Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes
生物与进化哲学与宗教技术与编程音乐与艺术历史与文明
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🔑 关键词
donscienceideasintelligenceinterestingintelligentbraindoesnreligionsimulationgodgoingconspiracyevolutionselectionreligiouscoursespreadevolutionarydna
💬 精彩语录
"the detour a tiny bit, a tiny bit, a tiny bit, each millimeter at a time, didn't make any difference."
绕一点点，一点点，一点点，每次一毫米，没有任何区别。
— Richard Dawkins （09:31.680）
"to send signals both directions. And the long term dream there is to do exactly that, which is expand,"
双向发送信号。长期的梦想就是做到这一点，那就是扩张，
— Richard Dawkins （12:59.360）
🎙️ 完整对话（708 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Richard Dawkins,
以下是与理查德·道金斯的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:03.120)
an evolutionary biologist and author of The Selfish Gene,
进化生物学家和《自私的基因》一书的作者，
Lex Fridman (00:07.040)
The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, The Magic of Reality,
盲人钟表匠、上帝错觉、现实的魔力、
Lex Fridman (00:11.040)
and The Greatest Show of Earth and his latest All Growing God.
以及《地球最伟大的表演》和他最新的《成长之神》。
Lex Fridman (00:15.680)
He is the originator and popularizer of a lot of fascinating ideas in evolutionary biology
他是进化生物学中许多令人着迷的想法的创始人和推广者
Lex Fridman (00:21.680)
and science in general, including, funny enough, the introduction of the word
和一般科学，包括，有趣的是，这个词的介绍
Richard Dawkins (00:26.320)
meme in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, which, in the context of a gene centered view of evolution,
他在 1976 年出版的著作《自私的基因》中提到了模因，在以基因为中心的进化论背景下，
Richard Dawkins (00:32.960)
is an exceptionally powerful idea. He's outspoken, bold, and often fearless in the
这是一个非常强大的想法。他直言不讳、大胆且常常无所畏惧
Richard Dawkins (00:39.280)
defense of science and reason, and in this way, is one of the most influential thinkers of our time.
捍卫科学和理性，并以此方式，是我们这个时代最有影响力的思想家之一。
Richard Dawkins (00:46.800)
This conversation was recorded before the outbreak of the pandemic.
这段对话是在疫情爆发前录制的。
Richard Dawkins (00:50.320)
For everyone feeling the medical, psychological, and financial burden of this crisis,
对于每一个感受到这场危机的医疗、心理和经济负担的人来说，
Richard Dawkins (00:54.480)
I'm sending love your way. Stay strong. We're in this together. We'll beat this thing.
我正在用你的方式传递爱。坚强点。我们在一起。我们会打败这件事。
Richard Dawkins (01:00.800)
This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
这是人工智能播客。如果您喜欢，请在 YouTube 上订阅，
Richard Dawkins (01:05.280)
review it with 5 stars on Apple Podcast, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter
在 Apple Podcast 上给予 5 星评价，在 Patreon 上支持它，或者在 Twitter 上与我联系
Richard Dawkins (01:10.800)
at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now,
Lex Friedman，拼写为 F R I D M A N。 像往常一样，我现在会做几分钟的广告，
Lex Fridman (01:16.720)
and never any ads in the middle that can break the flow of the conversation.
中间绝不会出现任何会打断对话流程的广告。
Lex Fridman (01:20.480)
I hope that works for you and doesn't hurt the listening experience.
我希望这对您有用并且不会损害聆听体验。
Richard Dawkins (01:25.360)
This show is presented by Cash App, the number one finance app in the App Store.
本节目由 App Store 排名第一的金融应用程序 Cash App 呈现。
Lex Fridman (01:29.600)
When you get it, use code LEX PODCAST. Cash App lets you send money to friends,
获得后，请使用代码 LEX PODCAST。现金应用程序可让您向朋友汇款，
Richard Dawkins (01:34.720)
buy bitcoin, and invest in the stock market with as little as one dollar.
购买比特币，只需一美元即可投资股市。
Lex Fridman (01:39.120)
Since Cash App allows you to send and receive money digitally, peer to peer,
Richard Dawkins (01:43.120)
security in all digital transactions is very important. Let me mention the PCI
Richard Dawkins (01:48.080)
data security standard that Cash App is compliant with. I'm a big fan of standards for safety and
Richard Dawkins (01:53.520)
security. PCI DSS is a good example of that, where a bunch of competitors got together and agreed
Lex Fridman (02:00.240)
that there needs to be a global standard around the security of transactions.
Richard Dawkins (02:04.400)
Now we just need to do the same for autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence systems in
Richard Dawkins (02:08.960)
general. So again, if you get Cash App from the App Store or Google Play and use the code LEX
Richard Dawkins (02:14.560)
PODCAST, you get ten dollars and Cash App will also donate ten dollars to FIRST,
Richard Dawkins (02:19.360)
an organization that is helping to advance robotics and STEM education for young people
Richard Dawkins (02:23.840)
around the world. And now, here's my conversation with Richard Dawkins.
Lex Fridman (02:30.960)
Do you think there's intelligent life out there in the universe?
Richard Dawkins (02:34.640)
Well, if we accept that there's intelligent life here and we accept that the number of planets in
Richard Dawkins (02:40.000)
the universe is gigantic, I mean, 10 to the 22 stars has been estimated, it seems to me highly
Richard Dawkins (02:45.600)
likely that there is not only life in the universe elsewhere, but also intelligent life. If you deny
Richard Dawkins (02:51.760)
that, then you're committed to the view that the things that happened on this planet are
Richard Dawkins (02:55.600)
staggeringly improbable, I mean, ludicrously off the charts improbable. And I don't think it's that
Richard Dawkins (03:02.080)
improbable. Certainly the origin of life itself, there are really two steps, the origin of life,
Richard Dawkins (03:06.480)
which is probably fairly improbable, and then the subsequent evolution to intelligent life,
Richard Dawkins (03:11.520)
which is also fairly improbable. So the juxtaposition of those two, you could say,
Richard Dawkins (03:15.360)
is pretty improbable, but not 10 to the 22 improbable. It's an interesting question,
Richard Dawkins (03:20.960)
maybe you're coming on to it, how we would recognize intelligence from outer space if we
Richard Dawkins (03:25.840)
encountered it. The most likely way we would come across them would be by radio. It's highly
Richard Dawkins (03:30.640)
unlikely they'd ever visit us. But it's not that unlikely that we would pick up radio signals,
Lex Fridman (03:38.880)
and then we would have to have some means of deciding that it was intelligent.
Richard Dawkins (03:44.800)
People involved in the SETI program discuss how they would do it, and things like prime numbers
Richard Dawkins (03:50.000)
would be an obvious way for them to broadcast, to say, we are intelligent, we are here.
Lex Fridman (03:56.800)
I suspect it probably would be obvious, actually.
Richard Dawkins (03:59.440)
Well, that's interesting, prime numbers, so the mathematical patterns, it's an open question
Richard Dawkins (04:03.920)
whether mathematics is the same for us as it would be for aliens. I suppose we could assume
Richard Dawkins (04:10.720)
that ultimately, if we're governed by the same laws of physics, then we should be governed by
Lex Fridman (04:15.680)
the same laws of mathematics.
Richard Dawkins (04:17.040)
I think so. I suspect that they will have Pythagoras theorem, etc. I don't think their
Lex Fridman (04:22.160)
mathematics will be that different.
Lex Fridman (04:23.680)
Do you think evolution would also be a force on the alien planets as well?
Richard Dawkins (04:27.760)
I stuck my neck out and said that if ever that we do discover life elsewhere, it will be Darwinian
Richard Dawkins (04:33.440)
life, in the sense that it will work by some kind of natural selection, the nonrandom survival of
Richard Dawkins (04:41.120)
randomly generated codes. It doesn't mean that the genetic, it would have to have some kind of
Richard Dawkins (04:47.040)
genetics, but it doesn't have to be DNA genetics, probably wouldn't be actually.
Lex Fridman (04:51.200)
But I think it would have to be Darwinian, yes.
Lex Fridman (04:53.840)
So some kind of selection process.
Lex Fridman (04:56.720)
Yes, in the general sense, it would be Darwinian.
Lex Fridman (05:00.320)
So let me ask kind of an artificial intelligence engineering question. So you've been an
Richard Dawkins (05:05.840)
outspoken critic of, I guess, what could be called intelligent design, which is an attempt
Richard Dawkins (05:11.200)
to describe the creation of a human mind and body by some religious folks, religious folks
Richard Dawkins (05:16.400)
used to describe. So broadly speaking, evolution is, as far as I know, again, you can correct me,
Richard Dawkins (05:23.120)
is the only scientific theory we have for the development of intelligent life. Like there's no
Lex Fridman (05:27.600)
alternative theory, as far as I understand.
Richard Dawkins (05:30.240)
None has ever been suggested, and I suspect it never will be.
Lex Fridman (05:35.520)
Well, of course, whenever somebody says that, a hundred years later.
Richard Dawkins (05:39.280)
I know. It's a risk.
Lex Fridman (05:42.240)
It's a risk.
Richard Dawkins (05:43.040)
It's a risk. But what a bet. I mean, I'm pretty confident.
Lex Fridman (05:48.880)
But it would look, sorry, yes, it would probably look very similar, but it's almost like Einstein
Richard Dawkins (05:53.760)
general relativity versus Newtonian physics. It'll be maybe an alteration of the theory or
Lex Fridman (05:59.840)
something like that, but it won't be fundamentally different. But okay.
Lex Fridman (06:06.320)
So now for the past 70 years, even before the AI community has been trying to engineer
Richard Dawkins (06:11.040)
intelligence, in a sense, to do what intelligent design says, you know, was done here on earth.
Richard Dawkins (06:18.720)
What's your intuition? Do you think it's possible to build intelligence, to build computers that
Richard Dawkins (06:26.000)
are intelligent, or do we need to do something like the evolutionary process? Like there's
Richard Dawkins (06:31.200)
no shortcuts here.
Richard Dawkins (06:33.360)
That's an interesting question. I'm committed to the belief that is ultimately possible
Richard Dawkins (06:38.960)
because I think there's nothing nonphysical in our brains. I think our brains work by
Richard Dawkins (06:44.160)
the laws of physics. And so it must, in principle, it'd be possible to replicate that.
Richard Dawkins (06:49.280)
In practice, though, it might be very difficult. And as you suggest, it may be the only way
Richard Dawkins (06:54.480)
to do it is by something like an evolutionary process. I'd be surprised. I suspect that
Richard Dawkins (06:59.280)
it will come, but it's certainly been slower in coming than some of the early pioneers
Lex Fridman (07:05.040)
thought it would be.
Richard Dawkins (07:06.240)
Yeah. But in your sense, is the evolutionary process efficient? So you can see it as exceptionally
Lex Fridman (07:12.160)
wasteful in one perspective, but at the same time, maybe that is the only path.
Richard Dawkins (07:17.120)
It's a paradox, isn't it? I mean, on the one side, it is deplorably wasteful. It's
Richard Dawkins (07:22.320)
fundamentally based on waste. On the other hand, it does produce magnificent results.
Richard Dawkins (07:26.880)
I mean, the design of a soaring bird, an albatross, a vulture, an eagle, is superb. An engineer
Richard Dawkins (07:38.320)
would be proud to have done it. On the other hand, an engineer would not be proud to have
Richard Dawkins (07:41.200)
done some of the other things that evolution has served up. Some of the sort of botched
Richard Dawkins (07:46.800)
jobs that you can easily understand because of their historical origins, but they don't
Richard Dawkins (07:51.600)
look well designed.
Lex Fridman (07:52.560)
Do you have examples of bad design?
Richard Dawkins (07:55.680)
My favorite example is the recurrent laryngeal nerve. I've used this many times. This is
Richard Dawkins (07:59.600)
a nerve. It's one of the cranial nerves, which goes from the brain, and the end organ is
Richard Dawkins (08:04.880)
that it supplies is the voice box, the larynx. But it doesn't go straight to the larynx.
Richard Dawkins (08:10.160)
It goes right down into the chest and then loops around an artery in the chest and then
Richard Dawkins (08:15.520)
comes straight back up again to the larynx. And I've assisted in the dissection of a
Richard Dawkins (08:21.040)
giraffe's neck, which happened to have died in a zoo. And we saw the recurrent laryngeal
Richard Dawkins (08:27.120)
nerve whizzing straight past the larynx, within an inch of the larynx, down into the chest,
Lex Fridman (08:32.880)
and then back up again, which is a detour of many feet. Very, very inefficient.
Richard Dawkins (08:41.120)
The reason is historical. The ancestors are fish ancestors, the ancestors of all mammals
Lex Fridman (08:46.880)
and fish. The most direct pathway of that, of the equivalent of that nerve, there wasn't
Richard Dawkins (08:54.560)
a larynx in those days, but it innervated part of the gills. The most direct pathway
Richard Dawkins (08:59.840)
was behind that artery. And then when the mammal, when the tetrapods, when the land
Richard Dawkins (09:06.240)
vertebrae started evolving, and then the neck started to stretch, the marginal cost of changing
Richard Dawkins (09:12.640)
the embryological design to jump that nerve over the artery was too great. Or rather,
Richard Dawkins (09:19.680)
each step of the way was a very small cost, but the cost of actually jumping it over would have
Richard Dawkins (09:24.880)
been very large. As the neck lengthened, it was a negligible change to just increase the length of
Richard Dawkins (09:31.680)
the detour a tiny bit, a tiny bit, a tiny bit, each millimeter at a time, didn't make any difference.
Lex Fridman (09:35.920)
But finally, when you get to a giraffe, it's a huge detour and no doubt is very inefficient.
Richard Dawkins (09:40.960)
Now that's bad design. Any engineer would reject that piece of design. It's ridiculous.
Lex Fridman (09:47.600)
And there are quite a number of examples, as you'd expect. It's not surprising that we find
Richard Dawkins (09:52.000)
examples of that sort. In a way, what's surprising is there aren't more of them. In a way, what's
Richard Dawkins (09:55.840)
surprising is that the design of living things is so good. So natural selection manages to achieve
Richard Dawkins (10:01.200)
excellent results, partly by tinkering, partly by coming along and cleaning up initial mistakes and,
Richard Dawkins (10:11.600)
as it were, making the best of a bad job. That's really interesting. I mean, it is surprising and
Richard Dawkins (10:17.040)
beautiful and it's a mystery from an engineering perspective that so many things are well designed.
Richard Dawkins (10:22.880)
I suppose the thing we're forgetting is how many generations have to die for that.
Richard Dawkins (10:30.240)
That's the inefficiency of it. Yes, that's the horrible wastefulness of it.
Lex Fridman (10:33.360)
So yeah, we marvel at the final product, but yeah, the process is painful.
Richard Dawkins (10:39.600)
Elon Musk describes human beings as potentially what he calls the biological bootloader for
Richard Dawkins (10:45.600)
artificial intelligence or artificial general intelligence is used as the term. It's kind of
Richard Dawkins (10:50.720)
like super intelligence. Do you see superhuman level intelligence as potentially the next step
Richard Dawkins (10:57.520)
in the evolutionary process? Yes, I think that if superhuman intelligence is to be found,
Richard Dawkins (11:02.080)
it will be artificial. I don't have any hope that we ourselves, our brains will go on
Richard Dawkins (11:09.200)
getting larger in ordinary biological evolution. I think that's probably come to an end. It is
Richard Dawkins (11:16.560)
the dominant trend or one of the dominant trends in our fossil history for the last two or three
Richard Dawkins (11:22.720)
million years. Brain size? Brain size, yes. So it's been swelling rather dramatically over the last
Richard Dawkins (11:28.960)
two or three million years. That is unlikely to continue. The only way that happens is because
Richard Dawkins (11:35.040)
natural selection favors those individuals with the biggest brains and that's not happening anymore.
Richard Dawkins (11:41.840)
Right. So in general, in humans, the selection pressures are not, I mean, are they active in
Richard Dawkins (11:48.400)
any form? Well, in order for them to be active, it would be necessary that the most, let's call it
Richard Dawkins (11:56.080)
intelligence. Not that intelligence is simply correlated with brain size, but let's talk about
Richard Dawkins (12:02.240)
intelligence. In order for that to evolve, it's necessary that the most intelligent beings have
Richard Dawkins (12:08.000)
the most, individuals have the most children. And so intelligence may buy you money, it may buy you
Richard Dawkins (12:17.200)
worldly success, it may buy you a nice house and a nice car and things like that if you have a
Richard Dawkins (12:22.240)
successful career. It may buy you the admiration of your fellow people, but it doesn't increase the
Richard Dawkins (12:29.760)
number of offspring that you have. It doesn't increase your genetic legacy to the next generation.
Richard Dawkins (12:35.440)
On the other hand, artificial intelligence, I mean, computers and technology generally, is
Richard Dawkins (12:42.000)
is evolving by a non genetic means, by leaps and bounds, of course. And so what do you think,
Richard Dawkins (12:48.880)
I don't know if you're familiar, there's a company called Neuralink, but there's a general effort of
Richard Dawkins (12:52.560)
brain computer interfaces, which is to try to build a connection between the computer and the brain
Richard Dawkins (12:59.360)
to send signals both directions. And the long term dream there is to do exactly that, which is expand,
Richard Dawkins (13:05.840)
I guess, expand the size of the brain, expand the capabilities of the brain. Do you see this as
Richard Dawkins (13:12.000)
interesting? Do you see this as a promising possible technology? Or is the interface between
Richard Dawkins (13:18.000)
the computer and the brain, like the brain is this wet, messy thing that's just impossible to
Richard Dawkins (13:22.320)
interface with? Well, of course, it's interesting, whether it's promising, I'm really not qualified
Richard Dawkins (13:27.200)
to say. What I do find puzzling is that the brain being as small as it is compared to a computer and
Richard Dawkins (13:34.320)
the individual components being as slow as they are compared to our electronic components,
Richard Dawkins (13:40.240)
it is astonishing what it can do. I mean, imagine building a computer that fits into the size of a
Richard Dawkins (13:47.840)
human skull. And with the equivalent of transistors or integrated circuits, which work as slowly as
Richard Dawkins (13:57.760)
neurons do. It's something mysterious about that, something, something must be going on that we
Richard Dawkins (14:04.960)
don't understand. So I have just talked to Roger Penrose, I'm not sure you're familiar with his
Richard Dawkins (14:11.200)
work. And he also describes this kind of mystery in the mind, in the brain, that as he sees a
Richard Dawkins (14:20.640)
materialist, so there's no sort of mystical thing going on. But there's so much about the material
Richard Dawkins (14:27.120)
of the brain that we don't understand. That might be quantum mechanical in nature and so on. So
Richard Dawkins (14:32.800)
there the idea is about consciousness. Do you have any, have you ever thought about, do you ever
Richard Dawkins (14:37.760)
think about ideas of consciousness or a little bit more about the mystery of intelligence and
Richard Dawkins (14:42.800)
consciousness that seems to pop up just like you're saying from our brain? I agree with Roger
Richard Dawkins (14:48.000)
Penrose that there is a mystery there. I mean, he's one of the world's greatest physicists. I
Richard Dawkins (14:55.600)
can't possibly argue with his... But nobody knows anything about consciousness. And in fact,
Richard Dawkins (15:02.320)
if we talk about religion and so on, the mystery of consciousness is so awe inspiring and we know
Lex Fridman (15:10.720)
so little about it that the leap to sort of religious or mystical explanations is too easy
Richard Dawkins (15:16.240)
to make. I think that it's just an act of cowardice to leap to religious explanations and
Richard Dawkins (15:21.360)
Roger doesn't do that, of course. But I accept that there may be something that we don't understand
Richard Dawkins (15:28.400)
about it. So correct me if I'm wrong, but in your book, Selfish Gene, the gene centered view of
Richard Dawkins (15:34.480)
evolution allows us to think of the physical organisms as just the medium through which the
Richard Dawkins (15:40.160)
software of our genetics and the ideas sort of propagate. So maybe can we start just with the
Richard Dawkins (15:49.760)
basics? What in this context does the word meme mean? It would mean the cultural equivalent of a
Richard Dawkins (15:57.840)
gene, cultural equivalent in the sense of that which plays the same role as the gene in the
Richard Dawkins (16:02.960)
transmission of culture and the transmission of ideas in the broadest sense. And it's a
Richard Dawkins (16:08.720)
useful word if there's something Darwinian going on. Obviously, culture is transmitted,
Lex Fridman (16:14.560)
but is there anything Darwinian going on? And if there is, that means there has to be something
Lex Fridman (16:18.960)
like a gene, which becomes more numerous or less numerous in the population.
Lex Fridman (16:25.680)
So it can replicate?
Richard Dawkins (16:27.600)
It can replicate. Well, it clearly does replicate. There's no question about that.
Richard Dawkins (16:31.760)
The question is, does it replicate in a sort of differential way in a Darwinian fashion? Could you
Richard Dawkins (16:36.800)
say that certain ideas propagate because they're successful in the meme pool? In a sort of trivial
Richard Dawkins (16:43.280)
sense, you can. Would you wish to say, though, that in the same way as an animal body is modified,
Lex Fridman (16:52.160)
adapted to serve as a machine for propagating genes, is it also a machine for propagating memes?
Richard Dawkins (16:59.200)
Could you actually say that something about the way a human is, is modified, adapted,
Lex Fridman (17:05.280)
is modified, adapted for the function of meme propagation?
Richard Dawkins (17:12.480)
That's such a fascinating possibility, if that's true. That it's not just about the genes which
Richard Dawkins (17:18.480)
seem somehow more comprehensible as these things of biology. The idea that culture or maybe ideas,
Richard Dawkins (17:28.240)
you can really broadly define it, operates under these mechanisms.
Richard Dawkins (17:33.360)
Even morphology, even anatomy does evolve by memetic means. I mean, things like hairstyles,
Richard Dawkins (17:42.720)
styles of makeup, circumcision, these things are actual changes in the body form which are
Richard Dawkins (17:49.840)
nongenetic and which get passed on from generation to generation or sideways like a virus in a
Richard Dawkins (17:57.760)
quasi genetic way.
Lex Fridman (17:59.280)
But the moment you start drifting away from the physical, it becomes interesting because
Richard Dawkins (18:05.520)
the space of ideas, ideologies, political systems.
Lex Fridman (18:09.520)
Of course, yes.
Lex Fridman (18:10.480)
So what's your sense? Are memes a metaphor more or are they really,
Lex Fridman (18:20.160)
is there something fundamental, almost physical presence of memes?
Richard Dawkins (18:24.160)
Well, I think they're a bit more than a metaphor. And I mentioned the physical
Richard Dawkins (18:30.720)
bodily characteristics which are a bit trivial in a way, but when things like the propagation
Richard Dawkins (18:35.120)
of religious ideas, both longitudinally down generations and transversely as in a sort of
Richard Dawkins (18:42.960)
epidemiology of ideas, when a charismatic preacher converts people, that resembles viral
Richard Dawkins (18:54.640)
transmission. Whereas the longitudinal transmission from grandparent to parent to child,
Lex Fridman (19:01.360)
et cetera, is more like conventional genetic transmission.
Richard Dawkins (19:06.960)
That's such a beautiful, especially in the modern day idea. Do you think about this
Richard Dawkins (19:12.240)
implication in social networks where the propagation of ideas, the viral propagation of ideas,
Lex Fridman (19:17.280)
and has the new use of the word meme to describe?
Lex Fridman (19:21.520)
Well, the internet, of course, provides extremely rapid method of transmission.
Richard Dawkins (19:27.600)
Before, when I first coined the word, the internet didn't exist. And so I was thinking
Richard Dawkins (19:32.320)
that in terms of books, newspapers, broader radio, television, that kind of thing.
Richard Dawkins (19:38.960)
Now an idea can just leap around the world in all directions instantly. And so the internet
Lex Fridman (19:47.360)
provides a step change in the facility of propagation of memes.
Lex Fridman (19:54.560)
How does that make you feel? Isn't it fascinating that sort of ideas, it's like you have Galapagos
Lex Fridman (1:00:04.740)
And I hear what you mean rather than I see what you mean.
Lex Fridman (1:00:08.000)
So some of the same religious elements are present in this other totally kind of absurd
Lex Fridman (1:00:12.000)
different form.
Richard Dawkins (1:00:13.000)
Yes. And so it's a wonderful, I wouldn't call it satire, because it's too good natured
Richard Dawkins (1:00:17.640)
for that. I mean, a wonderful parable about Christianity and the doctrine, the theological
Richard Dawkins (1:00:24.640)
doctrine of the fall. So I find that kind of science fiction immensely stimulating.
Richard Dawkins (1:00:31.640)
Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud. Oh, by the way, anything by Arthur C. Clarke I find very wonderful
Richard Dawkins (1:00:36.360)
too. Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud, his first science fiction novel, where he, well, I learned
Richard Dawkins (1:00:46.520)
a lot of science from that. It suffers from an obnoxious hero, unfortunately, but apart
Richard Dawkins (1:00:52.240)
from that, you learn a lot of science from it. Another of his novels, A for Andromeda,
Richard Dawkins (1:00:59.520)
which by the way, the theme of that is taken up by Carl Sagan's science fiction novel,
Richard Dawkins (1:01:05.920)
another wonderful writer, Carl Sagan, Contact, where the idea is, again, we will not be visited
Richard Dawkins (1:01:15.400)
from outer space by physical bodies. We will be visited possibly, we might be visited by
Richard Dawkins (1:01:21.040)
radio, but the radio signals could manipulate us and actually have a concrete influence
Richard Dawkins (1:01:28.840)
on the world if they make us or persuade us to build a computer, which runs their software.
Lex Fridman (1:01:37.040)
So that they can then transmit their software by radio, and then the computer takes over
Richard Dawkins (1:01:43.560)
the world. And this is the same theme in both Hoyle's book and Sagan's book, I presume.
Richard Dawkins (1:01:50.240)
I don't know whether Sagan knew about Hoyle's book, probably did. But it's a clever idea
Richard Dawkins (1:01:56.440)
that we will never be invaded by physical bodies. The War of the Worlds of H.G. Wells
Richard Dawkins (1:02:04.600)
will never happen. But we could be invaded by radio signals, code, coded information,
Richard Dawkins (1:02:11.880)
which is sort of like DNA. And we are, I call them, we are survival machines of our DNA.
Lex Fridman (1:02:20.520)
So it has great resonance for me, because I think of us, I think of bodies, physical
Richard Dawkins (1:02:26.520)
bodies, biological bodies, as being manipulated by coded information, DNA, which has come
Richard Dawkins (1:02:34.640)
down through generations.
Lex Fridman (1:02:35.640)
And in the space of memes, it doesn't have to be physical, it can be transmitted through
Richard Dawkins (1:02:40.840)
the space of information. That's a fascinating possibility, that from outer space we can
Richard Dawkins (1:02:47.440)
be infiltrated by other memes, by other ideas, and thereby controlled in that way. Let me
Richard Dawkins (1:02:54.160)
ask the last, the silliest, or maybe the most important question. What is the meaning of
Lex Fridman (1:03:00.160)
life? What gives your life fulfillment, purpose, happiness, meaning?
Richard Dawkins (1:03:06.200)
From a scientific point of view, the meaning of life is the propagation of DNA, but that's
Richard Dawkins (1:03:10.360)
not what I feel. That's not the meaning of my life. So the meaning of my life is something
Richard Dawkins (1:03:16.280)
which is probably different from yours and different from other people's, but we each
Richard Dawkins (1:03:19.700)
make our own meaning. So we set up goals, we want to achieve, we want to write a book,
Richard Dawkins (1:03:27.060)
we want to do whatever it is we do, write a quartet, we want to win a football match.
Lex Fridman (1:03:36.000)
And these are short term goals, well, maybe even quite long term goals, which are set
Richard Dawkins (1:03:41.680)
up by our brains, which have goal seeking machinery built into them. But what we feel,
Richard Dawkins (1:03:46.840)
we don't feel motivated by the desire to pass on our DNA, mostly. We have other goals which
Richard Dawkins (1:03:54.680)
can be very moving, very important. They could even be called as called spiritual in some
Richard Dawkins (1:04:01.440)
cases. We want to understand the riddle of the universe, we want to understand consciousness,
Richard Dawkins (1:04:07.640)
we want to understand how the brain works. These are all noble goals. Some of them can
Richard Dawkins (1:04:13.840)
be noble goals anyway. And they are a far cry from the fundamental biological goal,
Richard Dawkins (1:04:20.080)
which is the propagation of DNA. But the machinery that enables us to set up these higher level
Lex Fridman (1:04:26.940)
goals is originally programmed into us by natural selection of DNA.
Lex Fridman (1:04:34.240)
The propagation of DNA. But what do you make of this unfortunate fact that we are mortal?
Lex Fridman (1:04:41.720)
Do you ponder your mortality? Does it make you sad?
Richard Dawkins (1:04:47.080)
I ponder it. It would, it makes me sad that I shall have to leave and not see what's going
Richard Dawkins (1:04:53.880)
to happen next. If there's something frightening about mortality, apart from sort of missing,
Richard Dawkins (1:05:02.200)
as I said, something more deeply, darkly frightening, it's the idea of eternity. But eternity is
Richard Dawkins (1:05:10.320)
only frightening if you're there. Eternity before we were born, billions of years before
Richard Dawkins (1:05:15.280)
we were born, and we were effectively dead before we were born. As I think it was Mark
Richard Dawkins (1:05:20.680)
Twain said, I was dead for billions of years before I was born and never suffered the smallest
Richard Dawkins (1:05:25.240)
inconvenience. That's how it's going to be after we leave. So I think of it as really,
Richard Dawkins (1:05:31.920)
mortality is a frightening prospect. And so the best way to spend it is under a general
Richard Dawkins (1:05:36.720)
anesthetic, which is what it'll be.
Richard Dawkins (1:05:39.680)
Beautifully put. Richard, it is a huge honor to meet you, to talk to you. Thank you so
Richard Dawkins (1:05:44.280)
much for your time.
Lex Fridman (1:05:45.280)
Thank you very much.
Richard Dawkins (1:05:46.280)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Richard Dawkins. And thank you to our
Richard Dawkins (1:05:50.880)
presenting sponsor, Cash App. Please consider supporting the podcast by downloading Cash
Richard Dawkins (1:05:55.400)
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Richard Dawkins (1:06:01.280)
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Richard Dawkins (1:06:06.480)
at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (1:06:08.640)
And now let me leave you with some words of wisdom from Richard Dawkins.
Richard Dawkins (1:06:13.080)
We are going to die. And that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to
Richard Dawkins (1:06:18.880)
die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here
Richard Dawkins (1:06:24.120)
in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains
Richard Dawkins (1:06:29.460)
of Arabia. Certainly, those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists
Richard Dawkins (1:06:36.320)
greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our
Richard Dawkins (1:06:42.000)
DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds,
Richard Dawkins (1:06:49.560)
it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few who won the lottery
Richard Dawkins (1:06:57.440)
of birth against all odds. How dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state
Richard Dawkins (1:07:04.840)
from which the vast majority have never stirred.
Lex Fridman (1:07:08.480)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Richard Dawkins (20:00.160)
Islands or something, it's the 70s, and the internet allowed all these species to just
Richard Dawkins (20:05.760)
like globalize. And in a matter of seconds, you can spread the message to millions of
Richard Dawkins (20:11.760)
people. And these ideas, these memes can breed, can evolve, can mutate. And there's a selection,
Lex Fridman (20:21.360)
and there's like different, I guess, groups that have all like, there's a dynamics that's
Richard Dawkins (20:26.240)
fascinating here. Do you think, yes, basically, do you think your work in this direction,
Richard Dawkins (20:31.840)
while fundamentally was focused on life on Earth, do you think it should continue, like
Lex Fridman (20:37.920)
to be taken further?
Richard Dawkins (20:38.920)
Well, I do think it would probably be a good idea to think in a Darwinian way about this
Richard Dawkins (20:43.200)
sort of thing. We conventionally think of the transmission of ideas from an evolutionary
Richard Dawkins (20:49.680)
context as being limited to, in our ancestors, people living in villages, living in small
Richard Dawkins (20:58.240)
bands where everybody knew each other, and ideas could propagate within the village,
Lex Fridman (21:03.120)
and they might hop to a neighboring village, occasionally, and maybe even to a neighboring
Richard Dawkins (21:08.400)
continent eventually. And that was a slow process. Nowadays, villages are international.
Richard Dawkins (21:15.760)
I mean, you have people, it's been called echo chambers, where people are in a sort
Richard Dawkins (21:22.600)
of internet village, where the other members of the village may be geographically distributed
Richard Dawkins (21:28.560)
all over the world, but they just happen to be interested in the same things, use the
Richard Dawkins (21:32.080)
same terminology, the same jargon, have the same enthusiasm. So, people like the Flat
Richard Dawkins (21:38.440)
Earth Society, they don't all live in one place, they find each other, and they talk
Richard Dawkins (21:44.080)
the same language to each other, they talk the same nonsense to each other. And they,
Lex Fridman (21:48.680)
so this is a kind of distributed version of the primitive idea of people living in villages
Lex Fridman (21:56.040)
and propagating their ideas in a local way.
Richard Dawkins (21:58.760)
Is there Darwinist parallel here? So, is there evolutionary purpose of villages, or is that
Richard Dawkins (22:06.320)
just a...
Richard Dawkins (22:07.320)
I wouldn't use a word like evolutionary purpose in that case, but villages will be something
Richard Dawkins (22:12.400)
that just emerged, that's the way people happen to live.
Lex Fridman (22:16.200)
And in just the same kind of way, the Flat Earth Society, societies of ideas emerge in
Richard Dawkins (22:23.520)
the same kind of way in this digital space.
Lex Fridman (22:26.040)
Yes, yes.
Richard Dawkins (22:27.040)
Is there something interesting to say about the, I guess, from a perspective of Darwin,
Richard Dawkins (22:35.160)
could we fully interpret the dynamics of social interaction in these social networks? Or is
Lex Fridman (22:43.520)
there some much more complicated thing need to be developed? Like, what's your sense?
Richard Dawkins (22:49.360)
Well, a Darwinian selection idea would involve investigating which ideas spread and which
Richard Dawkins (22:55.920)
don't. So, some ideas don't have the ability to spread. I mean, the Flat Earth, Flat Earthism
Richard Dawkins (23:03.840)
is, there are a few people believe in it, but it's not going to spread because it's
Richard Dawkins (23:07.680)
obvious nonsense. But other ideas, even if they are wrong, can spread because they are
Lex Fridman (23:14.600)
attractive in some sense.
Lex Fridman (23:16.600)
So the spreading and the selection in the Darwinian context is, it just has to be attractive
Richard Dawkins (23:24.160)
in some sense. Like we don't have to define, like it doesn't have to be attractive in the
Richard Dawkins (23:27.840)
way that animals attract each other. It could be attractive in some other way.
Richard Dawkins (23:32.520)
Yes. All that matters is, all that is needed is that it should spread. And it doesn't have
Richard Dawkins (23:38.320)
to be true to spread. In truth, there's one criterion which might help an idea to spread.
Lex Fridman (23:43.760)
But there are other criteria which might help it to spread. As you say, attraction in animals
Richard Dawkins (23:49.520)
is not necessarily valuable for survival. The famous peacock's tail doesn't help the
Richard Dawkins (23:56.320)
peacock to survive. It helps it to pass on its genes. Similarly, an idea which is actually
Richard Dawkins (24:02.560)
rubbish, but which people don't know is rubbish and think is very attractive will spread in
Lex Fridman (24:08.040)
the same way as a peacock's gene spread.
Richard Dawkins (24:10.360)
It's a small sidestep. I remember reading somewhere, I think recently, that in some
Richard Dawkins (24:16.080)
species of birds, sort of the idea that beauty may have its own purpose and the idea that
Richard Dawkins (24:22.840)
some birds, I'm being ineloquent here, but there's some aspects of their feathers and
Lex Fridman (24:31.480)
so on that serve no evolutionary purpose whatsoever. There's somebody making an argument that there
Richard Dawkins (24:37.600)
are some things about beauty that animals do that may be its own purpose. Does that
Lex Fridman (24:44.560)
ring a bell for you? Does that sound ridiculous?
Richard Dawkins (24:46.880)
I think it's a rather distorted bell. Darwin, when he coined the phrase sexual selection,
Richard Dawkins (24:56.640)
didn't feel the need to suggest that what was attractive to females, usually is males
Richard Dawkins (25:04.560)
attracting females, that what females found attractive had to be useful. He said it didn't
Richard Dawkins (25:08.720)
have to be useful. It was enough that females found it attractive. And so it could be completely
Richard Dawkins (25:13.960)
useless, probably was completely useless in the conventional sense, but was not at all
Richard Dawkins (25:18.080)
useless in the sense of passing on, Darwin didn't call them genes, but in the sense of
Richard Dawkins (25:24.000)
reproducing. Others, starting with Wallace, the co discoverer of natural selection, didn't
Richard Dawkins (25:30.560)
like that idea and they wanted sexually selected characteristics like peacock's tails to be
Richard Dawkins (25:37.320)
in some sense useful. It's a bit of a stretch to think of a peacock's tail as being useful,
Lex Fridman (25:41.920)
but in the sense of survival, but others have run with that idea and have brought it up
Richard Dawkins (25:47.880)
to date. And so there are two schools of thought on sexual selection, which are still active
Lex Fridman (25:53.560)
and about equally supported now. Those who follow Darwin in thinking that it's just enough
Richard Dawkins (25:58.720)
to say it's attractive and those who follow Wallace and say that it has to be in some
Lex Fridman (26:06.120)
sense useful.
Lex Fridman (26:08.440)
Do you fall into one category or the other?
Richard Dawkins (26:10.600)
No, I'm open minded. I think they both could be correct in different cases. I mean, they've
Richard Dawkins (26:16.400)
both been made sophisticated in a mathematical sense, more so than when Darwin and Wallace
Lex Fridman (26:20.760)
first started talking about it.
Richard Dawkins (26:22.560)
I'm Russian, I romanticize things, so I prefer the former, where the beauty in itself is
Richard Dawkins (26:30.120)
a powerful attraction, is a powerful force in evolution. On religion, do you think there
Richard Dawkins (26:40.120)
will ever be a time in our future where almost nobody believes in God, or God is not a part
Lex Fridman (26:47.520)
of the moral fabric of our society?
Richard Dawkins (26:49.680)
Yes, I do. I think it may happen after a very long time. It may take a long time for that
Lex Fridman (26:55.200)
to happen.
Lex Fridman (26:56.200)
So do you think ultimately for everybody on Earth, religion, other forms of doctrines,
Lex Fridman (27:03.960)
ideas could do better job than what religion does?
Richard Dawkins (27:07.880)
Yes. I mean, following in truth, reason.
Richard Dawkins (27:12.480)
Well, truth is a funny, funny word. And reason too. There's, yeah, it's a difficult idea
Richard Dawkins (27:23.520)
now with truth on the internet, right, and fake news and so on. I suppose when you say
Richard Dawkins (27:29.960)
reason, you mean the very basic sort of inarguable conclusions of science versus which political
Richard Dawkins (27:37.200)
system is better.
Richard Dawkins (27:38.200)
Yes, yes. I mean, truth about the real world, which is ascertainable by, not just by the
Richard Dawkins (27:46.680)
more rigorous methods of science, but by just ordinary sensory observation.
Lex Fridman (27:51.320)
So do you think there will ever be a time when we move past it? Like, I guess another
Lex Fridman (27:58.520)
way to ask it, are we hopelessly, fundamentally tied to religion in the way our society functions?
Richard Dawkins (28:08.760)
Well, clearly all individuals are not hopelessly tied to it because many individuals don't
Richard Dawkins (28:14.600)
believe. You could mean something like society needs religion in order to function properly,
Lex Fridman (28:21.960)
something like that. And some people have suggested that.
Lex Fridman (28:24.160)
What's your intuition on that?
Richard Dawkins (28:26.120)
Well, I've read books on it and they're persuasive. I don't think they're that persuasive though.
Richard Dawkins (28:33.720)
I mean, some people suggested that society needs a sort of figurehead, which can be a
Richard Dawkins (28:41.400)
non existent figurehead in order to function properly. I think there's something rather
Richard Dawkins (28:45.480)
patronising about the idea that, well, you and I are intelligent enough not to believe
Richard Dawkins (28:51.200)
in God, but the plebs need it sort of thing. And I think that's patronising. And I'd like
Richard Dawkins (28:57.320)
to think that that was not the right way to proceed.
Lex Fridman (29:01.400)
But at the individual level, do you think there's some value of spirituality? Sort of,
Richard Dawkins (29:10.720)
if I think sort of as a scientist, the amount of things we actually know about our universe
Richard Dawkins (29:15.120)
is a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of what we could possibly know. So just from everything,
Richard Dawkins (29:21.600)
even the certainty we have about the laws of physics, it seems to be that there's yet
Richard Dawkins (29:25.680)
a huge amount to discover. And therefore we're sitting where 99.99% of things are just still
Richard Dawkins (29:32.240)
shrouded in mystery. Do you think there's a role in a kind of spiritual view of that,
Lex Fridman (29:38.120)
sort of a humbled spiritual view?
Richard Dawkins (29:39.720)
I think it's right to be humble. I think it's right to admit that there's a lot we don't
Richard Dawkins (29:43.960)
know, a lot we don't understand, a lot that we still need to work on. We're working on
Richard Dawkins (29:48.480)
it. What I don't think is that it helps to invoke supernatural explanations. If our current
Richard Dawkins (29:57.600)
scientific explanations aren't adequate to do the job, then we need better ones. We need
Richard Dawkins (30:01.640)
to work more. And of course, the history of science shows just that, that as science goes
Richard Dawkins (30:06.200)
on, problems get solved one after another, and the science advances as science gets better.
Lex Fridman (30:13.200)
But to invoke a non scientific, non physical explanation is simply to lie down in a cowardly
Richard Dawkins (30:21.400)
way and say, we can't solve it, so we're going to invoke magic. Don't let's do that. Let's
Richard Dawkins (30:25.440)
say we need better science. We need more science. It may be that the science will never do it.
Richard Dawkins (30:30.600)
It may be that we will never actually understand everything. And that's okay, but let's keep
Richard Dawkins (30:36.860)
working on it.
Richard Dawkins (30:39.480)
A challenging question there is, do you think science can lead us astray in terms of the
Richard Dawkins (30:43.520)
humbleness? So there's some aspect of science, maybe it's the aspect of scientists and not
Richard Dawkins (30:50.680)
science, but of sort of a mix of ego and confidence that can lead us astray in terms of discovering
Richard Dawkins (30:59.760)
the, you know, some of the big open questions about the universe.
Richard Dawkins (31:05.240)
I think that's right. I mean, there are, there are arrogant people in any walk of life and
Richard Dawkins (31:09.640)
scientists are no exception to that. And so there are arrogant scientists who think we've
Richard Dawkins (31:13.560)
solved everything. Of course we haven't. So humility is a proper stance for a scientist.
Richard Dawkins (31:18.640)
I mean, it's a proper working stance because it encourages further work. But in a way to
Richard Dawkins (31:25.980)
resort to a supernatural explanation is a kind of arrogance because it's saying, well,
Richard Dawkins (31:30.740)
we don't understand it scientifically. Therefore the non scientific religious supernatural
Richard Dawkins (31:38.280)
explanation must be the right one. That's arrogant. What is, what is humble is to say
Richard Dawkins (31:42.200)
we don't know and we need to work further on it.
Lex Fridman (31:46.560)
So maybe if I could psychoanalyze you for a second, you have at times been just slightly
Richard Dawkins (31:53.160)
frustrated with people who have supernat, you know, have a supernatural. Has that changed
Richard Dawkins (32:00.440)
over the years? Have you become like, how do people that kind of have a seek supernatural
Richard Dawkins (32:06.480)
explanations, how do you see those people as human beings as it's like, do you see them
Richard Dawkins (32:12.720)
as dishonest? Do you see them as, um, sort of, uh, ignorant? Do you see them as, I don't
Richard Dawkins (32:21.200)
know, is it like, how do you think of certainly not, not, not dishonest. And, and I mean,
Richard Dawkins (32:26.360)
obviously many of them are perfectly nice people. So I don't, I don't sort of despise
Richard Dawkins (32:30.120)
them in that sense. Um, I think it's often a misunderstanding that, that, um, people
Richard Dawkins (32:38.000)
will jump from the admission that we don't understand something. They will jump straight
Richard Dawkins (32:44.800)
to what they think of as an alternative explanation, which is the supernatural one, which is not
Richard Dawkins (32:49.440)
an alternative. It's a non explanation. Um, instead of jumping to the conclusion that
Richard Dawkins (32:55.820)
science needs more work, that we need to actually get, do some better, better science. So, um,
Richard Dawkins (33:02.200)
I don't have, I mean, personal antipathy towards such people. I just think they're, they're
Richard Dawkins (33:09.560)
misguided.
Lex Fridman (33:10.560)
So what about this really interesting space that I have trouble with? So religion I have
Richard Dawkins (33:15.760)
a better grasp on, but, um, there's a large communities, like you said, Flat Earth community,
Richard Dawkins (33:21.240)
uh, that I've recently, because I've made a few jokes about it. I saw that there's,
Richard Dawkins (33:27.920)
I've noticed that there's people that take it quite seriously. So there's this bigger
Richard Dawkins (33:33.640)
world of conspiracy theorists, which is a kind of, I mean, there's elements of it that
Richard Dawkins (33:40.960)
are religious as well, but I think they're also scientific. So the, the basic credo of
Richard Dawkins (33:48.240)
a conspiracy theorist is to question everything, which is also the credo of a good scientist,
Lex Fridman (33:56.680)
I would say. So what do you make of this?
Richard Dawkins (33:59.960)
I mean, I think it's probably too easy to say that by labeling something conspiracy,
Richard Dawkins (34:07.200)
you therefore dismiss it. I mean, occasionally conspiracies are right. And so we shouldn't
Richard Dawkins (34:11.840)
dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand. We should examine them on their own merits. Flat
Richard Dawkins (34:17.440)
Earthism is obvious nonsense. We don't have to examine that much further. Um, but, um,
Lex Fridman (34:22.760)
I mean, there may be other conspiracy theories which are actually right.
Lex Fridman (34:27.280)
So I've, you know, grew up in the Soviet Union. So I, I just, you know, uh, the space race
Richard Dawkins (34:31.720)
was very influential for me on both sides of the coin. Uh, you know, there's a conspiracy
Richard Dawkins (34:37.520)
theory that we never went to the moon. Right. And it's, uh, it's like, I cannot understand
Richard Dawkins (34:45.200)
it and it's very difficult to rigorously scientifically show one way or the other. It's just, you
Richard Dawkins (34:50.760)
have to use some of the human intuition about who would have to lie, who would have to work
Richard Dawkins (34:54.600)
together. And it's clear that very unlikely, uh, good behind that is my general intuition
Richard Dawkins (35:01.720)
that most people in this world are good. You know, in order to really put together some
Richard Dawkins (35:06.480)
conspiracy theories, there has to be a large number of people working together and essentially
Richard Dawkins (35:12.280)
being dishonest.
Richard Dawkins (35:13.280)
Yes, which is improbable. The sheer number who would have to be in on this conspiracy
Lex Fridman (35:18.480)
and the sheer detail, the attention to detail they'd have had to have had and so on. I'd
Lex Fridman (35:23.840)
also worry about the motive and why would anyone want to suggest that it didn't happen?
Richard Dawkins (35:29.400)
What's the, what's the, why is it so hard to believe? I mean, the, the physics of it,
Richard Dawkins (35:35.120)
the mathematics of it, the, the idea of computing orbits and, and, and trajectories and things,
Lex Fridman (35:40.720)
it, it all works mathematically. Why wouldn't you believe it?
Richard Dawkins (35:44.360)
It's a psychology question because there's something really pleasant about, um, you know,
Richard Dawkins (35:50.280)
pointing out that the emperor has no clothes when everybody like, uh, you know, thinking
Richard Dawkins (35:55.700)
outside the box and coming up with the true answer where everybody else is diluted. There's
Richard Dawkins (36:00.240)
something, I mean, I have that for science, right? You want to prove the entire scientific
Lex Fridman (36:04.480)
community wrong. That's the whole.
Richard Dawkins (36:06.120)
That's, that's, that's right. And, and of course, historically, lone geniuses have come
Richard Dawkins (36:11.040)
out right sometimes, but often people with who think they're a lone genius much more
Richard Dawkins (36:15.820)
often turn out not to. Um, so you have to judge each case on its merits. The mere fact
Richard Dawkins (36:20.840)
that you're a maverick, the mere fact that you, you're going against the current tide
Richard Dawkins (36:25.960)
doesn't make you right. You've got to show you're right by looking at the evidence.
Lex Fridman (36:29.960)
So because you focus so much on, on religion and disassembled a lot of ideas there and
Richard Dawkins (36:35.480)
I just, I was wondering if, if you have ideas about conspiracy theory groups, because it's
Richard Dawkins (36:41.400)
such a prevalent, even reaching into, uh, presidential politics and so on. It seems
Richard Dawkins (36:46.600)
like it's a very large communities that believe different kinds of conspiracy theories. Is
Richard Dawkins (36:50.960)
there some connection there to your thinking on religion? And it is curious. It's a matter.
Richard Dawkins (36:56.560)
It's an obvious difficult thing. Uh, I don't understand why people believe things that
Richard Dawkins (37:03.000)
are clearly nonsense, like, well, flat earth and also the conspiracy about not landing
Richard Dawkins (37:07.960)
on the moon or, um, that, um, the, that the United States engineered 9 11 that, that kind
Richard Dawkins (37:15.000)
of thing. Um, so it's not clearly nonsense. It's extremely unlikely. Okay. It's extremely
Richard Dawkins (37:21.640)
unlikely that religion is a bit different because it's passed down from generation to
Richard Dawkins (37:27.020)
generation. So many of the people who are religious, uh, got it from their parents who
Richard Dawkins (37:31.920)
got it from their parents who got it from their parents and childhood indoctrination
Richard Dawkins (37:35.800)
is a very powerful force. But these things like the nine 11 conspiracy theory, the, um,
Richard Dawkins (37:45.840)
Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory, the man on the moon conspiracy theory, these are
Richard Dawkins (37:50.840)
not childhood indoctrination. These are, um, presumably dreamed up by somebody who then
Richard Dawkins (37:57.120)
tells somebody else who then wants to believe it. And I don't know why people are so eager
Richard Dawkins (38:04.600)
to fall in line with some, just some person that they happen to read or meet who spins
Richard Dawkins (38:10.760)
some yarn. I can kind of understand why they believe what their parents and teachers told
Richard Dawkins (38:16.160)
them when they were very tiny and not capable of critical thinking for themselves. So I
Richard Dawkins (38:21.600)
sort of get why the great religions of the world like Catholicism and Islam go on persisting.
Richard Dawkins (38:28.960)
It's because of childhood indoctrination, but that's not true of flat earthism and sure
Richard Dawkins (38:34.080)
enough flat earthism is a very minority cult way larger than I ever realized. Well, yes,
Richard Dawkins (38:40.440)
I know, but so that's a really clean idea and you've articulated that in your new book
Lex Fridman (38:43.880)
and then, and I'll go on God and in God, the illusion is the early indoctrination. That's
Richard Dawkins (38:49.280)
really interesting that you can get away with a lot of out there ideas in terms of religious
Richard Dawkins (38:54.320)
texts. If, um, the age at which you convey those ideas at first is a young age. So indoctrination
Richard Dawkins (39:04.140)
is sort of an essential element of propagation of religion. So let me ask on the morality
Richard Dawkins (39:11.600)
side in the books that I mentioned, God, delusion, and I'll go on God. You described that human
Richard Dawkins (39:16.360)
beings don't need religion to be moral. So from an engineering perspective, we want to
Lex Fridman (39:21.960)
engineer morality into AI systems. So in general, where do you think morals come from in humans?
Richard Dawkins (39:32.800)
A very complicated and interesting question. It's clear to me that the moral standards,
Richard Dawkins (39:40.680)
the moral values of our civilization changes as the decades go by, certainly as the centuries
Richard Dawkins (39:50.560)
go by, even as the decades go by. And we in the 21st century are quite clearly labeled
Richard Dawkins (39:59.400)
21st century people in terms of our moral values. There's a spread. I mean, some of
Richard Dawkins (40:05.680)
us are a little bit more ruthless, some of us more conservative, some of us more liberal
Lex Fridman (40:10.600)
and so on. But we all subscribe to pretty much the same views when you compare us with
Richard Dawkins (40:18.040)
say 18th century, 17th century people, even 19th century, 20th century people. So we're
Richard Dawkins (40:26.720)
much less racist, we're much less sexist and so on than we used to be. Some people are
Richard Dawkins (40:31.440)
still racist and some are still sexist, but the spread has shifted. The Gaussian distribution
Richard Dawkins (40:37.080)
has moved and moves steadily as the centuries go by. And that is the most powerful influence
Richard Dawkins (40:47.300)
I can see on our moral values. And that doesn't have anything to do with religion. I mean,
Richard Dawkins (40:54.360)
the religion, sorry, the morals of the Old Testament are Bronze Age models. They're deplorable
Lex Fridman (41:03.520)
and they are to be understood in terms of the people in the desert who made them up
Richard Dawkins (41:09.560)
at the time. And so human sacrifice, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, petty revenge,
Richard Dawkins (41:17.800)
killing people for breaking the Sabbath, all that kind of thing, inconceivable now.
Lex Fridman (41:23.800)
So at some point religious texts may have in part reflected that Gaussian distribution
Lex Fridman (41:29.380)
at that time.
Richard Dawkins (41:30.380)
I'm sure they did. I'm sure they always reflect that, yes.
Lex Fridman (41:32.220)
And then now, but the sort of almost like the meme, as you describe it, of ideas moves
Richard Dawkins (41:39.040)
much faster than religious texts do, than new religions.
Richard Dawkins (41:42.120)
Yes. So basing your morals on religious texts, which were written millennia ago, is not a
Richard Dawkins (41:49.200)
great way to proceed. I think that's pretty clear. So not only should we not get our morals
Richard Dawkins (41:56.920)
from such texts, but we don't. We quite clearly don't. If we did, then we'd be discriminating
Richard Dawkins (42:03.640)
against women and we'd be racist, we'd be killing homosexuals and so on. So we don't
Lex Fridman (42:12.960)
and we shouldn't. Now, of course, it's possible to use your 21st century standards of morality
Lex Fridman (42:20.400)
and you can look at the Bible and you can cherry pick particular verses which conform
Richard Dawkins (42:25.980)
to our modern morality, and you'll find that Jesus says some pretty nice things, which
Richard Dawkins (42:30.640)
is great. But you're using your 21st century morality to decide which verses to pick, which
Richard Dawkins (42:38.120)
verses to reject. And so why not cut out the middleman of the Bible and go straight to
Richard Dawkins (42:44.480)
the 21st century morality, which is where that comes from. It's a much more complicated
Richard Dawkins (42:51.080)
question. Why is it that morality, moral values change as the centuries go by? They undoubtedly
Richard Dawkins (42:57.400)
do. And it's a very interesting question to ask why. It's another example of cultural
Richard Dawkins (43:02.680)
evolution, just as technology progresses, so moral values progress for probably very
Richard Dawkins (43:09.640)
different reasons.
Lex Fridman (43:10.640)
But it's interesting if the direction in which that progress is happening has some evolutionary
Richard Dawkins (43:15.440)
value or if it's merely a drift that can go into any direction.
Richard Dawkins (43:18.960)
I'm not sure it's any direction and I'm not sure it's evolutionarily valuable. What it
Richard Dawkins (43:22.880)
is is progressive in the sense that each step is a step in the same direction as the previous
Richard Dawkins (43:29.320)
step. So it becomes more gentle, more decent by modern standards, more liberal, less violent.
Lex Fridman (43:37.080)
But more decent, I think you're using terms and interpreting everything in the context
Richard Dawkins (43:42.600)
of the 21st century because Genghis Khan would probably say that this is not more decent
Richard Dawkins (43:48.320)
because we're now, you know, there's a lot of weak members of society that we're not
Lex Fridman (43:52.560)
murdering.
Richard Dawkins (43:53.560)
Yes. I was careful to say by the standards of the 21st century, by our standards, if
Richard Dawkins (43:58.240)
we with hindsight look back at history, what we see is a trend in the direction towards
Richard Dawkins (44:03.160)
us, towards our present, our present value system.
Richard Dawkins (44:06.840)
For us, we see progress, but it's an open question whether that won't, you know, I don't
Richard Dawkins (44:13.360)
see necessarily why we can never return to Genghis Khan times.
Richard Dawkins (44:17.040)
We could. I suspect we won't. But if you look at the history of moral values over the centuries,
Richard Dawkins (44:26.160)
it is in a progressive, I use the word progressive not in a value judgment sense, in the sense
Richard Dawkins (44:31.640)
of a transitive sense. Each step is the same, is the same direction as the previous step.
Lex Fridman (44:37.640)
So things like we don't derive entertainment from torturing cats. We don't derive entertainment
Lex Fridman (44:47.600)
from like the Romans did in the Colosseum from that state.
Richard Dawkins (44:53.360)
Or rather we suppress the desire to get, I mean, to have play. It's probably in us somewhere.
Lex Fridman (45:00.440)
So there's a bunch of parts of our brain, one that probably, you know, limbic system
Richard Dawkins (45:05.320)
that wants certain pleasures. And that's I don't, I mean, I wouldn't have said that,
Lex Fridman (45:10.980)
but you're at liberty to think that you like, well, no, there's a, there's a Dan Carlin
Richard Dawkins (45:16.200)
of hardcore history. There's a really nice explanation of how we've enjoyed watching
Richard Dawkins (45:20.560)
the torture of people, the fighting of people, just to torture the suffering of people throughout
Richard Dawkins (45:25.040)
history as entertainment until quite recently. And now everything we do with sports, we're
Richard Dawkins (45:32.560)
kind of channeling that feeling into something else. I mean, there, there is some dark aspects
Richard Dawkins (45:38.160)
of human nature that are underneath everything. And I do hope this like higher level software
Richard Dawkins (45:44.400)
we've built will keep us at bay. I'm also Jewish and have history with the Soviet Union
Lex Fridman (45:52.440)
and the Holocaust. And I clearly remember that some of the darker aspects of human nature
Lex Fridman (45:58.400)
creeped up there.
Richard Dawkins (45:59.400)
They do. There have been, there have been steps backwards admittedly, and the Holocaust
Richard Dawkins (46:04.120)
is an obvious one. But if you take a broad view of history, it's the same direction.
Lex Fridman (46:11.000)
So Pamela McCordick in Machines Who Think has written that AI began with an ancient
Richard Dawkins (46:16.960)
wish to forge the gods. Do you see, it's a poetic description I suppose, but do you see
Richard Dawkins (46:24.120)
a connection between our civilizations, historic desire to create gods, to create religions
Lex Fridman (46:30.120)
and our modern desire to create technology and intelligent technology?
Richard Dawkins (46:35.560)
I suppose there's a link between an ancient desire to explain away mystery and science,
Lex Fridman (46:46.440)
but intelligence, artificial intelligence, creating gods, creating new gods. And I forget,
Richard Dawkins (46:53.920)
I read somewhere a somewhat facetious paper which said that we have a new god is called
Richard Dawkins (46:59.320)
Google and we pray to it and we worship it and we ask its advice like an Oracle and so
Richard Dawkins (47:05.320)
on. That's fun.
Richard Dawkins (47:08.680)
You don't see that, you see that as a fun statement, a facetious statement. You don't
Richard Dawkins (47:12.200)
see that as a kind of truth of us creating things that are more powerful than ourselves
Lex Fridman (47:17.480)
and natural.
Richard Dawkins (47:18.480)
It has a kind of poetic resonance to it, which I get, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't have bothered
Lex Fridman (47:26.440)
to make the point myself, put it that way.
Richard Dawkins (47:28.840)
All right. So you don't think AI will become our new god, a new religion, a new gods like
Lex Fridman (47:34.320)
Google?
Richard Dawkins (47:35.320)
Well, yes. I mean, I can see that the future of intelligent machines or indeed intelligent
Richard Dawkins (47:42.280)
aliens from outer space might yield beings that we would regard as gods in the sense
Richard Dawkins (47:48.800)
that they are so superior to us that we might as well worship them. That's highly plausible,
Richard Dawkins (47:55.200)
I think. But I see a very fundamental distinction between a god who is simply defined as something
Richard Dawkins (48:03.460)
very, very powerful and intelligent on the one hand and a god who doesn't need explaining
Richard Dawkins (48:09.400)
by a progressive step by step process like evolution or like engineering design. So suppose
Richard Dawkins (48:20.360)
we did meet an alien from outer space who was marvelously, magnificently more intelligent
Richard Dawkins (48:27.080)
than us and we would sort of worship it for that reason. Nevertheless, it would not be
Richard Dawkins (48:31.800)
a god in the very important sense that it did not just happen to be there like god is
Richard Dawkins (48:39.640)
supposed to. It must have come about by a gradual step by step incremental progressive
Richard Dawkins (48:46.480)
process, presumably like Darwinian evolution. There's all the difference in the world between
Richard Dawkins (48:52.900)
those two. Intelligence, design comes into the universe late as a product of a progressive
Richard Dawkins (49:01.180)
evolutionary process or progressive engineering design process.
Lex Fridman (49:06.560)
So most of the work is done through this slow moving progress.
Richard Dawkins (49:11.280)
Exactly.
Richard Dawkins (49:12.280)
Yeah. Yeah. But there's still this desire to get answers to the why question that if
Richard Dawkins (49:23.240)
the world is a simulation, if we're living in a simulation, that there's a programmer
Lex Fridman (49:27.600)
like creature that we can ask questions of.
Richard Dawkins (49:30.400)
Well, let's pursue the idea that we're living in a simulation, which is not totally ridiculous,
Lex Fridman (49:35.600)
by the way.
Richard Dawkins (49:36.600)
There we go.
Richard Dawkins (49:39.720)
Then you still need to explain the programmer. The programmer had to come into existence
Richard Dawkins (49:46.440)
by some... Even if we're in a simulation, the programmer must have evolved. Or if he's
Lex Fridman (49:53.440)
in a sort of...
Richard Dawkins (49:54.920)
Or she.
Richard Dawkins (49:55.920)
If she's in a meta simulation, then the meta program must have evolved by a gradual process.
Richard Dawkins (50:03.600)
You can't escape that. Fundamentally, you've got to come back to a gradual incremental
Lex Fridman (50:09.880)
process of explanation to start with.
Richard Dawkins (50:13.760)
There's no shortcuts in this world.
Lex Fridman (50:15.640)
No, exactly.
Lex Fridman (50:17.640)
But maybe to linger on that point about the simulation, do you think it's an interesting
Richard Dawkins (50:22.200)
thing? Basically, you talk to... Bored the heck out of everybody asking this question,
Lex Fridman (50:28.400)
but whether you live in a simulation, do you think... First, do you think we live in a
Lex Fridman (50:33.440)
simulation? Second, do you think it's an interesting thought experiment?
Richard Dawkins (50:37.480)
It's certainly an interesting thought experiment. I first met it in a science fiction novel
Richard Dawkins (50:42.160)
by Daniel Galloy called Counterfeit World, in which it's all about... I mean, our heroes
Richard Dawkins (50:53.720)
are running a gigantic computer which simulates the world, and something goes wrong, and so
Richard Dawkins (51:00.520)
one of them has to go down into the simulated world in order to fix it. And then the denouement
Richard Dawkins (51:05.840)
of the thing, the climax to the novel, is that they discover that they themselves are
Richard Dawkins (51:10.040)
in another simulation at a higher level. So I was intrigued by this, and I love others
Richard Dawkins (51:15.580)
of Daniel Galloy's science fiction novels. Then it was revived seriously by Nick Bostrom...
Lex Fridman (51:23.840)
Bostrom talking to him in an hour.
Lex Fridman (51:27.600)
And he goes further, not just treat it as a science fiction speculation, he actually
Lex Fridman (51:32.520)
thinks it's positively likely. I mean, he thinks it's very likely, actually.
Richard Dawkins (51:37.800)
He makes a probabilistic argument, which you can use to come up with very interesting conclusions
Lex Fridman (51:42.480)
about the nature of this universe.
Richard Dawkins (51:44.360)
I mean, he thinks that we're in a simulation done by, so to speak, our descendants of the
Richard Dawkins (51:50.880)
future. But it's still a product of evolution. It's still ultimately going to be a product
Richard Dawkins (51:56.200)
of evolution, even though the super intelligent people of the future have created our world,
Lex Fridman (52:05.040)
and you and I are just a simulation, and this table is a simulation and so on. I don't actually
Richard Dawkins (52:11.800)
in my heart of hearts believe it, but I like his argument.
Richard Dawkins (52:15.160)
Well, so the interesting thing is that I agree with you, but the interesting thing to me,
Richard Dawkins (52:21.200)
if I were to say, if we're living in a simulation, that in that simulation, to make it work,
Richard Dawkins (52:26.720)
you still have to do everything gradually, just like you said. That even though it's
Richard Dawkins (52:31.240)
programmed, I don't think there could be miracles.
Richard Dawkins (52:33.360)
Well, no, I mean, the programmer, the higher, the upper ones have to have evolved gradually.
Richard Dawkins (52:39.840)
However, the simulation they create could be instantaneous. I mean, they could be switched
Lex Fridman (52:44.080)
on and we come into the world with fabricated memories.
Richard Dawkins (52:47.840)
True, but what I'm trying to convey, so you're saying the broader statement, but I'm saying
Richard Dawkins (52:53.840)
from an engineering perspective, both the programmer has to be slowly evolved and the
Richard Dawkins (52:59.240)
simulation because it's like, from an engineering perspective.
Lex Fridman (53:03.160)
Oh yeah, it takes a long time to write a program.
Richard Dawkins (53:05.640)
No, like just, I don't think you can create the universe in a snap. I think you have to
Lex Fridman (53:11.000)
grow it.
Richard Dawkins (53:12.000)
Okay. Well, that's a good point. That's an arguable point. By the way, I have thought
Richard Dawkins (53:20.600)
about using the Nick Bostrom idea to solve the riddle of how you were talking. We were
Richard Dawkins (53:26.720)
talking earlier about why the human brain can achieve so much. I thought of this when
Richard Dawkins (53:33.360)
my then 100 year old mother was marveling at what I could do with a smartphone and I
Richard Dawkins (53:39.880)
could call, look up anything in the encyclopedia, I could play her music that she liked and
Lex Fridman (53:44.440)
so on. She said, but it's all in that tiny little phone. No, it's out there. It's in
Richard Dawkins (53:48.560)
the cloud. And maybe most of what we do is in a cloud. So maybe if we are a simulation,
Richard Dawkins (53:56.440)
even all the power that we think is in our skull, it actually may be like the power that
Lex Fridman (54:01.880)
we think is in the iPhone. But is that actually out there in an interface to something else?
Richard Dawkins (54:07.880)
I mean, that's what, including Roger Penrose with panpsychism, that consciousness is somehow
Richard Dawkins (54:14.200)
a fundamental part of physics, that it doesn't have to actually all reside inside. But Roger
Richard Dawkins (54:19.640)
thinks it does reside in the skull, whereas I'm suggesting that it doesn't, that there's
Richard Dawkins (54:26.520)
a cloud.
Richard Dawkins (54:27.520)
That'd be a fascinating notion. On a small tangent, are you familiar with the work of
Richard Dawkins (54:35.520)
Donald Hoffman, I guess? Maybe not saying his name correctly, but just forget the name,
Richard Dawkins (54:43.640)
the idea that there's a difference between reality and perception. So like we biological
Richard Dawkins (54:51.040)
organisms perceive the world in order for the natural selection process to be able to
Richard Dawkins (54:55.120)
survive and so on. But that doesn't mean that our perception actually reflects the fundamental
Richard Dawkins (55:01.120)
reality, the physical reality underneath.
Richard Dawkins (55:03.920)
Well, I do think that although it reflects the fundamental reality, I do believe there
Richard Dawkins (55:10.600)
is a fundamental reality, I do think that our perception is constructive in the sense
Richard Dawkins (55:18.520)
that we construct in our minds a model of what we're seeing. And so this is really the
Richard Dawkins (55:26.280)
view of people who work on visual illusions, like Richard Gregory, who point out that things
Richard Dawkins (55:32.400)
like a Necker cube, which flip from a two dimensional picture of a cube on a sheet of
Richard Dawkins (55:40.680)
paper, we see it as a three dimensional cube, and it flips from one orientation to another
Richard Dawkins (55:46.520)
at regular intervals. What's going on is that the brain is constructing a cube, but the
Richard Dawkins (55:53.160)
sense data are compatible with two alternative cubes. And so rather than stick with one of
Richard Dawkins (55:58.320)
them, it alternates between them. I think that's just a model for what we do all the
Richard Dawkins (56:04.120)
time when we see a table, when we see a person, when we see anything, we're using the sense
Richard Dawkins (56:10.520)
data to construct or make use of a perhaps previously constructed model. I noticed this
Richard Dawkins (56:18.160)
when I meet somebody who actually is, say, a friend of mine, but until I kind of realized
Richard Dawkins (56:26.680)
that it is him, he looks different. And then when I finally clock that it's him, his features
Richard Dawkins (56:33.520)
switch like a Necker cube into the familiar form. As it were, I've taken his face out
Richard Dawkins (56:39.720)
of the filing cabinet inside and grafted it onto or used the sense data to invoke it.
Richard Dawkins (56:48.240)
Yeah, we do some kind of miraculous compression on this whole thing to be able to filter out
Richard Dawkins (56:53.200)
most of the sense data and make sense of it. That's just a magical thing that we do. So
Richard Dawkins (56:58.840)
you've written several, many amazing books, but let me ask, what books, technical or fiction
Richard Dawkins (57:08.360)
or philosophical, had a big impact on your own life? What books would you recommend people
Lex Fridman (57:15.920)
consider reading in their own intellectual journey?
Richard Dawkins (57:19.280)
Darwin, of course. The original. I'm actually ashamed to say I've never read Darwin. He's
Richard Dawkins (57:29.000)
astonishingly prescient because considering he was writing in the middle of the 19th century,
Richard Dawkins (57:35.880)
Michael Gieselin said he's working 100 years ahead of his time. Everything except genetics
Richard Dawkins (57:41.000)
is amazingly right and amazingly far ahead of his time. And of course, you need to read
Richard Dawkins (57:49.240)
the updatings that have happened since his time as well. I mean, he would be astonished
Richard Dawkins (57:55.880)
by, well, let alone Watson and Crick, of course, but he'd be astonished by Mendelian genetics
Lex Fridman (58:03.380)
as well.
Richard Dawkins (58:04.380)
Yeah, it'd be fascinating to see what he thought about DNA, what he would think about DNA.
Richard Dawkins (58:08.480)
I mean, yes, it would. Because in many ways, it clears up what appeared in his time to
Richard Dawkins (58:15.280)
be a riddle. The digital nature of genetics clears up what was a problem, what was a big
Lex Fridman (58:23.600)
problem. Gosh, there's so much that I could think of. I can't really...
Richard Dawkins (58:28.680)
Is there something outside sort of more fiction? When you think young, was there books that
Richard Dawkins (58:34.880)
just kind of outside of kind of the realm of science or religion that just kind of sparked
Lex Fridman (58:39.840)
your journey?
Richard Dawkins (58:40.840)
Yes. Well, actually, I suppose I could say that I've learned some science from science
Richard Dawkins (58:47.520)
fiction. I mentioned Daniel Galloy, and that's one example, but another of his novels called
Richard Dawkins (58:57.360)
Dark Universe, which is not terribly well known, but it's a very, very nice science
Richard Dawkins (59:01.800)
fiction story. It's about a world of perpetual darkness. And we're not told at the beginning
Richard Dawkins (59:07.880)
of the book why these people are in darkness. They stumble around in some kind of underground
Richard Dawkins (59:12.840)
world of caverns and passages, using echolocation like bats and whales to get around. And they've
Richard Dawkins (59:21.280)
adapted, presumably by Darwinian means, to survive in perpetual total darkness. But what's
Richard Dawkins (59:28.600)
interesting is that their mythology, their religion has echoes of Christianity, but it's
Richard Dawkins (59:36.480)
based on light. And so there's been a fall from a paradise world that once existed where
Richard Dawkins (59:44.720)
light reigns supreme. And because of the sin of mankind, light banished them. So they no
Richard Dawkins (59:52.880)
longer are in light's presence, but light survives in the form of mythology and in the
Richard Dawkins (59:58.640)
form of sayings like, there's a great light almighty. Oh, for light's sake, don't do that.
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