Diana Walsh Pasulka: Aliens, Technology, Religion, and the Nature of Belief

Diana Walsh Pasulka (03:32.400)

So, he said, well, if you're a philosopher or have any kind of understanding of Western history, you know who he is.

Lex Fridman (03:38.480)

He had this idea that we can actually never get to the thing in itself, okay?

Lex Fridman (03:43.840)

So, and he called that the numeral, the thing in itself.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (03:46.720)

He said, let's take this table, for instance, that you and I are talking across.

Lex Fridman (03:51.120)

So, this thing is a table.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (03:52.800)

You and I both know that.

Lex Fridman (03:54.080)

We assume it's real.

Lex Fridman (03:55.520)

We believe in it because we put our water on it and our water stays on it, okay?

Lex Fridman (04:00.320)

However, can we know this thing in and of itself as a table?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (04:05.520)

So, that would be what he then would call the phenomenal.

Lex Fridman (04:10.320)

How do we know that that phenomena exists as we know it is, okay?

Lex Fridman (04:15.680)

How do we know?

Lex Fridman (04:16.640)

We use our faculties.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (04:17.520)

So, we use our senses and things like that.

Lex Fridman (04:19.440)

But again, even our senses can be wrong.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (04:22.080)

So, I've been on committees just recently this year, last year, for hiring professors in my department who are philosophers.

Lex Fridman (04:31.440)

And we're hiring metaphysicians and people who are thinking about the nature of reality.

Lex Fridman (04:37.120)

And basically, what I've learned from them, yeah, they're very good.

Lex Fridman (04:40.640)

I'd love to attend those faculty talks of metaphysics professors.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (04:45.040)

What's funny is that for each one of them, I'm convinced each time.

Lex Fridman (04:49.120)

They all say different things, but they're so convincing.

Lex Fridman (04:51.440)

I'm like, yes, hire that one, right?

Lex Fridman (04:53.760)

Is it like historical philosophy, like a particular talk?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (04:56.080)

No, no.

Lex Fridman (04:56.560)

Or do they have an actual belief?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (04:59.600)

They're practicing metaphysicians.

Lex Fridman (05:01.680)

Metaphysicians, yes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (05:03.280)

So, what they do is they come and they're usually excellent philosophers from Harvard or USC or whatever.

Lex Fridman (05:11.120)

They come and they give what's called a job talk.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (05:13.520)

That's what every academic does a job talk in order to get it.

Lex Fridman (05:18.160)

They talk to us about a department about what they do.

Lex Fridman (05:21.760)

And so, it so happens that we need a metaphysician and now we're hiring again for one.

Lex Fridman (05:27.600)

And so, I've learned a lot about metaphysics in the last year.

Lex Fridman (05:31.520)

And this is what I've learned that they use physics as a basis for understanding

Lex Fridman (05:37.600)

what we can know about what is real.

Lex Fridman (05:39.760)

And what is real is really difficult to pin down.

Lex Fridman (05:42.880)

And so, your question is, what is belief?

Lex Fridman (05:45.760)

Well, belief, does it correspond to reality?

Lex Fridman (05:48.480)

That's the question I would ask.

Lex Fridman (05:50.160)

And first, we don't even know what is real.

Lex Fridman (05:52.800)

So, the table, they would say, how do we know that the table even exists?

Lex Fridman (05:55.760)

Well, how do we differentiate it from the floor, for example?

Lex Fridman (05:59.200)

So, these are the questions that philosophers are asking.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (06:01.600)

No one else is, of course.

Lex Fridman (06:02.960)

But philosophers are asking these questions and they have different answers for it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (06:06.320)

So, I would say that it's very difficult to know what is real.

Lex Fridman (06:10.160)

And in fact, what I do usually is I paraphrase my friend and colleague, Brother Guy Consolmagno.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (06:17.760)

He's a Jesuit priest who's also an astronomer and he's the director of the Vatican Observatory.

Lex Fridman (06:23.280)

And so, he says this, he's a very smart person.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (06:25.520)

He says, well, truth is a moving target.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (06:30.320)

So, basically, to know what is real out there, like gravity or something like that,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (06:36.720)

you've got to approximate it.

Lex Fridman (06:38.720)

And as human beings, we have senses to tell us what, at least so we don't get hurt.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (06:45.600)

We're not going to fall off a building or something like that.

Lex Fridman (06:48.400)

We have eyes to see and things like that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (06:50.160)

So, we can approximate what reality is, but we're never going to get to it

Lex Fridman (06:54.000)

unless we develop better senses, okay?

Lex Fridman (06:58.480)

And I think that that is what we are in the process of doing.

Lex Fridman (07:01.360)

We're developing better senses.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (07:03.200)

We have telescopes, we have microscopes, we have extensions of ourselves,

Lex Fridman (07:07.520)

which are now called technology.

Lex Fridman (07:09.360)

And we can get to a better understanding of what reality is and what the objective world is.

Lex Fridman (07:15.760)

And therefore, our beliefs can be honed.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (07:18.160)

So, we can get better beliefs, more accurate beliefs.

Lex Fridman (07:20.480)

But can we get beliefs that actually correspond to reality?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (07:24.880)

Not in any precise way, but in approximate ways.

Lex Fridman (07:28.560)

So, I hope that's not like too big an answer to your question.

Lex Fridman (07:31.840)

Well, do you think beliefs are in themselves can become reality?

Lex Fridman (07:35.200)

I mean, so you've now adapted the, in this little bit of a conversation,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (07:41.760)

adapted the metaphysician view of reality, which is the physics.

Lex Fridman (07:45.680)

Yes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (07:46.080)

But, you know, we humans kind of operate in the space of ideas very much so.

Lex Fridman (07:51.600)

Like we've kind of in the collective intelligence of human beings,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (07:54.720)

have come up with a set of ideas that persist in the minds of these many people.

Lex Fridman (07:59.680)

And they become quite strong and powerful.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:02.080)

Like in terms of like impact on our lives,

Lex Fridman (08:05.360)

they can have sometimes more impact than this table does than the physics.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:11.840)

Yeah, I agree.

Lex Fridman (08:12.960)

And in that sense, is there some sense in which our beliefs are reality,

Lex Fridman (08:19.760)

even if they're not connected to the physics?

Lex Fridman (08:22.160)

Yes, even if they're not real.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:23.600)

Yeah, even if, okay.

Lex Fridman (08:25.120)

So, yes, absolutely.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:26.560)

So, our beliefs are tremendously, they create social effects, absolutely.

Lex Fridman (08:34.800)

There was a belief that, I'm going to use this example.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:38.480)

There was a belief back in the day, and we're talking about,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:40.960)

when I say back in the day, I'm a historian, so I'm talking about like 1000 years ago,

Lex Fridman (08:44.720)

right?

Lex Fridman (08:45.200)

That women had no souls, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:47.040)

So, look, I don't know if human beings have souls.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:49.920)

I can tell you this, though, that if human beings have souls, probably animals do too.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (08:54.160)

That's my own personal belief.

Lex Fridman (08:55.280)

That's not a professor belief there.

Lex Fridman (08:58.080)

But there was this belief among the Catholic magisterium, which runs Europe,

Lex Fridman (09:04.240)

that women had no souls.

Lex Fridman (09:05.280)

So, they had to have this big meeting about it, you know, did women have souls?

Lex Fridman (09:08.640)

But that belief had consequences for women.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (09:13.120)

I mean, women were treated and have been treated as if they didn't have souls.

Lex Fridman (09:18.560)

Okay, so there's...

Lex Fridman (09:19.280)

And the soul was really the essence of the human being.

Lex Fridman (09:21.920)

It was.

Lex Fridman (09:22.320)

It's called the animus, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (09:24.240)

It's what is the essence of what is eternal, you know, when women weren't eternal.

Lex Fridman (09:29.920)

Here's another example, okay?

Lex Fridman (09:31.360)

This is an example from my own research.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (09:33.760)

All right.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (09:34.160)

So, in the Catholic tradition, there's this idea of purgatory, hell, and heaven.

Lex Fridman (09:40.320)

And these are three destinations that people can go to when they die.

Lex Fridman (09:45.040)

And if you're great, you go to heaven automatically and you're considered a saint.

Lex Fridman (09:49.440)

If you're okay, you go to purgatory, right?

Lex Fridman (09:52.400)

And you suffer for a time and then get back into heaven.

Lex Fridman (09:55.440)

If you're terrible, you go to hell, right?

Lex Fridman (09:57.360)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (09:58.000)

Well, there was a place that the Catholics determined, and this was a belief for a long time,

Lex Fridman (10:04.640)

like a thousand years or more, and it was called limbo, all right?

Lex Fridman (10:09.360)

And limbo comes from the Latin limbus, and it means edge.

Lex Fridman (10:13.120)

And it was either on the edge of hell or on the edge of heaven.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (10:16.400)

No one really could determine which it was.

Lex Fridman (10:18.320)

No historians are like, well, this person says it was on the edge of heaven.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (10:22.000)

Well, listen, this was a terrible...

Lex Fridman (10:24.400)

First of all, there is no limbo anymore.

Lex Fridman (10:26.080)

In 2007, Benedict, the then Pope, got rid of the idea that there was limbo, okay?

Lex Fridman (10:32.880)

So Catholics kind of went crazy because they didn't really know.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (10:35.840)

They forgot that limbo existed and they thought it was purgatory.

Lex Fridman (10:38.880)

And they said, how could you get rid of purgatory?

Lex Fridman (10:40.880)

But actually, he just got rid of this idea of limbo.

Lex Fridman (10:43.040)

Oh, so that's a distinct thing from purgatory.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (10:45.200)

It was.

Lex Fridman (10:45.840)

And by the way, people should know they have a book on purgatory that came before...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (10:50.000)

American Cosmic.

Lex Fridman (10:50.880)

Yes, I wrote a book on purgatory, yeah.

Lex Fridman (10:52.800)

Anyway, so limbo is a distinct thing from purgatory?

Lex Fridman (10:55.600)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (10:56.000)

And the types of people who go to limbo happen to be virtuous pagans, okay?

Lex Fridman (11:04.160)

Like Socrates or somebody like that.

Lex Fridman (11:07.520)

And children who weren't baptized.

Lex Fridman (11:09.760)

So think of this.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (11:11.280)

Think of for like more than a thousand years, mothers and fathers gave birth to babies who

Lex Fridman (11:18.160)

weren't baptized and couldn't be buried with their family in these burial...

Lex Fridman (11:23.200)

And then they couldn't be reunited with them in heaven.

Lex Fridman (11:26.240)

Think of the pain and suffering that that caused.

Lex Fridman (11:28.640)

And that was nothing.

Lex Fridman (11:30.480)

Limbo's nothing.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (11:32.000)

Yet the belief in it caused untold suffering.

Lex Fridman (11:35.360)

And that's just a small example.

Lex Fridman (11:37.040)

And that was as real to them?

Lex Fridman (11:39.120)

It was absolutely real.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (11:40.640)

I mean, the effects were real, let's put it that way.

Lex Fridman (11:42.640)

The place itself, not real.

Lex Fridman (11:44.640)

But the families themselves, do you think they really believed it?

Lex Fridman (11:47.600)

They totally believed it.

Lex Fridman (11:48.880)

As much as the table is real?

Lex Fridman (11:50.640)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (11:51.120)

I've read, listen, we have trigger warnings today, right?

Lex Fridman (11:54.880)

So don't read this, it's gonna make you upset, okay?

Lex Fridman (11:57.680)

History, primary sources, no trigger warnings, okay?

Lex Fridman (12:01.360)

So you're going through like somebody's diary from 1400 and you hear the suffering and pain

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:07.920)

that they went through.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:08.880)

There were times in my research where I'd have to put my primary source down and just

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:14.720)

basically go outside and take a walk because it was so horrific.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:18.240)

I knew it was true because they wouldn't write something, they're not gonna write in their

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:22.720)

diary something that's not true and it was horrible.

Lex Fridman (12:24.800)

So yes, these people went through untold suffering for nothing because they had an erroneous belief.

Lex Fridman (12:30.800)

But they didn't know it was erroneous.

Lex Fridman (12:32.480)

So it was real to them?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:33.760)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (12:34.960)

So I don't know if you're familiar with Donald Hoffman.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:37.920)

He has this idea that in terms of the distance we are from being able to know the reality,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:46.320)

which is there, the physics reality, is we're actually really, really, really, really far

Diana Walsh Pasulka (12:51.120)

away from that.

Lex Fridman (12:52.240)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (12:52.720)

So like it's, I think his ideas that were basically like completely detached from it.

Lex Fridman (13:00.000)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (13:01.040)

What's your sense, how close are we to the reality?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (13:04.080)

We'll talk about a bunch of ideas about our beliefs in technology and beyond, but in terms

Lex Fridman (13:13.040)

of what is actually real from a physical sense, how close are we to understanding that?

Lex Fridman (13:18.240)

Pretty far.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (13:19.040)

I'm gonna use examples from what I do.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (13:21.600)

Okay, so this idea that we're suspicious of what we actually think is real is not new.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (13:29.680)

Of course, it goes back a long time, thousands of years, in fact.

Lex Fridman (13:33.520)

And philosophers, I'm not actually technically a philosopher, but I was one.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (13:39.360)

I'm a professor of religious studies.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (13:42.880)

Yeah, what do you introduce yourself at, like at a bar when the bartender asks, what do

Lex Fridman (13:47.040)

you do?

Lex Fridman (13:47.760)

I never tell people what I do, especially on airplanes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (13:52.000)

It's a bad idea.

Lex Fridman (13:53.440)

So generally if they push though, I say, I'm the chair of philosophy and religion, although

Diana Walsh Pasulka (13:58.160)

I stepped down last year, so I'm no longer the chair.

Lex Fridman (14:00.720)

But I have like a master's degree in philosophy and I was a philosophy major and I still study

Diana Walsh Pasulka (14:06.720)

philosophy, so I integrate it into my research.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (14:09.520)

All right, so this idea that we can't know, we're suspicious of what we know, it's called

Diana Walsh Pasulka (14:16.160)

external world skepticism.

Lex Fridman (14:18.160)

That's the official philosophical name for it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (14:21.520)

Our faculties and our senses don't give us accurate perceptions of what is there, okay,

Lex Fridman (14:27.520)

especially at a quantum level or a molecular level.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (14:30.880)

I mean, that's just obvious.

Lex Fridman (14:32.400)

So yeah, so I think that the person you mentioned is correct in that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (14:36.480)

I think we're far away from it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (14:37.760)

I think you're talking about our direct senses, but you know, we have tools, measurement tools

Diana Walsh Pasulka (14:44.240)

from microscopes to all the tools of astronomy, cosmology that gives us a sense of the big

Lex Fridman (14:51.280)

universe and also the sense of the very small.

Lex Fridman (14:54.800)

Do you think there's some other things that are completely sort of other dimensions or

Diana Walsh Pasulka (15:01.840)

there's ideas of panpsychism, that consciousness permeates all matter, that there's like fundamental

Lex Fridman (15:09.520)

forces of physics we're not even aware of yet?

Lex Fridman (15:13.040)

Oh, absolutely.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (15:14.720)

I do think, and this is why I write about technology and I mean, that's actually what

Lex Fridman (15:21.520)

I specialize in is belief in technology with respect to religion.

Lex Fridman (15:25.440)

So in my opinion, thank goodness for technology because where would we be without it?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (15:32.640)

I mean, frankly, I think that it's like Marshall McLuhan was the person who said technology

Diana Walsh Pasulka (15:39.760)

is like an extension of our senses and I absolutely believe that to be true.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (15:44.240)

I think that we're lucky that Prometheus gave us technology, okay, and that we use it and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (15:51.680)

we're making it better and better and better and better.

Lex Fridman (15:54.320)

And that makes us more efficient.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (15:57.040)

It makes us more efficient as a species.

Lex Fridman (16:00.240)

And like my point is that I think that our instruments, I mean, I don't want to be a

Diana Walsh Pasulka (16:09.680)

religious technologist, you know, but our instruments will save us.

Lex Fridman (16:16.320)

I mean, they're already making life better for us.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (16:18.960)

You think it's important that they also help us understand reality more directly, more

Lex Fridman (16:23.200)

deeply?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (16:24.000)

I think directly is better than deeply.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (16:26.400)

I think directly, more directly is probably a more accurate term for what you're trying

Diana Walsh Pasulka (16:31.920)

to, I think, ask me, you know, can we actually, I mean, I think you're asking me that question

Lex Fridman (16:35.920)

that Kant basically was trying to get at was can we know the thing in itself?

Lex Fridman (16:40.480)

Can we know that?

Lex Fridman (16:41.440)

Can we have like some kind of like intense knowing of it?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (16:45.440)

It's almost mystical.

Lex Fridman (16:47.200)

And I would say that that's where religion comes in, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (16:52.320)

That's where we talk about religion.

Lex Fridman (16:54.640)

And if I may also go back to Immanuel Kant.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (16:58.080)

This idea that he, just before he died, just as he died, he was working on, he did this

Diana Walsh Pasulka (17:04.160)

critique of reason where basically he believed, he basically talks about can we know what's

Lex Fridman (17:12.240)

real?

Lex Fridman (17:12.480)

He basically has this long, you know, that question, can we know what's real?

Lex Fridman (17:15.840)

And then, you know, a thousand pages later, no.

Lex Fridman (17:19.360)

I'll just give you the rundown.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (17:22.080)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (17:22.720)

So, okay, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (17:25.360)

Then he does this other critique and okay, so he does like three critiques.

Lex Fridman (17:29.600)

Then he does this critique of judgment.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (17:31.600)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (17:32.080)

Well, judgment is this other thing altogether.

Lex Fridman (17:34.400)

And I think that that's what you're getting at.

Lex Fridman (17:36.240)

So how do we know things?

Lex Fridman (17:37.840)

How can we know things really intensely and intimately?

Lex Fridman (17:41.280)

And I think that he thought that judgment was the idea that we can actually know the

Diana Walsh Pasulka (17:48.400)

thing in itself.

Lex Fridman (17:49.040)

And he was working on that as he died and then he never finished it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (17:52.560)

Hannah Arendt, another philosopher of the 20th century, took it up, took up the critique

Lex Fridman (17:58.240)

of judgment and tried to finish it.

Lex Fridman (18:01.360)

Why the word judgment?

Lex Fridman (18:03.280)

Because judgment, think about it, when you see a work of art, who judges that to be decent?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (18:09.040)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (18:09.360)

So there is a group of people who come to the decision that that's rotten or, you know,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (18:17.520)

that's pretty good.

Lex Fridman (18:18.640)

You know, like, I noticed that you like to play guitar.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (18:21.840)

Well, you choose music that I happen to like too.

Lex Fridman (18:24.480)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (18:24.960)

So you and I both have a sense of judgment.

Lex Fridman (18:27.600)

It's a sense.

Lex Fridman (18:28.960)

So he said, there's a sense that some people have.

Lex Fridman (18:32.880)

Why do certain communities have a similar sense?

Lex Fridman (18:37.120)

What dictates that?

Lex Fridman (18:38.160)

And so he was working on that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (18:39.280)

He thought it had something to do with the knowledge, the intimate knowledge of the thing

Lex Fridman (18:43.440)

in itself.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (18:44.000)

Yeah, so another philosopher that philosophers actually don't like at all, but religious

Lex Fridman (18:49.120)

studies people do, is Martin Heidegger.

Lex Fridman (18:51.680)

So Martin Heidegger has some great essays.

Lex Fridman (18:54.400)

One is called What is a Work of Art?

Lex Fridman (18:56.240)

And again, he gets to, you know, he talks about Van Gogh and Van Gogh's shoes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (19:00.320)

You know, that picture, the painting Van Gogh's shoes, it's really a really intense picture.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (19:06.240)

It's just shoes.

Lex Fridman (19:07.840)

It's, you know, it's an amazing painting of shoes.

Lex Fridman (19:12.000)

And I think everybody can agree that's a cool picture of shoes, right?

Lex Fridman (19:16.880)

And so why, you know, the question is, why is that a cool picture of shoes?

Lex Fridman (19:20.720)

You know, what kind of knowledge are we accessing to determine that indeed that works, right?

Lex Fridman (19:27.360)

And in fact, we still like it.

Lex Fridman (19:28.880)

So basically the nature of knowledge and what does it represent?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (19:32.800)

It can operate in the space of, that's detached from reality or can it ultimately represent

Lex Fridman (19:39.200)

reality?

Lex Fridman (19:39.920)

I guess that's the, is that, that's the space of metaphysics?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (19:43.520)

Is that the, is that the...

Lex Fridman (19:44.560)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (19:45.040)

So what can we know is actually called epistemology.

Lex Fridman (19:47.600)

Epistemology.

Lex Fridman (19:48.160)

But metaphysics is, is basically what is the nature of reality.

Lex Fridman (19:53.200)

Right.

Lex Fridman (19:53.760)

And those intersect.

Lex Fridman (19:55.120)

Absolutely.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (19:56.080)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (19:56.560)

A lot of things intersect in philosophy.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (19:58.160)

We just have fancy names for them.

Lex Fridman (1:00:06.120)

And if it's something as powerful as nonhuman intelligence, whether or not it's from another

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:00:13.480)

planet, extraterrestrial, or it happens to be from another dimension or something else,

Lex Fridman (1:00:20.120)

I think that this is going to get the attention of institutions of power.

Lex Fridman (1:00:26.280)

And indeed, I think that's what has happened.

Lex Fridman (1:00:29.160)

And although probably people have had interactions with these things, it appears to me historically

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:00:40.600)

for a long time, as long as humans have existed, I would imagine that indeed this is something

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:00:49.640)

that's quite powerful and could change the belief structures of our entire societies,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:00:56.520)

our civilization, basically.

Lex Fridman (1:00:58.040)

So it's the same way that you're talking the belief structures were strongly affected

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:01:02.120)

by religious beliefs throughout history in the same way this has the potential.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:01:08.520)

It serves as a source of concern for the powerful because it can have very significant effects

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:01:18.600)

on the populace.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:01:20.520)

Is there some broader understanding of how we should think about alien intelligences

Lex Fridman (1:01:26.600)

than like little green men that you can maybe elaborate on and talk about?

Lex Fridman (1:01:34.040)

Yes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:01:34.680)

This comes directly out of my research in Catholic history.

Lex Fridman (1:01:38.040)

What I found was that let's take, for instance, this idea of an angel.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:01:43.320)

Okay, so we all think we know what an angel looks like.

Lex Fridman (1:01:45.480)

Why?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:01:45.880)

Well, we've been told what an angel looks like.

Lex Fridman (1:01:47.560)

We see what an angel looks like.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:01:49.480)

Throughout history, people have painted angels and they all look pretty much the same.

Lex Fridman (1:01:53.640)

But actually, if you go to the primary sources on either in Hebrew or in Greek or in whatever

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:02:02.040)

language and in Latin, and you look at experiences that people have talked about where they've

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:02:09.320)

written down their experiences about angels, angels don't at all look like what we think

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:02:16.040)

they look like. They don't look like little cherubs with wings.

Lex Fridman (1:02:18.440)

They don't look like tall, strong, anthropomorphic, human looking things.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:02:26.600)

They don't.

Lex Fridman (1:02:27.160)

They look really weird.

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.840)

And sometimes they don't look at all humanoid.

Lex Fridman (1:02:33.240)

They look like strange spinning things with eyes and things like that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:02:39.560)

They communicate telepathically with us.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:02:42.120)

Okay, so what does that mean for the idea of extraterrestrials or what we consider to

Lex Fridman (1:02:47.560)

be aliens?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:02:48.280)

Like, I do think that they're first, if we are, listen, I'm not the first to say this.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:02:58.760)

If we're in contact with nonhuman intelligence, we're most likely in contact with its technology.

Lex Fridman (1:03:06.280)

Because think about us.

Lex Fridman (1:03:08.840)

Do we send human beings to Mars yet?

Lex Fridman (1:03:11.480)

Some people would say yes, but let's put that aside.

Lex Fridman (1:03:14.360)

So no, we don't.

Lex Fridman (1:03:15.640)

We use our technology.

Lex Fridman (1:03:16.760)

We send our rovers to Mars, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:03:19.320)

Okay, so if there's an extraterrestrial civilization, are they coming by themselves?

Lex Fridman (1:03:26.600)

Are they coming to see us?

Lex Fridman (1:03:28.040)

Or are they sending their technology?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:03:29.800)

Most likely they either are technology or they are sending their technology.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:03:34.440)

Yeah, there might be a gray area between what is technology and what the aliens are.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:03:37.960)

Yeah, so but you're saying like basically a robotic probe that would be the equivalent

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.400)

of us, our human civilization created technology.

Lex Fridman (1:03:46.040)

Way more advanced than what we could believe to be a probe, all right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:03:52.680)

It's kind of funny to think about like if whatever sort of extraterrestrial creations

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:04:03.240)

have visited Earth that we're interacting with some like dumb crappy drone technology.

Lex Fridman (1:04:09.320)

Yeah, it's true.

Lex Fridman (1:04:11.880)

And we're like building these like myths and so on from like an experience with some like

Lex Fridman (1:04:19.560)

crappy drone made by some crappy startup somewhere.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:04:22.680)

That is correct.

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.320)

When the actual intelligence is like something much grander.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:04:29.800)

Yeah, that's the more likely situation I describe.

Lex Fridman (1:04:34.040)

That's what I like to tell people.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:04:35.560)

I'm like, no, it's probably a lot weirder than you think.

Lex Fridman (1:04:38.360)

Yeah, oh boy.

Lex Fridman (1:04:40.360)

So but what forms can it possibly take?

Lex Fridman (1:04:44.040)

So like I really love this idea that I tend to be humble in the face of all that we don't

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:04:51.240)

know and I tend to believe that the form alien life forms would take.

Lex Fridman (1:04:57.560)

And the way they would communicate is much more likely to be of a form that we can't

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:05:04.360)

even comprehend or perhaps can't even perceive directly.

Lex Fridman (1:05:08.360)

So like, you know, it could be in the space of, you know, we don't understand most of

Lex Fridman (1:05:15.240)

how our mind works.

Lex Fridman (1:05:16.440)

It could be in the space of whatever the heck consciousness is.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:05:19.800)

Like maybe consciousness itself is communication with aliens.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:05:25.960)

Or like, I don't know, it could be just our own thoughts is actually the alien life forms

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:05:36.360)

communicating.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:05:37.720)

Like, I know all that sounds crazy, but I'm saying like, I'm just trying to come up with

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:05:41.320)

the craziest possible thing that doesn't make any sense that could very well be true.

Lex Fridman (1:05:45.480)

And you can't say it's not true, because we don't understand basically anything about

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:05:50.200)

our mind.

Lex Fridman (1:05:50.920)

So it could be all of those things, everything from hallucinations, all the things that are

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:05:57.000)

explored through the different drugs that we've talked about in this podcast in general.

Lex Fridman (1:06:05.000)

Joe Rogan loves to talk about DMT and all those kinds of hallucinogenic drugs.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:06:09.800)

All of it, including love and fear, all those things that could be aliens communicating

Lex Fridman (1:06:16.120)

with us, memes on the internet that could be pretty sure here.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:06:20.200)

Pretty sure humor is alien communication.

Lex Fridman (1:06:22.840)

No, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:06:24.040)

But is there some way that's helpful for you to think about beyond the little green

Lex Fridman (1:06:29.640)

men?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:06:30.280)

Oh, absolutely.

Lex Fridman (1:06:31.240)

It accords exactly with how I think, actually.

Lex Fridman (1:06:35.240)

So I'll explain.

Lex Fridman (1:06:38.280)

I liked in American Cosmic, I attained the status of full professor.

Lex Fridman (1:06:43.880)

So I was like, OK, I can pretty much write this book like I want to do it.

Lex Fridman (1:06:46.920)

And I did.

Lex Fridman (1:06:47.560)

So I used a lot of quotes from cool artists like David Bowie.

Lex Fridman (1:06:52.040)

So David Bowie opens the book, and he basically says, and so does Nietzsche, by the way.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:06:56.280)

David Bowie and Nietzsche, boom, two awesome quotes right together.

Lex Fridman (1:07:00.760)

That's how I opened my book.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:01.320)

No better opener.

Lex Fridman (1:07:02.440)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:07:02.760)

Do you remember the quotes?

Lex Fridman (1:07:03.800)

Yeah, of course.

Lex Fridman (1:07:04.760)

So the first quote by David Bowie, and that's what I'm going to concentrate on in response

Lex Fridman (1:07:09.240)

to what you just said, which I think is absolutely correct.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:12.920)

David Bowie said, the internet is an alien life form.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:15.560)

OK, and if you've not seen David Bowie's interview where he says that, I highly recommend it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:21.640)

He's so brilliant.

Lex Fridman (1:07:22.920)

OK, so David Bowie is actually quite brilliant about the idea of UFOs.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:27.320)

He's also brilliant about the idea of technology.

Lex Fridman (1:07:29.800)

OK, and most people wouldn't think that, but I mean, he's pretty darn smart.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:34.760)

OK, so all right.

Lex Fridman (1:07:36.360)

So I started to think about it.

Lex Fridman (1:07:37.880)

And I also early on in my research met Jacques Vallée.

Lex Fridman (1:07:41.320)

OK, so he's a technologist.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:42.840)

He has a Ph.D. in information technology from computer science, basically, from Northwestern.

Lex Fridman (1:07:48.360)

And he got that back in the day.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:49.640)

You know, when I say back in the day, I'm not talking a thousand years ago.

Lex Fridman (1:07:52.200)

I'm talking like in the 60s.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:07:53.400)

OK, so he's back when computer science wasn't really even the field you can get a degree.

Lex Fridman (1:07:58.280)

Yeah, he has a Ph.D. in it.

Lex Fridman (1:08:00.280)

And he's French.

Lex Fridman (1:08:01.480)

He's from France, but he lives in Silicon Valley.

Lex Fridman (1:08:03.480)

And he worked on ARPANET, which is the proto internet.

Lex Fridman (1:08:06.760)

He mapped Mars.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:08:07.720)

He's also an astronomer.

Lex Fridman (1:08:08.760)

I mean, he's just this all around brilliant guy, right?

Lex Fridman (1:08:11.160)

And he's also interested in UFOs.

Lex Fridman (1:08:13.400)

And most people take those two interests of his as separate interests.

Lex Fridman (1:08:18.280)

And I remember being at a very small conference and listening to him, being in awe, of course,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:08:22.920)

because he's an awe inspiring person, and then thinking, wait a minute, why do people

Lex Fridman (1:08:28.440)

compartmentalize those two things about him?

Lex Fridman (1:08:30.920)

They're one in the same.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:08:32.360)

OK, so when we talk about UFOs and UAPs and stuff, we have to talk about digital technology

Lex Fridman (1:08:39.000)

and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:08:40.120)

And things like that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:08:41.160)

Now, if we're going back to what I so if I were to say what if I were to believe in and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:08:47.800)

I like I said earlier, I was agnostic bordering on belief, most likely a believer in these

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:08:53.480)

this extraterrestrial or not extraterrestrial, let me put it another way, nonhuman intelligence

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:08:59.080)

that's communicating with us.

Lex Fridman (1:09:00.520)

I'm going to tell you how I think they communicate with us.

Lex Fridman (1:09:02.840)

And I go back to the Greeks again.

Lex Fridman (1:09:04.600)

OK, and the Greeks had this idea of muses, you know, the muses.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:09:09.400)

So, OK, so there are these things called muses and we tend to think of them as metaphors.

Lex Fridman (1:09:13.960)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:09:14.520)

But what if they're not?

Lex Fridman (1:09:16.040)

What if they're actually nonhuman intelligence trying to communicate with us, but we're so

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.280)

stupid?

Lex Fridman (1:09:21.000)

We can't like understand.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:09:22.120)

Like, so only people with like, you know, in super amazing capacities, like poetic,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:09:29.240)

creative, you know, intelligent, mathematical, whatever, you know, because they tend to do

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:09:34.360)

this symbolically.

Lex Fridman (1:09:35.240)

They tend to communicate with us in symbols form.

Lex Fridman (1:09:38.360)

And so music, you know, symbols, we've got math that are, you know, it's a symbolic language.

Lex Fridman (1:09:43.000)

And so what?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:09:43.800)

So, OK, so muses are probably a good idea for me of what this would be.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:09:49.480)

Now, would muses have spaceships, you know, or those things that we call physical counterparts

Lex Fridman (1:09:55.560)

to what they are?

Lex Fridman (1:09:58.120)

That's another question altogether.

Lex Fridman (1:09:59.800)

But if, you know, I know why would I think this?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:02.600)

Because if you look at the history, there are space programs, both Russian and American,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:08.280)

you're going to find some pretty weird stuff, pretty weird history there, Lex.

Lex Fridman (1:10:12.680)

So you want to get an idea, go back to Tchaikovsky and read a little bit about what he has to

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:18.280)

say.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:18.840)

If you look back at the history of our space programs, the viable space programs are both

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:23.720)

Russian and American, and each has an amazingly strange history because the founders of the

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:32.920)

calculations that got us up into space, the rocket scientists, basically, were doing some

Lex Fridman (1:10:37.240)

pretty weird rituals and doing religious things, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:40.120)

They weren't necessarily, like, Jack Parsons on our side was out in the desert with people

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:45.000)

like L. Ron Hubbard and doing really intense rituals, believing that they were opening

Lex Fridman (1:10:51.560)

stargates and things like that, OK?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:10:53.160)

That's awesome.

Lex Fridman (1:10:53.720)

And they were really doing that, OK?

Lex Fridman (1:10:55.400)

So then you go to the Russian side, and they had a very specific non dogmatic, according

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:11:03.800)

to Catholics or Orthodox Christianity, idea of what Christianity was, and they believed

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:11:09.000)

that they were interacting with angels, nonhuman intelligences.

Lex Fridman (1:11:13.240)

So if you look back and you see muses, you can contextualize them within this tradition.

Lex Fridman (1:11:19.160)

And so when I started to talk to people who were actually in the space program and who

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:11:23.720)

were in these programs that now the government has said, oh, yeah, we do have these programs,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:11:29.000)

they have the same belief structures.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:11:30.840)

They believe that they were also in contact with these nonhuman intelligences, and they

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:11:34.760)

were getting what they called downloads of information and creating, sometimes with Tyler

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:11:39.400)

Dee in my book, creating technologies that were real, and they were selling them on NASDAQ

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:11:44.920)

for a lot of money, like, say, $100 million or something like that, undisclosed amounts,

Lex Fridman (1:11:50.760)

but a lot.

Lex Fridman (1:11:52.040)

And these things are viable technologies that we use now, and they make our lives better,

Lex Fridman (1:11:58.280)

and we progress as a species because of them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:12:00.840)

Now, that has nothing to do with the scientific method.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:12:04.360)

As much as I know, as much as anybody's going to get angry at me for saying that, but sorry,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:12:10.040)

those were strange encounters that created our ability to go into space.

Lex Fridman (1:12:16.920)

I don't know if they're real or not, but these people believe they were real.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:12:19.960)

YARO Right, so they have a power in actually having an impact on this world, in inspiring

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:12:29.080)

humans to create technology, which enables us to do things we haven't been able to do before.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:12:33.560)

KATE Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:12:34.040)

YARO And these, I like how we're putting angels,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:12:39.320)

alien life forms, aliens, and technology all in the nonhuman intelligence camp, which I really

Lex Fridman (1:12:48.920)

like that because that's very true.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:12:53.640)

It's this other source of wisdom, intelligence, maybe a connection to the mysterious.

Lex Fridman (1:13:01.480)

KATE Yes, I was really surprised by it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:13:04.760)

YARO Can you speak a little bit more to the connection

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:13:09.800)

between aliens and technology that Jacques Vallée had in his own one individual mind,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:13:19.000)

that's very tempting to kind of separate as two separate endeavors.

Lex Fridman (1:13:25.880)

Why did you come to believe that they are one and the same, or at least part of the same

Lex Fridman (1:13:35.640)

intellectual journey?

Lex Fridman (1:13:36.760)

KATE Thanks for asking that again, because nobody

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:13:40.040)

asks me that question, and it's central to my project.

Lex Fridman (1:13:46.280)

So Jacques was a huge influence, is a huge influence on me.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:13:51.400)

He taught me a lot.

Lex Fridman (1:13:54.760)

He gave me access to some of his information that he keeps.

Lex Fridman (1:14:00.920)

But a lot of his information is actually there out there for everyone to read.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14:04.520)

He has an academia.edu page, so he didn't have this, unfortunately, when I was doing

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14:11.080)

my research in 2012 and 2013.

Lex Fridman (1:14:13.640)

So I had to go back and do microfiche type stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:14:16.600)

What I did was I began to read everything that he wrote, and he actually gave me a lot

Lex Fridman (1:14:20.200)

of his books too.

Lex Fridman (1:14:21.240)

And he told me, I remember, he dropped me off from, this is actually quite interesting

Lex Fridman (1:14:26.200)

if you'll allow me to tell you a little story, and it also includes ayahuasca.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14:31.720)

SIMON Great, every story that includes ayahuasca

Lex Fridman (1:14:35.560)

is a great story.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14:36.280)

KATE Okay, so I was at a conference, and it was

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14:39.800)

a small conference of very interesting people in California, on the Pacific Ocean.

Lex Fridman (1:14:45.240)

And Jacques was there.

Lex Fridman (1:14:46.680)

And this actually opens my book.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14:49.160)

This is the, I go, it's the preface to my book.

Lex Fridman (1:14:53.480)

I go on this ride.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14:54.760)

He takes me through Silicon Valley.

Lex Fridman (1:14:56.760)

I've lived there, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14:58.520)

My grandparents grew up in the same place that he raised his children, in Belmont.

Lex Fridman (1:15:03.000)

And so, but we were there with Robbie Graham, who's a great ufologist in his own right,

Lex Fridman (1:15:09.080)

and film theorist.

Lex Fridman (1:15:12.120)

I highly recommend his work.

Lex Fridman (1:15:14.520)

So we were together, and he was taking us to San Francisco, where I was going to meet

Lex Fridman (1:15:18.360)

my brother, who was going to take me home.

Lex Fridman (1:15:20.680)

And so he took us on this long journey, and he talked to us.

Lex Fridman (1:15:24.360)

And as we got out of the car, he gave me several of his books.

Lex Fridman (1:15:29.880)

And one in particular he gave me, and he said, read this first.

Lex Fridman (1:15:34.360)

And I was like, okay, I definitely will read that first.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:15:37.160)

Okay, so this is how the ayahuasca figures in.

Lex Fridman (1:15:39.480)

So we were, I didn't take it, nor have I taken it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:15:43.160)

Okay, so we were at this place in California, and Alex Gray and his wife were there.

Lex Fridman (1:15:49.560)

And they were talking about their experiences with psychedelics.

Lex Fridman (1:15:53.720)

He's an amazing visionary artist, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:15:56.600)

So he believes that there's a place that you can enter, and he and his wife would enter

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:16:01.480)

this space with either ayahuasca or LSD or something like that.

Lex Fridman (1:16:06.760)

And they would not talk to each other, but they would be having the same exact experience.

Lex Fridman (1:16:11.560)

So it was almost like having the same dream, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:16:14.920)

Okay, so somehow that whole event with Jacques there, and them talking about their experiences

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:16:23.480)

in these realms, of which religious studies people are quite familiar, by the way, because

Lex Fridman (1:16:27.960)

visionary experiences are what we study.

Lex Fridman (1:16:30.680)

So all of this seems super familiar to me, and I recognized that immediately that Jacques,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:16:38.200)

that it hit me like, you know, very obvious that UFOs and these experiences and technology

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:16:46.600)

all seemed, they were all meshed together.

Lex Fridman (1:16:50.600)

And I knew that I had to take them, I knew I had to read everything Jacques ever wrote.

Lex Fridman (1:16:54.360)

And the best stuff he's written, by the way, is his little essays that he wrote in the

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:16:59.240)

1970s, and they were peer reviewed essays about the beginning of the internet and how a lot

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:17:04.440)

of it was based on basically neural connection with the internet, like somehow psychic connection

Lex Fridman (1:17:13.960)

through the internet with others and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:17:15.800)

So the brain is a biological neural network, there's this connection between visual neurons

Lex Fridman (1:17:21.000)

and so on, and that's what ultimately is able to have memories and has cognitive ability

Lex Fridman (1:17:26.680)

and is able to perceive the world and generate ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:17:31.400)

And those ideas are then spread on the internet, even from the very early days to other humans.

Lex Fridman (1:17:37.320)

So it gets injected or travels into the brains of other humans and that goes around in there

Lex Fridman (1:17:42.840)

and then spits out other stuff and it goes back and forth.

Lex Fridman (1:17:45.880)

So it's nice to think of the network that's in our mind, individual mind as, I mean, very

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:17:53.640)

much even deeply connected to the network that is the connection between humans through

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:17:59.160)

the internet.

Lex Fridman (1:18:00.200)

And so in that sense, Jacques saw the internet as this powerful, as a source of power and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:18:09.640)

wisdom that is beyond our own.

Lex Fridman (1:18:11.400)

Exactly, that's external to us, like if you could call it autonomous AI, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:18:17.240)

It's nonhuman intelligence in a sense, even though humans are a part of it.

Lex Fridman (1:18:21.400)

Yes, or we're invaded by it or whatever you want to call it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:18:24.600)

Yeah, whoever, right, it's the chicken and the egg, right.

Lex Fridman (1:18:28.040)

So if I can go on, I don't want to experience things, I'm not done with that.

Lex Fridman (1:18:33.480)

So this is where I come to this idea that we're in this space, we're in now a new space

Lex Fridman (1:18:41.880)

of religion, of religiosity.

Lex Fridman (1:18:43.560)

So what happens is then, and it's like a biosphere and I'll talk about that in a minute.

Lex Fridman (1:18:48.200)

So Jacques takes us back, we get to San Francisco and my brother, who is your straight lace

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:18:55.800)

person, army guy and everything like that, I get into his car and the first thing he

Lex Fridman (1:19:00.360)

tells me is, I took ayahuasca and I was like, what?

Lex Fridman (1:19:04.600)

And he goes, it's going to save humanity.

Lex Fridman (1:19:06.840)

That's great.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:19:07.880)

As I mentioned to you offline, I talked to Matthew Johnson, he's a Hopkins professor

Lex Fridman (1:19:14.360)

and he's really a scholar of most, he's studied most drugs, he's also really deeply studied

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:19:22.440)

cocaine and all those stuff and negative effects and he's focused on a lot of positive effects

Lex Fridman (1:19:28.320)

of the different psychedelics.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:19:29.560)

It's kind of fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:19:31.000)

So I'm very much interested in exploring the science of what these things do to the human

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:19:41.200)

mind and also personally exploring it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:19:43.880)

Although it's like this weird gray area, which he's masterful at, which is he's a professor

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:19:50.480)

at John Hopkins, one of the most prestigious universities in the world and doing large

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:19:55.920)

scale studies of this stuff and until he got a lot of money for these studies, even in

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:20:03.360)

Hopkins itself, there's not much respect.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:20:05.520)

It's not even respect, it was like people just didn't want to talk about it as a legitimate

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:20:12.600)

field of inquiry.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:20:13.600)

It's kind of fascinating how hesitant we are as a little human civilization to legitimize

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:20:21.800)

the exploration of the mysterious, of whatever the definition of the mysterious is for that

Lex Fridman (1:20:27.360)

particular period of time.

Lex Fridman (1:20:29.160)

So for us now, there's like little groups of things.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:20:32.360)

I would say consciousness in the space of computer science research is something that's

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:20:37.880)

still like, I don't know, maybe let philosophers kick it around for a little longer.

Lex Fridman (1:20:43.600)

And then certainly extraterrestrial life forms in most formulations of that problem space

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:20:55.200)

is still the other, it's still the source of the mysterious, except maybe like SETI,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:21:01.080)

which is like, how can we detect signals from far away alien intelligences that we'll be

Lex Fridman (1:21:06.320)

able to perceive?

Lex Fridman (1:21:10.960)

And psychedelics is another one of those that's like, we're starting to see, okay, well, can

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:21:15.440)

we try to see if there's some medical applications of like helping you get, like he does studies

Lex Fridman (1:21:22.360)

of help you quit smoking or help you in some kind of treatment of some disease.

Lex Fridman (1:21:27.600)

And he's sneaking into that, I mean, it's like openly sneaking into it, he's doing studies

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:21:32.360)

on it of like, how can you expand the mind with these tools and what can the mind discover

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:21:40.160)

through psychedelics and so on.

Lex Fridman (1:21:42.480)

And we're like slowly creeping into the space of being able to explore these mysterious

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:21:47.680)

questions.

Lex Fridman (1:21:48.680)

But it's like, it sucks that sometimes a lot of people have to die, meaning, sorry, they

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:21:55.200)

have to age out.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:21:58.120)

Like it's like faculty have, and people have a fixed set of ideas and they stick by them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:22:06.320)

In order for new ideas to come in, then the young folks have to be born with an open mind,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:22:13.640)

the possibility of those ideas, and then they have to become old enough and get A's in school

Lex Fridman (1:22:18.280)

and whatever to then carry those ideas forward.

Lex Fridman (1:22:21.800)

So the acceptance of the exploration of the mysterious takes time.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:22:27.360)

It's kind of sad.

Lex Fridman (1:22:28.360)

It is sad.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:22:30.040)

I agree.

Lex Fridman (1:22:31.580)

Maybe to go into my source of passion, which is artificial intelligence.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:22:38.280)

What's your sense about the possibility, like Pamela McCordick has this quote that I like,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:22:48.520)

I talked to her a couple of years ago, I guess already on this podcast, that artificial intelligence

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:22:57.280)

began with the ancient wish to forge the gods.

Lex Fridman (1:23:00.580)

So do you think artificial intelligence may become the very kind of gods that were at

Lex Fridman (1:23:14.080)

the center of our, the religions of most of our history?

Lex Fridman (1:23:17.320)

Yeah, there's a lot there.

Lex Fridman (1:23:19.680)

So I'm going to start by addressing this idea of artificial intelligence being separate

Lex Fridman (1:23:26.640)

from human beings.

Lex Fridman (1:23:27.960)

So I don't think that's actually, that might happen.

Lex Fridman (1:23:34.680)

I mean, it's already happened, but let's put it this way.

Lex Fridman (1:23:36.960)

You're talking about super artificial intelligence, like autonomous, conscious artificial intelligence?

Lex Fridman (1:23:42.320)

Yes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:23:43.320)

Okay, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:23:44.320)

Something with artificial consciousness.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:23:45.320)

First of all, I think she's correct, but also there's an awesome quote.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:23:52.960)

I'd also like to bring up this writer of fiction, actually, Ted Chiang, and one of his essays,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:00.640)

he writes short essays.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:01.840)

One of them was The Basis for the Movie Arrival, which if you haven't seen it, it's a really

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:06.160)

great movie about UFOs, and it has a very creative way of proposing an idea of how they

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:15.380)

might be able to communicate, first of all, how they appear to us, and second of all,

Lex Fridman (1:24:20.900)

how they may be communicating with us humans.

Lex Fridman (1:24:24.200)

Exactly.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:25.200)

The author Ted Chiang has a lot, I recommend his writings, his short stories.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:32.200)

One is very short, and it appeared in Nature about 20 years ago, and it is called, I think

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:40.360)

it's called Eating the Crumbs from the Table or something like that, and it's basically

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:45.480)

this short essay, and I hate to do a spoiler here, but if you don't want to know what it's

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:52.280)

about, don't listen right now for five minutes.

Lex Fridman (1:24:54.240)

Yeah, spoiler alert.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:24:55.240)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:24:56.240)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:24:57.240)

So this is what it's about.

Lex Fridman (1:24:58.240)

So basically it's about human beings becoming two different species, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:25:03.760)

And one of them is created, they're called metahumans, and they start biohacking themselves

Lex Fridman (1:25:09.240)

with tech.

Lex Fridman (1:25:10.240)

Okay?

Lex Fridman (1:25:11.240)

Sound familiar?

Lex Fridman (1:25:12.240)

So they do this, and they become metahumans and another species, right, and just kind

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:25:19.120)

of another fork, such that humans can barely understand them because they're so far removed.

Lex Fridman (1:25:28.120)

So in a sense, are they gods, right?

Lex Fridman (1:25:32.040)

No, they're metahumans, they're superhumans, they're enhanced humans, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:25:35.440)

I see that hopefully on the horizon, frankly.

Lex Fridman (1:25:38.360)

I hope so.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:25:39.580)

Not that we have two species, but that we can use our technology or we can become so

Lex Fridman (1:25:46.260)

integrated with our technology that we can survive, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:25:50.160)

We can survive the radiation in space.

Lex Fridman (1:25:53.040)

We can't go places now because of the radiation in space.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:25:56.080)

Perhaps we can develop our bodies such that we can survive the radiation in space.

Lex Fridman (1:26:01.120)

So there's this idea of these metahumans.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:26:03.240)

Now, there's also this idea that technology is just another form of humans.

Lex Fridman (1:26:09.400)

We've created it, right?

Lex Fridman (1:26:11.000)

And so maybe it is bent on surviving, thereby using us kind of as a meme or a team.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:26:18.140)

Some people are calling them teams now, these self generating, they're replicating themselves

Lex Fridman (1:26:23.480)

through us, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:26:24.960)

I see that also, and I don't think that's terribly bad.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:26:29.160)

Maybe it's just the way that we are evolving.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:26:32.100)

It doesn't mean that we're evolving all the time, like we're taller than we used to be,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:26:37.600)

we have different skills.

Lex Fridman (1:26:40.700)

So I don't see that as a bad thing.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:26:43.340)

I think a lot of people see it as if we're not how we are now, it's a tragedy.

Lex Fridman (1:26:47.600)

But it's not a tragedy.

Lex Fridman (1:26:48.700)

How we are now is actually a tragedy for most people alive.

Lex Fridman (1:26:51.440)

Yeah, and we might be evolving in ways we can't possibly perceive.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:26:54.760)

Like you said, that humans have created Twitter and Twitter may be changing us in ways that

Lex Fridman (1:27:02.960)

we can't even understand now, currently.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:27:06.320)

From a perspective, if you look at the entirety of the network of Twitter, that might be an

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:27:10.240)

organism that the organism understands what's happening from its level of perception.

Lex Fridman (1:27:20.560)

But we humans are just like the cells of the human body, we're interacting individually,

Lex Fridman (1:27:25.680)

but we're not actually aware of the big picture that's happening.

Lex Fridman (1:27:29.280)

And we naturally somehow, or whatever the force that's creating the entirety of this,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:27:33.680)

whatever one version of it is the evolutionary process, like biological evolution, whatever

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:27:42.040)

force that is, is just creating these greater and greater level of complexity, and maybe

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:27:46.440)

somehow not other kinds of non human intelligence are involved that we're calling alien intelligences.

Lex Fridman (1:27:55.000)

So just to step back, and we'll come back to AI, because I love the topic, but through

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:01.320)

American Cosmic and in general, you've interacted with much of the UFO community, you mentioned

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:05.680)

ufologists.

Lex Fridman (1:28:06.680)

By the way, is it ufologists or is it ufologists?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:12.680)

It's ufologists.

Lex Fridman (1:28:13.680)

Ufologists.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:14.680)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:28:15.680)

So first of all, what is a ufologist?

Lex Fridman (1:28:17.700)

And second of all, what have you learned about this community of ufologists?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:23.840)

Or also as you refer to them as the invisibles, or the members of the invisible college, or

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:30.880)

just in general, people who study UFOs from the different, all the different kinds of

Lex Fridman (1:28:35.280)

groups that study UFOs?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:36.880)

Sure.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:37.880)

Generally, what I found is that they are okay, so people who are interested in UFOs from

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:43.600)

like being a kid, you know, and seeing some cool movie like Star Wars or something, and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:48.440)

then they become interested, and then they study it as best they can, UFOs, or UAPs.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:28:54.760)

They're generally an honest group of people who are using their tools, and they're generally

Lex Fridman (1:29:00.800)

two types of them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:29:03.360)

There are those who believe in the nuts and bolts, like the physical craft, and they believe

Lex Fridman (1:29:06.880)

in that these are things from other planets, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:29:10.400)

So that's like the ETH hypothesis, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:29:15.800)

I'm sorry, ETH hypothesis, ETH is what we call it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:29:19.480)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:29:20.480)

Sorry about that.

Lex Fridman (1:29:21.480)

So this is like there's an actual spaceship, like something akin, but much more advanced

Lex Fridman (1:29:26.840)

than the rockets we use now.

Lex Fridman (1:29:29.200)

And there's some kind of, not necessarily biological, but something like biological

Lex Fridman (1:29:35.240)

organisms that travel on these spaceships.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:29:37.680)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:29:38.680)

So this would be like what, to the Star Academy, is trying to decipher, like how, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:29:43.960)

how do they do it?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:29:44.960)

You know, maybe we could use that technology, the propulsion and things like that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:29:48.760)

They look at the rocket technology.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:29:50.280)

Okay, so there are those, and then there are people who believe that it's more consciousness

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.840)

based, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:29:55.840)

So these are your two types of ufologists who are known, and these are people who we

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:30:01.880)

know about.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:30:02.980)

Then I found that there are people who are, quote, unquote, I call them the invisibles,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:30:08.400)

because Jacques Vallée in the 70s, he and I think actually Allen Hynek, his colleague

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:30:13.920)

quoted, this is a Francis Bacon thing, by the way, it goes back to the early modern

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:30:19.160)

time period when scientists could be killed for basically trying to go outside with the

Lex Fridman (1:30:24.920)

church or the government institution determined was dogma.

Lex Fridman (1:30:29.800)

And so they had to be really careful.

Lex Fridman (1:30:31.240)

So he called it the invisible college.

Lex Fridman (1:30:33.680)

So Hynek took that term and reused it, or what do you call it, repurposed it.

Lex Fridman (1:30:39.920)

So he repurposed it.

Lex Fridman (1:30:41.080)

So they were still talking to each other, though.

Lex Fridman (1:30:44.360)

So what I found to be the case was that there was a group of people who were scientists

Lex Fridman (1:30:48.920)

but were not on the internet.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:30:51.380)

You know, people today, and students of mine in particular, and my own kids, actually,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:30:57.280)

they think that you only exist if you're on the internet or something only exists if it's

Lex Fridman (1:31:01.260)

on the internet.

Lex Fridman (1:31:02.260)

And that's, of course, untrue.

Lex Fridman (1:31:04.040)

And so what I found was that most people who are the most powerful people of our society

Lex Fridman (1:31:08.480)

and are doing things are not on the internet.

Lex Fridman (1:31:10.800)

You're not going to find any trace of them.

Lex Fridman (1:31:12.720)

So a lot of these people are what I call invisibles, people who are studying, at least their work

Lex Fridman (1:31:18.960)

is invisible.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:31:19.960)

You might find them on the internet, but you're going to find that they're part of the bowling

Lex Fridman (1:31:22.560)

league or something like that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:31:24.000)

You will not find that they are actually engaged in research about this topic.

Lex Fridman (1:31:30.080)

And so I called them the invisibles because I was surprised to find them.

Lex Fridman (1:31:33.560)

And I thought, well, this is no longer the invisible college because these people are

Lex Fridman (1:31:37.320)

not even talking to each other.

Lex Fridman (1:31:39.040)

And that's why I reference this movie Fight Club.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:31:42.800)

In it, you have an invisible, and his name is Tyler Durden, and he's incredible.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:31:49.480)

He does incredible things.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:31:52.280)

He's like a person who should not exist because he does so many things that are amazing.

Lex Fridman (1:31:58.380)

And so I found a person like that, and he's a real person.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:02.160)

He's partially on the internet, but nothing that he does around that topic of UFOs is

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:07.280)

on the internet.

Lex Fridman (1:32:08.280)

So I decided to call him Tyler D after Tyler Durden.

Lex Fridman (1:32:11.680)

And so these people, I've termed the UFO Fight Club because they work together, but they

Lex Fridman (1:32:17.640)

don't know, in fact, his boss doesn't know what he does.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:20.880)

They don't talk to each other because, you know, the first rule of Fight Club.

Lex Fridman (1:32:25.080)

Same as the second, yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:26.080)

Exactly, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:32:27.080)

You don't talk about people.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:28.080)

No, you don't do it.

Lex Fridman (1:32:30.000)

Why do you have a sense that there's such a, I don't want to say fear, but a principle

Lex Fridman (1:32:36.560)

of staying out of the limelight?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:39.080)

I think there's something real, and I think that the use of it could be dangerous for

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:44.880)

people.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:45.880)

Oh, sorry, you mean like something real, like there's actual, I don't know, what's the

Lex Fridman (1:32:50.920)

right terminology here to use it?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:32:53.440)

Alien technology, ideas about technology that are being explored that are dangerous have

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:33:02.060)

made public, that may become dangerous have made public.

Lex Fridman (1:33:05.760)

So that's the word.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:33:06.920)

You don't have to call it alien technology.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:33:09.120)

You can call it ideas about alien technology because I don't know if it's actual alien

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:33:13.840)

technology or not.

Lex Fridman (1:33:14.840)

I honestly don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:33:16.040)

But I do know for a fact, because it's a historical fact, that Jack Parsons and Konstantin Tchaikovsky,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:33:24.760)

who's Russian, believed in these things and believed that they were downloading this information.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:33:29.860)

Whether or not they were, I don't, I mean, they definitely created the rocket technologies.

Lex Fridman (1:33:34.400)

That's true.

Lex Fridman (1:33:36.060)

How they did and whether their process was exactly what they said it was, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:33:41.280)

So this is the same thing today.

Lex Fridman (1:33:42.640)

So we've got some powerful technologies going on here.

Lex Fridman (1:33:46.040)

And of course we have a military and we have a military for a reason.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:33:50.720)

Almost every government who needs a military has one.

Lex Fridman (1:33:53.200)

And so they're going to keep these the way they should be kept, in my interpretation.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:33:59.720)

I mean, think about it.

Lex Fridman (1:34:01.640)

Everybody accepts the fact that we have a military.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:03.800)

Almost everybody does.

Lex Fridman (1:34:04.800)

Why are they so upset then that the military keeps secrets?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:08.880)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:34:09.880)

Well, that's the nature of things.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:11.200)

We can get into that whole thing.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:13.880)

I tend to, I've spoken with the CTO Lockheed Martin on this, I obviously read and think

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:22.760)

about war a lot.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:23.760)

It's such a difficult question because this space, this particular space of technology,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:29.980)

there's a gray area that I think is evolving over time.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:34.600)

I think nuclear weapons change the game in terms of what should and shouldn't be secret.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:40.480)

I think there's already technology that will enable us to destroy each other.

Lex Fridman (1:34:45.920)

And so there's some sense in which some technology should be made public.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:49.680)

This is the same discussion of, you know, between companies, which part of your technology

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:34:56.280)

should you make public through like, for example, academic publications and all that kind of

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:35:01.440)

stuff.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:35:02.440)

Like how the Google search engine works, PageRank algorithm, or how the different deep learning,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:35:07.640)

like there's pretty vibrant machine learning research communities within Google, Facebook

Lex Fridman (1:35:12.660)

and so on.

Lex Fridman (1:35:13.720)

And they release a lot of different ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:35:16.080)

It's an interesting question, like how dangerous is it to release some of the ideas?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:35:20.960)

I think it's a gray area that's constantly changing.

Lex Fridman (1:35:24.440)

I do also think it's super interesting.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:35:27.440)

I wonder if you could elaborate on a little bit that there's this gray area between what's

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:35:35.260)

actually real in terms of alien technology and the belief of it when held in the minds

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:35:43.720)

of really brilliant people that they ultimately may produce the same kind of result in terms

Lex Fridman (1:35:49.720)

of being able to create new technologies that are human usable.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:35:56.920)

Like is there, in your mind, they're one in the same as like believing in alien craft

Lex Fridman (1:36:08.920)

and actually being in possession of an alien craft?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:36:12.080)

I don't think they're the same, no.

Lex Fridman (1:36:14.240)

Belief is powerful, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:36:17.800)

In new age communities, you know, people think thoughts are things, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:36:22.440)

That's been said, you know, thoughts are things.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:36:24.280)

You can make them happen kind of thing, believe in them enough.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:36:27.080)

It is true that if I believe I can run a 540 mile, I'll do it, okay, and I probably will

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:36:34.920)

do it.

Lex Fridman (1:36:35.920)

And I've done it before actually, much younger, but I did it.

Lex Fridman (1:36:41.040)

But my coach is the one that instilled that belief in me, right?

Lex Fridman (1:36:44.240)

And so, but can I run like a one minute mile?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:36:48.240)

No.

Lex Fridman (1:36:49.240)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:36:50.240)

So I guess, does that answer your question?

Lex Fridman (1:36:51.720)

Like there's only so far belief goes in generating reality.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:36:55.480)

Well, yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:36:56.480)

I mean, I guess that's what, just having listened to Jacques Vallée, it seemed like reality

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:37:04.080)

is not, was not as important for the scientific exploration of the concept of alien technology.

Lex Fridman (1:37:10.880)

I could be wrong, but this is what I think Jacques getting at.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:37:13.880)

There are other ways to access places in reality other than what we consider to be physical.

Lex Fridman (1:37:20.960)

There's consciousness, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:37:23.720)

So like I said, so religious studies is, among other things, it's looking at visionary experiences,

Lex Fridman (1:37:30.760)

all right?

Lex Fridman (1:37:31.760)

So people do have visionary experiences.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:37:33.400)

They did without drugs, they did with drugs, they do with drugs, they do, many have them

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:37:39.440)

without drugs today.

Lex Fridman (1:37:40.960)

And oftentimes those visionary experiences correspond to each other.

Lex Fridman (1:37:46.540)

Now how do we make sense of that?

Lex Fridman (1:37:48.880)

So do these places actually exist?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:37:52.080)

In a sense, I think they do.

Lex Fridman (1:37:54.080)

And so I think that, let's take that very famous case of a Virgin Mary apparition in

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:37:59.880)

Fatima where I think there was like a lot of people, thousands and thousands, if not

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:38:04.520)

like I think 50,000 or something like that, a lot of people gathered to see what's now

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:38:10.640)

called the miracle of Fatima, which was the spinning of the sun.

Lex Fridman (1:38:14.840)

Well, a lot of people saw different things, but they all saw some kind of thing, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:38:20.280)

So they all saw different things, but it was, something happened, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:38:25.920)

So I guess the question is, what are these places where we access what I'd call like

Lex Fridman (1:38:36.280)

nonphysical realities, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:38:38.680)

Where we actually do get information, like who could say that Jack Parsons didn't get

Lex Fridman (1:38:42.480)

information from doing these rituals and accessing these?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:38:45.400)

We have to say that he actually did because we see the results, the physical results.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:38:50.260)

The same thing with Tyler, and that's why I put Tyler in this camp with this tradition

Lex Fridman (1:38:55.840)

with Jack Parsons.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:38:56.880)

I say that Tyler is getting these, what he calls downloads, and you can see the results

Lex Fridman (1:39:03.600)

of them physically.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:39:05.640)

He sells them on the Nasdaq.

Lex Fridman (1:39:06.640)

He makes millions of dollars from them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:39:08.580)

They help people.

Lex Fridman (1:39:09.720)

I've seen people who they've helped, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:39:14.280)

Do you think psychedelics that I just mentioned earlier have a possibility of going to these

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:39:22.960)

kind of, same kind of places of exploring ideas that are outside of our more commonplace

Lex Fridman (1:39:34.160)

understanding of the world?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:39:37.160)

In my, yeah, I think so, absolutely, however, I think we have to be really careful about

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:39:41.440)

those because young people or people in general, I should say, absolutely can get hurt by them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:39:48.280)

I mean, but we get hurt by alcohol, you know, we drive our cars and we kill each other.

Lex Fridman (1:39:53.480)

But psychedelics are really interesting because I know that within the history of our country,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:01.080)

we have used psychedelics in various capacities for our military in order to try to stimulate

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:08.320)

ideas and access places and information that can't be accessed normally.

Lex Fridman (1:40:13.800)

This is all fact.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:14.800)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:15.800)

I talked to Matt for like four hours, so we ran out of time being able to talk, but I

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:20.320)

wanted to talk to him about MK Alter and Ted Kaczynski.

Lex Fridman (1:40:25.240)

There's so many mysterious things there.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:27.200)

There's like layers of what's known or what's not known, it's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:40:31.680)

But I think what is interesting is psychedelics were used or were attempted to be used as

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:37.320)

tools of different kinds.

Lex Fridman (1:40:40.020)

That's the point.

Lex Fridman (1:40:41.020)

So like we think of technology as tools to enable us to do things in that same way that

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:48.440)

psychedelics, like many drugs could be used as tools, some more effective than others.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:54.640)

Absolutely.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:40:55.640)

I'm not sure what you can do effectively with alcohol, although I think somebody commented

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:41:03.080)

somewhere on social media that, I don't know why everyone is so negative about alcohol

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:41:10.120)

because I think the person said that it's given me some of the most incredible, it enabled

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:41:17.180)

me to let go and have some of the most incredible experiences with friends in my life.

Lex Fridman (1:41:23.320)

And it's true.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:41:24.320)

People sometimes say alcohol is dangerous, it can make you do horrible.

Lex Fridman (1:41:28.080)

But the reality is it's also a fascinating tool for letting go of trying to be somebody

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:41:36.760)

maybe that you're not and allowing you to be yourself fully in whatever crazy form that

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:41:41.520)

is and allow you to have really deep and interesting experiences with those you love.

Lex Fridman (1:41:46.680)

So yeah, even alcohol can be used as an effective tool for exploring experiences and becoming

Lex Fridman (1:41:53.600)

expanding your mind and becoming a better person.

Lex Fridman (1:41:57.720)

So what the hell was I talking about?

Lex Fridman (1:42:02.840)

So yes, so psychedelics and MK Ultra, is there something interesting to say in our historical

Lex Fridman (1:42:11.200)

use of psychedelics?

Lex Fridman (1:42:12.200)

I mean, think about it, when did we start doing that?

Lex Fridman (1:42:15.880)

When did we start using those?

Lex Fridman (1:42:17.320)

That's true.

Lex Fridman (1:42:18.320)

It's quite a long time ago, right?

Lex Fridman (1:42:20.440)

But okay, but true, but when did our government start experimenting with them with us?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:42:26.720)

Our government is the United States government.

Lex Fridman (1:42:28.480)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:42:29.480)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:42:30.480)

So that happened in around the 1950s.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:42:33.680)

After quote unquote, the 1940s, where we have 47 and we have this Roswell type stuff going

Lex Fridman (1:42:42.480)

on, like crash sites and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:42:45.500)

So I think that there might be a correlation there.

Lex Fridman (1:42:50.640)

I don't know what it is.

Lex Fridman (1:42:52.600)

But I do think...

Lex Fridman (1:42:53.600)

That's fascinating actually.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:42:54.600)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:42:55.600)

A lot of interesting things started around that time period.

Lex Fridman (1:42:59.480)

And so Aldous Huxley would say, we opened the doors of perception, okay, and what flew

Lex Fridman (1:43:04.960)

in.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:43:05.960)

Oh man, that was beautifully put.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:43:10.800)

It'd be interesting to get your opinions on certain more concrete sightings that are sort

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:43:18.640)

of monumental sightings with alien intelligences in the history, in the recent history that

Lex Fridman (1:43:26.240)

at least I'm aware of, I'm not very much aware of this history.

Lex Fridman (1:43:32.560)

But the most recent one, I've spoken with David Fravor on this podcast, I really like

Lex Fridman (1:43:38.720)

him as a person.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:43:39.720)

He's a fun guy, but also he's gotten a chance to...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:43:44.160)

He's described his account of having an experience with what he and others now term the TikTok

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:43:50.200)

UFO.

Lex Fridman (1:43:51.200)

What do you think of that particular sighting, which has captivated the imagination of many

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:43:56.240)

in particular because there's been videos released of it, of these UFOs.

Lex Fridman (1:44:01.520)

But I find the videos to be way too blurry and grainy to be of interest to me personally,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:44:09.200)

to me the most fascinating thing is the first person account from David and others about

Lex Fridman (1:44:15.800)

that experience.

Lex Fridman (1:44:16.860)

But what are your thoughts?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:44:18.620)

Those videos have been out for a while, actually much, I think in the mid 2000s they were out.

Lex Fridman (1:44:24.700)

But what you have is you have kind of like this corroboration from a group and also the

Lex Fridman (1:44:30.640)

New York Times involvement in 2017.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:44:34.040)

My opinion about the TikToks is that first, I believe the people who have had the experiences,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:44:40.560)

I know some of them, like some of the radar people and things like that, they'd saw them

Lex Fridman (1:44:45.680)

and they're not...

Lex Fridman (1:44:46.680)

I don't believe they're making it up, okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:44:48.480)

I do think that this is being used as a spin, okay, and I'm just gonna say that.

Lex Fridman (1:44:55.660)

And the reason I think that is this is because at the time it was released, I was still in

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:44:59.680)

touch with many people who were among the UFO Fight Club.

Lex Fridman (1:45:04.240)

And so they had intimate knowledge of these things.

Lex Fridman (1:45:07.220)

And the first thing they said was, we have satellites that can read the news on your

Lex Fridman (1:45:12.720)

phone when you're reading it.

Lex Fridman (1:45:14.560)

So we've got better footage than this and this is not good footage at all.

Lex Fridman (1:45:19.600)

Therefore they believe that it was authentic footage that had been doctored up.

Lex Fridman (1:45:24.000)

Now, why?

Lex Fridman (1:45:26.160)

I don't know why.

Lex Fridman (1:45:29.060)

So I honestly don't know if it's accurate or not.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:45:31.280)

I mean, I believe the people, absolutely, but was this something out there to fool these

Lex Fridman (1:45:36.960)

people?

Lex Fridman (1:45:37.960)

Perhaps.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:45:38.960)

I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:45:39.960)

Is it spun?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:45:41.120)

The people who I know who are part of the UFO Fight Club believed it was real, okay,

Lex Fridman (1:45:45.760)

and said, this is badly done, but real.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:45:48.480)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:45:49.480)

I see.

Lex Fridman (1:45:50.480)

But so there's some kind of...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:45:51.480)

When you say spinning, there's some parties involved that are trying to leverage it from

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:45:55.920)

the...

Lex Fridman (1:45:56.920)

For funds, probably.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:45:58.200)

For funds, for financial interests.

Lex Fridman (1:45:59.560)

Yeah, I think so.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:46:01.040)

Nevertheless, it has inspired a conversation and just a lot of people in the world that

Lex Fridman (1:46:11.240)

there's something mysterious out there that we're not fully informed about.

Lex Fridman (1:46:16.880)

And I was certainly grateful that the New York Times ran the story right before my book

Lex Fridman (1:46:20.560)

came out.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:46:21.560)

Well, see, but there's the financial interest that to me, as a person who doesn't give a

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:46:27.120)

damn about money, actually, I don't like money, except for when it's used in the context of

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:46:34.920)

a company to build cool things.

Lex Fridman (1:46:37.480)

But personally, I don't know, I find the financial interest side off putting, especially when

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:46:45.360)

we're talking about the exploration of some of the most...

Lex Fridman (1:46:48.360)

Money is a silly creation of human beings.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:46:51.440)

I agree.

Lex Fridman (1:46:52.440)

And it's used to provide temporary...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:46:58.560)

The unfortunate thing with money is that it helps you buy things that too easily allow

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:06.120)

you to forget the important things in life and also to forget the difficult aspects of

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:12.760)

life, to do the difficult intellectual work of being cognizant of your mortality, of fully

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:18.720)

engaging in life, in a life of reason too, of thinking deeply about the world, all those

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:25.360)

kinds of things.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:26.520)

If you get a nice car or something like that and just, I don't know, all the different

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:31.320)

things you can do with money, it can make you forget that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:34.760)

Anyway, there's a long way to say that, yes, yes, it's very nice that it coincided nicely

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:40.760)

with the book.

Lex Fridman (1:47:42.000)

But also, I think it, like I said, I think it inspired quite a lot of people that maybe

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:47:49.960)

there's a lot of things out there that were...

Lex Fridman (1:47:53.000)

It reminded a lot of people, there's things out there we don't know about.

Lex Fridman (1:47:56.360)

Lex, I can agree with you on that, but can I push back on two things?

Lex Fridman (1:48:00.280)

Mm hmm.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:01.280)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:48:02.280)

Let's do it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:03.280)

All right.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:04.280)

The first one is that I was happy to receive money from the book because of the New York

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:06.920)

Times article.

Lex Fridman (1:48:07.920)

That's absolutely false.

Lex Fridman (1:48:09.320)

So I published my book with Oxford, which is an academic press, and you don't get paid

Lex Fridman (1:48:14.360)

with an academic press.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:15.720)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:48:16.720)

So money was not it for me.

Lex Fridman (1:48:18.000)

What it was, was recognition that my research was being validated.

Lex Fridman (1:48:21.880)

So because then people called me and said, well, maybe it's more than interesting.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:26.400)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:48:27.400)

And they did.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:28.400)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:29.400)

The other thing about money is just as you say that, now I agree with you, I'm upset

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:35.000)

about money too.

Lex Fridman (1:48:36.000)

I think there should be universal health care, a universal income.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:40.480)

I don't think people should be in poverty, especially because we are so wealthy as a

Lex Fridman (1:48:44.640)

species, frankly.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:45.640)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:46.640)

That said, think about this, if you don't have money, you can't have a life of the mind

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:53.200)

either.

Lex Fridman (1:48:54.200)

Right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:55.200)

100%.

Lex Fridman (1:48:56.200)

So I'm not espousing that money is the devil.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:48:57.960)

I just think that money can be a drug.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:49:04.720)

Or I would compare it to like food or something like that, where like you really should have

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:49:09.440)

enough to nourish yourself.

Lex Fridman (1:49:11.920)

Yes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:49:12.920)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:49:13.920)

And too much can be a huge problem.

Lex Fridman (1:49:17.220)

So that's where I come from with money.

Lex Fridman (1:49:19.440)

And I'm just aware, I'm fortunate enough to have the skills and the health to be able

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:49:24.380)

to earn a living in whatever way, like I wish of having being in the United States and being

Lex Fridman (1:49:30.120)

able to speak English.

Lex Fridman (1:49:31.200)

So the very least I could work with McDonald's and my standards are, I told Joe, I made a

Lex Fridman (1:49:37.680)

mistake.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:49:38.680)

I told Joe Rogan that I've always had a few money and people are like, oh, Lex was always

Lex Fridman (1:49:44.160)

rich.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:49:45.160)

No, no, no.

Lex Fridman (1:49:46.160)

I was always broke.

Lex Fridman (1:49:47.160)

What I mean by I've always had a few monies, my standard, what it takes to have a few is

Lex Fridman (1:49:54.080)

always very little.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:49:55.200)

I'm just happy with very little.

Lex Fridman (1:49:57.200)

But yes, it's true that money for many people, including for myself, it's just a different

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:04.080)

level for different people, is freedom.

Lex Fridman (1:50:06.640)

Yes, absolutely.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:07.640)

Freedom to think, freedom to pursue your passions.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:11.480)

It just so happens I am very fortunate that many of my passions often come with a salary

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:18.200)

if I wished.

Lex Fridman (1:50:19.200)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:50:20.200)

So everything like me, I love programming.

Lex Fridman (1:50:23.300)

So even just like working as a basic level software engineer will be a source of a lot

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:29.080)

of joy for me.

Lex Fridman (1:50:30.080)

And that happens in this modern world to come with a salary.

Lex Fridman (1:50:34.460)

So yeah, it's definitely true.

Lex Fridman (1:50:36.520)

I just mean that it can become a dangerous drug.

Lex Fridman (1:50:38.960)

So I'm glad you are in this pursuit that you are in for the love of knowledge.

Lex Fridman (1:50:46.480)

And it's true.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:49.960)

People should definitely buy your book.

Lex Fridman (1:50:51.520)

I won't be making money off of it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:53.960)

Oh yeah, it's true actually.

Lex Fridman (1:50:55.960)

Absolutely.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:56.960)

Maybe my next book.

Lex Fridman (1:50:58.440)

Yes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:50:59.440)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:51:00.440)

Your sense is there's some groups of people that may be trying to leverage this for financial

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:51:12.160)

gains.

Lex Fridman (1:51:13.160)

And you know, probably good financial, I mean, they may have good reasons for this too.

Lex Fridman (1:51:17.160)

Like, okay, let's take the study of UFOs, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:51:20.440)

Maybe many people in government that decide who dole out the money, let's put it that

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:51:25.240)

way, they think UFOs aren't real.

Lex Fridman (1:51:27.900)

So they're not going to give these programs money.

Lex Fridman (1:51:30.280)

So how do these programs make money?

Lex Fridman (1:51:33.080)

They're going to have to find a way to do it.

Lex Fridman (1:51:34.740)

So maybe that's how they do it.

Lex Fridman (1:51:36.840)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:51:37.840)

So I...

Lex Fridman (1:51:38.840)

That's fascinating.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:51:39.840)

This is a way to raise money for science.

Lex Fridman (1:51:42.040)

Doing the research.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:51:43.040)

Yeah, I think so.

Lex Fridman (1:51:44.040)

So let's take a step back to Roswell, we talked about it a little bit.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:51:49.480)

What's your sense about that whole time, Roswell and just Area 51, and the sightings, and also

Lex Fridman (1:51:58.520)

the follow on mythology around those sightings?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:02.840)

That's with us today.

Lex Fridman (1:52:03.840)

Of course.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:04.840)

All right.

Lex Fridman (1:52:05.840)

So...

Lex Fridman (1:52:06.840)

Where do I get started?

Lex Fridman (1:52:07.840)

Well, I mean, it is a mythology here, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:10.240)

The mythology of Roswell, it's very religious like in the sense that there's a pilgrimage

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:15.120)

to Roswell people make and they go to, there's a festival there as well, like a religious

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:20.880)

festival.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:23.000)

You can get little kitschy stuff like you can get at a religious festival there.

Lex Fridman (1:52:26.780)

So it's very much like a place of pilgrimage where a herophany occurred and a herophany

Lex Fridman (1:52:31.360)

is basically contact with nonhuman intelligence.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:34.760)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:52:35.760)

So nonhuman intelligence is thought to have contacted humans or crashed at this place

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:40.840)

in Roswell, New Mexico.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:42.720)

Now what's fascinating is that I begin my book by going out to a crash site in New Mexico.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:48.760)

I have to get blindfolded with my, well, to tell you the truth, the story is that I'm

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:52:55.040)

with Tyler, who's an invisible, and he wants to show me a place in New Mexico where a crash

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:53:01.600)

happened.

Lex Fridman (1:53:02.600)

And he says that he thinks that I need to see physical evidence because I don't believe.

Lex Fridman (1:53:08.320)

And so I said, I'll go, but I'm going to bring a friend of mine.

Lex Fridman (1:53:11.520)

And he said, no, you have to go alone.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:53:12.960)

He goes, it's a place that is on government owned property and it's a no fly zone.

Lex Fridman (1:53:19.640)

And when you go, you'll be blindfolded.

Lex Fridman (1:53:22.320)

And I said, I definitely need to bring a friend.

Lex Fridman (1:53:27.680)

So he said, well, who do you want to bring?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:53:29.720)

I just had met this university scientist who's very well known and I call him James in my

Lex Fridman (1:53:35.360)

book.

Lex Fridman (1:53:36.360)

And I asked, and I had a feeling James would definitely want to do this.

Lex Fridman (1:53:40.320)

And I asked James and he said, I'll go tomorrow.

Lex Fridman (1:53:43.360)

So I suggested this to Tyler and Tyler said, absolutely not.

Lex Fridman (1:53:48.600)

And I thought, I know he's going to look up James and he's going to say yes, because if

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:53:52.680)

anybody can figure out what this material is that you're going to go look for, it's

Lex Fridman (1:53:56.760)

going to be James.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:53:57.760)

He has the instruments.

Lex Fridman (1:53:59.240)

And so Tyler did, in fact, look him up and finally said, okay, you can go.

Lex Fridman (1:54:04.720)

So we both head out there and we get blindfolded and Tyler takes us out there.

Lex Fridman (1:54:07.880)

It takes about 40 minutes outside of a certain place in New Mexico.

Lex Fridman (1:54:11.920)

So in terms of Roswell, this is what I can say is that according to Tyler, there were

Lex Fridman (1:54:16.600)

about seven crashes out in the 1940s in New Mexico in various places.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:54:25.560)

We went to one of them according to Tyler.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:54:29.120)

At the time I was completely an atheist with regard to anything that had to do with UFOs.

Lex Fridman (1:54:33.880)

So we were out there, we had specially configured metal detectors for these metals.

Lex Fridman (1:54:41.480)

And we did find these, okay.

Lex Fridman (1:54:44.120)

And they've since been studied by various scientists, material scientists, so forth.

Lex Fridman (1:54:49.720)

And I believe Jacques talked about not those particular ones, but others on the Joe Rogan

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:54:57.240)

show.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:54:58.240)

They're anomalies, so there are scientists, I'm not a scientist, so I can't weigh in on

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:55:05.680)

whether, I just believe the people, these people I believe because they're well known

Lex Fridman (1:55:12.560)

scientists.

Lex Fridman (1:55:13.560)

What do you mean they're not anomalies?

Lex Fridman (1:55:14.560)

No, they are anomalous.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:55:15.560)

Oh, anomalous in terms of the materials that are naturally occurring on earth.

Lex Fridman (1:55:23.480)

Yes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:55:24.960)

Okay, so there's some kind of inklings of evidence that something happened in Roswell

Lex Fridman (1:55:36.880)

in terms of crashes of alien technology.

Lex Fridman (1:55:40.840)

What else is there to the mythology?

Lex Fridman (1:55:42.960)

So there's some crashes, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:55:45.960)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:55:46.960)

I mean, that's kind of epic.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:55:47.960)

It's pretty epic, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:55:50.360)

And what else, like what are we supposed to take away from this?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:55:55.800)

Right, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:55:56.800)

So it's weird.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:55:57.800)

Okay, so there's this, okay, so in religious studies, like I said, we call it a herophany,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:56:03.200)

which is the meeting of a nonhuman intelligent thing, whatever it is, an angel, a god, whatever,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:56:08.480)

a goddess with, or an alien, with humans.

Lex Fridman (1:56:12.520)

And that's the place, okay, so the place is New Mexico.

Lex Fridman (1:56:16.440)

So New Mexico becomes folded into the mythology of this new religion, is what I call a new

Lex Fridman (1:56:22.720)

type of religion, of the UFO.

Lex Fridman (1:56:26.280)

And it becomes ground zero for this new mythology.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:56:30.360)

Just like Mecca is the place where Muslims go, they have to go, right, at least once

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:56:35.600)

in their lives, it's a pilgrimage place now.

Lex Fridman (1:56:38.200)

So in my book, that's how I tell it.

Lex Fridman (1:56:41.480)

Now what about Roswell in the public imagination?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:56:45.920)

Really according to Annie Jacobson, who's good, she's a great author, investigative

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:56:51.800)

journalist, she's written about Roswell too.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:56:53.840)

I don't agree with all of what she comes up with, but part of it is that there's a lot

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:56:58.040)

of military stuff going on there that is classified, and there's a reason why you can't get in,

Lex Fridman (1:57:03.180)

and nor would you want to, right?

Lex Fridman (1:57:07.080)

So there's a lot of experimentation going on there.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:57:10.960)

I don't believe that it has to do with ETs, frankly, but in the imaginations of Americans,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:57:18.160)

Roswell is that place, but I went to a different place, and apparently there are several places

Lex Fridman (1:57:22.920)

in New Mexico.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:57:23.920)

Now, strangely enough, I traveled back to New Mexico at the very end chapter of my book,

Lex Fridman (1:57:29.800)

but I don't go there physically.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:57:33.080)

I go there through the story of a Catholic nun who actually believes that she bilocated

Lex Fridman (1:57:40.640)

to New Mexico in the, gosh, in the 1600s.

Lex Fridman (1:57:47.000)

So yeah, it was very strange.

Lex Fridman (1:57:48.960)

And I was at the Vatican at the Space Observatory when I made that connection that she probably

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:57:54.280)

went to the very, well, she believed she went to this very place that I had gone.

Lex Fridman (1:57:59.880)

Can you elaborate a little bit?

Lex Fridman (1:58:01.920)

What does it mean to go to that place?

Lex Fridman (1:58:03.560)

For her?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:04.560)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:58:05.560)

For her.

Lex Fridman (1:58:06.560)

What does it mean, so we're kind of breaking down the barrier between what it means to

Lex Fridman (1:58:13.800)

be in a place and time, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:15.920)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:58:16.920)

I agree with you.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:17.920)

This is the field of religious studies.

Lex Fridman (1:58:19.720)

So, and again, I don't say it's true in my book.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:23.040)

I just say it's a very strange coincidence that I'm at the Vatican Observatory.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:28.440)

In fact, I'd finished my book, but while I was at the Vatican Observatory, I was there

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:33.280)

with Tyler, and we were looking at the records.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:37.480)

They're called the trial records, but they're the canonization records of these two saints.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:42.180)

Each was said to have done amazing things.

Lex Fridman (1:58:44.520)

One was Joseph of Cupertino, who levitated, okay, or is said to have levitated.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:58:50.480)

The other was Maria of Agrida from Spain, their contemporaries in the 1600s, who was

Lex Fridman (1:58:56.400)

said to have been able to bilocate, which is to be in two places at once, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:59:00.680)

So this is a belief in Catholicism that certain very holy people can do these kinds of things

Lex Fridman (1:59:05.560)

like levitate, which, by the way, is also associated with UFO abductions.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:59:11.080)

People get levitated out of their beds and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:59:13.680)

So we were sent there by a billionaire who was interested in levitation and bilocation.

Lex Fridman (1:59:21.540)

And since I could get into the Vatican and I knew the director of the Vatican Observatory,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:59:27.960)

both Tyler and I were able to go to the secret archives and look at the canonization records

Lex Fridman (1:59:33.600)

and then go to Castle Gandolfo, which is about an hour from the Vatican where the first observatory,

Lex Fridman (1:59:40.300)

the space observatory of the Vatican is.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:59:44.240)

The second one is in Arizona and it has a much larger telescope.

Lex Fridman (1:59:48.000)

So we went and Brother Guy gave me the keys to the archive and said, look at anything

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:59:53.760)

you want.

Lex Fridman (1:59:54.760)

And I got to see a lot of stuff by Carl Sagan, by the way.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:59:56.760)

I know he talked about, yeah, it was awesome.

Lex Fridman (1:59:58.600)

So they have a whole section on the search for extraterrestrial life.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (20:00.400)

Another non philosopher that may be considered a philosopher, since we're talking about reality

Lex Fridman (20:07.280)

is Ayn Rand and her philosophy of objectivism.

Lex Fridman (20:12.000)

What are your thoughts on her sense of taking this idea of reality, calling her philosophy

Diana Walsh Pasulka (20:19.520)

objectivism, and kind of starting at the idea that you really could know everything, and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (20:28.320)

it's pretty obvious, and then from that, you can derive an ethics about how to live life,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (20:34.880)

like what is the, what is the good ethical life and all the virtue of selfishness, all

Diana Walsh Pasulka (20:40.400)

that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (20:42.960)

So you talked to a lot of academic philosophers.

Lex Fridman (20:44.880)

So I'd be curious to see from the perspective of like, is she somebody that's taken seriously

Lex Fridman (20:53.360)

at all?

Lex Fridman (20:55.680)

Why is she dismissed as I see from my distant perspective by serious philosophers, and also

Diana Walsh Pasulka (21:02.640)

like your own personal thoughts of like, is there some interesting bits that you find

Lex Fridman (21:07.280)

inspiring in her work or not?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (21:10.160)

Okay, so Ayn Rand, I've had so many exceedingly intelligent students basically give me her

Diana Walsh Pasulka (21:21.120)

books, and basically say, please, Dr. Basilka, read this book.

Lex Fridman (21:25.920)

And I'll tell them, yes, thank you, I've read this book before.

Lex Fridman (21:29.680)

And then want to engage in, let me put it this way, they're religious about Ayn Rand.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (21:35.360)

Okay, so to them, Ayn Rand represents some type of way of life, her objectivism.

Lex Fridman (21:43.520)

Now, why is she not taken seriously by philosophers in general?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (21:48.960)

Well, let me put it this way, philosophers in general tend to get pretty, I guess you

Diana Walsh Pasulka (21:56.000)

could call it, they're kind of scientists, but with words.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (22:01.040)

I always call philosophy, when I describe it to someone who's going to take a philosophy

Lex Fridman (22:04.960)

class, I say, it's basically math problems, like word math problems, okay?

Lex Fridman (22:10.560)

So that's basically what it is.

Lex Fridman (22:11.920)

So they take words very seriously, and they're very formal.

Lex Fridman (22:14.880)

And definitions very seriously, yeah.

Lex Fridman (22:16.640)

So they all want to get on the same page, so there is no confusion.

Lex Fridman (22:20.240)

So for Ayn Rand to basically say, you can know everything, and you know, it's like,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (22:25.040)

okay, and establish ethics from that, I think philosophers automatically say no.

Lex Fridman (22:30.880)

Now, that doesn't mean I say no.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (22:33.200)

In fact, we have at my university a wonderful business school.

Lex Fridman (22:38.560)

And when you walk into the dean of the business school's office, Ayn Rand is everywhere.

Lex Fridman (22:45.520)

So I want to say that not all academics are anti Ayn Rand.

Lex Fridman (22:51.040)

And in fact, I don't think philosophers are either, except that they don't teach Ayn Rand,

Lex Fridman (22:56.080)

okay?

Lex Fridman (22:56.560)

So in one sense, you could say that because they don't teach her, they're being exclusive

Diana Walsh Pasulka (23:01.600)

in what they teach, or very particular, perhaps, is another way to put it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (23:06.480)

Yeah, it's hard to know where to place people like her, because, you know, do you put

Lex Fridman (23:11.120)

Albert Camus as a philosopher?

Lex Fridman (23:13.120)

So I guess, what's the good term for that?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (23:15.040)

Like literary philosophers, or whatever the term is, it's annoying to me that the academic

Diana Walsh Pasulka (23:22.240)

philosophers get to own the word philosophy, because like, it's just like people who think

Diana Walsh Pasulka (23:26.640)

deeply about life is what I think about as philosophy.

Lex Fridman (23:30.960)

And like, to me, it's like, all right, so I know Nietzsche is another person that's

Diana Walsh Pasulka (23:36.080)

probably not respected in the philosophy circles, because he is, you know, full of contradictions,

Lex Fridman (23:42.080)

full of...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (23:42.800)

I love Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (23:43.840)

Nietzsche is my favorite philosopher.

Lex Fridman (23:47.280)

Oh, really?

Lex Fridman (23:47.840)

Yes, I absolutely love Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (23:49.440)

So he's definitely, you know, I love people that are full of ideas, even if they're full

Lex Fridman (23:53.360)

of contradictions, and Nietzsche is certainly that.

Lex Fridman (23:55.760)

And Ayn Rand is also that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (23:58.000)

I'm able to look past the obvious ego that's there on the page, and the fact that she actually

Diana Walsh Pasulka (24:06.320)

has, in my view, a lot of wrong ideas.

Lex Fridman (24:08.960)

But there's a lot of interesting tidbits to pick up, and the same goes with Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (24:14.160)

And I'm weirded out by the religious aspect here, on both the people who like worship

Lex Fridman (24:20.320)

Ayn Rand, and people who completely dismiss her.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (24:23.440)

I just kind of see it as, oh, can we just read a few interesting things and get inspired

Lex Fridman (24:29.120)

by it and move on, as opposed to...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (24:30.960)

No.

Lex Fridman (24:31.440)

...have a diplomatic conversation.

Lex Fridman (24:33.360)

Is there something you find about her work that's interesting to you?

Lex Fridman (24:36.800)

Or her personality, or any of that?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (24:39.360)

Oh, I think she's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (24:41.600)

I don't dismiss her.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (24:43.200)

She was a woman who reached a level of success with her mind at a time when that was difficult.

Lex Fridman (24:50.880)

So, I mean, she's definitely worth looking at for even that reason.

Lex Fridman (24:56.320)

But also, her idea, I guess, part of the situation with Rand, first of all, I think that she

Lex Fridman (25:04.640)

her work is, you have to, it's misinterpreted, okay?

Lex Fridman (25:08.720)

And I think that's the same with Nietzsche.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (25:10.720)

A lot of people think that, I mean, in fact, it is the case that Nietzsche's writing before

Diana Walsh Pasulka (25:18.160)

the 20th century, so he's got the, he's somewhat, his rhetoric is sexist and racist and of the

Lex Fridman (25:26.560)

time period, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (25:27.680)

He was a educated philosopher of that time period.

Lex Fridman (25:36.640)

However, his books are amazing, and Nietzsche's philosophy is incredible.

Lex Fridman (25:44.960)

And I think that's what you're saying about Rand, too.

Lex Fridman (25:49.280)

And I agree.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (25:49.840)

I mean, I think that we get caught up.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (25:53.840)

I mean, likely we should, and we should contextualize these thinkers in the time period within which

Diana Walsh Pasulka (25:59.760)

they are.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:00.640)

We should not forgive their, you know, because there were people during Nietzsche's time

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:04.640)

that were, you know, feminist and not racist and things like that.

Lex Fridman (26:09.840)

And, you know, so, but each has merit.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:15.440)

I mean, I would say Nietzsche is, and you did ask me to talk about some of the books

Lex Fridman (26:20.880)

that made the largest impact on me, and Nietzsche's Gay Science is one of them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:25.200)

It's one of the best books ever, in my opinion.

Lex Fridman (26:28.720)

I do think Nietzsche was, I don't know about exactly sexist.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:33.840)

He certainly was sexist, but it felt like he didn't get laid much in his life.

Lex Fridman (26:40.000)

No.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:40.560)

It felt like he was extra sexist.

Lex Fridman (26:43.360)

I was like, his theories on women are like, all right.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:46.160)

He's pretty angry.

Lex Fridman (26:47.360)

He seems frustrated.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:48.880)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (26:49.380)

He's like, all right, calm down, buddy.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (26:53.140)

The fate of philosophers.

Lex Fridman (26:55.540)

I just ignore everything Nietzsche says about women.

Lex Fridman (27:00.500)

So can we talk about myth and religion a little bit?

Lex Fridman (27:03.940)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (27:04.440)

I mean, can we start at the beginning, which is like myths, how are they born?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (27:10.660)

There's this collective intelligence amongst us human beings, and we seem to create these

Diana Walsh Pasulka (27:15.060)

beautiful ideas that captivate the minds of millions.

Lex Fridman (27:19.460)

How is such a myth born?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (27:21.460)

Great question.

Lex Fridman (27:22.580)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (27:23.060)

So that brings us to terminology again.

Lex Fridman (27:25.940)

And in my field, we definitely, I think, try not to distinguish between religion.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (27:33.860)

I guess it's going to be controversial, I think, between religion and myth, because

Lex Fridman (27:39.220)

we call other cultures, religions, myths, right?

Lex Fridman (27:43.940)

And then we call our myths, religions.

Lex Fridman (27:46.660)

And I guess myth has a bad connotation to it, that it's not somehow real.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (27:50.660)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (27:51.300)

Now, what's interesting is that people like Plato, who lived thousands of years ago, 2500

Lex Fridman (27:57.620)

about, basically made this distinction himself within his own culture, which was Greek, right?

Lex Fridman (28:05.140)

So Plato is a very famous Greek philosopher.

Lex Fridman (28:08.180)

And he would say things like this.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (28:09.620)

He would say that he would make a distinction between the reality of the one God, or the

Diana Walsh Pasulka (28:17.620)

one, he would call it, he didn't use the word God, but he's referencing a divinity,

Lex Fridman (28:24.500)

and he believes in the soul.

Lex Fridman (28:27.540)

But he would also say that the gods and goddesses of the Greeks are just myths.

Lex Fridman (28:33.140)

So even he would make that distinction.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (28:35.140)

Again, he would say the population is not too bright, so they believe in these gods

Lex Fridman (28:40.980)

and goddesses.

Lex Fridman (28:42.020)

But he himself is talking to his students, and he's basically talking about forms, so

Lex Fridman (28:49.540)

that seem to live in these other dimensions.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (28:52.580)

Like this table, let's go back to this table that we're talking around right now.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (28:56.980)

He would say that this table is the instantiation of the form table, and that there is this

Diana Walsh Pasulka (29:01.700)

table that actually exists somewhere.

Lex Fridman (29:03.620)

It's this place where numbers exist, like the number two, okay?

Lex Fridman (29:07.220)

So we use the number two mathematically, therefore it exists.

Lex Fridman (29:11.140)

But have you ever seen a real one?

Lex Fridman (29:13.060)

Have you ever seen the real two?

Lex Fridman (29:14.740)

No, okay.

Lex Fridman (29:16.180)

So but where does it exist?

Lex Fridman (29:17.380)

So he says that tables...

Lex Fridman (29:18.660)

So he was also talking about things that he says are real, making a distinction between

Diana Walsh Pasulka (29:26.260)

the people, and by the way, he got this from Socrates, his mentor, who was killed by Athens

Diana Walsh Pasulka (29:32.980)

because he would say such things.

Lex Fridman (29:34.980)

People don't like to be told that what they believe in is not real, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (29:38.660)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (29:39.060)

By the way, his idea of forms, you're just making me realize how incredible was that

Diana Walsh Pasulka (29:44.980)

somebody like that was able to come up with that.

Lex Fridman (29:47.460)

I mean, that idea became a myth, the idea of forms, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (29:51.780)

That permeated probably the most influential set of ideas in the history of philosophy,

Lex Fridman (29:59.140)

in the history of ideas.

Lex Fridman (2:00:03.480)

And they don't, by the way.

Lex Fridman (2:00:04.480)

How awesome is that?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:00:05.480)

It was awesome.

Lex Fridman (2:00:06.480)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:00:07.480)

So we got to stay there.

Lex Fridman (2:00:08.480)

They have a scholars quarters.

Lex Fridman (2:00:09.480)

And so they had two.

Lex Fridman (2:00:11.100)

And so Tyler stayed in one and I stayed in the other.

Lex Fridman (2:00:13.840)

And Brother Guy probably shouldn't have been so nice to me and given me the keys because

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:00:20.800)

when I got home, we were there for two weeks, when I got home, I got this frantic phone

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:00:24.640)

call from him and he basically said, Diana, he goes, do you remember where you put the

Lex Fridman (2:00:29.120)

original Kepler?

Lex Fridman (2:00:30.800)

And so I had this Kepler, right?

Lex Fridman (2:00:33.240)

And so I misplaced it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:00:36.040)

Luckily I remembered where it went.

Lex Fridman (2:00:39.760)

I was like, oh gosh, thank goodness I found it.

Lex Fridman (2:00:42.160)

But he'll probably change the rules of the Vatican observatory after my visit.

Lex Fridman (2:00:47.200)

So Maria, she's actually in the history of our country in that she first wrote a cosmography

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:00:55.840)

of what she said was the spinning earth.

Lex Fridman (2:00:59.400)

And this was in the 1600s.

Lex Fridman (2:01:01.200)

And that's her first book.

Lex Fridman (2:01:03.000)

And she wrote that.

Lex Fridman (2:01:04.840)

And then she said that she was transported on the wings of angels to the new world.

Lex Fridman (2:01:11.960)

And she said that she met a culture of people and she basically told them about the faith

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:01:19.480)

of Catholicism.

Lex Fridman (2:01:21.480)

And then what happened was that the people that, and she described the fauna, she described

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:01:27.440)

the people and everything like that.

Lex Fridman (2:01:29.720)

And so there were actually missionaries there.

Lex Fridman (2:01:32.220)

And when they went to try to convert some of the people who already lived there, apparently

Lex Fridman (2:01:40.480)

they already knew a bunch of stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:01:42.000)

And they said, how did you know all this stuff?

Lex Fridman (2:01:43.480)

And they said, this lady in blue came and told us, and they said, did it look like this?

Lex Fridman (2:01:48.760)

And they showed them, they obviously didn't have a photograph, but they had a picture

Lex Fridman (2:01:53.240)

of a sister, a nun.

Lex Fridman (2:01:56.200)

And they said, yeah, she wore similar clothes, but she was much younger.

Lex Fridman (2:02:02.400)

And these guys thought that was weird.

Lex Fridman (2:02:04.400)

But when they went back to Spain, they found that this woman had been doing that in her

Lex Fridman (2:02:08.960)

mind, had been traveling.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:11.320)

I mean, I don't know what to make of it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:12.960)

There's so many things that are sort of forcing you to kind of go outside of, you know, I'm

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:18.880)

of many minds.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:19.880)

I have a very, most of my days spent with very rigorous scientific kind of things and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:25.840)

even engineering kind of things.

Lex Fridman (2:02:27.480)

And then I'm also open minded and just the entirety of the idea of extraterrestrial life

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:34.240)

forces you to think outside of conventional boundaries of thought, scientific, current

Lex Fridman (2:02:41.400)

scientific thought.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:43.200)

Let's put it that way.

Lex Fridman (2:02:44.200)

And your story right now.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:45.200)

It's freaking you out.

Lex Fridman (2:02:46.200)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:47.200)

That's okay.

Lex Fridman (2:02:48.200)

That's a nice way to put it.

Lex Fridman (2:02:50.640)

What do you, just another person that seems to be a key figure in this, in the mythology

Lex Fridman (2:02:57.520)

of this is Bob Lazar.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:02:59.360)

It'd be interesting.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:03:01.380)

Maybe there's others you can tell me about, but Bob, who's also been on Joe Rogan, but

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:03:07.120)

his story has been told quite a bit that he's got, I think he said that he witnessed some

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:03:16.080)

of the work being done on the spacecraft that was, you know, that was captured and so on

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:03:25.760)

in order to try to reverse engineer some of the technology in terms of the propulsion

Lex Fridman (2:03:30.640)

and so on.

Lex Fridman (2:03:31.640)

What are your thoughts about his story, how it fits into the mythology of this whole thing

Lex Fridman (2:03:37.080)

and broader ufologist community?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:03:40.240)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:03:41.240)

So regarding Bob Lazar, with respect to his claims, again, I have no way to adjudicate

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:03:50.920)

whether or not he actually encountered this.

Lex Fridman (2:03:55.800)

I do have friends who are.

Lex Fridman (2:03:59.520)

And the people that I know who know his story, some know him, believe him.

Lex Fridman (2:04:08.680)

And they have said to me that the most important thing that they think he has said, in fact,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:04:16.520)

one of them I think made a meme out of it or something like that was basically he said,

Lex Fridman (2:04:25.360)

maybe the public, you know, I regret making it public.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:04:28.200)

Maybe the public isn't ready for this kind of information.

Lex Fridman (2:04:30.940)

And basically they've, they emphasize that to me and they emphasized it so much that

Lex Fridman (2:04:37.120)

they wanted me to know, right?

Lex Fridman (2:04:39.860)

So that is somewhat creepy to me.

Lex Fridman (2:04:43.180)

So I think, okay, this poor guy, Bob Lazar, so many people, you know, this is what happens

Lex Fridman (2:04:49.300)

to people who have experiences like this.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:04:52.160)

They're questioned, their reputations are put on the line, in some instances their reputations

Lex Fridman (2:05:00.200)

are manipulated on purpose to make them look uncredible.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:05:04.900)

To me, as a scientist, it's just inspiring that it kind of gives this kind of, I'm not

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:05:14.320)

even thinking of it, is there an actual spacecraft being hidden somewhere and studied and so

Lex Fridman (2:05:19.440)

on?

Lex Fridman (2:05:20.440)

But I think of it like, I don't know, it's a thing that gives you a spark of a dream,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:05:24.640)

you know, as a reminder that we don't understand most of how this world works.

Lex Fridman (2:05:32.720)

And then we can build technologies that aren't here today that will allow us to understand

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:05:38.380)

much more.

Lex Fridman (2:05:39.380)

And it's kind of like, almost like a feeling that it provides and that it inspires and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:05:44.240)

makes you dream.

Lex Fridman (2:05:45.920)

That's the way I see the Bob Lazar story.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:05:47.320)

I don't necessarily, people ask me, because I'm at MIT, people ask me, did Bob Lazar actually

Lex Fridman (2:05:52.040)

go to MIT and so on?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:05:53.880)

I don't know, and I personally don't care.

Lex Fridman (2:05:57.960)

That's not what's interesting to me about that story.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:06:01.080)

To me, the myth is more interesting, not interesting actually, but inspiring.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:06:06.360)

Yes, because inspiring, you're suggesting that the myth inspires you to create reality.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:06:11.760)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:06:12.760)

Yeah, I think that's true.

Lex Fridman (2:06:15.120)

So even if it's not real, in some sense, just like you said, it does in some sense, it doesn't.

Lex Fridman (2:06:25.720)

So a lot of people know how much I love 2001 Space Odyssey.

Lex Fridman (2:06:28.840)

So I got a lot of these emails asking like, hey bro, do you know what's up with the monoliths

Lex Fridman (2:06:38.640)

in the middle of the desert or whatever it was?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:06:41.440)

I haven't been actually paying attention, I apologize, but you kind of mentioned offline

Lex Fridman (2:06:47.680)

that this is kind of cool and interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:06:49.760)

What do you make of these monoliths and in general, are you a fan of 2001 Space Odyssey

Lex Fridman (2:06:56.920)

where monoliths showed up?

Lex Fridman (2:06:58.920)

Do you have any thoughts about either the science fiction, the mythology of it or the

Lex Fridman (2:07:02.620)

reality of it?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:07:04.280)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:07:05.280)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:07:06.280)

No, okay.

Lex Fridman (2:07:07.720)

And please say more.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:07:09.720)

Right.

Lex Fridman (2:07:10.720)

So first of all, Kubrick's films are not ever easy for me because they're so weird, right?

Lex Fridman (2:07:18.320)

And I don't actually enjoy watching them, but it doesn't take away from their incredible

Lex Fridman (2:07:25.080)

brilliance though and their visionary merit.

Lex Fridman (2:07:29.480)

So 2001 Space Odyssey is incredibly visionary and of course, all those things that people

Lex Fridman (2:07:37.400)

say, I don't have to restate them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:07:40.200)

In terms of what I have, it's a subtext to my book, by the way.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:07:43.160)

I didn't mean it to be, but it's almost a character in my book, 2001 Space Odyssey.

Lex Fridman (2:07:49.760)

And when the monoliths started to appear, again, everything went crazy with my everything,

Lex Fridman (2:07:54.920)

internet, social media, phone.

Lex Fridman (2:07:57.440)

What's up?

Lex Fridman (2:07:58.440)

What's going on, right?

Lex Fridman (2:07:59.440)

Is this disclosure?

Lex Fridman (2:08:00.520)

And I thought, well, I'll tell you one thing, is let's look at the timing of it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:08:05.120)

It's a cool, it isn't art and then copy art and things like that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:08:09.920)

It's actually happening at a really interesting time when all of us are forced to go online.

Lex Fridman (2:08:15.160)

When all of us are forced, because of COVID, right?

Lex Fridman (2:08:17.480)

We're completely now invaded by the screen or we're invading the screen.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:08:22.880)

Our infrastructure now is completely changed.

Lex Fridman (2:08:25.240)

So the monolith, basically, if art is supposed to show us life, it certainly has.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:08:31.280)

If that's an art project, somebody did an awesome job with it.

Lex Fridman (2:08:33.860)

But apparently that monolith was there for a long time, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:08:36.400)

I mean, that's the thing.

Lex Fridman (2:08:37.560)

It's been there for a couple of years, so they said, okay, all right.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:08:41.120)

That said, if your audience is interested, I think the best theory about the meaning

Lex Fridman (2:08:47.840)

of the monolith is Robert Ager or Robert Ayer.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:08:54.000)

I think it's Robert Ager.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:08:56.480)

He's got a website where he does analyses of films and it's called Collative Learning

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:09:01.560)

or Collative Learning, and he does the meaning of the monolith.

Lex Fridman (2:09:05.760)

Everyone should go look at that because I fully agree with him.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:09:09.160)

I studied different meanings of the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Lex Fridman (2:09:13.440)

I was fascinated.

Lex Fridman (2:09:14.440)

Okay, so what is this about?

Lex Fridman (2:09:17.240)

I accepted as soon as I listened to it and watched it.

Lex Fridman (2:09:21.720)

So basically, he says that the monolith is, okay, can you pick up your phone here?

Lex Fridman (2:09:27.160)

What does that look like?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:09:29.840)

It looks awfully a lot like a monolith.

Lex Fridman (2:09:33.440)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:09:34.440)

So basically, that's what he was saying was that Kubrick was basically, the monolith was

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:09:39.560)

technology or the screen in particular, and he basically was saying that the cinema screen,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:09:45.760)

we're being completely...

Lex Fridman (2:09:46.760)

And if you think about it, look at all this, we live in a screen culture.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:09:50.140)

We have computer screens, iPhone screens, there's phone screens, we have TV screens,

Lex Fridman (2:09:56.720)

everything is something...

Lex Fridman (2:09:57.720)

And now that COVID has come, we're forced to go into these screens and we're forced

Lex Fridman (2:10:01.880)

to live a different material existence than we have lived before.

Lex Fridman (2:10:06.680)

So in my sense, I think that if it's an art project, it's a really good one for that.

Lex Fridman (2:10:12.880)

So I like that meaning of it, it's a screen and a screen could take all kinds of forms.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:10:20.440)

I mean, our perception system in a sense is a screen between reality and our mind.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:10:27.640)

The screen of the computer is a screen, the virtual reality worlds that we might be one

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:10:33.960)

day living in, there'll be an interface, I mean, ultimately it's about the interface.

Lex Fridman (2:10:39.920)

That's interesting.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:10:40.920)

It's an interface to another world of ideas.

Lex Fridman (2:10:46.040)

It's also a material change.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:10:49.080)

It's a change in our material...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:10:50.080)

I mean, when people talk about augmented reality, I say we already live in augmented reality,

Lex Fridman (2:10:55.780)

don't we?

Lex Fridman (2:10:56.780)

I mean, this isn't our grandparents existence.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:11:00.720)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:11:01.720)

I sometimes, you have to pause and remind yourself how weirdly different this reality

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:11:07.800)

is than just even like, I mean, 30 years ago.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:11:11.880)

The internet changed so much and social media has changed so much about actually just the

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:11:19.360)

space of our thinking.

Lex Fridman (2:11:21.040)

Wikipedia changed so much about the offloading of our knowledge.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:11:25.860)

The way we interact with knowledge.

Lex Fridman (2:11:28.680)

I mean, it offloaded our longterm memory about facts onto a digital format.

Lex Fridman (2:11:35.680)

So in the sense that expanded our mind, it's kind of interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:11:40.760)

I'd be curious to see if he has just one interpretation.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:11:44.160)

I wonder if there's others.

Lex Fridman (2:11:45.160)

I've corresponded with him, yes.

Lex Fridman (2:11:46.880)

So over the years he and I have corresponded.

Lex Fridman (2:11:50.240)

And I told him, I said, look, I'm going to be using this in my book.

Lex Fridman (2:11:53.120)

So I think you should read what I say.

Lex Fridman (2:11:55.500)

And he was, he of course wanted to see it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:11:57.640)

So.

Lex Fridman (2:11:58.640)

What do you think about your book?

Lex Fridman (2:11:59.640)

Did he get a chance to read it?

Lex Fridman (2:12:01.320)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:12:02.320)

Oh yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:12:03.320)

So he is a nonbeliever in alien intelligence and UFOs, but he, and that's fine, but I still

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:12:12.000)

agree with him that the meaning of the monolith was the screen, but that doesn't mean the

Lex Fridman (2:12:16.200)

screen isn't like what David Bowie said, right?

Lex Fridman (2:12:20.800)

So it's not exclusive.

Lex Fridman (2:12:22.680)

So I could still use his theory, but differ from the conclusions.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:12:26.920)

In terms of nonbeliever and believer, there's, when you say believer, you also are kind of

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:12:34.560)

implying this, the idea that aliens have visited or had made direct contact with humans in

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:12:42.880)

some form.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:12:45.680)

There's also the exploration and the idea of just alien intelligence is out there in

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:12:54.000)

the universe.

Lex Fridman (2:12:55.000)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:12:56.000)

You know, the Drake equation estimating how many intelligent civilizations may be out

Lex Fridman (2:13:01.840)

there.

Lex Fridman (2:13:02.840)

How many have ever existed?

Lex Fridman (2:13:03.840)

How many are about to communicate with us?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:13:05.640)

I mean, when you just zoom out from our own little selfish perspective of earth and look

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:13:12.140)

at the entirety, let's say the Milky Way galaxy, but maybe even the universe, does the idea

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:13:18.200)

that there are intelligent civilizations out there, something that you're excited about

Lex Fridman (2:13:24.040)

or something that you're terrified about?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:13:27.300)

That's a good question.

Lex Fridman (2:13:28.900)

So basically I would say I'm not so keen on it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:13:35.400)

I think that our relationship with technology as it is and as it, as I hope it will go will

Lex Fridman (2:13:42.000)

help us survive, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:13:46.320)

I don't think we're equipped to do it as we stand now, but I think that if we can up our

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:13:53.440)

game or let's just put it this way, if technology is an extension of ourselves, which it actually

Lex Fridman (2:13:58.600)

is, it will help us because it'll probably be smarter than us, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:14:04.080)

It'll help us survive in the ways in which it determines best, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:14:07.720)

So with that said, if there are nonhuman intelligences out there and they have more advanced, you

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:14:17.240)

know, obviously technologies than us and they actually come, the history of human engagement

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:14:25.320)

with, you know, other cultures has not gone well for cultures that are less aggressive.

Lex Fridman (2:14:34.440)

So you see what I'm saying?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:14:35.440)

Like, it's not a good idea.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:14:37.000)

Well, I wonder where we stand on the, where humans stand in the full spectrum of aggression.

Lex Fridman (2:14:43.240)

Well, heck, where are we now, Lex?

Lex Fridman (2:14:45.480)

I mean, we're not too great here.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:14:47.560)

We're still aggressing against each other.

Lex Fridman (2:14:49.600)

No, I know, but that will give us a benefit, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:14:52.680)

Like, oh, you're saying, I thought, okay, I see.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:14:57.240)

I just have a sense that there may be a lot of intelligences out there that are less aggressive

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:15:03.480)

because they've evolved past it.

Lex Fridman (2:15:06.000)

We can't assume that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:15:07.680)

No, I know we can't assume that, but like.

Lex Fridman (2:15:10.440)

If we can't assume it, then I'm going to assume the worst.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:15:14.480)

Well, that's, despite the fact that I am a Russian and think that life is suffering,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:15:22.760)

I tend to assume, not the best, but I tend to assume that there is a best core to creatures,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:15:31.640)

to people and to creatures that ultimately wins out.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:15:35.000)

I think there's an evolutionary advantage to being good to other living creatures.

Lex Fridman (2:15:43.240)

And so, ultimately, I think that if there's intelligent civilizations out there that prosper

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:15:49.440)

sufficiently to be able to travel across the great spans of space, that they've evolved

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:15:58.400)

past silly aggression, that it's more likely in my mind to be deeply cooperative.

Lex Fridman (2:16:08.120)

So like growth over destruction, like growth does not require destruction, I think.

Lex Fridman (2:16:16.000)

But if you see the universe as ultimately a place where it's highly constrained in resources

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:16:22.080)

that are necessary for traveling across space and time, then perhaps aggression is necessary

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:16:30.640)

in order to aggress against others that are desiring to get access to those resources.

Lex Fridman (2:16:36.800)

I don't know.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:16:37.880)

I tend to try to be optimistic on that front.

Lex Fridman (2:16:41.560)

I think I'm emotionally optimistic and intellectually nonoptimistic.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:16:46.440)

Yeah, I guess I'm there with you.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:16:51.160)

I tend to believe that the happiness and deep fulfillment in life is found in that emotional

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:16:57.600)

place.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:16:58.600)

The intellectual place is really useful for building cool new technologies and ideas and

Lex Fridman (2:17:07.000)

so on.

Lex Fridman (2:17:08.000)

But happiness is in the emotional place.

Lex Fridman (2:17:10.600)

And there it pays off to be optimistic, I think.

Lex Fridman (2:17:15.360)

You said that technology might be able to save us.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:17:19.080)

That's also kind of optimistic, too.

Lex Fridman (2:17:22.080)

It might kill us.

Lex Fridman (2:17:23.080)

But there's, talking to you offline a little bit, there was a sense that we humans are

Lex Fridman (2:17:29.760)

facing existential risks, that it's not obvious that we will survive for long.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:17:38.400)

Is there things that you worry about in terms of ways we may destroy ourselves or deeply

Lex Fridman (2:17:45.160)

damage the fabric of human civilization that technology may allow us to avoid or alleviate?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:17:55.080)

Yes, I think that you can choose anything, actually.

Lex Fridman (2:18:01.520)

And it could destroy us, pollution.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:18:08.160)

Here we're in a pandemic, a meteor.

Lex Fridman (2:18:12.880)

So we can use technology, or the thing is, is that we say we use technology, but actually

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:18:19.240)

that's not a correct way of putting it, in my opinion.

Lex Fridman (2:18:24.440)

So there is a term used by others, coined by somebody I don't know, and I'm sorry to

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:18:31.640)

not give credit where credit's due, but it's called technogenesis.

Lex Fridman (2:18:35.800)

And it's this idea, Heidegger actually had this idea, but he didn't use that term.

Lex Fridman (2:18:39.720)

And it's this idea that we coevolve with technology, that we don't actually use it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:18:44.140)

Most people think it's like a tool we use, okay, let's use technology to do this.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:18:49.400)

Well, actually when we engage with technology, we actually engage with it and it engages

Lex Fridman (2:18:54.800)

back with us and we engage with it.

Lex Fridman (2:18:57.200)

So it's this coevolution that's happening.

Lex Fridman (2:18:59.620)

And in that sense, I think that as we create more autonomous, intelligent AI, it will help

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:19:11.400)

us survive because if we coevolve with it, it will need us as much as we need it, is

Lex Fridman (2:19:21.360)

my opinion.

Lex Fridman (2:19:23.720)

How that happens or if that bears out to be true, we'll see, but I don't think the idea

Lex Fridman (2:19:31.280)

that we use technology is a correct way to put it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:19:34.680)

I think that technology is something so strange, the way it is today, like digital technology,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:19:39.360)

I'm not talking about hammers or things like that, those kinds of tools, okay, is technology

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:19:45.120)

is so far removed from that and our environment is so now conditioned by our technology and

Lex Fridman (2:19:53.280)

the infrastructure we live within, the material structure.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:19:55.800)

I think that it's going to, I don't think it's going to be a Frankenstein.

Lex Fridman (2:20:01.760)

I think it's actually going, like a Mary Shelley type idea of technology.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:20:05.120)

I think it's actually going to be more Promethean in the sense of, think about it, we create

Lex Fridman (2:20:12.560)

children and then we get old and we rely upon our children to help us, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:20:18.720)

Well, I feel like that about technology.

Lex Fridman (2:20:20.840)

We've created, well, we've created it, right?

Lex Fridman (2:20:23.400)

And so it's kind of growing up now.

Lex Fridman (2:20:28.480)

Or maybe it's in its teenage years and we'll see.

Lex Fridman (2:20:34.200)

What do you think about in terms of this coevolution of the work around brain computer interfaces

Lex Fridman (2:20:41.180)

and maybe Neuralink and Elon seeing Neuralink in particular as its longterm mission as a

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:20:54.400)

symbiosis with artificial intelligence.

Lex Fridman (2:20:57.000)

So like giving a greater bandwidth channel of communication between technology, AI systems

Lex Fridman (2:21:07.480)

and the biological neural networks of our human mind.

Lex Fridman (2:21:14.200)

What do you think about this idea of connecting directly to the brain in AI systems?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:21:20.520)

I mean, okay, I've listened to your podcast with Elon.

Lex Fridman (2:21:25.360)

I've listened to Elon before, he's very intelligent, obviously super smart guy.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:21:29.960)

I think this is already, I mean, not in the specific ways that he is doing it, but I think

Lex Fridman (2:21:35.680)

we are already doing that, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:21:37.360)

And I can give you some examples.

Lex Fridman (2:21:41.440)

And there are really trivial examples, but they do make the point and this is one of

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:21:44.880)

them.

Lex Fridman (2:21:45.880)

So before he started this research on UFOs and UAPs and technology, I actually was looking

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:21:53.240)

at the effects of technology and in particular media on religion.

Lex Fridman (2:22:01.840)

And what I did was I was lucky to be asked to be a consultant for various movies and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:22:10.160)

one in particular I learned a lot from and that was The Conjuring.

Lex Fridman (2:22:13.620)

So I was a history consultant for The Conjuring.

Lex Fridman (2:22:17.480)

It happens to be my field, it's Catholic studies, right?

Lex Fridman (2:22:21.480)

And you've got these people who are real people and they're, you know, exercising demons and

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:22:25.060)

things like that.

Lex Fridman (2:22:26.060)

Okay, so I thought, wow, this is a great example for me.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:22:28.880)

You know, I didn't do it for the money.

Lex Fridman (2:22:30.520)

It doesn't pay well, but I did it to learn, right?

Lex Fridman (2:22:33.440)

So I work closely with the screenwriters who I work with now all the time.

Lex Fridman (2:22:37.880)

I work with them all the time now.

Lex Fridman (2:22:40.280)

And what I found was this, I found that as the most interesting part of the creation

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:22:44.960)

of this movie was the editing process because it would go through editing and they would

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:22:51.640)

use test audiences and a lot of the test audiences would be like, you know, there's like these

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:22:58.060)

things where they test their flicker rates and things like that, the eye flicker rates.

Lex Fridman (2:23:02.040)

And so, and when it goes really intense, they go to UC Irvine and they do this thing called

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:08.920)

cognitive consumption, which is basically, or I'm sorry, cognitive consumerism, where

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:16.680)

they basically hook test audiences up to EKGs and they read their brains and they figure

Lex Fridman (2:23:22.680)

out which scenes create the most.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:25.680)

Arousal.

Lex Fridman (2:23:26.680)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:23:27.680)

And then they cut out all the other scenes.

Lex Fridman (2:23:29.400)

Okay?

Lex Fridman (2:23:30.400)

So what we're getting is we're getting like this drug when we go to the movies or when

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:33.680)

we do video games or when we watch, we're literally physiologically responding to our

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:40.080)

technologies.

Lex Fridman (2:23:41.080)

So we're already there.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:42.080)

We're already interfacing with them physiologically.

Lex Fridman (2:23:44.520)

So that's my example.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:45.840)

Now, the kind of thing that he's doing, Musk is doing with Neuralink, I say, go for it.

Lex Fridman (2:23:52.560)

That's awesome.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:53.560)

I hope he does it.

Lex Fridman (2:23:54.560)

You know, I'm fascinated.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:55.560)

I want it to happen.

Lex Fridman (2:23:57.520)

Why do I want it to happen?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:23:59.080)

Because I think that, well, first it's inevitable that it's going to happen.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:24:03.600)

I also want to point out that Jacques Vallée was trying to get this done back in the sixties

Lex Fridman (2:24:08.040)

and the seventies.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:24:09.120)

He was writing papers about, in fact, the ARPANET, the ProtoInternet was called Augmentation

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:24:17.960)

of the Human Intellect.

Lex Fridman (2:24:19.920)

So we've been doing this for a while.

Lex Fridman (2:24:21.960)

Okay?

Lex Fridman (2:24:22.960)

So props to Elon Musk, but we've been thinking about this for a good time.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:24:27.000)

We've even been visioning it.

Lex Fridman (2:24:29.760)

Okay?

Lex Fridman (2:24:30.760)

So there was a really interesting Jesuit priest, he was French, Tellur de Chardin.

Lex Fridman (2:24:37.800)

I don't know if you know who he is.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:24:39.640)

If not, he's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (2:24:41.360)

He was actually a soldier before he became a priest.

Lex Fridman (2:24:45.900)

And so he believed, he also saw what he called a biosphere.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:24:49.920)

Now this guy is talking in like the early 20th century, like the 1917, 19, you know,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:24:55.340)

that time period.

Lex Fridman (2:24:56.520)

And so basically he said and wrote about this thing called the noosphere.

Lex Fridman (2:25:01.480)

And he basically said, there will be a point when we merge with our technology and it's

Lex Fridman (2:25:05.520)

going to be somewhat like some kind of a biosphere.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:25:08.240)

We have this atmosphere and then we have the stratosphere and it's going to be this biosphere

Lex Fridman (2:25:13.240)

and we're all going to be hooked into it mentally.

Lex Fridman (2:25:16.140)

So we'll be able to communicate in a way in which we don't communicate now.

Lex Fridman (2:25:20.600)

So you know, that sounds so similar to the singularity.

Lex Fridman (2:25:23.940)

So after I've read him many, many years ago, but when I read the Kurzweil's book about

Lex Fridman (2:25:30.720)

the singularity, to me, it read just like religious language.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:25:36.460)

Like it read like, you know, cause he, in fact, it's so much like revelation to me when

Lex Fridman (2:25:42.640)

I read it that I even assign it to my students in my classes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:25:46.040)

I'm like, this is, this is it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:25:48.200)

You know, this is like a really great book of the singularity, you know, the coming singularity.

Lex Fridman (2:25:53.080)

And this religious event, because it seems like it, when he writes about it, he says,

Lex Fridman (2:25:58.240)

I felt it before I even understood it.

Lex Fridman (2:26:01.320)

You know?

Lex Fridman (2:26:02.320)

He, I mean Kurzweil.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:26:03.320)

Kurzweil, yeah, Kurzweil.

Lex Fridman (2:26:04.320)

So what, I mean, what are your feelings about, not feelings, thoughts, feelings too, about

Lex Fridman (2:26:10.000)

the idea of the singularity?

Lex Fridman (2:26:12.760)

Do you think it's ultimately the thing that echoes throughout the history of ideas is

Lex Fridman (2:26:17.080)

this like moment of a revelation, like this, this almost mythological religious moment?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:26:27.240)

Or is there something more physical to this idea of concrete about the idea of, there'll

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:26:37.200)

come a point where our technology, there'll be like a phase shift between the basic fabric

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:26:43.880)

of like humanity, of how we interact, you know, how evolution brought us to be these

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:26:49.120)

biological interaction, that our technology crosses some kind of line of capability that

Lex Fridman (2:26:56.040)

the world would be more technology than human to where it'll leave us behind.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:01.960)

Sort of.

Lex Fridman (2:27:02.960)

Oh yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:03.960)

I don't think it's going to leave us behind.

Lex Fridman (2:27:05.680)

I think it's going to take us along.

Lex Fridman (2:27:08.400)

But it will be, I mean, I guess the idea of the singularity, first of all, isn't the

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:12.320)

idea of the singularity is like, we can't possibly predict what's on the other side

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:15.520)

of the singularity.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:16.520)

These are the senses like, this is like the world will be fundamentally transformed.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:21.240)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:27:22.240)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:27:23.240)

So right.

Lex Fridman (2:27:24.240)

And then it was, you know, this was characterized in various movies like Lucy and stuff like

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:28.280)

that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:29.280)

You know, Lucy being the first human that, right, we, so kind of replicating that this

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:34.360)

is going to be the next iteration of humans is the singularity.

Lex Fridman (2:27:38.960)

I actually don't believe that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:41.360)

I'm frankly, however, and the reason I don't believe it is because we're material beings

Lex Fridman (2:27:47.040)

and technology has to have a host.

Lex Fridman (2:27:49.440)

So we're not going to, you know, become something super abstract.

Lex Fridman (2:27:54.000)

Like there's, it's just impossible to do.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:56.480)

There's nothing like that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:27:57.480)

Well, people will be listening to this podcast a hundred years from now and laughing at it

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:01.680)

because they'll be all existing in a virtual reality where it will be all information as

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:08.880)

opposed to material, meaning connected to some kind of concept of physical, physical

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:17.000)

reality.

Lex Fridman (2:28:18.000)

I don't even know the right words to use here.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:19.000)

You see, that's because there are none because there's no place from, there's no view from

Lex Fridman (2:28:24.680)

nowhere.

Lex Fridman (2:28:25.680)

There's no non material, like we have thoughts, but they're connected to us, right?

Lex Fridman (2:28:32.320)

They're in our, you know, they're somehow, okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:35.280)

As far as, as far as you know.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:37.640)

Listen, platonic forms, I think is about as, as, you know, close to what we're talking

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:43.840)

about as possible.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:45.640)

Like this place where these things exist and then there's like a physical instantiation

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:50.280)

of it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:28:51.280)

No, but see we're, the question is from the perspective of the platonic form, what does

Lex Fridman (2:28:57.840)

our physical world look like?

Lex Fridman (2:29:00.440)

You know what I'm saying?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:29:01.440)

Like, you know, if, if, if say you're a creature existing in a virtual reality, like if you

Lex Fridman (2:29:06.680)

grew up your whole life in a virtual reality game, like what is it?

Lex Fridman (2:29:13.720)

And somebody in that virtual reality world tells you that there actually exists this

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:29:18.400)

physical world and in fact your own, you think you're in this virtual world, but it's actually

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:29:25.960)

you're in a body and this is just your mind putting yourself and there's a piece of technology.

Lex Fridman (2:29:31.200)

Like how will they, how will they be able to think of that physical world?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:29:35.800)

Would they, would they sound exactly like you just sounded a minute ago saying like,

Lex Fridman (2:29:40.160)

well, that's silly.

Lex Fridman (2:29:41.800)

Who cares if there's a physical world?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:29:44.440)

It's the, the entirety of the perception and my memories and all of that is in this other

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:29:52.900)

realm of, of like information.

Lex Fridman (2:29:57.200)

It's just all just information.

Lex Fridman (2:29:58.980)

Why do I need some kind of weird meat bag to contain?

Lex Fridman (2:30:02.800)

So there's a great, again, I always, you know, return to something for your audience to read

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:08.120)

or you, there's a great, very short article online for free by David Chalmers.

Lex Fridman (2:30:14.280)

Do you know him?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:15.600)

He's the philosopher of consciousness.

Lex Fridman (2:30:16.600)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:17.600)

Interviewed him on this podcast.

Lex Fridman (2:30:18.600)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:19.600)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:30:20.600)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:21.600)

He's cool.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:22.600)

I used to, I was friends with his best friend for a while when, in, when I was in grad school.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:27.160)

He probably has some weird friends.

Lex Fridman (2:30:29.360)

He does.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:30.360)

He's a philosopher.

Lex Fridman (2:30:32.960)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:33.960)

So, I like his fashion choice and his style too and hang out with him a little bit.

Lex Fridman (2:30:39.440)

It's a great guy.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:40.440)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:30:41.440)

So he wrote this article, which I use a lot.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:30:44.960)

I love it because it's accessible to undergraduates and it's called Matrix as Metaphysics.

Lex Fridman (2:30:51.200)

And basically it's, it's an answer to external world skepticism, which is basically how do

Lex Fridman (2:30:56.960)

we know there's an external world, right?

Lex Fridman (2:30:58.940)

How do we know that we're not in a matrix right now?

Lex Fridman (2:31:01.540)

And so basically he's using, he's also, he even references, he uses a religious reference

Lex Fridman (2:31:09.680)

even.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:31:10.680)

He says, you could think of the Matrix of the movie as a new, as the new book of Genesis

Lex Fridman (2:31:19.600)

for our new world, right?

Lex Fridman (2:31:21.600)

And I thought, yeah, that's absolutely correct because, you know, we don't know and we don't,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:31:28.360)

we won't know for sure or for certain, therefore what we know is what is real to us.

Lex Fridman (2:31:34.960)

And so he goes through these scenarios and within philosophy it's called, there's a,

Lex Fridman (2:31:40.280)

this is different from that, but it's like this brain in a vat, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:31:43.440)

If you're a brain in a vat and some not so kind scientist is like recreating this world

Lex Fridman (2:31:48.880)

for you just to see, you know, and you think you're this awesome rock star, right?

Lex Fridman (2:31:54.080)

And you're living this awesome existence, but you're actually just this brain in this

Lex Fridman (2:31:57.260)

vat.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:31:58.260)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:31:59.260)

But there's still a brain in a vat, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:32:01.300)

So his idea in The Matrix as metaphysics kind of takes out the brain in a vat like this.

Lex Fridman (2:32:08.680)

I don't know if this is possible.

Lex Fridman (2:32:10.480)

So I've read critiques of this that, you know, what you're talking about is a non dualism,

Lex Fridman (2:32:15.880)

like there's like, you know, or it's not necessarily a non dualism.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:32:24.920)

I just, I mean, information in and of itself has to have some kind of material component

Lex Fridman (2:32:32.080)

to it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:32:33.080)

I mean, it's that when taking it outside of the realm of human beings, because dualism

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:32:38.920)

is kind of talking about humans in a sense, it's just possible to me that there could

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:32:44.660)

be creatures that exist in a very different form, perhaps rely on very different set of

Lex Fridman (2:32:51.480)

materials that may perhaps not even look like materials to us.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:32:57.680)

Yes, I agree.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:32:58.880)

Which is why like information, it could be, even in computers, the information that's

Lex Fridman (2:33:06.880)

traveling inside a computer is connected to actual material movement, right?

Lex Fridman (2:33:15.680)

So like it is ultimately connected to material movement, but it's less and less about the

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:33:20.600)

material and more and more about the information.

Lex Fridman (2:33:24.160)

So I just mean that there's, it's possible that...

Lex Fridman (2:33:27.360)

You think the singularity is basically like sloughing off our material existence?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:33:32.520)

Because I can tell you that this has been the hope of philosophers and theologians forever.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:33:38.920)

Yeah, well, I don't, I think we're living in a, through a singularity.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:33:43.360)

I don't think, I think this world, just like, as you've said already, has been already

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:33:50.440)

transformed significantly and keeps continually being transformed.

Lex Fridman (2:33:53.360)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:33:54.360)

And we're just riding this big, beautiful wave of transformation.

Lex Fridman (2:33:59.120)

And that's why it's both exciting and terrifying from a scientific perspective that like we're

Lex Fridman (2:34:08.600)

so bad at predicting the future and the future is always so amazing in terms of the things

Lex Fridman (2:34:15.000)

that has brought us.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:34:16.240)

I mean, I don't know if it's always will be this exciting in terms of the rate of innovation,

Lex Fridman (2:34:21.560)

but it seems to be increasing still.

Lex Fridman (2:34:23.760)

And it's really exciting.

Lex Fridman (2:34:25.600)

It's exciting.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:34:26.600)

I think so too.

Lex Fridman (2:34:27.600)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:34:28.600)

It's terrifying because obviously we're building better and better tools for destroying ourselves.

Lex Fridman (2:34:32.720)

But I, on the optimistic side, believe that we're also can build better and better tools

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:34:38.720)

to defend against all the ways we can destroy ourselves.

Lex Fridman (2:34:41.600)

And it's kind of this interesting race of innovation.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:34:45.560)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:34:47.680)

Books are great.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:34:48.680)

Of course, the greatest book of all time, two of the greatest books of all time are

Lex Fridman (2:34:53.160)

yours.

Lex Fridman (2:34:54.160)

But besides those, what books, technical, fiction or philosophical, had an impact on

Lex Fridman (2:35:04.440)

your life or possibly you think others might want to read and get some insights from?

Lex Fridman (2:35:10.800)

And what ideas did you pick up from them?

Lex Fridman (2:35:13.040)

Great.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:35:14.040)

Okay, I really enjoy Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (2:35:16.480)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:35:17.480)

So anything by Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (2:35:19.800)

He's a philosopher.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:35:20.800)

I actually hated him when I first read him in my early twenties.

Lex Fridman (2:35:25.880)

That's like the opposite of most people's experience, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:35:28.400)

They usually love them in their twenties and then they throw them to the curb.

Lex Fridman (2:35:32.960)

Later.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:35:33.960)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:35:34.960)

I think he's totally misrepresented and misinterpreted.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:35:38.240)

He grew on you.

Lex Fridman (2:35:39.240)

Well, it happened in one night.

Lex Fridman (2:35:41.500)

So let me just describe it because it's kind of funny.

Lex Fridman (2:35:45.440)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:35:46.440)

Happened on New Year's.

Lex Fridman (2:35:47.440)

So I had friends when I was in my twenties and they kept telling me, you have to read

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:35:51.960)

Nietzsche, you have to read Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (2:35:52.960)

And I tried.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:35:53.960)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:35:54.960)

But again, you know, no, I was not into how he described the philosophical concepts he

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:36:02.080)

was trying to get across.

Lex Fridman (2:36:04.360)

But they weren't giving up, I have very persistent friends.

Lex Fridman (2:36:09.320)

So one of them gave me The Gay Science and I had it on my bookstand and it was New Year's

Lex Fridman (2:36:18.160)

Eve and I'm actually not a big part, I'm actually an introvert.

Lex Fridman (2:36:22.120)

I'm a geeky introvert, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:36:24.160)

So I don't go out and party a lot.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:36:26.320)

It was New Year's Eve, even that couldn't get me out to go party.

Lex Fridman (2:36:29.440)

So I just wanted to go to bed and New Year's Eve hit and everybody went out and I was asleep

Lex Fridman (2:36:34.780)

and they woke me up and I was like, darn, they woke me up, eh, might as well read this

Lex Fridman (2:36:38.680)

book by Nietzsche.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:36:39.680)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:36:40.680)

So I picked it up and lo and behold, I turned to a page that was exactly about, it was called

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:36:45.200)

Sanctus Januarius, which is basically St. January and it was about New Year's Eve.

Lex Fridman (2:36:50.320)

And I thought, whoa, what a weird coincidence.

Lex Fridman (2:36:53.000)

And it was also super Catholic and it was a really beautiful little aphorism.

Lex Fridman (2:36:59.040)

It's actually a book of aphorisms, which are kind of religious, right?

Lex Fridman (2:37:03.180)

And so it's religious, the genre is religious, let's put it that way, but he's not.

Lex Fridman (2:37:08.080)

So basically he says, today's the day when people are supposed to make these resolutions,

Lex Fridman (2:37:13.760)

right?

Lex Fridman (2:37:14.760)

And he says, from here on out, I will never say no, I will only say yes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:37:20.600)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:37:21.600)

I look away, if something's horrible, I'll just look away from it, I won't get angry

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:37:24.400)

at it.

Lex Fridman (2:37:25.400)

And then he also says, I will be like St. January.

Lex Fridman (2:37:28.440)

And St. January is actually the saint whose blood is in this place in Italy.

Lex Fridman (2:37:33.600)

I think it's in Italy, and every year it turns to blood again.

Lex Fridman (2:37:39.660)

So it's like it's desiccated, so it's this miracle, it says, my blood is now, it flows

Lex Fridman (2:37:46.800)

again.

Lex Fridman (2:37:47.800)

And I was like, wow, that's really beautiful.

Lex Fridman (2:37:48.800)

And I said, and a strange coincidence because it just turned 12th.

Lex Fridman (2:37:54.120)

So it's like New Year's Eve, I pick up the book, I read this aphorism and I said, strange

Lex Fridman (2:37:59.060)

coincidence that.

Lex Fridman (2:38:00.680)

And then I turned the page, and the page is about coincidences.

Lex Fridman (2:38:03.720)

And I was like, I shut it, and I thought, this is weird.

Lex Fridman (2:38:07.440)

And I felt like it was alive, I felt like the book was alive and Nietzsche was speaking

Lex Fridman (2:38:11.280)

to me, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:38:12.280)

I had a experience and engagement with Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (2:38:15.540)

And so after that, I couldn't put his stuff down, it was engaging, fascinating, everything.

Lex Fridman (2:38:21.240)

So yeah, so that's one book, The Gay Science.

Lex Fridman (2:38:23.600)

What did you pick up from The Gay Science or from Nietzsche in general?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:38:27.520)

Because there's some ideas that just kind of...

Lex Fridman (2:38:30.920)

Yeah, the idea is basically that truth, he's got awesome one liners.

Lex Fridman (2:38:35.840)

So truth is a woman.

Lex Fridman (2:38:39.280)

So okay, what does he mean by that?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:38:42.740)

Truth is a woman.

Lex Fridman (2:38:43.740)

Basically, she's going to lie to you.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:38:45.560)

She looks real attractive, but she's not going to tell you the truth.

Lex Fridman (2:38:49.840)

Oh, Nietzsche.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:38:51.560)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:38:52.560)

So okay, so basically, I'm not saying that that's true about women.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:38:56.720)

I'm obviously a woman.

Lex Fridman (2:38:58.800)

So basically what he's saying is that truth is like what I said, Brother Guy said, it's

Lex Fridman (2:39:04.680)

a moving target, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:39:06.560)

We started this whole conversation with what's real, right?

Lex Fridman (2:39:09.920)

So I should have just gone straight to Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (2:39:11.880)

Haven't you heard truth is a woman?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:39:13.880)

Okay, so truth is a woman.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:39:17.080)

All right, so that and also, and Foucault, this other philosopher, French philosopher

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:39:21.480)

actually takes up this idea and creates his own framework called genealogy from it.

Lex Fridman (2:39:28.120)

So the genealogy of morals, so that we only believe certain things and we sediment them

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:39:34.080)

into truth.

Lex Fridman (2:39:35.080)

So we say a truth told, who said that?

Lex Fridman (2:39:38.920)

Was it Lenin or Stalin?

Lex Fridman (2:39:40.400)

A truth told enough times, I mean, a lie told enough times becomes the truth.

Lex Fridman (2:39:46.440)

So that's basically Nietzschean right there, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:39:48.520)

So that's Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (2:39:49.520)

So Nietzsche also is a huge critic of Christianity, which I'm actually Catholic, I'm a practicing

Lex Fridman (2:39:56.000)

Catholic.

Lex Fridman (2:39:57.000)

So I appreciated his critique, I thought it was actually quite accurate.

Lex Fridman (2:40:02.640)

He's a critique of religion in general and he's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (2:40:06.400)

And also I find that he talks about altered states of consciousness and he calls them

Lex Fridman (2:40:12.160)

elevated states.

Lex Fridman (2:40:14.240)

And I think through his book, you can actually experience elevated states.

Lex Fridman (2:40:18.280)

So yeah, Nietzsche, thumbs up.

Lex Fridman (2:40:23.680)

So what other books?

Lex Fridman (2:40:24.680)

Yeah, okay.

Lex Fridman (2:40:25.680)

So Hannah Rent, she is a philosopher that not a lot of people know about, but she was

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:40:30.600)

a Jewish woman during the Holocaust and she was interned at Bergen Belsen, which was basically

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:40:38.560)

Auschwitz for women and she escaped.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:40:42.000)

She came to the United States and she had worked with Heidegger, even though he's supposed

Lex Fridman (2:40:45.600)

to be anti Semitic and a Nazi and everything, but they were lovers, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:40:50.800)

So she comes out and she's at Columbia University and she teaches philosophy there.

Lex Fridman (2:40:55.160)

And she writes two books, which I'll recommend.

Lex Fridman (2:40:58.680)

One is called Eichmann in Jerusalem, where she attends the Nuremberg trials.

Lex Fridman (2:41:03.480)

And she basically makes this really astute observation about evil.

Lex Fridman (2:41:07.800)

And she says, Eichmann is one of the people who sent the Jews to the concentration camps

Lex Fridman (2:41:11.720)

who ran the trains, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:41:14.220)

And she said, the thing about Eichmann was that he didn't seem particularly evil.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:41:19.960)

Actually, he seemed to be quite a nice guy.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:41:23.360)

She said, what was interesting about him was he seemed incredibly thoughtless and stupid.

Lex Fridman (2:41:28.360)

And she said, and he used a lot of stereotypes like memes.

Lex Fridman (2:41:31.520)

So she actually wrote about memes before we had them.

Lex Fridman (2:41:34.640)

And now people just use memes and they're actually used against us even.

Lex Fridman (2:41:38.280)

There's even a segments of warfare called memetic warfare, all right?

Lex Fridman (2:41:42.800)

So memes are something that can sway a whole population of people.

Lex Fridman (2:41:47.040)

So she wrote about memes before they were even in existence.

Lex Fridman (2:41:50.680)

And that's Eichmann in Jerusalem.

Lex Fridman (2:41:51.680)

And I think she also has some really amazing things to say about evil is that when people

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:41:58.400)

remain thoughtless, she has another book called The Life of the Mind, which is gigantic.

Lex Fridman (2:42:02.880)

And I don't think anybody will read it, but frankly, it's one of the best books I've

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:42:07.480)

ever read.

Lex Fridman (2:42:08.480)

And I've read it many times.

Lex Fridman (2:42:09.920)

And basically, The Life of the Mind, in The Life of the Mind, she asks a very simple question.

Lex Fridman (2:42:13.720)

She says, why do people do bad things?

Lex Fridman (2:42:15.840)

Why are they evil?

Lex Fridman (2:42:17.040)

And what she says is she wonders if it's, she says that bad people sleep well at night

Lex Fridman (2:42:22.580)

contrary to, you know how the saying, how do you sleep at night?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:42:25.720)

Well, that's only because you're a good person that you're asking that question because you

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:42:29.160)

actually have a conscience and a conscience is this dual kind of, you fight with yourself

Lex Fridman (2:42:33.640)

about the consequences of your actions.

Lex Fridman (2:42:36.480)

And she says, bad people don't seem to have a conscience.

Lex Fridman (2:42:39.820)

Do they actually sleep well at night?

Lex Fridman (2:42:41.640)

And so she goes through a whole history of philosophy about evil, and that's really a

Lex Fridman (2:42:45.880)

good one too.

Lex Fridman (2:42:46.880)

But I also have to recommend this one too.

Lex Fridman (2:42:49.040)

There's one more.

Lex Fridman (2:42:50.040)

So I know I recommended two, but just from the same philosopher.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:42:53.100)

My friend Jeffrey Kreipel, he's at Rice University and he's in my field, religious studies.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:42:58.600)

He's written several books.

Lex Fridman (2:42:59.880)

I mean, he's written a heck of a lot of books, let's put it that way.

Lex Fridman (2:43:02.600)

But I think his best book or the one that impacted me the most is called Authors of

Lex Fridman (2:43:07.520)

the Impossible.

Lex Fridman (2:43:09.200)

And his book, his writing is very much like Nietzsche's writing in the sense that he,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:43:15.120)

it's almost as if he reaches out of the pages and he grabs you and he kind of slaps you

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:43:19.200)

around and says, think about this, you know, and you can't help but be changed after you've

Lex Fridman (2:43:24.600)

read it.

Lex Fridman (2:43:25.600)

And he's got a great chapter in there about Jacques Vallée.

Lex Fridman (2:43:27.720)

Oh, so he covers a bunch of different thinkers and authors that somehow are, what is it?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:43:37.240)

Some aspect of revolutionism aspect.

Lex Fridman (2:43:39.720)

They're thinking the impossible.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:43:42.180)

There's a great one he's written called Mutants and Mystics, where he talks about the comic

Lex Fridman (2:43:47.520)

strips, the, gosh, why can't I remember the name of the person?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:43:52.040)

He just died, Stan Lee.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:43:53.760)

He talks about the history of the comics by Stan Lee and they're all paranormal.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:43:58.700)

They all start off super paranormal and it's fascinating.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:44:03.240)

On the topic of Hannah Arendt, so I haven't read her work, but I've vaguely touched upon

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:44:13.280)

sort of like commentary of her work and it seems like some people think her work is dangerous

Lex Fridman (2:44:20.320)

in some aspect.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:44:21.320)

I don't know if you can comment on why that is.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:44:27.160)

It feels like similar with Ayn Rand or something like that, where like this is, I should say

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:44:32.400)

not dangerous, but controversial.

Lex Fridman (2:44:34.120)

Yes, it is.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:44:35.120)

Yes, they think it's controversial.

Lex Fridman (2:44:36.880)

This is the reason I believe, I've heard of the controversy.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:44:40.360)

The controversy is that she didn't, first of all, she is Jewish and she did escape a

Lex Fridman (2:44:47.520)

concentration camp and yet she's called, she's been called anti Jewish.

Lex Fridman (2:44:54.360)

And I think part of that was that she basically was saying something that I believe that a

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:45:01.600)

lot of normal people are like Eichmann and evil things are done by people who just follow

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:45:08.760)

the rules and they don't think about what they're doing.

Lex Fridman (2:45:12.640)

And that's one of the most pernicious forms of evil of our time.

Lex Fridman (2:45:18.320)

So we talked quite a bit about the definitions of religion and what are the different building

Lex Fridman (2:45:24.820)

blocks of religion.

Lex Fridman (2:45:26.280)

So one of the, I don't think we touched on, we did a little bit with the afterlife, but

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:45:32.020)

in a sense, I don't know if you're familiar with the Ernest Becker work and all the philosophies

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:45:36.440)

around there about the fear of death and how the fear of our own mortality, awareness of

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:45:44.940)

our mortality and its fear is in case of Ernest Becker is a significant component in the psychology

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:45:57.120)

in the way we humans develop our understanding of the world.

Lex Fridman (2:46:01.320)

So what are your thoughts in the context of religion or maybe in the context of your own

Lex Fridman (2:46:09.440)

mind about the role of death in life or fear of death in life and are you afraid of death?

Lex Fridman (2:46:19.760)

We cover everything in this podcast.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:46:22.520)

Every single topic is covered.

Lex Fridman (2:46:25.280)

Wow.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:46:26.280)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:46:27.280)

I so happen to have benefited perhaps from living with an older brother who seemingly

Lex Fridman (2:46:36.600)

had no fear of death while growing up and he did everything, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:46:42.880)

So he climbed mountains, he was a rock climber, he jumped out of airplanes.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:46:49.440)

Of course, he had to be a Green Beret and go into the special forces where that type

Lex Fridman (2:46:53.720)

of thing is a requirement, right?

Lex Fridman (2:46:57.800)

And so because of that, I did a lot of things outside of my comfort zone and which probably

Lex Fridman (2:47:03.340)

I shouldn't have done and hope to goodness, my kids don't do them, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:47:09.560)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:47:10.560)

So do I fear death?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:47:12.560)

I think about death a lot actually.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:47:14.920)

You may not know this about me, but in my field, I was the head, I was the co chair

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:47:20.720)

of the death panel.

Lex Fridman (2:47:22.640)

It's called the death panel.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:47:23.640)

No, it's like it's the panel to think about death in religious studies and I was that

Lex Fridman (2:47:31.240)

for many years.

Lex Fridman (2:47:32.240)

So you've thought about it a bit.

Lex Fridman (2:47:34.120)

A bit.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:47:35.120)

Let's see, I think that people are a little too confident, I think about life in general

Lex Fridman (2:47:40.240)

that they're gonna kind of live all the time and not die.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:47:43.680)

I happen to, I mean, I hate to say it, I'm super positive and most people would consider

Lex Fridman (2:47:48.800)

me to be too happy almost, right?

Lex Fridman (2:47:52.000)

And so it's odd then that I spend a lot of time thinking about death, but I wonder if

Lex Fridman (2:47:56.440)

there's a connection there.

Lex Fridman (2:47:58.520)

I'm happy to be alive, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:01.240)

That's kind of what the thinking about death does is it makes you appreciate the days that

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:04.880)

you do have.

Lex Fridman (2:48:05.880)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:06.880)

It's a weird controversy.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:07.880)

I tend to believe that the fact that this life ends gives each day a significant amount

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:17.520)

of meaning.

Lex Fridman (2:48:19.560)

So I don't know, it seems like an important feature of life.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:23.600)

It's not like a bug, it seems like a feature that it ends, but it's a strange feature because

Lex Fridman (2:48:28.680)

I wish it, like all the good stuff you wish it wouldn't end.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:32.040)

Well, you know what's interesting, Lex, and I do point this out to my students because

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:36.160)

we cover in a lot of the basic studies courses I teach, we cover all religions or as many

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:41.640)

as we can, like the major religions.

Lex Fridman (2:48:43.720)

And so take Hinduism, for example.

Lex Fridman (2:48:46.680)

Now this is an ancient religion, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:48:48.760)

So you and I are here talking about how we enjoy living and life and things like that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:48:52.720)

Well, the goal of Hinduism is basically never to get reincarnated again, is basically to

Lex Fridman (2:48:57.800)

not live, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:48:59.440)

And to get off samsara, which is the wheel of life and death.

Lex Fridman (2:49:02.720)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:03.720)

Escape the whole thing.

Lex Fridman (2:49:04.720)

Yeah, exactly.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:05.720)

Think of that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:06.720)

Conditions are so different that you and I and my students are happy to be alive.

Lex Fridman (2:49:11.380)

But back in the day, thousands of years ago, when they wrote, they actually didn't write

Lex Fridman (2:49:17.000)

it, they spoke the Vedas, which were the sacred traditions of India.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:21.120)

They wanted off.

Lex Fridman (2:49:22.120)

They didn't want to come back.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:24.160)

Life was terrible.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:25.720)

That's what people don't have the adequate understanding of history, that for the majority

Lex Fridman (2:49:30.680)

of people, life is really hard, right?

Lex Fridman (2:49:34.400)

And you and I are, and your audience, among the lucky.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:38.600)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:49:39.600)

Yeah, we actually like life.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:42.440)

We want to live.

Lex Fridman (2:49:45.160)

Most of the time.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:46.160)

Yeah, most of the time.

Lex Fridman (2:49:47.160)

What do you think the biggest, since we're covering every single possible topic, let

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:51.400)

me ask the biggest one, the unanswerable one.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:54.960)

From the perspective of alien intelligence, or from the perspective of religious studies,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:49:59.600)

or from the perspective of just Diana, what do you think is the meaning of this existence

Lex Fridman (2:50:05.960)

of this life of ours?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:07.960)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (2:50:08.960)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:09.960)

So, all right.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:10.960)

So, well, of course I have to, my philosophical training as an undergrad always makes me think

Lex Fridman (2:50:20.200)

about like, what's the assumption in your question?

Lex Fridman (2:50:24.400)

There's an assumption there.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:25.400)

It's like, there is a meaning.

Lex Fridman (2:50:26.400)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:27.400)

That's the assumption.

Lex Fridman (2:50:28.400)

What do you mean by meaning?

Lex Fridman (2:50:29.400)

What do you mean by life?

Lex Fridman (2:50:30.400)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:50:31.400)

Can you define the terms?

Lex Fridman (2:50:32.400)

No, no.

Lex Fridman (2:50:33.400)

But listen.

Lex Fridman (2:50:34.400)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:35.400)

I'll answer your question.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:36.400)

I'm just going to say that there's this assumption that we should have meaning to life.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:37.400)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:50:38.400)

Well, maybe we shouldn't.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:39.400)

Maybe it's just all random.

Lex Fridman (2:50:40.400)

Okay.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:41.400)

However, I believe that it's not.

Lex Fridman (2:50:42.400)

And in my opinion, the meaning of life, in my opinion, is intrinsic.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:46.960)

I enjoy living.

Lex Fridman (2:50:48.200)

I want to live.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:49.200)

Sometimes I don't enjoy living.

Lex Fridman (2:50:50.680)

And when I don't enjoy living, I change my circumstances.

Lex Fridman (2:50:53.320)

So it's intrinsic.

Lex Fridman (2:50:54.960)

And I think that certain things are intrinsic and like love, love of your children is kind

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:50:59.600)

of, well, it's actually physiological, but it's also intrinsic.

Lex Fridman (2:51:03.800)

It's beautiful.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:51:04.800)

You know, there's something about it that is intrinsically desirable.

Lex Fridman (2:51:12.320)

So I think the meaning of life is like that, intrinsically desirable.

Lex Fridman (2:51:17.000)

So it's something that just is born inside you based on what makes you feel good?

Lex Fridman (2:51:25.560)

No, that's hedonism.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:51:27.720)

That's about what a wordy place, love, love, love of your children.

Lex Fridman (2:51:32.080)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:51:33.080)

So basically, love of your children, by the way, is not always easy because they do things

Lex Fridman (2:51:39.120)

that they shouldn't do.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:51:40.840)

You have to discipline them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:51:41.880)

That's one of the worst things about parenthood to me is disciplining my children.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:51:45.280)

I don't like to do that.

Lex Fridman (2:51:46.280)

I love them.

Lex Fridman (2:51:48.360)

So a lot of things that I do that I feel are good are not easy.

Lex Fridman (2:51:55.120)

So there's an intrinsic sense that, like, okay, let's take animals, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:52:01.180)

So we have dogs and cats, okay?

Lex Fridman (2:52:02.640)

So you might not, but I do.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:52:05.000)

I told you about them.

Lex Fridman (2:52:07.760)

Can you share their names?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:52:10.520)

If I share their names, I will share their names.

Lex Fridman (2:52:12.560)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:52:13.560)

So we have a cat, and it has red fluffy hair, and so we called it Trump.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:52:18.160)

Well, when we got our dog, we figured that it needed a companion, so we called it Putin.

Lex Fridman (2:52:23.560)

So we have Trump and Putin.

Lex Fridman (2:52:24.880)

Those are the greatest pet names of all time, I'm sorry.

Lex Fridman (2:52:30.480)

And maybe we'll be able to share a picture of your cat because this is awesome.

Lex Fridman (2:52:36.280)

It is really cute, yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:52:38.880)

Very photogenic.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:52:39.880)

I mean, is this something that's, whether we're talking about love or the intrinsic

Lex Fridman (2:52:49.360)

meaning, do you think that's something that's really special to humans?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:52:54.960)

Or if there is intelligent alien civilizations out there, do you think that's something that

Lex Fridman (2:53:01.640)

they possess as well, maybe in different forms?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:53:06.000)

Like whatever this thing that meaning is, this intrinsic drive that we have, do you

Lex Fridman (2:53:13.720)

think that's just a property of life, of some level of complexity?

Lex Fridman (2:53:19.680)

That we will see that everywhere in this universe?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:53:22.640)

In my opinion, and this is just my opinion, I do think that it is, but I also think that

Lex Fridman (2:53:28.600)

it can take different forms.

Lex Fridman (2:53:30.360)

So if there is like, think of gravity, right?

Lex Fridman (2:53:33.480)

Gravity kind of like makes stuff stick to it, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:53:36.280)

It attracts stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:53:37.480)

Well, what is love to you?

Lex Fridman (2:53:38.920)

That does that too, right?

Lex Fridman (2:53:40.280)

So people who are, we call them charismatic.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:53:43.840)

Charism, it means love.

Lex Fridman (2:53:46.120)

Charism means light and love.

Lex Fridman (2:53:47.560)

So a charismatic person is a person who attracts people to them like the sun does, right?

Lex Fridman (2:53:54.000)

Like, you know?

Lex Fridman (2:53:56.780)

So I think that whatever this property is, that's intrinsic, is like gravity and most

Lex Fridman (2:54:02.980)

likely takes different forms in different types of life forms.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:54:06.720)

Yeah, I can't wait until like a Albert Einstein type of figure in the future will discover

Lex Fridman (2:54:12.960)

that love is in fact one of the fundamental forces of physics.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:54:17.240)

That would be cool.

Lex Fridman (2:54:19.280)

Diana, this is one of the favorite conversations I've ever had.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:54:23.440)

It's truly an honor to talk to you and thank you so much for spending all this time with

Lex Fridman (2:54:28.080)

me.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:54:29.080)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (2:54:30.080)

It's been fun.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:54:31.080)

Thank you.

Lex Fridman (2:54:32.080)

Thank you for this conversation with Diana Walsh Pasalka.

Lex Fridman (2:54:34.600)

And thank you to our sponsors, Element Electrolight Drink, Grammarly Writing Plugin, Business

Lex Fridman (2:54:40.840)

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Lex Fridman (2:54:43.320)

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Lex Fridman (2:54:48.040)

Choose wisely, my friends.

Lex Fridman (2:54:49.600)

And if you wish, click the sponsor links below to get a discount and to support this podcast.

Lex Fridman (2:54:55.000)

And now let me leave you with some words from Carl Sagan, somewhere something incredible

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:55:00.160)

is waiting to be known.

Lex Fridman (2:55:02.440)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (30:00.420)

Yes, yeah.

Lex Fridman (30:01.620)

I mean, Plato, we know him for a reason, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (30:03.540)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (30:04.100)

So let's say that it's a gray area between religious and myths, and maybe not even...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (30:10.180)

It is gray, yeah.

Lex Fridman (30:12.500)

So how's that idea with little Plato start and permeate through all of society?

Lex Fridman (30:18.660)

Oh, how does it happen?

Lex Fridman (30:19.540)

Okay, so there are different ways that religions work.

Lex Fridman (30:22.980)

So a lot of people would call the UFO narrative today, and this is what I talk about in my

Lex Fridman (30:29.460)

book, like a myth, right, the UFO myth.

Lex Fridman (30:31.700)

But a lot of people believe in it, okay?

Lex Fridman (30:33.940)

So how do these things work?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (30:35.380)

Well, what I did was I took...

Lex Fridman (30:38.260)

There's a Ann Taves at UC Santa Barbara.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (30:42.500)

She's a pretty well known academic who studies religion, and she has this building block

Lex Fridman (30:48.020)

definition of religion, like it builds, okay?

Lex Fridman (30:50.500)

And so she says there are no religious experiences or mythic experiences.

Lex Fridman (30:56.820)

There are experiences.

Lex Fridman (30:59.060)

And then they get interpreted as religious or mythic, okay?

Lex Fridman (31:03.540)

And so I use that with the UFO narrative.

Lex Fridman (31:08.340)

So I take and I compare it to the religious narrative.

Lex Fridman (31:12.180)

So basically what happens?

Lex Fridman (31:14.660)

What happens is this, is that a person generally has a very intense experience.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (31:20.580)

It could be with something that they see in the sky, a being that they see, like Moses

Diana Walsh Pasulka (31:26.580)

in the burning bush or something like that.

Lex Fridman (31:28.340)

They tell other people, okay?

Lex Fridman (31:30.100)

And those other people believe them because they say, that guy, let's take you.

Lex Fridman (31:34.820)

Okay, Lex.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (31:35.620)

Okay, so you're playing some of your music.

Lex Fridman (31:39.220)

Jimi Hendrix shows up out of the blue.

Lex Fridman (31:41.380)

So Jimi Hendrix, who does Electric Church stuff, right?

Lex Fridman (31:44.740)

The Electric Church movement.

Lex Fridman (31:46.420)

So he shows up.

Lex Fridman (31:47.540)

I was, sorry for the small tension.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (31:50.100)

I'm not aware of, I apologize if I should be.

Lex Fridman (31:53.540)

I just know how to play all of the songs, Electric Church.

Lex Fridman (31:59.620)

Is this a thing?

Lex Fridman (32:00.580)

Yeah, it's Jimi Hendrix's thing.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:02.740)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (32:03.380)

That was like a philosophy of his or what?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:05.620)

Yes, yes, yes.

Lex Fridman (32:06.420)

So he thought it was like a mission for him, like he was a missionary.

Lex Fridman (32:10.900)

And he was like doing the Electric Church.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:13.380)

It was through his mission of music that he was actually impacting people spiritually.

Lex Fridman (32:18.580)

And I think you have to agree that his music is really spiritual, yeah.

Lex Fridman (32:21.860)

Wow, that's so cool to know that there's like a philosophy there.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:24.660)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (32:24.900)

I wonder if he's ever written anything.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:26.980)

He's spoken about it many times.

Lex Fridman (32:28.900)

Interesting.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:29.380)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (32:29.620)

I need to actually do some research here.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:31.860)

Wow, that adds another level of depth.

Lex Fridman (32:33.700)

That's awesome.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:34.580)

Okay, so.

Lex Fridman (32:35.700)

Okay, so say Lex is playing one of his songs.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:40.580)

He shows up.

Lex Fridman (32:41.300)

What's your favorite Hendrix song by the way?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:43.300)

Oh, that's a hard one.

Lex Fridman (32:44.420)

I like Castles in the Sand.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (32:45.940)

It's a sad one, but I like it.

Lex Fridman (32:48.500)

So I'm playing something and they show up.

Lex Fridman (32:50.740)

And all of a sudden, boom, just like Elvis does for people.

Lex Fridman (32:54.580)

Hendrix shows up, all right?

Lex Fridman (32:56.260)

And then you're amazed and he tells you something that's very, very significant.

Lex Fridman (33:00.980)

And he says, you need to tell other people this, okay?

Lex Fridman (33:03.380)

So then like, okay.

Lex Fridman (33:04.500)

I go on social media.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (33:06.180)

Yes, and you start.

Lex Fridman (33:07.620)

And because people believe you and because you are a person of credibility, people believe you.

Lex Fridman (33:15.300)

And so all of a sudden a movement starts, okay?

Lex Fridman (33:17.620)

And it's the Hendrix movement.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (33:19.220)

It's Hendrix 2 or something like that.

Lex Fridman (33:21.140)

You know, we call it something, the next iteration of Hendrix, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (33:25.060)

Hendrix lives, but he lives as this vibration.

Lex Fridman (33:28.180)

And only Lex can manifest this vibration, okay?

Lex Fridman (33:32.820)

So this is how religions start.

Lex Fridman (33:36.500)

Excuse your audience who are religious.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (33:37.860)

I'm actually a practicing Catholic.

Lex Fridman (33:39.140)

So this is how religion starts.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (33:40.980)

They start with, first off, a contact experience.

Lex Fridman (33:45.140)

Not all of them, but a good portion of them.

Lex Fridman (33:47.140)

And some person has an experience that's transcendent, sacred to them.

Lex Fridman (33:52.660)

And they go and they tell other people.

Lex Fridman (33:54.340)

And then those people tell other people.

Lex Fridman (33:56.740)

And then something gets written about it, okay?

Lex Fridman (33:59.380)

And then it becomes, because it's a charismatic movement, people become affected by it.

Lex Fridman (34:04.340)

And if too many people are affected by it, an institution steps in and tries to control

Diana Walsh Pasulka (34:10.100)

the narrative.

Lex Fridman (34:10.740)

So this is what you'd call the beginning of a religion or a myth, a very powerful myth.

Lex Fridman (34:16.660)

And so it's almost like a star, right?

Lex Fridman (34:19.060)

A star is born.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (34:20.100)

A star is born.

Lex Fridman (34:20.660)

Okay, yeah.

Lex Fridman (34:21.140)

When you say institution, do you mean some other organization that's already powerful?

Lex Fridman (34:25.940)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (34:26.260)

Doesn't want to become overpowered by this new movement?

Lex Fridman (34:29.620)

Yes, absolutely.

Lex Fridman (34:30.420)

Is this usually governments?

Lex Fridman (34:31.700)

It's usually, yeah.

Lex Fridman (34:32.660)

So I have a couple of examples.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (34:34.740)

I use the example of the Christian church in my book, because I'm most familiar with the

Diana Walsh Pasulka (34:38.980)

history of Christianity.

Lex Fridman (34:40.820)

And Christianity was started by this Jewish man.

Lex Fridman (34:45.140)

And it was a movement that he was a very powerful, charismatic person.

Lex Fridman (34:50.660)

Other people believed in him.

Lex Fridman (34:52.420)

And then his followers talked about him.

Lex Fridman (34:54.340)

And then usually early Christians before the 300s were generally people who were disenfranchised,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (35:04.500)

because he had a pretty radical idea that humans should have dignity.

Lex Fridman (35:10.340)

And this was pretty radical during that time.

Lex Fridman (35:12.580)

So women who didn't have dignity and slaves who didn't have dignity at the time converged

Lex Fridman (35:19.380)

to Christianity in droves.

Lex Fridman (35:20.980)

And so what happened was that all of a sudden it became this belief system that was undercurrent.

Lex Fridman (35:27.700)

And then Constantine, who was an elite, had an experience and made Christianity a state

Diana Walsh Pasulka (35:36.180)

religion.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (35:37.380)

By that time, there were different forms of Christianity, probably hundreds of them.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (35:41.860)

Well, most likely.

Lex Fridman (35:43.140)

And Constantine and the people who were powerful with him decided that their idea, this is

Diana Walsh Pasulka (35:51.380)

the Council of Nicaea now, decided that there was one form, and they called it universal.

Lex Fridman (35:56.660)

It's the one form of Christianity, and this should be it.

Lex Fridman (36:00.020)

And so they kind of took out all the other denominations of Christianity and different

Lex Fridman (36:04.900)

forms of it.

Lex Fridman (36:05.780)

So you can see that a very, very powerful set of beliefs put a culture on fire, right?

Lex Fridman (36:15.060)

And so they had to deal with that fire somehow.

Lex Fridman (36:19.060)

And so they narrativized it.

Lex Fridman (36:20.580)

They decided, how do we interpret this?

Lex Fridman (36:22.980)

And they interpreted it as they wished.

Lex Fridman (36:25.220)

But that wasn't the only interpretation of Christianity.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (36:27.940)

I have another example.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (36:29.700)

In the Catholic Church, a lot of times, and I'm going to use the example of Faustina.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (36:39.460)

She's a nun, and she's Polish.

Lex Fridman (36:41.700)

And I think it was in the early 20th century, if not the 1800s, that she had a very powerful,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (36:49.300)

many experiences, actually, of Jesus.

Lex Fridman (36:52.260)

And she saw Jesus with rays coming out of his heart.

Lex Fridman (36:57.220)

And basically, she called this his divine mercy, and it became a devotion in Poland,

Lex Fridman (37:03.060)

and it spread.

Lex Fridman (37:04.260)

The Catholic Church was not into this at all, okay?

Lex Fridman (37:07.620)

And so they did everything they could to try to suppress Faustina's influence, which was

Lex Fridman (37:13.140)

growing and growing and growing and growing, okay?

Lex Fridman (37:16.660)

And so they were very successful in trying to keep her quiet, and she died, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (37:20.740)

Years later, John Paul II, Polish, sainted her and created the divine mercy devotion,

Lex Fridman (37:28.740)

which is worldwide now, and millions and millions of people.

Lex Fridman (37:32.340)

But do you see how they completely controlled it there?

Lex Fridman (37:35.620)

So fascinating that it just starts with a single, like you said, contact experience.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (37:41.380)

Experience is the key word.

Lex Fridman (37:42.660)

And is your sense that those experiences are legitimate, so it's not...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (37:48.820)

Yes, for the most part.

Lex Fridman (37:50.980)

Somehow artificially constructed?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (37:52.660)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (37:52.980)

I think for the most part, they're legitimate experiences that people have.

Lex Fridman (37:56.180)

Why would someone want to put themselves through what they go through?

Lex Fridman (37:58.740)

Like, why would Jesus want to get crucified?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (38:00.900)

I mean, that's a pretty nasty way to die.

Lex Fridman (38:03.940)

Why would Faustina bring this upon herself?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (38:08.100)

The people that I meet who said that they've seen UFOs, that most of them don't want to

Lex Fridman (38:12.180)

be known because of the ridicule that goes along with it.

Lex Fridman (38:15.300)

So I honestly think that there are people who are maybe not stable and would like the

Lex Fridman (38:21.300)

attention, but for the most part, normal people don't want this attention.

Lex Fridman (38:25.380)

So you mentioned building blocks.

Lex Fridman (38:28.100)

You didn't mention the word God or sort of the afterlife.

Lex Fridman (38:33.940)

Are those essential to the myth?

Lex Fridman (38:36.580)

So there's a contact experience.

Lex Fridman (38:38.500)

Is there some other aspects of myth and religion which makes them viral?

Lex Fridman (38:43.540)

Which makes them spread and captivate the imagination of people?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (38:49.780)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (38:50.260)

Is there a pattern to them?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (38:53.060)

I think that for each era, it's different and people have...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (38:56.340)

First, let's talk about the definition of religion, if that's okay, because most people

Diana Walsh Pasulka (39:00.020)

assume the definitions that we in the West are familiar with, which is that, you know,

Lex Fridman (39:06.260)

that of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, you know, monotheistic religions.

Lex Fridman (39:11.940)

And those are just some religions.

Lex Fridman (39:16.740)

There are so many different types of religions.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (39:18.580)

Some religions have no God at all.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (39:21.460)

Zen Buddhism, for example, is a religion that asks you to take away your belief structures,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (39:28.260)

like to kind of like...

Lex Fridman (39:29.300)

In fact, I would call that a Kantian type religion, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (39:32.580)

In that it's basically telling you to get rid of your concepts of what you think about

Diana Walsh Pasulka (39:37.940)

things so that you can actually have the experience, like you were talking about earlier,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (39:42.420)

of the thing in itself.

Lex Fridman (39:43.940)

And they call that Satori.

Lex Fridman (39:45.700)

So there are people who believe, you know, they try to...

Lex Fridman (39:49.700)

They call it meditation, Zen meditation, and it's fairly radical, actually.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (39:55.700)

In some monasteries, I don't know if they still do this, but they'll whack you on the

Lex Fridman (40:00.340)

head if you appear to be not focusing and, you know, that kind of thing.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (40:06.980)

You know, they do things to basically take you away from your conceptions of reality

Lex Fridman (40:13.700)

and bring you into a state of all that is, which is what they call Satori.

Lex Fridman (40:19.540)

And that has nothing to do with God.

Lex Fridman (40:22.500)

I like this religion.

Lex Fridman (40:23.700)

And anything that involves sticks and whacking in order for you to focus better, I'm gonna

Lex Fridman (40:28.900)

have to join a monastery.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (40:30.100)

So, okay, so digging into definitions of religion.

Lex Fridman (40:34.900)

So like, what do you think is the scope that defines a religion?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (40:41.060)

Oh, okay.

Lex Fridman (40:41.700)

So in my field, we have a few different definitions of religion, as you can imagine, just like

Diana Walsh Pasulka (40:46.900)

philosophers have different definitions of what is real.

Lex Fridman (40:50.340)

So I take this definition and it comes from John Livingston.

Lex Fridman (40:54.100)

And it's, religion is that set of beliefs and practices that is inspired by a transformative,

Lex Fridman (41:02.660)

what is perceived actually to be a transformative and sacred power.

Lex Fridman (41:07.940)

Can you say that again?

Lex Fridman (41:08.820)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (41:09.540)

So religion is a set of, it's not just belief, it's also practices.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (41:13.540)

It's both belief and practices, because you won't have the practices without the belief.

Lex Fridman (41:17.460)

So you have those together, okay, and it's inspired by what is perceived, because we

Diana Walsh Pasulka (41:22.900)

don't know if it's real or not, what is perceived to be of sacred and transforming power.

Lex Fridman (41:28.260)

So perceived by the followers, or is this connected to the original sort of experience?

Lex Fridman (41:33.060)

No, no, well, it's perceived by the followers.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (41:36.020)

That's a really good definition.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (41:37.300)

So, and that's the governing idea is that there's something of great power, perceived

Diana Walsh Pasulka (41:45.220)

to be of great power, which you can connect yourself either emotionally or intellectually

Lex Fridman (41:51.620)

somehow in order to explore the world that is beyond your own capabilities.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (41:55.860)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (41:56.580)

And is there communication also involved?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (41:58.980)

Generally, yeah.

Lex Fridman (42:00.980)

That's a great definition.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (42:02.260)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (42:02.740)

So within that falls everything that we've talked about so far, including technology

Lex Fridman (42:08.420)

and alien life and so on.

Lex Fridman (42:12.580)

Do you think ultimately religion is good for human civilization?

Lex Fridman (42:19.700)

Let me maybe phrase it differently is what's religion good for?

Lex Fridman (42:25.380)

Okay, yeah, that's a great question.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (42:27.460)

Thanks for asking that.

Lex Fridman (42:28.740)

Most people don't ask that.

Lex Fridman (42:30.260)

And I think it's the question to ask, why do we still have religion?

Lex Fridman (42:34.900)

That's the question, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (42:36.020)

Because scientists and others, scholars, humanists even thought that there's this thing called

Diana Walsh Pasulka (42:45.780)

the secularization thesis, and it's this idea that the more we progress rationally and we

Diana Walsh Pasulka (42:53.780)

have better instruments for understanding our reality, the less religious we will be.

Lex Fridman (42:57.940)

But that's been found to be untrue.

Lex Fridman (43:00.340)

We're still very religious, okay?

Lex Fridman (43:01.860)

So why?

Lex Fridman (43:02.500)

Why is it around?

Lex Fridman (43:03.540)

Well, it's adaptive in some way, in my opinion.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (43:06.420)

Many people would not agree with me, but I kind of see it as an evolutionary adaptation.

Lex Fridman (43:12.180)

Now, think about religions, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (43:17.700)

Think about Christianity again, for one.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (43:20.340)

Here comes this idea when you have this ruthless empire called the Roman Empire, which litters

Lex Fridman (43:25.780)

its roads with crucified bodies to let you know, don't mess with us, okay?

Lex Fridman (43:33.140)

All right.

Lex Fridman (43:33.700)

Here all of a sudden you have this guy saying, God is love, okay?

Lex Fridman (43:37.780)

All right, well, that's weird.

Lex Fridman (43:39.460)

Okay, so why?

Lex Fridman (43:40.580)

Why does this take off?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (43:41.860)

Well, it takes off because we're becoming a colonial power.

Lex Fridman (43:47.780)

That means we're going into other countries, we're conquering them.

Lex Fridman (43:54.100)

How do we survive together as cultures that don't clash?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (44:00.020)

Well, we have to have a belief structure that allows us to, and I think religions function

Diana Walsh Pasulka (44:04.340)

that way, frankly.

Lex Fridman (44:05.620)

So religions help us, so Richard Dawkins's meme idea, it allows us to explore a space

Diana Walsh Pasulka (44:14.100)

of ideas, and that in itself is the, so it's like evolution of ideas, and religion is a

Lex Fridman (44:22.660)

powerful tool for us to explore ideas.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (44:25.220)

Because if I believe that men have souls.

Lex Fridman (44:31.300)

Do they?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (44:31.700)

Yes, they do, okay.

Lex Fridman (44:36.820)

I'm still trying to figure that out.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (44:39.380)

Well, I still, in terms of souls, do believe cats don't have souls, but we'll never be

Lex Fridman (44:47.860)

able to confirm that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (44:49.460)

Maybe if we get better instruments, the soul instrument, you need to come up with that

Lex Fridman (44:53.620)

one, please.

Lex Fridman (44:54.740)

For cats?

Lex Fridman (44:55.620)

Yeah, not just for cats, but for all animals and people in general.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (44:58.660)

For sure, you could put them in like a little, you know, soul machine and find out what's

Lex Fridman (45:04.020)

the status of their soul.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (45:07.300)

That's funny.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (45:08.260)

I hope we'll become a scientific discipline of consciousness, and consciousness is in

Diana Walsh Pasulka (45:13.060)

some sense connected to maybe what the meaning of the word soul used to be.

Lex Fridman (45:18.900)

And I think it's a fascinating open question, like what is consciousness and so on that

Diana Walsh Pasulka (45:23.460)

maybe we'll touch on in a little bit.

Lex Fridman (45:26.740)

But yeah, anyway, back to our...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (45:28.820)

Religions being adaptive.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (45:30.260)

I think that Christianity probably helped us become better people to each other as we

Diana Walsh Pasulka (45:37.540)

moved into a more global society.

Lex Fridman (45:40.500)

And I also, it goes along with my book, which is basically making the argument that belief

Diana Walsh Pasulka (45:45.460)

in nonhuman intelligence or ETs or UFOs, UAPs, whatever you want to call them, is a new form

Lex Fridman (45:51.860)

of religion.

Lex Fridman (45:52.820)

And how does that work with the scientific method?

Lex Fridman (45:58.260)

Do you think there's always this role of religion as being, in its broad definition of religion,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:03.700)

as being a complement to our sort of very rigorous empirical pursuit of understanding

Lex Fridman (46:09.700)

reality?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:10.500)

There's always going to be this coupling.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:12.660)

We'll always define, redefine new eras of civilization of what that religion actually

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:19.300)

looks like.

Lex Fridman (46:19.780)

So you talk about technology and so on being the modern set of religious beliefs around

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:25.220)

that.

Lex Fridman (46:26.420)

So is that always going to...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:27.860)

Is religion always going to kind of cover the space of things we can't quite understand

Lex Fridman (46:33.620)

with science yet, but we still want to be thinking about?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:37.460)

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Lex Fridman (46:38.340)

That's a great question.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:39.780)

When you say religion, I would use the word religiosity because I think that we're moving

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:45.860)

out of the dogmatic types of religions into more of a, I hate to put it this way, but

Diana Walsh Pasulka (46:51.060)

an X Files type religion where we can say, I want to believe, or the truth is out there,

Lex Fridman (46:56.660)

but we don't know that it's out there, or we don't know yet what it is, but we know

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:01.060)

it's out there.

Lex Fridman (47:01.860)

So there's this kind of built in capacity for belief in something that we don't have

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:08.740)

evidence for yet, and that's a sort of faith.

Lex Fridman (47:11.620)

So I would say yes to that question, absolutely.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:15.060)

I think it's adaptive in that way.

Lex Fridman (47:16.660)

We're moving into a new...

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:17.860)

I mean, heck, we've already moved into this culture.

Lex Fridman (47:20.500)

Most people have not caught up with it yet.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:22.740)

I see that in the school systems, and I think that I'm hoping we can catch up fast because

Lex Fridman (47:31.140)

really it's moving faster than we are.

Lex Fridman (47:33.780)

So I mentioned to you offline that I'm finishing up on the rise and fall of the Third Reich.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:41.300)

I'm not sure if you have anything in your exploration, interesting to say, but the use

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:47.700)

of religion by dictators or the lack of the use of religion by dictators, whether we're

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:53.940)

talking about Stalin, which is mostly secular, I apologize if I'm historically incorrect

Diana Walsh Pasulka (47:59.700)

on this, but I believe it's secular.

Lex Fridman (48:02.340)

And Hitler, I think there's some controversy about how much religion played a role in his

Diana Walsh Pasulka (48:09.780)

own personal life and in general in terms of influencing the...

Lex Fridman (48:18.900)

using it to manipulate the public, but definitely the church played a role.

Lex Fridman (48:25.060)

Do you have a sense of the use of religion by governments to control the populations,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (48:31.380)

by dictators, for example, or is that outside of your little explorations as a religious

Lex Fridman (48:38.980)

scholar?

Lex Fridman (48:39.780)

It's not outside of my framework, absolutely not.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (48:43.540)

I think that it's done routinely.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (48:46.980)

Propaganda is done routinely, especially there's nothing more powerful than religion to get

Diana Walsh Pasulka (48:54.180)

people to act, I think.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (49:00.020)

My mother's Jewish and my father was Roman Catholic, okay, from Irish extraction.

Lex Fridman (49:06.180)

And so, both great grandparents came here under duress because they were being, what

Diana Walsh Pasulka (49:16.580)

would you call it, there was an act of genocide on both sides being done by other cultures,

Lex Fridman (49:22.180)

okay?

Lex Fridman (49:22.420)

So, on the one hand, obviously, we know about the Holocaust, okay?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (49:26.100)

So, they came, the great grandparents came here to avoid that and they made it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (49:30.420)

On the other hand, there was an English genocide, we just have to say it, of the Irish, it was

Diana Walsh Pasulka (49:38.740)

called a famine, but it wasn't fun, it was a staged thing.

Lex Fridman (49:42.740)

And so, millions of Irish left Ireland on coffin ships is what they called them because

Lex Fridman (49:49.060)

they usually wouldn't get here, mine happened to get here, okay?

Lex Fridman (49:52.580)

So, that's the context that I'm coming from.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (49:55.220)

So, in each case, for one thing, Irish weren't considered, Catholics weren't considered,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (50:03.700)

they were considered to be terrible and there was a lot of anti Catholic rhetoric here in

Diana Walsh Pasulka (50:08.180)

the United States, which is kind of strange because one of the, in fact, the most wealthy

Lex Fridman (50:13.620)

colonial family were the Carrolls in Maryland and they were Catholic.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (50:17.460)

So, when you look at the United States, at our history, and you see the separation of

Lex Fridman (50:21.780)

church and state, do you wanna know where that came from?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (50:24.340)

That came from those guys, they convinced George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, I

Diana Walsh Pasulka (50:31.140)

mean, they couldn't vote, yet they have their names on the constitution, is that not a strange

Lex Fridman (50:38.740)

contradiction?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (50:40.420)

So, here you can see how propaganda works, there was anti Catholic propaganda, there

Diana Walsh Pasulka (50:47.060)

was anti Jewish propaganda and a lot of it was that these people weren't human, they

Lex Fridman (50:54.340)

weren't human beings.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (50:55.780)

Another thing I'd like to say is that when the Irish did come here, they were indentured,

Lex Fridman (51:02.340)

a lot of times indentured servants, but that's terminology, what is an indentured servant?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (51:10.900)

Slave.

Lex Fridman (51:11.860)

Pretty much.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (51:12.340)

So, in that sense, religion can be used derogatorily as a useful grouping mechanism of

Lex Fridman (51:20.500)

saying, this is the other.

Lex Fridman (51:22.500)

And it's powerful too, because behind it is a force of what people contend to be sacred,

Lex Fridman (51:29.460)

a sacred force, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (51:31.140)

So, it's up to God to decide who's, so you have to go along with what God says, of course.

Lex Fridman (51:38.420)

Well, that's basically, that's not the contact event.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (51:42.660)

The contact event is usually some type of very specific, legitimate event that a person

Lex Fridman (51:49.300)

has with something that is non human or considered divine.

Lex Fridman (51:54.100)

But when religions become narrativized, I would call it, by different institutions,

Lex Fridman (52:02.420)

that's when you're in danger of getting propaganda.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (52:04.580)

You said Nietzsche, one of your favorite philosophers.

Lex Fridman (52:07.380)

He said, famously, one of the many famous things he said is that God is dead.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (52:13.620)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (52:14.740)

What do you think he meant?

Lex Fridman (52:16.740)

Do you think he was right?

Lex Fridman (52:18.740)

Okay, good.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (52:19.300)

I love this question.

Lex Fridman (52:20.260)

No one asks me about Nietzsche.

Lex Fridman (52:24.260)

And I love Nietzsche.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (52:25.540)

Okay, so first, actually, I do think, and I could be corrected and probably will be in

Diana Walsh Pasulka (52:30.420)

all the comments, but I think that's a good question.

Lex Fridman (52:33.620)

Well, first, Nietzsche, it's true, wasn't the first to say God is dead.

Lex Fridman (52:38.260)

I think Hegel said it, okay?

Lex Fridman (52:40.100)

No one reads Hegel.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (52:41.220)

He's like so difficult to read that it's impossible.

Lex Fridman (52:44.260)

Same with Heidegger, as you mentioned.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (52:46.500)

I love him, but yeah, he's really hard to read.

Lex Fridman (52:48.980)

So Nietzsche basically said God is dead.

Lex Fridman (52:51.060)

And let me give you the context for him saying that.

Lex Fridman (52:53.540)

He also said this.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (52:54.580)

He said there was only one Christian.

Lex Fridman (52:56.340)

He died on the cross, okay?

Lex Fridman (52:58.740)

So he despised Christianity.

Lex Fridman (53:02.420)

And he said that...

Lex Fridman (53:03.780)

And the people who practice it.

Lex Fridman (53:05.460)

Absolutely, yeah.

Lex Fridman (53:06.420)

But again, he believed in Jesus, and he believed Jesus was...

Lex Fridman (53:09.300)

He didn't believe He was a divinity.

Lex Fridman (53:10.980)

He believed Jesus was a good man, and he died on the cross, okay?

Lex Fridman (53:14.500)

So he believed in the morality of Jesus.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (53:16.100)

Yeah, he absolutely did.

Lex Fridman (53:17.220)

Yeah, he did.

Lex Fridman (53:18.980)

And Nietzsche basically was making a historical statement about God is dead.

Lex Fridman (53:24.260)

And he was right.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (53:25.380)

He was basically saying that in the century in which he lived, and he died, I think, in 1900.

Lex Fridman (53:31.860)

Again, I could be wrong about that.

Lex Fridman (53:34.020)

So I just want to say that I believe he died in 1900.

Lex Fridman (53:36.820)

Okay, so he's writing in the 1800s.

Lex Fridman (53:39.540)

And he's basically saying God is dead, and we killed Him, okay?

Lex Fridman (53:44.260)

So he's making a historical statement that at that point in time, with science just kind

Diana Walsh Pasulka (53:49.380)

of getting better and industrialization happening, the idea of this thing beyond

Lex Fridman (54:00.100)

what we know as material reality is dead.

Lex Fridman (54:05.060)

So the substrate of Western civilization is dead.

Lex Fridman (54:10.100)

That's what Nietzsche is saying, if that makes sense.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (54:13.540)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (54:13.940)

And he basically says with that comes the übermensch, okay, which is the superhuman.

Lex Fridman (54:20.660)

And he says there aren't many of them.

Lex Fridman (54:22.580)

He says, but they're going to come.

Lex Fridman (54:23.780)

And he also talks about the philosophers of the future.

Lex Fridman (54:26.580)

And he's speaking and writing to them, is my belief.

Lex Fridman (54:29.860)

So he's basically telling you and me, because we're now the philosophers of his future.

Lex Fridman (54:35.620)

Yeah.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (54:36.100)

He's basically telling us this is what's happening now, and look what it has done.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (54:41.940)

He says now everything is possible, all manner of terrible evil, because no one has the belief

Diana Walsh Pasulka (54:49.380)

in God anymore, the belief that there is an afterlife.

Lex Fridman (54:53.780)

You asked about an afterlife.

Lex Fridman (54:54.980)

So with this kind of belief in a morality comes this belief, you can have morals without

Lex Fridman (55:00.740)

God, okay, people do.

Lex Fridman (55:01.940)

But Christianity is this idea that you will reap what you sow.

Lex Fridman (55:08.100)

So if people don't believe that anymore, what will happen?

Lex Fridman (55:10.900)

And so that's what he's basically saying, is that the basic anchor for Western society

Lex Fridman (55:16.820)

is now gone.

Lex Fridman (55:18.260)

Do you think he was right?

Lex Fridman (55:19.380)

Absolutely, absolutely right.

Lex Fridman (55:21.460)

But then again, what do you think if we brought him back to life and he read American Cosmic,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (55:27.860)

your book, and he wrote, he tweeted about it, writing a review maybe for the, I don't

Diana Walsh Pasulka (55:36.580)

know what they post, for New York Times.

Lex Fridman (55:38.180)

He'd be an editorial writer with a blue check mark on Twitter.

Lex Fridman (55:43.860)

What do you think he would say about this idea that you present that's a grander idea

Lex Fridman (55:48.660)

of religion and, you know.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (55:52.740)

Like religiosity, like this new form.

Lex Fridman (55:54.900)

Yeah, wouldn't that kind of reverse the idea that God is dead?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (55:59.300)

Yeah, because it would bring up this idea of external intelligences that are not human,

Lex Fridman (56:05.540)

which is basically a lot of religions talk about that, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (56:08.980)

There are bodhisattvas, there are angels, there are demons, you know, there's all these

Lex Fridman (56:14.020)

types of non human intelligences that religion makes space for.

Lex Fridman (56:20.020)

So what I'm basically saying in American Cosmic is these new things are within the

Lex Fridman (56:25.540)

realm of UFOs and UAPs.

Lex Fridman (56:28.580)

So no, I think that, well, I think Nietzsche would say that that's a progressive adaptation

Lex Fridman (56:35.860)

of religion is what I would hope he would say.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (56:38.500)

Nietzsche, however, is unpredictable, I think.

Lex Fridman (56:41.620)

I couldn't predict him.

Lex Fridman (56:43.460)

So I would say that it would be my hope that he would say this is an accurate representation

Lex Fridman (56:51.540)

of a move into a new type of religion.

Lex Fridman (56:54.980)

And it's adaptive, therefore, progressive.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (56:57.940)

He would probably be uncomfortable reading a book by a brilliant female professor.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:02.660)

Who happens also to be short.

Lex Fridman (57:06.340)

I don't know if you read that.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:07.780)

He said some pretty nasty things about short women.

Lex Fridman (57:12.580)

Oh, my God.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:14.100)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (57:15.140)

Oh, Nietzsche.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:16.100)

He should be canceled.

Lex Fridman (57:18.100)

No, no, please don't cancel Nietzsche.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:20.580)

You have to take people in the context of their time.

Lex Fridman (57:23.780)

Although I'm pretty sure in his time he was also an asshole.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:26.660)

He was.

Lex Fridman (57:28.740)

But assholes are people too.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:30.740)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (57:31.620)

Just bad ones.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:32.420)

You wrote the book, American Cosmic UFOs, Religion, Technology.

Lex Fridman (57:41.460)

What was the goal of writing this book?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:43.860)

What, maybe we'll mention it.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (57:46.340)

We have already mentioned it many times, but in this little space of a conversation,

Lex Fridman (57:54.020)

can you say maybe what is the key insight that you found that lingers with you to this day

Lex Fridman (57:59.540)

from the process, the long process of putting this book together?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (58:04.340)

Sure.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (58:05.380)

Just like with my book on purgatory, I went into the research thinking that it would be something

Diana Walsh Pasulka (58:12.260)

that it was entirely not.

Lex Fridman (58:13.780)

It ended up being something completely different.

Lex Fridman (58:15.780)

And I think that's good.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (58:16.900)

I think that people who do research are very excited actually when their research surprises

Diana Walsh Pasulka (58:22.500)

them.

Lex Fridman (58:23.060)

So I was happily surprised by my purgatory book to learn that it was a place.

Lex Fridman (58:30.100)

And so I went into American Cosmic being a nonbeliever in UFOs entirely.

Lex Fridman (58:39.140)

And I came out being agnostic.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (58:42.820)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (58:44.900)

Kind of believer.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (58:49.380)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (58:49.880)

But agnostic, sort of open to the mysteries of the world.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (58:54.520)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (58:55.160)

And I didn't think that, first of all, I knew that the government was part of the situation.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (59:04.520)

I just didn't know how much.

Lex Fridman (59:06.280)

And so I learned that quickly and acclimated to it, accepted it, and noted that, indeed,

Diana Walsh Pasulka (59:19.880)

Horatio, the world is much more mysterious than we think it is.

Lex Fridman (59:28.680)

There are more mysteries in this life than your philosophy provides for.

Lex Fridman (59:33.960)

So is the sense American Cosmic is about the mysteries of the modern life as encapsulated

Lex Fridman (59:41.400)

by the realm of technology and the realm of alien intelligences?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (59:47.560)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (59:52.920)

I'd have to go off record as a professor and talk personally.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (59:56.440)

As a person, I do think that there are mysteries of which we have an inkling.