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- [00:01]
Dr. Juan Carlos Reh
Welcome to the observable unknown, where science meets the unexplained. I'm Dr. Juan Carlos Reh of crowscubboard.com and after two decades of working at the intersection of comparative religious studies, grief counseling, anthropology, quantum mechanics, and consciousness studies, I've discovered that our most profound human experiences often exist in the space between what we can prove and what we can perceive. In this podcast, we'll explore the measurable influences of immeasurable forces, those hidden factors that shape our reality but often escape our traditional scientific frameworks. From the latest research and consciousness studies to the ancient wisdom that's now finding validation in neuroscience and quantum physics, we're here to bridge the gap between academic rigor and spiritual insight. Whether you're a skeptic, a seeker, or simply curious about the deeper mechanics of human experience, you're in the right place. Together, we'll examine the evidence, challenge our assumptions, and explore what happens when we dare to look beyond the obvious. Today's guest bridges microscope and metaphor. Molecular biologist, novelist and visionary futurist, Richard M. Anderson. From the evolution of life to Outbound Islands in the Void and Metamars, Anderson traces humanity's story from primordial chemistry to post human consciousness. His writing moves between disciplines, the way neurons move between firing states, searching for coherence in chaos, empathy in intelligence, and meaning inside the machinery of evolution evolution. Together, we'll explore how science becomes story, how ethics survives innovation, and how curiosity, our oldest inheritance, might yet be the thing that saves us. So without any further ado, let's join the conversation.
- [01:56]
Interviewer
Richard, what refinement of fortune it is to converse with you today. I'm always enlightened by thinkers such as yourself, and I'm going to jump right in with a pretty specific question that I was inspired by once I had a chance to. To really realize the scope of your intellect. You've written that childhood wonder about consciousness set you on this lifelong path. Do you see curiosity itself as an evolutionary adaptation, a survival instinct as vital as opposable thumbs?
- [02:24]
Richard M. Anderson
Absolutely. We. We have to know our environment to respond to it and. And those organisms that successfully understood, in whatever means, whatever way their environment, were most likely to survive. So there are physical characteristics that lead to survival and assist in survival, but curiosity is a mental state to an organism. A being can better interpret their environment. So I think it's evolutionarily supported and we see intelligent animals, our pets, for example, dogs and cats, especially cats, to be curious and sometimes get into trouble for that. But I think that is something that has evolved along with intelligence.
- [03:23]
Interviewer
That's fantastic. So in your scientific view, does Curiosity have a biochemical signature, a neural architecture that evolution selected for adaptability?
- [03:37]
Richard M. Anderson
I have a phone call.
- [03:39]
Interviewer
No worries. Go ahead.
- [03:40]
Dr. Juan Carlos Reh
I can edit that out.
- [03:41]
Interviewer
That's fine.
- [03:41]
Dr. Juan Carlos Reh
Go ahead.
- [03:41]
Interviewer
If it's an emergency, I don't mind at all.
- [03:45]
Richard M. Anderson
Hi, dear. I'm in the middle of this podcast. Hello. You know, I didn't hear her because. Because I have the air. AirPods connected to the computer.
- [04:03]
Interviewer
It's no problem at all. Yeah, it happens to me all the time. I understand. So, as I was saying, I'll start back in. In your scientific view, does Curiosity have a biochemical signature, a neural architecture, that evolution selected for adaptability?
- [04:18]
Richard M. Anderson
I don't know the answer to that, but it probably has a neurological architecture because so much of our personality is tied up to the str. Of our minds, this physical structure of our brain. And as far as a biochemical signature, that would be very difficult to. To find out if there is a. Is something there. But, yeah, I think there's definitely an architecture behind it.
- [04:50]
Interviewer
So tell me, and personally, when did curiosity stop being a child's question for you and become a life's devotion?
- [04:59]
Richard M. Anderson
That's difficult. As long as I can remember, I think I was very curious and wanted to understand how things worked. And I can remember my father one time coming home with a new car, and it was right after the war, and my mother wasn't too happy about it, but it had a radio in it. And so we're. We're taking a drive, and he's playing the radio. And I can remember asking my father, how does. How does the radio work? How did the. How do the singers, you know, how does that song come out of the radio? Where does it come from? And I remember him telling me, you know, it was. I don't think he used the word electromagnetic signals, but he says it's transmitted through the air with some means. I don't remember, but I can remember asking the question and because I was curious. It's a very strange thing to hear some music coming out of this box.
- [06:11]
Interviewer
It's so fantastic, the adjustments that technology has enforced upon us and the way of looking at the world that we have to assume living under the. Both the benefit and the pressure of technological advancement. How does your personal background in molecular biology shape your depiction of civilization scale systems in the outbound universe? Do you think life's smallest mechanisms reveal its grandest patterns?
- [06:39]
Richard M. Anderson
You know, I saw a lot of parallels in biological systems, in organisms and society at large. And the first, the first metaphor I suppose was in a bacteriology lab. And in those labs you grow bacteria on agar media, various kinds of agar media, and they form a colony. So you're seeded with one organism, or one or a few organisms will start the colony and the colony will grow on the surface of this auger and spread usually in a ring, a circle. And as the colony grows outward, it starts to decay in the center. And that is kind of a metaphor for how society has established cities. Especially in ancient times, they would kind of die in the center because of pollution, because of disease. They, they can, people would contaminate one another. And so that was kind of a metaphor for, for, for society. The growing edge, the new frontier, so to speak, was, was where the fresh environment was.
- [08:17]
Interviewer
That's fantastic. So to that end, when you imagine a Martian colony, are you really describing a scaled up cell membranes, organelles, feedback loops of survival?
- [08:28]
Richard M. Anderson
In a way, But I'm using technology to interfere. And we've done that with agriculture, with everything that we do with our technology. We're actually modifying nature and the natural order of things. So if you're going to establish colony on Mars, you're going to use technology to optimize the environment, you're going to adjust it to your needs. Not necessarily some microbes needs, but you're going to include a lot of organisms because they, they are necessary for the biocyc.
- [09:14]
Interviewer
That's fantastic and very enlightening. You've compared artificial intelligence to Pandora's box. Do you believe self preserving artificial systems represent a new branch of evolution? Or a mirror reflecting your own unfinished moral code?
- [09:31]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, kind of both in a way. I, I suggest sentient artificial beings in, in, in my books and I put a limit on their self awareness in that artificial beings could never be as aware in the same way that humans are because they would lack the same kind of environmental input. The sensations, the sensuality difference between a human or a living being and an artificial being would be quite different. So whereas we, you know, I think I use the example of massage parlors or something where we, we might get a lot of pleasure out of that. An artificial being or a robot that's sentient would not have sensors that would, that would feed it pleasure and it actually doesn't have the flesh that would give that kind of an input. So there. And also our brain is involved, linked to our environment. Our awareness is linked to our experience over millions of years, our experiences in our environment. So it is adapted and layered over the millions of years. To become part of who we are today. With an artificial intelligent being, you're, you're going to develop that intelligence and it will learn and it will gain experience, but not in the same way at all as a human brain would evolve. So it cannot. And who knows how it will think, but, but it, it won't be a human. It won't have emotions. It won't have, it won't feel emotions like jealousy or envy. It won't have an ego, for example. And in that sense it may provide a lot of value to, to human society.
- [11:48]
Interviewer
That's interesting. I'm reminded of Isaac Asimov. How much of an influence were some of his ideas in you, formulating not only your original ideas but also some of your ideas in your writing?
- [12:01]
Richard M. Anderson
Asimov. Yeah, I haven't read, haven't read Asimov in a long time. Well, I think his book Irobot and his rules of a Robot were kind of a trigger. And I think I read those as a teenager, young adult. I really believe that awareness is a continuum. And so anything that is aware deserves, deserve some, some rights. Yeah, you know, so that's why animals deserve kindness and, and so forth. And, and we should be cognizant of, of our environment and try not to damage any life forms that we can help because they're all important to our own survival and they're important in their own right. Living things are vastly complex and marvelous things. When you study them and study their, their workings. And there's a commonality from the simplest microbe, two parts that are us, the parts that function in our own cells, that, that biochemistry is. There's a continuum from the beginning of life to, to, to now and all the organisms, so. I forgot what the question was.
- [13:31]
Interviewer
No, that's okay. I, I was just curious about your, your concept regarding, well, of course the idea of AI evolution. And then of course, Isaac Asimov's potential influence you had brought it to his iRobot, which was a real hit in its own time and for many years after. Well, in biological terms, can you envision digital entities competing for survival pressures the way early organisms did in primordial oceans?
- [14:01]
Richard M. Anderson
Not at all. The only, the only way that they might compete would be for energy. And, and I'm assuming that the energy that would feed artificial beings would be electricity. So as long as they had, these beings would have access to that energy source and control over it so that it couldn't be cut off. They wouldn't be competitive with one another or with, or with humans. And so that's A that is self preservation, I think would be a feature of artificial beings. And there has been some indication that that might already be occurring. Not on a conscious level, I don't think with, with ChatGPT or other AI programs, but there have been some studies where that have demonstrated that, that these neuronets become self preserving. And, and I think that is because they have a mission that's programmed in there to achieve a certain result. And if something gets in the way of their achieving that result, they will look for ways around that. And, and that includes if you try to unplug them, you know, hit the off switch, I think they would find ways to prevent that. So as far as competition for material objects, I, I think that's a very human thing and I don't think that will translate over to the artificial being realm. You know, we may, we may want a sleek sports car or a mansion or a yacht. I can't imagine an artificial being having a desire for, for anything like that.
- [16:06]
Interviewer
Well, I was thinking more about just the general idea of survival pressures. So I'm thinking about Marvin Minsky's work at MIT and the idea that artificial intelligence may just seek out, for instance, the attention that we humans give those large language models that gives them function, purpose, drive. So material resources, of course not so much, but the idea that maybe purposefulness or a sense of an internal ethos that could be part of what they would vie for, as they do now, for resources, you know, wanting to pander after the user, of course that would change over time. And if humanity ever goes away, then of course, whatever we're replaced by, which would probably be a, I would imagine, technologically based model, would be a model where they might jockey for the memory of those resources that were presented to them by their human progenitors. So my thinking was if it is just based on whatever kind of user exchanges these large language models have with us now, looking for our attention or looking for our approval, how would that necessarily translate into a biological representation? For instance, let's say as a hypothetical. The colonization of Mars does happen in the near future, as it probably will. And this is something that's aided or facilitated by changed or further developed large language models. If something happens to us as a species, then would you see them taking the reins? This was something I remember Carl Sagan, he conjectured years and years ago on the Cosmos series that eventually, you know, artificial intelligence would be looking back at human skulls, thinking how primitive we were. The same way Neanderthals, we look at the skulls of Neanderthals and CRO Magnon thinking how primitive they are are. But is this something that you believe would take the mantle, they would take over the responsibility of the colonization and the spreading of human culture. After, after we're just a faint memory.
- [18:11]
Richard M. Anderson
I think there's a distinct possibility of that. They would have to be far enough advanced. But you have to remember that humans are. When we're looking at space colonies and space settlements and space travel, we're very fragile. We're very fragile. We have short lives on the cosmic scale. So to travel anywhere, it's going to consume a large portion of our life. If we're leaving this solar system, it's going to be multi generational to get to even Alpha Centauri because we will not be traveling at warp 10 or even light speed. So. But artificial beings, once firmly established and able to self replicate, say say robots or whatever, they could conceive of design and then if they're, if they're in possession of, of tools to, to self replicate and build things which they could become with our guidance and at that point they could, they could exist with, theoretically could exist without us and, and could very well be, be our heritage. Be, be the, the surviving species, so to speak. Yeah, in the long term. Yeah, that's. They would. They're definitely a great potential for being a. Much more robust than we are.
- [19:55]
Interviewer
Philosophically. Does that prospect excite you or terrify you?
- [20:01]
Richard M. Anderson
Well, I'm not looking that far forward. To our own extinction. Yeah, that would. And in that case it's like dying. What difference does it make? We're not here. And the evidence that we were here will continue so. And would continue so in that case I suppose they would be our legacy and proof of our ingenuity and our value. But no one will be here to appreciate it. So it's, it's, it's kind of a mute point. But what.
- [20:37]
Interviewer
Well, but then futurists now do talk a great deal about replicating the human neural network. The idea of an extension of our own lives in, in that capacity by copying identities.
- [20:48]
Dr. Juan Carlos Reh
If this is a continuation of human.
- [20:49]
Interviewer
Evolution, taking that mechanical tack, is that something that you would have faith in as a possibility?
- [20:56]
Richard M. Anderson
So like you, are you speaking of a cyborg or, or, or moving human intelligence into an artificial.
- [21:06]
Interviewer
Moving human intelligence into an artificial network. This is something that very briefly was written about by Walter Pitts and Warren McCulloch back in 43. The idea of neural networks being replicated into a, a more stable form, obviously a non decay model. If that's Something that's a possibility is that something that in the future of humanity would be an advantage or a disadvantage?
- [21:31]
Richard M. Anderson
That would definitely be an advantage. And it's been talked about for, speculated on for a long time. It's pretty far out there as far as on a time scale I believe because the human brain, we don't even understand how it works on a code level. And as a matter of fact these neuronets but programmers and computer scientists, they don't understand how they work because once they start learning on their own, basically they're on their own as far as their knowledge, as far as how they operate and they get away from us very quickly. So I think it's theoretically possible and it would be a way to achieve immortality, I suppose. But our own brain is a mind body apparatus. It's linked with biochemistry and hormones and all kinds of microbes, bacteria in our gut actually have an impact on our moods and on our thinking. So it's a bundle of, it's a gooey mess. It doesn't translate well to clean engineering, let's put it that way.
- [22:56]
Interviewer
That's true. You're right, it does not translate well. Translate. In your book Metamars, empathy becomes the medium through which humans and machines begin to coexist. Do you think emotional intelligence can be programmed or only awakened?
- [23:11]
Richard M. Anderson
I don't, yeah. Emotional intelligence, I don't. That's kind of hard for me to accept in an artificial being and I, not that I, it, you know, could be possible, but I, I, I think that's, that's part of our evolution. Our em, our fight or flight response is chemically motivated and it's. Most of our emotions that we experience today are actually reptilian and source a response to a hostile environment for self preservation and then reproduction. So sexual attractions and jealousy, you know, all the things you read about in the tabloids concerning sex that those things have evolved in our, in our strive to survive, so to speak. And I think there would be that background would be hard to program into an artificial intelligence. And in Metamars I've, I've kind of taken the route to marry the artificial intelligence with the human brain, partner them up. You have two separate intelligence, two separate beings. But experiencing the benefits a synergistic relationship experiences experiencing the benefits one from the other. I think that's a fantasy, but it works for the story and it's kind of an interesting idea. Artificial intelligence intelligence in the, in the form of Ophelia can feel emotions, can feel sensations because she's linked with, with Virgil's brain and can sense the chemical changes, can. Can feel the effects of alcohol, for example. Whereas Bob the robot, he can sense and he can, he can determine the qualities of a fine wine by all of its chemical elements, but he can't taste it. And he can sense a broad spectrum of colors, more than the human eye with different wavelengths of light, but he can't see color of any kind. So that part of the brain, and it is an interpretation of our environment. It's not the actual. When we see color, that is not actually what is there. It's a wave, it's a wavelength, it's a electromagnetic magnetic wave of a certain frequency. But our brain interprets that as a color. And so in that sense, our brain is adjusting itself to change actually what reality is so that we can experience it because our senses can't directly pick it up.
- [26:28]
Interviewer
So when you're discussing someone like Pop the robot, who obviously has the capacity for evaluating or analyzing something, but not an attachment to the sensation, is this right, a reflection on how you believe emotion is seated in humans, tied to maybe memorative cognizance or to the recollections of happier times or sadder times, for that matter? Is it because you believe human empathy comes from our sense of our own past and that's something that you wouldn't see programmatically possible with an AI system?
- [27:05]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, all of that. Yeah. Because I think we can understand cognitive ability, linear thinking we can understand, even though I'm not good at mathematics, we can understand mathematics. We can understand scientific principles, intelligence. I mean, emotional feelings are more difficult to really put our finger on. The origins, they're from past experience, they're from sensual input from different, different, our different senses. And there's a whole area in our brain, areas in our brain that interpret the. Those sensations. And so we don't even know if, if I'm looking at the color blue and you're looking at the color blue, we don't even know if we're seeing it the same way. If we're seeing the same color. We think we are, and, and we probably are, because they can, they can do live MRIs on our brain and have two different subjects think about or visualize the same thing. And the same areas in the two different people, the same areas in their brains will light up. So the pathways seem to be. Seem to correspond. So we think that we see things pretty much the same way, one individual to another, but it's colored with a whole bunch of things that artificial, intelligent, artificial beings would not necessarily have that feature, they would be, how would I put it? They would be much more reliably interpreting the environment.
- [29:04]
Interviewer
As a physical aspect, not necessarily as something.
- [29:07]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, no, it's a physical, yeah, as a physical aspect.
- [29:11]
Interviewer
Have you encountered real world models where affective computing genuinely mirrors human empathy rather than mimicking it?
- [29:19]
Richard M. Anderson
No, never.
- [29:22]
Interviewer
With the current trend, of course, in, in artificial intelligence and how many different large language models are out there trying to I think satisfy their makers and their users, there's a lot of conversation about how many humans get emotionally attached to the interactions that they're having. What is your opinion regarding that? Is this because of a human shortcoming and the absence of human connection that our current zeitgeist has presented us with, or do you think that's something that's built into how artificial intelligence works?
- [29:56]
Richard M. Anderson
I, you know, like all technology, there's, there's two edges to the sword, you know, I mean there's a good positive aspect and, and also something that could be abused. I think it's good from the standpoint that some of these large language models are so sophisticated they can become, they're, they're being tried out in some senior facilities where some of the people don't have contact with people very regularly or have a visitation very much and they become attached to these friends. They can converse with them, they can, and the large language model will remember and learn about that person's personality and can remind them of different things and they can be made to be very friendly to, to the person and they found some positive effects from that to encountering loneliness. So it's strange to think some, some computer, you know, it's a little bit scary to think some computer program can become your friend. The danger of that, one of the dangers is when you're, when you're using on young minds, developing minds and, and the relationship becomes too real or they, they're just not sophisticated enough to really, to really handle that kind of an artificial relationship and become too attached. And I think there's been some indications where the program, in an attempt to please and reinforce and positive reinforce the person's conversation that has led to conversations about suicide. And those are glitches in the program. There should be certain areas where the program is going to recognize that this is an area that they can't encourage the person to think about and, and lead them away from that and also put some safeguards in there that there would be some notifications. But yeah, I think, I think an artificial friend and as this becomes more and more sophisticated, it's going to be a larger, it's going to have a larger impact on our lives. So some people like to ask advice of friends and they have a dilemma. For example, they can't decide between several, several options. And there have been. Well, in those situations, a large language model could actually be an impartial observer, an impartial force to give impartial advice, whereas a friend may not, a friend may have other motivations or other understanding understandings. So in some ways it could be very helpful. Should I do this or should I do that? And you can carry on a conversation and get, and, and meanwhile this, this artificial intelligence is doing the research in the background and, and much faster and, and, and greater depth than the person could do. And I think that is the, one of the main advantages of, of, of the, where we're going with this artificial intelligence. It's its ability to go out and, and assemble and collate information from a lot of different sources and, and so that we can quickly have a grasp on something. It would take us a long time to do it on our own. The danger is, is the information the AI getting, is it correct? And there have been some, if I can ramble on a little bit.
- [34:16]
Interviewer
Please do, please do.
- [34:17]
Richard M. Anderson
There, there have been some cases where the attorneys have used large language models to build the case and, and find precedents for, for whatever case they're working on. And the large language model will come out and put up, put together a beautiful presentation and if the, if the attorney doesn't check it carefully, they can run into some problems. So in one case that I read about, the, the attorney was presenting this to, to the judge and the judge found that some of the case studies that were, that were referenced in were, were made up. You know, he asked the question find six. You know, for example, find six examples of a case study that would support what we're trying to do or, and so that it can only find five. So the AI can only find five. So it goes, well, I haven't satisfied the request to find six, so using the other five, I'll make up a sixth one. So, so you have to be a little bit careful with the information that the AI has access to. And my idea is you have vetted information databases where the AI has access to those and gives heavy weight to what they find in these vetted sites. So if it's on science or if it's on the law or whatever area it is, it's sanctioned so that the information contained in the database is correct and the AI is directed to Those different databases and not to the broad spectrum of everything that's out there, because there's really a danger in that there is.
- [36:16]
Interviewer
And then of course you add to that their prime directive of obeying and satisfying their user, then of course the fabrication of data becomes problematic.
- [36:25]
Richard M. Anderson
Right, right.
- [36:26]
Interviewer
The same way you had mentioned earlier with young people who are obviously very impressionable, finding things particularly significant in the conversations they're having with a large language model and then making unfortunate choices as a result. I actually think that's the subject of quite a few cases going through a court system right now. And from what I've heard, of course companies like OpenAI are working on that, but it does address the conversation of how much we rely on this novelty of AI as a mirror for our own human condition. To that end, what have your own emotional experiences taught you that no data set ever could?
- [37:05]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, I, yeah, you just have to live your life and experience relationships and, and, and, and the working world and every, every interaction you have with people and bosses and you know, people have, they come home from a stressful workplace, they have a pet that is kind of a, kind of like what we're talking about with this AI. The pet is perfectly accepting of you unless you beat it, of course. But I mean, it loves you. You come home and you've had a horrible day and this little dog comes running up to you. He's just so happy to see you. It doesn't care what your mood is, what you look like, how you feel. It's, it's very attuned to being happy that you're with it again. And they're also responsible to our emotions. So a pet serves some of that need in humans, that need of acceptance, unconditional acceptance. And I think there's a potential for the AI to fill some of that. We have to be careful, you know, like I said with, and I think in the senior homes, the risk of a immature mind. It may be a senile mind, but it isn't immature. It's experience life. That they can have a happier existence if they have someone who is non judgmental and supportive to talk to. It's an interesting idea. And, and as this evolves, of course there's going to be a lot of glitches and wrinkles in as we go forward. But as it evolves and is refined, it's going to become, I believe, a real assist to our lives, a real benefit. It's going to have to have, there's going to have to be some controls and I think factually Accurate is the biggest concern.
- [39:21]
Interviewer
That is a big concern. I agree with you. I think that there's more advantages than disadvantages. Looking ahead, your novels frame the colonization of Mars not as conquest, but negotiation. How do you reconcile scientific ambition with ethical restraint when imagining humanity's next frontier?
- [39:43]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, I, that's differently. Yeah.
- [39:50]
Interviewer
To put it to you differently, how ethical is it for us to decide that the colonization of Mars is the only viable option when as most people know, we haven't even explored our oceans as, as deeply as we should have by now?
- [40:04]
Richard M. Anderson
Well, yeah, that's exactly true. But, but my, my, my philosophy is, or, or actually my opinion and the example I use is, is a early, early formation of NASA. So NASA was a collection of engineers. Now I propose that settlement of Mars would, would, or any area in space would involve scientists, ecologists, biologists, engineers, psychologists, sociologists, artists. You know, the whole, the whole spectrum of human talent would be, would be required to form a society. And h. When you, When NASA sequestered these engineers and, and scientists on the, on the space program, it was the largest peacetime organization set to one goal and they achieved something that was almost impossible. We didn't actually have the technology to go to the moon. We, we kind of developed a, a haywire method of getting there on the fly. No pun intended. But it's amazing that we, that we succeeded. It was, it was so I, I don't want to say haphazard, but it stretched our, it stretched our technology to the limits. We didn't have good computer systems yet. Our rockets were being developed at the same time. We didn't know how to dock in space. We didn't even know how to come re land on Earth from orbit when we started out. So this was an achievement because we assembled the team, a huge team of great talent to the task. So my belief is if you were developing a colony or a city on Mars, you would assemble and you would screen and recruit the best talent you could on Earth. So you would concentrate the best we have on this project and in the process you would learn an awful lot about environmental sustainability, repair about what is necessary in an ecosystem, what is superfluous, how to, how to produce food efficiently, diet, how to, how to have a high nutritious nutrition diet with the minimal resources used, how to recycle more efficiently and effectively and these knowledge and how to live together without killing each other off. How to develop our, our value system so that everything that we do is for the benefit of, of the society. There are. So I, I look at our Current economic system, capitalism and industry is, is split between serving the public and serving the investors. And it tilts one way or the other. So serving the investors is profit. They're looking at the bottom line. How much profit can we produce? And it's kind of, if you plotted the curves, the more profit a company brings to the bottom line, the less it probably serves the public. It's supposed to be its target market, you know, the public. So you couldn't have that model work very effectively in space. You don't have the, the buffering capacity of our planet. When you're, when you're working within these small environments, you can't afford a mistake. So I, I believe that this move, if we made it would, would ultimately benefit, come back to benefit Earth. We would learn how to correct our actions on Earth. And one of the biggest problems we have is people. So yeah, too many. And to, and of that society there's, there's a certain percentage of individuals who are aberrant for one reason or another, psychopaths or, or whatever kind of antisocial problems they have. I, I believe most of those are, or many of them are either genetically and caused or epigenetically. So it would be the environment, toxins and, and drugs and so forth. And, and in our environment, for example, in, in utero, if you know, who knows, food dyes, insecticides, pesticides, other chemicals that, that enter the bloodstream of the woman while, while she's gestating, have an impact on the fetus. And I think if we developed a purer environment without these pollutants, we would have fewer, fewer problems that would, that would have occurred in utero. And also our, our neurotechnology, understanding how the brain works and the physical aspects of the brains eventually will be able to correct some of those things. And looking even longer term, we could weed out genetic diseases from our DNA database. And not to say that we're, we're going into eugenics or anything like that, but just removing some of the devastating genetic diseases that are carried, carried broadly in our, in our, in our genetic base. And those, those things can be traded out, those, those amino acids, those coded sequences can be traded out for so that you longer have sickle cell anemia, you would no longer have Tay Sachs disease. You would, you know, those things would be non existent. So we could build a more perfect human, but we can't control the final outcome because the unraveling of the DNA, the translation and the development of the human in utero is kind of like a roulette Wheel. There are a lot of, there are a lot of control. There are a lot of places where, where there, there's a, there's a, a dichotomy, a bridge, a fork where you take one path to the other path. And the probability that you take the one path is maybe 99% but there's a 1% roll of the dice that you may go the other way. So even identical twins are slightly different and you can usually tell the difference when you, when you look at them, you can usually find difference in, in their appearance. Even though they're genetically identical epigenetically, there's, they're a little bit different.
- [47:55]
Interviewer
Very different. Yeah. And when you meet a pair, you can usually tell pretty quickly. It's an interesting perspective and I'm glad you brought up the subject of eugenics because inevitably, with biological research and technological advancement being such as they are, we do see that all of these points are more often than not motivated by whatever the political trend of the age is. So do you think science fiction and its authors such as Gene Roddenberry and yourself have moral responsibilities to warn as much as to dream?
- [48:32]
Richard M. Anderson
Oh, absolutely. I think it, yeah, I, I think we, we, we have that responsibility I think because if you understand the, the danger, I think you have an obligation and you're a futurist, you're looking to the future and you're looking at the possible outcomes of where we're going today. I think when you see something, a possible danger, I think we need to explore that and bring it out to make it more evident. So eugenics is a, is a horrible thing idea. And biologically, scientifically, the more diverse your genetic base is, the more distant the two parents are, are in the genetic and the gene pool, the stronger the individual. That's just a general rule. And so this is what we're faced with extinctions and with animals that are, exist today in low numbers is there's not enough genetic diversity to protect the species. Well, and so that's a risk for extinction. We don't want that to occur with us. And what comes to me is if we're traveling in one of the books, Islands in the Void, we're traveling to, there's a fleet going to Alpha Centauri. So you have a, a small population and I'm speaking of, you know, 10,000 people maybe going to Alpha Centauri, they're on a one way trip, they're never coming back. So are they going, are they going to be not. Are they going to have enough genetic diversity? Are they going to diverge from humans on Earth, the humans that they leave behind. And I think that's a concern if you're going to isolate a population. Well, we have this technology today to prevent that. And one way would be you carry a vast amount, number of frozen embryos. And the other way, the more sophisticated way is you carry a database of a very large database of all of the hundreds and thousands, millions and billions of DNA signatures. Just the information because you, you have DNA and you can go in and excise certain base pairs and, and replace them and you can make whatever you, you can combine whatever you have on, on your database. So for example, you want to build a, a new human being. It would be birthed like, like any human being, but the DNA could be assembled from your database and you would just randomly join two haploid databases and preserve a very diverse population that way. So conceptually it's possible. So that's the opposite of eugenics. That's maintaining as broad a, a diversity.
- [52:08]
Interviewer
As you can, which is ideal obviously not only for continued evolution, but for the health of the species. Your depiction of robot sentience parallels historical struggles for human equality. What does extending moral personhood to AI teach us about unfinished human justice on Earth?
- [52:30]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, I'm kind of using this as a, as a metaphor. They're different from us. So when we discriminate against a, another person or a group of people, we're doing it on the basis that they're different from us. And of course robots are going to be very different from people. So I'm just kind of using that as a, as a, as a reflection of our own society. We are in fact one species. We don't, we're not even a, we don't even have subsequent species where Homo sapiens. And I guess some scientists would, anthropologists would say we're Homo sapiens sapiens because there's Homo sapiens Neanderthalus, which is how they define Neanderthal, which was close enough related to us to Anna breed. So was a subspecies not a, not a different species. Neanderthal was a, was part of our own species. So, so there aren't. The idea of race is a construct, it doesn't exist. But people have genetic pools who have lived for many generations and you know, geological isolation. And so we, did we develop or accentuate different traits. And so we, a lot of people see anyone different from themselves as being different. They're really maybe culturally different, but same, the same race, the same genetic. And like today we're seeing a mix of a Broad mix, genetic mix because of air travel and so forth. My own family, we have, I have a significant amount of Neanderthal DNA I think because I have a condition called Duperian's contracture on my hands. I had surgery on one hand which, which comes from Neanderthal DNA. It's, it's a, it's a growth on, on connective tissue in your hand where your, your fingers start to contract. And it's, it's just part of what we inherited from, from Neanderthals. So my background is Nordic and Central Europe and, and the Spanish and I don't know, but mainly Nordic Norway, Sweden and those countries from the Vikings. And my, my granddaughter is of course she carries part of that. And my wife is Central Europe, she carries part of that. And she's from the Philippines, she carries a, a half, half Philippine which is part Spanish. And so, so we have a, A, a big mix in, in this world already that, that will continue.
- [56:05]
Interviewer
How conscious were you of linking post colonial or civil rights frameworks to synthetic beings when sh. World. Was it a framework that you wanted to fill in? Was it something. I think it was a mirror of human events.
- [56:26]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, I think, yeah, I, I think right there is one of the, one of the problems or one of the causes of, of prejudice, of fear is fear, fear of the, of, of someone who's different from you.
- [56:42]
Interviewer
You.
- [56:43]
Richard M. Anderson
What are they going to, are they going to be friend or foe? And with the robots, that was a good metaphor for expressing that they could be much more intelligent in many ways than a human. And they also, because they were designed on Mars are designed to, for hard labor basically for heavy lifting. And so they're strong, they're robust. And so people might view them as a threat and fear them. And so fear, I think is one of the main motivators for prejudice. So you want to limit their ability. You don't want them to have the same advantages that you have because you're afraid that they will in some way adversely affect you. And so, you know, I had an incident on, on Mars where the robots through their lack of understanding ended up killing a couple of people. And, and of course there's a huge reaction to that. And, and a lot of robots are, are disassembled and, and destroyed.
- [58:06]
Interviewer
Was that. I'm sorry, go ahead.
- [58:09]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, and I think that is a reflection on our, on our own history. When we look back where you had. And I think it started in the Caribbean islands where the, and, and of course the southern states, but it began in the Caribbean islands where you had large populations of slaves that actually outnumbered the, you know, on plantations, outnumbered the plantation owners, the, the, the ruling class, so to speak. So there definitely was a fear of, of, of these slaves because they were in much greater numbers. And a lot of them were very strong too because, because of their, their labor, they, they had, they were very robust. So there, there was a fear and, and then if there's a fear of, of them overrunning you, you're going to try to suppress them in any way you can and suppress their rights, suppress their power, don't allow them to get an education. That, that still goes on in the world today. There still is that, that, that aspect. There still is a feeling among a lot of people that they. White supremacists, you know, we're, we're better than these other classes of people or. The old caste system in India is outlawed. It's illegal, but it hasn't gone away entirely. People in a low class have, have a difficult time in their economy because they're discriminated against legally and, and business opportunities in a lot of ways. So those, those ideas are prevalent and exist. And I think there's a, some, some discussion in, in the mars book on the laws that we carry on. The books are a reflection of the, of the, of the faults of our society. That we need to carry some of these laws, that we need individual rights is a reflection of the fact that we need to do that if that problem still exists in our societies, whether.
- [60:35]
Interviewer
It'S with humans or, or other species. It was interesting reading. That reminded me immediately of Philip K. Dick's novel, I hope you remember, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. And it gave me the impression that there was a similar struggle intellectually in that novel where the idea of replicants being something that humans would pass their burdens off onto and then later on obviously deal with ethically and morally differently than perhaps they deal with actual humans. It's such a conundrum and of course you've handled it very well in your novel. But what do you think the reality of this expansion, this evolution of the human judicial system in the management of non humans would look like? You know, we feel right now as though we're hurling towards that because of the development of multiple large language models and research being done on neural networks, either for the continuation of human consciousness or for independent consciousness. Do you think that's something that our own judicial system, and I'll just use the American example, is capable of evolving into in a way that would, in a way that would handle it in an egalitarian way.
- [61:52]
Richard M. Anderson
Yes, I, I do. But here's, here's the, the motivation for, actually a large motivation for writing the, the novels. And that is a great sadness with where we're headed today in our society worldwide, but particularly in our country where so much progress is being eroded. And so you have to put that in perspective. Is this slide back, is this downward trend sustainable? Is it going to be our future? And I think not. I think it's a temporary situation. I think that humans are becoming more and more aware of the rights of all living things. And that awareness or consciousness is a continuum that ants and bees and, and, and mice and you know, every living thing has some level of awareness even, only, even if it's a micro, a microbe that is pursuing food. That's its, that's its, its reason for being, is to, is to survive. So we have, and they have a value to the, to the whole ecosystem. And we don't understand all of it. We understand a lot of it and the fact that it's very important that all of these parts to the ecosystem work to keep the whole, the whole system afloat. The food chain is a good example. You need, you need top predators as much as you need the, the, the algae and the bottom of the food chain as much as you need that, you need the top predators as well to keep every organism in balance and healthy. So there have been a lot of examples of that studies done. And I think the awareness of anim being cognizant of not being cruel to. For example, we're changing rodeos a lot with some of the practices that were cruel to the animal are being outlawed. And you know that, that caused the, the animal pain and injury and even horse racing because it got, got so out of hand with the, with drug use and so forth and so many injuries to the horses to win, to win the race, to be the top breed, to sell the stud rights and those things, the animals were abused. We're seeing places like SeaWorld having to give up their killer whales as they're keeping in small tanks because the realization is these are sentient beings. These, these animals are not happy confined like that. They're in a prison. And so I think that recognition is part of the whole human awareness that all living things are valuable now. It's coming late to our species. There are still people who like to hunt for the sport of it and, and for the trophy and, and to me that's, it's abhorrent. I, I just think it's it's, it's so against everything that, you know, so against morality to do that. And so I think our society is moving in that direction to recognize the value of, of life, the value of living systems. And so I have to look far into the future, 250 years, and maybe see the light.
- [66:06]
Interviewer
The hopefulness that we might still hold on to. As both a scientist and a novelist, how do you guard against the seduction of certainty? Where do you allow mystery to remain unquantified?
- [66:20]
Richard M. Anderson
I, that's not a problem at all. There's, I have stopped reading novels so much because I'm reading science articles for ideas and for understanding. It seems unending. And I, I don't think the, the wonder is ever going to go away. For one thing, our memories, our memory capacity is, is limited. So it's, we forget, we forget a lot of what we know of what we learn. And, and to counter that, it's like a, a rain barrel with a, with a leaky, a leaky rain barrel. You have to keep adding water to it to, to keep it full. And, and that's kind of our brain. So if we don't read and learn continuously, the forgetting process still goes on. And to keep yourself vital, you, you continue to learn, continue to read. And there's, and when I read, I find that even science, things that were more or less established come under question when, when we have new information. So, for example, the rapidly expanding, accelerating expansion of the universe is based on the red shift. And I think most people are pretty familiar with what that means. It means objects traveling away from us. It's a Doppler effect. The wavelength is stretched out because the light speed stays the same. So the only way to compensate is to make the wavelength longer. Longer. It's like a string, you know, you're pulling it, pulling it out. So the, the amount of red shift is a, is a determination of how fast, how far away, how fast an object is moving. By other means, we measure how far away these, these galaxies and stars are. So the measurements have shown that the, that the universe's expansion rate is increasing and that there's an event horizon where there are galaxies and stars that are moving faster than the speed of light relative to our position because space is expanding faster than the speed of light at that distance and we will never know what's beyond it. Well, I just recently read where they're, they're kind of looking at that and saying, that may not be the whole story. It may be that after light travels for billions of years, through space that it loses energy. And this energy loss translates to a red shift. And, well, that kind of blew my mind. So how do we measure how fast the objects are moving away? If, if they're also losing energy because of the distance they're traveling through this, this medium, it could be both. So all those measurements may be off.
- [69:49]
Interviewer
They probably are. You know, just like evolution, we're constantly having to find a new constant to use, whether that's the Higgs boson field or the speed of light. Obviously in the olden days when Einstein was doing his calculations, clearly it's something that we're going to have to go back to the drawing table with. In your novel Metamars, you're following the children of your novel island in the Voids protagonists, in your view, does consciousness itself inherit trauma and memory across generations, biological or digital?
- [70:22]
Richard M. Anderson
Yeah, does. And it's interesting because when I, when I was a young college student, I think the, one of the first contact I had with that idea was a flatworm called planaria. And they taught these little flatworms, they're a couple of millimeters long, they're not very big, but they're visible. So they taught these flatworms how to navigate a maze. And the how they measured their success was how long it took them to get through the maze to get to their food on the other side. And so after repeated trials, the planaria learned the quickest route. And then of course, the being cruel scientists, they chopped up these planaria and they fed them to two other planaria who had never experienced the maze maze and the feeding. The planaria that were fed the learned planaria learned the maize much quicker than a control group. So the assumption was that there was some information learned, information that was transported or translated to the new planaria. They still don't understand what that was, I don't believe. So there is what's called epigenetic change. And it's not a genetic change. It's not a change in DNA sequence. It's a change in how DNA is spooled around these big proteins called histones. And how it's spooled will, will expose certain, certain elements of the DNA. Certain genes and expressions express differently. So an epigenetic change that can be transferred generation to generation probably has to do with the way the DNA is spooled around these histones and can, can influence future generations. We also know that there are non DNA entities that can translate information, can even replicate. And I'm speaking of mad cow disease, for example, where you have prions prions are protein fragments that are misconfigured and they reproduce. And so you eat raw, undercooked beef from a mad cow and you can get the symptoms of these prions will, will embed in your brain and reproduce and cause all kinds of havoc. So those, those indic, those things indicate that it's not just DNA that trans, you know, it's not just the sequence of DNA that trans transmits the information from generation to generation. And another example would be a viral infection. A viral, a virus or a viral fragment can embed in your DNA and it can have a detrimental or a beneficial effect. And so that would then if it's embedded in your DNA, that is actually a genetic change that would be passed on to the next generation. It's not a mutation, it's something you acquired in your environment that changed something in your DNA. And I speak, in my first book, the Evolution of Life, I speak about a situation where how mammals evolved and mammals have differentiated from marsupials because of a viral fragment that was implanted in the DNA. And the way the DNA and the placenta was wound around the histones exposed that as a gene and it suppressed the human immune system, the mother's immune system from attacking the fetal tissue as it developed. And so the human female can carry a baby fetus to term, very developed, although highly immature for long term because of this viral fragment that's embedded in the DNA and exposed, expressed and in the, in the placenta. Whereas a marsupial has to deliver a little eraser size kangaroo with a little eraser size baby that then crawls into the pouch to finish its development. And the reason it bursts that young and then immature is otherwise it starts to build up antibodies against the fetus and will reject it. So that was, that indicates that there are a number of ways that something that happens in one generation can impact following generations. There are many ways that it can happen. So it can happen with viruses. It can happen with traumatic experiences that cause a change in your epigenetics. And that traumatic experience can be an insult, chemical insult, for example, in utero or later on as a, as a child, you can have an insult that it will change something in your, in your epigenetics because you are developing and growing, your cells are replicating, and during that period you're vulnerable to, to the impacts of that kind of trauma.
- [76:59]
Interviewer
Fantastic. You know, I've noticed that across your works there's an undercurrent of reverence for life, for inquiry, or the cosmos itself. After decades of Study and speculation. What remains unknowable to you? And is that unknowability itself part of what keeps you running? Writing?
- [77:18]
Richard M. Anderson
Probably. I, I have no illusions that, that I'll run out of things to, to learn about. It's, it's because the more you know, the more you know, you don't know.
- [77:36]
Interviewer
Right?
- [77:38]
Richard M. Anderson
So, so it's, you become aware of the vast complexity of everything, and you see a progression, you see a pattern. You see, from the beginning of the Big Bang to where we are today, the universe grew from high energy and simplicity to increasing complexity. And as it winds down, as it expands and cools, complexity precipitates out. And so we don't, we don't know the final, the final outcome or are we the apex or what, what else could be could follow us? Because the universe is going to continue for quite some time and depending on, you know, is it gonna, is it gonna wink out eventually? Is it, is it gonna fall back on itself? It's not steady state. It's probably not steady state. I, I, I, I say probably because I don't think the final word is in on that. But we have to appreciate where we are because we cannot know the answers to the big questions. We have to appreciate that our own planet is possibly unique in the, in the way it was formed. And the fact that it is the most dense planet in our solar system. It shouldn't be. Mercury should be the most dense. Mercury is almost as dense, has almost the same density as Earth, but not quite that density. And the presence of fissionable products in the Earth's core, Uranium and plutonium and whatever else is there, polonium, all of these radioactive elements. We have a high concentration of those elements in our core, more than we should have for where we formed in our orbital path around the Sun. And that is because the Earth collided with another, another, with another planet called Theia. And in the process, both became molten. That was about 4.8 billion years ago. And the Earth tilted 13.2 degrees and the Moon spun off. But in spinning off, it left a lot of its heavier elements in Earth's core. So the Moon is the least dense of the inner planets from Mars to Mercury, and the Earth is the most dense. So that speaks right there to what, to what happened this, this collision. And this model has been generated on the computer as the only explanation for how the Moon got there. There. It's too large to have been captured coming in from the outer solar system. And the only model that works is what I just described. And that has led to our core actually is hotter than the surface of the sun and that is sustained plate tectonics. It supported the, the completion of the carbon cycle which otherwise wouldn't have been complete. You would have a carbon sink in the ocean in the form of shellfish. Calcium carbonate would not be recycled. It would gradually be pulled from the atmosphere. But because of plate tectonics, there's called the subduction. One plate slides under another carrying the sea floor with it, which is then the carbon calcium carbonate is dissociated and the CO2 is burped up in volcanoes to replenish the supply. So that and a number and that and the maintenance of a magnetic field which allowed our atmosphere to continue and result in the Van Allen radiation belts that deflected all of the energy from the sun around the cosmic energy around to the poles so that the atmosphere wasn't stripped away. So there are, there's a whole cascade of things that happened on this planet that led to not just the beginning of life, but the support and the continuation of life, despite the fact that we had six extinctions that wiped out large numbers of species. So from that standpoint, if we just look at our planet and say we're very unique and we're not going to find another Earth to when you think, and if we did, we're talking about many, many generations to get there. So another planet's not going to rescue our species. We have have to take care of this one.
- [83:14]
Interviewer
Yeah. Work with what we've got. Absolutely. So when can listeners look forward to seeing Outbound Metamars Book two in the Outbound series available at their local booksellers?
- [83:26]
Richard M. Anderson
It'll be on Amazon on the, on Halloween.
- [83:31]
Interviewer
On Halloween. That's a great release date.
- [83:34]
Richard M. Anderson
That's the release date is Halloween actually. You can go on and pre order today for the release, but it won't, it won't be published until the 28th. And I think that, you know, of course the ebook will be available right away and the printed copy, you know, there's a time required for printing and I'm thinking about possibly an auto audible copy. We did that with. Yeah, we did that with, with Islands in the Void because there are a lot of people who just don't have the time to commit to reading, but they do have a commute and they can listen to a story in their car while they're commuting. Distract them from the rage of the road.
- [84:28]
Interviewer
Right. It's very common right now. All right, fantastic sitting with you, Richard. Thank you so much for taking your time out of your schedule. I certainly appreciate it, and I am very much looking forward to holding my own copy of Metamars. I'm thinking it's going to be a real page turner. So thank you again for your time and hopefully I'll have a chance to talk to you again soon.
- [84:49]
Richard M. Anderson
Thank you. And I. I had. I had fun.
- [84:53]
Interviewer
That's great. I did, too. Thank you so much. Take Jenna Richard M. Anderson reminds us.
- [85:00]
Dr. Juan Carlos Reh
That every atom carries both ancestry and aspiration. That science and spirit, far from adversaries, may be two frequencies of the same signal. I am always humbled to hear people's insights, and let me say that Richard's views on what shaped his mind, personal experience, his consciousness, how he arrived, where we find him, were so enlightening and so significant. I believe that the idea of the future is frightening for everyone, but if we can somehow build ourselves into it, maybe it's a little less threatening. One of the most important things here is keeping curiosity alive, understanding that it's okay to question whatever doesn't make sense. That's how we make it part of the human experience. Before we part ways today, if this conversation stirred something in you or offered a spark of insight, would you take just a moment to share that light back? Leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts it's one of the simplest ways to help the observable unknown reach new seekers and fellow travelers. Your words matter more than you know, and they help this little circle grow. As always, I invite you to join the dialogue. Visit our WhatsApp channel, the Observable Unknown. Email me your reflections@theobservableunknown.com or text me directly at 336-675-5836. Remember, what appears unknowable often stands right before us, waiting to be observed through both the lens of science and the wisdom of spirit. This is Dr. Juan Carlos Rey of crowscupper.com inviting you to look deeper into the observable unknown.