Joe Rogan Experience #2167 - Noland Arbaugh

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANoland Arbaugh0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) All right. What's up, Nolan?

   4. NANoland Arbaugh0:14

      Nothing much. Can you guys hear me through this?

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      Yeah.

   6. NANoland Arbaugh0:16

      Is this too far away? Cool.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      No, it's perfect, it's perfect.

   8. NANoland Arbaugh0:18

      Yeah, cool, man.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      It's a pleasure to meet you, man.

   10. NANoland Arbaugh0:20

       Hey, you too. Me- you too. Thanks for having me.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:22

       I have a feeling if there's a movie that they do in the future-

   12. NANoland Arbaugh0:26

       Oh.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       ... of how the world changed in 2024, you're gonna be in that movie.

   14. NANoland Arbaugh0:30

       (laughs) Yeah, that would be cool.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       (laughs)

   16. NANoland Arbaugh0:32

       Yeah, that'd be cool. I wonder if they'd get to play me.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Y- I ... They probably don't need people by then.

   18. NANoland Arbaugh0:38

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       They probably just do movies with AI-

   20. NANoland Arbaugh0:40

       Yeah, yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       ... and probably really quickly. You could probably, like, take a really great novel like The Great Gatsby-

   22. NANoland Arbaugh0:46

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:46

       ... run it through an AI video creator, and it would just make you the most amazing version of The Great Gatsby.

   24. NANoland Arbaugh0:51

       Yeah, that's true.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       Probably.

   26. NANoland Arbaugh0:53

       Yeah, that'd be sick.

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       But if we're talking about, like, historical moments in human beings and in technology, the implementation of Neuralink on the first human patient, that's you.

   28. NANoland Arbaugh1:06

       Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Um-

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:08

       No, definitely.

   30. NANoland Arbaugh1:09

       Yeah. (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Oh. …

   1. NANoland Arbaugh15:00

      where I went from attempting to move my hand to imagining just moving the cursor. I think it's gonna be the same way with the texting. I'm not, I haven't had this, um, confirmed yet, but I don't see why not. I think at some point, the computer's gonna learn, like me trying to do certain letters, if, uh, like attempting it, at some point, I'm just gonna think that letter instead of actually trying to move, and it'll-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:23

      Oh.

   3. NANoland Arbaugh15:23

      ... type it.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:24

      Wow.

   5. NANoland Arbaugh15:24

      Yeah, 'cause I think it's, I think it's both like me learning what like the computer's trying to do, the algorithm, and the algorithm learning what I'm trying to do. And so, over time, it's just gonna be completely thought based. Um, I don't see why it wouldn't get there. Um, from what I've seen, just with the cursor control, it makes sense that, you know, as I'm attempting, it's learning, and then instead of even need to, needing to attempt, it'll just understand what I want to do, and it'll do it.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:56

      So, you were saying that you're one of the first people to do this, and there's gonna be more people in the trial-

   7. NANoland Arbaugh16:02

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:02

      ... and that maybe they'll learn like the things that are going wrong with yours. Can they do yours again? Can they-

   9. NANoland Arbaugh16:08

      Like-

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:08

       ... redo it?

   11. NANoland Arbaugh16:08

       Yeah, they could. Um, it was something that, you know, when the thread retraction had happened, I was obviously pretty broken up about it. I thought that ... So like when they told me I didn't have very good control of the cursor anymore, it was really hard for me to get the cursor to go where I wanted it to go. I thought my time in the trial was coming to an end, and that's really hard. It's something t- something hard to come to terms with, because, uh, they had just shown me this whole new world, uh, like all these new capabilities that I had, and they had introduced so many things. Like, before that point, I had played video games for, you know, 10 hours without needing any sort of help, and it, it was hard to, you know, internalize that it could all be coming to an end. Um, I know that it will s- at some point because I'll be out of the study, and I won't be able to use it anymore. So, my first thought was, "Can you guys go in and fix it? Like, go in, take it out, put in a new one." Um, and they w- basically said, "We're not at that point yet. We're gonna see if we can fix it. We're gonna see if we can do things on the software side to fix it," which they ended up doing. It works better than it did before now, um, even with like fewer threads. So, um, I'm glad we didn't because they learned a lot. Um, if we would've just gone in and taken it out and put a new one, they wouldn't have learned the last, like anything that they had learned over the last three months. Um, they could go in and do it. They're not going to. I don't think that they need to, um, but at some point, um, I know that the whole point of Neuralink is to be upgradeable, so at some point, they're gonna go in hopefully and take it out and give me a better one.

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:53

       W-Wow.

   13. NANoland Arbaugh17:54

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:54

       Now, what is the extent of your injury?

   15. NANoland Arbaugh17:58

       Hmm. Sorry. Um-

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:04

       No worries.

   17. NANoland Arbaugh18:06

       ... I dislocated my C4, C5, um, in a ... People keep calling it a diving accident. It wasn't really a diving accident, it was just sort of like a freak accident while I was swimming in the lake. Um, so I dislocated my C4, C5, which they told me was good because I didn't sever my spinal cord. It was just kinda like my spinal cord like bounced outta place for, you know, a split second then hopped right back, um, where it was supposed to be. And so I cannot move, uh, anything. I have no control or sensation below my shoulders. I got a little bit back, like I can move my hand a little bit, but not enough to do anything. Like I couldn't control a joystick or anything. Um, so yeah, no- no movement or sensation below my shoulders.

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:50

       I- Is there anything that ... Have you looked into what they do with stem cells for-

   19. NANoland Arbaugh18:54

       Yeah. Yeah. I'm ... So I applied for studies, um, before Neuralink and I never got asked to be in any of them. I never- never even heard back from anyone, um, which is kind of what I assumed would happen with Neuralink, honestly. Um, but I had applied for things because I obviously don't wanna be paralyzed anymore, I don't wanna be a quadriplegic. So, um, it would be great if I could get into something and have them fix as much of me as possible. I mean, even if I had more control over my hands, the amount of things that I could do would like skyrocket, like in order of magnitude, um, better. And my life would be better. My independence would be better. Everything.

   20. JRJoe Rogan19:33

       Yeah, I don't ... I mean, I don't think it would hurt to try.

   21. NANoland Arbaugh19:37

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan19:37

       And I- ... Are you familiar with a lot of these clinics, like the Cellular Performance Institute in Mexico?

   23. NANoland Arbaugh19:42

       Uh, no. No.

   24. JRJoe Rogan19:44

       They do a lot of UFC fighters. Um, uh, they do ... Like you can do things in other countries that you're not allowed to do in America-

   25. NANoland Arbaugh19:51

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan19:51

       ... because of, you know, regulations.

   27. NANoland Arbaugh19:53

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan19:53

       But what they're able to do down there is they're- they're going right into disks and they're re- alleviating people's disk problems, where they're actually making the disks grow larger-

   29. NANoland Arbaugh20:04

       Oh, wow.

   30. JRJoe Rogan20:04

       ... and heal people with back injuries.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Well, I think your…

   1. NANoland Arbaugh30:00

      to normal people who, um, who get this. They're gonna be able to be hacked or controlled or something. Um, but for me, I think about it like...... how many people who are paralyzed don't have to be paralyzed anymore? How many people with disabilities, ALS or, um, you know, Alzheimer's, or any of these, who are blind, how many people are gonna be able to live their lives again? And that's my goal at the beginning. I know that ... I feel like people are gonna look at me and say, like, I really need to be more concerned about a lot of the, like, things coming down the road. And it's something that I'm trying to think more about because at some point people are gonna ask, and I don't have good answers for it. Because all I'm thinking about is, you know, like, I wanna help people and I feel like this is gonna help people, and that's what I'm focused on. So ...

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:48

      Well, I think your perspective is probably the right one because no one knows what's coming.

   3. NANoland Arbaugh30:52

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:53

      No one. And you can be freaked out about it like I am. (laughs)

   5. NANoland Arbaugh30:58

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:58

      B- I'm sometimes freaked out about it, but o- other times, I've just sort of resigned to the fact that this is just the existence that we find ourself in.

   7. NANoland Arbaugh31:04

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:04

      This is our timeline. We, we live in a very strange timeline.

   9. NANoland Arbaugh31:08

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:08

       And it's, it's happening at a very, very, very rapid rate. And no one, uh, has a map of the future. It's not possible. It's just all guess. It's completely ... Uh, it, it is like an ant trying to figure out how to operate an iPhone. There's-

   11. NANoland Arbaugh31:22

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:22

       It's not ... We don't have it.

   13. NANoland Arbaugh31:24

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:25

       Whatever it is, whatever it's gonna be, it's gonna be, and-

   15. NANoland Arbaugh31:28

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:28

       ... you're not gonna stop it now.

   17. NANoland Arbaugh31:29

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:29

       It's ... We are a runaway train.

   19. NANoland Arbaugh31:31

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:31

       Let's just hope we're going to a cool spot. (laughs)

   21. NANoland Arbaugh31:33

       Yeah. Right? I mean, you look at 100 years ago, like, there's no way they could have imagined what our world would be like now.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:40

       No.

   23. NANoland Arbaugh31:41

       So ...

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       And I have a feeling the next five to 10 years is gonna be a lot bigger than that.

   25. NANoland Arbaugh31:45

       Yeah. I mean, exponential growth.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:47

       Yeah.

   27. NANoland Arbaugh31:47

       So ... So it's crazy.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:48

       Well, it's just once this stuff goes live-

   29. NANoland Arbaugh31:51

       Mm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:51

       It's just ... It's gonna be really weird. It's gonna be really weird.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   (laughs) …

   1. NANarrator45:00

      (laughs)

   2. NANoland Arbaugh45:00

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      No, but I think that's how they do it.

   4. NANarrator45:01

      Okay.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      That is, that is the thing. That's... I was saying like through your teeth, but I mean, that's-

   6. NANarrator45:06

      Okay. Okay.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:06

      ... that is how they do it. Uh, a team of specialists at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine announced Wednesday that they're the first surgeons in the United States to restore a person's sight by using a tooth. The procedure is formally called modified osteodontokeratop- kerata- keratoprosthesis. Sorry. Uh, Sharon Kay Thornton, 60, went blind nine years ago from a rare disorder called Steven Johnson Syndrome. The disorder left the surface of her eye so severely scarred she was legally blind, but doctors determined that the inside of her eyes were still functional enough that she might one day see with the help of this thing. Uh, this is a patient where the surface of the eye was totally damaged. No wetness, no tears. Dr. Victor L. Perez, the ophthalmologist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami who operated on Thornton, "So we kind of recreate the environment of the mouth in the eye."

   8. NANoland Arbaugh46:00

      What? I don't get that.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:02

      Three-phase operation started with the University of Miami dentist Dr. Yo Sawatari, who removed the tooth from Thornton's mouth and prepared an implant of her own dental tissue for her most severely damaged eye. The tissue would be used to make a new cornea to replace the damaged one. The doctors then removed a section of Thornton's cheek that would become the soft mucus tissue around her pupil. Whoa. Finally, Perez and his team implanted the modified tooth, which had a hole drilled through the center to support a prosthetic lens. "We used that tooth as a platform to put the optical cylinder into the eye," explained Perez. Perez said doctors often use less risky and less invasive techniques to replace corneas, but the damage from Thornton's Steven Johnson Syndrome ruled those out. Whoa. Using a tooth might sound strange, but it also offers an advantage because doctors used Thornton's own cheek and tooth tissue. She faces less risk that her immune system will attack the tooth and reject the transplant.

   10. NANoland Arbaugh47:01

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan47:01

       Patients getting a cornea transplant from a deceased donor, on the other hand, face chances that their immune system will reject the new tissue. Wow.

   12. NANoland Arbaugh47:08

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       Wow.

   14. NANoland Arbaugh47:10

       Yeah. I... For some reason, I thought they were using that tooth to like, well, I don't know, use it as a replacement for like her vision in some way, but it's literally just a placeholder for like, you know, different, different things, like the tissue in different places to like, like they said, hold that lens and stuff. That makes more sense.

   15. JRJoe Rogan47:27

       Yeah, I thought it was that too. I thought they were seeing through the teeth. (laughs)

   16. NANoland Arbaugh47:30

       Yeah, yeah, Yeah. I was like, that doesn't... I don't get that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan47:32

       No. That makes more sense.

   18. NANoland Arbaugh47:33

       Like, why can't we see through our teeth all the time? Be looking at what's going on in my mouth.

   19. JRJoe Rogan47:38

       Right. Yeah. Um, all this stuff is... It- it's- it's just mind-blowing to imagine where this is gonna be in 100 years.

   20. NANoland Arbaugh47:46

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan47:46

       And with you, uh, do you have the... Like, if they start doing the range of motion studies or the, uh, being able to recreate motion or restore motion, are you gonna be available for those studies? Can they... Can you do that too? Are you only like locked into this one study?

   22. NANoland Arbaugh48:06

       Yeah, I don't know. Uh, I imagine I'm locked into this, uh, for now at least. But at the same time, um, I'm not sure. I'm really not sure. You would have to do it with someone who already has the implant in their brain. So, I don't know if it'll be a separate Neuralink that they would need, um, like a different one specifically for, um, like the two implants interacting together. I don't see why that would be the case. Um, just like same thing with people who... They're gonna have to test to see if the surgery to replace a Neuralink is, uh, safe at some point. They're gonna have to go through-

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:42

       Hmm.

   24. NANoland Arbaugh48:42

       ... a whole thing. So, they're gonna have to do it on people who already have it in. Um-So, I imagine, like, that sort of study might be something I would be involved in if they're planning on implanting one in someone's spinal cord and then seeing how they interact and seeing if it works. I don't see why I couldn't be in that, um, but we'll see. Hm, it's kind of a long way off, I think.

   25. JRJoe Rogan49:02

       How big is the- the Neuralink implant?

   26. NANoland Arbaugh49:05

       It's about the size of a quarter. Um, uh, it's mu-... It's thicker than a quarter. Um, I don't know, maybe half an inch, something like that, thick.

   27. JRJoe Rogan49:14

       And does it-... Y-... It's on the surface? So like-

   28. NANoland Arbaugh49:18

       Yeah, it's implanted on my skull. So, they cut out a chunk of my skull. Uh, I think it's called a craniectomy, and then they left that chunk out and just replaced it with the Neuralink.

   29. JRJoe Rogan49:27

       Do they take that chunk and, like, put it in a freezer so they can put it back in you someday?

   30. NANoland Arbaugh49:30

       Yeah, I-... I'm not sure. I don't think so. I-... Oh, talking about it, yeah, talking about it afterwards, um-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:11:53

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      but-

   2. NANarrator1:00:00

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      ... poor under- and, and lack of honesty, a lack of, like, real, honest conversations-

   4. NANarrator1:00:05

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

      ... instead of just people trying to win arguments.

   6. NANoland Arbaugh1:00:08

      Yeah. Yeah. That'd be great, uh, until people realize that, you know, maybe you don't need to lie exactly. Maybe you can find ways to work around having to lie with this thing. If you can't lie anymore, if you're not allowed to, I mean, people find ways to kinda sorta lie all the time.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

      Yeah.

   8. NANoland Arbaugh1:00:25

      And then also, if you can hack it and then you're able to lie and no one else is, then that becomes kind of an issue too. If in some way you are able to, like, jailbreak your Neuralink, so you can't lie anymore and then you're the only one lying, everyone's gonna believe you. Uh, they think that you can't lie and then that brings up a whole new world of problems.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:45

      Hmm. My, in my, my eyes, you're seeing right into the thoughts.

   10. NANoland Arbaugh1:00:49

       Oh, I see what you mean.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

       I don't think you have a chance to lie.

   12. NANoland Arbaugh1:00:51

       Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

       I don't think there's any, there's noth- it doesn't exist anymore. I think-

   14. NANoland Arbaugh1:00:54

       Hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:55

       ... I think it goes away. And hence liars go away. That's gonna be-

   16. NANoland Arbaugh1:00:59

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:59

       ... a real problem. We're gonna have-

   18. NANoland Arbaugh1:01:00

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

       ... to have actual understanding of all the different processes that are in play, whether it's environment or resources-

   20. NANoland Arbaugh1:01:07

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

       ... or-... you know, inter-country conflicts, whatever the fuck is going on, we're gonna have a, we're gonna have to have a real understanding of it without politicians bullshitting us on, as to why we're gonna do something. That won't exist anymore. That would be wild.

   22. NANoland Arbaugh1:01:21

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:21

       They would be the ones that would resist it the most.

   24. NANoland Arbaugh1:01:24

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:24

       Be like, "We have this dangerous-"

   26. NANoland Arbaugh1:01:26

       Yeah. (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:26

       "... mind-reading technology." Like if fucking Nancy Pelosi would have a press conference.

   28. NANoland Arbaugh1:01:31

       (laughs) I mean, I, I just think if something like that ever came about, they would never let it happen.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:36

       I don't think they have a choice.

   30. NANoland Arbaugh1:01:38

       Hm.

Episode duration: 1:36:05