Matthew Johnson: Psychedelics
心理与人性生物与进化哲学与宗教音乐与艺术技术与编程
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🔑 关键词
donexperiencepsychedelicsgoingdrugstermsselfstudyexperiencesdoseconsciousnesspsilocybincocainepersonsayingcondomdonetalknaturethinking
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🎙️ 完整对话（4697 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Matthew Johnson,
以下是与马修·约翰逊的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:02.800)
a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science
精神病学和行为科学教授
Lex Fridman (00:05.600)
at John Hopkins, and is one of the top scientists
约翰·霍普金斯大学的顶尖科学家之一
Lex Fridman (00:08.920)
in the world conducting seminal research on psychedelics.
在世界范围内进行迷幻药的开创性研究。
Lex Fridman (00:13.360)
This was one of the most eye opening
这是最令人大开眼界的之一
Lex Fridman (00:15.760)
and fascinating conversations I've ever had on this podcast.
以及我在这个播客上进行过的精彩对话。
Lex Fridman (00:19.880)
I'm sure I'll talk with Matt many more times.
我确信我会与马特多次交谈。
Matthew Johnson (00:22.540)
Quick mention of a sponsor followed by some thoughts
快速提及赞助商，然后是一些想法
Lex Fridman (00:25.120)
related to the episode.
与情节相关。
Matthew Johnson (00:26.640)
Thank you to a new sponsor, Brave,
感谢新的赞助商 Brave，
Lex Fridman (00:30.040)
a fast browser that feels like Chrome
一款像 Chrome 一样的快速浏览器
Lex Fridman (00:32.240)
but has more privacy preserving features.
但具有更多的隐私保护功能。
Lex Fridman (00:35.400)
Neuro, the maker of functional sugar free gum and mints
Neuro，功能性无糖口香糖和薄荷糖制造商
Matthew Johnson (00:39.020)
that I use to give my brain a quick caffeine boost.
我用它来给我的大脑快速补充咖啡因。
Lex Fridman (00:42.640)
Four Sigmatic, the maker of delicious mushroom coffee,
四西格玛蒂克，美味蘑菇咖啡的制造商，
Matthew Johnson (00:46.760)
I'm just now realizing how ironic the set of sponsors are.
我现在才意识到这群赞助商是多么讽刺。
Lex Fridman (00:50.760)
And Cash App, the app I use to send money to friends.
还有 Cash App，我用来给朋友汇款的应用程序。
Matthew Johnson (00:54.720)
Please check out these sponsors in the description
请在说明中查看这些赞助商
Lex Fridman (00:56.920)
to get a discount and support this podcast.
获得折扣并支持此播客。
Matthew Johnson (01:00.220)
As a side note, let me say that psychedelics
作为旁注，让我说迷幻药
Lex Fridman (01:02.620)
is an area of study that is fascinating to me
Matthew Johnson (01:05.720)
in that it gives hints that much of the magic
Lex Fridman (01:08.200)
of our experience arises from just a few
Matthew Johnson (01:10.640)
chemical interactions in the brain
Lex Fridman (01:12.480)
and that the nature of that experience can be expanded
Matthew Johnson (01:16.080)
through the tools of biology, chemistry, physics,
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neuroscience, and artificial intelligence.
Matthew Johnson (01:23.320)
The fact that a world class scientist and researcher
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like Matt can apply rigor to our study
Matthew Johnson (01:28.800)
of this mysterious and fascinating topic
Lex Fridman (01:31.720)
is exciting to me beyond words.
Matthew Johnson (01:34.200)
As is the case with any of my colleagues
Lex Fridman (01:36.440)
who dare to venture out into the darkness
Matthew Johnson (01:38.880)
of all that is unknown about the human mind
Lex Fridman (01:41.680)
with both an openness of first principle thinking
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and the rigor of the scientific method.
Lex Fridman (01:47.880)
If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
Matthew Johnson (01:49.960)
review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
Lex Fridman (01:52.200)
follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,
Matthew Johnson (01:54.880)
or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (01:58.020)
And now, here's my conversation with Matthew Johnson.
Lex Fridman (02:02.960)
Can you give an introduction to psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (02:05.920)
like a whirlwind overview?
Matthew Johnson (02:08.760)
Maybe what are psychedelics
Lex Fridman (02:11.680)
and what are the kinds of psychedelics out there
Lex Fridman (02:14.560)
and in whatever way you find meaningful to categorize?
Lex Fridman (02:17.580)
Yeah, you can categorize them by their chemical structure.
Matthew Johnson (02:23.160)
So, phenethylamines, tryptamines, ergolines,
Lex Fridman (02:29.160)
that is less of a meaningful way to classify them.
Matthew Johnson (02:33.880)
I think that their pharmacological activity,
Lex Fridman (02:36.700)
their receptor activities are the best way.
Matthew Johnson (02:39.340)
Well, let me start even broader than that
Lex Fridman (02:40.920)
because there I'm talking about the classic psychedelics.
Matthew Johnson (02:43.640)
So, broadly speaking, when we say psychedelic,
Lex Fridman (02:47.920)
that refers to, for most people,
Matthew Johnson (02:50.240)
a broad number of compounds
Lex Fridman (02:52.260)
that work in different pharmacological ways.
Matthew Johnson (02:54.960)
So, it includes the so called classic psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (02:59.080)
That includes psilocybin and psilocin,
Matthew Johnson (03:03.040)
which are in mushrooms, LSD, dimethyltryptamine or DMT,
Lex Fridman (03:08.360)
it's in ayahuasca, people can smoke it too,
Matthew Johnson (03:10.840)
mescaline, which is in peyote in San Pedro, cactus.
Lex Fridman (03:17.700)
And those all work by hitting a certain
Matthew Johnson (03:20.880)
subtype of serotonin receptor, the serotonin 2A receptor.
Lex Fridman (03:24.500)
They act as agonists at that receptor.
Matthew Johnson (03:28.560)
Other compounds like PCP, ketamine, MDMA, ibogaine,
Lex Fridman (03:36.000)
they all are more broadly speaking called psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (03:40.060)
but they work by very different ways pharmacologically.
Lex Fridman (03:45.720)
And they have some different effects,
Matthew Johnson (03:48.200)
including some subjective effects,
Lex Fridman (03:49.660)
even though there's enough of an overlap
Matthew Johnson (03:53.140)
in the subjective effects that, you know,
Lex Fridman (03:56.460)
people informally refer to them as psychedelic.
Lex Fridman (03:59.160)
And I think what that overlap is, you know,
Lex Fridman (04:01.320)
compared to say, you know, caffeine and cocaine
Matthew Johnson (04:04.320)
and, you know, Ambien, et cetera, other psychoactive drugs
Lex Fridman (04:08.680)
is that they have strong effects
Matthew Johnson (04:11.400)
in altering one's sense of reality
Lex Fridman (04:15.960)
and including the sense of self.
Lex Fridman (04:18.040)
And I should throw in there that cannabis,
Lex Fridman (04:20.660)
more historically, like in the 70s,
Matthew Johnson (04:22.440)
has been called a minor psychedelic.
Lex Fridman (04:24.040)
And I think with that latter definition,
Matthew Johnson (04:25.780)
it does fit that definition,
Lex Fridman (04:28.080)
particularly if one doesn't have a tolerance.
Lex Fridman (04:30.460)
So you mentioned serotonin, so most of the effect
Lex Fridman (04:34.040)
comes from something around like the chemistry
Matthew Johnson (04:36.960)
around neurotransmitters and so on.
Lex Fridman (04:39.000)
So it's chemical interactions in the brain,
Matthew Johnson (04:42.800)
or is there other kinds of interactions
Lex Fridman (04:44.600)
that have this kind of perception
Lex Fridman (04:47.880)
and self awareness altering effects?
Lex Fridman (04:51.300)
Well, as far as we know, all of the psychedelics
Matthew Johnson (04:54.600)
of all the different classes we've talked about,
Lex Fridman (05:00.500)
their major activity is caused by receptor level events.
Lex Fridman (05:04.640)
So either acting at the post receptor side of the synapse.
Lex Fridman (05:10.200)
So in other words, neurotransmission operates
Matthew Johnson (05:12.240)
by, you know, one neuron releasing neurotransmitter
Lex Fridman (05:16.640)
into a synapse, a gap between the two neurons.
Lex Fridman (05:19.240)
And then the other neuron receives,
Lex Fridman (05:23.080)
it has receptors that receives,
Lex Fridman (05:24.680)
and then there can be an activation caused by that.
Lex Fridman (05:28.600)
So it's like a pitcher and a catcher.
Lex Fridman (05:30.240)
So all of the major psychedelics work
Lex Fridman (05:32.920)
by either acting as a pitcher,
Matthew Johnson (05:34.640)
mimicking a pitcher or a catcher.
Lex Fridman (05:38.760)
So for example, the classic psychedelics,
Matthew Johnson (05:41.400)
they fit into the same catcher's mitt
Lex Fridman (05:44.400)
on the post receptor, post synaptic receptor side
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as serotonin itself.
Lex Fridman (05:50.200)
But they do a slightly different thing to the cell,
Matthew Johnson (05:53.520)
to the neuron than serotonin does.
Lex Fridman (05:56.400)
There's a different signaling pathway
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after that initial activation.
Lex Fridman (06:00.420)
Something like MDMA works at the presynaptic side,
Matthew Johnson (06:04.840)
the pitcher side.
Lex Fridman (06:06.560)
And basically it floods the synapse or the gap
Matthew Johnson (06:09.240)
between the cells with a bunch of serotonin,
Lex Fridman (06:11.000)
the natural neurotransmitter.
Lex Fridman (06:14.200)
So it's like the pitcher in a baseball game
Lex Fridman (06:16.280)
all of a sudden just starts throwing balls
Matthew Johnson (06:17.840)
like every second.
Lex Fridman (06:20.380)
Everything we're talking about is it often more natural,
Matthew Johnson (06:24.760)
meaning found in the natural world.
Lex Fridman (06:27.680)
You mentioned cacti, cactus,
Matthew Johnson (06:31.000)
or is it chemically manufactured,
Lex Fridman (06:33.200)
like artificially in the lab?
Lex Fridman (06:35.540)
So the classic psychedelics, there's...
Lex Fridman (06:38.560)
What are the classics?
Lex Fridman (06:39.760)
So using terminology that's not chemical terminology,
Lex Fridman (06:44.360)
not like the terminology you see in titles of papers,
Matthew Johnson (06:47.220)
academic papers, but more sort of common parlance.
Lex Fridman (06:50.160)
Right, it would be good to kind of define their effects,
Matthew Johnson (06:53.600)
like how they're different.
Lex Fridman (06:54.880)
And so it includes LSD, psilocybin,
Matthew Johnson (06:57.520)
which is in mushrooms, mescaline, DMT.
Lex Fridman (07:00.720)
Which one is mescaline?
Matthew Johnson (07:01.880)
Mescaline is in the different cacti.
Lex Fridman (07:04.160)
So the one most people will know is peyote,
Lex Fridman (07:07.320)
but it also shows up in San Pedro or Peruvian torch.
Lex Fridman (07:10.960)
And all of these classic psychedelics,
Matthew Johnson (07:14.320)
they have, at the right dose,
Lex Fridman (07:17.240)
and typically they have very strong effects
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on one sense of reality and one sense of self.
Lex Fridman (07:25.080)
Some of the things that makes them different
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than other more broadly speaking psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (07:29.360)
like MDMA and others,
Matthew Johnson (07:32.000)
is that they're, at least the major examples,
Lex Fridman (07:35.760)
there's some exotic ones that differ,
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but the ones I've talked about are extremely safe
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at the physiological level.
Matthew Johnson (07:42.120)
Like LSD and psilocybin, there's no known lethal overdose,
Lex Fridman (07:46.040)
unless you have like really severe heart disease,
Matthew Johnson (07:50.400)
because it modestly raises your blood pressure.
Lex Fridman (07:52.120)
So same person that might be hurt traveling snow
Matthew Johnson (07:54.780)
or going up the stairs, that could have a cardiac event
Lex Fridman (08:00.320)
because they've taken one of these drugs.
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But for most people, someone could take a thousand times
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what the effective dose is,
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and it's not gonna cause any organ damage,
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affect the brainstem, make them stop breathing.
Lex Fridman (08:11.400)
So in that sense, they're freakishly safe at the physiolo...
Lex Fridman (08:16.040)
I would never call any compounds safe,
Matthew Johnson (08:18.000)
because there's always a risk.
Lex Fridman (08:19.600)
They're freakishly safe at the physiological level.
Matthew Johnson (08:22.200)
I mean, you can hardly find anything over the counter
Lex Fridman (08:24.720)
like that, I mean, aspirin's not like that.
Matthew Johnson (08:26.240)
Caffeine is not like that.
Lex Fridman (08:28.080)
Most drugs, you take five, 10, 20, maybe it takes 100,
Lex Fridman (08:33.400)
but you get to some times the effective dose,
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and it's gonna kill you or cause some serious damage.
Lex Fridman (08:38.680)
And so that's something that's remarkable
Lex Fridman (08:41.080)
about most of these classic psychedelics.
Matthew Johnson (08:43.840)
That's incredible, by the way,
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that you can go on a hell of a journey in the mind,
Matthew Johnson (08:48.460)
like probably transformative,
Lex Fridman (08:52.580)
potentially in a deeply transformative way,
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and yet there's no dose
Lex Fridman (08:59.240)
that in most people would have a lethal effect.
Matthew Johnson (09:02.540)
That's kind of fascinating.
Lex Fridman (09:03.720)
There's this duality between the mind and the body.
Matthew Johnson (09:06.820)
It's like, it's the...
Lex Fridman (09:09.740)
Okay, sorry if I bring them up way too much,
Lex Fridman (09:11.440)
but David Goggins is like,
Lex Fridman (09:14.320)
the kind of things you go on in the long run,
Matthew Johnson (09:17.060)
like the hell you might go through in your mind.
Lex Fridman (09:19.680)
Your mind can take a lot,
Lex Fridman (09:20.940)
and you can go through a lot with the mind,
Lex Fridman (09:22.880)
and the body will just be its own thing.
Matthew Johnson (09:25.060)
You can go through hell,
Lex Fridman (09:26.340)
but after a good night's sleep, be back to normal,
Lex Fridman (09:30.100)
and the body's always there.
Lex Fridman (09:31.580)
So bringing it back to Goggins,
Matthew Johnson (09:32.860)
it's like you can do that
Lex Fridman (09:33.940)
without even destroying your knee or whatever,
Matthew Johnson (09:36.140)
or coming close and riding that line.
Lex Fridman (09:37.980)
That's true.
Lex Fridman (09:38.820)
So the unfortunate thing about the running,
Lex Fridman (09:40.340)
which he uses running to test the mind,
Lex Fridman (09:42.960)
so the aspect of running that is negative,
Lex Fridman (09:47.140)
in order to test the mind,
Matthew Johnson (09:48.200)
you really have to push the body,
Lex Fridman (09:51.380)
take the body through a journey.
Matthew Johnson (09:53.140)
I wish there was another way of doing that
Lex Fridman (09:55.780)
in the physical exercise space.
Matthew Johnson (09:57.500)
I think there are exercises
Lex Fridman (09:59.820)
that are easier on the body than others,
Lex Fridman (10:01.340)
but running sure is a hell of an effective way to do it.
Lex Fridman (10:04.940)
And one of the ways that where it differs
Matthew Johnson (10:07.020)
is that you're unlike exercise,
Lex Fridman (10:10.520)
you're essentially, most exercise,
Matthew Johnson (10:13.380)
to really get to those intense levels,
Lex Fridman (10:15.460)
you really need to be persistent about it.
Matthew Johnson (10:17.980)
I mean, it'll be intense if you're really out of shape,
Lex Fridman (10:19.700)
just jogging for five minutes,
Lex Fridman (10:22.640)
but to really get to those intense levels,
Lex Fridman (10:24.100)
you need to have the dedication.
Lex Fridman (10:25.860)
And so some of the other ways
Lex Fridman (10:27.180)
of altering subjective effects or states of consciousness,
Matthew Johnson (10:33.300)
take that type of dedication.
Lex Fridman (10:35.260)
Psychedelics though, I mean, someone takes the right dose.
Matthew Johnson (10:39.040)
They're strapped into the rollercoaster
Lex Fridman (10:41.500)
and something interesting is gonna happen.
Lex Fridman (10:44.420)
And I really like what you said about that distinction
Lex Fridman (10:48.220)
between the mind or the contrast between the mind effects
Lex Fridman (10:51.580)
and the body effects,
Lex Fridman (10:55.500)
because I think of this,
Matthew Johnson (10:58.620)
I do research with all the drugs,
Lex Fridman (11:01.460)
caffeine, alcohol, methamphetamine, cocaine,
Matthew Johnson (11:04.380)
alcohol, legal, illegal.
Lex Fridman (11:06.740)
Most of these drugs, thinking about say cocaine
Lex Fridman (11:11.780)
and methamphetamine, you can't give to a regular user,
Lex Fridman (11:15.740)
you can't safely give a dose where the regular cocaine user
Matthew Johnson (11:21.060)
is gonna say, oh man, that's like,
Lex Fridman (11:25.060)
that's the strongest coke I've ever had, you know,
Matthew Johnson (11:28.340)
because you get it past the ethics committee
Lex Fridman (11:30.740)
and you need approval.
Lex Fridman (11:32.260)
And I wouldn't wanna give someone something that's dangerous.
Lex Fridman (11:34.300)
So to go to those levels where they would say that,
Matthew Johnson (11:37.180)
you would have to give something
Lex Fridman (11:38.180)
that's physiologically riskier, you know.
Matthew Johnson (11:43.340)
Psilocybin or LSD, you can give a dose
Lex Fridman (11:46.900)
at the physiological level that is like very good chance
Matthew Johnson (11:50.660)
it's gonna be the most intense psychological experience
Lex Fridman (11:53.540)
of that person's life and have zero chance
Matthew Johnson (11:56.260)
for most people if you screen them of killing them.
Lex Fridman (11:58.900)
The big risk is behavioral toxicity,
Matthew Johnson (12:01.320)
which is a fancy way of saying doing something stupid.
Lex Fridman (12:03.820)
I mean, you're really intoxicated,
Matthew Johnson (12:05.180)
like if you wander into traffic or you fall from a height,
Lex Fridman (12:08.100)
just like plenty of people do on high doses of alcohol.
Lex Fridman (12:11.420)
And the other kind of unique thing
Lex Fridman (12:13.020)
about classic psychedelics is that they're not addictive,
Matthew Johnson (12:17.540)
which is pretty much unheard of when it comes
Lex Fridman (12:20.740)
to so called drugs of abuse or drugs that people,
Matthew Johnson (12:24.740)
at least at some frequency choose to take, you know,
Lex Fridman (12:29.500)
most of what we think of as drugs, you know,
Matthew Johnson (12:32.860)
even caffeine, alcohol, cocaine, cannabis,
Lex Fridman (12:36.500)
most of these you can get into alcohol,
Matthew Johnson (12:39.000)
you can get into a daily use pattern.
Lex Fridman (12:41.960)
And that's just extreme, so unheard of with psychedelics.
Matthew Johnson (12:46.700)
Most people have taken these things on a daily basis,
Lex Fridman (12:49.880)
it's more of like they're building up the courage to do it
Lex Fridman (12:53.380)
and then they build up a tolerance or yeah,
Lex Fridman (12:55.040)
they're in college and they do it on a dare,
Lex Fridman (12:56.540)
can you take take acid seven days in a row
Lex Fridman (12:59.100)
and that type of thing rather than a self control issue
Matthew Johnson (13:02.340)
where you have and say, oh God, I gotta stop taking this,
Lex Fridman (13:04.460)
I gotta stop drinking every night,
Matthew Johnson (13:06.100)
I gotta cut down on the coke, whatever.
Lex Fridman (13:08.860)
So that's the classic psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (13:11.340)
What are the, what's a good term, modern psychedelics
Lex Fridman (13:15.340)
or more maybe psychedelics that are created in the lab?
Lex Fridman (13:18.480)
What else is there?
Lex Fridman (13:19.680)
Right, so MDMA is the big one.
Lex Fridman (13:21.260)
And I should say that with the classic psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (13:23.920)
that LSD is sort of, you can call it a semi synthetic
Matthew Johnson (13:26.820)
because there's natural from both ergot
Lex Fridman (13:30.860)
and in certain seeds, morning glory seeds as one example,
Matthew Johnson (13:34.920)
there's a very close,
Lex Fridman (13:36.180)
there are some very close chemical relatives of LSD.
Lex Fridman (13:40.780)
So LSD is close to what occurs in nature, but not quite.
Lex Fridman (13:44.900)
But then when we get into the other non classic psychedelics,
Matthew Johnson (13:49.540)
probably the most prominent one is MDMA,
Lex Fridman (13:51.660)
people call it ecstasy, people call it Molly.
Lex Fridman (13:55.380)
And it is, it differs from classic psychedelics
Lex Fridman (13:59.580)
in a number of ways, it can be addictive, but not so.
Matthew Johnson (14:04.580)
It's like, you can have cocaine on this end
Lex Fridman (14:07.380)
of the continuum and classic psychedelics here.
Matthew Johnson (14:10.620)
Continuum of addiction.
Lex Fridman (14:11.700)
Continuum of addiction, you know,
Lex Fridman (14:13.140)
so it's certainly no cocaine.
Lex Fridman (14:15.060)
It's pretty rare for people to get into daily use patterns,
Lex Fridman (14:17.860)
but it's possible and they can get into more like,
Lex Fridman (14:20.940)
you know, using once a week pattern
Matthew Johnson (14:23.140)
where they can find it hard to stop,
Lex Fridman (14:25.180)
but it's somewhere in between mostly towards the,
Matthew Johnson (14:28.700)
to the classic psychedelic side in terms of
Lex Fridman (14:33.580)
like relatively little addiction potential.
Lex Fridman (14:36.740)
But it's also more physiologically dangerous.
Lex Fridman (14:39.540)
I think that the, certainly the therapeutic use,
Matthew Johnson (14:44.220)
it's showing really promising effects for treating PTSD
Lex Fridman (14:47.220)
and the models that are used,
Matthew Johnson (14:48.220)
I think those are extremely acceptable
Lex Fridman (14:50.860)
when it comes to the risk benefit ratio
Matthew Johnson (14:52.660)
that you see all throughout medicine.
Lex Fridman (14:54.960)
But nonetheless, we do know that at a certain dose
Lex Fridman (14:58.560)
and a certain frequency that MDMA can cause longterm damage
Lex Fridman (15:02.840)
to the serotonin system in the brain.
Lex Fridman (15:05.880)
So it doesn't have that level of kind of freakish
Lex Fridman (15:10.000)
bodily safety that the classic psychedelics do.
Lex Fridman (15:13.160)
And it has more of a heart load, a cardiovascular,
Lex Fridman (15:16.000)
I don't mean kind of emotion, I mean, in this sense,
Matthew Johnson (15:18.560)
although it is very emotional
Lex Fridman (15:19.800)
and that's something unique about its subjective effects,
Matthew Johnson (15:23.120)
subjective effects, but it's more of a oppressor.
Lex Fridman (15:25.760)
And the terminology you use instead of
Matthew Johnson (15:28.320)
like a freakish capacities,
Lex Fridman (15:30.200)
allowing you from a researcher perspective,
Lex Fridman (15:32.280)
but a personal perspective too,
Lex Fridman (15:33.640)
of taking a journey with some of these psychedelics
Matthew Johnson (15:37.360)
that is the heroic dose, as they say.
Lex Fridman (15:40.880)
So like these are tools that allow you
Matthew Johnson (15:43.000)
to take a serious mental journey, whatever that is.
Lex Fridman (15:45.640)
That's what you mean.
Lex Fridman (15:46.480)
And with MDMA, there's a little bit,
Lex Fridman (15:49.040)
it starts entering this territory
Matthew Johnson (15:51.040)
where you gotta be careful about the risks
Lex Fridman (15:53.760)
to the body potentially.
Lex Fridman (15:55.040)
So yes, that in the sense that you can't kind of
Lex Fridman (15:58.400)
push the dose up as high as you safely as one can,
Matthew Johnson (16:02.760)
if they're in the right setting, like in our research
Lex Fridman (16:05.000)
as they can with the classic psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (16:07.280)
But probably more importantly,
Lex Fridman (16:09.360)
just the nature of the effects with MDMA
Matthew Johnson (16:11.200)
aren't the full on psychedelic.
Lex Fridman (16:14.480)
It's not the full journey.
Lex Fridman (16:16.560)
So it's sort of a psychedelic with rose colored glasses on.
Lex Fridman (16:21.280)
A psychedelic that's more of,
Matthew Johnson (16:22.880)
it's been called more of a heart trip than a head trip.
Lex Fridman (16:25.400)
The nature of reality doesn't unravel
Matthew Johnson (16:28.760)
as frequently as it does with classic psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (16:32.360)
But you're able to more directly sense your environment.
Lex Fridman (16:35.280)
So your perception system still works.
Lex Fridman (16:37.040)
It's not completely detached from reality with MDMA.
Matthew Johnson (16:40.320)
That's true, relatively speaking.
Lex Fridman (16:41.880)
That said at most doses of classic psychedelics,
Matthew Johnson (16:45.760)
you still have a tether to reality.
Lex Fridman (16:48.600)
Changes a little bit when you're talking about smoking DMT
Matthew Johnson (16:50.920)
or smoking 5 methoxy DMT,
Lex Fridman (16:54.160)
which are some interesting examples
Matthew Johnson (16:56.240)
we could talk more about.
Lex Fridman (16:57.480)
But with MDMA, for example,
Matthew Johnson (17:02.840)
it's very rare to have what's called an ego loss experience
Lex Fridman (17:07.960)
or a sense of transcendental unity,
Matthew Johnson (17:10.760)
where one really seemingly loses
Lex Fridman (17:15.360)
the psychological construct of the self.
Lex Fridman (17:19.000)
But MDMA, it's very common for people to have this,
Lex Fridman (17:24.160)
they still are perceiving themselves as a self,
Lex Fridman (17:26.760)
but it's common for them to have this warmth,
Lex Fridman (17:30.240)
this empathy for humanity
Lex Fridman (17:32.280)
and for their friends and loved ones.
Lex Fridman (17:34.120)
So it's more, and you see those effects
Matthew Johnson (17:36.440)
under the classic psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (17:38.680)
but that's a subset of what the classic psychedelics do.
Lex Fridman (17:41.480)
So I see MDMA in terms of its subjective effects
Lex Fridman (17:44.400)
is if you think about Venn diagrams,
Matthew Johnson (17:47.560)
it's sort of MDMA is all within the classic psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (17:50.520)
So everything that you see on a particular MDMA session,
Matthew Johnson (17:54.240)
sometimes a psilocybin session looks just like that,
Lex Fridman (17:58.160)
but then sometimes it's completely different with psilocybin.
Matthew Johnson (18:00.560)
It's a little more narrowed
Lex Fridman (18:02.760)
in terms of the variability with MDMA.
Matthew Johnson (18:05.200)
Is there something general to say about what the psychedelics
Lex Fridman (18:09.680)
do to the human mind?
Matthew Johnson (18:11.560)
You mentioned kind of an ego loss experience
Lex Fridman (18:14.520)
in the space of Venn diagrams.
Matthew Johnson (18:16.600)
If we're to like draw a big circle,
Lex Fridman (18:20.040)
what can we say about that big circle?
Matthew Johnson (18:23.640)
In terms of people's report of subjective experience,
Lex Fridman (18:28.520)
probably one of the most general things we can say
Matthew Johnson (18:31.720)
is that it expands that range.
Lex Fridman (18:35.160)
So many people come out of these sessions
Matthew Johnson (18:38.280)
saying that they didn't know it was possible
Lex Fridman (18:41.800)
to have an experience like that.
Lex Fridman (18:44.080)
So there's an emphasis on the subjective experience
Lex Fridman (18:47.120)
that is there words that people put to it
Matthew Johnson (18:52.960)
that capture that experience
Lex Fridman (18:55.080)
or is it something that just has to be experienced?
Matthew Johnson (19:00.040)
Yeah, people like...
Lex Fridman (19:02.000)
As a researcher, that's an interesting question
Matthew Johnson (19:03.680)
because you have to kind of measure the effects of this
Lex Fridman (19:10.280)
and how do you convert that into numbers?
Matthew Johnson (19:13.160)
Right.
Lex Fridman (19:14.000)
That's the ultimate challenge.
Lex Fridman (19:15.560)
So is that possible to one, convert it into words
Lex Fridman (19:19.760)
and the second, convert the words into numbers somehow?
Lex Fridman (19:22.280)
So we do a lot of that with questionnaires,
Lex Fridman (19:25.080)
some of which are very psychometrically validated.
Lex Fridman (19:28.040)
So lots of numbers have been crunched on them.
Lex Fridman (19:30.880)
And there's always a limitation with questionnaires.
Matthew Johnson (19:33.520)
I mean, subjective effects are subjective effects.
Lex Fridman (19:35.560)
Ultimately, it's what the person is reporting
Lex Fridman (19:38.800)
and that doesn't necessarily point towards a ground truth.
Lex Fridman (19:45.520)
So for example, if someone says
Matthew Johnson (19:46.800)
that they felt like they touched another dimension
Lex Fridman (19:48.880)
or they felt like they sensed the reality of God
Matthew Johnson (19:52.440)
or if they, I mean, just you name it,
Lex Fridman (19:57.200)
people's ontological views can sometimes shift.
Matthew Johnson (1:00:02.860)
than anything else, that becomes an addiction.
Lex Fridman (1:00:05.380)
Right, right.
Lex Fridman (1:00:06.220)
And so it's not just the rewarding value,
Lex Fridman (1:00:08.260)
but it's the relative rewarding value.
Lex Fridman (1:00:10.020)
And the other major aspect, again, from behavioral economics,
Lex Fridman (1:00:13.780)
that the thing that makes addiction
Matthew Johnson (1:00:16.420)
is something called delayed discounting.
Lex Fridman (1:00:20.380)
So in economics, sometimes it's called time preference.
Matthew Johnson (1:00:23.460)
It's what compound interest rates are based upon.
Lex Fridman (1:00:26.820)
It's the idea that delaying a good access to a good
Matthew Johnson (1:00:30.500)
or a reward comes with a certain decrement to its value.
Lex Fridman (1:00:35.180)
So we'd all rather have things now than later.
Lex Fridman (1:00:39.320)
And we can study this at the individual level of,
Lex Fridman (1:00:42.140)
would you rather have $9 today or $10 tomorrow?
Lex Fridman (1:00:48.660)
And when you do that, you get huge differences
Lex Fridman (1:00:52.780)
between addicted populations and non addicted,
Matthew Johnson (1:00:56.420)
not just heroin and cocaine, but like just cigarette smokers,
Lex Fridman (1:00:59.420)
like normal everyday cigarette smokers.
Lex Fridman (1:01:02.100)
And even when you look at something like monetary rewards.
Lex Fridman (1:01:06.380)
And so you can go into the rabbit hole
Matthew Johnson (1:01:08.340)
with this delayed discounting model.
Lex Fridman (1:01:10.640)
So it's not only those huge differences
Matthew Johnson (1:01:12.340)
that seem to have a face valid aspect to it.
Lex Fridman (1:01:15.260)
Like the cigarette smoker is choosing this thing
Matthew Johnson (1:01:17.460)
that's rewarding today,
Lex Fridman (1:01:19.460)
but I know it comes with increased risk
Matthew Johnson (1:01:21.360)
of having these horrible consequences down the line.
Lex Fridman (1:01:24.020)
So it's this competition between what's good for me now
Lex Fridman (1:01:26.420)
and what's good for me later.
Lex Fridman (1:01:28.460)
And the other aspect about delayed discounting
Matthew Johnson (1:01:30.500)
is that if you quantitatively map out
Lex Fridman (1:01:33.620)
that discounting curve over time,
Lex Fridman (1:01:37.220)
so you don't just do that $10 tomorrow,
Lex Fridman (1:01:43.060)
how much is it worth to you today?
Lex Fridman (1:01:45.180)
So you can say, what about nine?
Lex Fridman (1:01:46.420)
What about eight?
Lex Fridman (1:01:47.260)
What about $7?
Lex Fridman (1:01:48.180)
And you can titrate it to find that indifference point.
Lex Fridman (1:01:51.020)
And so we can say, aha, $10 tomorrow is worth $6 today.
Lex Fridman (1:01:57.660)
So it's by the one day it's decreased by 40%.
Matthew Johnson (1:02:00.980)
We can do that also at one week and one month
Lex Fridman (1:02:04.140)
and one year and 10 years and map out that curve,
Matthew Johnson (1:02:08.400)
get a shape of that curve.
Lex Fridman (1:02:09.620)
And one of the fascinating things about this
Matthew Johnson (1:02:11.420)
is that whether you're talking about pigeons,
Lex Fridman (1:02:13.620)
making these types of choices
Matthew Johnson (1:02:14.860)
between a little bit of food now
Lex Fridman (1:02:16.220)
or a little bit of food a minute from now or rats,
Matthew Johnson (1:02:18.660)
or like dozens of species of animals tested,
Lex Fridman (1:02:21.580)
including humans,
Matthew Johnson (1:02:22.940)
the tendency is pretty consistently
Lex Fridman (1:02:24.820)
that we discount hyperbolically rather than exponentially.
Lex Fridman (1:02:31.220)
And what exponentially means is that every unit of time
Lex Fridman (1:02:34.520)
is associated with the same proportional reduction.
Matthew Johnson (1:02:37.540)
Every unit of delay is associated with the same,
Lex Fridman (1:02:40.220)
causes the same proportional reduction in value.
Lex Fridman (1:02:42.860)
And that's the way the compound interest rate works.
Lex Fridman (1:02:47.000)
Every day you get this sort of out of whatever values
Matthew Johnson (1:02:53.600)
in there at the beginning of that day,
Lex Fridman (1:02:54.780)
you get this, we'll give you this amount of extra money
Matthew Johnson (1:02:58.560)
to compensate you for that delay.
Lex Fridman (1:03:01.340)
But then the way that all animals tend to function
Matthew Johnson (1:03:05.520)
is of this very different way where the reductions,
Lex Fridman (1:03:09.480)
the initial, that initial delay,
Lex Fridman (1:03:11.880)
so like one day's worth of delay,
Lex Fridman (1:03:13.680)
you see a much stronger discounting rate
Matthew Johnson (1:03:16.600)
or reduction in value than you do over those.
Lex Fridman (1:03:20.440)
So you see the super proportional,
Matthew Johnson (1:03:22.040)
then it changes to these lesser rates.
Lex Fridman (1:03:26.200)
And so the implication of that,
Matthew Johnson (1:03:27.480)
I know I've gone like really into the weeds quantitatively,
Lex Fridman (1:03:29.760)
but what that means is that
Matthew Johnson (1:03:32.640)
there's these preference reversals.
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.280)
When you have curves of that nature,
Matthew Johnson (1:03:37.360)
the decay that's hyperbolic,
Lex Fridman (1:03:40.600)
it maps onto this phenomenon we see
Matthew Johnson (1:03:46.840)
both in terms of how people deal with future rewards,
Lex Fridman (1:03:49.720)
but also how perception works.
Matthew Johnson (1:03:52.800)
When two things are far away,
Lex Fridman (1:03:54.200)
whether it's physical distance
Matthew Johnson (1:03:56.320)
or whether in terms of perception
Lex Fridman (1:03:57.760)
or whether it's in terms of time,
Matthew Johnson (1:03:59.840)
when you're really far away,
Lex Fridman (1:04:01.860)
the value, the subjective value for that further,
Matthew Johnson (1:04:05.680)
that delayed reward is larger.
Lex Fridman (1:04:08.960)
So for example, like,
Matthew Johnson (1:04:11.240)
let's say we're talking about 360,
Lex Fridman (1:04:15.080)
364 days from now, you can get $9 or 365 days a year.
Matthew Johnson (1:04:21.680)
Now you get $10 and you're like,
Lex Fridman (1:04:23.600)
dude, it's like, it's a year, like no difference.
Lex Fridman (1:04:25.780)
Like I'll take, why not get one more dollar?
Lex Fridman (1:04:29.040)
You bring that same exact set of choices closer.
Matthew Johnson (1:04:31.500)
Nothing's changed other than the time to both rewards.
Lex Fridman (1:04:34.400)
And it's like, would you rather have $9 today
Matthew Johnson (1:04:37.480)
or $10 tomorrow and plenty of people would say,
Lex Fridman (1:04:39.760)
eh, just about the same, let's go ahead and take it today.
Lex Fridman (1:04:43.160)
So you see this preference reversal.
Lex Fridman (1:04:45.000)
And so that's a model of addiction
Matthew Johnson (1:04:50.000)
in the sense that consistently with true addiction,
Lex Fridman (1:04:55.000)
I would argue, you see this competition
Matthew Johnson (1:04:58.160)
between molar and molecular utility.
Lex Fridman (1:05:01.680)
It's like interpersonal,
Matthew Johnson (1:05:05.400)
like within the person competing agents.
Lex Fridman (1:05:07.920)
Someone sometimes has control of the bus
Matthew Johnson (1:05:10.340)
that wants to do what's good for you in the short term.
Lex Fridman (1:05:14.400)
And someone at other times is in control of driving the bus
Lex Fridman (1:05:18.200)
and they want to do what's good for you in the long term.
Lex Fridman (1:05:22.480)
So you tell the, you're trying to quit
Lex Fridman (1:05:25.240)
and you see a doctor, you see your 12 step therapist
Lex Fridman (1:05:28.360)
and say, God, I know this stuff is killing me.
Matthew Johnson (1:05:30.880)
Like, I'm really, I'm on the path, like I'm done.
Lex Fridman (1:05:35.560)
And that's when you're kind of in their office
Matthew Johnson (1:05:37.080)
or wherever you're not, it's not around you.
Lex Fridman (1:05:39.200)
And then later on that day, your buddy says that,
Matthew Johnson (1:05:41.320)
hey man, I just scored.
Lex Fridman (1:05:42.640)
I got it right here.
Lex Fridman (1:05:43.480)
Do you want it?
Lex Fridman (1:05:44.320)
And that reward is right in front of you.
Matthew Johnson (1:05:45.480)
That's like bringing those two choices right in front of you.
Lex Fridman (1:05:48.200)
And it's like, hell yeah, I want to use.
Lex Fridman (1:05:50.520)
And then you can go through that cycle for like years
Lex Fridman (1:05:52.840)
of the person telling themselves, I want to quit.
Lex Fridman (1:05:56.400)
But then other times that same person is saying,
Lex Fridman (1:05:58.800)
I don't want to, you know, functionally,
Matthew Johnson (1:06:01.080)
they're saying, I don't want to,
Lex Fridman (1:06:01.920)
because they're saying, yeah, like, yeah, give me some.
Lex Fridman (1:06:04.200)
So in the moment, it's very difficult to quit.
Lex Fridman (1:06:07.160)
And this isn't just something,
Matthew Johnson (1:06:08.400)
this is something that has huge clinical ramifications
Lex Fridman (1:06:11.080)
with addiction, but it's like all humans do it.
Matthew Johnson (1:06:13.400)
Anyone who's hit the snooze alarm in the morning,
Lex Fridman (1:06:15.680)
like the night before they realize,
Matthew Johnson (1:06:17.720)
oh, I got to get up extra early tomorrow.
Lex Fridman (1:06:19.560)
That's what's ultimately better for me.
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.320)
So I'm going to set the alarm for, you know, 5 a.m.
Lex Fridman (1:06:24.000)
And it goes off at 5 a.m., you know,
Lex Fridman (1:06:30.800)
and then, so now those two consequences have come sooner
Lex Fridman (1:06:34.680)
and it's like, what the hell?
Lex Fridman (1:06:35.960)
And they hit the snooze alarm.
Lex Fridman (1:06:37.360)
And sometimes not just once,
Lex Fridman (1:06:38.400)
but then five minutes later and five minutes later,
Lex Fridman (1:06:41.200)
you know, and so, and it's why it's easier
Matthew Johnson (1:06:43.440)
to exercise self control at the grocery store
Lex Fridman (1:06:46.880)
compared to in your fridge.
Matthew Johnson (1:06:48.680)
Like if that snack is like 30 seconds away in your fridge,
Lex Fridman (1:06:54.560)
you're going to more likely yield to temptation
Matthew Johnson (1:06:58.080)
than if it is further away.
Lex Fridman (1:07:01.000)
So then just take a step back to something
Matthew Johnson (1:07:03.520)
you brought up earlier, the inelasticity of pricing.
Lex Fridman (1:07:08.360)
Is it from a perspective of the dealers,
Matthew Johnson (1:07:12.120)
whether we're talking about cigarettes
Lex Fridman (1:07:14.480)
or maybe venturing slightly into the illegal realm,
Matthew Johnson (1:07:20.300)
you know, of people who sell drugs illegally,
Lex Fridman (1:07:23.120)
they also have an economics to them
Matthew Johnson (1:07:25.520)
that they set prices and all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:07:29.080)
Does addiction allow you to mess with the nature of pricing?
Matthew Johnson (1:07:35.820)
Like, so I kind of assume that you meant
Lex Fridman (1:07:39.480)
that there's a correlation between things you're addicted to
Lex Fridman (1:07:42.360)
and the inelasticity of the price.
Lex Fridman (1:07:44.640)
So you can jack up the price.
Matthew Johnson (1:07:46.720)
Is there something interesting to be said
Lex Fridman (1:07:49.040)
both for legal drugs and illegal drugs
Matthew Johnson (1:07:52.920)
about the kind of price games you can play
Lex Fridman (1:07:59.480)
because the consumers of the product are addicted?
Matthew Johnson (1:08:03.920)
Right, I mean, I think you just described it.
Lex Fridman (1:08:06.260)
Yeah, you can jack up the price
Lex Fridman (1:08:07.760)
and you know, some people are going to drop off,
Lex Fridman (1:08:10.880)
but the people, you know, and it's not dichotomous
Matthew Johnson (1:08:13.560)
because you could just consume less,
Lex Fridman (1:08:15.280)
but some people are going to consume less
Lex Fridman (1:08:16.920)
and the people that are most addicted are going to keep,
Lex Fridman (1:08:19.920)
you know, I mean, you see this,
Matthew Johnson (1:08:21.840)
they're going to keep purchasing.
Lex Fridman (1:08:23.440)
So you see this with cigarettes.
Lex Fridman (1:08:24.620)
And so it's interesting when you interface this with policy,
Lex Fridman (1:08:28.080)
like in one respect, heavily taxing cigarettes
Matthew Johnson (1:08:31.280)
is a good thing.
Lex Fridman (1:08:32.120)
We know it keeps adolescents particularly price sensitive.
Lex Fridman (1:08:36.060)
So you definitely, people smoke less
Lex Fridman (1:08:38.800)
and especially kids smoke less when you keep
Matthew Johnson (1:08:41.140)
cigarette prices high and you tax the hell out of them.
Lex Fridman (1:08:44.240)
But one of the downsides you've got to balance
Lex Fridman (1:08:46.760)
and keep in mind is that you disproportionately
Lex Fridman (1:08:49.980)
have working class, poor people.
Lex Fridman (1:08:52.820)
And then you get into a point where someone's spending,
Lex Fridman (1:08:54.960)
you know, a quarter of their paycheck on cigarettes.
Lex Fridman (1:08:56.600)
So they're going to smoke no matter what.
Lex Fridman (1:08:58.640)
And basically because they're addicted,
Matthew Johnson (1:09:01.040)
they're going to smoke no matter what.
Lex Fridman (1:09:02.080)
And you're just, yeah, you're taxing their existence.
Matthew Johnson (1:09:06.360)
Right, so you're making it worse for them.
Lex Fridman (1:09:08.200)
If they don't, if they are completely inelastic,
Matthew Johnson (1:09:10.540)
you're actually making that person's life worse.
Lex Fridman (1:09:12.800)
Because we know that by interfering with the amount
Matthew Johnson (1:09:16.180)
of money they have, you're interfering with the other
Lex Fridman (1:09:19.640)
pro social, the potential competitors to smoking, you know.
Lex Fridman (1:09:23.920)
And we know that when someone's in more impoverished
Lex Fridman (1:09:26.560)
environments and they have less sort of non drug alternatives,
Matthew Johnson (1:09:31.280)
you know, the more likely they're going to stay addicted.
Lex Fridman (1:09:34.120)
So, you know.
Matthew Johnson (1:09:35.760)
Is there data, this is interesting,
Lex Fridman (1:09:38.900)
from a scientific perspective of those same kind of games
Lex Fridman (1:09:42.760)
in illegal drugs?
Lex Fridman (1:09:45.840)
Sort of, because that's where most drug,
Matthew Johnson (1:09:50.000)
I was, I mean, I don't know, maybe you can correct me,
Lex Fridman (1:09:52.180)
but it seems like most drugs are currently illegal.
Lex Fridman (1:09:56.360)
And so, but there's still an economics to them, obviously.
Lex Fridman (1:10:00.240)
That's the drug war and so on.
Matthew Johnson (1:10:01.800)
Is there data on the setting of prices
Lex Fridman (1:10:05.200)
or like how good are the business people running
Lex Fridman (1:10:08.520)
the selling of drugs that are illegal?
Lex Fridman (1:10:11.280)
Are they all the same kind of rules apply
Lex Fridman (1:10:13.440)
from a behavioral economics perspective?
Lex Fridman (1:10:15.820)
I think so.
Matthew Johnson (1:10:16.660)
I mean, they're basically, whether they're crunching
Lex Fridman (1:10:18.900)
the numbers or not, they're basically sensitive
Matthew Johnson (1:10:21.120)
to that demand curve and they're doing the same thing
Lex Fridman (1:10:24.480)
that businesses do in a legal market.
Matthew Johnson (1:10:27.120)
And, you know, you want to sell as much of a product
Lex Fridman (1:10:30.640)
to get as much money.
Matthew Johnson (1:10:32.420)
You're looking more at the total income.
Lex Fridman (1:10:33.840)
So if you jack the price a little bit,
Matthew Johnson (1:10:36.480)
you're going to get some reduction in consumption,
Lex Fridman (1:10:38.840)
but it may be that the total amount of money
Matthew Johnson (1:10:40.800)
that you rake in is going to be more than,
Lex Fridman (1:10:44.400)
it's going to overcompensate for that.
Lex Fridman (1:10:46.360)
So you're willing to take,
Lex Fridman (1:10:47.240)
okay, I'm going to lose 10% of my customers,
Lex Fridman (1:10:49.220)
but I'm getting more than enough to compensate
Lex Fridman (1:10:52.600)
from that, from the extra money
Matthew Johnson (1:10:53.920)
from the people who still are buying.
Lex Fridman (1:10:55.740)
So I think they're more, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:10:57.080)
and especially when we get to the lower,
Lex Fridman (1:10:58.440)
I wouldn't be surprised if people are crunching those numbers
Lex Fridman (1:11:01.520)
and looking at demand curves, maybe at the, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:11:03.960)
at the really high levels of the, you know,
Matthew Johnson (1:11:06.040)
up the chain with the cartels and whatnot.
Lex Fridman (1:11:07.920)
I don't know, that wouldn't surprise me at all,
Lex Fridman (1:11:10.300)
but I think it's probably more implicit
Lex Fridman (1:11:12.440)
at the lower levels where something,
Matthew Johnson (1:11:16.280)
you brought up drug policy.
Lex Fridman (1:11:17.240)
I will say that for years now,
Matthew Johnson (1:11:19.760)
it's been this kind of unquestioned goal by, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:11:25.220)
the drug czar's office in the US
Matthew Johnson (1:11:28.760)
to make the price of illegal drugs as high as possible
Lex Fridman (1:11:32.640)
without this kind of nuanced approach that,
Matthew Johnson (1:11:36.360)
yeah, if you make, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:11:38.680)
for some people, if you make the price so high,
Matthew Johnson (1:11:41.760)
you're actually making things worse.
Lex Fridman (1:11:43.840)
I mean, I'm all about reducing the problems associated
Matthew Johnson (1:11:47.520)
with drugs and drug addictions.
Lex Fridman (1:11:48.740)
And part of that is the,
Matthew Johnson (1:11:50.480)
are more direct consequences of those drugs themselves,
Lex Fridman (1:11:53.460)
but a whole lot is what you get from indirectly
Matthew Johnson (1:11:57.560)
and, you know, sort of the,
Lex Fridman (1:11:59.720)
both for the individual and for society.
Lex Fridman (1:12:02.080)
So like making a poor person
Lex Fridman (1:12:04.420)
who doesn't have enough money for their kids,
Matthew Johnson (1:12:05.860)
making them even poorer.
Lex Fridman (1:12:06.920)
So now you've made their children's future worse
Matthew Johnson (1:12:10.920)
because they're growing up in deeper poverty
Lex Fridman (1:12:12.560)
because you've essentially levied a tax
Matthew Johnson (1:12:14.960)
onto this person who's heavily addicted.
Lex Fridman (1:12:18.760)
But then at the societal level, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:12:21.480)
so everything we know about the drug war
Lex Fridman (1:12:23.480)
in terms of the heavy criminalization
Lex Fridman (1:12:26.200)
and filling up prisons and reducing employment
Lex Fridman (1:12:29.280)
and educational opportunities,
Matthew Johnson (1:12:31.520)
which in the big picture,
Lex Fridman (1:12:32.720)
we know are the things that in a free market
Matthew Johnson (1:12:35.840)
compete against some of the worst problems of addiction
Lex Fridman (1:12:38.920)
is actually having educational
Lex Fridman (1:12:40.880)
and employment opportunities.
Lex Fridman (1:12:42.120)
But when you give someone a felony, for example,
Matthew Johnson (1:12:46.280)
you're pretty much guaranteeing
Lex Fridman (1:12:47.360)
they're never gonna go very high on the economic ladder.
Lex Fridman (1:12:50.320)
And so you're making drugs a better reward
Lex Fridman (1:12:53.800)
for that person's future.
Lex Fridman (1:12:56.360)
So this is a quick step into the policy realm.
Lex Fridman (1:13:00.480)
And I think for both you and I,
Matthew Johnson (1:13:02.800)
I'm not sure you can correct me,
Lex Fridman (1:13:04.120)
but I'm more comfortable into studying the effects of drugs
Matthew Johnson (1:13:08.640)
on the human behavior and human psychology
Lex Fridman (1:13:12.140)
versus like policy.
Matthew Johnson (1:13:13.160)
It seems like a whole giant mess,
Lex Fridman (1:13:14.800)
but yeah, there's some libertarian candidates for president
Lex Fridman (1:13:20.520)
and just libertarian thinkers
Lex Fridman (1:13:23.160)
that had a nice thought experiment
Matthew Johnson (1:13:26.180)
of possibly legalizing,
Lex Fridman (1:13:28.720)
I've spoken about possibly legalizing basically all drugs.
Matthew Johnson (1:13:32.920)
In your intuition,
Lex Fridman (1:13:34.880)
do you think a world where all drugs are legal
Matthew Johnson (1:13:39.720)
is a safer world or a less safe world
Lex Fridman (1:13:43.680)
for the users of those drugs?
Matthew Johnson (1:13:45.280)
It really depends on what we mean by legalization.
Lex Fridman (1:13:47.880)
So this is one of my beefs with this,
Lex Fridman (1:13:50.440)
how these things are talked about.
Lex Fridman (1:13:52.280)
I mean, we have very few completely laissez faire,
Matthew Johnson (1:13:57.400)
you know, legal drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:13:59.400)
So even caffeine is one of the few examples.
Lex Fridman (1:14:02.360)
So for example, caffeine and tea and coffee is in that realm.
Lex Fridman (1:14:05.720)
Like there's no limits, no one's testing,
Matthew Johnson (1:14:07.420)
there's no laws, regulation at any level
Lex Fridman (1:14:09.320)
of how much caffeine you're allowed to buy
Matthew Johnson (1:14:11.200)
or how much is in the product.
Lex Fridman (1:14:12.040)
But even like with this Starbucks, like nitro,
Matthew Johnson (1:14:14.960)
there are rules with soda and with canned products,
Lex Fridman (1:14:18.000)
you can only put so much.
Matthew Johnson (1:14:19.440)
In there, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:14:20.280)
So this is FDA regulated.
Lex Fridman (1:14:22.800)
And it's kind of weird because there's a limit to sodas
Lex Fridman (1:14:24.880)
that's not there for energy drinks and other things.
Matthew Johnson (1:14:27.400)
But, you know, so even caffeine,
Lex Fridman (1:14:29.520)
it depends on what product we're talking about.
Matthew Johnson (1:14:31.480)
Like if you're like no dose
Lex Fridman (1:14:33.000)
and other caffeine products over the counter,
Matthew Johnson (1:14:34.840)
like you can't just put 800 milligrams in there.
Lex Fridman (1:14:36.920)
The pills are like one or 200 milligrams.
Lex Fridman (1:14:39.400)
And so it's FDA regulated as an over counter drug.
Lex Fridman (1:14:41.920)
Some of the most dangerous drugs in society,
Matthew Johnson (1:14:45.200)
I would say arguably one of the most dangerous classes
Lex Fridman (1:14:47.280)
of drugs is the volatile anesthetics, huffing.
Matthew Johnson (1:14:49.600)
People huffing gasoline and, you know, airplane glue,
Lex Fridman (1:14:52.120)
toluene, whatnot, severely damaging to the nervous system.
Matthew Johnson (1:14:58.480)
Pretty much legal, but there's some regulation
Lex Fridman (1:15:01.480)
in the sense that there's a warning label,
Matthew Johnson (1:15:03.000)
like it's illegal to do it for,
Lex Fridman (1:15:04.840)
not that they're busting people for this,
Matthew Johnson (1:15:07.880)
but, you know, it's against federal law
Lex Fridman (1:15:10.520)
to use this in a way other than intended type of,
Matthew Johnson (1:15:13.640)
basically saying like, yeah, don't huff this, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:15:17.080)
your paint thinner or whatnot.
Matthew Johnson (1:15:19.000)
It at least keeps people from selling it for that.
Lex Fridman (1:15:22.160)
Like, no, because they're gonna go after that person.
Matthew Johnson (1:15:24.520)
They're not gonna be able to find
Lex Fridman (1:15:25.480)
the 12 year old who's huffing.
Lex Fridman (1:15:27.120)
So anyway, just as some extreme examples at the end.
Lex Fridman (1:15:30.920)
And then, you know, even the so called illegal,
Matthew Johnson (1:15:34.960)
like schedule one drugs, psilocybin,
Lex Fridman (1:15:36.440)
we do plenty in terms of schedule two,
Matthew Johnson (1:15:39.440)
which is ironically less restrictive than psilocybin,
Lex Fridman (1:15:42.000)
but methamphetamine and cocaine,
Matthew Johnson (1:15:43.360)
I've done human research with.
Lex Fridman (1:15:45.240)
My research has been legal.
Lex Fridman (1:15:47.000)
So they're scheduled compounds,
Lex Fridman (1:15:48.240)
but they're not completely illegal.
Matthew Johnson (1:15:49.520)
Like you can do research with them
Lex Fridman (1:15:51.520)
with the appropriate licenses and approval.
Lex Fridman (1:15:55.600)
So there really is no such thing.
Lex Fridman (1:15:57.840)
And like alcohol, well, it's illegal
Matthew Johnson (1:16:00.040)
if you're 12 years old or 18 years old or 20 years old.
Lex Fridman (1:16:03.520)
And for anyone, it's illegal to be drinking it
Matthew Johnson (1:16:05.840)
while you're driving.
Lex Fridman (1:16:06.680)
So there's always a nuance.
Matthew Johnson (1:16:09.080)
It's not dichotomy.
Lex Fridman (1:16:11.160)
And I actually should admit,
Matthew Johnson (1:16:12.480)
it's been on my to do list for a while
Lex Fridman (1:16:13.960)
to buy in Massachusetts, some like edible,
Matthew Johnson (1:16:17.360)
or buy weed legally.
Lex Fridman (1:16:21.840)
Yeah, haven't done that in Massachusetts,
Matthew Johnson (1:16:23.640)
let's put it this way.
Lex Fridman (1:16:24.680)
And I wonder what that experience is like,
Matthew Johnson (1:16:28.280)
because I think it's fully legal in Massachusetts.
Lex Fridman (1:16:31.040)
And so I wonder what legal drugs look like to me.
Matthew Johnson (1:16:35.560)
You know, I grew up with even weed being like,
Lex Fridman (1:16:38.920)
you know, it's like this forbidden thing,
Matthew Johnson (1:16:41.840)
you know, not forbidden, but it's illegal.
Lex Fridman (1:16:43.840)
You know, most people, of course, I never partook,
Lex Fridman (1:16:46.480)
but most people I knew would attain it illegally.
Lex Fridman (1:16:50.520)
And so that big switch that's been happening
Matthew Johnson (1:16:53.760)
across the country, there's like federal stuff going on
Lex Fridman (1:16:57.640)
to make marijuana legal federally.
Matthew Johnson (1:17:00.280)
I'm half paying attention.
Lex Fridman (1:17:01.560)
There's some movement there.
Matthew Johnson (1:17:02.680)
I mean, the House passed a bill
Lex Fridman (1:17:03.760)
that's not gonna be passed by the Senate,
Lex Fridman (1:17:06.040)
but yeah, it's progress.
Lex Fridman (1:17:08.520)
There's clearly a change.
Matthew Johnson (1:17:09.960)
Right, it's moving in a trend.
Lex Fridman (1:17:11.400)
So that's the example of a drug that used to be illegal
Matthew Johnson (1:17:14.440)
is now becoming more and more and more legal.
Lex Fridman (1:17:17.760)
So like, I wonder what like cocaine being legal looks like,
Lex Fridman (1:17:23.040)
what a society with cocaine being legal looks like,
Lex Fridman (1:17:26.040)
the rules around it, you know, the processes
Matthew Johnson (1:17:30.760)
in which you can consume it in a safer way
Lex Fridman (1:17:34.440)
and be more educated about its consequences,
Matthew Johnson (1:17:37.080)
be able to control dose and like purity much better,
Lex Fridman (1:17:41.240)
be able to get help for overdose.
Matthew Johnson (1:17:44.080)
I don't know, all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:17:46.800)
It does in a utopian sense feel like legalizing drugs
Matthew Johnson (1:17:53.600)
at least should be talked about and considered
Lex Fridman (1:17:56.440)
versus keeping them in the dark.
Matthew Johnson (1:17:59.600)
I agree.
Lex Fridman (1:18:00.440)
But yeah, so that in your sense,
Matthew Johnson (1:18:05.240)
it's possible that in 50 years we legalize all drugs
Lex Fridman (1:18:10.320)
and it makes for a better world.
Matthew Johnson (1:18:13.120)
The way I like to talk about it is that I would say
Lex Fridman (1:18:15.800)
that it's possible and it would probably be a good thing
Matthew Johnson (1:18:18.360)
if we regulate all drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:18:20.960)
How would you regulate like cocaine, for example?
Lex Fridman (1:18:23.920)
Is there ideas there?
Lex Fridman (1:18:25.600)
So yeah, and you were already, you know, going, you know,
Matthew Johnson (1:18:28.720)
where I was going with that kind of first I described
Lex Fridman (1:18:31.160)
how there's always a new ones.
Lex Fridman (1:18:32.040)
And even like the cannabis in Massachusetts,
Lex Fridman (1:18:34.120)
federally illegal.
Lex Fridman (1:18:35.040)
So for example, if I was like, and I, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:18:38.320)
colleagues that do cannabis research
Matthew Johnson (1:18:39.840)
where they get people high in the lab,
Lex Fridman (1:18:41.200)
like you're a federal funded researcher with NIH funds,
Matthew Johnson (1:18:43.680)
you can't get that stuff from the dispensary
Lex Fridman (1:18:46.080)
because you're breaking a federal law.
Matthew Johnson (1:18:48.200)
Even though the feds don't have the resources to go after,
Lex Fridman (1:18:50.880)
they don't want the controversy at this point
Matthew Johnson (1:18:52.480)
to go after the individual users
Lex Fridman (1:18:53.800)
or even the sellers in those legal states.
Lex Fridman (1:18:56.280)
So there's always this nuance,
Lex Fridman (1:18:57.360)
but it's about the right regulation.
Lex Fridman (1:18:59.560)
So I think we already know enough that, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:19:03.040)
like I think safe injection sites for hard drugs
Matthew Johnson (1:19:06.240)
makes a lot of sense.
Lex Fridman (1:19:07.080)
Like I wouldn't want heroin and cocaine
Matthew Johnson (1:19:11.560)
at the convenience stores.
Lex Fridman (1:19:13.080)
And I don't think, maybe there's some extreme libertarians
Matthew Johnson (1:19:15.280)
that want that.
Lex Fridman (1:19:16.120)
I think even the folks that identify as libertarians,
Matthew Johnson (1:19:19.360)
probably most of them don't, well, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:19:21.680)
Like not all of them want that, you know?
Matthew Johnson (1:19:25.560)
I think, you know, that as a form of regulation,
Lex Fridman (1:19:27.600)
like, look, if you're using these hard drugs
Matthew Johnson (1:19:29.560)
on a regular basis, you're putting yourself at risk
Lex Fridman (1:19:33.000)
for lethal overdose.
Matthew Johnson (1:19:34.240)
You're putting yourself at risk for catching HIV
Lex Fridman (1:19:37.920)
and hepatitis.
Matthew Johnson (1:19:41.400)
If you're gonna do it, if you're doing it anyway,
Lex Fridman (1:19:43.560)
come to this place where at least you're not like,
Matthew Johnson (1:19:46.120)
you know, like pulling the water out of like,
Lex Fridman (1:19:50.120)
you know, the puddle on the side of the street.
Matthew Johnson (1:19:52.320)
Yeah, so it's done by professionals
Lex Fridman (1:19:54.120)
and those professionals are able to educate you also.
Lex Fridman (1:19:57.120)
So like a 711 clerk may not be both capable
Lex Fridman (1:20:01.680)
of helping you to inject the drug properly,
Lex Fridman (1:20:05.200)
but also won't be equipped to educate you
Lex Fridman (1:20:07.680)
at the negative consequences, all those kinds of things.
Matthew Johnson (1:20:10.040)
That's a huge part of it, the education.
Lex Fridman (1:20:11.880)
But then I think with the opioids,
Matthew Johnson (1:20:13.720)
like the big part of it is just like with naloxone,
Lex Fridman (1:20:18.280)
which is an antagonist, it goes into the receptor,
Matthew Johnson (1:20:21.960)
it's called Narcan, that's the trade name,
Lex Fridman (1:20:23.960)
but it's what they revive people on an opioid overdose.
Matthew Johnson (1:20:26.960)
That's almost completely effective.
Lex Fridman (1:20:29.200)
Like if there's a medical professional there
Lex Fridman (1:20:31.120)
and someone's ODing on an opioid,
Lex Fridman (1:20:33.320)
they're virtually guaranteed to live.
Matthew Johnson (1:20:35.360)
Like that's remarkable that if 100% at the opioid crisis,
Lex Fridman (1:20:40.120)
you know, if all of those people right now that are dying
Matthew Johnson (1:20:43.040)
were doing that in the presence of a medical professional,
Lex Fridman (1:20:45.280)
like even like a nurse with Narcan,
Matthew Johnson (1:20:48.040)
there'd be basically almost no deaths.
Lex Fridman (1:20:50.000)
There's always some exceptions, but you know,
Matthew Johnson (1:20:52.400)
almost no deaths, like that's staggering to me.
Lex Fridman (1:20:54.400)
So the idea that people are doing this,
Matthew Johnson (1:20:56.680)
that we could have that level of positive effect
Lex Fridman (1:21:01.160)
without encouraging the drug.
Lex Fridman (1:21:02.560)
And this is where like you get into this like terrain
Lex Fridman (1:21:05.040)
of like sending the wrong message.
Lex Fridman (1:21:06.520)
And it's like, no, you can do that.
Lex Fridman (1:21:09.040)
You can say like, we're not encouraging this.
Matthew Johnson (1:21:12.080)
In fact, probably one of the greatest advertisements
Lex Fridman (1:21:15.360)
for not getting hooked on heroin
Matthew Johnson (1:21:16.880)
is like visiting a methadone clinic,
Lex Fridman (1:21:18.360)
visiting a safe injection site.
Matthew Johnson (1:21:19.880)
Like this is not like an advertisement
Lex Fridman (1:21:23.640)
for getting hooked on this drug,
Lex Fridman (1:21:25.040)
but knowing that we can save people.
Lex Fridman (1:21:26.640)
Now you have a landscape here
Matthew Johnson (1:21:27.880)
because a lot of times it's just like supervised injection,
Lex Fridman (1:21:31.080)
but you bring your own stuff, you know,
Matthew Johnson (1:21:32.640)
you bring your own heroin, which could still be, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:21:34.880)
dirty and filled with fentanyl and fentanyl derivatives,
Matthew Johnson (1:21:38.760)
which because of the incredible potency
Lex Fridman (1:21:41.480)
and the more difficulty measuring it,
Lex Fridman (1:21:43.400)
and some differences at the receptor,
Lex Fridman (1:21:46.040)
like you may be more likely,
Matthew Johnson (1:21:47.680)
you are more likely on average to lethally overdose on it.
Lex Fridman (1:21:51.280)
You know, so you could,
Matthew Johnson (1:21:53.760)
the level that's been more explored in Switzerland
Lex Fridman (1:21:55.880)
is in some places is you actually provide the drug itself
Lex Fridman (1:22:01.600)
and you supervise the injection.
Lex Fridman (1:22:03.160)
So I don't see.
Lex Fridman (1:22:04.000)
Do you like that idea?
Lex Fridman (1:22:05.120)
Yeah, the public health data are completely on the side of,
Matthew Johnson (1:22:08.720)
there's really no credible evidence to this.
Lex Fridman (1:22:11.000)
If we allow that, we're sending the wrong message
Lex Fridman (1:22:12.720)
and everyone's gonna, I mean, I'm not showing up.
Lex Fridman (1:22:15.560)
Like, you know, and it's different by drug.
Matthew Johnson (1:22:17.320)
Like, yeah, you legalize, you set up cannabis shops
Lex Fridman (1:22:19.880)
and some people are gonna say,
Lex Fridman (1:22:20.720)
so you go, I'm gonna go there.
Lex Fridman (1:22:21.880)
I don't think a whole lot of people
Matthew Johnson (1:22:22.960)
are gonna go to one of these places
Lex Fridman (1:22:24.840)
and say, I'm gonna shoot up heroin for the first time.
Lex Fridman (1:22:28.040)
And even if like, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:22:29.320)
it's a country of 300 million people,
Matthew Johnson (1:22:30.840)
like even if someone does that,
Lex Fridman (1:22:33.200)
you have to compare this to the every day
Matthew Johnson (1:22:35.800)
people are dying from opioid overdoses.
Lex Fridman (1:22:39.160)
Like people's kids, people's uncles,
Matthew Johnson (1:22:41.240)
people's like, these are real lives
Lex Fridman (1:22:42.800)
that are being shattered.
Lex Fridman (1:22:43.640)
So you just look at that.
Lex Fridman (1:22:45.360)
And then the other thing,
Lex Fridman (1:22:46.200)
and I know this from having done residential,
Lex Fridman (1:22:49.080)
even like non treatment research,
Matthew Johnson (1:22:50.480)
where we just have a cocaine user or something,
Lex Fridman (1:22:52.880)
stay on our inpatient ward for a month
Lex Fridman (1:22:54.600)
and you really get to know them.
Lex Fridman (1:22:55.600)
And sometimes you see like, oftentimes
Matthew Johnson (1:22:58.080)
that's the first time this person has had a discussion
Lex Fridman (1:23:00.760)
with a medical professional, any type of professional
Matthew Johnson (1:23:03.000)
in their entire life around their drug use.
Lex Fridman (1:23:05.280)
Even if they're not looking to quit.
Lex Fridman (1:23:07.240)
And it's like, you know, you could imagine that
Lex Fridman (1:23:09.400)
in the safe injection settings where it's like,
Matthew Johnson (1:23:12.600)
it might be a year into treatment and they're like,
Lex Fridman (1:23:15.200)
you know, doc, I know you're not the cops.
Matthew Johnson (1:23:17.440)
Like you really care for me.
Lex Fridman (1:23:18.520)
Like, I think I'm ready to try that methadone thing.
Matthew Johnson (1:23:21.160)
I think I'm really, I think I wanna be done.
Lex Fridman (1:23:23.520)
I'm really patient about it, yeah.
Matthew Johnson (1:23:24.720)
Yeah, they get to trust the people
Lex Fridman (1:23:26.680)
and realize that they're there
Matthew Johnson (1:23:29.000)
cause they truly like, they have a compassion,
Lex Fridman (1:23:31.040)
a love for this community, like as human beings,
Lex Fridman (1:23:34.460)
and they don't want people to die.
Lex Fridman (1:23:36.480)
And you get real human connections and that,
Lex Fridman (1:23:39.280)
and again, like those are the conditions
Lex Fridman (1:23:40.940)
where people are gonna ultimately seek treatment
Lex Fridman (1:23:42.960)
and not everyone always will, but you're gonna get that.
Lex Fridman (1:23:46.800)
And then, you know, you're gonna get people
Matthew Johnson (1:23:48.400)
like looking into treatment options sometimes,
Lex Fridman (1:23:50.960)
you know, maybe it's years into the treatment.
Lex Fridman (1:23:53.720)
So it's like, they're just all of these indirect benefits
Lex Fridman (1:23:56.120)
that I think at that level,
Matthew Johnson (1:23:57.680)
I don't know if you'd call that legalizing,
Lex Fridman (1:23:59.440)
you know, I think again, at least well regulated.
Matthew Johnson (1:24:02.720)
Right, whatever that word is.
Lex Fridman (1:24:04.600)
Yeah, well regulated, but out in the open.
Matthew Johnson (1:24:08.280)
Right, minimizing as many harms as we can
Lex Fridman (1:24:11.520)
while not encouraging.
Matthew Johnson (1:24:13.360)
I mean, we don't encourage people to drink all the,
Lex Fridman (1:24:15.480)
I mean, people die every year from caffeine overdose.
Matthew Johnson (1:24:17.880)
Like, you know, there's different ways to like, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:24:20.580)
just by allowing something doesn't mean
Matthew Johnson (1:24:22.320)
we're sending the message that, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:24:24.440)
by saying we're not gonna give you a felony,
Matthew Johnson (1:24:26.960)
which is actually often the penalty for psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (1:24:32.120)
I just actually testified for the Judiciary Committee
Matthew Johnson (1:24:34.880)
of the Senate, the Assembly in New Jersey.
Lex Fridman (1:24:38.440)
And just to move psilocybin from a felony to misdemeanor,
Matthew Johnson (1:24:43.800)
they use different language in New Jersey, it's weird,
Lex Fridman (1:24:45.480)
but like the equivalent of felony and misdemeanor.
Lex Fridman (1:24:47.160)
And that was like, two people didn't vote for that
Lex Fridman (1:24:49.560)
on this committee because it was might,
Matthew Johnson (1:24:53.220)
one of them said it might be sending the wrong message.
Lex Fridman (1:24:55.160)
And it's like, a felony, I mean, there's real harms.
Matthew Johnson (1:24:59.080)
Like, that's the scarlet letter the rest of your life.
Lex Fridman (1:25:01.560)
You're stuck at the lower ends of the employment ladder.
Matthew Johnson (1:25:04.200)
You're not gonna get, you know, loans for education,
Lex Fridman (1:25:07.000)
all of this, maybe because of a stupid mistake
Matthew Johnson (1:25:08.960)
you made once as a 19 year old.
Lex Fridman (1:25:11.400)
Doing something that like, you know,
Matthew Johnson (1:25:12.800)
a presidential candidate could have done and admitted to
Lex Fridman (1:25:15.260)
and had no problem, you know?
Matthew Johnson (1:25:16.840)
Yeah, what drug is the most addictive,
Lex Fridman (1:25:22.440)
the most dangerous in your view?
Matthew Johnson (1:25:25.480)
Not maybe, like not technically,
Lex Fridman (1:25:29.040)
like specifically which drug,
Lex Fridman (1:25:31.320)
but more like in our society today,
Lex Fridman (1:25:34.240)
what is a highly problematic drug?
Matthew Johnson (1:25:35.960)
We talked about psychedelics not being that addictive
Lex Fridman (1:25:40.120)
on the other flip side of that.
Lex Fridman (1:25:41.720)
You mentioned cocaine, is that the top one?
Lex Fridman (1:25:45.360)
Is there something else?
Lex Fridman (1:25:46.200)
That's a concern to you?
Lex Fridman (1:25:48.000)
It depends, and you've already alluded to this nuance.
Matthew Johnson (1:25:50.240)
It depends on how you define it.
Lex Fridman (1:25:51.360)
If we're talking about on the ground today,
Matthew Johnson (1:25:53.760)
in, you know, a modern society,
Lex Fridman (1:25:56.320)
I'd say nicotine, tobacco.
Matthew Johnson (1:25:59.800)
Oh shit.
Lex Fridman (1:26:00.960)
I mean, in terms of mortality,
Matthew Johnson (1:26:03.480)
it kills far more than any other drug known to humankind.
Lex Fridman (1:26:09.200)
Four times more than alcohol,
Matthew Johnson (1:26:10.960)
like a half million deaths in the US every year
Lex Fridman (1:26:13.680)
and about five to six million worldwide due to tobacco.
Matthew Johnson (1:26:18.520)
That's four times more in the US than alcohol.
Lex Fridman (1:26:21.560)
And if you graph all of the drugs, legal and illegal,
Matthew Johnson (1:26:25.080)
like, you know, put all of the illegal drugs
Lex Fridman (1:26:28.040)
in like one category on that figure,
Lex Fridman (1:26:30.760)
and you put alcohol and tobacco on that figure,
Lex Fridman (1:26:33.480)
all the illegal drugs combined,
Matthew Johnson (1:26:35.160)
they're a barely visible blip to this incredible,
Lex Fridman (1:26:39.800)
like there's no, even all of the opioid epidemic rolled up
Matthew Johnson (1:26:43.280)
along with cocaine and everything else,
Lex Fridman (1:26:44.800)
the meth barely shows up compared to tobacco.
Matthew Johnson (1:26:47.080)
That's one of those uncomfortable truths
Lex Fridman (1:26:51.240)
that I don't know what to do with.
Matthew Johnson (1:26:52.800)
It's like where everybody's freaking out
Lex Fridman (1:26:55.240)
about coronavirus, right?
Lex Fridman (1:26:59.040)
And nobody's... The relative.
Lex Fridman (1:27:00.720)
It's all relative.
Matthew Johnson (1:27:01.560)
If you look at the relative thing,
Lex Fridman (1:27:03.760)
it's like, well, why aren't we freaking out
Matthew Johnson (1:27:06.240)
about cigarettes, which we are increasingly so
Lex Fridman (1:27:10.040)
over the, historically speaking, right?
Matthew Johnson (1:27:12.400)
Right. It's like terrorism versus swimming pools.
Lex Fridman (1:27:14.920)
I remember that being back in the,
Matthew Johnson (1:27:17.440)
after the war on terror started.
Lex Fridman (1:27:18.880)
It's like, yeah, there's not even comparison.
Matthew Johnson (1:27:21.720)
Okay. So, you know, that's a little sobering truth there.
Lex Fridman (1:27:25.320)
Cause I was thinking like cocaine,
Matthew Johnson (1:27:26.880)
I was thinking about all of these hard drugs,
Lex Fridman (1:27:29.800)
but the reality is relatively nicotine is the big one.
Lex Fridman (1:27:33.320)
And you didn't ask about mortality or deaths.
Lex Fridman (1:27:35.440)
You asked about addiction,
Lex Fridman (1:27:37.400)
but that really is hard to evaluate.
Lex Fridman (1:27:40.480)
It gets into those nuances I spoke of before
Matthew Johnson (1:27:42.560)
about there's not a unidimensional way
Lex Fridman (1:27:45.080)
to measure reinforcement.
Matthew Johnson (1:27:46.240)
It kind of depends on the situation
Lex Fridman (1:27:48.000)
and what measure we're looking at.
Lex Fridman (1:27:50.760)
But you know, more people have access to tobacco
Lex Fridman (1:27:55.000)
and I'm not advocating that we make it an illegal drug.
Matthew Johnson (1:27:58.560)
I think that would be a horrible mistake.
Lex Fridman (1:28:00.880)
Although there is a very credible push
Matthew Johnson (1:28:03.040)
to mandate the reduction of nicotine in cigarettes,
Lex Fridman (1:28:07.600)
which I have most scientists that study it are for it.
Matthew Johnson (1:28:10.840)
I think there's some real dangers there
Lex Fridman (1:28:14.040)
cause I see that in the broader history of drug use.
Lex Fridman (1:28:16.120)
It's like when has drug prohibition worked broadly speaking?
Lex Fridman (1:28:20.240)
And it's to me that path would only make sense
Matthew Johnson (1:28:25.600)
in very good conjunction with eCigarettes,
Lex Fridman (1:28:28.360)
which once they're fully regulated can be a safer,
Matthew Johnson (1:28:31.560)
not safe, but much safer alternative.
Lex Fridman (1:28:34.240)
And if we tax the hell out of eCigarettes
Lex Fridman (1:28:37.880)
and ban every attractive feature
Lex Fridman (1:28:39.680)
like flavors and everything,
Matthew Johnson (1:28:41.800)
then that's gonna push people to a black market
Lex Fridman (1:28:45.960)
if they can't get the real thing from real cigarette.
Matthew Johnson (1:28:47.760)
Like some people will just quit straight out.
Lex Fridman (1:28:49.840)
But I think with the regulators
Lex Fridman (1:28:51.360)
and what a lot of scientists that study tobacco,
Lex Fridman (1:28:53.920)
like myself, it's a big part still of what I study.
Matthew Johnson (1:28:58.640)
They're not used to thinking about the like tobacco really
Lex Fridman (1:29:01.920)
as a drug largely speaking in terms of,
Matthew Johnson (1:29:05.560)
for example, the history of prohibition.
Lex Fridman (1:29:07.500)
And I think of like,
Matthew Johnson (1:29:08.340)
we already know there's an illicit market,
Lex Fridman (1:29:09.960)
a black market for tobacco to get around taxes.
Matthew Johnson (1:29:14.640)
I mean, and for selling even loose cigarettes,
Lex Fridman (1:29:16.600)
that's what initially caused in Staten Island
Matthew Johnson (1:29:18.480)
the police to approach Eric Garland
Lex Fridman (1:29:20.840)
who was selling loose cigarettes and he got choked out.
Matthew Johnson (1:29:23.460)
I mean, the thing that caused that police contact
Lex Fridman (1:29:25.160)
was he was selling, well, I think reported
Matthew Johnson (1:29:27.880)
to sell individual cigarettes for like,
Lex Fridman (1:29:30.520)
he gets home for court, it happens in Baltimore.
Lex Fridman (1:29:32.240)
And it's like, that's technically illegal.
Lex Fridman (1:29:34.400)
But are you not gonna have massive boats
Matthew Johnson (1:29:39.160)
of supplies coming over from China and elsewhere
Lex Fridman (1:29:42.240)
of real deal cigarettes if you ban the sale of nicotine?
Matthew Johnson (1:29:47.680)
Like it's obviously gonna happen.
Lex Fridman (1:29:49.960)
And you have to weigh that against,
Matthew Johnson (1:29:52.520)
you're gonna create a black market to one size or another.
Lex Fridman (1:29:55.640)
And your intuition that really hasn't worked
Matthew Johnson (1:29:57.560)
throughout the history when we've tried it.
Lex Fridman (1:29:59.860)
Right, but I see a potential path forward,
Lex Fridman (1:30:01.920)
but only if it's well,
Lex Fridman (1:30:04.040)
if it's not in conjunction with eCigarettes.
Matthew Johnson (1:30:06.080)
If there's a clear alternative,
Lex Fridman (1:30:07.360)
that's a positive alternative
Matthew Johnson (1:30:08.600)
that it kind of stares the population towards an alternative.
Lex Fridman (1:30:14.680)
The difference here, the unique thing
Matthew Johnson (1:30:16.640)
that could be taken advantage of here
Lex Fridman (1:30:18.080)
is nicotine is by and large, not what causes the harm.
Matthew Johnson (1:30:20.800)
It's the aromatic hydrocarbons,
Lex Fridman (1:30:23.040)
it's the carcinogens and tobacco,
Matthew Johnson (1:30:26.360)
it's burning tobacco smoke, it's not the nicotine.
Lex Fridman (1:30:29.500)
So it's not like alcohol prohibition
Matthew Johnson (1:30:34.140)
where like you couldn't create the O'Douls,
Lex Fridman (1:30:37.680)
the near beer is not gonna have the alcohol.
Lex Fridman (1:30:39.760)
And so people like, here you do have the possibility
Lex Fridman (1:30:42.600)
of giving another medium the ability to deliver the drug,
Matthew Johnson (1:30:48.080)
which still aren't to a lot of people
Lex Fridman (1:30:49.880)
isn't preferred to the tobacco, but nonetheless,
Matthew Johnson (1:30:52.320)
again, if you overregulate those
Lex Fridman (1:30:54.220)
and make them less attractive,
Matthew Johnson (1:30:55.440)
like if you aren't thoughtful about the nicotine limits
Lex Fridman (1:30:58.800)
and thoughtful about whether you're allowing flavors
Lex Fridman (1:31:00.880)
and everything, and if you overtax them,
Lex Fridman (1:31:03.480)
you're actually decreasing the ability to compete
Matthew Johnson (1:31:06.020)
with the more dangerous products.
Lex Fridman (1:31:08.720)
So I feel like there is a potential path forward,
Lex Fridman (1:31:11.120)
but I don't have a lot of confidence
Lex Fridman (1:31:12.480)
that that's gonna be done in a thoughtful analytical way.
Lex Fridman (1:31:17.080)
And I'm afraid that it could decrease the increase
Lex Fridman (1:31:20.760)
of black market calls all of the harms.
Matthew Johnson (1:31:23.160)
Like every other drug we're moving away from the prohibition
Lex Fridman (1:31:26.840)
model slowly, but the big barge ship
Matthew Johnson (1:31:30.120)
is like making a very slow turn.
Lex Fridman (1:31:32.400)
And like, okay, we really had to step back
Lex Fridman (1:31:34.960)
and question if we went with nicotine, tobacco,
Lex Fridman (1:31:38.760)
are we moving into that direction?
Matthew Johnson (1:31:41.560)
Like big picture.
Lex Fridman (1:31:43.600)
It doesn't quite make sense.
Matthew Johnson (1:31:45.200)
You've done a study on cocaine and sexual decision making.
Lex Fridman (1:31:52.720)
Can you explain?
Lex Fridman (1:31:53.900)
Can you explain the findings?
Lex Fridman (1:31:56.920)
I mean, in a broad sense, how do you do a study
Matthew Johnson (1:32:03.140)
that involves cocaine and the other,
Lex Fridman (1:32:08.300)
how do you do a study involving sexual decision making?
Lex Fridman (1:32:13.060)
And then how do you do a study that combines both?
Lex Fridman (1:32:16.700)
Yeah, sex and drugs too.
Matthew Johnson (1:32:18.020)
I'm just missing the rock and roll.
Lex Fridman (1:32:19.460)
It's like the two controversial,
Matthew Johnson (1:32:21.380)
rock and roll isn't very controversial anymore.
Lex Fridman (1:32:23.760)
Yeah, so the cocaine, lots of hoops to jump through.
Matthew Johnson (1:32:26.380)
You gotta have a lot of medical support.
Lex Fridman (1:32:28.420)
You gotta be at a basically an institution,
Matthew Johnson (1:32:30.620)
a research unit like I'm at that has a long history
Lex Fridman (1:32:34.380)
and the ability to do that and get ethics approval,
Matthew Johnson (1:32:39.720)
get FDA approval, but it's possible.
Lex Fridman (1:32:41.620)
And whenever you're dealing with something like cocaine,
Matthew Johnson (1:32:43.940)
you would never wanna give that to someone
Lex Fridman (1:32:46.820)
who hasn't already used cocaine.
Lex Fridman (1:32:49.300)
And you wanna make sure you're not giving it to someone
Lex Fridman (1:32:51.260)
who is an active user who wants to quit.
Lex Fridman (1:32:53.380)
So the idea is like, okay,
Lex Fridman (1:32:54.780)
if you're using this type of drug anyway,
Lex Fridman (1:32:57.180)
and we're really sure you're not looking to quit,
Lex Fridman (1:33:00.540)
hey, use a couple of times in the lab with us
Lex Fridman (1:33:04.220)
so we can at least learn something.
Lex Fridman (1:33:06.460)
And part of what we learn is maybe to help people not use
Lex Fridman (1:33:09.100)
and it'll reduce the harms of cocaine.
Lex Fridman (1:33:12.060)
So there's hoops to jump through.
Matthew Johnson (1:33:14.340)
With the sexual decision making,
Lex Fridman (1:33:16.660)
I looked at the main thing I looked at was this model
Matthew Johnson (1:33:18.980)
of I applied delayed discounting
Lex Fridman (1:33:21.620)
to what we talked about earlier, the now versus later,
Matthew Johnson (1:33:24.420)
that kind of decision making that goes along with addiction.
Lex Fridman (1:33:27.340)
I applied that to condom use decisions.
Lex Fridman (1:33:30.220)
And I've done probably published about 20 or so papers
Lex Fridman (1:33:33.660)
with this and different drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:33:36.460)
So the primary metric is whether you do
Lex Fridman (1:33:39.140)
or don't use a condom?
Matthew Johnson (1:33:40.500)
Right, and so this is using hypothetical decision making,
Lex Fridman (1:33:43.920)
but I've published some studies looking at,
Matthew Johnson (1:33:47.700)
showing a tight correspondence to self report it
Lex Fridman (1:33:51.060)
in correlational studies to self reported behavior.
Lex Fridman (1:33:54.740)
So this is like, so like how do you,
Lex Fridman (1:33:57.940)
did you do a questionnaire kind of thing?
Matthew Johnson (1:33:59.900)
Right, so it's not quite a questionnaire,
Lex Fridman (1:34:02.360)
but it's a behavioral task requiring them to respond to.
Lex Fridman (1:34:08.540)
So you show pictures of a bunch of individuals
Lex Fridman (1:34:11.580)
and it's kind of like one of these fun behavioral,
Matthew Johnson (1:34:13.620)
like a lot of them you get like numbers are boring,
Lex Fridman (1:34:15.820)
but it's like, okay, hot or not,
Matthew Johnson (1:34:17.420)
like which of these 60 people
Lex Fridman (1:34:18.720)
would you have a one night stand with?
Matthew Johnson (1:34:20.540)
Men, women, so pick whatever you like,
Lex Fridman (1:34:22.500)
a little bit of this, a little bit of that,
Matthew Johnson (1:34:23.540)
whatever you're into, it's all variety there.
Lex Fridman (1:34:26.900)
Out of that group, you pick some subsets of people.
Matthew Johnson (1:34:29.160)
Who do you think is the one you most want to have sex
Lex Fridman (1:34:31.740)
with the least, he thinks most likely to have an STI
Matthew Johnson (1:34:34.060)
or least likely a sexually transmitted disease by STI.
Lex Fridman (1:34:37.820)
And then you could do certain decision making questions.
Lex Fridman (1:34:41.540)
So what I've done is asked,
Lex Fridman (1:34:43.820)
say this person you read a vignette,
Matthew Johnson (1:34:45.220)
this person wants to have sex with you now you've met them,
Lex Fridman (1:34:46.860)
you get along casual sex scenario,
Matthew Johnson (1:34:50.020)
like a one night stand with a condoms available,
Lex Fridman (1:34:53.020)
just rate your likelihood from one to 100
Lex Fridman (1:34:54.820)
on this kind of scale, would you use it?
Lex Fridman (1:34:57.540)
But then you can change your scenario to say,
Matthew Johnson (1:34:59.820)
okay, now imagine you have to wait five minutes
Lex Fridman (1:35:01.700)
to use a condom.
Lex Fridman (1:35:02.940)
So the choice is now instead of using condom
Lex Fridman (1:35:04.940)
versus not in terms of your likelihood scale,
Matthew Johnson (1:35:07.380)
it now what ranges from have sex now without a condom
Lex Fridman (1:35:11.980)
versus on the other end of the scale
Matthew Johnson (1:35:13.820)
is wait five minutes to have sex with a condom.
Lex Fridman (1:35:16.380)
So you rate your likelihood of where your behavior
Matthew Johnson (1:35:18.380)
would be along that continuum.
Lex Fridman (1:35:20.420)
And then you could say, okay, well, what about an hour?
Lex Fridman (1:35:22.780)
What about three hours?
Lex Fridman (1:35:23.900)
What about 24 hours?
Matthew Johnson (1:35:25.980)
Misunderstanding, now without a condom
Lex Fridman (1:35:31.100)
or five minutes later with a condom?
Matthew Johnson (1:35:32.860)
Right.
Lex Fridman (1:35:33.700)
So what's supposed to be the preference for the person?
Lex Fridman (1:35:41.740)
There's a lot of factors coming into play, right?
Lex Fridman (1:35:44.060)
There's like pleasure, a personal preference
Lex Fridman (1:35:49.540)
and then there's also the safety.
Lex Fridman (1:35:51.540)
Those are two like, are those competing objectives?
Matthew Johnson (1:35:55.300)
Right, and so we do get at that
Lex Fridman (1:35:57.100)
through some individual measures
Lex Fridman (1:35:58.700)
and this task is more of a face valid task
Lex Fridman (1:36:01.100)
where there's a lot underneath the hood.
Lex Fridman (1:36:02.620)
So for most people, sex with the condom is the better reward
Lex Fridman (1:36:07.540)
but underneath the hood of that
Matthew Johnson (1:36:09.100)
is just at the purely physical level,
Lex Fridman (1:36:11.460)
they'd rather have sex without the condom.
Matthew Johnson (1:36:13.580)
It's gonna feel better.
Lex Fridman (1:36:14.500)
What do you mean by reward?
Matthew Johnson (1:36:15.660)
Like when they calculate their trajectory through life
Lex Fridman (1:36:19.700)
and try to optimize it,
Lex Fridman (1:36:21.340)
then sex with the condom is a good idea?
Lex Fridman (1:36:24.460)
Well, it's really based on, I mean, yeah, yeah.
Matthew Johnson (1:36:27.820)
Presumably that's the case that there's,
Lex Fridman (1:36:31.580)
but it's measured by like what would you,
Matthew Johnson (1:36:33.140)
really that first question where there is no delay.
Lex Fridman (1:36:35.420)
Most people say they would be at the higher end scale
Matthew Johnson (1:36:38.020)
a lot of times 100% they would say
Lex Fridman (1:36:39.380)
they would definitely use a condom.
Matthew Johnson (1:36:41.740)
Not everybody and that we know that's the case.
Lex Fridman (1:36:43.860)
See, it's like that some people don't like condoms,
Matthew Johnson (1:36:46.180)
some people say, yeah, I wanna use a condom
Lex Fridman (1:36:49.100)
but quarter of the time ended up not
Matthew Johnson (1:36:50.980)
because I just getting lost in the passion of the moment.
Lex Fridman (1:36:53.820)
So for the people, I mean, the only reason that people,
Lex Fridman (1:36:56.940)
so behaviorally speaking,
Lex Fridman (1:36:58.620)
at least for a large number of people
Matthew Johnson (1:37:00.060)
in many circumstances condom use as a reinforcer
Lex Fridman (1:37:02.540)
just because people do it.
Lex Fridman (1:37:03.940)
Like, why are they doing it?
Lex Fridman (1:37:07.020)
They're not because it makes the sex feel better
Lex Fridman (1:37:10.180)
but because it makes that it allows
Lex Fridman (1:37:12.660)
for at least the same general reward.
Matthew Johnson (1:37:15.020)
Even if actually, even if it feels a little bit
Lex Fridman (1:37:16.940)
not as good with the condom, nonetheless,
Matthew Johnson (1:37:20.300)
they get most of the benefit without the concurrent,
Lex Fridman (1:37:24.740)
oh my gosh, there's this risk of either unwanted pregnancy
Matthew Johnson (1:37:27.940)
or getting HIV or way more likely than HIV,
Lex Fridman (1:37:31.980)
herpes in general awards, et cetera, all the lovely ones.
Lex Fridman (1:37:37.380)
And we've actually done research saying like
Lex Fridman (1:37:38.900)
where we gauge the probability
Matthew Johnson (1:37:40.340)
of these individual different SDIs.
Lex Fridman (1:37:42.580)
And it's like, what's the heavy hitter
Matthew Johnson (1:37:43.660)
in terms of what people are using to judge
Lex Fridman (1:37:46.580)
and to evaluate whether they're gonna use a condom.
Lex Fridman (1:37:49.220)
So that's why the condom use is the delayed thing,
Lex Fridman (1:37:52.500)
five minutes or more.
Lex Fridman (1:37:54.220)
And then, yeah, because that's the prefer.
Lex Fridman (1:37:56.340)
Which would normally be the larger later reward
Matthew Johnson (1:37:58.300)
like the $10 versus the nine, it's like the $10,
Lex Fridman (1:38:00.980)
which is counterintuitive
Matthew Johnson (1:38:02.260)
if you just think about the physical pleasure.
Lex Fridman (1:38:04.340)
So that's a good thing to measure.
Lex Fridman (1:38:07.180)
So condom use is a really good concrete,
Lex Fridman (1:38:09.020)
quantifiable thing that you can use in a study.
Lex Fridman (1:38:13.660)
And then you can add a lot of different elements
Lex Fridman (1:38:15.980)
like the presence of cocaine and so on.
Matthew Johnson (1:38:18.380)
Yeah, you can get people loaded on like any number of drugs
Lex Fridman (1:38:20.980)
like cocaine, alcohol and methamphetamine
Matthew Johnson (1:38:22.860)
are the three that I've done and published on.
Lex Fridman (1:38:24.980)
And it's interesting that.
Matthew Johnson (1:38:26.820)
These are fun studies, man.
Lex Fridman (1:38:28.940)
Right, I love to get people loaded in a safe context
Lex Fridman (1:38:32.260)
and like, but to really, it started,
Lex Fridman (1:38:34.100)
like there was some early research with alcohol.
Matthew Johnson (1:38:36.380)
I mean, the psychedelics are the most interesting,
Lex Fridman (1:38:38.060)
but it's like all of these drugs are fascinating.
Matthew Johnson (1:38:40.340)
The fact that all of these are keys
Lex Fridman (1:38:41.620)
that unlock a certain like psychological experience
Matthew Johnson (1:38:45.340)
in the head.
Lex Fridman (1:38:46.580)
And so there was this work with alcohol
Matthew Johnson (1:38:48.580)
that showed that it didn't affect those monetary
Lex Fridman (1:38:51.460)
delay discounting decisions,
Matthew Johnson (1:38:53.140)
$9 now versus $10 later.
Lex Fridman (1:38:54.940)
And I'm like getting people drunk.
Lex Fridman (1:38:57.020)
And I thought to myself, are you telling me
Lex Fridman (1:38:59.780)
that getting someone,
Matthew Johnson (1:39:02.420)
that people being drunk does not cause people
Lex Fridman (1:39:05.420)
at least sometimes to make,
Matthew Johnson (1:39:07.660)
to choose what's good for them in the short term
Lex Fridman (1:39:10.780)
at the expense of what's good for them in the long term.
Matthew Johnson (1:39:13.740)
It's like, bullshit, like we see like,
Lex Fridman (1:39:16.660)
but in what context does that happen?
Lex Fridman (1:39:19.300)
So that's something that inspired me to go
Lex Fridman (1:39:21.980)
in this direction of like, aha, risky sexual decisions
Matthew Johnson (1:39:25.540)
is something they do when they're drunk.
Lex Fridman (1:39:27.060)
They don't necessarily go home.
Lex Fridman (1:39:28.220)
And even though some people have gambling problems
Lex Fridman (1:39:30.540)
and alcohol interacts with that,
Matthew Johnson (1:39:31.820)
the most typical thing is not for people to go home,
Lex Fridman (1:39:34.740)
log on and change their allocation
Matthew Johnson (1:39:36.940)
in their retirement account or something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:39:40.460)
But they're more likely, risky sexual decisions,
Matthew Johnson (1:39:42.420)
they're more likely to not wait the five minutes
Lex Fridman (1:39:44.460)
for the condom and instead go no condom now.
Matthew Johnson (1:39:48.340)
Right, that's a big effect.
Lex Fridman (1:39:49.580)
And we see that.
Lex Fridman (1:39:50.660)
And interestingly, we do not see,
Lex Fridman (1:39:53.300)
with those different drugs, we don't see an effect
Matthew Johnson (1:39:55.180)
if we just look at that zero delay condition.
Lex Fridman (1:39:57.260)
In other words, the condoms right there waiting to be used,
Lex Fridman (1:39:59.700)
how likely are to use it?
Lex Fridman (1:40:00.700)
You don't see it.
Matthew Johnson (1:40:01.700)
I mean, people are by and large gonna use the condom.
Lex Fridman (1:40:05.700)
So, and that's the way most of this research
Matthew Johnson (1:40:08.020)
outside of behavioral economics
Lex Fridman (1:40:09.460)
that just looked at condom use decisions,
Matthew Johnson (1:40:12.740)
very little of which has ever actually administered
Lex Fridman (1:40:15.220)
the drugs, which is another unique aspect.
Lex Fridman (1:40:17.420)
But they usually just look at like assuming
Lex Fridman (1:40:19.420)
the condom is there.
Lex Fridman (1:40:20.620)
But this is more using behavioral economics
Lex Fridman (1:40:22.980)
to delve in and model something that,
Lex Fridman (1:40:24.620)
and I've done survey research on this,
Lex Fridman (1:40:26.380)
modeling what actually happens.
Matthew Johnson (1:40:28.180)
Like you meet someone at a laundromat,
Lex Fridman (1:40:30.740)
like you weren't planning on like,
Lex Fridman (1:40:32.300)
and it's like one thing leads to another,
Lex Fridman (1:40:34.740)
they live around the corner, these things.
Lex Fridman (1:40:37.940)
And like we did one survey with men who have sex with men
Lex Fridman (1:40:43.260)
and found that 25% of them, 24%, about a quarter,
Matthew Johnson (1:40:48.220)
reported in the last six months
Lex Fridman (1:40:49.780)
that they had unprotected anal intercourse,
Matthew Johnson (1:40:52.380)
which is the most risky
Lex Fridman (1:40:54.220)
in terms of sexually transmitted infection.
Matthew Johnson (1:40:58.460)
In the last six months, in a situation
Lex Fridman (1:41:00.380)
where they would have used a condom,
Lex Fridman (1:41:01.820)
but they simply didn't use one
Lex Fridman (1:41:02.860)
just because they didn't have one on them.
Lex Fridman (1:41:04.980)
So this to me, it's like,
Lex Fridman (1:41:07.500)
if unless we delve into this and understand this,
Matthew Johnson (1:41:10.380)
these suboptimal conditions,
Lex Fridman (1:41:12.420)
we're not gonna fully address the problem.
Matthew Johnson (1:41:14.140)
There's plenty of people that say,
Lex Fridman (1:41:15.380)
yep, condom use is good.
Matthew Johnson (1:41:17.020)
I use it a lot of the time.
Lex Fridman (1:41:19.180)
It's like, where is that failing?
Lex Fridman (1:41:21.340)
And it's under these suboptimal conditions,
Lex Fridman (1:41:22.940)
which in Frank, if you think about it,
Matthew Johnson (1:41:24.420)
it's like most of the case.
Lex Fridman (1:41:26.460)
Action is unfolding, things are getting hot and heavy.
Lex Fridman (1:41:28.860)
Someone's like, do you got a condom?
Lex Fridman (1:41:31.060)
Eh, no.
Matthew Johnson (1:41:32.020)
It's like, do they break the action
Lex Fridman (1:41:34.460)
and take 10 minutes to go to the convenience store
Lex Fridman (1:41:37.620)
or whatever?
Lex Fridman (1:41:38.460)
Maybe everything's closed.
Matthew Johnson (1:41:39.580)
Maybe they gotta wait till tomorrow.
Lex Fridman (1:41:42.860)
And there's something to be studied there on the,
Matthew Johnson (1:41:47.380)
that just seems like an unfortunate set of circumstances.
Lex Fridman (1:41:49.860)
Like, what's the solution to that is,
Matthew Johnson (1:41:53.260)
I mean, what's the psychology
Lex Fridman (1:41:56.380)
that needs to be taken apart there?
Matthew Johnson (1:42:00.860)
Because it just seems like that's the way of life.
Lex Fridman (1:42:02.860)
We don't expect the things to happen.
Matthew Johnson (1:42:05.020)
Are we supposed to expect them better
Lex Fridman (1:42:07.260)
to be self aware enough about our calculations?
Matthew Johnson (1:42:11.580)
Or you see the 10 minute detour to a convenience store
Lex Fridman (1:42:15.780)
as a kind of thing that we need to understand
Lex Fridman (1:42:20.220)
how we humans evaluate the cost of that.
Lex Fridman (1:42:26.500)
I think in terms of like how we use this to help people,
Matthew Johnson (1:42:30.340)
it's mostly on the environment side,
Lex Fridman (1:42:32.140)
rather than on the individual side.
Matthew Johnson (1:42:34.500)
Yeah, although those interact.
Lex Fridman (1:42:36.140)
So it's like, in one sense, if you're,
Matthew Johnson (1:42:38.220)
especially if you're gonna be drinking
Lex Fridman (1:42:39.740)
or using another substance that is associated
Matthew Johnson (1:42:42.300)
with a stimulant, alcohol and stimulants
Lex Fridman (1:42:45.380)
go along with risky sex.
Matthew Johnson (1:42:47.220)
Good to be aware that you might make decisions
Lex Fridman (1:42:49.260)
just to tell yourself you might make a decision
Matthew Johnson (1:42:50.900)
that you wouldn't have made in your sober state.
Lex Fridman (1:42:54.060)
And so, hey, throwing a condom in the purse,
Matthew Johnson (1:42:57.100)
in the pocket, might be a good idea.
Lex Fridman (1:43:00.860)
I think at the environmental level,
Matthew Johnson (1:43:02.340)
just more condom, I mean, it highlights what we know
Lex Fridman (1:43:04.620)
about just making condoms widely available.
Matthew Johnson (1:43:07.780)
Something that I'd like to do
Lex Fridman (1:43:09.500)
is like reinforcing condom use.
Lex Fridman (1:43:12.420)
So just getting people used to carrying a condom
Lex Fridman (1:43:17.420)
everywhere they go.
Matthew Johnson (1:43:18.620)
Because once it's in someone's habit,
Lex Fridman (1:43:20.900)
if they are, say, like a young, single person,
Lex Fridman (1:43:22.780)
and they occasionally have unprotected sex,
Lex Fridman (1:43:26.740)
like training those people,
Matthew Johnson (1:43:27.900)
like what if you got a text message
Lex Fridman (1:43:30.300)
once every few days saying,
Matthew Johnson (1:43:31.700)
ah, if you send back a photo of a condom,
Lex Fridman (1:43:34.580)
within a minute you get a reward of $5.
Matthew Johnson (1:43:37.580)
You could shape that up like that.
Lex Fridman (1:43:39.100)
It's a process called contingency management.
Matthew Johnson (1:43:40.860)
It's basically just straight up operant reinforcement.
Lex Fridman (1:43:43.820)
You could shape that up with no problem.
Lex Fridman (1:43:45.820)
And I mean, those procedures of contingency management,
Lex Fridman (1:43:50.100)
giving people systematic rewards is like,
Matthew Johnson (1:43:52.220)
for example, the most powerful way
Lex Fridman (1:43:53.420)
to reduce cocaine use in addicted people.
Lex Fridman (1:43:57.100)
And by saying, if you show me a negative urine for cocaine,
Lex Fridman (1:44:04.380)
I'm gonna give you a monetary reward.
Lex Fridman (1:44:05.860)
And like that has huge effects
Lex Fridman (1:44:07.660)
in terms of decreasing cocaine use.
Matthew Johnson (1:44:09.660)
If that can be that powerful
Lex Fridman (1:44:10.820)
for something like stopping cocaine use,
Lex Fridman (1:44:12.900)
how powerful could that be for shaping up
Lex Fridman (1:44:15.700)
just carrying a condom?
Matthew Johnson (1:44:16.540)
Because the primary, unlike cocaine use,
Lex Fridman (1:44:19.500)
here, we're not saying you can't have the main reward,
Matthew Johnson (1:44:22.820)
like you could still have sex,
Lex Fridman (1:44:24.780)
and you can even have sex in the way
Matthew Johnson (1:44:26.060)
that you tell yourself you'd rather do it
Lex Fridman (1:44:28.580)
if the condom is available.
Matthew Johnson (1:44:35.020)
Relatively speaking, it's way easier
Lex Fridman (1:44:36.700)
than like not using cocaine if you like using cocaine.
Matthew Johnson (1:44:39.580)
It's just basically getting in the habit
Lex Fridman (1:44:41.780)
of carrying a condom.
Lex Fridman (1:44:43.140)
So that's just one idea of like why.
Lex Fridman (1:44:45.020)
There could be also the capitalistic solutions
Matthew Johnson (1:44:47.060)
of like, there could be a business opportunity
Lex Fridman (1:44:49.300)
for like a door dash for condoms.
Matthew Johnson (1:44:51.700)
Oh yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:44:52.540)
Like delivery.
Matthew Johnson (1:44:53.860)
I thought about this.
Lex Fridman (1:44:55.060)
Within five minute delivery of a condom at any location,
Matthew Johnson (1:44:57.980)
like Uber for condoms.
Lex Fridman (1:44:59.460)
I've thought about it, not with condoms,
Lex Fridman (1:45:01.100)
but a very similar line of thinking,
Lex Fridman (1:45:03.140)
a line that you're going into in terms of Uber
Lex Fridman (1:45:05.980)
and people getting drunk when they enter the bar
Lex Fridman (1:45:09.020)
playing to have one or two,
Matthew Johnson (1:45:10.180)
they ended up having five or six,
Lex Fridman (1:45:11.500)
and it's like, okay, yeah, you can take the cab home,
Matthew Johnson (1:45:14.740)
the Uber home, but you've left your car there.
Lex Fridman (1:45:17.140)
It might get towed.
Matthew Johnson (1:45:18.460)
You might like, there's also the hassle of just,
Lex Fridman (1:45:20.780)
you wanna wake up tomorrow with your hangover
Lex Fridman (1:45:22.380)
and forget about it and move on.
Lex Fridman (1:45:24.540)
And I think a lot of people in their situation,
Matthew Johnson (1:45:26.260)
they're like, screw it.
Lex Fridman (1:45:27.900)
I'm gonna take the risk, just get it.
Lex Fridman (1:45:29.860)
What if you had an Uber service where two,
Lex Fridman (1:45:33.220)
you have a car come out with two drivers
Lex Fridman (1:45:38.220)
and one of them, two sober drivers, obviously,
Lex Fridman (1:45:45.100)
and the person, the one driver drops off the other
Matthew Johnson (1:45:49.660)
that then drives you home in their car, in your car,
Lex Fridman (1:45:55.660)
so that you can, I mean,
Matthew Johnson (1:45:57.140)
I think a lot of people would pay 50 bucks.
Lex Fridman (1:45:59.100)
It's gonna be more than a regular Uber,
Lex Fridman (1:46:01.180)
but it's like, it's gonna be done.
Lex Fridman (1:46:02.820)
I got the money.
Matthew Johnson (1:46:03.660)
I already spent 60 bucks at the bar tonight.
Lex Fridman (1:46:06.420)
Like, just get the damn thing done tomorrow.
Matthew Johnson (1:46:09.620)
I'm done with it.
Lex Fridman (1:46:10.660)
I wake up, my car's in front of my house.
Matthew Johnson (1:46:12.980)
I think that would be, I think someone could,
Lex Fridman (1:46:14.860)
I'm not gonna open that business,
Lex Fridman (1:46:15.980)
so if anyone hears this and wants to take off with that,
Lex Fridman (1:46:19.060)
I think it could help a lot of people.
Matthew Johnson (1:46:20.780)
Yeah, definitely.
Lex Fridman (1:46:21.620)
And Uber itself, I would say,
Matthew Johnson (1:46:23.540)
helped a huge amount of people,
Lex Fridman (1:46:25.460)
just making it easy to make the decision
Matthew Johnson (1:46:28.460)
of going home, not driving yourself.
Lex Fridman (1:46:31.580)
I read about in Austin where they,
Matthew Johnson (1:46:33.340)
I don't know where it's at now,
Lex Fridman (1:46:34.220)
where they outlawed Uber for a while.
Matthew Johnson (1:46:36.300)
You know, because of the whole taxicab union type thing
Lex Fridman (1:46:39.100)
and how just, yeah, there were like hordes of drunk people
Matthew Johnson (1:46:42.060)
that were used to Uber
Lex Fridman (1:46:44.900)
that now didn't have a cheap alternative.
Lex Fridman (1:46:47.340)
So just, we didn't exactly mention,
Lex Fridman (1:46:51.860)
you've done a lot of studies in sexual decision making
Matthew Johnson (1:46:54.220)
with different drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:46:55.180)
Is there some interesting insights or findings
Lex Fridman (1:46:59.540)
on the difference between the different drugs?
Lex Fridman (1:47:03.100)
So I think you said meth as well.
Lex Fridman (1:47:06.580)
So cocaine, is there some interesting characteristics
Lex Fridman (1:47:09.820)
about decision making that these drugs alter
Lex Fridman (1:47:12.020)
versus like alcohol, all those kinds of things?
Lex Fridman (1:47:14.620)
I think, and there's much more to study with this,
Lex Fridman (1:47:16.740)
but I think the biggie there is that the stimulants,
Lex Fridman (1:47:20.460)
they create risky sex by really increasing
Matthew Johnson (1:47:24.340)
the rewarding value of sex.
Lex Fridman (1:47:26.260)
Like if you talk to people that are really,
Matthew Johnson (1:47:27.660)
especially that are hooked on stimulants,
Lex Fridman (1:47:30.420)
one of the biggies is like sex on coke or meth
Matthew Johnson (1:47:33.580)
is like so much better than sex without.
Lex Fridman (1:47:35.940)
And that's a big part of why they have trouble quitting
Matthew Johnson (1:47:38.900)
because it's so tied to their sex life.
Lex Fridman (1:47:41.740)
So it's not that your decision making is broken,
Matthew Johnson (1:47:44.300)
it's just that you, well, you allocate.
Lex Fridman (1:47:46.780)
It's a different aspect of their decision.
Matthew Johnson (1:47:48.500)
Yeah, on the reward side.
Lex Fridman (1:47:49.820)
I think on the alcohol, it works more through disinhibition.
Matthew Johnson (1:47:52.380)
It's like, alcohol is really good at reducing the ability
Lex Fridman (1:47:56.820)
of a delayed punisher to have an effect on current behavior.
Matthew Johnson (1:48:00.260)
In other words, there's this bad thing
Lex Fridman (1:48:02.020)
that's gonna happen tomorrow or a week from now
Matthew Johnson (1:48:04.220)
or 20 years from now.
Lex Fridman (1:48:07.620)
Being drunk is a really good way,
Lex Fridman (1:48:09.220)
and you see this in like rats making decisions.
Lex Fridman (1:48:12.500)
A high dose of alcohol makes someone less sensitive
Matthew Johnson (1:48:15.580)
to those consequences.
Lex Fridman (1:48:16.700)
So I think that's the lever that's being hit with alcohol
Lex Fridman (1:48:20.180)
and it's the more, just the increasing the rewarding value
Lex Fridman (1:48:23.100)
of sex by the psycho stimulants on that side.
Matthew Johnson (1:48:26.980)
We actually found that it, and it was amazing
Lex Fridman (1:48:28.940)
because like hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent
Matthew Johnson (1:48:31.140)
by NIH to study the connection between cocaine and HIV.
Lex Fridman (1:48:35.980)
Like we ran the first study on my grant
Matthew Johnson (1:48:38.580)
that like actually just gave people cocaine
Lex Fridman (1:48:41.860)
under double blind conditions and showed that like,
Matthew Johnson (1:48:44.060)
yeah, when people are on coke,
Lex Fridman (1:48:46.780)
like their ratings of sexual desire,
Matthew Johnson (1:48:48.540)
even though they're not in a sexual situation,
Lex Fridman (1:48:50.420)
yeah, you've shown them some pictures,
Lex Fridman (1:48:51.500)
but they're just saying they're horny.
Lex Fridman (1:48:53.340)
Like you get subjective ratings
Matthew Johnson (1:48:54.540)
of like how much sexual desire are you feeling right now.
Lex Fridman (1:48:57.700)
People get horny when they're on stimulants.
Lex Fridman (1:49:00.460)
And a lot of people say, duh,
Lex Fridman (1:49:03.340)
if they really know these drugs.
Lex Fridman (1:49:04.780)
But that's a rigorous study that's in the lab
Lex Fridman (1:49:06.940)
that shows like there's a plot.
Matthew Johnson (1:49:09.660)
Right, the dose effects of that, the time course of that.
Lex Fridman (1:49:12.580)
Yeah, it's not just.
Lex Fridman (1:49:13.420)
Can you please tell me there's a paper with a plot
Lex Fridman (1:49:16.020)
that shows dose versus evaluation of like horniness.
Matthew Johnson (1:49:21.220)
Yeah, we didn't say horniness.
Lex Fridman (1:49:22.420)
We said sexual arousal, yeah, basically, yeah.
Matthew Johnson (1:49:24.860)
There's a plot, I'm gonna find this plot.
Lex Fridman (1:49:26.580)
Right, I'll send it to you.
Matthew Johnson (1:49:27.700)
There was one headline from some publicity on the work
Lex Fridman (1:49:32.260)
that said, horny cocaine users don't use condoms
Matthew Johnson (1:49:36.420)
or something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:49:38.260)
You gotta love journalism.
Matthew Johnson (1:49:39.380)
I wouldn't have put it that way, but like, yeah, that's right.
Lex Fridman (1:49:41.620)
I guess that's what it finds.
Lex Fridman (1:49:43.780)
So you've published a bunch of studies on psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (1:49:47.980)
Is there some especially favorite insightful findings
Lex Fridman (1:49:52.980)
from some of these that you could talk about?
Lex Fridman (1:49:55.220)
So maybe favorite studies or just something
Matthew Johnson (1:49:58.380)
that pops to mind in terms of both the goals
Lex Fridman (1:50:02.020)
and like the major insights gained
Lex Fridman (1:50:04.740)
and maybe the side little curiosities
Lex Fridman (1:50:07.620)
that you discovered along the way.
Matthew Johnson (1:50:09.500)
Yeah, I think of the work with like using psilocybin
Lex Fridman (1:50:12.940)
to help people quit smoking.
Lex Fridman (1:50:14.420)
And we've talked about smoking being such a serious addiction
Lex Fridman (1:50:19.420)
and so that what inspired me to get into that
Matthew Johnson (1:50:23.100)
was just kind of having like behavioral psychology
Lex Fridman (1:50:26.060)
as my primary lens, sort of this sort of like,
Matthew Johnson (1:50:32.340)
you know, kind of radical empirical basis of,
Lex Fridman (1:50:36.700)
I'm really interested in the mystical experience
Lex Fridman (1:50:40.220)
and all of these reports, very interested.
Lex Fridman (1:50:44.180)
And, but at the same time, I'm like, okay,
Matthew Johnson (1:50:47.500)
let's get down to some behavior change
Lex Fridman (1:50:50.500)
and something that we can record,
Matthew Johnson (1:50:52.140)
like quantitatively verify biologically.
Lex Fridman (1:50:55.580)
So find all kinds of negative behaviors
Matthew Johnson (1:50:58.180)
that people practice and see if we can turn those
Lex Fridman (1:51:01.420)
into positive or change their behavior.
Matthew Johnson (1:51:02.900)
Right, like really change it, not just people saying,
Lex Fridman (1:51:05.300)
which again is interesting, I'm not dismissing it,
Lex Fridman (1:51:07.140)
but folks that say my life has turned around,
Lex Fridman (1:51:09.180)
I feel this has completely changed me.
Matthew Johnson (1:51:11.180)
It's like, yep, that's good.
Lex Fridman (1:51:13.620)
All right, let's see if we can harness that and test that.
Lex Fridman (1:51:16.500)
And just something that's real behavior change.
Lex Fridman (1:51:20.740)
You know what I mean?
Matthew Johnson (1:51:21.580)
It's quantifiable.
Lex Fridman (1:51:22.420)
It's like, okay, you've been smoking for 30 years,
Matthew Johnson (1:51:25.260)
you know, like that's a real thing.
Lex Fridman (1:51:26.900)
And you've tried a dozen times, like seriously to quit
Lex Fridman (1:51:29.660)
and you haven't been able to long term, like, okay.
Lex Fridman (1:51:32.860)
And if you quit, like we'll ask you and I'll believe you,
Lex Fridman (1:51:35.900)
but I don't trust everyone reading the paper to believe you.
Lex Fridman (1:51:38.460)
So we're gonna have you pee in a cup and we'll test that.
Lex Fridman (1:51:40.900)
And we'll have you blow into this little machine
Lex Fridman (1:51:42.340)
that measures carbon monoxide and we'll test that.
Lex Fridman (1:51:44.820)
So multiple levels of biological verification.
Lex Fridman (1:51:48.220)
Like now we're getting like,
Matthew Johnson (1:51:50.340)
to me that's where the rubber meets the road
Lex Fridman (1:51:51.900)
in terms of like therapeutics.
Lex Fridman (1:51:53.460)
It's like, can we really shift behavior?
Lex Fridman (1:51:55.580)
And since, and so much as we've talked about
Matthew Johnson (1:51:58.540)
my other scientific work outside of psychedelics
Lex Fridman (1:52:00.380)
is about understanding addiction and drug use.
Lex Fridman (1:52:02.940)
So it's like, you know, looking at addiction,
Lex Fridman (1:52:04.580)
it's a no brainer and smoking is just a great example.
Lex Fridman (1:52:07.260)
And so back to your question,
Lex Fridman (1:52:08.940)
like we've had really high success rates.
Matthew Johnson (1:52:11.020)
I mean, it really, it rivals anything that's been published
Lex Fridman (1:52:14.220)
in the scientific literature.
Matthew Johnson (1:52:16.900)
The caveat is that, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:52:18.340)
that's based on our initial trial of only 15 people,
Lex Fridman (1:52:20.940)
but extremely high longterm success rates,
Lex Fridman (1:52:24.300)
80% at six months per smoke free.
Lex Fridman (1:52:27.420)
So can we discuss the details of this?
Lex Fridman (1:52:29.340)
So first of all, which psychedelic are we talking about?
Lex Fridman (1:52:31.780)
And maybe can you talk about the 15 people
Lex Fridman (1:52:34.340)
and how the study ran and what you found?
Matthew Johnson (1:52:37.220)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:52:38.060)
So the drug we're using is psilocybin
Lex Fridman (1:52:40.780)
and we're using moderately high and high doses of psilocybin.
Lex Fridman (1:52:45.900)
And I should say this about most of our work,
Matthew Johnson (1:52:47.840)
these are not kind of museum level doses.
Lex Fridman (1:52:50.540)
In other words, nothing,
Matthew Johnson (1:52:51.940)
even big fans of psychedelics wanna take
Lex Fridman (1:52:53.740)
and go to a concert or go to the museum.
Matthew Johnson (1:52:57.280)
If someone's at Burning Man on this type of dose,
Lex Fridman (1:52:59.340)
like they're probably gonna wanna find their way back
Matthew Johnson (1:53:02.380)
to their tent and zip up and hunker down
Lex Fridman (1:53:04.260)
for, you know, not be around strangers.
Matthew Johnson (1:53:07.940)
By the way, the delivery method,
Lex Fridman (1:53:10.900)
so psilocybin is mushrooms, I guess.
Lex Fridman (1:53:16.060)
What's the usual, is it edible?
Lex Fridman (1:53:19.100)
Is there some other way?
Matthew Johnson (1:53:20.380)
Like, how is people supposed to think
Lex Fridman (1:53:21.780)
about the correct dosing of these things?
Matthew Johnson (1:53:25.100)
Cause I've heard that it's hard to dose correctly.
Lex Fridman (1:53:29.460)
That's right.
Lex Fridman (1:53:30.420)
So in our studies, we use the pure compound psilocybin.
Lex Fridman (1:53:33.620)
So it's a single molecule, you know, a bunch of molecules.
Lex Fridman (1:53:36.700)
And we give them a capsule with that in it.
Lex Fridman (1:53:41.820)
And so it's just, you know, a little capsule, they swallow.
Lex Fridman (1:53:44.840)
What people, when psilocybin is used outside of research,
Lex Fridman (1:53:49.900)
it's always in the context of mushrooms
Matthew Johnson (1:53:53.140)
cause they're so easy to grow.
Lex Fridman (1:53:54.100)
There's no market for synthetic psilocybin.
Matthew Johnson (1:53:56.220)
There's no reason for that to pop up.
Lex Fridman (1:53:58.060)
The high dose that we use in research is 30 milligrams,
Matthew Johnson (1:54:08.860)
body weight adjusted.
Lex Fridman (1:54:10.060)
So if you're a heavier person,
Matthew Johnson (1:54:11.180)
it might be like 40 or even 50 milligrams.
Lex Fridman (1:54:16.100)
We have some data that, based on that data,
Matthew Johnson (1:54:18.420)
we're actually moving into like getting away
Lex Fridman (1:54:20.140)
from the body weight adjusting of the dose
Lex Fridman (1:54:22.400)
and just giving an absolute dose.
Lex Fridman (1:54:23.660)
It seems like there's no justification
Matthew Johnson (1:54:25.040)
for the body weight based dosing, but I digress.
Lex Fridman (1:54:29.060)
Generally 30, 40 milligrams, it's a high dose.
Lex Fridman (1:54:32.860)
And based on average, even though, as you alluded to,
Lex Fridman (1:54:34.940)
there's variability, which gets people into some trouble
Matthew Johnson (1:54:37.820)
in terms of mushrooms, like psilocybe cubensis,
Lex Fridman (1:54:40.460)
which is the most common species
Matthew Johnson (1:54:42.500)
in the illicit market in the US.
Lex Fridman (1:54:44.940)
This is about equivalent to five dried grams,
Matthew Johnson (1:54:47.740)
which is right at about where McKenna and others,
Lex Fridman (1:54:51.860)
they call it a heroic dose.
Matthew Johnson (1:54:55.580)
This is not hanging out with your friends,
Lex Fridman (1:54:57.400)
going to the concert again.
Lex Fridman (1:54:59.200)
So this is a real deal dose, even to people that really,
Lex Fridman (1:55:03.260)
just even to psychonauts.
Lex Fridman (1:55:05.060)
And we've even had a number of studies.
Lex Fridman (1:55:06.700)
Psychonauts?
Matthew Johnson (1:55:07.540)
Yeah, people that, yeah, astronaut or cosmonaut,
Lex Fridman (1:55:11.140)
like for psychedelics.
Matthew Johnson (1:55:14.380)
Yeah, going as far out as possible.
Lex Fridman (1:55:16.060)
But even for them, even for those
Matthew Johnson (1:55:19.260)
who've flown to space before.
Lex Fridman (1:55:21.140)
Right, right, they're like, holy shit,
Matthew Johnson (1:55:22.620)
I didn't know the orbit would be that far out.
Lex Fridman (1:55:25.820)
Or I escaped the orbit, I was in interplanetary space there.
Lex Fridman (1:55:31.540)
So these folks, the 15 folks in the study,
Lex Fridman (1:55:34.020)
there's not a question of dose being too low
Matthew Johnson (1:55:38.420)
to truly have an impact.
Lex Fridman (1:55:40.220)
Right, right, out of hundreds of volunteers over the years,
Matthew Johnson (1:55:43.140)
we've only seen a couple of people
Lex Fridman (1:55:44.740)
where there was a mild effect of the 30 milligrams.
Lex Fridman (1:55:48.660)
And who knows, that person's, their serotonins,
Lex Fridman (1:55:51.500)
they might have lesser density
Matthew Johnson (1:55:53.500)
of serotonin 2A receptors or something, we don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:55:56.380)
But it's extremely rare.
Matthew Johnson (1:55:57.500)
For most people, this is like something interesting
Lex Fridman (1:56:00.700)
is gonna happen, put it that way.
Matthew Johnson (1:56:01.540)
Speaking of Joe Rogan, I think that Jamie,
Lex Fridman (1:56:04.380)
his producer, is immune to psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (1:56:09.580)
So maybe he's a good recruit for the study to test.
Lex Fridman (1:56:13.020)
So that's interesting.
Matthew Johnson (1:56:13.860)
Now I'm not, the caveat is I'm not encouraging
Lex Fridman (1:56:16.060)
anything illicit, but just theoretically,
Matthew Johnson (1:56:19.140)
my first question as a behavioral pharmacologist
Lex Fridman (1:56:21.780)
is like, you know, increase the dose.
Matthew Johnson (1:56:23.540)
You know, like really, let's see the full dose.
Lex Fridman (1:56:26.260)
I'm not telling him, Jamie, to do that,
Lex Fridman (1:56:27.740)
but like, okay, like, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:56:30.180)
you're taking the same amount
Matthew Johnson (1:56:31.180)
that friends might be taking, but yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:56:33.020)
But he was also referring to the psychedelic effects
Matthew Johnson (1:56:35.900)
of edible marijuana, which is,
Lex Fridman (1:56:38.700)
is there rules on dosage for like marijuana?
Lex Fridman (1:56:46.420)
Is there limits?
Lex Fridman (1:56:47.700)
Like what place where it's, this is, this all goes,
Lex Fridman (1:56:50.500)
it probably is state by state, right?
Lex Fridman (1:56:52.060)
It is, but most, they've gone that direction
Matthew Johnson (1:56:54.460)
in states that didn't initially have these rules
Lex Fridman (1:56:56.780)
have now have them.
Lex Fridman (1:56:57.860)
So it was like, you'll get, I think, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:56:59.500)
five, 10 mil, I think 10, five or 10 milligrams of THC
Matthew Johnson (1:57:04.100)
being a common, and like, and this is an important thing,
Lex Fridman (1:57:07.980)
like where they've moved from not being allowed to say,
Matthew Johnson (1:57:10.300)
like have a whole candy bar
Lex Fridman (1:57:11.580)
and have each of the eight or 10 squares
Matthew Johnson (1:57:13.940)
on the candy bar being 10 milligrams,
Lex Fridman (1:57:16.260)
but it's like, no, the whole thing,
Matthew Johnson (1:57:17.580)
because like, you know, someone gets a candy bar,
Lex Fridman (1:57:19.180)
they're eating the freaking candy bar.
Lex Fridman (1:57:20.900)
And it's like, unless you're a daily cannabis user,
Lex Fridman (1:57:24.100)
if you take, you know, a hundred milligrams,
Matthew Johnson (1:57:26.220)
it's like, that's what could lead to a bad trip for someone.
Lex Fridman (1:57:30.940)
And it's like, you know, a lot of these people,
Matthew Johnson (1:57:32.420)
it's like, oh, you used to smoke a little weed in college,
Lex Fridman (1:57:35.220)
they might say they're visiting Denver
Lex Fridman (1:57:37.460)
for a business trip and they're like, why not?
Lex Fridman (1:57:39.060)
Let's give it a shot, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:57:40.340)
And they're like, oh, I don't want to smoke something
Lex Fridman (1:57:41.900)
because it's going to, so I'm going to be safer
Matthew Johnson (1:57:43.620)
with this edible, they might consume this massive,
Lex Fridman (1:57:47.020)
you know, but there's huge tolerance.
Lex Fridman (1:57:48.780)
So a regular, like for someone who's smoking weed every day,
Lex Fridman (1:57:52.260)
they might take five milligrams
Lex Fridman (1:57:53.660)
and kind of hardly feel anything.
Lex Fridman (1:57:55.660)
And they may really need something like 30, 40, 50 milligrams
Matthew Johnson (1:58:00.940)
to have a strong effect.
Lex Fridman (1:58:02.180)
But yeah, so they've evolved in terms of the rules
Lex Fridman (1:58:06.180)
about like, okay, what constitutes a dose, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:58:11.140)
Which is why you see less big candy bars and more,
Matthew Johnson (1:58:13.300)
or if it is a whole candy bar,
Lex Fridman (1:58:15.380)
you're only getting a smaller dose like 10 milligrams or,
Matthew Johnson (1:58:17.980)
yeah, because that's where people get in trouble
Lex Fridman (1:58:20.460)
more often with edibles.
Matthew Johnson (1:58:22.380)
Yeah, except Joey Diaz, which I've heard.
Lex Fridman (1:58:25.860)
That's definitely somebody I want to talk to
Matthew Johnson (1:58:27.500)
out of the crazy comedians I want to talk to as well.
Lex Fridman (1:58:30.100)
Anyway, so yeah, the study of the 15
Lex Fridman (1:58:33.660)
and the dose not being a question.
Lex Fridman (1:58:36.100)
So like, what was the recruitment based on?
Lex Fridman (1:58:39.140)
What was the, like, how did the study get conducted?
Lex Fridman (1:58:44.460)
Yeah, so the recruitment, and I really liked this fact,
Matthew Johnson (1:58:46.980)
it wasn't people that, you know, largely were, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:58:49.980)
we were honest about what we were studying,
Lex Fridman (1:58:51.620)
but for most people, it was,
Lex Fridman (1:58:53.660)
they were in the category of like, you know,
Matthew Johnson (1:58:56.220)
not particularly interested in psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (1:58:58.380)
but more of like, they want to quit smoking.
Matthew Johnson (1:59:00.860)
They've tried everything but the kitchen sink.
Lex Fridman (1:59:03.700)
And this sounds like the kitchen sink.
Matthew Johnson (1:59:05.500)
You know, and it's like, well, it's Hopkins.
Lex Fridman (1:59:08.340)
So, you know, thinking that sounds like it's safe enough.
Lex Fridman (1:59:11.780)
So like, what the hell, let's give it a shot.
Lex Fridman (1:59:13.620)
Like most of them were in that category,
Matthew Johnson (1:59:15.900)
which I really, you know, I appreciate
Lex Fridman (1:59:19.820)
because it's more of a test, you know, of, yeah,
Matthew Johnson (1:59:24.940)
just like a better model of what,
Lex Fridman (1:59:26.980)
if these are approved as medicines,
Matthew Johnson (1:59:29.020)
like what you're going to have the average participant,
Lex Fridman (1:59:31.460)
you know, be like.
Lex Fridman (1:59:34.180)
And so the therapy involves a good amount
Lex Fridman (1:59:37.540)
of non psilocybin sessions, of preparatory sessions,
Matthew Johnson (1:59:41.300)
like eight hours of getting to know the person,
Lex Fridman (1:59:44.180)
like the two people who are going to be their guides
Matthew Johnson (1:59:45.980)
or the person in the room with them during the experience,
Lex Fridman (1:59:50.220)
having these discussions with them
Matthew Johnson (1:59:52.140)
where you're both kind of rapport building,
Lex Fridman (1:59:53.820)
just kind of discussing their life, getting to know them,
Lex Fridman (1:59:56.780)
but then also telling them, preparing them
Lex Fridman (1:59:58.980)
about the psilocybin experience.
Matthew Johnson (20:01.160)
I think that's more about where they're coming from
Lex Fridman (20:03.080)
and I don't think it's the quintessential way
Matthew Johnson (20:05.120)
in which they work.
Lex Fridman (20:05.960)
There's plenty of people that hold
Matthew Johnson (20:06.800)
onto a completely naturalistic viewpoint
Lex Fridman (20:09.600)
and have profound and helpful experiences
Matthew Johnson (20:15.080)
with these compounds.
Lex Fridman (20:16.760)
But the subjective effects can be so broad
Matthew Johnson (20:20.680)
that for some people, it shifts their philosophical
Lex Fridman (20:24.600)
viewpoint more towards idealism,
Matthew Johnson (20:27.280)
more towards thinking that the nature of reality
Lex Fridman (20:32.280)
might be more about consciousness than about material.
Matthew Johnson (20:38.160)
That's a domain I'm very interested in.
Lex Fridman (20:40.280)
Right now, we have essentially zero to say about that
Matthew Johnson (20:43.680)
in terms of validating those types of claims,
Lex Fridman (20:46.140)
but it's even interesting just to see
Lex Fridman (20:47.400)
what people say along those lines.
Lex Fridman (20:49.280)
So you're interested in saying like,
Lex Fridman (20:50.840)
can we more rigorously study this process of expansion?
Lex Fridman (20:54.600)
Like, what do we mean by this expansion
Matthew Johnson (20:57.000)
of your sense of what is possible
Lex Fridman (21:00.760)
in the experiences in this world?
Matthew Johnson (21:02.880)
Right, as much as what we can say about that
Lex Fridman (21:05.400)
through naturalistic psychology,
Matthew Johnson (21:07.760)
especially as much as we can root it
Lex Fridman (21:09.520)
to solid psychological constructs
Lex Fridman (21:13.520)
and solid neuroscientific constructs.
Lex Fridman (21:16.200)
And I wonder what the impact is of the language
Matthew Johnson (21:18.920)
that you bring to the table.
Lex Fridman (21:20.520)
So you mentioned about God or speaking of God,
Matthew Johnson (21:25.080)
a lot of people are really into sort of
Lex Fridman (21:26.560)
theoretical physics these days at a very surface level
Lex Fridman (21:29.440)
and you can bring the language of physics, right?
Lex Fridman (21:31.920)
You can talk about quantum mechanics,
Matthew Johnson (21:33.920)
you can talk about general relativity
Lex Fridman (21:36.560)
and curvature of space time and using just that language
Matthew Johnson (21:40.520)
without a deep technical understanding of it
Lex Fridman (21:43.280)
to somehow start thinking like,
Matthew Johnson (21:45.680)
sort of visualizing atoms in your head
Lex Fridman (21:48.040)
and somehow through that process
Matthew Johnson (21:50.560)
because you have the language,
Lex Fridman (21:51.860)
using that language to kind of dissolve the ego,
Matthew Johnson (21:55.280)
like realize like that we're just all little bits
Lex Fridman (21:58.880)
of physical objects that behave in mysterious ways.
Lex Fridman (22:02.800)
And so that has to do with the language.
Lex Fridman (22:04.800)
Like if you read a Sean Carroll book or something recently,
Matthew Johnson (22:08.000)
it seems like it has a huge influence
Lex Fridman (22:09.820)
on the way you might experience,
Matthew Johnson (22:13.720)
might perceive the world and might experience
Lex Fridman (22:16.120)
the alteration that psychedelics brings
Matthew Johnson (22:19.520)
to your perception system.
Lex Fridman (22:23.280)
So I wonder like the language you bring to the table,
Lex Fridman (22:26.000)
how that affects the journey you go on with the psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (22:30.480)
I think very much so.
Lex Fridman (22:32.760)
And I think there's, I'm a little concerned
Lex Fridman (22:34.920)
some of the science is going a little too far
Matthew Johnson (22:36.760)
in the direction of around the edges,
Lex Fridman (22:40.520)
speaking about it changing beliefs in this sense
Matthew Johnson (22:44.880)
or that sense about particular, in particular domains.
Lex Fridman (22:48.800)
And I think what really what a lot of what's going on
Matthew Johnson (22:51.680)
is what you just discussed.
Lex Fridman (22:53.720)
It's the priors coming into it.
Lex Fridman (22:56.840)
So if you've been reading a lot of physics,
Lex Fridman (23:00.980)
then you might bring up like space time
Lex Fridman (23:05.880)
and interpret the experience in that sense.
Lex Fridman (23:08.120)
I mean, it's not uncommon for people come out
Matthew Johnson (23:10.000)
talking about visions of the,
Lex Fridman (23:12.480)
it's not the most typical thing,
Lex Fridman (23:13.520)
but it's come up in sessions I've guided,
Lex Fridman (23:16.120)
the Big Bang and this sort of nature of reality.
Matthew Johnson (23:21.120)
I think probably that the best way to think
Lex Fridman (23:23.880)
about these experiences is that,
Lex Fridman (23:26.440)
and the best evidence,
Lex Fridman (23:27.480)
even though we're in our infancy and understanding it,
Matthew Johnson (23:30.460)
they really tap into more general psychological mechanisms.
Lex Fridman (23:34.720)
I think one of the best arguments
Matthew Johnson (23:36.200)
is they reduce the influence of our priors,
Lex Fridman (23:41.360)
of what we bring into all of the assumptions
Matthew Johnson (23:45.360)
that we all that we're essentially,
Lex Fridman (23:47.320)
especially as adults, we're riding on top of heuristic
Matthew Johnson (23:49.520)
after heuristic to get through life.
Lex Fridman (23:51.880)
And you need to do that.
Lex Fridman (23:53.280)
And that's a good thing.
Lex Fridman (23:54.360)
And that's extremely efficient
Lex Fridman (23:55.800)
and evolution has shaped that,
Lex Fridman (23:57.680)
but that comes at an expense.
Lex Fridman (23:59.760)
And it seems that these experiences
Lex Fridman (24:04.860)
will allow someone greater mental flexibility and openness.
Lex Fridman (24:12.040)
And so one can be both less influenced
Lex Fridman (24:16.960)
by their prior assumptions,
Lex Fridman (24:18.940)
but still nonetheless the nature of the experience
Lex Fridman (24:22.160)
can be influenced by what they've been exposed to
Matthew Johnson (24:24.760)
in the world.
Lex Fridman (24:25.600)
And sometimes they can get it in a deeper way.
Matthew Johnson (24:28.440)
Like maybe they've read,
Lex Fridman (24:29.280)
I mean, I had a philosophy professor one time
Matthew Johnson (24:31.520)
as a participant in a high dose psilocybin study.
Lex Fridman (24:34.960)
And I remember him saying, my God,
Matthew Johnson (24:37.720)
it's like Hegel's opposites defining each other.
Lex Fridman (24:40.440)
Like, I get it.
Matthew Johnson (24:41.580)
I've taught this thing for years and years and years.
Lex Fridman (24:44.600)
Like, I get it now.
Lex Fridman (24:46.380)
And so like that, you know,
Lex Fridman (24:49.120)
and even at the psychological, emotional level,
Matthew Johnson (24:51.480)
like the cancer patients we worked with,
Lex Fridman (24:54.680)
you know, they told themselves a million times
Matthew Johnson (24:56.280)
over this people trying to quit smoking,
Lex Fridman (24:57.680)
I need to quit smoking.
Matthew Johnson (24:58.680)
Oh, I'm ruining my life with this cancer.
Lex Fridman (25:00.760)
I'm still healthy.
Matthew Johnson (25:01.600)
I should be getting out.
Lex Fridman (25:02.420)
I'm letting this thing defeat me.
Matthew Johnson (25:03.680)
It's like, yeah, you told yourself that in your head,
Lex Fridman (25:05.240)
but sometimes they had these experiences
Lex Fridman (25:07.800)
and they kind of feel it in their heart.
Lex Fridman (25:10.160)
Like they really get it.
Lex Fridman (25:11.920)
So in some sense that you bring some prize to the table,
Lex Fridman (25:17.620)
but psychedelics allow you to acknowledge them
Lex Fridman (25:22.040)
and then throw them away.
Lex Fridman (25:23.320)
So like one popular terminology around this
Matthew Johnson (25:26.680)
in the engineering space is first principles thinking
Lex Fridman (25:29.760)
that Elon Musk, for example, espouses a lot.
Matthew Johnson (25:33.820)
Let me ask a fun question
Lex Fridman (25:35.060)
before we return to a more serious discussion.
Matthew Johnson (25:38.380)
With Elon Musk as an example,
Lex Fridman (25:42.140)
but it could be just engineers in general,
Lex Fridman (25:45.100)
do you think there's a use for psychedelics
Lex Fridman (25:48.520)
to take a journey of rigorous first principles thinking?
Lex Fridman (25:54.100)
So like throwing away,
Lex Fridman (25:55.620)
we're not talking about throwing away assumptions
Matthew Johnson (25:58.380)
about the nature of reality in terms of like our philosophy
Lex Fridman (26:02.080)
of the way we live day to day life,
Lex Fridman (26:04.020)
but we're talking about like how to build a better rocket
Lex Fridman (26:08.220)
or how to build a better car
Matthew Johnson (26:09.980)
or how to build a better social network
Lex Fridman (26:12.380)
or all those kinds of things, engineering questions.
Matthew Johnson (26:15.060)
I absolutely think there's huge potential there.
Lex Fridman (26:17.740)
And there was some research in the late 60s, early 70s
Matthew Johnson (26:22.860)
that were, it was very early and not very rigorous
Lex Fridman (26:26.060)
in terms of methodology, but it was consistent with the,
Matthew Johnson (26:31.380)
I mean, there's just countless anecdotes of folks.
Lex Fridman (26:34.020)
I mean, people have argued that just,
Matthew Johnson (26:36.380)
Silicon Valley was largely influenced
Lex Fridman (26:39.460)
by psychedelic experience.
Matthew Johnson (26:41.500)
I remember the, I think the person that came up
Lex Fridman (26:43.780)
with the concept of freeware or shareware,
Matthew Johnson (26:46.260)
it's like it kind of was generated out of
Lex Fridman (26:50.460)
or influenced by psychedelic experience.
Lex Fridman (26:53.720)
So to this, I think there's incredible potential there
Lex Fridman (26:56.340)
and we know really next,
Matthew Johnson (26:59.380)
there's no rigorous research on that, but.
Lex Fridman (27:03.180)
Is there anecdotal stuff like with Steve Jobs?
Lex Fridman (27:05.700)
I think there's stories, right?
Lex Fridman (27:07.500)
In your exploration of that,
Lex Fridman (27:09.020)
is there something a little bit more than just stories?
Lex Fridman (27:12.700)
Is there like a little bit more of a solid data points,
Lex Fridman (27:16.420)
even if they're just experiential like anecdotes?
Lex Fridman (27:20.820)
Is there something that you draw inspiration from
Lex Fridman (27:22.960)
like in your intuition?
Lex Fridman (27:24.340)
Because we'll talk about,
Matthew Johnson (27:25.580)
you're trying to construct studies
Lex Fridman (27:27.220)
that are more rigorous around these questions.
Lex Fridman (27:29.420)
But is there something you draw inspiration from,
Lex Fridman (27:31.660)
from the past, from the 80s and the 90s
Lex Fridman (27:34.220)
and Silicon Valley, that kind of space?
Lex Fridman (27:37.200)
Or is it just like you have a sense
Matthew Johnson (27:40.400)
based on everything you've learned
Lex Fridman (27:42.560)
and these kind of loose stories
Lex Fridman (27:44.620)
that there's something worth digging at?
Lex Fridman (27:47.460)
I am influenced by the, gosh,
Matthew Johnson (27:50.140)
the just incredible number of anecdotes surrounding these.
Lex Fridman (27:55.420)
I mean,
Matthew Johnson (27:58.820)
Carey Mullis, he invented PCR.
Lex Fridman (28:02.140)
I mean, absolutely revolutionized biological sciences.
Matthew Johnson (28:05.900)
He says he wouldn't have won the Nobel Prize for him.
Lex Fridman (28:08.380)
He said he wouldn't have come up with that
Matthew Johnson (28:09.780)
had he not had psychedelic experiences.
Lex Fridman (28:14.300)
Now, he's an interesting character.
Matthew Johnson (28:15.500)
People should read his autobiography
Lex Fridman (28:17.100)
because you could point to other things he was into.
Lex Fridman (28:19.940)
But I think that speaks to the casting your nets wide
Lex Fridman (28:22.660)
and this mental flex,
Matthew Johnson (28:23.740)
more of these general mechanisms
Lex Fridman (28:27.320)
where sometimes if you cast your nets really wide
Lex Fridman (28:29.700)
and it's gonna depend on the person
Lex Fridman (28:31.260)
and their influences,
Lex Fridman (28:32.220)
but sometimes you come up with false positives.
Lex Fridman (28:38.180)
You connect the dots
Matthew Johnson (28:39.040)
where maybe you shouldn't have connected those dots,
Lex Fridman (28:41.220)
but I think that can be constrained.
Lex Fridman (28:44.700)
And so much of our,
Lex Fridman (28:47.200)
not only our personal psychological suffering,
Lex Fridman (28:49.180)
but our limitations academically
Lex Fridman (28:53.160)
and in terms of technology
Matthew Johnson (28:55.620)
are because of the self imposed limitations
Lex Fridman (28:59.500)
and heuristics, these entrenched ways of thinking.
Matthew Johnson (29:03.620)
Like those examples throughout the history of science
Lex Fridman (29:06.460)
where someone has come up with the paradigm,
Matthew Johnson (29:09.580)
Kuhn's paradigm shifts.
Lex Fridman (29:11.600)
It's like, here's something completely different.
Matthew Johnson (29:14.540)
This doesn't make sense by any of the previous models.
Lex Fridman (29:17.140)
And like, we need more of those.
Lex Fridman (29:20.500)
And then you need the right balance between that
Lex Fridman (29:22.620)
because so many of the novel crazy ideas are just bunk
Lex Fridman (29:27.220)
and that's what science is about separating them
Lex Fridman (29:31.040)
from the valid paradigm shifting ideas.
Lex Fridman (29:33.860)
But we need more paradigm shifting ideas like in a big way.
Lex Fridman (29:38.960)
And I think we could,
Matthew Johnson (29:40.260)
I think you could argue that we've,
Lex Fridman (29:42.060)
because of the structure of academia and science
Matthew Johnson (29:45.100)
in modern times, it heavily biases against those.
Lex Fridman (29:49.060)
Right, there's all kinds of mechanisms in our human nature
Matthew Johnson (29:52.620)
that resist paradigm shift quite sort of obviously.
Lex Fridman (29:56.940)
So, and psychedelics, there could be a lot of other tools
Matthew Johnson (2:00:01.460)
Oh, it could be scary in this sense,
Lex Fridman (2:00:03.020)
but here's how to handle it, trust, let go, be open.
Lex Fridman (2:00:05.780)
And also during that preparation time,
Lex Fridman (2:00:08.540)
preparing them to quit smoking,
Matthew Johnson (2:00:09.820)
using really standard bread and butter techniques
Lex Fridman (2:00:12.220)
that can all fall under the label typically
Matthew Johnson (2:00:15.180)
of the cognitive behavioral therapy,
Lex Fridman (2:00:16.860)
just stuff like before you quit,
Matthew Johnson (2:00:19.820)
we assign a target quit date ahead of time,
Lex Fridman (2:00:22.660)
you're not just quitting on the fly.
Lex Fridman (2:00:24.460)
And that happens to be the target quit date
Lex Fridman (2:00:26.660)
in our study was the day
Matthew Johnson (2:00:27.900)
where they got the first psilocybin dose,
Lex Fridman (2:00:29.780)
but doing things like keeping a smoking diary,
Matthew Johnson (2:00:31.700)
like, okay, during the three weeks until you quit,
Lex Fridman (2:00:34.700)
every time you smoke a cigarette,
Matthew Johnson (2:00:35.740)
just like jot down what you're doing,
Lex Fridman (2:00:37.380)
what you're feeling, what situation, that type of thing.
Lex Fridman (2:00:39.860)
And then having some discussion around that
Lex Fridman (2:00:41.540)
and then going over the pluses and minuses in their life
Matthew Johnson (2:00:44.420)
that smoking kind of comes with
Lex Fridman (2:00:45.780)
and being honest about the, this is what it does for me,
Matthew Johnson (2:00:47.900)
this is why I like it, this is why I don't like it.
Lex Fridman (2:00:50.140)
Preparing for like, what if you do slip, how to handle it,
Matthew Johnson (2:00:53.780)
like don't dwell on guilt
Lex Fridman (2:00:54.820)
because that leads to more full on relapse,
Matthew Johnson (2:00:57.860)
just kind of treat it as a learning experience,
Lex Fridman (2:00:59.540)
that type of thing.
Matthew Johnson (2:01:00.380)
Then you have the session day where they come in,
Lex Fridman (2:01:06.500)
five minutes of questionnaires,
Lex Fridman (2:01:07.540)
but pretty much they jump into the,
Lex Fridman (2:01:09.180)
we touch base with them and we give them the capsule.
Matthew Johnson (2:01:13.900)
It's a serious setting, but a comfortable one.
Lex Fridman (2:01:17.460)
They're in a room that looks more like a living room
Matthew Johnson (2:01:19.460)
than like a research lab.
Lex Fridman (2:01:21.100)
We measure their blood pressure, their experience,
Lex Fridman (2:01:22.860)
but kind of minimal kind of medical vibe to it.
Lex Fridman (2:01:25.620)
And they lay down on a couch
Lex Fridman (2:01:28.860)
and it's a purposefully an introspective experience.
Lex Fridman (2:01:32.020)
So they're laying on a couch
Matthew Johnson (2:01:33.140)
during most of the five to six hour experience
Lex Fridman (2:01:36.340)
and they're wearing eye shades,
Matthew Johnson (2:01:38.060)
which is a better connotation as a name than blindfold.
Lex Fridman (2:01:40.860)
But like, yeah, so they're wearing eye shades,
Lex Fridman (2:01:42.820)
but that's, and they're wearing headphones
Lex Fridman (2:01:45.340)
through which music is played, mostly classical,
Matthew Johnson (2:01:49.060)
although we've done some variation of that.
Lex Fridman (2:01:50.540)
I have a paper that was recently accepted
Matthew Johnson (2:01:52.020)
kind of comparing it to more like gongs
Lex Fridman (2:01:54.500)
and harmonic bowls and that type of thing,
Matthew Johnson (2:01:57.860)
kind of like sound, you know, kind of.
Lex Fridman (2:02:00.900)
You've also added this to the science
Lex Fridman (2:02:04.340)
and have a paper on the musical accompaniment
Lex Fridman (2:02:07.220)
to the psychedelic experience, that's fascinating.
Matthew Johnson (2:02:09.180)
Right, and we found basically that about the same effect,
Lex Fridman (2:02:12.220)
even by a trend, not significant,
Lex Fridman (2:02:13.980)
but a little bit better of an effect,
Lex Fridman (2:02:15.260)
both in terms of subjective experience and longterm,
Matthew Johnson (2:02:19.020)
whether it helped people quit smoking,
Lex Fridman (2:02:20.660)
just a little tiny non significant trend
Matthew Johnson (2:02:22.700)
even favoring the novel playlist
Lex Fridman (2:02:25.980)
with the Tibetan singing bowls and the gongs
Lex Fridman (2:02:28.940)
and didgeridoo and all of that.
Lex Fridman (2:02:30.620)
And so anyway, just saying, okay,
Matthew Johnson (2:02:33.340)
we can deviate a little bit from this,
Lex Fridman (2:02:35.460)
like what goes back to the 1950s of this method
Matthew Johnson (2:02:37.980)
of using classical music as part of this psychedelic therapy,
Lex Fridman (2:02:41.100)
but they're listening to the music
Lex Fridman (2:02:42.300)
and they're not playing DJ in real time.
Lex Fridman (2:02:44.380)
You know, it's like, you know, they're just,
Matthew Johnson (2:02:46.780)
be the baby, you're not the decision maker for today,
Lex Fridman (2:02:49.580)
go inward, trust, let go, be open.
Lex Fridman (2:02:51.740)
And pretty much the only interaction,
Lex Fridman (2:02:53.460)
like that we're there for is to deal
Matthew Johnson (2:02:56.300)
with any anxiety that comes up.
Lex Fridman (2:02:57.620)
So guide is kind of a misnomer in a sense.
Matthew Johnson (2:03:00.500)
It's, we're more of a safety net.
Lex Fridman (2:03:02.700)
And so like, tell us if you feel some butterflies
Matthew Johnson (2:03:05.020)
that we can provide reassurance,
Lex Fridman (2:03:06.220)
a hold of their hand can be very powerful.
Matthew Johnson (2:03:09.140)
I've had people tell me that that was like the thing
Lex Fridman (2:03:10.980)
that really just grounded them.
Lex Fridman (2:03:12.580)
Can you break apart trust, let go, be open?
Lex Fridman (2:03:17.340)
What, so in a sense,
Lex Fridman (2:03:21.420)
how would you describe the experience,
Lex Fridman (2:03:25.540)
the intellectual and the emotional approach
Matthew Johnson (2:03:29.300)
that people are supposed to take
Lex Fridman (2:03:30.660)
to really let go into the experience?
Matthew Johnson (2:03:35.420)
Yeah, so trust is, trust the context,
Lex Fridman (2:03:40.660)
you know, trust the guides,
Matthew Johnson (2:03:41.900)
trust the overall institutional context.
Lex Fridman (2:03:45.140)
I see it as layers of like safety,
Matthew Johnson (2:03:47.220)
even though it's everything I told you
Lex Fridman (2:03:48.460)
about the relative bodily safety of psilocybin.
Matthew Johnson (2:03:51.100)
Nonetheless, we're still getting blood pressure
Lex Fridman (2:03:52.700)
throughout the session, just in case.
Matthew Johnson (2:03:54.660)
We have a physician on hand who can respond just in case.
Lex Fridman (2:03:57.940)
We're literally across the street
Matthew Johnson (2:03:59.260)
from the emergency department, just in case.
Lex Fridman (2:04:01.460)
You know, all of that, you know.
Matthew Johnson (2:04:02.900)
Privacy is another thing you've talked about
Lex Fridman (2:04:04.940)
is just trusting that you're,
Lex Fridman (2:04:07.140)
and whatever happens is just between you
Lex Fridman (2:04:09.300)
and the people in the study.
Matthew Johnson (2:04:10.900)
Right, and hopefully they've really gotten that
Lex Fridman (2:04:13.340)
by that point deep into the study
Matthew Johnson (2:04:14.820)
that like they realize where do we take that seriously
Lex Fridman (2:04:17.140)
and everything else, you know.
Lex Fridman (2:04:18.380)
And so it's really kind of like a very special role
Lex Fridman (2:04:20.220)
that you're playing as a researcher or a guide
Lex Fridman (2:04:22.780)
and hopefully they have your trust.
Lex Fridman (2:04:25.900)
And so, you know, and trust that they could be as emotional,
Matthew Johnson (2:04:28.180)
everything from laughter to tears,
Lex Fridman (2:04:29.700)
like that's gonna be welcomed.
Matthew Johnson (2:04:30.860)
We're not judging them.
Lex Fridman (2:04:31.780)
It's like, it's a therapeutic relationship
Matthew Johnson (2:04:33.700)
where, you know, this is a safe container.
Lex Fridman (2:04:36.460)
It's a safe space.
Matthew Johnson (2:04:37.540)
It's a lot of baggage to that term,
Lex Fridman (2:04:39.140)
but it truly is, it's a safe space for that,
Matthew Johnson (2:04:42.460)
for this type of experience and to let go.
Lex Fridman (2:04:45.620)
So trust, let's see, let go.
Lex Fridman (2:04:48.340)
So that relates to the emotional, like,
Lex Fridman (2:04:50.540)
you feel like crying, cry.
Matthew Johnson (2:04:52.940)
You feel like laughing your ass off, laugh your ass off.
Lex Fridman (2:04:55.980)
You know, it's like all the things actually
Matthew Johnson (2:04:58.140)
that sometimes it's more challenging
Lex Fridman (2:04:59.900)
with someone has a large recreational use,
Matthew Johnson (2:05:02.540)
sometimes it's harder for them
Lex Fridman (2:05:03.540)
because people in that context, and understandably so,
Matthew Johnson (2:05:07.340)
it's more about holding your shit.
Lex Fridman (2:05:09.380)
Someone's had a bunch of mushrooms at a party.
Matthew Johnson (2:05:12.480)
Maybe they don't wanna go into the back room
Lex Fridman (2:05:15.020)
and start crying about these thoughts
Matthew Johnson (2:05:17.380)
about the relationship with their mother.
Lex Fridman (2:05:19.500)
And they don't wanna be the drama queen or king
Matthew Johnson (2:05:22.620)
that bring their friends down
Lex Fridman (2:05:23.860)
because their friends are having an experience too.
Lex Fridman (2:05:26.340)
And so they wanna like compose, you know.
Lex Fridman (2:05:29.060)
And also just the appearance in social settings
Matthew Johnson (2:05:31.440)
versus the, so like prioritizing how you appear to others
Lex Fridman (2:05:34.980)
versus the prioritizing the depth of the experience.
Lex Fridman (2:05:39.420)
And here in the study, you can prioritize the experience.
Lex Fridman (2:05:42.700)
Right, and it's all about, like you're the astronaut
Lex Fridman (2:05:44.980)
and there's only one astronaut.
Lex Fridman (2:05:46.820)
We're ground control.
Lex Fridman (2:05:48.100)
And I use this often with,
Lex Fridman (2:05:50.620)
I have a photo of the space shuttle on a plaque
Matthew Johnson (2:05:53.580)
in my office and I kind of often use that as an example.
Lex Fridman (2:05:56.720)
And it's like, we're here for you.
Matthew Johnson (2:05:58.340)
Like we're a team, but we have different roles.
Lex Fridman (2:06:00.300)
It's just like, you don't have to like compose yourself.
Matthew Johnson (2:06:04.140)
Like you don't have to like be concerned about our safety.
Lex Fridman (2:06:07.340)
Like we're playing these roles today.
Lex Fridman (2:06:09.500)
And like, yeah, your job is to go as deep as possible
Lex Fridman (2:06:12.400)
or as far out, whatever your analogy is, like as possible.
Lex Fridman (2:06:16.140)
And we're keeping you safe.
Lex Fridman (2:06:18.820)
And so, yeah, and the emotional side is a hard one
Matthew Johnson (2:06:23.580)
because you really want people to,
Lex Fridman (2:06:25.340)
like if they go into realms of subjectively
Matthew Johnson (2:06:28.180)
of despair and sorrow, like, yeah, like cry, it's okay.
Lex Fridman (2:06:34.580)
And especially if someone's more macho
Lex Fridman (2:06:37.120)
and you want this to be the place where they can let go.
Lex Fridman (2:06:41.420)
And again, something that they wouldn't or shouldn't do
Matthew Johnson (2:06:44.540)
if someone were to theoretically use it
Lex Fridman (2:06:46.700)
in a social setting.
Lex Fridman (2:06:49.980)
And like, and also these other things,
Lex Fridman (2:06:51.700)
like even that you get in those social settings of like,
Matthew Johnson (2:06:54.260)
yeah, you don't have to like worry about your wallet
Lex Fridman (2:06:56.660)
for being taken advantage or especially for a woman
Matthew Johnson (2:06:59.240)
sexually assaulted by some creep at a concert or something.
Lex Fridman (2:07:02.620)
Cause they're, you know, they're laying down,
Matthew Johnson (2:07:05.480)
being far out.
Lex Fridman (2:07:06.320)
There's like a million sources of anxiety
Matthew Johnson (2:07:08.380)
that are external versus internal.
Lex Fridman (2:07:11.420)
So you can just focus on your own,
Matthew Johnson (2:07:12.920)
like the beautiful thing that's going on in your mind.
Lex Fridman (2:07:16.420)
And even the cops at that layer,
Matthew Johnson (2:07:18.340)
even though it's extremely unlikely for most people
Lex Fridman (2:07:21.820)
that cops would come in and bust them right when,
Matthew Johnson (2:07:23.820)
like even at that theoretical,
Lex Fridman (2:07:25.220)
like that one in a billion chance,
Matthew Johnson (2:07:26.900)
like that might be a real thing psychologically.
Lex Fridman (2:07:29.420)
In this context, we even got that covered.
Matthew Johnson (2:07:31.380)
This is, we've got DEA approval.
Lex Fridman (2:07:33.460)
Like you are, this is okay by every level of society
Matthew Johnson (2:07:37.220)
that counts, you know, that has the authority.
Lex Fridman (2:07:39.980)
So it's, so go deep, trust the, you know, trust the setting,
Matthew Johnson (2:07:43.620)
trust yourself, you know, let go and be open.
Lex Fridman (2:07:48.020)
So in the experience, and this is all subjective
Lex Fridman (2:07:50.500)
and by analogy, but like, if there's a door, open it,
Lex Fridman (2:07:54.100)
go into it.
Matthew Johnson (2:07:54.940)
If there's a stairwell, go down it or a stairway, go up it.
Lex Fridman (2:07:59.980)
If there's a monster in the mind's eye, you know,
Matthew Johnson (2:08:03.220)
don't run, approach it, look in the eye and say, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:08:07.380)
let's talk.
Lex Fridman (2:08:08.220)
Yeah, what's up, what are you doing here?
Lex Fridman (2:08:10.900)
Let's talk Turkey, you know?
Lex Fridman (2:08:12.620)
And I thought.
Lex Fridman (2:08:13.460)
Dave Goggins entered the chat, okay.
Matthew Johnson (2:08:14.820)
Right, right, it really is that,
Lex Fridman (2:08:16.380)
that really is a heart of it, this radical courage.
Matthew Johnson (2:08:19.780)
Like it. Courage.
Lex Fridman (2:08:20.940)
People are often struck by that coming out.
Matthew Johnson (2:08:22.660)
Like this is heavy lifting, this is a hard work.
Lex Fridman (2:08:25.480)
People come out of this exhausted and it can be extremely,
Matthew Johnson (2:08:30.160)
some people say it's the most difficult thing
Lex Fridman (2:08:31.960)
they've done in their life.
Matthew Johnson (2:08:33.380)
Like choosing to let go on a moment,
Lex Fridman (2:08:36.160)
a microsecond by microsecond basis.
Matthew Johnson (2:08:39.740)
Everything in their inclination is to say stop,
Lex Fridman (2:08:42.940)
sometimes stop this, I don't like this,
Matthew Johnson (2:08:45.020)
I didn't know it was gonna be like this, this is too much.
Lex Fridman (2:08:48.160)
And Terrence McKenna put it this way,
Matthew Johnson (2:08:49.840)
it's like comparing to meditation and other techniques,
Lex Fridman (2:08:52.740)
it's like spending years trying to press the accelerator
Matthew Johnson (2:08:55.960)
to make something happen.
Lex Fridman (2:08:57.460)
High dose psychedelics is like you're speeding down
Matthew Johnson (2:08:59.660)
the mountain in a fully loaded semi truck
Lex Fridman (2:09:03.200)
and you're charged with not slamming the brake.
Matthew Johnson (2:09:06.380)
It's like, let it happen.
Lex Fridman (2:09:09.820)
So it's very difficult and to engage,
Matthew Johnson (2:09:12.300)
always go further into it and take that radical,
Lex Fridman (2:09:16.500)
radical courage throughout.
Lex Fridman (2:09:19.260)
What do they say in self report?
Lex Fridman (2:09:22.580)
If you can put general words to it,
Lex Fridman (2:09:24.580)
what is their experience like?
Lex Fridman (2:09:26.180)
What do they say it's like?
Matthew Johnson (2:09:27.820)
Because these are many people, like you said,
Lex Fridman (2:09:29.400)
that haven't probably read much about psychedelics
Matthew Johnson (2:09:32.980)
or they don't have like with Joe Rogan,
Lex Fridman (2:09:36.300)
like language or stories to put on it.
Lex Fridman (2:09:39.020)
So this is very raw self report of experiences.
Lex Fridman (2:09:43.700)
What do they say the experience is like?
Matthew Johnson (2:09:45.860)
Yeah, and some more so than others,
Lex Fridman (2:09:47.540)
cause everyone has been exposed at some level or another,
Lex Fridman (2:09:50.180)
but some it is pretty superficial as you're saying.
Lex Fridman (2:09:55.500)
One of the hallmarks of psychedelics
Matthew Johnson (2:09:57.020)
is just their variability.
Lex Fridman (2:09:58.460)
So I'm more stressed, it's like not the mean,
Lex Fridman (2:10:00.060)
but the standard deviation is so wide that it's like,
Lex Fridman (2:10:03.420)
it could be like hellish experiences
Lex Fridman (2:10:07.140)
and just absolutely beautiful and loving experiences,
Lex Fridman (2:10:14.100)
everything in between and both of those,
Matthew Johnson (2:10:17.420)
like those could be two minutes apart from each other.
Lex Fridman (2:10:20.340)
And sometimes kind of at the same time concurrently.
Lex Fridman (2:10:24.040)
So let's see, there's different ways to,
Lex Fridman (2:10:28.180)
there were some Jungian psychologists back in the 60s,
Matthew Johnson (2:10:31.820)
masters in Houston that wrote a really good book,
Lex Fridman (2:10:34.060)
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience,
Matthew Johnson (2:10:36.340)
which is a play on varieties of religious experience
Lex Fridman (2:10:39.300)
by William James, that they described this,
Matthew Johnson (2:10:43.460)
a perceptual level.
Lex Fridman (2:10:44.580)
So most people have that when,
Matthew Johnson (2:10:47.180)
whether they're looking at the room without the eyeshades on
Lex Fridman (2:10:49.460)
or inside their mind's eye with the eyeshades on,
Matthew Johnson (2:10:52.640)
colors, sounds like this,
Lex Fridman (2:10:56.340)
it's a much richer sensorium,
Matthew Johnson (2:11:01.060)
which can be very interesting.
Lex Fridman (2:11:02.420)
And then at another level, a master's in Houston
Matthew Johnson (2:11:04.980)
called it the psychodynamic level.
Lex Fridman (2:11:08.020)
And I think you could think about it more broadly than,
Matthew Johnson (2:11:10.660)
that's kind of Jungian,
Lex Fridman (2:11:11.880)
but just the personal psychological levels,
Lex Fridman (2:11:14.620)
how I think of it, like this is about your life.
Lex Fridman (2:11:17.020)
There's a whole life review.
Matthew Johnson (2:11:17.980)
Oftentimes people have thoughts about their childhood,
Lex Fridman (2:11:20.300)
about their relationships, their spouse or partner,
Matthew Johnson (2:11:24.340)
their children, their parents, their family of origin,
Lex Fridman (2:11:27.940)
their current family, that stuff comes up a lot,
Matthew Johnson (2:11:31.760)
including people just pouring with tears
Lex Fridman (2:11:35.820)
about how much, it hits them so hard
Lex Fridman (2:11:39.900)
how much they love people.
Lex Fridman (2:11:41.720)
Like in a way, for people that they'd love their family,
Lex Fridman (2:11:44.700)
but it just hits them so hard that how important this is
Lex Fridman (2:11:50.660)
and the magnitude of that love
Lex Fridman (2:11:52.340)
and what that means in their life.
Lex Fridman (2:11:54.380)
So those are some of the most moving experiences
Matthew Johnson (2:11:57.140)
to be present for is where people like it hits home,
Lex Fridman (2:12:00.340)
like what really matters in their life.
Lex Fridman (2:12:02.820)
And then you have this sort of what masters in Houston
Lex Fridman (2:12:06.700)
called the archetypal realm,
Matthew Johnson (2:12:08.620)
which again is sort of Jungian with the focus on archetypes,
Lex Fridman (2:12:12.460)
which is interesting,
Lex Fridman (2:12:13.300)
but I think of that more generally as like symbolic level.
Lex Fridman (2:12:15.980)
So just really deep experiences where you have,
Matthew Johnson (2:12:19.340)
you do have experiences that seem symbolic of,
Lex Fridman (2:12:22.980)
very much in like what we know about dreaming
Lex Fridman (2:12:25.660)
and what most people think about dreaming,
Lex Fridman (2:12:27.420)
like there's this randomness of things,
Lex Fridman (2:12:29.560)
but sometimes it's pretty clear in retrospect,
Lex Fridman (2:12:31.780)
oh, like this came up
Matthew Johnson (2:12:33.460)
because this thing has been on my mind recently.
Lex Fridman (2:12:36.960)
So it seems to be, there seems to be this symbolic level.
Lex Fridman (2:12:40.260)
And then they have this,
Lex Fridman (2:12:41.460)
the last level that they describe
Matthew Johnson (2:12:42.980)
is the mystical integral level,
Lex Fridman (2:12:45.460)
which this is where there's lots of terms for it,
Lex Fridman (2:12:48.340)
but transcendental experiences, experiences of unity,
Lex Fridman (2:12:52.200)
mystical type effects we often measure.
Matthew Johnson (2:12:56.180)
Europeans use a scale
Lex Fridman (2:12:57.620)
that will refer to oceanic boundlessness.
Matthew Johnson (2:13:00.280)
This is all pretty much the same thing.
Lex Fridman (2:13:02.580)
This is like at some sense,
Matthew Johnson (2:13:04.860)
the deepest level of the very sense of self
Lex Fridman (2:13:08.240)
seems to be dissolved, minimize, or expanded,
Matthew Johnson (2:13:13.700)
such that the boundaries of the self go into in here.
Lex Fridman (2:13:16.140)
I think some of this is just semantics,
Lex Fridman (2:13:17.580)
but whether the self is expanding
Lex Fridman (2:13:19.820)
such that there's no boundary between the self
Lex Fridman (2:13:21.700)
and the rest of the universe,
Lex Fridman (2:13:24.040)
or whether there's no sense of self,
Matthew Johnson (2:13:25.900)
again, might be just semantics,
Lex Fridman (2:13:27.200)
but this radical shift or sense of loss
Matthew Johnson (2:13:30.060)
of sense of self or self boundaries.
Lex Fridman (2:13:33.060)
And that's like the most,
Matthew Johnson (2:13:34.900)
typically when people have that experience,
Lex Fridman (2:13:37.060)
they'll often report that as being the most remarkable thing.
Lex Fridman (2:13:40.300)
And this is what you don't typically get with MDMA,
Lex Fridman (2:13:43.420)
these deepest levels of the nature of reality itself,
Matthew Johnson (2:13:46.800)
the subjectivity and objectivity,
Lex Fridman (2:13:48.600)
just like the seer and the seen become one,
Lex Fridman (2:13:54.640)
and it's a process, and yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:13:58.460)
And they're able to bring that experience back
Lex Fridman (2:14:04.300)
and be able to describe it?
Lex Fridman (2:14:06.620)
Yeah, but one of the, to a degree,
Lex Fridman (2:14:09.380)
but one of the hallmarks going back to William James
Lex Fridman (2:14:11.760)
of describing a mystical experience is the ineffability.
Lex Fridman (2:14:15.560)
And so even though it's ineffable,
Lex Fridman (2:14:17.660)
people try as far as they can to describe it,
Lex Fridman (2:14:20.380)
but when you get the real deal, they'll say,
Lex Fridman (2:14:22.480)
and even though they say a lot of helpful things
Matthew Johnson (2:14:24.480)
to help you describe the landscape,
Lex Fridman (2:14:26.200)
they'll say, no matter what I say,
Matthew Johnson (2:14:28.580)
I'm still not even coming anywhere close to what this was.
Lex Fridman (2:14:31.460)
Like the language is completely failing.
Lex Fridman (2:14:34.000)
And I like to joke that even though it's ineffable,
Lex Fridman (2:14:36.660)
and we're researchers,
Lex Fridman (2:14:37.620)
so we try to eff it up
Lex Fridman (2:14:38.940)
by asking them to describe the experience.
Matthew Johnson (2:14:41.260)
I love it, it's a good one.
Lex Fridman (2:14:44.140)
But to bring it back a little bit,
Lex Fridman (2:14:46.320)
so for that particular study on tobacco,
Lex Fridman (2:14:50.340)
what was the results, what was the conclusions
Lex Fridman (2:14:54.500)
in terms of the impact of psilocybin on their addiction?
Lex Fridman (2:14:59.360)
So in that pilot study, it was very small
Lex Fridman (2:15:01.500)
and it wasn't a randomized study, so it was limited.
Lex Fridman (2:15:04.160)
The only question we could really answer was,
Lex Fridman (2:15:06.320)
is this worthy enough of followup?
Lex Fridman (2:15:08.500)
And the answer to that was absolutely,
Matthew Johnson (2:15:11.060)
because the success rates were so high,
Lex Fridman (2:15:12.540)
80% biologically confirmed successful at six months,
Matthew Johnson (2:15:15.980)
that held up to 60% biologically confirmed abstinent
Lex Fridman (2:15:19.580)
at an average of two and a half years, a very long fall.
Matthew Johnson (2:15:22.900)
Yeah, and so, I mean, the best that's been reported
Lex Fridman (2:15:26.340)
in the literature for smoking cessation
Matthew Johnson (2:15:28.340)
is in the upper 50%, and that's with not one,
Lex Fridman (2:15:30.580)
but two medications for a couple of months,
Matthew Johnson (2:15:32.900)
followed by regular cognitive behavioral therapy,
Lex Fridman (2:15:36.460)
where you're coming in once a week or once every few weeks
Matthew Johnson (2:15:38.880)
for an entire year.
Lex Fridman (2:15:41.020)
And so it was very heavy.
Lex Fridman (2:15:44.620)
This is just like a few uses of psilocybin?
Lex Fridman (2:15:48.020)
So this was three doses of psilocybin
Matthew Johnson (2:15:50.020)
over a total course, including preparation, everything,
Lex Fridman (2:15:52.620)
a 15 week period, where there's mainly like,
Matthew Johnson (2:15:56.380)
for most part, one meeting a week,
Lex Fridman (2:15:58.300)
and then the three sessions are within that.
Lex Fridman (2:16:00.820)
And so it's, and we scaled that back
Lex Fridman (2:16:02.980)
in the more, the study we're doing right now,
Matthew Johnson (2:16:05.540)
which I can tell you about,
Lex Fridman (2:16:06.460)
which is a randomized controlled trial.
Lex Fridman (2:16:09.160)
But it's, yeah, the original pilot study
Lex Fridman (2:16:17.740)
was these 15 people.
Lex Fridman (2:16:20.540)
So given the positive signal from the first study
Lex Fridman (2:16:23.380)
telling us that it was a worthy pursuit,
Matthew Johnson (2:16:25.020)
we hustled up some money
Lex Fridman (2:16:25.940)
to actually be able to afford a larger trial.
Lex Fridman (2:16:28.580)
So it's randomizing 80 people
Lex Fridman (2:16:30.580)
to get either one psilocybin session,
Matthew Johnson (2:16:33.700)
we've scaled that down from three to one,
Lex Fridman (2:16:36.960)
mainly because we're doing fMRI neuroimaging
Matthew Johnson (2:16:40.000)
before and after,
Lex Fridman (2:16:40.840)
and it made it more experimentally complex
Matthew Johnson (2:16:42.380)
to have multiple sessions.
Lex Fridman (2:16:45.100)
But one psilocybin session versus the nicotine patch
Matthew Johnson (2:16:49.620)
using the FDA approved label,
Lex Fridman (2:16:52.260)
like standard use of the nicotine patch.
Lex Fridman (2:16:53.900)
So it's randomized, 40 people get randomized to psilocybin,
Lex Fridman (2:16:57.100)
one session, 40 people get nicotine patch.
Lex Fridman (2:17:00.140)
And they all get the same cognitive behavioral therapy
Lex Fridman (2:17:02.340)
sort of the standard talk therapy.
Lex Fridman (2:17:03.900)
And we've scaled it down somewhat,
Lex Fridman (2:17:05.400)
so there's less weekly meetings,
Lex Fridman (2:17:07.220)
but it's within the same ballpark.
Lex Fridman (2:17:09.020)
And right now we're still,
Matthew Johnson (2:17:13.920)
the study's still ongoing.
Lex Fridman (2:17:16.020)
And in fact, we just recently started recruiting again,
Matthew Johnson (2:17:18.460)
we paused for COVID.
Lex Fridman (2:17:19.580)
Now we're starting back up with some protections
Matthew Johnson (2:17:21.860)
like masks and whatnot.
Lex Fridman (2:17:23.340)
But right now for the 44 people
Matthew Johnson (2:17:28.620)
who have gotten through the one year followup,
Lex Fridman (2:17:31.080)
and so that includes 22 from each of the two groups,
Matthew Johnson (2:17:33.580)
the success rates are extremely high.
Lex Fridman (2:17:36.180)
For the psilocybin group,
Matthew Johnson (2:17:37.540)
it's 59% have been biologically confirmed as smoke free
Lex Fridman (2:17:41.300)
at one year after their quit date.
Lex Fridman (2:17:43.980)
And that compares to 27% for the nicotine patch,
Lex Fridman (2:17:48.180)
which by the way is extremely good for the nicotine patch
Matthew Johnson (2:17:51.000)
compared to previous research.
Lex Fridman (2:17:53.060)
So the results could change because it's ongoing,
Lex Fridman (2:17:56.980)
but we're mostly done
Lex Fridman (2:17:58.260)
and it's still looking extremely positive.
Lex Fridman (2:18:01.380)
So if anyone's interested,
Lex Fridman (2:18:02.360)
they have to be sort of be in commuting distance
Matthew Johnson (2:18:04.460)
to the Baltimore area, but you know.
Lex Fridman (2:18:06.580)
To participate.
Matthew Johnson (2:18:07.420)
Right, right, to participate.
Lex Fridman (2:18:09.640)
This is a good moment to bring up something.
Matthew Johnson (2:18:13.660)
I think a lot of what you talked about is super interesting.
Lex Fridman (2:18:17.900)
And I think a lot of people listening to this,
Lex Fridman (2:18:19.940)
so now it's anywhere from 300 to 600,000 people
Lex Fridman (2:18:25.140)
for just a regular podcast.
Matthew Johnson (2:18:27.180)
I know a lot of them will be very interested
Lex Fridman (2:18:29.420)
in what you're saying and they're going to look you up.
Matthew Johnson (2:18:32.820)
They're going to find your email
Lex Fridman (2:18:34.580)
and they're going to write you a long email
Matthew Johnson (2:18:36.840)
about some of the interesting things they've found
Lex Fridman (2:18:40.840)
in any of your papers.
Lex Fridman (2:18:43.420)
How should people contact you?
Lex Fridman (2:18:45.900)
What is the best way for that?
Lex Fridman (2:18:47.940)
Would you recommend?
Lex Fridman (2:18:49.300)
You're a super busy guy.
Matthew Johnson (2:18:50.780)
You have a million things going on.
Lex Fridman (2:18:54.340)
How should people communicate with you?
Matthew Johnson (2:18:56.540)
Thanks for bringing this up.
Lex Fridman (2:18:57.740)
This is a, I'm glad to get the opportunity to address this.
Matthew Johnson (2:19:01.900)
If someone's interested in participating in a study,
Lex Fridman (2:19:04.980)
the best thing to do is go to the website.
Lex Fridman (2:19:08.100)
Of the study or of like, yeah, which website?
Lex Fridman (2:19:13.600)
So we have all of our psilocybin studies.
Lex Fridman (2:19:15.780)
So everything we have is up on one website
Lex Fridman (2:19:18.800)
and then we link to the different study websites,
Lex Fridman (2:19:21.120)
but hopkinspsychedelic.org.
Lex Fridman (2:19:24.500)
So everything we do, or if you don't remember that,
Matthew Johnson (2:19:27.440)
just go to your favorite search engine
Lex Fridman (2:19:29.940)
and look up Johns Hopkins Psychedelic
Lex Fridman (2:19:32.080)
and you're going to find one of the first hits
Lex Fridman (2:19:33.600)
is going to be our, is this website.
Lex Fridman (2:19:35.920)
And there's going to be links to the smoking study
Lex Fridman (2:19:38.060)
and all of our other studies.
Matthew Johnson (2:19:39.120)
If there's no link to it there,
Lex Fridman (2:19:40.900)
we don't have a study on it now.
Lex Fridman (2:19:42.600)
And if you're interested in psychedelic research more broadly,
Lex Fridman (2:19:46.220)
you can look up, like at another university
Matthew Johnson (2:19:48.300)
that might be closer to you.
Lex Fridman (2:19:49.460)
And there's a handful of them now across the country.
Lex Fridman (2:19:52.240)
And there's some in Europe that have studies going on,
Lex Fridman (2:19:55.140)
but you can, at least in the US,
Matthew Johnson (2:19:56.900)
you can look at clinicaltrials.gov
Lex Fridman (2:20:00.200)
and look up the term psilocybin.
Lex Fridman (2:20:02.180)
And in fact, optionally people even in Europe
Lex Fridman (2:20:04.420)
can register their trial on there.
Lex Fridman (2:20:06.180)
So that's a good way to find studies.
Lex Fridman (2:20:07.620)
But for our research, rather than emailing me,
Matthew Johnson (2:20:11.340)
like a more efficient way is to go straight
Lex Fridman (2:20:13.540)
and you can do that first, the first phase of screening.
Matthew Johnson (2:20:17.060)
There's some questions online
Lex Fridman (2:20:18.660)
and then someone will get back in touch with you.
Lex Fridman (2:20:21.900)
But I do already, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:20:24.860)
and I expect it's like going to increase,
Lex Fridman (2:20:29.580)
but I'm already at the level where my simple limited mind
Lex Fridman (2:20:32.940)
and limited capacity is already,
Matthew Johnson (2:20:34.380)
I sometimes fail to get back to emails.
Lex Fridman (2:20:37.660)
I mean, I'm trying to respond to my colleagues,
Matthew Johnson (2:20:39.780)
my mentees, all these things, my responsibilities.
Lex Fridman (2:20:43.540)
And as many of the people just inquiring
Matthew Johnson (2:20:45.820)
about I wanna go to graduate school,
Lex Fridman (2:20:47.440)
I'm interested in this, I had this,
Matthew Johnson (2:20:49.660)
I have a daughter that took a psychedelic
Lex Fridman (2:20:51.020)
and she's having trouble.
Lex Fridman (2:20:51.860)
And it's like, I try to respond to those,
Lex Fridman (2:20:54.720)
but sometimes I just simply can't get to all of it already.
Matthew Johnson (2:20:58.020)
To be honest, like from my perspective,
Lex Fridman (2:21:00.660)
it's been quite heartbreaking
Matthew Johnson (2:21:03.460)
because I basically don't respond to any emails anymore.
Lex Fridman (2:21:07.380)
And especially as you mentioned mentees and so on,
Matthew Johnson (2:21:11.940)
like outside of that circle,
Lex Fridman (2:21:14.060)
it's heartbreaking to me how many brilliant people
Matthew Johnson (2:21:16.500)
there are, thoughtful people, like loving people.
Lex Fridman (2:21:19.740)
And they write long emails that are really,
Matthew Johnson (2:21:22.580)
by the way, I do read them very often.
Lex Fridman (2:21:26.300)
It's just that I don't,
Matthew Johnson (2:21:28.060)
the response is then you're starting a conversation.
Lex Fridman (2:21:31.740)
And the heartbreaking aspect is you only have
Lex Fridman (2:21:35.500)
so many hours in the day to have deep,
Lex Fridman (2:21:37.980)
meaningful conversations with human beings on this earth.
Lex Fridman (2:21:40.860)
And so you have to select who they are.
Lex Fridman (2:21:42.540)
And usually it's your family,
Matthew Johnson (2:21:43.700)
it's people like you're directly working with.
Lex Fridman (2:21:46.300)
And even I guarantee you with this conversation,
Matthew Johnson (2:21:48.660)
people will write you long, really thoughtful emails.
Lex Fridman (2:21:54.220)
Like there'll be brilliant people,
Matthew Johnson (2:21:55.840)
faculty from all over, PhD students from all over.
Lex Fridman (2:21:59.300)
And it's heartbreaking
Matthew Johnson (2:22:00.320)
because you can't really get back to them.
Lex Fridman (2:22:01.660)
But you're saying like many of them,
Matthew Johnson (2:22:04.380)
if you do respond, it's more like here,
Lex Fridman (2:22:06.420)
go to this website when you're interested into the study,
Matthew Johnson (2:22:10.540)
just it makes sense to directly go to the site
Lex Fridman (2:22:13.180)
if there's applications open, just apply for the study.
Matthew Johnson (2:22:16.420)
Right, right, right, as either a volunteer
Lex Fridman (2:22:19.780)
or if we're looking for somebody,
Matthew Johnson (2:22:22.840)
we're gonna be posting,
Lex Fridman (2:22:25.220)
including on the Hopkins University website,
Matthew Johnson (2:22:28.260)
we're gonna be posting if we're looking for a position.
Lex Fridman (2:22:30.940)
I am right now actually looking through
Lex Fridman (2:22:32.580)
and it's mainly been through email and contacts,
Lex Fridman (2:22:35.420)
but should I say it?
Matthew Johnson (2:22:37.920)
I think I'd rather cast my nets wide,
Lex Fridman (2:22:39.140)
but I'm looking for a postdoc right now.
Matthew Johnson (2:22:40.860)
Oh, great.
Lex Fridman (2:22:41.740)
So I've mentored postdocs for, I don't know,
Matthew Johnson (2:22:44.740)
like a dozen years or so.
Lex Fridman (2:22:46.340)
And more and more of their time
Matthew Johnson (2:22:47.860)
is being spent on psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (2:22:50.060)
So someone's free to contact me.
Matthew Johnson (2:22:52.220)
That's more of a, that's sort of so close to home.
Lex Fridman (2:22:54.880)
That's a personal, you know,
Matthew Johnson (2:22:56.740)
that like emailing me about that.
Lex Fridman (2:22:58.380)
But I come to appreciate more the advice
Matthew Johnson (2:23:01.920)
that folks like Tim Ferriss have of like,
Lex Fridman (2:23:03.860)
I think it's him, like five cents emails,
Matthew Johnson (2:23:06.580)
you know, like a subject that gets to the point
Lex Fridman (2:23:10.980)
that tells you what it's about
Lex Fridman (2:23:11.960)
so that like you break through the signal to the noise.
Lex Fridman (2:23:14.380)
But I really appreciate what you're saying
Matthew Johnson (2:23:15.660)
because part of the equation for me is like,
Lex Fridman (2:23:17.660)
I have a three year old,
Lex Fridman (2:23:18.560)
and like my time on the ground, on the floor,
Lex Fridman (2:23:21.700)
playing blocks or cars with him is part of that equation.
Lex Fridman (2:23:25.860)
And even if the day is ending
Lex Fridman (2:23:27.500)
and I know some of those emails are slipping by
Lex Fridman (2:23:29.220)
and I'll never get back to them.
Lex Fridman (2:23:30.380)
And I have, I'm struggling with it already.
Lex Fridman (2:23:32.900)
And I get what you're saying is like,
Lex Fridman (2:23:34.340)
I haven't seen anything yet
Matthew Johnson (2:23:35.860)
if with the type of exposure that like your podcast gets.
Lex Fridman (2:23:39.020)
This will bring in exposure.
Lex Fridman (2:23:40.380)
And then I think in terms of postdocs,
Lex Fridman (2:23:42.380)
this is a really good podcast
Matthew Johnson (2:23:43.860)
in the sense that there's a lot of brilliant PhD students
Lex Fridman (2:23:47.540)
out there that are looking for a poster
Matthew Johnson (2:23:48.820)
from all over, from MIT, probably from Hopkins,
Lex Fridman (2:23:52.260)
it's just all over the place.
Lex Fridman (2:23:53.660)
So this is, and I, we have different preferences,
Lex Fridman (2:23:57.400)
but my preference would also be to have like a form
Matthew Johnson (2:24:00.420)
that they could fill out for posts.
Lex Fridman (2:24:01.940)
Because, you know, it's very difficult through email
Matthew Johnson (2:24:05.260)
to tell who's really going to be a strong collaborator
Lex Fridman (2:24:09.020)
for you, like a strong postdoc, strong student,
Matthew Johnson (2:24:12.280)
because you want a bunch of details,
Lex Fridman (2:24:15.640)
but at the same time,
Matthew Johnson (2:24:16.480)
you don't want a million pages worth of email.
Lex Fridman (2:24:19.520)
So you want a little bit of application process.
Lex Fridman (2:24:21.560)
So usually you set up a form that helps me indicate
Lex Fridman (2:24:24.840)
how passionate the person is,
Lex Fridman (2:24:27.440)
how willing they are to do hard work.
Lex Fridman (2:24:33.200)
Like I often ask a question,
Matthew Johnson (2:24:35.440)
people of what do you think is more important
Lex Fridman (2:24:39.040)
to work hard or to work smart?
Lex Fridman (2:24:41.440)
And I use that, those types of questions
Lex Fridman (2:24:45.360)
to indicate who I would like to work with.
Matthew Johnson (2:24:49.440)
Because it's counterintuitive.
Lex Fridman (2:24:51.520)
But anyway, I'll leave that question unanswered
Matthew Johnson (2:24:56.200)
for people to figure out themselves.
Lex Fridman (2:24:57.800)
But maybe if you know my love for David Goggins,
Matthew Johnson (2:25:00.000)
you will understand.
Lex Fridman (2:25:01.640)
So anyway.
Matthew Johnson (2:25:02.460)
Those are good thoughts about the forms and everything.
Lex Fridman (2:25:04.840)
It's difficult.
Lex Fridman (2:25:05.680)
And that's something that evolves.
Lex Fridman (2:25:07.040)
Email is such a messy thing.
Matthew Johnson (2:25:09.880)
There's, speaking of Baltimore, Cal Newport,
Lex Fridman (2:25:15.600)
if you know who that is,
Matthew Johnson (2:25:17.880)
he wrote a book called Deep Work.
Lex Fridman (2:25:19.880)
He's a computer science professor
Lex Fridman (2:25:21.320)
and he's currently working on a book about email,
Lex Fridman (2:25:23.520)
about all the ways that email is broken.
Lex Fridman (2:25:25.720)
So this is gonna be a fascinating read.
Lex Fridman (2:25:28.680)
This is a little bit of a general question,
Lex Fridman (2:25:30.600)
but almost a bigger picture question
Lex Fridman (2:25:36.720)
that we touched on a little bit,
Lex Fridman (2:25:38.120)
but let's just touch it in a full way,
Lex Fridman (2:25:40.600)
which is what have all the psychedelic studies
Matthew Johnson (2:25:43.400)
you've conducted taught you about the human mind,
Lex Fridman (2:25:49.360)
about the human brain and the human mind?
Matthew Johnson (2:25:52.280)
Is there something,
Lex Fridman (2:25:53.360)
if you look at the human scientists you were before
Matthew Johnson (2:25:56.300)
this work and the scientists you are now,
Lex Fridman (2:26:00.780)
how has your understanding of the human mind changed?
Matthew Johnson (2:26:03.640)
I'm thinking of that in two categories.
Lex Fridman (2:26:08.360)
One kind of more scientific,
Lex Fridman (2:26:13.280)
and they're both scientific,
Lex Fridman (2:26:14.540)
but one more about the brain and behavior
Lex Fridman (2:26:20.520)
and the mind, so to speak.
Lex Fridman (2:26:22.760)
And as a behaviorist,
Matthew Johnson (2:26:24.080)
all we see sort of the mind as a metaphor for behaviors,
Lex Fridman (2:26:28.000)
but anyway, that gets philosophical.
Lex Fridman (2:26:30.900)
But it's really increasing the,
Lex Fridman (2:26:35.200)
so the one category is increasing the appreciation
Matthew Johnson (2:26:39.540)
for the magnitude of depth.
Lex Fridman (2:26:43.120)
I mean, so these are all metaphors of human experience.
Matthew Johnson (2:26:47.400)
That might be a good way to,
Lex Fridman (2:26:48.960)
because you use certain words like consciousness
Lex Fridman (2:26:51.000)
and it's like we're using constructs
Lex Fridman (2:26:53.640)
that aren't well defined unless we kind of dig in,
Lex Fridman (2:26:56.920)
but human experience like that,
Lex Fridman (2:27:01.200)
the experiences on these compounds
Matthew Johnson (2:27:03.820)
can be so far out there or so deep.
Lex Fridman (2:27:08.440)
And they're doing that by tinkering
Matthew Johnson (2:27:10.860)
with the same machinery that's going on up there.
Lex Fridman (2:27:13.160)
I mean, my assumption,
Lex Fridman (2:27:16.280)
and I think it's a good assumption is that all experiences,
Lex Fridman (2:27:20.160)
there's a biological side to all phenomenal experience.
Lex Fridman (2:27:25.160)
So there is not,
Lex Fridman (2:27:27.480)
the divide between biology and experience or psychology
Matthew Johnson (2:27:35.400)
is, it's not one or the other.
Lex Fridman (2:27:38.380)
These are just two sides of the same coin.
Matthew Johnson (2:27:43.040)
I mean, you're avoiding the use
Lex Fridman (2:27:45.740)
of the word consciousness, for example,
Lex Fridman (2:27:47.560)
but the experience is referring
Lex Fridman (2:27:49.060)
to the subjective experience.
Lex Fridman (2:27:50.880)
So it's the actual technical use
Lex Fridman (2:27:53.200)
of the word consciousness of subjective experience.
Lex Fridman (2:27:57.760)
And even that word, there are certain ways that like,
Lex Fridman (2:28:00.320)
sort of like if we're talking about access consciousness
Matthew Johnson (2:28:02.460)
or narrative self awareness, which is an aspect of,
Lex Fridman (2:28:05.800)
like you can wrap a definition around that
Lex Fridman (2:28:08.280)
and we can talk meaningfully about it,
Lex Fridman (2:28:09.720)
but so often around psychedelics,
Matthew Johnson (2:28:11.160)
it's used in this much more,
Lex Fridman (2:28:13.080)
in terms of ultimately explaining
Matthew Johnson (2:28:15.400)
phenomenal consciousness itself,
Lex Fridman (2:28:17.160)
the so called hard problem,
Lex Fridman (2:28:18.860)
and relating to that question
Lex Fridman (2:28:22.400)
and psychedelics really haven't spoken to that.
Lex Fridman (2:28:25.800)
And that's why it's hard
Lex Fridman (2:28:27.020)
because like it's hard to imagine anything.
Lex Fridman (2:28:29.040)
But I think what I was getting is that psychedelics
Lex Fridman (2:28:32.220)
have done this by,
Matthew Johnson (2:28:34.020)
the reason I was getting into the biology versus mind,
Lex Fridman (2:28:37.000)
psychology divide is that just to kind of set up the fact
Matthew Johnson (2:28:41.780)
that I think all of our experience is related
Lex Fridman (2:28:45.800)
to these biological events.
Lex Fridman (2:28:49.240)
So whether they be naturally occurring neurotransmitters,
Lex Fridman (2:28:52.860)
like serotonin and dopamine and norepinephrine, et cetera,
Lex Fridman (2:28:56.420)
and a whole other sort of biological activity
Lex Fridman (2:28:59.200)
and kind of another layer up
Matthew Johnson (2:29:01.560)
that we could talk about as network activity,
Lex Fridman (2:29:03.600)
communication amongst brain areas,
Matthew Johnson (2:29:05.160)
like this is always going on,
Lex Fridman (2:29:06.760)
even if I just prompt you to think about a loved one,
Matthew Johnson (2:29:10.600)
like there's something happening biologically.
Lex Fridman (2:29:13.440)
Okay, so that's always another side of the coin.
Lex Fridman (2:29:15.920)
So another way to put that
Lex Fridman (2:29:18.640)
is all of our subjective experience outside of drugs,
Matthew Johnson (2:29:21.760)
it's all a controlled hallucination in a sense.
Lex Fridman (2:29:27.040)
Like this is completely constructed.
Matthew Johnson (2:29:28.880)
Our experience of reality is completely a simulation.
Lex Fridman (2:29:33.720)
So I think we're on solid ground to say
Matthew Johnson (2:29:36.320)
that that's our best guess
Lex Fridman (2:29:37.400)
and that's a pretty reasonable thing to say scientifically.
Matthew Johnson (2:29:41.000)
Like all the rich complexity of the world emerges
Lex Fridman (2:29:43.480)
from just some biology and some chemicals.
Lex Fridman (2:29:46.000)
So in that definition implied a causation, it comes from.
Lex Fridman (2:29:49.680)
And so we know at least there's a solid correlation there.
Lex Fridman (2:29:53.900)
And so then we delve deep into the philosophy
Lex Fridman (2:29:57.280)
of like idealism or materialism and things like this,
Matthew Johnson (2:30:00.400)
which I'm not an expert in,
Lex Fridman (2:30:01.520)
but I know we're getting into that territory.
Matthew Johnson (2:30:03.920)
You don't even necessarily have to go there.
Lex Fridman (2:30:06.920)
Like you at least go to the level of like,
Matthew Johnson (2:30:09.240)
okay, we know there seems to be this one on one
Lex Fridman (2:30:11.320)
correspondence and that seems pretty solid.
Matthew Johnson (2:30:14.800)
Like you can't prove a negative and you can't prove,
Lex Fridman (2:30:16.640)
you know, it's in that category of like,
Matthew Johnson (2:30:18.920)
you could come up with an experience
Lex Fridman (2:30:20.480)
that maybe doesn't have a biological correlate,
Lex Fridman (2:30:22.560)
but then you're talking about,
Lex Fridman (2:30:24.480)
there's also the limits of the science.
Lex Fridman (2:30:25.800)
Is it a false negative?
Lex Fridman (2:30:26.800)
But I think our best guess and a very decent assumption
Matthew Johnson (2:30:29.600)
is that every psychological event has a biological correlate.
Lex Fridman (2:30:33.680)
So with that said, you know, the idea that you can throw,
Matthew Johnson (2:30:37.880)
alter that biology in a pretty trivial manner.
Lex Fridman (2:30:42.160)
I mean, you could take like a relatively small number
Matthew Johnson (2:30:45.320)
of these molecules, throw them into the nervous system
Lex Fridman (2:30:48.880)
and then have a 60 year old person who has,
Matthew Johnson (2:30:54.480)
you name it, I mean, that has hiked to the top of Everest
Lex Fridman (2:30:59.220)
and that speaks five languages and that has been married
Lex Fridman (2:31:02.640)
and has kids and grandkids and has,
Lex Fridman (2:31:06.080)
you name it, you know, like been at the top and say,
Matthew Johnson (2:31:09.020)
this fundamentally changed who I am as a person
Lex Fridman (2:31:12.800)
and what I think life is about.
Matthew Johnson (2:31:17.040)
Like that's the thing about psychedelics
Lex Fridman (2:31:20.920)
that just floors me and it never fails.
Matthew Johnson (2:31:24.600)
I mean, sometimes you get bogged down by the paperwork
Lex Fridman (2:31:27.960)
and running studies and all the, I don't know,
Matthew Johnson (2:31:30.120)
all of the BS that can come with being in academia
Lex Fridman (2:31:33.240)
and everything and then you,
Lex Fridman (2:31:34.640)
and sometimes you get some dud sessions
Lex Fridman (2:31:37.280)
where it's not the full, all the magic isn't happening
Lex Fridman (2:31:39.920)
and it's, you know, more or less it's either a dud
Lex Fridman (2:31:42.720)
or somewhere and I don't mean to dismiss them,
Lex Fridman (2:31:44.880)
but you know, it's not like these magnificent
Lex Fridman (2:31:46.960)
sort of reports, but sometimes you get the full Monty report
Matthew Johnson (2:31:50.640)
from one of these people and you're like,
Lex Fridman (2:31:52.640)
oh yeah, that's why we're doing this.
Matthew Johnson (2:31:54.420)
Whether it's like therapeutically
Lex Fridman (2:31:56.480)
or just to understand the mind and you're like,
Lex Fridman (2:32:01.480)
and you're still floored, like how is that possible?
Lex Fridman (2:32:05.760)
How did we slightly alter serotonergic neurotransmission
Lex Fridman (2:32:11.240)
and say, and this person is now saying
Lex Fridman (2:32:13.640)
that they're making fundamental differences
Matthew Johnson (2:32:16.600)
in the priorities of their life after 60 years.
Lex Fridman (2:32:19.800)
It also just fills you with awe of the possibility
Matthew Johnson (2:32:25.960)
of experiences we're yet to have uncovered.
Lex Fridman (2:32:28.560)
If just a few chemicals can change so much,
Lex Fridman (2:32:32.240)
it's like, man, what if this could be up?
Lex Fridman (2:32:36.600)
I mean, like how, cause we're just like took a little,
Matthew Johnson (2:32:40.680)
it's like lighting a match or something in the darkness
Lex Fridman (2:32:43.240)
and you could see there's a lot more there,
Lex Fridman (2:32:44.960)
but you don't know how much more.
Lex Fridman (2:32:47.640)
And that's.
Lex Fridman (2:32:49.120)
And then like, where's that gonna go with like,
Lex Fridman (2:32:51.960)
I mean, I'm always like aware of the fact
Matthew Johnson (2:32:53.640)
that like we always as humans and as scientists
Lex Fridman (2:32:55.800)
think that we figured out 99%
Lex Fridman (2:32:58.040)
and we're working on that first 1%.
Lex Fridman (2:32:59.400)
And we gotta keep reminding ourselves, it's hard to do.
Matthew Johnson (2:33:01.480)
Like we figured out like not even 1%, like we know nothing.
Lex Fridman (2:33:05.800)
And so like, I can speculate and I might sound like a fool,
Lex Fridman (2:33:09.640)
but like what are drugs, even the concept of drugs,
Lex Fridman (2:33:12.080)
like 10 years, 50 years, 100 years, 1,000 years,
Matthew Johnson (2:33:15.640)
if we're surviving, like molecules that go
Lex Fridman (2:33:21.080)
to a specific area of the brain
Matthew Johnson (2:33:23.440)
in combination with technology,
Lex Fridman (2:33:25.160)
in combination with the magnetic stimulation,
Matthew Johnson (2:33:27.760)
in combination with the, like targeted pharmacology
Lex Fridman (2:33:31.520)
of like, oh, like this subset of serotonin 2A receptors
Matthew Johnson (2:33:35.120)
in the claustrum, at this time, in this particular sequence
Lex Fridman (2:33:39.440)
in combination with this other thing,
Matthew Johnson (2:33:41.320)
like this baseball cap you wear that like has,
Lex Fridman (2:33:45.760)
has one of the, is doing some of these things
Matthew Johnson (2:33:47.760)
that we can only do with these like giant
Lex Fridman (2:33:49.160)
like pieces of equipment now,
Matthew Johnson (2:33:50.480)
like where it's gonna go is gonna be endless.
Lex Fridman (2:33:53.280)
And it becomes easy to combine within virtual reality
Matthew Johnson (2:33:56.880)
where the virtual reality is gonna move
Lex Fridman (2:33:58.240)
from being something out here to being more in there.
Lex Fridman (2:34:01.600)
And then we're getting, like we talked about before,
Lex Fridman (2:34:04.160)
we're already in a virtual reality
Matthew Johnson (2:34:06.720)
in terms of human perception and cognition models
Lex Fridman (2:34:11.160)
of the universe being all representations
Lex Fridman (2:34:14.160)
and sort of color not existing and just our representations
Lex Fridman (2:34:18.520)
of EM wavelengths, et cetera, sound,
Matthew Johnson (2:34:22.560)
being vibrations and all of this.
Lex Fridman (2:34:23.920)
And so as the external VR and the internal VR
Matthew Johnson (2:34:28.400)
come closer to each other,
Lex Fridman (2:34:30.320)
like this is what I think about
Matthew Johnson (2:34:31.400)
in terms of the future of drugs.
Lex Fridman (2:34:33.080)
Like all of this stuff sort of combines
Lex Fridman (2:34:35.720)
and like where that goes is just, it's unthinkable.
Lex Fridman (2:34:42.320)
Like we were probably gonna, you know,
Matthew Johnson (2:34:44.520)
again, I might sound like a fool and this may not happen,
Lex Fridman (2:34:46.760)
but I think it's possible, you know,
Matthew Johnson (2:34:49.280)
to go completely offline,
Lex Fridman (2:34:50.880)
like where most of people's experiences maybe
Matthew Johnson (2:34:55.320)
going into these internal worlds.
Lex Fridman (2:34:58.880)
And I mean, maybe you through some,
Matthew Johnson (2:35:02.480)
through a combination of these techniques,
Lex Fridman (2:35:03.880)
you create experiences
Matthew Johnson (2:35:04.880)
where someone could live a thousand years
Lex Fridman (2:35:07.560)
in terms of maybe they're living a regular lifespan,
Lex Fridman (2:35:09.720)
but in over the next two seconds,
Lex Fridman (2:35:11.240)
you're living a thousand years worth of experience.
Matthew Johnson (2:35:13.400)
Inside your mind.
Lex Fridman (2:35:15.120)
Yeah, through this manipulation of them.
Lex Fridman (2:35:16.680)
Like, is that possible?
Lex Fridman (2:35:19.480)
Like just based on like first principles and like.
Matthew Johnson (2:35:23.000)
Yeah, first principles, yes.
Lex Fridman (2:35:24.920)
I think so.
Matthew Johnson (2:35:26.120)
Like give us another 50, 100, 500, like who knows,
Lex Fridman (2:35:30.320)
but like how could it not go there?
Matthew Johnson (2:35:33.240)
In a small tangent, what are your thoughts
Lex Fridman (2:35:37.000)
in this broader definition of drugs,
Lex Fridman (2:35:39.440)
of psychedelics, of mind altering things?
Lex Fridman (2:35:42.240)
What are your thoughts about Neuralink
Lex Fridman (2:35:44.320)
and brain computer interfaces,
Lex Fridman (2:35:47.160)
sort of being able to electrically stimulate
Lex Fridman (2:35:52.960)
and read neuronal activity in the brain
Lex Fridman (2:35:57.680)
and then connect that to the computer,
Matthew Johnson (2:35:59.880)
which is another way from a computational perspective
Lex Fridman (2:36:05.040)
for me is kind of appealing,
Lex Fridman (2:36:06.680)
but it's another way of altering subtly
Lex Fridman (2:36:11.960)
the behavior of the brain.
Matthew Johnson (2:36:13.840)
That's kind of, if you zoom out, reminiscent
Lex Fridman (2:36:17.320)
of the way psychedelics do as well.
Lex Fridman (2:36:20.400)
So what do you have?
Lex Fridman (2:36:22.480)
Like what are your thoughts about Neuralink?
Lex Fridman (2:36:25.240)
What are your hopes as a researcher
Lex Fridman (2:36:27.400)
of mind altering devices, systems, chemicals?
Matthew Johnson (2:36:33.680)
I guess broadly speaking, I'm all for it.
Lex Fridman (2:36:36.120)
I mean, for the same reason I am with psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (2:36:38.440)
but it comes with all the caveats.
Lex Fridman (2:36:40.480)
You know, you're going into a brave new world
Matthew Johnson (2:36:42.760)
where it's like all of a sudden
Lex Fridman (2:36:44.360)
there's going to be a dark side.
Matthew Johnson (2:36:46.120)
There's going to be serious ethical considerations,
Lex Fridman (2:36:51.040)
but that should not stop us from moving there.
Matthew Johnson (2:36:54.720)
I mean, particularly the stuff from, and I'm no expert,
Lex Fridman (2:36:57.240)
but on the short list in the short term, it's like, yeah,
Lex Fridman (2:37:00.280)
can we help these serious neurological disorders?
Lex Fridman (2:37:02.520)
Like, hell yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:37:04.640)
And I'm also sensitive to something being someone
Lex Fridman (2:37:07.160)
that has lots of neuroscience colleagues with some
Matthew Johnson (2:37:13.440)
of this stuff, and I can't talk about particulars,
Lex Fridman (2:37:16.080)
I'm not recalling, but in terms of stuff getting out there
Lex Fridman (2:37:20.720)
and then kind of a mocking of, oh gosh,
Lex Fridman (2:37:25.520)
they're saying this is unique, we know this,
Matthew Johnson (2:37:27.800)
or sort of like this belittling of like, oh,
Lex Fridman (2:37:31.120)
this sounds like it's just a, I don't know,
Matthew Johnson (2:37:33.080)
a commercialization or like an oversimplification.
Lex Fridman (2:37:35.960)
I forget what the example was, but something like,
Matthew Johnson (2:37:38.680)
something that came off to some of my neuroscientific
Lex Fridman (2:37:41.080)
colleagues as an oversimplification,
Matthew Johnson (2:37:42.840)
or at least the way they said it.
Lex Fridman (2:37:44.600)
Oh, from a Neuralink perspective.
Matthew Johnson (2:37:46.360)
Right, oh, we've known that for years and like,
Lex Fridman (2:37:49.240)
but I'm very sympathetic to like,
Matthew Johnson (2:37:52.040)
maybe it's because of my very limited,
Lex Fridman (2:37:54.080)
but relatively speaking, the amount of exposure
Matthew Johnson (2:37:57.920)
the psychedelic work has had to my limited experience
Lex Fridman (2:38:00.480)
of being out there, and then you think about someone
Matthew Johnson (2:38:02.840)
like Mike Musk, who's like really, really out there,
Lex Fridman (2:38:06.480)
and you just get all these arrows that like,
Lex Fridman (2:38:10.120)
and it's hard to be like when you're plowing new ground,
Lex Fridman (2:38:13.920)
like you're gonna get, you're gonna get criticized
Matthew Johnson (2:38:16.400)
like every little word that you,
Lex Fridman (2:38:18.040)
this balance between speaking to like people
Matthew Johnson (2:38:20.120)
to make it meaningful, something scientists
Lex Fridman (2:38:21.520)
aren't very good at, having people understand
Lex Fridman (2:38:23.840)
what you're saying, and then being belittled
Lex Fridman (2:38:25.920)
by oversimplifying something in terms of the public message.
Lex Fridman (2:38:30.080)
So I'm extremely sympathetic, and I'm a big fan
Lex Fridman (2:38:33.120)
of like what that, you know, what Elon Musk does,
Matthew Johnson (2:38:35.520)
like tunnels through the ground, and SpaceX,
Lex Fridman (2:38:39.000)
and all this, just like, hell yeah,
Matthew Johnson (2:38:40.520)
like this guy has some, he has some great ideas.
Lex Fridman (2:38:43.800)
And there's something to be said,
Matthew Johnson (2:38:45.120)
it's not just the communication to the public.
Lex Fridman (2:38:47.360)
I think his first principles thinking,
Matthew Johnson (2:38:50.200)
it's like, because I get this
Lex Fridman (2:38:51.480)
in the artificial intelligence world,
Matthew Johnson (2:38:52.960)
it's probably similar to neuroscience world,
Lex Fridman (2:38:55.240)
where Elon will say something like,
Matthew Johnson (2:38:57.320)
or I worked at MIT, I worked on autonomous vehicles.
Lex Fridman (2:39:00.640)
And he's sort of, I could sense how much he pisses off
Matthew Johnson (2:39:05.120)
like every roboticist at MIT, and everybody who works
Lex Fridman (2:39:08.920)
on like the human factor side of safety
Matthew Johnson (2:39:11.920)
of autonomous vehicles, and saying like,
Lex Fridman (2:39:14.720)
nah, we don't need to consider human beings in the car,
Matthew Johnson (2:39:18.040)
like the car will drive itself, it's obvious
Lex Fridman (2:39:21.360)
that neural networks is all you need.
Matthew Johnson (2:39:22.880)
Like it's obvious that like we should be able
Lex Fridman (2:39:25.480)
to systems that should be able to learn constantly.
Lex Fridman (2:39:30.200)
And they don't really need LIDAR,
Lex Fridman (2:39:32.040)
they just need cameras, because we humans just use our eyes,
Lex Fridman (2:39:36.440)
and that's the same as cameras.
Lex Fridman (2:39:38.200)
So like it doesn't, why would we need anything else?
Matthew Johnson (2:39:41.000)
You just have to make a system that learns faster,
Lex Fridman (2:39:42.840)
and faster, and faster, and neural networks can do that.
Lex Fridman (2:39:46.400)
And so that's pissing off every single community.
Lex Fridman (2:39:48.840)
It's pissing off human factors community,
Matthew Johnson (2:39:50.560)
saying you don't need to consider the human driver
Lex Fridman (2:39:53.240)
in the picture, you can just focus on the robotics problem.
Matthew Johnson (2:39:56.040)
It's pissing off every robotics person
Lex Fridman (2:39:59.400)
for saying LIDAR can be just ignored, it can be camera.
Matthew Johnson (2:40:02.640)
Every robotics person knows that camera is really noisy,
Lex Fridman (2:40:06.280)
that it's really difficult to deal with.
Lex Fridman (2:40:08.160)
But he's, and then every AI person who says,
Lex Fridman (2:40:13.240)
who hears neural networks, and says like,
Matthew Johnson (2:40:16.600)
neural networks can learn everything,
Lex Fridman (2:40:18.520)
like almost presuming that it's kind of going
Matthew Johnson (2:40:20.480)
to achieve general intelligence.
Lex Fridman (2:40:22.160)
The problem with all those haters in the three communities
Matthew Johnson (2:40:26.840)
is that they're looking one year ahead, five years ahead.
Lex Fridman (2:40:31.040)
The hilarious thing about the, quote unquote,
Matthew Johnson (2:40:34.400)
ridiculous things that Elon Musk is saying,
Lex Fridman (2:40:36.840)
is they have a pretty good shot at being true in 20 years.
Lex Fridman (2:40:40.320)
And so like, when you just look at the, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:40:43.800)
when you look at the progression
Matthew Johnson (2:40:45.640)
of these kinds of predictions,
Lex Fridman (2:40:47.800)
and sometimes first principles thinking can allow you
Matthew Johnson (2:40:51.160)
to do that, is you see that it's kind of obvious
Lex Fridman (2:40:55.080)
that things are going to progress this way.
Lex Fridman (2:40:58.120)
And if you just remove the prejudice you hold
Lex Fridman (2:41:01.000)
about the particular battles
Matthew Johnson (2:41:04.560)
of the current academic environment,
Lex Fridman (2:41:07.440)
and just look at the big picture,
Matthew Johnson (2:41:08.920)
the progression of the technology,
Lex Fridman (2:41:10.800)
you can usually see the world in the same kind of way.
Lex Fridman (2:41:15.680)
And so in that same way, looking at psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (2:41:18.640)
you can see like, there is so many exciting possibilities
Matthew Johnson (2:41:22.440)
here if we fully engage in the research.
Lex Fridman (2:41:24.960)
Same thing with Neuralink.
Matthew Johnson (2:41:26.800)
If we fully engage, so we go from a thousand channels
Lex Fridman (2:41:30.760)
of communication to the brain,
Matthew Johnson (2:41:32.360)
to billions of channels of communication to the brain,
Lex Fridman (2:41:35.680)
and we figure out many of the details
Matthew Johnson (2:41:38.560)
of how to do that safely with neurosurgery and so on,
Lex Fridman (2:41:42.120)
that the world would just change completely
Matthew Johnson (2:41:45.200)
in the same kind of way that Elon is.
Lex Fridman (2:41:47.480)
It's so ridiculous to hear him talk
Matthew Johnson (2:41:49.240)
about a symbiotic relationship between AI
Lex Fridman (2:41:52.440)
and the human brain.
Lex Fridman (2:41:55.440)
But it's like, is it though?
Lex Fridman (2:42:00.520)
Is it?
Matthew Johnson (2:42:01.520)
Because I can see in 50 years,
Lex Fridman (2:42:03.560)
that's going to be an obvious,
Matthew Johnson (2:42:05.560)
like everyone will have, like obviously you have,
Lex Fridman (2:42:08.280)
like why are we typing stuff in the computer?
Matthew Johnson (2:42:11.080)
It doesn't make any sense.
Lex Fridman (2:42:12.040)
That's stupid.
Lex Fridman (2:42:13.080)
People used to type on a keyboard with a mouse?
Lex Fridman (2:42:16.200)
What is that?
Lex Fridman (2:42:17.040)
And it seems pretty clear, like we're going to be there.
Lex Fridman (2:42:19.720)
Like, and the only question is like, what's the timeframe?
Lex Fridman (2:42:21.600)
Is that going to be 20 or is it 50 or a hundred?
Lex Fridman (2:42:23.920)
Like, how could we not?
Lex Fridman (2:42:25.200)
And the thing that I guess upsets with Elon and others
Lex Fridman (2:42:29.160)
is the timeline he tends to do.
Matthew Johnson (2:42:31.680)
I think a lot of people tend to do that kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (2:42:33.760)
I definitely do it, which is like, it'll be done this year
Matthew Johnson (2:42:37.560)
versus like, it'll be done in 10 years.
Lex Fridman (2:42:39.600)
The timeline is a little bit too rushed,
Lex Fridman (2:42:41.480)
but from our leadership perspective,
Lex Fridman (2:42:43.120)
it inspires the engineers to do the best work
Matthew Johnson (2:42:46.760)
of their life to really kind of believe,
Lex Fridman (2:42:49.800)
because to do the impossible, you have to first believe it,
Matthew Johnson (2:42:52.880)
which is a really important aspect of innovation.
Lex Fridman (2:42:55.960)
And there's the delay discounting aspect
Matthew Johnson (2:42:57.760)
I talked about before.
Lex Fridman (2:42:58.760)
It's like saying, oh, this is going to be a thing
Matthew Johnson (2:43:00.440)
20, 50 years from now.
Lex Fridman (2:43:01.720)
It's like, what motivates anybody?
Lex Fridman (2:43:04.160)
And even if you're fudging it
Lex Fridman (2:43:05.320)
or like wishful thinking a little bit,
Matthew Johnson (2:43:07.000)
or let's just say airing on one side
Lex Fridman (2:43:09.680)
of the probability distribution,
Matthew Johnson (2:43:12.280)
like there's value in saying like, yeah,
Lex Fridman (2:43:14.320)
like there's a chance we could get this done in a year.
Lex Fridman (2:43:17.160)
And you know what?
Lex Fridman (2:43:18.000)
And if you set a goal for a year and you're not successful,
Matthew Johnson (2:43:21.040)
hey, you might get it done in three years.
Lex Fridman (2:43:23.120)
Whereas if you had aimed at 20 years,
Matthew Johnson (2:43:25.480)
well, you either would have never done it at all,
Lex Fridman (2:43:27.040)
or you would have aimed at 20 years
Lex Fridman (2:43:28.240)
and then it would have taken you 10.
Lex Fridman (2:43:29.960)
So the other thing I think about this,
Matthew Johnson (2:43:32.760)
like in terms of his work
Lex Fridman (2:43:34.320)
and I guess we've seen with psychedelics,
Matthew Johnson (2:43:36.600)
it's like there's a lack of appreciation
Lex Fridman (2:43:39.200)
for like sort of the variability
Matthew Johnson (2:43:40.680)
you need a natural selection,
Lex Fridman (2:43:42.480)
sort of extrapolating from biological,
Matthew Johnson (2:43:45.320)
from evolution like,
Lex Fridman (2:43:47.360)
hey, maybe he's wrong about focusing only on the cameras
Lex Fridman (2:43:50.960)
and not these other things.
Lex Fridman (2:43:52.440)
Be empirically driven.
Matthew Johnson (2:43:53.720)
It's like, yeah, you need to like when he's,
Lex Fridman (2:43:56.560)
when you need to get the regulation,
Lex Fridman (2:43:57.720)
is it safe enough to get this thing on the road?
Lex Fridman (2:43:59.040)
Those are real questions and be empirically driven.
Lex Fridman (2:44:01.240)
And if he can meet the whatever standard is relevant,
Lex Fridman (2:44:04.720)
that's the standard and be driven by that.
Lex Fridman (2:44:06.520)
So don't let it affect your ethics.
Lex Fridman (2:44:07.880)
But if he's on the wrong path,
Lex Fridman (2:44:10.800)
how wonderful someone's exploring that wrong path.
Lex Fridman (2:44:12.680)
He's gonna figure out it's a wrong path.
Lex Fridman (2:44:13.960)
And like other people, he's,
Lex Fridman (2:44:15.840)
damn it, he's doing something.
Matthew Johnson (2:44:17.760)
Like he's, and appreciating that variability,
Lex Fridman (2:44:24.400)
that like it's valuable even if he's not on,
Matthew Johnson (2:44:27.280)
I mean, this is all over the place in science.
Lex Fridman (2:44:29.760)
It's like a good theory.
Matthew Johnson (2:44:30.960)
One standard definition
Lex Fridman (2:44:32.920)
is that it generates testable hypotheses.
Lex Fridman (2:44:35.400)
And like the ultimate model
Lex Fridman (2:44:37.640)
is never gonna be the same as reality.
Matthew Johnson (2:44:39.200)
Some models are gonna work better than others.
Lex Fridman (2:44:42.240)
Newtonian physics got us a long ways,
Matthew Johnson (2:44:46.200)
even if there was a better model like waiting.
Lex Fridman (2:44:49.600)
And some models weren't as good as,
Matthew Johnson (2:44:52.280)
were never that successful,
Lex Fridman (2:44:53.480)
but just even like putting them out there and test it.
Matthew Johnson (2:44:56.440)
We wouldn't know something is a bad model
Lex Fridman (2:44:58.640)
until someone puts it out anyway, so.
Matthew Johnson (2:45:00.400)
Yeah, diversity of ideas is essential for progress, yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:45:05.200)
So we brought up consciousness a few times.
Matthew Johnson (2:45:07.760)
There's several things I wanna kind of disentangle there.
Lex Fridman (2:45:11.240)
So one, you've recently wrote a paper titled
Matthew Johnson (2:45:13.240)
Consciousness, Religion, and Gurus,
Lex Fridman (2:45:16.000)
Pitfalls of Psychedelic Medicine.
Lex Fridman (2:45:19.280)
So that's one side of it.
Lex Fridman (2:45:20.480)
You've kind of already mentioned
Matthew Johnson (2:45:21.680)
that these terms can be a little bit misused
Lex Fridman (2:45:24.520)
or used in a variety of ways
Matthew Johnson (2:45:28.920)
that they can be confusing.
Lex Fridman (2:45:32.440)
But in a specific way,
Matthew Johnson (2:45:34.520)
as much as we can be specific about these things,
Lex Fridman (2:45:39.120)
about the actual heart problem of consciousness
Matthew Johnson (2:45:41.600)
or understanding what is consciousness,
Lex Fridman (2:45:44.280)
this weird thing that it feels like,
Matthew Johnson (2:45:46.760)
it feels like something to experience things.
Lex Fridman (2:45:50.720)
Have psychedelics given you some kind of insight
Lex Fridman (2:45:55.680)
on what is consciousness?
Lex Fridman (2:45:58.200)
You've mentioned that it feels like psychedelics
Matthew Johnson (2:46:01.080)
allows you to kind of dismantle your sense of self,
Lex Fridman (2:46:06.880)
like step outside of yourself.
Lex Fridman (2:46:10.800)
So that feels like somehow playing
Lex Fridman (2:46:13.560)
with this mechanism of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (2:46:15.880)
And if it is in fact playing
Lex Fridman (2:46:17.920)
with the mechanism of consciousness
Matthew Johnson (2:46:19.360)
using just a few chemicals,
Lex Fridman (2:46:21.440)
it feels like we're very much in the neighborhood
Matthew Johnson (2:46:24.120)
of being able to maybe understand
Lex Fridman (2:46:27.720)
the actual biological mechanisms
Matthew Johnson (2:46:29.960)
of how consciousness can emerge from the brain.
Lex Fridman (2:46:32.680)
So yeah, there's a bunch there.
Matthew Johnson (2:46:34.840)
I think my preface is that I certainly have opinions
Lex Fridman (2:46:39.120)
that I can say, here are my best speculations
Matthew Johnson (2:46:42.640)
as just a person and an armchair philosopher.
Lex Fridman (2:46:47.440)
And that philosophy is certainly not my training
Lex Fridman (2:46:50.280)
and my expertise.
Lex Fridman (2:46:52.240)
So I have thoughts there,
Lex Fridman (2:46:53.440)
but that I recognize are completely
Lex Fridman (2:46:55.480)
in the realm of speculation
Matthew Johnson (2:46:57.280)
that are like things that I would love to wrap
Lex Fridman (2:47:00.000)
empirical science around,
Lex Fridman (2:47:01.520)
but that there's no data
Lex Fridman (2:47:06.320)
and getting to the hard problem,
Matthew Johnson (2:47:08.280)
like no conceivable way,
Lex Fridman (2:47:09.680)
even though I'm very open,
Matthew Johnson (2:47:11.720)
like I'm hoping that that problem can be cracked.
Lex Fridman (2:47:14.560)
And as an armchair philosopher,
Matthew Johnson (2:47:16.920)
I do think that is a problem.
Lex Fridman (2:47:18.000)
I don't think it can be dismissed as some people argue
Matthew Johnson (2:47:20.600)
it's not even really a problem.
Lex Fridman (2:47:22.920)
It strikes me that explaining just the existence
Matthew Johnson (2:47:25.400)
of phenomenal consciousness is a problem.
Lex Fridman (2:47:27.440)
So anyway, I very much keep that divide in mind
Matthew Johnson (2:47:30.440)
when I talk about these things,
Lex Fridman (2:47:31.760)
what we can really say about what we've learned
Matthew Johnson (2:47:34.120)
through science, including by psychedelics
Lex Fridman (2:47:35.560)
versus like what I can speculate on
Matthew Johnson (2:47:38.480)
in terms of the nature of reality and consciousness.
Lex Fridman (2:47:42.720)
But in terms of, by and large,
Matthew Johnson (2:47:48.280)
skeptically, I have to say psychedelics
Lex Fridman (2:47:50.840)
have not really taught us anything
Matthew Johnson (2:47:53.640)
about the nature of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (2:47:55.720)
I'm hopeful that they will.
Matthew Johnson (2:47:57.000)
They have been used around certain,
Lex Fridman (2:48:01.080)
I don't even know if features is the right term,
Lex Fridman (2:48:03.000)
but things that are called consciousness.
Lex Fridman (2:48:04.840)
So consciousness can refer to not only
Matthew Johnson (2:48:06.800)
just phenomenal consciousness,
Lex Fridman (2:48:08.280)
which is like the source of the hard problem
Lex Fridman (2:48:11.920)
and what it is to be like Nagel's description,
Lex Fridman (2:48:16.120)
but the sense of self,
Matthew Johnson (2:48:19.240)
which can be sort of like the experiential self
Lex Fridman (2:48:22.280)
moment to moment, or it can be like the narrative self,
Matthew Johnson (2:48:24.440)
the stringing together of stories.
Lex Fridman (2:48:25.920)
So those are things that I think can be,
Lex Fridman (2:48:29.120)
and a little bit's been done with psychedelics
Lex Fridman (2:48:33.880)
regarding that, but I think there's far more potential.
Lex Fridman (2:48:41.360)
So like one story that unfolded
Lex Fridman (2:48:43.200)
is that psychedelics acutely having effects
Matthew Johnson (2:48:45.960)
on the default mode network,
Lex Fridman (2:48:48.320)
a certain pattern of activation
Matthew Johnson (2:48:50.640)
amongst a subset of brain areas
Lex Fridman (2:48:52.160)
that is associated with self referential processing,
Matthew Johnson (2:48:55.880)
seems to be more active,
Lex Fridman (2:48:57.240)
more communication between these areas,
Matthew Johnson (2:49:01.240)
like the posterior cingulate cortex
Lex Fridman (2:49:04.000)
and the medial prefrontal cortex, for example,
Matthew Johnson (2:49:05.960)
being parts of this and others that are tied
Lex Fridman (2:49:09.920)
with sort of thinking about yourself,
Matthew Johnson (2:49:12.280)
remembering yourself in the past,
Lex Fridman (2:49:13.560)
projecting yourself into the future.
Lex Fridman (2:49:15.640)
And so an interesting story emerged
Lex Fridman (2:49:18.600)
when it was found that when psilocybin is on board
Matthew Johnson (2:49:24.040)
in the person's system,
Lex Fridman (2:49:25.600)
that there's less communication amongst these areas.
Lex Fridman (2:49:29.320)
So with resting state fMRI imaging,
Lex Fridman (2:49:32.160)
that there's less synchronization
Matthew Johnson (2:49:35.200)
or presumably communication between these areas.
Lex Fridman (2:49:38.160)
And so I think it has been overstated
Matthew Johnson (2:49:41.560)
in terms of, ah, we see this is like,
Lex Fridman (2:49:43.120)
this is the dissolving of the ego.
Matthew Johnson (2:49:46.240)
The story made a whole lot of sense,
Lex Fridman (2:49:48.160)
but there's several,
Matthew Johnson (2:49:50.960)
I think that story is really being challenged.
Lex Fridman (2:49:53.440)
Like one, we see increasing number of drugs
Matthew Johnson (2:49:55.800)
that decouple that network,
Lex Fridman (2:49:59.520)
including ones like that aren't psychedelic.
Lex Fridman (2:50:02.640)
So this may just be a property, frankly,
Lex Fridman (2:50:04.960)
of being like, you know, screwed up, you know,
Matthew Johnson (2:50:07.760)
like, you know, being out of your head,
Lex Fridman (2:50:09.200)
being like, like, you know.
Matthew Johnson (2:50:10.560)
Anytime you mess with the perception system,
Lex Fridman (2:50:12.400)
maybe it screws up some,
Matthew Johnson (2:50:14.720)
just our ability to just function in the holistically
Lex Fridman (2:50:19.040)
like we do in order,
Matthew Johnson (2:50:20.920)
yeah, for the brain to perceive stuff,
Lex Fridman (2:50:22.560)
to be able to map it to memory,
Matthew Johnson (2:50:24.080)
to connect things together,
Lex Fridman (2:50:26.320)
the whole recur mechanism
Matthew Johnson (2:50:28.120)
that that could just be messed with.
Lex Fridman (2:50:30.360)
Right.
Lex Fridman (2:50:31.200)
And it could, and I'm speculating,
Lex Fridman (2:50:32.160)
it could be tied to more
Matthew Johnson (2:50:33.080)
if you had to download into the language,
Lex Fridman (2:50:34.680)
everyday language, like not feeling like yourself.
Matthew Johnson (2:50:37.160)
Like, so whether that be like really drunk
Lex Fridman (2:50:39.120)
or really hopped up on amphetamine or, you know,
Matthew Johnson (2:50:42.880)
like we found it like decoupling of the default mode network
Lex Fridman (2:50:45.480)
on salvinorin A, which is a smokable psychedelic,
Matthew Johnson (2:50:48.960)
which is a non classic psychedelic,
Lex Fridman (2:50:50.960)
but another one where like DMT,
Matthew Johnson (2:50:52.760)
where people are often talking to entities
Lex Fridman (2:50:54.960)
and that type of thing.
Matthew Johnson (2:50:55.800)
That was a really fun study to run.
Lex Fridman (2:50:57.280)
But nonetheless, most people say
Matthew Johnson (2:50:58.640)
it's not a classic psychedelic
Lex Fridman (2:51:00.280)
and doesn't have some of those phenomenal features
Matthew Johnson (2:51:04.400)
that people report from classic psychedelics
Lex Fridman (2:51:06.840)
and not sort of the clear sort of ego loss type,
Matthew Johnson (2:51:11.120)
at least not in the way that people report it
Lex Fridman (2:51:12.920)
with classic psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (2:51:13.960)
So you get it with all these different drugs.
Lex Fridman (2:51:15.520)
And so, and then you also see just broad,
Matthew Johnson (2:51:18.040)
broad changes in network activity with other networks.
Lex Fridman (2:51:21.440)
And so I think that story took off a little too soon,
Matthew Johnson (2:51:25.880)
although, so I think, and the story that the DMN,
Lex Fridman (2:51:29.000)
the default mode network relating to the self,
Lex Fridman (2:51:32.400)
and I know some neuroscientists, it drives them crazy
Lex Fridman (2:51:34.800)
if you say that it's the ego and that just like,
Lex Fridman (2:51:37.920)
but self referential processing, if you go that far,
Lex Fridman (2:51:42.080)
like that was already known before psychedelics.
Matthew Johnson (2:51:45.120)
Psychedelics didn't really contribute to that.
Lex Fridman (2:51:48.880)
The idea that this type of brain network activity
Matthew Johnson (2:51:52.600)
was related to a sense of self.
Lex Fridman (2:51:56.160)
But it is absolutely striking that psychedelics
Matthew Johnson (2:52:00.120)
that people report with pretty high reliability,
Lex Fridman (2:52:02.360)
these unity experiences that where people subjectively,
Matthew Johnson (2:52:06.240)
like they report losing or again, like the boundaries,
Lex Fridman (2:52:10.240)
however you wanna say it, like these unity experiences,
Matthew Johnson (2:52:14.960)
I think we can do a lot with that
Lex Fridman (2:52:16.520)
in terms of figuring out the nature of the sense of self.
Matthew Johnson (2:52:19.440)
Now, I don't think that's the same as the hard problem
Lex Fridman (2:52:23.360)
or the existence of phenomenal consciousness,
Matthew Johnson (2:52:25.760)
because you can build an AI system,
Lex Fridman (2:52:27.520)
and you correct me if I'm wrong,
Matthew Johnson (2:52:28.720)
that will pass a Turing test
Lex Fridman (2:52:31.600)
in terms of demonstrating the qualities
Matthew Johnson (2:52:34.800)
of like a sense of self.
Lex Fridman (2:52:37.240)
It will talk as if there's a self
Lex Fridman (2:52:38.800)
and there's probably a certain like algorithm
Lex Fridman (2:52:40.720)
or whatever, like computational,
Matthew Johnson (2:52:44.960)
like scaling up of computations that results in somehow,
Lex Fridman (2:52:49.400)
and I think this is the argument with humans,
Lex Fridman (2:52:52.120)
but some have speculated this,
Lex Fridman (2:52:53.920)
why do we have this illusion of the self that's evolved?
Lex Fridman (2:52:57.600)
And we might find this with AI that like it works,
Lex Fridman (2:53:01.520)
having a sense of self, and that's stated incorrectly,
Matthew Johnson (2:53:06.280)
like acting as if there is an agent at play
Lex Fridman (2:53:12.360)
and behaviorally acting like there is a self,
Matthew Johnson (2:53:17.000)
that might kind of work.
Lex Fridman (2:53:18.400)
And so you can program a computer or a robot
Matthew Johnson (2:53:24.040)
to basically demonstrate, have an algorithm like that
Lex Fridman (2:53:27.360)
and demonstrate that type of behavior.
Lex Fridman (2:53:28.920)
And I think that's completely silent
Lex Fridman (2:53:30.960)
on whether there's an actual experience inside there.
Matthew Johnson (2:53:33.840)
I've been struggling to find the right words
Lex Fridman (2:53:36.760)
in how I feel about that whole thing,
Lex Fridman (2:53:38.520)
but because I've said it poorly before,
Lex Fridman (2:53:42.360)
I've before said that there's no difference
Matthew Johnson (2:53:44.360)
between the appearance and the actual existence
Lex Fridman (2:53:48.840)
of consciousness or intelligence or any of that.
Lex Fridman (2:53:51.560)
What I really mean is the more the appearance
Lex Fridman (2:53:57.520)
starts to look like the thing,
Matthew Johnson (2:54:00.720)
the more there's this area where it's like,
Lex Fridman (2:54:03.400)
I don't think, our whole idea of what is real
Lex Fridman (2:54:10.640)
and what is just an illusion
Lex Fridman (2:54:13.160)
is not the right way to think about it.
Lex Fridman (2:54:16.760)
So the whole idea is like, if you create a system
Lex Fridman (2:54:20.680)
that looks like it's having fun,
Matthew Johnson (2:54:22.920)
the more it's realistically able to portray itself
Lex Fridman (2:54:27.240)
as having fun, like there's a certain gray area
Matthew Johnson (2:54:31.160)
which the system is having fun.
Lex Fridman (2:54:34.600)
And same with intelligence, same with consciousness.
Lex Fridman (2:54:36.640)
And we humans wanna simplify,
Lex Fridman (2:54:40.000)
like it feels like the way we simplify the existence
Lex Fridman (2:54:42.960)
and the illusion of something is missing the whole truth
Lex Fridman (2:54:49.160)
of the nature of reality,
Matthew Johnson (2:54:50.480)
which we're not yet able to understand.
Lex Fridman (2:54:52.600)
Like it's the 1%, we only understand 1% currently.
Lex Fridman (2:54:55.520)
So we don't have the right physics to talk about things,
Lex Fridman (2:54:59.160)
we don't have the right science to talk about things.
Lex Fridman (2:55:00.960)
But to me, like the faking it and actually it being true
Lex Fridman (2:55:07.800)
is the difference is much smaller
Matthew Johnson (2:55:12.800)
than what humans would like to imagine.
Lex Fridman (2:55:15.680)
That's my intuition, but the philosophers hate that
Lex Fridman (2:55:18.480)
because, and guess what?
Lex Fridman (2:55:21.200)
It's philosophers, what have you actually built?
Lex Fridman (2:55:23.600)
So like to me is that's the difference
Lex Fridman (2:55:27.320)
in philosophy and engineering.
Matthew Johnson (2:55:28.840)
It feels like if we push the creation, the engineering,
Lex Fridman (2:55:32.920)
like fake it until you make it all the way,
Matthew Johnson (2:55:35.160)
which is like fake consciousness
Lex Fridman (2:55:37.120)
until you realize, holy crap, this thing is conscious.
Matthew Johnson (2:55:41.280)
Fake intelligence until you realize,
Lex Fridman (2:55:42.880)
holy crap, this is intelligence.
Lex Fridman (2:55:44.600)
And from my curiosity with psychedelics
Lex Fridman (2:55:48.360)
and just neurobiology and neuroscience
Matthew Johnson (2:55:52.000)
is like it feels, I love the armchair.
Lex Fridman (2:55:55.680)
I love sitting in that armchair
Matthew Johnson (2:55:57.520)
because it feels like at a certain point
Lex Fridman (2:55:59.520)
you're going to think about this problem
Lex Fridman (2:56:01.880)
and there's going to be an aha moment.
Lex Fridman (2:56:05.280)
Like that's what the armchair does.
Matthew Johnson (2:56:06.760)
Sometimes science prevents you from really thinking,
Lex Fridman (2:56:09.960)
wait, like it's really simple.
Matthew Johnson (2:56:14.360)
There's something really simple.
Lex Fridman (2:56:15.840)
Like there's some, there could be some dance of chemicals
Matthew Johnson (2:56:20.840)
that we're totally unaware of,
Lex Fridman (2:56:22.320)
not from aspects of like which chemicals to combine
Matthew Johnson (2:56:26.760)
with which biological architectures,
Lex Fridman (2:56:29.320)
but more like we were thinking of it completely wrong
Matthew Johnson (2:56:33.720)
that just out of the blue,
Lex Fridman (2:56:38.000)
like maybe the human mind is just like a radio
Matthew Johnson (2:56:41.920)
that tunes into some other medium
Lex Fridman (2:56:44.160)
where consciousness actually exists.
Matthew Johnson (2:56:46.080)
Like those weird sort of hypothetically,
Lex Fridman (2:56:49.640)
like maybe we're just thinking about the human mind
Matthew Johnson (2:56:52.160)
totally wrong.
Lex Fridman (2:56:53.280)
Maybe there's no such thing as individual intelligence.
Matthew Johnson (2:56:56.840)
Maybe it is all collective intelligence between humans.
Lex Fridman (2:57:00.240)
Like maybe the intelligence is possessed
Matthew Johnson (2:57:02.280)
in the communication of language between minds.
Lex Fridman (2:57:05.520)
And then in fact, consciousness is a property
Matthew Johnson (2:57:08.120)
of that language versus a property of the individual minds.
Lex Fridman (2:57:13.200)
And somehow the neurotransmitters
Matthew Johnson (2:57:15.360)
will be able to connect to that.
Lex Fridman (2:57:16.560)
So then AI systems can join
Matthew Johnson (2:57:19.680)
that common collective intelligence, that common language,
Lex Fridman (2:57:23.600)
like just thinking completely outside of the box.
Matthew Johnson (2:57:25.360)
I just said a bunch of crazy things.
Lex Fridman (2:57:26.720)
I don't know, but thinking outside the box
Lex Fridman (2:57:29.800)
and there's something about subtle manipulation
Lex Fridman (2:57:33.280)
of the chemicals of the brain,
Matthew Johnson (2:57:35.280)
which feels like the best or one of the great chances
Lex Fridman (2:57:40.760)
of the scientific process leading us
Matthew Johnson (2:57:43.800)
to an actual understanding of the hard problem.
Lex Fridman (2:57:46.880)
So I am very hopeful that,
Lex Fridman (2:57:48.880)
and so I mean, I'm a radical empiricist,
Lex Fridman (2:57:52.240)
which I'm very strong with that.
Matthew Johnson (2:57:54.160)
Like that's what, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:57:56.640)
so, you know, science isn't about
Matthew Johnson (2:57:57.960)
ultimately being a materialist.
Lex Fridman (2:57:59.960)
It's like, it's about being an empiricist in my view.
Lex Fridman (2:58:02.720)
And so, for example, I'm very fascinated
Lex Fridman (2:58:04.520)
by the so called Psi phenomenon,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:06.400)
you know, like stuff that people just kind of reject
Lex Fridman (2:58:08.320)
out of hand.
Matthew Johnson (2:58:10.480)
You know, I kind of orient towards that stuff
Lex Fridman (2:58:12.840)
with an idea of, you know, hey, look,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:16.320)
you know, what we consider,
Lex Fridman (2:58:17.360)
like anything exists as natural.
Lex Fridman (2:58:19.840)
And so, but the boundary of what we observe in nature,
Lex Fridman (2:58:23.480)
like what we recognize as in nature moves,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:26.480)
like what we do today and what we know today
Lex Fridman (2:58:28.720)
would only be described as magic 500 years ago,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:31.280)
or even a hundred years ago, some of it.
Lex Fridman (2:58:32.800)
So there will surely be things that,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:36.080)
like you explained these phenomenon
Lex Fridman (2:58:37.760)
that just sound like completely,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:39.520)
they're supernatural now,
Lex Fridman (2:58:41.200)
where there may be, for some of it,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:42.960)
like some of it might turn out to be a complete bunk
Lex Fridman (2:58:44.800)
and some of it might turn out to be,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:47.120)
it's just another layer of nature,
Lex Fridman (2:58:49.120)
whether we're talking about multiple dimensions
Matthew Johnson (2:58:50.920)
that are invoked or something,
Lex Fridman (2:58:52.040)
we don't even have the language towards.
Lex Fridman (2:58:53.640)
And what you're saying about the moving together
Lex Fridman (2:58:55.560)
of the model and the real thing of conscious,
Matthew Johnson (2:58:58.840)
like, I'm very sympathetic to that.
Lex Fridman (2:59:00.720)
So that's that part of like, on the armchair side,
Matthew Johnson (2:59:03.240)
where I want to be clear, I can't say this as a scientist,
Lex Fridman (2:59:06.160)
but just in terms of speculating,
Matthew Johnson (2:59:07.840)
I find myself attracted to these,
Lex Fridman (2:59:12.640)
more of the sort of the panpsychism ideas.
Lex Fridman (2:59:15.760)
And that kind of makes sense to me.
Lex Fridman (2:59:17.600)
I don't know if that's what you meant there,
Lex Fridman (2:59:19.000)
but it seemed like related,
Lex Fridman (2:59:20.160)
the sense that ultimately if you were completely modeling,
Matthew Johnson (2:59:26.880)
like it's like, if you completely modeling,
Lex Fridman (2:59:28.960)
unless you dismiss like the idea
Matthew Johnson (2:59:31.400)
that there is a phenomenal consciousness,
Lex Fridman (2:59:33.080)
which I think is hard,
Matthew Johnson (2:59:33.920)
given that we all, I seem like I have one,
Lex Fridman (2:59:35.760)
that's really all I know.
Lex Fridman (2:59:37.440)
But if that's so compelling, I can't just dismiss that.
Lex Fridman (2:59:41.560)
Like if you take that as a given,
Matthew Johnson (2:59:44.920)
then the only way for the model and the real thing to merge
Lex Fridman (2:59:49.080)
is if there is something baked into the nature of reality,
Matthew Johnson (2:59:56.440)
sort of like in the history of like,
Lex Fridman (2:59:57.760)
there are certain just like fundamental forces
Lex Fridman (30:01.040)
but it seems like psychedelics could be one set of tools
Lex Fridman (30:04.740)
that encourage paradigm shifting thinking.
Lex Fridman (30:08.980)
So like the first principles kind of thinking.
Lex Fridman (30:11.380)
So it's a kind of, you're at the forefront of research here.
Matthew Johnson (30:16.100)
There's just kind of anecdotal stories.
Lex Fridman (30:18.780)
There's early studies.
Matthew Johnson (30:21.300)
There's a sense that we don't understand very much
Lex Fridman (30:24.500)
but there's a lot of depth here.
Lex Fridman (30:26.740)
How do we get from there to where Elon and I can regularly,
Lex Fridman (30:31.460)
like I wake up every morning, I have deep work sessions
Matthew Johnson (30:35.020)
where it's well understood like what dose to take.
Lex Fridman (30:41.740)
Like if I want to explore something where it's all legal,
Matthew Johnson (30:45.980)
where it's all understood and safe, all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (30:49.020)
How do we get from where we are today to there?
Matthew Johnson (30:53.540)
Not speaking in terms of legality in the sense like
Lex Fridman (30:57.260)
policy making all that like laws and stuff,
Matthew Johnson (30:59.880)
meaning like how do we scientifically understand this stuff
Lex Fridman (31:02.940)
well enough to get to a place where I can just take it safely
Matthew Johnson (31:07.580)
in order to expand my thinking,
Lex Fridman (31:10.780)
like this kind of first principles thinking,
Matthew Johnson (31:12.540)
which I'm in my personal life currently doing.
Lex Fridman (31:14.780)
Like how do I revolutionize particular several things?
Matthew Johnson (31:18.420)
Like it seems like the only tools I have right now
Lex Fridman (31:22.300)
is just, just, but my mind going, doing the first principles
Matthew Johnson (31:28.260)
like, wait, wait, wait, okay.
Lex Fridman (31:30.020)
Why has this been done this way?
Lex Fridman (31:31.740)
Can we do it completely differently?
Lex Fridman (31:33.780)
It seems like I'm still tethered to the priors
Matthew Johnson (31:37.500)
that I bring to the table
Lex Fridman (31:39.060)
and I keep trying to untether myself.
Matthew Johnson (31:40.860)
Maybe there's tools that can systematically
Lex Fridman (31:43.140)
help me untether.
Matthew Johnson (31:44.580)
Yeah, well, we need experiments and that's tied to
Lex Fridman (31:49.340)
kind of the policy level stuff.
Lex Fridman (31:51.980)
And I should be clear,
Lex Fridman (31:52.820)
I would never encourage anyone to do anything illicitly.
Lex Fridman (31:57.140)
But yeah, in the future, we could see these compounds
Lex Fridman (32:03.460)
used for technical and scientific innovation.
Lex Fridman (32:08.420)
What we need are studies that are digging into that.
Lex Fridman (32:11.700)
Right now, most of what the funding,
Matthew Johnson (32:13.780)
which is largely from philanthropy, not from the government,
Lex Fridman (32:18.740)
largely what it's for is treatment of mental disorders
Matthew Johnson (32:23.300)
like addiction and depression, et cetera.
Lex Fridman (32:27.060)
But we need studies.
Matthew Johnson (32:28.740)
One of the early initial stabs on this question decades ago
Lex Fridman (32:34.740)
was they took some architects and engineers
Lex Fridman (32:37.780)
and said, what problems have you been working on?
Lex Fridman (32:40.860)
Where have you been stuck for months
Matthew Johnson (32:42.460)
like working on this damn thing
Lex Fridman (32:43.740)
and you're not getting anywhere,
Matthew Johnson (32:45.060)
like your head's butting up against the wall.
Lex Fridman (32:47.420)
It's like, come in here, take,
Lex Fridman (32:49.180)
and I think it was 100 micrograms of LSD.
Lex Fridman (32:51.140)
So not a big session.
Lex Fridman (32:52.740)
And a little bit different model
Lex Fridman (32:54.260)
where they were actually working.
Matthew Johnson (32:55.260)
It was a moderate enough dose
Lex Fridman (32:56.340)
where they could work on the problem during the session.
Matthew Johnson (33:00.860)
I think probably, I'm an empiricist,
Lex Fridman (33:04.460)
so I'd like to see all the studies done.
Lex Fridman (33:06.340)
But the first thing I would do is like
Lex Fridman (33:08.180)
a really high dose session where you're not necessarily
Matthew Johnson (33:10.580)
in front of your computer,
Lex Fridman (33:13.140)
which you can't really do on a really high dose.
Lex Fridman (33:16.060)
And then the work has been talked about,
Lex Fridman (33:19.180)
like you take a really high dose, you take a journey,
Lex Fridman (33:21.780)
and then the breakthroughs come
Lex Fridman (33:23.740)
from when you return from the journey
Lex Fridman (33:25.940)
and like integrate, quote unquote, that experience.
Lex Fridman (33:29.100)
I think that's where all the,
Matthew Johnson (33:30.700)
again, we're babies at this point,
Lex Fridman (33:33.700)
but my gut tells me that it's the so called integration,
Matthew Johnson (33:37.660)
the aftermath.
Lex Fridman (33:38.500)
We know that there's some different forms of neuroplasticity
Matthew Johnson (33:41.060)
that are unfolding in the days following a psychedelics,
Lex Fridman (33:43.340)
at least in animals, probably going on humans.
Matthew Johnson (33:45.820)
We don't know if that's related to the therapeutic effects.
Lex Fridman (33:48.340)
My gut tells me it is,
Matthew Johnson (33:50.660)
although it's only part of the story,
Lex Fridman (33:52.980)
but we need big studies where we compare people,
Matthew Johnson (33:55.700)
like let's get a hundred people like that,
Lex Fridman (33:57.660)
scientists that are working on a problem,
Lex Fridman (34:00.420)
and then randomize them too.
Lex Fridman (34:02.140)
And then I think you need even more credible,
Matthew Johnson (34:07.060)
active controls or active placebo conditions
Lex Fridman (34:10.140)
to kind of tease this out.
Lex Fridman (34:13.340)
And then also in conjunction with that,
Lex Fridman (34:14.900)
and you can do this in the same study,
Matthew Johnson (34:16.300)
you wanna combine that with more rigorous
Lex Fridman (34:19.180)
sort of experimental models
Matthew Johnson (34:22.900)
where we actually give there a problem solving tasks
Lex Fridman (34:25.260)
that we know, for example, that you tend to do better on
Matthew Johnson (34:27.700)
after you've gotten a good night's sleep versus not.
Lex Fridman (34:30.020)
And my sense is there's a relationship there.
Matthew Johnson (34:33.900)
People go back to first principles,
Lex Fridman (34:36.780)
questioning those first principles they're operating under
Lex Fridman (34:39.220)
and getting away from their priors
Lex Fridman (34:43.140)
in terms of creative problem solving.
Lex Fridman (34:45.380)
And so I think wrap those things
Lex Fridman (34:47.460)
and you could speak a little more rigorously about those
Matthew Johnson (34:50.180)
because ultimately, if everyone's bringing their own problem,
Lex Fridman (34:52.780)
that's more in the face valid side,
Lex Fridman (34:57.060)
but you can't dig in as much
Lex Fridman (34:58.780)
and get as much experimental power
Lex Fridman (35:01.300)
and speak to the mechanisms as you can
Lex Fridman (35:03.660)
with having everyone do the same sort of canned
Matthew Johnson (35:06.820)
problem solving task.
Lex Fridman (35:08.820)
So we've been speaking about psychedelics generally.
Matthew Johnson (35:10.980)
Is there one you find from the scientific perspective
Lex Fridman (35:14.060)
or maybe even philosophical perspective
Lex Fridman (35:16.300)
most fascinating to study?
Lex Fridman (35:18.580)
Therapeutically, I'm most interested in psilocybin and LSD
Lex Fridman (35:22.340)
and I think we need to do a lot more with LSD
Lex Fridman (35:24.380)
because it's mainly been psilocybin in the modern era.
Matthew Johnson (35:27.060)
I've recently gotten a grant
Lex Fridman (35:28.540)
from the Heftar Research Institute to do an LSD study.
Lex Fridman (35:32.260)
So I haven't started it yet,
Lex Fridman (35:33.420)
but I'm going through the paperwork and everything.
Matthew Johnson (35:36.340)
Therapeutic meaning there's some issue
Lex Fridman (35:38.980)
and you're trying to treat that issue.
Matthew Johnson (35:40.380)
Right, right.
Lex Fridman (35:41.740)
In terms of just like, what's the most fascinating,
Matthew Johnson (35:45.660)
understanding the nature of these experiences,
Lex Fridman (35:47.660)
if you really wanna like wrap your head around
Matthew Johnson (35:49.420)
what's going on when someone has a completely altered sense
Lex Fridman (35:53.380)
of reality and sense of self,
Matthew Johnson (35:55.700)
there I think you're talking about the high dose,
Lex Fridman (36:00.980)
either smoked vaporized or intravenous injection,
Matthew Johnson (36:04.020)
which all kind of, they're very similar pharmacologically,
Lex Fridman (36:07.900)
of DMT and 5 methoxy DMT.
Matthew Johnson (36:11.220)
This is like when people, this is what,
Lex Fridman (36:13.260)
I don't know if you're familiar with Terrence McKenna,
Matthew Johnson (36:15.220)
he would talk a lot about smoking DMT,
Lex Fridman (36:16.780)
Joe Rogan has talked a lot about that.
Matthew Johnson (36:19.780)
People will say that,
Lex Fridman (36:20.620)
and there's a close relative called 5 methoxy DMT.
Matthew Johnson (36:23.500)
Most people who know the terrain will say
Lex Fridman (36:25.580)
that's an order of magnitude or orders of magnitude beyond,
Matthew Johnson (36:30.820)
I mean, anything one could get from even a high dose
Lex Fridman (36:33.820)
of psilocybin or LSD.
Matthew Johnson (36:36.300)
I think it's a question about whether, you know,
Lex Fridman (36:39.540)
how therapeutic,
Matthew Johnson (36:40.500)
I think there is a therapeutic potential there,
Lex Fridman (36:42.420)
but it's probably not as sure of a bet
Matthew Johnson (36:45.300)
because one goes so far out,
Lex Fridman (36:47.780)
it's almost like they're not contemplating
Matthew Johnson (36:49.580)
their relationship and their direction in life.
Lex Fridman (36:51.820)
They are like reality is ripping apart at the seams
Lex Fridman (36:55.660)
and the very nature of the self and of the sense of reality.
Lex Fridman (37:01.660)
And the amazing thing about these compounds
Lex Fridman (37:04.940)
and same to a less degree with oral psilocybin and LSD
Lex Fridman (37:09.500)
is that unlike some other drugs
Matthew Johnson (37:12.460)
that really throw you far out there,
Lex Fridman (37:16.100)
you know, anesthetics and even alcohol,
Matthew Johnson (37:18.820)
like as reality starts to become different
Lex Fridman (37:21.740)
at higher and higher doses, there's this numbing,
Matthew Johnson (37:24.820)
there's this sort of,
Lex Fridman (37:26.980)
there's this ability for the sense of being the center,
Matthew Johnson (37:31.580)
having a conscious experience that's memorable,
Lex Fridman (37:35.180)
that is maintained
Matthew Johnson (37:37.380)
throughout these classic psychedelic experiences.
Lex Fridman (37:40.140)
Like one can go as far, so far out while still
Matthew Johnson (37:47.700)
being aware of the experience
Lex Fridman (37:50.540)
and remembering the experience.
Matthew Johnson (37:52.180)
Interesting, so being able to carry something back.
Lex Fridman (37:55.460)
Right.
Lex Fridman (37:56.700)
Can you dig in a little deeper, like what is DMT,
Lex Fridman (38:01.340)
how long is the trip usually,
Lex Fridman (38:03.980)
like how much do we understand about it?
Lex Fridman (38:06.340)
Is there something interesting to say
Matthew Johnson (38:09.820)
about just the nature of the experience
Lex Fridman (38:12.940)
and what we understand about it?
Matthew Johnson (38:15.380)
One of the common methods for people to use it
Lex Fridman (38:17.660)
is to smoke it or vaporize it.
Lex Fridman (38:19.820)
And it usually takes,
Lex Fridman (38:21.700)
this is a pretty good kind of description
Matthew Johnson (38:23.420)
of what it might feel like on the ground.
Lex Fridman (38:26.580)
The caveat is it's a completely insufficient description
Matthew Johnson (38:30.980)
that someone's gonna be listening to.
Lex Fridman (38:33.100)
It's like nothing you could say is gonna come close.
Lex Fridman (38:36.100)
But it'll take about three big hits, inhalations,
Lex Fridman (38:40.540)
in order to have what people call a breakthrough dose.
Lex Fridman (38:45.980)
And there's no great definition of that,
Lex Fridman (38:48.060)
but basically meaning moving away from,
Matthew Johnson (38:52.580)
not just having the typical psilocybin or LSD experience
Lex Fridman (38:56.220)
where like things are radically different,
Lex Fridman (38:58.300)
but you're still basically a person in this reality
Lex Fridman (39:02.460)
to go in somewhere else.
Lex Fridman (39:04.780)
And so that'll typically take like three hits.
Lex Fridman (39:07.660)
And this stuff comes on like a freight train.
Lex Fridman (39:10.580)
So one takes a hit
Lex Fridman (39:11.980)
and around the time of the first exhalation,
Lex Fridman (39:16.260)
so we're talking about a few seconds in,
Lex Fridman (39:18.300)
or maybe just sometime between the first and the second hit,
Matthew Johnson (39:22.380)
like it'll start to come on.
Lex Fridman (39:23.940)
And they're already up to, let's say,
Lex Fridman (39:27.700)
what they might get from a 30 milligram
Lex Fridman (39:30.380)
or 300 microgram LSD trip, a big trip.
Matthew Johnson (39:34.500)
They're already there at the second hit,
Lex Fridman (39:37.860)
but their consciousness is geared,
Matthew Johnson (39:39.980)
this is like acceleration, not speed, to speak of physics.
Lex Fridman (39:43.820)
It's like those receptors are getting filled like that
Lex Fridman (39:47.100)
and they're going from zero to 60 in like Tesla time.
Lex Fridman (39:50.820)
And at the second hit, again,
Matthew Johnson (39:54.180)
they're at maybe the strongest psychedelic experience
Lex Fridman (39:57.300)
they've ever had.
Lex Fridman (39:58.620)
And then if they can take that third hit,
Lex Fridman (3:00:00.040)
or fundamental, like, and that's been useful for us.
Lex Fridman (3:00:03.280)
And sometimes we find out
Lex Fridman (3:00:04.520)
that that's pointing towards something else,
Matthew Johnson (3:00:05.680)
or sometimes it's still, seems like it's a fundamental,
Lex Fridman (3:00:09.320)
and sometimes it's a placeholder for someone to figure out,
Lex Fridman (3:00:11.040)
but there's something like, this is just a given.
Lex Fridman (3:00:13.120)
This is just, and sometimes something like gravity
Matthew Johnson (3:00:16.200)
seems like a very good placeholder,
Lex Fridman (3:00:17.400)
and then there's something better that comes to replace it.
Matthew Johnson (3:00:20.040)
So, I kind of think about like consciousness
Lex Fridman (3:00:23.200)
and I didn't, I kind of had this inclination
Matthew Johnson (3:00:25.160)
before I knew there was a term for it,
Lex Fridman (3:00:27.080)
Rosalian monism, the idea that, which is a form of,
Matthew Johnson (3:00:31.960)
again, I'm an armchair philosopher, not a very good one.
Lex Fridman (3:00:35.600)
Broadly panpsychism, by the way,
Matthew Johnson (3:00:37.120)
is the idea that sort of consciousness permeates all matter
Lex Fridman (3:00:40.440)
and, or it's a fundamental part of physics
Matthew Johnson (3:00:44.640)
of the universe kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (3:00:45.960)
So, and there's a lot of different flavors of it
Matthew Johnson (3:00:49.120)
as you're alluding to.
Lex Fridman (3:00:51.240)
And something that struck me as like consistent
Matthew Johnson (3:00:53.560)
with some just, you know, inclinations of mine,
Lex Fridman (3:00:56.560)
just total speculation is this idea of everything we know
Matthew Johnson (3:01:01.560)
in science and with most of the stuff we think of physics,
Lex Fridman (3:01:06.400)
you know, really describes, it's all interactions.
Matthew Johnson (3:01:11.640)
It's not the thing itself.
Lex Fridman (3:01:13.800)
Like there is something to, and this sounds very new agey,
Matthew Johnson (3:01:20.200)
which is why it's very difficult
Lex Fridman (3:01:21.960)
and I have a high bullshit like meter and everything,
Lex Fridman (3:01:24.960)
but like an isness, I mean, think about like Huxley,
Lex Fridman (3:01:27.960)
all this Huxley with his mescaline experience
Lex Fridman (3:01:30.120)
and doors of procession, like there's an isness there
Lex Fridman (3:01:32.600)
in Alan Watson, like there is a nature of being,
Matthew Johnson (3:01:37.640)
again, very new agey sounding,
Lex Fridman (3:01:39.200)
but maybe there is something to,
Lex Fridman (3:01:41.760)
and when we say consciousness,
Lex Fridman (3:01:43.280)
we think of like this human experience,
Lex Fridman (3:01:45.160)
but maybe that's just, that's so processed
Lex Fridman (3:01:47.440)
and so, that's so far, so derivative of this kind
Matthew Johnson (3:01:52.600)
of basic thing that we wouldn't even recognize
Lex Fridman (3:01:54.800)
the basic thing, but the basic thing might just be,
Matthew Johnson (3:01:57.480)
this is not about the interaction between particles.
Lex Fridman (3:02:00.480)
This is what it is like to exist as a particle.
Lex Fridman (3:02:06.160)
And maybe it's not even particles.
Lex Fridman (3:02:07.600)
Maybe it's like space time itself.
Matthew Johnson (3:02:09.600)
I mean, again, totally in the speculation area.
Lex Fridman (3:02:11.720)
And something else based on, so it's funny
Matthew Johnson (3:02:14.120)
because we don't have this, neither the science
Lex Fridman (3:02:16.120)
nor the proper language to talk about it.
Matthew Johnson (3:02:18.520)
All we have is kind of a little intuitions
Lex Fridman (3:02:21.080)
about there might be something in that direction
Matthew Johnson (3:02:24.880)
of the darkness to pursue.
Lex Fridman (3:02:26.760)
And in that sense, I find panpsychism interesting
Matthew Johnson (3:02:31.360)
in that like, it does feel like there's something
Lex Fridman (3:02:35.440)
fundamental here, that consciousness is,
Matthew Johnson (3:02:38.000)
it's not just like, okay, so the flip side,
Lex Fridman (3:02:40.720)
consciousness could be just a very basic
Lex Fridman (3:02:43.800)
and trivial symptom, like a little hack of nature
Lex Fridman (3:02:48.520)
that's useful for like survival of an organism.
Matthew Johnson (3:02:53.320)
It's not something fundamental.
Lex Fridman (3:02:55.160)
It's just this very basic, boring chemical thing
Matthew Johnson (3:03:01.360)
that somehow has convinced us humans,
Lex Fridman (3:03:03.320)
because we're very human centric, we're very self centric,
Matthew Johnson (3:03:06.720)
that this is somehow really important,
Lex Fridman (3:03:08.360)
but it's actually pretty obvious.
Matthew Johnson (3:03:10.520)
But, or it could be something really fundamental
Lex Fridman (3:03:13.520)
to the nature of the universe.
Lex Fridman (3:03:15.360)
So both of those are to me pretty compelling.
Lex Fridman (3:03:18.640)
And I think eventually scientifically testable.
Matthew Johnson (3:03:21.720)
It is so frustrating that it's hard to design
Lex Fridman (3:03:24.120)
a scientific experiment currently,
Lex Fridman (3:03:25.920)
but I think that's how Nobel Prizes are won,
Lex Fridman (3:03:29.600)
is nobody did it until they do it.
Matthew Johnson (3:03:33.400)
The reason I lean towards, and again, armchair spec,
Lex Fridman (3:03:36.720)
if I had to bet like $1,000 on which one of these
Matthew Johnson (3:03:40.760)
ultimately be proved, I would lean towards,
Lex Fridman (3:03:44.040)
I'd put my bets on something like panpsychism
Matthew Johnson (3:03:47.640)
rather than the emergence of phenomenal consciousness
Lex Fridman (3:03:51.640)
through complexity or computational complexity,
Matthew Johnson (3:03:55.240)
because, although certainly if there is
Lex Fridman (3:03:58.760)
some underlying fundamental consciousness,
Matthew Johnson (3:04:01.240)
it's clearly being processed in this way through computation
Lex Fridman (3:04:07.000)
in terms of resulting in our experience
Lex Fridman (3:04:09.640)
and the experience presumably of other animals.
Lex Fridman (3:04:11.440)
But the reason I would bet on panpsychism is to me,
Matthew Johnson (3:04:14.440)
Occam's razor, in terms of truly the hard problem,
Lex Fridman (3:04:19.400)
at some point you have an inside looking out.
Lex Fridman (3:04:22.360)
And even looking refers to vision and it doesn't,
Lex Fridman (3:04:24.440)
that's just an example, but just,
Matthew Johnson (3:04:26.760)
there's an inside experiencing something.
Lex Fridman (3:04:31.160)
At some point of complexity, all of a sudden,
Matthew Johnson (3:04:34.760)
you start from this objective universe
Lex Fridman (3:04:36.440)
and all we know about is interactions between things
Lex Fridman (3:04:38.440)
and things happen.
Lex Fridman (3:04:39.680)
And at this certain level of complexity,
Matthew Johnson (3:04:42.200)
magically there's an inside.
Lex Fridman (3:04:45.120)
That to me doesn't pass Occam's razor as easily
Matthew Johnson (3:04:48.760)
as maybe there is a fundamental property of the universe.
Lex Fridman (3:04:53.920)
There's both subjective and objective.
Matthew Johnson (3:04:56.640)
There is both interactions amongst things
Lex Fridman (3:04:58.800)
and there is the thing itself.
Matthew Johnson (3:05:02.600)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (3:05:03.440)
But, yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:05:04.260)
So I'm of two minds.
Lex Fridman (3:05:05.600)
I agree with you totally on half my mind.
Lex Fridman (3:05:08.000)
And the other half is I've seen,
Lex Fridman (3:05:09.960)
looking at cellular automata a lot,
Matthew Johnson (3:05:12.000)
which is, it sure does seem that we don't understand
Lex Fridman (3:05:16.680)
anything about complexity.
Matthew Johnson (3:05:18.200)
Like the emergence, just the property.
Lex Fridman (3:05:21.480)
In fact, that could be a fundamental property of reality
Matthew Johnson (3:05:25.920)
is something within the emergence
Lex Fridman (3:05:28.200)
from simple things interacting,
Matthew Johnson (3:05:30.400)
somehow miraculous things happen.
Lex Fridman (3:05:33.400)
And like that, I don't understand that.
Matthew Johnson (3:05:36.080)
That could be fundamental.
Lex Fridman (3:05:38.840)
That like something about the layers of abstraction,
Matthew Johnson (3:05:45.120)
like layers of reality,
Lex Fridman (3:05:46.760)
like really small things interacting
Lex Fridman (3:05:48.760)
and then on another layer emerges actual complicated behavior
Lex Fridman (3:05:54.720)
even on the underlying thing is super simple.
Matthew Johnson (3:05:57.080)
Like that process, we don't really don't understand either.
Lex Fridman (3:06:00.120)
And that could be bigger than any of the things
Matthew Johnson (3:06:02.880)
we're talking about.
Lex Fridman (3:06:04.760)
That's the basic force behind everything
Matthew Johnson (3:06:07.840)
that's happening in the universe
Lex Fridman (3:06:09.600)
is from simple things, complex phenomena can happen.
Matthew Johnson (3:06:14.600)
Phenomena can happen.
Lex Fridman (3:06:16.560)
And the thing that gives me pause
Matthew Johnson (3:06:19.320)
is that I'm concerned about a threshold there.
Lex Fridman (3:06:24.640)
Like how is it likely that,
Matthew Johnson (3:06:26.200)
now there may be, and there may be some qualitative shift
Lex Fridman (3:06:28.800)
that in the realm of like,
Matthew Johnson (3:06:30.440)
we don't even understand complexity yet,
Lex Fridman (3:06:32.840)
like you're saying.
Matthew Johnson (3:06:33.680)
Like, so maybe there is,
Lex Fridman (3:06:34.800)
but I do think like if it is a result of the complexity,
Matthew Johnson (3:06:38.080)
well, just having helium versus hydrogen
Lex Fridman (3:06:41.440)
is a form of complexity.
Matthew Johnson (3:06:43.000)
Having the existence of stars versus clouds of gas
Lex Fridman (3:06:45.840)
is a complexity.
Matthew Johnson (3:06:46.680)
The entire universe has been this increasing complexity.
Lex Fridman (3:06:50.600)
And so that kind of brings me back to then the other
Matthew Johnson (3:06:53.280)
of like, okay, if there's,
Lex Fridman (3:06:55.720)
if it's about complexity, then we should,
Matthew Johnson (3:06:57.880)
then it exists at a certain level
Lex Fridman (3:06:59.840)
in these simple systems like a star
Matthew Johnson (3:07:02.560)
or a more complex atom.
Lex Fridman (3:07:05.520)
Hence the panpsychism, that's right.
Lex Fridman (3:07:06.880)
But we humans, the qualitative shift,
Lex Fridman (3:07:09.600)
we might have evolved to appreciate certain kinds
Matthew Johnson (3:07:13.400)
of thresholds.
Lex Fridman (3:07:14.400)
Right. Yeah.
Matthew Johnson (3:07:15.360)
I do think it's likely that this idea that,
Lex Fridman (3:07:18.400)
whether or not there's an inner experience,
Matthew Johnson (3:07:20.120)
which is phenomenal, it's the hard problem,
Lex Fridman (3:07:22.320)
that acting like an agent, like having an algorithm
Matthew Johnson (3:07:26.440)
that basically like operates as if there is an agent,
Lex Fridman (3:07:29.400)
that's clearly a thing that I think has worked
Lex Fridman (3:07:32.840)
and that there is a whole lot to figure out there that,
Lex Fridman (3:07:37.160)
and I think psychedelics will be extremely helpful
Matthew Johnson (3:07:40.280)
in figuring more out about that because they do seem
Lex Fridman (3:07:44.360)
to a lot of times eliminate that or whatever,
Matthew Johnson (3:07:48.000)
radically shift that sense of self.
Lex Fridman (3:07:51.560)
Let me ask the craziest question.
Matthew Johnson (3:07:53.320)
Indulge me for a second.
Lex Fridman (3:07:54.920)
I'll, this is a joke.
Lex Fridman (3:07:57.480)
Compared to what we've been talking about?
Lex Fridman (3:07:58.640)
Like, okay.
Matthew Johnson (3:07:59.480)
No, all of this is assigned,
Lex Fridman (3:08:02.600)
all of that, despite the caveats about armchair,
Matthew Johnson (3:08:05.840)
I think is within the reach of science.
Lex Fridman (3:08:08.680)
Let me ask one that's kind of,
Matthew Johnson (3:08:11.000)
also within the reach of science,
Lex Fridman (3:08:12.240)
but as Joe likes to say, it's entirely possible, right?
Matthew Johnson (3:08:17.000)
Is it possible that with these DMT trips,
Lex Fridman (3:08:21.480)
when you meet entities, is it possible
Lex Fridman (3:08:25.080)
that these entities are extraterrestrial life forms?
Lex Fridman (3:08:30.800)
Like our understanding of little green men
Matthew Johnson (3:08:33.200)
with aliens that show up is totally off.
Lex Fridman (3:08:36.560)
I often think about this,
Matthew Johnson (3:08:37.600)
like what would actual extraterrestrial intelligence
Lex Fridman (3:08:42.080)
look like?
Lex Fridman (3:08:43.760)
And my sense is it will look like very different
Lex Fridman (3:08:47.920)
from anything we can even begin to comprehend.
Lex Fridman (3:08:51.480)
And how would it communicate?
Lex Fridman (3:08:52.840)
And how would it communicate?
Matthew Johnson (3:08:53.840)
Would it be necessarily spaceships
Lex Fridman (3:08:55.320)
within your civil travel or?
Matthew Johnson (3:08:57.040)
Could it be communicating through chemicals,
Lex Fridman (3:09:00.000)
through if there's the panpsychism situation,
Matthew Johnson (3:09:03.440)
if there's something, not if.
Lex Fridman (3:09:05.720)
I almost for sure know we don't understand a lot
Matthew Johnson (3:09:09.840)
about the function of our mind in connection
Lex Fridman (3:09:12.060)
to the fabric of the physics in the universe.
Matthew Johnson (3:09:16.240)
A lot of people seem to think
Lex Fridman (3:09:17.360)
we have theoretical physics pretty figured out.
Matthew Johnson (3:09:20.020)
I have my doubts because I'm pretty sure
Lex Fridman (3:09:22.720)
it always feels like we have everything figured out
Matthew Johnson (3:09:24.640)
until we don't.
Lex Fridman (3:09:25.480)
Right, I mean, there's no grand unifying theory yet, right?
Lex Fridman (3:09:28.640)
But even then, we could be missing out,
Lex Fridman (3:09:32.300)
like the concept of the universe
Matthew Johnson (3:09:34.160)
just can be completely off.
Lex Fridman (3:09:36.040)
Like how many other universes are there?
Matthew Johnson (3:09:38.700)
All those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (3:09:40.480)
I mean, just the basic nature of information,
Matthew Johnson (3:09:43.480)
the time, time, all of those things.
Lex Fridman (3:09:48.560)
Yeah, whether that's just like a thing we assign value to
Matthew Johnson (3:09:51.600)
or whether it's fundamental or not,
Lex Fridman (3:09:53.700)
that's whole, I could talk to Shankar forever
Matthew Johnson (3:09:57.400)
about whether time is emergent
Lex Fridman (3:09:58.800)
or fundamental to the reality.
Lex Fridman (3:10:01.120)
But is it possible that the entities we meet
Lex Fridman (3:10:04.240)
are actual alien life forms?
Lex Fridman (3:10:06.580)
Do you ever think about that?
Lex Fridman (3:10:08.160)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.
Lex Fridman (3:10:10.320)
And I've, to some degree, laid my cards out
Lex Fridman (3:10:13.360)
by identifying as a radical empiricist, you know?
Lex Fridman (3:10:16.080)
And it's like, so the answer, is it possible?
Lex Fridman (3:10:18.600)
And I think, you know, ultimately,
Matthew Johnson (3:10:20.440)
if you're a good scientist, you gotta say,
Lex Fridman (3:10:22.240)
now that's at the extremes, it's a like, yes.
Matthew Johnson (3:10:25.760)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (3:10:26.600)
It might get more interesting when you're asked to guess
Matthew Johnson (3:10:30.040)
about the probability of that.
Lex Fridman (3:10:31.280)
Is that a one in a million, one in a trillion,
Matthew Johnson (3:10:34.480)
one in more than the number of atoms
Lex Fridman (3:10:38.220)
in the universe probability?
Lex Fridman (3:10:41.000)
And as an empiricist, it's like, what is a good testable?
Lex Fridman (3:10:44.460)
Like, how would you know the answer to that question?
Lex Fridman (3:10:47.200)
Or how would you be able to validate?
Lex Fridman (3:10:49.440)
I mean.
Matthew Johnson (3:10:50.280)
Well, can you get some information that's verifiable,
Lex Fridman (3:10:52.480)
like information about some other planet or some aspect?
Lex Fridman (3:11:01.720)
And gosh, it would be an interesting range,
Lex Fridman (3:11:03.440)
but what range of discovery that we can anticipate
Matthew Johnson (3:11:06.440)
we're gonna know within, you know, whatever,
Lex Fridman (3:11:10.080)
a few years, next five, 10, 20 years,
Lex Fridman (3:11:13.400)
and seeing if you can get that information now,
Lex Fridman (3:11:17.000)
and then over time, it might be verified.
Matthew Johnson (3:11:20.160)
You know, the type of thing like, you know, part of Einstein's
Lex Fridman (3:11:23.320)
work was ultimately verified,
Matthew Johnson (3:11:24.880)
not until decades and decades later,
Lex Fridman (3:11:26.480)
at least certain aspects through empirical observations.
Lex Fridman (3:11:31.300)
But it's also possible that the alien beings
Lex Fridman (3:11:34.600)
have a very different value system
Lex Fridman (3:11:36.520)
and perception of the world,
Lex Fridman (3:11:37.720)
where all of this little capitalistic improvements
Matthew Johnson (3:11:40.540)
that we're all after, like predicting,
Lex Fridman (3:11:42.640)
the concept of predicting the future too,
Matthew Johnson (3:11:45.360)
is like totally useless to other life forms
Lex Fridman (3:11:51.180)
that perhaps think in a much different way,
Matthew Johnson (3:11:56.520)
maybe a more transcendent way, I don't know, but.
Lex Fridman (3:11:58.980)
So they wouldn't even sign the consent form
Lex Fridman (3:12:00.680)
to be a participant in our experiment?
Lex Fridman (3:12:03.200)
They would not, they would not.
Lex Fridman (3:12:05.880)
And they wouldn't even understand
Lex Fridman (3:12:07.000)
the nature of these experiments.
Matthew Johnson (3:12:08.280)
I mean, maybe it's purely in the realm
Lex Fridman (3:12:12.080)
of the consciousness thing that we talked about.
Lex Fridman (3:12:16.800)
So communicating in a way that is totally different
Lex Fridman (3:12:20.920)
than the kinds of communication that we think of
Matthew Johnson (3:12:23.280)
as on Earth.
Lex Fridman (3:12:24.240)
Like what's the purpose of communication for us?
Matthew Johnson (3:12:27.880)
For us humans, the purpose of communication
Lex Fridman (3:12:30.280)
is sharing ideas, it feels like.
Matthew Johnson (3:12:32.980)
Like converging, like it's the Dawkins like memes.
Lex Fridman (3:12:37.880)
It's like we're sharing ideas in order to figure out
Lex Fridman (3:12:41.640)
how to collaborate together, to get food into our systems
Lex Fridman (3:12:45.960)
and procreate and then like murder everybody
Matthew Johnson (3:12:49.120)
in the neighboring tribe because they'll steal our food.
Lex Fridman (3:12:52.680)
Like we are all about sharing ideas.
Matthew Johnson (3:12:54.920)
Maybe it's possible to have another alien life form
Lex Fridman (3:12:59.840)
that's more about sharing experiences.
Matthew Johnson (3:13:03.400)
Like it's less about ideas, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (3:13:05.960)
And maybe that'll be us in a few years.
Lex Fridman (3:13:07.920)
How could it not?
Lex Fridman (3:13:08.760)
Like instead of explaining something laboriously to you,
Matthew Johnson (3:13:11.520)
like having people describe the ineffable
Lex Fridman (3:13:13.760)
psychedelic experience, like if we could record that
Lex Fridman (3:13:17.160)
and then get the neural link of 50 years from now,
Lex Fridman (3:13:19.880)
like, oh, just plug this into your...
Matthew Johnson (3:13:21.560)
Just transferring the experiences.
Lex Fridman (3:13:22.400)
Yeah, it's like, oh, now you feel what it's like.
Lex Fridman (3:13:24.920)
And like, in one sense, like how could we not go there?
Lex Fridman (3:13:27.600)
And then you get into the realm,
Matthew Johnson (3:13:28.640)
especially when you throw time into it,
Lex Fridman (3:13:30.100)
are the aliens us in the future?
Matthew Johnson (3:13:32.480)
Or even like a transcendental, temporal,
Lex Fridman (3:13:35.380)
like the us beyond time.
Matthew Johnson (3:13:37.400)
Like, I don't know, like you get into this realm
Lex Fridman (3:13:39.240)
and there's a lot of possibilities, yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:13:42.720)
But I think, you know, there's one psychedelic researcher
Lex Fridman (3:13:44.960)
that's who did high dose DMT research in the 90s
Matthew Johnson (3:13:49.240)
who speculated that,
Lex Fridman (3:13:51.960)
that there was a lot of alien encounter experiences.
Matthew Johnson (3:13:54.120)
Like maybe these are like entities
Lex Fridman (3:13:57.480)
from some other dimension or...
Matthew Johnson (3:13:59.520)
He labeled it as speculation, but you know.
Lex Fridman (3:14:02.160)
Do you remember the name?
Matthew Johnson (3:14:03.760)
Oh, Rick Strassman.
Lex Fridman (3:14:04.800)
Oh, Rick Strassman.
Matthew Johnson (3:14:05.640)
Yeah, yeah, the DMT work.
Lex Fridman (3:14:07.720)
He labeled it as speculation, but you know,
Matthew Johnson (3:14:10.840)
I think that, yeah, I think we'd be wise to kind of,
Lex Fridman (3:14:16.440)
you know, it's always that balance
Matthew Johnson (3:14:18.180)
between being empirically grounded and skeptical,
Lex Fridman (3:14:22.780)
but also not being, and I think in science,
Matthew Johnson (3:14:24.520)
well, often we are too closed,
Lex Fridman (3:14:27.840)
which relates to like, you're talking about Elon,
Matthew Johnson (3:14:29.480)
like in academia, it's like often like,
Lex Fridman (3:14:31.880)
I think you're punished for thinking
Matthew Johnson (3:14:33.260)
or even talking about 20 years from now
Lex Fridman (3:14:35.000)
because it's just so far removed from your next grant
Matthew Johnson (3:14:37.480)
or for your next paper that it's easy pickings
Lex Fridman (3:14:41.920)
and you know, that you're not allowed to speculate, so.
Matthew Johnson (3:14:45.280)
I think though, I'm a huge fan of,
Lex Fridman (3:14:47.200)
I think the best way to me at least to practice like science
Matthew Johnson (3:14:52.920)
or to practice good engineering is to like do two things
Lex Fridman (3:14:57.320)
and just bounce off, like spend most of the time
Matthew Johnson (3:15:00.440)
doing the rigor of the day to day
Lex Fridman (3:15:03.520)
of what can be accomplished now in the engineering space
Matthew Johnson (3:15:05.740)
or in the science, like what can actually,
Lex Fridman (3:15:08.040)
what can you construct an experiment around,
Matthew Johnson (3:15:10.600)
do like that, the usual rigor of the scientific process,
Lex Fridman (3:15:14.080)
but then every once in a while on a regular basis,
Matthew Johnson (3:15:17.640)
to step outside and talk about aliens and consciousness
Lex Fridman (3:15:21.960)
and we just walk along the line of things
Matthew Johnson (3:15:25.480)
that are outside the reach of science currently.
Lex Fridman (3:15:28.680)
Free will, the illusion or the perception
Matthew Johnson (3:15:33.680)
or the experience of free will of anything,
Lex Fridman (3:15:37.760)
just the entirety of it, being able to travel in time
Matthew Johnson (3:15:41.680)
through wormholes, it's like it's really useful to do that,
Lex Fridman (3:15:45.480)
especially as a scientist, like if that's all you do,
Matthew Johnson (3:15:49.320)
you go into a land where you're not actually able
Lex Fridman (3:15:53.100)
to think rigorously, there's something at least to me
Matthew Johnson (3:15:56.460)
that if you just hop back and forth,
Lex Fridman (3:15:59.200)
you're able to, I think do exactly the kind of injection
Matthew Johnson (3:16:03.440)
of out of the box thinking
Lex Fridman (3:16:06.280)
to your regular day to day science
Matthew Johnson (3:16:08.840)
that will ultimately lead to breakthroughs.
Lex Fridman (3:16:12.080)
But you have to be the good scientist most of the time.
Lex Fridman (3:16:15.140)
And that's consistent with what I think
Lex Fridman (3:16:17.120)
the great scientists of history,
Matthew Johnson (3:16:19.460)
like in most of the history, the greats,
Lex Fridman (3:16:25.060)
the Newtons and Einsteins, I mean, they were,
Matthew Johnson (3:16:29.480)
there was less of, and this change I think
Lex Fridman (3:16:31.400)
is time marched on, but less of a separation
Matthew Johnson (3:16:33.760)
between those realms.
Lex Fridman (3:16:34.760)
It's like, there's the inclination alpha,
Matthew Johnson (3:16:36.880)
it's like, as a scientist, and this is science,
Lex Fridman (3:16:41.800)
this is my work, and then this, it's like my inclination
Matthew Johnson (3:16:44.160)
to say, oh, Lex, don't take me too seriously
Lex Fridman (3:16:46.320)
because this is my armchair,
Matthew Johnson (3:16:47.320)
I'm not speaking as a scientist,
Lex Fridman (3:16:48.480)
I'm bending over backwards to say, to divide that self,
Lex Fridman (3:16:52.760)
and maybe there's been less of, there's been that evolution
Lex Fridman (3:16:55.760)
and that's, and like the greats didn't see that.
Matthew Johnson (3:17:00.240)
I mean, Newton, and you go back in time,
Lex Fridman (3:17:02.160)
and it's like that obviously connects to then religion,
Matthew Johnson (3:17:04.560)
especially if that is the predominant world,
Lex Fridman (3:17:05.900)
where Newton, like how much time did he spend
Lex Fridman (3:17:10.400)
trying to decode the Bible and whatnot?
Lex Fridman (3:17:12.760)
Maybe that was a dead end.
Lex Fridman (3:17:14.400)
But it's like, if you really believe in that,
Lex Fridman (3:17:17.080)
in that particular religion, and you're this mastermind,
Lex Fridman (3:17:20.240)
and you're trying to figure things out,
Lex Fridman (3:17:22.400)
it's not like, oh, this is what my job description is
Lex Fridman (3:17:24.640)
and this is what the grant wants.
Lex Fridman (3:17:25.700)
It's like, no, I've got this limited time on the planet,
Matthew Johnson (3:17:28.600)
I'm gonna figure out as much stuff as possible.
Lex Fridman (3:17:30.920)
Nothing is off the table
Lex Fridman (3:17:32.360)
and you're just putting it all together.
Lex Fridman (3:17:34.560)
So this is kind of this trajectory
Matthew Johnson (3:17:35.880)
is really related to this, the siloing in science.
Lex Fridman (3:17:38.960)
Like, again, related to my like, oh, I'm not a philosopher,
Matthew Johnson (3:17:44.640)
whether you consider that a science or not,
Lex Fridman (3:17:46.040)
not empirical science,
Lex Fridman (3:17:47.080)
but like going to these different disciplines,
Lex Fridman (3:17:49.240)
like the greats didn't observe the boundaries,
Matthew Johnson (3:17:53.080)
the boundaries didn't exist, they didn't observe them.
Lex Fridman (3:17:56.560)
So speaking of the finiteness
Matthew Johnson (3:17:59.440)
of our existence in this world,
Lex Fridman (3:18:04.760)
so on the front of psychedelics and teaching you lessons
Matthew Johnson (3:18:09.120)
as a researcher, as a human being,
Lex Fridman (3:18:12.320)
what have you learned about death, about mortality,
Lex Fridman (3:18:16.080)
about the finiteness of our existence?
Lex Fridman (3:18:18.560)
Are you yourself afraid of death?
Lex Fridman (3:18:21.800)
And how has your view, do you ponder it?
Lex Fridman (3:18:25.840)
And has your view of your mortality changed
Lex Fridman (3:18:28.320)
with the research you've done?
Lex Fridman (3:18:30.360)
Yeah, yeah, so I do ponder it and...
Lex Fridman (3:18:34.240)
Are you afraid of death?
Lex Fridman (3:18:35.080)
Probably on a daily basis, I ponder it.
Matthew Johnson (3:18:37.760)
I'd have to pick it apart more and say,
Lex Fridman (3:18:41.080)
yeah, I am afraid of dying, like the process of dying.
Matthew Johnson (3:18:46.600)
I'm not afraid of being dead.
Lex Fridman (3:18:48.840)
I mean, I'm not afraid of,
Matthew Johnson (3:18:49.800)
I think it was Penn Jillette that said,
Lex Fridman (3:18:51.960)
and he may have gotten it from someone else,
Lex Fridman (3:18:53.440)
but I'm not afraid of the year 1862 before I existed.
Lex Fridman (3:18:58.400)
I'm not afraid of the year 2262 after I'm gone.
Matthew Johnson (3:19:02.520)
It's gonna be fine.
Lex Fridman (3:19:03.600)
But yeah, dying, I'd be lying
Matthew Johnson (3:19:07.160)
if I said I wasn't afraid of dying.
Lex Fridman (3:19:11.000)
And so there's both the process of dying,
Matthew Johnson (3:19:13.840)
yeah, it's usually not good.
Lex Fridman (3:19:15.200)
It'd be nice if it was after many, many years
Lex Fridman (3:19:18.720)
and just sort of, I'd rather not die in my sleep.
Lex Fridman (3:19:23.520)
I'd rather kind of be conscious,
Lex Fridman (3:19:24.720)
but sort of just die, fade out with old age maybe.
Lex Fridman (3:19:26.920)
But just being in an accident and horrible diseases,
Matthew Johnson (3:19:31.760)
I've seen enough loved ones.
Lex Fridman (3:19:33.160)
It's like, yeah, this is not good.
Matthew Johnson (3:19:34.360)
This is enough to be, I'd like to say
Lex Fridman (3:19:37.320)
that I'm peaceful and sort of balanced enough
Matthew Johnson (3:19:40.760)
that I'm not concerned at all,
Lex Fridman (3:19:41.600)
but no, like, yeah, I'm afraid of dying.
Lex Fridman (3:19:44.360)
But I'm also concerned about, I think about family.
Lex Fridman (3:19:48.360)
I'm really, I'm afraid or at least concerned
Matthew Johnson (3:19:52.000)
about like not being there,
Lex Fridman (3:19:55.600)
like with a three year old, not being there,
Matthew Johnson (3:19:57.720)
not being there for him and my wife
Lex Fridman (3:20:01.200)
and my mom the rest of her life.
Matthew Johnson (3:20:03.840)
I'm concerned about not,
Lex Fridman (3:20:05.360)
I'm concerned more about like the harm
Matthew Johnson (3:20:07.120)
that it would cause if I left prematurely.
Lex Fridman (3:20:10.000)
And then kind of even bigger along the lines
Matthew Johnson (3:20:11.720)
of some of the stuff that forward thinking
Lex Fridman (3:20:13.440)
we've been talking about.
Matthew Johnson (3:20:14.280)
I think maybe way too much about just like,
Lex Fridman (3:20:17.920)
and I'll never know the answer.
Lex Fridman (3:20:19.920)
So even if I lived to 120,
Lex Fridman (3:20:22.280)
but like, I wanna know as much as I can,
Lex Fridman (3:20:24.440)
but like, how is this gonna work out like as humans?
Lex Fridman (3:20:28.680)
Are we, and a big one, I think is are we gonna,
Lex Fridman (3:20:30.680)
and I don't think unfortunately I'm gonna learn it
Lex Fridman (3:20:34.280)
in my lifetime, even if I live to a ripe old age,
Lex Fridman (3:20:37.240)
but well, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (3:20:38.800)
Is this gonna work out?
Lex Fridman (3:20:39.840)
Like, are we gonna escape the planet?
Lex Fridman (3:20:41.640)
I think that's one of the biggies.
Matthew Johnson (3:20:42.880)
Like, are we gonna, like the survival of the speed,
Lex Fridman (3:20:45.200)
like I think the next, like the time we're in now,
Matthew Johnson (3:20:48.560)
it's like with the nuclear weapons, with pandemics
Lex Fridman (3:20:51.040)
and with, I mean, we're gonna get to the point
Matthew Johnson (3:20:54.440)
where anyone can build a hydrogen bomb.
Lex Fridman (3:20:57.520)
Like, you know, it's like, you just like the,
Matthew Johnson (3:21:00.160)
or engineer like the, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:21:02.000)
something that's a million times worse than COVID
Lex Fridman (3:21:03.720)
and then just spread it.
Lex Fridman (3:21:04.560)
It's like, we're getting to this period of,
Lex Fridman (3:21:06.960)
and then not to mention climate change, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:21:09.160)
it's like, although I think that's not,
Matthew Johnson (3:21:10.920)
there's probably gonna be surviving humans
Lex Fridman (3:21:12.680)
with that regard, you know, but it could be really bad.
Lex Fridman (3:21:15.400)
But these existential threats, I think the only real
Lex Fridman (3:21:19.120)
guarantee that we're gonna get another, you name it,
Matthew Johnson (3:21:22.080)
thousand million, whatever years is like diversity,
Lex Fridman (3:21:26.840)
diversify our portfolio, get off the planet, you know,
Matthew Johnson (3:21:31.400)
don't leave this one, hopefully we keep, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:21:33.080)
but like, and I, you know, it's like,
Matthew Johnson (3:21:36.640)
either we're gonna get snuffed out like really quickly
Lex Fridman (3:21:40.600)
or we're gonna like, if we reach that point
Lex Fridman (3:21:44.000)
and it's gonna be over the next like 100, 200 years,
Lex Fridman (3:21:46.880)
like we're probably gonna survive like until like,
Matthew Johnson (3:21:51.920)
I mean, you know, like our sun, like, and even beyond that,
Lex Fridman (3:21:55.240)
like we're probably gonna be talking about millions
Lex Fridman (3:21:57.600)
and millions of years.
Lex Fridman (3:21:58.640)
It's like, and we're, I don't know,
Matthew Johnson (3:22:01.840)
in terms of the planet, 4 billion years into this.
Lex Fridman (3:22:04.280)
And depending on how you count our species, you know,
Matthew Johnson (3:22:06.160)
we're, you know, we're millions of years into this.
Lex Fridman (3:22:08.920)
And it's like, this is like the point of the relay race
Matthew Johnson (3:22:11.720)
where we can really screw up.
Lex Fridman (3:22:13.760)
So that would make you feel pretty good
Matthew Johnson (3:22:15.280)
when you're on your deathbed at 120 years old
Lex Fridman (3:22:19.080)
and there's something hopeful about,
Matthew Johnson (3:22:21.480)
there's a colony starting up on Mars and it's like.
Lex Fridman (3:22:24.800)
Yeah, Titan, like whatever, you know, like, yeah,
Matthew Johnson (3:22:27.320)
like that we have these colonies out there
Lex Fridman (3:22:29.340)
that would tell me like, yeah, then at least we'd be good
Matthew Johnson (3:22:33.440)
until like the, you know, hopefully, probably
Lex Fridman (3:22:36.860)
until the sun goes red giant, you know what I mean?
Matthew Johnson (3:22:40.400)
Rather than, oh, like 20 years from now
Lex Fridman (3:22:43.120)
when there's someone with their finger on the nuclear button
Matthew Johnson (3:22:46.280)
that just, you know, misperceives, you know, the radar,
Lex Fridman (3:22:50.520)
you know, like the signal they think Russia's attacking,
Matthew Johnson (3:22:54.360)
they're really not or China.
Lex Fridman (3:22:56.120)
And like, that's probably how a nuclear accident,
Matthew Johnson (3:22:58.920)
war is gonna start rather than, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:23:01.500)
or the, like I said, these other horrible things.
Matthew Johnson (3:23:03.920)
Does it not make you sad that you won't be there
Lex Fridman (3:23:07.760)
if we are successful at proliferating
Matthew Johnson (3:23:10.520)
throughout the observable universe
Lex Fridman (3:23:13.680)
that you won't be there to experience any of it?
Lex Fridman (3:23:17.680)
Just the ego death, right?
Lex Fridman (3:23:19.080)
It's the death, because you're still gonna die
Lex Fridman (3:23:21.800)
and it's still gonna be over.
Lex Fridman (3:23:23.920)
That's, you know, Ernest Becker and those folks
Matthew Johnson (3:23:28.480)
really emphasize the terror of death that if we're honest,
Lex Fridman (3:23:33.480)
we'll discover if we search within ourselves,
Matthew Johnson (3:23:36.040)
which is like, this thing is gonna be over.
Lex Fridman (3:23:38.800)
Most of our existence is based on the illusion
Matthew Johnson (3:23:44.720)
that it's gonna go forever.
Lex Fridman (3:23:47.000)
And when you sort of realize it's actually gonna be over,
Matthew Johnson (3:23:50.400)
like today, like I might murder you
Lex Fridman (3:23:53.220)
at the end of this conversation.
Lex Fridman (3:23:54.820)
And it might be over today, or like on going home,
Lex Fridman (3:23:59.820)
this might be your last day on this earth.
Lex Fridman (3:24:02.000)
And it's, I mean, like pondering that,
Lex Fridman (3:24:07.400)
I suppose one thing to be me,
Matthew Johnson (3:24:11.400)
I, if I were to push back, it's interesting,
Lex Fridman (3:24:16.360)
is you actually, I think you see comfort in the sadness
Matthew Johnson (3:24:21.360)
of how unfortunate it will be for your family
Lex Fridman (3:24:24.560)
to not have you, because the really,
Matthew Johnson (3:24:27.440)
even the deeper, yes, but that's the simple fear.
Lex Fridman (3:24:34.080)
Even the deeper terror is like this thing
Matthew Johnson (3:24:39.080)
doesn't last forever.
Lex Fridman (3:24:41.340)
Like I think, I don't know, like it's hard to put
Matthew Johnson (3:24:46.280)
the right words to it, but it feels like
Lex Fridman (3:24:49.080)
that's not truly acknowledged by us, by each of us.
Matthew Johnson (3:24:54.080)
Yeah, I think this is the, I mean,
Lex Fridman (3:24:57.080)
getting back to the psychedelics in terms of the people
Lex Fridman (3:24:59.080)
and our work with cancer patients who,
Lex Fridman (3:25:01.880)
we had psilocybin sessions to help them,
Lex Fridman (3:25:03.680)
and it did substantially help them, the vast majority,
Lex Fridman (3:25:08.680)
in terms of dealing with these existential issues.
Lex Fridman (3:25:10.880)
And I think, you know, it's something we,
Lex Fridman (3:25:12.280)
I could say that I really feel that I've come along
Matthew Johnson (3:25:15.080)
in that both like being with folks who have died
Lex Fridman (3:25:18.080)
that are close to me, and then also that work,
Matthew Johnson (3:25:20.880)
I think are the two biggies in sort of,
Lex Fridman (3:25:23.080)
you know, I think I've come along in that,
Matthew Johnson (3:25:26.080)
that sort of acceptance of this, like it's not gonna last.
Lex Fridman (3:25:31.080)
And whether at the personal level
Matthew Johnson (3:25:33.080)
or even at the species level, like at some point,
Lex Fridman (3:25:35.080)
all the stars are gonna fade out,
Lex Fridman (3:25:37.080)
and it's gonna be the realm of,
Lex Fridman (3:25:38.080)
which is gonna be the vast majority,
Matthew Johnson (3:25:40.080)
unless there's a big crunch,
Lex Fridman (3:25:41.080)
which apparently doesn't seem likely.
Matthew Johnson (3:25:43.080)
Like most of the universe, there's this blink of an eye
Lex Fridman (3:25:45.080)
that's happening right now that life is even possible,
Matthew Johnson (3:25:47.080)
like the era of stars.
Lex Fridman (3:25:49.080)
So it's like, we're gonna fade out at some point.
Matthew Johnson (3:25:52.080)
Like, you know, and you know,
Lex Fridman (3:25:55.080)
then we get at this level of consciousness and like, okay,
Matthew Johnson (3:25:58.080)
maybe there is life after death.
Lex Fridman (3:26:00.080)
Maybe there's, maybe time's an illusion.
Matthew Johnson (3:26:02.080)
Like that part I'm ready for.
Lex Fridman (3:26:04.080)
Like, I'm like, you know, like that,
Matthew Johnson (3:26:06.080)
that would be really great.
Lex Fridman (3:26:08.080)
And I'm looking, I'm not afraid of that at all.
Matthew Johnson (3:26:10.080)
It's like, even if it's just strange,
Lex Fridman (3:26:12.080)
like if I could push a button to enter that door,
Matthew Johnson (3:26:14.080)
I mean, I'm not gonna, you know, die,
Lex Fridman (3:26:16.080)
you know, I can kill myself, but it's like,
Matthew Johnson (3:26:18.080)
if I could take a peek at what that reality is
Lex Fridman (3:26:20.080)
or choose at the end of my life,
Matthew Johnson (3:26:22.080)
if I could choose of entering into a universe
Lex Fridman (3:26:25.080)
where there is an afterlife of something completely unknown
Matthew Johnson (3:26:28.080)
versus one where there's none,
Lex Fridman (3:26:29.080)
I think I'd say, well, let's see what's behind that.
Matthew Johnson (3:26:32.080)
That's a true scientist way of thinking.
Lex Fridman (3:26:34.080)
If there's a door, you're excited about opening it
Lex Fridman (3:26:36.080)
and going in.
Lex Fridman (3:26:38.080)
Right.
Matthew Johnson (3:26:39.080)
When I am attracted to this idea, like, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:26:43.080)
and I recognize it's easier said than done
Matthew Johnson (3:26:45.080)
to say I'm okay with not existing.
Lex Fridman (3:26:47.080)
It's like the real test is like, okay, check me on my deathbed.
Matthew Johnson (3:26:50.080)
You know, it's like, oh, I'll be all right.
Lex Fridman (3:26:52.080)
It's a beautiful thing and the humility of surrendering.
Lex Fridman (3:26:55.080)
And I really hope, and I think I'd probably be more likely
Lex Fridman (3:26:58.080)
to be in that realm right now than I would,
Matthew Johnson (3:27:01.080)
or check me when I get a terminal cancer diagnosis,
Lex Fridman (3:27:05.080)
and I really hope I'm more in that realm.
Lex Fridman (3:27:07.080)
But I know enough about human nature to know that, like,
Lex Fridman (3:27:10.080)
I can't really speak to that
Matthew Johnson (3:27:12.080)
because I haven't been in that situation.
Lex Fridman (3:27:14.080)
And I think there can be a beauty to that
Lex Fridman (3:27:17.080)
and the transcendence of like, yeah,
Lex Fridman (3:27:19.080)
and, you know, it was beautiful,
Matthew Johnson (3:27:21.080)
not just despite all that, but because of that,
Lex Fridman (3:27:24.080)
because ultimately there's going to be nothing
Lex Fridman (3:27:27.080)
and because we came from nothing
Lex Fridman (3:27:28.080)
and we dealt with all this shit,
Matthew Johnson (3:27:30.080)
the fact that there was still beauty and truth
Lex Fridman (3:27:32.080)
and connection, like, that, you know,
Matthew Johnson (3:27:35.080)
like it just, it's a beautiful thing.
Lex Fridman (3:27:38.080)
But I hope I'm in that.
Matthew Johnson (3:27:40.080)
It's easy to say that now.
Lex Fridman (3:27:42.080)
Like, yeah.
Lex Fridman (3:27:44.080)
Do you think there's a meaning to this thing
Lex Fridman (3:27:47.080)
we got going on, life, existence on earth to us individuals
Matthew Johnson (3:27:55.080)
from a psychedelics researcher perspective
Lex Fridman (3:27:58.080)
or from just a human perspective?
Matthew Johnson (3:28:00.080)
Those merged together for me, like, because it's just hard.
Lex Fridman (3:28:04.080)
I've been doing this research for almost 17 years
Lex Fridman (3:28:07.080)
and like, not just the cancer study,
Lex Fridman (3:28:09.080)
but so many times people like,
Matthew Johnson (3:28:12.080)
I remember a session in one of our studies,
Lex Fridman (3:28:15.080)
someone who wasn't getting any treatment for anything,
Lex Fridman (3:28:18.080)
but one of our healthy normal studies
Lex Fridman (3:28:19.080)
where he was contemplating the suicide of his son
Lex Fridman (3:28:23.080)
and just these, I mean,
Lex Fridman (3:28:25.080)
just like the most intense human experiences
Matthew Johnson (3:28:28.080)
that you can have in the most vulnerable situations.
Lex Fridman (3:28:32.080)
Sometimes like people like, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:28:35.080)
and it's just like, you have to have a,
Lex Fridman (3:28:38.080)
and you just feel lucky to be part of that process
Matthew Johnson (3:28:40.080)
that people trust you to let their guards down like that.
Lex Fridman (3:28:46.080)
Like, I don't know, the meaning,
Matthew Johnson (3:28:47.080)
I think the meaning of life is to find meaning.
Lex Fridman (3:28:52.080)
And I think, actually, I think I just described it a minute ago.
Matthew Johnson (3:28:55.080)
It's like that transcendence of everything.
Lex Fridman (3:28:57.080)
Like, it's the beauty despite the absolute ugliness.
Matthew Johnson (3:29:02.080)
It's the, and as a species, and I think more about this,
Lex Fridman (3:29:07.080)
like, I think about this a lot.
Matthew Johnson (3:29:08.080)
It's the fact that we are, I mean, we come from filth.
Lex Fridman (3:29:15.080)
I mean, we're, you know, we're animals.
Matthew Johnson (3:29:18.080)
We come from, like, we're all descendant
Lex Fridman (3:29:21.080)
from murderers and rapists.
Matthew Johnson (3:29:23.080)
Like, we, despite that background,
Lex Fridman (3:29:27.080)
we are capable of the self sacrifice and the connection
Lex Fridman (3:29:33.080)
and figuring things out, you know, science
Lex Fridman (3:29:37.080)
and other forms of truth, you know, seeking,
Lex Fridman (3:29:40.080)
and an artwork, just the beauty of music
Lex Fridman (3:29:44.080)
and other forms of art.
Matthew Johnson (3:29:45.080)
It's like the fact that that's possible
Lex Fridman (3:29:48.080)
is the meaning of life.
Matthew Johnson (3:29:51.080)
I mean...
Lex Fridman (3:29:52.080)
And ultimately, that feels to be creating
Matthew Johnson (3:29:54.080)
more and richer experiences.
Lex Fridman (3:29:57.080)
The, from a Russian perspective, both the dark,
Matthew Johnson (3:30:03.080)
you mentioned the cancer diagnosis
Lex Fridman (3:30:05.080)
or losing a child to suicide or all those dark things
Matthew Johnson (3:30:11.080)
is still rich experiences.
Lex Fridman (3:30:14.080)
And also the beautiful creations, the art,
Matthew Johnson (3:30:17.080)
the music, the science, that's also rich experience.
Lex Fridman (3:30:20.080)
So somehow we're figuring out from just like psychedelics
Matthew Johnson (3:30:24.080)
expand our mind to the possibility of experiences.
Lex Fridman (3:30:26.080)
Somehow we're able to figure out different ways
Matthew Johnson (3:30:29.080)
as a society to expand the realm of experiences.
Lex Fridman (3:30:33.080)
And from that we gain meaning somehow.
Matthew Johnson (3:30:35.080)
Right. And that's part of like this,
Lex Fridman (3:30:36.080)
we're going across different levels here,
Lex Fridman (3:30:38.080)
but like the idea that so called bad trips
Lex Fridman (3:30:40.080)
or challenging experiences are so common
Matthew Johnson (3:30:42.080)
in psychedelic experiences, it's like,
Lex Fridman (3:30:44.080)
that's a part of that.
Matthew Johnson (3:30:46.080)
Like, yeah, it's tough.
Lex Fridman (3:30:47.080)
And most of the important things in life
Matthew Johnson (3:30:49.080)
are really, really tough and scary.
Lex Fridman (3:30:51.080)
And most of the things like the death of a loved one,
Matthew Johnson (3:30:54.080)
like the greatest learning experiences
Lex Fridman (3:30:57.080)
and things that make you who you are are the horrors.
Lex Fridman (3:31:01.080)
And it's like, yeah, we try to minimize them.
Lex Fridman (3:31:03.080)
We try to avoid them, but I don't know.
Matthew Johnson (3:31:06.080)
I think we all need to get into the mode
Lex Fridman (3:31:08.080)
of like giving ourselves a break,
Matthew Johnson (3:31:09.080)
both personally and societally.
Lex Fridman (3:31:12.080)
I mean, I went through like the,
Matthew Johnson (3:31:14.080)
I think a lot of people do these days in my twenties,
Lex Fridman (3:31:16.080)
like, oh, the humans are just kind of a disease
Matthew Johnson (3:31:20.080)
on the planet.
Lex Fridman (3:31:22.080)
And then in terms of our country,
Matthew Johnson (3:31:23.080)
in terms of the United States, it's like,
Lex Fridman (3:31:25.080)
oh, we have all these horrible sins in our past.
Lex Fridman (3:31:28.080)
And it's like, I think about that like the,
Lex Fridman (3:31:32.080)
I think about it like my three year old.
Matthew Johnson (3:31:34.080)
It's like, yeah, you can construct a story
Lex Fridman (3:31:36.080)
where this is all just horrible.
Matthew Johnson (3:31:38.080)
You can look at that stuff and say,
Lex Fridman (3:31:40.080)
this is all just horror.
Matthew Johnson (3:31:42.080)
Like there's no logical answer to our rational answer
Lex Fridman (3:31:47.080)
to say we're not a disease on the planet.
Matthew Johnson (3:31:48.080)
From one lens we are.
Lex Fridman (3:31:50.080)
And you could just look at humanity as that,
Matthew Johnson (3:31:57.080)
like nothing but this horrible thing.
Lex Fridman (3:31:58.080)
You can look at, and you name the system,
Matthew Johnson (3:32:01.080)
modern medicine, Western medicine,
Lex Fridman (3:32:04.080)
the university system.
Lex Fridman (3:32:05.080)
And it's like, you could dismiss everything.
Lex Fridman (3:32:07.080)
So, big pharma, like hopefully these vaccines work.
Lex Fridman (3:32:10.080)
And then like, yeah, I'd like to,
Lex Fridman (3:32:12.080)
I'm kind of glad the big pharma was a part of that.
Lex Fridman (3:32:15.080)
And it's like the United States,
Lex Fridman (3:32:17.080)
you can like point to the horrors,
Matthew Johnson (3:32:20.080)
like any other country that's been around a long time
Lex Fridman (3:32:22.080)
that has these legitimate horrors
Lex Fridman (3:32:24.080)
and kind of dismiss like these beautiful things.
Lex Fridman (3:32:27.080)
Like, yeah, we have this like modifiable constitutional republic
Matthew Johnson (3:32:31.080)
that just like I still think is the best thing going.
Lex Fridman (3:32:35.080)
That as a model system of like how humans have to figure out
Lex Fridman (3:32:40.080)
how to work together.
Lex Fridman (3:32:41.080)
It's like, there's no better system that I've come across.
Matthew Johnson (3:32:46.080)
Yeah, there's, if we're willing to look for it,
Lex Fridman (3:32:50.080)
there's a beautiful core to a lot of things we've created.
Matthew Johnson (3:32:53.080)
Yeah, this country is a great example of that.
Lex Fridman (3:32:57.080)
But most of the human experience has a beauty to it,
Matthew Johnson (3:33:00.080)
even the suffering.
Lex Fridman (3:33:01.080)
Right.
Matthew Johnson (3:33:02.080)
So, the meaning is choosing to focus on that positivity
Lex Fridman (3:33:06.080)
and not forget it.
Matthew Johnson (3:33:07.080)
Beautifully put.
Lex Fridman (3:33:08.080)
Speaking of experiences,
Matthew Johnson (3:33:09.080)
this was one of my favorite experiences on this podcast
Lex Fridman (3:33:13.080)
talking to you today, Matthew.
Matthew Johnson (3:33:15.080)
I hope we get a chance to talk again.
Lex Fridman (3:33:17.080)
I hope to see you and Joe Rogan.
Matthew Johnson (3:33:19.080)
It's a huge honor to talk to you.
Lex Fridman (3:33:21.080)
Can't wait to read your papers.
Matthew Johnson (3:33:23.080)
Thanks for talking today.
Lex Fridman (3:33:24.080)
Likewise, I very much enjoyed it.
Matthew Johnson (3:33:26.080)
Thank you.
Lex Fridman (3:33:27.080)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Matthew Johnson.
Lex Fridman (3:33:30.080)
And thank you to our sponsors.
Lex Fridman (3:33:32.080)
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Lex Fridman (3:33:35.080)
but has more privacy preserving features.
Lex Fridman (3:33:38.080)
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Matthew Johnson (3:33:41.080)
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Lex Fridman (3:33:44.080)
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Lex Fridman (3:33:47.080)
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Lex Fridman (3:33:51.080)
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Matthew Johnson (3:33:53.080)
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Lex Fridman (3:33:56.080)
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Matthew Johnson (3:33:59.080)
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Lex Fridman (3:34:01.080)
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Matthew Johnson (3:34:04.080)
or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (3:34:07.080)
And now let me leave you with some words from Terrence McKenna.
Matthew Johnson (3:34:10.080)
Nature loves courage.
Lex Fridman (3:34:12.080)
You make the commitment and nature will respond
Matthew Johnson (3:34:15.080)
to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles.
Lex Fridman (3:34:18.080)
Dream the impossible dream
Lex Fridman (3:34:20.080)
and the world will not grind you under.
Lex Fridman (3:34:23.080)
It will lift you up.
Matthew Johnson (3:34:24.080)
This is the trick.
Lex Fridman (3:34:26.080)
This is what all these teachers and philosophers
Matthew Johnson (3:34:28.080)
who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold.
Lex Fridman (3:34:32.080)
This is what they understood.
Matthew Johnson (3:34:34.080)
This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall.
Lex Fridman (3:34:37.080)
This is how magic is done
Matthew Johnson (3:34:39.080)
by hurling yourself into the abyss
Lex Fridman (3:34:42.080)
and discovering it's a feather bed.
Matthew Johnson (3:34:45.080)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (40:01.380)
and some people can't,
Matthew Johnson (40:06.860)
they're propelled into this other reality.
Lex Fridman (40:10.820)
And the nature of that other reality will differ
Matthew Johnson (40:14.060)
depending on who you ask,
Lex Fridman (40:15.300)
but folks will often talk about it.
Lex Fridman (40:18.180)
And we've done some survey research on this.
Lex Fridman (40:21.780)
Entities of different types, elves tend to pop up.
Matthew Johnson (40:27.220)
The caveat is that I strongly presume
Lex Fridman (40:29.780)
all of this is culturally influenced,
Lex Fridman (40:32.500)
but thinking more about the psychology and the neuroscience,
Lex Fridman (40:36.260)
there is probably something fundamental,
Matthew Johnson (40:38.620)
like for someone that might be colored as elves,
Lex Fridman (40:41.820)
others that might be colored as,
Matthew Johnson (40:44.020)
Terrence McKenna called them self dribbling basketballs.
Lex Fridman (40:46.860)
For someone else, it might be little animals
Matthew Johnson (40:49.220)
or someone else, it might be aliens.
Lex Fridman (40:52.140)
I think that probably is dependent on who they are
Lex Fridman (40:55.020)
and what they've been exposed to.
Lex Fridman (40:56.060)
But just the fact that one has this sense
Matthew Johnson (40:58.860)
that they're surrounded by autonomous entities.
Lex Fridman (41:02.620)
Right, intelligent autonomous entities.
Matthew Johnson (41:04.580)
Right, and people come back with stories
Lex Fridman (41:06.500)
that are just astonishing.
Matthew Johnson (41:09.340)
Like there's communication between these,
Lex Fridman (41:12.580)
communication between these entities
Lex Fridman (41:15.220)
and often they're telling them things
Lex Fridman (41:18.940)
that the person says are self validating,
Lex Fridman (41:23.780)
but it seems like it's impossible.
Lex Fridman (41:25.900)
Like it really seems like, and again,
Matthew Johnson (41:28.180)
this is what people say oftentimes,
Lex Fridman (41:31.060)
that it really is like downloading some intelligence
Matthew Johnson (41:35.740)
from a higher dimension or some whatever metaphor
Lex Fridman (41:39.020)
you wanna use.
Matthew Johnson (41:39.860)
Sometimes these things come up in dreams
Lex Fridman (41:41.540)
like someone is exposed to something that,
Matthew Johnson (41:43.660)
I've had this in a dream,
Lex Fridman (41:45.740)
where it seems like what they are being exposed to
Matthew Johnson (41:48.620)
is physically impossible,
Lex Fridman (41:51.700)
but yet at the same time self validating, it seems true.
Matthew Johnson (41:56.020)
Like they really are figuring something out.
Lex Fridman (41:57.900)
Of course, the challenge is to say something
Matthew Johnson (41:59.940)
in concrete terms after the experience
Lex Fridman (42:03.540)
where you could verify that in any way.
Lex Fridman (42:07.060)
And I'm not familiar of any examples of that.
Lex Fridman (42:10.980)
Well, there's a sense in which I suppose the experience
Matthew Johnson (42:15.220)
is like you're a limited cognitive creature
Lex Fridman (42:22.380)
that knows very little about the world
Lex Fridman (42:24.300)
and here's a chance to communicate
Lex Fridman (42:26.580)
with much wiser entities that in a way
Matthew Johnson (42:30.700)
that you can't possibly understand
Lex Fridman (42:32.260)
are trying to give you hints of deeper truths.
Lex Fridman (42:38.660)
And so there's that kind of sense
Lex Fridman (42:40.540)
that you can take something back,
Lex Fridman (42:42.340)
but you can't where our cognition is not capable
Lex Fridman (42:46.500)
to fully grasp the truth.
Matthew Johnson (42:48.420)
We'll just get a kind of sense of it
Lex Fridman (42:50.540)
and somehow that process is mind expanding
Matthew Johnson (42:53.920)
that there's a greater truth out there.
Lex Fridman (42:56.820)
That seems like what from the people
Matthew Johnson (42:59.540)
I've heard talk about that seems to be what it is.
Lex Fridman (43:04.140)
And that's so fascinating that there's fundamentally
Matthew Johnson (43:08.320)
to this whole thing is a communication
Lex Fridman (43:09.980)
between an entity that is other than yourself, entities.
Lex Fridman (43:15.460)
So it's not just like a visual experience
Lex Fridman (43:17.820)
like you're like floating through the world
Matthew Johnson (43:21.100)
is there's other beings there,
Lex Fridman (43:23.380)
which is kind of, I don't know.
Matthew Johnson (43:26.020)
I don't know what to sort of,
Lex Fridman (43:27.980)
from a person who likes Freud and Carl Jung,
Matthew Johnson (43:30.700)
I don't know what to think about that.
Lex Fridman (43:32.180)
That being of course from one perspective
Matthew Johnson (43:34.440)
is just you looking in the mirror.
Lex Fridman (43:36.680)
But it could also be from another perspective
Matthew Johnson (43:39.100)
like actually talking to other beings.
Lex Fridman (43:41.900)
Yeah, you mentioned Jung
Lex Fridman (43:43.260)
and I think he's particularly interesting
Lex Fridman (43:45.660)
and it kind of points to something
Matthew Johnson (43:47.260)
I was thinking about saying is that,
Lex Fridman (43:50.500)
I think what might be going on
Matthew Johnson (43:52.500)
from a naturalistic perspective.
Lex Fridman (43:55.040)
So regardless, whether or not there are,
Matthew Johnson (43:58.660)
it doesn't depend on autonomous entities out there.
Lex Fridman (44:01.660)
What might be happening is that just the associative net,
Matthew Johnson (44:06.660)
the level of learning,
Lex Fridman (44:08.980)
the comprehension might be so beyond what someone is used to
Matthew Johnson (44:17.180)
that the only way for the nervous system,
Lex Fridman (44:20.620)
for the aware sense of self to orient towards it
Matthew Johnson (44:25.780)
is all by metaphor.
Lex Fridman (44:27.500)
And so I do think,
Matthew Johnson (44:29.020)
when we get into these realms as a strong empiricist,
Lex Fridman (44:33.220)
I think we always gotta be careful
Lex Fridman (44:34.900)
and be as grounded as possible,
Lex Fridman (44:36.700)
but I'm also willing to speculate
Lex Fridman (44:39.260)
and sort of cast the nets wide with caveat.
Lex Fridman (44:42.380)
But I think of things like archetypes
Lex Fridman (44:44.620)
and it's plausible that there are certain stories,
Lex Fridman (44:48.900)
there are certain,
Matthew Johnson (44:49.740)
we've gone through millions of years of evolution.
Lex Fridman (44:52.980)
It may be that we have certain characters and stories
Matthew Johnson (44:58.140)
that our central nervous system is sort of wired
Lex Fridman (45:03.140)
to tend to.
Matthew Johnson (45:05.020)
Yeah, those stories, we carry those stories in us.
Lex Fridman (45:07.740)
Right.
Lex Fridman (45:08.580)
And this unlocks them in a certain kind of way.
Lex Fridman (45:10.460)
And we think about stories.
Matthew Johnson (45:11.900)
Like our sense of self is basically,
Lex Fridman (45:13.420)
narrative self is a story.
Lex Fridman (45:15.060)
And we think about the world of stories.
Lex Fridman (45:18.700)
This is why metaphors are always more powerful
Matthew Johnson (45:20.660)
than sort of laying out all the details all the time,
Lex Fridman (45:25.480)
speaking in parables.
Matthew Johnson (45:26.700)
It's like, if you really get some,
Lex Fridman (45:28.460)
this is why, as much as I hate it,
Matthew Johnson (45:31.100)
if you're presenting to Congress or something
Lex Fridman (45:33.340)
and you have all the best data in the world,
Matthew Johnson (45:36.780)
it's not as powerful as that one anecdote
Lex Fridman (45:39.220)
as the mom dying of cancer that had the psilocybin session
Lex Fridman (45:44.580)
and it transformed her life.
Lex Fridman (45:46.540)
That's a story, that's meaningful.
Lex Fridman (45:48.520)
And so when this kind of unimaginable kind of change
Lex Fridman (45:53.260)
and experience happens with a DMT ingestion,
Matthew Johnson (45:58.260)
these stories of entities, they might be that,
Lex Fridman (46:04.740)
stories that are constructed that is the closest,
Matthew Johnson (46:08.320)
which is not to say the stories aren't real.
Lex Fridman (46:09.980)
I mean, I think we're getting to layers where
Matthew Johnson (46:12.660)
it doesn't really, right.
Lex Fridman (46:14.660)
Yeah, but it's the closest we can come
Matthew Johnson (46:17.880)
to making sense out of it.
Lex Fridman (46:19.100)
Because what we do know about these psychedelics,
Matthew Johnson (46:22.260)
one of the levels beyond the receptor
Lex Fridman (46:24.060)
is that the brain is communicating it with itself
Matthew Johnson (46:26.380)
in a massively different way.
Lex Fridman (46:28.420)
There's massive communication with areas
Matthew Johnson (46:30.460)
that don't normally communicate.
Lex Fridman (46:32.580)
And so I think that comes with both,
Matthew Johnson (46:36.900)
it's casting the nets wide.
Lex Fridman (46:38.620)
I think that comes with the insights
Lex Fridman (46:41.020)
and helpful novel ways of thinking.
Lex Fridman (46:42.760)
I do think it comes with false positives,
Matthew Johnson (46:45.300)
that could be some of the delusion.
Lex Fridman (46:48.680)
And so when you're so far out there,
Matthew Johnson (46:52.200)
like with the DMT experience,
Lex Fridman (46:53.740)
like maybe alien is the best way
Matthew Johnson (46:58.660)
that the mind can wrap some arms around that.
Lex Fridman (47:02.500)
So I don't know how much you're familiar with Joe Rogan,
Lex Fridman (47:05.660)
but he does bring up DMT quite a bit.
Lex Fridman (47:08.340)
It's almost a meme, it is a meme.
Lex Fridman (47:11.160)
Have you ever, what is it, have you ever tried DMT?
Lex Fridman (47:16.260)
I mean, I think he talks about this experience
Matthew Johnson (47:18.620)
of having met other entities
Lex Fridman (47:22.340)
and they were mocking him, I think,
Matthew Johnson (47:26.540)
if I remember the experience correctly,
Lex Fridman (47:28.680)
like laughing at him and saying F you, F you,
Matthew Johnson (47:31.180)
or something like that.
Lex Fridman (47:32.740)
I may be misremembering this,
Lex Fridman (47:34.300)
but there's a general mockery.
Lex Fridman (47:37.260)
And what he learned from that experience
Matthew Johnson (47:40.260)
is that he shouldn't take himself too seriously.
Lex Fridman (47:42.600)
So it's the dissolution of the ego and so on.
Lex Fridman (47:45.440)
Like what do you think about that experience?
Lex Fridman (47:48.820)
And maybe if you have more general things
Matthew Johnson (47:50.620)
about Joe's infatuation with DMT
Lex Fridman (47:54.620)
and if DMT has that important role to play
Matthew Johnson (47:58.700)
in popular culture in general.
Lex Fridman (48:01.980)
I'm definitely familiar with it.
Matthew Johnson (48:03.420)
I remember telling you offline
Lex Fridman (48:04.980)
that when I first, the first time I learned
Matthew Johnson (48:07.780)
who Joe Rogan was, it was probably 15 years ago.
Lex Fridman (48:11.460)
And I came upon a clip and I realized
Matthew Johnson (48:14.180)
there's another person in the world
Lex Fridman (48:15.780)
who's into both DMT and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Lex Fridman (48:19.020)
And I think both those worlds have grown dramatically since
Lex Fridman (48:22.220)
and it's probably not such a special club these days.
Lex Fridman (48:24.440)
So he definitely got onto my radar screen quickly.
Lex Fridman (48:29.020)
You were into both before it was cool.
Matthew Johnson (48:31.980)
Right, I mean, this is all relative
Lex Fridman (48:33.820)
because there's people that were before the late 90s
Lex Fridman (48:36.500)
and early 2000s who were into it
Lex Fridman (48:37.820)
to say you're a Johnny come lately.
Lex Fridman (48:39.400)
But yeah, compared to where we're at now.
Lex Fridman (48:42.460)
But yet one of the things I always found fascinating
Matthew Johnson (48:44.940)
by Joe's telling of his experiences I think
Lex Fridman (48:52.020)
is that they resemble very much
Matthew Johnson (48:54.500)
Terrence McKenna's experiences with DMT
Lex Fridman (48:57.860)
and Joe has talked very much about Terrence McKenna
Lex Fridman (49:01.020)
and his experiences.
Lex Fridman (49:03.260)
If I had to guess, I would guess
Matthew Johnson (49:04.660)
that probably just having heard Terrence McKenna
Lex Fridman (49:08.540)
talk about his experiences that that influenced
Matthew Johnson (49:13.020)
the coloring of Joe's experience.
Lex Fridman (49:15.660)
It's funny how that works
Matthew Johnson (49:17.220)
because I mean, that's why McKenna hasn't,
Lex Fridman (49:19.980)
I mean, poets and great orators give us the words
Matthew Johnson (49:25.020)
to then like start to describe our experiences
Lex Fridman (49:27.540)
because our words are limited, our language is limited.
Lex Fridman (49:30.620)
And it's always nice to get some kind of nice poetry
Lex Fridman (49:33.220)
into the mix to allow us to put words to it.
Matthew Johnson (49:36.360)
Right, but I also see some elements
Lex Fridman (49:40.060)
that seem to relate to Joe's psychology
Matthew Johnson (49:43.180)
just from what I've seen from hours
Lex Fridman (49:46.220)
of watching him on his podcast
Matthew Johnson (49:47.880)
is that he's a self critical guy.
Lex Fridman (49:52.340)
And I think with always his positive been,
Matthew Johnson (49:54.100)
I'm always struck being a behavioral pharmacologist
Lex Fridman (49:56.900)
and no one else really says it about cannabis.
Matthew Johnson (49:59.180)
I'll get back to the DMT thing about
Lex Fridman (50:00.780)
he likes the kind of the paranoid side of things.
Matthew Johnson (50:03.300)
He's like, that's you radically examining yourself.
Lex Fridman (50:05.820)
It's like, that's not just a bad thing.
Matthew Johnson (50:07.540)
That's you need to like look hard at yourself
Lex Fridman (50:09.940)
and something's making you uncomfortable,
Matthew Johnson (50:11.780)
like dig into that.
Lex Fridman (50:13.060)
And like, that's his,
Matthew Johnson (50:14.180)
it's sort of along the lines of Goggins with exercise.
Lex Fridman (50:16.860)
And it's like, yeah, like things,
Matthew Johnson (50:19.100)
learning experiences aren't supposed to be easy.
Lex Fridman (50:21.620)
Like take advantage of these uncomfortable experience.
Matthew Johnson (50:24.780)
It's why we call in our research
Lex Fridman (50:26.620)
in a safe context with psychedelics,
Matthew Johnson (50:28.700)
they're not bad trips, they're challenging experiences.
Lex Fridman (50:32.220)
Yes, yeah, that's fascinating.
Matthew Johnson (50:33.820)
Just that's the tiny tangent.
Lex Fridman (50:35.980)
It's always cool for me to hear him talk about marijuana,
Matthew Johnson (50:40.780)
like weed as the paranoia, the anxiety or whatever
Lex Fridman (50:44.540)
that you experience as actually the fuel for the experience.
Matthew Johnson (50:50.580)
Like I think he talks about smoking weed when he's writing.
Lex Fridman (50:54.420)
That's inspiring to me because
Matthew Johnson (50:56.220)
then you can't possibly have a bad experience.
Lex Fridman (50:59.460)
I'm a huge fan of that.
Matthew Johnson (51:00.500)
Like every experience is good.
Lex Fridman (51:03.380)
Right, which is very Goggins.
Lex Fridman (51:04.780)
Yeah, yeah, is it bad?
Lex Fridman (51:06.540)
Okay, all right, great, you know.
Matthew Johnson (51:08.300)
Well, see Goggins is one side of that.
Lex Fridman (51:09.980)
He wants it bad.
Matthew Johnson (51:11.740)
Like he wants the experience to be challenging always.
Lex Fridman (51:14.860)
But I mean like both are good.
Matthew Johnson (51:17.500)
Like the few times of taking mushrooms,
Lex Fridman (51:21.700)
the experience was like everything was beautiful.
Matthew Johnson (51:26.340)
There's zero challenging aspect to it.
Lex Fridman (51:29.900)
It was just like the world is beautiful
Lex Fridman (51:32.020)
and it gave me this deep appreciation of the world.
Lex Fridman (51:35.020)
I would say, so like that's amazing,
Lex Fridman (51:37.740)
but also ones that challenge you are also amazing.
Lex Fridman (51:41.180)
Like all the times I drink vodka,
Lex Fridman (51:42.580)
but that's another, let's not.
Lex Fridman (51:45.900)
So back to DMT.
Matthew Johnson (51:48.260)
Yeah, Joe's treating cannabis as a psychedelic,
Lex Fridman (51:52.180)
which is something that I'd say like a lot of people
Matthew Johnson (51:54.820)
treat it more like Xanax or like beer or vodka.
Lex Fridman (51:59.820)
But he's really trying to delve into those minor,
Matthew Johnson (52:03.940)
it's been called a minor psychedelic.
Lex Fridman (52:05.260)
So with DMT, as you brought up,
Matthew Johnson (52:07.740)
it's like the entity's mocking him.
Lex Fridman (52:10.220)
And it's like, you're not, I mean, this reminds me of him,
Matthew Johnson (52:13.580)
him describing his, like writing his,
Lex Fridman (52:16.780)
or just his entire method of comedy.
Matthew Johnson (52:20.940)
It's like, watch the tape of yourself.
Lex Fridman (52:23.540)
Don't just ignore it.
Matthew Johnson (52:24.580)
Like that's where I screwed up.
Lex Fridman (52:26.740)
That's where I need to do better.
Matthew Johnson (52:28.020)
This like sort of radical self examination,
Lex Fridman (52:31.180)
which I think our society is kind of getting away from
Matthew Johnson (52:33.460)
because like, all the children win trophies type of thing.
Lex Fridman (52:36.580)
And it's like, no, no, don't go overboard,
Lex Fridman (52:39.140)
but like recognize when you've messed up.
Lex Fridman (52:41.740)
And so that's a big part of the psychedelic experience.
Matthew Johnson (52:45.260)
Like people come out sometimes saying,
Lex Fridman (52:48.340)
my God, I need to say sorry to my mom.
Matthew Johnson (52:52.380)
It's so obvious, or whatever interpersonal issue
Lex Fridman (52:57.380)
or like, my God, I'm not pulling enough weight
Matthew Johnson (53:00.420)
around the house and helping my wife.
Lex Fridman (53:02.780)
And these things that are just obvious to them,
Matthew Johnson (53:07.160)
the self criticism that can be a very positive thing
Lex Fridman (53:09.820)
if you act on it.
Matthew Johnson (53:12.020)
You've mentioned addiction.
Lex Fridman (53:13.580)
Maybe we could take a little bit detour
Matthew Johnson (53:15.380)
into a darker aspect of things,
Lex Fridman (53:18.180)
or not even darker, it's just an important aspect of things.
Lex Fridman (53:22.260)
What's the nature of addiction?
Lex Fridman (53:24.740)
You've mentioned some things within the big umbrella
Matthew Johnson (53:28.980)
of psychedelics may be usually not addictive,
Lex Fridman (53:32.580)
but maybe MDMA, I think you said
Matthew Johnson (53:35.140)
might have some addictive properties,
Lex Fridman (53:37.180)
but the point is stuff outside of the psychedelics umbrella
Matthew Johnson (53:41.060)
can often be highly addictive.
Lex Fridman (53:43.940)
So you've studied addiction from several angles,
Matthew Johnson (53:47.360)
one of which is behavioral economics.
Lex Fridman (53:49.820)
What have you understood about addiction?
Lex Fridman (53:53.700)
What is addiction from the biological physiological level
Lex Fridman (53:57.980)
to the psychological to whatever is the interesting way
Lex Fridman (54:00.860)
to talk about addiction?
Lex Fridman (54:02.560)
Yeah, and the lenses that I view addiction through
Matthew Johnson (54:05.680)
very much are behavioral economic,
Lex Fridman (54:08.700)
but I also think they converge on,
Matthew Johnson (54:11.420)
I think it's beautiful at the other end of the spectrum,
Lex Fridman (54:13.500)
sort of just a completely humanistic psychology perspective.
Matthew Johnson (54:20.420)
It converges on what people come out of,
Lex Fridman (54:22.780)
12 step meetings talking about.
Lex Fridman (54:24.740)
Can you say what is behavioral economics
Lex Fridman (54:27.340)
and what is humanistic psychology?
Lex Fridman (54:30.020)
Like, what do you mean by that?
Lex Fridman (54:31.060)
And more importantly, behavioral economics lens,
Lex Fridman (54:33.820)
what is that?
Lex Fridman (54:34.660)
Yeah, so behavioral economics,
Matthew Johnson (54:36.140)
my definition of it is the application
Lex Fridman (54:38.260)
of economic principles, mostly microeconomic principles.
Lex Fridman (54:41.600)
So understanding the behavior of individual agents
Lex Fridman (54:47.840)
surrounding commodities in the marketplace,
Matthew Johnson (54:51.520)
applying microeconomic types of analyses
Lex Fridman (54:56.380)
to non economic behavior.
Lex Fridman (54:59.900)
So basically at one point,
Lex Fridman (55:01.660)
like psychologists figured out
Matthew Johnson (55:03.460)
that there's this whole other discipline
Lex Fridman (55:05.540)
that's been studying behavior,
Matthew Johnson (55:06.780)
it just happened to be all focused on monetary behavior,
Lex Fridman (55:09.540)
spending and saving money, et cetera.
Lex Fridman (55:12.400)
But it comes with all of these like principles
Lex Fridman (55:14.540)
that can be wildly and fruitfully applied
Matthew Johnson (55:17.700)
to understanding behavior.
Lex Fridman (55:18.940)
So for example, I've studied things like
Matthew Johnson (55:22.660)
demand curve analysis of drug consumption.
Lex Fridman (55:25.020)
So I look at, for example, tobacco, cigarettes
Lex Fridman (55:30.440)
and nicotine products through the lens of demand curves.
Lex Fridman (55:35.340)
And in other words, at different prices,
Matthew Johnson (55:38.340)
if there's different work requirements
Lex Fridman (55:40.660)
for being able to smoke cigarettes, sort of modeling price.
Matthew Johnson (55:45.900)
Within that price data,
Lex Fridman (55:47.120)
there is some indication of addiction,
Lex Fridman (55:49.500)
how much the habits that you form
Lex Fridman (55:52.100)
around these particular drugs.
Matthew Johnson (55:54.600)
It's one important dimension.
Lex Fridman (55:56.380)
So I think a particularly important one there
Matthew Johnson (55:58.100)
is elasticity or inelasticity, two ends of the spectrum.
Lex Fridman (56:02.660)
So that's the price sensitivity.
Lex Fridman (56:05.340)
So for example, you could have something
Lex Fridman (56:07.740)
that's pretty price inelastic, like gasoline.
Lex Fridman (56:14.660)
So the price of gas at times can keep going up
Lex Fridman (56:16.940)
and Americans are just gonna pretty much
Matthew Johnson (56:20.500)
buy the same amount of gas.
Lex Fridman (56:21.540)
Or maybe the price of gas doubles,
Lex Fridman (56:24.100)
but their consumption only decreases by 10%.
Lex Fridman (56:26.260)
So it's a sub proportional reduction.
Lex Fridman (56:28.640)
So that's an inelastic.
Lex Fridman (56:30.500)
And that changes, like you push the price up high enough.
Matthew Johnson (56:33.240)
I mean, if it was $100 a gallon, it would eventually turn,
Lex Fridman (56:35.900)
the curve would turn and go downward more drastically
Lex Fridman (56:39.780)
and it would be elastic.
Lex Fridman (56:41.420)
But you can apply that to someone who,
Matthew Johnson (56:45.100)
a regular cigarette smoker who was working
Lex Fridman (56:49.340)
for cigarette puffs, who's gone six hours without smoking.
Lex Fridman (56:52.620)
And you're asking questions like,
Lex Fridman (56:54.700)
how many times are they willing to pull this knob
Lex Fridman (56:57.620)
in the lab during this three hour session?
Lex Fridman (56:59.300)
I do a lot of work like this in order to earn a cigarette.
Lex Fridman (57:02.420)
How does the content of nicotine in that affect?
Lex Fridman (57:05.400)
It has the availability of nicotine replacement products
Matthew Johnson (57:08.360)
like nicotine gum or eCigarettes affect those decisions.
Lex Fridman (57:12.460)
So it's a certain lens of, it's sort of a way to take
Matthew Johnson (57:15.540)
the kind of the classic behavioral psychology definition
Lex Fridman (57:19.700)
of reinforcement, which is just basically reward.
Lex Fridman (57:24.260)
How much is this a good thing?
Lex Fridman (57:25.480)
And it kind of breaks that apart
Matthew Johnson (57:26.860)
into a multi dimensional space.
Lex Fridman (57:31.040)
So it's not just the ideas reward or reinforcement
Matthew Johnson (57:34.560)
is not unit dimensional.
Lex Fridman (57:36.160)
So for example, you can unpack that with demand curves.
Matthew Johnson (57:39.540)
At a cheap price, you might prefer one good to another.
Lex Fridman (57:44.160)
So the classic example is luxury versus necessity.
Lex Fridman (57:47.020)
So diamonds versus toilet paper.
Lex Fridman (57:49.540)
So at those cheap prices,
Matthew Johnson (57:51.420)
you can look at something called intensity of demand.
Lex Fridman (57:54.100)
If it was basically as cheap as possible,
Lex Fridman (57:56.220)
or essentially zero, how much would you buy of this good?
Lex Fridman (57:59.940)
But then you keep jacking up the price and you'll see,
Lex Fridman (58:02.800)
so diamonds will look like the better reward
Lex Fridman (58:06.240)
at that low price sort of intensity of demand side of things.
Lex Fridman (58:09.960)
But as you keep jacking up the price,
Lex Fridman (58:11.420)
you gotta have some toilet paper.
Lex Fridman (58:13.260)
And again, we can get into the whole bidet thing,
Lex Fridman (58:15.700)
but forget that, I know Joe's been pushing that too.
Matthew Johnson (58:21.100)
You're gonna hang on and keep buying the toilet paper
Lex Fridman (58:23.980)
to a greater degree than you will the diamonds.
Lex Fridman (58:26.660)
So you'll see a crossing of demand curves.
Lex Fridman (58:28.900)
So what's the better reinforcer?
Lex Fridman (58:30.860)
What's the better reward?
Lex Fridman (58:31.820)
Depends on your price.
Lex Fridman (58:33.620)
And so that's an example of one way to look at addiction.
Lex Fridman (58:39.500)
So specifically drug consumption,
Matthew Johnson (58:41.880)
which isn't all of addiction,
Lex Fridman (58:43.500)
but it's like in order for something to be addictive,
Matthew Johnson (58:46.500)
it has to be a reward.
Lex Fridman (58:48.860)
And it has to compete with other rewards in your life.
Lex Fridman (58:54.300)
And one of the two main aspects of addiction in my view,
Lex Fridman (58:59.220)
and this doesn't map onto how the DSM,
Matthew Johnson (59:01.700)
the psychiatry Bible defines addiction,
Lex Fridman (59:04.540)
which I think is largely bunk,
Lex Fridman (59:06.460)
but there's some value to have some common description,
Lex Fridman (59:08.800)
but it's how rewarding is it
Lex Fridman (59:12.100)
from this multi dimensional lens?
Lex Fridman (59:15.260)
And specifically, how does that rewarding value compete
Lex Fridman (59:19.820)
with other rewards, other consequences in your life?
Lex Fridman (59:25.140)
So it's not a problem if the use of that substance
Matthew Johnson (59:30.140)
is rewarding.
Lex Fridman (59:32.340)
Okay, yeah, you like to have a couple of beers
Matthew Johnson (59:33.980)
every once in a while, and it's like not a problem.
Lex Fridman (59:38.140)
But then you have the alcoholic who is drinking so much
Matthew Johnson (59:42.720)
that it tanks their career, it ruins their marriage.
Lex Fridman (59:47.660)
It's in competition with these pro social aspects
Matthew Johnson (59:51.520)
to their life.
Lex Fridman (59:52.360)
It's all about comparing to the other choices you're making,
Matthew Johnson (59:55.820)
the other activities in your life.
Lex Fridman (59:57.820)
And if you evaluate it as a much higher reward
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