Diana Walsh Pasulka: Aliens, Technology, Religion & the Nature of Belief | Lex Fridman Podcast #149

1. 0:00 – 2:03

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      The following is a conversation with Diana Walsh Pasulka, a professor of philosophy and religion at UNCW, and author of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, and Technology. This book is one of the most fascinating explorations of the interconnected nature of technology, belief, and the mystery of alien intelligence. Quick mention of our sponsors: LMNT Electrolyte drink, Grammarly writing plug-in, Business Wars Podcast, and Cash App. So the choice is health, grammar, knowledge, or money. Choose wisely, my friends. And if you wish, click the sponsor links below to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say, as I did in the recent video on how many intelligent alien civilizations are out there, that the nature of alien life, intelligence, and how they might communicate with us humans, is likely stranger than we imagine, and perhaps stranger than we can imagine. What is most fascinating to me is how the belief in the communication with such civilizations changes people's understanding of the world, and, as Diana argues, the technology we create. Technological innovation itself seems to manifest the mythology in our collective intelligence that turns the seemingly impossible into reality in just a matter of years through the belief of individual humans that carry out that innovation. The nature and power of this belief in both technology and extraterrestrial intelligence is mysterious and fascinating, perhaps holding the key to us humans understanding our own mind, our consciousness, and engineering versions of it in the machines we create. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @LexFridman. And now, here's my conversation with Diana Walsh Pasulka.

2. 2:03 – 7:32

   What is real?

   1. LFLex Fridman2:03

      You are a scholar of religious belief, or belief in general. So the fascinating question, uh, what do you think is the difference between our beliefs and objective reality? What is real, period?

   2. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka2:17

      Sure. What is real? Easy question. (laughs) So first, let me start with belief. So belief is generally ... There are different definitions of belief, just, just as there are different definitions of what is real. Okay? So for belief in my field, it would be attitudes toward something that dictate our actions. Okay? So we believe the sun is gonna rise tomorrow, therefore we act as if it will rise tomorrow. All right. Beliefs can be wrong. For a long time, people believed, and actually some still do, that the Earth was flat. Okay? Well, that's obviously an erroneous belief. So beliefs can be wrong. Uh, now the, the bigger question that philosophers ask is, um, does ... Is this belief accurate toward what we consider to be objective reality? So now let me go to objective reality. So what is real? I don't think we can actually obtain a correct understanding of what is real. And in that sense, I have to refer to a philosopher again, and that would be Immanuel Kant. So Immanuel Kant is one of the ... He was a, a ... Basically in the 1750s, he wrote Critiques of Reason and things like that. So he's a ... Well, if you're a philosopher or have any kind of understanding of Western history, you know who he is. Um, he had this idea that we can actually never get to the thing in i- in itself. Okay? So, and he called that the noumenal, the thing in itself. He said, "This ... Let's take this table, for instance, that you and I are talking across. So this thing is a table. You and I both know that. We assume it's real. We believe in it because we put our water on it and then our water stays on it." Okay. Um, "However, can we know this thing, um, in and of itself as a table?" Um, so that would be what he then would call, um, the phenomenal. How do we know that that phenomena exists as we know it is? Okay? How, how do we know? Uh, we use our faculties. So we use our senses and things like that. But again, even our senses can be wrong. So I've been on committees just recently, this year, last year, for hiring professors in my department who are philosophers. And every ... And we're hiring metaphysicians and, you know, people who are thinking about the nature of reality.

   3. LFLex Fridman4:36

      (laughs)

   4. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka4:37

      And basically, what, what I've learned from them-

   5. LFLex Fridman4:40

      That's so great.

   6. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka4:40

      Yeah. They're very, very-

   7. LFLex Fridman4:40

      I'd love to attend those faculty talks-

   8. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka4:43

      (laughs)

   9. LFLex Fridman4:43

      ... (laughs) of metaphysics professors.

   10. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka4:45

       What's funny is that-

   11. LFLex Fridman4:46

       It's so great.

   12. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka4:46

       ... for each one of them, I'm convinced each time. They all say different things, but they're so convincing, I'm like, "Yes! Hire that one!" Right?

   13. LFLex Fridman4:54

       Is it like historical philosophy, like a particular talk?

   14. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka4:56

       No. No. What they do-

   15. LFLex Fridman4:57

       Or do they have-

   16. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka4:57

       No. They're just-

   17. LFLex Fridman4:58

       Do they have an actual belief? They're practicing metaphysi- (laughs) metaphysicians?

   18. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka5:02

       Metaphysicians. Yes.

   19. LFLex Fridman5:03

       (laughs)

   20. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka5:03

       So what they do is they come and they're usually excellent philosophers from Harvard or, you know, uh, USC or whatever. You know, they come and they give what's called a job talk. That's what phlos- ... Well, all, every academic does a job talk in order to get a, um ... They talk to us about a department about what they do. And so it so happens that we need a medi- metaphysician and now we're hiring again for one. And so I've loo- I've learned a lot about metaphysics in the last year, and this is what I've learned. Um, that they use physics as a basis for understanding what we can know about what is real, and what is real is really difficult to pin down. And so your question is, what is belief? Well, belief, does it correspond to reality? That's the question I would ask. And first, we don't even know what, what is real. So the table, they would say, how do we know that the table even exists? Well, how do we differentiate it from the floor, for example? So these are the questions that philosophers are asking. No one else is, of course. But philosophers are asking these questions, and they have different answers for it. So I would say that it's very difficult to know what is real, and in fact what I do usually is I-... paraphrase my friend, um, and colleague, Brother Guy Consolmagno. He's a Jesuit priest who's also an astronomer, and he's the director of the Vatican Observatory. And so, he says this. He's a very smart person. He says, "Well, truth is a moving target." You know, so, so basically to know what is real out there, like gravity or something like that, you've got to approximate it. And as human beings, you know, we have, um, senses to tell us what, at least so we don't get hurt, you know, we're not gonna fall off a building or something like that. We have eyes to see and things like that. So, we can approximate what reality is, but we're never gonna get to it, um, unless we develop better senses, okay? And I think that that is what we are in the process of doing. We're developing better senses. We have telescopes, we have microscopes, we have, you know, extensions of ourselves, which are now called technology. And we can get to a better understanding of what reality is and what the objective world is, and therefore our beliefs can be honed. So, we can get better beliefs, more accurate beliefs. But can we get beliefs that actually correspond to reality? Um, not in any precise way, but in approximate ways. So, I hope that's not, like, too big an answer to your question.

3. 7:32 – 12:34

   Can beliefs become reality?

   1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka7:32

   2. LFLex Fridman7:32

      Well, do you think beliefs are, in themselves, can become reality? I mean, so, so you've now adapted the, in this little bit of a conversation, adapted the metaphysician view of reality, which is the physics.

   3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka7:45

      Yes.

   4. LFLex Fridman7:46

      But, you know, we humans kind of operate in the space of ideas, very much so. Like, we've kind of in the collective intelligence, as human beings, have come up with a set of ideas that persist in the minds of these many people, and they become quite strong and powerful. Like, in terms of, like, impact on our lives, they can have sometimes more impact than this table does-

   5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka8:10

      (laughs)

   6. LFLex Fridman8:10

      ... than the physics.

   7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka8:12

      Yeah. I agree.

   8. LFLex Fridman8:13

      Oh, yeah. And in that sense, is, is there some sense in which our beliefs are reality-

   9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka8:19

      Oh, yes.

   10. LFLex Fridman8:19

       ... even if they're not connected to-

   11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka8:21

       Absolutely.

   12. LFLex Fridman8:21

       ... the physics-

   13. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka8:22

       Yes.

   14. LFLex Fridman8:22

       ... of th- uh-

   15. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka8:22

       Even if they're not real. Yeah. Even if, okay-

   16. LFLex Fridman8:25

       (laughs) .

   17. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka8:25

       ... so yes, absolutely. So, um, our beliefs are tremendously ... They, uh, they create social effects. Absolutely. Um, there was a belief that ... I'm gonna use this example.

   18. LFLex Fridman8:38

       Uh-oh.

   19. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka8:38

       There was a belief back in the day, and we're talking about, when I say back in the day, I'm a historian, so I'm talking about like 1,000 years ago, right? That women had no souls, okay? So, look, I don't know if human beings have souls. I can tell you this though, that if human beings have souls, probably animals do too. That's my own personal belief. That's not a professor belief there. Um, but there was this belief among the Catholic, um, magisterium, which is, is, runs Europe, that women had no souls. So, they had to have this big meeting about it, you know? Did women have souls? But that belief had consequences for women. I mean, women were treated and-

   20. LFLex Fridman9:15

       Yeah.

   21. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka9:15

       ... have been treated as if they didn't have souls. Um, okay, so there's-

   22. LFLex Fridman9:19

       And the soul was really the essence of the human being.

   23. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka9:22

       It was. It's the, it's called the animus, right? It's what is the, the essence of what is e- it's eternal. You know, wom- w- women were eternal. Here's another example, okay? This is an example from my own research. All right. So, there, in the Catholic tradition, there's this idea of purgatory, hell, and heaven, and these are three destinations that people can go to when they die. And if you're great, you go to heaven automatically and you're considered a saint. If you're okay, you go to purgatory, right? And you suffer for a time and then get back into heaven. Um, if you're terrible, you go to hell, right? Okay.

   24. LFLex Fridman9:57

       Yeah.

   25. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka9:58

       Well, there was a place that the Catholics determined, and this h- this was a belief for a long time, like 1,000 years or more, um, and it was called limbo, all right? And limbo comes from the Latin limbus, and it means edge. And it was either on the edge of hell or on the edge of heaven. No one really could determine which it was, you know? Historians are like, "Well, this person says it was on the edge of heaven." Well, listen, um, this was a terrible... First of all, there is no limbo anymore. In 2007, um, Benedict, the then Pope, got rid of the idea that there was limbo, okay? So, Catholics kind of went crazy 'cause they didn't really know. They forgot that limbo existed and they thought it was purgatory.

   26. LFLex Fridman10:39

       Okay.

   27. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka10:39

       And they said, "How could you get rid of purgatory?" But actually, he just got rid of this idea of limbo.

   28. LFLex Fridman10:43

       Oh, so that's a distinct thing from purgatory. But-

   29. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka10:45

       It i- it was. It was like-

   30. LFLex Fridman10:46

       And by the way, people should know you have a book on purgatory that came before your, uh-
4. 12:34 – 16:33

   Donald Hoffman

   1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka12:34

   2. LFLex Fridman12:35

      Uh, so I don't know if you're familiar with Donald Hoffman. He has, uh, this idea that, uh, in terms of, uh, the distance we are from being able to know the reality, which is there, the physics reality, is we're actually really, really, really, really far away from that.

   3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka12:52

      Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman12:52

      So, like, it's... Uh, I think his idea is that we're, we're basically, like, completely detached from it.

   5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka13:00

      (laughs) Yes.

   6. LFLex Fridman13:00

      Uh, what, what's your sense, how close are we to the reality? We'll, we'll talk about a, a bunch of ideas about our beliefs in technology and, and beyond. Uh, but in terms of what is actually real from a physical sense, how close are we to understanding that?

   7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka13:18

      Pretty far. I'm gonna use examples from what I do. Okay, so this idea that w- we're suspicious of what we actually think is real is not new. Of course, it goes back a long time. Thousands of years, in fact.

   8. LFLex Fridman13:33

      Yeah.

   9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka13:33

      And philosophers, I- I'm not actually technically a philosopher, but I was one. (laughs) I'm a, I'm a professor of religious studies.

   10. LFLex Fridman13:43

       Yeah, but what do you introduce yourself at, like, a, at a bar when the bartender asks, "What do you do?"

   11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka13:48

       I never tell people what I do. (laughs)

   12. LFLex Fridman13:50

       (laughs)

   13. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka13:50

       Especially on airplanes.

   14. LFLex Fridman13:52

       Yeah.

   15. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka13:52

       It's a bad idea.

   16. LFLex Fridman13:53

       Okay. (laughs)

   17. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka13:53

       So, generally if they push, though, I say, you know, "I'm the Chair of Philosophy and Religion. Although I stepped down last year, so I'm no longer the Chair." But, um, I- I've, I have, like, a master's degree in philosophy, and I was a philosophy major, and I've studied phlo- I still f- study philosophy. So I integrate it into my research. Um, all right, so this idea that we can't know... Uh, we're suspicious of what we know. It's called external world skepticism. That's the official philosophical name for it. Um, our faculties and our senses don't give us accurate perceptions of what is there, okay? Especially at a quantum level or a molecular level. I mean, that's just obvious. So, yeah, so I think that your, uh, the person you mentioned is correct in that I think we're far away from it.

   18. LFLex Fridman14:38

       I think you're talking about our direct senses. But, you know, we have tools, measurement tools, from microscopes to all the tools of astronomy, cosmology, that give us a sense of the big universe and also the sense of the very small. Do you think there's some other things that are completely sort of other dimensions or... There's ideas of panpsychism that consciousness permeates all matter, that, that's, there's, like, fundamental forces of physics we're not even aware of yet. Like...

   19. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka15:14

       Oh, absolutely. I do think, and this is why I write about technology, and, um, I, I mean, that's actually what I specialize in, is belief in technology with respect to religion. So, in my opinion, thank goodness for thi- for technology, because where would we be without it? I mean, frankly, I think that it's... Like Marshall McLuhan was the person who said technology is, is like a- an extension of our senses, and I absolutely believe that to be true. I think that we're lucky that we, you know, that Prometheus gave us technology, okay? And that we use it, and we're making it better and better and better and better, and that makes us more efficient, it makes us more efficient as a species, um, and, like, m- my point is, is that I think that our instruments, I mean, I don't want to be a religious technologist, you know, but our, our, uh, our instruments will save us. I mean, they're already making life better for us.

   20. LFLex Fridman16:19

       Do you think it's important that they also help us understand reality more directly? More, more deeply? What-

   21. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka16:24

       I think directly is, uh, is better than deeply. I think directly, more directly is probably a more accurate term for what you're trying to, I think, ask

5. 16:33 – 20:02

   Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

   1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka16:33

      me. You know, can we actually... I mean, I think you're asking me that question that Kant basically was trying to get at, was c- can we know the thing in itself? Can we know that? Can we have, like, some kind of, like, intense knowing of it? It's almost mystical. Um, and I would say that that's where religion comes in, okay? That's where we talk about religion. Um, and if I may also go back to Immanuel Kant, this idea that he, just before he died, just as he died, he was working on... He did this Critique of Reason where basically he believed, he m- he basically, um, talks about can we know what's real, and he basically has this long, you know... The question, "Can we know what's real?" And then, you know, 1,000 pages later, "N- no." (laughs)

   2. LFLex Fridman17:21

      (laughs)

   3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka17:21

      I'll just give you the rundown, okay? So, okay, no-

   4. LFLex Fridman17:23

      Spoiler alert.

   5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka17:24

      Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, then he does this other, uh, critique, and, um, okay, so he does, like, three crit- critiques. Then he does this Critique of Judgment, okay? Well, judgment is this other thing altogether, and I think that that's what you're getting at. So, how do we know things, how can we know things really intensely and intimately? And I think that he thought that judgment was the idea that we can actually, um, know the thing in itself and he was working on that as he died, and then he never finished it. Hannah Arendt, uh, another philosopher of the 20th century, took it up, took up the Critique of Judgment, and tried to finish it.

   6. LFLex Fridman18:01

      Uh, why the word "judgment"?

   7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka18:03

      Because judgment, think about it, when you see a work of art, who judges that to be decent? Okay, so there's a, there is, um, a group of people who come to the decision that that's rotten or, you know, that's pretty good. You know, like, um, I notice that you like to play guitar.

   8. LFLex Fridman18:21

      Mm-hmm.

   9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka18:22

      Well, you choose music that I happen to like too, okay?

   10. LFLex Fridman18:25

       (laughs)

   11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka18:25

       So you and I both have a-

   12. LFLex Fridman18:26

       (laughs)

   13. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka18:26

       ... you know, sense of judgment. There's a sense.

   14. LFLex Fridman18:28

       Yeah.

   15. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka18:29

       So he said there's a sense that some people have-... why do certain communities have a similar sense? What, what dictates that? And so he was working on that. He s- he thought it had something to do with the knowledge, the intimate knowledge of the thing in itself. Um, yeah. So a- another, um, philosopher that philosophers actually don't like at all, but religious studies people do, is, uh, Martin Heidegger. So Martin Heidegger, um, has some great essays. One is called What Is a Work of Art? And again, he gets to, you know, he talks about Van Gogh and Van Gogh's Shoes. You know that picture? The, the painting Van Gogh's Shoes? It's really a really intense picture. It's just shoes. It's, you know, it's ... but it's a m- it's an amazing painting of shoes. And I think everybody can agree that's a cool picture of shoes, right?

   16. LFLex Fridman19:18

       (laughs)

   17. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka19:18

       And so why? You know, the question is, why is that a cool picture of shoes?

   18. LFLex Fridman19:22

       Yeah.

   19. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka19:22

       You know, what kind of knowledge are we accessing to determine that indeed that, that works, right?

   20. LFLex Fridman19:29

       Yeah.

   21. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka19:29

       And in fact, we still like it.

   22. LFLex Fridman19:30

       So basically the, the nature of knowledge and what does it represent that can operate in the space of as detached from reality, or can it ultimately represent reality? I guess that's the ... Is th- is that the space of metaphysics? Is that th- is that the ...

   23. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka19:46

       Um, yeah. So what can we know is actually called epistemology.

   24. LFLex Fridman19:49

       Epistemology.

   25. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka19:49

       But metaphysics is, um, the-

   26. LFLex Fridman19:51

       They intersect, I guess.

   27. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka19:52

       ... is basically what is the nature of reality.

   28. LFLex Fridman19:55

       Right. And those intersect.

   29. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka19:57

       Absolutely.

   30. LFLex Fridman19:58

       Right?
6. 20:02 – 27:00

   Ayn Rand

   1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka20:02

   2. LFLex Fridman20:02

      Another non-philosopher that may be considered a philosopher, since we're talking about reality, is Ayn Rand and her philosophy of objectivism.

   3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka20:12

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LFLex Fridman20:14

      What are your thoughts on her sense of taking this idea of reality, calling her philosophy objectivism, and, uh, kind of starting at the idea that you really could know everything, and it's pretty obvious. And then from that, you can derive an ethics about how to live life, like what is the, what is the good ethical life and all the virtue of selfishness, all that kind of stuff. Uh, (laughs) so you talked to a lot of academic philosophers, so I'd be curious to see from the perspective of like, is she somebody that's, uh, taken seriously at all? Uh, why is she dismissed, as I see from my distant perspective, by serious philosophers? And also, like your own personal thoughts of like, is there some interesting bits th- that you find, uh, inspiring in her work, uh, or not?

   5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka21:12

      Okay. So Ayn Rand ... Um, I've had so many exceedingly intelligent students basically give me her books and basically say, "Please, Dr. Posolka, read this book." And I'll tell them, "Yes, thank you. I've read this book before." And then when we engage in, you know ... L- let me put it this way. They're religious about Ayn Rand, okay? So to them, Ayn Rand represents some type of way of life, right? Her objectivism. Um, now, why is she not taken seriously by philosophers in general (laughs) ? Well, let me put it this way. Um, philosophers in general tend to get pretty ... I guess you could call it they're, they're s- kind of scientists, but with words. I always call philosophy, when I describe it to someone who's gonna take a philosophy class, I say, "It's basically math problems, like word math problems, okay?" So that's basically what it is.

   6. LFLex Fridman22:14

      So they take words very seriously, and they're very formal phi-

   7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka22:16

      And definitions very seriously. Yeah.

   8. LFLex Fridman22:18

      Yes.

   9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka22:18

      So they all want to get on the same page, so they're not ... so there is no confusion. So for Ayn Rand to basically say you can know everything and, you know, and establish ethics from that, I think philosophers automatically say no. Now, that doesn't mean I say no. Um, in fact, uh, we have an c- we have, at my university, a wonderful business school. And when you walk into the, the, uh, dean of the business school's office, Ayn Rand is everywhere. So it's ... (laughs) So I want to say that not all academics are anti-Ayn Rand. Um, and in fact, I don't think philosophers are either, except that they don't teach Ayn Rand, okay? So it's one, one sense you could say that because they don't teach her, they're being e- exclusive in what they teach, or very particular, perhaps, is another way to put it.

   10. LFLex Fridman23:07

       Yeah, it's hard to know where to place people like her, because, um ... You know, do you put Albert Camus as a philosopher? So s- I guess ... What's the good term for that, like literary philosophers? Or whatever the term is, i- it's annoying to me that the academic philosophers get to own the word philosophy, 'cause like it's just like people who think deeply about life, is what I think about as-

   11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka23:30

       Y- yeah. Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman23:30

       ... as philosophy. And, like, to me, it's like, all right. So I know Nietzsche is another person that's probably not respected in the philosophy circles, because he is, uh, you know, full of contradictions, full of, uh ...

   13. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka23:44

       I love Nietzsche.

   14. LFLex Fridman23:45

       (laughs)

   15. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka23:45

       Nietzsche's my favorite philosopher.

   16. LFLex Fridman23:47

       Oh, really?

   17. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka23:48

       Yes, I absolutely love Nietzsche.

   18. LFLex Fridman23:49

       So he's def- y- you know, I- I love people that are full of ideas, even if they're full of contradictions, and Nietzsche is certainly that.

   19. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka23:54

       Absolutely. Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman23:55

       And Ayn Rand is also that. I'm able to, um, look past the obvious ego that's there on the page, and, uh, the fact that she actually has, in my view, a lot of wrong ideas. Uh, but there's a lot of interesting tidbits to pick up. And, uh, same, same goes with Nietzsche, and, uh ... I'm, I'm weirded out by the religious aspect here, on both the people who like worship Ayn Rand, and people who completely dismiss her. I- I just kind of see it as, oh, w- can we just read a few interesting things and get inspired by it and move on (laughs) as opposed to-

   21. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka24:32

       No. (laughs)

   22. LFLex Fridman24:32

       ... have a dogmatic take about everything? Is there something you find about her work that's interesting to you, um, or her personality, or any of that?

   23. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka24:41

       Oh, I think she's fascinating. Um, I don't dismiss her. Um, she was a woman who reached a level of success with her mind at a time when that was difficult. So, I mean, she's definitely, um, worth looking at for, for even that reason. Um, but also, um, her idea... I guess part of the situation with Rand... First of all, I think that, um, her work is, you have to... It's misinterpreted, okay? And I think that's the same with Nietzsche. Like, a lot of people think that... I mean, and, in fact, it is the case that... Nietzsche's writing before the 20th century, so he's got the- you know, he's somewhat... His rhetoric is (clears throat) sexist and racist, and, you know, of the time period, right? He was a educated philosopher of that time period. However, um, his books are amazing, and Nietzsche's philosophy is incredible. And I think that, I think that's what you're saying about Rand too.

   24. LFLex Fridman25:49

       Yeah.

   25. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka25:49

       And I agree. I mean, I think that, that, um, we get caught up. I mean, likely we should, and we should contextualize these thinkers in the time period within which they are. We should not forgive their... You know, 'cause there were people during Nietzsche's time that were, you know, uh, feminist and-

   26. LFLex Fridman26:08

       Yeah.

   27. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka26:08

       ... and not racist, and things like that. And, you know, so... But, uh, each has m- merit.

   28. LFLex Fridman26:15

       Yeah.

   29. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka26:15

       I mean, I would say Nietzsche is an- I- you did ask me to talk about some of the books that made the largest impact on me.

   30. LFLex Fridman26:23

       Yeah.
7. 27:00 – 42:13

   How do religions start?

   1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka27:00

   2. LFLex Fridman27:00

      So, can we, can we talk about myth and religion a little bit?

   3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka27:04

      Yes.

   4. LFLex Fridman27:04

      I mean, can we start at the beginning, which is, like, myths, how are they born? There's this collective intelligence amongst us human beings, and we seem to create these beautiful ideas that captivate the minds of millions. How is such a myth born?

   5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka27:21

      Great question. Okay, so that brings us to terminology again. In, um, in my field, we, we definitely, I think, try not to distinguish between religion, uh, this is going to be controversial, I think-

   6. LFLex Fridman27:36

      Uh-oh.

   7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka27:36

      ... between religion and myth, because we call other cultures' religions myths, right? And then we call our myths religions.

   8. LFLex Fridman27:46

      And I guess myth has a bad connotation to it, that it's not-

   9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka27:49

      It's not true.

   10. LFLex Fridman27:49

       ... somehow real.

   11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka27:50

       Yeah.

   12. LFLex Fridman27:50

       Right?

   13. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka27:51

       Yeah. Now, what's interesting is that, um, people like Plato, who lived thousands of years ago, 2,500 about, um, basically made this distinction himself within his own culture, which was Greek, right? So, Plato is a very famous Greek philosopher, and he would say things like this. He would say that, um... He would make a distinction between the reality of the one God, or the one. He would call it- he didn't call- use the word God, but he's referencing a divinity of... Okay? And he believes in the soul. Okay? So- but he would also say that the gods and goddesses of the Greeks are just myths.

   14. LFLex Fridman28:32

       Mm-hmm.

   15. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka28:33

       So, even he would make that distinction. Again, you know, he would say, "The population is not too bright, so they believe in these gods and goddesses." But he himself is talking to his students, and he's basically talking about forms, you know? So, you know, they're- that live in- seem to live in these other dimensions. Like this table, let's go back to this table that we're talking, um, around right now. He would say that th- this table is the instantiation of the form table, and that there is this table that actually exists somewhere. It's where- this place where numbers exist-

   16. LFLex Fridman29:05

       Yeah.

   17. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka29:05

       ... like the number two, okay? So, there- we use the number two mathematically, therefore it exists. But have you ever seen a real one? Have you ever seen the real two? No.

   18. LFLex Fridman29:15

       No.

   19. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka29:15

       Okay. So- but where does it exist? So, he says that tables... So, he was also talking about things that, you know, he says are real, making a distinction between the people and- and by the way, he got this from Socrates, his, his, um, mentor, who was killed by Athens because he would say such things. People don't like to be told that they- what they believe in is not real, right?

   20. LFLex Fridman29:38

       Yeah. By the way, his idea of forms is just- you're just making me realize how, like, incredible it was that somebody like that was able to come up with that. I mean, that idea became a myth that- uh, the idea of forms, right, that permeated, uh, probably the most influential set of ideas in, in f- in the history of philosophy, in the history of ideas.

   21. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka30:00

       Yes. Yeah. H- I mean, Plato, we know him for a reason, right?

   22. LFLex Fridman30:03

       Yeah. So, let's say that we're not, uh, it's a gray area between religious and myths, and maybe not even-

   23. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka30:10

       It is gray.

   24. LFLex Fridman30:11

       Yeah.

   25. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka30:11

       Yeah.

   26. LFLex Fridman30:11

       Uh, s- so what- how's that idea with, like, little Plato start and permeate through all of society?

   27. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka30:18

       Okay. Oh, oh, how does it happen? Okay, so there are different ways that religions work. Um, so a lot of people would call the UFO narrative today, like, uh, uh, and this is what I talk about in my book, like a myth, right? The UFO myth. But a lot of people believe in it, okay? So, how do these things work? Well, what I did was I took, um, there's a- Ann Taves at, um, UC Santa Barbara, she's a pretty well-known academic who studies religion. And she has this building block-... definition of religion, like it builds, okay?

   28. LFLex Fridman30:50

       Mm-hmm.

   29. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka30:50

       And so she says there are, there are no religious experiences or mythic experiences. There are experiences, and then they get interpreted as religious or mythic, okay? And so I s- I use that with the UFO narrative. So I take, um... And I compare it to the religious narrative. So basically what happens, um, what happens is this, is that a person generally has a very ex- uh, intense experience. Um, it could be with something that they see in the sky, a being, you know, that they see. Um, you know, like Moses and the burning bush or something like that. They tell other people, okay? And those other people believe them because they say, "That guy..." Let's take you, okay, Lex. Okay, so you're playing, you know, some of your music. Jimi Hendrix-

   30. LFLex Fridman31:40

       Yeah.
8. 42:13 – 47:34

   Religion is an evolutionary advantage

   1. LFLex Fridman42:13

      so on. Do you think ultimately religion is good for human civilization? L- let me, uh, maybe phrase it differently is, what's religion good for?

   2. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka42:28

      Okay. Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks for asking that. Most people don't ask that, and I think it's the question to ask. Why do we still have religion? That's the question, right? Because scientists and others, scholars, um, humanists even, uh-... thought that there's this thing called the secular-secularization thesis, and it's this idea that the more, um, we progress rationally and we have better instruments for understanding our reality, the less religious we will be. But that's been found to be untrue. (laughs) We're still very religious, okay? So why, why is it around? Well, it's adaptive in some way, in my opinion, most, uh, many people would not agree with me, but I kind of see it as an evolutionary a- adaptation. Now, think about religions, okay? Think about Christianity again, for one. Um, here comes this idea, when you have this ruthless empire called the Roman Empire, which litters its- its roads with crucified bodies to let you know, "Don't mess with us," okay? All right. Here all of a sudden you have this guy saying, "God is love."

   3. LFLex Fridman43:37

      Yeah.

   4. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka43:37

      Okay? All right. Well, that's weird.

   5. LFLex Fridman43:39

      (laughs)

   6. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka43:39

      Okay, so why? Why does this take off? Well, it takes off because we're becoming a, um, a colonial power. That means we're going into other countries. We're conquering them. We are, you know... How do we survive together as- as cultures that don't clash? Well, we have to have a belief structure that allows us to, and I think religions function that way, frankly.

   7. LFLex Fridman44:05

      So, so the- so religions help us in- from a... so the Richard Dawkins meme idea, it allows us to explore a space of ideas, um, and that in itself is the, um... so it's like evolution of ideas.

   8. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:22

      Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman44:22

      And religion is a powerful tool for us-

   10. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:24

       It is.

   11. LFLex Fridman44:24

       ... to explore ideas.

   12. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:25

       Yeah. Because, you know, if- if I believe that men have souls (laughs) -

   13. LFLex Fridman44:31

       Do they?

   14. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:31

       (laughs) Yes, they do. Okay.

   15. LFLex Fridman44:33

       (laughs) Wow.

   16. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:37

       Um ... (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman44:38

       (laughs) Um-

   18. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:38

       We're gonna get into trouble here-

   19. LFLex Fridman44:38

       I'm still trying to figure that out.

   20. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:39

       ... you know? (laughs)

   21. LFLex Fridman44:41

       Well, I still, in terms of souls, do believe cats don't have souls, but uh-

   22. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:44

       (laughs) That's hilarious.

   23. LFLex Fridman44:45

       ... we'll never- we'll never, uh, we'll never be able to confirm that.

   24. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:49

       Maybe if we get better instruments, you know, the soul instrument. You need to come up with that one, please. (laughs)

   25. LFLex Fridman44:54

       Oh, for cats?

   26. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:55

       Yeah, not just for cats, but for all animals and people in general.

   27. LFLex Fridman44:59

       For sure.

   28. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka44:59

       You- you could put them in, like a little, you know, soul machine and find out what's the status of their soul. (laughs)

   29. LFLex Fridman45:07

       That's funny. I hope we'll become a scientific discipline of consciousness, and consciousness is in some sense connected to maybe what the meaning of the word soul used to be.

   30. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka45:18

       Mm-hmm.
9. 47:34 – 52:07

   Religion used in propaganda

   1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka47:34

   2. LFLex Fridman47:34

      So I mentioned to you offline that I'm, uh, finishing up on the, uh, rise and fall of the Third Reich. I'm not sure if you have anything in your exploration interesting to say, but the use of religion by dictators or the lack of the use of religion by dictators, whether we're talking about Stalin, which is mostly a secular ... I apologize if I'm historically incorrect on this, but I believe it's a secular, and Hitler, I think there's some d- controversy about how- how much religion played a role in his own personal life and in general in terms of influencing the ... using it to manipulate the public. Uh, but definitely the church played a role. Um, do you have a sense of the use of religion by governments to control the populations, by dictators for example? Or is that outside of your little explorations as a religious scholar?

   3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka48:40

      It's not outside of my framework. Absolutely not. Um, I think that it's done routinely.... um, propaganda is done routinely, um, especially, there's nothing more powerful than religion to get people to act, I think. Um, I ha- my mother's Jewish and my father is w- was Roman Catholic, okay, from Irish extraction.

   4. LFLex Fridman49:06

      (laughs)

   5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka49:07

      And so both, um, members, um, both great-grandparents came here under duress, because they were being, um, what would you call it? Uh, there was an active genocide on both sides, (laughs) being done by other cultures, okay? So on the one hand, obviously we know about the Holocaust, okay? So they came, the great-grandparents came here to avoid that, and they made it. Um, on the other hand, uh, there was an English, um, genocide a- we just have to say it, of the Irish, um, it was called a famine, but it wasn't one, it was a staged thing. And so, um, millions of Irish left Ireland on coffin ships is what they called them, because they usually wouldn't get here. Mine happened to get here. Okay, so those, that's the context that I'm coming from. So in each case, for one thing, the Irish weren't considered, you know, uh, there was, uh, Catholics weren't considered, they were considered to be terrible, and there was a lot of anti-Catholic rhetoric here in the United States. Uh, which is kind of strange, because one of the, in fact the most wealthy colonial family were the Carrolls in Maryland, and they were Catholic.

   6. LFLex Fridman50:17

      Mm.

   7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka50:17

      So, when you look at the United States, uh, our history, and you see the separation of church and state, do you want to know where that came from? That came from those guys. They convinced George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. I mean, they couldn't vote, yet they had the, they had, they have their names on the Constitution. Is that not a strange contradiction? (laughs)

   8. LFLex Fridman50:40

      (laughs)

   9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka50:40

      So here, here you can see how, you know, propaganda works. There was anti-Catholic propaganda, there was anti-Jewish propaganda, um, and all of, and a lot of it was that, you know, these people weren't human, they weren't human beings. Um, another thing I'd like to say is that when the Irish did come here, um, they were indentured, a lot of times indentured servants. Um, but that's a, that's terminology. Inde- what is an indentured servant?

   10. LFLex Fridman51:11

       Slave.

   11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka51:12

       Pretty much.

   12. LFLex Fridman51:14

       (inhales) So in that sense, religion can be used, uh-

   13. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka51:18

       Derogatorily. (laughs)

   14. LFLex Fridman51:19

       Yeah.

   15. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka51:19

       Yeah. (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman51:19

       Derogatorily as a useful grouping mechanism of saying, "This is the other."

   17. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka51:24

       And, you know, it's powerful too, because behind it is a force of, um, you know, what people contend to be sacred, a sacred force, right?

   18. LFLex Fridman51:33

       Yeah.

   19. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka51:33

       So, you know, it's up to God to, you know, decide who's, you know, so you have to go along with what God says, of course. Well, that's basically, um, that's not the contact event, you know? The contact event is, is usually some type of very specific, legitimate event that a person has with something that is non-human or considered divine. Um, but when, when religions become, um, narrativized, I would call it, by different institutions, that's when you're in danger of getting propaganda.

10. 52:07 – 57:34

    What did Nietzsche mean by "God is Dead"?

    1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:07

    2. LFLex Fridman52:07

       You said Nietzsche, one of your favorite philosophers. He said, uh, famously, one of the many famous things he said is that God is dead.

    3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:16

       Yes.

    4. LFLex Fridman52:17

       Uh, what do you think he meant? Do you think he was right?

    5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:21

       Okay, good. I love this question. No one asks me about Nietzsche. (laughs)

    6. LFLex Fridman52:27

       (laughs)

    7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:27

       And I love Nietzsche.

    8. LFLex Fridman52:28

       Awesome.

    9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:28

       Okay, so, um-

    10. LFLex Fridman52:29

        (laughs)

    11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:29

        ... first actually I do think, and I could be corrected, and probably will be in all the comments-

    12. LFLex Fridman52:34

        Yeah.

    13. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:35

        ... Ni- well first, Nietzsche, it's true, wasn't the first to say God is dead. I think Hegel said it, okay? No one reads Hegel.

    14. LFLex Fridman52:41

        Yeah.

    15. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:41

        He's like so difficult to read that it's impossible, yeah.

    16. LFLex Fridman52:44

        Yeah. Same with Heidegger, as you mentioned, I feel like.

    17. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:46

        He, yeah, he, I love him, but yeah, he's really hard to read. Um, so Nietzsche's basically said God is dead. And let me give you the context for him saying that. He also said this, he said there was only one Christian and he died on the cross.

    18. LFLex Fridman52:57

        Mm.

    19. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka52:58

        Okay? So, um, he despised Christianity, and he said that...

    20. LFLex Fridman53:03

        And r- and the people who practice it.

    21. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka53:05

        Absolutely, yeah.

    22. LFLex Fridman53:06

        Yeah.

    23. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka53:06

        But again, he believed in Jesus, and he believed Jesus was g- n- he didn't believe he was a divinity, believed Jesus was a good man-

    24. LFLex Fridman53:12

        Mm.

    25. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka53:13

        ... and he died on the cross, okay?

    26. LFLex Fridman53:14

        So he believed in the morality espoused by Jesus.

    27. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka53:16

        Yeah, he absolutely did. Yeah, he did. Um, and Nietzsche basically was making a historical statement about God is dead. He sa- and he was right. He was basically saying that in this, in the century in which he lived, um, and he died I think in 1900. Again, I could be wrong about that, so I just want to say that. I believe he died in 1900.

    28. LFLex Fridman53:36

        Right.

    29. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka53:37

        Okay, so, so he's writing in the 1800s, and he's basically saying, um, God is dead and we killed him, okay? So he's making a historical statement that at that point in time with science just kind of getting better and industrialization-

    30. LFLex Fridman53:52

        Yeah.
11. 57:34 – 1:01:20

    American Cosmic

    1. LFLex Fridman57:34

       Uh, you wrote the book American Cosmic: Uh, UFOs, Religion, Technology. What was the goal of writing this book? What, uh ... Maybe we'll mention it, we have already mentioned it many times, but in this little space of a conversation, can you say maybe what is the key insight that you found that lingers with you to this day from the process, the long process of, uh, putting this book together?

    2. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka58:04

       Sure. Just like with my book on purgatory, um, I went into the research thinking that it would be something that it was entirely not. It ended up being something completely different. And I think that's good. I think that people who do research need to n- are very excited actually when their research surprises them.

    3. LFLex Fridman58:22

       Mm-hmm.

    4. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka58:23

       So, I was happily surprised by my purgatory book to learn that it was a place, you know, and ... And so, um, I went into American Cosmic being a non-believer in UFOs entirely, and I came out being agnostic, okay? Kind of believer. (laughs)

    5. LFLex Fridman58:48

       (laughs) Yeah.

    6. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka58:50

       So, um-

    7. LFLex Fridman58:51

       But agnostic, sort of, uh, open to the mysteries of the world.

    8. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka58:54

       Yes. And I didn't think that ... First of all, I knew that the government was i- was part of the situation. I just didn't know how much.

    9. LFLex Fridman59:06

       Mm.

    10. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka59:06

        And so I learned that quickly and acclimated to it, um, accepted it, and noted that indeed, Horatio (laughs) the world is much more mysterious than we think it is. It's more myster- there are more mysteries in this life than your philosophy provides for.

    11. LFLex Fridman59:34

        So is the sense American Cosmic is about the mysteries of the modern life as encapsulated by this- the- the realm of technology and the realm of alien intelligences?

    12. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka59:47

        Yes. I think that, um, I think that ... I mean, I'd have to go off record as a professor and talk personally. As a person, I do think that, um, there are mysteries of which we have an inkling. And if it's something as powerful as non-human intelligence, whether or not it's from another planet, extraterrestrial, or it happens to be from like another dimension or something else, I think that this is going to, um, get the attention of institutions of power. And indeed, I think that's what has happened. And, um, although probably h- people have had interactions with these things, it- it appears to me, historically, uh, for a long time, as long as humans have existed, I would imagine that indeed, um, this is something that's quite powerful and could change the belief structures of our entire societies, our civilization basically.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:00:58

        So, it's the same way that you're t- talking the belief structures were strongly affected by religious beliefs throughout history.

    14. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:01:04

        Yes.

    15. LFLex Fridman1:01:04

        In the same way this has the potential, uh, th- it- it- it, uh, serves as, um...... a source of concern for the powerful, because it can have very significant effects on the-

    16. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:01:19

        Huge effects.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:01:19

        ... the populous.

12. 1:01:20 – 1:10:03

    What do aliens look like?

    1. LFLex Fridman1:01:20

    2. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:01:20

       Yes.

    3. LFLex Fridman1:01:20

       Is there some broader understanding of how we should think about alien intelligences than, um, like little green men-

    4. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:01:29

       Yes.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:01:30

       ... that, um, that you could maybe elaborate on-

    6. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:01:32

       Mm-hmm.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:01:32

       ... and talk about?

    8. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:01:34

       Yes. This comes directly out of my research in Catholic history. What I found was that, let's take for instance this idea of an angel. Okay, so we all think we know what an angel looks like. Why? Well, we've been told what an angel looks like. We see what an angel looks like. Uh, throughout history, people have painted angels and they all look pretty much the same. Um, but actually, if you go to the primary sources on, you know, either in Hebrew or in Greek, or, you know, in whatever language, and in Latin, and you look at experiences that people have d- talked about, you know, where they've written down their experiences about angels, um, angels don't at all look like what we think. They, they don't look like little cherubs with wings. They don't look like tall, you know, strong, anthropomorphic, you know, human-looking things. They don't. They look really weird. And sometimes they don't look at all l- humanoid.

    9. LFLex Fridman1:02:32

       Mm-hmm.

    10. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:02:33

        And they look like strange spinning things, right?

    11. LFLex Fridman1:02:37

        Mm-hmm.

    12. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:02:37

        With, like, you know, eyes and things like that. They, they communicate telepathically with us. Okay, so what does that mean for the idea of, of extraterrestrials or what we consider to be aliens? Like, um, I do think that there... First, if we are, if... Listen, it's, I'm not the first to say this. If we're in contact with non-human intelligence, we're most likely in contact with its technology. Because think about us. Um, do we send human beings to Mars yet? Some people would say yes. But let's put that aside.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:03:14

        Yeah.

    14. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:03:14

        So, no, we don't. We use our technology. We send our rovers to Mars, okay?

    15. LFLex Fridman1:03:19

        Okay.

    16. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:03:19

        Okay. So, if there's an extraterrestrial civilization, is it sending... Are they coming by themselves? Are they coming to see us? Or are they sending their technology? Most likely, they either are technology or they are sending their technology.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:03:34

        Yeah, there might be a gray area between what is technology and what the aliens are.

    18. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:03:38

        Yeah.

    19. LFLex Fridman1:03:39

        So, but you're saying, like, uh, basically a robotic probe that would be the equivalent of us, our human civilization created technology.

    20. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:03:46

        Way more m- way more, uh, advanced than what we could believe to be a probe. All right? (laughs)

    21. LFLex Fridman1:03:52

        It's kind of funny to think about, like, if, uh, whatever, uh, sort of, uh, extraterrestrial creations have visited Earth, that we're, we're interacting with some, like, dumb, crappy drone technology.

    22. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:04:09

        Yeah, it's true. (laughs)

    23. LFLex Fridman1:04:12

        And we're like, like... (laughs) We're like building these, like, myths and so on from, like, an experience with some-

    24. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:04:19

        Yes.

    25. LFLex Fridman1:04:19

        ... like crappy drone-

    26. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:04:20

        Yeah.

    27. LFLex Fridman1:04:20

        ... made by some-

    28. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:04:21

        Uh-huh.

    29. LFLex Fridman1:04:21

        ... crappy startup somewhere. (laughs)

    30. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:04:23

        That is correct. (laughs)
13. 1:10:03 – 1:13:06

    History of space programs

    1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:10:03

       if you look at the history of our space programs, both Russian and American, you're gonna find some pretty weird stuff. Pretty, pretty weird history there, Lex. Um, so you want to get an idea? Go back to Jankowski and read a little bit about what he has to say. If you look back at the history of our space programs, the viable space programs are both Russian and American, and each has an amazingly strange history, because, uh, the founders of the calculations that got us up into space, the rocket scientists basically, were doing some pretty weird rituals and doing religious things, right?

    2. LFLex Fridman1:10:40

       Hm. Wow.

    3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:10:40

       They weren't necessarily like... Jack Parsons on our side, uh, was out in the desert with people like L. Ron Hubbard and doing-

    4. LFLex Fridman1:10:47

       Oh, wow.

    5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:10:47

       ... really intense rituals, believing that they were opening stargates and things like that, okay?

    6. LFLex Fridman1:10:53

       That's awesome.

    7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:10:53

       And they were really doing that, okay? So then you go to, um, the Russian side, and they had a very specific, non-dogmatic, according to Catholics or Orthodox Christianity, idea of what Christianity was, and they believed that they were interacting with angels, okay? Non-human intelligences. So if you look back and you see muses, you know, you c- can contextualize them within this tradition. And so when I started to talk to people who were actually in the space program and who were in these programs that now the government has said, "Oh, yeah, we do have those programs," um, they have the same belief structures. They believe that they were also in contact with these non-human intelligences and they were getting what they called downloads of information and creating, sometimes, with Tyler D. in my book, creating technologies that were real and they were selling them on NASDAQ for, you know, a lot of money, like, you know, say $100 million or something like that, undisclosed amounts. Um, but a lot. And these things are viable technologies that we use now and, and they make our lives better and we progress as a species because of them. Now, that has nothing to do with the scientific method, as much as... I know, as much as anybody's going to get angry at me for saying that. But, you know, sorry, those were strange encounters that created our ability to go into space. I, I don't know if they're real or not, but these people believed they were real.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:12:20

       Right, so there, there's a... They have a power in actually having an impact on this world, in, um, ins- inspiring humans to create technology which enable us to do things we haven't been able to do before.

    9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:12:34

       Yeah.

    10. LFLex Fridman1:12:34

        And these... I, I like how we- we're putting, like, angels, alien life forms, aliens, and technology all in the non-human intelligence camp, which I, I really like that 'cause this... That's very true. It's this other source of, uh, wisdom, intelligence, maybe a connection to the mysterious.

    11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:13:02

        Yes. I was really surprised by it. (laughs)

    12. LFLex Fridman1:13:05

        (laughs)

14. 1:13:06 – 1:22:31

    Jacques Vallee

    1. LFLex Fridman1:13:06

       Can you speak a little bit more to the connection between aliens and technology that, uh, Jacques Vallée had in, in his own one individual mind that's very tempting to kind of separate as two...... separate, uh, endeavors. Why did you come to believe that they are one and the same? Or at least part of the same, uh, intellectual journey?

    2. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:13:37

       Thanks for asking that again, because nobody asks me that question. And it's central to my project. So, Jacques was a huge influence, is a huge influence on me. Um, he taught me a lot. Um, I had... He gave me access to some of his information that's, um, that he keeps. Um, but a lot of his information is actually there, out there for everyone to read. Um, he has an academia.edu page, and he just-

    3. LFLex Fridman1:14:08

       Hmm.

    4. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:14:08

       So, he didn't have this, unfortunately, when I was doing my research in 2012 and 2013. So I had to go back and do microfiche type stuff, you know? What I did was I began to read everything that he wrote. And he actually gave me a lot of his books too. And he told me, I, I remember, um, he dropped me off from... This is actually quite interesting, if you'll allow me to tell you a little story.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:14:29

       Please.

    6. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:14:29

       Okay. And it also includes ayahuasca, so (laughs) -

    7. LFLex Fridman1:14:33

       (laughs) Great. Every story that includes ayahuasca is a great story.

    8. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:14:36

       Okay. So, I was at a conference and, um, it was a small conference, um, of very interesting people in California, on the Pacific Ocean. And Jacques was there. And, um, this is actually... It opens my book. This is the book, this is the... I, uh, go, uh... It's the preface to my book. I go on this ride. He takes me through Silicon Valley. I've lived there (laughs) , right? My grandparents grew up in the same place that he raised his children, in Belmont. And so, um... But we were there with Robbie Graham, who's a great ufologist in his own right, and, um, and film theorist. I highly recommend his work. Um, so we were together and he was taking us to San Francisco where I was going to meet my brother, who was going to take me home. And so, he took us on this long journey, and he talked to us. And as we got out of the car, um, he gave me several of his books. And one in particular he gave me and he said, "Read this first." (laughs)

    9. LFLex Fridman1:15:34

       (laughs)

    10. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:15:34

        And I was like, "Okay, I definitely will read that first." Okay, so this is how the ayahuasca figures in. So, um, we were... I, I didn't take it, nor have I taken it. Okay, so we were at this place and, um, in California. And Alex Grey and his wife were there, and they were talking about, um, their experiences with psychedelics. You know, he's an amazing visionary artist, okay? So, he w- he believes that there's this place that you can enter, and he and his wife would enter this space with either, you know, ayahuasca or LSD or something like that. And they would not talk to each other, but they would be having the same exact experience. So they would t- It was almost like having the same dream, right?

    11. LFLex Fridman1:16:15

        Wow.

    12. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:16:15

        Okay. So, so somehow, that whole event with Jacques there, ta- and them talking about their experiences in these realms, of which religious studies people are quite familiar, by the way, because visionary experiences are what we study.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:16:30

        Yeah.

    14. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:16:30

        So, all of this seems super familiar to me. And I recognized that immediately that Jacques ... that it hit me, like, you know, very obvious that UFOs and these experiences and technology all seemed... They were all, uh, meshed together. And I knew that I had to take them... I knew I had to read everything Jacques ever wrote. And the best stuff he's written, by the way, is the stu- his little essays that he wrote in the 1970s, and they were peer-reviewed essays about the beginning of the internet, and how a lot of it was based on, um, basically, like, n- um, neural connection with the internet. Like, somehow psychic connection through the internet with others and things like that.

    15. LFLex Fridman1:17:16

        So, the mind... The brain is a biological neural network. There's a, uh, there's connection between division neurons and so on, and that's what ultimately is able to have, uh, memories and has cognitive ability and is able to, uh, perceive the world and generate ideas. And those ideas are then spread on the internet, even from the very early days, to other humans. So, it gets injected or travels into the brains of other humans, and like, goes around in there and then spits out other stuff, and it goes back and forth. So, it's nice to think of the network that's in our mind, individual mind as, I mean, um, very much even deeply connected to the network that is the connection between humans through the internet.

    16. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:18:00

        Yes.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:18:00

        And so in that sense, Jacques saw the internet as this, as this powerful, um... As a source of power and wisdom that is beyond our own.

    18. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:18:11

        Exactly. That's external to us, like a non... Like, you know, if you could call it autonomous AI.

    19. LFLex Fridman1:18:16

        Right.

    20. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:18:17

        Right?

    21. LFLex Fridman1:18:17

        It's non-human intelligence-

    22. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:18:18

        Yeah.

    23. LFLex Fridman1:18:18

        ... in a sense, even though humans are a part of it.

    24. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:18:21

        Yes, or we're invaded by it, or, you know, whatever you want to call it. Okay. (laughs)

    25. LFLex Fridman1:18:25

        (laughs) Yeah. Whoever... Right. It's the chicken and the egg. Right.

    26. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:18:28

        So, if I can go on-

    27. LFLex Fridman1:18:29

        Yes, please.

    28. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:18:30

        ... the ayahuasca experience thing.

    29. LFLex Fridman1:18:31

        Oh, yes. Yes, yes.

    30. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:18:31

        I have, I'm not done with that.
15. 1:22:31 – 1:28:00

    Artificial intelligence

    1. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:22:31

    2. LFLex Fridman1:22:31

       Maybe to go into my source of passion, which is artificial intelligence, what's your sense about, um, the, the possibility, uh ... Like, Pamela McCorduck has this quote that I like, I've- I talked to her a couple of years ago, or I guess already on this podcast, that, um, that, uh, artificial intelligence began with the ancient wish to forge the gods. So, do you think artificial intelligence may become, uh, the very kind of gods that, uh, were at the center of our, the religions of most of our history?

    3. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:23:18

       Yeah. There's a lot there. So I'm gonna start by addressing this idea of artificial intelligence being separate from human beings, okay? So that, I don't think that's actually ... That might happen, okay? I mean, it's already happened, but let's put it this way. Like, you're talking about super artificial intelligence, like autonomous, conscious artificial intelligence?

    4. LFLex Fridman1:23:42

       Yes.

    5. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:23:42

       Okay, yeah. Okay.

    6. LFLex Fridman1:23:43

       Something with artificial consciousness.

    7. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:23:45

       First of all, I, I think she's correct, okay? But I also, it's awes- an awesome quote. Um, I'd also like to bring up this, uh, writer of fiction actually, um, Ted Chiang, and his, one of his essays, he writes short essays. One of them was the basis for the movie Arrival.

    8. LFLex Fridman1:24:04

       Mm-hmm.

    9. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:24:04

       Which if you haven't seen it, it's a really great movie about, uh, (laughs) UFOs. Uh, and, uh-

    10. LFLex Fridman1:24:11

        And it has a very creative way of proposing an idea of how they might be able to communicate, how, wh- wh- first of all, how they appear to us, and second of all, how they may be communicating with us humans.

    11. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:24:23

        Exactly. Um, the author Ted Chiang has a lot, I recommend his, his writings, his short stories. Um, one is very short, and it appeared as, it appeared in Nature about 20 years ago, and it is called, I think it's called Getting, Eating the Crumbs from the Table or something like that. And it's basically this short essay. And I hate to, to do, you know, to, to do a spoiler here, but it, if you don't want to know what it's about, don't listen right now for five minutes.

    12. LFLex Fridman1:24:53

        Yeah, spoiler alert.

    13. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:24:54

        Yeah, okay. So this is what it's about. So basically it's about human beings, uh, becoming two different species, okay? And one of them is created, they're called meta-humans, and they start bio-hacking themselves with tech, okay? Sound familiar? (laughs) So they do this, and they become meta-humans, and s- another species, right? An- an- you know, just kind of, of another fork, um, such that humans can barely understand them, um, because they're so far removed. So in a sense, are they gods, right? No, they're meta-humans, they're superhumans, they're enhanced humans, okay? I see that.Hopefully on the horizon, frankly. I hope so. Not that we have two species, but that we can use our technology or we can, we can become so integrated with our technology that we can survive, okay? We can survive the radiation in space. We can't go places now because of the radiation in space. Perhaps we can develop our bodies such that we can survive the radiation in space. So there are, there's this idea of these meta-humans. Now, there's also this idea that technology is just another form of humans. We've created it, right? And so maybe it is bent on surviving, thereby using us, you know, kind of as a meme or a team.

    14. LFLex Fridman1:26:18

        Yeah.

    15. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:26:18

        Some people are calling them teams now, these self-generating, uh, they're replicating themselves through us, okay? I see that also, and I don't think that's terribly bad. Maybe it's just the way that we are evolving. It doesn't mean that the ... You know, we're evolving all the time. Like, we're taller than we used to be, you know, we have different skills. And, you know, so I don't see that as, as a bad thing. I think a lot of people see it as if we're not how we are now, it's a tragedy. But it's not a tragedy. How we are now is actually a tragedy for most people alive.

    16. LFLex Fridman1:26:51

        Yeah, and that we might be evolving in ways we can't possibly perceive. Like you said, that, uh, th- the humans have created Twitter, and Twitter may be changing us-

    17. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:27:01

        Yes.

    18. LFLex Fridman1:27:02

        ... n- in ways that we can't even understand-

    19. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:27:04

        Mm-hmm.

    20. LFLex Fridman1:27:04

        ... now, currently. Like from a perspective of if you look at the entirety of the network of Twitter, that might be an organism, that this net- the, the organism understands what's happening from its level of perception. But we humans are just like the cells of the human body. We're interacting individually, but-

    21. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:27:26

        Yes.

    22. LFLex Fridman1:27:26

        ... like, we're, we're not actually aware of the big picture that's happening.

    23. DPDiana Walsh Pasulka1:27:29

        Yeah. Yeah.

    24. LFLex Fridman1:27:29

        And we naturally somehow ... Or whatever the force that's creating the entirety of this, whatever, uh, one, um, one version of it is the evolutionary proc- like biological evolution. Whatever force that is, it's just creating these greater and greater level of complexity. And maybe somehow no- other kinds of non-human intelligence are involved that we're calling alien intelligences.

Episode duration: 2:55:13