We are Living in a Simulation with Donald Hoffman

Summary

Next Level Soul Podcast with Alex Ferrari

Episode: "We are Living in a Simulation" with Donald Hoffman

Released: August 3, 2026
Guest: Dr. Donald Hoffman, Cognitive Scientist and Author
Host: Alex Ferrari

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Alex Ferrari welcomes cognitive scientist Dr. Donald Hoffman to explore one of the most profound frontiers in science and spirituality: the nature of reality, consciousness, and the simulation theory. The conversation moves seamlessly between quantum physics, consciousness studies, spiritual traditions, and game theory, offering listeners a multidimensional perspective on whether we might be living in a simulation.

Dr. Hoffman, known for his pioneering work challenging mainstream perceptions of reality, draws on mathematics, evolutionary theory, and ancient wisdom. He and Alex delve into the growing intersection of scientific rigor and spiritual insight, discussing how both fields might eventually converge to offer humanity a deeper understanding of existence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Defining Consciousness

[03:58] – [10:38]

• Ostensive Definition: Dr. Hoffman explains that consciousness, like many profound concepts, is best pointed to rather than defined. He uses analogies to parents teaching children words by pointing and to tasting cinnamon as a direct experience.

  • “Pure consciousness...if you sit alone and it's dark and it's absolutely quiet and you let go of all thoughts and you're just aware...that’s my pointer to consciousness.” (Don Hoffman, [06:03])

• Contents vs. Awareness: Differentiates between “contents of consciousness” (sensory experiences) and consciousness itself (“awareness of being aware”).

• Meditation as a Pointer: Anyone can glimpse consciousness by sitting quietly, letting go of thoughts, and feeling pure awareness, even if just momentarily.

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Quantum Physics & The Limits of Space-Time

[10:38] – [16:46]

• Quantum Entanglement: Explains entanglement and how it challenges the idea of space-time as fundamental.

  • “Space time requires that no signal propagates through space time faster than the speed of light... we run into that wall where space time ceases to have any operational meaning at just 10 to the -33 centimeters... Space time is doomed.” (Don Hoffman, [14:43])

• Beyond Space-Time: Physicists are looking for new mathematical structures beyond space-time. The “amplituhedron” and other novel frameworks suggest reality may not be underpinned by space and time at all.

• VR Headset Analogy: Space-time is likened to a “virtual reality headset”—just an interface, not the underlying reality.

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Science Meets Spirituality

[16:46] – [31:39]

• Cultural Shift: There’s an openness among contemporary physicists to ideas once relegated to spiritual or philosophical domains, such as consciousness and reality beyond space-time.

• Mathematics as an Antidote to Dogma: Math provides rigorous “pointers” and boundaries, helping prevent rigid dogmatism—a lesson spiritual traditions can learn from science.

  • “Einstein's Mathematics...tells you that that pointer, the space time pointer, falls apart at 10 to the -33 centimeters and...you need a new and deeper pointer. We haven't had that in the spiritual traditions. And what's been the result? Dogmatism... that's where the spiritual traditions have failed.” (Don Hoffman, [34:38])

• Need for Integration: Suggests collaboration—science bringing rigor, spirituality bringing millennia of direct experience. Both are “pointing” at something real but incomplete alone.

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Simulation Theory and Reality as Information

[26:07] – [31:39]

• Classical Simulation Theory: Popularized by Nick Bostrom, posits our reality may be a sophisticated simulation within another universe’s computer.

• Hoffman's Critique: He questions the scientific basis: there’s no evidence a sufficiently complex computation generates conscious experience.

  • “This simulation theory is assuming...functional properties of the computer can actually give us conscious experiences or the illusion of conscious experiences. And there’s not a shred of evidence...that that’s feasible.” (Don Hoffman, [29:46])

• Hoffman’s Alternative: Proposes that consciousness is fundamental and our perceptions are a (necessarily incomplete) interface—akin to a VR overlay on a deeper, non-computable reality.

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All Is One: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science

[31:39] – [42:08]

• Convergence with the Vedics & Mystics: Points out that the Vedic texts and other ancient traditions have long regarded reality as illusion (Maya) and consciousness as fundamental.

  • “The spiritual traditions have been saying that space time isn’t fundamental for thousands of years … We're late to that party.” (Don Hoffman, [31:39])

• Pointers versus Dogma: Spiritual leaders use stories and metaphors as “pointers,” not strict definitions—misinterpretations lead to sectarianism and conflict.

• Science as a Wake-Up Call: As scientific models recognize their own limits, this may allow more people to see spirituality and science as parallel quests for understanding.

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Oneness, Communication, and the Future

[42:08] – [47:02]

• Global Communication & Oneness: Advances like AI translation tech will lower barriers and help us see our shared humanity.

  • “When you actually start to hear very human things coming back to you from them, then you realize, oh no, that's another person with feelings, just like me.” (Don Hoffman, [44:48])

• Akashic Field: Discusses the concept as a “field of all consciousness,” with mathematical models seeking to approach these ancient ideas, though acknowledging models are always incomplete.

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The Nature of Time, Reincarnation, and Projection

[58:43] – [66:31]

• No Objective Arrow of Time: In the deeper mathematical model, time’s “arrow” is an artifact of our interface, not a property of fundamental reality.

  • “The arrow of time that we experience now is not an insight at all into the nature of the reality beyond our avatar. It’s entirely an artifact … not an insight at all into the truth beyond it.” (Don Hoffman, [62:04])

• Reincarnation and Simultaneity: The concept of past and future lives can be reframed as multiple “channels” happening at once, with the linearity of time being a byproduct of our perception.

• Deep Metaphors: The screen/projector analogy (from Yogananda), and the television channel example, illustrate how we focus on one reality, while infinite others are “on air” simultaneously.

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Simulation as Game, Waking Up, and Evolution

[53:21] – [58:43]

• Game Theory & Avatars: Human lives are likened to avatars in a video game—consciousness “plays” through forms (bodies) for the purpose of experiencing and eventually realizing its own nature.

• Waking Up: The journey is to lose oneself in the game (the avatar/perspective) and then awaken from the identification.

  • “Putting on an avatar...allowing itself to get lost, completely identified with the avatar...and then recognizing it's only a point of view and waking up.” (Don Hoffman, [55:57])

• Infinitude of Games: Consciousness never fully knows itself; there are always new “games” or perspectives to discover, making awakening an endless process.

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Spiritual Frequency & Mathematical Models

[88:43] – [91:11]

• Frequency as Integration: Spiritual traditions describe love, kindness, and service as “higher frequencies”—in Hoffman's math, more harmonious “Markov chains” of conscious agents correspond to higher frequencies.

  • “As you get more and more coherent, larger interactions of conscious agents, the frequencies that correspond to it get higher. So yes, it's really … right out of the theory.” (Don Hoffman, [90:52])

• Practical Guidance: Inner practices like meditation are also viewed as “technologies” that cultivate higher states/connections with the deeper reality.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• On the simulation and consciousness:

  • "All the weirdness of quantum mechanics is just a symptom of the fact that it's tied to space-time and space-time as a headset, and the headset loses information." (Don Hoffman, [24:58])

• On spiritual dogma:

  • "It's not worth killing people over pointers." (Don Hoffman, [34:38])

• On ultimate knowledge:

  • “You are the truth that transcends any statement of truth, any description.” (Don Hoffman, [50:45])

• On waking up and love:

  • “You don't really love until you really understand that the person in front of you is you. Not like you, is you being a different avatar.” (Don Hoffman, [69:37])

• On science and spirituality's evolution:

  • “When science and spirituality meet, science can provide new pointers and spirituality can provide thousands of years of meditation and the insights. And together, I think humanity can move forward with a scientific spirituality that is going to not only help us personally, but the technologies will be outside of space time and will be indistinguishable from magic.” (Don Hoffman, [99:07])

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Important Timestamps

• [03:58] – Dr. Hoffman defines consciousness with the analogy of "pointing" and meditation
• [10:38] – Quantum entanglement and limits of space-time
• [16:46] – Shift toward accepting consciousness in science
• [26:07] – Critique of the traditional simulation theory
• [31:39] – Ancient texts and the oneness of reality
• [34:38] – Science as an antidote to dogmatism
• [44:02] – Language barriers and AI-driven oneness
• [47:02] – The Akashic field and mathematical models
• [53:21] – Game theory, avatars, and the awakening process
• [62:04] – Mathematical discussion of time and reincarnation
• [88:43] – Frequency in spirituality and in mathematical models
• [91:57] – Definition of a fulfilled life
• [95:23] – How to approach source: “You are the Source”

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Final Reflections

This episode seamlessly weaves together cutting-edge science and ancient spiritual wisdom, challenging listeners to expand their conception of reality. Dr. Hoffman suggests that both spiritual insight and scientific modeling are essential “pointers”—each revealing partial truths about a far greater reality that cannot be fully described.

As both host and guest agree, humanity is at a crossroads: the more science recognizes its own limits, the more opportunities arise for deep integration with spiritual traditions. The ultimate mission: to awaken individually and collectively to our shared source, to discover who we really are—beyond the avatars, games, and stories.

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Dr. Donald Hoffman:
"You are the infinite potential that could see anything." ([64:30])

Alex Ferrari:
"I'm trying to bridge the gap, Don. I'm doing the best I can to bridge the gap." ([91:11])

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Transcript

[Don Hoffman]

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[Alex Ferrari]

Welcome to Next Level Soul, the place where we deep dive into the mysteries of existence, uncover hidden layers of consciousness, and explore the journey of the soul. I'm your host, Alex Ferrari, and every week we sit down with the world's leading spiritual teachers, mystics, scientists and truth seekers to illuminate the path towards awakening. Here, we ask questions that truly matter. Why are we here? Where are we going? And how do we elevate our lives, our purpose and our consciousness to the next level. This is a space for transformation, a space for expansion, a space to remember who you really are. So take a deep breath, open your mind, and prepare to step into your Next level soul. Now, if you're ready to take your spiritual journey to the next level, explore Next Level Soul tv. Our streaming platform filled with exclusive movies, docs, original shows, transformative series, guided meditations, channeling sessions, audiobooks and deep spiritual teachings you won't find anywhere else. New content drops every week, helping you expand your consciousness and live from your highest potential. Start your journey today at Next LevelSoul TV. The views, opinions and statements expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or positions or of Next Level Soul, its host, or any of the companies they represent. Now let's dive into today's episode. I'd like to welcome to the show Don Hoffman. How you doing, Don?

[Don Hoffman]

Very good. How about you, Alex? Thanks for having me.

[Alex Ferrari]

Thank you so much for coming on the show, my friend. I'm excited to talk to you about simulation theory, which is one of my favorite subjects in the world to talk about. Spirituality, consciousness, quantum physics, all of it kind of mixed in a nice little big soup. So I'm going to start off with a very easy question. What is consciousness?

[Don Hoffman]

One way to think about it is something that psychologists call ostensive definition. Okay, so, so when you're teaching a 18 month old some words for they're, they're just starting to learn words. What, what do you do? So your mom or dad is sitting with their, with, you know, Chris, 18 month old Chris. And, and there's a cat on a mat and it's time for Chris to learn the word cat. And so how do you define the word cat to Chris? Well, what you do is you point at, at the cat and you say cat and you then expect your baby Chris to look and get it and it's a miracle. They do. They look and they get it. Now it's a miracle because if you point at the cat on the mat, you could be referring to the ear, the color of the fur, the texture of the fur, the left paw and the mat, the nose and the left, the left paw. What is it that you're referring to? Right, and yet they get it. So you're counting on, there's some coordination between the parent and the child so that you can just point and say cat. And they get it the first time. And, and, and so this is called ostensive definition. And for someone who's never tasted cinnamon. How am I going to define cinnamon to them? The way I'm going to define cinnamon is I'm going to give them a piece of cinnamon, say, taste it and say. And then I point and say that's cinnamon and hope they get it right. If they. So that's how we define everything. We essentially define almost everything by pointing. Now, in mathematics, of course, once you have a certain number of pointers in mathematics, then you can start to do formulas and so forth. But in general, we. All the important stuff in life that we know about, we got it by pointing and, and, and then learning by a sense of definition. So, so what I'm going to do with consciousness is the same thing as the parent does with the cat, right? I have to point at something and say, do you get it? And, and if you get it, you get it. And if you don't, you don't. So that's how you define these kinds of concepts. So what I can say is pure consciousness. If you sit alone and it's dark and it's absolutely quiet and you let go of all thoughts and you're just aware. You're just sitting there and aware, but not aware of anything, just aware of being aware. That's my pointer to consciousness. And you either get it or you don't. Right? Just like you get cinnamon or rabbit or you don't. That's the point.

[Alex Ferrari]

Yeah. It's interesting because. But anyone who's meditated understands that if who's meditated deeply or just unders. Has done it at a certain level gets that. I mean, I understand exactly what you're saying, but for someone who hasn't meditated, how can you further point to another aspect of consciousness that they might grab onto?

[Don Hoffman]

There's consciousness and then there's the contents of consciousness. The, if you want to know consciousness, the contents are easy. If I say, you know, the taste of mint, that's a conscious experience. The smell of garlic, that's a conscious experience. Everybody can get that. If you're asking what is consciousness, then I have to give you little instructions, sort of like if you wanted to taste what coffee is like. Well, you have to take these coffee beans, grind them up, put some hot water on them, put it in a cup and, and wait until it cools down, then drink it. And that'll be what. What we mean by the taste of coffee. And, and so there are certain procedures you have to go through. So for those who've never meditated, I think most people have had some point in Their life where they're silent. But we can do that. If you haven't ever done that, you can just go in a dark room, turn out the lights, avoid all distractions, all sounds, sit there and let your thoughts go. And when you get to a space where there are no thoughts even for just a second or two, it doesn't have to be a long time. Just you're sitting there and nothing's going through your head for just a second or two. And you're just aware of that. You're aware of the gap, you're aware of that gap, the aware of the awareness gap. Then that's what I'm pointing to by consciousness. That's the direct experience of it. Now, as a scientist, I want to then go on and do mathematical models, right? I'm going to say, okay, that's the thing I'm modeling. It's just like if I say, like, for example, in, in physics we have Euclidean models of space time or we have Einstein's models of space time. Now those are mathematics, right? You know, there's Newton's Euclidean approach, there's Einstein's hyperbolic space time approach. But if I, if you ask me what is space time, what are space and time, what is space time? I would say, okay, just, here's my pointer. Look around you. There you see walls and furniture and so forth. But what's between you and the walls and the furniture? That, that emptiness is what we mean by space or space time in Einstein's thing. So that's going to be my direct pointer to you to say that's what we mean. And then you say, but, well, that's not Euclidean. I mean that there's no numbers there, there's no hyper. That's just my experience. Absolutely. Your experience of space is your experience of space. What we do as scientists then is say, let's attach numbers to that experience and, and then see what we can do. The. And then you might say, well, but the experience is far deeper than the numbers. Absolutely. The experiences transcends the numbers. And yet what we find is when we start to assign numbers and structures to our experiences and start to do mathematics with them, we get someplace. Like Einstein with his mathematics predicted that there are black holes. I mean, his mathematics predicted he didn't like the prediction, but his mathematics predicted it even though he didn't like his own prediction. And so we find that even though the mathematics can only in some sense be a baby step in the direction of the reality that we're. That, that I pointed to, right? Space or space time, whatever that is, is profound. Our mathematics is, is difficult, but it's not, it scratches the surface of the profundity of space time and the same thing with our mathematical models of consciousness. So consciousness is very, very deep and profound. And but as scientists, we have to humbly put down, say, well here's, here's my little, my next baby step in the science of, of, of consciousness.

[Alex Ferrari]

Well, let me ask you this then. Quantum entanglement kind of throws space time out the window to my understanding. Please. And please correct me if I'm wrong with the concept of quantum entanglement where there is two, you know, two atoms, two neutrons, two. I forgot what the actual two units were. But if one changes here a thousand miles away, the other one is affected. Can you explain that from a mathematical standpoint or is there even an explanation? Because now we're getting into the spooky physics that Einstein spoke about.

[Don Hoffman]

So yes, if you have two photons, for example, they can get entangled or two, just two particles that can be entangled, their states can be entangled. And what that means is that if you measure say the, the spin of one particle and the other particle is, you know, many, many light years away, say that that's entangled, you know, instantaneously what the spin of the other one was, even though it's, it's could be millions of light years away. So you, if it were measured, that's what that is, what it would be. And so there's that kind of non local in the sense of Einstein. Spacetime requires that no signal propagates through spacetime faster than the speed of light. 300,000 kilometers roughly.

[Alex Ferrari]

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[Alex Ferrari]

And now back to the show.

[Don Hoffman]

And so this is an instantaneous connection, which Einstein didn't like, right? But it turns out that the entanglement is true. It really is true. And as you say, it does show that there are limitations to the structure of space time as being a fundamental structure. It suggests that as we probe into physics more deeply, we're going to be looking for things beyond space time. And there's another pointer in that direction, and that is that Einstein's own equations together with those of quantum theory, so it's gravitational theory and quantum theory together entail that space time ceases to have any operational meaning at what, at about 10 to the minus 33 centimeters and 10 to the minus 43 seconds. But that means that if you try to use spacetime any further, you get nonsense. It does. The it you no experimental wall, you

[Alex Ferrari]

run into a wall.

[Don Hoffman]

You run into a wall. So space time, and it's not 10 to the minus 33 trillion centimeters, it's just 10 to the minus 33 centimeters. So we run into that wall where space time ceases to have any operational meaning at just 10 to the -33 centimeters. So many physicists now are saying space time is doomed. Like David Gross, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on quantum chromodynamics. Amar Kanye Med is at the Institute for Advanced Study. And many others have been saying, I think to them it's just obvious. These are again, all high energy theoretical physicists. Physics is a very, very broad field. The physicists who are saying space time is doomed are the experts in this particular area of physics who are the gurus of space time, high energy theoretical physics. They're sort of the gurus of spacetime. And they're the ones that say it's over. We're looking for a deeper structure. And by the way, they're finding some. We can talk about that if you want. They're finding the structure.

[Alex Ferrari]

So that, so that was, that was my next question is because space time is fundamental or was fundamental to our experience of this universe. I mean, between here and the moon there is space. And it takes time to travel through that space. That's just fundamental in this materialistic world that we're in right now. But now with quantum physics, it seems that the physics community in general is starting to. To. There's so much evidence. Before it was a little bit here and there, but now the evidence is piling up so high that they can't ignore it anymore. And they're just like, no, this is over. We need to start looking for other areas. And it. From my understanding, they're starting to open themselves up to. Not to the word spirituality, but they're opening up to things that just didn't. Would never even been spoken about 50 years ago, 20 years ago even. And they're opening up to these ideas like consciousness. Having a conversation with the scientists about consciousness is fairly new. Would you agree?

[Don Hoffman]

Well, yes. When I was a graduate student, it wasn't kosher for us to, to talk about. I was interested in it, but I knew I shouldn't talk about it.

[Alex Ferrari]

Don't ask it in class. Don't ask that question in class.

[Don Hoffman]

That's right. No, you. That would show that you weren't a serious scientist or thinker. But, but yeah. Many high energy theoretical physicists are now saying we need to look beyond space time. Now most of them are looking for mathematical structures beyond space time. And they may have spiritual ideas as well, but there is actual rigorous work by these physicists being done where they're saying, okay, space time is not fundamental. We need deeper structures beyond space time that then project back down to space time and give us back the physics that we know inside space time as a special case of a deeper physics. And they're finding, they're succeeding in finding these new structures. So it's really quite impressive what they're doing. They found something called the amplitude, which allows them to compute scattering amplitudes when particles smash into each other at the Large Hadron Collider and then go spraying out. They look for the probability amplitudes for all those things happening. And when you do it inside space time, the math is mess. Hundreds of pages like two gluons smashing into each other, four gluons spraying out or six gluons spraying out. Hundreds of pages of algebra for one event. Hundreds of pages of algebra to compute the probability for one event. Do it outside of space time. Three or four terms you can compute by hand. And then you see new symmetry. So what they're discovering is if you let go of space time, I mean, space time is very useful, right? We use it all the time, every day. It's very, very useful. But. But it's got limits. 10 to the minus 33 centimeters and it's over. And when you then say, well, are there new structures not curled up inside space time? Not, not like string three, where these things are curled up inside extra dimensions of space time, Utterly outside of space time. We have to think outside of spacetime. And you might go, well, how in the world can you do that? And here's how you do it. Space time, I'll suggest, is just a VR headset. We're using it as a VR headset. And what science has been doing, we thought we were getting a theory of everything. We thought we were studying the final. We're closing in on the theory of everything. What we've discovered is all this time, we thought we were just going after the final reality. We were just studying our headset. We got really good at figuring out our headset. So good that we then we figured out, holy smoke, space time is just a headset. It's not the truth, it's not the final reality. And there's. So now, now that we have all these tools, rigors of science, no dogmatism, give me mathematical theories, make hard predictions, we go test them. No nonsense that's brand new, like since Galileo, roughly, that we've had those incredible tools. And using those tools, they're so powerful that they told us that we were wrong about space time. We thought it was the final reality. And our own science told us, you're wrong, it's only a headset. So now we are. But now we have the tools. And so we can use those tools and step outside the headset. We can take the headset off. Not literally because we're sort of saddled with this headset. We. But because we have mathematical tools and we can do experiments. We can, as scientists, move outside the headset and start to find these new structures like the decorator permutations and the amplitude and other, other structures that they're finding. So, and this is only in the last 10 years, only in the last 10 years that these new structures have been found outside. You know, that where we really say, okay, we have to go outside space time. Hints of it. There's something in 2005 there something called the BCFW recursion relations that Ed Whitten and his collaborators discovered, which were the big, big clue about these new structures outside space time. But we really in some sense the, the real big first STEP was in 2013, 2014 with the publication of the Amplitude by Neymar Kani Hamed and his collaborate collaborators. So that's less than 10 years. So, so this is all brand new stuff. And most physicists who are not high energy theoretical physicists don't know about this. They, they just don't know because this is a special branch of, of physics that's, that focuses on this. So most quantum theorists don't know this.

[Alex Ferrari]

Right. So that, that was my next question is that there is, from my understanding there's physicists and then there's quantum physicists, and many times neither the two shall meet because they are once really locked into more materialism, which is, you know, older dogma. Like this is just the way it is for the last four or five hundred years. And then when quantum physics showed up, they, they were like, no, no, no, we can't, we can't go into that world because it's going to disprove all this stuff that we just know is real. And now it seems that there's even something higher than quantum physics is what you're talking about. All these other things that they're discovering at this other branch of physics that is really working within quantum physics or at least aiming towards it, but it's, it's at least moving. It had. Quantum physics hadn't even moved in 80 or 90 years.

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[Alex Ferrari]

Is that, is that a fair statement?

[Don Hoffman]

Well, the, of, of course there's the, the foundations were laid long ago. And then we got to, with Feynman and his, and his, you know, contemporaries, we got quantum field theory. But now what, what, what many of the high energy theoretical physicists are saying like, like Neymar Kani Ahmed are saying that not only is spacetime doomed, but quantum theory is doomed. It's not fundamental either, but it's not deep enough. And, and what, what he's looking for and what many of them are looking for now is a deeper framework in which space time and quantum theory emerge together, joined together. And, and here's the, the idea is this, if you, when you look at quantum theory. Well, this is one idea I'm not, now what I'm about to say is my idea. I'm not putting this on anybody else. Okay, so this is, well, I would say that Robert Speckins, who's a physicist, is saying something very similar. But again, I'm not going to tar and feather these guys, you know. So if anything I say is stupid, it's on me, not on these guys. Okay, sure, what I'm saying and, and, but I think that many other physicists would, would agree like Chris Fuchs, who who's does cubism interpretations. Is that all the weirdness of quantum theory. So the no cloning theorem, entanglement, superposition, and many of these properties are simply due to incomplete information.

[Alex Ferrari]

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[Don Hoffman]

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[Alex Ferrari]

And now back to the show.

[Don Hoffman]

And that ties into this headset idea. If our if all. If spacetime is just a headset, what? A headset only gives you incomplete information about what you're interacting with, right? Like when you play virtual reality games. I'm playing Grand Theft Auto virtual reality. What is the reality that I'm interacting with? Well, it's some supercomputer. How much information does my head, my headset give you about that supercomputer? Not much. It's lost a ton of. There's this whole complicated universe out there that I'm really interacting with and I have no clue about that. If I'm a typical VR user. I have no clue about the, the gigabytes of software and, and the diodes and resistors and the voltages and magnetic fields that are all. I have no idea about that. I'm just turning a steering wheel and hitting the gas pedal and that's all I see.

[Alex Ferrari]

So.

[Don Hoffman]

So quantum mechanics, all the weirdness of quantum mechanics is just a symptom of the fact that it's tied to spacetime and spacetime as a headset, and the headset loses information. Just that simple. So that's all the weirdness. So there's nothing really deep about the weirdness of quantum mechanics except to say, well, you thought that you saw the truth and you don't. You see a Headset which is giving you a veneer. Like a veneer, sure. Over this complicated reality beyond it. Well, it's what science is up to

[Alex Ferrari]

it, but it's, but it's basically what's going on now. So if you take your headset off, the reality we live in, there is so much more information in this room than can be jammed into that little, that little headset that I have on. And if I walk out my door, then nature and this, and you look up and there's so much processing power that would be needed to render all of this. Which then brings me to my next question. I would love to hear your theory on simulation theory that we are all in this quote unquote matrix simulation. What is your theory behind that?

[Don Hoffman]

So Nick Bostrom and others are quite famous for, for this kind of theory and the, the assumption I should spell it out just a little bit, what version I'm talking about, they typically will say, you know, that you and I and the world we see around us, we think it's the truth, but it really isn't. It's just there's some computer programmer, some pimply head kid with their laptop in another reality that is, has programmed this all up and we're just a simulation in their little laptop. But then you can recurse that back. But that person, that, that pimply head programmer is not the final reality because there's another pimply head programmer, yet a deeper reality with their laptop that's programming them. So we can go this all the way back. And you go all the way back, there's finally some laptop and some programmer at the fundamental reality. That's the start of this whole thing. So the probability, they say, the probability that we're at the base, given that there could be thousands of these, probably that we're the ones at the base is zero. So we're probably in a simulation that's sort of the. Now what they say then is that the base reality they assume is a physical kind of space time reality. So there's still a physicalist framework and they're assuming that a properly programmed computer can generate conscious experiences or the illusion of conscious experiences. And to date, I mean, many of my colleagues who are studying consciousness believe that. But when you ask them, and there are many, many theorists, so there's integrated information theory, there's global workspace theory, orchestrated collapse of quantum states of neuronal microtubules, there's attentional schema theories, they're high order theories, first order theory, there's tons and tons of theories, but. And all of them, in one way or another, are saying we can't. If you give me certain functional properties, the right kind of functional properties of certain kinds of physical systems, then I can give you conscious experiences out of that taste of chocolate, smell of garlic and so forth. Great. So that's, that's what they claim, that they can do, that we are Scientific theories will start with some functional description of some system. And they're always thinking of some kind of physical system, maybe neurons or some, you know, circuits in a artificial intelligence system or something like that. And then we will give you conscious experiences emerging out of it or the illusion of conscious experiences emerging out of it. So I, I, and these are my friends and colleagues, and they're brilliant. And they've been. I mean, they are, they are brilliant. But when I ask them, and these are my friends, I'll, you know, ask. Okay. You know, like Stuart Amrof with Orchestrated Collapse of Quantum States of neuromicrotubules, or Giulia Tononi for iit. Great. So, been at it for several decades. So what, what conscious experience have you been able to show? I mean, the functional structure for, like, the taste of chocolate or mint. Can you get Which. Which one? Which one? There are millions of colors, millions of. I presume by now you have hundreds of thousands of conscious experiences that you've given me. You've written down the functional thing that must be the taste of men, the functional thing that must be this shade of red. You must have hundreds of thousands of these. So just give me 1, 0, 0. Nobody has anything. So there are so the. It's so bad that, that Steven pinker in his 1920, 18 book Enlightenment now said, you know, what we may have to do is just stipulate that, you know, there's this functional pattern. He, this, he was talking about, I think the global workspace theory. We'll have to stipulate that this conscious experience, it corresponds to this state of the global workspace. Well, latitude is, you know, you're stipulating the conscious experiences, you're stipulating the physical stuff, you're stipulating the functional stuff. It's all stipulation. There's no explanation going on here. So, So I say all that to say that the. Now, to get back to your question, this simulation theory is assuming that the computer and functional properties of the computer can actually give us conscious experiences or the illusion of conscious experiences. And there's not a shred of evidence in terms of successful scientific theories that that's, that's that's feasible. There's nothing on the table that says you should believe that.

[Alex Ferrari]

Is there a world where in the future, maybe in your lifetime, maybe in mine, maybe in my kids lifetime where there'll be physicists and theorists that are going to be cross pollinated with spiritualists because it's the only thing left to kind of go after. Because once you, you keep running into walls with these theories and math, math eventually also runs into walls because you haven't cracked it yet. But when you start getting into spirituality, which is what the ancients were talking about, and we could talk about the ancients in a minute about it seems that they are transcending reality. And there is, there is proof of different types of transcensions of realities. You know, there's psychedelics that take you into different realms, different realities. There's so many things that are unexplainable by physics, but yet there is something happening. So to find a physicist or theorists that can bridge between the two and finally open things up in a way that one or the other can't do by themselves, I think that's where we're all going. Would you agree?

[Don Hoffman]

Yes. I think that the spiritual traditions have been saying that space time isn't fundamental for thousands of years.

[Alex Ferrari]

The Vedic text. Yeah, of course.

[Don Hoffman]

And the scientists are coming to that party late. We're late to that party. But the high energy theoretical physicists are saying yes, but space time is not fundamental. Its space time is doomed. So I think that humanity, we've had the spiritual traditions and the scientific and they've tended since Galileo and his imprisonment and so forth by the church. There's been a little bit of antipathy between the two and distrust and so forth. I think both have a piece of the picture and both have a problem. So the, the piece of the picture that the scientists have is the scientific method we know now to do mathematical models have hard nosed standards, no bs Give me an experiment, give me the math, we go test it and so forth. So that's, that's, that's important. They've assumed that space time is fundamental. They've been physicalists, that's been a useful hypothesis for a few centuries. But now it's over. And, but, and it's, but most scientists don't know it's over. It's the high energy theoretical physicists who, who are spreading the word it's over and we need to, to go. So but now the spiritual traditions have, are there. They're saying hey, we've been out there beyond space time for Thousands of years. Welcome to the party. You know you're late comers, but now what the spiritual traditions tell us. They say it's very important. None of our writings are the truth. They're pointers to the truth. And they're very, very careful to say that the Tao Te Ching says, the Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao. And if you understand that, then it's fine. It's to read the rest of the book. If you don't understand that, you'll think that you're seeing the truth. No, you're getting a pointer. Just like I started off with a sense of definition. And partly for this very reason, I pointed to consciousness in a certain way. I can't. Unless you don't. If you don't know consciousness is yourself, I can't help you. If you've never tasted mint, I can't help you. I can give you a piece of mint and let you taste it and then say, that is mint. And I point to it. So, so, so that's in the sense that the spiritual traditions are pointing to the spiritual realm. If you don't experience it yourself, no word will get you there. But what the spiritual traditions are missing is mathematical precision in their pointers. They understand that their words are pointers, but the mathematical pointers tell you their limits.

[Alex Ferrari]

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[Don Hoffman]

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[Alex Ferrari]

And now back to the show.

[Don Hoffman]

Einstein's Mathematics for Space time tells you that that pointer, the space time pointer, falls apart at 10 to the -33 centimeters and 10 to the -43 seconds. That is an antidote to dogmatism. And it tells you you need a new and deeper pointer. We haven't had that in the spiritual traditions. And what's been the result? Dogmatism. Fighting to the death. People of one religion, killing people of another religion. Because your pointer. I don't, I don't agree with your pointer. I believe my pointer is the final truth. Well, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. Your leader told you right up front, it's just a pointer. The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao. It's not worth killing people over pointers. So that's where the spiritual traditions have failed. Their pointers are not rigorous, and so they lead to dogmatism. They invite dogmatism not in the adept, not the leaders, but the followers who don't really understand that the pointers are just pointers.

[Alex Ferrari]

I mean, I mean, look, we could, you know, we don't have to get into the wars that are going on right now, but there are specific dogma traditions that are creating the wars that are going on as we speak. You know, I think it was Yogananda the, the great yogi who said about Jesus, which I've said this many times. I'll say it again. It's one of my favorite quotes. He goes, jesus died on the cross in one day, but his teachings have been crucified for the last 2,000 years. And, and it's so true that if you go back to the origin of any of these spiritual leaders, they are, they say these things, they're pointers. But then it's the, the apostles, the Father, the. The followers, the. They are the ones that start constructing this dogmatic, you know, system because they can't grasp at the level that they were. They were at such a higher level of evolution or vibration or whatever you want to call it, that they just can't grab. They can't grab on to these ideas. I mean, Jesus is a perfect example, but then so are many. You know, from Buddha to Muhammad to so many different spiritual leaders from around the world. They all eventually go to dogma. And that's one thing I didn't understand when I was growing up. I'm like, so. What do you mean, so? I'm. So. I'm the. I'm right, right, Because I'm. I'm Catholic, obviously. So I. Right. I mean, I, I'm. I'm a recovering Catholic, by the way. So I was like, I. So I'm like. But then even as a child, I'm like, so the billion and a half Buddhists, they're. They're all going to hell, or the Muslims are all going to hell, or the Zoeastrians are all going to hell, or God forbid, if. How about there's some poor schmuck in the middle of the Congo somewhere, never heard of Jesus. Is he going to go to hell? Like, it started to, like, just like your mathematics, like Einstein, space, time, it just starts to break apart. That doesn't make any sense, any logical sense. So then this other theory of everything that I've come, not. I haven't come up with, but that we're all one, that we're all part of a, a human consciousness, a quantum field, if you will. And there's a lot of people talking about the quantum field and how certain things are possible, like entanglement theory, possibly through the quantum field, that space, that, that what's going on in that space. And I've seen models now. I think it was Neil, Neil Degrasse Tyson was showing it in one of his interviews. That space around planets, it's like a flat space and the, the planet pulls down and that's the gravity. So it's kind of like the ball going in like around. That's how the gravity. So space is not space. It's a field that's being manipulated by gravity and other things. It starts, it makes your head hurt, Donald.

[Don Hoffman]

Right, so, so I, I agree that what you said about the pointers of the religious groups that, that typically the, the originators of, you know, of Christianity or Buddhism and so forth were at a different level. They were not dogmatic. They understood that the Tao that can be spoken of and is not the true talent. But the rest of us typically don't get that. We get dogmatic about it. And what science brings to the table is a language, language of mathematics, where the mathematics itself tells you this only goes to 10 to the -33 centimeters and then it stops and then you have to look for something else. So don't get dogmatic about space time. It tells you. Now, of course, scientists are people, they are as inclined to be dogmatic as anybody else. Science is a social institution and the demand for mathematically precise theories is the antidote to dogmatism. So that's what I think science can offer to the spiritual traditions is a mathematically precise thing. Now the notion of quantum fields turns out the, the high energy theoretical physicists who are going beyond space time are saying quantum field theory was of course an important breakthrough and very, you know, when Feynman and his contemporaries gave us a great gift and it's been useful for several decades for, you know, 80 years or so. Well, yeah, I guess, yeah,

[Alex Ferrari]

1920.

[Don Hoffman]

Well, that was the quantum field theory probably in the 40s. 1940s, sure, fair enough. 40s, 50s, where the, the quantum field theory came out. So, you know, almost eight, 70, 70 or 80 years. But it turns out that the quantum fields introduce unnecessary redundancy. And no one's ever seen a field, a quantum field, right. We see particles, fields are a construct to try to help us compute things like scattering altitudes. But, but Neymar Khani Med, for example, is saying basically quantum fields are, you know, sort of occlude. They're. They're the fields. Probably they're getting in the way. When you use these fields in space time, they make the mathematics unnecessarily complicated. Two gluons in four, six gluons out, hundreds of pages. Algebra, you don't need all that. That's. That's because we're using quantum fields. It's a bad computational apparatus. Time, it had its place, but we've, we've gone beyond it. Now we can do that computation in three or four terms and see symmetries that are true of the scattering data that you can't see in space time. So, I mean, quantum fields were a necessary step in our growing pains to try to get to a better theory. But I think frankly that the notion of fields will fall by the wayside as certainly as an ontologically interesting thing that feels just. But the idea of things beyond space time and connections beyond space time, that's going to stay so. So, yeah, that's the sense in which I think you were using it fields talk about some kind of connection. Absolutely. But quantum fields are a clued. The notion of connections beyond space time, that, that can still hold. And that I agree with you when you said we're all deeply one, I mean, that's.

[Alex Ferrari]

At the end of the day, that is the truth. That is the one truth. That's not a point that I agree. That's not a pointer. That is the truth. We are all one. If you look at the planet from space, you could just see we're all in this together. We are all one. You know, what's really interesting to me is I've been seeing what's going on with AI in translations. And when I started to see the power of what's coming up in. It's already here. But really, we're probably about six months to a year of this conversation where translations will be so easy to do, to video, that it's going to open up this world in a way that we really don't understand yet. But then I just came back from Europe where I was using an app to communicate with my Uber driver and have full conversations with my Uber driver with Google Translate. But then I was like, wait a minute. In my lifetime, there will be a little machine that will put in my ear and that as soon as I speak, it will come out in the language through the speaker of the person I'm hearing. And I would hear it will be instantaneous to the point where we are all becoming one. This limitation of language and not culture. Culture, of course, still, you know, there everyone has their culture. But this globalization that we've been eking towards and you know, from where we were in the 20s of last of 19 of the 19th century to where we are in the 20s now, how much more globalized we are, that we are really dependent on each other. And the Internet really opened that all up for all of us. I do see that that's going to be a world where language is not going to be an issue anymore and the miscommunications won't be as, as prevalent as they are now. Would you agree?

[Don Hoffman]

No, I absolutely agree. I think that the technology is moving. We'll probably have that within a few years and, and it'll, it will help bridge the gap. I think that will do something to help us understand each other better and, and, and not discriminate against each other. It's hard when you can't understand somebody at all. It's much easier to sort of put them off and say they're unlike me and, and, and not treat them as, as an equal. But when you actually start to hear very human things coming back to you from them, then you realize, oh no, that's another person of feelings, just like me and, and, and maybe different beliefs than me. But.

[Alex Ferrari]

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[Alex Ferrari]

And now back to the show. And you know what, as you, you know, and the thing, I think this is only from someone who can travel a little bit outside of their own home country. I mean you could travel within the country and there's very different people within our country of the U.S. without question, you know, from different area and different regions. But when you start to go around the world a bit and start going to different countries, you just start to realize like they, they just want happiness for their kids. They want to be safe. They just want, they want to Be happy in general, they want to live their lives in peace. I mean we all have this in common. That's right. And it's getting, I think that, that those walls are starting to come down and more and more again, the Internet opened us up in a way that was a model. I always, I always said, I always said this, and I'm sure I'm not the first to say it, that the Internet is kind of the, the rudimentary, kind of barbaric example of what the ancients called the Akashic records, where all information is all connected at all time. Right. We're, you know, right now we're starting to get close to being able to just say hey Siri, what is quantum physics? Can you explain it to me as a 3 year old? And then just start or chatty chat, GPT. Can you explain it to me? We're starting to get to that place. Let me ask you this question though. What is your, what is your understanding of the Akashic records, Akashic field, if you will? Because I had Dr. Irwin Laszlo, Nobel, Nobel nominee on who's written multiple books about the Akashic records, the Akashic field and how that is, what's con that connects us all. I'd love to hear if you have any points on that.

[Don Hoffman]

Right. So as a scientist, what I want are mathematical models about as much as I can about the, the one connecting consciousness. And I've got a paper called Fusions of Consciousness, it came out in January. So people, it's free. So if you just Google Fusions of Consciousness, you can get the paper for free and look at our mathematical mod. And, but this gets back now to the start of our conversation which is that even the mathematics, precise mathematics and all the things that we can prove and it's, and it's a lot is just a baby step. It's a, it's trivial. What, what I've done, what my team has done, what all of us who are doing mathematical models of consciousness have done is trivial compared to the real thing. Right? And, and it's, it's in principle we, we can never get a theory of everything in science. No, science has the best pointers that mankind has ever come up with. But it's, it's obvious that a scientific theory says grant me these assumptions. If you grab me these assumptions, then I can explain all this wonderful stuff. But if you don't give me those assumptions, then I can't explain anything. And notice the theory doesn't explain its assumptions, it assumes the assumptions. It doesn't explain them, it assumes them. So it doesn' everything we say. But of course I can get a deeper theory that explains those assumptions. Yes, you can. And that deeper theory has its own assumptions that it doesn't explain. So there is no theory of everything and there can never be. And in fact science in the technical sense will only know probability zero of the truth. But it's very important what we're doing. We, we should continue to do it. Even though it's measure zero. It's clear that we do get insights and some theories are better than others. Einstein's theory is better than Newton's, and Newton's theory is better than almost any that you and I could come up with.

[Alex Ferrari]

Right, that's fair enough.

[Don Hoffman]

So, so, so it's clear that even though there's no scientific theory of everything, not all theories are created created equal. Some are better than others. And we, we should put our efforts in to get good scientific theories and to be completely humble and say our best scientific theories are trivial compared to the reality to the deep akashic field, if you will. The, the deep one consciousness. If you want to know that deep one consciousness intellectually, yes, our mathematical models might be the best thing that you can come up with right now.

[Alex Ferrari]

Sure.

[Don Hoffman]

If you want to know it more deeply, then my pointer is this. You are that consciousness and so am I. And the way to, to, to know it is to let go of any conceptions of who I am. If you sit in silence and in darkness and let go of all thoughts and just ask yourself the question, who am I? And then let go of any thoughts, no answers, and just sit there. That's your answer. You are and being. But it's a non conceptual knowledge. You know it directly. Just like you know the taste of mint by tasting mint. You know the deep profound truth of reality just by sitting in silence and tasting it, so to speak, by being it.

[Alex Ferrari]

And that is why the, these masters who walk the earth all almost always, especially coming from the east, spoke about meditation, spoke about medication. Prayer is another example of meditation in many ways. Just being silent, being quiet within yourself is, is something that I, I've seen again and again and again, even in my own studies and experiences now.

[Don Hoffman]

And that's because you are the truth. You are the truth that transcends any statement of truth that any description. That's what, that's, that's why that, that's the case. And that's also the problem that we have is that we don't recognize everybody else as just the same truth. As I am. I have my words, you have your words and they're different. And so then we fight over the words where when you let go of the, the words and you realize I'm face to face with the reality that I am and you are the one reality.

[Alex Ferrari]

But Don, we need a middleman to be between us and the ultimate consciousness, don't we? A dogmatic middleman framework.

[Don Hoffman]

Right, right. We need Jesus or a priest or both between us. Whereas it's interesting, in the Bible, at one point, you know, the Pharisees were picking up stones to stone Jesus. And Jesus said, you know, why, why are you guys going to kill me with stones? And they said, well, because you claim to be the son of God. And Jesus said, well, in the psalms it says I have said you are gods and all of you are sons of the Most High. Jesus said, if the, if he calls them gods to whom the word of God came, why are you trying to stone me for just saying I'm the son of God? What Jesus is saying is to each one of them, you are God. That's what he's saying, you are God. He couldn't have been clearer. And he quoted from the book of Psalms. But of course you don't get that. My father was a Protestant Christian minister for many years, by the way. He was Protestant. So we all believe Catholics weren't going to make it to heaven. Right.

[Alex Ferrari]

So it was, I mean, obviously all this, all the different sects of Christianity is ridiculous.

[Don Hoffman]

And it is that kind of ridiculousness though, that when you actually look at Jesus words and he's basically saying all of us are children of God, what does it mean to be a child? A child of a human is human, a child of God is God. And, and, and so when we say we're children of God, what, what Jesus, what we're saying is all of us are God. What we are is God looking at itself through an avatar. There's, yeah, my avatar, there's your avatar, there's Jesus avatar, there's Buddha's. These are all just avatars. It's the one infinite intelligence looking at itself through different avatars. So your little baby, your 10 year old child, your wife, your husband, they're all the infinite intelligence looking at itself through an avatar.

[Alex Ferrari]

I, I with the conversation of simulation theory, there's also game theory that gets, gets tossed on there sometimes too. I've had some game theorists on the show talking about simulation theory through a gamer's point of view. And I always use the, the example of Link and Zelda you know like when back in the day and that's when I gamed the late 80s, early 90s. So you know, you are Link. Link is your, your avatar and you continuously go through the game and then when you turn the corner you get killed. All there was an orc there. But then the next time you go through, you know that there's going to be an orc there. So you're prepared for it. Well, that's just the evolution of the soul. That is the evolution of life. You learn along the way. So. And then even video games inherently proof reincarnation again and again because multiple lives to come back and keep trying to figure and again and again. So. But the question is though, if that's the player who is the one with the controller playing the game. Because just like us, when we're playing a video game we really, it's almost irrelevant what's happening in the game. Like our, our avatar can get ripped apart a thousand times by a boss of a level and we're just like oh, let's do it again. Oh let's do it again. Oh let's figure it out. Oh let's do it again. But to that poor avatar, it really hurts. It's a torturous event but for the player. So I would say then, then you look at that like well, what we're going through on this earth in this experience there is an oversoul, a player, the soul itself, the higher self, whatever word you want to call it, is not playing the game, but observing the game. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this kind of game theory idea. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

[Don Hoffman]

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[Alex Ferrari]

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[Don Hoffman]

Yes, I think that there is this. This infinite timeless One intelligence, one consciousness. That is what you are and that's what you actually tap into. When you go into silence and let go of all thought you. You Are you realize that that's what you really are? You really aren't just this, this guy that you weigh so much and has this color hair and lives and so, and so those are just your avatar descriptions. And so there is the question. Why would the one timeless intelligence do this? Why? What, what's the point of it? Why? Why all these wars and fighting and, and, and religions where people are killing each other and dogmatism and the whole bit. Why, why, why does it do that? Why does it. And of course the answer is I don't know. But, but here's one possibility is that in some sense the one intelligence, the one ultimate consciousness is, transcends any form. It's formless. But how, how do you know yourself? How, how, how in some sense does it know itself? Well, it knows itself by taking different perspectives on itself. So, and that's what an avatar is. It's a projection of itself. It's saying, well, let me look at myself from this point of view and let me actually get so wrapped up in that point of view that I don't even know it's a point of view. I think it's the truth. So then I really absorb that point of view and then let me wake up. Then I'll wake up and realized, no, I spent 70 years of my life thinking I was just this body. And then I woke up and I, and I. But so I realized I'm not that as complicated as this world is. And you know, it's. The universe is billions of light years. There's the moon, there's the sun. It's. I mean, look at the planets and the flowers. Incredible microbiology, all the sciences and all that stuff. And I completely transcend all of that. All of that is trivial compared to who I am. When you wake up, you realize all of that is complicated. I'm not that I transcend that. So now I go, holy smoke, what am I? I'm not this. I mean, so that's what consciousness is up to. Putting on an avatar, allowing itself to get lost, completely identified with the avatar, really absorbing that point of view and then recognizing it's only a point of view and waking up. So that's my best guess about what, what's, what's going on here?

[Alex Ferrari]

That's. It's a very interesting point of view because let me ask you, I've spoken to a lot of near death experiencers. Yes, probably over a hundred at this point in the game. Also spiritual masters, yogis and so on from all walks of life. This concept that I'm about to ask you about is a concept that is. Was introduced to me on the show and it's fascinated me. And I've asked all sorts of my guests, from near death experiencers to, to channels to most to the spiritual masters I've had on the show, is that we, we've heard of the concept of reincarnation, that we, we have past lives, we have future lives, we have this current life and that we die and we keep evolving and we keep coming back and the concept of karma and all this kind of stuff. But the concept that, that was thrown to me and I find it so fascinating, is that there is no past life, there is no future life, that all the lives are happening at the same time because there is no time on the quote unquote other side, this other realm that we're from, where this consciousness that you speak of lives or is, is lives like he has a house. But the, this concept of everything happening all at once and that if I do something in this life, it quote unquote, ripples back to my time as a Roman soldier. And it also ripples forward to my time as the president of a small country in 2050, 2550, all at the same time. When I say ripples, it's because rippling within my own soul's evolution. Right. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, this theory.

[Don Hoffman]

Yes, we can actually make it sort of mathematically precise using the, the language in our paper fusions of consciousness. So, and we actually talk about this, your very point, at the very end of that paper, and what we point out is that we have this mathematical model of the dynamics of consciousness outside of space time. And of course the disclaimer, as always, is of course it's just a theory. It's not the truth, it's just a baby step. But it's an interesting baby step. In this, in this mathematical model, there need be no arrow of time. So the arrow of time that we have is the arrow of entropy. Entropy increases with time, right? Entropy always increases with time. Second law of thermodynamics. In our dynamics of consciousness beyond space time there the markup dynamics can be what's called a homogeneous Markov chain. And the arrow there is entropy, but it doesn't increase. So there is no entropic arrow of time. But it's a theorem. If you look at that dynamics that's timeless from any projection you project it anyway, so you're losing little information. The projected dynamics will be a dynamics, but it will have an arrow of Time as an artifact of the projection. This is the theorem. So in other words, what you were talking about informally, we can put, we can actually write it down as a theorem that you can prove in three or four lines and show that the arrow of time that we experience now is not an insight at all into the nature of the reality beyond our avatar. It's entirely an artifact, completely an artifact of the projection, not an insight at all into the truth beyond it. Now, from an evolutionary point of view, right here, here, you know, evolution, organisms competing for limited resources, trying to mate and, and so forth, what's so. And these are limited resources. What's the most fundamental limited resource? Time. If I don't get food in time, I die. If I don't mate in time, I don't reproduce. If I don't get the next breath of air in time, I'm dead. If my heart doesn't beat in time, I'm dead. So time is the fundamental limited resource. Now, evolution by natural selection is an incredibly beautiful theory. I think it's, I mean, I've published papers on it. I've worked on evolutionary game theory. It's incredible. Inside our space time headset, there is no better theory about biological systems and biological evolution than the theory of evolution of natural selection. But space time is just a headset. It's just a virtual reality. It's not the truth. And that includes the theory of evolution. Evolution is the best theory inside the headset. Nothing can beat it right now. But all of evolution with natural selection is an artifact of the projection from outside. None of it is a deep insight into the nature of reality. So there's this timeless infinite intelligence, the consciousness looking at itself from a projection. And when it sees itself from the projection, it looks like evolution by natural selection. It looks like all this competition fighting for resources looks like an arrow of time. And all of that is not true of the deeper reality. All of it is mathematically in an artifact of the projection.

[Alex Ferrari]

So if I make again quote Paramahansa Yogananda, he said so eloquently, since you were saying projection, he's like that. We are all so focused on the screen and all of the violence and the action and the, the love and the, the drama of it all, like you were just saying, he goes, but the point is not to focus on the screen, is to look behind you and focus where the light is coming from the projector.

[Don Hoffman]

That's right.

[Alex Ferrari]

Eloquently in his, in his yogic, yogic ways. Such an eloquent explanation for a lot of what you were just saying, would you agree?

[Don Hoffman]

I, I think that that's an excellent metaphor to get the idea across that you're not the video on the screen. You are the screen and the light that can show any possible video. My laptop that I'm looking at you on right now, I see a video on it. But the laptop itself could show countless different images. Countless. Not just the one I'm showing. And that's who you are. You are the infinite potential that could see anything.

[Alex Ferrari]

I heard an explanation of this idea of everything happening all at once, which was so beautiful. And it's. And it was television. He goes, I think it was here. She, she said to me, well, if you're looking at a television screen right now, you turn on your TV and you're watching the football game. Well, even if you just stay in the realm of the football game, you know that there's 26 other games being played at the same time on Sunday, but you can't see them. But they're happening. And also, but there's also episodes of Seinfeld reruns. There's also episodes of Friends. There's also episodes of all in the Family. There's the Sopranos. There's all these other shows going on and movies going on all at the same times. But your focus is on that game right now. But you have to understand that all this other stuff is happening at the exact same moment that you are watching this. So I was like, oh, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. Would you agree? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

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[Alex Ferrari]

And now back to the show.

[Don Hoffman]

That's right. It makes sense. If we're stuck with an, you know, our little headset that has an arrow of time. When we transcend that, then they just all exist, right? That's right. The very, the very notion of time and simultaneity then, then goes away and, which is really quite, quite interesting. So we, you talked about incarnate, you know, reincarnation. So I've incarnated into this body. Consciousness is incarnated into your body, but also it incarnates into religious doctrines. Because if I'm willing to kill you for my, you know, Protestantism or your, your Catholic Catholicism or whatever, I've identified myself with that doctrine. So we, and then, you know, every time I get involved in, in something else and, and give it, you know, sort of identify with it, I've reincarnated into that. So we're, we're incarnating ourselves all the time into stuff when we, when we don't realize that we're the consciousness that transcends anything that we see, anything that we believe we are reincarnating.

[Alex Ferrari]

You know what's really interesting when you said that, something just popped into my head is that throughout history, known history that we, that we have records of is that there is these, these, these dogmatic ideologies that have been throughout humanity throughout, throughout time where at a moment I would have killed you if you didn't believe in Raw. I would have killed you if you didn't believe in Zeus. I would have killed you if you didn't believe in the. And, but those kind of go away and we evolve to something else. Even the dogma, even the ideologies are evolving. So like Raw, not that I'm an expert on Raw, the Sun God or, or I forgot the other Egyptian. Before Ra, there was the other Egyptian gods, Horus and so on. I'm not an expert in any of them. But it seems like with these newer, newer meaning within the last 2000 years, they seem to be attached to more spirituality that there was an actual person that was preaching these ideas, whether Buddha, Jesus, you know, even Yogananda, so on and so forth that create these ideas, it seems that even those things are evolving and humanity is starting to let go of, of the things that doesn't serve them anymore. Maybe one of the reasons why we are going through this uprising of, of war now and of hate. And it's been going on for the last 10, 15 years. Really. It's been going on for a long time, but it really seems to have been bubbling up over the last decade, more so than it was when I was growing up. It was just different when I was growing up. And it's like maybe the final, hopefully the final realization of humanity to just go, that doesn't serve us anymore. We don't want to do this anymore. We need to evolve beyond this. Would you agree?

[Don Hoffman]

Yeah, I would say that. Well, there's a couple parts to it. I would agree that our purpose is to wake up. And waking up involves realizing that the people I hate are in fact myself. And that, you know, in Christianity, Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, that's because your neighbor is yourself. And true love is recognizing that fact. That's, that is, you don't really love until you really understand that the person in front of you is you. Not like you, is you being a different avatar. When you really understand that that is you, your neighbor is yourself. That's the foundation of real love. Now, whether it seems to be getting worse. Now, Steven Pinker at Harvard has data suggesting that there are bumps in the road, but humanity's homicide rate has been declining. It was far higher per capita back in aboriginal times than it is now. He's got clear data. So we, we are experiencing a terrible bump right now and then, you know, but, but there's been a decline. I, I think that my own experience is that there are a lot of people who are waking up, but it's still, still a tiny, tiny fraction. But my hope is that we see right now still the scientific paradigm is a physicalist one. And in the popular mind and in most of most scientists mind, the, the space time for physicalist framework of reality is still what, what is dominating most people when science. So no, spiritual traditionalism is saying no, that's not right, physicalism is false. But they've not had the beef, right? They've not. I mean, what technology can they make? Right? It's the scientists who gave us laptops and the technology that you and I are using to know spiritual form, but in physical form. So, but that's what's going to, you know, really persuade people, right? The scientists can give us all this technology, Right? Of course. Well, Scient are the ones who then realize space time is doomed and actually start getting mathematical models of a reality beyond space time that starts to smell like consciousness. I think that will really be the stepping stone for a lot more people to wake up. And when scientists then actually start going after that with mathematical precision, I think the wake up process will, so then there'll be more, they'll give more tools now to the spiritual traditions. They'll all of a sudden have pointers that are much more clear. And also I think that some of the pointers that spiritual decisions have are, are wrong. And we'll find them. We'll, we'll Actually be able to find them and say that that's just a bad pointer. These are, that's a good pointer over here. And that's, but we can actually evolve that pointer. So I see a back and forth between science and spirituality that will not, not in the next decade, not maybe not in the, maybe not in my lifetime. But, but, but I, I see it coming where scientists realize space time is doomed. There's a realm beyond space time. And as we study that, we begin to realize, oh, we're actually just discovering ourselves and we're just avatars here in space time.

[Alex Ferrari]

Well, let me, I would argue with you though that, that the spiritual space, the spiritual traditions, especially the Eastern traditions that are older, much, much older than the Western, that their technology that they gave us was more of inner technologies.

[Don Hoffman]

Sure, sure.

[Alex Ferrari]

The meditation, yoga, Tao Te Ching, these ideas, these philosophies are inner technologies where science has given us amazing outer technologies. But that's right, they both can't come. You can't do one without the other. In many ways. In many ways. So there I wanted to clarify that and I wanted to know if you would agree with me or not.

[Don Hoffman]

Oh, absolutely, yeah. The meditation in particular is, is an incredibly important technology. So I was just using the technology in terms of what would persuade people. Right, right, sure, sure, sure. I've got, I've got my iPad because of the scientists and they're physicalists. So maybe physicalism is better than this religious stuff is sort of the idea of pointing to. But I agree that there's. Meditation is an important technology. But when the scientists who are giving you iPads and I also saying our science seems to say that spacetime isn't fundamental and maybe consciousness is, then people will go, well, shoot. The scientists are saying so, well, maybe I better check into this. Maybe I should try meditation, you know.

[Alex Ferrari]

Yeah, I see your point. Because I completely see your point. I think it's going to be two different kind of wake up calls. I think the, the, the person who is more physically inclined is going to wait for those cues and the people who are more spiritual inclined are going to wake up from the more spiritual cues. I think you're right though. I think both, but I'm thinking it's one pill for both. I think it's going to be multiple, multiple different areas. And by the way, that's it. And it's not even going to be two. I mean a movie like the Matrix, I mean that movie woke up. It brought simulation theory with Kung Fu, but brought simulation, brought simulation theory into the Zeitgeist, you know, and now Marvel is bringing the multiverse and parallel realities to billions of people around the world. Where, yes, those ideas have been around even. Even in. In. In general culture, but not the way it is now. I mean, people are having conversations, deep conversations about multi. The multiverse and parallel realities and the Mandela effect and these kind of ideas because of these other. These pop culture or stories. I mean, look, if it wasn't for H.G. wells, I don't know if we would have gotten to the moon. You know, he inspired so many scientists to go into science, because before H.G. wells, there was not really a conversation about those kind of things. I might be wrong, but generally speaking, he's one of the more popular ones that really brought it out of people. Would you agree? We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

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[Alex Ferrari]

And now back to the show.

[Don Hoffman]

Well, I think that many people were. The young people were stimulated by these imaginative novels or. Or movies that they saw. And mean, I was stimulated. I was 13 years old when the first astronauts landed on the moon. Apollo 13, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. And it completely inspired me. It made me want to be, you know, a scientist and so forth. So novels, movies, you know, real accomplishments by brave people going to the moon, risking their lives. Yeah, they wake up a generation and say, oh, yeah, I want to do that too. Or even, like when President Kennedy said, you know, we want to, by the end of this decade, send a man to the moon and bring him home safely, you know? Absolutely. I mean, that's a clarion call to a generation and makes you work real hard with 1960s technology. Boy, those guys were brave.

[Alex Ferrari]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I've been to the Kennedy Space Center. I've been to the Houston Space Center. And when you look at this stuff, you're like, are you out of your mind?

[Don Hoffman]

Those guys had. They. They had.

[Alex Ferrari]

They were. With pencils. They were doing the math with pencils and pens on paper and they're just like, hold on, I got to get this, this, this algebra equation done. Okay. Yeah, I think we could get them back if we do this. Like, that is truly in insane.

[Don Hoffman]

They were incredibly brave and, and, or stupid.

[Alex Ferrari]

Or stupid. Either one.

[Don Hoffman]

Well, then some of them died.

[Alex Ferrari]

Yeah, exactly. No, many, many died. But the, the, the line of insanity and genius are, are very close together.

[Don Hoffman]

That's right. And brave. But they, Someone had to be brave. God bless John Glenn to do the first orbit around the Earth.

[Alex Ferrari]

Exactly. Well, let's talk about the poor dog that was sent. Or the monkey originally.

[Don Hoffman]

It's fascinating.

[Alex Ferrari]

Well, let me ask you this question. A lot of the things we're talking about have been discussed in, for example, the Vedic text or ancient text, thousands and thousands of years. These theories, these ideas. Where do you think they got this information? I mean, because we just figured it out a little while ago in the west, quote, unquote. But these Eastern Vedic texts or older texts that are 6,7000 years old, we're talking about simulation theory. The idea of Maya, the idea of the great illusion, the dream even. Well, I mean, a little early, a little later, like Plato and. Yeah, in the cave, the allegory of the cave, these ideas. But specifically, even older, that predates the west with some of these Eastern traditions. Where do you think this information came from? Because they didn't have the materialistic basis that the west has now. I would love to hear your thoughts.

[Don Hoffman]

That's a good question. I, I think that they didn't have the technology, like, right, right now I can talk about a virtual reality headset. And people say, oh yeah, one of those. And you sort of get it. Plato had to use the cave and say, well, I've got a fire and I've got objects. And, and you're seeing the shadows of these objects against the cave wall. And people go, okay, I can, I, yeah, I can see the shadow is not the real object. It's just a shadow of the object. And so, so maybe what I'm perceiving is just shadows of reality. And, and I think that many people, when they sit down and, and just when sometimes you do have illusions, right? Visual illusions. Like if you stick a stick in water, look at the, the part above water and part in the water, it looks like the stick is broken. And, and as it bends right, and you go, well, okay, that's not right. The stick isn't broken. And yet I'm seeing it broken. And when you do. So I guess a lot of people may have seen those kinds of Things. And then, and then, or like if you're in Holland and you see a windmill turning from a distance, sometimes when you're looking at it, it'll all of a sudden stop and turn the other direction if you're far enough. And you go, whoa, whoa, how did that happen? And then you realize, no, that's just, that's just an illusion. So, so it doesn't take too sensitive a person to then go, well, wait a minute. If I was wrong about the stick in the water and I'm wrong about that windmill, and you find some other things that you're wrong.

[Alex Ferrari]

You take a pencil, you take a stick, and you. And it all becomes. Because bendy when you start doing it.

[Don Hoffman]

Because bendy. That's right. And then you start doing things like you draw pictures, like of a cube on a piece of paper, and it looks like it's 3D, but you know that it was just a picture on a piece of paper. So then you go, okay, wait a minute, I'm making up some of this stuff maybe I'm making up all of this stuff maybe. And that's. So I don't think it doesn't require too much genius to just go, whoa, I was wrong there. I was wrong there. Maybe I'm wrong everywhere. So that's my one guess about the Maya kind of thing.

[Alex Ferrari]

Yeah. And the idea though, that imagine, because you and I are talking about this in a very safe world in the, in the sense that we can have these conversations publicly, but can you imagine being a yogi 8, 000 years ago and saying, you know, this whole thing not real. Can you imagine where that came from? My, my, my interpretation of it is that they were at a spiritual level that was so much deeper than what we understand, that they went inward. And a lot of this information they might have tapped into what the truth was. If that's. And only someone who meditates understands that.

[Don Hoffman]

Well, and I, I agree that I think that that's also in addition to the, I was talking about, you know, just an average guy, but these yogis that, that, that are actually going very, very deep. That's where I think the fact that they're, they are the one. And just like you and I are the one, that they are the infinite intelligence. So they didn't have the technology that we have, but they had something even better. They have the infinite intelligence. That, that, that, that is you and me. And that is also my, my baby 4 year old, or whatever it might be. There's also infinite intelligence. It's Just not yet expressed. Right, so. So, yeah, I agree with you.

[Alex Ferrari]

Now, if we are in a simulation, Don, and this is all a giant, you know, giant video game that we're all playing, do we eventually break out? Do we eventually escape? Do we eventually stop playing this game?

[Don Hoffman]

Yes, but there's infinitely many games to play. So yeah, we, we pop out of this one. But it's the, the one is so deep that there's a. Literally an infinity of different perspectives to be taken. Literally infinity. In some sense. If, if the one consciousness is up to understanding itself, you know, sort of self realization, who am I then? I think that this. Well, for example, there's a theorem that no system can ever fully understand itself. So if I have like a computer system and I want that system to understand itself, well, I could have that computer system, like build a software model of itself and of its interactions and so forth of its parts. But now, but now the system has changed because now it's got some software in it it didn't have before. So now I need to model that new software addition to me. But, but as soon as I do that, I've got the fact that I have this new software edition that I've. So in other words, you can never catch up. You, you can never get a full model of yourself. And so maybe the, the one infinite consciousness is forever, quote, unquote, taking different perspectives. Because in principle, there is no end to the, the exploration of itself. It can never know itself completely. And so once we take it, once we step out of this headset, there's infinitely many more to step out. And one question for me then is, you know, that I wonder about is, does it allow itself to be completely reincarnated into the new headset and completely lose itself and have to wake up sometimes painfully, right, kicking and screaming, so to speak, to its infinite nature and to realize, no, I'm not this projection. I'm not this avatar in this, in this tiny little projection. My guess is yes.

[Alex Ferrari]

You know, it's interesting because even with what you just said, the spiritual explanation for it, from my point of view and my experience is that when you become an ascended master, like a Yogananda, a Jesus, a Buddha, you choose to either come back or you choose to help others awaken through other ways. But there are ascended masters who leave and they're like, I'm good now. I don't need to come back to Earth. I don't need. I've learned the lessons. Yeah, I could be a thousand other things, but I've learned all the lessons I need to learn here. I now want to go to the next video game. I want to go to the next game that PlayStation is putting out. I've been in the Xbox. I want now PlayStation and then and you and you evolve to a higher level because it doesn't make sense for you vibrationally to be down here anymore. Because if you've heard these stories of the yogis, even in our, in the 1900s when people got in front of the Maharishi, they, they just the energy that they felt, there was something that they was intoxicating. Some couldn't stand too close because it was just too much. And they would have to go back like radiated 30 or 50ft out or something like that. Wow, it's fascinating. And I want to ask you one last question because I, I mean I could talk to you for another hour or two, Don, with that question, but may ask you another question regards to the concept of frequency. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.

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[Don Hoffman]

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[Alex Ferrari]

And now back to the show. In the spiritual traditions they talk about that the higher the frequency, the closer you are to source. So hate, anger, prejudice, these are all very low, low frequency, very, very slow. But love, service, kindness, these are higher frequencies in nature according to spirituality. But we have proven that there is frequency and that we all, in many ways, the whole planet sings at different frequencies at all time, hums almost at a different frequency at all at all times. And these and especially like I was just saying with the Maharishi, they were at a higher frequency that they couldn't even attract, you know, a mugger that's like, like you don't see yogis getting mugged or you know, that's just not a thing you hear. You also never heard of the Yogic crusades where they were killing people for in the name of the source. Like, so what is your, what's your perspective on frequency and spiritual frequency and also just mathematical physics frequencies and is there a way that those two connect?

[Don Hoffman]

Yes, and it ties in with also with what you were saying about some yogic masters saying, well, I don't need to go, stay at this level, I'll go to, to a higher level, don't have to come back here. So on that, I think the space time is a fairly cheap headset. It's only four dimensions, right? Two, three dimensions, space, one dimension of time. Why not 50 dimensions? Why not 5 billion? Why not a trillion dimensions? Why not having 30,000 different dimensions of color instead of just three dimensions of color and so forth. So of the hue, the hue space, for example, there's saturation and brightness and all those. But so in other words, we have a certain number of dimensions of color. Why not have a trillion other dimensions of color that we, you know, why not? So we, I think we have a, one of the cheaper headsets that the one can use to, to look at itself, and it falls apart at 10 to the minus 33 centimeters. So, so we're not in, we're in one of low frequency, the low frequency models, right? But yes, in the mathematics that we're working on, this Markovian Dynamics of Conscious Agents. So the, that we talk about in the Fusions of Consciousness paper, and I talk about in my book, the Case Against Reality. So I talk about this in the very last chapter of my book, the Case Against Reality. It's a Markovian dynamics and it's all about frequencies. It's. It the, but this is a mathematically precise theory about where these frequencies come from. And it turns out as you get more and more integrated, different systems, then the frequencies go up. So you get these larger and larger communication classes. The Markov communicating class gets more and more coherent. And as a result, we think what we call the momentum gets larger and therefore the spatial frequency gets smaller, so the frequencies get finer. You get higher and higher frequencies in this thing. So, so yes, we actually have a mathematical model that I wasn't trying to model this kind of yogic idea of higher frequencies and so forth. It just came out of our, our mathematics. As you get more and more coherent, larger interactions of conscious agents, the frequencies that correspond to it get higher. So yes, it's, it's really, it falls right out of the theory. But again, I'm not putting our theory out as the truth. It's a, a first baby step outside of space time towards understanding consciousness. Just the first first baby step.

[Alex Ferrari]

And that's what this show is all about. It's just trying to figure everything out as Much as we possibly can and going through different avenues to. That's why I talk to so many different kinds of people from so many different walks of life. Because in this conversation, you've opened up my eyes to a bunch of different things I hadn't thought about before. Oh, great. And hopefully I've thrown a couple at you that you've thought about differently as well, because there's not a lot of quantum physicists talking to near death experiencers, but there's some value there and vice versa. So hopefully we could all. I'm trying to bridge the gap, Don. I'm trying, I'm doing the best I can to bridge the gap. Now I'm going to ask you a few questions, ask all my guests. What is your definition of living a fulfilled life?

[Don Hoffman]

I would say now that learning to let go of thought, being able to be in this moment without being lost in my thoughts and just being present, that is what we're here for. That's what our purpose is, is to wake up. So you wake up when you can actually be washing the dishes and be present and not being grudging that you're washing the dishes, not being upset that you're washing the dishes, rather be doing nothing, but literally in the moment, being present and, and, and so that's a fulfilled, fulfilled and fulfilling life. If this moment, which is the only moment I can actually choose to do anything, I choose to not be lost in thought, but to actually be aware of my emotions, to be aware of the thoughts that are going on, not identified with the thoughts, but being just aware of the thoughts, looking at them without reincarnating into them, and then that, that is living that way. And I'm not saying I do that all the time. I, I do it occasionally, but I think that if you ask what is a fulfilled life? I think that is a fulfilled life. It's not, it's not getting rich because everything that you get, you're going to take the headset off. It'll. It, it's everything that you accumulate, you're going to lose. Guaranteed fame, riches, cars, houses, followers. You're going to lose every bit of it, and you'll lose it within a few decades, probably sooner. So none of that. It'll make you happy for a few minutes and then all of a sudden you're on to the next thing. That wasn't that wasn't it. What, what is it when you, when you become a billionaire and that's not it. What is it that you need being present in this moment without thought and just then realizing who you are, the you are, the infinite intelligence. You're not the Avatar. That's a fulfilled life.

[Alex Ferrari]

If you could go back in time and talk to little Don, what advice would you give him?

[Don Hoffman]

Learn to be. Have internal silence. It's fine to go and pursue fun things, get an education, get a good job, as long as you realize you're going to walk away from all of it. So none of that is. You don't identify with anything. It will always. So learn to go into complete inner silence and find out who you really are. The big question is, who am I? If you know who you really are and it's not my bank account, it's not my car, it's not my house, it's not my popularity, it's nothing. None of that is me. None of that is me. My body isn't me. So I would say find out the answer to this question. Who am I? That's what I would told myself.

[Alex Ferrari]

How do you define Source or God?

[Don Hoffman]

Again, only by ostensive definition. So we go right back to the very start of our conversation where I would have to say, if I tried to just use words and give definitions, it won't work. But if I point, if I give you pointing instructions like giving you a glass of wine and saying you've never had wine. Here, have a glass. Take, that's wine. All I can say about Source is, if you want to know what Source is, sit in silence, turn out the light, no distractions, let go of thoughts. And when you're aware of the silence and nothing else, you had your first little taste of Source. But just the first little taste now go into it further, spend more time there, more time there. When you can start to spend hours there, then you're starting to really know a little bit more about the Source. And yet you've only scratched the surface of the depths of who you are.

[Alex Ferrari]

And what is the ultimate purpose of

[Don Hoffman]

life, of our life here, I think is to wake up. I mean, we're here to get lost, to not know who we are, to think that I need to compete with you, to be, you know, smarter than you or, or more richer than you or more popular than you or faster than you, whatever it might be. And you see this, Even three or four year olds, right, they're already there. That's mine and this. And then mine's better than yours. And, and so we're. So we're here to get lost, to identify with the Avatar and then to wake up and to rec. To walk away from that all and to realize we're going to take this headset off and nothing was lost.

[Alex Ferrari]

We'll be right back after a word

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[Don Hoffman]

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[Alex Ferrari]

And now back to the show and where can people find out more about you and the amazing work you're doing in the world?

[Don Hoffman]

I have a book called the Case Against Reality. The subtitle is why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. So it's more within the spacetime headset kind of framework where I'm talking about that. But then at the last chapter I say, but now that we've done all this stuff on evolution, now it's time to let go of space time altogether. That includes letting go of evolution. So the book sort of goes through that. So I would say that. And I've got a Twitter account. So. Donald D. Hoffman, Fair enough.

[Alex Ferrari]

And do you have any party messages for the audience?

[Don Hoffman]

Don yeah, I would just say this, that there's been this tension between science and spirituality and it's not going to be necessary. That science is realizing that space time isn't fundamental and it's bringing new tools to the table. The spiritual traditions have already said that. They've said that spacetime isn't fundamental. There's a spiritual realm outside of space time that's more fundamental, but they haven't had the as good pointers. So when science and spirituality meet, science can provide new pointers and spirituality can provide thousands of years of meditation and the insights. And together, I think humanity can move forward with a scientific spirituality that is going to not only help us personally, but the technologies will be outside of space time and will be indistinguishable from magic.

[Alex Ferrari]

DON I appreciate you and everything you're doing in the world, my friend. Thank you so much for being on the show.

[Don Hoffman]

Thank you so much. I appreciate it for the kind invitation.

[Alex Ferrari]

Thank you for spending this sacred time with us today. If you feel called to explore this conversation further, you'll find the show notes for this [e-mail] 363 and if your soul is craving an even deeper journey, step into Next Level Soul tv, our streaming sanctuary for spiritual films, documentaries, original shows, guided meditations, channels, sessions, audiobooks, and transformative teachings. It's a space created to support your awakening, your healing, and your return to the truth of who you really are. Begin your journey at Next LevelSoul TV until next time. Keep expanding, keep seeking and keep walking your path towards the next level of your soul.

[Don Hoffman]

Foreign.

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[Don Hoffman]

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[Don Hoffman]

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