Dream Machines: Physical AI, Robotics, Being Human
00:21:19 · Lara Sophie Bothur, Evan Helda
[00:21:19] S0: And the second is [00:21:27] S1: The notion of a soul, which could also be defined as like the feeling of, of self. And something about what's happening now has sent me on this journey to study what the self is and what it isn't. And what I've basically determined and what a lot of amazing thinkers think is that there is no self, that the self is a self's an illusion. The self is this evolutionary thing that our Body and mind invented to like orient itself in physical reality and to survive. Um, but everything that's feeling of subjective experience, but it basically says realizing you have no self is a good thing. Cause it just, it just separates you from yeah. Having no self. These are a classic old Buddhist ideas, but, um, having realizing you have no self is a good way to just separate yourself from things like bias. And I think there's a world where we can all do better at harnessing the flame themselves. It might lead to better design of technology. Now that concept sounds wild and we'll have to maybe have a second episode to unpack that. So it's earmarked that. Well, we'll follow up on that, but that's a hypothesis that I just invented right here, right now. [00:22:45] S0: Are you okay for the video? So we can, you know, we'll just... [00:22:47] S1: Yeah, in terms of the AI and the mirror idea, there's the exact same thesis.
00:22:47 · Evan Helda, Lara Sophie Bothur
[00:22:47] S1: Yeah, in terms of the AI and the mirror idea, there's the exact same thesis. [00:22:52] S0: I like that. I like that. But is the self the ego? Could that be the word for the self you try to describe? The ego? Because then when you're a child, you feel more of, you know, are we still here? We talk about AI and then Wi-Fi and JAWS. But so when you're a child, you don't think so much, you feel everything. And then at some point, a child just says, my word is not so colorful. And this shows it is maybe depressive. And then an adult says, Well, I'm not so happy, but just because, you know, I do work a lot, you know, my wife has a lot to do, my children are busy, so I don't sleep that well. So an adult tries to explain why, and the child feels, and that is when the ego starts. And this is the, I don't know if that is the self you described, but I think that makes us very rational and less emotional, which is not always good because we have explanation for everything we feel and we stop feeling, which is also, I think, a big problem in today's world. Totally. Yeah. And then what is also interesting, is that the self you were talking about or is that something else?
00:24:18 · Evan Helda
[00:24:18] S1: Yeah. I'm bringing my own answer. I need to go back and reread this because it's so heady that it doesn't always stick. But let me just read from this. Give me a second. Okay. So let me just read this and see where it takes us. Okay. So understanding the self. For most of us, the self is the main character of our story. It's the feeling of me at the center of experience. A fixed entity who thinks, feels, decides, and acts. It's the pilot living in your head, with a personality, wants, dreams, and desires. This feeling is so intuitive, it's so innate, that questioning it almost feels absurd. Of course, you are you, and I am me. And well, that's just that, end of story. But modern neuroscience offers a different story. According to cognitive scientist Dan Dennett, our sense of self is just a useful fiction. A mere narrative we tell ourselves about ourselves, and to be fair is very useful indeed. I need to think of myself as a father, a husband, a business partner, if only to make it through the week, much less excel at each. As such, it's important to clarify this is not the sense of self worth challenging. What we're targeting is far more fundamental and subtle. It's also the greatest source of suffering. It's the feeling of being a subject internal to our bodies, a mini you behind your eyes. This version of self An ego, to your point, an ego both produced by and identified with thought is where the burden lies. Fortunately, it's also not a solid concrete thing. It's a simulation. Or rather, to draw an eerie parallel to our new AI friends, it's a generative model. Philosopher Thomas Metzinger calls it the phenomenal self-model. A kind of internal avatar your brain assembles to unify experience and track itself in the world, and it works beautifully, stitching sounds, colors, smells, sensations into a coherent tapestry of subject-object, instead of a random chaos of disconnected inputs. Neuroscientists call this sensory integration, and I'm almost done. Let me finish this up here. But here's the uncomfortable part. This model doesn't reflect reality directly. It constructs it. Take color. This part's fun. Take color. There's no green out there in the world. Only light waves bouncing around.
00:26:36 · Evan Helda, Lara Sophie Bothur
Your brain interprets those waves and gives you the feeling of greenness, or what philosophers call qualia, aka the subjective felt qualities of experience, the what it's like aspect of mental states. As for the self, this feeling is what neuroscientists call a controlled hallucination. And it's entirely convincing because it's transparent. We don't see it as a model. We just see it as me. One major reason for this is memory. It convinces us there's a stable me who persists over time. So that idea of green not existing and we just, we invent green. It's not really out there in the world. That's like a really subtle, I guess, analogy to what the self really is, which kind of blows my mind. [00:27:20] S0: You're a good writer. You need to send that. And you need to drop the link, please, in the comments. [00:27:27] S1: Definitely. Will do. [00:27:28] S0: No, really. It feels like my younger me, not being alone with those thoughts, because I was always thinking exactly those things. Also, me is the one behind my eyes, right? And it also feels a bit like this Truman Show, you know? [00:27:51] S1: Yeah.
00:27:51 · Evan Helda, Lara Sophie Bothur
[00:27:51] S1: Yeah. [00:27:52] S0: The Truman Show. The Truman Show. It's like, you know, everyone's just actors around your life, you know, and then there's someone up there staring all of it. I think it's also crazy to understand that everyone is watching their own movie. You hear your thoughts, you see your perspective, and this happens for every individual in the world. And I think it's also crazy when you drive by train and you see all the windows there and everywhere there is an individual story and everyone is experiencing that. That is so crazy to think about. And there is also, you know, Disney is always very good in doing those, you know, grasping those psychological theories. So there is, I need to look it up how, I don't know what's the name in English, but Alles steht Kopf. You need to watch that. I love that. Alles steht Kopf. [00:28:59] S1: Is it a little cartoon or what is it? [00:29:02] S0: Yeah, it's a cartoon thing. Inside Out. [00:29:06] S1: Oh my gosh, Inside Out. Do you know that? Of course. That's the first movie I cried in as an adult. The first one made me cry. And not just tear up, but like, love will cry. It hit me so hard. I don't know why. I guess I have a rich emotional world myself. And then the second one, too, also made me tear up. Just the girl playing the sports and everything she dealt with, you know, trying to make the sports team so relatable. But yeah, that's one of my favorite movies.
00:29:06 · Evan Helda, Lara Sophie Bothur
[00:29:06] S1: Oh my gosh, Inside Out. Do you know that? Of course. That's the first movie I cried in as an adult. The first one made me cry. And not just tear up, but like, love will cry. It hit me so hard. I don't know why. I guess I have a rich emotional world myself. And then the second one, too, also made me tear up. Just the girl playing the sports and everything she dealt with, you know, trying to make the sports team so relatable. But yeah, that's one of my favorite movies. [00:29:42] S0: It's like, it's such a beautiful movie. My first movie I cried was Gorilla. No, what is it? Wait, what is that? This big monkey. Oh, sorry. Where this big monkey falls from the high building. And he's living in the jungle with this blonde girl. Do you know the movie? [00:30:09] S1: No. Oh, this one, I don't know. It's not Curious George, is it? [00:30:15] S0: No, I don't know. So what I love about this movie is the simplification of those thoughts that we're having right now. It's not the full description of it because it's more focused on the emotions that are steering your head, but then you also, I also like the idea of the different items in your life, you know, like family and friends and yourself. And, and then this, I think in the, in the down there, there are all the memories and little balls, you know, but yeah, it's, it's a beautiful movie. And how did we get that far?