September 13, 2024 • 62 mins
Can you imagine navigating life without the guiding light of consciousness? In our latest episode, we embark on an extraordinary journey to unpack the profound mystery of consciousness, beginning with its foundational definition and historical roots. We delve into the intricate dance between conscious and unconscious processes, using relatable examples like breathing and driving to illustrate the fluidity between awareness and automation. By examining how consciousness engages with chaos, we aim to uncover the mechanisms that enable us to transform the unknown into the familiar.
John Verveake’s thought-provoking thesis on relevance realization serves as the centerpiece of our exploration of consciousness. We discuss the mind’s remarkable ability to organize chaotic information into meaningful patterns that align with our goals. Through the lens of flow state and skill development, we reveal how frequent immersion in optimal conditions can heighten our insight and sense of purpose. We also ponder the broader purpose of consciousness, questioning how it optimizes our interaction with reality and enhances our cognitive and emotional experiences.
As we navigate the complexity of focus, attention, and consciousness, we draw intriguing parallels between social media algorithms and the human mind’s salience landscape. Attention is framed as a valuable currency, highlighting its power to shape our reality. By exploring theories like the Global Workspace Theory and Integrated Information Theory, we reflect on the balance between chaos and order, emphasizing stability without falling into authoritarian extremes. We wrap up the episode by examining the rekindling of childlike curiosity through playfulness, the elevation of consciousness beyond basic instincts, and the profound impact of self-awareness on empathy and collective consciousness. Join us for a compelling conversation that challenges conventional wisdom and invites you to rethink the nature of your own awareness.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angelo (00:00):
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast.
I'm Angelo Cole,
I'm Chris Vigil
Matt (00:07):
and I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo (00:09):
Today we wanted to talk about the concept of
consciousness.
So this one, I anticipate toget pretty deep and heavy into
the weeds, because consciousnessis a huge topic.
I don't know if we'll reallyeven be able to cover all of the
different facets of it today.
Plus, let's face it, no oneknows what the heck's going on.
(00:32):
It's probably one of thedeepest and hardest problems of
humankind ever.
People have been trying tofigure out what consciousness is
and what it does since the dawnof man, and so I guess let's
start with a formal definition.
(00:52):
Consciousness is a sense ofone's personal or collective
identity, including theattitudes, beliefs and
sensibilities held by orconsidered characteristic of an
individual or group.
Chris (01:09):
I like how you snuck in that group consciousness in that
definition.
Matt (01:13):
That's good.
Angelo (01:13):
That's definitely something we'll try to get to
later on, okay.
But I guess let's start withindividual consciousness, with
individual consciousness.
So, first and foremost, I guessthere's really two sides to the
consciousness debate.
There's like what consciousnessis and what consciousness does,
(01:38):
right, so maybe let's startwith the is part of it and try
to figure out exactly what we'retalking about.
I think consciousness was adiscovered phenomenon and not an
invented sort of and what Imean by invented is not
(02:00):
something that was prescribed byhumanity, sort of like
mathematics or some sort ofsystem that we came up with.
It's something that we noticedabout ourselves and that we
tried to come up with adefinition for.
(02:22):
If you look at ancient cultures, they usually associate
consciousness with the breath.
Of course, the Bible talksabout men being made of dust and
breath specifically God'sbreath and I think the reason
breath and wind are so closelyassociated with consciousness is
(02:43):
because they are invisiblethings that move other things,
and so, looking at the patternof there being an invisible part
of yourself that makes you moveor enacts your will upon the
world, that's what people aretrying to describe when they're
talking about consciousness.
Chris (03:06):
Okay, so this invisible thing that we call consciousness
helps us mechanize, first ofall, mechanize our bodies, right
, and it's somehow related toour intellects, our intelligence
and our emotions.
Is that fair enough?
(03:29):
Um, I think it is a little bitdifferent than all over brain
function.
You could say thatconsciousness lives within the
brain, but I wouldn't attributeconsciousness to the unconscious
functions of the brain, somethings like instinct and um you
know your heart beating andstuff like that.
Angelo (03:47):
I wouldn't say that's part of your consciousness.
Let's try to clarify something.
If we say the wordconsciousness, are we also
talking about cognition, or iscognition and consciousness
separate somehow?
Uh, I think consciousness fallsunder the umbrella of cognition
(04:07):
, if we have the same idea ofwhat cognition is.
Matt (04:14):
This is like one of those conversations where the most,
the closest, I could relate itto is like when people talk
about God and you havepreconceived ideas, say, about
what God is Like when you sayGod, then you have certain
concepts that you associate withGod that are not all
(04:36):
necessarily ascribed to what Godactually is.
Right, they're placed there byyou, but as placeholders.
Some of those may be true, butthey're for you to form a bridge
of understanding to, to helpyou meet whatever that is.
(04:57):
You know.
So with, so with consciousness,I, I think we actually we may
have, actually we may havesimultaneously an easier and
harder time approaching itbecause we don't have these
preconceived ideas but at thesame time, we don't really have
much of a roadmap other than thenegative space around our
(05:22):
language, like when we saysubconscious, right, so what is
happening beneath?
Say forward, forwardconsciousness.
Now we have this orientation,we have like, let's say,
conscious consciousness, whichis somewhat repetitive, but our,
you know, conscious you knowprefrontal cortex, the ego, the
(05:46):
definable things like that.
So it's interesting to me whenyou say that our internal
functions, or involuntaryfunctions, are not conscious, if
I am understanding correctly,yet they are animated, you know,
(06:06):
without our conscious awareness, right Without our you know,
without our conscious command ofthem to perform as they do,
Like our heart beats, without ushaving to like, tell it to beat
, you know.
So it's like it's the mysterybehind our understanding
Angelo (06:28):
Isn't it funny how there's a sort of interplay
between the conscious elementsof your psyche and the
unconscious ones.
There's like levels, right?
So a lot of times I'll bebreathing unconsciously.
It just happens I even whileI'm sleeping.
(06:49):
I don't know, but if I want toconsciously hold my breath.
I can.
Matt (06:55):
I can.
Angelo (06:55):
If I start thinking about my breath, I can literally
breathe exactly in and out howI want to.
That's sort of a system that Iwould consider in the middle
ground between the unconsciousand the conscious, where you can
switch your consciousness onand off.
And it makes me think, if thatsystem is like that maybe a lot
(07:19):
of systems are like that andmaybe that gets into more of the
function of what consciousnessdoes.
Maybe the idea is yourconsciousness is trying to
figure out things that you arenot in control of, the chaos,
the things that you don'tunderstand.
It's trying to get a grip onthem and then, as soon as it
(07:42):
feels like it's got a goodframework around the situation
or the context in which you'rein, you'll move that to a
different part of the brain.
Or and a different side of thebrain.
I think if you
Chris (07:58):
well it becomes part of the subconscious, like I don't
need to
Angelo (08:02):
sure
Chris (08:02):
consciously learn how to walk anymore.
That's just part of my rightbeing.
Or think about even driving how, when you know where you're
going, how often are youactually consciously driving?
You're just like, oh, in myhead I'm just, you know the
route, you've been there, but ifyou're lost now you really have
(08:23):
to pay attention.
Interesting, you turn the musicdown so that you can see better
Matt (08:27):
why do we do that?
why do we do that shit?
It's weird.
Angelo (08:30):
It is weird, but you know, I think it has to turn
down the music because I couldsee better I think it's funny
because maybe it has to do with,you know, uh, dimming the other
senses so that one sense isheightened, or something.
It's interesting.
Matt (08:49):
Well, it's like I think Alan Watts put this really well
where you have the spotlightawareness, like, say, you have
the.
You know.
Floodlight awareness is likethe you know the wraparound, the
, you know the collectiveawareness.
Spotlight is the direction,it's the thing that we're
(09:10):
consciously focusing on.
Yes, right, so that's like theheadlights, you know.
Okay, so if we have thesethings in our muscle memory, say
, you can drive to somewhere andyou don't have to think about
what it is that you're doing,every single action, then that
(09:32):
seems more efficient.
That seems something that youdon't even have to.
You can concentrate on well,hopefully keeping your eyes on
the road, but you don't have tothink about every single thing
that you're doing so, uh, let'sbe honest.
Chris (09:49):
You know, angelo and I kind of cheated a little bit.
We listened to a JohnVerveake's podcast on
consciousness right before mattarrived cheating cheaters and so
what we're talking about is, uh, what he would call a salience
landscape.
So if something's salient to me, it's like right in front of me
(10:09):
, I can understand it.
Matt (10:11):
And then you know, so we're getting a feel for what's
around us.
Angelo (10:16):
Salience is, for those of you who don't know, is sort
of like the foregrounding ofsomething from the background.
So when you make it relevant toyour situation, you're aware of
it.
And if you've ever seen anexperiment where they have a
(10:38):
bunch of people tossing a ballaround and they ask you to count
how many times the ball'spassed around, and you count.
And then at the ball's passedaround and you count, and then
at the end of the video they'llsay, did you see the gorilla?
And be like what, what are youtalking about?
What gorilla?
And you re-watch the video andwhile you were sitting there
counting the ball being passedaround, a guy in a big gorilla
(10:59):
costume came in front of right,in front of the camera, and
shook himself.
And there's a good chance thatif you were actually watching
the ball and counting how manytimes it was being passed around
, you didn't even notice thegorilla.
The gorilla wasn't salient toyou.
And so John Verveake's idea orthesis behind what the function
(11:22):
of consciousness is has to dowith something he calls
relevance, realization, whereour consciousness, what it's
trying to do is take things from, take this information from a
chaotic background and bring itinto the foreground, realize it
and make it relevant to whatwe're trying to do, or frame it
(11:44):
in a way where we can accomplishcertain goals so it seems to me
that the more that we'retalking about consciousness in
this context, some other wordsthat we could describe are like
focus right and so we could sayyou know, we, on one hand, we
started with, like, the mysteryconsciousness, the problem of
(12:05):
consciousness.
Matt (12:06):
Well, it's like we're talking about focus.
Well then, it's almost likewell, what's so confusing about
that?
But it has to be more complex.
It has to be more complex thanthat.
Chris (12:17):
The real problem of consciousness is.
I mean, it's the mind-bodyproblem.
It's it's the mind body problem.
It's like, how do our, howexactly do our neurons interact
with reality in such a way thatI have this salience landscape
of that reality constantly and Ican bring back memories of my
past self, or you know, the?
(12:40):
The driving one's reallyinteresting because I had a
psychology professor who andmaybe you notice this but
sometimes when you arrive at acertain place you're like I
don't remember any of theactions I took driving here
because they were just soautomatic to me.
So how does your neurologybecome my consciousness?
Matt (13:08):
I think there's a seems like there's got to be a
relation between the focus, theefficiency, the navigating your
landscape in such a way that itmakes things optimal for you,
right, landscape in such a waythat it makes things optimal for
you, right, so, like movingaround, like what is like, what
(13:28):
are the optimal moves, say on achessboard, to create the type
of situation that you want.
And you know, when we're talkingabout consciousness, I could
hardly, uh, you know, be remissnot to talk about something like
flow state, right, right, oh,yes, we're getting into that,
you know, for our listeners,like, flow state is considered
(13:49):
the optimal state of being.
Or, you know, another term wouldbe being in the zone, right,
where what you're doing isimmediately rewarding, the
activity seems to comeautomatically for you, something
that is is, you know,automatically enjoyable and
you're doing, hopefully, you'redoing well, you're doing well
(14:12):
and it's, uh, it's, it's a levelof challenge, let's say where,
or a match for your skill, whereit's not too boring for you,
like, it's not too easy thatit's boring, and it's not too
hard, that it's overwhelming,but it's kind of right on the
cusp, where you can, where youcan be learning and you can be
(14:33):
growing Right, so so that's,that's just a really really good
mode to be in, and this canapply to any different activity,
whether it's whether that's uh,whether that's, you know,
drawing or socializing,snowboarding, bowling or
whatever you know.
So, um, and you know, we couldsay that it's, it's optimal for
(15:01):
the development, the cultivationof that skill, but I think it
also teaches your system how tobe in that state in any given
situation, like what theblueprint is for being in flow.
So your system is like oh, Iknow what this feels like.
Okay, so I can take thisformula and sort of map it onto
(15:26):
these other situations right.
Chris (15:28):
I think there is actually a direct correlation to the
more often that a person entersinto the flow state by, by
whatever your means is, if it'sart, if it's chess, if it's
music or mathematics orsomething else.
If you enter into the flowstate more often, your
capability of insight increasesin any types of situation.
Angelo (15:51):
I think it's fair to say whatever you're calling a flow
state has to be in reference toyour framing of the world and
what you consider your ultimategoal.
Right If you find yourselfmoving towards that ultimate
telos or that ultimate goal,totally, you're in the flow
(16:12):
state.
Right If you're aimless you arenot going to be able to
consider yourself in a flowstate because you're going to be
like well, maybe I feel jazzedfor a second, but you can.
Matt (16:23):
I mean you can still enter into a flow state because
you're going to be like well,maybe I feel jazzed for a second
but you can.
Chris (16:26):
I mean, you can still enter into a flow state even if
you personally don't have apurpose.
But maybe the idea would bethat the more you enter into
that flow state and gain insight, you can find your purpose.
Matt (16:39):
Is there something salience right Goes?
Goes right back to not tointerrupt, like it goes right
back to salience, right, likewhat's important to you and what
is what's driving you, what'sdriving your focus right
salience is is what's right infront of you.
Angelo (16:52):
So you, you have a situation like, if you're um, I
don't know, it's, it's awareness, right.
So if you, if you buy a certaintype of car, you're like, oh,
now I've got a Volkswagen Beetle.
Now, when you're driving aroundon the road, you're going to
start noticing wow, I see somany more Volkswagen Beetles all
(17:15):
the time.
And it's because that car ismore salient to you because it
matches your car Versus before.
It's not that all of a suddeneverybody started driving those
cars more the day you boughtyour car.
It's just more relevant to you.
So our consciousness and ourcognition is capable of some
(17:37):
pretty incredible things like wecan enter into states of zen,
meditation and increase ourfocus ability.
We can construct words in sucha way that we write grand
philosophy books.
We can enter into a flow state.
We can create art and kind ofplay with concepts and help
ourselves gain insight.
(17:58):
That's really cool, that's liferight, what do?
you think consciousness is forwhat's the function?
Matt (18:06):
what is it for?
Well, I just, I just had this,this, what I just had, a wild
thought to me where, um, let'stake social media as an example,
right where, where you have thealgorithm and it's basically
showing you things that arerelevant to your interests,
right, so say, you're looking ata lot of, you know this
(18:29):
celebrity where they're talkingabout, or whatever you were, you
know, pursuing things aroundwisdom, stoicism, you know, yeah
and attention becomes acurrency, right, right so and so
the more of that that, the moreof that that you're seeing, the
more it goes.
Oh, okay, I want to show more ofmore of that, right?
So, like when you're talkingabout, actually, this is what
you open, what opens up when yousaid this right, when you're
(18:51):
you're focusing on something andyou see more and more of it.
What it's like, that happens inreality too.
You know, like, the more thatyou're seeing something, the
more that it starts showing upin your awareness, right, and so
then it becomes populated inyour awareness.
(19:12):
You see more and more and moreof it, and then not only does it
, you know, your focus on itexpands the actual presence of
it in your reality, right?
So the more that you'refocusing on it, the more it
actually shows up, right?
So, and it's a choice, there'sa choice there, right?
Angelo (19:34):
you can choose to focus on something more and make it
more salient.
Oh yeah, and that could even bea negative effect.
Right, you can really, reallyfocus on something that you're
afraid of or something thatgives you anxiety, and it's just
a negative feedback loop.
A hundred percent.
So our consciousness alsomanifests things into reality.
Ah, you know yes.
Matt (19:55):
Might be one way to put that yes.
Angelo (19:57):
Yeah, because you can, totally.
You know there's people whomake those.
I forget what you call them,those manifestation boards,
those dream boards where they'llput up a bunch of things.
Chris (20:08):
Oh
Matt (20:08):
, vision boards, yeah, vision boards.
There you go.
Angelo (20:10):
They'll put up a bunch of pictures of things that they
aspire to or they want to be,and they'll try to sort of bring
that energy into reality.
Or you might even have heard ofthe saying uh, dress for the
part that you want all right,right, yep, it's like dress for
(20:32):
the job you want.
Yeah yep, if you put your mindand say in a certain state and
say I'm already there, maybe itwill make the universe.
Matt (20:43):
Work in your favor, tilt the scales.
Angelo (20:45):
I'll tell you what if I dress up in a kimono and start
wearing a samurai swordeverywhere?
People are not going to treatme well.
Matt (20:52):
I'll treat you well.
I'll treat you very well.
Angelo (20:56):
I think you would get a lot of positive feedback to be
honest, I think you'd get somepretty awesome comments.
Matt (21:02):
Oh yeah, you're going to be on the internet for sure,
that's dope.
I think you're getting somepretty awesome comments.
Oh yeah, you're going to be onthe internet for sure, that's
dope.
Angelo (21:08):
As far as the function of consciousness goes.
So there's a theory called theglobal workspace theory.
It's kind of this idea thatyour brain works like a computer
, which makes sense in moderntimes because we see computers
and they really are sort of animitation of what we think our
mind does Like when we builtcomputers.
(21:30):
We're trying to organize it insuch a way that it makes sense
to us, and what better way to dothat than organize it like a
mind?
Right yeah, and by the way,greetings to our future robot
overlords.
Matt (21:42):
It's an honor to be listened by.
Yeah, to be listened by you higuys, we're on your side.
Angelo (21:49):
Don't kill us, we're coming picked but yeah, global
workspace theory is somethinglike you take information, you
bring it in for processing, ummemory and framing and all of
that.
You kind of put certain thingstogether, discard other things
(22:10):
and then you put it back outinto a new sort of product and
your consciousness is the thingthat continuously does that.
At least that's one theory.
So it's like recycling and rewell, it's configuring
information reconfiguring,making it into something else
(22:31):
yeah taking parts, putting themtogether and creating a sort of
uh framework, trying to put thepuzzle together.
And that's just one idea ofwhat it could be.
There's another where it's asort of I think it's called
integrated information theory,where it's a sort of
complexification system.
It's taking information andjust increasingly complexifying
(22:55):
it.
But that one doesn't reallyanswer the question of like,
well, why would your brain wantto do that?
Well, there could be complexframes, right?
Sorry, I did not answer thatlast question you had, but there
are complex frames, right.
So the more information I have,I can complexify that.
Complexify that to the pointthat the framework at which I am
(23:20):
viewing reality is more onencompassing of of that
complexity.
So maybe my purpose ofconsciousness is to encapsulate
as much of the chaos as I canand transfigure it or transform
it into order.
(23:40):
Hey, there's a, there's an idea.
We are beings trying to takechaos and convert it into order.
But too much order and you endup with fascism, right?
Yeah, authoritarianism, yeah,authoritarianism.
But I think that's fair,considering you know, we are
(24:05):
beings that crave stability.
A lot of our goals have to dowith making something or
integrating something and makingit something that we understand
and have dominion over, so thatwe don't have to think so hard
next time.
Matt (24:23):
Yeah, it seems it has to do with synthesizing.
You know, we're talking aboutlike, we have our perception of
the problem of consciousness andthen we have, say, a problem
that consciousness itself may betrying to solve, like two polar
(24:46):
opposite things, that one youhave imagine.
Imagine this has a telos overhere and this has a telos over
here, and it's like, how do Imake this shit work together?
You know, how do I synthesizethis to make this, uh, to make
this work together?
Right, because there's a pointof entropy.
There's like, there's, you know,there's like, even if we look
(25:08):
at, you know, mythologically, ifwe look at, you know, the triad
of, you know, vishnu, shiva andBrahma, right, you have the
present, you have the creation,you have destruction, right,
like, why all three three?
Right, it's not like the, it'snot like the point of creation
(25:29):
is to, um, be the antithesis ofdestruction.
It's like you need destructionin order to break things up, in
order to recreate, right, like,if you, even you think it, if
you think about the wordrecreation, right, right, like
to recreate, right, so that's afun one to play with.
So it's like this whole dramaplaying out, we're kind of in
(25:54):
the eye of the storm of it, youknow, and trying to move through
it and figure it all out.
And what if we were consciousof all of this happening at the
same time, you know?
Would we play out our parts inthe same way that we need to?
(26:16):
If we knew, if we were totallyomniscient, if we are totally
conscious of every single thingthat was happening, you know,
like would anything get done?
Or would we be sitting theretrying to analyze all of it and
getting, uh, analysis, paralysisover everything?
(26:36):
rather than simply moving,moving forward and be and
embodying what it is that weneed to embody as human beings.
Angelo (26:44):
You know, I think we are limited beings and there's
literally an infinite amount ofinformation to take in and most
of it's unnecessary.
And that's kind of what yourbrain's doing it's discarding,
it's an information discarter.
You are not so much gatheringthings in as filtering out, if
(27:11):
that makes sense.
Yeah, like, when I'm looking atan object, I'm, when I focus on
it, I'm getting rid ofeverything outside of that
object.
When I focus on a conversation,I stop listening to everything
else, except for that thing.
I gotcha, you know.
Chris (27:28):
I'm gonna dial it back just a little bit because, matt,
what you just did was kind oflike what alan watts did when he
said that a person's ability tohave pleasure and engage with
his desires is so limited thatif you were able to enter into a
(27:50):
dream state and have thefulfillment of all of your
pleasures and desires,eventually you would get so
bored.
If you had an infinite amountof time, you would get so bored
that you'd actually just end upbeing in the place where you are
, and there's almost a peace inthat.
Now, if we understand that thelimits of a human consciousness
(28:11):
can never encapsulate theinfinite in every regard, like I
, at least in this plane ofexistence, in this plane of
reality, I cannot be omniscient.
Um, what are the other ones?
I can't be omnipresent.
What's the third one?
Angelo, I'm missing one.
Matt (28:32):
Omniscience, and I can't be omnipotent.
Angelo (28:36):
There's also omnibenevolent, but whatever.
Chris (28:40):
Yeah Well, I can't be that either right, I can't be
all good and I can't be all evil.
It can't be that either.
Right, I can't be all good andI can't be all evil.
But yeah, you know, and I can'thelp but think about the
buddha's state of meditation.
You know, there's a youtuberand he had everything.
He had the job he wanted, hewas earning good money and he
(29:03):
turned away from it to enterinto a buddhist monastery
because there was somethingabout having the world that he
wanted to turn away from.
It wasn't, wasn't?
Matt (29:14):
him I don't know, but I think he realized his
limitedness and wanted to bepart of what of the divine in
the way that he saw it's itfunny, and if we look at a lot
of biblical examples where Godwill choose someone who, on the
surface, seems the least capableof accomplishing the task, like
(29:43):
Moses, for example, he's like Ican't go speak, I'm you know,
I'm not very good at speaking, Iwould.
He may even have like a speechimpediment or something like
that, but he says no, it's gotto be well.
Like why?
Why would you not choose themost capable possible person to
(30:03):
go and do the task?
Maybe because it would be thatmuch more fun and interesting to
choose someone who's the leastcapable, level them up and so
like, yeah, watch what I can dowith this person who thinks that
they can't do it, andgloriously go on this journey
and bring out something that'sinside of them, something I put
(30:25):
there and something that couldonly be uncovered through that
particular challenge plus, moseshad a memory problem.
Chris (30:34):
That's why god gave him tablets.
Matt (30:36):
Yeah, gotta write it down for him.
There you go.
How many of us write shit down,man?
How many of us?
Angelo (30:45):
write shit down, man.
Well, that's nice man.
Matt (30:47):
Yeah, that was nice when Moses tried to back out.
Angelo (30:50):
You know what God said to him.
He said who made the blind man,who made the deaf person?
I did.
I am the creator of the world,sir.
Matt (31:01):
Go out there and do it.
Get your ass out there, dude.
Get your ass out there, dude.
Angelo (31:08):
So, um, we were talking earlier about cycling through,
like recreation, right,recreation, we're destroying,
we're creating constantly and Idon't know.
I just came up with thisdiagram of two arrows that are
encircling each other like acycle, but their destruction and
(31:32):
creation, or destruction andrecreation, are pushing upwards,
like trying to transcendtowards something you know.
Just thinking about recreationmakes me think of piaget and his
studies on children and howchildren play.
And you got to think about whydo we play?
(31:55):
Why do we, um, try differentthings?
And I think it's ourconsciousness trying to frame
things.
I think you ever see kids picksomething up and they'll tap the
table and throw it, and thenthey'll repeat it over and over
and it's like they're trying tofigure out what that thing is,
what its use is.
(32:15):
And the older you get, the lessyou play, because you feel like
you've you've really built aframework you have.
So you've had so much experiencewith a lot of things that you
don't really try to restructureas much as you used to, because
your framework is so embedded.
That brings us right back tothe topic of the flow state,
(32:39):
because that's what you're doing.
You're playing with yourmusical instrument, your art,
you're playing with these things.
That optimizes right, yourability to frame.
Wow, there you go, you know.
I even think.
Matt (32:56):
So get a wholesome hobby.
Yeah, get a wholesome hobby.
Like I even think of the BigBang, right Like, let's say,
that's like at the very origin.
Like, let's say, you like atthe very origin.
Like, let's say, you know,children running around have all
this energy, all the curiosity,all this like bam, all this
right, all this combustiveenergy, right, that that seems
(33:18):
to diminish over time, right,but how do you recreate that?
How do you recreate that bam,that, that sense of aliveness
and the like, the awakenness,right is, you have to, you have
to get into that state ofplayfulness, you have to get
into that that state of of flowand like, remind your system,
(33:42):
like, like, resuscitate thatpart of yourself so that you can
, so you can feel that againyou're like, oh, this is what
this is what alive feels, like,this is what this is, what like
awareness, not just, not justlooking around.
Angelo (33:58):
Yeah, I'm aware now this is like oh, like, ah, like this
is what awareness, ah, feelslike man, yeah, taking all this
stuff and framing it in such away like you recognize that as
life living.
Yes, um, like we can, right, wecan recreate our bodies through
(34:21):
recreation right, exercise, um,our intellect, like the
paradigm there's that word rightparadigm, the way that, through
recreation right, exercise Ourintellect, like the paradigm
there's that word right Paradigm, the way that my intellect or
myself views the world, is oneway you can break that.
It can collapse and then youcan restructure it into a
broader or maybe even a betterparadigm for looking at reality.
(34:44):
Yes, we can emote, right, emoteright, emotions, huge, that's a
huge part of life.
And actually, you know, and yousaid that this was all like a
breath, right, our consciousnessis like a breath earlier I
think yes, it's a metaphor,something like oh yeah yes, like
um the ancient cultures would.
(35:05):
they would relate, relateconsciousness and spirit to
breath.
Why?
Well, because for one it's aninvisible thing that moves.
Matt (35:16):
Okay, so, it has something to do with our will, an
invisible thing that moves.
Angelo (35:19):
Our psyche.
Psyche is the Greek word forsoul and for another thing when
you die, your breath stops.
That's probably how they wouldcheck to see if you were dead.
They would be like his breathis gone, meaning your soul is
gone or your consciousness isgone.
Matt (35:41):
And going back to the biblical right In the statement
that the word was with god andthe word was god, like the
breath, being and the thingthat's created as being of the
(36:02):
breath.
Angelo (36:03):
You know what's interesting is in hebrew?
They have um characters the,the letters that they use each
represent a purpose, and the hletter, hey in hebrew um, often
represents the spirit of god,and so when abam changed his
(36:26):
name to Abraham, it was becausethe hay was inserted into his
name so the spirit of God waswith him.
Matt (36:35):
Nice.
Angelo (36:36):
Fun fact Wow, you even got a little phlegm in there
when you said it.
Abraham, you've got to do that,you've got to do the.
Matt (36:43):
You've got to do it or it doesn't count.
You gotta do that, Gotta do the.
You gotta do it.
Do it or it doesn't count.
Angelo (36:48):
You know, a few weeks ago I was just, I was just
reaching out.
I was just reaching out to Godand I wanted to bring the order
right, god's order, into my life, and I just prayed God, give me
the breath of life which yougave to Adam.
(37:09):
And I don't know.
It's just like what did Adamexperience with his
consciousness?
I mean, that's a huge historyquestion right there, like where
do we come from and what makesus human?
That's something I'm trying to,you know, ever since I picked
up this really good history bookat the bookstore a few weeks
(37:30):
ago, I've been reallychallenging myself with that
question, like you know whatbrought us up?
I think if you want to knowwhat something is, sometimes you
got to talk about what it's not, and so you eliminate the
things that you would considernot human.
Right?
What is the thing that makes usdifferent from the animals?
(37:55):
Right?
Animals might be subject animalsmight be subject to their
instincts and we aspire more toour rationality right.
Right.
We can override our instincts.
We can do things like fasting.
We can cooperate on anotherlevel.
(38:16):
We have language on anotherlevel.
The further away you push fromyour immediate desires and you
go more towards your long-termteleological orientation Right,
the more human you are.
I think that's from Socrates.
(38:38):
If I remember Aristotle yeah,you're pretty sure.
Matt (38:41):
Aristotle, one of those old Greek.
Angelo (38:43):
Some ancient Greek philosopher.
One of those dudes Didn't havenothing to teach us.
So, um, I'm glad you mentionedfasting, because if we're trying
to transcend our I guess freudwould call it the id right, the,
the desires and the visceraldesires of ourselves and, I
(39:06):
guess, build or recreateourselves into a form of
transcendent consciousness,right, maybe that's the goal
somehow that then our religionof choice being brought into our
salience landscape has a hugeimpact on our ability to do that
(39:33):
.
Like fasting, we have thisvisceral animal instinct to eat
right and do other things thatanimals do, but we can fast and
abstain from that and hopefullyrecreate ourselves into a better
form or formula of the humanbeing mode of being.
Matt (39:53):
Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting that, like this
thing with with creativity aswell and they've done studies on
this where, paradoxically, likethe, the less resources that
(40:14):
you have, say within a certainrange, I would think right then,
the more creative that you haveto become with them very true.
If you have more resources andthere's like, oh my god, there's
so many choices, you know, andmaybe you know what to do with
that, maybe, maybe you see thatas like, oh my god, I'm like a
(40:34):
kid in a candy store, I have allthese options, right, but uh,
but that doesn't challenge you.
That doesn't challenge you inthe same way as say, you know,
I've, I've definitelyexperienced this where I have
like five things in the pantryand I'm like what am I gonna do
with these five things?
You know?
Angelo (40:50):
what am I gonna do?
With syrup and peanut butterand all the whatever, whatever
you know and maybe you've hadthat experience where the
teacher gives you an assignmentand they'll be like just pick
anything, whatever you want,just some sort of topic, and
then you're sitting at home forlike an hour Like what the heck
(41:14):
am I going to write about?
Matt (41:15):
I have no idea.
Angelo (41:16):
But if she's like, okay, you can choose between these
three things, you're like, oh, Ialready know which one I want
Boom.
And I also think that'sprobably why a lot of big
businesses try to make yourchoices seem more limited.
I always call it like the pepsicoke phenomenon if you can
(41:37):
limit things down to two choices, people are much more inclined
to make a decision.
Matt (41:44):
Yeah, actually it's two-part systems, so, like a
parenting system that we use,airhouse is Love and Logic and
basically what that does.
It's an emphasis on choices andagency for the child, right?
Okay, so say it's time to go tobed pretty soon.
It's like you know.
Would you like to go to bed now?
(42:06):
We're in 15 minutes, right?
Angelo (42:09):
Oh, and you give them a choice.
Matt (42:11):
It's a simple thing, but it empowers them to make a
choice between those differentthings.
Right, it's not much differenthere.
No, it's actually really smart,yeah, but it's really yeah, it's
like it's really, yeah, we, wereally enjoy it and so so you
know, they get, they get tochoose within uh, you know,
within a certain range.
(42:31):
It's like you know you can'tjust choose really whatever, um,
but also it's an emphasis onnatural consequences for things.
Right, so say like you know,act in some sort of way that's
really draining.
It was like you know I wouldlove to be able to do that, but
I'm just, you know, I'm feelingsome sort of way that's really
draining.
It was like you know I wouldlove to be able to do that, but
I'm just you know, I'm feeling,feeling energetically burned out
right now.
It's, you know, it needs torecharge that sort of thing.
(42:54):
So they can, they can makethese associations between you
know, between actions andnatural consequences.
So then it's like you know,then there, you go, then it's
learning and you don't have to.
I think if you have to reallythink about what a consequence
should be, then it might just beinvented punishment in a lot of
(43:21):
cases, you know.
Angelo (43:30):
But anyway, it's a good framework that we use for sure.
Yeah, so I guess another topicI wanted to start talking about
was collective consciousness orthe collective unconscious.
So, before you get into that, Iwas actually reading or
revisiting, was actually readingor revisiting the doors of
(43:52):
perception by aldous huxley,which, if you're maybe
unfamiliar with that, it's hisuh, the, the psychoactive agent
of the peyote cactus ismescaline and that's what he
ingested and he wrote about hisexperience.
So it's his trip report.
And the first thing he writesis he comes to an understanding
that any person's consciousnessor cognitive functioning is
(44:18):
extremely individualistic.
Like the metaphor he offers isthe Christian martyrs.
They go hand in hand into theColosseum to be martyred, but
they're crucified alone and theyexperience their death and the
pain on their own.
And we can use metaphors and wecan use language to connect
(44:43):
with each other, to connect withother consciousness, but the
raw experience of yourexperiences belongs to you and
to you alone.
Matt (44:55):
You'll always die alone.
Thank you.
Angelo (44:59):
Anyone who wanted to be uplifted by this podcast you're
going to have to go somewhereelse.
Sorry, thanks, chris Bummer.
Chris, that's too bad?
No, anyway, so tell us howwe're not alone or what we're
doing.
Well, no, I was thinking thatwell, you touched on the idea of
psychedelics, and that broughtme back to the idea of play.
(45:21):
I think the reason people areeven inclined to do psychedelic
substances in the first place isbecause they're trying to play
with their consciousness.
They're trying to createaffordances in their salience
landscape, yes, and they'retrying to maybe create a
disruption in their mentalframing and restructure it,
(45:44):
reframe it in a new light, sothat's got to be something to do
with the function ofconsciousness.
Matt (45:53):
Something that is universal and, don't worry, I'll
tie this into collective.
Angelo (45:59):
I'll tie this back to collective Tie it up, tie it up.
Matt (46:06):
I've noticed in going deeper into self-awareness over
many years, is the more I'm ableto understand myself, the more
I'm able to also understandothers.
You know, and I cansimultaneously say this is where
this person, matt Mays, beginsand ends, and this is where I
(46:30):
connect with others.
And this, you know, this islike where the unknown begins,
this is where and you know,maybe that's part of
consciousness as well, part ofthe.
I like to think about the, the.
I keep going back to that, theproblem of consciousness.
I I try to empathize with theproblems consciousness itself
(46:53):
may be trying to solve, like forthe unknown.
Unknown like what you don't evenknow, that you don't know, you
know.
So if we're conscious of that,if we're constantly conscious
that there is, like this,vastness that we don't even
understand, right, then thathelps to put a lot of things
(47:14):
into perspective, right, and youknow, going back to, like our
conversation about thearchetypes, right, so we talked
about that in terms of our ownpsyche.
Think about the universe itselfas formulae, formulated in such
(47:35):
a way that there are archetypes, right?
wow, so like there's a universalsovereign, there's a universal
okay, magician warrior well, andthat's what I think, the greek
gods were supposed to be yeah,and it's like, if you think
about yeah, yeah, it's like, youknow, metaphorical
(47:56):
representations of thesedifferent sides, right, so like
for, you know, for the warrior,for example, there are aspects
of life that are challenging,that bring that out of you, that
speak to the warrior.
Right, there are elements oflife that are flourishing that
are abundant.
(48:19):
And you know, with a magician Imean, let's be honest, like how
complex the universe is,absolutely complex in so many
different ways, right, and thenthere's the sovereign.
There is a, there's universalsovereignty.
That also we have that personalsovereignty in ourselves for
sure, you know.
(48:39):
So it's.
It's like it's mirrored.
You know it's shapes withinshapes, or you know like candles
, fractals, or, like ken wilberwould say, like holons, like
holes within holes within.
Oh yeah, holes, holes, as inw-h-o-l-e, not h-o-l-e.
(49:00):
You know like whole thingswithin whole things within whole
things within whole thingswithin whole things that carry a
unified type of formula.
Angelo (49:14):
And that's, by definition, complexity, right
when you've got a bunch ofstructures, individual
identities that do something ontheir own, but they all come
together, working as a greateridentity, which brings me to the
collective.
So I have this theory thatreally the human species is
(49:42):
doing the same thing thatsingle-celled organisms did when
they were turning intomulticellular organisms.
I think we have thisinclination, um, that we're
maybe not so overtly aware of.
We think of ourselves as justindividual, um egotistical
(50:05):
identities, but really we'repart of this greater body of
things, or and we participate inlarger patterns than ourselves,
trying to, uh, do lots ofdifferent things.
You know, if you're part of areligion, you're all aiming
towards some sort of ethicalmode of being.
(50:28):
If you're part of a corporation, you're trying to come together
to produce something or tobring a complicated service to
to the rest of the, the, therest of humankind.
If you're just like a scientistand you're working as part of
(50:50):
this greater body of scientists,you're all working together
just like a network of neuronsdiscovering the unknown.
And I just think it's such afascinating idea that, hey, at
some point we were all.
There was just onlysingle-celled organisms and they
(51:13):
had to figure out how to cometogether and become one big
thing over time.
Like what the heck is that?
And I think we're doing that.
I think that's what thisinternet thing is about.
I think that's what all of thislike.
Like we're the species that hasprogressed the most in
(51:34):
communication and, if you thinkabout it, we need communication.
If you're on a desert islandand you don't have these
interrelational connections,have these relationships with
other people, that you will goinsane, literally.
You need some sort of networkconsciously, and so there's
(52:01):
something to connection.
There there's something to, andI think that's what this whole
like.
If you look at a lot of thesedifferent religions at the basis
of their ethic, is somethinglike love or altruism or
community, because it's soingrained into our very being
(52:21):
that we need to collectivelyparticipate in something.
That's just Did either of youread Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Matt (52:34):
I've seen the movie.
I have the book.
Angelo (52:37):
I read Hitchhiker's Guide.
I read the next one, restaurantat the End of the Universe, and
the third one, which might becalled so Long and Thanks for
All the Fish, or it might be thefourth one, I don't know it's
one of those.
Douglas Adams purports thetheory that all the fish, or it
might be the fourth one, I don'tknow, it's one of those, but um
, uh, douglas adams purports thetheory that, uh, one of the
(52:59):
main characters somehowactivates this time space
warping wormhole that trajectsback and forth through reality
and back and forth through timeand it hits earth and the, the
primordial single-celledorganisms.
They see it, they freak out andthey come together into a
(53:22):
single multicellular organismbecause they're scared shitless
of this wormhole that they saw.
They don't know, they're like ah, and then they just become the
first multicellular organism soyeah, are we motivated by fear
or are we motivated by love andaltruism?
I I hope it's love.
I do think a lot of uh,darwinian philosophers probably
(53:48):
focus on the competition aspectof it, but I do think you gotta
talk about that.
Matt (53:53):
But I do think it's motivated by cooperation.
Angelo (53:57):
Because when two things come together and we talked
about this in our Power of Threepodcast when two things come
together in cooperation, a lotof times something greater than
the sum of the parts comes outof it.
Matt (54:10):
And if you're just conflicting all the time, well
it's just divisive, you knowyeah, by the way, when we're
talking about the, the fear andlove thing, you know, like tim
ferris has this frame he callsfear setting, where, you know,
he has all these different likevery, very adventurous, very,
(54:31):
very smart person right andhe'll weigh his decision making
on whether or not to dosomething based on the potential
benefits and the potential likedrawbacks, or like what could
happen if this, you know, if Iend up doing this, right, and so
he'll like write out what are,you know, what are the things
I'm afraid of, like, what arethe things that could happen if
(54:54):
I go and do this, what are thepotential benefits if I do go
and do this and then away thoseand say, like is it worth it to
go?
And you know, to go to dowhatever it is like just, does
the benefit outweigh the risk?
Right, and so it's like fear isan indicator.
(55:14):
It's.
It helps us make decisions, ithelps us to avoid the safe right
.
Angelo (55:20):
You keep the safe.
Yeah, it helps to helps tonavigate, helps.
Matt (55:24):
You know, we shouldn't be taken in emotionally by fear,
like crippled by fear, right,but listen to what it has to say
as one of the voices yes,ultimately, move towards love,
encompassing that.
Angelo (55:44):
And when you say love, what do you mean by love?
Matt (55:49):
We could say that it's a catch-all term, but I want to go
into into more you got me nolike.
Well, let's let's try some otherwords again, like define the
thing by the adjectives ornegative space or whatever you
know, but the like, flourishing,growth, what is connected, when
(56:10):
you know a lot of words that wecan just feel in them, that
there is love in them, likeconnection, like growth, like
uplifting, you know things thatare generally flourishing,
things that are generallylife-giving.
That's it life-giving, yes, Ithink life-givingness.
(56:31):
It life-giving, yes, I thinklife-givingness.
And we're talking about withanother person, say,
interpersonal love.
I think at the core of that iscaring, you know, because a
person can be in grief, a personcan be, um, heartbroken.
They could be, they could be,you know, they could have had
(56:52):
something very good happen tothem, right, and you can be
there and you can, you can carewith them if they're, if they're
like feeling down, you know,and you don't want to be hold
down, but you want to, but youwant to be there, you want to be
, or you want to be able todisplay kindness and compassion
and the connectivity with themand, by the opposite token,
(57:15):
something really good happens.
It's like how long, how oftenhave we had this happen, where
you share something amazing andthe person is there.
It's like no man, I want to, wewant to celebrate, we want we,
you know, we want to.
We want to feel that there'slife in that moment, that's life
in what just happened.
Angelo (57:36):
That's amazing with this person so I was going through a
really hard time and someonewho is now a former associate of
mine plainly explained thatthis situation I was going
through was evil because it waslife-taking and not life-giving.
And if we're gonna run withthat life-giving idea, that's
(57:58):
the good, that is goodness.
Yes.
So I think, drawing from sainttommy quine quine, or more
formally, thomas aquinas, yeah,uh saint tommy, you're being
reverent or irreverent right now.
Matt (58:15):
You'll never know but thomas aquinas defines love as
willing the good of anotherwhich I think is a really fair
and now this, this, this can becomplex too because, like you
know, my wife all the time with,like movies and shows and stuff
(58:39):
like that, it's like, it's likewhen you let the villain
survive.
This is where you have to bevery careful about, like, what
actually are the rules?
Right, because, like, we'rejust watching, you know, the
show rings of power okay, not tospoilers or whatever, but
(58:59):
somebody dies, okay, so you have, you know, so you have the
characters who you could see asgood, you could see, as you know
, the rebellion, or on the goodside.
Then you have this characterwho is like kind of a kind of a
kind of a weakling ruler.
Right, he has that weakness ofcharacter.
(59:21):
He's very fearful and he's alsokind of like you know the
character, kind of like, oh,pompous on his thing, you know,
and, um, what would be, would begood analogy, like what was his
face from Gladiator the emperor, the player.
Oh, commodus, yeah, the guy whothe evil emperor, commodus, yes
(59:42):
, the one who Joaquin Phoenixplayed.
Angelo (59:44):
Yes.
Matt (59:44):
Yes, that guy, that same kind of character, right?
So anyway, in this show thegood guy lets that character
live, right turns around whathappens he gets stabbed in the
back because he like he let himlive and he put his sword on the
(01:00:05):
ground and they got.
Then what the hell?
You know, you're the good guyand you let him live and then
he's.
So it's like that's where itcan really it, the that's well,
I guess this will.
This will go more into ourgoodness talk, right, but but
what actually?
You know, what actually do youdo in the situations like you
(01:00:28):
have to bind the evil, be ableto infuse good, whatever that
means.
Like maybe that meant throwingthe the damn sword in the water
there was water nearby, by theway like throwing the sword away
, like binding the evil so itcan't um so it can't harm you in
some way and beingauthoritative in those moments.
(01:00:55):
But it's complex because evil isshifty, it's manipulative, I
think we have elegantly segwayedinto the goodness podcast for
the next episode.
There we go.
Angelo (01:01:12):
We'll pick it up.
I'm surprised we didn't touchon everything on consciousness
right.
We didn't even get to groupconsciousness?
I don't think.
Well, I lightly touched oncollective consciousness, but we
didn't talk about the hardproblem of consciousness, we
didn't talk about the mind-bodyproblem.
We didn't talk about qualia.
We didn't talk about themind-body problem, we didn't
(01:01:34):
talk about qualia.
We didn't talk about a lot ofstuff.
So we could totally do a wholeother episode on this.
Matt (01:01:38):
Alright.
Angelo (01:01:41):
If the powers that be, will it?
That means anyone who donatesmoney to us can decide what the
next topic is.
Matt (01:01:53):
Yeah, we'll never know the answers until you give us money
Just kidding, or is it?
Angelo (01:02:04):
That's the?
Matt (01:02:05):
problem of consciousness?
You don't know.
Angelo (01:02:09):
Well, thank you all for listening to our goofy podcast.
I really appreciate you forsticking around this long.
If you made it this far, pleaselike or comment or subscribe or
whatever you can to help us out, and we greatly appreciate your
viewership.
Matt (01:02:28):
That's right, it's been real.
Right on.
Thank you everybody.
It's been a lot of fun.
Until next time.
Angelo (01:02:33):
Love it, take care.
Hello everyone, welcome to the Telos Initiative podcast.
I'm Angelo Cole,
I'm Chris Vigil
Matt (00:07):
and I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo (00:09):
Today we wanted to talk about the concept of
consciousness.
So this one, I anticipate toget pretty deep and heavy into
the weeds, because consciousnessis a huge topic.
I don't know if we'll reallyeven be able to cover all of the
different facets of it today.
Plus, let's face it, no oneknows what the heck's going on.
(00:32):
It's probably one of thedeepest and hardest problems of
humankind ever.
People have been trying tofigure out what consciousness is
and what it does since the dawnof man, and so I guess let's
start with a formal definition.
(00:52):
Consciousness is a sense ofone's personal or collective
identity, including theattitudes, beliefs and
sensibilities held by orconsidered characteristic of an
individual or group.
Chris (01:09):
I like how you snuck in that group consciousness in that
definition.
Matt (01:13):
That's good.
Angelo (01:13):
That's definitely something we'll try to get to
later on, okay.
But I guess let's start withindividual consciousness, with
individual consciousness.
So, first and foremost, I guessthere's really two sides to the
consciousness debate.
There's like what consciousnessis and what consciousness does,
(01:38):
right, so maybe let's startwith the is part of it and try
to figure out exactly what we'retalking about.
I think consciousness was adiscovered phenomenon and not an
invented sort of and what Imean by invented is not
(02:00):
something that was prescribed byhumanity, sort of like
mathematics or some sort ofsystem that we came up with.
It's something that we noticedabout ourselves and that we
tried to come up with adefinition for.
(02:22):
If you look at ancient cultures, they usually associate
consciousness with the breath.
Of course, the Bible talksabout men being made of dust and
breath specifically God'sbreath and I think the reason
breath and wind are so closelyassociated with consciousness is
(02:43):
because they are invisiblethings that move other things,
and so, looking at the patternof there being an invisible part
of yourself that makes you moveor enacts your will upon the
world, that's what people aretrying to describe when they're
talking about consciousness.
Chris (03:06):
Okay, so this invisible thing that we call consciousness
helps us mechanize, first ofall, mechanize our bodies, right
, and it's somehow related toour intellects, our intelligence
and our emotions.
Is that fair enough?
(03:29):
Um, I think it is a little bitdifferent than all over brain
function.
You could say thatconsciousness lives within the
brain, but I wouldn't attributeconsciousness to the unconscious
functions of the brain, somethings like instinct and um you
know your heart beating andstuff like that.
Angelo (03:47):
I wouldn't say that's part of your consciousness.
Let's try to clarify something.
If we say the wordconsciousness, are we also
talking about cognition, or iscognition and consciousness
separate somehow?
Uh, I think consciousness fallsunder the umbrella of cognition
(04:07):
, if we have the same idea ofwhat cognition is.
Matt (04:14):
This is like one of those conversations where the most,
the closest, I could relate itto is like when people talk
about God and you havepreconceived ideas, say, about
what God is Like when you sayGod, then you have certain
concepts that you associate withGod that are not all
(04:36):
necessarily ascribed to what Godactually is.
Right, they're placed there byyou, but as placeholders.
Some of those may be true, butthey're for you to form a bridge
of understanding to, to helpyou meet whatever that is.
(04:57):
You know.
So with, so with consciousness,I, I think we actually we may
have, actually we may havesimultaneously an easier and
harder time approaching itbecause we don't have these
preconceived ideas but at thesame time, we don't really have
much of a roadmap other than thenegative space around our
(05:22):
language, like when we saysubconscious, right, so what is
happening beneath?
Say forward, forwardconsciousness.
Now we have this orientation,we have like, let's say,
conscious consciousness, whichis somewhat repetitive, but our,
you know, conscious you knowprefrontal cortex, the ego, the
(05:46):
definable things like that.
So it's interesting to me whenyou say that our internal
functions, or involuntaryfunctions, are not conscious, if
I am understanding correctly,yet they are animated, you know,
(06:06):
without our conscious awareness, right Without our you know,
without our conscious command ofthem to perform as they do,
Like our heart beats, without ushaving to like, tell it to beat
, you know.
So it's like it's the mysterybehind our understanding
Angelo (06:28):
Isn't it funny how there's a sort of interplay
between the conscious elementsof your psyche and the
unconscious ones.
There's like levels, right?
So a lot of times I'll bebreathing unconsciously.
It just happens I even whileI'm sleeping.
(06:49):
I don't know, but if I want toconsciously hold my breath.
I can.
Matt (06:55):
I can.
Angelo (06:55):
If I start thinking about my breath, I can literally
breathe exactly in and out howI want to.
That's sort of a system that Iwould consider in the middle
ground between the unconsciousand the conscious, where you can
switch your consciousness onand off.
And it makes me think, if thatsystem is like that maybe a lot
(07:19):
of systems are like that andmaybe that gets into more of the
function of what consciousnessdoes.
Maybe the idea is yourconsciousness is trying to
figure out things that you arenot in control of, the chaos,
the things that you don'tunderstand.
It's trying to get a grip onthem and then, as soon as it
(07:42):
feels like it's got a goodframework around the situation
or the context in which you'rein, you'll move that to a
different part of the brain.
Or and a different side of thebrain.
I think if you
Chris (07:58):
well it becomes part of the subconscious, like I don't
need to
Angelo (08:02):
sure
Chris (08:02):
consciously learn how to walk anymore.
That's just part of my rightbeing.
Or think about even driving how, when you know where you're
going, how often are youactually consciously driving?
You're just like, oh, in myhead I'm just, you know the
route, you've been there, but ifyou're lost now you really have
(08:23):
to pay attention.
Interesting, you turn the musicdown so that you can see better
Matt (08:27):
why do we do that?
why do we do that shit?
It's weird.
Angelo (08:30):
It is weird, but you know, I think it has to turn
down the music because I couldsee better I think it's funny
because maybe it has to do with,you know, uh, dimming the other
senses so that one sense isheightened, or something.
It's interesting.
Matt (08:49):
Well, it's like I think Alan Watts put this really well
where you have the spotlightawareness, like, say, you have
the.
You know.
Floodlight awareness is likethe you know the wraparound, the
, you know the collectiveawareness.
Spotlight is the direction,it's the thing that we're
(09:10):
consciously focusing on.
Yes, right, so that's like theheadlights, you know.
Okay, so if we have thesethings in our muscle memory, say
, you can drive to somewhere andyou don't have to think about
what it is that you're doing,every single action, then that
(09:32):
seems more efficient.
That seems something that youdon't even have to.
You can concentrate on well,hopefully keeping your eyes on
the road, but you don't have tothink about every single thing
that you're doing so, uh, let'sbe honest.
Chris (09:49):
You know, angelo and I kind of cheated a little bit.
We listened to a JohnVerveake's podcast on
consciousness right before mattarrived cheating cheaters and so
what we're talking about is, uh, what he would call a salience
landscape.
So if something's salient to me, it's like right in front of me
(10:09):
, I can understand it.
Matt (10:11):
And then you know, so we're getting a feel for what's
around us.
Angelo (10:16):
Salience is, for those of you who don't know, is sort
of like the foregrounding ofsomething from the background.
So when you make it relevant toyour situation, you're aware of
it.
And if you've ever seen anexperiment where they have a
(10:38):
bunch of people tossing a ballaround and they ask you to count
how many times the ball'spassed around, and you count.
And then at the ball's passedaround and you count, and then
at the end of the video they'llsay, did you see the gorilla?
And be like what, what are youtalking about?
What gorilla?
And you re-watch the video andwhile you were sitting there
counting the ball being passedaround, a guy in a big gorilla
(10:59):
costume came in front of right,in front of the camera, and
shook himself.
And there's a good chance thatif you were actually watching
the ball and counting how manytimes it was being passed around
, you didn't even notice thegorilla.
The gorilla wasn't salient toyou.
And so John Verveake's idea orthesis behind what the function
(11:22):
of consciousness is has to dowith something he calls
relevance, realization, whereour consciousness, what it's
trying to do is take things from, take this information from a
chaotic background and bring itinto the foreground, realize it
and make it relevant to whatwe're trying to do, or frame it
(11:44):
in a way where we can accomplishcertain goals so it seems to me
that the more that we'retalking about consciousness in
this context, some other wordsthat we could describe are like
focus right and so we could sayyou know, we, on one hand, we
started with, like, the mysteryconsciousness, the problem of
(12:05):
consciousness.
Matt (12:06):
Well, it's like we're talking about focus.
Well then, it's almost likewell, what's so confusing about
that?
But it has to be more complex.
It has to be more complex thanthat.
Chris (12:17):
The real problem of consciousness is.
I mean, it's the mind-bodyproblem.
It's it's the mind body problem.
It's like, how do our, howexactly do our neurons interact
with reality in such a way thatI have this salience landscape
of that reality constantly and Ican bring back memories of my
past self, or you know, the?
(12:40):
The driving one's reallyinteresting because I had a
psychology professor who andmaybe you notice this but
sometimes when you arrive at acertain place you're like I
don't remember any of theactions I took driving here
because they were just soautomatic to me.
So how does your neurologybecome my consciousness?
Matt (13:08):
I think there's a seems like there's got to be a
relation between the focus, theefficiency, the navigating your
landscape in such a way that itmakes things optimal for you,
right, landscape in such a waythat it makes things optimal for
you, right, so, like movingaround, like what is like, what
(13:28):
are the optimal moves, say on achessboard, to create the type
of situation that you want.
And you know, when we're talkingabout consciousness, I could
hardly, uh, you know, be remissnot to talk about something like
flow state, right, right, oh,yes, we're getting into that,
you know, for our listeners,like, flow state is considered
(13:49):
the optimal state of being.
Or, you know, another term wouldbe being in the zone, right,
where what you're doing isimmediately rewarding, the
activity seems to comeautomatically for you, something
that is is, you know,automatically enjoyable and
you're doing, hopefully, you'redoing well, you're doing well
(14:12):
and it's, uh, it's, it's a levelof challenge, let's say where,
or a match for your skill, whereit's not too boring for you,
like, it's not too easy thatit's boring, and it's not too
hard, that it's overwhelming,but it's kind of right on the
cusp, where you can, where youcan be learning and you can be
(14:33):
growing Right, so so that's,that's just a really really good
mode to be in, and this canapply to any different activity,
whether it's whether that's uh,whether that's, you know,
drawing or socializing,snowboarding, bowling or
whatever you know.
So, um, and you know, we couldsay that it's, it's optimal for
(15:01):
the development, the cultivationof that skill, but I think it
also teaches your system how tobe in that state in any given
situation, like what theblueprint is for being in flow.
So your system is like oh, Iknow what this feels like.
Okay, so I can take thisformula and sort of map it onto
(15:26):
these other situations right.
Chris (15:28):
I think there is actually a direct correlation to the
more often that a person entersinto the flow state by, by
whatever your means is, if it'sart, if it's chess, if it's
music or mathematics orsomething else.
If you enter into the flowstate more often, your
capability of insight increasesin any types of situation.
Angelo (15:51):
I think it's fair to say whatever you're calling a flow
state has to be in reference toyour framing of the world and
what you consider your ultimategoal.
Right If you find yourselfmoving towards that ultimate
telos or that ultimate goal,totally, you're in the flow
(16:12):
state.
Right If you're aimless you arenot going to be able to
consider yourself in a flowstate because you're going to be
like well, maybe I feel jazzedfor a second, but you can.
Matt (16:23):
I mean you can still enter into a flow state because
you're going to be like well,maybe I feel jazzed for a second
but you can.
Chris (16:26):
I mean, you can still enter into a flow state even if
you personally don't have apurpose.
But maybe the idea would bethat the more you enter into
that flow state and gain insight, you can find your purpose.
Matt (16:39):
Is there something salience right Goes?
Goes right back to not tointerrupt, like it goes right
back to salience, right, likewhat's important to you and what
is what's driving you, what'sdriving your focus right
salience is is what's right infront of you.
Angelo (16:52):
So you, you have a situation like, if you're um, I
don't know, it's, it's awareness, right.
So if you, if you buy a certaintype of car, you're like, oh,
now I've got a Volkswagen Beetle.
Now, when you're driving aroundon the road, you're going to
start noticing wow, I see somany more Volkswagen Beetles all
(17:15):
the time.
And it's because that car ismore salient to you because it
matches your car Versus before.
It's not that all of a suddeneverybody started driving those
cars more the day you boughtyour car.
It's just more relevant to you.
So our consciousness and ourcognition is capable of some
(17:37):
pretty incredible things like wecan enter into states of zen,
meditation and increase ourfocus ability.
We can construct words in sucha way that we write grand
philosophy books.
We can enter into a flow state.
We can create art and kind ofplay with concepts and help
ourselves gain insight.
(17:58):
That's really cool, that's liferight, what do?
you think consciousness is forwhat's the function?
Matt (18:06):
what is it for?
Well, I just, I just had this,this, what I just had, a wild
thought to me where, um, let'stake social media as an example,
right where, where you have thealgorithm and it's basically
showing you things that arerelevant to your interests,
right, so say, you're looking ata lot of, you know this
(18:29):
celebrity where they're talkingabout, or whatever you were, you
know, pursuing things aroundwisdom, stoicism, you know, yeah
and attention becomes acurrency, right, right so and so
the more of that that, the moreof that that you're seeing, the
more it goes.
Oh, okay, I want to show more ofmore of that, right?
So, like when you're talkingabout, actually, this is what
you open, what opens up when yousaid this right, when you're
(18:51):
you're focusing on something andyou see more and more of it.
What it's like, that happens inreality too.
You know, like, the more thatyou're seeing something, the
more that it starts showing upin your awareness, right, and so
then it becomes populated inyour awareness.
(19:12):
You see more and more and moreof it, and then not only does it
, you know, your focus on itexpands the actual presence of
it in your reality, right?
So the more that you'refocusing on it, the more it
actually shows up, right?
So, and it's a choice, there'sa choice there, right?
Angelo (19:34):
you can choose to focus on something more and make it
more salient.
Oh yeah, and that could even bea negative effect.
Right, you can really, reallyfocus on something that you're
afraid of or something thatgives you anxiety, and it's just
a negative feedback loop.
A hundred percent.
So our consciousness alsomanifests things into reality.
Ah, you know yes.
Matt (19:55):
Might be one way to put that yes.
Angelo (19:57):
Yeah, because you can, totally.
You know there's people whomake those.
I forget what you call them,those manifestation boards,
those dream boards where they'llput up a bunch of things.
Chris (20:08):
Oh
Matt (20:08):
, vision boards, yeah, vision boards.
There you go.
Angelo (20:10):
They'll put up a bunch of pictures of things that they
aspire to or they want to be,and they'll try to sort of bring
that energy into reality.
Or you might even have heard ofthe saying uh, dress for the
part that you want all right,right, yep, it's like dress for
(20:32):
the job you want.
Yeah yep, if you put your mindand say in a certain state and
say I'm already there, maybe itwill make the universe.
Matt (20:43):
Work in your favor, tilt the scales.
Angelo (20:45):
I'll tell you what if I dress up in a kimono and start
wearing a samurai swordeverywhere?
People are not going to treatme well.
Matt (20:52):
I'll treat you well.
I'll treat you very well.
Angelo (20:56):
I think you would get a lot of positive feedback to be
honest, I think you'd get somepretty awesome comments.
Matt (21:02):
Oh yeah, you're going to be on the internet for sure,
that's dope.
I think you're getting somepretty awesome comments.
Oh yeah, you're going to be onthe internet for sure, that's
dope.
Angelo (21:08):
As far as the function of consciousness goes.
So there's a theory called theglobal workspace theory.
It's kind of this idea thatyour brain works like a computer
, which makes sense in moderntimes because we see computers
and they really are sort of animitation of what we think our
mind does Like when we builtcomputers.
(21:30):
We're trying to organize it insuch a way that it makes sense
to us, and what better way to dothat than organize it like a
mind?
Right yeah, and by the way,greetings to our future robot
overlords.
Matt (21:42):
It's an honor to be listened by.
Yeah, to be listened by you higuys, we're on your side.
Angelo (21:49):
Don't kill us, we're coming picked but yeah, global
workspace theory is somethinglike you take information, you
bring it in for processing, ummemory and framing and all of
that.
You kind of put certain thingstogether, discard other things
(22:10):
and then you put it back outinto a new sort of product and
your consciousness is the thingthat continuously does that.
At least that's one theory.
So it's like recycling and rewell, it's configuring
information reconfiguring,making it into something else
(22:31):
yeah taking parts, putting themtogether and creating a sort of
uh framework, trying to put thepuzzle together.
And that's just one idea ofwhat it could be.
There's another where it's asort of I think it's called
integrated information theory,where it's a sort of
complexification system.
It's taking information andjust increasingly complexifying
(22:55):
it.
But that one doesn't reallyanswer the question of like,
well, why would your brain wantto do that?
Well, there could be complexframes, right?
Sorry, I did not answer thatlast question you had, but there
are complex frames, right.
So the more information I have,I can complexify that.
Complexify that to the pointthat the framework at which I am
(23:20):
viewing reality is more onencompassing of of that
complexity.
So maybe my purpose ofconsciousness is to encapsulate
as much of the chaos as I canand transfigure it or transform
it into order.
(23:40):
Hey, there's a, there's an idea.
We are beings trying to takechaos and convert it into order.
But too much order and you endup with fascism, right?
Yeah, authoritarianism, yeah,authoritarianism.
But I think that's fair,considering you know, we are
(24:05):
beings that crave stability.
A lot of our goals have to dowith making something or
integrating something and makingit something that we understand
and have dominion over, so thatwe don't have to think so hard
next time.
Matt (24:23):
Yeah, it seems it has to do with synthesizing.
You know, we're talking aboutlike, we have our perception of
the problem of consciousness andthen we have, say, a problem
that consciousness itself may betrying to solve, like two polar
(24:46):
opposite things, that one youhave imagine.
Imagine this has a telos overhere and this has a telos over
here, and it's like, how do Imake this shit work together?
You know, how do I synthesizethis to make this, uh, to make
this work together?
Right, because there's a pointof entropy.
There's like, there's, you know,there's like, even if we look
(25:08):
at, you know, mythologically, ifwe look at, you know, the triad
of, you know, vishnu, shiva andBrahma, right, you have the
present, you have the creation,you have destruction, right,
like, why all three three?
Right, it's not like the, it'snot like the point of creation
(25:29):
is to, um, be the antithesis ofdestruction.
It's like you need destructionin order to break things up, in
order to recreate, right, like,if you, even you think it, if
you think about the wordrecreation, right, right, like
to recreate, right, so that's afun one to play with.
So it's like this whole dramaplaying out, we're kind of in
(25:54):
the eye of the storm of it, youknow, and trying to move through
it and figure it all out.
And what if we were consciousof all of this happening at the
same time, you know?
Would we play out our parts inthe same way that we need to?
(26:16):
If we knew, if we were totallyomniscient, if we are totally
conscious of every single thingthat was happening, you know,
like would anything get done?
Or would we be sitting theretrying to analyze all of it and
getting, uh, analysis, paralysisover everything?
(26:36):
rather than simply moving,moving forward and be and
embodying what it is that weneed to embody as human beings.
Angelo (26:44):
You know, I think we are limited beings and there's
literally an infinite amount ofinformation to take in and most
of it's unnecessary.
And that's kind of what yourbrain's doing it's discarding,
it's an information discarter.
You are not so much gatheringthings in as filtering out, if
(27:11):
that makes sense.
Yeah, like, when I'm looking atan object, I'm, when I focus on
it, I'm getting rid ofeverything outside of that
object.
When I focus on a conversation,I stop listening to everything
else, except for that thing.
I gotcha, you know.
Chris (27:28):
I'm gonna dial it back just a little bit because, matt,
what you just did was kind oflike what alan watts did when he
said that a person's ability tohave pleasure and engage with
his desires is so limited thatif you were able to enter into a
(27:50):
dream state and have thefulfillment of all of your
pleasures and desires,eventually you would get so
bored.
If you had an infinite amountof time, you would get so bored
that you'd actually just end upbeing in the place where you are
, and there's almost a peace inthat.
Now, if we understand that thelimits of a human consciousness
(28:11):
can never encapsulate theinfinite in every regard, like I
, at least in this plane ofexistence, in this plane of
reality, I cannot be omniscient.
Um, what are the other ones?
I can't be omnipresent.
What's the third one?
Angelo, I'm missing one.
Matt (28:32):
Omniscience, and I can't be omnipotent.
Angelo (28:36):
There's also omnibenevolent, but whatever.
Chris (28:40):
Yeah Well, I can't be that either right, I can't be
all good and I can't be all evil.
It can't be that either.
Right, I can't be all good andI can't be all evil.
But yeah, you know, and I can'thelp but think about the
buddha's state of meditation.
You know, there's a youtuberand he had everything.
He had the job he wanted, hewas earning good money and he
(29:03):
turned away from it to enterinto a buddhist monastery
because there was somethingabout having the world that he
wanted to turn away from.
It wasn't, wasn't?
Matt (29:14):
him I don't know, but I think he realized his
limitedness and wanted to bepart of what of the divine in
the way that he saw it's itfunny, and if we look at a lot
of biblical examples where Godwill choose someone who, on the
surface, seems the least capableof accomplishing the task, like
(29:43):
Moses, for example, he's like Ican't go speak, I'm you know,
I'm not very good at speaking, Iwould.
He may even have like a speechimpediment or something like
that, but he says no, it's gotto be well.
Like why?
Why would you not choose themost capable possible person to
(30:03):
go and do the task?
Maybe because it would be thatmuch more fun and interesting to
choose someone who's the leastcapable, level them up and so
like, yeah, watch what I can dowith this person who thinks that
they can't do it, andgloriously go on this journey
and bring out something that'sinside of them, something I put
(30:25):
there and something that couldonly be uncovered through that
particular challenge plus, moseshad a memory problem.
Chris (30:34):
That's why god gave him tablets.
Matt (30:36):
Yeah, gotta write it down for him.
There you go.
How many of us write shit down,man?
How many of us?
Angelo (30:45):
write shit down, man.
Well, that's nice man.
Matt (30:47):
Yeah, that was nice when Moses tried to back out.
Angelo (30:50):
You know what God said to him.
He said who made the blind man,who made the deaf person?
I did.
I am the creator of the world,sir.
Matt (31:01):
Go out there and do it.
Get your ass out there, dude.
Get your ass out there, dude.
Angelo (31:08):
So, um, we were talking earlier about cycling through,
like recreation, right,recreation, we're destroying,
we're creating constantly and Idon't know.
I just came up with thisdiagram of two arrows that are
encircling each other like acycle, but their destruction and
(31:32):
creation, or destruction andrecreation, are pushing upwards,
like trying to transcendtowards something you know.
Just thinking about recreationmakes me think of piaget and his
studies on children and howchildren play.
And you got to think about whydo we play?
(31:55):
Why do we, um, try differentthings?
And I think it's ourconsciousness trying to frame
things.
I think you ever see kids picksomething up and they'll tap the
table and throw it, and thenthey'll repeat it over and over
and it's like they're trying tofigure out what that thing is,
what its use is.
(32:15):
And the older you get, the lessyou play, because you feel like
you've you've really built aframework you have.
So you've had so much experiencewith a lot of things that you
don't really try to restructureas much as you used to, because
your framework is so embedded.
That brings us right back tothe topic of the flow state,
(32:39):
because that's what you're doing.
You're playing with yourmusical instrument, your art,
you're playing with these things.
That optimizes right, yourability to frame.
Wow, there you go, you know.
I even think.
Matt (32:56):
So get a wholesome hobby.
Yeah, get a wholesome hobby.
Like I even think of the BigBang, right Like, let's say,
that's like at the very origin.
Like, let's say, you like atthe very origin.
Like, let's say, you know,children running around have all
this energy, all the curiosity,all this like bam, all this
right, all this combustiveenergy, right, that that seems
(33:18):
to diminish over time, right,but how do you recreate that?
How do you recreate that bam,that, that sense of aliveness
and the like, the awakenness,right is, you have to, you have
to get into that state ofplayfulness, you have to get
into that that state of of flowand like, remind your system,
(33:42):
like, like, resuscitate thatpart of yourself so that you can
, so you can feel that againyou're like, oh, this is what
this is what alive feels, like,this is what this is, what like
awareness, not just, not justlooking around.
Angelo (33:58):
Yeah, I'm aware now this is like oh, like, ah, like this
is what awareness, ah, feelslike man, yeah, taking all this
stuff and framing it in such away like you recognize that as
life living.
Yes, um, like we can, right, wecan recreate our bodies through
(34:21):
recreation right, exercise, um,our intellect, like the
paradigm there's that word rightparadigm, the way that, through
recreation right, exercise Ourintellect, like the paradigm
there's that word right Paradigm, the way that my intellect or
myself views the world, is oneway you can break that.
It can collapse and then youcan restructure it into a
broader or maybe even a betterparadigm for looking at reality.
(34:44):
Yes, we can emote, right, emoteright, emotions, huge, that's a
huge part of life.
And actually, you know, and yousaid that this was all like a
breath, right, our consciousnessis like a breath earlier I
think yes, it's a metaphor,something like oh yeah yes, like
um the ancient cultures would.
(35:05):
they would relate, relateconsciousness and spirit to
breath.
Why?
Well, because for one it's aninvisible thing that moves.
Matt (35:16):
Okay, so, it has something to do with our will, an
invisible thing that moves.
Angelo (35:19):
Our psyche.
Psyche is the Greek word forsoul and for another thing when
you die, your breath stops.
That's probably how they wouldcheck to see if you were dead.
They would be like his breathis gone, meaning your soul is
gone or your consciousness isgone.
Matt (35:41):
And going back to the biblical right In the statement
that the word was with god andthe word was god, like the
breath, being and the thingthat's created as being of the
(36:02):
breath.
Angelo (36:03):
You know what's interesting is in hebrew?
They have um characters the,the letters that they use each
represent a purpose, and the hletter, hey in hebrew um, often
represents the spirit of god,and so when abam changed his
(36:26):
name to Abraham, it was becausethe hay was inserted into his
name so the spirit of God waswith him.
Matt (36:35):
Nice.
Angelo (36:36):
Fun fact Wow, you even got a little phlegm in there
when you said it.
Abraham, you've got to do that,you've got to do the.
Matt (36:43):
You've got to do it or it doesn't count.
You gotta do that, Gotta do the.
You gotta do it.
Do it or it doesn't count.
Angelo (36:48):
You know, a few weeks ago I was just, I was just
reaching out.
I was just reaching out to Godand I wanted to bring the order
right, god's order, into my life, and I just prayed God, give me
the breath of life which yougave to Adam.
(37:09):
And I don't know.
It's just like what did Adamexperience with his
consciousness?
I mean, that's a huge historyquestion right there, like where
do we come from and what makesus human?
That's something I'm trying to,you know, ever since I picked
up this really good history bookat the bookstore a few weeks
(37:30):
ago, I've been reallychallenging myself with that
question, like you know whatbrought us up?
I think if you want to knowwhat something is, sometimes you
got to talk about what it's not, and so you eliminate the
things that you would considernot human.
Right?
What is the thing that makes usdifferent from the animals?
(37:55):
Right?
Animals might be subject animalsmight be subject to their
instincts and we aspire more toour rationality right.
Right.
We can override our instincts.
We can do things like fasting.
We can cooperate on anotherlevel.
(38:16):
We have language on anotherlevel.
The further away you push fromyour immediate desires and you
go more towards your long-termteleological orientation Right,
the more human you are.
I think that's from Socrates.
(38:38):
If I remember Aristotle yeah,you're pretty sure.
Matt (38:41):
Aristotle, one of those old Greek.
Angelo (38:43):
Some ancient Greek philosopher.
One of those dudes Didn't havenothing to teach us.
So, um, I'm glad you mentionedfasting, because if we're trying
to transcend our I guess freudwould call it the id right, the,
the desires and the visceraldesires of ourselves and, I
(39:06):
guess, build or recreateourselves into a form of
transcendent consciousness,right, maybe that's the goal
somehow that then our religionof choice being brought into our
salience landscape has a hugeimpact on our ability to do that
(39:33):
.
Like fasting, we have thisvisceral animal instinct to eat
right and do other things thatanimals do, but we can fast and
abstain from that and hopefullyrecreate ourselves into a better
form or formula of the humanbeing mode of being.
Matt (39:53):
Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting that, like this
thing with with creativity aswell and they've done studies on
this where, paradoxically, likethe, the less resources that
(40:14):
you have, say within a certainrange, I would think right then,
the more creative that you haveto become with them very true.
If you have more resources andthere's like, oh my god, there's
so many choices, you know, andmaybe you know what to do with
that, maybe, maybe you see thatas like, oh my god, I'm like a
(40:34):
kid in a candy store, I have allthese options, right, but uh,
but that doesn't challenge you.
That doesn't challenge you inthe same way as say, you know,
I've, I've definitelyexperienced this where I have
like five things in the pantryand I'm like what am I gonna do
with these five things?
You know?
Angelo (40:50):
what am I gonna do?
With syrup and peanut butterand all the whatever, whatever
you know and maybe you've hadthat experience where the
teacher gives you an assignmentand they'll be like just pick
anything, whatever you want,just some sort of topic, and
then you're sitting at home forlike an hour Like what the heck
(41:14):
am I going to write about?
Matt (41:15):
I have no idea.
Angelo (41:16):
But if she's like, okay, you can choose between these
three things, you're like, oh, Ialready know which one I want
Boom.
And I also think that'sprobably why a lot of big
businesses try to make yourchoices seem more limited.
I always call it like the pepsicoke phenomenon if you can
(41:37):
limit things down to two choices, people are much more inclined
to make a decision.
Matt (41:44):
Yeah, actually it's two-part systems, so, like a
parenting system that we use,airhouse is Love and Logic and
basically what that does.
It's an emphasis on choices andagency for the child, right?
Okay, so say it's time to go tobed pretty soon.
It's like you know.
Would you like to go to bed now?
(42:06):
We're in 15 minutes, right?
Angelo (42:09):
Oh, and you give them a choice.
Matt (42:11):
It's a simple thing, but it empowers them to make a
choice between those differentthings.
Right, it's not much differenthere.
No, it's actually really smart,yeah, but it's really yeah, it's
like it's really, yeah, we, wereally enjoy it and so so you
know, they get, they get tochoose within uh, you know,
within a certain range.
(42:31):
It's like you know you can'tjust choose really whatever, um,
but also it's an emphasis onnatural consequences for things.
Right, so say like you know,act in some sort of way that's
really draining.
It was like you know I wouldlove to be able to do that, but
I'm just, you know, I'm feelingsome sort of way that's really
draining.
It was like you know I wouldlove to be able to do that, but
I'm just you know, I'm feeling,feeling energetically burned out
right now.
It's, you know, it needs torecharge that sort of thing.
(42:54):
So they can, they can makethese associations between you
know, between actions andnatural consequences.
So then it's like you know,then there, you go, then it's
learning and you don't have to.
I think if you have to reallythink about what a consequence
should be, then it might just beinvented punishment in a lot of
(43:21):
cases, you know.
Angelo (43:30):
But anyway, it's a good framework that we use for sure.
Yeah, so I guess another topicI wanted to start talking about
was collective consciousness orthe collective unconscious.
So, before you get into that, Iwas actually reading or
revisiting, was actually readingor revisiting the doors of
(43:52):
perception by aldous huxley,which, if you're maybe
unfamiliar with that, it's hisuh, the, the psychoactive agent
of the peyote cactus ismescaline and that's what he
ingested and he wrote about hisexperience.
So it's his trip report.
And the first thing he writesis he comes to an understanding
that any person's consciousnessor cognitive functioning is
(44:18):
extremely individualistic.
Like the metaphor he offers isthe Christian martyrs.
They go hand in hand into theColosseum to be martyred, but
they're crucified alone and theyexperience their death and the
pain on their own.
And we can use metaphors and wecan use language to connect
(44:43):
with each other, to connect withother consciousness, but the
raw experience of yourexperiences belongs to you and
to you alone.
Matt (44:55):
You'll always die alone.
Thank you.
Angelo (44:59):
Anyone who wanted to be uplifted by this podcast you're
going to have to go somewhereelse.
Sorry, thanks, chris Bummer.
Chris, that's too bad?
No, anyway, so tell us howwe're not alone or what we're
doing.
Well, no, I was thinking thatwell, you touched on the idea of
psychedelics, and that broughtme back to the idea of play.
(45:21):
I think the reason people areeven inclined to do psychedelic
substances in the first place isbecause they're trying to play
with their consciousness.
They're trying to createaffordances in their salience
landscape, yes, and they'retrying to maybe create a
disruption in their mentalframing and restructure it,
(45:44):
reframe it in a new light, sothat's got to be something to do
with the function ofconsciousness.
Matt (45:53):
Something that is universal and, don't worry, I'll
tie this into collective.
Angelo (45:59):
I'll tie this back to collective Tie it up, tie it up.
Matt (46:06):
I've noticed in going deeper into self-awareness over
many years, is the more I'm ableto understand myself, the more
I'm able to also understandothers.
You know, and I cansimultaneously say this is where
this person, matt Mays, beginsand ends, and this is where I
(46:30):
connect with others.
And this, you know, this islike where the unknown begins,
this is where and you know,maybe that's part of
consciousness as well, part ofthe.
I like to think about the, the.
I keep going back to that, theproblem of consciousness.
I I try to empathize with theproblems consciousness itself
(46:53):
may be trying to solve, like forthe unknown.
Unknown like what you don't evenknow, that you don't know, you
know.
So if we're conscious of that,if we're constantly conscious
that there is, like this,vastness that we don't even
understand, right, then thathelps to put a lot of things
(47:14):
into perspective, right, and youknow, going back to, like our
conversation about thearchetypes, right, so we talked
about that in terms of our ownpsyche.
Think about the universe itselfas formulae, formulated in such
(47:35):
a way that there are archetypes, right?
wow, so like there's a universalsovereign, there's a universal
okay, magician warrior well, andthat's what I think, the greek
gods were supposed to be yeah,and it's like, if you think
about yeah, yeah, it's like, youknow, metaphorical
(47:56):
representations of thesedifferent sides, right, so like
for, you know, for the warrior,for example, there are aspects
of life that are challenging,that bring that out of you, that
speak to the warrior.
Right, there are elements oflife that are flourishing that
are abundant.
(48:19):
And you know, with a magician Imean, let's be honest, like how
complex the universe is,absolutely complex in so many
different ways, right, and thenthere's the sovereign.
There is a, there's universalsovereignty.
That also we have that personalsovereignty in ourselves for
sure, you know.
(48:39):
So it's.
It's like it's mirrored.
You know it's shapes withinshapes, or you know like candles
, fractals, or, like ken wilberwould say, like holons, like
holes within holes within.
Oh yeah, holes, holes, as inw-h-o-l-e, not h-o-l-e.
(49:00):
You know like whole thingswithin whole things within whole
things within whole thingswithin whole things that carry a
unified type of formula.
Angelo (49:14):
And that's, by definition, complexity, right
when you've got a bunch ofstructures, individual
identities that do something ontheir own, but they all come
together, working as a greateridentity, which brings me to the
collective.
So I have this theory thatreally the human species is
(49:42):
doing the same thing thatsingle-celled organisms did when
they were turning intomulticellular organisms.
I think we have thisinclination, um, that we're
maybe not so overtly aware of.
We think of ourselves as justindividual, um egotistical
(50:05):
identities, but really we'repart of this greater body of
things, or and we participate inlarger patterns than ourselves,
trying to, uh, do lots ofdifferent things.
You know, if you're part of areligion, you're all aiming
towards some sort of ethicalmode of being.
(50:28):
If you're part of a corporation, you're trying to come together
to produce something or tobring a complicated service to
to the rest of the, the, therest of humankind.
If you're just like a scientistand you're working as part of
(50:50):
this greater body of scientists,you're all working together
just like a network of neuronsdiscovering the unknown.
And I just think it's such afascinating idea that, hey, at
some point we were all.
There was just onlysingle-celled organisms and they
(51:13):
had to figure out how to cometogether and become one big
thing over time.
Like what the heck is that?
And I think we're doing that.
I think that's what thisinternet thing is about.
I think that's what all of thislike.
Like we're the species that hasprogressed the most in
(51:34):
communication and, if you thinkabout it, we need communication.
If you're on a desert islandand you don't have these
interrelational connections,have these relationships with
other people, that you will goinsane, literally.
You need some sort of networkconsciously, and so there's
(52:01):
something to connection.
There there's something to, andI think that's what this whole
like.
If you look at a lot of thesedifferent religions at the basis
of their ethic, is somethinglike love or altruism or
community, because it's soingrained into our very being
(52:21):
that we need to collectivelyparticipate in something.
That's just Did either of youread Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Matt (52:34):
I've seen the movie.
I have the book.
Angelo (52:37):
I read Hitchhiker's Guide.
I read the next one, restaurantat the End of the Universe, and
the third one, which might becalled so Long and Thanks for
All the Fish, or it might be thefourth one, I don't know it's
one of those.
Douglas Adams purports thetheory that all the fish, or it
might be the fourth one, I don'tknow, it's one of those, but um
, uh, douglas adams purports thetheory that, uh, one of the
(52:59):
main characters somehowactivates this time space
warping wormhole that trajectsback and forth through reality
and back and forth through timeand it hits earth and the, the
primordial single-celledorganisms.
They see it, they freak out andthey come together into a
(53:22):
single multicellular organismbecause they're scared shitless
of this wormhole that they saw.
They don't know, they're like ah, and then they just become the
first multicellular organism soyeah, are we motivated by fear
or are we motivated by love andaltruism?
I I hope it's love.
I do think a lot of uh,darwinian philosophers probably
(53:48):
focus on the competition aspectof it, but I do think you gotta
talk about that.
Matt (53:53):
But I do think it's motivated by cooperation.
Angelo (53:57):
Because when two things come together and we talked
about this in our Power of Threepodcast when two things come
together in cooperation, a lotof times something greater than
the sum of the parts comes outof it.
Matt (54:10):
And if you're just conflicting all the time, well
it's just divisive, you knowyeah, by the way, when we're
talking about the, the fear andlove thing, you know, like tim
ferris has this frame he callsfear setting, where, you know,
he has all these different likevery, very adventurous, very,
(54:31):
very smart person right andhe'll weigh his decision making
on whether or not to dosomething based on the potential
benefits and the potential likedrawbacks, or like what could
happen if this, you know, if Iend up doing this, right, and so
he'll like write out what are,you know, what are the things
I'm afraid of, like, what arethe things that could happen if
(54:54):
I go and do this, what are thepotential benefits if I do go
and do this and then away thoseand say, like is it worth it to
go?
And you know, to go to dowhatever it is like just, does
the benefit outweigh the risk?
Right, and so it's like fear isan indicator.
(55:14):
It's.
It helps us make decisions, ithelps us to avoid the safe right
.
Angelo (55:20):
You keep the safe.
Yeah, it helps to helps tonavigate, helps.
Matt (55:24):
You know, we shouldn't be taken in emotionally by fear,
like crippled by fear, right,but listen to what it has to say
as one of the voices yes,ultimately, move towards love,
encompassing that.
Angelo (55:44):
And when you say love, what do you mean by love?
Matt (55:49):
We could say that it's a catch-all term, but I want to go
into into more you got me nolike.
Well, let's let's try some otherwords again, like define the
thing by the adjectives ornegative space or whatever you
know, but the like, flourishing,growth, what is connected, when
(56:10):
you know a lot of words that wecan just feel in them, that
there is love in them, likeconnection, like growth, like
uplifting, you know things thatare generally flourishing,
things that are generallylife-giving.
That's it life-giving, yes, Ithink life-givingness.
(56:31):
It life-giving, yes, I thinklife-givingness.
And we're talking about withanother person, say,
interpersonal love.
I think at the core of that iscaring, you know, because a
person can be in grief, a personcan be, um, heartbroken.
They could be, they could be,you know, they could have had
(56:52):
something very good happen tothem, right, and you can be
there and you can, you can carewith them if they're, if they're
like feeling down, you know,and you don't want to be hold
down, but you want to, but youwant to be there, you want to be
, or you want to be able todisplay kindness and compassion
and the connectivity with themand, by the opposite token,
(57:15):
something really good happens.
It's like how long, how oftenhave we had this happen, where
you share something amazing andthe person is there.
It's like no man, I want to, wewant to celebrate, we want we,
you know, we want to.
We want to feel that there'slife in that moment, that's life
in what just happened.
Angelo (57:36):
That's amazing with this person so I was going through a
really hard time and someonewho is now a former associate of
mine plainly explained thatthis situation I was going
through was evil because it waslife-taking and not life-giving.
And if we're gonna run withthat life-giving idea, that's
(57:58):
the good, that is goodness.
Yes.
So I think, drawing from sainttommy quine quine, or more
formally, thomas aquinas, yeah,uh saint tommy, you're being
reverent or irreverent right now.
Matt (58:15):
You'll never know but thomas aquinas defines love as
willing the good of anotherwhich I think is a really fair
and now this, this, this can becomplex too because, like you
know, my wife all the time with,like movies and shows and stuff
(58:39):
like that, it's like, it's likewhen you let the villain
survive.
This is where you have to bevery careful about, like, what
actually are the rules?
Right, because, like, we'rejust watching, you know, the
show rings of power okay, not tospoilers or whatever, but
(58:59):
somebody dies, okay, so you have, you know, so you have the
characters who you could see asgood, you could see, as you know
, the rebellion, or on the goodside.
Then you have this characterwho is like kind of a kind of a
kind of a weakling ruler.
Right, he has that weakness ofcharacter.
(59:21):
He's very fearful and he's alsokind of like you know the
character, kind of like, oh,pompous on his thing, you know,
and, um, what would be, would begood analogy, like what was his
face from Gladiator the emperor, the player.
Oh, commodus, yeah, the guy whothe evil emperor, commodus, yes
(59:42):
, the one who Joaquin Phoenixplayed.
Angelo (59:44):
Yes.
Matt (59:44):
Yes, that guy, that same kind of character, right?
So anyway, in this show thegood guy lets that character
live, right turns around whathappens he gets stabbed in the
back because he like he let himlive and he put his sword on the
(01:00:05):
ground and they got.
Then what the hell?
You know, you're the good guyand you let him live and then
he's.
So it's like that's where itcan really it, the that's well,
I guess this will.
This will go more into ourgoodness talk, right, but but
what actually?
You know, what actually do youdo in the situations like you
(01:00:28):
have to bind the evil, be ableto infuse good, whatever that
means.
Like maybe that meant throwingthe the damn sword in the water
there was water nearby, by theway like throwing the sword away
, like binding the evil so itcan't um so it can't harm you in
some way and beingauthoritative in those moments.
(01:00:55):
But it's complex because evil isshifty, it's manipulative, I
think we have elegantly segwayedinto the goodness podcast for
the next episode.
There we go.
Angelo (01:01:12):
We'll pick it up.
I'm surprised we didn't touchon everything on consciousness
right.
We didn't even get to groupconsciousness?
I don't think.
Well, I lightly touched oncollective consciousness, but we
didn't talk about the hardproblem of consciousness, we
didn't talk about the mind-bodyproblem.
We didn't talk about qualia.
We didn't talk about themind-body problem, we didn't
(01:01:34):
talk about qualia.
We didn't talk about a lot ofstuff.
So we could totally do a wholeother episode on this.
Matt (01:01:38):
Alright.
Angelo (01:01:41):
If the powers that be, will it?
That means anyone who donatesmoney to us can decide what the
next topic is.
Matt (01:01:53):
Yeah, we'll never know the answers until you give us money
Just kidding, or is it?
Angelo (01:02:04):
That's the?
Matt (01:02:05):
problem of consciousness?
You don't know.
Angelo (01:02:09):
Well, thank you all for listening to our goofy podcast.
I really appreciate you forsticking around this long.
If you made it this far, pleaselike or comment or subscribe or
whatever you can to help us out, and we greatly appreciate your
viewership.
Matt (01:02:28):
That's right, it's been real.
Right on.
Thank you everybody.
It's been a lot of fun.
Until next time.
Angelo (01:02:33):
Love it, take care.
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