Lex Fridman PodcastRichard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes | Lex Fridman Podcast #87
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
105 min read · 21,433 words- 0:00 – 2:31
Introduction
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, The Magic of Reality, and The Greatest Show of Earth, and his latest, Outgrowing God. He is the originator and popularizer of a lot of fascinating ideas in evolutionary biology and science in general, including, funny enough, the introduction of the word meme in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, which, in the context of a gene-centered view of evolution, is an exceptionally powerful idea. He's outspoken, bold, and often fearless in the defense of science and reason, and in this way is one of the most influential thinkers of our time. This conversation was recorded before the outbreak of the pandemic. For everyone feeling the medical, psychological, and financial burden of this crisis, I'm sending love your way. Stay strong. We're in this together. We'll beat this thing. This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcasts, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman, spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and never any ads in the middle that can break the flow of the conversation. I hope that works for you and doesn't hurt the listening experience. This show is presented by Cash App, the number one finance app in the App Store. When you get it, use code LEXPODCAST. Cash App lets you send money to friends, buy bitcoin, and invest in the stock market with as little as $1. Since Cash App allows you to send and receive money digitally peer to peer, security in all digital transactions is very important. Let me mention the PCI data security standard that Cash App is compliant with. I'm a big fan of standards for safety and security. PCI DSS is a good example of that, where a bunch of competitors got together and agreed that there needs to be a global standard around the security of transactions. Now we just need to do the same for autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence systems in general. So again, if you get Cash App from the App Store or Google Play and use the code LEXPODCAST, you get $10 and Cash App will also donate $10 to FIRST, an organization that is helping to advance robotics and STEM education for young people around the world. And now, here's my conversation with Richard Dawkins.
- 2:31 – 5:03
Intelligent life in the universe
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think there's intelligent life out there in the universe?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, if we accept that there's intelligent life here (laughs) and we accept that the number of planets in the universe is gigantic, I mean, 10 to the 22 stars has been estimated, it seems to me highly likely that there is not only life in the universe elsewhere, but also intelligent life. If you deny that, then you're committed to the view that the things that happened on this planet are staggeringly improbable. I mean, ludicrously, off the charts improbable, and I don't think it's that improbable. Certainly the origin of life itself, there are really two steps. The origin of life, which is probably fairly improbable, and then the subsequent evolution to intelligent life, which is also fairly improbable. So the juxtaposition of those two you could say is pretty improbable, but not 10 to the 22 improbable. It's an interesting question, maybe you're coming onto it, how we would recognize intelligence from outer space if we, if we encountered it. The most likely way we would come across them would be by radio. It's highly unlikely they'd ever visit us. But, um, it's not, it's not that unlikely that we would pick up radio signals, and then we would have to have some means of deciding that it was intelligent. Um, people have w- people involved in the SETI program discuss how they would do it, and things like prime numbers would be an obvious thing to... and obvious, an obvious way for them to broadcast, to say, "We are intel- intelligent. We are here." Um, I suspect it probably would be obvious, actually.
- LFLex Fridman
Oh, that's interesting, prime numbers or the mathematical patterns. It's an open question whether mathematics is the same for us and as it would be for aliens. I suppose we could assume that ultimately if w- if we're governed by the same laws of physics, then we should be governed by the same laws of mathematics.
- RDRichard Dawkins
I think so. I suspect that they will have Pythagoras' theorem, et cetera. I mean, I, I don't think that their mathematics will be that different.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think evolution would also be a force on the alien planets as well?
- RDRichard Dawkins
I've stuck my neck out and said that if we do, if ever that we do discover life, uh, elsewhere, it will be Darwinian life in the sense that it will w- it will work by some kind of natural selection, the non-random survival of non- of randomly generated codes. Uh, it doesn't mean it, that the genetic- It would have to have some kind of genetics, but it doesn't have to be DNA genetics. Probably wouldn't be, actually. But it would, I think it would have to be Darwinian. Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
So some kind of selection process?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes, in the general sense, it would be Darwinian.
- 5:03 – 7:06
Engineering intelligence (are there shortcuts?)
- LFLex Fridman
So let me ask kind of a, an artificial intelligence engineering question. So y- you've been an outspoken critic of, I guess what could be called intelligent design, which is an attempt to describe the creation of a human mind and body by some religious folks that really just focus used to describe... So broadly speaking, evolution is, as far as I know, again, you can correct me, is the only scientific theory we have for the development of intelligent life. Like, there's no alternative theory as far as, as, as far as I understand.
- RDRichard Dawkins
None has ever been suggested, and I suspect it never will be.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, of course, whenever somebody says that, 100 years later... (laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
I know. It's a, it's, it's a risk, uh-
- LFLex Fridman
It's a risk.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... but, um, you want to bet? I mean, I, I, I'm pretty confident.
- LFLex Fridman
But it would look... Sorry. Yes, it would probably look very similar, but it'd be... it's almost like, uh, Einstein's general relativity versus Newtonian physics. It'll be maybe, um, an alteration of the theory or something like that, but it won't be fundamentally different. But okay, i-So, uh, so now for the past 70 years, even before the AI community has been trying to engineer intelligence, in a sense to do what intelligent design says, uh, that, you know, uh, was done here on Earth. What's your intuition? Do you think it's possible to build intelligence, to build computers that are intelligent? Or do we need to do something like the evolutionary process? Like, there's- there's no shortcuts here.
- RDRichard Dawkins
That's an interesting question. I- I'm committed to the belief that it's ultimately possible, because I think there's nothing nonphysical in our brains. I think our- our brains work by- by the laws of physics. And so it must, in principle, be possible to replicate that. In practice, though, it might be very difficult. And as you suggest, it might- it may be the only way to do it is by something like an evolutionary process.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RDRichard Dawkins
I'd be surprised. I- I suspect that it will come. But it's certainly been slower in coming than some of the early pioneers thought.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Thought it
- 7:06 – 10:39
Is the evolutionary process efficient?
- LFLex Fridman
would be, yeah. But in your sense, is the evolutionary process efficient? So you can see it as exceptionally wasteful in one perspective, but at the same time, maybe that is the only path to ...
- RDRichard Dawkins
It's a paradox, isn't it? I mean, on the one side, it is deplorably wasteful.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Uh, it's fundamentally based on waste. On the other hand, it does produce magnificent results. Um, when the- the- the design of a soaring bird, an albatross, a- a- a vulture, an eagle, um, is- is superb. An engineer would be proud to have done it. On the other hand, an engineer would not be proud to have done some of the other things that evolution has served up.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
Um, some of the sort of botched jobs that you can easily understand because of their historical origins, but they don't look well-designed.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you have examples of that-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Oh, well-
- LFLex Fridman
... bad design? (laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
My favorite example is the recurrent laryngeal nerve. I've used this many times. This is a nerve, it's one of the cranial nerves which goes from the brain, and the end organ is that it supplies is the voice box-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... the- the larynx. But it doesn't go straight to the larynx. It goes right in- down into the chest, and then loops round an artery in the chest, and then comes straight back up again to the larynx. Uh, and I've assisted in the dissection of a giraffe's neck, which happened to have died in a zoo. And we watched the- we saw the recurrent laryngeal nerve going- whizzing straight past the larynx, within an inch of the larynx-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... down into the chest, and then back up again. Um, which is a- a- a detour of many feet. Um, very, very inefficient. The reason is historical. The ancestors, our fish ancestors, the ancestors of all mammals and fish, um, the most direct pathway of that- of the equivalent of that nerve, there wasn't a larynx in those days, but it- it innervated part of the gills. The most direct pathway was behind that artery. And then when the mammal-
- LFLex Fridman
Ah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... when the tetrapods, when the land vertebrates started evolving, and then the neck started to stretch, the marginal cost of changing the embryological design to jump that nerve over the artery was too great, or rather was- was each step of the way was a- was a very small cost. But the marginal- but the cost of actually jumping it over would have been very large. As the neck lengthened, it was a negligible change to just increase the length- the length of the detour a tiny bit, a tiny bit, a tiny bit. Each millimeter at a time didn't make any difference. And so, but finally, when you get to a giraffe, it's a huge detour, and no doubt is very inefficient. Now, that's bad design. Any engineer would reject that piece of d- design. It's ridiculous. And there are quite a lot- number of examples, as you would expect. So it's not surprising that we find examples of that sort. In a way, what's surprising is there aren't more of them. In a way, what's surprising is that the design of living things is so good. So natural selection manages to achieve excellent results, um, partly by tinkering, partly by coming along and cleaning up initial mistakes, and- and as it were, making the best of a bad job.
- LFLex Fridman
That's really interesting. I mean, it- it is surprising and- and beautiful, and it's a- it's a mystery from an engineering perspective that so many things are well-designed. I suppose the thing we're forgetting is how many generations have to die-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Oh, yeah. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... for that-
- RDRichard Dawkins
That's the inefficiency of it. Yes, that's the horrible wastefulness of it.
- LFLex Fridman
So yeah, we- we- we marvel at the final product, but, uh, yeah, the process is painful.
- 10:39 – 15:31
Human brain and AGI
- LFLex Fridman
Elon Musk describes human beings as potentially the- what he calls the biological boot loader for artificial intelligence, or artificial general intelligence is used as the term. It's kind of like super intelligence. Do you see superhuman level intelligence as potentially the next step in the evolutionary process?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes, I think that if- if superhuman intelligence is to be found, it will be artificial. I- I- I don't have any hope that we ourselves, our brains will go on, uh, e- go on getting larger in ordinary biological evolution. Um, I think that's probably come to an end. It- it is the dominant trend, or one of the dominant trends in our fossil history for the last two or three million years.
- LFLex Fridman
Brain size?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Brain size, yes. So it's been- it's been swelling rather dramatically over the last two or three million years. That is unlikely to continue, though. The only way that- that's- that happens is because natural selection favors those individuals with the- with the biggest brains-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Um, and that's not happening anymore.
- LFLex Fridman
Right, so in general, in humans, the- the selection pressures are not ac- I mean, are they active in any form anymore?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, in order for them to be active, it would be necessary that the most intel- let's- let's call it an intelligence. Not that intelligence is simply correlated with brain size, but let's- let's talk about intelligence. In order for that to evolve, it's necessary that the most intelligent beings have the most- indi- individuals have the most children. Um, and, um-... uh, so intelligence may buy you money, it may buy you, um, worldly success, it may buy you a nice house and, and a nice car and things like that if you have a successful career. Uh, it, it may buy you the admiration of your fellow people-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... but it doesn't increase the number of offspring that you have. It doesn't increase your genetic, uh, legacy to the next generation. O- on the other hand, artificial intelligence, um, I mean, c- computers and technology generally, is evolving by a non-genetic means, by leaps and bounds, of course.
- LFLex Fridman
And so what do you think... Uh, I don't know if you're familiar, there's a company called Neuralink, but there's a general effort of brain computer interfaces, which is to try to build a connection between a computer and the brain to, to send signals both directions. And the long-term dream there is to do exactly that, which is expand... I guess, expand the size of the brain, expand the capabilities of the brain. Do you, um... Do you see this as interesting? Do you see this as a promising possible technology? Or is the interface between the computer and the brain... Like, the brain is this wet, messy thing that's just impossible to interface with?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, of course it's interesting. Whether it's promising, I'm really not qualified to say. What I do find puzzling is that the brain being as small as it is compared to a computer and the-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... and the com- individual components being as slow as they are compared to our electronic components, it is astonishing what it can do. I mean, i- imagine building a computer that, that fits into the size of a human skull, um, and with the equivalent of transistors or integrated circuits which work as slowly as neurons do. Uh, it... There's something mysterious about that. Something, something must be going on that we don't understand.
- LFLex Fridman
So, I have... Uh, I've just talked to Roger Penrose. I'm not sure if you're familiar with-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
... with his work. And he, he, he also describes this kind of, um, mystery in, in the mind, in the brain, that... So he's a materialist, so there's not- there's no sort of mystical thing going on, but there's so much about the material of the brain that we don't understand, uh, that, that might be quantum mechanical in nature and so on. So, the... there are the ideas about consciousness. Do you have any... Have you ever thought about... Do you ever think about ideas of consciousness or a little bit more about the mystery of intelligence and consciousness that seems to pop up, just like you're saying, from our brain?
- RDRichard Dawkins
I agree with Roger Penrose that there's, there is a mystery there. Um, I, I... I mean, he's one of the world's greatest physicists, so I, I, I can't possibly argue, uh, with, with, with his-
- LFLex Fridman
But nobody knows anything about consciousness. And in fact, you know, if, if we talk about religion and so on, some of... The mystery of consciousness is so awe-inspiring and we know so little about it that the leap to sort of religious or mystical explanations is too easy to make.
- RDRichard Dawkins
I, I think that it, it's just an act of cowardice to leap to religious explanations.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Roger doesn't do that, of course.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Um, but I, I, I accept that there may be something that we don't understand about it.
- 15:31 – 26:37
Memes
- LFLex Fridman
So, correct me if I'm wrong, but in your book, Selfish Gene, the, the gene-centered view of evolution allow- allows us to think of the physical organisms as just a medium through which the software of our genetics and the, the ideas sort of propagate. Uh, so maybe can we start, uh, just with the basics? What, in this context, does the word meme mean?
- RDRichard Dawkins
It would mean the cultural equivalent of a gene. Cultural equivalent in the sense of that which plays the same role as the gene in the transmission of culture and the transmission of ideas in the broadest sense. And it's only a useful word if there's something Darwinian going on. Obviously, culture is transmitted, but is there anything Darwinian going on? And if there is, that means there has to be something like a gene which, uh, which becomes more numerous or less numerous in the population.
- LFLex Fridman
So, it can replicate?
- RDRichard Dawkins
It can replicate.
- LFLex Fridman
It can sort of-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, it clearly does replicate. There's no question about that. Uh, the question is, does it replicate in a sort of differential way in a Darwinian fashion? Could you say that certain ideas propagate because they're successful in the meme pool? Um, in a sort of trivial sense, you can. Um, would you wish to say, though, that in the same way as a animal body is modified, adapted to serve as a machine for propagating genes, is it also a machine for propagating memes? Could you actually say that something about the way a human is, is, is modified, adapted, um, for the function of meme propagation? Uh-
- LFLex Fridman
That's such a fascinating possibility, if that's true. If the... That it's not just about the genes which seems somehow more compr- comprehensible as these things of biology. The, the, the, the idea that culture or maybe ideas, you can really broadly define it-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes. Well-
- LFLex Fridman
... operates under these mechanisms.
- RDRichard Dawkins
E- e- even morphology, even an- anatomy, it... does, does evolve by memetic means. I mean, things like hairstyles, um, uh, styles of makeup, um, circumcision. The- these things are actual changes in the body form-
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... which are non-genetic and which get passed on from generation to generation or sideways like a virus-
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... um, in, in a quasi-genetic way.
- LFLex Fridman
But the moment you start drifting away from the physical, it becomes interesting 'cause the space of ideas, uh, ideologies, political systems-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Of course, yes.
- LFLex Fridman
So, so what's... what, what in your... What's your sense? Is, um... Are memes a metaphor more or are they really... is there something fundamental, almost physical presence of memes
- NANarrator
that aren't?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, I think they're a bit more than a metaphor. And, and I think that, um... and I mentioned that physical...... bodily characteristics, which are a bit trivial in a way. But when things like the propagation of religious ideas, um, uh, both longitudinally down generations and transversely as in a sort of epidemiology of, of ideas when a charismatic preacher converts people. Um, that, that's, that resembles viral transmission. Um, whereas the, the longitudinal transmission from grandparent to parent to child, et cetera, is, is, is, um, more, more like conventional genetic transmission.
- LFLex Fridman
That's a, such a beautiful, especial- especially in the modern day, idea. Uh, do you think about this implication of social networks where the propagation of ideas, the viral propagation of ideas, and hence the, the new use of the word meme to describe the-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, the, the internet, of course, prov- provides extremely rapid method of transmission.
- LFLex Fridman
Rapid.
- RDRichard Dawkins
And b- before, when, when I first coined the word, the internet didn't exist. And so, uh, I was thinking then in terms of books, newspapers, um, broad- uh, radio, television, that kind of thing. Now, an idea can just leap around the world, uh, in, in all directions instantly. And so, the internet provides a, a step change in, uh, the facility of propagation of memes.
- LFLex Fridman
How does that make you feel? Isn't it fascinating that sort of ideas can... it's like a, you have Galapagos Islands or something, uh, it's the '70s, and the internet allowed all these species to just, like, globalize and, and, and in a matter of seconds, you can spread a message to millions of people. And these, uh, ideas, these memes can breed, can evolve, can mutate. And, uh, there's a selection and there's, like, different, I guess, groups that have all... like, there's this, uh, dynamics that's fascinating here. Do you think-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
... basically, do you think your work in this direction, while fundamentally it was focused on life on Earth, do you think it should continue? Like to be taken further?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, uh, yes. I mean, I do think it would probably be a good idea to think in a Darwinian way about this sort of thing. We conventionally think of, um, the transmission of ideas from, in evolutionary context as being limited to, um, in our ancestors. Um, people living in villages, living in small bands where everybody knew each other and ideas could propagate within the village. And they might hop to a neighboring village-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... occasionally and maybe even to a neighboring continent eventually. And that was a slow process. Nowadays, villages are international. I mean, the, you, you have people, um, it's been called, um, echo chambers where, where people are in a, a sort of internet village. Um, where the other members of the village may be geographically distributed all over the world, but they just happen to be interested in the same things, use the same terminology. Uh, the same jargon. Um, have the same enthusiasms that people like the Flat Earth Society, f- they don't all live in one place. They find each other and they talk the same language to each other. They talk the same nonsense to each other. Um, and they, but, so this is a kind of distributed version of, uh, the primitive idea of, of people living in, in villages and propagating their ideas in, in a local way.
- LFLex Fridman
Is there d- uh, is there a Darwinist paral- parallel here? So is there, um, evolutionary purpose of villages or is that just a, uh-
- 26:37 – 33:10
Does society need religion?
- LFLex Fridman
On religion, do you think there will ever be a time in our future where almost nobody believes in God? Or, um, God is not a part of the moral fabric of our society?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes, I do. I think it may happen after a very long time, I think it may take a long time for that to happen.
- LFLex Fridman
So do you think ultimately for everybody on Earth, religion, the other forms of doctrines, ideas, could do better job than what religion does?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes. Um, uh, I mean, f- following truth, uh, and reason.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, tru- truth is a funny, funny word. Uh, (laughs) a- and reason too. Uh, there's, yeah, there, it's a- it's- it's a difficult idea now with, um, truth on the internet, right? And fake news and so on. I suppose when you say reason, you mean the very basic sort of, eh, inarguable conclusions of science versus which political system is better, for example?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yeah, yes, yes. I- I'm- I mean, uh, truth about the real world which is ascertainable, um, by- not just by the more rigorous methods of science, but by, um, just ordinary sensory observation.
- LFLex Fridman
So do you think there will ever be a time when we move past it? Like, I guess another way to ask it, are we hopelessly, fundamentally tied to religion in the way our society functions?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, clearly all individuals are not hopelessly tied to it, because many individuals don't believe. Um, you could mean something like society needs religion in order to function properly or something like that, and some people have suggested that. Some people-
- LFLex Fridman
What's your intuition on that?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, I've read books o- on it, um, and they're persuasive. I- I don't think they're that persuasive though. I mean, I've- some people suggested that society needs a sort of figurehead which can be a non-existent figurehead in order to function properly. I think that's something rather patronizing about the idea that, well, you and I are intelligent enough not to believe in God, but the plebes need it sort of thing. And I think that's patronizing, and, uh, I'd like to think that- that- that was not the right way to proceed.
- LFLex Fridman
But at the individual level, do you think there's some value of spirituality? Sort of, um, if- if I think sort of as a scientist, the amount of things we actually know about our universe is a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of what we could possibly know. So just from everything, even the certainty we have about the laws of physics, it seems to be that there's yet a huge amount to discover, and therefore we're sitting where 99.999% of things is just still shrouded in mystery. Do you think there's a role in a kind of spiritual view of that, sort of a humbled spiritual view?
- RDRichard Dawkins
I think it's right to be humble. I think it's right to admit that there's a lot we don't know, a lot that we don't understand, a lot that we still need to work on.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
We're working on it. What I don't think is that it helps to invoke supernatural explanations. What we- if our- if our current scientific explanations aren't adequate to do the job, then we need better ones, we need to work more. And of course, the history of science shows just that, that as science goes on, uh, problems get solved one after another and the science advances as science gets better. Uh, but to invoke an- a non-scientific, non-physical explanation is simply to lie down in a cowardly way and say, "We can't solve it, so we're going to invoke magic." Don't let's do that, let's say we need better science, we need more science. Uh, it may be that the science will never do it, it may be that we will never actually understand everything, and that's okay, but let's keep working on it.
- LFLex Fridman
A challenging question there is, do you think science can lead us astray in terms of the humbleness? So there's some aspect of science...... maybe it's the aspect of scientists and not science, but, uh, of sort of, um, a mix of ego and confidence that can lead us astray in terms of discovering the, you know, some of the big open questions about-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
... about the universe.
- RDRichard Dawkins
I think that's right. I mean, there are, there are arrogant people in any walk of life.
- LFLex Fridman
Sure.
- RDRichard Dawkins
And scientists are no exception to that, and so there are arrogant scientists who think we've solved everything, and of course, we haven't. So humility is a proper stance for a scientist.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
I mean, it's a proper working stance because it encourages further work. Um, but in a way, to resort to a supernatural explanation is a kind of arrogance, because it's saying, "Well, we don't understand it scientifically, therefore the, uh, non-scientific religious supernatural explanation must be the right one." That's arrogant. What is, what is humble is to say, "We don't know, and we need to work further on it."
- LFLex Fridman
So, maybe if I could psychoanalyze you for a second, (laughs) you have at times been just slightly frustrated with people who have superna- you know, have a supernatural... Um, has that changed over the years? Have you become like... how do people that kind of have, like seek supernatural explanations, how do you see those people? As human beings, as... it's like, do you see them as dishonest? Do you see them as, um, sort of, uh, ignorant? Do you see them as... I don't know. Is it like what-
- RDRichard Dawkins
No, I mean-
- LFLex Fridman
What, how do you think of
- 33:10 – 39:10
Conspiracy theories
- RDRichard Dawkins
... why people believe things that are clearly nonsense like, well, flat earth and also the conspiracy about not landing on the moon, or, um, that, um, the- that the United States engineered 9/11, that- that kind of thing. Um-
- LFLex Fridman
So it's not clearly nonsense, it's extremely unlikely. (laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
Okay, it's extremely unlikely. Um, yes.
- LFLex Fridman
So- so the-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Religion is a bit different because it's passed down from generation to generation, and so many of the people who are religious-
- LFLex Fridman
Okay.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... uh, got it from their parents, who got it from their parents, who got it from their parents. And childhood indoctrination is a very powerful force.
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- RDRichard Dawkins
But these things like the 9/11 conspiracy theory, the, um, Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory, the man on the moon conspiracy theory, these are not childhood indoctrination. These are, um, presumably dreamed up by somebody, who then tells somebody else, who then wants to believe it. And I don't know why people are so eager to fall in line with some- just some p- person that they happen to read or meet who spins some yarn. I can kind of understand why they believe what their parents and teachers told them when they were very tiny and not capable of critical thinking for themselves, so I sort of get why the great religions of the world, like Catholicism and Islam, go on pre- persisting, it's because of childhood indoctrination. But that's not true of flat earthism. And sure enough, flat earthism is a- a very minority cult.
- LFLex Fridman
Way larger than I ever realized.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, yes, I know, but it-
- LFLex Fridman
But- so that's a really clean idea and you've articulated that in your new book and in- in The Outgrown God, and in God Delusion is the early indoctrination. That's really interesting, that you can get away with a lot of out there ideas in terms of religious texts if, um, the age at which you convey those ideas at first is a young age. So indoctrination is sort of an essential element of propagation of religion. Uh, so
- 39:10 – 46:10
Where do morals come from in humans?
- LFLex Fridman
let me ask on the morality side, i- in the books that I mentioned, God Delusion and Outgrown God, you described that human beings don't need religion to be moral. So from an engineering perspective, we wanna engineer morality into AI systems, so- so in general, where do you think morals come from in humans?
- RDRichard Dawkins
A very complicated and interesting question. It's clear to me that the moral standards, the moral values of our civilization changes as the decades go by, certainly as the centuries go by, even as the decades go by. And we, in the 21st century, are quite clearly labeled 21st century people in terms of our moral values. We- there's a spread. I mean, some of us are a little bit more ruthless, some of us more conservative, some of us more- more liberal, and so on, um, but we all subscribe to pretty much the same views when you compare us with, say, 18th century, 17th century people, even 19th century, 20th century people.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Um, so we're much less racist, we're much less sexist, and so on than we used to be. Some- some people are still racist and some are still sexist, but the- the- the spread has shifted. The- the Gaussian distribution has moved, and moves steadily as the centuries go by. And that is the most powerful, uh, influence I can see on our moral values, and that doesn't have anything to do with religion. I mean, the- the religion of the- the- sorry, the morals of the Old Testament are Bronze Age models- uh, morals. They're deplorable, um, and, um, they are to be understood in terms of the people in- in the desert who made them up at- at the time. And so human sacrifice, um, uh, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, um, petty revenge, killing people for breaking the Sabbath, all that kind of thing, um, inconceivable now.
- LFLex Fridman
So at some point religious texts r- may have, in part, reflected that Gaussian distribution at that time?
- RDRichard Dawkins
I'm sure they did. I'm sure they always r- reflect that, yes.
- LFLex Fridman
And then now, but the- the- the sort of almost like the meme, as you describe it, of, uh, ideas moves much faster than religious-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
... texts do, the new religions form?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yeah, so ba- uh, ba- basing your morals on- on religious texts which were written millennia ago-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... um, is- is not a great way to proceed, and I think that's pretty clear. So, um, not only should we not get our morals from such texts, but we don't. We quite clearly don't. Um, if we did then we- we'd be discriminating against women and we'd be- we'd be, um, racist, we'd be killing homosexuals and so on. Um, so- so we- we- we don't and we shouldn't. Now, of course it's possible to- by the- to- to use the os- 21st century standards of morality, and you can look at the Bible and you can cherry pick, uh, particular verses which conform to our modern morality, and you'll find that Jesus said some pretty nice things, which is great, but you're using your 21st century morality to decide which verses to pick-
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... and which verses to reject. And so why not cut out the middleman of the Bible-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
... and go straight to the 21st century morality, which is... Where that comes from is a much more complicated question, why is it that morality ch- moral values change as the centuries go by? They undoubtedly do, and it's a very interesting question to ask why. It's a- it's another example of cultural evolution just as technology progresses.... so moral values progress for probably very different reasons.
- LFLex Fridman
But it's, uh, it's interesting if the direction in which that progress is happening has some evolutionary value, or if it's merely a drift that can go into any direction.
- RDRichard Dawkins
I'm not sure it's any direction, and, and I'm not sure it's e- evolutionarily valuable. What it is is, um, progressive in the sense that each step is a step in the same direction as the previous step, so it becomes, uh, more gentle, more decent, as... by modern standards, more liberal, um, less violent.
- LFLex Fridman
G- but more decent, I think you're using terms and interpreting everything in the context of the 21st century.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yeah, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Because Genghis Khan would probably say that this is not more decent because we're now... you know, there's a lot of weak members of society-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Exactly.
- LFLex Fridman
... that we're not murdering.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Oh, he would, yes. And, and, and I was careful to say, by, by the standards of the 21st century.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
By our, by our standards, if, if we with hindsight look back at, at history, what we see is a trend in the direction towards us, towards our present.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Our, our, our present value system.
- LFLex Fridman
So for us, we see progress. But it's, it's an open question whether that won't... you know, w- what... I don't see necessarily why we can never return to Genghis Khan times.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, we could. Um, I, I suspect we won't. Uh, but, um, it, it... but if you look at the history of moral values over the centuries, it is in a progressive... I use the word progressive not in a value judgment sense, in the sense of, of a transitive sense. Each step is the same s- is the same direction as the previous step.
- 46:10 – 49:18
AI began with the ancient wish to forge the gods
- RDRichard Dawkins
- LFLex Fridman
So Pamela McCorduck, in Machines Who Think, has written that AI began with an ancient wish to forge the gods. Do you see... it's, it's a poetic description, I suppose, but, uh, do you see a connection between our civilizations' historic desire to create gods, to create religions, and our modern desire to create technology and intelligent technology?
- RDRichard Dawkins
I suppose there's a link between an ancient desire to explain away mystery and, um, and science, but, um-
- LFLex Fridman
Well-
- RDRichard Dawkins
... intelligence, ar- artificial intelligence creating gods, creating new gods. Um, I mean, I forget wh-... I, I read somewhere a somewhat facetious, um, paper which said that we have a new god, it's called Google, and-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... and it... and we, we, we pray to it, and we worship it, and we, and we ask its advice like an oracle, and so on. Um, that's fun, uh, and, and-
- LFLex Fridman
But you don't see that... you see that as a fun statement, a facetious statement. You don't see that as a kind of truth of us creating things that are more powerful than ourselves and natural sort of human...
- RDRichard Dawkins
It, it has a kind of poetic resonance to it, which I get.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) But-
- RDRichard Dawkins
But I wouldn't, I wouldn't-
- LFLex Fridman
But not (laughs) without a scientific component.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have bothered to make the point myself, put it that way.
- LFLex Fridman
All right. (laughs) So you don't think AI will become our new go-... a new religion, a new god? Is it Google-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Well, yes. I mean, I, I can see that, um, the future of intelligent machines or indeed intelligent aliens from outer space might yield beings that we would regard as gods in the sense that they are so superior to us that we might as well worship them. That's highly pr- plausible, I think. But I see a very fundamental distinction between a god who is simply defined as something very, very powerful and intelligent on the one hand and a god who doesn't need explaining by a progressive step-by-step process l- like evolution or like, or like engineering design. So, um, the difference... so, so suppose we did meet an alien from outer space who was m- m- marvelously, magnificently more intelligent than us, and we would sort of worship it and... for that reason, nevertheless it would not be a god in the very important sense that it did not just happen by... to be, to be there like God is supposed to. It must have come about by a gradual step-by-step incremental progressive process, presumably like Darwinian evolution. So there's all the difference in the world between those two. Intelligence, design comes into the universe late as a product of a progressive evolutionary process or a pr- progressive engineering design process.
- LFLex Fridman
So most of the work is done through this slow-moving progress.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Exactly, exactly.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. (laughs) Uh, the, yeah,
- 49:18 – 56:58
Simulation
- LFLex Fridman
it's, but there's still this desire to get answers to the why question that if, if we're, if the world is a simulation, if we're living in a simulation, that there's a programmer, uh, like creature that we can ask questions of. There's-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Okay. Well, I mean-
- LFLex Fridman
... just, just-
- RDRichard Dawkins
... let's pu- let's pursue the idea that we're living in a si- a simulation, which is not, not totally ridiculous, by the way. Um-
- LFLex Fridman
There we go.
- RDRichard Dawkins
(laughs) . Um, then you still need to explain the programmer. The programmer had to come into existence by some ... I mean, even if we're in a sim, in a simulation, the, the programmer must have evolved. Or if, if he's in a, in a sort of metas-
- LFLex Fridman
Or she.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Or she.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
If she's in, if she's in a meta-simulation-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... then the, the meta-meta-programmer must have evolved by, by, by a gradual process. You can't escape that. Fundamentally, you've got to come back to a, a, a gr- a gradual incremental process of explanation to start with.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) There's no shortcuts in this world. Uh-
- RDRichard Dawkins
No. Exactly.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) But, uh, may- maybe to linger on that point, uh, about s- the simulation, do you think it's an interesting ... I basically talked to, um, bored the, the heck out of everybody asking this question, but, uh, whether you live in a simulation. Do you think ... First, do you think we live in a simulation? Second, do you think it's a interesting thought experiment?
- RDRichard Dawkins
It's certainly an interesting thought experiment. I first met it in a science fiction novel by Daniel Galloy called, um, Counterfeit World, uh, in which, um, it's all about ... I mean, our, our, our heroes are running a gigantic computer which s- which simulates the world. And, um, and something goes wrong, and so one of them has to go down into this simulated world in order to fix it. And then the, the, the denouement of the thing, the c- the climax to the novel is that they discover that they themselves are in another simulation at a, at a, at a higher level. So, I was intrigued by this, and I love others of Daniel Galloy's science fiction novels. Then, um, it was revived seriously by Nick Bostrom.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm. Bostrom, talking to him in an hour.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Okay.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
(laughs) Um, and, um, he goes further, not just treat it as a science fiction speculation. He actually thinks it's positively likely.
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Um, I mean, he thinks it's very likely, actually.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, he th- he makes like a probabilistic argument, which you can use to come up with very interesting conclusions about this (laughs) -
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
... the nature of this universe.
- RDRichard Dawkins
I mean, he think, he thinks that, that, that, that we're, we're in a simulation done by, so to speak, our descendants of the future. That, that, that-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... product ... But it's still a product of evolution. It's still-
- LFLex Fridman
Okay.
- RDRichard Dawkins
... ultimately going to be a product of e- evolution, even though the super intelligent people of the future, um, uh, uh, have created our world, and you and I are just a, a simulation, and this table is a, is a simulation, and so on. I don't actually in my heart of hearts believe it, but i- but I, I like his argument.
- 56:58 – 1:02:53
Books that influenced you
- LFLex Fridman
we do. So you've written several, many amazing books. But let me ask, what books, um, technical or fiction or philosophical, had a big impact on your own life? What, um, what books would you recommend people consider reading in their own intellectual journey?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Darwin, of course. Uh, and, um-
- LFLex Fridman
The- the original? I'm actually ashamed to say I've never, uh, read Darwin in- in the original.
- RDRichard Dawkins
He's astonishingly prescient because considering he was writing in the middle of the 19th century, um, Michael Ghiselin said he's working a hundred years ahead of his time. Everything except genetics is amazingly right and amazingly far ahead of his time. Um, and of course you need to read the- the updatings, um, that have happened since his time as well. I mean, he would be astonished by, well, let alone, um, Watson and Crick, of course, but he'd be astonished by Mendelian genetics as well, and then ...
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, it'd be fascinating to- to see what he thought about D- what he would think about DNA.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Oh, I mean-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
... yes, it would, because in many ways, it- it, um, clears up what appeared in his time to be a riddle. Um, the digital nature of genetics, um, clears up what- what was a problem, what was a big problem. Gosh, there's so much that I could think of. I can't-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
... I can't really like, but like-
- LFLex Fridman
Is there s- is there something outside, sort of more fiction? Is there one, you know, when you think young, was there books that just kind of, outside of kinda the realm of science or even-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes, um-
- LFLex Fridman
... religion, that just kinda sparked your journey?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes. Well, actually, um, I- I have, uh, I suppose I could say that I've learned some- some science from science fiction.
- LFLex Fridman
Hmm.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Um, I ma- I men- I mentioned Daniel Galloy, uh, and that's one example. But another of his novels called Dark Universe, which is not terribly well known but it's a very, very n- nice science fiction story. It's about a world of pe- perpetual darkness, and we don't, we're not told at the beginning of the book why these people are in darkness. They- they stumble around in some kind of underground world of caverns and passages using echolocation like bats and whales, um, to- to get around, and they've adapted, presumably by Darwinian means, to survive in perpetual total darkness. But what's interesting is that their mythology, their religion has echoes of Christianity, but it's based on light. And so there's been a fall from a- from a- an- a paradise world that once existed where light reigned supreme.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RDRichard Dawkins
And, um, because of the sin of mankind, light banished them, so then they no longer are in light's presence but- but light survives in the form of mythology and in the form of sayings like, "The great light almighty," or, "For light's sake, don't do that."
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
Uh, (laughs) and, "I- and I- I hear what you mean," rather than, "I see what you- what you mean."
- LFLex Fridman
So there's some- some of the same religious elements are present in this other totally kind of absurd different form?
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
That's really interesting.
- RDRichard Dawkins
And so it's a wonderful, I wouldn't call it satire because it's too good natured for that. I mean, a wo- a- a wonderful parable about Christianity and the doctrine, the theological doctrine of the fall. Um, so I find that- that kind of science fiction immensely stimulating. Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud. Oh, by the way, anything by Arthur C. Clarke I find very, very wonderful too. Uh, Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud, his first science fiction novel, um, where he... Well, I- I learned, I learned a lot of science from that. It has a, it suffers from an obnoxious hero, unfortunately, but apart from that-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
... you got, learn a lot of science from it. Um, another of his novels, the, um, A for Andromeda, which by the way, the- the theme of that is taken up by Carl Sagan's science fiction novel, another wonderful writer, Carl Sagan, um, Contact, where the idea is, again, we- we will, we will not be visited from outer space by physical bodies. We will be visited, possibly, we might be visited by radio, but the- the radio signals could manipulate us...... and actually have a concrete influence on the world if they make us or persuade us to build a computer which- which runs their software, so that they can then transmit their software by- by radio, and then the computer takes over the world. And this is the same theme in both, um, Hoyle's book and Sagan's book. I- I presume they... I don't know whether Sagan knew about Hoyle's book. Probably did. Um, and- and but it's a clever idea that- that- that- that we- we will never be invaded by physical bodies. The War of the Worlds of H.G. Wells will never happen. But we could be invaded by radio signals, code, coded information, which is sort of like DNA. And- and- and, um, you know, the... We- we are- we are- we are, I call them, we are survival machines of our- of our DNA. So it has great resonance for- for me because I- I think of us, I think of bodies, physical bodies, biological bodies, as being manipulated by coded information in DNA, which has come down through- through generations.
- LFLex Fridman
And in the space of memes, it doesn't have to be physical. It can be transmitted-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... through the- through the space of information.
- RDRichard Dawkins
That's a further step, yes.
- 1:02:53 – 1:07:15
Meaning of life
- LFLex Fridman
Let me ask the last, the silliest, or maybe the most important question. What is the meaning of life? What gives your life fulfillment, purpose-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Okay, well-
- LFLex Fridman
... happiness, meaning?
- RDRichard Dawkins
... um, from a scientific point of view, the meaning of life is, uh, the propagation of DNA, but that's not what I feel.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
That- that's not the meaning of my life. So the meaning of my life is something which is probably different from yours and different from other people's, but we each m- we- we each make our own meaning. So, um, we- we ha- we set up goals we want to achieve. We want to write a book. We want to, um, do whatever it is we do, write a quartet, we want to win a football match. Um, and these are l- these are short-term goals, well, maybe even quite long-term goals, which are set up by our brains which have goal-seeking machinery built into them. But what we feel, we don't feel, uh, motivated by the desire to pass on our DNA mostly. Um, we have other- other goals, which can be very, uh, moving, very important. Uh, they could even be called s- called spiritual in some cases. Um, we want to understand the riddle of the universe. We want to understand consciousness. We want to understand how the brain works. Um, these are all noble goals. Well, some of them can be noble goals anyway, and they are a far cry from the fundamental biological goal, which is the propagation of DNA. But the machinery that en- enables us to set up these higher level goals is originally programmed into us by natural selection of DNA.
- LFLex Fridman
The propagation of DNA, but, um, what do you make of this unfortunate fact that we are mortal? Do you ponder your mortality? Does it make you sad? Does it-
- RDRichard Dawkins
Um, I- I ponder it. Um, it- it would... It- it makes me sad that I shall have to leave, um, and not see what's going to happen next. Um, if there's something frightening about mortality, apart from sort of missing..., as I've said, something more deeply, darkly frightening, it's the idea of eternity. But eternity is only frightening if you're there. Eternity be- before we were born, billions of years before we were born, and we were effectively dead before we were born. As I think it was Mark Twain said, "I was dead for billions of years before I was born and never suffered the smallest inconvenience."
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RDRichard Dawkins
And that's how it's going to be afterward, after we leave. So I think of it as really e- eternity is a frightening prospect, and so the best way to spend it is under a general anesthetic, which is what it'll be.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Beautifully put. Richard, it was a huge honor to meet you, to talk to you. Thank you so much for your time.
- RDRichard Dawkins
Thank you very much.
- LFLex Fridman
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Richard Dawkins, and thank you to our presenting sponsor, Cash App. Please consider supporting the podcast by downloading Cash App and using code LEXPODCAST. If you enjoyed this podcast, subscribe on YouTube, review with five stars on Apple Podcasts, support on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter @LexFridman. And now, let me leave you with some words of wisdom from Richard Dawkins. "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place, but who will in fact never see the light of day, outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly, those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds, it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred." Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Episode duration: 1:07:20
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