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you would be told, 'This is a hand, you have a body,' and then you would have an
interpretation of that experience, which you would call a thought. And then you would also
be told, 'This is your body. You have a mind. You’re Indian. And you come from a Hindu
family.' All social constructs. Fundamental reality is sensory perception, which is an
activation of consciousness, and its interpretation is thought. The rest is a story. Mind, body,
and even universe is a story." Well, that was pretty mind-boggling for a young person at
the age of 35. I’d already trained now, here. Slowly, that lead to how one construct leads to
another construct. Okay, so this is an iPhone. It’s matter. Well I have now reified sensory
experience in consciousness, an activity of consciousness in consciousness, with a construct,
iPhone. Then I reify it further, made of matter. And now this is very convenient. I can study
it. It’s made of molecules, made of atoms. So one construct leads to another construct,
particles. Then you get ultimately to possibility waves and then you’re stuck again.
Okay [laughter], but along the chain, one construct built to another construct to another
construct to another construct. Very useful. New York City is a construct. Latitude is a
construct. Longitude is a construct. Time is it construct. Money is a construct. Wall Street is
a construct. Religion is a construct. God is a construct. Universe is a construct, which you
call a model, okay. So, this led me to consciousness, exploring consciousness. Where now,
you have—you know I just came from this conference, on the science of consciousness,
where you have physicalists, you have dualists, you have panpsychists, you have idealists,
and they’re all arguing about the constructs.
So the physicalists are now in a difficult position, because they’re trying to explain
consciousness with the construct of physicality, and you can’t. Because physicality itself is a
construct. Then you have the idealists going back to Plato who are saying it’s all mental. But
even mental ideas are constructs. Then you have the dualists, Descartes, the two are
separate, mind and body. But then how do you explain their interaction? It violates simple
laws like thermodynamics. If mind is separate and body is separate, how do I lift my arm? I
start with a thought so I do this. How do I speak, how do I walk, how do I do anything? So,
dualism doesn’t make me happy. Idealism doesn’t make me happy. Physicalism, I don’t
know what matter is anymore.
I interviewed the Nobel laureate Wilczek, physicist from MIT. So I said, "What is
matter?" "It’s particles." I said, "What are particles, subatomic particles?" He says, "They are
little things." I said, "But then everybody says that’s a wave potential, that’s in Hilbert space.
What is that? Where is Hilbert space?" He says, "It’s mathematical." "What is it?" "It’s
infinitely dimensional or zero dimensional." "Where is it?" The usual answer is "Shut up and
calculate," right? So I realized that the entire new paradigm of multiverse, superstrings,
eternal inflation, whatever, is all in mathematical imagination. Hilbert space is in
mathematical imagination, the wave potential is in mathematical imagination. I said to
Wilczek, "What is matter?" And he said, "We’re still trying to figure that out." [Laughter.] I

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