Spiros Michalakis- quantum entanglement, empathy, and why "change" is fundamental

Welcome to the Optimal Performance Guide, where we have conversations with high-level humans to provide clear guidance to the mindset and habits required for optimal performance. I'm your host, Rory Corgel. Okay, guys. First off, I want to thank you for tuning in today. I really appreciate you listening and supporting the show. If you're an avid listener, I apologize for the few weeks away. I had an opportunity to take some time and unplug with my family in the mountains, so I had to take advantage of that. But, I'm back now and have some great episodes coming your way. My intention is to continue with one episode a week for the next year, so I hope you continue to be part of this journey. Okay, enough housekeeping. Let's get to the guest for today. Spiros Mikalakis. Spiros. He's a great guy and is absolutely brilliant. I heard him on my friend Gabby Reese's podcast and loved their conversation, so I was thrilled he agreed to be on the show. Spiros is a mathematical physicist at Caltech's Institute of Quantum Information and Matter. IQIM. His research focuses on the physical and mathematical mechanisms underlying the emergence of space time. He manages IQIM's outreach program, so as actively involved in teaching and interacting with the community. He also consults with Hollywood on blockbuster films to ensure an accurate representation of quantum physics. For example, Marvel's Ant-Man series, Captain Marvel, and most recently, Bill and Ted faced the music. Earlier, I mentioned Spiros' brilliant. Well, in 1998, a list of 13 open problems in mathematical physics was created. Spiros and his postdoc partner Hastings solved one of these problems which took 10 years before it was fully understood and recognized as solved. And this is the only problem fully solved from that list. In this episode, we cover the master algorithm, quantum entanglement, why humans are infinite, space and time, empathy, the biggest illusion in our world, the most fundamental thing in our universe, what is the soul, is fate real, black holes, the power of science, and why love is fundamental to humans. Okay, enough talking. Let's get to the show. Spiros. Hello, hello. Hello. How are you doing? We're in the world. Are you L.A.? L.A., I love the park. Yeah, what about you? I base out of L.A., but right now I'm in Aspen, so I'm looking at the leaves changing. It's pretty nice to get out of L.A. right now for a minute. Thanks so much for agreeing to do this interview. Absolutely. Thank you for reaching out. So you heard Gabby Reese interview? Yeah, so I love Gabby and Laird. They're such great people. Yeah, I heard the interview you did with Gabby, and I just thought it was great. I'm a physical therapist and trainer, and I work with the body a lot, and I'm always studying science and trying to just understand at a deeper level, you know, what are truths within the human body, within nature, within the universe. So here in you go, micro macro perception, just everything you talk about just really is exciting to me. So, and specifically quantum field theory quantum mechanics is really interesting. So to have the opportunity to talk to you is exciting for me. Awesome. Awesome. Happy to be here. So researching just for this interview, just listening to some podcasts and I get this feeling that depth is important to you. And connection and truth and so I feel like mathematics and physics must be a deep science for you to gravitate towards it. Very much so. You're right. I love thinking it's almost like a genetic normality. You know, you can't stop thinking like, you can stop like exercising or walking outside or whatever. Yeah, I've been I've been thinking about stuff and they have only accelerated recently or the past like 10 years, a lot. And the funny thing is that I am not the kind of person that thinks about stuff for purpose, you know, like I don't know, you want to make money, right? And you're like, okay, I need to sit down and think how would I do that? You want to be successful and you know, you're like, alright, what do I need to do? I need to make a plan. I need to think hard about certain things. It's more for the fun of it. Because you know, when you're a kid, you have all these questions about how they do this. And since this is how the universe works, they're like even deeper questions, right? You know, the meaning of things are like, why are you here? You know, why? All the why, why, why? All the time. And it's it was a bit of a roundabout way for me to to come up with almost an algorithm that allowed me to start answering some of these questions that I thought like many of us were unanswerable. Okay, so from that point of view, I thought I was like really interesting, you know, to that there was a master algorithm almost that we can discuss about it. To allow every human being to start giving answers to questions like this. And I'm going to be honest like it has nothing to do with Deepak Chopra or in your interest. This is not the, you know, it's an algorithm that is almost to good to be true from point of view that it gives you access to the type of wisdom that spiritual leaders like Chopra wish to have, right? And maybe they have because of experience or meditation or whatever it is. But they end up getting it anyways in a way that is you can almost turn it into technology at some point, right? You know, with enough time. Because it's founded not even in science, it goes beyond science, right? It goes to the very foundations of science and the physics, right? And I would ability to manipulate the physical role. But I love that like that's where it goes deep that you get to a place where you didn't think like you thought that if you were to go that deep, it become kind of useless. You be so abstract. It's like what does it have to do with anything anymore, right? And that's like that was the key transformation for me and my mind at some point that was like, wait a minute. It's not the most abstract of relevance, right? When you go to say the foundations of mathematics itself, if you really understand math, if you really do, like better even the best mathematicians, like, you know, if you get lucky not to get a glimpse of the creation of mathematics itself and why it happened that way, why we define certain mathematical structures that way we did versus that, you know, how they were defined and then what things we can prove after that, right? And on these foundations, that is a very interesting place to be. That's a, it just maybe think of taking math for me in high school, like geometry, pre-calculus, I did AP Calc and tested out for physical, you know, for for what I had to do, I didn't have to take it in college, but I always love math, but I was never able to understand how math. So you can look at the wind blowing or just nature and bring that to math, but it sounds like you can do that, which is what a gift. You know what the funny thing is that we often think things are so complex, right? Because of intrinsically, they're just very complex. Stumbling pools, you know, with our few senses trying to understand, you know, all that complexity, but the irony of it is that in the end, I realize that we are complex. We're the ones that bring this seemingly reducible complexity into the universe because of our misunderstanding of our own powers of observation. You know, it's like you are trying to understand something that's actually very simple, but you've been looking at it the wrong way, the way that you thought was intuitive and natural to you, because, you know, a lot of things happen to us as human beings, since we are born. There we have not control, not control over, right, in our ability to see particular wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum to be concrete, for example, okay, where we call like visible light, right, a very specific range in nanometers of wavelengths of light. So we don't get to see all the Wi-Fi, you know, waves around us, we don't get to see infrared or ultraviolet or X-rays, you know, you don't get to do people's clothes, right, your bones or whatever. But that's not because all this information is not there, of course it's there, we don't have the receptors, right, you know, the photographic plate and the bug of our eyes to be able to correlate with these things. They are there, all these things are there, just like all of the answers we will ever find have always been there. Quantum mechanics was the truth of the universe, not since like a hundred years ago when we discovered it. Okay, that's something where it was going on, there was a new kid in town, like, you know, in the run of physical theories is always been there, right, like I was always been that the same thing with like Einstein's theory of general relativity and what is gravity and space and time being connected always was there. We just could not imagine often like we didn't even want to imagine that we'd be able to very simply understand something was so powerful like gravity or electromagnetic waves which give rise to everything around us, tables, humans, all that stuff, right. I wanted the master algorithm you're talking about and scene versus unseen because I'm very interested in what we can physically touch and so for me, for example, working on the body, you can physically, there's a concept of being very direct with your treatment, let's say you're working manually with your hands. So very directly just manipulating I'm, I'm going to move your arm in deflection this direction or indirect it's more listening like where does your body want to go and there's this intuition this something that, you know, like the the ultraviolet or you can't see, but there's this intuition, there's this feeling, this sense of knowing and often it's correct when you're trying to. You come into this this connection with let's say a client or whatever you have this common goal of getting healthy and getting better and it unravels if you can let go. And it is like amazing how powerful that intuition is right because there are things that we know and our body knows our mind knows right that we're just at the metal level we're not aware that we know them right and. The master algorithm has everything to do with not being afraid to know the things that we already know to really get to know them right to go there instead of just. I mean you know that's why I also brought up like someone like debug chopper you know someone who it feels like she knows a lot of stuff and he says things that may resonate with our human minds and hearts and everything right and many others who who is almost like points right you know and that poetry. But the thing that is missing is that they don't know why they know this stuff right and because of that it may be complete BS and they wouldn't even know right like because there's sometimes our physical intuition or even our spiritual intuition right maybe so off. But it feels so good right it just feels so right that you so much engage with you don't let go you don't know like you know you may be right but you may be right for the wrong reasons or you may be wrong but you're so close to being right but it's miles away because you don't understand why you know why you're saying the things that you're saying. And I don't know I want the world to feel empowered enough to do magic right like to be able to think about things with such clarity that they don't just expect some other magician to make things happen for them right they can just say wait a minute how do I break this down whether the fundamental parts will I go am I willing to go. Like where nobody else wants to go you know whether sometimes it's oh I don't want to do this math like you know I you know I failed calculus or I failed like you know simple Newtonian mechanics you know as far as physics goes or stuff like that it's not for me right we need some genius to figure this out. And fairly certain that that is not necessary it is not necessary you know there is a that master algorithm is actually very simple it tells you that the devil is not in the details the devil is the details like you know all the richness of the universe hides in these details where you emotionally engage with these details and they're no longer boring you find a point of view. We are which these details become like the most interesting part and then separate you from everyone else is understanding you know it's not just like oh you zoomed into much and it's like you know irrelevant for most other people now. Everything is connected to everything else okay let's chopper would say but in a very amazing way that the point of view exists almost like as a single point is your dimensional entity right if you zoom out enough. But it contains within it all the structure and all the crazy like you know beauty that we have ever observed simply because it has to be able to respond to a multitude of points of view not just the one where you saw far away the earth itself disappears right even though we know we're here we know we're having a conversation we know there's like oceans and mountains and all stuff but if you're far enough you know from the earth. If I look like a pale blue dot it looks like nothing you don't even exist right and it's just the transformation of your point of view of how you get to engage with this thing right that unfold all of its inner structure. What about with connection Heather seems to be this natural dynamic intermittent attunement like this natural dance of attunement when you're really connected and present with someone does this apply to what you're talking about. Yes indeed as part of the master algorithm it definitely is yes there is something in the universe called quantum entanglement okay it is a resource even more fundamental and more powerful than energy itself right and so often you know again when you think of human beings who are very curious and they want to understand like the deeper aspects of reality. What will you hear them say like it's energy you know it's the energy of things is how like things connect with each other is the energy we don't understand energy you know you try to manipulate the energy to get like the next level of stuff but energy is actually like something very simple relative to entanglement okay like what everyone has been meaning on this time is not energy it's entanglement it is the relationship between things. Okay it's not their internal state which is defined by energy right the higher the energy the more you resonate like you know this is fight or whatever but you're fighting with what. The entanglement is the thing that tells you what you're connected with and when you come in and out of resonance it literally means that this threads right entanglement threads that permeate all of space in time and even the thing below space in time itself. It creates everything that create like the connection between anything and anything else so that one knows that the other one even exists right. This thing is dynamic itself right you know it exists like it was part of change and in time which means that it can focus its attention and like create this threads with this like you know object over here but over time it may start like moving some of the the tendrils of entanglement to something else you know and focus its attention over there. Literally what happens when you even just move your head around and different electromagnetic waves different particles of light right you know getting interact with you which creates this illusion right that you're looking at something else to your right versus left and up and all the stuff. These things the universe around us doesn't exist really in this three dimensional space that we think it does there's a wall there's a computer there's a table and all stuff. This is an illusion that this created when you have all this information highways like via this entanglement threads where your your state and the state of your mind to be at the state of your father is at ourselves right you know and so on and so forth. Is entangled with the thing that is observing the thing that correlates entangles with for that moment. Why a few questions about that but proximity you know we're connected right now talking but if we were sitting pre-COVID just naturally like having a coffee talking. That face to face human interaction there seems to be more power in it almost like it's not that you're not you know entangled or connected but the. How does proximity work with this yes the entanglement itself is more than just the quantity of it right the fact that we have again this you know the internet connecting is right now so we can have this conversation. And we can see each other and listen to each other as well there is also quality to entanglement right different types of entanglement because of the different type of relationships you're allowed to have with each other depending on the context. So it's a very different context the one we are in right now over zoom you know versus when you sit down to have a conversation. And and there you know there's an aspect of it that can be explained the way from a neuroscientist point of view okay our neural networks are are you know better at that because of evolutionary reasons at picking up cues facial cues and so on and so forth like little pitches like part of the. The body you can see when you just look at some of this face you know that stuff the air the tone of their voice like the volume of it when you're nearby. So this plays a big role of course but there is just also something else which is that when you are entangled like with your environment right you get to actually it's almost like a bridge that connects to human beings for example together like the fact that there is a coffee shop and there is a table between the two of you right and you exist relative to that thing. It creates a common objective reality which makes us feel like we're even more connected than just this this vague like you know again informational highway where I have to believe you know my mind has to make that leap that you are on the other side you're in Aspen you know you're sitting over there and you're listening to me and it's not pre recorded and somehow you figured out like what I was going to say that you just ask me at regular beats questions. So why do you think as humans then why are our senses limited as they are and why do we have the self awareness to even be able to think about this. You know the amazing thing is that we are infinite like human beings. Do we limit ourselves then do. Oh yeah absolutely every time someone has said like I will tell you exactly how we're infinite they be like of course all but that sucks because you know with most of humans have stopped have turned off our infinite powers right. What do I mean by that we are born for evolutionary reasons or others like you know with a particular set of of receptors right of of entanglement receptors are like parts of our of our human body. Whether it is touch right there are five senses okay to say the ones that we are like familiar with and maybe more but like currently we really understand our noses like our mouths taste our eyes. So these are good and all but these are again finite right because they in order for us to understand the world we are senses the world has to respond in a way. But our senses can receive that information as I said before our eyes right are not receptors of all passable light okay and pretty much most of the information in the universe right of what is really going on underneath the hood and everything is carried by light. Like the it is literally the highway said that was in in Gabby's you know show that light doesn't exist the way we think it is more like the highway over which. Particles like elections and other things you know specifically like elections in this case very important like you know for making up matter and all stuff is how they move through space and time space time. Okay so the highway itself there's nothing can travel faster than the highway because the highway is already there that's why lights the fastest thing right and any other car or anything else any other particle. The lighter it is the faster of a car moving through this highway you know but I might have faster Lamborghini or even your spaceship is or whatever is never going to be as fast as the highway itself is already connected to cities right. I don't want to sorry to interrupt but what about space can space travel faster than light as far as constricting or expanding because there's this feeling of yes that's it that's a great question but I think there's a misunderstanding here that somehow space. Like just exists you know but you know with a lot of time also thought about this right to take a few reason that everything happens on top of this canvas because space and time right is a dynamic aspect to our lives but there's also this background and all of matter and all of the physical things and thought and stuff are happening inside. Of that space and when we think of it we think of like you close your eyes are like empty space it's just blackness or something like that right but that's not what's going on space itself is not fundamental it is it comes from something else right so what does it come well we've already said the answer is quantum and time. Space itself there exists something that without which space as we know it and the continuity of space and the fact that like we can move our bodies around or even move anywhere right and service being stuck in one point at all times the fact that our bodies even exist in the sense that part of our atoms can coexist in an extensive space right you know with other ones that from their point of view they're like. You know planetary distances away from each other right but somehow when we look at it from our point of view we think like oh they're part of our body right. The reason why this can even happen is because under lying space itself and the ability to move from one point of space to another one and time is entanglement is again a correlation right it's the state of being at one point in space has to have the ability to. Effect the state of being at the next point in space and then the next one and the next one and it's very simple to understand that if there was no way to correlate right the state of being at this point in space with the state of being at the next point the two of them would actually be infinitely apart it would be like a ghost world where they never knew at each other existed. If something cannot affect you it is effectively invisible to you and infinitely far away it is as simple as that and if it is also cannot affect you because you're not entangled in time not just in space then it means that it is infinitely far away in time in the future right you may never experience it from that point of view. So that's what like you know think of space that way as it expands what does this mean now it means that the entanglement the network below space in time itself is starts growing the network right of all these connections is spreading like a virus right and because more things get to interact with each other and so more of these edges bridges between things are formed but as I said it's also dynamic so it shifts around like you know as it moves. So then is time also not fundamental correct but is time and space always is that entanglement or correlation can you think of that more as a field. Yes you can say this word right because of course you know even the one field theory right tells you that from a what we call a semi classical point of view one where you try to use as much quantumness without breaking space in time itself right where space in time are kind of more like more analytical as we've been thinking about them right they're not quantum but on top of it you have quantum objects quantum fields right like you know the quantum aspects of electromagnetism and so on and so forth but I think like what's happening here is something way more interesting than that. Way more interesting than that like everything is quantum and by the way what is quantum right what is quantum mechanics like what you know what are we talking about are we talking about like everything is quantum is everything is subatomic or stuff like that you know that's what I feel like is mostly referenced for quantum is micro. That's atomic and they don't go together like Newtonian physics or I'm like they don't work together but is that true. There's like a transition somehow and like you know it how can you go from the classical objective reality that we are experiencing every day and then have to let go and that's why thousands of years we didn't know there was anything quantum because our senses would never allow us to occupy a point of view that would break classical objective reality. But quantum physics is the ultimate theory of empathy I've said this before and we'll say it again right then I really mean that I'm not just trying to be spiritual or poetic or whatever what is empathy the ability to occupy a different point of view one kind of foreign to what you're used to right and it takes a lot of energy it's almost impossible often to do that right is different from sympathy or you've been through something similar and like I kind of get it. It's like you really have to walk in somebody else's shoes. Quantum physics is the realization that we can start walking in inside the shoes of entities like you know in this universe right that are different from us they literally have a different set of senses different way of connecting with the information that is around us. Doing that you almost are like you can go out of phase with everyone else's point of view and in order to have what is called an objective reality where we all agree about what's happening now there's you know a computer there's somebody talking and all that stuff. The thing that makes us convinced that is not just in our heads like a dream like state or whatever you know and everyone else also observed it. What it requires is that we all occupy the same point of view okay our questions can be asked of that universe right without messing up each other's answers. But if you do mess up each other's answers because your questions and your beings are entangled they're correlated you know and so whatever you get with that information will have to be consistent with the answer that somebody else gets the matter how far away they are even if you don't know you exist or that you asked your question of it you know if that happens then you're at the quantum state okay this is like what is going on you're occupying. A higher plane of existence right where you get to have almost conflicting observations of the same thing and the thing in itself the thing that is supposed to supply the answer. Cannot give you a single consistent answer because it's like you're asking it okay what is ahead of me but they're you're entangled with some other set of eyes that is looking like up and asking also what is ahead of me you know what is in front of me. So it has to give you a weird answer which is like wait one of these like in front of you from your point of view but you're also looking up at the same time what do you want me to do right so it flips a coin kind of thing and says like well you know up ahead is like the sky up ahead is your friend you know and and that create this intrinsic randomness as we say point of physics with simply comes from the point of view of of a place where you know you know the answer. A place where you know the universe itself cannot decide what question you're you're thinking of asking okay there's an ambiguity to it there is a maybe you know essence to your question is neither yes or no. Does the intrinsic randomness is that where our uniqueness as humans comes from because we always have you know these different points of view. Right I think like a quantum computer will be far more unique than our like you know our human minds or human existence and we do like we give ourselves somewhat credit for being so awesome and so unique in the universe but I think I think what makes us infinite should also make us like humble. Which is that we are no more special than any other part of the universe what makes us special is our ability to be I guess grateful for the fact that we even have a connection to anything else around us otherwise the very notion of existence we wouldn't even be aware that we exist without. In connected to something outside of us and as that thing is living in breathing whatever that is right it changes we get to register change ourselves and we get the register time without time and change there is no existence you don't know you know like you probably I don't know either yourself or somebody you know has been under general anesthesia and it's a very interesting state of being okay because you're gone. It's not like a dream like state you know like you know when they come down from 10 and like right you're going to like come back later. Zero time passes before you show you know you come back online okay and you look around you and you're blogging like what is happening what time is it and maybe like three four hours later depending on like you know the surgery or whatever it is. And you cease to exist from your point of view when you're under general anesthesia you cease to exist and the reason is very simple it's because you cannot register any change right even a change is happening and you exist relative to the people working on you your shoulders say for me you know whatever it is it's like you don't know because there is no reference relative to which you know you you change right it's not. It's not registered anymore you're stuck with one frame the last one before you close your eyes and you passed out or something you know from anesthesia and because this frame doesn't change right it doesn't you know that your movie is almost like a single frame and in your head you don't even know you exist because you don't have. Change from frame to frame to be like orange is relative to this previous state and is that's the equivalent of that honestly right like it's a very deep and very simple idea that. That is the same thing is just that. You don't come back online it does not the anesthesia does not wear off as I feel like what is it like and all that stuff the same mechanism that is turned off right when you're under general anesthesia is obviously turned off lots of other stuff your heart. Or whatever you know when you die I say mental process is sweet stuff. What about so with this death being able to register change is huge right it's a fundamental. How does so time is all based off that. What about will want to ask two things but what about this idea of duality in our nature and light versus dark can you know light nothing travels faster than the speed of light light has energy. But can can light also be dark does dark still have energy does it have to be only light or can we are we limiting ourselves by just thinking of light. That certainly like again if life doesn't even exist right not the way we think of it and it's more of the it's the highway or is that if the road right the bands of the road the ups and downs all that stuff. Tell you who you are even in the car you never like you're always moving forward right when you're in a car you're not just like road to to the you know windshield you're going to start looking to the left right now exactly okay you're always moving forward you're staying exactly the same. But somehow just by being in the car right and trying to follow the road all the information that tells you how you change was already on the road as long as you decide to take the journey the road will take you there will change you. That's what is going on here is it and this is very important that the electrons themselves are staying exactly the same through all of space and time. It is the roads right that are the as we weave them together and when you go to quantum physics you don't just take one road you take all of them you literally take all of them at the same time. But and you change would expect the road in a different way right but then our point of view our human point of view and that point of view that are the questions that our machines are asking like given us quantum experimental is they say call tech. They get to make choices about how this infinite number of roads come together at the moment of observation at the moment of measurement. And the way we observe the point of view that we used to observe all these things create resonances between some of these paths that are constructive right interference versus destructive interference and the ones that like constructively interfere with each other. They give rise to things that we think of as like light traveling straight lines and all that stuff and and that's not the case like it's you're traveling through all of these light ways at the same time. But by changing your point of view you get to weave together different different paths and the different paths give rise to different answers which is pretty amazing and it sets a powerful thing that the most fundamental thing is change to begin with. Because without change you don't even know you exist but you're not aware of your existence right just crazy you need to exist relative to something else and by the way what is that thing that we exist relative to that thing is time. Time is not the one dimensional thing that exists fundamentally outside of us and just keeps going Einstein understood part of it right by saying that time and we ourselves exist relative to each other and there exist ways to manipulate that relationship we have with the other half the other thing inside of us time. By say moving faster okay getting like rocket ship as you move faster like your energy like increases the rate of change of time relative to the frames of the universe itself increases right and then you your watch slows down your biological processes literally slow down relative to someone else with like stationary say on earth. And you can come back like you know 10 20 years younger than your twin right that's like that is as crazy as that but our relationship to time. And we have not explored that we are so we're such babies again when it comes to how to to manipulate time relative to how we manipulate space right the more used to. But it should be the same at some point as moving in space we should have the ability to move in time the way we move in space so not just forwards but also backwards left right up down and in many other ways. You know it's the other half and from its point of view we are time. It's the thing that completes us so that the full thing was not time and not changing it but when you look at our half right we exist in this dynamic equilibrium with the other half with what we call time which we don't have access to often like internally so we just give it the label and we just try to keep track of the changes that are happening outside of us. And we say like it's this you know 375 or 3 like 25 a.m. At this date and all that stuff okay. So change is fundamental then so time and space doesn't really exist until we observe and measure the change. And again remember you go under general anesthesia what happens right you may even you change even the center coming through like your your body is being manipulated on the side may even have your eyes open light is coming through and it's registering so positively right but you have no memory of it for whatever reason that little switch stand off. And it is the smallest thing you can do to simulate what it feels like to not perceive change right because you're not registering change when you're perceiving it and when it's happening and this is equivalent to you existing outside of space and time you disappear you don't even know you exist again it's not like you have a metal double or your consciousness that is like now I exist. But I just see blackness or something like that you have no memory of anything you just wake up a few hours later and you're like you know idea where you are it takes a moment and then you come back right you're entanglement like the things as your memories are for me again you're like oh I'm this I kind of remember now what happened before. It's very strange but yeah without it is this the soul then how do you think of this soul this soul is from from my point of view so like what is the purpose of the soul what are we what question are we trying to answer right with with that word what is it and is it a is it an intellectual question you know getting to know something or is it like an emotional one right where we want an answer to something that we've already decided like we need right versus is actually there and and again you know it's I don't know really the answer to this but part of the master algorithm is to realize that the question is the answer. The question is the answer and the point of view that we occupy is also the question so the question is the answer is the point of view we occupy. And if what happens if you work backwards if you're looking for a particular answer like the soul exists God exists but not just God exists right or the soul exists but it has this particular qualities but somehow seem to be very important to us and maybe they're even contradictory related to somebody else's you know qualities divine qualities are what they're looking for if you start backwards right from like the inside out that this is the answer now what is the question. What will happen I said the question is the answer which means that once you have fixed the answer then you have fixed the question you've basically fixed the question you just don't realize right but the assumptions you've made so that that answer can be the answer to the specific question but once you have fixed the question then you have calcified a particular point of view. And once you have done that then it becomes almost impossible to occupy another point of view to have empathy is connected is quite a physics but we're not even you know there is operator algebra theory here I'm just telling you just that the kind of questions though we we ask some of the deeper ones they have so many invisible underlying assumptions if you try to model them mathematically like you said the wind flowing all the stuff it becomes like. It becomes like so crazy that you try to start with like simpler questions that may seem like less sexy right or less interesting but actually because the devil is in the details you end up finding right that a lot of what you've been looking for was already there in the simpler things you know now everything else was just like this this this complexity we brought into it. That's amazing because that's you that's very consistent I think for anyone listening will will be thinking of how that's true in their lives i'm thinking about you went. I heard you say on a different interview you went to MIT and your other brothers straight out of high school you studied mathematics right mathematics in computer science that's right so how do you go let's say. Let's say you spent so much time going deep into mathematics and let's give that like you like a lens glasses of like a blue color so you put you know you develop this incredible depth of blue and contrast because you've gone so deep how do you. Continue to take those glasses off to see clear to have it's almost like you have to forget everything you know to allow that space to create right or to connect to that. Remember when I said that we're infinite right there in in a particular way we're infinite the same way that we are immortal because we can have kids for example you know and if we let go some of the go I want to do forever but like you know there's already a mechanism that allows us to like. Become and tangled with the future already and it doesn't even have to be like you know your kids could be how you mentor coach other kids in the next generation. Just why I do outreach also like it's so that is like there's an infinitive either in the human race ends doesn't even matter it's more like you have that you know that connection right with something that comes after you. I think it's not difficult to take off this glasses I think to see things as they are and then put them back on and be not go crazy because like oh wow there is no table is like the matrix no spoon right yes I know this there's clearly a spoon you know because I'm meeting right now the stuff so what does it mean. There exist part of a human body which allows you to zoom in and out and change your point of view infinitely as if you were a quantum higher being so we already have that ability right unfortunately most of us. It's so disability because the current way we have of unlocking it is called math and and guess what we basically everyone else I know has told me that oh I hate math or it was terrible at math right and all that stuff and and that's because we've done a terrible job we've done the very best human job we can. We've done each other math but because we missed out on trying to to ask why why math or why are you why aren't you just telling me a story instead of like me having to write down a bunch of equations. And the answer is that you can actually say and I really believe that right as I'm a medical physicist and I want someone who studied a lot of math. You can always tell the story to explain even the most deep of concepts both in mathematics and in physics and that's why I also work with Hollywood because it's so like it's a story telling medium. And it is the burden is on me to understand something so freaking well right that they can explain it without dumbing it down or like throwing away you know part of the truth so it works. In a way that like I could go to a Nobel Prize winner at Caltech and it would be like yeah you're right that is actually correct light doesn't exist light is what we call in mathematics like an individual geometry like a connection. Okay like a like a gauge field you know and and then if you they say all that stuff right equations is exactly the same thing as the thing that tells you like it tells things like electrons how to change even if they say exactly the same right but they move from one point in space to another one because the point of you may change and then the same thing looks different right. But that thing requires a connection requires something that has a pathway right from one point in space and hang to the next one and without that connection that entanglement and its curvature and all that stuff right you don't. You know it could be anything there are two are infinitely like two points in space and time without a connection like that right mathematically can be thought of if you zoom in as having an interstitial space that this separates and infinitely. Right the smoothness of space in time the continuity that we take for granted right is an illusion okay it's completely. And that's the thing you know like even the biggest illusion the one that you have not heard that so far is that you know when we talk about quantum physics we think that if only we could zoom in in space I would get to the microscope you know the fundamental blocks of nature. The atoms right the things inside of the atoms the quarks you know not stuff. But that's not like where things get interesting okay that's not really the true quantum aspect of nature the true quantum aspect is that we are giants not just in space we are giants in time. Okay even if you were to go to the subatomic microscopic level and try to manipulate things there. The frame rate at which we experience even the sabatonical is so course relative to how high it really is okay maybe an infinite that we are missing most of the stuff that's happening. We the story of the universe like between now and the next millisecond one thousand of a second has so much information in it that like if you were to expand it from our frame rate of 25 or 100 frames per second it would like it would be close to the lifetime of the universe as we know it right now. And by the way what is going to look like from our point of view mostly darkness because at that frame rate light itself takes a lot of time to go from anywhere right as we say or for like that light way to bring any information a messenger in the electron correlated between say the screen and your eyes. So it's mostly just darkness and the illusion. We have of all this continuity of time and experience is just that because we get to perceive things like that you know at most a thousand hurts like a thousand frames per second. Because the neurons don't fire any faster than that so it's like doesn't matter think maybe happening but again it's like I don't care you know so. And what you don't experience because we don't get to experience all these frames in between once you cannot experience something you cannot control it you cannot understand it and you make it up. You really make it up about what happened in between right which is the point of view of course you're like I just saw this and then I interrelated with like one must have happened in between like how many billions of points of views do you require in order for you to pass together something that may actually make sense that's what science is right we're literally trying to create our infinity machine called the brain and the way that it models anything possible via mathematics. I think including mathematics itself logic right we're going there now that you know if you're trying to find that the crappiest language possible and that's currently mathematics but it's the best one we have. I like to see what it feels like to simulate changing your point of view in ways that you think are magic right that like you break up other physics you like you know you go to places where space and time disappear and so on and so. Is math beyond our senses is math beyond our senses is in a very real way and this I would have answered as like yes in the past but again that master algorithm. Todd me that we invent the ways in which we discover mathematics. There is like a question of whether math is invented or discovered I believe that we invent the ways in which we discover some of the beauty in mathematics and by the way. There is no such thing as the math. Okay we think there is just like the physical reality and then there was quantum physics in a minute could be a multiverse or this thing could be happening at the same time and you just you know occupy particular point of view and then you manifest one of the realities versus a part of right so it's the point of view. Change that creates around you you know the particular reality that we all agree on and why do we have an objective one again right that we all kind of agree on mostly it's because we occupy in some fundamental ways very similar points of view. That's why and we cannot you know dislodge our point of view from everyone else's because if we did that interview almost as if we exist in a time that runs backwards to everyone else or to the left or there's like you know no person next to us even though your friends would agree like no there's nobody there you know and. You would sound crazy you know but but it's possible you know from a point of view could be an electron wherever all the other like can say like you're there but like there is one of them one of the million that's like no you're not like you're like way over there. Boom but you know these things are so unlikely to happen from our point of view our most common point of view that we just throw them out and we never even consider the most possibilities. It seems like language false short a lot of times you know I worked with the Brian brothers tennis players great tennis players and they would finish each other sentences they would they were connected their identical twins so they would connect beyond words and I recently listened to a navy fighter pilot you know 18 year veteran pilot that had a sometimes had a co pilot and he was describing similar. That they would start to say a word and the other would finish that there's at least moving at that speed it's to it's it's slower than and there's like there's this knowing beyond words. Yeah there's a you know that it's really attractive I guess to to think that there is something magical and the world is magic and that's where I've been telling you. It is magic to say like wow they're telepathically connected in some way right and if you were to ask like what is telepathy you know is it just entanglement kind of like a told marvel you know for Antman and the was like oh yes Janet van Dijn and like Polrat's character like they're entangled that's where they're connected and so you can like talk to him from the corner. And there's an aspect with that is real and I wanted to bring a decent time with this connection as being something that transcends space and time and encore right you know no matter where you are. But they may be similar explanation here in that their neural networks right the way they do pattern recognition became entangled basically in the sense that you know became correlated and started acting like a single larger neural network where certain inputs they both knew the answer to like so it was like. It was as if like we had one brain thinking you know because they're so connected to so many things they become second nature it's not just they both brains got the same information kind of at the same time respect to the same context so it's just a single brain existed to answer that question like a swarm mentality. Yeah exactly right like in the you know how it is also with you are with someone for a long enough time you do finish each other sentences because you have either sipping in exactly that situation before and you know how they answered or like you've had so much other information that could have actually provided the answer for you. Like Charles Holmes you know sees the smallest number of clues and there's like this is what happened and our brain can do that with others even realizing right. But yeah there is there is I guess if I wish for anything like you know for for humanity to like get its act together is to. It's to go there right like it's to like to ask these questions and have to be like all right wait a minute seriously right now how could this be how could I actually like. Find an answer to this whether it is there so okay or like anything that we're like how does it work okay how could you you know and to consider the possibility that yes it's magic but it's understandable magic. You and I can understand it and it's not like you know to to use the emotional reasoning as fuel for the intellectual reasoning to actually figure out what's going on instead of just end with the emotional reasoning and say like it was God or it was telepathy or was your photos or whatever it is because we all want to be good you know you want to get there. And that's what people did thousands of years ago we're like okay it is the sun God but we've come a long way and humanity has really like flourished all of our like issues anyway is because there were some people that said like I really want to freaking know you know I don't want to just like think I know I want to know and I want to know so well that I can actually make it a reality for everyone else who may find it useful instead of just for me. Who thinks like yes you know this is is worked for me right it's there there is integrity to this process but also like a generosity of spirit that comes with it right that you don't want it just for yourself you want to be able to connect with others and to do it so well to understand it so well so that from each of their point of view you can still connect with right and give them that information make it like you know useful for them too. You seem to be a vessel or a bridge with do you think things happen for a reason so I'm thinking why were you born in Greece like Greek Greek mythology storytelling and then Hollywood you helping with movies that storytelling aspect your outreach work. So this is definitely this theme of depth answers truth and then there's this ability to communicate through story. Do you think things happen for a reason it's easier the question is there fate you know things happen for a reason the answer is definitely not and it's weird again this is what I was saying before we want to believe that there is like a higher purpose in all these things but something much more powerful is going on. The universe is not one way is not just one way there is a pluripotency at the source code of reality that allows us to make whichever choices we want to make. We don't get to explore seemingly one path right in our other self-explosive different patterns and so forth but there is complete freedom. There is complete freedom once you know how to occupy different point of view to occupy it there is no love physics not even God okay if you believe in God can stop you from occupying the point of view including the one where in my opinion you become God. Which is what happens when you're under general anesthesia and you become effectively the thing which does not exist relative to anything else. And so the first thing to exist the thing within which everything else exists right but a timeless being. It does not again understand time because kind of register change right and that is the thing that exists but does not know if it's own existence. So from a point of view like that you're like okay doesn't get any better than that but kind of sucks because it's like useless you're like okay now you're everything within everything you know within you everything else may exist as you know different smaller point of view. But that's you know we thought like okay I wanna be God only present well you're only present right now because you don't exist relative to anything else so everything has to be inside of you right but like a crap i'm not without anything else around me. I cannot have recognition of my own existence I cannot experience pleasure pain thoughts anything because I don't exist in time. There is no you know without change specifically there's no time there's no extent of space you know so so you're kind of hoping like we you know we often misunderstand this that. We are a really good place as human beings right we are not like large enough the point of view to have like planetary level where it's so boring and they're just like seeing things you know just rotate around each other or whatever you like. There's nothing the fear of life at that scale it's kind of boring maybe from our point of view as humans maybe exciting I don't know like a billion balls or something but we're also like you know so we're small enough to have the reach set of point of view that we can occupy relative to something larger outside of us right. But we're also infinite enough because of our minds because of the computation complex and they have to be universal you know computers right with what does this mean it means that. As much as possible anything that can be observed and understood we actually can figure it out may take a long time or may take an ingenious inside of changing our point of view where all of a sudden this complexity melts away and you're like wow. And by the way isn't it amazing at like looking back it doesn't matter if you design science theory generally with your quantum physics right now or not. Back at the time when these things were introduced they were so abstract so deep so misunderstood also by some of the best minds of the time maybe there were like three to five people that even got a sense of what these things were about right and here we are 100 years later talking about them. Like you could talk about these things with a new year old okay you know it's because like we we had so much friction with these ideas like in so many ways in which we looked at them because we changed our point of view to try to understand all different aspects of it right not just the math or the equations or the original intuition behind them. And now you're like oh that's what it really is right that's what it was all along like let me give you an example. You're right like let me give you an example right now okay like you know so you know I think this is an important one. Let's see if we can figure out that gravity is an illusion okay and the comes from the characters space time science times general theory relatively right let's see if we could have figured out back in ancient Greece right let's do it we're going to do it right now. So what is gravity right it is like this you know we think of it as this force that is pulling you and towards a particular direction of space right okay words the real third whatever your planet and requires something like massive there is like something it is just stopping you from having the freedom to move along a particular dimension in space right. A particular direction you're not allowed like even though you know if you stand up right now you can move back and forth in the room left and right but you cannot move up right at the will you cannot just you can even jump. But you're going to be there and then come back down right yeah it's probably why I regret why we're sometime maybe more comfortable thinking to dimensional humans in three dimensional. Not going vertical because there is that constraint that we're like you know resistant space and they have little like boosters and you can move anywhere you want. Once you're inside of a gravitation field you're stuck in space to move along a particular dimension even though the other two you still feel the weight as you move left and right your weight that's because you're being pulled towards this other third dimension okay. How is that possible what the heck does this mean like think about this like let's unfold this for a second at which point does the universe tell you that like I'm sorry but there exists particular points of view along which your movement in space is restricted. Because if you remove yourself from a gravitation field again you can move in any of the three directions equally and one meter on the left is one meter up and all that stuff it's actual tropical so it's probably right. So space itself should not have that constraint right that it there's some randomly choose like now you can go forward anymore like what are you talking about it just walk forward like now you can't be pulled back or something right of course. Is there a dimension that is qualitatively different from dimensions of space along which there is no way for you to move backwards not long even stop. Mr. Was there think about it for a second we've talked about it right about that dimension time yes absolutely. So gravity is the infection of space with the essence of time you infect space dimensions of space with the nature of time itself which is unique directional so you're not moving to the center of the earth along a dimension of that is fully space like you think it is now. There's a percentage of this dimension because of time folding into this dimension like you know space casting each other that units of what you thought we're just 100% meters are now say 75 or 80% meters and 20% seconds. Yes what if you're moving with 20% seconds there is a pool that even though you try to escape you know by jumping up. Eventually the unit or externality of time is going to suck you back down okay and the stronger the gravitational field equivalently the more of that shadow the more of the folding of time on to space what you thought was a dimension of space. And where does this become the most extreme where you're literally incapable of escaping matter what you're like you know how much energy you use you know use a rocket to escape the black holes absolutely and you're reading and what do you think happens when you enter the event horizon or black hole I'll come you cannot escape are you moving in space towards the singularity to center of black hole. It looks like it feels like it like you're just like you were moving space before you fell into it kind of thing you're still far away from the singularity right there's a whole very large radius usually before you meet your doom center of black hole but there exists like a place of nourishment horizon what happens when you like jump in there and you're inside now the blackness. Do is something if the black hole absorbs you like like an electron absorbs light is something spit out immediately I don't know there is i'm going to do something there's something going on there is like walking right there in exchange I guess maybe like they pulled in is there an exchange right or not there is a there isn't a way in exchange in that time. Right fully becomes now the dimension among which you're traveling towards a singularity so you're no longer traveling in space that dimension of space towards the center of singularity exchanges itself with time which what you thought was just clock sticking right and just things changing and passing whether you're moving or not in space you could just stay still and time always moves forward right. So what's happening the reason why you know this game of black hole even then by the way the more you try the the worst is going to be the the more you tell your engines and try to escape that faster you're actually going to fall. Into the black hole when you're inside the right which is weird right how could it be that you're going you know doing your very best is not energy as you can push yourself. To go back in the dimension right of space which you think is space and try to whether being you know destroy the singularity but somehow the more you try the faster you're falling. It's very simple because you're moving a long time and energy is nothing but the rate of change of the clock itself the more energy you put the faster the clock takes the faster you're moving along this particular direction of time which is ends at that singularity. Well, so space becomes time then no longer a space the time Trump space at in the end. I mean this you know as long as there is as long as there is a fault of time that mentioned time into space and yes you feel that and you call that gravity you're being pulled in time nothing space that it looks like space. Have you ever been in a. Have you ever been in a rip tide. It's like the harder you fight the after the right you just let go or the I just thought about that because of the quicksand right or quicksand yeah the more you you know if the faster you try to get out like the more like the sand finds a way to like suck you in right and you have to be very very slow in fact. In time that the the slowest clock the slowest passing of time is when you try to do nothing. When you literally just float as you're falling towards the you know singularity and you're falling at one second per second I mean you're not really relative to it's all relative to what is happening outside but but yeah. And there is a perspective along which you never actually reach the singularity you know just forever there's a forever fall towards it. So because we're extensive in space right you're you're going to be specified or like it's going to be a differential between the your head and your feet as you're being pulled apart. Time is it seems like there's always an illusion but is it until we understand your master algorithm if we all were looking through clear lenses that were programmed to the master algorithm. How different would the world be. You know the closest thing can come up with because it's so strange to say all of a sudden we'll all have the powers of like you know the infinity gauntlet or something we just snap our fingers and create a different reality around us you know and disconnect with each other. It's kind of like it's you know it's the power of science really you think about it it's like the we don't realize how sexy science is until you realize that it is the the thing that allows to achieve magic and by the way what we're doing right now is magic. Like you know we don't realize it because there's a continuity of human history and experience where if you were to have this conversation we're having over a computer right now and over something which is even a computer a lot along the internet and all that software and protocols communication protocols that are required. This is beyond even Star Trek and like if you go you know 67 years ago right you would be like this is insane and there are people who are like 70 80 years old right now and are like they don't think of it as magic because they kind of remember how slowly things moved but imagine that you woke up after a comma that lasted like 40 years or 50 years. And then you thought that you know you need to go to your other phone to call your friend which was itself magic relative to 200 years ago that you can do that. But now you're like oh I'll just zoom you it's like I don't understand what you mean it's kind of like back to the future where it's just like what is going on around here you know we're really so like all from the flying cars and all that. And at that moment again human history like is hundreds of thousands say of years old so relative to the last like 20 years or 30 years where we achieved this stuff is like a blimp. But you know from up to the beach magic we have achieved magic like for thousands of years humans cannot do what we're doing right now for fun okay. You was called the way thing and all that stuff you know it's just like what are you talking about like how come you to come to your friend and ask them. I think yeah yeah you need to say in somebody with a horse like you know to try to you know back and forth this conversation would have taken like three years to happen. I feel like everyone listening she just take a moment and just be grateful for the chip the ability to just listen no matter where we're at. Like just to be able to just tune in and listen to the conversation for us to be able to have this conversation. You explain so beautiful the just like the scale of humans where we fit we're not to macro we're not to micro that we have this unbelievable ability to to feel to interact to love right. Like what we've been doing you know which makes me very optimistic for the human race in the future despite all the things happening lately and whatnot you know we're way better off even other worst now than you know when we're at our best lights even 200 years ago okay you know things are getting better. But what we end up doing again and again is we're trying to find new ways to connect with each other right. We that's what we're doing you know we mess up in the process but it's so fundamental important to us that we are you know sharing all our data on Facebook okay I'm like you're spending hours on on every other piece of social media but podcasts right this is a way of sharing information or sharing ideas passion whatever it is. And what you know what's the it's why would we do that why would try to create tools for our generation for the generations after us and all stuff to find better and better ways of connecting with each other. And again the irony sometimes is that you end up disconnecting by changing the mode of connection to something that is physical to more like information or whatever right but that. We will find our way we'll find a good place and as long as we can burst each other's bubbles I think we'll have like you know a quantum view of the universe which is in the end in my mind. And the end game is not to find the truth okay with capital T that's not it. It's like I'm a scientist and I'm mathematical it's very true it's definitely about the truth but it's not it is not right that's it the master algorithm has one prerequisite in order to be activated right to realize there is no such truth with a capital T right and if there is any truth. It's that there is no other truth that's it which means that you have the freedom to define your truth from as long as you have the ability to occupy genuinely another point of view. Because somebody may say well spirits okay come on seriously are you shutting down science right now are you telling us that there's no gravity like you know there's like could do whatever you want to fly no no because there is emergent truth okay the laws of physics are emergent. But it's important to know that they are because if you don't then you cannot even accept the possibility that you can bend them let alone break them right that they're just point of view. Once you occupy this point of view the thing that we take for granted. For example the fact that like there's so much more than meets the eye right transformers got it right you know there's so much that meets the eye like you know and yes you know we use it for science you know when you use x-rays or son or like you know for to be able to connect relate to other things in ways that are impossible for our senses to do directly. But this permeates everything okay everything met a human level like you know connections we're not even we haven't even imagined yet like the unicorns of you know right over the things we want to be real but are not yet yet. What do we have in dreaming specifically vivid lucid dreaming you can fly there are no rules and I haven't practiced this but recently someone had talked to me about the practice of lucid dreaming and so what are your thoughts on that or do you practice lucid dreaming or research. Yeah I wish I could do it like this days I've probably been remembering if I have any dreams and it's so cool when you have lucid dreams or just good dreams. Because what's happening is that the emotional part right the one that registers emotions and processes them the brain is entangled right and related to the computational part the CPU okay. And the CPU that's the infinite part right there connected also with the fuel which is the emotional you know in my mind part of the brain when that allows you to decide like I want to think about this versus just randomly thinking about stuff okay. But that one when you go to sleep like it's still a computer the input that it gets may not be directed from the outside or sounds or sites and all that stuff of in touch when you're like awake. But it can simulate like input that it already has because you know it can take different things in part of memories and it doesn't know the difference between whether this came from like your photos that are cells or like your copier cells whatever it is versus it was already input that is there and it's about to be processed. And once it's no longer constrained to have input that can't from physical reality once you're awake then you can put these things together in ways that are like you know magical. And that's why also you have I think that amazing feeling after you wake up from a dream where you're flying over a nightmare you know the opposite side where it doesn't know for a moment to there and you're so sad that you're like. Right so hard they started jumping higher and higher now I can fly and like where do you go right or but you're happy when the night goes away the. The mind is you know it's still can have a representation of a particular like series of thoughts yeah I can simulate the input not just the output. I mean if our mind is infinite and all knowing should we be practicing setting clear questions should we ask just a clear question before we sleep or do you think that would be beneficial whether the yes I don't know if it's that simple. Yeah unfortunately it's not but fortunately I would say it's not because I really believe this that the journey right is much more important than the destination journey the sequence of questions you get to ask. It's much more interesting in my mind that adventure imagine if like Frodo and the fellowship just other ported to mortar all right and you're like all right drop it in back again. Come on you know you're missing out on the whole thing and that's it's a great point. Yeah without that like the friction that comes with occupying different point of view in time over time and trying to figure out like. And often the original question because you were looking again for an answer particular answer but if you go on that quest of trying to figure out whether this is the answer. That's the more of the scientific method because we're all human beings, we're all scientists right we all think already we know the answer but then we're like all right let's test it now so hypothesis let's test it okay and then often. You know we're surprised to find out we were wrong and it sucks. I really thought that was right it's intuitive yeah I thought it was beautiful great explanation but then you find you're wrong but then you get a gift right because the truth that truth right that more expensive point of view is way more interesting than what you thought was going wrong. So after the initial shock of being wrong then you're like based with all this like new light new powers right where you can now look at the world and a lot of other things you didn't even think you wanted to know within you weapon a new perception right new site. So today is my anniversary wife sir six years we have a little son Jackson who's a just over a year here thank you. Can you go back I just want to hear you talk about a I think of Greece have only been one time the Athens I feel like it's a beautiful culture. My experience people just at the time seem slower there. Can you talk about love from put yourself back in Greece and just how do you think about love as a Greek. So I have to live a seven packs of love I'm happy both fathers like you know all the different ones but errors love I think it's universal right because what is love you know why is it why is love so fundamental to humanity as a whole right. We talked about quantum theory okay and I told you and I mean this right that quantum theory is is a theory of knowledge is not a theory of physics okay it's a much more powerful thing like it's an interface like a language that allows. To ask every question we could possibly want to not answer to right and it's not the end by the way quantum theory is not the end there exists places where you remove certain assumptions of what questions you're not even not to ask. Even in quantum theory and then you get even more expensive theory of knowledge. But it allows us to do so much currently okay that it's you know time travel teleportation what they maybe real just from that point of view. But more importantly it's not about technological advancement it is a theory the ultimate theory almost as empathy okay it tells you that there exists points of view that you did not even know we're there. But not only are they there and someone else occupies them which we know as human beings right because you may look at somebody and how they vote or how they talk to others and I was like this is impossible happiness person exists okay like humanity the core of human nature should not allow for this like no it can allow this and a lot of other stuff like you know psychopath sociopaths like. And mother Teresa Jesus you know it can allow the full spectrum right and we just learning how to buy this different point of view. But it is the ultimate theory of empathy in any ways okay because it tells you not only do these different point of view exists but if you are smart enough to know how to you know engineer this point of view you can occupy it yourself. Okay and different point of view may mean that like you change like instead of looking forward in time you may just do a 180 and you change your point of view and you're looking now back in time which means that you become a being that moves like back in time okay and you can escape even a black hole so. It may sound crazy but this is what I mean like there exists like changes of point of view that is create magic okay you move to another movie right the separate like history of the universe or whatever because you move left in time or right instead of forward backwards right. So I think love tries to encode as part of empathy also because that in my mind is true love which requires empathy which means that you don't it's not just the physical response toxic flow and or whatever it is. One with understanding right in comes with understanding country like it's not cheap it's not easy it is difficult it is very difficult like it's it's you know true love is probably more difficult than like high higher mathematics you know because you need to be able to to unlock. The point of view of someone else in a way that you can start seeing it and start becoming it right even though but at the same time maintaining your own point of view what makes you you right and finding the things where you can connect with each other without losing yourself. This is this is difficult you know and for me talking about Greece how I feel about love as a Greek person and how I feel about Greece itself and Greeks you know said because I left right after high school not just me but my brother Niko's and Mario's left and went to my tea why didn't we stay. Why didn't we stay in our mother country I gave us so much why did we live to study in the US at MIT. You felt pulled you felt like to further your your you felt you probably felt MIT was the best in pulled to learn. We had a deeper level and that was the place to go. Well if if MIT was in Greece you probably would still be in Greece and you're absolutely right and what does this mean what does it mean for MIT in a place that MIT or cult for you know Stanford not going to say Harvard you know. Great school to nearby but what does it mean for such a school to exist in a country right what are the assumptions that we have to make for such a thing to exist in a country like Greece. Because there was a time when Greece ancient times okay had the best schools in the world right you know says you know the best philosophers the best mathematicians the best is anything like you could imagine and I think a lot of things kind of came from there and you know I don't you know I know about some of that from from the east right and they had their own brilliant people over there but. Growing up in Greece you're in a lady like and we did that and like you know if you use Windex you can solve an equation and this is like you know it's the you're kind of you're you're born in it right but to me. Love means that you can let go at some point right to form other connections to occupy different points of view than just the one that is the easier one. But the one also that has nurtured you and made you strong enough to walk on your own to feed so you can actually move around right but if you just stop at that point then you're missing out on all these other things including being able to walk back to the original place and give back. You know so that the it's complex it's very complex but but yeah there is I would love to see in the world not just Greece or the US to empathy you know we'd love to see more of it and again it's not the one where you're just like touchy feeling like it's more like the love of a coach right the empathy of a coach where they like like. Gabi and learn every time I would visit I was like okay i'm gonna drown in your pool because I have like 40 pounds or 50 pounds and i'm supposed to like walk at the bottom and then jump up or something like that you know i'm a quantum physicist there man what are you where you. But there is that like that love right that is there like to push you almost your breaking point but loves you enough to bring you up right you know so it does not become you're not broken by the end of this. Okay you grow without being traumatized and every country needs that every human I think needs that to experience that it's it's incredible right that journey instead of just things coming easy to you you know or just hoping for someone else to do it for you. It's important to take a moment bring your awareness to your body where do you feel love emanate. It depends I guess on the context you know I. Right behind a lot but I you know there's a lot of it that comes from here and it is sometimes intellectual but also thoughtful I think that's like my religion is empathy and like my. Political like a creation is thoughtfulness which means that you don't have easy answers right but you get to resonate with things you're still human you have your own like you know things that you appreciate and you enjoy. But it's a full body thing really though right it's a full body thing I love exercising I've been doing since I was a little kid right I think I love doing it now during the freaking pandemic I'm doing it more than I was doing it before. Because once you find the right person like you know to zoom with and all of a sudden you're like yeah I'll do it every day. It's amazing how we adopt as human beings. I just asked that because I like to map some sometimes it's interesting to map emotion to specific areas of the body like you know chest or stomach or head or. What is the experience like you know where do people feel love like it doesn't correlate with their to what you would say their character is like or confirming. I think I would say most people would correlate love the feeling to the chest you most often would point to the chest so yeah I think this is this is the arm that describing or the language the thought. And then just the feeling or the knowing and then mapping it to a location within our physical bodies where does it exist. You know where anxiety or anger they all can be different for everyone but they. You might notice as you're talking or you think if there's some anxiety people maybe point to their stomach or where they hold that kind of energy where you know just a. I got microbiomes are very powerful things. Yeah it's so powerful and it dwarfs our gene our human genes but like you said quantity and quality quality is is really important so just because the quantity of our microbiome. And it's so much older and there's obviously intelligence there but we have such fewer you know 20 little over 20,000 genes human genes but there's they seem to be the quality seems to pack a lot of punch me. You're right and it's like it's very humbling to realize that the things and very important it realize to pay tribute to the parts of our bodies that we think about that is this is like we literally think of like that just crap you know or just like whatever. And the wisdom you know we literally evolve probably as a host for these things okay and then we came to either because like we have now a brain that can do computational simulations and what not is like that can think of itself. Look inside that is you know is that but it's like no you know we had very humble beginnings and look where we've gone okay. And you know you don't have to remind me of like clerks the movie you know where they're going out I was I was upset that there were people like these two dudes right you know Jane said Bob I was upset because look at me I'm working so hard and doing all this stuff like a top student all these things you could just chill in. Or something like you know what the how can they be happy right and and I've come around like 180 you know that you know we're stats. People like us like you know we're perfectionist in many ways you know type 8 personality these ambitious and all that stuff. You know just you know that treating someone at the small village right and treating some of the biggest celebrities or sports you know stars and all that. And you want to push yourself you know like see how can I become the best I can to you know because these are the extreme situation right I could fake it maybe some other like with some other client but here you really like to know yourself. But the same time I think there's just something really awesome about knowing how to just be so just you know trying to learn myself the stage how to be done like how to stop thinking. It's not about all this stuff. It's so hard and often for me like that's the true gift of exercise is that it doesn't give a shit. Okay. You're trying to do nothing your head when you're like you know trying to do six minutes of burpees or you know whatever you're doing stuff you're like giving your bodies just. You can't breathe. You know that stuff is like no you're not going to be thinking about other things right now it's a survival time and then it's just so nice to just you know to be in that space and then afterwards try to recover for a couple of hours. Yeah a few years ago I went and trained with a Shaolin monk she I specifically was interested in Qi Gong because that's there how they heal their body and it's it's movement and breath. I don't know what you know about Qi Gong but so they have this balance within the body of they they're they're you know intense pushing the body is Kung Fu. And then their rest or their balance their recovery is Qi Gong which is also very active and can be very powerful very strenuous or you know there's different forms of it but this connection of breath and movement and they bring awareness to to the body and to the stomach to the internal organs. You I mean you talk about empathy and gratitude and you know the journey more than the destination and so that practice to me that Qi Gong has been such a powerful practice because there is that chance to move breathe and find that gratitude within take even if it's even if you go organ by organ heart our heart pumps blood and carries all this information and nutrition and our stomach. It's amazing how we get food in and we absorb the nutrients and we excrete on in this all you know we have these amazing organs and you mentioned microbiome this the symbiotic relationship between our bacteria and our biomes and our human cells it's amazing how everything just works right. Yeah it's a miracle I mean and we didn't do anything to you know to deserve it in a way right so that's why we've also to look inside sometimes and pay tribute to these things and to try to handle and not just. For you preparing this right there is we have forgotten how to play we have forgotten how to play you know like you know for sure I guarantee that you have done your best work when you started from a place of like stress of like I need to know that I need to do this out of stuff but like you get go to the zone where what is the definition like the zone is like where you almost like you're having fun you're playing. And you're doing something at an exceptional level right or optimality that other people from the outside who are not seeing this play. It would be like this is insane okay why I would like survive for three minutes of being in that state and then I would have to get a drink right and I can I can go like. Each 10 hours straight of working on a math problem where the rest of the world just disappears how many people do you think on earth you'd be like oh that would find. You know I'm not just fine but like I can do it I can think of like deep mathematics enough math physics for 10 hours to. No but like you know many of my colleagues are like that too right because you're not like it's it's a play you're trying it's a game you're trying to but you see that way as like going on your own adventure of story right. Here's journey and I'd love to see more of the world like you know feel that way right but it requires again part of that master algorithm where you get a sense that you can be the protagonist in your own story instead of like somebody gave you orders from. Higher you don't understand most of them you don't even want to because you don't agree say right and then you don't want to challenge them because it's your tool for the ship right like no you're not. You know some of the best body in the world is that when you do stop and you're like like it doesn't shine with me like there I have another idea let me. Stupid idea but I want to explore it a bit to see like if this would be useful and then you bring back up and then I call this is that's great then they may steal your idea whatever but anyways it's it's what it is right you know that. Place that no matter what they may steal your everything but not your process you remember clearly for better or for worse right how you achieve. This new enlightened state whatever it is and then it is emotional because like I can do this what else can I do I can break this barrier right or like you know. Be confident enough to do something I thought was not even after me to do. You become a leader right that's it yeah it's be more like that a lot more yeah. A lot that and we're more in line with these principles right change this keep moving forward keep growing keep staying connected to that to the to the connection literally and to the change. And there is like the aspect that because you know let me say okay you don't want them to have a new religion of change and growth and that's it right like some vision. There's something very important to just chilling okay to like all the time and point of view long enough to go deeper into it. So you can appreciate it for what it is as well so there is this like constant change like tension between the liberal point of view and the conservative point of view but they're both equally important. If you just throw away tradition and I'm saying this is someone who first genetic reasons others and very liberal also because of empathy being a thing. But there's something incredibly wise about tradition why because that is the empathy of the past in order for tradition to happen itself it existed relative to a past from each point of view where you try to break away from. Okay it's right to evolve you know to go further it's not monolithic right even things from thousands of years ago existed with respect to like tens of thousands of years before them. So if you throw this away it's the same thing as saying to yourself no as you allow yourself looking by different points of view and see the work from a new point of view which is supposed to be better than before okay then you can just forget about it in 20 30 years or 50 years all the work you did like three generations now wrote they're going to look back and say no God that was stupid no it's not okay. So yeah I think it's important to chill and go deep sometimes also and fully try to occupy a new point of view when you're in it versus just jumping from bar hopping you know but then you have the flexibility to do a change when it's needed. Awesome. It's a journey a process right. Yeah it's very important to have one of us right it's like more as long as there's something ingredients it can't really go wrong. All right you can't really go wrong it's not like we'll just make some successful looks make me a very true human being all the stuff it's like when you're playing okay you're not wrong or right you're either playing or you're not okay and you're having fun. Yeah then these infecting others we'd like want to come with that journey. Oh when you I was thinking of Goodwill hunting when that Damon solves the equation on the chalkboard when you solve the millennium problem with your postdoc advisor. Was that play was it yeah this was this was very tough because for the first half it was not played it was like my future depends on this right and and he was very difficult also because you know my advisor at the time like basically I think she had a big part of the answer but you cannot communicate. Any of it to me and there was a sender and receiver issue so it was effective yes he wasn't around both like because it wasn't around like a few months later it moved but also like even if it was next to me it was like we were uncorrelated today he would tell me things like I don't you know I don't know you know right the answer or like part of the answer and then I just have to do a bunch of the technical work but it was just. It was so bad right because you know like seriously tell me what it is in a way that I can understand a little bit and and I was able to blame maybe like 5% of what was in his mind and only after months of work every now and then but but again. I realize at some point that like it was like scrap with like scrap in the donkey again and we're like going so scared to go over the bridge is that come on you know so you can tell somebody all you want at some point you just keep walking and then you realize you cross the bridge on your own. So you need you know you just yeah as you just needed to say like oh wait I mean maybe I can do this I have to do my way it's going to be extremely dumb and slow so I thought that he wrote someone who may already have a bunch of the answer and he's just looking for some labor or something right there but I was like I just I have to do this you know so I did it and that's it that became play more towards that. Well I didn't wait so the the first guy that was kind of like shielding the answers so then did you not continue to work together then you or did you still have to stay tied no then it was it was then he's like yeah I mean he was a very strange experience because wow it was pretty much nothing like the hunting. What you know me you know and and the professor like we worked together on the board not never wrote down anything together like you know it was just a few minutes here and there over the whole year of just me you know trying to listen to a word or two he would say and it was just alien. And and and and the beauty of it is that according to him he had all of the ingredients in populist papers but then what else we knew what this guy was talking about could have like or himself could put together in fact at the end of one of these papers like oh I'll be using some of these ideas in the future to prove this potentially big result and that was a few years before I even showed up and a few years is a long time in academia for an important problem. I was trying to put it together and but you know nobody could understand like he nobody else a type of being to understand what was in that paper and we're going to have even saying the same thing with the American article that life. The twist is that my PhD advisor not my postal advisor this man this I don't know man brilliant freaking died my PhD advisor was the head of the month department is Davis spend about a year maybe a year and a half trying to decipher one of these papers. This is my positive advisor with another professor okay and they practice the two of them together practice for a year and have just to understand that one paper that was supposed to be just a small part of what I was supposed to understand or recreate to solve this problem I would just one part right and they did it and if they hadn't done it I would not be able to like solve a problem because I had to be that. Yeah well good for you that must have challenged your empathy a lot right just like trying to understand why you're acting like this why this is going like this but. And maybe you talk about calcification not being necessarily a great thing for change right and maybe that guy was a bit calcified in his thoughts and. Definitely definitely like me and limited him right he could have enjoyed that experience with you and it could have been a beautiful unraveling and you guys could have went other directions possible like I was like so excited when I decided like I was going to do my post at Los Alamos with this man I was so excited I was like oh my goodness like this things I'm going to learn something okay the things we're going to do together. You know like I have enough talent to be able to really grow fast and learn quickly and all stuff but like it was you know darkness basically there was a cousin between his thoughts and my ears and yeah I'm just going to say like he. He was calcified right point of view that she she did not have the ways to communicate outside of his point of view okay and it was so amazing that like he thought that he was communicating this whole time. Even though it was brief moments that we would like meet and like to talk you know stuff and talk terribly the time people like I you know I get what you're just saying but I was noting because if you want to speak like police to be like I you know if I were to start telling you things in the language of mathematics that I know and you start noting it was the same word. Okay the words in Megan here the concepts I was like you know she was at the end of the journey and describing like you know just looking back a bit and I was not even beginning I didn't even know where the start line goes okay and it was yeah it was it was probably the hardest experience of my life because of this disconnect it was no love. It was just I felt like it was you know if I didn't jump high enough you know while I was in the war. Well we wish him well now and looking back he he maybe gave you an incredible gift to like get you across that bridge right. Absolutely it was the most tough love and I noticed the how you solve the or whatever it wasn't even recognized for like tell recently right like 10 years. How's that even so it took 10 years for other smart people to understand what you get what you did is that the idea. It's it's worse than that like you know this again is the reason why I was in planning for right because this is something that is you know as many several prizes you know it's name you know for people trying to understand it and all that and all stuff. In fact the latest one was 2016 four years ago okay gave like two double prizes two out of the three that year were for work on this problem and try to you know but I was work from the 90s okay well like then they were like wait a minute. I still don't understand it so they made them a new problem and that's what I have to work on right so that then that's what mad like you know it had set out to do but. Man like the same people the the same people who were like the world experts on the problem could on the could not understand the solution because. You know the tools used and the ideas and all that stuff are so foreign to them and there is an aspect of like being pissed off also that not that a young person out of nowhere wasn't part of this group or anything you know figured out. It was more that the tool that I've been using all this time okay they had culture fine paper thinking like now this is the tool and powerful tool in physics and mathematics. This technique called the body revolution they kept using it again and again I like this must be the way to do this must be just not smart enough yet like no there was like another tool needed. And this is the one that might have introduced for other reasons before then he had to be refined enhanced evolve like to this new thing that then you could use for this and it's just again it was you know this logic you're starting you know from the single point of view and then becoming to a larger one and from there you're like oh. And we end up solving a problem that they didn't even think was possible to solve we didn't just solve the women and ended up solving as often happens right something more general than that. Well congrats it's amazing is that does I mean a noble prize might be coming down the down the way I don't know I know I you know honestly. As I said before the journey is more important than the destination and you know even I have not received any recognition honestly like to this day of any type as far as an award goes or like any you know forget money or something it's just more like of a. You know an email from from the person who maintained the list is like you know you should be proud of yourself i was like but it doesn't even it doesn't matter right like it doesn't matter because you know as you said the gift was suffering through this and learning a lot of things that go away beyond just the solution to the problem right or even physics or math. Whatever you like you know what does it take to grow and is are you is your value connected to your success as a human being and the answer is not absolutely not right so well that speaks to your character and. But it's still would be nice to wouldn't be wouldn't be bad to get get. Other people had solved some problems and had been awarded with a top math what's the top math award it's not what. It's interesting because you know from that point of view like the only other problem is partially sold from that least before we solved this problem already gave out two fields methods notice one right for solving parts a and b out of three parts or something not on the full thing and then and the problem we end up solving was like not only. We've gotten any fields leveled or any other whatsoever and it was the actual solution to a problem that has gone many like double prices right now for trying to understand it so. So that you know any it's a very to very good lesson again but I meant by like your your values of human being is not tied to your success first. You know I I almost gave up a few months before I solved the problem I could define the things that's right and. I would have been the same human being okay like right you three months you know there is just a face transition supposedly that went from life I'm useless and I have no future here because I think I work for a year almost like it in soft so I have nothing to show for. Or a position in academia or whatever to like up it's done okay right yeah and and it's weird like you know if you think of it from that point of view because how many times I would felt like like losers because we didn't recognize of all the growth of all you know all the road behind us right because it felt like we've done nothing okay we have not because we have not reached the destination. You're on a marathon and you're like short like a hundred feet like I have failed as a human being I've never run a marathon seriously really like that's not right you know. Your body knows right you're all your feelings when you almost gave up like after five miles 10 miles you know that stuff yeah yeah we're too hard on yourself yeah we're hard did your brothers help you give you encouragement or is this all just. It was very buckle down it was very lonely it was very lonely yeah yeah because you start feeling also like again as I said you don't just feel that you're stupid when you're you know again sets an opponent a problem like that no matter how smart you thought you were like doesn't matter you're going to feel like don't. Then you're feeling like useless like like a like a burden to humanity itself because you're like why am I even here why are they even paying me to like why have I done you the last like 20 years of education my life I can't you know why you know why let's just go like yeah do something bad and yeah it was I think the place where. There was a break through was when I stopped trying to solve the problem and just trying to understand it was trying to walk with the opponent okay and listen to whatever I had to say every now then it's practically like you could go to sleep every now and then instead of just being up for like a week trying until like the new idea popped into your head or the next step. Trying to be kinder I guess myself and then yeah that's beautiful because that's kind of that's empathy was really hits home hard you you took that approach with the problem yeah walking side by side with it and it's not because of some high like philosophical mindset I had the time I was like steeped in darkness right it was more like that just the body figured out that and the mind that this is the only way to survive. The only way to survive is to you know stop fighting this blender yeah karate master and you're a kid right and just like observe their movements and just learn. Yeah just be like you're talking about that power of yeah yeah awesome well thank you so much it's been a treat my pleasure and a lot of fun. Thank you so much for listening if you enjoy this show please subscribe share with your friends and leave a five star review. Every listener matters to us so please leave your comments along the way to let us know how we're doing until next time wishing you all the wealth health and happiness in the world.