The True Story of The Universe with Dr. Rich Blundell

Rich Blundell

Intro

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he river.

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[00:00:08] Jeff Nesbitt: And we've got a great show for you.

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[00:00:32] the best way I have to describe it is that my personality disappears. And I know that sounds weird, but that's what it feels like literally, and that it's not like a scary thing or a bad thing. What happens when I travel by myself and it only happens when I'm by myself. If I'm with people who I already know, then my identity [00:01:00] remains, but I have noticed, and it's happened since I was a kid that when I'm in a brand new place with all people who don't really know me or don't at all know me, I don't feel.

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[00:01:35] Almost as if my personality is a costume and I just leave it at home when I travel alone, because I don't need it. And obviously I'm still the same person. I'm still, I still feel the same feelings and react to the world in a similar way, but it's not performative

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[00:02:09] I tried to explain this to my wife last night on the phone, just kind of as general commentary on being a human weirdo and. Her response was a long pause and then, uh, you'll be fine.

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[00:02:30] And I've noticed that a lot of people will take that as a complaint and I'm not complaining. I'm simply stating like, Hey. I had a decent day. It was okay. I, you know, I had a conference, did a little networking professionally. That's always good. And oh yeah, my personality disappeared and that's not a complaint.

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[00:03:18] Hopefully sounds normal. Now I'm a little paranoid about that.

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[00:03:22] Anyway. So I'm traveling. Oh, something cool happened yesterday while I was driving. So I'm driving through Washington. I'm just out there and kind of mountainous scrub lands, I'm driving along the edges of a cliff and over the edge of the cliff, two of these big.

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[00:03:58] Very beefy for, uh, an [00:04:00] animal. It was pretty cool. I felt very excited about it. I wanted to like, post about it and call all of the people I know. And then I realized how weird it would be if I did that. Because if I think about it, I see big ass animals regularly. And I don't get nearly as excited when I see a big bull elk or something while I do get excited still that never really never goes away.

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[00:04:32] So what's going on in the world? , Russia is still invading Ukraine. That's all. I'm getting nervous. I really hope we don't end up going to war. I don't want to go to war as a country, but especially as an individual, I'm not going to war I'm two years below the cutoff for the draft. I think, I think it's 35 and I really don't want to go to war.

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[00:05:17] Is there a point where it is not rude to interject, you know, for corrections and such. Here's what happened.

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[00:05:40] All on a bed of fresh local micro greens. Of course, this came after the , warm, bread and butter and get this the butter cubes, not cold room temp. This place knows what the fuck they're doing. So I mean, dinner. I'm really enjoying this skirt steak, but it is a little chewy, [00:06:00] which I'm fine with.

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[00:06:20] I prefer foods that I could scarf down quickly because I get bored and I realized like, oh, I'm no longer entertained by this food. I'm ready to move on. So if I'm not finished with it, I'll just leave it. . So I'm, I'm finishing up my meal. People have started to clear out of the. And, uh, there's a couple, a young couple sitting at the table just to the north of me and they appear to be on a date or they are, they're hanging out.

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[00:07:03] So yeah, I'm listening

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[00:07:07] so this guy tells a story. Yeah, man. And I, I. Zone in when he's halfway through. He's like, yeah. So we pulled up to the Jiffy lube in Moscow, and there's a huge line. And the line is out in the road. The guy, the cars are parking in the road, it's causing a huge traffic jam.

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[00:07:41] People were pissed and he, endured all of that criticism, got through the line in his Honda accord only to find out they're out of oil filters. So he can't get his oil changed. And boy was he pissed and that was the story. This is a first date I'm assuming. And that story was shit. [00:08:00] This guy is not getting his Dick sucked based on the merits of that story.

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[00:08:35] So that's where they learn about potatoes and dirt

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[00:08:45] Anyway. So this Idaho in trying to impress this girl and she, so she says, Hey, We're talking about oil changes. I have a story I would like to contribute. And I, this is where it really got difficult for me not to chime [00:09:00] in. You know, I'm a teacher at heart.

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[00:09:13] So she started out by telling this guy that her dad was trying to make her check her oil in case she needed to change it and get new oil, which obviously she does because everybody does. That's what you do every, you know, three to 7,000 miles, depending on whether you're using full synthetic or not. You need a new filter, new oil, keep it moving slick.

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[00:10:09] she brought her dipstick and they were going to use hers, but they couldn't find where to stick it in. So that makes no fucking sense because no. It's going to pull their fucking oil dipstick out of their car and bring it along to go visit a friend. That's not going to happen just in case, just in case she wants to check her oil, not going to fucking happen.

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[00:10:46] at this time the guy is like, okay, yeah. I think the dipstick is like the lid. Tell your mode. That's what he said. And at this point I got my first impulse to be [00:11:00] like, no, you fool. No, the dipstick has its own entry point. And it is only for collecting data it's to check the level of the oil in the engine.

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[00:11:19] And then she's like, but the true story and the real reason that I never checked my oil is because they never unlocked my car at the factory. And I said, what. The fuck are you talking about, because if they never unlocked your car at the factory, how the fuck did you get in it? And how did you drive it?

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[00:12:12] Okay. So at this point, my. Child I say my inner child. Cause that motherfucker love to correct. People was screaming out you idiots. . I wanted so badly to tell them ma'am respectfully the way you pop a hood on a car. And that is a correct term. It's called Papa hood. It's like popping a shirt off.

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[00:12:52] Find yourself that little lever and click it. And it will release that that secondary lock. The reason for the [00:13:00] secondary locks is that just in case your hood happens to pop, when you did not want that shit to be popped, it doesn't fly open and blind you while you're driving down the freeway. Tommy boy style, Tommy boy, right?

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[00:13:32] Check your oil, check your tires. Don't get into a situation where you're going to get stranded somewhere for being dumb and lazy. I've been there and it's sucks. You ever hitchhiked in the snow as a small child because your van caught on fire. I mean, it wasn't, your van was your parent's van, but it sure as hell caught on fire.

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[00:14:17] He put the fire out, but now we're on top of a mountain in the snow and we have to walk somewhere. It couldn't have been a real mountain where we're. I don't even know. I'll have to look that up. It's interesting when you're a kid everything's so big and different and we an adult, you come back, it's not nearly what you thought it was, but yeah, we had to hitchhike to a gas station and get a gas cannon.

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[00:15:00] And it never really occurred to me that they put us in it. I probably should not have been hitchhiking on, in a snow storm, on a mountain dad,

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[00:15:13] I'm a pretty resilient guy. I can put myself into a lot of different situations and just kind of survive, maybe that's why my personality disappears when I travel, because I'm just in react mode. I'm ready. Oh, a threat addressed. Oh, something coming in Boom blocked. protected. Oh, a threat. Got it.

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[00:15:39] Yeah. I remember not having to walk very far. I think people pick you up pretty quick. If you've got a little kid with you, which is probably why I was there. I remember very clearly a car pulling over, but they pulled over like far ahead of us. It felt like too far.

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[00:16:15] What am I going to just leave these coins on the ground? Like an idiot? No. So I'm stopping to pick up these coins and my dad is screaming at me, God, I'm going leave him. The car is like flashing their breaks. Like I'm going to leave. We're going to leave. And so we get in this car. I want to say it was a station wagon, but I don't really remember for sure.

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[00:16:54] That was actually the second car. That was, that was the way back. The first car. I remember being not nice. [00:17:00] It was an old man alone and it was dirty and stinky and I fucking hated it. And yeah, that's all I got to say about that.

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[00:17:21] Oh, happy St. Patrick's day, by the way. That was last Thursday. Yeah. Happy St. Patrick's day. Hope yet ate some cabbage and potatoes. I know I did. I almost always do. I always thought I was Irish. I grew up thinking I was Irish. I'm actually like British and Scottish. And, you know, for all intents and purposes, that's the same shit.

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[00:17:46] If you missed last week's episode, the guest was Casey Venus and it was a great show. I really had fun with that one. We got pretty dirty. You know, we talked about a little bit of GEs, a lot of jazz, actually. We're talking first time, [00:18:00] GEs, sleep GEs, all different. All different kinds and it was good. I liked it.

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[00:18:23] Cause that's what I thought people were going to be like, oh my goodness. No, not come. So I was worried, not worried, but. Neurotic, regardless the episode was kicking ass and Casey's the shit. And I just, I really had fun with it. We're going to do a follow-up

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[00:18:52] You can find ramble by the river on social media at ramble by the river on Instagram and Facebook. and at ramble [00:19:00] river pod on Twitter if you have guest suggestions or business inquiries, you can find the email to contact me in the show notes for this episode, as well as@ramblebytheriver.com. I am still doing my NFT.

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[00:19:31] Just kidding, but a little bit. I'm not because it they're free. I'm just trying to, yeah. Connect people and do something new, different, and nobody wants it. Oh, my wife is calling me.

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[00:19:52] You sleep good? Yeah. It's to get here now. [00:20:00] You sick? Yeah. I still have the cold.

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[00:20:18] He doesn't understand face. No, I don't imagine she would. Ah, B.

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[00:20:37] come here and I see. please stop doing back. I'll be book

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[00:20:57] not me. We can't win. No.[00:21:00]

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[00:21:16] Anyway. I don't think I finished my story. There really wasn't a story. It was a, it was a non story. The story was that I did not speak up by the end of it. Before I left. I was sitting there with basically just this couple next to me, no one else around and listening to them, bullshit. Each other. I could tell both of them knew the other one was full of shit.

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[00:22:03] Or I don't know, maybe it's not a problem. Maybe they made beautiful, sweet love and, and the stories inaccuracies, and the fact that the fact that that girl has undoubtedly got a cell phone with internet access in her pocket, but she didn't have.

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[00:22:36] no, let me think. I'm going to actually look back into that memory and see what it really is. Oh, it was Aaron. Not as funny. Okay. Well, Aaron and Micah, that guy's name was Micah. I never saw his face. Wouldn't that be crazy? If that really was their fucking names? Oh my God. I don't know. Those are the names that just popped up to me.

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[00:23:06] May the raindrops fall lightly on your eyebrow. may the solar wind, the lesson. May the sunshine break your heart may the burdens of the rest of the day, lightly upon you. And may God involved you in his mental of his laugh or Gaelic blessing. Snakes be damned. I don't know what St Patrick's day is about, but I do not give a shit either.

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[00:23:38] I have not edited the episode yet for this week,

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[00:23:43] There's no news or current events other than the collapse of our society.

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[00:23:54] Don't forget to subscribe,

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[00:24:19] But if you forget, I don't really give a shit. I love you anyway. So let's get this shit on the road.

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[00:25:00] Which is pretty cool. We talked about a lot of stuff. That's kind of abstract that you can feel, but not necessarily. See,

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[00:25:30] I don't know. I'm kind of rambling, but after all this is rambled by the. So, you know what you were signing up for, but let's get to the show

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[00:25:58] Also follow him on Twitter at [00:26:00] this is a Waco.

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Rich Blundell MAIN

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[00:00:00] Rich Blundell: rich.

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[00:00:04] . Nice. Nice to meet you. And thank you for coming on the show. Uh, so I'm, my recorder is already going and eyes as far as the way I usually do these. I like it to be kind of a conversational tone. So I have questions prepared and I also took a lot of the questions off of your pod match profile. And, um, but if you have certain talking points or a certain way, you like to go through stuff, I'm open to just letting you go.

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[00:00:35] Jeff Nesbitt: start with just a few, uh, I'll ask you a few questions just about kind of get to know you a little bit. Sure. All right. Um, but yeah, also like this is very loose, uh, easygoing podcast.

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[00:00:56] Rich Blundell: you got a nice west coast [00:01:00] attitude. I like it.

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[00:01:07] Rich Blundell: It's crazy. Cause I'm right on the Atlanta.

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[00:01:11] Jeff Nesbitt: We are really on the edges of the, of the continent. Yeah. I could hit her. I can hit the, uh, I can see the Pacific ocean from my backyard right here.

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[00:01:23] Jeff Nesbitt: cool. What a world we're living in, huh?

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[00:01:37] It's just

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[00:01:43] Rich Blundell: I would say so. I mean, I, I use it, uh, as a tool. Um, I have some critique of, of technology too, you know, but I, uh, I'm not a technophobe by any

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[00:02:01] But a lot of it's very, very

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[00:02:09] Jeff Nesbitt: that's a good point. It's a reflection of what we are saying. It's like the AI stuff, especially because people are so afraid that yeah, they're afraid of the, the computers taken over, but really they're all programmed by people.

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[00:02:58] Jeff Nesbitt: that sounds like a very [00:03:00] practical way to look at.

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[00:03:20] And what are your, what's your opinion on that? Like, as far as it gets concerned with censorship on the internet and, you know, creativity and expression, and are we in danger of losing people like losing people's ability to be creative because we're so worried about making sure that, you know, everyone's fitting the official narrative and everything is all in line checking all the right boxes,

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[00:03:46] Jeff Nesbitt: like as a muddled question.

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[00:03:49] Rich Blundell: best. Well, I wouldn't say it's muddled, but it's definitely conflating a lot of big. So, um, it could be, it could stand to be picked apart a little bit. Uh, I do agree with you [00:04:00] that a utopia is a myth and it's a naive and dangerous sort of, um, goal to have. But I think we, I think most people, most thoughtful people have come to understand that, that the, you know, the, the, just the naivete of, of utopian societies.

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[00:04:53] It's it's old news. And, um, but, and I do hear what you're [00:05:00] saying about it. You hear echoes of it in popular culture, but, uh, I don't think we need to worry about it because, um, those voices are just, um, they're being drowned out by much smarter voices eventually here. Great. So that's, that's, that's one part of that question.

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[00:05:22] Jeff Nesbitt: Go ahead. Whenever you're ready.

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[00:05:39] Jeff Nesbitt: you said, I, if, if you want I'll just list, move, move past that question.

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[00:05:45] Rich Blundell: Tell me a little bit about, I, I can almost, I can almost guarantee we'll get back to entrenched narratives one way or another here, but yeah. Um, my work, um, my work is, um, uh, I am a, uh, uh, kind of a [00:06:00] Renegade, uh, ex recovering academic. I was never a very good scholar, uh, but I did come up through the ranks in academia.

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[00:06:41] Yes. It's largely about the relationships between the creatures and characters that we meet in nature like trees and birds and Brooks and marshes and oceans, things like that. Yes, it is about that. But ecology more generally is just about the relationships that unfold, the trophic [00:07:00] and energy, that relationship, sorry, the feeding, the food webs and the, um, regimes of energy, how energy flows through systems.

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[00:07:29] Jeff Nesbitt: So ecology, if I can summarize, is they the economics of how energy is exchanged and changed between and among organisms?

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[00:07:59] Jeff Nesbitt: Okay. [00:08:00] So the whole thing that is created by the interaction, not necessarily what's being exchanged.

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[00:08:35] You know, what, what unexpected and unpredictable things come out of these relationships and how do these relationships, um, evolve over time? You know, how do they come and go? How do they decline and rise? And when you start talking like that, in terms of like social systems or culture or politics, or then things get really interesting and relevant,

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[00:09:03] Rich Blundell: Observe it participate in it. I mean, like I said, I mean, I sort of left academia, so I want to be clear about something. I'm not claiming to be a scientist, you know, active or actively engaged or doing science. Right. Um, that's sort of my past, I've left that domain of, you know, pursuit, but, um, how do you study it?

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[00:09:52] Jeff Nesbitt: Um, as opposed to a former scientist, it sounds like.

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[00:10:15] But if you already have that background, you can kind of apply some of those rigorous principles to some of the more abstract things that are going on around us. You probably have a very good idea of, of the big picture.

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[00:10:51] It somewhat of an understanding of how the hypothetical deductive method works, you know, and how induction is limited. These [00:11:00] methods that we, that we use in science. And you have to remember when we, you know, most scientists, number one, don't go that deep with the philosophy. So they just sort of do science.

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[00:11:32] And so, and that's fine. I'm not, I'm not criticizing that. I'm just acknowledging it. So yeah, my, uh, training and my, you know, my academic or let's say intellectual explorations of science do give me somewhat unique, not. You know, I'm not a brilliant, you know, not, not, I'm not a brilliant rigorous scientist by any means, but I do have an understanding of the limits [00:12:00] of science and I respect, I respect the science and scientific knowledge and I Revere it just like a scientist would, but I also see where that kind of knowledge can, uh, fail.

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[00:12:28] Jeff Nesbitt: Okay, let me stop you there. That's all great information. I want to ask a couple of questions. Um, first, where would you say we are failing?

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[00:12:44] Rich Blundell: think it's just, there's this idea of, you know, positivism, which is this idea that you posit, that there is a answer to a question, and then you, you find that answer and you publish it as fact that has failed, that has been failing [00:13:00] for a long time.

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[00:13:19] Jeff Nesbitt: hypothesis testing and all that.

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[00:13:23] Rich Blundell: And there's a reason we do that. And it's all that, there's all their safeguards built into the process like falsifiability and reproducibility and peer review and all that stuff is trying to like make science as honest. Uh, accurate as possible. You got to give him

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[00:13:46] Science is that set of rules. That structure is science and this. So that's why when people say, oh, they don't follow the science that a lot of the time that doesn't actually even apply because

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[00:14:08] Jeff Nesbitt: money.

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[00:14:35] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. There's a lot of potential for fuckery built in because yeah, data doesn't lie, but an analytic tools can bring a lot of different conclusions and you get to choose which ones you use.

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[00:14:58] So it's, it's, it's [00:15:00] okay. You know, it's like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not running around in crisis mode because it's not because science is having a reckoning. I think it is a reckoning that, and that there are other ways of knowing that are now, you know, becoming more and more sort of. Respectable. So,

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[00:15:19] You're also not an active academic, but you're somebody with a science background who can speak to scientific topics, but not as an absolute authority, you see some cracks in the scientific world. And what are these newer ways of knowing that you are now into? Cause that's what I want to talk about.

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[00:15:45] Because in some ways the lived experience can reveal and surface nuances of the complexity of relationships that you're studying, you know, better than a reductionist mode, which is to say, I'm going to take this thing apart [00:16:00] into little pieces and understand the pieces as a way of understanding the whole, which is a nice sentiment, but it doesn't work that way because.

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[00:16:34] Jeff Nesbitt: to mind for me.

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[00:16:53] Rich Blundell: of, or anecdote, which is a dirt, which is a dirty word in science

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[00:17:00] Point of view. Those are both terrible sources of data because they're, they're so specific and that they have low external validity, but I think

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[00:17:08] Rich Blundell: but all you got to do is adjust your relight, your Alliance

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[00:17:17] And those are actually the foremost expert on a very specific thing. So if you're, if you're trying to study that specific thing, for example, meditation, there are, there are people who say like the studies that involve, um, doing brain scans of monks, people who have spent decades meditating and yeah. That a lot of people have criticisms of those studies because they're like those, aren't the average person's brains that you're studying.

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[00:17:49] Rich Blundell: Gotcha. What I feel is going on here in this conversation right now is equivocating. Like we're starting to use. Sort of understandings from one level of complexity on another level of [00:18:00] complexity on a lower level of complexity.

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[00:18:24] Jeff Nesbitt: that. Yes. That's it. That's what I'm doing. Exactly.

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[00:18:28] Rich Blundell: sorry, go on. Which is, which is fine. As long as we acknowledge that, that what we're, that's what we're doing, you know? Um, yeah.

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[00:18:39] Rich Blundell: conversation. Gotcha. Sorry. Yes. Okay.

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[00:18:47] Don't worry. I won't, I won't do this for much longer. I just wanted to make sure that the people that we're going to lose early are going to lose. We're going to lose them, but I don't want to lose everybody.

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[00:19:04] How do we make those things?

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[00:19:26] Like, how are you trying to further this study or this progression of, of what it is that you've made your, your work?

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[00:19:49] I, I it's, it's a, it's a, it's a ritual, you know, I don't want to call it religious, but it is a, uh, it's my practice [00:20:00] to spend time in the natural world, listening, allowing myself to kind of feel it knowing by the way, I need to give a shout out to knowledge when I say that, because I know a lot about it. I know how photosynthesis works.

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[00:20:40] That's been derived scientifically. Um, I'm not bragging there. I'm just saying, you know, that's what I've spent my life doing. So that's what I have. And um, so if you ask me like, what's my, you know, how, how am I, how do I engage with this material? It's like that in direct [00:21:00] contact with him and yeah, I live it.

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[00:21:25] And sometimes the places aren't beautiful, but I'm still lucky to be there. You know? So I just think that, uh, yeah, so I'm not sure if I'm answering,

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[00:21:42] Rich Blundell: We'll do the most mundane shit is magic. Okay. So yes. And you, but, but the only reason I can say that is because I know, like, I know what ma I know the mineralogy of that rock, and I know the glaciology that dropped it there. And I know, [00:22:00] you know, I know the part that, that Micah, this, you know, this mineral played in the evolution and emergence of life, you know, like I know how biology came from from minerals.

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[00:22:30] Jeff Nesbitt: put that into words. That's a big thought.

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[00:22:34] Jeff Nesbitt: The universe in a, in a moment in a, in a drop of water, in a, you know, in a, a child's laugh, all that,

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[00:22:43] Jeff Nesbitt: Everything is all one. I, I really think that

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[00:23:09] The things that MySQL mystics talk about and gurus and all that. It's, there's, there's valid valorization in the cosmic story, um, that I can't escape, even if I try.

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[00:23:33] If I, if I just ask these ones right away, but, um, it's just stuff that's popped into my head randomly over the years that I cannot get away from, um, one of them. Okay. This I'm just going to jump topics real quick. Um, so energy and the flow of energy chakras. Do you, are you into chakras or energy flow? Uh, manipulation things like.

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[00:24:15] Jeff Nesbitt: who does read books,

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[00:24:18] I sometimes I, I see them on the interweb and I'm well, okay. But the important point is that I've never seen one, you know, so I've got to take somebody's word for it, which I'm prepared to do. There's a lot of things that I don't see that I have that let me look at, you know, much of science is built. I haven't experienced a lot of that stuff, but so, but I don't, um, I'm weary and I'm cautious around it because I know that these, that if you want to talk about the way energy flows or the way that it concentrates in different parts of the bodies, the body I've got.

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[00:25:17] Jeff Nesbitt: what I'm asking. Cause that's, so that's what it seems like to me, a lot of these older, I want to call them technologies, but I don't know if that's the right word, but some of these older thinking styles and practices, a lot of them seem very much similar and a lot of them seem to kind of focus on the names and the words used to describe the phenomenon,

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[00:25:42] You know, like, yeah. When you have a better explanation that doesn't require all that mud because

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[00:26:00] And I don't know where that comes from. You're you're the first person who's ever pointed out that I do that. And I realize that's like my, my whole interview style, but everybody does it. I bet. Yeah, you're right. It's coming from, from social apprehension. I want to make sure that I'm not out here alone.

[: 00:26:17

[00:26:43] But

[: 00:26:44

[00:27:14] And then it suddenly becomes really easy to jettison that old stuff. That's not really serving us because you've got this other thing it's pulling you. That's what science is. That's what, that's what it's, that's what science has got. It's just, hasn't been articulated by anybody since Carl Sagan,

[: 00:27:31

[00:27:33] Rich Blundell: Yeah. Yeah. I would say, uh, absolutely. I sort of like came, you know, I was, I kinda missed the Carl Sagan, you know, world that he had, you know, I wasn't around when he was like a thing, but, um, definitely he was a. Uh, he was, he's an inspiration

[: 00:27:53

[00:27:58] I like it a lot.

[: 00:27:59

[00:28:26] Like that is not just poetic speaking. That is literally what's going on.

[: 00:28:31

[00:28:39] Rich Blundell: It means, well, exactly what it says that our experience of the world is the world experiencing itself. Then what

[: 00:28:50

[00:28:51] What is a self?

[: 00:28:53

[00:29:20] Jeff Nesbitt: is there any difference between I and we,

[: 00:29:25

[00:29:36] Jeff Nesbitt: me too, but not all the time.

[: 00:29:39

[00:29:42] Rich Blundell: I don't think it's, I don't think it's a big problem because you can't live in that state, at least not right now. And in that state of I, as we, but knowing that it exists and knowing that you have access to it changes the way you behave and changes the way you interact with the world.

[: 00:29:58

[00:30:15] Jeff Nesbitt: Yes. Yes. And I think on some level, a lot of people can feel that to be true deep in their bones.

[: 00:30:23

[00:30:24] And I think that's why Shakur is, are so resonant with people because they are a way to like conceptualize something that they feel phenomenological, that they feel. And here's this, here's this easy to digest concept that that makes it real. And I got news for you. It is real, but I'm not so sure that that little sort of depiction of it is.

[: 00:30:46

[00:30:49] Jeff Nesbitt: I believe completely what you're saying, right. That resonates really strongly with me. And it's because of my experience with religion, period. I think that's so much [00:31:00] of what is religion has that has been established because it's just people trying to explain these things that are going on.

[: 00:31:07

[00:31:09] Rich Blundell: becomes its own. I'm not even sure there, but I'm not even sure the original religion was about explaining it as opposed as, as much as it was about experiencing it with others. In other words, sharing in that experience with others. In fact, that's kind of the root of the word, religion, LIG, LIG religio is about connection.

[: 00:31:27

[00:31:40] Jeff Nesbitt: But you community.

[: 00:31:43

[00:31:49] I'm here to tell you, you know, like I have interrogated the story of the universe and I got to tell you, like, I'm finding the same thing that those people found [00:32:00] that Rumi found that, you know, that, that all these mystics found, we just have different and more coherent and cogent, um, data now to talk about it and to experience it.

[: 00:32:15

[00:32:18] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. There's a lot more in agreement between the religions and there is disagreement. And if you go far enough back that a lot of the older religions start to look very similar. So what is it that with about the, the, you know, the universe that you have found out that Rumi also new?

[: 00:32:37

[00:33:37] And what it is is that consciousness is what they're talking about, what the current sort of edge of it is that they're saying that consciousness is it isn't just generated inside a body inside a neurological system and projected outward. It's actually a compilation of the world and the nervous system [00:34:00] right together.

[: 00:34:01

[00:34:24] Our nervous system itself is also part of the. What is this saying? It's saying that the world is doing the thinking, which is

[: 00:34:33

[00:34:34] Rich Blundell: the experience. Yeah. Which is what Carl Sagan said. We are away for the universe to know itself. Okay. We're just saying what he said. We're saying what the mystics have said, you know, like that the world speaks through us and we are a deeply embedded part of it.

[: 00:34:48

[00:35:08] It's actually the world itself that is impinging its impulse onto it. And then it's expressing itself through consciousness.

[: 00:35:16

[00:35:21] Rich Blundell: you could call it that. I think ego carries a bit more baggage. You could say something like in a strict legalization,

[: 00:35:28

[00:35:42] Rich Blundell: yeah.

[: 00:35:43

[00:36:01] We use narrative to like, to, to, to, um, to compile our experiences into something that can be easily recalled, which means we're trying to give those experiences durability that we can carry around in the hardware that we have, which is a neurological system. And I don't want to get too much into that, but yeah, that's what ego is.

[: 00:36:20

[00:36:23] Jeff Nesbitt: get into neurology if you want. That's actually somewhere. We are. We go sometimes on the show. I

[: 00:36:27

[00:36:42] If we hope to have one, because it's showing us that we're deeply embedded in the world and the side effect of that, you know, like you take a drug and there's a side effect or the side effect of experiencing the world in an enacted sense is that you feel like you belong to the world. And when you feel like you [00:37:00] belong to the world, you, you, when you feel like you belong to the world, the compulsion to hyper consume the world becomes irrelevant, which has the downstream effect that you treat the world differently.

[: 00:37:14

[00:37:33] Jeff Nesbitt: what is abundance rather than scarcity.

[: 00:37:37

[00:37:56] It, it tends to replace and make [00:38:00] irrelevant the things that are creating all that suffering and inequity. I know that that's like a weird, like paradox. But, but that's what I believe.

[: 00:38:10

[00:38:21] People are going to criticize you for that. And I feel, I feel that all the time. Yeah. I feel that all the time. And it's, it's almost like what you're saying is that major changes could be made on a grand scale simply by people changing the way they think. And that's, that will rub some people the wrong way for sure.

[: 00:38:42

[00:38:55] Rich Blundell: Well, dude, I'm in a fight. You know, I didn't have to, I didn't forfeit the fight in, you [00:39:00] know, by feeling this way I'm, I'm full on in the fight.

[: 00:39:02

[00:39:07] Jeff Nesbitt: Maybe it's just cynics then I'm not sure, but I feel that all the time, anytime I get into these kinds of lofty topics, which I truly believe in, and I think that they're crucial for understanding our experience of being humans.

[: 00:39:19

[00:39:30] Rich Blundell: for you to, for you to expect it to be different. I think is the problem like that, that this is when you, when you, what you call the fight, you know, which is really the struggle, the wrestle, whatever you want, you can call it many different things, but your, you know, your impulse to engage with this stuff and to share it with others is the way, remember that is the world acting through, you know, you.

[: 00:39:54

[00:40:21] I'm saying that you can say it's, I don't, I don't know if you're not even not, but I'm just saying, look, man, that is the fight. The fight of life and life and life wants to happen. And if you weren't fighting, you wouldn't be alive. So embracing it, you know, and, and enjoy it. That's the other

[: 00:40:39

[00:40:42] Okay. But, yeah, it's, it's, that's why I'm making this podcast for that. Very reason is I've always felt like I had stuff to share even when I'm not completely sure what the things are. But, um, I just, I really think that part of being on this planet is that we got to chew up these ideas [00:41:00] together.

[: 00:41:01

[00:41:12] I'm talking about the story that science has revealed about the way the universe is and the way it works and how things have come to be the way they are is this incredibly empowering narrative. And it's, um, I'm acknowledging that I'm aware of the narrative. I think we're allowed to use narrative as long as we're aware that we're doing it.

[: 00:41:33

[00:41:51] I get that. What I'm saying is that there is a narrative that science has revealed that brings to bear on what you're doing, what I'm [00:42:00] doing with people who think about the stuff we're doing with it. That's incredibly rich with concepts and experiences that we can, that we can bring to this conversation or fight whatever you want to call it that can bring to the conversation that is going to make the future better.

[: 00:42:15

[00:42:39] Jeff Nesbitt: that's. No, that's great advice.

[: 00:42:42

[00:43:00] Rich Blundell: statement?

[: 00:43:00

[00:43:26] We once you've studied the geologic history of the planet and you see the changes that it's under. There've been times in the history of this place, that place, where you are on the, on the shore of the Pacific, where I am on the shore, over the Atlantic, these places, this whole planet was at one point absolutely inhospitable to life.

[: 00:43:45

[00:44:03] And so the only life that there could be is these archaea and saying all bacteria that live in the ocean, that, that, that re the point is this, that the living conditions on this planet have swung from one extreme to another. In the past it's happened before we have this planet has been utterly inhospitable to our form of life.

[: 00:44:25

[00:45:00] Jeff Nesbitt: uninhabitable.

[: 00:45:02

[00:45:11] Jeff Nesbitt: I'm not, I'm just kidding game over. Is

[: 00:45:13

[00:45:15] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, I believe that's that's it is.

[: 00:45:17

[00:45:23] Rich Blundell: That I get, but if we're just trying to get there because we want to colonize it, my God, it's a fricking barren dead place. You go there. That's going to be, you're going to spend the rest of your life, you know, on a commercial airline.

[: 00:45:34

[00:45:41] Jeff Nesbitt: So microbiome, why hurting?

[: 00:45:44

[00:45:56] But like we could. So is it, I mean, it's [00:46:00] absolutely imbecilic to like, take that risk to like deny that climate change could happen and to the point where it, it just obliterates everything we love. It will, you know, Is it really worth it, whatever it is you're doing that could be creating that possible future.

[: 00:46:18

[00:46:18] Jeff Nesbitt: kinda funny is I have heard people use the exact data that you just presented as, as evidence for why we, you know, should take this seriously. And as evidence for why humans are not causing climate change, like, oh, you know, it's been ice ages and magma for millions of years, we'll be fine.

[: 00:46:36

[00:46:43] Rich Blundell: Okay. It's just, that's just compartmentalized thinking. It's small, it's small ego thinking and that's exactly what it is. It is. And one antidote to that is to engage with the whole story. Like there's this one thing that I carry, it's scary [00:47:00] until it's not because what happened?

[: 00:47:01

[00:47:30] So you go from being insignificant to being empowered with significance. And that's what happens when you become part of nature. When nature, when you begin to feel the reality that you are nature and it's in you, and as much as you're in it, then you become the most significant locus of agency in the universe.

[: 00:47:53

[00:48:17] Jeff Nesbitt: fast.

[: 00:48:18

[00:48:32] Rich Blundell: It's part of, part of what I teach, man. It's called fractals.

[: 00:48:35

[00:48:38] Rich Blundell: The electrodes are about symmetry across scale, right? So that you can see things on one scale that you can see in another scale. But guess what? It's not just scale it's domain. You can see things in one domain that you can see in another, uh, another realm of reality.

[: 00:48:53

[00:49:06] Jeff Nesbitt: patterns are implicit in our, in our neurology.

[: 00:49:09

[00:49:10] Everything's built on them. I see. '

[: 00:49:12

[00:49:15] Rich Blundell: Okay. Well that's that fractal okay. Is whether it's a metaphor or not is a bridge. It's evidence that everything is connected, that, that the things that these, these, these are bridges that connect everything in the universe. And once you start seeing fractals that way, you're reminded of the reality of the interconnectedness of everything.

[: 00:49:36

[00:49:38] Jeff Nesbitt: No, I sounds totally logical to me. Are you familiar with the work of MC Escher? The artist, of course. Sure. Yes. Big fractal guy. And I think he,

[: 00:49:50

[00:49:55] Jeff Nesbitt: people. He made them into little birds and little pictures. Um, so art [00:50:00] art is the way, man.

[: 00:50:01

[00:50:06] Rich Blundell: Uh, look, I knew nothing about R three years ago, nothing. I was actually allergic to art. Like I, I had never been asked to take an art course. I knew nothing about the philosophy or the history of art, but in the last three years of starting to open conversations with artists and it's been absolutely expanding, like it's, it's blown my mind at how much there, how much potential there is an art, especially new art.

[: 00:50:32

[00:50:36] Jeff Nesbitt: what do you think art is?

[: 00:50:38

[00:50:48] Was this, it was. Ritualized w w reverence for the continuity of the self in the world. This is what they were depicting. They were [00:51:00] depicting, they were depicting the experience of their relationship with the world. And, and, and, and as far as I can tell, as far as I've been able to study that cave, art, you know, integrated the morphology of the cave, you know, and the acoustics of the cave and the, the situation of the cave, the location it's everything's contextualized.

[: 00:51:26

[00:51:52] I think art is on a continuum with every other natural process in the universe. So I think, but I do think that, you know, our [00:52:00] particular level of complexity has enabled us to express our interstates, our inner feelings of connectedness through art. I think we've lost that. I think like a lot of things we've lost because of Descartes or whatever, whoever you want to blame it on, but dualism, um, yeah, dualism is a big, big one.

[: 00:52:20

[00:52:23] Rich Blundell: Well, the fact that he actually, my beef with Descartes has, has, has, um, has softened recently because I've been talking with a very amazing philosopher. Uh, but I originally sort of blamed this whole dualism on him. There's two worlds mythology that has created.

[: 00:52:40

[00:53:05] But, um, yeah, so, so yeah, Descartes' dualism is a problem. It's just a adolescent error, I think in, but

[: 00:53:15

[00:53:30] Rich Blundell: So he doesn't man of his time and he didn't have what we now know, like what we now know about how the universe has. None of those guys had none of those big name philosophers, you know, with the exception of the pre-Socratic Aristotelians and the, you know, those, the neoplasia Neoplatonists and things like that.

[: 00:53:50

[00:54:06] Jeff Nesbitt: they ever go away?

[: 00:54:09

[00:54:13] You know, I think, uh, this is how systems work. They, they, they, they, they get into, um, you know, cyclics stability states and that one was a particularly stable state that created a lot of stability for the people who believed it. And. So it got self, uh, you know, it just became a positive feedback loop, but it's temporary, temporary positive feedback loop.

[: 00:54:38

[00:54:48] Jeff Nesbitt: Um, So, all right. Where were we right before Cartesian dualism? Um, well, I'll just go into my question list then. Um, okay.

[: 00:54:58

[00:55:09] Rich Blundell: We make sense of consciousness, man. Like we make sense of this, this higher order form of consciousness, which by the way, is not limited to just us, the birds and the fish also have a form they're forms of consciousness, but are, I think what we do is to make sense.

[: 00:55:24

[00:55:48] What are we going to well, that this is part of your answer, the answer to your question, what do humans do? Well, what we're going to do with that margin of, of leisure or whatever you want to call it is to learn [00:56:00] this stuff, learn about the universe and the cosmos, reconnect with nature, do art, you know, , that's what we're going to do, because that's what humans do.

[: 00:56:09

[00:56:31] We need that stuff to show us the other parts that are awesome, but I'm just saying, that's what humans do. We, we, we learn the story of the universe. We learn about our place within it. And then we go out and we experience it every day and it gets that we go out and spend time with the trees and the birds and they sing to us.

[: 00:56:51

[00:57:11] Jeff Nesbitt: How does it. Actually practice this, like if say one of my listeners wants to increase their ecological intelligence, what do they do?

[: 00:57:21

[00:57:42] There's a lot of things we could do, you know, we could get into like narrative, disruption, narrative awareness, and disruption, which is a fun thing to do.

[: 00:57:52

[00:58:02] Rich Blundell: Well, the universe builds them too, by the way, like narrative is like how it's deeper than just a cognitive feature. Narrative is actually a way that trees also create durability is by, by organizing and, um, uh, coordinating the material that they're made of Instructure is a kind of narrative. It is a, it's a physical.

[: 00:58:30

[00:58:46] What I'm saying is that when we tell the story of the tree, right, it's a fractal of the tree using material to build the tree.

[: 00:58:55

[00:59:13] Jeff Nesbitt: that fractal pattern is stored in some kind of collective unconscious, which is the universe.

[: 00:59:19

[00:59:22] Rich Blundell: I think it's just an, I think it is part of the emergent narrative of the universe that when, when, when fractals started to happen and I suppose it's, it's arguable, when that is, they work. And if they work they're selected. And so fractals become part of the furniture of the universe like that.

[: 00:59:46

[01:00:20] Like it's based in this idea of ontological continuity, that the story of the universe is telling the story of the universe is saying it every chapter it's saying everything is continuous. So what was going on in the cosmic microwave background, radiation from the earliest light of the union, We're ecological dynamics between different regions of space that had different temperatures, different energies.

[: 01:00:46

[01:01:14] As a, as one story. And it's your story it's like, and I know that sounds like, like, like pseudo scientific, maybe it is, but it's certainly consistent with the science that we know that I know. I'm sorry if I've lost you in your audience, they're not,

[: 01:01:34

[01:01:39] Grasp the things that you're saying as, as there's coming through.

[: 01:01:42

[01:01:44] Jeff Nesbitt: I love it, man. I think it's great. I honestly, even if you, half the stuff you said was crazy, if you said a few nuggets of truth in here, I think that we got to win it, but I don't think you're crazy. I think most of this stuff sounds very reasonable.

[: 01:01:58

[01:02:13] Rich Blundell: Well, I don't, I mean, I'll, I'll like I'll reconfigure it if necessary, but okay.

[: 01:02:19

[01:02:19] Jeff Nesbitt: Since. All right. So each one of us is our own little sense-making machine. We're going through the universe in time trying to make sense of this and build narratives. And is each one of us independent of the rest are each one of those little decisions creating the whole altogether as it all.

[: 01:02:39

[01:02:52] Rich Blundell: It's a good, it's a great question, man. And I don't have an answer for you, you know?

[: 01:02:58

[01:03:03] Jeff Nesbitt: like it, it feels a lot of time, like we're going. But I don't know if that is the case and that if that's just an illusion from living in linear time, or if, if, if there is some kind of greater intelligence with like, uh, an intention and there's Destiny's, or if it actually is just, we have some kind of implicit knowledge that this is all one big thing and that all the moments are all happening at once.

[: 01:03:29

[01:03:50] Okay. So you're looking at it, but it's no longer there. Well, it actually is there. Okay. So we've already, now we've just created this crazy paradox that [01:04:00] so I can see it, but it was a long time ago. And it's no longer there, but it's still there. You know, it's just like, okay, that's a red flag. It's like, something's amiss in our, in our nice, it's a glitch.

[: 01:04:13

[01:04:34] Like, I don't know, but I do know this, that, that there's mystery, right? Like if you go all the way back to the big bang and try to try to see before it, or try to do calculations and math and physics that tell you what happened before the big bang, you get this collapse of logic. Like we can, we've done this great job of parsing time into more minute [01:05:00] dimen, Newt section.

[: 01:05:01

[01:05:31] So the point there is just that there is mystery and you gotta, like, you gotta be okay with that. So even though I bust through the door saying, I'm a scientist and I know all this shit, I'm actually acknowledging that there's a mystery here that might infuse all this shit that I. I've got a wild card.

[: 01:05:49

[01:06:06] I'm with you monster. So anyway, the point there is just that

[: 01:06:11

[01:06:16] Rich Blundell: Well, here's the thing about mystery. It encompasses everything. Cause it might be every, because it might be everything. And I got to live with that. Like, and I'm not claiming to know everything.

[: 01:06:27

[01:06:45] Well, do you have one? Cause if you do, there is, it's just that simple. Would

[: 01:06:49

[01:06:55] Rich Blundell: No, it's about putting something in the future or putting [01:07:00] some design element into it that it's seeking to go something to somewhere specific. So yeah, it's kind of like deduction on steroids, you know, like when you, like, when you, um, when you, you know, God has often been a teleological sort of argument that well it's because God says it is so and okay.

[: 01:07:21

[01:07:35] Jeff Nesbitt: Back to the art topic. Are you an artist yourself?

[: 01:07:39

[01:07:53] And then I, my art is to interpret that art and to put it into the context of nature and the universe [01:08:00] and ecological intelligence. So, no, I'm not a formal artist. I couldn't, you know, I couldn't draw you a picture of a flower, but I, I, I live artistically, you know, my life is a kind of art. My thinking is a kind of art and my relationships are, I think, are, are.

[: 01:08:18

[01:08:30] Rich Blundell: it is. Is that they're they're attuned and they are, uh, in contact with something that I don't think they understand. And I think a lot of them are happy, not understanding, but the point is that I think what a lot of artists are tuned into is this thing that I'm calling ecological intelligence, that there is this intelligence in the liminal spaces between the object and the subject between the artists and and the art that is guiding their, their creativity and when, and, and when an artist feels that [01:09:00] then that creativity becomes an ally and what the, and the creativity is really the creativity of the cosmos that they're tapping into.

[: 01:09:06

[01:09:32] But the point is art that is a tuned to that propensity toward complexity and life, is, is powerful art right now. The forms of art that we're currently consuming are pretty lame. They're mostly about some idiosyncratic ego being expressed. And I think it's toxic and it's created a toxic culture.

[: 01:09:57

[01:10:08] Jeff Nesbitt: that's beautiful.

[: 01:10:12

[01:10:33] Rich Blundell: Um, that's one of those gifts of our higher form of consciousness is that we have that empathetic sort of capacity to, to share in this experience, man, what a gift, what a gift that this planet has, has endowed us with. And it is directly an endowment of the earth, by the way, like we know enough of the story of how humans came into existence, how we evolved to know that, [01:11:00] that capacity, that you're talking about a feeling and, and empathize.

[: 01:11:05

[01:11:32] Like that's what it means to be an earthling. It is to manifest the intelligence of every habitat that this planet has been, has been able to muster. Our species is the only one that does that. I'm looking at a bird right now. It's beautiful. It sings lovely. It's exquisitely designed and by nature to inhabit space and to exist.

[: 01:11:55

[01:12:18] What it does is it, it, it shows to us that we have it. And I think, and I think that nature does have this capacity, obviously, because we're expressing it. So, sorry. I think there

[: 01:12:30

[01:12:38] No,

[: 01:12:38

[01:12:43] Jeff Nesbitt: I'm not going to ship and what I was going to say about consciousness. so I used to think consciousness. This thing that we do really well and there are no other organisms that do it, period.

[: 01:12:57

[01:13:23] And it may not be what I'm doing, where I'm experiencing myself. And I have all of this data to build a narrative out of, because of my senses and my, my prefrontal cortex Slavs me to build these elaborate stories in my hippocampus, which is full of memories that I can pull from. Continue to add to my stories, but this thousand year old tree has a different kind of consciousness where it's, and like you said, maybe it's based in a narrative and maybe it's based in just the physical being and, and the lifecycle of a tree.

[: 01:13:56

[01:14:23] What do you think about consciousness in animals?

[: 01:14:26

[01:14:38] Understanding of it that you got from your psychology degree. It was the received wisdom of a bunch of, of a bunch of people who didn't know, or they were distracted by a lot of adolescent understandings of the way the world is what your, I don't know where you came, how you learned that, how you acquired that sense that you [01:15:00] have, I live in the woods.

[: 01:15:02

[01:15:22] Jeff Nesbitt: happen.

[: 01:15:22

[01:15:28] Rich Blundell: And be open and willing to be surprised so that it could, that's not to say your mind was so open that your brain fell out. It's just to say that you had some space left for surprise, something that you didn't know that's called curiosity or openness.

[: 01:15:43

[01:15:50] Jeff Nesbitt: you think about consciousness in, in other life forms, including non-animal

[: 01:15:54

[01:16:05] You know, when we, when we speak and share ideas and, you know, tell stories, but that there is a animating energy that we don't understand that was present at the beginning of the universe that has been operating ever since that we now have. Access to it in a sophisticated enough form that we can think and dream and create and, you know, imagine, but, but that, that energy or force or field, or whatever you want to call it is, was here and we're, we're living into it.

[: 01:16:40

[01:17:06] I'm not, not trying to ascribe intention to material matter. I'm saying that, that this, that this tendency toward complexity building, okay. I call that consciousness that this is, yeah. Right. And so it's a different word. It's a sort of a more simplistic version of it, but it's not, it's not, it doesn't differ in kind, it only differs in degree, which means that, you know, that we happen to be playing with a lot of it in concentrated form, but it's actually diffuse and infuses the entire universe.

[: 01:17:41

[01:18:05] Jeff Nesbitt: that okay? yeah, that's pretty, I think we're actually on the same page on that.

[: 01:18:09

[01:18:11] Rich Blundell: about we're on the same page, but I just want to remind you that I got there partly through the. Th that we may share. But I also got there by interrogating that, that, that claim and saying, what does the science confirm or deny this? And in every instance that I can muster it, it is consistent with that.

[: 01:18:34

[01:18:34] Jeff Nesbitt: actually do the same thing out of reflex because I grew up in the church. I grew up with very, uh, aggressive programming and it worked. To, uh, like a traditional Christian viewpoint. One that very much wanted the Bible to be taken.

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[01:19:14] I am not going to be a religious person anymore. I'll just let myself question whatever. And then I, my whole belief structure kind of fell apart and I, and I didn't believe anything. I started just questioning everything. And then through my education, I built this very much academic rigorous, scientific view of the world, and I really felt comfortable there.

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[01:20:00] I am. I am a scientist, but I'm also someone who experiences life and I'm all those people. And I'm none of those people and it's just a complicated mess, but that was a bit of a sidetrack.

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[01:20:21] Uh, right. That's gratitude is the, is the best antidote to any kind of grievance. And so that's, I think that's beautiful, man. And, and. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of like energy and integrity to do what you've done. So

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[01:20:54] And then I remember the same thing in academic classrooms or labs where I'm like, we are looking at magic right [01:21:00] now. We're like looking at it, a neuron in a mouse brain and seeing how it affects whatever it's like, there's magic everywhere. You just have to be open to it. And you can't just throw out bad.

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[01:21:18] Rich Blundell: Right. And I would suggest fake it till you make it. If you don't feel what you just described, try it anyway and, and, and make a note of what kind of like stay. Comes from that practice because I can almost guarantee that it's a gratitude, like gratitude and joy, and a sense of deep contentedness will come from that practice of seeing the magic and, and, and forgiving the ignorance that we inherit.

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[01:22:03] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. On a, and that could just be multiplied over billions of people because everyone needs a heal from something

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[01:22:12] Because we've inherited this fricking mess. We've inherited this sloppy logic. That's based in an incomplete. It's always incomplete. I'm not claiming a complete understanding, but it's based in adolescent understandings of way. The way the universe is constantly. And so it's time to like, start asking these questions because we we've got, we've got nothing to lose and everything from that.

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[01:22:40] What is, uh, what is or and what does that mean to you?

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[01:23:13] So I took that word oil ECOS and feminized it with an a or Micah. And now I use that as a sort of word to indicate. This thing called ecological intelligence that we were talking about, Hey, and by the way, you should keep in mind that the word eco in ecology, it actually shares the same root as the word eco in economy.

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[01:24:03] Things we belong to things, things like that. And so OCA is a word that I invented too, just to refer to this other way of knowing and being in the world. That's more ecological. And, uh, so I use it as my kind of, um, just. To use to refer to it. Okay, cool. Yeah.

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[01:24:33] Or

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[01:24:56] You know, I don't think it has to do with men and women. It's more of [01:25:00] an energy that we ascribe this convenient dichotomy of gender to. Yeah.

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[01:25:15] Rich Blundell: Well, that, that, that is an inescapable truth.

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[01:25:33] Jeff Nesbitt: so one can't exist without the other.

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[01:25:42] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. You don't really have a choice.

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[01:25:47] Rich Blundell: Exactly. And, and so let's just explore, have fun with our explorations of those energies.

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[01:26:16] Rich Blundell: Um, I have very little experience with the actual ingestion of psychedelic substances, but I have a lot of psychedelic experiences.

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[01:26:28] Rich Blundell: just through contemplation, by being in nature, by thinking what I know, you know, by, by knowing what I know about the way the universe is suddenly my boundaries dissolve in a very similar way as to what I felt when I did take a psychotic substance.

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[01:27:28] And, and so I think that they are an effective medicine, you know, and, or psycho technology, whatever you wanna call it, but you can't just do them. You've got to then live in that world. That's revealed. And this is where I think science and an understanding of the cosmic story and nature. You can do that every day.

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[01:28:14] So we should, you know, see them as such, but, uh, but we can't, they're not the whole story, you know, they are just really too

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[01:28:41] Rich Blundell: powerful as shit, man.

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[01:28:59] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:29:00] Yeah, and it is, it is hard to because it's, they are fun to talk about and it's intense the, what, the kind of reactions that you can get from them.

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[01:29:36] Like they think that they are in their head and everything else is outside of their head. And that's just the way it is. But I, I I'm

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[01:29:55] We tend to obsess with the body, which is a material thing, [01:30:00] but we then stop there and we say, oh, it just, it's just another way of worshiping the ego in the body sometimes. So I have some pushback on that too. Like the whole, like I do think embodiment is part of the equation, but so is the mind. And you know, let's not, you know, jettison one for the sake of the other, because then we've just jettisoned this incredible half of the equation.

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[01:30:47] It's also the, the, the vehicle we experienced all of this.

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[01:30:54] Jeff Nesbitt: how do I get rid of it?

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[01:30:58] Jeff Nesbitt: right. I, that was [01:31:00] like straight out of a dualist handbook.

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[01:31:16] That's one way, you know, just be aware of the narratives that, that, that you're a slave to, and, and, and perturb them and get emancipated from them and enjoy the process. Like, do you ever find it? Which I see you, do I hear you doing it, man? Like, you're, you're doing that. So, I mean, I'm not telling you anything, you don't

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[01:31:40] People start to think you're a weirdo. They start to get exhausted by you. And I'm like, you're trying to help them. Like, I'm actually happy. This is a fun way to live my life. Learn these secrets of the universe. What are you doing?

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[01:32:02] That's I know that sounds self-centered and, you know, greedy or whatever, what's the word I'm looking for, but it's not

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[01:32:18] Rich Blundell: how we get out of this mess. So like, I don't need to give you any advice, man.

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[01:32:29] Jeff Nesbitt: Well, thanks. I really have enjoyed our talk. is there anything else that you want to hit before we get outta here? Just have anything you want to plug?

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[01:32:43] Like

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[01:32:59] Rich Blundell: say one thing, [01:33:00] and that is this.

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[01:33:29] So I just am saying, I just want to acknowledge that, that I, I just, I think it's great that you. I'm willing to do this. And I'm, that is

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[01:34:01] psychedelics all sorts of stuff, but I can't do it because I'm in, I'm in love with everything. I'm

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[01:34:19] So

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[01:34:25] Rich Blundell: I'm glad. I'm glad we connected. Yeah. Well, Hey, I would suggest one thing. Check out, John. Uh, do a Google search for John and Vicky and the meaning crisis, John, he has a Vicky V E R V a E K E. Uh, he's a cognitive psychologist out of Ontario.

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[01:35:20] That

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[01:35:31] Rich Blundell: Me too, man. I've really enjoyed that. Thanks. And thanks for sticking with it.

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[01:35:38] Rich Blundell: bye-bye RO

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