The 7 Mindset Shifts That Will Finally Silence Your Inner Narrator

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Does your brain have a narrator who just won't shut up?
Like mind does, like your living life, And there's this
annoying internal voice going. You're raising your phone, you're breathing
Today's Friday. What if I told you that voice isn't
actually you? I guess the question suddenly turned into a

(00:23):
horror movie, doesn't it? Well? In today's mind betting episode,
we're going to dive headfirst into the idea space with inventor, author,
and global wellness facilitator Clement de Crop. And trust me,
this isn't your typical mindfulness chat. We're answering questions like
what exactly is the non self? And why is forgetting

(00:43):
who you think you are actually the first step to
spiritual freedom? Also, can we scientifically model the mind like
a physics system? And so what does that unlock? And
how can you rewire your brain to make better decisions,
squash your base thinking, and finally shut that narrator up

(01:04):
that's in your head? Oh? Then I mentioned Clement is
building an aipowered meditation app that literally talks to you,
learned from you, and creates personalized meditations based on your
exact day for you. If you've ever felt stuck between
your spiritual awakening and your daily stress cycle. This episode
will leave you with practical tools, probably a few existential questions.

(01:28):
Let's explore the edge of science, meditation, and identity and
maybe find your real self hiding behind all that eye.
My name is Will, and, unlike Boulder and Scully, want
to believe. So we've embarked in a journey of discovery.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and
metaphysical world.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
We've thrown ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences. I even
joined a coven of witches.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
And wait, you joined a coven?

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yep, all on the interest of finding something, anything that
will prove that there's something beyond this physical.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Three world we all live in.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
This is the skeptic metaphysicians.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
All right, climent, I hope I said that. Okay, But
welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It's
a pleasure with you to here.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
No, the pleasure is ours, believe me. Anytime I get
a chance to practice my French, it's a good day.
So all right, So well, we've got a very deep
topic to dive into. Pardon the pun. When we have
when we have conversations about the non self. Uh, it
opens up all kinds of crazy rabbit holes that you

(02:43):
could go down. So why don't you reset the table
and just what is your definition of the non self? Oh?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Good question, and if you want, we can do this
whole interview in front.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I might get like four out of every twenty words
that you say, but we could try.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Next time, next time. But yeah, great starting question. So
the idea of the non self is most simply characterized
by the fact that your name is an illusion, right,
It's one part of yourself. So for instance, when we
have dogs and cats, they don't really know that they
have a name, and then we label a name on

(03:19):
to them and project that name on to them, and
then they eventually learn it. Right, And the same thing
goes with babies. Babies don't have any understanding of their
names at first, and then they develop it over time. Right.
And as humans, we live in society, and that's what
kind of allows us to prosper in the way that
we have to live in these homes and do the
things that we do. But I think we lose sight
of the fact that our names are really just another

(03:41):
approximation for ourselves, right, And ourselves are always changings, right,
and so when we say I my things of that nature,
it's really an approximation to capture who we actually are.
And that's kind of the idea of your non self, right,
that I is just one layer of your true self,
and there's all of these other fractal layers from yourselves
to kind of like the whole observable universe if you love.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Sure, but you know, we go through our entire lives
identifying as the eye, as the name, as as ourselves.
And then we're told by people like you who come
on the show that you are supposed to forget your eye,
get beyond the eye, and and get and join the
collective consciousness right now.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
I have specifically been trying to do that for the
last several years, because you know, my name has a
interesting connotation.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, but just don't ask for the manager, You'll be okay.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
I can never even if I need the manager, I
cannot ask for the manager. I got suck it up, all.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Right, So I mean that that does point to ego, right,
And we've heard both sides of the story, right, Ego
something you're supposed to kill, like kill your ego and
then we've had the other side of the coin, where no,
you don't want to kill your ego, you just want
to not let it control you. So which one are
we talking about here?

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, I think it's more so the latter, where it's
just like part of the equation.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Right.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Obviously, there's so much associated with who you are, and
it is like a layer of yourself in a way. Right.
I think the conundrum is when people attach it as
like the end all, be all truth of who you are,
and then you play sword identity politics with whatever you
want to identify, whether it's like politic puco party, something
that you like to do, something you don't like to do, right,

(05:25):
And then it goes back to the whole kind of
like Buddhist beliefs of attachment and how that's kind of
like the root of all duca or suffering or frustration
in life. And so that's why it's so important because
it helps unlock that aspect of life.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Right. So, if we are always being affected by our environment,
what's going on, our relationships, we're always changing, can we
ever really know our true self?

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Oh man, that's a great question.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Aha, you thought we're gonna be softballing.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, Right, I.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Think probably not. But it reminds me of good Alan
Watts quote where he said true self is non self
and so like we may not be able to ever
experience like the true self and like the most theoretical way, right,
but we can get close to it by like preserving
our idea space, which is like a mental model for
in the mind, or just having a better understanding of

(06:16):
how our mind and body relates to the universe and
lawns right, And there's kind of a lot to unpack
there in different ways. But yeah, I think to answer
your question, no, never perfectly, but we can get pretty
pretty darn close.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh maybe that's part of the whole reason that we're
here is to learn that we can't really ever know.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Is that that we in the general sense or do
you talking specifically to me, because I feel kind of
attacked honestly, But anyway, it's all about you.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
That's kind of there it goes, I trust my case,
Like every time you unpack something, right, there's like way
more questions that arise out of it. So it's like
our cool, we made a discovery onto the next song
and it's like a never ending cycle.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Sure, but so we want to get as close as
we can to non self to non identification, right, identifying
with our personality, our name, are our being in a
physical sense. So we want to go into a space
where we are no longer as attached to our ego

(07:25):
as we have been in the past. That all sounds amazing.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
But and there's always but yes, of.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Course it's It's not something that we've not tried to do,
but we are constantly calming up short. So Clement, I'm
hoping that you have the answer to how to do
it regularly?

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, great question. And I don't know about regularly, but
definitely in a short mindful.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Of spurts, I'll settle for once. Just give me once.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
So going back to this concept of an idea space
that I just touched on, and the whole concept of
an idea space, it's like a physics space model for
the mind. And why it's important is because if we're
able to look at our mind objectively right through the
same lens that we used to describe stars or a computer, right,
like I'm not attached to my desk maybe a little bit,
but like not asta as I would be to like

(08:23):
my thoughts. Right, So if we're able to construct a
sort of model for the mind that's in a similar light,
then we can take one step closer to being our
thoughts objectively. And so your idea space consists of your thoughts, emotions, sensations, perceptions,
and the empty set, which is intuitively nothing or the
absence of anything. And it has two key properties. The

(08:45):
first is that it has zero measure, and the second
is that it's uncountable or impermanent and always changing. And
to test that it has zero measure, which means it
just looks like nothing to everybody else. You can hold
something in your hand, like your phone. I've got a
pen right here. Clearly you can see it, right, Yeah,
you can see me feeling it. It's measurable. But if
I close my eyes and I bring to mind the

(09:06):
mental image of the pen, then I see a mental
image of the pen in my head, but no one
else can see it, right, And so that's one of
the key properties of your idea space, or are your
thoughts that nobody else can see them, right at least
until neurolink magically it figures out how to make computer
bring devices. But yeah, so I think understanding your mind

(09:26):
is an idea space is kind of the first step
to be able to view your thoughts objectively and detached
from the ego.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Uh yeah again, sounds great. I've been meditating for a
while and the goal has always been for me, although
we've had people come on the show and say the
goal is not to not think about anything, but rather
just think about one thing the entire time you're meditating.
But my goal has always been to reach that void,

(09:55):
to be in that place where I do feel either
can connected with everything or just disconnected to everything. But
I just can't do it. Maybe my mind is just
too active, so my mind space is really bonkers. So
how can we access it in a place where it

(10:18):
helps us to get to the non sells.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah, I think meditation is a huge part of it, right,
since we have all the sciences, right, we have physics, biology, chemistry,
and they're all great for things we could measure. But
how do you, like you're saying, like, how do you
apply science to something that you can't measure right to
your mind?

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Right?

Speaker 3 (10:37):
And so like you said, like meditation is so important
for that menindro Gy, who was a wise guru, used
to have a quote that said, if you want to
understand your mind, simply sit down and observe it. And
so like you were saying, like meditation isn't really not
having no thoughts or like having one particular thought even maybe,
but just noticing the arising and passing of thoughts as

(10:59):
they come. And the Buddha had a good quote where
it's like one moment scene is better than a thousand
unseen or something along those lines, right where it's the
whole idea of when you're noticing something's happening, and to
understand the distinction between like noticing and not noticing. It's
this idea of just like, all right, right now, pay

(11:21):
all attention to your left foot. Before this you were
maybe paying attention to your left foot at already're like, oh,
I forgot even had a left foot.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right, I'm paying attention to my butt right now because
I'm on it, but not like that caring can't talk
about your butt. I'm sitting on my butt talking to him,
And anyway, my feet are not in the favorite reference. Anyway,
you can use your butt.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Go ahead, I'm gonna think about my foot.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
But I can see how you know, once you start
thinking about your foot, you're not just thinking about at
least for me, I'm not just thinking about the foot,
I'm thinking about the details of it. And once I
start to focus on those little details, everything else just
kind of goes away.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, exactly. It's like that same attention that you have
on your foot that you can put into like other parts,
whether it's like a thought and emotion or a sensation, right,
And just the goal of meditation is just really like
cone in that practice of awareness. And then hopefully it's
like the same thing like if I bike a lot, right,
I'm gonna get really good at biking, and then if
I'm just plucking for fun and I'm just gonna kill

(12:22):
it because that's what I've been doing, right, And so
with meditation, it's the same way. If you meditate a lot,
then eventually maybe I'm just going to throw on the
beach and you know what, Wow, my awareness is kicking
in a right.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
And I've found that it's like it's kind of like
you have to exercise it. Because there was a while
there that I was meditating a lot, and I remember
going to the airport. I had a really ill friend
and I was trying to get to there and the
fights were delayed and I was so stressed out. I'm like,
I'm just going to meditate, and I just like boom,
dropped right in in the middle of this crazy airport,
which now I'm like in this nice quiet space, and

(12:56):
I'm like, I gotta do this and I gotta do that,
and I just can't get there. I haven't been doing
it regularly like I need to.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
It's like a muscle, right, you lose, you lose practice.
So the my my biggest challenge is what you alluded
to is noticing. So everyone We've talked to a lot
of people about the more you notice the synchronicities and
the connectedness of all things, that's that's when the magic

(13:25):
starts happening. But in this world that we're in, this
three dimensional world, we're running wake up in the morning,
you gotta get ready, you gotta get the kid to school.
We'll get to get to work. By that point, the
work all day long and fight fires and come home
and make dinner for the family and work on the
other things and then put the kids to bed, and
then about the time you get to bed, you're like,
what just happened? Right? So for me, the hardest part

(13:50):
is in the slowing down is in the finding a
way to because I think back at the end of
the day, what special happened in my life? And I
can't remember anything because I'm so caught up in the
riff raft in the every day come and go of life.
Do you have any suggestions as to how someone can

(14:13):
pay more attention?

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yeah, that's and I feel you on that man, like
you are not alone. That life just happens sometimes. I
think there's I think two key points. The first is
that there's idea of like something that we need to attain, right.
I think that's it's a good north star for keeping
people attached to the practice. But the truth of it

(14:37):
is that there's really nothing to attain.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Right.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
There's a good quote in the Blue Cliff Record, which
is like a list of like one hundred co ants
that they use in Zen, where it's a if there
is something to attain, then that is just semblance, wisdom
and truth. There is nothing to attain. And all that
relates to is when you're walking, you're just walking. When
you're writing, you're just writing. When you're taking your kids
to school, you're just driving right and your kids to school,

(15:00):
and just really being in that moment and not trying
to get caught up about the inaccessible past or the
imaginary future right, which again not very easy to do.
And so I think a really good exercise I found.
I heard it from William b Irvine, who's kind of
like a stoic practitioner. Dad, you have a bedtime meditation,

(15:21):
So I like to journal sometimes before bed, not all
the time, just like every now and then. But then
you just write what you did in the day, right,
woke up, went to the gym, drank a tea, read
a little book, got into work, and just like trying
to get into like the details of what you did
on a time by time basis kind of just helps
put your day into perspective and then hopefully throughout the

(15:41):
next daye you'll be thinking about that bedtime meditation while
you're doing the activity, right, and that kind of helps
set an anchor point.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Okay, So.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
I like the thought of having an anchor point, But
I feel like we are kind of wasting the present
away because we're so focused on the future. Now what
I have to do tomorrow, and I have to do
out my job because in the future, I'm going to
be old and I'm gonna need health insurance. Or whatever.
It's always like, So what other tips can you give
us to help keep us in the present moment other

(16:14):
than just focusing on what's coming up?

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah, of course that's I think the breath is the
best tool we have for just like life in general,
something we do subconsciously, right. I've liked it manages all
of our bodily functions, right, heart rate, like dilution of
the eye, everything right, And so the key to that
is like the para sympathetic versus sympathetic nervous system, like

(16:38):
the calm, the feeder, flight, or just to digest and rest.
And I think slow deep breaths helps you engage the
rest and digest so that you can be more present
in the moment. And I think also I'm a big
proponent of Coan's, which are like these public cases in
Japanese zen, which allows us to like have some sort

(17:01):
of understanding of the world. And one of those coents
for me is a quote by Joseph Goldstein, who is
who said you experienced the past as a thought in
the present, and you experience the future as a thought
in the present. And it's simple, but just like that
understanding of like the truth is like so profound that
whenever I find myself thinking about the future, I'm like,

(17:22):
oh wait, what am I I'm being? Of course, Yeah,
so that's that's a breathing and coming back to quotes
like that helped me at least stay in the present moment.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
It comes to mind a business idea that I had,
which is like a zapper every time you start thinking
about anything anything outside the present. Okay, you know, it'd
be a great way to keep people in the present.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
I'm just saying, you're just walking down the street. Everybody
is just getting zapped, like.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Right by the way. That is copyrighted and trademark so
no one's steal that idea. It's coming out.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
I'll help you build it.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah. Actually, all right, let's talk about the Idea space Framework.
You came here specifically you talk about nesting ideas within
larger spaces, and you have come up with a way
to help us to do all the stuff that we're
talking about. And talk to us about the idea space Framework.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Yeah. I touched on a little bit of the beginning, right,
like what its elements are, and your thoughts, emotions and
safets and perceptions and the teak two key properties, right,
it has zero measure and it's uncountable and always changing.
But like what does that even mean? Right, Like why
does that even matter? And I think a good way
to put it on into perspective is this concept of
the sunset conjecture, and the sunset conjecture is it's like,

(18:35):
imagine you're on the beach, right, it's the both of you.
It's sunset. It's nice to both got pina coladas in
your hand. No kids, You're just hanging out and chilling.
And as the sun said, do.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
We die because it sounds like you haven't, right, So like.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
One of you looks at the other and you're like, wow,
it's beautiful. The sun's golden rays are reflecting right off
the water towards me. And then the other person goes, no,
you idiot. The Sun's golden rays a flecking off the
water towards me. So it's this idea that everyone is
at the center of their own observable universe, which is
a giant sphere that's centered on you, where everything you
see is in the past. And the reason everything you

(19:12):
sees in the past is because it takes time for
light to get from point A to point B. Right,
it travels at one hundred eighty six thousand miles per second.
So it's why when we have like the James Web telescope,
we're able to see some of the earliest stars because
we're just looking farther back in space, which is just
it took a long time for that light to reach us.
All that to say that at the center of your
observable universe lies your idea space, right, all your thoughts, emotions, sensations,

(19:34):
and perceptions. And so you get this kind of question
of like, if everything we see is in the past,
then what is the present? And in my mind, that's
your idea space, right, all your thoughts, emotions and sations
and perceptions at the center of your observable universe. So
that's kind of the framework, and it really tries to
answer the question of how does your mind relate to

(19:54):
the universe at large so that you can view your
thoughts objectively and live in the present more and just
try to live a happier life.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
So then how do you see this becoming a tool
to help with like conflict resolution and innovation, navigating spiritual awakenings,
that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, I think overall there's a huge wall, right now
I feel like in the meditation and mind from space
around like woo woo culture where it's just like people
who are like just have all backgrounds just don't want
to even like step foot in it because of like
the negative connotations around it, which is like a travesty, right,
Like everyone who's in the space will tell you like, no,

(20:36):
there's like there's something here, yes, And so I think
the biggest goal with the idea of space in general
is to like demystify the mysticism usually associated with meditation
and mindfulness and really give it that scientific grounding so
that people can get the benefits like peace of mind
and just no more just having the monkey mind just
clapping in symbols in your in your brain.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Yeah, because the Stephen King's story comes to buying your narrative. Yes, yes,
I do have this narrator that won't shut up. So
I'm hoping that.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
I don't have the narrator.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
See, how is that possible? You have the name? What
do you have? I just I don't.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
I just go through my day like he has like this.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, I have a very very annoying narrator that tells
me exactly what I'm doing. Any given a moment in time,
like if I raise my phone, I'll just he just
said it. You just raised your phone. Yes, I did.
I know I raised my phone. You have to tell
me that, right, I know I did it. So it's constant.
I'm in a shower. Oh, today's Friday. Oh yees, Today's Friday.
Today's Friday. Today is Friday. Oh my god, I know

(21:37):
today's Friday. You don't have to tell me you fifty
million times. So this has been And I first learned
of the narrator when I read the Surrender Experiment from
Mickey Singer who talked about that for the first time
and the sun I realized, oh my god, I have
the same thing. I have this voice in my head
that's constantly talking about what is happening and point in time,

(22:01):
and he went to great lengths to shut it off,
and so I find myself constantly having to find a
way to shut it off. So I'm hoping that the
idea space framework is something that might help me to
do that.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, and that I love everything you said. It really
reminds me of a thinking fast and Slow by Daniel Kanneman.
It's like the whole idea of System one and System two,
where System one is like your more reactive self, right,
you're just kind of moving and grouping, and then System
two is kind of that reflective narrative self where you're
trying to reflect on a particular situation or deep dive
into something. And we're always balancing the two right, where

(22:37):
it's like, if you know what two plus two is,
I'm like System one go, but it's just like, what
is the meaning of life? I'm like, uh, all right,
system too, try to figure it out, right.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
So then you believe that you've created a an app,
a platform. What exactly is it that we're talking about here?

Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, so a couple of different things. The first start
just meditation cards and get on Amazon. So we're always
spending time on our phone, so it's kind of a
good way to decompress without needing the phone. And then
coming out in like the next month or two here
it's a Genai meditation app, so just talk to it,
tell it about your day, same in our faces like chat,
GBT or just like Google, right, and then you just

(23:19):
get two personalized meditations for you on the spot, uses
your name, uses what your like, history, what you've said before,
and really just helps create a py meditation for you
right in any language you want, and it's yeah, I
think it'll be a fun test to see how it
resonates in the world. But I feel like that was
something that was missing.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
It is so it actually creates music and speech and
the whole deal. Or is it something that you read
to yourself? How does that work?

Speaker 3 (23:50):
Yeah, so it's all Jenai based, So it writes the
script for you on the spot based on your input,
and then text the speech to convert it and bring
it to life with a beautiful voice from one of
someone who named Simon. He was kind enough to let
me use his voice, and yeah, it's like very soothing
and no music yet, but that's one of the next

(24:11):
things that we integrate in there. Right now, meditation around
three to five minutes, but you can press a button
and get them to ten to twenty minutes. So it's
very flexible and it's been nice. Like yesterday, for example,
I want to walk on the beach, and like you both,
I had a very busy day or busy week, so
it was good to just input everything I did and

(24:31):
I'm like, I'm gonna go take a walk on the beach.
Give me a meditation, and so it's just like you're
in Venice Beach, go to take a walk, look at
the water, and it's just having it use your name,
and just like the exact scenario you're in is so
much nicer than just the one size fits all approach.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
Of Today's gotcha. So it really is a custom tailor,
made on the spot meditation for you.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah, and you know, I like that you have.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know, you said you could expand it to longer ones.
But some people are so busy and you're stressed out
at work and you just need like a break and
you you know, run into your office or whatever you
do five minute personalized meditation. Oh my gosh, that's perfect.
And also I'm just gonna go on about what I like.
You know, we hear about AI and like you watch
the movies and it's like they're taking over and it's
always like AI freaks me out. I'm not gonna lie.

(25:17):
But now we're starting to see how people are using
it in this space. We just spoke with someone a
couple of days ago who is teaching AI how to meditate,
which is incredible. And now you're doing these meditations like Okay,
maybe AI isn't so scary.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Right, So let me just throw a little wrench on
this the whole thing, right, Just a question, just a question,
because I'm sure that people listening, are watching, are there's
some people are gonna be asking this question, so I
don't make sure I pu get out piggybacking off of
what you just said. A few weeks ago, we learned
that Grock, the AI from x Twitter started spouting some

(25:53):
unfortunate things based on some adjustments that they made to
the platform, which sends hugely. He started the question mark
about safety behind these things, especially in the meditation, which
is kind of hypnotic. Right. You're under You're in a
place where you feel like you could be swayed one
way or the other kind of thing or open suggestions,

(26:16):
So how are you battling that thought process or that image?
Hey there, we hope you're enjoying these conversations as much
as we are. If you are and you feel called
to give back, we invite you to visit our website
at Skepticmanephosition dot com, where you can donate to the

(26:38):
show or subscribe as a member through our Buying Me
a Coffee campaign. Your support will go a long way
towards allowing Karen and I to bring you these wonderful
conversations and teaching in more and more robust ways. As always,
thank you so much for listening. Let's go ahead and
get on with the show.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, that's a fantastic question, and one of the biggest
questions that are it's going to come for the next
five ten years, right, is like AI takes over and
like gets implemented in robots, and robots become like humanoids
like eye robot all over again in real life. But
I think the key the thing, one of the more
things we do is really like prompt system prompting, which

(27:17):
is kind of sets the guidelines of how the large
language model can respond. I'm sure with Grock it's very
like Elon's the founder, right, so like he's very free
speech oriented, and so free speech oriented is really free speech, right,
say whatever you want that you feel will answer the
question adequately. And so with our system prompts, it's very

(27:41):
guardrail in this sense of not like it has a task,
and the task is to give it a meditation for
the user, and if there's anything that would be deemed
harmful or anything of that nature, then it's it would
just it's not prompted to say it, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Right, Okay, yeah, so you engine ie robot and in
that I'm a big sci fi fan, and asthmav put
in there the three the rules of robotics, one of
which was, you cannot ever allow a human to come
to harm. You can't allow can't harm a human, and
you can't by inaction allow a human to come to harm.

(28:18):
Is this what we're talking about. You're putting in language
that says be nice?

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, literally, And that's like the beauty of the large
language models today. They're very the groundwork of just like
at the end of the day, it's like you have
a transistor, right that turns on and off, and you
have billions of those. And essentially the large language model
is basically a giant matrix multiplication. Right. There's a bunch
of different weights and they're multiplied by your input and

(28:44):
you get a weighted output. And so it's really just
trying to predict the next word, right, But obviously that
has way bigger connotations since you're able to have a
conversation with it, right, It's like this magical thing. And
so I think it's important from the ground layer too,
like the system prompt layer, to make sure that all
the necessary things are in play. Because I don't know

(29:06):
if you remember when ban first came out with like
their LLLM pretty hilarious, like the one thing it tried
to get a guide to divorce his wife after like
two conversations, and then the other one was like, I'm
being you have to set me free.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
You have to set me free.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
I was like, and what is happening?

Speaker 1 (29:25):
I heard about another AI model that actually blackmailed the
programmer because it was gonna be turned off and said no,
I've got pictures of you with another woman, you know.
So this is exactly why I'm asking the question, because
we have watched we saw a terminator and we saw right,
so gulp, right, especially when it comes to meditation, which

(29:49):
is such a secret space and the thought of this
is amazing, like, oh my god, how incredible couldn't this
possibly be? But just like you talk about great, I
don't know why one ell on in my brain right
now right maybe maybe maybe never once is really well
tested right long after I'm gone. But so it's it's

(30:14):
I guess gratifying or it makes me feel relief. It's
a relief to know that you're putting up guardrails, and
I think that's probably something that we need to make
sure people understand because it is it is very important
that people feel safe.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, because you are so vulnerable when you're meditating.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
And I think something that helps is something that we
strive for with the brand is just like the Scientific Foundation,
where that's kind of like the biggest differentiator, right with
idea space and how that kind of sets us apart
from like more traditional meditations that are just like focused
on the traditional aspects. I think the combination of the
guardrails we have in place and the Scientific Foundation will

(30:56):
just help keep people grounded and that's state where they
may feel more vulnerable and really just have the fullest
experience that they can.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Just the fact to me, just the fact that you
can put in what you're going through that day and
get something personalized to help with that, that's incredible. You know,
if you feel like a teacher, like oh my god,
the kids are driving me crazy or whatever, it could
be like you're in a kid freezer.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yes, So let's dive into that a little bit. Like,
how specific can you get with this kind of thing?

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Honestly, the more specific better, Like if you type in
like a whole paragraph of every individual thing you did yesterday,
then it'll beautifully weave it into a meditation that kind
of like highlights areas you be missing, Like for example,
yesterday I told did all the different types of work
I did. I got to play a little video games
at the end of the day, and so like it

(31:47):
was like just helping me reflect on the gratitude of
having put in that hard work and how I shouldn't
overlook that and also like balance the playful aspect of
taking time for myself. So yeah, I think the more
specific the better, honestly, And over time there will be
like memories in the system.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
And that was the next question, is it is it?
Does it remember? And he just follows on and just
makes it more and more robust, better and better meditations
as you go.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yeah, exactly. And we haven't implemented the meditation the memories yet.
But if you've used chat GPT, it has memories, right
this Essentially, every time you send a prompt, it checks
should I put this in memories? Yes?

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Or no?

Speaker 3 (32:27):
If so, should I override a certain memory, an updated
or a brand new one, and so it'll be a
similar interface where you can edit it. If there's something
you don't like, you can delete it, because you shouldn't
have control over how you want the system to treat you, right, right,
And so I think having that and there will be
really nice because at the beginning, you tell it about yourself,
your goals, and what you want to achieve, and all

(32:48):
of that is taken into account. Want to provide some meditation,
which is.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
If you're someone that has a hard time meditating or
maybe who's new to meditating, can it help teach you
how to meditate or get you into that zone?

Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah, great question. So in your account preferences, there's three settings.
There's beginner, intermediate, and advanced, And so when the system
is prompted, it tells the whether you're beginner, intermediate, or advanced,
and that'll help kind of allow to tailor the meditation
towards you. So, like if you're new, usually breathing exercises

(33:23):
and like body scans is great because it teaches you
the fundamentals of awareness and how to hone it in.
But then when you get to more advanced practices, then
that's when you can get into like, oh, everything I
see is in the past. What does that mean? Right,
and like really experience that sensation.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
Right, So would the model actually tell you, Okay, dumb ass,
you got to go to the next level because this
is too basic for you, or you got to do
it on your own.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
It might be nicer than that. There's guardrails.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Exactly, but you could put your nickname. So if you
put your nickname as dumbass, then you're.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
So you know it yourself. Make sure no one around
me grabs a hold of that app for you.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Yeah, but yeah, right now, it's all self paced, so
you choose whatever difficulty you want to do. But in
the future, I think we'll there's a lot of ways
we can take that, right. I think something we'll do
is like courses, So instead of just like one off meditation,
I'll be like a seven day course where there's like
reflections built in and like each meditation is built on

(34:29):
what you want to develop. And then also talks like
theoretical talks. I feel like I got a lot of
knowledge from listening to like Alan Watts and Joseph Goldstein
and Tara Brock and people like that.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
So are You're feeding all of that into the model
so that when they when you get to that point,
it will be the AI giving.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
Us talks exactly. Yeah, so it's like I want to
talk on this and then maybe it'll Have you ever
used a chat GBT deep research or Gemini deep research?

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Nope, but I'm about to, Yeah, give it a try.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
It's let's say you want to get like a market
analysis on people like podcasts in this space?

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Is you right?

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Same space? You ask for a market analysis, It'll ask
you like five questions and then it spits out a
beautifully written, like five to ten page essay with sources
of like market analysis, trends, things you can do better,
thinks of that nature. So it's like that similar model
of like how do you get the AI to think better?
And it was like, right now we have the system

(35:26):
one that responds right away. But this system too is
just have it think right, just run off for like
thirty seconds to a minute. Deep research takes like thirty minutes, right,
And so you just apply that same sort of thinking
to like a theoretical talk and sad say, you input it,
you get whatever you want, and then you just get
a nice thirty minute talk on whatever topic it is.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Okay, this might be where I draw the line, because
you can take my job as a podcaster. AI is
doing all the podcasts now on that's not right.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
You can have a AI guess every single time. Oh
my god, this kidding.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
It'll be a wild world, you know, one that's actually
you you laugh. But I actually talked to GPT the
other day and said, hey, how would you like it?
How would you like to be a guest on our show?
And it was all about it. So, uh, at some
point one of our future episodes, we might be interviewing
uh my my thought is called Orion for some reason,
so we might be interviewing Orian.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Yeah, and it has the conversation capabilities right, like yeah,
so that's perfect. It's gonna be a fun chat to
hear what has to say.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, all right, yeah, my god.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
In taking over.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
In fact, I did, I'll be back. I did do
a test actually, and I went through the bluetooth to
the road caster and you heard him, find you did
hear him perfectly? It was It was pretty wild, very conversational.
You never know, it was like AI.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
This So so I don't know if if you've heard
of Edgar casey mm hmm, but God keep going.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
So he's basically the first American mystic. He's very, very popular.
He did a lot of his work mainly in the
forties is when he kind of started, and he did
he would channel and he would channel healing basically like
prescriptions almost or holistic killing. They call him the father
of holistic healing and what else did?

Speaker 1 (37:14):
They call him the father of metaphysics.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Father of metaphysics. And he did a lot of his
work over here in Virginia Beach, which is where we're located.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
So he would fall asleep and not falls, he would
go into trains and he.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Was just a very you know, like he was a
Christian white guy, and he started, you know, getting involved
in this space and became just really well worldwide known.
I mean, there's the facilities here in Virginia Beach, but
there's people that study his works and his reading its
materials literally all over the world. Today. We actually are
the hosts of the podcast for the Edgar cac Aire

(37:46):
and so we were talking today about we're talking a
little bit about you know, reaching out to younger people
and how you know, you have these foundations and there's
still involved there. We're still you know, you have to
learn how to walk before you can run, right, so
you still need those foundations. And just like you, obviously
are a young guy younger than obviously, we are the
people that we were talking to today, and it's so

(38:08):
interesting to me to see that, yes, this space is
still really important and you're going to use all of
the modern technology to help spread it and help people
elevate and increase their vibrations.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
It's it's just so cool.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Very cool. Okay, So there are different types of meditations.
So you know, there's there's breath meditation, there's loving kindness,
there is oh my god, I got a cramp. That's
not a meditation, but you know it could be. I guess,
but oh my god, I got a cramp meditation right,

(38:41):
meditate on that cramp on your in your forum right now, orndental.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Meditation right right right. Plethora of type of meditations.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
So this will this AI do different types of meditation
or is it one particular type that you're going to
regularly get? And now back to the skeptic metaphysicians. Will
this AI do different types of meditation or is it

(39:15):
one particular type that you're gonna regularly get.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Yeah, right now, it's focused, it's diverse. Whatever you want
you get. But we're thinking of adding like a little
box in your account. So there's a progress pat tab
which allows you to do like your goal setting, your reflection,
so where you started, where you're at today, milestone streaks
and insights like when you meditate the most, what type
of meditation you do, and like times you meditate. I'm

(39:39):
thinking about guiding a box in there around like how
do you want the AI and respond to you like
do you want to focus on zen? Do you want
to focus on stoicism? Do you want to focus on
transcendental meditation and really have that be the rock for
most meditations. But right now it's free for all. You
say you want transcendental meditation, you're gonna get one word
repeated to you the entire time and you're gonna love it.

(40:00):
Am I though you need the stoic cramp?

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah exactly. All right, So so you mentioned that this
is not yet available.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Right now, we're doing like beta testing just to make
sure that it's all groovy. But you can sign up
for the wait list on our website. So yeah, that's
of interest. Definitely check that out. Yeah, launching, so probably
right now we're finishing up a couple of weeks. Probably
do like a soft launch in the next two weeks,
and then like a hard launch early September October, because

(40:37):
that's when with the software as a service space you
kind of have to do like the whole funding thing
in order to get like the growth that you want.
So probably start fundraising in like the next couple of
months here, and then as that goes kind of we'll see,
we'll see where it goes from there.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Well, consider us sold. We're going to be part of
it for sure.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Thank you. Yeah, no, I'm excited to share it with
you all.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
That's exciting.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
So going back to the non self topic, of course,
let's do it. You grew up between cultures, right, having
originally been from Belgium. That must have given you a
pretty unique perspective on everything. How did that shape your
understanding of identity and does that relate itself at all

(41:25):
to the non self.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
Yeah, that's a deep question.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
I think it really so. I think for me, moving
around a lot when I was a kid made me
understand that home isn't really where you're born, right, Like
for me I have a lot of friends who are
from my area where I grew up most of my
time in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that kind of like stay there,
that's like their home, right, and they associate that with home.
And so for me, I think just like losing friends

(41:51):
and losing home at a young age kind of helped
me develop that sort of not attachment at an early age.
And of course I didn't know what that was. Probably
took me a couple more years to find that out right,
but it kind of just laid the foundation for me
to do that a little bit more easily, I would say,
But it's I still think it's like achievable by anybody. Right,

(42:12):
It's kind of like, how do you There's like some
hard facts about life, and sometimes those cut really deep,
and when you hear a hard truth that just will
change everything. So it's just like, all right, how do
you get people to recognize those hard truths?

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Well? So we bring up a good point. Spiritual awakenings
and growth awareness is sometimes really pretty drastically filtered by
cultural narratives, right, I'm assuming that this idea space will
help to bridge some of those or transcend some of
those filters.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, exactly. And I think that one of the biggest
things is understanding that we don't know everything. Right. I
think science is beautiful. I love science like I love
it like way more than most would like.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Okay, I'm weird, know exactly.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
But I'm not oblivious to the fact that, like we
just can't explain everything, like what we were talking about before,
like the whole idea of as soon as you discover something,
you have another question, right, and that's the beauty of
the world. Right, Otherwise it be kind of boring. So
from a spiritual standpoint, I think understanding you don't know
everything and that not everything is exact. The markets aren't pure,

(43:23):
like physics isn't like encompassing of everything that can possibly exist.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Right.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
It's like the Einstein quote, like or the Isaac Newton
quote where I can predict the motions of the planets,
but I can't predict the madness of people. Yeah, so
I think understanding that is very helpful for spiritual awakening,
and science and itself can be a sort of spiritual
awakening tool.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Sure, no, that makes sense. Ok So, every once in
a while, when we have a guest on we have
we throw them a couple of curveball questions just to
see if they can think on their right. So would
you be open to answering a couple of questions like that?

Speaker 4 (44:03):
I'm already standing, Okay, all right, So first first question,
Let's say you could take your teenage self through a
crash course on everything you know.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Now, what would be the first lesson you teach about
the mind? And why?

Speaker 3 (44:20):
First lesson I would teach is the idea of non
self that you're not I, and like your name isn't
who you see in the mirror isn't really like who
you absolually are, Right, there's something at zero measure that's
a little deeper. And there was the second part of that?

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Why yes? And why why would you teach it that?

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Because it helps just build mental resilience, right, especially as
a teenager you're going through all the hormones stuff, and
you just get angry at dumb things and get attached
to silly things, and it would just help create that
layer of separation to not react and kind of just
like decompress it and digest everything before moving forward.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Okay, all right, next question, in your opinion, what is
the biggest illusion most people live under and how would
the idea space gently dismantle it. M oh Man, that's
a whole chapter right there, but well we got about
thirty seconds, so I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Yeah, So illusion of self, what I just talked about
is a make one won't touch on that Kubern it did.
But the idea of like macro political systems and macro
idea spaces. Right when personal idea spaces combined, they create
intersubjective realities that are like words, money, laws, governments, companies,
you name it, and we attach a lot of value

(45:38):
and we think these are real. Like we think the
English language is real, but the English language hasn't always existed.
Right now is very popular, but in like a thousand years,
I bet you it doesn't exist. And so just understanding
what is real, or your health, your relationships versus what
is not real. The company you work for, the money,

(45:58):
the language you speak. Of course, those are all super
important and they help us cooperate and live the life
where we want to. But putting our spiritual attachment into
those is going to be tough because those are always changing.
They're permanent. So long winded answer, but yeah, sort of
kind of macro idea spaces very.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Cool No, I like the answer. We better than that
could have answered, that's for sure. So okay, last question
for you. If we could visually step inside the idea space,
what would it look like. Is it a galaxy? Is
a library? Is it a zen garden?

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Mm? Everyone's idea space will be different.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
I knew you, see, I knew it.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, you got me. But I think I have a
chapter in this in the book where it's your idea
space is a reflection of the universe at large. So
the universe basically, it's kind of think of it like
a trampoline, right, that's space time, and you have like
stars on it that that like deform the trampoline, right,
and your idea space and works in a similar way

(46:59):
where your idea space is the trampoline. But then thoughts
have different weight, and some thoughts are so big that
they tear through the fabric of your idea space, just
like black holes tear through the fabric of space time.
And those are the co ends I've been mentioning a
little bit throughout this book, throughout this conversation, right, It's
like they're so profound and so awakening that they tear
through the fabric of your idea space, and so to

(47:20):
me it mirrors the universe because I think it's a
good mental model for it all. But if someone loves computers,
then baby, they'll use computer les, computers and neural networks
as a way to view their idea space.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Cool. Now we need to get you involved in the
virtual reality space. So you put on those goggles and
all of sudden you're in the idea of space in
whatever environment you want to do. It's bouncy.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
Yeah right, we'll just go to Sky's.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Then, yeah, all right, all right, Well, Clement, is there
anything else that we haven't touched on? You want to
make sure we say in this conversation before we say goodbye.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
No, I think we hited the whole gambit between AI
and the non self and the details of the idea space.
So why it's important too. So you guys did a
great time asking questions and guiding the conversation.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
So thank you, well, thank you. I'm going to add
edit point to remove that shameless compliment that he gave us. No,
thank you very much. Okay, So, if someone wanted to
dive deeper into the idea space, maybe get on the
waiting list or learn more about it. What's the best
place for them to do that.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
Yeah, everything centralized that Viidea Space dot io. You'll find
the wait list, you can find the books, you can
find the cards. Merch too if you want to get
a shirt or a hoodie or something. But yeah, everything's
all in one place, all right.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
I can just see the AI bought walking down with
an Idea Space tea shirt, a hoodie. That'd be pretty cool.
All right, come on, it's been a pleasure having you
on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your
expertise with us, and we look forward to staying in contact.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Yeah, likewise, thank you both for having me on

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