Sun Tzu to AI: OODA Loop – Moral Conflict, Human Flourishing, or Dependency?

In this profound episode of No Way Out, hosts Moose and Ponch sit down with Dr. Mihaela Ulieru – robotics pioneer, AI ethics advisor, and governance expert – for a mind-expanding conversation that bridges military strategy, morality, technology, and consciousness.

Drawing from her Romanian roots and personal experiences during the 1989 Revolution, Dr. Mihaela explores how the OODA loop can either trap us in dependency or propel us toward true human flourishing. The discussion dives deep into the moral stack (morality, ethics, justice) needed to prevent system capture by "takers," the isolating effects of modern media and AI on human connectivity, and why society often rewards extractive behaviors over creative "makers."

They unpack historical lessons from Vietnam and Romania, the cypherpunk dream of digital freedom, epigenetics, plant-based medicine for expanding consciousness, and the potential of collective intent, telepathy, and universal patterns in shaping reality.

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“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

March 25, 2025

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Table And Gratitude
• 3:10 Military Roots And The Why Behind OODA
• 7:10 Open Systems, Flourishing, And Tech Dependency
• 12:50 Cybernetics, Values Stacks, And Orientation
• 22:20 Incentives, Culture, And Alignment
• 29:00 Complex Systems And The Primacy Of Orientation
• 36:20 Vietnam, Moral Centers, And Sun Tzu
• 45:20 Lived History In Romania’s Revolution
• 53:50 Media, Manipulation, And McLuhan
• 1:01:20 Automation Bias, Maps, And Digital Natives
• 1:09:50 AI As Enhancer Versus Human Erosion
• 1:17:50 Tech That Amplifies Connection, Not Dependence
• 1:25:20 Consciousness, Meditation, And Creativity
• 1:34:20 Desire, Meaning, And Human Flourishing
• 1:43:20 Makers, Takers, And Platform Serfdom

Transcript

Mark McGrath: 0:40

We you know, we were saying that this uh you're the third Romanian that we've had on the show, and you you you you jumped right into telling us how much you you're uh fans of our show, so we wanted to hit recording.

Dr. Mihaela Ulieru: 0:50

That's right. So I have to say that. I have to say that really, because I not only a great fan of uh your show, but a fan of yours. You know, you are so smart, and I learned so much from you. And what I like is also your attitude is like really strong, you know, and and determined. And we do not we're missing this kind of determination and strength. At least, I don't know, I don't want to be like too much of a woman here, but I have to say I admire guys who are like you because because my father was also, he was an army in the army since he was 14 in World War II and so on. And he grew through the ranks as a general and he raised me in this spirit. I mean, there was an order and respect and discipline, and that certain boys, if I may, and I really kind of when I listen to you, uh, it reminds me of him as well. So I just wanted to say I appreciate that. That's that's the Michael Zaddy, please don't.

Mark McGrath: 1:45

Yeah, no, it's kind of say, I mean, we you know, the the reality is is you know, uh Ponch and I learned all this stuff in the military, and we were uh, you know, I grew up an army, my my father was also a career army officer. And um and what I what I hope that we're doing is showing people that you don't have to have been in the military to learn and understand this stuff, that it's accessible to everybody. And Ponch can attest some some of our best students that have actually learned this from us from a from a baseline of zero to where they're at now, the best one for sure is definitely not not a military person at all. So I think we're doing good things in that respect. But you know, we don't we don't hide from the fact that we're veterans and we learn this stuff in the military. We just I think a lot of people learn this in the military, like they learn the how and the what, but they never dig on the why. And that's what Brian and I have done and how we came together is like we we're constantly you know finding the why behind it and and also too developing it to bring in other thinkers like yourself that can uh make uh make the concepts even more powerful for people to harness.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 2:53

I'd like to add some gratitude to you, uh Mihai.

Speaker: 2:56

Um exceptionally perfect.

Mark McGrath: 3:01

Hey, like you said, we're not the first yeah, you're not the first Romanian we've had on the show.

Speaker 3: 3:06

That's true.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 3:07

So let me let me continue. I'll continue and say I will not try to pronounce your last name at the moment. I'll do it later on. And I know I'm gonna go wrong the first time.

Speaker: 3:16

Let me just tell you, my students call me Dr. M. I gave them this them this card. I'm known as Dr. M. In case you need my last name and you don't you cannot pronounce it or my first name, you know.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 3:28

I'm gonna try to continue with my gratitude because it's a little hard for me to say. Not everybody claims that we're smart. We're sometimes categorized as useful idiots. Or dangerous. Some people think we're dangerous, but but they're the ones that are chasing us, so that's okay.

Dr. Mihaela Ulieru: 3:44

I was thinking about that today, as I was thinking about, you know, because it's like the power games in which our world is structured and governance coming from that space. And that people who are like, you know, especially women, yeah, who are more caring and more, let's say, community driven, they are considered useful idiots many times. So I I you know I agree with your point, yeah. But uh on the other side, yes, I think we have to reverse the whole social order in order to embrace that kind of wisdom and and so on and so forth. So so yeah, I think yeah, between between us uh useful idiots, let's try to do that and and and build a better world. I'm obsessed lately with uh governance and uh and uh practice and um can we ever uh design a game, a social game that is more symbiotic, yeah, it's more cooperative, and and maybe it could solve many many issues. Because I know, you know, I mean I use I use the the UDA look and I use it in a context which I mean I was doing uh supply chain management as a professor and uh distributed intelligent systems because my background is robotics, automation, distributed systems, intelligent system. And when 9-11 happened, I was so shocked. I was so shocked, and I'm like, no, it cannot be, and you know, ambitious like a scientist, uh, multiple awards, you know, and so on. I thought, then cannot be smarter than me, this bastard. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna find a way to anticipate such things. And I deployed the self-organizing security network. So it's, you know, we can, this is all based on on self-organization, how biology works, how society works, and so on and so forth. So we can find ways to protect ourselves, and that's how I also, of course, came across the ODA loop. I worked with the Department of Defense. My work is still on their website for everyone to learn. Okay. Okay, the nice guy. So it's like Dr.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 5:46

M. I had I was reading some of your work and some of your accolades today, your praises, and and what I came across is kind of interesting. And that is you wrote about dependency versus like flourishing or becoming more human. My view is really simple. Those that take the linear, bad oodaloop, fourth stage approach become more dependent on a system. Those that look at the nature of creativity and understand the real oodle loop, which is an open system, a flow system, if you will, they start to flourish. They start to become more human. And I think that connection to technology, if you follow the linear OODA loop towards closed system approaches, maybe like a large language model, you're going to become more dependent. If you look at the other way, the way we share the OODA loop, the way we believe it to ought to be an open system, similar to active inference or free energy principle or perceptual control theory or ecological dynamics, whatever it may be, you're going to flourish as a human. Can you talk about how that connection to technology, that dependency on technology is a closed system, and maybe how the as we design systems or technology that look more like us might make us more human?

Speaker: 6:48

Totally, totally. And this is, of course, my passion. Thank you so much for this question. And um I completely agree with you also because I am uh, well, believe it or not, a control engineer. I studied dynamical systems and controls. I did a PhD in that, and that's what brought me to robotics and so on and so forth. But you know, we look at control as this, as you say with the UDA, as this simple feedback loop from the outputs to the inputs. But actually, control theory comes from cybernetics. And cybernetics is how nature works and a different kind of feedback, which is much broader. It's uh it's more about adaptation, orientation, exactly. As far as I know, you are looking at the UDA loop, not the reductionist, the mechanistic way of okay, I have output, input, and and then the feedback, and that's it. So there are many feedbacks and many inputs and outputs. And if you allow me, just to to give you a hint about uh this larger cybernetic uh perspective, so I can regard the UDA loop as a system, how a system makes moves under uncertainty, if I look at it this way. Then in order to lead to, let's say, a flourishing decision versus uh uh domination one or extractive one, we need much more. We need a stack, which I call, you know, and and there's so much confusion about that stack. And I have mapped the UDA loop to the stack as well as to values. So, how do I do we actually get the right values so that the Oda loop can uh can accelerate uh human flourishing? I think that was your question. Or let me phrase it in this way. And there is, you know, the stack is like justice, ethics, morality. These are the first things that that come to mind, yes, to in order to do the right thing. So first we have to do the right thing, to make the right choices. And I think this uh the the morality is what uh orients us, first of all. Yes, and and if we are to, let's say, in the driver's seat and I have to make a quick decision or someone cuts me off, what do I do then? Yeah, do I run after him, him or her off? Or how do I react? It's yeah, so morality is more about the what I cultivate inside myself, the well, that kind, those kind of values. Then the ethics is um the ethics of let's say everybody on the road, right? So we are all we want to survive, that's what we want first of all. So we have to drive in a certain way. Well, in order to do that, to enable that. And that may be also maybe better, more defensive. Speaking of more women wisdom here. And then there is a justice layer, which is kind of the code of law. Law is code, code is law. So if those are being those that stack is actually what prevents the loop from being hijacked by takers greedy, violent, uh, will to power, fear, and so on and so forth. However, beneath all this, there is something deeper. And sorry to make it more complex, but that's how it works. There is what I call a net pattern of behavior, which from which actually our values emerge. So values are not primitive, they are not like fixed. They are this net pattern emerging from generator functions: knowledge, beliefs, imagination, needs wants, identity, and attention, which is of course is a big ingredient in the Ouda loop. Identity also, beliefs, of course, and knowledge, yes. And the link with UDA is like these generator functions are the deep orientation layer in the UDA loop. Of course, I mean, ethics is my compass. Yeah, I orient myself in my community according to unwritten rules, yes, the social contract, that's how I call it. That's how we call it, the social contract. If we don't uh kind of, you know, turn these levers, this generator function, the system will always step back into old behaviors under stress. No matter how good the ethics is, no matter how the laws are written code is law, no matter how rigid that is. In order to understand these dynamics, we can think of the UDA as this decision metabolism of uh, let's take an example, yeah, because I mentioned the social contract, we are in a community, let's say a scientific community, or let's say my neighbors here who want to make the park and the lake uh cleaner and so on and so forth. So, what do we do? Observe would mean what you measure, where your focus is, uh the instrument on the instruments that are the measurable. So, what what am I looking at? Yes, uh am I looking at one, you know, I just want to have fun and and throw my beers at the lake after I have the picnic, or what do I want? Yes, and and orient is how you interpret what you measure, right? So I'm looking at behavior, I interpret. How do we define the who we are? Are we a community or are we depleters? I don't care about my neighbors, I don't care about anyone else, just my well-being, and throw it because it's too much work to pack it, my garbage after me. And then decide, which is like what you choose under certain constraints. And of course, that determines how you act. But decide has a deeper meaning again, and really sorry, that's how it works. Decide is more like choice. I would call it choice, and that's why we kind of call it moral choice, because decide can be done, okay. I have time to decide now and to sing and to dream about that. But decide is very much done already, yeah, when uh when you orient yourself. And it's uh you act from a snap moment of decision, but that is exactly this driver's seat in which you are when you make your moral choice. I mean, let's say a child falls in the water, uh, a toddler, right? What do I do? Do I call the police? Do I do nothing to preserve myself? Do I jump to save this kid? If I know to swim, of course. So this decide you usually don't have much time to think about it. And that's why, yes, this uh three-layer stuff, the moral, the ethics, the the law, they show us how we steer in the right direction. How do we make our choice? That's how it works. They all together form what I call governance as a moral technology. Well, technology is just a way of doing things, yes, a way of enhancing our lives. A tool, if you want. So we we can use governance as a tool, but in order to do that, we have to be aware of the levers, yes, yeah, that have to be turned.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 13:45

So I I'm wondering here, and this is for both of you, uh, Moose and Mihala, governance could equate to orientation.

Speaker 3: 13:51

Yes.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 13:52

So ethics and morality and even law, so could connect to culture, potentially could connect to genetics. I'm not sure if about that, but definitely will connect to experience, right? So but I I'm leaning more towards culture in this, and I just kind of want to get some feedback and see if I need a course correct on any of that.

Mark McGrath: 14:12

I think so. The the you know, the morals and ethics that someone possesses or an organization possesses is going to be inside or that'll reside in orientation. And as we interpret things, as you're saying, Dr. M, I would add to what you said about decisions that they're hypotheses of what we think is going to happen, which may or may not. But we base those off of orientation, which would not limit morals and ethics. Someone's someone's morals and ethics are going to shape how they sense, they're gonna shape what they see, shape how they formulate decisions and how they act.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 14:46

But but let me ask this most. So patterns of conflict and and the other briefs by Boyd, we attack morality, right? The center of gravity would be governance. So that kind of makes sense. Okay, okay. No, no, so I I never made these connections before until today. So thank you for that, Dr.

Speaker: 15:00

Can I say something about culture? I think you asked both of us, so please allow me to just say something. Yes, yes. This is totally, yeah, and it is also emerging. I should have maybe called it culture then generator functions. Because I mean, what's generated by this is culture. I mean, you just take identity, one of these generator functions. Are we stewards? Are we owners? Are we, you know, what are we? This is the question. And once I give an answer, this is the culture which is gonna happen in my community, right? Are we good neighbors? Are we predators? What are we? And also, yes, if we change the incentives, that is the orientation again. According to you you just mentioned, yes, maybe genetic. I mean, of course, as humans, we need food, we need energy, we need a lot of stuff. So there are the needs, again, which orient us towards making decisions. But I think this, the identity, is the main thing, and the attention are what creates the culture.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 15:58

So you brought up um incentives, right? And if we were to put a boundary around our individual oodle loops, just to say we have one, and we talk about systems driving behaviors or you know, the the way the the system is structured, it drives how so it controls us generally. And we talk about control being outside in bottom up a lot of times when we talk about the oodle loop. We've had guests on here from ecological dynamics, uh, human factors talk about affordances, attractors, and constraints, right? So if you change the constraints around in the environment, it can almost control how you act, how you behave. So can can is that what you mean by uh incentives? Are they outside? Are they internal? Are they both where would you find them, you know, with an organization, for example? An organization wants to uh correct or change its fit, its internal structure to adapt to the external environment. So we're talking about a business here, right? So the incentives that the executives put within their organizations will ultimately drive the behaviors of those members of that organization, those those team members, those employees. Um, so that's one context. The other context would be uh potentially politicians, uh, the military-industrial complex, that type of thing. I I just want some clarity from you, or if you can help us navigate this a little bit better. Incentives, are they external or are they internal? And or is that dependent on the other?

Speaker: 17:18

They can be both, but it depends, you know, because if they are external and they are, let's say, on my mission statement of my company, yes, we are giving, we are democratic, and so on. But then the CEO behaves despotically, right? And because the internal incentives are not aligned, and that's why I'm saying this moral compass, yes, has to be cultivated. I think the incentives, if they are external, they don't have much effect. They become this uh branding lip service. If incentives are aligned, and that's the alignment problem, also with AI, but I think the alignment problem is the main alignment of humanity. Sorry to use this word because it's not very popular in our day and age, with morality, with doing the right thing, no matter what, then uh then it's gonna work with the incentives. So that's uh that's what I would say. That's how we have to cultivate, that's why the culture, yes, changing culture is so difficult because we have to cultivate this moral body, and it starts, I think, with education. Definitely it has to, it's very hard to change it once you grew up in a in a certain mindset, and then to change that, not easy. What I appreciate as a military is this sense of duty and this internal alignment which uh always military people exhibit because that's actually that's what the drives them, yes, to give their life for something, for a cause. If someone just tells you from the outside, okay, well go and and give your life for for the freedom uh of your people, would you go? Don't feel it inside if you're if you're not there. So that's that's my answer.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 19:06

So this is related to uh complex adapted systems, and and I think the uh you know the direction that we've been led to believe is that if you amplify the probes or attractors within that system or the constraints within that system that you want, the that drive the behaviors, and you dampen the ones that uh you you don't want. So I think this is very important to talk about because there's the strong connection between John Boyd's work and complex adaptive systems is there. We we we've done exploratories on this with uh with Dave Snowden, actually. And the key thing here is I think, and we had other discussions on this about complex adaptive systems, but for people to understand that you can't drive a behavior by demanding something out of somebody. You got to change the system, which includes yourself, maybe have uh some more empathy, maybe share with folks your shortcomings and things like that, create that psychological safety, if you will, you actually have to create the conditions within the system to change that system, right? So so this is why understanding a little bit about the OODA loop is so important. The the nonlinear adaptive OODA loop is so important because the external environment, if you will, is pretty darn important. Again, it depends where you put that boundary. I want to be clear on that. So if I put a boundary around me and and you're my boss and Mark's my counterpart, that that's we all have many, many OODA loops. So again, we got to have certain we're talking about the right boundary there. But can you speak a little bit about complex adaptive systems and how important that is for leaders to understand in anything uh that they're doing, including the age of their own?

Speaker: 20:31

I mean, that's the thing, yes. In complex adaptive systems, have to, of course, obviously, yes, reaction comes at many layers and there are many feedback. loops. But I think what you want to say here is uh the complexity of the environment as well as of the system that is adapting to the environment. So our environments are complex. It's very hard to extract. That's the whole thing about observe, right? So what do you observe is very critical. For example, morality shapes observed by keeping humans visible. I mean do I observe the stock market or do I observe how my actions on the stock market, let's say if I am Bill Gates or whoever, affect the rest of the world. I mean, do I take everything for myself or I give as well? Who is affected, who is being hurt? These are things which again can have an effect. I think you know you can call it complex adaptive systems. But the thing is still an individual can influence what is outside through their choices. Depends of course on their the concrete example, right? So a failure mode for observe is like the loop the the loop can run simply on propaganda. I mean let's say the the the rich guy can say I'm a giving person I what I'm doing is just because I want to do more companies and so on more more give more business which will will give make more jobs but in fact they are are taken from the rest from the rest of us let's put it this way and what can result is the a captured manipulated picture. The main thing in complex adaptive systems always of course is orient. That means answering something like what does it all mean right? The meaning which I think uh Mark I heard Mark in a podcast recently talk about that. What story are we in? It's it's uh it's uh it's the most hijacked step why again because of lip service the difference and the discrepancy between what we do and what we say we do. So ethics primarily is an orientation thing where a community interprets events and decides what's acceptable. If you have an ethics winner takes all which and you talk very often in your potwash obviously you are military guys and we have to be winners in the name of our freedom right but uh on the in the economy let's say if your ethics is winner takes all numbers go up your orientation will be extractive right I mean it has to be extractive and then that's how you react that's actually your reaction to the whatever complexity is there. And of course justice can support that like there can be rules and laws but the capture is all about overcoming those I mean how do I fool the system and this is mainly what I am very preoccupied by because orientation can get seized by the loudest narrative yeah we're under attack and that's your thing guys yes now and and uh the system will stop sinking but in order to act properly when we are under attack if we cultivated let's say the more the moral muscle as I call it this internal really internal reactive muscle how do I react where do I come from by adding conscience by adding a bit more humanity to it even if it is legal is it right even if it benefits us does it injure the commons or does it how many losses? Yeah to what cost and I know that maybe Mark wants to take on from here because that was a very complex issue. And incidentally last fall I I visited Vietnam and I was uh you know in Saigon and this field and I learned a lot of about what was happening there.

Mark McGrath: 24:35

And Mark was mentioning uh recently I heard him mention in a pod on a podcast about um I mean our morals because of that yes we lost that war and um if you want to say something about that I mean the what while Boyd was following what Sun Tzu said that warfare just like business just like marriage just like anything can be described in a moral sense a mental sense and a in a physical sense and in in crude terms we would say that the the physical war of Vietnam you know the the the prevailing thought was well we're winning all the battles we have all the technology we have all the capital we have the right people we're we're dropping more bombs than we did in World War II and uh on paper we should be winning. What Boyd's point was is that saying that we won all the battles was was bullshit because the war was actually not in the field per se. It was in the mind and it was in the mind of the Indeed the values in these generates our function. Yes yeah and law and in in and the opposing side understood that but then ironically there were there were pockets of the U.S. military the the Marine Combined Action Program and the Green Berets that actually did understand it and they they were making a lot of progress and it was completely shut down because the brass of the predominantly what I would call big army big air force big navy they they wanted a uh an attrition war a physical war a kinetic you know physically kinetic dominating war um and they didn't understand the moral dimensions at all uh they didn't have the cultural empathy they didn't understand uh there was you know there's a complete disconnect where um where there was an a there was a alternative which is dismissed as the other war which actually really did understand what was going on and how to and how to win.

Speaker: 26:29

Correct yeah of course Sun Tzu you gave the right I mean the perfect example because it's all about that.

Mark McGrath: 26:35

Yeah it's Sun Sun Tzu is important because if you saw my I think I sent you my most recent interview I did with John Becker on the debrief, you know, Sun Tzu's Art of War and Boyd read like I don't know what the exact number is like seven or eight different translations. That was the one book that he could find no fault with and he he scoured that pretty hard whereas Clausewitz who sort of prevails in the minds of you know conventional military thinking you know Boyd was quick to point out the positive things of Clauswitz that he got right but he absolutely eviscerated where Clausewitz was was was off and and wrong and I think that that was the that was the really big contrast between sort of the Sun Tzu way of thinking versus the Clausewitz way of thinking.

Speaker: 27:17

Yes and another thing which uh is very relevant here as well is about decision making right I mean do you make it in the general's ivory tower or you allow the soldier in the field to reorient and make the decision from the edge you know there's this Albert's book uh power to the edge right so how do you make decisions and under time pressures if you are disconnected from what's happening?

Mark McGrath: 27:42

Again, yeah again the complexity of what's happening right there right now is uh another Yeah I mean we we just we just had uh a a series of different things with Lieutenant Colonel Asad Khan who who was led the first battalion of Marines into fight in uh in Afghanistan back in 04 or you know one of the one of the early marine units that fought in Afghanistan and and he was talking about the disconnection between people on the ground that he was leading versus the people in in command at the higher levels that there was a massive disconnect culturally where they they didn't understand what it what they were getting involved with. They didn't understand the cultural codes and the cultural norms. We had a private briefing with him with our founders subscribers yesterday and he was quick to point out how actually having a women in a combat unit was extremely successful in an Islamic culture where where modesty was important and they were they were able to understand things in in in in female terms that men could not um and it actually made them more effective. But those are those are cultural things that people see from their own experience versus people that are focused that are disconnected that don't have the empathy that think maybe in physical terms not not so much in moral terms in winning that way. And here is where decision making really has an important role is like for example I have to sorry I have to retract yes I have to kind of stop right now and and let's say I lose the battle but not the war how do you make this is not an easy decision to make yeah there's a lot of ego and pride involved here but the question is I mean do we ask ourselves we do we uh sacrifice our soldiers for for a speedy well let me let me let me let me ask you let me let me ask you about something that you're probably a lot more familiar with than you're certainly more familiar than than Ponch and I are but I remember I'm a you know American Gen X kid I think I was 13 years old and it was around Christmas time I want to say 1989 in in your home country yeah wow don't remind me I guess emotion well no I wanted to I wanted to bring it I wanted to bring it up from your perspective versus the one that we got on TV but when we when we look at things say when we look at that in John Boyd terms there was a moral dimension that had a huge impact when when on the other side there was also there was you know you could say well they had all the physical they had all the capital they had all the weapons they had control of everything but at the same time was it the moral the moral impact is actually what mattered because that's what it looked like from our vantage point over here you know so what's the question exactly because so many things have like but we compartmentalize these things and we look at it we look at it in terms of when we when we chop this up and we look at it in broader terms of of more than just physical of a you know of a of a leader of a government getting thrown out or whatever that that there are moral dynamics that are just as important as as as uh as physical that's true I agree yeah that's that's what I that's what I mean I have to say I suffered from that as well so because I mean I felt justice was done you know and we all this all we all of us suffered so much.

Speaker: 31:05

I don't know if you have seen there's a recent movie which is even on planes now. It's called The New Year That Never Was and it's about exactly what happened in those days and I was you know for me it was even more amplified because I just gave birth to my second son and I was in maternity giving birth when this happened and we had soldiers coming through the maternity and they brought us down in the basement and put us to feed the babies so we are not um found by terrorists who could uh you know they were like terrorists nobody knows who they were yeah see that that orientation just was traumatic just off that orientation alone is very different than what your average American saw on CNN or the or the or the evening news because we weren't able to empathize and and understand those sorts of things.

Mark McGrath: 31:56

What was Adrian when we had him on he was drawing some contrast about when they would play basketball because he was on the Romanian national basketball team and he talked about how they would go into other countries and what he was always shocked about was how Americans believed the news like he says the difference I I forget the quote exactly but he was saying something around you know in Romania growing up in those days we knew that everything in the news was completely fake you know and in garbage. He's like the difference between Americans they read their news and they believe it you know like they believe what they they believe the narrative yeah the loudest narrative wins that's exactly the failure mode. Yeah it's I guess what I guess what I'm asking I I guess what I was really asking though when you experienced that firsthand there were physical there was a very physical real dynamic because you lived there and then you had the complexities of as you say giving birth to whatever Adrian didn't by the way he wasn't there I was right in the middle intercontinental.

Speaker: 32:56

Yeah he had already I lived right there. Yeah well that's easy to look from when you have enough food and when you have everything I was right there giving birth and we didn't have what to eat.

Mark McGrath: 33:06

I had to stay in line for bread which never came it's completely different state right yeah well that but so so what we're what I'm hitting on though is that there's a moral dimension that is that is a massive part of that and I would argue in most cases likely the most the most important thing and I'm saying that the orientation that prevailed was in line with the culture you know or or what people what people wanted or or the or the you know I guess that's I don't know um help me out Ponch like the there was a war that was freaking yeah the physical interaction the moral interest let's look at today's situation and just go back to your description of Vietnam and the physical side and let's flip it around where we are today.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 33:52

What are we under attack? Where are we at our moral and mental right? If you can attack that our center of gravity if you want to call it our shore punctured right now as a nation we're talking about the U.S. here that's what you target right I don't care if you're a state actor or non-state actor or whatever but you're going after this and and Moose you had this up earlier I brought this up now but you can see this you know mental interaction while in opposite fashions we can say that mental interaction occurs when we generate images or impressions that match up with the events or happenings that unfold around us. And moral interaction occurs when we live by the codes of conduct or standards of behavior that we profess and others expect us to uphold. And we know later on everything we're talking about here is a strategic game of interaction and isolation the way you win a war is through isolation right and that's I think that connects back to what happened in Romania. That's what's happening now in the US and that's why we lost we didn't win the the Vietnam War and any war since World War II.

Speaker: 34:47

Totally totally and you know that's that's what I was getting at with you Dr.

Mark McGrath: 34:51

M. It's just like I was trying to understand from your perspective you you saw it on all three levels. You got to you experience you experienced it firsthand on all three levels and I guess I I'm asking if it was not unlike Vietnam where the moral level the moral factors are the ones that actually tipped the scale like that because someone had isolated themselves morally that they that they were thrown out of power.

Speaker: 35:15

So let me tell you how I see this yes so it's uh about the morals yeah I mean the moral is also an answer ethics morality an answer to the question what are we fighting for right I mean I was fighting for my life and my children's life we didn't have what to eat so we didn't have anything to lose honestly I was ready to die I was ready to die for freedom for their freedom especially my kids my husband was on tanks you know when if you have seen the tanks I mean when the soldiers turned to be with the population then he he went on one of the tanks first and then people gave flowers to the soldiers and that was such an amazing I'm gonna try to continue these yes yes and so what are we fighting for I think this is again yes it's a moral yeah I'm fighting for you that's what that's what that's what I'm trying to understand.

Mark McGrath: 36:08

That's all that's all I'm saying and I'm agreeing with you. No totally and he's it's always wonderful it's always wonderful to have someone that lived through something that can see it on those three layers because that again that's what that's what's going to get lost on you know the more the story gets told and the further people get away from it they don't understand the full context and then I guess what when we think of Boyd and Sun Tzu and you saw this firsthand and you probably still feel it you know that the moral mental I wrote an article about this in our Substack there's a flow between moral mental physical that that are constantly working in tandem with each other. It's when as Ponch had that slide up it's when something is is isolated you know that's where the that that's that's the that's that's the whole purpose of the the what Boyd would call the strategic game is like interacting and isolating interacting and isolating and like when you're describing soldiers getting again I can remember these these things on TV watching this. I remember my parents telling me about this because it set off a whole we had lived in West Germany and uh when the uh right before the wall came down you know so like uh growing up over there was you know I remember from that perspective uh being on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain um but when you would see soldiers dropping their their rifles or getting flowers or if I recall in the Romania they had cut the communist seal out of the flag and the flags just had like a blank a blank circle in the middle. Right. But you're seeing people that have the physical power to do something over somebody but but they they they're embracing a moral you know like the moral was what was changing in people and that's what that's what really flipped the flipped the tide that's my layman's perspective of totally totally and it is exactly I mean in this regard yes because let me because let me here doing the right let me let me ask you this it could have been a lot worse right if it had been if if if it had not been at I mean it could have been an absolute slaughter and and and thousands and thousands and thousands of people could have been killed.

Speaker: 38:11

I mean it could have been a lot worse right I don't want to say big words but how do you think the Chinese government is still in power I mean of course a lot worse a lot worse yeah all this yeah I mean Tiananmen square and all that I mean for us it was kind of very similar there but but I mean our determination was first of all because really we didn't have a choice we really were almost I mean I think it can be very similar to what we see on TV because I've never been there I don't want to go in North Korea right I mean people die of hunger they don't have what to eat. That's what our that was our situation. Yeah so they're completely isolated right like that's that's complete isolation completely isolated yeah only our dictator two hours per day on TV telling us how happy we are and that's again yes how you capture a system through the narrative and that's why but that's why you know imagination can play such an important role as a generator function because it is the only thing that enables you to step out of yours the system in which you are and regarded from the outside is your imagination when you are stuck in a country like that right and then say that we had um the dictator's son liked uh Star Trek and we had that you know so the only thing which I had on TV was Star Trek that's why actually I John Boyd's favorite show about this yeah no it's John Boyd's favorite show yeah that's awesome and and that gave us so much imagination of course about how how the world could be and I think the dictator allowed Star Trek because Star Trek is kind of you know is not an egotistic win lose game it showed how humanity and others diversity can actually live in harmony like uh this uh I don't want to call you the socialist dream the ultimate yeah the ultimate dream of cooperation and meritocracy and and everybody contributing and peace right and trying to find the the way to peace and so for us that was yeah that that gave me the imagination and also we had Carl Sagan so these two things inspired us that's interesting that's why I I became a professor because of the cosmos show of Carl Sagan I'm like I want to be like him I want to teach like him that's what I want to be and that's what inspired me

Mark McGrath: 41:32

Yeah, when there was uh well could it so roll the clock ahead, you know, and the medium has changed quite a bit between social media and AI and you know.

Speaker 3: 41:42

Wow, yeah.

Mark McGrath: 41:44

I mean, bring bring uh now now bring us here how those lessons are so important for the medium that we find ourselves within right now.

Speaker: 41:53

Yeah, I mean there there are many angles to talk about this, right? I mean, first of all, the media is a captured media and the social media even more so. So if you allow me, I'd like to to give the original example of the, let's say, so when we when we moved into the digital world, yes, let's put it this way, we could have done it so much better than how these centralized platforms, for example, now these are not the ones, but um if you put your smart glasses on from Meta, everything, all your data, all your information goes to the so-called Marx world. Yeah, if you play, I don't know if you use those, if you play video games or you go and take a video, it goes all the data goes into Mark's world, so then Meta can improve.

Mark McGrath: 42:41

Improve yourself. That's what they say, right?

Speaker: 42:43

They can improve how they manipulate you practically. So so um initially we called it uh, I don't know if you're aware of this, but it's also, of course, a lot in cyberspace, and there's a San Tzu in cyberspace. I don't know if you read that book. It's really good, and me being uh my expertise being in in cyber physical systems. Um you know, there's this cypherpunk uh uh movement which wanted to escape those kind of plastic.

Mark McGrath: 43:13

Tell us more, tell us more about that, because you've talked a lot about that. Tell our tell our listeners and subscribers about the cypherpunk.

Speaker: 43:20

Yes, because this is exactly the point, yeah, when I mean we have changed the ways, uh we have changed the means, yeah, the tools. I mean, I don't have the TV and my dictators saying something there, but I have now the social media with the influencers and and uh trolls and uh these bots that can influence us. And actually, it's like a hypnosis, you know. There have been studies like if you do scroll continuously, especially for the young uh generation, it's like a hypnosis, and then your brain doesn't think for itself anymore, and that's happening now even worse with artificial intelligence. But what so the cyberpunks they were seeing the internet as a way to escape this kind of dynamic kings, banks, don't trust, verify, you know, through a culture of transparency with everything traceable, honest, yes. And um it turns out that in practice uh I mean the cypherpunk dream was also captured, unfortunately. Yeah, so it's like by the first of all, by the platform lord, I call it like that, uh, Facebook, everything it's it's kind of you know, this recommending system, but they recommend accordingly. If I pay something for advertisement, okay, it recommends me that, not what I'm interested in. So it's all kind of it's a rigged, uh, rigged uh game.

Mark McGrath: 44:47

It's orienting your your orientation is being manipulated externally, and this goes into you know, someone else that we talk quite a bit about, Marshall McLuhan, teaching us that the medium is the message and that all media, uh and he defined its media, you know, as technology and environment, has a direct effect on all you know, there's some extension of our human senses. In the case of electronic media, it's our central nervous system, and all of those are being overridden to the point where people can't even function in a conversation with each other without taking a side or without talking about something to consume. I don't know. Like it's it's to your point, it's you're they're listening to you, you know. I mean, I I could go on my Instagram right now, and I might see something about Romania, or I might see like uh the Scorpion song, uh The Winds of Change, because they heard me talking about those times, you know, and they know that I'm Gen X, and they put those things in my feed, it happens all the time. And I think that that's one of the things when you you know when you bring up the things about moral and morals and ethics and things like that, we have to be mindful of the fact that that we following John Boyd and his mandate in destruction creation, we're constantly trying to improve our capacity for free and independent action. Well, if somebody's orienting you, you're not acting freely and independently. It's being done, it's being done for you. These things are actually can, if you let them, they attack your capacity for free and independent action. And if they attack your capacity of free independent action, it's rendering you irrelevant or obsolete or it's channeling you into it's making you more dependent on more dependent.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 46:25

There's something else I want to add real fast and to get back here, and that is the the idea of epigenetics or the concept of epigenetics. The changing of our genetics through technology is a possibility, right? So you're taking three layers of orientation that are on different timescales and attacking that. And that's that's what's happening, or could be happening. I'm not going to say epigenetics is 100% uh correct or not, but uh three levels again genetics, culture, and experience, right? If you can get down to that genetics, if you can modify that, you just change the course of civilization.

Speaker: 46:56

Totally. I mean, it's very well known. This is kind of scientific, right? That epigenetics, the environment is changing us. And we change the environment as well. So it's uh again, yeah, a loop here between us and the environment. And that's a complex system. So definitely, yes, it is changing us. And so this doom scrolling is changing my brain. Now, uh, interaction with GPTs. I mean, why should I write this article by myself by thinking and doing the research when it can do it for me so much easier? And then I can gaze my class. But then what becomes of me, right? So it can change us towards a great less.

Mark McGrath: 47:36

Okay, that's a great point. So I've been getting into tangles lately with friends that think they agree with me that the medium is the message and that technology and media and environment work us over. However, they believe that there's some special exemption for AI. Yes, everything's true, but AI, AI is exempt, which Marshall McLuhan would would laugh at right in their right in their faces, because the very fact that we're having that conversation is showing that the medium is the message and having an effect on them. But I think what ends up happening is people undermine. Now, we're all old enough to remember when Google was deemed cheating, and you weren't supposed to Google things, and you weren't supposed to use search engines, you were supposed to go to the library, you were supposed to go to the car catalog, you were supposed to, you know, you were you were supposed to check out check out books rather than read the book.

Speaker: 48:26

And again, if I may, as a woman, I can say, same with Google Maps. I was driving with the map on my knee in Romania with two babies in the back of the car, and I could find my way now, no way now, you know. So thank you, Google Maps.

Mark McGrath: 48:42

So what so here's what's funny, and I say so so one of the things, so you know, Ponch and I are both Gen Xers, right? And we're also Ponch is a naval aviator, and I'm a field artillery officer. We are really good at maps, navigation, computing, and calculating. I always with my platoon. Yeah, well, I was with my platoon in my sections that I would lead, I always put the GPSs inside the footlocker and lock them just so they wouldn't lose their manual mapping skills uh and and things like that. And I know that in in aviation, there's there's what, celestial nav, there's there's manual computing, there's all kinds of things that you do that in this day and age where everybody's relying on uh one of my kids cannot now he does have some learning disability and some dyslexia, but if the GPS does not work, he doesn't know where he's going. And and and he's not unique.

Speaker: 49:35

Same with me, and I don't have dyslexia. Same with me. I'm telling you.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 49:39

Yeah. It's automation bias. We lose our human, we lose our kids. We lose our humanity, yeah.

Speaker: 49:43

We we actually atrophy important muscles, and that is how the environment can act on us. That was the point with Sponge's point, right? Yeah, it can act on us to enhance us, but it can also act on us, especially the tools which we are creating lately.

Mark McGrath: 49:59

Yeah. So so then here, so since the three of us have all straddled those worlds of analog and digital, I I really do think that the digital pure natives are at a massive disadvantage relative to us, only because they're they only know what's been wired to them. They've only they only know.

Speaker: 50:17

Yeah, I have a different view there. Okay, to help us out. And I have to say, because I am a I study the robotics and this.

Mark McGrath: 50:25

Well, I want to hear it. Let me let me let me let me state my point clearly. So then and then you say I it's my belief that those of us in like the late millennials, Gen X, and and maybe kind of later boomers that have straddled both worlds and can competently use digital but understand, understand analog, that our orientations are wired differently. I mean, there's no debate there, I don't think, but like I think that we do have an edge over somebody that's completely been wired from what they've gained through electronic electronic.

Speaker: 50:59

Okay, I see I see it differently, yes. Although you are right in all what you are saying there, but I do not necessarily see only this as an advantage for the millennials. Okay, help us out. So why? Because we can regard the, but if we use it right, okay, we can regard these technologies as enhancers for us. Let's say we are all cyber now, enhanced by the mobile phones and maps, and we can navigate faster and think faster, and we can plug this uh capability of the LLM in my brain with chips and so on. We can now, yeah, we can. And download so much information on that chip button connected to my brain, and then I can make decisions, maybe see more, right? One of my projects was this situational awareness. Because if I have this, I can see what's happening in the field. If I didn't have it, it was more difficult in the middle ages to fight, right? Because you didn't have this situational awareness expanding. So these are also, yeah, there is an advantage to that, and I think um I can look at this in the uh in the following way. Where you were coming from, and uh sorry I don't want to say it's limited, but I'm saying you are coming from a desire to preserve humanity, let's put it, our human abilities originally. Yes, I I want them, I don't need these tools to to atrophy my muscles, even if it's better than that.

Mark McGrath: 52:25

I'm not saying that per se. No, no. Okay. What what I'm saying, what I'm saying is that we process information differently. Um, it's less about like because I think that some of the arguments are we're losing our humanity or whatever, but I've all you know, ever since the wheel, or Marshall McLuhan said, ever since the written word, and it's forced us to look linearly, technology has been affecting every generation of humans, and AI is is no exemption. I guess what I guess what I mean to say it's not it's less about humanity, but it's more about the the the a the ability to distinguish what's what's real and what's what's wired, you know, or like what's how how you're being programmed. Because we were still being programmed, we were always being programmed, but I I think our ability to discern was different. Now, I would say that there are some edges that we have because of the internet. You know, I now I don't believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or whatever, because I have access to more information, I have access to more perspectives, and I can do that research, I can compress the time. So I'm not saying that there's not advantages or whatever. I'm just saying that there's a there's a very clear difference that somebody that's been both analog and digital versus someone that's a pure digital native. That's that that's the that's my query. That's what I'm really trying to understand. What those differences are.

Speaker: 53:41

Yeah, so so you are you are making a statement without uh concluding saying. Okay, so I can say I'm adding something to that then. Yes. And that is the possibility, yes, the possibility that maybe evolution now is being somehow guided, if I may put it this way, or if we can find a better word, by the development of these technologies, yes, right? They're wired, as you say. But now they're wireless anyway, as we are here. And artificial intelligence, especially. So we may become a new species, something else, right? Which is smarter than us and maybe better than than how and has that's happened before, right?

Mark McGrath: 54:26

That that that's not that's not unique to human history. That that that that happens all the time. Yeah.

Speaker: 54:33

Yes, and that is what I'm saying, yes, because uh we started from when Ponch said that the environment is changing us, and the environment now is the digital environment mainly that is changing us, and this technology which we have very handy now, which we can complain about and say, Oh, I'm not these kids are not learning anything. But on the other side, if we enable them to use the technology continuously to I think it will change them. But it's not necessarily for the worst, depends, and here is the AI ethics, AI alignment, the conundrum starting to come into the picture. It's about how do we use it and how we design it. I mean, do we put in it a San Tzu? Do we put in it the ethics? Do we put in it all this wisdom that uh humanity had access to throughout, but it didn't really use, right? Maybe the AI can help us remember that. And maybe when we ask a question, the answer will come from that wisdom. Yeah, where there's so much in books which we never read.

Mark McGrath: 55:38

Okay, doc Dr. M, so I'm gonna say something to Ponch. Now you you tell me so Ponch, I think that AI, when used effectively, enhances one's orientation because it compresses time scales, it helps you identify gaps faster, and it also saves it. The time savings is huge, but the the identification of gaps or blind spots that I may not have caught in a manual or analog situation or scenario. Yes.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 56:12

Yeah, so I'm I'm sharing something that I learned from somebody uh recently who's on the show right now. Tech should amplify our capacity for connection, not replace it. Yeah. This gets back to interaction and isolation, right? So the ethics and governance behind it should amplify our relationships, our connection, connectedness. So the strategic game of interaction or question mark and question mark applies here. As long as it doesn't isolate us, doesn't make us more dependent. That's the path I believe we want to go on. And I think the person on our podcast is is that's what she's fighting for. Am I right, Doc?

Speaker 3: 56:43

Totally.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 56:44

Because there are those that that don't understand those second and third order effects of what they're doing. They're not, they don't take empathy within the system, they just execute their orientation to try to change the environment. And Moose, you and I talked about this recently with some other guests. So I read it on fire mode, right?

Mark McGrath: 56:59

So on Substack, so here so here's the thing. So Ponch, put that quote back up. I just I just want to make sure I have it right. Tech should amplify our capacity. So so here's one of the dark angles of of tech, and it's all over Substack. That the article that came that was in the feed, it was called Masturbating Ourselves to Death. And what it was saying that the the medium that we have now, the modern medium that puts out content creation, right? Where you know primal human reproductive activities are being broadcast over the internet. They're, you know, they're being consumed and they're being created. But what it was what it was saying was that it's attacking our primal urges of procreationist species. So what it's ending what's ending up doing is it's overriding the nervous systems of people in both, you know, both male or female, that's creating more loneliness, marriage rates are dropping, birth rates are plummeting, and it's actually amplifying that because they're associating something that they're primarily urging to do with something that's digitally satisfying themselves with with digital connectivity and not with human connectivity that would keep the species alive.

Speaker: 58:14

Totally. And and uh and of course now AI will only amplify that. I mean, you can masturbate to Jennifer Lopez or whoever you like, and it's like she is there, right? And naked and all that. And uh sorry for picking for what this just came to mind. So there's an article what I'm saying.

unknown: 58:38

Okay.

Mark McGrath: 58:39

No, I was gonna say, I know, I know, but I've there's an article that I have never published, and Poncha's read it, and others have read it, and I just haven't published it yet. But it was talking about the painting I was drawing was a couple, a man and a wife, they're married, you know, he's a high school gym teacher, who knows, and she's I forget what it was exactly, but the bottom line was he goes off into one corner of the house to consume, she goes off into the other corner of the house to create content. But the irony is that they're both training AI and training her replacement because at some point the AI is going to get to the point where I don't need a human to interact with. I because the AI always shows up on time. They always tell me I'm handsome, they always whatever. I don't have to, I don't, and then like the the human create content creator doesn't have to worry about answering direct messages, doesn't have to worry about physical threats, doesn't have to whatever. So so like the technology is actually going to replace that medium. Whatever the the point of the story was not to make a moral ethical judgment on that person, but just that the reality was that they were training that they were training their AI, you know, they're both training AI to completely replace the human in the system.

Speaker: 59:49

Yes, totally. And but that's where, and that's what I wanted to say, is that's where choice, the moral choice, or however you want to call it, just the ability to choose, because orientation, yes, it's orientation, but then the direction in which you go is determined again by this generator functions. And it's like, okay, what do I want for myself? And uh started by mentioning human flourishing and so on and so forth. I mean, is this choice now going to enable me to flourish or it will enable me to destroy myself? Or, you know, so that's where we fail because we actually make this reflect choices from comfort zones, you know, for from all this okay, convenience and whatever is easier, right? So it's instant gratification that never, ever, ever led to something good, starting with sugar, right? Which is the same thing.

Mark McGrath: 1:00:47

Yeah, well, I was I was just gonna say you you don't have to limit it to pornography. You could say that the dopamine hits that people get on Instagram by looking at somebody's fancy car or fancy house or whatever. It's not just related to porn. The only thing I was saying about that one was it's actually attacking a human function that procreates a species. And this was the point of this article that it's isolating people into loneliness. And it and if and if if it kept going on the trend, there won't be anybody anybody left because no one's gonna be paring off and procreating.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:01:17

So I'm curious about choice here. Uh we talked about control being outside in, bottom up. We you brought up some big names in here uh earlier. We didn't talk about Lacoon and others on the AI side. But let me ask you this if control is outside in, bottom up, do I really have a choice in this matter uh how I want to flourish? I mean Or does Mark Zuckerberg drive all that right now?

Speaker: 1:01:35

And the psycho So in the case of, and I don't want to say names, because it's not only Zuckerberg, right? It's it's many more. So uh let's call them the platform lords. Yeah, because that is a platform economy in which we are, it's like a serfdom. I am there, and it's like I'm uh I'm uh enslaved in their game, which enriches them, right? And depletes me. Depletes me in all possible ways, especially in this one, my drives and the moral. So the control is outside, but I also have the power inside. And again, and I'm sorry to repeat, because that's what it is, right? Ethics means agreement on what should count as a signal of health, right, for myself. And it can be on the social media. I mean, if I go and and behave like a jerk on social media, that's going to spread uh a certain uh tendency and a certain trend, right? And uh it does it's not good also for my mental and for flourishing, obviously, right? Then let's say I get it's the same, it's addiction, yes, in order to step out of addiction, yeah. We have programs, hey, and so on and so on and so forth. The thing is, we need certain ways in which to train this moral body in order to be able to make the right choices. So, again, that is choice. The choice comes from within, nobody can control me from outside. I don't want to say, tell the world right now, okay, try me, guys. Try to control me. If if you have an internal compass, and that's again when I come back and say, military guys, all my respect to you because you have trained this muscle to make the right choices, to fight for the right values, and this is what is driving, right? Actually, all what you do, because you are poised to sacrifice your life, and you have to ask yourself, why am I doing this? Right? So, so maybe we need more of that kind of I I call it discipline, although it's not very fancy in our day and age of total freedom and chaos and let the kids do whatever they like. But discipline, this kind of moral discipline is very important. And I think we can learn from you a lot in order to strengthen our internal control loops so that the external ones cannot really hijack us so easily, capture us, because that's the word I like. Yes, we cannot be captured so easily by the external loops.

Mark McGrath: 1:04:08

Well, we say it a lot. I mean, systems drive behaviors, and even military systems, the behavior's not always good. So your point's not lost on us. You know, there are morals and ethics that we're supposed to uphold and swear to and adhere to. In fact, our our guest that we had on, you know, was discussing that, and that's that's that's one of the rifts where you know there's a there's a there's a disconnect there. But these systems that end up getting created by you say platform overlords, I think Buckminster Fuller would call it the grunge of giants, that there are there is a there is a controlling sort of class, you know, whether it's the platform overlords, the political overlords, or whatever, at that seek, as you say, to unduly influence us, that override our choice, or that you know, that channel us into do things that we otherwise wouldn't wouldn't do.

Speaker: 1:04:58

Well, it's a grunge grunge of giants, because it's one of my favorite books, also, and of course, Buckminster Fuller, right? I mean spaceshippers, uh people don't forget, right?

Mark McGrath: 1:05:10

Let me ask you about Buckminster Fuller. So, Spaceship Earth, that book, by the way, I think it's one of the best John Boyd orientation loop books ever to read. And Buckminster Fuller was somebody that Boyd read, he's on the he's on the list of the Quantico archives. Buckminster Fuller also said that automation and education wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. And Isaac Asimov said something very similar that the more education gets automated, the more that we have, you know, AI, computers, search engines, whatever you want to call it, the more that we have that offloads the menial and allows us to focus on what's important and allows us to learn more. Because I kind of think that that's where AI is a golden age. If if it's offloading menial tasks and things, I don't have to sift through all this shit. I can just focus on what I need to learn and understand that my my orientation can get enhanced. I can increase my understanding of the world because the the the menial, the tasks. Isaac Asimov could have described it much better than I in a in a better New York accent than mine. But um, you know, but but Buckminster Fuller.

Speaker 3: 1:06:16

I can tell you uh how I see it.

Mark McGrath: 1:06:18

Yeah, because Buckminster Fuller was a proponent of automated education, like automating as much as you could at education and learning.

Speaker: 1:06:25

Totally, because in that way you can personalize. But that's exactly again how you use it. And you have to come, and that's again, you brought up a dimension which now it's it's so clear that it it is there. So this internal control, yeah, in order to act and to get you out of any external control loop that is keeping you stuck and uh destroying you, it's this meaning. It's the only thing, yes. Meaning again, it's what and that's why by automating the menial tasks, we have more time to to to to find our vocation, our meaning. Why what why are we here to ask ourselves? If I stay into the poor uh loop, I will never have time or or even the desire or the drive to to wonder if that's the meaning of my life. So also there's another angle to it. Because if we and this is what is happening as as you mentioned, yeah, with all these uh addictions and so on, we start to behave more like machines ourselves. And in that case, meaning disappears because the machines will always be better. It's clear now. I mean, every kid who is born today will always live with an AI which is smarter than them. That's clear, right? So though we can we can defer to those AIs, the the tasks which we want to automate, and cultivate this human, and here I'm again I'm again coming back to Punch, who I more or less contradicted about that. I mean, where I was coming from before was well, in order to survive, you need to change. So let's rather change by incorporating the technologies and using them and expanding and like extensions of ourselves, like cyborgs. However, in order to find meaning, well, I think still it comes from from our roots, from our DNA, as you say, yeah? So change our DNA, find the meaning, and and that's I think that's a salvation ultimately.

Mark McGrath: 1:08:28

So here's a question. So like I we had someone on that we recorded with yesterday talking about the decline of society and the decline of culture, and and that there is, you know, people are desperate in a search for meaning. Oh, idiocracy. But I think that people, you know, there is a a desperate vacuum of in our society of people searching for meaning. In fact, on my country frame substack today, I published an article about stolen valor, which is a crime in our country. It's something that Ponch and I are sensitive to as veterans, that when people go around and they and they pretend to be veterans or war heroes, or or they maybe they were veterans and they lie about their service records or whatever, but that's you know, it's in the United States that's punishable. But there's a there's also a deeper layer that in many of the cases, particularly the ones a lot of a lot of the ones that I see on on Instagram and YouTube where where someone's getting chased down or called out publicly or whatever, it's usually someone that's suffering from severe mental health that or someone who's lonely or disenchanted or searching for meaning. And that was the point of my article was that in a in a in a culture and society that that where anonymity, you know, you can't just be anonymous, you know, anymore. Everybody has to have social validation and public validation and social media validation, et cetera, that people go to these measures where they'll even commit a crime or they'll make something a crime in their quest for this affirmation of meaning. And yet it's still it's still all the signals are still all crossed because so many people are just focused on the crime. They're not that's the figure that they see. The ground that's shifting beneath us is that meaning is becoming absent in our culture, and it's getting harder and harder to find and connect to those things, it seems, as the digital world, you know, continues to enhance itself and become more ubiquitous.

Speaker: 1:10:22

Totally. And you know, it's there's so much that you brought there that I'd like to take a few points, if you allow me, to to comment on that. First of all, because um, I mean, I think of course mental health can be also for and my father suffered from PTSD from war. He was at 14, they already collected him from the village where he they didn't he had 16 brothers, and they he was the youngest, they didn't have food for him. He was practically almost naked, and they collected him, they dressed him, and there's he volunteered to go to the war. And of course, yeah, so he suffered from PTSD, so I I I have uh direct compassion for for uh for the people uh with mental health in this regard. And who actually did uh make it, yeah, right? And because he advanced as a general and he was teaching in a military academy and so on and so forth. So uh, but you know, there is another aspect of the mental health here, and I think this is again the dissonance between our DNA and symbiosis with nature and true humanity, which we were talking about here, and and the society which is actually praising more and more the takers, right? So, and you mentioned uh on uh this valor thing, it was like someone maybe a taker, yeah, trying to capture and again gain the system in their favor.

Mark McGrath: 1:11:43

Yeah. Yeah, I classify I I just just to be clear, I classified it in in three categories. There was the person who's like the visible fantasist that pulls out all these fantasies and delusions, and maybe they were physically or mentally unable to be in the military, so they they have but but they're obvious because they have the wrong badges, they have the wrong, they just look, they just look crazy. Then there's then there's these social manipulators that do enough research and they end up becoming con people, you know, they're conning others into believing something that they would gain some kind of an edge or sympathy or gain favor. And then there was the then the third one was the embellisher, which is an actual veteran that was you know repairing refrigerators but made up a story that they led some charge in a machine gun nest or whatever, that that just isn't true, you know.

Speaker: 1:12:35

Or they got kicked out of the military. Yeah, yeah, and you just named three ways to gain the system now. So to capture the system. And I have to what I was where I was going with this taker mentality is that actually our society rewards takers. And I can give you, I mean, in my opinion, yeah, this example of in 2008 to fail. I mean, those who actually accumulated more and whose game crashed because it was the wrong game, they were rewarded. And then we see that. And I'm like, oh I see the free rider on my team that is getting, you know, promoted. I'm like, why should I am I more stupid? Why shouldn't I do it? I can play this game better than them. And then we start a down on downward spiral game, and you already mentioned three ways, three very creative ways in which others, yeah. So the UDA loop again accelerates, but it can accelerate extraction, it can accelerate the bad thing, or it can accelerate the flourishing. That's again this gener coming back to this generator functions. What are my beliefs? What where is my imagination? What is my motivation? What is my moral body? Again, yes. Am I if I see the free rider, am I gonna do what they do? Or what am I gonna do? No, this is not right. And maybe I talk to the free rider. This is not right, and and then I can talk to everybody on the team and say we have to eliminate this parasites, right? There are many ways, but the convenient way is to copy, unfortunately. Why is that? And it is because internally, yes, we do not cultivate this, starting with education. From the takers, we do not reward the makers, those who actually uh uh do the right thing. We consider them idiots, by the way, useful idiots, right? And like, okay, those who make, okay, fine, and I'm gonna take from you and ha ha ha, you are useful idiots. This is the world in which we live. And of course, those, the useful idiots like us, they are the ones who don't find their place here anymore. And maybe sometimes because if they are very young, right, the kids who have a strong moral compass, they can get into mental health because or or if you work in a dysfunctional organization, right, which has the wrong values, then with the extractive wood aloops and you practically realize it is organic, like Ponch was mentioning. It is, you know, I feel it in my DNA when I don't do the right thing. And so I think, yeah, it all comes back to this. And um, I will share with you after the podcast, or maybe when we talk about this, I have a map about how values emerge from these generator functions and how the ODA loop ends up accelerating either the capture engine, for example, yes, uh lights, uh free riding and so on, or the wisdom engine. And I think this is very important, yes, to to look at that. Because I do not see, or maybe at least we know much more about the Oda Loop than than me. I mean, Ouda Loop allows our orientation, but which direction we choose to go, still think is determined by this internal in our muscles. Hmm That's how I see it.

Mark McGrath: 1:15:51

So tell me more about like make maker when you say maker and taker, that you know we the system rewards the takers, not the makers.

Speaker 3: 1:16:01

Yes, it does.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:16:03

Yeah, to be or to do. It's to be or to do right there. Makers or takers, right? Takers are the doers or the beers, right? I'm gonna be part of the I'm gonna take from it. I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna make something with it, right? So that was I think that's a nice connection.

Mark McGrath: 1:16:20

I was also thinking too of so so to Ponch's point, John Boyd said there's a path you could be or to do, and to do are the ones that bring the change and and and to be are the ones that that take. Um I also was thinking of Ayn Rand, and if you've ever read Atlas Shrugged, I think of the heroes of the stories or the producers. Yeah, it versus the people that were the parasites.

Speaker: 1:16:42

That's why it's called uh platform serfdom, right? I mean, we are put in a situation in which we become captive to pay the rent with our data, with our life, with uh, you know, whatever I do into the platform. Then I become so addictive that I am a slave there. I mean, there are so many, you know, Uber is also, I mean, when I uh come from Dallas to to my home in Arlington, uh, because I travel a lot, I always ask the Uber drivers, guys, uh, how much money do you get on this ride? And I pay $80 and they get $20. So I'm like, oh my god, this is unbelievable. I shouldn't do that, I shouldn't even take that. But on the other side, yeah, I I would who would lose would be the poor driver. And that is the maker, right? And the taker is uh the Uber uh C suite of which, and you know, he is very gifted. He was my former student, Garrett Camp. He bought the most expensive home in Hollywood. With what money do you think? You know, it's uh it's again, yeah, so it's this platform serfdom, which uh we actually praise. We actually praise more and more. I mean, unfortunately, um it it can be more equitable, it can be more ethical. And artificial intelligence, no matter what we do, you know, because we talk about AI alignment, no matter what we do, artificial intelligence will copy us and will accelerate what we do more, yeah, exponentially. Where do we want to go as a humanity? Because this is not like flourishing of who, you know, I mean, who has the power, who has the levers, who has to turn the buttons. It's very complex. That's why I'm still working on it, yeah, with uh governance as a moral technology. What do we do? So, and if the UDA loop can help, if you see any way to stake us from the capture games, uh that'd be fantastic.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:18:34

I believe it can. I'm curious, can you share with our audience the folks that you're working with and you know what kind of influence do you have with not just the businesses, but with maybe our government and other governments? I know you were at Davos last year or this past year, is that correct?

Speaker: 1:18:47

No, I absolutely, absolutely. And so I'm an advisor to the government. I'm not going to name because uh of confidentiality, and maybe if you don't like what those governments do, you're gonna blame me. I have to tell you one thing, one important thing here. When you are an advisor, you advise, but that doesn't mean the government will do, or whoever you advise will do what you advise. And more often than not, they don't. And for example, when I was advising, I was on the science council of one government, and they did not implement the recommendations. And then we were blamed in the press by the people. It's like, it's me. No, we did not. We sent a report which was completely different than than what they did. So that's another thing, right? And it's like, how do we how do we solve that one? So, but what I'm doing mainly, I'm developing technology. Technology which I believe that will contribute to human flourishing. That is, you know, we have um a project called the Beneficial General Intelligence, where we direct the power of artificial general intelligence, which is kind of what's happening now with GPT, but more than that. And we live in the future. I always lived in the future, in a better future, at least how I imagine and I envision it. So, how that can help us have a better life, and and which kind of products do we want? Products which are enhancing our capabilities, our health, our longevity, and so on and so forth. And uh which um so what we train that uh AI on are exactly what uh we discuss here, right? Uh the the ethics, the morality of the from the ancient Sun Tzu and so on, to today. We have a lot of wisdom, which we don't use because we reduced ourselves to uh to machineries of exploitation of everything. And um and that's what we learn in school, yeah, that this is the best thing to do. In the end, it turns against us because we live in this society that uh, as you say, the loneliness is not only social media, social media is a reflection of us right now. And and that's why the loneliness, because we don't cultivate the togetherness anymore, we don't cultivate the community anymore, and we do not praise those who contribute. It's not a meritocracy, it's a takerocracy, if I may call it this way.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:21:14

I wonder if you uh mind us asking a strange question, and let me lead into that. So we know that we've heard that large language models can hallucinate. We understand from Anil Seth and researchers like uh Carl Friston and others that uh, you know, Bayesian theorem applied to predictive processing, that our perception of reality is a controlled hallucination. So on The topic of hallucinations and that and human flourishing, uh, do you have any thoughts on plant-based medicine and the possibility of how that might change uh the course of choice, if you want to put it that way?

Speaker: 1:21:44

Okay, well, uh it's a kind of uh uh pointed question, but I will uh detangle it to answer it correctly, right? So there's one thing, the LLM hallucination, at least from what we know today. And another thing is hallucination when you take um uh plants, let's call it like that in general. Uh so the plants, the hallucinatory plants, are good because they are enabling our imagination, they are helping us step out of the system and enhance our perspective and our orientation subsequently. So it can get us closer to a higher reality, and that is one important thing in order to actually step out of the destructive loop of the addiction, for example. Yeah, so then you get a new perspective and more in touch with a reality which is not immediate, it's not in front of your phone screen with uh Jennifer Lopez there. So it is a different reality and it is expensive, it expands your awareness. When large language models hallucinate, it's a completely different thing. It is because how they work, it's very limited. They work in a very closed loop in which they only choose the right next word from all the knowledge of the universe. Let's let's assume they have all that. That knowledge is expressed as language, which is already a limiting factor, right? Where there's a lot of mathematics or other spiritual, yeah, if you are meditating, right? Or even if you take uh, or even to take uh those plants, then you realize there's a different dimension to reality. While in language cannot always express that. And large language models, number one, are limited to that. And second, how they choose how they phrase is simply by choosing the next most probable word. And it's uh very limited. It's not it's not correct that hallucination. So, yes, to plant-based hallucination, LLM-based hallucination, we are trying to improve, I mean to eliminate, in fact, uh, by uh neural symbolic reasoning, because initially expert systems were symbolic systems. They thought like uh a more structured way than neural networks. And it's like if this, then that. So there is a structure. So then I can have a neural network learning on a knowledge graph which is structured in a particular way, but if it is only neural networks and these LLMs, it's too restrictive, too constrained. So uh sorry for my long.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:24:22

No, I want to I want to build on this a little bit and hopefully I can do it. So a large language model reminds me of a closed OODA loop, right? It has a limited amount of information that it can who's in on a. That's not what we want when we move forward. We want natural intelligence that looks more like an open OODA loop, and we're gonna use the plant-based medicines that control us from the outside in, outside in, bottom up. We connection to the environment. We want an AI that looks not necessarily is exactly like us, because I don't think we can ever, ever do that. Um, we just don't know enough about the human brain and all living systems yet. But if we go in that direction, I believe that's gonna lead us to the human flourishing or idiocracy, and I I showed that earlier, right? You're gonna have a choice. You can either become more human and experience life the way it was intended to be, or you can be dependent on the system. So it gets back to strategic game of interaction isolation. Can you build on that some more, brother?

Speaker: 1:25:12

I can say something before he answers.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:25:14

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker: 1:25:15

Like in. I just wanted to say that our CEO, just to give you a chance to gather your thoughts, Mark. So so our founder and CEO, Dr. Ben Gertz, has decided, has built an app for our developers to meditate, to expand, with slants or without slants, but just because it's so important, as you mentioned, this open loop. Because when they develop the AI from that space for expanding, they develop a positive AI, an AI which contributes to flourishing. And this is what I wanted to say to them.

Mark McGrath: 1:25:48

And it's via an app.

Speaker: 1:25:50

Well, I mean, it can be. For example, we are also, I mean, our CEO also worked on the mind of Sophia Robot. I don't know if you heard of that. It is the first Android citizen. And Sophia Robot is also a meditation teacher now. It just walks you through with a very sweet voice through meditation steps. So it depends. It can be, and many people prefer that than a meditation teacher because they feel less judged.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:26:15

Right. Yeah. Interesting. So I don't know I have a I have a I have a platform now that does that, so I can go do uh, you know, 15, 20 minutes of Wim Hof breathing or whatever with some type of um uh binaral beats in there. So I totally get that. But what I what I just heard from you is mind expansion through the use of meditation or other modalities is allowing people to become more creative. And I want to make another connection here that people don't really understand. John Boyd's um hate to call it discovery, but the ultimate sketch, what he was, you know, when he sketched the Oodaloop, the path he was on was trying to understand the nature of how living systems create novelty or are creative, right? That's what that's about. That open OODA loop that Mark showed several times throughout today's conversation is the real OODA loop. It's not a linear four-step process. There's a lot of things going on in there. And what you just said is um an executive understands the importance of allowing their people to be creative and be connected to the external environment. And that allows them to create better technology because they're probably going to empathize more with people and they're gonna have greater access to whatever vibrations may they may connect to in within the universe. That interoceptive thing that they feel from the external world. So I thank you for that. You're the first to ever come on the show and and make that connection. We suspected that, and we hear about microdosing and things like that in Silicon Valley, but I think this is the path forward is human flourishing is is flow, by the way, the way I look at it. Um, and our technology should be designed by the same approach that we understand ourselves as humans.

Speaker: 1:27:48

Totally. And I I can take this even further if you allow me, because we actually study consciousness as well. And obviously we have to, because of the AI, which may become conscious bit before us. Like, okay, so what so consciousness, you know, there are many theories, but um it's more and more evident that consciousness is fundamental, and it's actually a space, the space in which, and then what we are humans and everything that exists are like patterns in that ocean of consciousness, and that we tap into that universal knowledge. And while what we learn, we discover from uh those spaces of universal consciousness, which are named also platonic spaces. Sorry to go into the into the woods a bit. Just one second, I want to uh emphasize this because it's there is an explanation why meditation and plant-based medicine really work very well to expand us and to lead us towards flourishing. And that space of Platonic spaces, and this is work now done by uh and proven by Professor Michael Levin from Tuft University, if you heard of him. And he has a uh symposium on platonic spaces, which is highly interdisciplinary, and he also wrote a book. He wrote papers about Buddhist meditation and how it works, but also he's a mathematician, computer scientist, and consciousness expert. So that space is a space, a mathematical space. And the idea is like prime numbers, for example. Yeah, biology respects that mathematical space. For example, you have cicadas coming every 13 or 17 years. Why? These are prime numbers because they are predators. If they come, uh if they would come every two years, the predators would adapt faster than if they come so unexpectedly at prime numbers. They cannot. The predators will come every two years, four years, six years, but with 13, it's like, oh, yeah, it's a prime number, right? They are disoriented, so it's adaptation. And we all tap into those spaces. The idea is, and it is an orientation thing. That's why when you meditate or when you do yoga, you attune yourself to the patterns which are coming from the platonic spaces, and inspiration, imagination, they all come from there. And there are patterns, apparently, in uh the universe is speaking of coming back to Star Trek and Carl Sagan. The universe is made of patterns. And in McGilchrist, who wrote The Master and its Emissary, and more recently, The Matter which things, he also prove is proving, together with Michael Levin and many others recently, that the beauty, goodness, and truth are actually universal patterns. And that's why we are moved by a musical piece. I am moved to tears when I prove a mathematical theorem, which is again from this it's beautiful, you know. And and these are compact, this is these are orientations which actually, if we meditate, we learn to orient ourselves towards those patterns of beauty, goodness, and truth, and that is, in a word, human flourishing patterns. So that's what I wanted to say. That's why meditation is so important.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:30:57

Let me let me ask this right now. So genetically, we're predisposed to be attracted to harmonics, geometry, and math, right?

Speaker: 1:31:05

Yes. At least I am.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:31:07

And I think that's that's what we're hearing from other guests that have been on here. So if we have a collective consciousness and we're projecting something out into the universe, we should be able to find those patterns of harmonics and geometry within that. It's not a it's not just chaos. I mean, it it might be. I'm not saying, but but the more we by the by the way, the more we learn about complexity, you know, we move from the complicated to the complex, what we thought as being complex many, many years ago is probably more complicated today because we're we're we're evolving. So is that does that resonate with you that that it is possible that we are predisposed as living systems to be, I'll use the word attracted to attractors that are based off of geometry math. Okay.

Speaker: 1:31:50

That's exactly how it works. Actually, today I'm releasing on my own podcast a series of three podcasts, which I will send to you. And it is scientists who I met at the consciousness science conference, which actually proved this, exactly what you say now. They proved that our thoughts are physical, that there is this field of consciousness which our thoughts is influencing. As you started punch, like the field the environment influences me and my DNA and points of views, but the thoughts it comes from you know from the DNA, our thoughts emerge through, they call it nested antennas. And um so our power of intent actually can change. Apparently, now it can change even our past, our past memories are being changed if we transform. And it's like, I think this is very big part of healing. Sorry to go so if I think your probably audience would think woo, but it's not woo, it is science.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:32:48

No, no, we go, we go full, we will go we talk about psychedelics quite a bit on here. We talk about we've we've had guests to talk about geometry, and we've had a lot of people push back on. In fact, recently on a LinkedIn post, one of our mentors or my former mentors got upset at me because I brought up the fact that we might be connected by harmonics and telepathy. We've had we've had Julia Mossbridge on here, and I think you know her, to talk about some some pretty cool things, right? So we're we're not saying we are only curious about what's around us. That's why Moose and I are here, right? That's the whole idea of the world of reorientation. It doesn't mean this is true or not. It's hey, we ought to look into the connection between non-speaking autistic humans, telepathy, consciousness, the new sphere. The new yeah, the and and the acoustic records, and and quantum physics, quantum mechanics, and understanding AI. Is that wrong? Should we not be looking? And that's what we're saying here. So thanks again so much for bringing this up. I really want to see these hear these podcasts, by the way. They're they they sound fantastic.

Speaker: 1:33:49

And here, that's what I would say. You see, so exactly. So language is not enough. We cannot express in language. Language is very limited to express all what you said here, right? No, see, the field. And uh the thing is that um it is as simple as the electromagnetic field of the earth. I mean, our thoughts influenced that, believe it or not, because I was like, what? So our thoughts are like physically that way, because there are waves, obviously, yeah, there are waves. And of course, yeah, if we go further with this uh universal consciousness. I have to tell you a little story here, if I may. So I studied microprocessors in university because I wanted to build robots. And Z80, I don't know how much you know about microprocessors, but the first one of the first ones and the best was the design by uh Z Log, Z80 was called, and and it was designed, his creator and the founder of Z-Log is called Federico Fagin. He wrote uh a book called Silicon. Federico had a, I would call it an enlightenment experience, which made him aware of this consciousness is one. And he wrote a book called Irreducible. It's exactly saying what we're talking about. It's proving again. So he was a, I mean, mechanistic, a classical scientist. Like I was trained as well. And then this experience opened his perspective, as we say, with meditation and so on. And so he saw the light, let's put it this way, and then he wrote this book, which is very scientific about that validates what we're talking about. And that through this fundamental that because consciousness is fundamental, we are all one. But not only us as a humanity, we are really one with everything that lives like, you know, it's this is again coming back to spaceshippers, yes, and its author. We are really one with the nature. We have to live, to learn to live symbiotically and you know, govern ourselves. And that's why, yeah, this complexity, self-organization. We have to change the way in which we live and and uh give up the mechanistic ways and live more organically, if I may call it.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:35:58

So it's okay to step away from materialism and into some other realm and under try to explore that. That's what I'm learning from you. So I'm kind of curious. Uh so going back to the telepathy tapes in the 2024, I think they were the number one podcast. Not everybody's tuned into that or or I did. They and it's fantastic, and I think the second season's out, and we've had Doc Mossbridge on here, and we've introduced her to uh Sarah as well. Wow. What is it possible that we're all communicating um via telepathy and we don't know it, but that's how we create the things around us? Let me let me rephrase that. I heard in another podcast or another recording we did recently that the very conversation that we were having, the three of us in that room or in this virtual room, was happening somewhere else, right? Um I mean, not just us, but somebody else could be having the same conversations. Uh, think about the emergence of flight uh a hundred plus years ago, right? It wasn't just done in one place. I think the same thing with the other technologies and things like that. They're happening simultaneously. People are creating them. How is that happening? Is it through telepathy? Any thoughts on that?

Speaker: 1:37:05

Yes, I have a lot of thoughts on it, uh, my dear Ponch, because um, and don't envy me, please, but maybe you know from my LinkedIn that my job description is called chief alchemist, right? Well, I have to tell you, this is exactly how I operate. And I am sure that I'm on this podcast because I created it. And it's exactly what I was saying about the power of intent and uh podcast, the three, because I needed to have three, yeah, because it's such a because they proved it scientifically, right? I mean, yes, there is power of intent which goes through our thoughts and we create, we make things happen. This is, you know, people are always asking me, they they kept asking me, yes, forever, how did you make it happen? You know, and and and I recognize it. When I want something and then it happened, and tears come to my eyes because it's like, wow, I made it happen. So the answer is yes. To your question. Yes, we make things happen. But I you can call it telepathy. I have to say, of course, I have also this kind of I don't want to call it powers, but we don't have a better uh a better ability. Let's call it ability. And I have to tell you even more, my mother, my mother had this much more than me. Maybe I don't know why. Maybe it is it is also, as we know, with autistic kids and so on. I think it's um some people have this developed originally, yeah. Like that the DNA is structured in such a way that they have that capability more developed. And my mom really had it that both me and my father were sometimes scared, but she knew the future, like exactly like Julia with her premonition code. And we were like, oh my god, how do you know? Well, one day I have to tell you this example, just sorry about that. You can cut it if you want. So I was uh I mean, she was going that far as to tell me what I will get at the exam. And I'm like, nah, they're not gonna give me that. I'm not learning that. Okay, it's up to you. And you will sit in the front row. And I say, No, my name is with you. I will sit in the last row. You are totally wrong. Well, I entered the exam room, I sit in the front row, I'm like already crying, because I knew, and they give me exactly what she told me. And I'm like, oh my god, I didn't learn that, you know. So I'm like, but I I passed. So just wanted to tell you how far it can go, and that I experienced this since I was uh my mom's child.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:39:30

Well, when we stop recording, we have an introduction for you.

Speaker: 1:39:33

Wow.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:39:34

Uh we we we need a couple more hours with you, not yeah, over time. I I I wasn't expecting this conversation today. I tell you that, I thought we were going to more AI. Um, what we've talked about here is not this isn't the first time we've had these conversations on here. We we we thought about these things and and we're we're we're exploring them and how do they what do they mean to us in in the realm of uh prediction or anticipatory thinking, creativity, maybe even in the healthcare, right? There's there's a lot of things that I believe the combination of human flourishing with AI and what we just talked about is the future forward. That's the path I want to see happen. I don't want to go down the idiocracy path, right? I want to go down this path which makes us amazing humans.

Speaker: 1:40:19

And and one thing which uh we can imagine, let's leave it in the imaginary around for now, is uh what I call and we call mind plexis, like humans, yes, uh, with our thoughts interacting, like the autistic kids or the kids which could not communicate in in other ways. Uh through telepathy, but have telepathy also with the conscious AIs of the future, right? So if we will get there, and that is a completely and in Star Trek they have episodes like that in which there are only this uh in the space intelligence is uh coming as and talking to them, and like, oh, where are you? And yes, you hear just the voice. Okay, I I learned your language just to express myself as you cannot understand. So it is uh yeah, there's still a lot to discover, and uh and and our imagination yes can take us in many places. So I can't hear you anymore somehow. I hope it's okay.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:41:19

That's fine. I'm sorry. I I'm sharing an image that I wanted to share earlier, and it's actually an image of John Boyd on the Star Trek uh soundstage. I don't know if I I I I but you I just wanted to share that again because it kind of brings us back to where we were. A while ago.

Mark McGrath: 1:41:33

I will share this with our uh he was definitely neurodiverse.

Speaker: 1:41:41

Oh heart, heartwarming. But yes, yes, and uh most of my gifted uh students also. So I feel home among uh among them. Yes, yes, of course.

Mark McGrath: 1:41:53

Yeah, I have like uh another three hours worth of questions, but I think we'll I think we'll have to be able to do that.

Speaker: 1:42:00

Yes, we should we should do this again.

Mark McGrath: 1:42:01

Hey, we maybe we also we also appear on podcasts ourselves, as you know, so we'd love to come on yours too.

Speaker: 1:42:09

So thank you, yes, definitely. But uh would you come separate or uh doesn't matter. Yeah, that's it. We do either or I want to see how you by yourselves as a professor.

Mark McGrath: 1:42:22

Well, we do we do both. So yeah, we uh we've actually been on the same podcast in different installments where where someone will have me on and someone will have Ponch on.

Speaker: 1:42:31

Because I have seen you alone uh on this latest one, Mark. That's why I'm asking. I think it's also alone.

Mark McGrath: 1:42:37

Yeah, I flew out to LA for that one. That that one's getting an interesting, interesting about that one. What we were talking about earlier about the shattering of linear OODA. I mean, that was to an audience, and I ended up doing a five-hour training session with the with the with the audience of that particular podcast.

Speaker: 1:42:54

Amazing.

Mark McGrath: 1:42:55

That they're so well versed on the linear understanding, but then just to shatter that to give them the broader understanding of what we've been talking about the entire time. Um, it's really amazing. And I think that what they got out of it is like, wow, this will actually make us better at what we do.

Speaker: 1:43:11

That's why I think also uh uh the audience of my podcast, which is this the developers of uh the superintelligences, yes. Uh I think they will be very interested in in uh what you have to say. They design the right way.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:43:27

You said they're developers? Uh just a couple connections here. So you you know, the I don't know if you ever track Scrum um created by Jeff Sullen, how people use it for agile software development. Of course. That's actually created by John Boyd's Oodaloop, Observer Right Decide Act. That's where it's 100%. Same with the lean startup. That concept is 100% based off of John. That's from Eric Rees and um uh I think it was Mentor at the moment at Stanford.

Speaker: 1:43:49

Yeah, about the Yeah, yeah. But it's it's wow.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:43:51

You will find this in more places, and a lot of times it's built off the linear OODA loop. Yeah. And what we're saying is if you shift away from that, you're gonna see more. And maybe using lessons, uh maybe using lessons from free energy principle, what we say about that is the Oodle loop is just um excuse me, the free energy principle is actually the formalization of John Boyd's Oodaloop, right? It's a a way to think about it. So if you think of a low energy approach to help organizations dominate in this environment, what's the lowest way you can do that? And Mark and I will argue it's teaching them John Boyd's real oodle loop because it connects to so many things, right? Yeah.

Speaker: 1:44:29

The thing is, because you mentioned now the free energy and what the simplest way, and you have the answer. Yes, I have an answer because I'm not such an expert in Woodalo, but I would be interested to see. Maybe we can explore together. I put you to some some research, you know, I can't coordinate. So um, for example, uh because like the other um platonic spaces, right? So as far as which is the power of intent, and you know, like when you imagine something or you want something, you're looking for a solution. Well, you discover the solution is looking for you as well.

Mark McGrath: 1:45:03

And Michael, like library agents, you find exactly the right book, or someone right the right person comes to the We we talk about all the time, you know, I don't think there's any accidents, and we all kind of found ourselves for for very specific reasons. Um, and the people in our tribe and our circle, like we, you know, we keep running into things, and it is almost like a manifestation, but I think it's definitely pointing us to a much bigger picture and a broader understanding. And I think that that's what Boyd and McLuhan and others were in Buckminster Fuller and others were were were chasing and left the world knowing that there was more to it than what they had physically experienced down here, that there's a lot more going on.

Speaker: 1:45:43

And and and Michael Levin and many scientists, because you mentioned the free energy principle, call it free lunches. And to answer Ponch's point, yes, because he said that the minimal energy that it takes you to do something, that is the right thing. So, how does it work is much simpler. So Michael Levin created the from cells, he takes cells and puts them together, and then some beings appear, and then these cells start to do things which are completely different than what they did before. Let's say if they are liver cells, and then they start to mend wounds or to do some other things. And so his point is yeah, you just need to do a little bit give them like a little energy, you know, like like touch them, and then they start to do that. And his point is, yeah, because that's these platonic space patterns ingress into our behavior, and they ingress also into those things. So that is the free energy, the free lunches, it's the minimal way in which you can do something, but it is more fundamental because it is in our DNA, as you said, and then it's a knowing, it's an inner knowing which we have to cultivate, and then we would know the right thing and the fastest way naturally to do human flourishing, I call it. That's the result.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:47:05

Yeah, so I'm curious. Uh, so I've I've had uh a professor reach out to me today, wanted to talk to Carl Friston about attractors and the free energy principle and and things like that. That's a discussion I'd love to have with you. Again, we're we're at two hours a day. This there's so many more ways we can push into the fun.

Speaker 3: 1:47:21

Yeah, let's uh we would I would say Oh, I I have so much more to say, but but but we wouldn't. I have your eye.

Mark McGrath: 1:47:31

We got a lot to learn. Yeah, no, we uh we we would definitely, both individually or as a duo, you know, Ponch and I uh feed off each other. We come to the same conclusions most often, but from two different backgrounds. You know, he I'm more kind of the liberal arts guy, and he's more the the science, neuroscience guy.

Speaker 3: 1:47:48

Uh-huh.

Mark McGrath: 1:47:49

Yet I always joke that it's like John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Like one's like to the point, real, the other one's kind of I I I try to be melodic.

Speaker: 1:47:59

In between you, I have to say, I'm both a poet and a mathematician. So I fit well here in the middle.

Mark McGrath: 1:48:05

Yeah, yeah, that's my that's my aspiration, uh, for uh for sure. So yeah, but let I mean, because there's there's uh there's a lot more to cover uh so but uh we wanted to uh we we have a lot to talk to offline when we stop recording, but we wanted to say uh uh multomesk uh for coming on the uh for coming on the show.

Speaker: 1:48:31

And uh thank you so much for for the invite. I mean I'm like again, yeah. I uh uh I don't want to take too much credit, but I know I made it happen. Sorry guys, maybe I give you some credit, but okay.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:48:45

That's okay. So let's go back to one point. We're all one, right? That's right. There you go.

Speaker: 1:48:50

Thank you for the was a bit more.

Speaker 3: 1:48:52

No, no, no, no. I'm saying you're right.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera: 1:48:55

You are us, we're all one, so what you made it happen. Yeah. Just like Dr.

Mark McGrath: 1:48:59

Bronner's soap says on the bottle. Anyway. All right, we're gonna stop recording. Uh Mutumask, if my pronunciation was right.

Speaker 3: 1:49:07

Thank you, Mutumas.