Episode 930 Scott Adams: Bedtime Stories of Heroics and Failures. Plus Your Questions.

Date: 2020-04-23 | Duration: 51:19

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a Content: Wanna hear some stories from my childhood?

If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays

> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:10]

hey everybody come on in here it's time for bedtime stories with Scott yeah it's one of your favorite times of the day it's right up there with the morning the morning being your other favorite part of the day [Music] drumming well I'm working on my paradiddles that's a I know that sounds bad but that's actually a drummer term yes
yes working on my paradiddle let's say he goes like this okay
needs work well well well I thought I would begin with a demonstration of artificial intelligence now the way this is gonna work is I have a hypothesis that I could write a program that would pass the Turing test now the Turing test most of you know is a test that if you were talking to let's

[1:11]

a test that if you were talking to let's say a computer there was behind a curtain and you couldn't tell if it was a human or a computer and let's say you were communicating by text so that you can't tell anything by the voice could you tell that you are getting a message from a real person or a computer so if you can't tell if you're talking to a real person that is passing the Turing test named after touring so in a moment I'm going to give you a demonstration in which I will play the part of the computer now like a computer I won't actually know what you're saying but I'm gonna have a conversation with you as if you're having an actual conversation with me so you can play what you can play along at home and here's how it works I will I will be your talking to a friend I'll tell you that I'm gonna tell you a story but I'm gonna leave

[2:13]

you a story but I'm gonna leave moments when you can talk to me but rather than being some dumb ol AI program even though I won't know what you're saying don't put it in the comments say it out loud if there is but it's funnier if there's somebody else in the room say it out loud as if you're answering me or you're talking to me and I will simply respond and you'll be amazed how good this is you know hold on hold on just hold that thought see what I did there it was like I was talking to you right because that's how a real person would talk to you what yeah see what I did there I acted like I was talking to you now that's what it's gonna look like so I'm gonna tell you a story but I'm gonna pause every now and then and I'm gonna act like you said something to me so it's funnier if you actually say something yeah as long as there's somebody else with you it might be funny if it's just you and your dog or something but it'd be way better if there's something else in the room so

[3:14]

there's something else in the room so this is a story I like to call what yeah yeah it's you probably haven't heard this story only maybe you've heard it I don't know but just hold on hold that thought let me just tell you my story and I'm sure you have good stories too but let me just tell you this story by the way did did you do something with your hair you look I don't know did you lose weight yeah so don't be modest you know you've been you've been walking haven't you been taking walks yeah it's great isn't it
it I know you're probably the same as me you wish you could do more of it but you know when the coronavirus stuff is over I hope we can keep that habit up yeah and also go into the gym right so this is a story I call the golden egg now

[4:14]

is a story I call the golden egg now it's not about cooking it's about well I'll tell you so the golden egg is my first success story in life and it happened when I don't know my exact age I'm thinking maybe nine years old ish give or take a few years and we would have an annual event in my tiny town of Windham New York called the Easter egg hunt and you know very much like other towns do it traditionally and the eggs would be colored and hidden in a farmer's field that had many many ups and downs and places to hide things in the field and then the local kids would go there and we would go to trying to try to find the eggs but here's the fun part the eggs had aid a cash amount a rent oven so the eggs that were the most plentiful you know might be you know I don't 10 cents or something whatever it was but the most I think the the most

[5:15]

was but the most I think the the most important egg was the golden egg and there was only one of them and it was this big farmer's field and it was filled with kids you know I don't know how many maybe a hundred or more it was a small town but probably a few hundred my my but yeah well it was it was Windham is the name of the town if you heard of it yeah it's well yeah it's not near or anything it's in upstate New York so do you want to hear more of this story or am i boring you I will okay just hang in there all right so I dreamed every year that I was eligible because you could you could enter the Easter egg hunt from the age of probably as as young as you could walk around and carry a little basket but then you would time out at a certain age maybe it was nine I'm hoping my brother is watching this and later he'll say no you would eat you got those details wrong but here was the deal year

[6:20]

details wrong but here was the deal year after year I would go and I would dream I mean I would visualize winning the golden egg now what I said winning I mean being the lucky one who found it because there was no skill involved it was just a giant field you just had to get lucky and you know what were the odds that I would find the one and only golden egg and so I'd got there and I'd look hard and pretty soon somebody else would find the golden egg a year after year I'd go there with my my heart was set and somebody else would find the golden egg and finally it was my final year it was the last year I'd be eligible and the hunt was on and it was it was we were running at a time and the golden egg had not been found and I thought to myself could this be it could this be the time that the universe conforms to my wishes will this be the time that I yeah I know maybe I'm being

[7:20]

time that I yeah I know maybe I'm being a little dramatic okay but would this be the time that I would be the one that the lucky one out of Honor Oh a hundred kids maybe more to find the one golden egg my last chance and the time ran out the time was it was out and that was that nobody found the golden egg it was my last chance dejected and then one of the organizer said hold on hold on somebody has to find the golden egg so we're gonna narrow down to the zone and tell you a little bit more specifically where it might be in that general area and I thought I'm still alive still alive I can find the golden egg and so the the the the whistle sounded and we kids just you know ran into that area and started pouring through all of the

[8:21]

and started pouring through all of the the grass Tufts and and or whatnot and there it was the golden egg and I found it in overtime of my final year and I gotta tell you there are lots of things I've wanted over my life you know like anybody I want this I want that but there were a few things I've ever wanted as much as finding that golden egg and to find it and to realize the thing that I had been visualizing for so long was life-changing it was actually life-changing because even then I was able to calculate the odds I mean roughly speaking and I knew that something weird had happened and that somehow I had beaten tremendous odds and I thought to myself what if that's the

[9:24]

I thought to myself what if that's the way it always is right because yeah I was a kid what if that's the way it always is let me give you another another story so you can get a kid a sense of the things that influence me one day it was around the same age maybe a little after that there was a contest on the back of a cereal box and the contest asked you to draw a picture of the I think it was the Old Faithful geyser and send it in and you could win something and the top prize was I think a color TV which was a big deal back then but there were a bunch of second prizes which were cameras and so I showed my mother say hey I'm gonna head to this contest pretty sure I'm gonna win and my mother said you know I'm glad that you're optimistic you know you're just pretty good drawing but a lot of kids are gonna be entering and

[10:24]

lot of kids are gonna be entering and the odds of you winning a contest on the back of a cereal very low very low or worse than those effect and I said yeah I hear what you're saying but I feel like I'm gonna win not not the top prize but I think I'm gonna win a camera so I said in my drawing I don't want a camera I don't know what the odds were but I want a camera and it wasn't a very good drawing here's another weird thing to happen to me in college my first day of yeah I was I think was my first day freshman year and there was another freshman who was actually an older older guy who was going back to school I think he was in his early 20s and he was a big hulking guy with gigantic arms I remember he had these huge like almost simian arms and one thing led to another

[11:25]

simian arms and one thing led to another and somehow we're just making conversation it turns out he played tennis and I also play tennis and so being the cocky 18 year old that I was and he being the cocky 20-something that he was we ended up trash-talking each other about how badly we would beat each other in tennis should we play now what I didn't know at the time is that he had actually played I think the number one position or at least he was a major college team before that because he'd been in college years before and so he was actually like a college-level first string tennis player I was a guy who played tennis so I wasn't even really in his general category of tennis goodness but do you think that stopped me from trash-talking him that I would beat him in tennis don't know did not it did not

[12:26]

in tennis don't know did not it did not stop me from trash-talking and for the life of me I do not know what got into me because I knew at the time that we weren't even close it would be sort of like you know challenging Tiger Woods to a golf game and think he had a shot but the trash talk continued and we finally played and I will summarize the match this way sometimes I rise to the challenge sometimes sometimes I get lucky sometimes sometimes I'll hit a junk shot that maybe somebody isn't used to seeing because they're a much better player and it comes off my racquet differently because I wasn't that good a player and sometimes I'm unusually quick now so much any but yeah when I was 18 I was deceptively fast and maybe I was way way more

[13:32]

fast and maybe I was way way more mentally tough than my opponent and maybe although I was not yet a trained hypnotist maybe I got in his head and maybe he didn't play his best that day and maybe the way I knew that I had had a good day against all odds and he had had a bad day was when he wrapped his tennis racquet around the end Pole and beat it into a pretzel that's how he expressed his unhappiness and losing a tennis match he was pretty sure he was gonna win now I can't explain why I want I guess he was out of practice I got in his head a little bit one thing led to another lost the momentum bada bing all right how many of you tried talking to me when I was talking no I'm not

[14:36]

me when I was talking no I'm not intoxicated whoever is asking that but thanks for asking and now let me tell you one of my greatest of failures my most hubris is ugly we're gonna we're gonna block you for that so a number of people have have said to me recently and of course this was the setup to that they've said to me Scott I turned you off because you're too narcissistic to which I say Oh apparently you were not aware of the full context the full context being that I often teach you that your ego should be a tool and it's not who you are likewise if I brag about something that went well now Who I am it's just the character I'm taking on to tell you

[15:36]

the character I'm taking on to tell you the story if I do something that shows I failed miserably or something which I've got some stories about that if you want to hear them it doesn't mean that I'm the person who failed so I'm neither the person who succeeded nor am I the person who failed and if you if you imagine that I'm telling you that I am then that's a little bit on you because the the context is missing for you so you should always learn to dial up your ego when you're putting on a show right so if the audience is looking at you crank up your ego that's that's how you get the right energy and the charisma that's why it's more interesting incentive but there are plenty of situations in which that's the very worst thing you could do you want to dial it down right would you like to hear a story that didn't go my way I wrote an entire

[16:40]

that didn't go my way I wrote an entire book about that so I'm literally a guy who wrote a book about all of my failures because there were so many of them you spilled his name wrongly okay it's easier to give good advice but not is easy to follow on your own okay I don't know what that means
so you want to hear a story of utter failure okay I think I've got some examples of that let me call this the first dance stop me if you've heard this when I was probably 14 I had the first dance in my little high school my little town and I wanted to ask the cutest girl in the class to her slow dance and I'd never done this before now if you can remember back to when you

[17:40]

now if you can remember back to when you were 14 imagine the terror of having to walk across the gym floor to act to ask the prettiest girl in the class to dance when he were 14 and a slow dance it's pretty pretty nerve-racking right so you can imagine you know my state of mind but I put myself into the moment I said I'm gonna do this and time Stood Still as I was walking across that great distance which was just you know the width of a basketball thing because she was with the Mean Girls so there were three of them that sort of were the Mean Girls I don't think they called themselves that but if any of them were watching this periscope that's what I thought you were but the of course the Mean Girls often are they're also the prettiest girls the way it works so imagine there are three of them the one that is the target of my

[18:40]

of them the one that is the target of my affections is in the middle but I've got to do whatever I'm going to do in front of an audience of the three Mean Girls so you have to know that there was an audience to know how big the pressure was and so I walked across the gym as time Stood Still it was like I was you know moving through water and I got there and I said I won't I won't say her name but I said her name would you like to dance and she said what now what is the worst thing she could have said because it forced me to say it again but once I had the attention of all three Mean Girls so now the glaring attention of the three Mean Girls is that me and I said would you like to dance and she said now and I

[19:44]

like to dance and she said now and I said yeah what now and she said I'm too hot and when she said I'm too hot
hot did it did I think I was done now no because I'm spunky I'm the kind of guy who doesn't give up so when she said you know I'm too hot I didn't I didn't put my tail between my legs I didn't turn around I didn't give up I'm still I'm still alive still alive and so after she said I'm too hot I said well maybe you could take off your heavy down jacket and she looked at me and she said and I'm too tired and I turned around and I walked all the way back across the

[20:46]

walked all the way back across the tennis court or there was actually a basketball court and time Stood Still again because I knew they were probably laughing at me at that moment in time and I got to the other side and I said someday as God is my witness I will take this great this great tragic humiliation and I will turn it into you if nothing will stop me I will take this bad energy and I will turn it into a little story on periscope in 2020 during the corona virus is what I said to myself because I don't lose I don't lose sometimes the clock runs out before I've won sure but is that my fault no I don't own the clock but I never lose no matter how long it takes I'm gonna win and so I just turned that terrible story

[21:49]

and so I just turned that terrible story into a entertaining little vignette yes yes that really happened would you like to hear would you hate would you like to hear the most embarrassing story that ever happened to me and if Christine is watching this she'll cringe but if you want to hear it if you want to hear the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me it wasn't that one oh there's a better one but only if you want to hear it so I don't see any anything in the comments but there's a little there's a little delay well I'm gonna guess I'm gonna guess that you might want to hear this you know I don't think I would tell this story except that we're trapped in the coronavirus it feels like it feels like all the rules don't apply so this is a story I'd I never would have told so oh can I tell

[22:54]

never would have told so oh can I tell this story it's I'm in mid teens and I'm in a movie theater in Windham New York next to a girl and some some handsy things happened so I'll just keep it that I'm a teenager I'm in a movie theater the movie was diamonds are forever and it was I think the first movie I saw that there was a little nudity and remember this is before the Internet so I had never really seen a movie where a live human being you showed a little bit of something I just never seen it at the same time I wasn't the only one getting a little handsy and although everybody was fully garbed I realized as there was

[23:58]

was fully garbed I realized as there was especially let's say provocative point in the movie that by the worst coincidence lined up at about the same time as some handsy activity I realized that I was to have an event shall we say send the kids to bed will you send the kids to bed all right so I'm like teenager and I realized that I might need to go to the men's room because something's gonna happen and I can't hold back and I think only the guys can relate to this there's something that you could call let's say the countdown the countdown is when you start hearing the countdown and you say to yourself you know there's nothing I can do to stop the countdown from getting to zero we're past the point of

[24:59]

getting to zero we're past the point of the failsafe something's gonna happen and I'm fully clothed that you were everybody's fully clothed in this story but I say to myself my best chance is if I can get to the men's room before the countdown reaches zero I can avoid the worst embarrassment of it and so I quickly got up and started to walk up the aisle to see if I could get there before the countdown ended and here's what I didn't count down it turns out the walking action does not decrease the amount of your excitement if here in a certain condition it actually adds shall we say a degree of friction you weren't counting on so that when I calculated how long it would take to walk up the theater and oh there's a detail I forgot

[26:00]

theater and oh there's a detail I forgot to mention in my small town I would know personally everyone in the theater oh yeah yeah I would personally know everyone in the entire theater because it was a small town and I was sitting up front and I stand up and I say to myself I think I can make it to the back and the restrooms and I can hear the countdown in my head it's like eight seven six and I won't pantomime the whole thing but in the middle of a crowded theatre the event happened while I was trying to walk up the rest of the aisle in front of everybody I knew in the town true story the most embarrassing story I don't

[27:01]

the most embarrassing story I don't think I should have told that I'll probably delete this right after right after we're done uh yeah there was a Bond girl in the movie and it didn't help at all all right I'm gonna take some questions let's see if anybody has any that note that should scare everybody away all right David do you have a question David do you have a question Thanks I've been trying to get in on these questions for a long time really exciting don't blow it this is your chance it is all right make it go so you've talked a lot about well just recently you were talking about the negative where you decided to tell yourself the story that you just always win
win correct right so you could really I guess program yourself with any story

[28:03]

guess program yourself with any story right it's like I grew up in a Christian household and then I stopped going to church and only recently started going again because I thought regardless of whether or not it's true there's a I thought it was just a powerful belief system for like the human mind no operating system and nothing what did you have a question
I guess can you do that I guess with any any belief system just you yeah I think so but my experience is that you can change filters you know I like using the word filter because that tells you that you can't really understand the true nature of the world but you can you can put different filters on it for different purposes so yeah people change religions people change belief systems

[29:04]

religions people change belief systems I've changed my belief system bunch times so yeah you can definitely do that so thank you yeah like I can see where simulation theory you know be helpful
yeah it's you know the simulation theory doesn't have to be true or false it just says write a filter a filter that's useful or not useful and what are the other tricks that I use all the time is to imagine that I'm not my body but rather on the little controller inside my head and I'm inside a robot body it's amazing how often that works I use this today actually it's a little technique to get you going when you're just feeling lazy you're like okay if I were a robot could I lift my arm oh yeah that I could do that and then actually you know you're up and you're up and moving it's my little trick all right thank you for the question think it

[30:08]

let's see if you don't hit this just right that tiny little axe doesn't work all right how about Charlie Charlie Charlie do you have a question oh good there are you all the technique about I'm now my body is something I do all the time and I'm so happy that you said that because my you know the the pinky trick that you talked about it yes I I feel like it's part of that it's along the same lines and where your mind I can control a very small piece with you and then eventually you like that you're not your body is just the means of being existing existing in this world that you mention and in this world in part of it has to be your

[31:08]

world in part of it has to be your physical self but you can control yourself from the mind and you're not necessarily always your body yeah it's it's a fun mental exercise because if you imagine that you were playing a video game and let's say the video game was that there was a little character that the the one you're operating to fight somebody or whatever if the character in that game had a problem in his world it wouldn't bother you even though you're the one operating the little character and so it's the same trick where you say well what if I'm the character in the video game you know and you know or your body is the character so would it bother the little little controller inside your head with that little guy be bothered if there was something bothering your external body you know short of actual physical pain you know let's say your physical body got embarrassed about something would it bother the little you on the inside that's just operating your body like a robot now you're not even the same person there's just something to happen in the external world but it didn't

[32:10]

in the external world but it didn't affect you use the little road you're the little mind inside inside the robot body so whole thing and and I I wanted to ask you one more thing do you think that there is the potential that do you think that it's possible to have a cyclo psychological placebo and the reason I ask it is because could it be that even if the like what they call the Trump pill or whatever you want to call those hopefuls medication or treatment both that there could be a psychological placebo that he may have been really helping people out just by having hope well I do think that it had a purpose yes very much so it allowed let people IB it helped me think that there was some way to get past now as other options developed it was obviously you didn't need that specific

[33:11]

obviously you didn't need that specific way to get Pyatt there they're probably several different paths from everything from testing the blood serum to you know vaccinations whatever but when we didn't have any idea what to do about it it was nice the yen little you know hope at the whole down now it's been increasingly clear for the last I don't know few weeks that we would have heard good news if it if it if it were going to be good news I think we would have heard so I'm not expecting good news from these tests but part of the problem is that they're they're fake tests because they're they pretend to compare you know across different tests but the tests I that I think are working are the ones where they're he paired the hydroxychloroquine with zinc and azithromycin whereas other tests don't parent with zinc and since that is the presumed way that it works you know with the zinc I'm not sure that the new tests are telling you what do you think

[34:11]

are telling you what do you think they're saying so I don't I don't trust him but so if I'd say there's maybe a 40% chance the hydroxychloroquine works at best 40% chance I think that the hopefulness might have worked though like III myself was in the same on the side live in New York and I was on the same page I was like I hear so many deaths happening and you just want to look for something positive and I feel like there was some there was something good weather works or not there was some hope and I think that I don't know all right so thanks for the call to you too thank you I I just saw somebody in the comments asked me if I knew that there's a hotel in my hometown of Windham called Cuomo's cave and I think I've actually stayed in it when I visited my parents I think I actually stayed at Cuomo was cave pretty sure I did all right let's

[35:12]

cave pretty sure I did all right let's see who else has a question for me let's go with tub tub tub do you have a question for me Tom do you have a question for me I can see it trying to load and then reload can you hear me tub oh yes God can you hear me yes you have a question for me well thank you for devoting so much time to your audience for these periscopes they're terrific and I got to share a little bit about that empty slate with one of my kids who's going through college and I told him your story about how you were leaving college and your slate was empty and it was an opportunity to move on and I think a lot of us are gonna find a time now where our slate is gonna be a little bit more empty or we're gonna get to reevaluate things oh we lost the connection it's too bad cuz I like like where that was going

[36:13]

where that was going yeah you know I think the the number of innovations and inventions are just going to be nuts so there's definitely some good stuff coming even with all the bad about Perry is a commie that's a interesting name Perry Perry are you there I can hear you do you have a question for me kind of I wanted to comment on something that I used of yours just in the last 24 hours and to see if maybe um you have a comment or something that can help me prevent getting to the point that I was at I guess I'm a nurse I'm a public health nurse but I I'm fine at nursing but I get so much anxiety and whatnot about the things that I'm not good at right so I have built up a ton of I mean I didn't sleep at all last night because

[37:13]

I didn't sleep at all last night because I was worried about a meeting that I had to run in front of doctors that are above me and I wasn't prepared and I just kept thinking oh my god if I don't find this certain thing at my desk tomorrow morning I'm not gonna be able to put this meeting on and I like I said I didn't sleep all night and then finally on the way to work I I tuned to N and I really seriously considered I am I have to put myself in my brain I am the master of organizing or or working out how this is gonna happen today this morning and I I delayed a meeting so that I could work on it I got to the office found I within four minutes found what I needed to do I was like on auto drive when in the last few days has probably been the hardest viewed 48 hours of my family's life through this kovat thing it's been really tough at the kid and I had tears and everything here at the house and and it's like once I once I put my mind into

[38:15]

it's like once I once I put my mind into that that mindset that you explained where I am in visualizing me just being a master of my body to just go through the motions I got so much done in only one hour I got about three hours of work done it looked awesome the meeting went off well and then after that at one thing after another just constant demands of me I lived up to my supervisors and the the hub of all the co good stuff that they call and say and they were like oh my gosh you are just like Gumby you could be pulled anywhere and you're being useful when I felt worthless 24 hours ago I was in tears and didn't sleep all night gonna see my failures that I my insecurities that I know I'm not good at yeah isn't that an amazing little trick just it just takes you rather the the the fake world of

[39:18]

you rather the the the fake world of anxiety and you just imagine you're operating the robot and suddenly you're just getting stuff done but I know before I don't know why I keep falling into it and I'm so scared they're gonna find out that I'm failing in this area in the computer or you know I it's a you know one of the most important things I ever learned because when I first got into the workflow I was surrounded by people that who seem to have all these skills that I had not yet developed and and so I felt just permanently ignorant and inferior and I didn't know what all the buzz words meant and stuff but it doesn't take long to figure out that most people are bluffing and that everybody's just sort of faking it and once you learn that everybody's faking it at least a little bit I mean at least in terms of how they present themselves then yeah nobody is presenting a a genuine view of their capability once you realize that and you also realize that the the the bar for good performance is not as high as maybe

[40:21]

good performance is not as high as maybe you think it is it's almost hard to fail in today's workplace if as long as you put the work in and you have you have some amount of competence and you do a good try it's hard to fail you know the longer that you try things and they work out and find the more the more you can believe that because now you've had the experience of the more times you have the experience of you're sure it's not going to work out and then an hour later you're like oh that wasn't fine that won't mind going to embarrass myself to the to the extreme here in front of these in front of my supervisor if I am not prepared I put I used you're here also your lesson about about putting yourself in embarrassing situations and thought what then what what's the worst that can happen and I played it out and it sends me down yeah the the worst that could happen is you

[41:22]

the the worst that could happen is you command a head that's actually the worst thing could happen because in the real world you know nobody says you're fired because that PowerPoint slide was missing a bullet pointer so it just that doesn't happen in the real world in fact it's the rarest thing in the world that anybody does any candidate for presentation and there's anything that happens other than compliments even if it's not good I mean people are just kind so they sounds great yeah thank you so there's not much to lose and you you learn that eventually well thank you all right well congratulations - sounds like you're on the way to like a big a big level up it's like you won this level and the in the video game you get to advance to the next level so you might you might have a different challenge coming but it sounds like you've got this one so time to advance to the next level and thanks for the call

[42:26]

now isn't that good to hear let's see what Mike has to say
Mike Mike hey do you have a question for me Mike yes I can go ahead um so I get a question about the simulation okay so the the idea is I guess so step one is I guess we have the like the neurons and in our brains right they work a certain way so we're sort of deterministic machines right and yes unless we're simulations okay right but like like in theory like if you were a scientist within the simulation that's what you would find right yes okay okay so so then the simulation idea is like you would model something like that like you would you would have like a computer model of these neurons they would be represented in code and then you would execute that and that deterministic information processing is what would

[43:27]

information processing is what would produce our I guess you could say consciousness is that well it depends what you call consciousness that's kind of what I'm not give you your consciousness is yeah right so here's my definition that's sort of my own a working definition I think consciousness is the process of predicting what's going to happen in the very next moment and then comparing it to what actually happens so if what you think is going to happen happens such as if I hold this pen and drop it into my hand what I think is gonna happen is Oh exactly that and when and what things happen exactly as you expect they'd be they start to fade from your conscious mind because they don't matter such as if you walk inside your you you don't expect the trees to attack you so you can just take them out of your consciousness right like the thing that

[44:28]

consciousness right like the thing that the things which just let me finish this point the things that become most cause the most friction in your consciousness if you call that is when things don't work the way you wanted them to and you're trying to figure out why and how to adjust so I think it's just that feedback system of trying things and comparing them to what you thought would happen in the moment and that's that's it that's consciousness okay yeah and there's no imagine for example I'll let you finish this we observe that animals seem to have different levels of consciousness and I think if you imagine an animal can't predict its own future very far like a cat can basically you know see what's in front of a dog can maybe expect you to come home but they can't really predict the future so I think that the better you can predict and visualize the future the more you have the experience of consciousness so it's only our ability to predict that gives us consciousness go ahead what was

[45:29]

gives us consciousness go ahead what was your question got it okay now I have like a couple things but I don't want to waste everyone's time I guess I would say then do you think a computer program then that makes a prediction and then evaluate that does that feel something then like I'm sort of drinking and missing like the I guess you could say phenomenological standpoint like like the mind-body problem so if if a computer software thinks is real and thinks that it felt something did it feel something well ask yourself if you think you're happy are you happy but so basically if it's your internal description of what happened that's probably good enough so I think a piece of software can internally describe itself as having certain qualities and that's it all right I appreciate it thanks Scott all right thanks we call
let's take another one let's take egg master flex no I'm not

[46:33]

let's take egg master flex no I'm not gonna take you because your name is weird egg master flex how about Nicolas Nicolas are you there Nicolas Nicolas hey do you have a question for me go on Sam Harris's podcast again well of course that's not up to the gas that's up to the host yeah no I'm generally you okay yeah I did froze for a second there okay I think we're good now yeah I mean I would go on any podcast that was you know big enough that had a little bit of an audience and water to talk to me so of course I would go but it's never up to the gas and I think to be fair there are certain kind of guests that maybe

[47:33]

certain kind of guests that maybe wouldn't seem like repeats I might fall into that category but yeah I mean I would I would do it if he asks but but I'd also want to see you on the portal by Eric my signs one yeah that that would be interesting I'm not sure I can keep up with Eric though he's he's operating at a different level so half the time I I can't keep up but alright thanks for the thanks for the call sounds like his computer was freezing up he sounded frustrated how about Julio Julio Julio come at me Julio Julio are you there I can I can what's your question alright greetings from a fan from Brazil many of the books that you've written have made my life in some ways thank you

[48:35]

have made my life in some ways thank you for that so it uh you have taught me with when Bigley to fairly well predict the future in Brazilian politics so far really in order to believe this well what would you suggest that I do to you know start leveraging that somehow well nobody could really predict the future i-i've had some remarkable predictions but I also don't have any reason to believe that you know the next five years I would have more remarkable predictions so is one thing to be right and it's a completely other different thing to say you can reproduce it so if you ask me how can you make money with your new prediction ability I would say that's what people say right before they lose a lot of money so believing that you can predict the future is the best way to lose money but if you wanted to make sure you didn't you diversify and

[49:35]

make sure you didn't you diversify and have a diversified portfolio etc now that's that we're all human and I often make small bets based on the fact I think I can predict so my best advice is to make small bets and convince yourself you're really good at this and probably never make a big bet unless you can really afford to lose it so I wouldn't bet anything you couldn't afford to lose and I would experiment and see how well you do now one of the things one of the ways that I'm doing this is I signed out for predicted you know the online betting service so that I could actually have a record because it keeps a running history of how good you are at predicting so you know do I have false memory do I have door remember that I was better than I thought or better than I remembered whatever and predicted does that for you so if you think you can see the future you might actually be able to do it but you can test it I'll predict it when I

[50:36]

you can test it I'll predict it when I say see the future I mean just you have better tools to predict where things are likely to hit so it's more about likely it's not it's not like a photograph of the future did that help oh I lost them that's all for tonight I'm gonna go eat some dinner you're gonna go have a great night's sleep I mean really great if you haven't tried that trick of imagining you're the little operator inside the robot body you really have to try it it's a strong frame and I will talk to you in the morning it will have some fun then bye