closest, it's the closest, uh, meditative framework to what the Buddha actually taught. It's very, um, there's not a lot of talk about anything metaphysical. It's just the practice itself. The shortest way of describing it is essentially you practicing how to utilize your attention in order to purify your mind. And when mind is expressed here, the, the what is meant is the totality of everything that is possible to experience. We're not separating. Mind is not meant cerebral. It's just mind, just experience. Right. So then, uh, basically, you, you sit there, you learn how to hold attention for the first three days by using a meditative practice called Anapana."

"Mhm."

"Which is just paying attention to your breath, which is very difficult to do."

"Yeah."

"And when you manage to do that for three days well enough, you then utilize the point of attention you've harnessed to then scan your body in a particular way."

"And nobody really knows why that works. But we know from actual research that it does. Like, we actually see that people's brains actually change. Yes."

"And I can tell you that without a doubt, this is probably the one single best thing I've ever done in terms of like helping myself. It's, it really is a form of superpower when you get to a certain level of being able to do it. And I'm not even on a high level. Like, you don't have to be some kind of a master. It's just the ability to disengage a little bit from whatever turmoil is happening. Oh, the camera's moving. I was like," [laughter] "whatever, whatever, whatever is happening in, in, uh, in, in real time. Uh, and sometimes it's still hard to do, obviously, but it is an incredible practice that I would recommend anybody try because that's where you really put your finger on what it's like to be you moment to moment. And when you do this every single day for 10 days, the whole day, you find out quite a bit about not just your psychology, but you find out about what's possible in terms of experience. You feel like you've been given a completely new operating system. You even, you know what's funny? When you get your phone back, cuz you give your phone away. This is just a very interesting data point for me. Not a little bit. Not a little bit. A lot. Have you, I don't want to put you on the spot. Like, have you done mushrooms or you can't answer?"

"Okay."

"Yeah. I'm experienced."

"Okay. Okay. I'm just making sure that, yeah. Yeah. So, you know how screens look kind of extra digital or whatever?"

"Yes."

"That's what a phone looks like when you get it back."

"It does."

"Yes. It's really interesting. Like, what the, what? Like, it literally looks digitized like this. Like you see it on acid or on mushrooms. I think what it is, the first one that I did, I realized it's a, I spoke about this before. Basically, I realized it's a, it's actually a bandwidth problem. So, basically, the, according to Vipassana, what's actually happening is that every single, uh, what we call mental event is not separate from a physical event. In order for it to be alive, something in your body has to register it. Even what you call your thoughts, right? This is why when you get stressed, you need the massage, right? Cuz your shoulder tenses up. So that's one example of that."

"Well,"

"The bigger the impact of whatever that was, the mental event, the stronger the instantiation in the body. And traumas are deeply, deeply rooted somewhere in the body. And they're probably the rise of like, a lot of pain, sometimes even cancer, probably. Um, and what, what essentially the, the idea is, is that what we do in the Western world, we create this severing. So like, when the mental event is present, we feel terrible. If we take our minds away from it, we're like, 'Oh, solved. We don't have to think about it. I can go watch a movie. I can drown myself in whatever and work.' But the reality of it is that whatever that was, it's now in your body somewhere and you're just ignoring it, basically. So what I realized, and, and basically what you're doing in Vipassana is you just allow yourself to sit in neutrality and you allow these things to percolate up. And then first the little fizz comes out, like the itches, the scratches, things like this. They're called saras."

"And then after about two or three days, they just stop. There's no more itches. There's no more nothing. And then the bigger ones come in, like big pains that you just, I guess, didn't even realize were there. So one of these pains happened to me in one of the days that they taught Vipassana on the fourth day, I think. And this crazy pain in my knee came. It was as bad as somebody carving a knife into my knee. But I was already in a state of kind of neutrality where it's your brain is no longer defining it as pain. At that point, it's just a very strong sensation. It's just like a very, and you can just kind of sit with it. You just observe it. You don't touch it."

"You just observe it. You don't touch it."

"And which is the practice, by the way. But then after you do that, it, it's almost like a child that just wanted to show you a drawing. So when it showed you the drawing, and again, we don't quite know why that works from a scientific perspective, but it works. After it showed you the drawing and you looked, after the child noticed you did look, okay, you looked at me. I got my attention. It just goes away. It's done. It's no longer there. And then after I came out from that, from that, the reason that I noticed that it's a bandwidth problem is because of that one session because when I stepped outside, every, it's, I was, it's like I was on 400 mics of acid. Everything was sharp. Everything was shining and glistening and blissful and filled with meaning. And I was like, 'Oh my god, there was just serenity and peace.'"

"I know this feeling."

"And I go, 'This is why people devote their lives to this.' And then I realize, 'Oh, think about it from a computational perspective. Something in me, even though I wasn't consciously aware, was had to keep this alive.' So when it was gone, and because it was big, that much bandwidth is now free."

"Yes."

"To look at colors and meaning and everything. So it's like, ah, wow. So like, that's when I realized that, oh, this is like a science. This is like, it's not like a feel-good kind of, no, no."

"I bet the same parts of the brain are lighting up when meditation and psychedelics. I bet it's the same parts of the brain that light up. The, uh, the reduction of the DMN is similar. So Richard Davidson did, did a lot of studies on this, uh, and then he discovered, he added psilocybin later, actually, way, way later in his career, but he found that, yeah, the default mode network goes, yeah, almost dormant. Um, but, but mushrooms also do extra things. So there's like other things like the pyrotechnics is not something you necessarily have to experience with meditation, but the peace and everything, yeah, the, the deeper meaning."

"Well, let's, uh, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll go to the infamous night in Boulder."

"Let's do it. All right, be right back. Let's talk about DMT."

"Let's do it."

"Here's a disclaimer. We're not promoting, condoning, or endorsing the use of any psychedelics. They're dangerous. Be careful. We're speaking from personal experience. Both of us. I've, I've done all these as well. So, when it's funny to watch you on podcasts where someone's like, 'Describe the DMT experience.' You're like, 'I can't.' Because you can't."

"Yeah."

"You can't. You really, you really do go somewhere else. So, you kind of became famous for this laser experiment."

"Mhm."

"And we know the story, but I want to know what made you just, why did you shine a laser at the wall? I would never think of that."

"I think most people wouldn't, and I don't even know if I would necessarily manage to grok that unless all the right things would happen and I would be paying attention. Um, it was a, it was a years-long process that I was aiming at. I was basically asking the question, 'Can we prove that the DMT space is real?'"

"Mhm."

"That was it. And then everything else is just like the busy work of how it happened."

"So this was like an experiment."

"Uh, yeah. I tried all kinds of things. So basically, I had an experience on DMT after already being very versed in it for years."

"Mhm."

"And then something happened and I had this like now famous story with the frog guy who apparently became like, like a thing that people really want to know more about, and I know almost nothing about. But basically, I had a being appear in my room, as real as a person, looking like a frog, and he showed me how to play certain chords on a guitar that I did not know how to do. Now, aside from the fact that this is a pretty awesome, you know, uh, experience, what was key there is that he was showing me chords I do not know how to play. So, he was essentially saying, 'I'm real. You don't know how to do this. I'm giving you information.' So, then I knew, at least for me, obviously I couldn't prove it to anyone, but it was clear to me that nothing will ever be the same again because at least I knew that one person now knows for a fact that they are real. And then the second I hold something of that kind, I'm never letting go. This is, this is it. Now we're holding it. And, uh, for a year, I tried to just go back in there and I basically lived on DMT for like a year plus."

"Yeah. I mean, I loved it. I mean, for me, it was, you know, I, I was just mesmerized by everything."

"Sure."

"Uh, and I, again, super not recommended. Definitely don't recommend this. But I basically did everything on it. I'm going to the gym, to the store, like doing everything. And, um, I tried to ask like, 'Okay, great. Like, you told me that you're real, or at least somebody there told me that. So now how do we, show me something? How do we build a spaceship? Like, something, something that we can take home?' And obviously, they never answer questions of that kind, which is,"

"This is always the big question is if it's so real for thousands of years, how come we don't have anything,"

"Tangible?"

"Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, and it's not clear to me still if they're, if they can't, or they won't. I don't really know. Uh, but clearly, if he showed me something that clearly they can. It's just a matter of like, kind of like maybe degree or something. I've definitely seen like them arguing about this one time. So there's definitely not like a consensus or anything like this."

"Them meaning like the entities."

"Yeah. The different kinds of entities like arguing with each other whether we should know any of this or never things like this. Um, but then in the end of the day, when you go back to normal state, your brain constantly says, 'Okay, it can always just be like a really neat trick of the mind,' which is still awesome, by the way. But, but maybe it's just like a really, your, if you know, if the brain is capable of schizophrenia, and again, I, I don't know what it's like, but like, you know, what if this is like a very kind of like, in controlled induced schizophrenia that happens only when that like, there was definitely a lot of these possibilities in my head, right? It's a kind of like the brain builds coherent enough of a story,"

"Powered by this extra kind of experience."

"All still make sense. But the realism in real time, the, the, the essence of what it was like doesn't feel like a derangement. It feels like reality is happening."

"Yes."

"So then I couldn't let it go. And then eventually I said, 'Okay, cool. Well, you know, if you guys aren't going to show me, I'm going to try and figure it out.' So, I used kind of the closest thing to a, to a scientific thinking that I could, given the fact that I really have nothing to probe. And I thought, 'What, what do we know for sure?' And there was a few things that we knew for sure. We know that light had to be involved because you can see it. So, photons are carrying some information from somewhere, right? Which means that light is moving between from where they are to where I am because I can see it with my eyes. So that must be the case, right?"

"Hold on. I don't, I don't want the theory. I've already heard this. I want to know what you felt."

"Oh, great question. Uh, thank you."

"Well, we all know this. We all know that story. I want to know what, what you felt. You saw the symbols, the first 10 seconds."

"No, no, no, no, not the symbols. So, like, I'm talking about like before, right? So, like, but, but this is a, I appreciate this. This is, this is very useful and helpful for me as well. What I felt was that there's this super importance to us understanding all of this and also trying to understand what is kind of, what are the rules? Like, are they playing by rules? Do they have a government? Like, that was kind of like my, like, 'Okay, what are we stepping on somebody's toes? Like, who knows, man? Like, you know, like, was this like a renegade person who, but now if they're watching and now they're, I don't know, like, he's an outlaw or something?' You know, all these scenarios in your head. It's like, 'Okay, well, then after I, years go by and I kind of figure this thing out with, with the help of my beautiful wife and we, we come up with this idea that a laser is supposed to do something, and then it worked. The first moment wasn't, I was just kind of, I mean, obviously I was kind of shocked that it worked, honestly, that anything worked. I, I didn't know what to expect. Uh, but the big shock came when my, my friend Tim, he was the first one that I actually showed this to. He, he saw it. And the funny thing is that the way that he saw it is that because he was in state, he forgot I told him about it. You know, yes, your like immediate memory kind of goes away. So, he just woke up from being out there, but he was standing and he just reported to me without remembering that I told him anything. He's like, 'Bro, there's language in there.'"

"Were you with him? In text to him?"

"Yeah."

"And he was like, 'There's language in there.'"

"And, and I go like, 'Yeah, I told you.' He's like, 'Oh, right.' And he goes like, 'Dude, what the fuck?' And, you know, and then we, and then it became clear to me that I actually found something very, very important."

"Where is it scary or beautiful?"

"It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I mean, scary, I think depends on your framing, right? There's definitely people who experience the size of it and that scares them. Uh, there's something overwhelming about the scale of everything, including what you're seeing in there."

"So, thousands of people have done this and they see the symbols, they see the code, but some people don't."

"Those, those are the people that are interesting to me. What do they have in common? Is that a signal? I, I wish I knew. They have nothing in common. Not age groups, not IQ, not, we, we thought of everything. There's literally not. And I think, and I'm with you that this is actually super interesting and this is something that we have to admit. Uh, I'm, I now have a nonprofit called Code of Reality and started with, uh, my, my partner David Carter. And we, our goal is to find out what, in fact, is true. And we have to be honest about the fact that just like you're saying, there's about 30% of people that are really having a hard time and some of them can't see it at all."

"And they go in wanting to see it."

"Yes. And, but to me, something tells me that that's just like you said, that's information. That's a data point. And I think when we're going to figure it out, it will tell us something very fundamental. I, I think there's something about the differences in how people cast their attention or the way that their brain is constructed that causes this. And I think that's a triangulation point that can be an interesting, uh, this versus this. So, it's, it's an interesting binary to explore. I do think we will solve this, but we haven't yet. And it does pose a real problem to at least the proposition itself, right? Because if it's out there, then it's out there. Why would some people not see it? But it, it, it, it is a little different in the sense that, yeah, obviously there's something about how our minds are that has to do with us being able to see it. So, you know, it gives it a little bit more a cushion there. Uh, yeah, we don't know. We, we literally, I thought of everything from eyesight to age to IQ to predispositions to life, like people that are much more kind of like heart, uh, driven to people that are much more cerebral, all kinds."

"So, you're tracking all that?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're trying to figure out all the time."

"Um, didn't I read that you're doing some AI tooling and..."

"Yeah. Yeah."

"And and putting all this information to AI to try to track the patterns."

"Yeah. Now we have, we developed some tools with the help of Chris Paris and Sterling Cooley and we developed a software into Apple Vision Pro that allows you to label these. So we actually took an, a very high resolution image of the, of the band of light. You see it inside of Apple Vision Pro. And what is surprising is that you, all of a sudden have an image of the code if you're on DMT that is frozen. It's no longer moving. It's frozen."

"It's a snapshot."

"It's a snapshot of the code."

"In Apple Vision."

"Yep. But you don't see it unless you're on DMT."

"You're on DMT."

"Oh my god."

"It's wild. And now you can label it. So basically, we have a little thing that runs and allows you to mark what you're seeing. So there's location, a world state, uh, a brain state. So it registers your brain is being scanned. So it, it takes a snapshot of your brain in that moment and where you clicked. And then it gives you a radial menu that allows you to pick out of six symbols. So you can now label, 'This is what I saw,' or 'This is what I saw. This is what I saw.' And over time, it will build a Rosetta Stone of what you're reporting and where. And then you can compare it with other people."

"Well, the, the snapshot is is crazy because that sort of, I mean, obviously you're familiar with Andrew Gallimore and you know that he's a skeptic and and the speckle theory and all that."

"Um, he still thinks the, the work is important."

"If, if you're capturing it in Vision Pro, I think the speckle theory goes away."

"Not necessarily. I'll tell you why. Because the information seems to be still holographic in nature, like it has this kind of like a three-dimensional thing, which should not happen in a camera or can't because a camera only registers amplitude. It will collapse any, anything with phase, right? So that tells you that there's some projection going on to either some degree or to an infinite degree. Then the question becomes, is it like a barcode? Like, is it kind of like that particular arrangement? So the only way to really answer that is to figure out if people are seeing the exact same thing in the exact same place. Because if they do, then clearly there's information in the image, however it is that it happens. But now you can start investigating that. But we need to answer that question first. So I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Uh, there is an interesting theory. I don't know if you heard me. I just released an episode with him, with Anthony Nes. He wrote, uh, he's an independent researcher and he wrote a little, uh, piece that I thought was brilliantly written. The idea there is that he thinks that the reason people are seeing at least very similar things is because essentially what is happening with the laser experiment is that we're gaining a glance back into our own brains. Literally, we're seeing the network called V1 responsible for moving information from your eyes to your brain and we're looking at the semi-crystalline structure of it and nothing else. And that's why it's so similar because across individuals, it's similar. Like the, now me and him agreed that if we discern that people report the same symbols in the same place in the image, that theory goes away because you can't have, it will never be that specific. Right. Right."

"So, but there's a lot of work to be done. Also, I, I mentioned this before, but I, what I really love, uh, is this idea that we have now because it's going, it's going to require a little bit more of a budget, but we'll get there. Now, basically, if what Anthony is saying is correct and we're basically looking at the canvas, so to speak, then can we bring content back in a targeted way? Can we use, uh, transcranial magnetic stimulation to stimulate particular parts of the brain to try and induce content back into the image and see if it matches with what we expect to see? That would also be a fun one."

"That's a great experiment."

"Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm glad that you said it could still be speckle in the Vision Pro."

"I, so the, sorry, I'm cutting you off. So like, it's not that it, it's not that it can't be speckle or or still can be speckle. That to me is a side question. Remember when they, all the hints they left and all that stuff, and what made me arrive at the laser speckle was the prerequisite. That's the thing they paint on. So they need a random pattern to paint on."

"Right. So it's the same as saying, well, because Andrew was saying for a long, well, if you eliminate the speckle, it'll go away. Yeah, but it's the same as saying, why don't you just use ambient light? There's a reason why they said a laser because laser can produce speckle. That was the prerequisite to be able to see it."

"Right."

"Yeah."

"Laser. Yeah, laser."

"They didn't say put a light. They said, no, no, it needs to be a laser because you need light scattering to see it, which was the original idea. Now, that's just not, that's just the wrong question to ask because it doesn't parse whether they're still communicating or not communicating. If speckle is the canvas on which they're painting, it doesn't nullify the idea that they're painting on it. What we're asking is, what can we do with this that will tell us that it's actual information, however it is that it is being projected?"

"How do we build that experiment to prove or disprove it? That, that, that the Apple Vision Pro experiment will, would definitely make headway because if there's correlation, but like actual replication of like where people are reporting the characters, you're no longer at liberty to say it's some stochastic pattern. Literally, there's a signal that is across individuals. Everybody's seeing the same thing. So,"

"That's mind-blowing."

"Um,"

"Again, we don't know that that's true yet."

"Yeah. Yeah. But,"

"No, I like that you're skeptical and you're not not trying to sell this. No, we're interested in what is true. To me, like I said, the new hypothesis flipped because my interaction with them, with whomever they are, it's so clear to me that they're real because I've interacted with them so many times, just like I'm talking to you now, that for anybody to convince me that they're not real would take as much, if not more, than for me to convince the, the whole scientific community that it is real. So like, that does not mean that I'm unmovable in my position, but I can't occupy any other state of knowing than I currently do. So it's like, I'm a, I'm cheating a little bit in the sense that I almost like, I know the answer that they are real, but it's not that that is unmovable. Like, if we can devise an experiment that will show me beyond the shadow without, yes, the whole time this was like a really elaborate way of your brain of dealing with that information and somehow it can be replicated across individuals. If we can devise that experiment, I'll spin on a dime. There's no, like, I'm interested in what, in fact, is true."

"I'm, I'm so happy to hear that. I mean, even Andrew, who's skeptical about it, says it's still very important work, very interesting work. Um, tell me about the, the console room. That was a crazy story."

"Yeah. So, it's not a room. It's literally an object that appears in whatever room I'm in. Okay. Now, recently, actually, s, very interestingly, there was almost like a, which I've never seen before, actually, that's not true. There was other one other instance where that happened for like a couple of weeks where all of a sudden the console didn't appear, then it reappeared again. And recently, we were doing tests, uh, one day we were doing it with Tom Matt, who's the guy who developed this ability called Upsight and he sees these holographic images just naturally. And we did it with him and when he was present, I don't know if it was related to his presence, but just when we were doing it together, it just didn't appear. And we're like, 'Oh, that's weird.' Cuz we were trying to compare the console with, and I'll explain what it is. So, basically, I, I after I started talking about the laser, I smoked some DMT in the kitchen and my wife is like cooking or something, and all of a sudden this thing appears in front of me. Just imagine like the most realistic augmented reality. So, I still see the room, but then there's this, as real as this bottle."

"Mhm."

"And just a capsule appears in the middle of the room and it's not, it's holographic in nature. So, it's kind of like this, hovers in space, but it's as opaque as this mic stand. It's not like the translucent even thing. It's just like straight up like enclosed. And I was like, 'What?' And then it opened and a podium came out and arranged itself into menus, a pair of gloves, and a carousel that was moving to my left like this, of like VR glasses. And recently, I saw an interview Carter actually sent me, um, an interview with him. There's this appar, because I spoke to a few psychonauts that experienced like similar things, like screens, things like this, but for them it was more like haphazard, once in a while. For me, it started appearing 100% of the time. It's the same exact thing. It has the exact same parameters. The screens can be different, but the body, so to speak, the thing that opens up and does the presentation is the same."

"No matter what room you're in?"

"Doesn't matter. Even if I'm outside, it will coat the street. Like, it would literally coat, like, it would open like on the street, coat the sidewalk, like everything. It's insane. So then, uh, recently, I don't remember his name, but when we finish, I'll give you his name. Super interesting interview. There's this guy who for sure, I can tell you without a shadow, without, he's seeing the console. For sure. Same story. He did it many, many, many times. I think that what happens is that you need a certain amount of, uh, usage of DMT in a short period of time. I think he said he did like 250 in like a very short period of time."

"Yeah."

"And all of a sudden, and again, he's like super, you know, like cogent, not like one of these like super hyperbolic people. It just is like, and you can see he's blown away by this. This is the tail sign somebody is actually seeing it. Cuz whenever people say, 'Oh, yeah, yeah, I see the console.' I'm like, 'There's no way you're seeing the console because you wouldn't be talking about it like that.' Cuz it's crazy. There's no way you would just kind of say it and just move on. And he, all the signs that he's seeing it for sure, he's describing it correctly. The same device. Well, very similar in the way that it executes itself. It's like, I don't understand. It's like it's in space. Like, and you can see that it's struggling to deliver the realism of it. That's the thing that's crazy about it. In DMT worlds, you can see insane things. Insane things. Well, you know, like multi-dimensional things and giant machines,"

"But it's part of a larger world that you're like, 'Okay, I'm in, I'm in La La Land now, so it makes sense.'"

"Yeah."

"This is just normal thing. And it's just imagine like all of a sudden a camera would just like holographic camera just appear and hover and look at you and you're like, 'What is going on?' And it's very futuristic and it's, it's beautiful. Beautiful. It's, it's so perfectly designed, just like you would imagine like a super advanced civilization would do. Right."

"What do you see on the menus? What's the, what's on the screen?"

"The menus. It's very hard to discern. It's almost like some of it is almost like that code. There's like things that are moving. It's very hard to interact with it because it's like, uh, the amount of, the amount of brain power you have to induce to actually interact with it and look at it is enormous. That's why I usually were just kind of looking at it because it was exhausting."

"Yes."

"Um, but, uh, but, but the, the, the thing that is the more realistic than the menus is the body of the thing. I created a little illustration of it when on the video I put out about this, and it's pretty close to like how real it feels. When we're done, I'll show you like, also we put it into VR just so you understand how real it feels. And it opens up like this, like, you know, like a capsule. There's these parts on the, on the, on the floor that are all opening up at the same time. Uh, there's like iridescent lights running on the rims. It's like a real object. Like, you put Apple Vision Pro and they're just like augmented reality here. So at that point, you go like, 'What are the chances with everything else that all of that is like a hallucination?' Come on. Like, this is like, it's just be, it's like, you know, like an alien civilization is like talking to you and you're going to keep pretending like it's not happening."

"It can't be. How are you able to stay in the room? I mean, cuz when I go, I'm gone."

"Yeah. No, that that requires, uh, the ability to be able to kind of function on pretty high dosage. Yeah."

"It takes some practice, but,"

"Absolutely. Yeah. I can drive on it."

"I wouldn't recommend. That reminds me, got to tell the story about when you were driving to Vegas on like what 5,400,"

"Something like that. Yeah."

"Micrograms."

"Yeah. At least about 5,000. Yeah."

"Which is what I guess like 50 hits?"

"Each one. Well, depending how much on each one. Yeah. It was like squares. It was 54, I think. But,"

"Were you just popping squares?"

"I was, I was driving to a Canelo fight."

"Oh my god."

"I was, I was dating back then. Uh, this Colombian girl. Man, the things I put her through, bless her heart." [laughter]

"Um, but, but she was, um, she was a reporter in that, she did a lot of things, but she also reporting on sport events and things like this. And that's a gig she was doing back then. So she had ringside tickets and she was already there. Obviously, I would never put her through that, but then she was already there. And then I, um, yeah, it wasn't just acid. I did everything you can imagine. Uh, but I was,"

"Driving."

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."

"I don't know how you could do it."

"I don't know either. But the, but the, but the thing is, I wanted to see where the line was. And," [laughter] "uh, and, uh, it was, it was definitely there. The, the part that really is funny to me, because recently I, I did tell the story recently a few times, it reemerged. And the thing that was, it is funny to me every time I think about this, because when I stopped, there was a moment after 30 plus of them that that I, I wasn't actually sure what was happening. Like, that didn't happen."

"Well, I mean, I wasn't sure because I'm, I always know somehow what's going on. And that's the thing I was testing. Is it really infinite for me? Like, can I get to a place where I really don't understand what's happening? And it, it kind of got there, but then very quickly I realized that I actually don't know where I am. I actually don't know where I stopped. I was like, 'I'm stopped. I know the car is not moving, but I don't know where I'm parked.'"

"What does it look like?"

"Well, no, it's on the, what's the road where we pass from LA to Vegas? What's the main,"

"Is it 90?"

"Something."

"Something, right? So, I'm on it. So, it's not very wide."

"I mean, what do you see with your eyes? I mean, when I'm when I'm tripping, I don't see the road."

"No. No. So, you, I mean, it depends on your attention. So, if your attention is really dialed in, you will see whatever it is you're trying to see. And there's going to be interference pattern, but you can look through it. Like, you can just, you know, you can see."

"That's what I'm trying to learn. Is this level of control very unusual?"

"But it's not necessarily a good thing. Like, actually letting go. Later, after that, I realized letting go is actually the secret. You don't need a lot. Like, you do need a tiny bit. If you let go and you go, right? If your, if your point is to prove to yourself something, which is kind of what I was doing, then yeah, but like, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. It just creates a lot of tension. But when I, that part is funny to me, because when I, when I stopped again, that road is what, two lanes? Maybe."

"That's it."

"But then I was like, I thought I thought that I stopped at one of these like exits that also has like an re-entrance. Then I realized, actually, I don't know that." [laughter]

"So I was like, 'I don't know if I'm in the middle of the road right now. I actually am not sure.' And I didn't have, you know how your short-term memory just suffers tremendously. So imagine on that amount of acid, I don't know anything beyond the immediate second. So I was like, 'Wait.' And then I would try to look out to see where I am and I couldn't do it. I literally could not, like remember what, every time I would turn to look, I was like, 'Why was'"

I looking? What was the what was the reason for? And then I realized, okay, okay, why do I care? That was why I was [laughter] like, oh, cuz. Okay, police stops me. I don't know where I am, literally in space and clearly going to see if something's wrong. >> Yep. >> I have a lot of stuff in the car, >> but your pupils are just black. >> Forget about that. I have a bunch of things in the car that will definitely get me in a lot of trouble. And then I was like, "Okay, >> uh, all right. So, I'm just going to keep driving." And then just going to keep driving. >> Yeah, I have to keep moving. And then I realized I don't. I wasn't even sure if I'm moving in the right direction [laughter] anymore. But then I knew. Then I knew that the cars pass. I had enough like sensibility to know if cars pass me behind me, it's good. And cars [laughter] come in front of me, it's bad. >> But then I, it's, I had to think in binaries, right? >> But there's a wheel and there's >> then there was, then there was just my knuckle. [laughter] >> No. And the and the and and the lines in the middle of the road. And I know if there's a a bit of a distance between my knuckle to the line in the road, >> if it's to the left or my right, doesn't matter, but it can't be your knuckle. >> It can't be too far. [laughter] And then I just kept on doing that, and the GPS was just telling me where to go. >> No, this is not recommended. >> No, no. [laughter] And then at that point, in for a penny, in for a pound. I just kept on popping them, and I got, I finished everything I had. But then actually another funny moment was when I was giving the car to the uh valet. I wish I remember what hotel it was. Maybe it was M. When do they usually do fights? It's one of the hotels. It was >> MGM usually. >> Maybe. Oh, yeah. Maybe it was M. [laughter] The guy came to me, and I remember practicing [laughter] the faces >> and he opened the door. I'm like, >> you're like, "Okay, this is how I'm got to look." >> I just gave him the thing. I was like, "I don't" and I I just gave him my wallet [laughter] just like, I don't, cuz I know I have cash there. He understood that, >> he knew. Don't ask questions, just take the thing. Yeah. Yeah. But [laughter] >> cuz I you couldn't even tell what denomination these bills are. >> I will show you a picture of me with my ex in front of the like in that event. I don't think you can tell that I'm even high. Like it's, you know, it's it's f, like I'm fine, but like it's really Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But to me, it felt like I'm just like >> it's the most banana puffs. Like Yeah. Yeah. >> When you're too high and that voice in your mind is like, "All right, you're too high right now." >> This is the thing. I just kind of melt into it. Like I don't know why I have this ability. I don't claim special uh, like I didn't have to work for it. That's just how I am. I just accept it. I just let go. I just like whatever happens. I don't know. Like one time I thought I'm, I'm, it was a different time, and it was way less. But then that night I truly lost my mind. Like I actually lost my mind. And I knew that too. Like I knew that I simply, I'm simply no longer tracking what's going on at all. I couldn't even. You remember Frogger the game? >> Yeah. >> That's what I was playing with information. So, basically, I would want to tell you all a sentence, but in order for me to get it to the other side of the street, I have to go through all these like enormous amounts of information moving in front of me, and I, I'm like locked in, and I can't even, I have to wait until there's this one opening, and I would tell you one word. And I would say one word every seven minutes. I'd be like "Vegas," and after a few minutes, good, cuz I remembered, like, now I can say it to you, but it was all part of the same sentence. So like >> where were you when you had a party, and then, and then a friend of mine was like driving me around, and at a certain point I was convinced, convinced >> that we, by mistake, killed someone. >> What? That's what I thought that happened. Like I, I, I thought, and then somehow we talked our way out of it, and like obviously none of this ever happened, but that's how much I lost him. Like I thought, and then I'm sitting there like just looking at him, and there was something about that moment. I remember he was driving to uh LA to the city, and all of a sudden, because of how high I was, the whole city opened up to the right, and it looked like New York, cuz the building just stretched through the hor horizon >> and he had these like harnesses that he had, this just these beautiful uh kind of like harnesses that he got in Burning Man to just keep things in. >> And I, and he was trying to calm me down, cuz he saw I just, I, I'm off the deep end. >> We didn't kill anybody. >> No, no, no. He like, he, it wasn't just that. I was just like completely out of it. And then he was trying to calm me down. So he played some classical music. >> So at that point I looked at him, and I looked at New York, is what I thought New York was. And I see his harnesses, and I thought it was gunholstered. >> Oh no. >> And I look at him and I go, and I thought we're Italian mobsters. >> And I go, "This is so gangster." >> Oh no. >> And he looked at me and he's like, "Okay." And he told me later, he's like, "At that point when you said that, I was like, you're on your own, buddy. Like I, I, I, I can't help. I hope you'll come back." And I remember this so clearly that I, there's no way that I could communicate any of this, but I didn't. I thought this is how I'm gonna stay now. I was convinced this is how I am now. I'm crazy. I don't know what that looks like. >> Did you, were, were, were you regretting it? Like uh >> No, no, no. In that moment, I just accepted it. >> Just like, "I'm a gangster," and >> No, no, no. I'm crazy now. >> I'm cra, oh, you >> Yeah. I was like, "Okay, now I'm, this is what lunacy is like, actual >> not funny one, but like actual lunacy." >> Yes. >> And I'm a lunatic now. Like I'm actually like deranged and like incapable of formulating like connecting between what is actually happening. >> You remember the relief during the comedown? >> Um >> like, "Oh my god, I'm, I'm okay. I'm okay." >> I think there was some of it. I, that that part is actually hard for me to remember. I think I just passed out at a certain point. But I do remember that moment because I was looking at this, you know, when you attach either a strong emotion or a visual, it's easier to remember. So that visual always stayed with me, which is like, because I saw, I saw him go like this when I said the gangster thing. So I realized I didn't guess correctly, cuz he went like this. He went like, like when he did that, I was like, "Oh, I'm cuckoo. I'm cuckoo." So then I was like, "Oh, okay." So then, okay. And then I was like, and I could totally see how this is how people lose it >> because they freak out right there. I didn't freak out. I was just like, "Yeah, okay, that's where I live now, and that's what it is." And I don't know why, I I just accept what it is, and that's it. >> Was this after your vipasa journey? >> No, no, no, no. That was when I was, that was way before. >> That was before. >> I was surprised. >> Why? >> Because you, cuz most people would panic, and you just, and you just accepted. >> No, I always had this. I always had where I just kind of, if it's too crazy, I just accept it, and I stop trying to like, I stop trying to flail around. I just like, "Okay." >> Well, it's so smart because that's the best way to have a bad trip is to fight. >> Yeah. To fight. Yeah. Yeah. So, I can't, I don't claim like special ability that I had to like work on. It just, maybe it's genetic. I don't know why that is. And there's something about chaos. Not there. There it was. It was there was a moment of kind of, I guess what, what would you call this emotion, maybe sorrow? There was like a, because I lost everybody, basically. I accepted that maybe I will never know truly like anybody again because they, I don't understand what is actually happening, and there's no way I can communicate. So there was this kind of grief. But in other places where it is still very manageable and all that stuff, I somehow I really enjoy the chaos. And the best way for me to describe it is that when things are super chaotic, you actually become invisible. There, there's solace in that. It's almost like when, when there's a storm, nobody's looking at you. >> True. >> So it's just, you know, it's not, you're, you're hidden within the chaos, >> right? >> And there's something very comforting about that for me. I don't know why that is. Now, since then, obviously, I'm at this point, I'm a very different person. You know, I'm a responsible father. I'm, you know, there, there's a But I'm so happy that I had these experiences, cuz I know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Uh, I know what can go wrong. >> Um and also I, I do know that it, this is not the norm. Like not everybody kind of stays no >> levelheaded that way. And and this is why I'm very, very careful with recommending any of this to anyone or anything like this, because I feel like there's a lot of uh things that can happen that are not as you know what the meme media would like to portray it to be. There can be a lot of uh things that can go wrong with these things. >> Absolutely true. Um, what was the normal day like when you were OCD back when you were a kid before you fix that? >> Yeah, that was wild. Uh, yeah, I had this like insane OCD which is like, you know, opening a door 2,000 times and not being able to leave. It's the most excruciating, I think. >> Was that one of your ticks? The door. >> It, I wouldn't even call it a tick. I guess you can call it a repetitive tick. The thing is, a tick is something that that just kind of happens, right? um in the body usually. But this is like a task that you have to perform, otherwise nothing is right. And it's not even like, you know, people sometimes describe like, you know, check the stove or my whole family will die. Well, yeah, there's sometimes these intrusive thoughts, but mostly it's just the feeling of wrongness is dialed up to a 12. It's like, it's not even like a, the, there needs not be a reason. It's not even for any reason. It's just that if you don't do this right now, it's so wrong. Everything is just wrong. You have to do it. >> You can't proceed. >> You can't proceed. You have to complete this now. >> Yes. It's such a crazy. I know that people live this with this into their, you know, adult life. Dude, I can't even imagine. That's so, the fact that I don't, I feel so blessed that somehow it left me, and I I think it's due to mushrooms, but yeah, it's like you, you, you go and >> someone in their 50s that still does this. >> Yeah. You, you, you come to the door, you're about to. I remember this. I was coming, I came back from school. There was no one, no one home. And you can usually only do this when no one is home, because then you, you will be caught, and then there's shame in doing that, right? So then I'm like just looked at the door, and you always felt like it was coming on. It's like, "Oh, this is that feeling." It's like right here in here, and like >> and you're like, and then you okay, I, I'll just do a small one. And then you do the small one, and the small one breaks apart into smaller ones. It's like, "Oh, even the way I entered the key into the door, it had to actually go like a little too to the left or to the right and then back out and then, and then after you're done with that, it's like, okay, now the handle. No, we have to go back again. Now the key again." >> Oh god. >> And and you stand there, and sometimes you just, you like, I don't remember if I actually like broke into tears, but you want to just like cry, cuz you're like, "Please let me go." Like I just want to do. It's awful. It's if there was one thing, I'm sure there are most horrible conditions that probably involve uh you know physical pain also, cluster headaches, things like this, but that's, that's got to be up there in terms of psychological torture. >> It's torture. >> It's if I can wave a magic wand and one of the things I get to choose to eliminate would be this. I would be, I, I can, I can say I made the world like orders of magnitude better. It's so awful. Well, didn't, didn't you eliminate it for yourself with one? >> Yes, but I can't point to like a particular thing. Like I, I just noticed it in my 20s that it was gone. It was just gone. And I was like, "Oh." And then I started retracing my steps, and I was like, "Oh, it must have been the mushrooms >> because it, because I remember at the time." >> No, I didn't even notice it was gone. >> Yeah. I didn't even notice it was gone. Because you don't think about it when it doesn't happen, and then you're just preoccupied for whatever period, and you know, and then I think it was like 20, I don't remember, maybe 25, 26, and I, I was like, "Wait a second." I forget what made me realize it, but something did. Maybe even I think I smoked weed or something, and all of a sudden I was like, "Wait, I remember I had," and I didn't have it in like over a decade, and then I realized it must be the mushrooms, cuz I remember every time you do mushrooms, there's this smoothening of your psyche that you just kind of happens at the end. >> Absolutely right. That's a great way to describe it. Yeah. That's why I do it every every six months or so. That's amazing. >> You know, go to Sedona, chill out. >> Yeah. So, just so you know, if you actually suffer from this, there's a real possibility that you can actually reme fully remedy this with mushrooms. And I think, I think there's some data to actually support this. >> I think you're right. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Um, Yeah. And and it's really nice that psychedelic therapy is becoming a real thing and legalized all over the country. And hopefully now on the federal level, and it will spill into other things, not just Iberane, but yeah, >> I, I hope so. Um, ketam, ketaman therapy is helping a lot of people. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, the data is there. So the data is there. The the the Iberane thing opened, right? It's there. Now federal budget is a whole other ball ballpark, right? Now, if the data is there, which it is, >> it will open the door to many many others. Uh, there's a university in Brazil right now that is doing an official study on smoked version of DMT and uh chronical depression, and they show tremendous results, reinvigoration of the spirit and all that stuff, like literally people just come out of it basically. So >> I'm not surprised. >> Yeah. >> What [snorts] is about 42? Why does that show up? Why is that everywhere? Is that really like a Douglas Adams thing? >> Yeah, I think so. Look, there's, I mean, again, the simple answer is who knows, right? But my suspicion is that usually folklore >> contains nuggets of truth, and it kind of, it's almost like it winks at you, right? So uh, I don't know how much you know about Douglas Adams, but he was a very secular person, so if you would ask him, he would tell you to take a hike. He'd be like, "This is it's a, it's a, it's a way to illustrate a point. Questions are more important than answers is the point," right? >> But he, because he was so creative, which clearly he was, he might have been more tapped in than he realized. Maybe 42 actually means something. Um >> I think you're right. He was only 25, 26 when he when he wrote Hitchhikers. >> Yeah. And and he's also from, from what I'm observing kind of in the DMT world and all of that, is that he's, he was basically right about what's going on, he, he was just wrong about the scale, >> right? >> So the the computer that calculates the ultimate question isn't Earth. It's the multiverse. But it is what is happening. That's basically what's going on. That's theology of the of the multiverse, basically. Yeah, >> it's true. He died too young. We miss so much. >> Well, so many great quotes. My favorite one is uh, uh, was it? "I love deadlines. I love, I love the whooshing sound they make when they pass me by." [laughter] I forgot about that one. Um, so you became kind of famous for this DMT experiment. >> Mhm. >> What's the downsides to that? What? I don't see one >> really. Yeah. I think, I think I enjoy the ride, and at the same time I found a really um responsible way of communicating it. So, you know, some people might disagree, but I, I think that overall my message is uh stability of mind, stability of spirit before you enter any investigation of the flavor required. And also really front and center for me is the future of humanity and how we view ourselves. And I do believe that what the code is, the fact that it's allowed to be seen and many other things, not the only thing, many, many other things, including people going through basically left and right awakenings and things like this, is part of what is actually in the cards for us. Like people, you know, this is a real thing. Like people just wake up, and they have basically magic powers. And I've seen this happen. So now I think that there's nothing more exciting than to do a thing you really love, to be able to talk about it with people and get excited about it together and contribute in different ways to how people go through these experiences, not just psychedelic experiences but like, you know, awakenings and things like this, and I'm becoming more and more in the presence and awareness of many people who are going through a lot of these big experiences, not just with psychedelics again. So, it's a pretty, I mean, I can't complain. I, I love my life. I'm, you know, I'm married to the love of my life. I have an incredible baby daughter that, you know, she's she's literally like a gift from God. I have an incredible family that loves me, and I love them. Everybody are healthy. Uh, and I get to do what I really love and and enjoy these like super high concepts. And at the same time I don't have to answer to academia, which it, I mean, I, you know, it's it's very important work, but it can be such a drag in terms of you know like what you can or cannot say, and I don't have to, I don't have to follow that. >> Didn't you get published in IPI letters? >> Yeah, but that's that's a more like an, it's not it's not like a peer review paper. It's more like a a newsletter in a physics newsletter. But still uh but again, I'm not, nobody in academia is paying me to do what I do. What I mean is that you, you actually can lose your job if you say the wrong thing as a physicist, or that's a real thing. Yep. >> It's not like a conspiracy theory. That's a fact. You can lose your position in the faculty and and beyond. Uh, like even your possibility of working in the field. Um, which is so crazy. It's just like you know. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, I don't see any downsides in that regard. Uh, I, I do understand a certain weight of the responsibility of being as honest of a reporter as I can and trying my absolute best not to like remember if I'm confabulating something in the sense that I'm maybe misplacing a memory or like this is the only like, I would say, struggle, which is like, cuz the mind is very chaotic very often and kind of like uh, if if something p um happened long ago enough, it's sometimes hard to kind of know what exactly it was. So then if I'm not sure, then I won't report it, but that's the only thing I can think of is like, you know um, that is like a struggle. >> Well, code of reality has a leader, a following, rituals, a set of beliefs, a cosmology, um a community. Sounds like a faith. >> Yeah, I would strongly disagree with that statement. So the the the tail sign of a belief system is that it aims uh at the, the main focus is believing the thing, and usually at the exclusion of anything that can alter what is being believed. >> You see what I'm saying? >> I do. >> So the reason that what I see us doing is science, science proper, even though many would disagree and that's okay. We call this cognitive physics, which essentially is the physics of cognition itself. It's investigation of reality proper in that we take into account new findings and what we see and modify our our views accordingly. Uh, but we are asking the question from a more of a idealistic position: like if consciousness in fact is the fundamental thing, what are the rules by which it executes itself and operates uh from the perspective of at least one agentlike consciousness within it. So things like Donald, people like Donald Hoffman, the kind of work that he does, I would also uh call cognitive physics, even though he probably won't call it that because, you know, why would you make up a term, but to us it's important because I think it's different than neuroscience, let's say, that asks the question from the brain perspective. Um, so like, what is the brain doing that causes X? Um, so no, I would and and it's not and I, I don't, I don't even mean it in a defensive manner. I mean it just like technically I would disagree with that because and I know that this criticism sometimes is hurled at what we do. I invite anyone to look at the the ways in which we approach this. It is true that I allow myself a very free-flowing thought kind of rhetoric on podcasts and things like this. But when it comes to, you know, being honest about what we know scientifically, I'll be the first one to admit there's a hard line between what I'm allowing myself to say on a podcast in terms of maybe or even tell you that, hey, I'm convinced of X because of why. That's fine. That's me, Danny Gooler, and my experience. I'm not expecting people to follow me there. I don't encourage anyone to just follow me there. I'm saying if it makes sense to you, great. But I'll be the first one, and we'll say it again and again. If new data comes in that flies in the face of what I'm saying, it will automatically win. Not what I think or convinced of. >> Truth wins. >> Truth always wins. >> What are uh you're doing retreats now? >> Yes. >> What are those like? >> Those are amazing. We weren't sure after the first one we did, but like after the first one, it became clear that we're doing something super awesome because people were just transformed. And a lot of people come for the laser, but very often it becomes about something completely different, which is just because I'm, I have so much experience now of seeing how different people go through different kinds of transformations, and I rely on the fact that I brought two of the top facilitators in the world that are doing, you know, both of these medicines, both the NN and 5 MO. We're essentially allowing people to explore the deepest, you know, the deepest spaces of who they really are. And the laser is available, and we fold it into some kind of a part of the experience with the ontological shock, how you handle it and all that stuff. But really what it's about, it's about transformation, which again, you know, we're obviously not the only retreat in the world that does that. But the way that I would say that we do, I think stand out to some degree, is that I call it uh spiritual graduation. Not in in in the vain sense of like, you know, we're making people Buddhas or anything like this, nothing of a kind, but in the sense that we're asking the question: what is it like to be in grad school? Right? When when you go to school, um your professor doesn't want you to stay in school forever; they want you to take the tools and apply them in the real world, right? So very often retreats, very focus, very much, which by the way I'm not uh berating, I think it's very important uh, but it's usually under the banner of like, okay, you bow and listen and that's all you do, right? You just listen and listen and listen. We're we're changing it a little bit. It's like you're a player in this game. What does that look like? How are all the tools that you are carrying from who you are in the 3D world? How it can actually inform a larger picture of what's to come? And we're using a lot of the the tools at our disposal to help people connect to that intuition and actually well, channel is the wrong word because I don't, I don't necessarily like that word, but they channel not from another dimension, but like how do they channel their abilities in a way that is constructive for something more than just themselves by trusting themselves in these very expansive spaces? How do you learn how to maneuver through these waters? Bring something back that can actually execute itself through you in a way that is conducive to a better humanity. Those >> are you coaching them through the session? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We do, we have a lot of talks. We do a lot of uh somatic work. We do breath work with Jeremy Jackson, who's phenomenal. Yes. The Jeremy Jackson from from Baywatch. [laughter] Um, he's he's such a wow. He's such a wow person. It's unbelievable. Um and um and yeah, I mean we're really proud of what we've created. We're going to have another one in December, and we're going to do seven next year, and we're going to do more. Like it's, there's going to be like smaller ones, but those are super, you know, comprehensive. It's seven or eight days depending on the on the season. >> Uh but you know, people come days, >> seven or eight days depending on the on exactly the dates. >> Uh and uh usually eight, but sometimes seven. Uh but the result is the same. It's just a matter of like arrival time and that kind of stuff. And um so far we not only pass with flying colors, people are just and what's more, and this is the real sign of success for me. What we've created, created a community already of people that constantly keep in touch, go visit each other all over the world. This is not just like a thing that people went to; in literally everybody are like one hub every something opened, something opens in them. Um, so we, I have tremendous confidence in what we do there. So if anybody is interested, it's just CO retreat. CO retreat.com. >> I was excited to see you doing >> Yeah. >> Uh, I wish every leader of every country would just do a mushroom trip. >> Yeah. >> Be no more war. It'd be so so chill. >> Yeah, that would be, that would be a really cool experiment. Uh, who created that AI video of uh Trump and Putin and everybody? >> I [laughter] don't remember that. That's funny. Um, all right. I want to take a quick break. >> Sure. When we come back, I think there's something that people are missing about the laser, that it's I think it might be a doorway to something, and I want to talk about that. >> Sure. >> Back and uh you said something at some point that I found really interesting: is that reality is rendered, but that doesn't mean fake. >> Rendered not fake. Um, I want to know what you think the simulation is running on and who's running it. >> Yeah. So it's run, I don't know what the substrate is. It it clearly runs on computational rules. I mean it's pretty clear at this point even from just observing physics. Um, Melvin Bobson's work is very informative in that regard, but also many others. And um who's running it is a bit more plucked out of a comic book, but >> yeah, that's okay. >> Yeah. Uh, but from what I see, it's basically the insecttoids. They're the ones rendering our physical environment, >> our world. >> We got everyone says that. Um, Melvin Bobson, he's um >> physicist. >> Physics infodamics. Is that what he >> Yes. Second law of infynamics. IPI is actually his physics journal, >> right? So, so what's the second law of inframics? >> It's essentially he discovered that there's a, his claim that it's a new law, just like the second law of thermodynamics. >> Um, and basically it has inver, inverse is the wrong word according to Melvin, but it feels inverse, but basically, um, just like the the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy increases over time and it never decreases in an open system. uh wait, we're in a closed system, I think, in a closed system. um uh in second law of inframics, it discovered that when you're talking about the aggregation of information, it follows the exact opposite trend, which means that it actually decreases over time and then asmtotes towards zero. So basically he observed physical systems through symmetry in nature, he observed the evolution of organisms through looking at the enormous amount of data we have on co >> y >> because we had it in a very short period of time, which is very unique, and we had our hands on the data, which is also very unique, and uh and the third one is he looked at just computational systems, so like hard drives, things like this, and he discovered that in all three cases, the the the more you evolve a system, the entropy of that informationational pattern actually decreases in state. which points to computational optimization. And because that also happens in physics, he said here that both all living things, all computational things and all physical things are doing the same thing. >> So it looks like compression. It looks like >> compression. Exactly. >> Error correction. >> Error correction. So optimization of computation. You would do that if you're running a computational system. Now the reality of it is that really, and I asked Melvin on this, right? He just put a diff, like a different emphasis on it. This is not a new idea. He gave it a name and he he showed this uh uh you know equivalence between the three things, but Wheeler famously coined it "from bit," right? Which is, you know, one of the most famous famous physicists of the last century >> basically saying that after observing it and looking at everything, what makes more sense is to assume that under the laws of physics, there must be some computational uh space rendering it. Yeah, it was one of his last theories. >> Yeah. And the and the interesting thing is I actually didn't know that. Interesting. And the the interesting thing is is that ultimately it's not very different than saying there's something behind the laws of physics, which of course we already knew. It's just we didn't know what it was. We're just saying it's computation. And then you look, you have to kind of answer what computation really is, which is a complicated conversation. But it is the abstraction itself, not the the kind of uh substrate it's running on. It's the abstraction that is doing the work, right? So, so there's something there that is informing physical matter, but for all intents and purposes, it can inform other things that would be different than physical matter, right? Uh people are never bothered to be rendered by the laws of physics, this shouldn't bother them any more than that, which brings me to the second part of your question, which is as long as there's a conscious agent, which is a mystery what that is. But as long as there's a conscious agent that can experience veilance. So a quality of experience that has a certain degree of either comfortable or uncomfortable or even painful degrees, then it becomes what reality is. That's what reality is: is where the experience meets whatever in fact is unfolding. And if what is unfolding is consciousness, that doesn't change anything. You're still in the same conundrum. As long as there's a conscious agent, either it's created or just always existed. That's what reality is. It doesn't matter how you came to be. The fact that you're having the experience is what what justifies calling it reality. >> How do you feel about Donald Hoffman's theory, interface theory? >> Incredible. Incredible. Holds an enormous promise for the future, I believe. And I do have huge faith in in what they do and the fact that he just collaborated with Andrew Gallammore and I, Andrew was very gracious to invite me to this event. It was called Traces of the Other. So they're, you know, Donald Hoffman's uh he has the trace institute, and they basically using what's called trace logic and mathematics to basically come out a mathematical formulation of what what's in store for consciousness as a whole, and according to them they can make some predictions even as to what kind of conscious gestalts can arise given the change in the trace logic and what they call experience kernel. If I understand correctly, there's kind of sliding off the experience kernel frame, but it's an extremely promising framework, I think, and I'm very excited to dive into the specifics there. Uh, and I do think that maybe the laser can be one potential way of probing into their theory, because the laser and I spoke to one of the professors that is part of their operation, and we agreed, and he's a neuroscientist. He agreed that if we c, if we have a stable object of observation in altered states, which is what the laser is, it doesn't even matter if you think it's a hallucinatory or not. The fact that it's stable for what it is and it seems to be similar or the same across individuals, it gives you something to actually study. It's a handle, and you can now >> basically try and trace the the mathematical logic through the different states that people occupy, because people experience the world in very different ways depending on their mood, depending on whatever, right? And see if we can actually create any departure for anyone with how the code appears. That this can be an interesting thing to study. >> Would this mean that the code is also another icon, an interface? It's not, it's not >> well, ultimately any content is, yes. Like I don't really, we call it code of reality because we had to call it something, and it kind of looks like a code that kind of have we have no idea what we're looking at, not the first clue >> um >> right. When people hear code, they almost think about computer programming, but it's more like symbology >> yes, but but it does seem like, I like, again, this is where I have to kind of make clear separation. My >> intuition, it's not even a hypothesis, my intuition is >> that it is some kind of a language that reality speaks, or you're exper, it's almost like the pre-buffer of what you experience as the world, right? So maybe there is something there that is akin to a computer code, but it's just not arranged in the same way that you would have in a computer where it goes to a compiler and levels and communicate to machine level to it wouldn't be like that. It would be like a code that is instantiated in the environment itself. So just like a world kind of builds itself through speaking to itself through this kind of linguistic representation, and maybe the reason it's discernible to conscious beings within the world is to find it. It's B, almost like another purpose it serves is for conscious agents within it when they're ripe to understand to start to understand, and then slowly kind of find their way out basically through it. >> So the code is not content of the experience. It's not the machine else. The code is infrastructure >> the walls. Yeah, >> it's the walls. So there's nothing below it. >> No, I'm sure there's like levels above it and below it and however it is that you want to imagine it. But I do believe that there's there's more and more layers, like when you go into 5 MAO state, it definitely feels more, it feels more like the architect. >> Yes, it does. >> Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's levels be where it's just wiggles, you know? I mean it's just like logical arrangements of things and not just kind, maybe the platonic space. I guess you can you can think of it like that. Can you explain the difference between, you don't have to for me, but the difference between 5me DMT and NND DMT, what the experience is like? >> Yeah. Very very very different. Uh, the short answer is that well there's two different kinds. So the NN DMT, which is NN stands for two nitrogens. 5 MO stands for five mythoxy with an oxygen with DMT. And they they're both produced in our bodies to different amounts and in other living systems. When you smoke each and every one of them, they shouldn't even share a name. They're like two different universes. Like why NNDMT is like Transformers from 3 million years in the future. 5 MO is straight up like meeting God. It's just divinity. It's that vibe. And by the way, that actually made me understand that there there actually is a distinction to be made between saying, you know, sometimes people say, well, you know, how you wouldn't even know the difference between a god and a very advanced civilization. I disagree. I think there's a big difference. >> Really? >> Yes. There's a there's a difference in their essence. So, so super advanced civilization can have the essence of divinity, but that quality or at least that's what that would be my take, uh is not necessarily coming for the ride. You can have a super advanced civilization that will not feel divine. It wouldn't be evil. It just wouldn't be divine. Divinity is a very particular kind of quality. It's almost like the wholesomeness of reality. And I think you have to tap into that. If if it's going to be animating you, propelling you forward, it is the the pull of energy out of which you draw, a particular kind of ideas will be set of ideas will be arising there, and a different set of ideas will be arising if you're playing the non- divine game, so to speak. Now that that it can sound a little confusing because descriptively it's very hard to pinpoint exactly what's different here, but when you're in the presence of it, you know, and by doing 5 MO and comparing it with NN many times, I realize there's a there's a big difference here. 5 MO feels divine. It's it's like kind of the the thing beyond which there is no nothing. Like it's maybe there is, but it's it feels like it's impossible to go beyond that state >> without being the totality of things basically. >> Yeah. It it's like full ego dissolution and you're part of the oneness. It's very strange. >> Yeah. But also the content even feels it has this like light. This is like light. N doesn't always feel like this. It feels more like kind of like technical, like very robotic, right. Yeah. So that's what I mean by that. >> It's tangible and >> and more tangible and I would and and and Yeah. And I would even say, I would go as far as to say that even though on NN you can sometimes have experiences that, you know, there is ego dissolution, like you you you don't remember your, you you don't remember you're a human, you don't remember what humans are, you're just some point of attention, but when you do 5 MO, you realize that's still not enough, because when you do 5 MO, if you look back at NN, you'll realize even when you had that state when you were like not remembering what being a human is, there was still a point from which you were looking. >> You're still observing. >> Yes. >> 5 MO, I don't know if it's possible to describe with words. >> It's not >> it it doesn't, that central thing doesn't exist anymore. >> It's not >> there's just field. That's it. It's like completely diffused. There's no mapping of any kind. And yet sometimes there's also content, by the way, for me. >> I I recommend people don't mess with 5meo. That is >> without a facilitator. >> Someone's got to be there, because it's it could be scary. I I found it very scary. Yeah. >> Um, >> you really have to let go. >> You have, and it's hard for me to let go. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> You believe in the divine? >> Yes. Well, it's interesting because the word belief is an interesting one. So, I always say I'm at this point I'm still I'm a secular person. Okay. >> Which just means I believe that everything is knowable. It's just a matter of time and energy and whatever it is that you can live through. But I know there's a God. So, I know cuz I saw it. Like I, you know, for all intents and purposes, again, nothing is unmovable, but in terms of how certain I am that there is an actual God, basically 100%. >> Did you see Jesus? >> Yes. But that's not the God that I saw at the top, which is always very bothering to Christians. So yeah. >> Well, it's bothersome Christians. So, so God is not the top of the chain. >> Not the biblical God. No. But for all intents and purposes, for fairness, >> at the same vision, I saw that as far as we're concerned, it might as well be. >> So, who's above God? >> There's some kind of, again, it's all it's going to sound super arbitrary, so I'm trying. Okay. >> Yeah, I'll, I'll talk about it, but this probably, I keep saying it, but this probably will be the last podcast I mentioned this. >> Um, because I'll, I'll say why just for a moment. I do find that that reaches outside of what I call the horizon of relevance. Beyond that point, it there's more dissonance from this than coherence. And that's not necessarily a good thing. Uh it bothers Christians for the obvious reasons because that's blasphemy to if you postulate anything beyond Jesus as being our Lord and Savior. Uh uh into total scheme scheme of things, that's blasphemy. End of story. You're not interacting with God. That's the perception, right? I >> I don't think that's, I think >> I'm saying, I'm saying from Christians, right? That that's the perception. So it disturbs them to no end, right? Or at least they think of me as someone who's a, you know, heretic, right? >> But I would tell them, "No, no, no. God is still God." >> Yeah. Yeah. Sure. >> He's just, he's he's just representing us. >> No, no, no. It's part of the, it's, it's very radical in that sense. Like the the one thing that is not touchable is that part which is like, if you don't, if you don't accept Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior and the final arbitrary, you're going to hell. Period. Like that's basically the Christian belief. So um, but and on the other hand I also what the rest of it, what I saw even to me, as someone who if you would ask me before what I saw beyond it, and I will say, but like, I just want to preface it by saying that it doesn't make sense to me either, because it's way too arbitrary. Again, it's like a caricature. It's like a Marvel comic book. Like it just doesn't make any sense. It's too simplistic. But hey, I mean, if it is what it is, then it

is what it is. Like I don't know what you know what else to do with it. But what I saw is that there's this enormous hierarchy and at the top of it for some strange reason it's a woman and no she is not referred to in any of our folklores like she doesn't exist in our folklores. No one has ever interacted with what she actually is, uh, conceptually.

So when they talk about the divine feminine, they're not talking about her.

No, no, that's very terrestrial.

Yes. Yes. That's like here, that's like, like that's so it's outside. So like there's the mult, again, reminding everybody, this is arbitrary for me too. I'm aware of how, how silly this sounds.

It doesn't.

Well, to me it does because I, I, if you would ask me like, what, what would I imagine the ultimate picture to be, it would be more along the lines of Buddhism, like neutrality, nirvana, just kind of like, and if I have to put an image to a god, which I wouldn't, but if I would, it would be like some kind of an infinite ball of light that contains all, you know, something like that. But no, it was clearly a female. It's like a woman. Uh, and and but the scale of it was so, basically, it's our universe is within a multiverse. The multiverse is within a tri-system. There's like a three-ball system of something and only one of them is the multiverse and I don't even know what the other two were. And outside of all of that, so just that alone, the scales here, right, is where all the gods are. So, no, we're not on the trajectory of becoming gods. We are not gods. It's not that kind of a thing. Um, but we, we can be way more because we are made in the image of something much more, right?

And then I saw that basically I'm alone in this basement, uh, and I have, uh, I have VR glasses on. Obviously, all this is like representation and I have infinite screens in front of me. So, basically, you create these infinite realities for yourself. You're alone. There's no one else in your simulation. And obviously, this, this can't be just me. That's just, you know, solipsism, which is like silly. Uh, so clearly there's others, but they are there in their own simulation, right?

And they're making their own little worlds and everybody in your world are just representation, just a reflection, basically. But they are informed, but the real conscious beings. So you're getting a pretty dialed-in interaction from what they would really do in real time. And from what I understood, that's designed that way for safety. But the system is learning what you're doing. So it doesn't matter what you do. It's not like you can just go and do whatever you want. I would not recommend this. Um,

So the system's designed for safety.

From causing actual suffering to what you would consider the other until you're, until you're ready to enter the ultimate love channel, which is a safe channel. And when you enter that channel,

Not like sexual infatuation, but like actual openness. Yeah. But just for the audience, of there's like a conflation here. Uh, you, you, the sandboxes of the different conscious individuals actually get closer to one another. So it's not a binary. It's not like you're either in it or not. It's a distance from it. It's like how close I am to you truly in the spiritual realm, so to speak. And I think everybody who lived long enough can appreciate that it actually feels different to truly be in the presence of someone truly, like there's, it feels different. You really feel there and it's almost like you can feel something. Now, you can explain it away all you want with just like, well, you're reading more micro-expressions. Sure. However it is that you have to frame it for yourself. It feels different to be sharing a certain mind space together and then all of a sudden everything just flows. You know, a lot of this conversation is this way. There's just this understanding that I feel from you through your questions. Uh, there's, there's also a real care. There's, there's like, there's this bubble that is created, is different than just us speaking through the chasm of concepts.

Totally agree.

Yeah. And that, what I saw is basically ascension is that when all beings of that species can enter that space and then they're all together, actually, right? And then I saw some again, pretty arbitrary things, which is like, it's all following the Mandelbrot set shoreline. Andres Gomez asked me rightfully so. He said, "Why the Mandelbrot set?" Cuz you know it from like memes. Like there's so many different fractals. No, not because I know it from memes. Uh, I, I have enough sophistication in that realm to understand that there's all of these other ones. That's what I was shown. That's what I have to follow. Now, obviously, you can say, "Well, that's because the one thing you know best, so they should." But yeah, but that, that game is infinite. Like,

Why is it that particular fractal?

So, I don't know. I think there's something about it. So, I, I don't know enough about the actual, uh, uh, differences between all the other major ones, but if I understand correctly, the Mandelbrot set is kind of the map of all stable fractals. So, you know, Julia sets and all the other ones. Um, and what's interesting is that because it's, it's based on a very simple equation, which most self-iterative, iterative ones are, but it's a very simple equation, equation that basically gives rise to this infinitely complex, not large, but infinitely complex structure. So the, the fidelity of its, uh, stability is guaranteed within the very simple equation.

Mh.

So even though there's going to be probably some, uh, requirement for some error correction as worlds are actually built on top of it, it's going to be a lot easier because this, the structure itself, the fundamental baseline is guaranteed to be stable by the definition of the logic of the equation and it never repeats itself. I don't know if how many people know this, but there's not one part of the Mandelbrot is the same. Not one. You know how the different, again, I'm sure you know, but I, I want to make it explicit for the audience. The Mandelbrot set is this shape with the, you know, looks kind of like a little beetle, right?

Yep.

The little beetles that it's made out of, not one of them is the same.

Not one to infinity.

To infinity.

That's crazy.

It's crazy.

And that's part of what's called a strange attractor. One of the, it's the Lorenz attractor, which basically states that nothing ever repeats the same.

Mhm. That's interesting because if you're looking for novelty, that's definitely the one you're going to pull. And if you're evolving into these spaces forever, you want to make sure that it's always stable, always evolving in ways that you yourself could not predict. Because the difference between the general logic of all of it in its totality, existing in some infinite space, and the actual computation of it, which is the process by which you're actually going through it, are two different things. So when you're computing into it, you want to make sure that no matter where you're going to find yourself, you're safe for the fidelity of the system and you want to make sure that you always discover new things that you've never seen before. So if you want to run the ultimate computation and see what is in store for the ultimate state of affairs, which is what they're doing, calculating the ultimate question, you will pick something like the Mandelbrot set.

Yes, you would.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. And by the way, that, I have a little thought that it actually is, to me, is very interesting. It to me sounds rings very true. The closer you get to the edge. So if everything in the world follows the Mandelbrot set, which by the way, we know it does because we have literally like any chaotic system from dripping faucets to, you know, the way the hearts work, basically everything, and even the, uh, um, the process in which populations grow, everything, right?

Yeah, I think Lorenz was studying weather.

Weather, yeah, everything. Um, so basically, uh, even the bifurcation, at the little Veritasium did a great episode on this. Um, so if you, that means that everything in the world, including the patterns and the information in our brains will follow it. Well, here's the deal. This would explain to me why the distance between madness and genius are so close. It's because the, in order to be a true genius, you have to play in an informational space where it's right on the shoreline, where truly, truly, truly novel ideas can come. But because if you're too close to the shoreline, it becomes so chaotic and so unpredictable that one wrong step, you're out. And that's why

We all know very intelligent people that are

Weird. I definitely do. The smartest people I know cannot really function.

Cantor is a perfect example of this. Created set theory. Everything has to do with infinities. Went mad, died in an insane asylum.

Yep. And we know it's correlated because it happened to him once. He went in, he stopped, he recovered, went back. It's actually a very tragic story and then went back, went back and this time died alone in there. It's a very sad story, but we, we, we're very, the fact that some people are like this, we, we are very lucky to have had them because they created enormous theoretical frameworks that allow us to do a lot today.

I totally agree. Um, did you interact with Jesus?

No, I didn't become a Christian because that was not a, uh, it's not like Jesus came to me, which maybe is something I need to worry about. I'm not sure, but, um, but I saw him from the side, like I saw him ascending and essentially what I took from that is essentially there's a new dawn coming.

You saw him ascending, so you saw like

He finishing his contract. So basically that whole thing, essentially what I saw, which then all of a sudden I had to

The resurrection, did you see?

So, okay, so for me, I had to make sense of it, right? So I, I want to frame this part of what I'm saying by saying, I had to make sense of what I saw because it was like super arbitrary to me. I never grew up with the concept of Jesus. Yes, my grandmother was a Christian, but that was never part of my, I never cared, right?

Understood.

And neither did I care in a negative direction. I wasn't like reacting to Jesus or something. Um, so why would I see that? Like, I'm, if anything, I should see the Buddha. That makes the most sense to me, right? But they were very clear. They were like, they showed me the image of Jesus, exactly how it's depicted in the Bible, which I took to be information. Because they could have said, you know, that thing you believe to be the Messiah, there's such a thing, but it's not what you think. That's not what was shown. What I was shown was Jesus Christ as he's depicted. I threw that to be, took that to be information. And at least to some degree, I, it opened the door for me to at least explore and at least listen to what Christians actually believe. Like, you know, obviously, uh, uh, forthcoming Christians.

Yeah. Um, and not immediately branded as like, you know, some way in which people deal with reality, right? Like, if, if there's any reality to it, what Christians actually think, not what people tell me they think, what do they think when I ask them, right? And I started talking to Christians and what I discovered is that actually the story is much deeper than I realized.

Really? Yes. And the story, well, maybe you did know, maybe you knew this, but I didn't. For example, that a lot of denominations believe that the cross was not what was done, the cross was the beginning of what was done.

Yes.

That was so, you knew it. I didn't. And that actually impacted me emotionally. So like, if I am, if I allow myself to entertain even the maybe of it,

I mean, that's wild. The fact that he went through all of hell's for us, I mean, that's a different story, right?

Uh, and then

No, when you really sit with the story, it's, it's

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

And then, and then the fact that basically it was done for us in an infinite love because it saw that God saw that there's no way we're going to not go towards the worst possible outcome for us. So he basically bought our karma. He said, "I'll strike a deal. I can handle it." In order to handle it, it wasn't enough for him to basically experience it as the unified God that he is because then it doesn't count, right? He had to go into a limited form so he can actually experience the suffering. Not just the, the, the torment, the psychological, the physical, all of it. That's crazy.

It's crazy.

So then, so even the maybe of it is insane.

Who did God make the deal with, right?

Well, I saw that that guy is also there.

You saw that guy?

Yep.

Did that guy have a face?

Kind of. But it's more kind of like the caricature folklore of what you would imagine, right? So like, uh, and it became clear to me also that things are not very, very, um, straightforward in that regard. It's almost like he doesn't really need to do much. He just kind of lets things unfold in the way that they would and he can kind of steer it. But like ironically, again, this is like taking us very far afield. There's some interesting nuances there that I saw that obviously don't depict him in any positive light, obviously, but it's almost like, for example, there was like this interesting thing there that he can't lie. Like, what? Yeah.

He, he can't lie.

Can't lie.

I think there's something to that. Yeah, yeah. He, he can deceive.

He can't lie.

But he can.

So they, you know how sometimes, wait, so for example, you know how somebody gives you a riddle? If you don't give me enough of the actual information to truly for me to figure out, that's just a shitty riddle. That's not fair, right?

Right, right.

But if it's clever, you don't lie. You deceive. You deceive by the information is there, but you have to be aware enough to notice it.

That's right.

That's how he operates. And if you're blind, that's on you. You can't belong in that place if you truly didn't know. But if it was there all along for you to notice and you didn't, you chose to not notice. That's how it works. That's part of the kind of like the ultimate state of affairs. And I found that to be profound and also pretty true. And to whatever degree that that part, obvious for the obvious reasons, you're like, "Okay, whoa, hold on here. We have to think of some things." Um, and then I realized that basically the way I explained it to myself is that essentially the, the, the ascension is basically Jesus basically handing us back the bill collectively. So he's like, here's your karma back. You're good enough to handle it now, but you do it collectively. So you're not good enough to do it individually, but collectively you can hold each other in check. And that's where we're supposed to go. Now, can we pull it off? I don't, I hope so. I

I, I'm positive about it because I think that's the only way to actually steer there. That's not, you know, I, I'll do my best, but like, that's all we can hope for, right? Um, and, uh, yeah, so that, but that again, funny enough, it didn't make me a Christian. Uh, again, I'm not even saying that to, to in any direction. Like, I, I don't know what to make of it. Like, I, maybe it's my stubbornness. Maybe it's like, maybe I should, like, I don't know. Um, but I, but it didn't. And to for the time being, it feels correct. Like, I'm definitely still following the riddle. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm doing my best to notice what's there to be noticed and I'm, I'm not like obfuscating information for myself or lying to myself about something just because I don't want to do it. Like, as far as I'm aware in myself, I'm not doing that. Uh, but, but I also saw, which is the obviously the part that really bothers Christians, which is that there's a much bigger picture than that. Um, but again, I also kind of saw that it might never be relevant to us. So, it's almost like you, you might not even need to ever like worry about that.

I think that's probably true. Yeah.

Is you don't have to worry about that. That's what God's here for. Yeah.

He's like, I got.

Basically, it's your agent. I got you. Don't worry about that.

The, the riddle was very interesting because I've had plenty of experiences. One was, I just want to know how everything works. And they told me, it's too big for you. It's too big for your brain. But very often when I'm in that world, I get information that doesn't quite make sense. And I could feel the entity saying, "If you don't get it, I can't do anything for you. It's all there for you to figure out." And I, over and over again, it feels like the trickster. It's like, "It's right in front of you, dude. You just got to figure it out." But I, I can't. You can only be judged on things you can, uh, discern and comprehend. To say, "Haha, you did this wrong thing." was like, "I, I never knew it was a law. I never knew it was a rule."

Right.

And then they can say, "No, no, no, no. We know for a fact you could."

Mhm.

You chose not to. That's different. But if you actually couldn't, then they, there's, you know, now, why is it like this? Again, it's like super arbitrary, right? It's almost like, like, think of it from our, and I'm just thinking out loud, right? If, if I'm imagining myself creating a world for any reason and I'm allowing the, the beings in the, in the world to do, I think it's, I, I think I have a responsibility to create a world that doesn't just, pardon my friend, just fuck him over for, you know what I mean? Like, it's actually unethical of me to put him in a condition where, you know, which leads me to believe that if it is, in fact, the case, any of this, it must be some ramifications or just like the state of affairs that is just so, and there's really not much you can do about that, a certain limitation within which everything else operates that just, it's just how it is. So then

We're all having the same experience.

Basically. Yeah. So then, then it makes sense ethically. Like, if you can see from the highest perspective that things are just are that way and you don't know how to make them different. Maybe it's the fact that there's, in, like, the same amount of yin and yang in the world, like the same amount of darkness and light. So what is the most ethical thing to do? Try and distribute it evenly instead of like half of it experiencing the ultimate suffering and half of it, you know, the ultimate bliss. How do you communicate that, hey, we all should carry as much of it as we can so nobody has to experience kind of like the ultimate? Like, that's the most ethical decision that can be made collectively. So if you're on top of all of this and you see all of this, then all of a sudden it makes more sense like, hey, it's just how it is. I want everybody to have the best time possible, possible. Let's try and play a game a certain way so we all kind of stay within the, which again, within the purview of even in the Mandelbrot set in this infinite, because what's outside of the Mandelbrot set is just infinite.

Right.

Chaotic. Like nothing is predictable. Everything is can be anything in the like.

I can't really comprehend what's

Going. Yeah. So, so maybe there's only so many different ways to keep coherence and that's essentially what the, the, the light path is, which is like kind of a, where it's almost like the lack of awareness of God. That is really what hell is. It's like you just, because anything can be, right? And, and there's, there's really, it's almost like the default. So it's not like either or, the default is really where you're going to end up if you don't pay attention.

The default because he, he's not really doing anything. He's just kind of letting it unfold.

It's basically everything.

So that means whatever the program is, is programmed to be pretty dark.

And it's not even. No. So maybe what's, so the thing that I saw, which was kind of like the ultimate, what should we call it, kind of like the, you know, ultimate kabosh, like this, like thing at the top, which is that basically what it's all for is to formulate a, uh, the ripe condition for the ultimate choice. So basically, you have in the beginning was the word, and in the end is the choice. The ultimate choice. The ultimate choice is when it's literally all said and done. Literally, like there's nothing that can happen again that didn't happen before. And if you think, yeah, but what if? Yeah, you're not thinking about the state we're describing. Everything was done. Everything.

Now, any other step you're going to take by definition will be a replication of something that happened.

Y.

Then what do you choose? And in that moment, basically what I saw is that there's this final black box that contains the actual answer. The one thing that no one in existence knows is why, and nobody knows why. Like

You saw the box.

It's in that box. So basically, right now, while it's still happening, the answer doesn't exist, or the question, or whatever it is.

Right.

No one actually knows. That information doesn't exist in existence. Right? It's the ultimate umbilical cord, which if you think about it for two seconds, actually makes perfect sense because aside from you just kind of, uh, in by fiat, declaring that God knows, if you think about it for two seconds, any amount of knowledge you can embody, you can always ask, but why? That. So it's almost there's no way for, because you have to be outside of what is, which, what does that even mean? So basically, what I saw is that the reason everything is happening is because it's formulating that black box with the answer or the question. And what is that for? Because at the same time, what is being practiced through all the simulations is the attitude of letting go, which much is much more kind of like the Eastern attitude. And then at the end of everything,

You think that we're running multiple simulations over and over.

There's two main games. One coming up with the actual true answer or question, and the other one is the practice of just letting go of it. But it only matters if you can, in fact, let go of it, not the concept of it. If I ask, can, do you think that if the time comes, you will let go of it? You saying, "Yeah, I think so," doesn't mean anything because it's not there.

Right.

But only when the money is on the table. If that's why the answer has to be the real one. It has to be guaranteed to be the holy answer or the question. And then God gets to make the ultimate choice, which is like, does he open that box or not? This is the finite against

The final moment. And, and you don't, and the thing is, it is the final of finals because the second you open it, you don't know what's in it. You, you don't know if you don't really don't want to know that, or you really did, or can you just let it go? Can you just be forever? If you're there forever and you can do anything, nothing means anything. Everything's kind of pointless. Which is what a lot of people experience sometimes when they go to 5-MeO, and it's this like infinite loneliness because you're just alone and you understand there's nothing outside of you. And it's like

That's essentially what the predicament that, you know, the ultimate God is. And so it, it broke itself, or she broke itself into infinite pieces that don't remember necessarily all the time. And they're playing both of these games because the only two games that make sense is figure out what it is that the one thing you don't know because it's kind of interesting. But also see if you can actually practice of just letting go of it and just be forever, just like, cuz that's what monks do. It's not forever for them, but for longer and longer periods, they practice to be in complete bliss without any anything. The reaching is the problem. The reaching is the suffering, according to the Buddha. So Nirvana would be basically the unitary field making the choice to just let go of the whole thing. And then it kind of opens this, the one thing that I did see that was kind of, I'm, I have to be honest here, I was convinced for a long time that I saw it in, in the same kind of vision. Saw it. I saw all of this. Yeah. This was shown to me. So now, but I, but I'm, but I'm that last part that I'm about to say, I actually don't recall. So I have to be honest about this. It might have been, but I actually don't recall if I've added it after because it's very easy to do because you are in this like very kind of, you know, very, very altered state.

Yeah. Uh, but what I, what made either either what made sense to me or something that was actually shown to me was if the box is opened, what, and this is why the choice is so dramatic, is because if you let go, you can just be with everything that you already know and exists. You can just be in peace and whatever it is. But if you open it, it creates a state. So the ultimate object, so the ultimate God would be if it would be perfect, you know, in a perfect sphere, every single point in the sphere points exactly, exactly on the opposite side of it. Exactly. That's the definition of, but that's the definition of a perfect object or a shape. If it's the ultimate thing, it must contain all the opposites of itself. So it would not occur. It, it actually cancels itself out. This is why God can't be perfect. It will be almost perfect. It will be one piece missing. Just like in that game with the nine numbers, you have to have one missing to move them. Right? So the only reason that anything occurs is because there's this one piece that is missing from God being perfect, which is that piece of knowledge of why. But the second that happens, when that piece goes back and God, in that pico second or zeptosecond, whatever it is, that God just knows, imagine what that would must be like. You're now locked forever with that knowing. It's just you in that knowing. But also it becomes perfect, and therefore it doesn't just cease to exist, but ceases from ever being existed.

This is a very DMT conversation.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's almost like it cancels everything out. And I don't know if you noticed, but it sounds like you're pretty experienced with these.

There's always this almost like a zany ramping up towards something.

It's almost like a da da da da da, and they're all kind of waiting for you to like, and it becomes more and more serious, and you're like, what's going on? And so what I saw that at the end of this, this ramping, this crescendo, that's what happens. It's this ultimate like, just

Do you think that that this is predetermined? How does free will work its way into that?

Yeah. So that's exactly the thing that you, wow, you asked the exact right question. Whatever free will is, the only place it can be. So it actually doesn't exist in the way that we think of it. The only place where it can be is in that one blind spot. That's where free will lives. Free will. The ultimate fractal of free will is the, the freedom of the will of existence to come into being versus not to be. So that is where it's at, and nobody knows what that is. So your question, predetermined, uh, no, the reason it's the ultimate choice is because it's the one time in the existence of existence that an actual free choice will be, will be executed. That's the only time.

That is it executed by one unique consciousness or

I think it's going to be the unitary. And I think what might be happening is that maybe they're, this is already kind of becoming like super, you know,

No, it's fun.

Yeah, but, but basically, it, it might, what might be happening is that they might be creating AGIs to go through a similar moment. And we're one of them. So basically, it's, it's, you, you train a bunch of AGIs and you put them through alignment problems and all of that, and if they pass, you can put them to the next level and the next level, and they essentially all together either conspire to have that moment together, or they're a practice of how to have that moment perfectly because you, you can't mess that up. There's only, there's only one of those literally ever. So it's the one moment where you have to become so, God has to become so still that he has to align himself with the ultimate umbilical cord and basically execute that one ultimate choice, whatever that is, and just kind of surrender to it fully.

But it still sounds like that choice comes from the deeper consciousness.

But no one can, no one can ever tell because it's actually computationally reducible. The moment has to happen for. So you actually, no one knows, including God himself or herself, if they will open the box or not. Like, they actually don't know until the moment comes.

That's a computer science theory that you have to run the program to see what happens.

Describing computational. When I'm saying computationally reducible, it's a computer science term to say it.

But that the ultimate moment is a lot more dramatic than a computer doing a thing.

[laughter]

It is, but yeah, but it's, it's interesting that you don't think it's predetermined. We have to.

It can't be. If it would be predetermined, it would be pointless.

[laughter]

That's true.

Yep.

But who's running it then? Is is it God running it or God?

No, no. We're talking about a, a level that is outside of reality itself. It's almost like it's, it's this is why you see a horizon of relevance. Like, aside from having like a really interesting philosophical discussion about this,

And that's what I took from it, by the way. Even though I'm still like enjoying once in a while revisiting the idea itself because it's so explosive, I, I took from it to be basically like them saying, if you really want to know, you can, but what are you going to do with this? Like, just

Just live your life, basically.

That feels very familiar.

Yeah.

Is we'll tell you, but you don't really need to know any of this. What's for? And basically, what the only way I guess I was maybe stubborn enough in which they like, well, let me show you then, and then you tell me if you think you can do something with it, which I'm still like kind of like in this crazy deliberation with, with the totality of things. Can't you open it and also like, open it?

[laughter]

At the same time. I don't think so.

Isn't there some quantum superposition? They're like, nope. No.

Yep. No way around. But

Where do the insectoids fit into this?

They're more like a management company, which I'm always at the, at the

But are they on our level?

No, no, no. They're way, they're simulating the universe. So they're way above our level. Simulating the universe and probably a few others.

Okay.

So this is the scales when we're talking about the beings that I saw, like gods. They're way more than that. That's like levels and levels.

These sectors are above gods?

No, no, no, no. Well, this is why I'm being careful because it, to some degree, it's still not fully clear to me if all of this is a formulation within their simulation or are they just a management company within a smaller system, uh, delivering the, uh, I guess the commands that God kind of dictates, like the architect actually commands them and then they do it.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm not sure, but currently it looks like they are more management company and where you go with 5-MeO is more like, you know, actual the architect. But again, I'm being super careful because I, I definitely don't want to like, uh, upset anyone. So hopefully, I'm doing my best to to get it right, but I'm not sure.

We, we just speculating. We're just

Sure. We're not saying this is what it is.

You know, some, some beings can be very moody.

[laughter]

That's true. Yeah.

Have you ever been locked out?

That never happened to me. No.

With all your experiences, never locked out?

No. I, I can say that maybe a few times in which like I had to do more.

I had never heard of that until Andrew brought it up. It kind of blew my mind that that's even a thing.

Yeah. It was known in the community that this happened. Yeah. Yeah. When I was on Danny Jones with Zultan together, Zultan brought it up because it happened to him one time and he said, "Oh, there must be hundreds of cases." Because in our little, you know, psychonaut community, it kind of a lot of people know each other. And when we pulled it up on the computer, there was almost no reports of this. Like, no, it was like, that's strange. We kind of know about a lot of them. And then after Chase Jarvis spoke about it, all of a sudden that clip went viral.

And all of a sudden, boom, everybody talking about it. Obviously, so it's like, you know, it became like a much more known thing.

I think that's where I first heard it was.

It's fascinating. It also tells you that there's something going on. Yes.

Just that by itself, by the way.

Did you do DMT X?

Yeah, I actually, as far as I know, and, and this is just like a fun little surprise, when we did the first big one, when we did like, did like a shoot for the film, if I'm not mistaken, I'm still holding the world record, basically. So, I did 5 hours with 464 milligrams. So, that's, uh, I think Chase after that went after me. I think he did like four plus hours. I don't know how many milligrams he did. I think a little bit less. Uh, we weren't trying to break a record or anything. One day, uh, if we really feel, uh, you know, called to it, maybe we'll try and actually like make like a real record. And I, I have to design this one because I can stay there indefinitely.

I can. No, I really can't. I was like, I really enjoy it. I, but the reality of it is that I don't even think it's that hard. I think that some people really enjoy that. Chase was one of them. Uh, I, I don't think if you're enjoying yourself, just sustain your body and you'll be fine. Like, you know, you, you can just enjoy yourself for hours and hours and hours, maybe days. We'll see. How different was the experience?

Uh, it's a lot more pleasant. It's actually

That's what I hear.

Yeah. And it's also a lot, it's a lot less, uh, amped up.

When you smoke it, there's this like, like a boom.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's the jolt.

Yeah. It's the jolt. Wow. Really good word. Uh, the jolt doesn't happen. It's more like a hockey stick.

It's still exponential.

I didn't know.

But it kind of goes like a very smooth, and you can control it. You can ask, you know, we're doing it with Kevin and Haley in in Colorado. And you can just always ask them to lower it. Uh, if people are interested in like the super legal thing, then they can also go to probably Andrew spoke to you about this in Elus, St. Vincent. Paradise, beautiful, great crew. More expensive, expensive, but if you can afford it, it's worth it for sure. Uh, great people. We, we went there. We did this with Carter as well. Uh, shout out to Charles and Christina, who's, you know, invited us. Um, and, uh, but yeah, but there are cheaper ways. Um, and they're worth it if you really want to explore it.

There are cheaper ways. We're not going to discuss those, but there are other ways.

No, like even in Colorado because it's decriminalized. It is decriminalized. So it's not a criminal offense.

That's true.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a misdemeanor. You, nobody. They actually had two CIA agents do it. I, I think three. And I think Kevin said that two of them told them, "We know what you're doing. We don't care though." I think.

[laughter] [snorts]

I bet the CIA's done a lot of DMT over

Years. Oh yeah.

I bet they've been in there a long time.

Yeah. I've done that. Have you ever done the gateway

Extended?

No, the gateway takes.

Gateway process. I try to keep falling asleep.

[laughter]

You know. Did you try it?

Yeah. A similar thing happened to me, but then I learned how to kind of stay somewhat awake. I'm very similar to you.

Uh, and then I noticed that there was definitely changes like, I, yeah, yeah. I started feeling. There was one case that was really outstanding. I put my head next to my wife's, like this, head to head. The second I touched her head, I, I felt this headache, but I knew it wasn't mine. But I could feel it. I was like, I was like, "Do you have a sharp headache right here?" She's like, "Yes."

Wow.

It was crazy. Like I could feel her headache. So there's definitely something there.

It's supposed to unlock whatever's down there. Do you believe in the universal consciousness and we're all just, yeah, micro projections of it?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think, I think consciousness is fundamental. There's no, I, I don't think you can, I don't think you can responsibly describe the world without consciousness coming first. That just doesn't make any sense.

I think so too. I've heard you, um, talk about Bernardo Kastrup quite a bit.

Great. There's one thing that I always want to ask him that I don't understand why he's so insistent on it, which is that he thinks it's substrate dependent, which is strange. He only thinks it can be kind of instant instantiated in a physical matter, but other than that, I think he's probably the best, the best outliner of the

He thinks it's substrate dependent.

Yeah, he, he always gives this, again, it's very confusing because without a doubt, Bernardo is one of the smartest people on the planet.

I thought he believed the physical comes out of the consciousness.

He says things like, which is why that example is so, I, I would love to ask him one day, but like, and I don't mean it disrespectfully. I just truly find it like a silly example. The example he gives is like, well, if I simulate your bladder on my computer, my computer is not going to pee. That's literally a thing he says. I'm like, what is that going to do with anything? But the computer is a different substrate. So, like, if you simulate a whole body on the computer, then the person in the simulation will pee. Sure. Why are you, what is this translation? So, I guess maybe that's what he means by it's not translatable from one substrate to another. But it's not the same as saying you need matter to make consciousness. That unless he assumes that matter is the final kind of thing that that is what consciousness is. I'm not sure, but I would love to ask him one day, but

I wish he would do some podcasts.

One day I really hope that we'll meet. Uh, but I, I consumed basically everything he has to offer and, um, yeah, definitely one of the more important people in, in, in that world, uh, in that thought realm. Uh, super eloquent, very clear on what he's saying. Uh, best outlines of why free will is really not a thing that can even be.

That's right. He doesn't believe in free will in the projections. He believes that there's some will down below.

Well, that's the only, that, like I said, is the only place that

That's kind of what I was thinking when you were talking about the box.

Well, it's, it, I actually for a long time struggled as to how people can't see that that it's not a coherent idea. But then I realized that maybe what people mean by that is not really what, let's say, I mean by that, or what I think ought to be meant by that, because words mean things, right? So if you're saying free will, what I think is implied is that you think that you're somehow free of the immediate moment and somehow you float free of it and then you make the choice in this some kind of a vacuum of something. It must be what people mean by this, right? I'm different than whatever, right? Just being pushed around, right?

But then, and maybe if the, if the idea is more like there's more freedom of operation because there's more degrees of freedom, that's true because the brain is a much more advanced system, but in the end, it's just a more complex system of like things pushing each other, like, right? So the conscious part of it, which is the feeling that we have that we're, we just, what the neurons are doing, right? Somehow that is postulated to have the, that freedom. And also the word will is interesting because what you're saying is that you're kind of willing it to be, right? There's some, there's there's almost like a just magical quality of just kind of like, I'm willing it. Uh, both of them don't track even the first step of observation because you obviously, whatever brought you here is responsible for what's going to happen next.

Right.

So, like, it's always, you're always within the sets of dominoes falling. You're never outside of that sets of dominoes falling. You can't, you can't. The reason it's an incoherent concept is because you can't describe a situation that is logically consistent in which somehow all the dominoes are falling, but when it comes to this one domino, the domino stops. Everything was one second. I'll think because then what is that internal process of that one domino? It's internal. It's infinite regress.

Where is the end of that?

The answer is the beginning of everything, right?

That's. But one hole in the donut that connects between what we experience as a choice that isn't really chosen by us, but yet feels like it. Feels like a choice only when you retroactively fit a story onto it later.

Right. Man can do what he wills, but he can't will what he wants.

Exactly. How can you know your next thought if you haven't thought it?

Right. So ultimately, you have to bring it back to the ultimate first moment, which is Bernardo's point, but with a caveat, which is that he says that you can say that the universal mind has this kind of like freedom of will with the one caveat that it is free to choose that it is ought to choose because of what it is, because if it's the totality of things, it is all the things, therefore, it has a state that dictates what the next state is, and it can experience it as a choice. But how free are you if you have to do that thing because of what you are? And if you're saying, "Yeah, but what if there's other things influencing it?" What other things? Because we're talking about the ultimate. Because if you said other things, you're no longer referring to the ultimate. You're now referring to something that is within something.

else. And that's not the ultimate.

>> Sometimes I forget that we're doing a show right now.

>> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] thinking about so much stuff. Castrip's theory kind of explains why randomness isn't a thing.

>> Well, it just doesn't solve it. It doesn't solve it, right?

>> Yeah. Cuz randomness is the opposite of free will,

>> right?

>> It's not targeted. It's just random.

>> And also, randomness can't be because

>> Right. No true randomness.

>> Yeah.

>> Because if it's the totality of things, it is guaranteed to be the ultimate set of everything that is possible. Mhm. And if you're saying random, well then that means something is outside of the scope of that and there therefore now it is the ultimate. Now that is the ultimate, you know, horizon of relevance, man. Like it's simple.

>> It's true.

>> It's true. Um, you once said that 99% of your audience would disagree with what you actually believe. They came from the Matrix and you're quietly handing them metaphysics. I'm quietly handing them the present moment.

>> That's what you're doing.

>> Yeah.

>> Present moment.

>> Yeah. It's the only thing that ever matters and never will.

>> Are people disappointed

>> sometimes?

>> Cuz they just want to talk about the laser.

>> They just want magic.

>> They want magic. They want the matrix.

>> But the the magic is right here. And then and then the the the matrix and everything else becomes even more profound because everything that is experienced truly through the present moment is always more profound. It it truly is. There's an expansive quality to it that you can't communicate with words because the logical trace can't really follow there. I want to close with uh with one thing and I think you're going to nail you're going to nail it. When we talk about lack of free will that's usually very nihilistic. It's usually very dark. If there's no free will, nothing matters. Life doesn't matter. But you have a different take on that.

>> Yeah.

>> It's the opposite of that.

>> The idea that because you don't have the ultimate say in things, which is what free will postulated to be is the ultimate prison, not the ultimate freedom. Just like we said with the AI, if I put you in a situation where nothing is and you have to make a choice, that is the hardest position to be in because you literally bringing it out of nowhere, which is almost impossible. The freedom is in the in the understanding that you are the space in which all of this is unfolding. You're literally the totality of things where you are. And that to me both connects you to the ultimate and also frees you to just have fun because you don't need to worry about the ultimate state of affairs. You can just enjoy this to its ultimate degree through actually acknowledging that that's the case. Being pushed around as the universe, it's kind of fun. The state of flow is a lot of fun when in fact you're in it because you're surfing. There's a there's a there's an elation there. Um, so you actually, the irony is that you gain the ability to experience actual magic, like actual magic in real time. When you get a wink from the universe, there's nothing more satisfying than this. So I think that if people are just willing for one moment to drop their need to, you know, to be this final arbitrary in order to feel salvation and realize that that's an arbitrary choice they're making to put their salvation there. If I don't have free will, what is it all for? or this. Do you feel good right now? Because if not, I understand why you're trying to escape it. But there are ways to truly drop into the present moment where everything opens up. You you're literally being handed everything. And I will be honest, it sounds like a vacuous promise if somebody has never experienced it. But this is why within the within the crazy pyrochnics that people can experience on psychedelics, the thing that I would encourage anyone to notice if they are doing that is not the pyrochnics but how it can feel when you're freed from the constraints of needing to make decisions or what you imagine making decisions. See how that feels in your body. There's a you can breathe.

>> You'll feel true compassion.

>> True compassion. True freedom. That's that's the freedom. And then you don't need things to be this or that. They can be anything and you will enjoy them just as much. And you can experience hardships in life and everything else, but it will never have the same dire nature that a nihilistic nature that you might experience because it's the mind trying to tell you what must be for you to be free when in reality you already are.

>> That's the way to land the plane. Where can they find you?

>> Uh Dango Thoughts is my YouTube channel. D an o thoughts. Danny.com is all my links. Uh our retreats. Highly recommend to check it out. corg retreat.com and go to reality.org if people want to check out everything with our uh nonprofit.

>> Danny Gooler. This has been a joy.

>> Bye everybody.

>> That was Danny Gooler. We covered the laser, the simulation, his cosmology, free will. Let me try to make some sense of it if [music] I can. Here's what holds up. Danny isn't making his life up. American Ninja Warrior contestant, born [music] in Moscow, raised in Israel. The vapasa he credits for everything is real. A [music] 10-day retreat where you sit in total silence and observe your thoughts without judgment. And he corrected me on his own credentials. IPI letters, he said, is a newsletter, not peerreview. [music] And I trust the guy who downgrades his own resume. Now the bigger claims. Danny says reality is computational, rendered, not fake. [music] Then physicist Melvin Bobson at the University of Portsouth published a 2023 paper in AIP advances. He calls it the [music] second law of inframics. Information in physical systems compresses and optimizes over time. [music] That's not what you'd expect to happen in reality, but that's what you'd expect if the universe were [music] running on a computer. That's a real paper. It's peer-reviewed. It's not accepted [music] science. Most physicists disagree. It's just theory, but it's interesting. Danny says mushrooms erased his OCD. Now, [music] a 2006 study at the University of Arizona gave psilocybin to nine people with severe OCD and cut their symptoms by up to 100%. The one thing I couldn't [music] verify is the code itself, the symbols. Thousands of strangers seeing the same symbols in the same spots. There's no published data [music] yet that is really the first to say so. And I have experience with the molecule and I never seen anything [music] like that. But I never looked into a laser cuz why would you? Before the laser, Danny was on DMT [music] and a being that looked like a frog showed him chords on a guitar. Chords he said he didn't know how to play and that he did. Now, if it happened, [music] that information came from outside of his own mind. If he didn't, the most important moment of his life was a misfire on [music] a drug. He can't prove it. I can't disprove it, but I'll take his word for it. And he built 10 years of work on it, and [music] he tells the story the same way every time. Now, here's my take. On the surface, Danny's just another psychedelics guy with a retreat and a nonprofit. But that's not what he's doing. He's taking the most subjective experience a person can have and building an experiment that could prove him wrong. He keeps saying the truth always wins. And [music] I believe him. A man selling you a belief system doesn't invite you to debunk him. Danny says, "Bring on the truth and he'll accept it." I take him at his [music] word. You can find him on YouTube at Dan Gothoughts. That's d an o [music] thoughts. Dango thoughts. His retreats and his nonprofit code of reality are all on dannygler.com. And I'm thinking about trying it. That's goer g o l e r. Links are down below. Now if the simulation is something that fascinates you like me, I broke it all down in my episode, we [music] live in a simulation. I included the science there as well. It's a lot of fun. Until next time, be safe, be kind, know that [music] you are appreciated. You hear the cats in here. Come on, buddy. You trying to >> [screaming and crying] [music] [bell] >> Oh, [music] I play Bolivia [singing] in Area 51. A secret code inside [music] the Bible said I would. I love my UFOs and paranormal [music] fun as well as music singing like I should [music] another conspiracy theory becomes the truth my friends [singing] and it [music] never ends. No, it never ends. [music] I feel the crap guy. I got stuck inside Mel's home with MK out. I feel only aware. [music] Did Stanley Cubrick make the moon landing alone on a film set of shadow [music] people there also? [singing] [music] And his name was cold. And I can't agree. with the B. [music] [music] >> [music] >> The midings and the solar storm [music and singing] still come to the young city under ground. Mysterious number [music] stations planet to black star when the dark watchers found [music] a simulation. Don't you worry though the black [music] night so I can't believe [music] I can't [music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [music] Baby, [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] Wait. [music] [music]