What is Quantum Reality? Consciousness, Beyond Spacetime & Into Possibility | Ruth Kastner

In this episode of Mind-Body Solution, Dr Tevin Naidu speaks with Dr Ruth Kastner, physicist and philosopher, about her groundbreaking Possibilist Transactional Formulation (PTF) of quantum theory. Kastner argues that quantum mechanics reveals a deeper realm of ontic possibilities, beyond spacetime, where transactions between emitters and absorbers give rise to the physical world we observe.

This conversation bridges physics, philosophy, and metaphysics, offering a radical yet rigorous vision of reality as fundamentally processual, relational, and deeply mysterious. Dr Ruth Kastner earned her M.S. in Physics and Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Maryland.TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) - Introduction & Ruth Kastner's journey into quantum foundations(00:24) - Why quantum paradoxes grabbed her: entanglement, EPR & the measurement problem(03:04) - History, philosophy & foundations: why historical context matters for physics(04:11 )- Discovering the Transactional Formulation: Kramer, Wheeler-Feynman & absorber theory roots(09:36) - The Transactional Formulation explained: emitters, absorbers, offers & confirmations(11:06) - Time-symmetric direct-action theory & the role of virtual photons(13:16) - Absorber response and the ‘handshake’: how transactions actualize energy transfer(17:47) - The Born Rule: why PTF gives a physical explanation for quantum probabilities(20:27) - Possibilist metaphysics: wavefunctions as ontic possibilities in Hilbert space(24:10) - Iceberg metaphor: spacetime as the measurable "tip" of quantum reality(26:24) - Objective reduction & von Neumann's "process 1" in the transactional picture(27:03) - Maudlin's critique & replies: causal loops, relativistic formulation & objections answered(31:19) - Retrocausality clarified: what retrocausation does and doesn’t mean in PTF(34:51) - Emergent spacetime from transactions: emission/absorption events & Einstein equations(43:54) - Consciousness & quantum theory: why mind is not a measurement "band-aid"(46:52) - The mind-body problem reframed: monism, receptivity & quantum possibilities(49:35) - Time symmetry, indeterminacy & free will: where physics leaves room for choice(52:15) - Yoga, receptivity & embodiment: contemplative practice informing Kastner’s thinking(58:14) - Cosmology & empirical prospects: dark matter, dark energy & testable predictions(1:03:51) - Further reading & resources: books, papers & the Possibilist Transactional Formulation EPISODE LINKS:- Ruth's Website: https://www.ruthekastner.org/- Ruth's Academic Blog: https://transactionalinterpretation.org/- Ruth's Publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eCEoqOcAAAAJ&hl=en- Ruth's Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ruth-E.-Kastner/author/B008HTAV4G?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=trueCONNECT:- Website: https://tevinnaidu.com - Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/mindbodysolution- YouTube: https://youtube.com/mindbodysolution- Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu- Facebook: https://facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Instagram: https://instagram.com/drtevinnaidu- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu=============================Disclaimer: The information provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. The content is shared in the spirit of open discourse and does not constitute, nor does it substitute, professional or medical advice. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of listening/watching any of our contents. You acknowledge that you use the information provided at your own risk. Listeners/viewers are advised to conduct their own research and consult with their own experts in the respective fields.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Ruth, thanks so much for joiningme.
It's a pleasure to chat to you. Your work is deeply fascinating
and you've managed to intersect so many different fields
together with your rich history within the field.
To start a thought, maybe we could start off by sharing how
your journey within this field started.
So within the foundations of quantum mechanics, what led you

(00:27):
to your current views within quantum theory, the possibilist
transactional interpretation, and what inspired you to reframe
quantum theory around this theory of possibility rather
than just probabilities? OK, well, you know, I, I came to

(00:47):
this, this project, I guess in kind of a roundabout way.
I was, I actually got into physics initially because I was
fascinated with electromagnetismand, and light.
And I just, I really, that was kind of my, my main motivation
for studying physics and kind oflight to me was, was kind of
fascinating and mysterious and Iwanted to learn more about it.

(01:10):
And also, I do have, you know, alot of science in my, in my
family background. My father was a solar physicist,
my mother was a math educator. So at with an avid interest in
physics also. So it was kind of in the family,
you know, I got the opportunity to, to be introduced to these
ideas as a child with looking atSpectra and, you know, things

(01:34):
like that with my family, our, our parents kind of showing us
these fun things with prisms andso on.
So that that was kind of kind of, you know, what lured me into
the field when I started to do graduate work in physics, I came
across these strange quantum paradoxes such as the the non

(01:55):
locality, the entanglement entangled particles that the
Einstein Podolski Rosen paradox,where you have entangled, you
know, electrons going off to opposite ends of the Galaxy and
and being mysteriously correlated in this non local
way. So that kind of really grabbed
me and I, you know, there's something here I want to

(02:16):
understand. And and it turned out that that
work was mainly being done in the philosophy department at the
University of Maryland. So at that point, that's why I
switched to what was then calledthe Committee on the History and
Philosophy of Science, because they were dealing with, you
know, both the historical Stephen Brush was, was there at

(02:39):
that time in the history of physics.
And I took a course with him andthat was that really grabbed me
too. So this kind of intertwining of
the, of the historical development of physics along
with the, the ideas that were being entertained and, and that
were challenging us, that's whatwhere I found, you know, this is

(03:00):
where I belong in this field that that is then has been also
called foundations of physics and it's historically informed.
So that's why, you know, historyis so important, but that's kind
of the, you know, the way that Igot intrigued by, by quantum
theory in terms of the problems that face the, the, the

(03:21):
standard, you know, the conventional way of doing the
theory, which among which are the measurement problem.
So kind of that, that's when I began to see that, oh, not only
is there are there some interesting paradoxes and, and
issues of that challenge us, butthere's also this theory is, you
know, really has a problem and, and in accounting for what is a

(03:45):
measurement, you know, just answering that simple question.
And that is when I, I was kind of exploring that I came across
John Kramer's work. This was back in the late 90s, I
guess, when I was doing this work and I, and I realized that,
you know, it in my mind, his approach was a way forward.

(04:06):
So this was what he called the transactional interpretation.
And that at that point, you know, when I saw what he was
doing with including the entire,the, the entire solution, if you
will, to these electromagnetic wave equations, you, you're not
neglecting the so-called advanced solutions, which people
think of as being backward in time.

(04:27):
And you're not, you're not just kind of ruling them out by Fiat
by saying no, that that can't beright, or I don't like it, that
doesn't agree with my intuitions, but instead saying,
let's, let's include them and see what we get from it.
And I saw that that actually gives you a way to understand
what you mean by the word measurement.
So that's that's kind of the background in how I arrived at

(04:51):
the transactional approach. It's, it's fascinating because
when you look at physics and, and I, I spoke about this with
Tim Maudlin where we discussed the shut up and calculate
approach where people just tend to neglect.
And I know there's certain aspects of where he disagrees
with your work and vice versa. But I asked him this question.

(05:11):
I mean, does physics or does science need philosophy?
I mean, this is a fundamentally,this is fundamentally A
philosophical podcast, but I have to ask this question, is it
what do you think of the shut upand calculate method and does
science need? Philosophy.
Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a cop out.
You know, I mean that it's sort of like using the theory as a

(05:31):
tool and the theory works well as a tool, but but it is, it's
not legitimate to then say to dictate that that a theory
should be no more than a tool. So, you know, that's where
people are overstepping their authority in a sense as
scientists. And in fact, you know, I mean,

(05:52):
science started out, at least physical science really started
out as what they called natural philosophy.
And, you know, I really think that if you look at the history
of ideas, you look at the history of the development of
science, all of the early brilliant scientists were avid
philosophers and they understoodthat they were doing philosophy

(06:15):
and they they were trying to do responsible philosophy.
So, you know, science isn't, is never been separate from
philosophy. If you can think of science as a
branch of philosophy, that's really, I think, the proper way
to look at it. Yeah, I completely agree.
I think that most of the time when scientists are are doing
anything within the science, we're using the scientific

(06:37):
method. They forget to think about the
normative values we place withinthat.
I mean, just merely the act of doing the study or the
experiment. There's so many philosophical
outcomes to it. So if you were to give us a
brief history of quantum theory and and then sort of expose and
dissect the parts that really got to you mentioned the

(06:57):
measurement problem. I mean, we often hear things
like shrouding as cats. There's all these things in
quantum mechanics, these paradoxes that people hear about
and then tend to take too far. So for example, someone might
hear about shrouding as cats andthen come up with their own
metaphysical views and consciousness reality.
How do you sort of draw this line to to to make a perfect

(07:18):
theory while simultaneously not sounding crazy to your physics
audience out there or your fellow colleagues?
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's
important. I guess this is where it gets
important to really understand the history a little bit better
and the ideas a little bit better.
And what are behind things such as Schrodinger's cat, which

(07:40):
Schrodinger constructed as a refutation of the theory, a
basically as what's called a reductio odd absurdum to
demonstrate that the theory was broken in a specific way
concerning measurement. And that is actually what the
Schrodinger's cat paradox. It's not, it's not supposed to
be something like, hey, this is so cool.

(08:01):
We could use quantum theory to put a cat in a superposition.
No, you know, that was definitely not what he wanted.
You know, it's the opposite. He was saying, see how dumb this
is? This is how bad this theory is
literally. And, and so that's where we get,
you know, we, we get off in the in the gutter, you know, we kind
of get off into a gutter ball, to use maybe a bowling analogy.

(08:23):
And he's like, OK, here we go folks.
And, and everyone wants to now let's let me play, play this
game by bowl bowling gutter balls.
No, no, no, we're not. That's the point, is there?
There's something that we need to address.
It's a weakness in the theory. And so that's what he was
highlighting. And, and that's one of the
things that I argue is remedied by this, this alternative

(08:46):
formulation is that we understand that in fact you
don't have to worry about a cat or something like that being in
a superposition because you in fact do get an account of
measurement at a micro level that's well quantified.
So we never get to the point in a transactional formulation.
We never get to the point of having to say that our theories

(09:07):
predicting a cat in a superposition of alive and dead.
Yeah, I think, Ruth, the Copenhagen interpretation is
often treated as the default, despite it's, it's obvious flaws
in many ways. Then you've got other theories
that try and come along to fix those that don't tend to answer
many other questions. So let's maybe, perhaps you
could walk us through in plain terms, the story of your version

(09:30):
of the transactional interpretation and why we should
take this seriously. OK, yeah.
So, so the transactional, I mean, and I call it a
formulation now because it's it's really more than just an
interpretation of the existing theory.
So I mean, in a nutshell, the the transactional formulation,

(09:52):
it is a subtly different theory in that the physics is actually
different. So what goes on and you know,
there, the background is there. It all goes back to how do we
model field behavior in physics.OK, So there's kind of a default

(10:13):
way of conceiving of field behavior that isn't really
terribly well articulated in in the conventional approach.
But it's it's kind of a default notion that you have some,
something you call an emitter like an excited atom or
something and it it sends out a photon, which is a, a quantum of

(10:34):
the electromagnetic field, right.
So, and it just does that and then people assume that's what
happens and then they model it in a certain way with certain
quantity field, you know, excited field state or whatever.
And, and the transactional formulation actually says no,
something different is going on when fields are generated.

(10:56):
And the, this is, it's really anapproach that has been around
for quite a long time, for more than a century.
It's been known by various termssuch as the direct action
theory. Wheeler and Feynman were working
with it back in the 1940s and they called it the absorber
theory of radiation. So it's a different model of the

(11:18):
way the electromagnetic field behaves.
So in a nutshell, I mean, this it, it gets a little technical,
but it's sort of the, the metaphorical way of thinking of
it is that you, you need both anemitter and an absorber, at
least one absorber. So it's not a, it's not an
autonomous thing in this direct action theory.

(11:41):
It's, it's an, it's a relationship.
The fields are always created inbecause you have at least two
charged particles or atoms or something like that.
And field generators you have tohave, You can't just have one
like you can't just have a single universe with a single

(12:02):
particle sitting there and have a have an electromagnetic field
that, that would that would be allowed in the conventional
approach, but not in this approach.
So what happens in this direct action theory is that at the
very basic level, say you've got2 electrons, they they are
always connected by what would be called a virtual photon,

(12:24):
except that the virtual photon in the direct action theory is
time symmetric. So this is very weird.
And you can see when I say time symmetric, it has it has both a
so-called a retarded forward propagating or future directed
component. And it also has a advanced or
past directed component. And it's literally that it's one

(12:46):
plus the other and half, half the amplitude of each and there.
And that's what it is. It's called the time symmetric
propagator. And that that is that's how you
describe a virtual photon in thedirect action theory.
So that's one level of interaction.
Now at A at a higher level, if you have things like atoms that

(13:06):
have internal energy states thatthey can transition between, you
can have a different interaction.
And this is what Kramer called offers and confirmations, which
is is a kind of a rough way of describing that not only do you
have a direct kind of connection, but the absorber

(13:27):
plays an active role in kind of responding in a sense and
saying, OK, we can. We can actually go further than
just this kind of force, the based connection, which is what
a virtual photon is. We could actually exchange some
real energy, which is to be distinguished from a force
because energy is force acting over a well defined distance,

(13:50):
right? So this this is the distinctions
that are not made in the conventional approach, but in
the direct action theory or thisis what you get and it's called
a transaction. So when you get what what Kramer
called absorber response, which is really it's kind of a mutual
process emitter and absorber, perhaps more than one absorber
kind of are relationally connected by this field.

(14:13):
And they go, hey, you know, thisguy's excited we could receive
that. We're going to send back these
these field responses that actually help to create this
real quantum of energy. So the, the role of the absorber
is crucial and it's active that the absorbers are generating

(14:34):
fields. They're not just passively
acting like, you know, dead drops.
You know, the absorbers are not dead drops in, if you want to
think of it that way, in the transactional formulation,
absorbers are part of the actionand they help to decide whether
a photon will be transferred. And, and in the conventional

(14:55):
theory, you know, absorbers are just dead drops.
They're completely passive. They're not even modelled.
There's you know, so, so this is, you know, if I get a little
evangelical here, you know, I mean, it's, it's just, it's a
different, different way of conceiving the way fields
operate. And there are a lot of aspects
to it that kind of offend the the usual Western scientific

(15:18):
mind. You know, it it's, it's that
it's action at a distance. Whoa, that's not legit, You
know, so there are certain metaphysical assumptions that
kind of are in the ground level of the way we model fields that
are unexamined. And they are, they are often
kind of used as, you know, this is the right thinking way to do

(15:41):
things, but they're actually putting us in a box, you know,
so that's what I argue in my work is that is that we've,
we've inherited this box of thisis the way fields have to, you
know, causality, what we call this label causality.
It is, is basically our stubborninsistence that fields better
behave the way we think they should, you know, and kind of

(16:04):
wagging our finger and put opposing causality, you know,
and you know, you know, you've just put a box around your
ability to theorize and get solutions to problems.
So that that's the basic thing is the transactional formulation
is really a different theory. The physics is different and,

(16:24):
and I mean the, the confusing thing is, you know, people will
say, OK, well then tell me, giveme a test.
And how does your, how can we test your theory?
How does it differ? You know, and, and the issue is
actually that this formulation helps you derive a lot of the
apparatus of the standard theory, like the probability
rule, the Born rule for the probabilities of outcomes, which

(16:48):
is just kind of ad hoc in the standard approach.
This derives that. So, So yes, it's going to give
you the same probabilities that we already observed.
So, you know, so it's not like, Oh yeah, well, my theory's going
to say no, the probabilities aredifferent and then you can test
it. No, I mean, the irony is, no, my
theory's better because it's going to tell you why those are

(17:09):
the probabilities and it's goingto tell you what you're doing
when you do a measurement. So, so the, the novel, it
doesn't have that novel prediction that people kind of
assume you need. But what it does is it resolves
all these anomalies like the measurement problem and it it
shows you where the theory comesfrom, where a lot of the
theories formal quantities come from.

(17:31):
Yeah, it's, it's one of those. It's one of those times where
you just kind of think the unreasonable effectiveness of
quantum mechanics just overweighs and overshadows
everything else, and it's very difficult to get out out of that
shadow. Yeah, I mean, and it's true that
it, you know, the theory works in terms of the, the, the
recipes that were, that were given to us, you know, by by Max

(17:57):
Bourne in particular. And and it works.
And so, but I mean, that's not the whole story.
It's just like saying, I mean, maybe to get a bit esoteric
here, but the a useful analogy is, you know, back a couple, 100
years ago, we people had some good thermodynamical laws.
Like they go, oh, look, PV equals NRT.

(18:17):
Oh, OK, Doing these measurements, the pressure times
the volume is, is personal to the temperature.
Wow. You know, and it's like
empirically, OK, you're right, but wouldn't you like to know
why that is? Folks?
That's what science is about. You know, it's it's explaining
the regularities that we see. And that is what Boltzmann's

(18:37):
achievement was. He wasn't satisfied with just
OK, shut up. What do you guys?
What why do you, you know, what's philosophy Crap.
You've got what you need. No, he didn't say that, right.
It's like, well, why, you know, what is this pressure and why is
it related? Why should it be related to
temperature? Now he was a real scientist and
he proposed, hey, maybe there are these little things called

(19:00):
atoms that maybe we can't see and they're doing stuff.
He was doing real physics. And of course, Ernst Mock, you
know, told him to shut up and calculate and but it turned out
that Boltzmann was right and he he was finding the underlying
physics that explains why this little law worked.

(19:22):
And so this is, you know, I would argue this is what the
transaction formulation is doing.
It's providing it's it's bringing forth, disclosing some
fundamental physics that's goingon behind the scenes.
That explains why you use this born rule.
Because when Max Borne came up with that, he was just like, you
know, OK, there's a wave function.

(19:43):
What is that? Maybe that's the probability of,
of getting an outcome. Oh, no, no, wait, we have to
square it because then we'll getthe right kind of number.
You know, like I think we could do better.
I mean, yes, he was right. He he was a very, a nice
educated guess, you know, but but there was no physics there.

(20:04):
So that that's what we want. We want to do the physics.
Yeah. One of my questions was about
how most interpretations just accept the born rule as a
postulate. But I wanted to ask you how the
possibilist transactional interpretation or formulation
now, now that you're calling it,that explains it differently.
But before we do that, we obviously have to discuss the

(20:25):
possibilist aspect of this. So how did you go from Kramer's
work into this new version of it?
Because then we know it eventually also expands even
further. Yeah.
You know, the, the possibilist idea, you know, in a sense it's,
it's my metaphysical proposal about, well, what would make

(20:46):
sense or how, how would it make sense to understand, you know,
the ontology of what's what really exists?
What is the nature of these objects that are described by
quantum states? And you know, it's kind of a
separate issue. And I guess, you know, before I
even get into that, I could justmention that one can use the
transactional formulation to, tosuggest this underlying physics

(21:11):
without necessarily buying into,you know, my proposal that these
are possibilities. You don't necessarily have to
buy into it. I but I think that's the natural
conclusion. And the reason I, you know, I
come up with that is simply because for logical consistency.
And, and the, the issue is that,you know, even in standard
quantum theory and others have, I mean, Heisenberg, it's not

(21:34):
just me. I mean, many others have talked
about, you know, the quantum state or the wave function as,
as describing some kind of possibilities.
So it's not a new idea, but the reason I think it's really kind
of required is for logical consistency in that these states
are, you know, they're, they're complex valued.

(21:55):
So the amplitudes, you know, like how big a wave, how, how
big it is in a sense, the volumeof the wave in a sense it is, is
a complex number in general, it's not real valued.
So if space-time, you know, whatwe call the space-time world of
actuality, it's real valued, it's 3 spatial plus one temporal

(22:16):
dimension, real valued quantities.
So just from that consideration alone, you know the fact that
the wave function has as a complex valued amplitude.
It's also can have arbitrarily many dimensions and and it's a
Hilbert space mathematical object.
So the Hilbert space is just basically a vector space with

(22:37):
certain mathematical properties,but it has way more dimensions
than 3 + 1, you know, So just tofor mathematical consistency and
the fact that, you know, many particle wave functions just do
not fit into the 3 + 1 space-time dimensions, the
complexity of them, the dimensionality.

(22:58):
So, so I think it's a natural interpretation to just say these
objects, you know, I'm realist about it.
I think they're real and I thinkwhat to be consistent.
I think what quantum theory is, is telling us is that our
understanding of reality has to be enlarged so that so that we
we shouldn't think of reality asrestrict, restricted to

(23:20):
space-time. That, that we should take the
quantum level as what I call a quantum substratum.
That that is physically a domainof reality.
So that things are really, theseare physically real objects and
processes that that we cannot think of as living in a, a 3 + 1

(23:44):
space-time container. So.
So that's the basic idea. When you make this logical
shift, it's you then almost convert from actualities to
possibilities. From a philosophical and
metaphysical perspective, what does this mean to a non
physicist and to anyone who is aphysicist?
How does this shift everyone's perspective when it comes to

(24:08):
understanding reality? Well, yeah, it really kind of
it's, it throws a monkey wrench into into our usual sense, you
know, that we, we live in a space-time container.
So, so it's kind of a shocking idea.
And I what I use as a as a metaphor, I mean, metaphors have
their limitations, but I think as an introductory 1, the

(24:31):
iceberg, you know, thinking of an iceberg with the the bulk of
it submerged below the water is a good way to kind of get the
idea that, you know, that that space-time, it's really just the
tip of the iceberg. Yes, that's that's what we call
space-time is kind of the world of phenomena that we can
measure, we can all corroborate and agree.

(24:52):
And it's sort of the empirical level that science has to be
responsible to definitely. But but it but it's sort of like
we're kind of like the Titanic and we're like, wait a minute,
you mean there's more to this thing than just what's sticking
out there. And it's very consequential, you
know, so we're kind of running up against this.
You know, it's there, it's really there, but it's

(25:14):
challenging us because it is hidden.
It's it's what I call a sub empirical aspect to reality.
So I think that's a useful way to think of it, that at the
quantum level, it's very real, physically real, consequential,
but it's sub empirical. These processes are going on
behind the scenes and then it's actually consistent in terms of

(25:36):
possibilities because we know that when we're measuring
something, you know, some observables, say momentum or, or
spin or something, we have an observable that has a number of
different possible outcomes. Well, what's going on at the
level of possibility is that those possibilities are all
available at the level of possibility, but only one of

(25:59):
them can be actualized because only one can actually kind of
fit into that tip of the icebergspace-time.
So that's where we get this kindof collapse, if you will.
We get, we get what some people call objective reduction, and
that definitely happens in the transactional formulation where
we get a quantified account of the actualization of these

(26:22):
possibilities. You, you mentioned objective
reduction and I immediately thought of Penrose and then and
Orko are eventually because got a few questions about
consciousness after this. But we also spoke about Tim
Maudlin earlier. And I mean, he's a critic of how
well he has concerns about causal loops in, in the
transactional interpretation. How does how does your version

(26:45):
of this address the critiques orthe concerns people have about
that? Yeah, but well, I mean his
concern about the causal loops was that has actually been
multiply refuted and you know, engaged with and refuted in the
literature. And he has he doesn't seem to be
have read those refutations or be aware of them, but that that

(27:05):
actually doesn't happen. See what happened was Professor
Maudlin provided an interesting what he thought of as a counter
example that he thought would cause problems.
But what what he did was he he tried to apply the transactional
picture effectively to emitters to something like a charged
particle. And at the relativistic level

(27:27):
that doesn't actually happen. So, so his his basic premise of
what he called a slow moving offer wave, which is what he he
needs this offer wave that he models incorrectly as as being
able to be propagated at sub light speed.
And if you actually look at the physics of the relativistic

(27:47):
version development of this, I mean, it wouldn't even there are
reasons why that wouldn't even happen in the non relativistic
version, which is out in the literature, But you'd never get
that. So you can actually never
produce the, the slow moving offer wave that that Professor
Maudlin needs to mount his counterexample so it never gets
off the ground. So this is, you know, it's it's

(28:09):
kind of a double edged sword where it was like it got, it
intrigued me. And when I read about his
objection, it was like, oh, that's interesting.
Because I mean, I always want toknow if, you know, if there's a
legitimate critique where the model has a problem.
I'm like, OK, you know, if this model is crap, I don't want to
waste my time with it, you know,because I mean, I'm not the kind
of person who's like gets my, you know, identity invested in a

(28:32):
model. I'm like, this is just an idea.
Like I have other hobbies. I can play piano and, you know,
get more practicing time in and I, I mean, I'm working on a
Schubert impromptu that's like way over my head technically,
but I love it. So anyway, like I'm not wet into
this model and if someone shows me it's crap, great, you know,
I'm done. But what happens is people, you
know, that the, like the, the model and objection it, it

(28:55):
grabbed my attention. I thought, OK, let's see what's
going on here. And for one thing that it
didn't, his objection violates the sort of a complete set of
absorber condition that you needin the 1st place to even have a
transaction. But but at the relativistic
level, again, you never get the tools he needs to mount it.

(29:17):
So, you know, for some reason hehasn't noticed the you know
that, that and, and you get, youget kind of an inertia
established in the lore where people continue to think
something's a problem long afterit's been shown to be.
Now that was just a nice tribe, but no, thank you for playing.
And no, it it's not a problem, you know, So that's that's one

(29:41):
issue that that you know that that it's it's kind of part of
the sociology of doing physics where it's sometimes hard for
people to judge whether, you know, what the state of the
debate is. But but the current state of the
debate is no, the model and objection doesn't get off the
ground. Yeah, I think that, I mean,

(30:01):
that's the beauty behind physics.
I mean, science and philosophy in general is that it's great
when people interact and engage because it allows you then to
further unpack your ideas. So.
Absolutely, if it. Doesn't get off the ground, it
still allows you to to make up objections that provides you
with further backup. So it's it's only a win.
Sure, sure. Yeah.
And I welcomed that, you know, and I, I mean, I, I welcome it

(30:23):
when someone says, hey, you know, I'm not sure how this
would work. And usually when they do that,
I, I go, yeah, that's interesting.
And I've actually find somethingnew about the model that that
reveals that how fruitful it is.You know, So I always, I always
appreciate when people engage. That's the same thing that
happens on this podcast when when we read through the
comments, sift through it and wesee some of the objections and

(30:45):
even the agreements that people have with the guest.
You sometimes read some of the most amazing and sometimes
essays. So people type out full length
essays as a comment. You go through it and at first
you're sort of skeptical, but once you reach the end, you kind
of like, actually this is something that you've got to
think about and often forward itto the guest is to see if this
helps them further their knowledge.
And more than often it does. So hopefully that happens in

(31:06):
this episode. Ruth, does your view require us
to accept retro causality, or isthat just a misunderstanding?
Well, it, this term retro causality is so ambiguous, I'm
afraid, you know, so, so I thinkthe problem is that people often
the, the first thing we think ofis stuff going backward in time,

(31:29):
like literally in time, because we, we think that everything
happens in space-time. But, but actually, so retro
causation, you know, you have toreally say what you mean by it.
And, and if one's trying to say that things are literally there
are processes going forward in aspace-time container and

(31:52):
backward in a space-time container, that actually turns
out to be inconsistent. Because if you really think that
there are events from, you know,T = 0 all the way to Omega, then
that's a block world. It's a static ontology.
All the events are there. And it, it's meaningless to talk
about stuff moving around in it.You know it.

(32:13):
And I have a paper on that that I can offer to people in the
comments later, But I, I very, have a very explicit paper where
I say, if that's what you mean by retro causality, then that
it's meaningless. There's if if you want to assume
that that space-time is completeas a set of events from t = 0 to
T equals whatever your end of time is, you know, which is

(32:35):
relativistically suspect anyway because it picks out a a
preferred reference ring. But if you want to say that,
then you know you're just doing flip stuff if you want to talk
about things moving because it'sa narrative that it's like icing
on a little cake and you get this narrative about stuff
moving around when your own ontology is static.

(32:56):
So that's so that's form of retrocausation is meaningless.
On the other hand, if you've gotpossibilities that you know in
the quantum substratum, then then you have you can have
processes that don't have a determinate temporal direction
because because the notion of time in terms of a real metrical

(33:16):
quantity, it is not defined at the quantum level.
And this is already kind of known.
There are people who show that that the idea of seek time
sequences at the quantum level turns out to you, you can't have
a well defined sequence of events if they're all just at
the quantum level. So, so in that sense, and that's
where the, the idea of retro causality becomes more one of,

(33:39):
you know, no commitment to temporal progression in the
sense of any determinate events.And that's in keeping with the
idea of this, this metaphysical domain or this domain of
possibility because it what happens is you have, you can
have processes, but they don't have, again, they don't have

(34:00):
well defined temporal direction.And that emerges, the temporal
direction of space-time emerges by way of actualizations.
And we have together with a colleague of mine, Andrea
Schlatter, we have quantified that and we do have a theory of
emergent space-time and that derives the Einstein equations

(34:22):
and so on. So that's a publication that's
out there. So for anyone who wants the
technical details, you know, like this retro causality or is
there that it's kind of all there in that publication where
you know, no, I mean there are just possibilities that are
interacting and then we get temporal symmetry breaking out
when we get the space-time actualization.

(34:46):
Yeah, I'll put links to that in in the.
Video. Well, Ruth and, and, and I was
just about to go there. I was going to, I was going to
talk about the fact that in yourwork you eventually go from
quantum events into space-time being emergent.
And then I wanted to ask, how can you explain how transactions
could give rise to space-time and thereafter, what does that
mean for how we understand continuity, causality, and then

(35:09):
perhaps even moving on to consciousness itself?
OK, well, of course there's a lot of technical content in
there and you know, and people who want to see all those
technical details can can look at the publications.
I guess the way to think of it is as again actualization of

(35:29):
when you have a quantum measurement which is which is
well defined in the transactional picture and it's a
non unitary process. It's basically this process of a
mutual emitter absorber interaction that, that Kramer
called absorber response. OK, but it's, but it's really a
mutual interaction and you get, you get this transition from a

(35:50):
quantum pure state to what's called a mixed state.
And this is for people who want to, who know the von Neumann
formulation. This is von Neumann's process 1.
So you get this, we have the physics behind that.
And when you get this transition, there's there's a
step at which you have reduction, you have a form of

(36:12):
spontaneous symmetry breaking, if you will.
So you go from what's called a mixed state to a particular
outcome. So this this is the
actualization of certain space-time events.
So what it does is it establishes an emitter event,
emission event, which is the emitting atom, say really emits

(36:32):
A photon. And this is this is an event.
So we define this as a space-time event.
Then we have the absorber that receives that photon is a.
We call it the receiving absorber because you can have
more than one responding and they don't all receive that
photon. Since it could go to many
different absorbers. 1 absorber sort of wins this competition.

(36:55):
It receives that energy that constitutes an absorption event.
And so the emission event, the absorption event are space-time
elements. Those are space-time elements.
And then the connection between them is that transferred photon
and that constitutes that what we call a null interval.
It's a, you know, that the spacespatial and temporal

(37:18):
displacements are the same basically.
So that's, so that's what constitutes space-time.
It's just events, emission absorption events and their
connections. And, and so it's not a
container, you know, and, and it's really just a set of
invariant events. And this is actually what
Einstein himself said, you know,he said space-time is just, it's

(37:39):
a set of event, what he called point coincidences.
So, so the transaction formulation very, you know,
quantitatively gives you the physics behind that behind, you
know, the, the quantum processesand their interactions that
yield these actualized events. It's sort of a creating, if you
will, that tip of the iceberg. So we've got this submerged

(38:00):
portion and when we have these actualized transactions, we get
kind of another chunk of this tip of the iceberg with its with
its attendance structure. It's, it's, it's intriguing
because as you know, in philosophy, when you when people
talk about emergentism, there's,there's going to be a whole
bunch of people in the comments,viewers, anyone listening or
watching who's going to say, OK,but what about those who say

(38:21):
reality is an illusion? We don't really see things for
what they are. If you've got people like Donald
Hoffman working on the physics of reality, there's so much we
don't know. How do you come, how do you
argue your point across to thesepeople or how do you sort of
navigate to this turf? Yeah.
I mean, that's getting to the, you know, the metaphysical level
of kind of realism versus anti realism.

(38:43):
And you know, I guess I kind of go, look, I'm just a humble
physicist. I just got a little physical
model here and here's what it says, you know.
So you know, and I mean, here's the model now.
Now, when I talk about an event,you know, we, we can say, you
know, the physics is very well defined and I think it has a
good empirical correspondence. It it answers a lot of questions

(39:07):
about what do we mean by measurement?
So it's it's, it's a physical theoretical apparatus.
Now, given that people are stillhave the option of saying, well,
I'm not sure these events are real.
Are they really observer independent, you know, and you
can ask those questions. Now what I would say is like

(39:29):
you, one can make a case that that these events, what I just
defined as space-time events areobserver independent in the
sense that you know, the atoms and molecules that are that are
engaged these, these constructs,you know, the, these, their
theoretical constructs. What we say we think, I think
they're referring to something in the world.

(39:50):
One can, one can question that, but, but given the efficacy of
it, this is kind of the abductive argument, you know,
that I think that, that, that it's a fruitful model.
So let's say if I'm, you know, talking about a theoretical
object, it maybe it exists 'cause it, the theory seems to
work, you know, but, but it's, it's not the the the theory

(40:12):
itself, I think demonstrates that whether or not that real
photon went from this atom to the other one doesn't depend on
what some other atom knows. You know, it's just, that's the
way the theory works. It seems to be fruitful, right?
So, so again, I mean, I think it's another level of
interpretation about, you know, what it means for something to

(40:34):
be real in this context. I kind of, I, I go back to the,
the, the blind man and the elephant, you know, so, OK, the,
the, this, the, this, the wonderful allegory, the blind
man and the elephant. OK, well, there's an elephant
here and we've got all these blind men and they're, they're
all, they're all dealing with their own perspectives.
They're very partial. So they're arguing, you know,

(40:57):
No, it no, it's the stringy thing, the guy at the tail that
no, it's not it's a hard thing, you know, Tusk and they're all
arguing and they all hate each other, right.
They're arguing about, you know,and in fact, it's it's it's it's
one elephant and it's just amazingly cooler than you
thought. So this is what I would say
quantum theory is again, a quantum theory is the elephant.

(41:18):
Now when people want to say, oh,but it's not real, they're
basically saying there isn't really an elephant.
Now I'm saying, well, you can deny there's an elephant if you
want, but it's not required. It's a it's, it's nothing about
this, this question demands thatyou say there's no elephant.
You know, that's, that's an option.

(41:39):
That's like, well, I'm like, whyare you doing that?
You know, why can't there be an elephant?
Yeah. So the so the claim that
reality, well possibilities are ontologically real, I mean for
some people will be considered quite bold, but which
philosophical traditions would you or thinkers would you say
resonate most with this idea? Well, I mean, I think, you know,

(42:01):
certainly Heisenberg was talkingabout that.
Now I know Whitehead, Alfred N Whitehead.
I think I'm discovering more recently about how his, his
metaphysical views, I think are very much in tune with, with the
way I see, you know, the transactional formulation.

(42:21):
He he had very much an idea of, of becoming, you know, that,
that there's a process of becoming and conquest.
And so so things come from a, a more possible kind of potential
status and, and become more, more concretized in a real
process. So I guess those are the two I

(42:43):
think that would mainly come to mind.
I mean, one thing I distinguish my approach from is is the sort
of Louisian possible worlds, because this isn't about saying,
you know, well, this could be true in some possible world, but
it's not, it's not a semantic notion of, of truth and how to
define truth with respect to, you know, possible worlds.

(43:04):
So there's a strong modal tradition that that presupposes
that all talk of possibility always must be translatable to
Louisian possible worlds. And I reject that.
So, you know, I'm not talking about possible worlds.
I'm talking about a world that that has an aspect of
possibility to it. Yeah, the we, we spoke about.

(43:28):
So, so this emerges from these quantum levels.
And thereafter there's another phenomenon that we all have to
try and explain. And more often than not, quantum
mechanics and consciousness. I mean, two things people really
don't, they try to understand, most fall fall down trying to do
so. And, and, and what many
philosophers believe is that when you can't explain
consciousness, people have to bring quantum mechanics into it

(43:50):
too, sort of explain it even less.
What's your views on consciousness?
I love the way you said that. That's perfect.
Explain it even less. Thank you.
What are you? I'll hold up my cigarette
lighter to that. Yeah.
Yeah. No, it's just, I mean, this
whole thing about consciousness,I mean, OK.
I take consciousness very seriously.

(44:10):
And I, you know, I've argued in some of my other, you know,
presentations that it is fundamental.
I, I had an early conversation with, with Kurt Gymungal and I
think I said something like consciousness is more
fundamental than any physical theory.
And somehow it got translated asmore real than, and it's not
really what I said, but, but it is fundamental.

(44:30):
You know, it's a fact of our existence.
And I, and I think anyone who, you know, denies that is kind of
like self refuting. But but the thing about quantum
theory is, is consciousness got brought in kind of as a Band-Aid
for the measurement problem. So in a nutshell, when when
people started to talk about, you know, psychophysical
parallelism and which I think von Neumann did, and because

(44:52):
because he couldn't tell you what a measurement was.
So that was a defect of the conventional physics of the
theory that doesn't have the right field behavior and can't
tell you why you get non unitarity, can't tell you why
you ever get an outcome. And so people would go, Oh,
well, maybe it's my mind doing it.
You know, I mean, to me that's like, Oh my God, please, you
know, oh, you know, so, so that's like a disservice, as you

(45:16):
said, that's a disservice to physics, to quantum theory and
to the study of consciousness sothat, you know, I don't, don't
not to be too, you know, you know, not to be too negative and
snarky about it. I did.
I do think that was kind of an unfortunate recourse, desperate
recourse to use consciousness asa Band-Aid.

(45:38):
And, and it's really doesn't work, you know, so, so
consciousness deserves a much more serious study.
And I mean, I, I just think thatI personally think that that
what we first need to, to take into account about consciousness
is that it is fundamentally receptive, fundamentally
receptive. Like if you're not receptive,

(46:00):
then you're not conscious. And I think what, what a
limitation we get into in the kind of the Western mindset is,
is it's all about doing stuff, you know, it's very, to put in
terms of Taoism, it's very much Yang versus yin, you know, and,
and So what I've argued is, you know, the basic features of
consciousness are yin, like they're receptive, they are

(46:21):
responsive, they are identifying, taking into
account. And I think that's where we need
to start. And I, I guess I kind of feel
like we're not starting from theright place when we try to study
consciousness. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's one
of those topics that people never seem to agree upon.
But when, when you think of the mind body problem and, and your

(46:46):
work and what you've gathered about the universe, the
understanding of the structure of reality, what, what do you
think about the mind body problem in general?
Is there a problem or where, where does your body lie with
us? Yeah.
I think it comes out of the the implicit Cartesian dualism that
that we think that we think there's this dumb dead matter

(47:06):
stuff that cart that Descartes said was pure extension.
And we assume that he that that's what there is because
Descartes said so. And he's a smart, he was a smart
guy. You know what we Oh well, yeah,
matter has to be this dead stuff.
And then we and then mind, we obviously know that a mind is
very much alive and it's, you know, OK, so yeah, those things

(47:29):
are not going to interact. End of story, you know, so, so
if you start from Cartesian dualism, you're at a dead end
and Cartesian, you know, dead ended there.
So I mean, what I would say is, is we really have to have kind
of a more monistic metaphysics set that that comes into our
bones that where we aren't defaulting into but but there's

(47:52):
dead stuff around me, you know, because, because that that's
really an illusion. I would say that's illusory.
It, it kind of looks like like that.
But again, you know, I think at the quantum level, if we, if we
take seriously this idea that there is this vibrant
possibility that's real, then the physics itself doesn't

(48:13):
actually have a mind body problem, you know, And it, it,
it, it's sort of like, well, where is mind?
You know, what do we mean by mind?
Well, I don't pretend to know and I don't pretend to have a
specific theory of that. But if you do look at the
quantum level, and if you take it seriously as as an existent,
as an ontological existent, it, it does kind of have mind like

(48:35):
properties in a sense of seemingmore abstract, seeming like, you
know, it's not something that that is concrete and, and it's,
it's not explicated. It's not, you know, phenomenal
in the sense of being, you know,like a hunk of stuff that I can
touch. So, so there are aspects to the
quantum level. I think that if we understand in

(48:56):
terms of possibilities that thatcan at least give us a way to
enter into, is this a place thatconsciousness is or comes from
just at the quantum level? We know we don't need to
preclude it in our physics in the 1st place.
And then we don't have a problemwith, you know, things we have

(49:17):
defined as as completely different and then saying, well,
they can't interact. If they're not really different,
you know, intrinsically different in the 1st place, then
maybe there's less of a challenge that way.
Yeah, I mean, we're talking about consciousness.
I can't help but ask about free will.
How? I mean, you've explored times
arrow, so how how does a time symmetric picture affect our

(49:41):
sense of whether the future is open or fixed?
Yeah. Well it of course the time
symmetry is really on this levelof possibility where where there
is no defined event, you know event that there are no defined
events. And so this is really where, you
know, the potentiality for free will, I think comes, comes to us

(50:03):
because if there is, you know, these possibilities that it is,
it is not determined which one is going to occur.
Now we call that random, but that's kind of a, a misleading
word because it implies meaningless, mindless, it
implies that there can be no reason.

(50:25):
And so it's a tendentious term. So what I like to say is it's,
it's not determined the physics,if you only look at the physics,
the physics does not determine which outcome occurs, but but
the physics in terms of the, themathematically quantifiable
aspects need not be the whole story.

(50:46):
So, so in fact, this is an entrypoint for, for free will, for
volition to act. And in fact, even Heisenberg
talked about this, you know, where he said it's almost as if
when you have an experiment that, that the, the, the, the
objects in the experiment are making a decision at some point
whether to have to, to express this outcome or another one.

(51:09):
Because the theory itself, the quantitative aspects of the
theory don't tell you, you know,what's going to happen.
And so there's room for, for volition there.
And in fact, you can even argue that volition might be required
in order to get anything to happen.
And I have a publication that addresses this whole issue.
It's called the Born Rule and free will because some people

(51:30):
like to argue that the board that we're slaves to the quantum
probabilities, you know, and that that does that argument
doesn't really hold. Yeah, because it's either that
it's fully deterministic or the fact that it's random.
It also just doesn't exist. So it's an.
Either it doesn't exist from this end, or it doesn't exist
from that end. Yeah, and that's the case.
That's again an example of the false dichotomy where people

(51:53):
kind of bank a lot on this term random.
And it's an abuse of of, no, it's mathematically
indeterminate. That's all.
You can't tell me you can't. You can't go further and say
therefore you can't do anything.So it's a kind of a way of
smuggling in one's point withoutactually having made it.
You mentioned moving towards this monist view when we're
discussing consciousness and beyond physics.

(52:15):
You're also a certified yoga instructor.
And do practices like yoga and mindfulness inform how you think
about quantum foundations, embodiment, non duality?
How does it affect you? Yeah, well, I mean, I, I did the
the yoga thing fairly recently, later in life.
And, you know, and I guess it's,I view it as kind of

(52:38):
complementary, I guess the learning more about, about the
yogic tradition and the, the philosophical ideas that
underlie the yogic tradition. I I was trained by a school that
specializes in bhakti yoga, the way of love.
And so it was a very different, you know, exposure.

(53:00):
I mean, we also did the, you know, the stuff with your body
where I like destroyed my shoulder because I didn't have
enough arm strength to handle it.
But, you know, so we do, we do the physical aspects, but it's
very much grounded in, you know,what I would say made me more
aware of this notion of consciousness as receptivity as,

(53:22):
as, you know, being open to possibility.
And that that's again, kind of where I think the idea of
possibility is so inevitable in terms of talking about
consciousness. Is this, you know, in, in yoga,
we have this idea of holding space.

(53:42):
It's term called holding space. And now when you're having a
class, you're basically giving per people permission to, to be
where they are and not do anything.
And, and it's a way of, of beingpresent, you know, I guess as
Eckhart Tolle would say, and, and be being aware of the

(54:03):
present moment and, and that, you know, kind of really
harmonizes with really what I think quantum theory is telling
us from a very different direction.
It is that the present moment iswhere everything is.
The present moment is where all the quantum possibilities are.
And so you know that that very much harmonized with it.

(54:24):
And I think we often get more into, you know, this kind of
space-time way of thinking wherewhere the the present moment is
nowhere to be found. And all there is is the past and
the future that our mind has created, you know, as as some
idea. And then we then we live in that
idea. And, you know, where we choose
to live in what we think of as this little space-time box that

(54:48):
we've invented conceptually for ourselves, but that doesn't
really exist. And so I think that's what
quantum theory is really trying to tell us, that there's a whole
lot more than you know, to reality than what we call
space-time. It's, it's, it's exciting to to
see someone speak about this so passionately and it's admirable
to watch from my side while listening to that.

(55:09):
I almost felt like I was in a, in a bit of a session there.
I mean, be present at the moment.
I could feel it. I was part of.
Oh, I'm glad. Well, I mean, I had good yoga
teachers. They, they embodied that, you
know, they, they embodied, they taught us well how to hold space
and, you know, just give people.This is, this is the main thing
about yoga and of course, breathing, you know, being aware

(55:33):
of your breath, which is very fundamental.
And it's, it's part of tuning into where everything is,
everything is, is here and now. The Tell me, Ruth, when when you
look back at your life within the academic journey, physics,
philosophy, yoga, whatever it might be, how do you now
approach the foundational questions of reality when you

(55:57):
put all. Yeah, I, you know, I try to let
all these different areas informme.
You know, I mean, I'm, I'm, I, Iguess I'm interdisciplinary.
So I really think that's important.
I think that we get that. That's where we get fruitfulness
by by not putting ideas into separate little boxes, you know,
categorized in a certain way because I think there is a

(56:20):
wholeness to reality. And so I think that we do, we do
better if we let you know different, different areas of,
of thought and behavior and ideas and inspiration guide us.
You know, so I mean, I'm also a musician, you know, I, I should
have studied piano when I was little, but I make trying to

(56:41):
make up for it later in life. So I mean, you know, Schubert is
my current inspiration. And so just the emotional
turbulence of, of, of this pieceI'm working on is this
impromptu. I'm like, Oh yeah, you know,
there's this, this turbulence, nature's turbulence, there's all
this action going on. And, and it reminds me, you

(57:03):
know, it, it gives me a new critical way to explore that the
Western approach to science, which is that know everything
better, be static, you know, andit, it's very much a normative
finger wagging, you know, kind of metaphysics that, that I
think we need to, to free ourselves from.
So it, it inspires me to kind of, you know, shake things up a

(57:23):
bit. And, and I think we all do Well,
you know, I mean, it's I guess Ralph Waldo Emerson has this
great quote and I forget which book it was in, but he says
people just desire or strive to be comfortable.
It is only when they are uncomfortable that there's any
hope for them. So, you know, and I think that's

(57:44):
also comes out of yoga too, is, you know, OK, you're feeling a
little during this tree pose andyou're that's a fault, you know,
and it's, it's uncomfortable, but play with it.
Play with it and find your strength.
Find it you have more strength than you thought you did.
So, so that that kind of inspires me too, you know, these
different areas. What are the most exciting open

(58:06):
questions in the foundations of quantum theory today, or even in
the transactional interpretation?
Well, you know, I think we're, we're getting close to really in
some of the these issues about you know, cosmology and the
so-called dark energy and dark matter.
Those are exciting questions. And you know, together with my

(58:28):
colleague Andreas who, who is the general relativity expert, I
give him due credit for that. We, we are, we're pretty excited
that what we're seeing from the development of our model is
really shedding a lot of light on these issues where we're
getting some fundamental basis for, you know, what we call dark

(58:49):
energy and, and the behavior of galaxies and so on.
And we're excited to pursue, youknow, the further implications
there. There was, I, I presented
recently at the Lake Como conference in, in Italy on these
issues of dark matter and so on.And there are a lot of young
people there, graduate students and postdocs who, who are doing

(59:10):
some great work on, you know, just really good science like
gravitational lensing that lets you see, you know, what, what's
really going on with the gravitational influences on, on
matter, on what we can see and, and the bending of light around
galaxies. And they can actually model
different, different theoretical, you know, proposals

(59:32):
for how, how light is affected by different gravitational
theories. So we're going to get some more,
you know, possibly observationalways of, of looking at the
implications of our theory and comparing with what we're seeing
out there in the in the observational realm.
So I'm excited about that. Well, well, that's super
exciting because when we startedthis conversation, that was one

(59:54):
of the fundamental problems you seem to be encountering right
now. Is, is is due to the
unreasonable acceptance effectiveness of quantum
mechanics? Yeah, but you don't have enough
data to show people. And if the more you come up with
at this point, the better it's going to be.
So it seems like things are all working out to an actualization
that seems to be headed there. Yes, yes, I think that if we

(01:00:16):
can't, you know, our model is our model needs more, more
refinement at that level becauseright now it's it's very, you
know, it's a simple model, it's a models galaxies that's like a
giant point mass and so on. So to get something that's
really more specific, we have toget get more details and more
refinement. But but given that we may be
able to really see, you know, some some clear new predictions

(01:00:40):
of our model that that will be, you know, I think more exciting
for people than just saying, look, I've solved all these
problems, why aren't you impressed?
To anyone watching this or listening and who might want to
take on this, this project and go along with it, go along with
it, with you, sorry on it, What,which authors do you recommend?

(01:01:03):
Who are your favorite scientists?
Who are those people in terms ofphilosophers and scientists who
have paved the way for you and you highly recommend to others?
Well, I would have to point to Alfred N Whitehead, you know, as
as a kind of alternative and I think really fruitful proposal
that that it was really got sidelined in physics because it

(01:01:24):
had this sort of, you know, organic quality that I think
didn't fit well with that, you know, that dead matter paradigm.
And I would definitely, you know, say he, he, he didn't get
a fair shake. And I mean, some, you know, some
aspects of of his specific proposals I think have been
surpassed in certain ways. But the basic metaphysics, I
think is very potent. And he has this concept of

(01:01:47):
prehension that that that physical physics needs to take
into account prehension, which again is a more receptive mode
of being. So he's, you know, he's kind of
my hero right now. And Ludwig Boltzmann is, is
another hero of mine because he really did the physics at a time
when people were kind of fallingback into their own version of

(01:02:10):
shut up and calculate, which waswhat Mach was doing.
Mach had some great ideas too. I mean, the Machian idea of, you
know, of, of inertia, I think has Andreas and I have written
about that. But but the creativity, the the
physical creativity of saying, hey, let's imagine, you know,
what might be going on here and see what physics we get out of

(01:02:30):
it and what it might imply. I think Boltzmann really, really
represents that in Heisenberg, the early Heisenberg before he
got bore eyes. Sorry.
I mean, you know, obviously Niels Bohr was a great
physicist, but I do have a critique of how he kind of fell
off into instrumentalism. But the early Heisenberg, I

(01:02:52):
think what again with with understanding that there's some
kind of form of potentiality going on here.
So I think those are my main heroes.
One of my questions I actually forgot to ask you was about the
debate between realism and instrumentalism.
But yeah, you can see where you can already see how that sort of
happens. Yeah, I mean, I think I have to

(01:03:12):
say, I think instrumentalism is a bit of a cop out.
I mean, you know, it's, it's people saying, you know, you
shouldn't ask the kinds of questions that Ludwig Boltzmann
did and and resolved so brilliantly and gave us
statistical mechanics, atomic physics, you know, everything We
we got most of modern physics from Boltzmann back when people
were telling him he should be aninstrumentalist.

(01:03:35):
So to me, that's the key counterexample, you know, whenever
you're saying, oh, this theory is simply an instrument to make
predictions with, you're, you'rekind of just not doing science
anymore in my, in my view. And then finally, Ruth, when if
someone's looking to go into this, into trying to study your
own work and moving further withyour work, what which scientists

(01:03:58):
do you recommend them reading orpioneers in the field?
Well, I mean, I guess you know, as an introduction to the
transactional formulation, I would say for for the layperson,
the the book I wrote in 2015, Understanding our Unseen
reality, solving Quantum Riddlesis kind of the introduction and

(01:04:18):
that talks about, you know, Kramers version.
I mean, Kramer did have the insight, I think in linking the,
the Wheeler, Feynman, the absorber theory to quantum
theory. So he definitely is the
progenitor of that. But I mean, I, I've departed
from certain aspects of his approach in, in elaborating it
and in, in the relativistic domain and so on.

(01:04:40):
And in the, in my books with Cambridge University Press, I've
laid that out more the transactional interpretation of
quantum theory and then exploring our unseen reality
with world scientific is the follow up, the philosophical
follow up to understanding our unseen reality.
So that kind of goes into more detail about the philosophical

(01:05:02):
ideas. So I mean, as far as the
transactional formulation is, isconcerned, that's those are sort
of the texts that I would recommend, yeah.
There's so many different layersto your work.
And one of the things I actuallyforgot to ask about before we
close off was, does does it haveanything to tell us about life?

(01:05:22):
I mean, we spoke about consciousness, reality.
What about life? Yeah.
You know, life, I mean, I think,I think it gives us an entry
into, into that, you know, in the idea of not saying that.
I think it, my approach would bethat it's a mistake to say that
life is something that emerges from dead stuff.

(01:05:45):
You know, I think that's the mistake.
So what I'm saying is I think that, you know, obviously, you
know, my model is again, it's, it's a physics model, It's
physical science. I don't pretend to have any kind
of biological insight in the model itself.
I don't, there's nothing in it that says here's why you get a
mitochondria, you know, but but the, the basic metaphysics is,

(01:06:05):
is one of possibility. And I think that that's the key
is that life ultimately is aboutpossibility and it's, it's in
there at the ground floor. So, so I think the key here is,
you know, again, that I would never pretend that I'm giving
you a, a theory of life or, or that I, you know, that my model
provides a theory of life. It, it's a starting point that

(01:06:28):
that gives us a metaphysics thatopens the door to not preclude
biology at the basic level. You know, so this is like Robert
Rosen was a, a, a, a very accomplished biologist who was
arguing this, you know, that in some sense we should view
biology as as a fundamental science.

(01:06:50):
And I think that, you know, that's the idea is, is that
again, we have to question our usual Cartesian supposition.
It's there's dead matter, you know, I don't think there's any
dead matter. I think that that, you know, an
electron has the potentiality asa seed of life, you know, and I
don't, I don't claim to know how, but again, that's it's a,

(01:07:10):
it's a fundamental thing. And it goes further into that
philosophical mind, that shift. And that's why why Ted's
becoming so catchy for you is because that process, that that
process philosophy is very much ingrained into this thinking,
which you can see why, right, It's fine.
So. Well, yes, right.
Yes, I think that's very Whiteheadian.
You know that we don't, we don'tpreclude these kinds of

(01:07:33):
processes that that are lifelike.
We don't we we allow them at thevery foundation.
When to to end of a Ruth we spoke about life now what about
the meaning of life, how you view fundamentally can shift and
change someone's life and your view on the purpose of reality,
the universe. If there is some sort of a
Telus? Oh, Gee, yeah.

(01:07:56):
I wouldn't pretend. I wouldn't pretend to know.
I mean, you know, I think, I think that's where that's kind
of an very individual thing. Yeah.
Let's hear about like I. Version of it, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think for me, you know, think things
just feel meaningful for me, in my own experience, I find
certain things meaningful, you know, like I, I, I OK, I love

(01:08:19):
Schubert right now, you know, and I, you know, I mean it.
There's a lot of aesthetic, you know, there's an aesthetic
dementia to it. It's very personal.
And that what I would say is, ismeaning is built into life.
I think it's built into it. I think, I think we, we make it,
but we also receive it. And again, this is where the,

(01:08:39):
the, the yen, the receptivity is, is so shunned in, in Western
thinking, meaning only comes from receptivity.
So, so this is where we've lost,I think we've lost meaning.
Is it, you know, it, it, you know, I think Eastern the Asian
people are, you know, what's wrong with you Westerners that
you can't, you know, account fora meaning, you know, it, it, you

(01:09:01):
know, we because, because the Asian traditions value
receptiveness and, and when you are open to possibilities, the
meaning is there, that the meaning will find you.
So, so I think it's there. I think it's there and I but I
think it's also very individual.It will find you, you know, if
you, if you, if you, if you ask for a meeting, it will find you.

(01:09:26):
So that's what I I would claim that.
Well, I can't think of a better way.
To Andrew, thank you so much. This was such a pleasure.
Your work is amazing. It's incredible.
I'll put links to everything below.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Well, thank you, Tevin. It's been a pleasure.
It's such a great chat and I look forward to seeing more of
your work in the future. Trying to understand dark energy

(01:09:47):
with dark matter and what else you guys can figure out.
And you're welcome back on the show anytime.
Well, thank you. I'm really glad we could make
this happen. I admire the work you're doing
in in a medical field and thanksso much.
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure of great
questions.