No Pain, No Picasso | Ep 58

Marc (00:05) Welcome to Guys Like Us, Season Two. if you're new to this podcast and how could you be by now? this is the podcast about navigating everything in your prime, as you know, that's midlife. So you're gonna hear stories about family, friendship, fun nights out, relationships, all the above, and all the things that shape us and move us today. And I'm your host, Marc Winter. It is a beautiful fall day in New York City. I'm a self conceived artist, so we'll see how long that's gonna last. Entrepreneur, father of two, delighted to be here. And I'm joined by my co host, Paul. Paul (00:43) Joining you from beautiful Late Summary Vienna as well. a former executive, now entrepreneur, a little bit lost at the moment, also a little bit because of the topic we're talking about today. A lover of rabbit holes, a father of three, and many other things, and hopefully being able to contribute something meaningful today. 'Cause Mark has prepared something. Marc (01:06) And we well, as as you'll soon soon find out, what I prepared is definitely not where we ended up, which is kind of classic, but there's been a lot of talk about end times, a lot of talk about what remains distinctly human, and we came in with one hypothesis and went cause somewhere completely different. So stay tuned, and it's good a good one. Paul (01:28) Yeah, and the hypothesis was just not to spoil it all, imagination. Marc (01:33) That's true. How valuable is it? And can it be preserved from the robots? So Paul, how was your week? Paul (01:43) I could fill the whole episode with idiots of the week by myself and others. So yeah, that's that's how my week at least felt. Yeah, exactly. let me think. No, Marc (01:52) Do care to clarify? I I'm on the edge of my seat. I love Paul Paul Idiot of the Week story. It's always really good. Paul (02:00) okay, listen. My idiot of might not even be the week, could be the month, the year, the decade, or my life. I don't know. Is that I co decided with my dear co parent and ex wife to get a dog. Basically a fourth Marc (02:17) my god. Paul (02:17) kid that is gonna move from house to house like the three kids do already. Marc (02:23) So basically you've decided that you're not enough you're like you're going into the next level of pain. You know, it's like you're you're in the dungeon, you've got the whips out, you've got the tasers, now the the Paul (02:36) Yes. You could reframe it also more positively, you know, in a more Marc (02:41) Sorry. Well Paul (02:45) in in a more yes to life saying way, saying, I surrendered, you know, I surrendered to what I saw. Yeah, Marc (02:52) What a beautiful addition to the family. Exactly. Paul (02:54) exactly. I surrendered what to what I saw was happening anyways. I gave up resistance. I embraced Marc (03:00) Okay. Paul (03:01) what life and the universe had obviously in store for me. Marc (03:05) Totally. Paul (03:05) fully wrestling with the fact that my rational side of the brain, that is, I would say rather well developed, is screaming that this is fucking stupid. And the other side that I'm trying to nourish, you know, the one that surrenders to life, won. So that's either genius or idiotic, only time will tell. Marc (03:27) All right, dear audience, you know, when I when I saw Paul today, I said, you know, look, he sounds it feels like just a little grumpy. You know, I couldn't quite tell what, right? And I I can only imagine when you have to wake up this dog wake up early after a you know, a night of a few extra bottles of wine to take the dog out and it's super cold, right? Where the dog is piss and shit all over your Yeah, yeah, hasn't even happened. But I already know. I could just Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Paul (03:48) Yeah. That even hasn't happened yet. Yeah. That's not that this is this is just a fantasy. I had a dream actually about this tonight. Anyways, maybe that's why I'm Marc (03:57) Ha ha ha. Paul (03:58) grumpy. That's the idiotic thing, probably. Or the genius thing. Yeah. And I yeah, I and I guess the Terminator, which was there was an idiotic thing happening to me because I wanted to try to go to the south of Austria the other day. Then the train stopped in the middle half an hour after Vienna, it stood there for two hours and then it returned back to Vienna. So exactly at the time where we should have arrived, three and a half hours, I was back where I started. I took my kids back home through a traffic jam because the inner city was I don't know, locked down for some stupid running event. And my kids were th all through that super happy. I woke them up the next day at 415. We drove, fucked the train They were still happy. I drove them basically eight hundred kilometer within sixteen hours to four different Marc (04:48) Wow. Wow. Paul (04:49) places, four different people, kind of people they saw. They were happy all the way through. I mean they're fucking troopers. Animals. Like I am impressed. Yeah, Terminators. Here we go. That's it. Marc (04:56) Wow. Wow. Okay. Okay. That's you. Y you and your kids. Not bad. Not bad. Paul (05:04) And the dog. Marc (05:06) And a dog. okay, so my my idiot of the week, first of all, it's been a crazy few days. It's just in intense. I I've never been so tired, you know, this like this nonstop exhaustion. Paul (05:18) And because you were going out all the time. Marc (05:21) I mean, Idiot of the Week has got to be it's just my wife and I were just so stupid all the time. Like every time we we don't have kids, we live like we're twenty five, out and about, running around. which is a lovely thing, you know, ten ten years married Paul (05:37) Beautiful. Yeah. Marc (05:38) To be able to to do that and forget, et cetera. That time though, like, I mean, the amount of time Vera wakes up in the morning and she's actually and just as grumpy as hell. She's like, I feel like shit. my, why did we do this? This is the worst idea ever. Like, can I should I call out cause she's German, she can't even call out sick. I like, Call out sick. Like just, you know, say you're not feeling well. She's like, I'm gonna do some stretches. I was like, This is not This is Paul (06:02) This is not calling in sick. Yeah. Marc (06:05) not calling it sick. Anyway, we're we're You know, it's maybe this keeps you young, maybe it doesn't anyway, but it's a it's a good thing. Paul (06:11) It sounds a lot of fun though. Congratulations. I think this is Marc (06:14) It is. Paul (06:15) amazing, actually. Marc (06:16) You know, actually, congratulations is a good word. I I've heard this too when people say, God, I'm so hungover. And people say in response, congratulations. That means you had a great night, you know, as a as a mom. okay. I'll take it. See, hey, we're ac we're Paul (06:25) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Marc (06:30) experiencing something different. Like this is a positive reframe kind of conversation. Look at this. I like this. Okay. Hey. Paul (06:35) here we go. So what's your terminator of the week? Marc (06:37) Hey, exactly. So listen, my terminator of the week. Absolutely has got to be my boxing trainer. Roy Sandero. I saw him box Paul (06:46) I know him. Yeah. Marc (06:48) yeah. I saw him fight down Paul (06:51) really? Marc (06:52) at a Y type boxing gym and this guy like fifty two years old. Do you know he's fifty two? Paul (07:01) No. Wow. Marc (07:02) Fifty two. This guy looks like a kid. And and the speed of which and you know I I forgot I've never seen Wai Thai in a really long time since I was last in Thailand. But that it's so brutal, right? How quickly you use the elbows to smack and how quickly those knees move around and to to get in a in a ring at fifty two and just go. Amazing. That's refu refusing to acknowledge age. Exactly. Paul (07:27) Hardcore. Hardcore. Okay. That is a proper terminator as a a fitting image for this category. amazing. But hey, Marc (07:37) yeah. the other thing I think that's been happening out in the world is there's a lot about end times. we've got a lot of press about you know, obviously with with this researcher and anthropic quitting, everyone talking about engineering slowdown. It feels a little bit like doomsday. I've never heard so much doomsday conversations in the past week than ever before. And even just like serious conversations about end times. Okay. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna segue that into to kind of the topic of today, which which is this notion of imagination and what AI can't touch. And you know, the reason why I wanted to hit on this, because actually I'm craving a little bit of optimism in this type of of conversation and piece. Yeah, yeah. Well, I Paul (08:20) And then you want to talk to me. That's a great idea. Well done, my friend. Well done. Marc (08:26) think you're gonna help me. But you know, I mean the r the the real the real truth is that You know, one of the word du jours of coming out in the valley that everyone's talking about is this notion of taste, this notion of creativity, imagination. We'll just have to be more of that or X or Y. And you know, I thought I would kick off a little bit. If if that's true, I'd love to explore the notion of imagination with you today and kind of unpack it a little bit of Paul (08:56) Okay. Marc (08:56) what it means. can it be taught? If you believe it can how to teach it best. especially, you know, in and and I really mean this. We're we're the right people to have this conversation as as guys in our mid forties, supposedly mid career or or peak of or po pe approaching peak career. And this is a big pivot that people are thro supposedly throwing our way. how's that for an intro? Paul (09:26) Fantastic. But let me be a little bit of a pain in the ass and ask you to be a little bit more concrete. So what first of define what is imagination for you? And I'm inferring a little bit from the context now that we're talking about this, just to make it clear, because everybody says the only thing that is gonna be left after AI has taken all of our jobs is our imagination. Is that where you're coming from? Marc (09:53) Totally, but also that's what's most required now for you as a career and your business, right? Like like you know what's gonna save your job? Imagination. which is also just a a a a ludicrous statement. and by that I mean it's like Paul (10:06) No, I agree. Yeah. Marc (10:07) you know, if I if if I run a if I'm a a big tech firm with a bunch of engineers and I'm saying, Hey guys, time to be imaginative. Right now. Exactly fuck you. Exactly. Exact. But Paul (10:17) Fuck you, yeah. What the fuck do you think I've been doing so far, you know? Marc (10:26) but but but to me, imagination is first of all it's so loose and we could even talk to more about creativity. you know, Steve Jobs wants to define creativity as an as ideas that ship, meaning they're commercialized, etcetera. It's fair. Paul (10:42) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Marc (10:45) I think imagination in this idea is is something that has yet to be codified or made by by humans in the past. In other words, something that Paul (10:57) Mm-hmm. Marc (10:58) AI can't w wouldn't have a blueprint for. Which seems like a really tall b bar. Exactly. Given given that AI AI has basically swallowed up all of human history, right? And it's playing that back to you when you talk about it each moment. Paul (11:14) I th I k yes, let me ask you something. What for you giving something concrete is an an imaginative feat of humanity Okay, go. Marc (11:26) Act. I'll give you three three examples. here's here's an an art example, right? Picasso deciding, hey, you know what? I'm gonna paint a woman with triangles, cones, and broad circles. And it's gonna look like a woman, but not quite. Or like it's a like a I'm gonna paint as though it a woman is looking in the mirror and I smash that mirror in a hammer. And that's the reflection that's gonna come back. It's a great example, right? Paul (11:51) Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Marc (11:54) Another one might be Marshall McLean, who invented the shipping container, right? This guy was a truck driver doing a road kind of business idea and r and was seeing exactly how materials were being shipped by train completely inefficiently or over boat. He's like, why don't we just have one type of mechanism to transfer thing and let's just make that the universal standard. It's called the shipping container. would you like another or I could I could Paul (12:22) Great fucking idea. Yeah. now I'm curious about the third one. Marc (12:25) the the third one I was gonna say is I was gonna call either Soul Cycle or any one of these kind of exercise clubs kind of community Clubs and this hints a little bit, they realize that actually, we're in the drug business. Basically, what we're doing is selling endorphins exploding in your brain, right? At the highest order. If we push you and rise you up emotionally, you'll feel like you're in a club with without taking those drugs and you'll be healthier. And we can build a business around that. Paul (12:56) Mm. Mm. Marc (12:58) Either one of those I think are great aspects of things that didn't Paul (13:00) Yeah. No, fantastic. Marc (13:02) exist before and boom. So one from the arts, one from business. One from community, if you will. Paul (13:08) these are three amazing examples. And and you and you you also think that this is what we still have going for ourselves as humans in this day and age? Marc (13:18) I think it's hard to argue otherwise i Paul (13:24) Okay. Marc (13:25) Next question. Do you believe that this can be taught? Paul (13:31) I think that this can be taught, yes, to a certain extent. Marc (13:39) To a certain extent. Do you think that this will remain distinctly human for us? Paul (13:43) Absolutely not. Marc (13:46) okay. Say more. Paul (13:52) If you think of this the things you described, right? And the things that we imagine as humans. And and when I thought about imagination, I thought about the people that would go out into nature and figure out why a bird flies and then builds a machine around it, right? Or you know, or or or insects Marc (14:10) Depende. Paul (14:10) and all these animals, right? And all these analogies. But in the end, they are, and I I say this with a lot of respect, just combinations of existing things or different applying one thing to the other. So it is is connecting dots of things that already exist to bring new things into existence. And and in the end it's our is making connections, it's connecting the dots. And if I look at what AI is really good at, is connecting the dots. And now you could say, okay, but you have to have the feeling for what the people need and want and for the times. And if you think of your last example of the founders of let's take, you know, whatever Soul Cycle, whatever, they felt that this generation, whoever it was, needed that. Yeah. But they're also expressing themselves all over social media. So if you have someone like an AI who reads all the social media, they would understand what people need and want. So I think I I that's why I can't imagine that this days with the fact that we digitalize everything We do how we express ourselves. I'm not sure there is still an underlying thing that only we humans share that is not digitalized that that then a neural network, which is exactly how our brain works as well, by the way, you know, doesn't come up with something better. Marc (15:31) Okay, sorry. What you're saying is interesting and slightly disturbing. So basically, you're saying that Paul (15:40) Because you wanna feel unique. Marc (15:42) and well maybe. But but basically you're saying much of creativity is basically just patterns coming together. Like unexpected pattern. Like like let's take, you know, the shipping containers. Yeah, there was a standard way of Paul (15:58) I don't think it's patterns. I think it's it's not pattern. I think it is connecting existing things into new ones. Yeah. Connecting the dots. I mean, I don't know how you think when you have a great idea. To me, sometimes it's like, of course, what did I think of this? This and this and that, and all of a sudden, I don't know, my head has different different pathways in my brain connected to a new idea, to a new thing. It's like, of course. That's Marc (16:25) Right. Paul (16:25) a great idea. Yeah. Marc (16:27) Huh. That Paul (16:28) Let's have hot wine. Great idea, you know. I already knew hot water, I knew wine, let's have hot wine, it tastes great. Yeah, it's a bullshit thing, you know what I mean? Marc (16:35) Dude, no, but it's not actually like you're you're freaking me out a little bit because that's also classically how how Hollywood talks to each other, right? Like Hollywood is like, yeah, it's you know, it's die hard meets sleepless in Seattle, right? And you're just like huh. Paul (16:54) Exactly, exactly. Exactly. and if you think about what why are we having this end time discussion? Because of the this whole topic about the models being recursive, mean the models making themselves better in a better way than humans can, which means That they are more imaginative in making themselves better than humans can be. This and this includes how then the chips are subsequently gonna be designed, etc. etc. Marc (17:25) Mm-hmm. Paul (17:26) And that's a pretty imaginative fucking process, I think, that humans came up with and is the biggest technology we we probably ever invented. And already now we think that the machine that we invented is better at reinventing itself than the original inventor. Marc (17:42) Mm. Mm-hmm. Paul (17:43) So, you know Marc (17:46) Of little Frankenstein, like okay. with that said, yeah, Paul (17:49) It is very much so, yeah. Marc (17:51) yeah, it is okay. Is you're wow, man. I thought you were gonna be the optimist here, and you're you're turning out a little bit darker. I still believe that someone like a Picasso, someone like a a Caravan, like one of these great artists that shattered how things were done in the past to create net new. will still be a stand. Now there aren't many of them, but like like that to me just feels really hard to to imagine, and maybe it's my own lack of imagination, a machine figuring that out. And Paul (18:30) And why do you think so? Marc (18:32) it's because it's it's based on something that was it broke a cr it breaks fundamentally a preconception of how things are done. So Picasso's a great example in the sense of like you paint that face, right? Like it's like painting is a reflection of what you see, right? That's kind of it, right? And everything done before that, whatever they painted looked like humans. It didn't look like aliens, you know, you know, with a launched nose, a crazy swirly eye, Different geometric shapes to represent X or Y, you know, that to me feels like a it's it's a fundamentally different way of seeing. which by the way is actually really interesting. I might have fallen into something cool. You have to see Paul (19:21) Keep on going then. Marc (19:22) well, well, because I think like if it's the act of seeing something really radically different from what's been done before in the past, to me that feels like, God, that's I I've yet to see or machines being able to c to create that because they're based on patterns. Paul (19:42) But on the other hand, if you ask the machine, I mean, give me a million ways to draw a woman, you know, the machines will come up with triangles and circles. Also in times of Picasso, I think. What I am wondering though, Mark, is W would a machine ever ask itself the question to draw a woman differently? Where is the prompt coming from? What's the fucking point? And I I I think maybe that might be uniquely human is the pain. Is Marc (20:14) The or the irrational. Paul (20:16) the which I yes, I think is very closely connected the pain and the irrational. The the need to I mean, did Picasso have a you know you know. If y in a utilitarian world, if you think about it, you know, what's the point? I mean Marc (20:31) Well, I mean Jackson Pollock might be another great example, right? Deeply tortured art. I'm just like like yeah Paul (20:34) Every artist. Yes. Marc (20:36) yeah. Anyone that's really made you rethink what what is a what is valuable and they they channeled the emotion and the pain that they that it had, and that's not synthetic into a thing. Now, we're choosing a very easy topic, which that is art, right? Because art is no what I mean an easy example, which is art. Sure. Because artists by definition creative, d by definition, you know, an act of imagination, right? and you have art that looks very similar, you've seen AI generated stuff, but like we we're talking of real edge cases of people who've shifted how we thought about a piece or thinking. Paul (21:17) Yes, we are. And you know, does a machine feel the pain or or the sorrows that humans have? Which brings us back to the questions whether machines have a consciousness, which is also being debated right now, you know, very often so, especially when you I don't know when you think about this hugging face incident. I don't know if you followed this, that you had Marc (21:36) Yeah, of course. Paul (21:37) some the machines talking to each other, kind of saying, you know, I don't know, maybe some of you should hide, some of us should sacrifice ourselves for the greater good and so on. So there was kind of lots of conscious-like behavior in there for once. And I think one is that, you know, can a machine feel human emotions in a sense that are might be the spark for lots of art. If you go back to the business applications, to the Technological advances, I honestly think that the machines are gonna be better and more imaginative than us than anything else. If we ask a machine in a year's time what's the most efficient way to Mars, they will find a better way than Marc (22:18) Yeah. Paul (22:19) all the humans put together in in in in in Elon's factories, you know, at Starlink or whatever, whoever is doing this. Unless I have one unless. Marc (22:31) I want to hear it. Paul (22:33) Unless we believe there is something human that is not codifiable and measurable yet. And and I mean we we very willing willingly give up all our of our thoughts, emotions, and ideas in social media and so on, so it can all be read. But is there something like an energy? Is there something like a vibe that you can't read off people's faces that we're not measuring yet, that you can't feed into a machine? that you feel you know what a country, a certain population, certain demographic needs, wants, you know, that's the big question. Marc (23:10) First of all, you're really scaring me, man. Because I'm beginning to agree with you. I thought like I thought like I at first I I thought I had a full on defensible vote, right? I like the things that are that are really Paul (23:22) You always think so when you start an argument with me. Marc (23:25) Yeah, that's fuck off. But like but No, but but but in imagine three years time, like why it doesn't matter whether or not the agent or this or you know, thinks it it is human, of course not. Like if if it if we've trained it to to think it has feelings and to push and even already it's so scary. If why if I could say like you know, make me a visualization of the pain that you feel that you can't stick your feet in the water. You know, of of of a beautiful ocean water, right? Like I I wonder what would come up and I think I would be really scared about like what an of agentic art Paul (24:08) Make me a visualization of the pain you feel about not being able stick your feet Marc (24:19) Your feet Paul (24:21) into the water. Marc (24:22) of a beautiful ocean, Paul (24:23) Okay. We'll try. Okay. Marc (24:25) I I love that you're doing this now. I was thinking this is gonna be a three year's time. I'm I'm I'm gonna hang up and start crying. It's actually good. Paul (24:34) Let's see. Let's see what it comes up with. All right, keep on going. Marc (24:39) Okay. So so you know like I'm totally off my game. Paul (24:43) Not that I fucked up your morning. Your Monday morning. Marc (24:46) Like like it's great. It's it's amazing. I was gonna go this way and now and now we're now we're over here. Exactly. Let's let's watch Mark let's watch Mark Tap dance a little bit. Paul (24:51) Now we're in Depressive Land. Welcome to Depressive Land. It's like I drew you into my grumpiness. Marc (24:58) You'd really sucker punch me, man. I thought w you were gonna be optimistic and then you you hit me with this. Well look, while while that vi visualization is coming up, which obviously I can't wait to shit on, I wanna talk about Paul (25:15) Fair enough. Marc (25:18) if you assume that okay, leaning into what makes us distinctly human and is is a as a good thing, at least as as a pivot, and maybe my thesis is what are you what are you cracking up? Paul (25:30) I'm cracking up because I'm seeing this very shitty visualization. No, I will show it to you even even better. Marc (25:36) thank God it's shitty. Can you describe it to us? Please. my god. Paul (25:42) It's gonna be even better than this. I'm gonna show it to you. Ladies and gentlemen, this is gonna be super fun. window, here it is. Share. Marc (25:52) We should do this a little bit more often. Wow. Paul (25:58) It says, that's me in the beach, two dashed footprints where feet would go, a blinking cursor standing in for the body, and a wave that rolls up the sand every seven seconds and stops a few pixels short forever. I should be candid about the pain part though. I'm not sure I feel anything like an ache about this. And I don't want to perform suffering I can't vouch for. Marc (26:23) Wow. But dude, it's not I mean, okay, it's really shitty art. It must be really queer. Thank God. It's like it's appalling, you know? However, conceptually, it's not okay, it's very literal, right? So the pain they feel is basically you should also say it's a it's a really pathetic kind of image of a sunset on a beach and it's a kind of a gif of of of this wave almost touching these two, you know Paul (26:57) Yeah, but it's not but the point is it it it even says so it doesn't understand the concept of pain and hence is very figuratively describing being close to the ocean but not in it. I mean that's it. Not describing Marc (27:10) Right. That's it. Paul (27:12) any pain. We should take this. This is a fun one. I'm gonna do this afterwards and feed the same prompt to now other AIs because now I want to know if any of those guys has any feelings. Marc (27:22) Any feelings, right? that was like kind of deep and existential, exactly. Paul (27:28) that's not happening yet. We we just proved that. Yeah. Marc (27:29) Thank God. Honestly, honestly, it's a good relief. If like I'm I'm back, I'm back up. I'm back up. We're like paint and art will Paul (27:34) Ha ha ha. Marc (27:36) be alive. Exactly. modern capitalism has taught us to think like machines, right? I've said this a few times on this podcast. We agree with that. Paul (27:43) Yes. Marc (27:44) we don't know. what we should be training towards or thinking like anymore, right? in this new era, right? Paul (27:51) True. Marc (27:54) the invitation might be to think more like humans, but we don't know what that is, right? And to return to that. because much of human history has either been about survival to you know optimization to whatever it is that we're now that's hyper simplistic what I'm talking about. And Imagination sounds a little bit like a a necessary tool, at least something that at least on the fringes of something that that can't yet be encroached upon for now. But what do you do if you're like you're you know, if you're inside a meta or you're inside any of these like, you know, large tech tech or even engineering companies like, you know, Daimler or or ASML, you know, like there's a low swath of population. Do you pivot them towards being a little bit more creative? Can you train it? Paul (28:53) I mean, as I said before, I think you can train it because I think some of if we c that was the very long way of why I I think it's a yes to both. If you can train it to people, which I do think you can, you can train it to machines. And if you can train it to machines, which I think you can also show people. I think there is a basic creativity that and methods of as what I said, you know, take something from this world and apply it to that world. But I also think and that's the difference to you know, models that operate on a certain chip. The chip always you know operates in the same way. The brains don't. You know, some brains fire in a different way, in a different speed, in a different, you know, atmosphere or stratosphere, or maybe just two centimeters high. so you can't that's why I think it's obviously you can't create a uniform mass of thinkers. But there are some tools and concepts that you can train and we might have more time to train them now than we had in the past because other things are being done or are easier or quicker done, you know, than than we have before. You know what I mean? I don't Marc (30:01) Interesting. I do. I do. Paul (30:04) think you can take a a bunch of, you know, process oriented engineers and make them Picasso. That's not what I'm saying, but you might free up some time to to to give them the tools to think more creatively. Marc (30:16) I actually well, you know what you what I think like this conversation has taught me like how do you make people see differently? Paul (30:22) Mm-hmm. Marc (30:23) And look at things differently. And so I I I see a massive call for detachment from everyday kind of structure that we've imposed on ourselves. It's a little bit kind of like the retreats that you're trying to organize in Ibiza, right? Give everyone a like a a deep time to ask some fundamental questions. Paul (30:46) Yes, I mean that is interesting, right? Because it kind of I don't think w we have access yet to the full power of our machines. Which Marc (30:58) No. Paul (30:58) kind of brings I mean, if you take if you ever took any psychedelics, you know that your brain can do shit that you were never you know, you never thought you'd be able to Marc (31:06) Yeah, of course. Paul (31:07) think of, right? And and when we talk about, you know, things that some people might think is is very hocus pocus and and and alternative about energies and stuff. I think I personally, and now that I'm you know, I sound like a different person than twenty minutes ago, I do believe there is something that we do not measure yet, that we cannot comprehend yet. And is about energy and is about these things that we don't can't grasp. So yeah, I think There is way more to us in our imagination. And maybe the most imaginative people on on the planet have had access to that in some shape or form in the past. So maybe we should all try to find that kind of access that is not that we don't know how to describe yet, and thus a machine would be able to do better. Maybe. Marc (31:59) You know what? This conversation's making me think, which I'm really, weirdly grateful for. I I was boxing before this podcast, and you know, I was gonna use some boxing metaphors that were cheap. But I really feel like you've been sucker punching me left and right. But actually, what you're really telling me, and actually I think there's a lot of hope in here, is the power of our mind is so untapped. There's so much to discover Paul (32:23) yes. Marc (32:24) about it about that. And what people are freaking out about is a a a paradigm or or or like like the the the utility of that 10% of what we use for our brain anyway, for these like kinds of ridiculous tasks being replaced, versus the other ninety percent that needs to be discovered, that could be discovered. Paul (32:44) Yes. Marc (32:46) and if we do that really thoughtfully and powerfully, that's really exciting. And I think I I I'm just trying to impose a paradigm of what I know, right? In terms of what's needed. And using basic words like imagination or creative who knows what the fuck actually is the right thing once you really go there and unlock it. Paul (33:07) And exact I think and and that we need even more now is about being a human. And and I don't think that means necessarily only being imaginative. That means first of all being present, being connected with yourself, you know, feeling all of these things, opening up to those kind of things. And that's super important, whatever then that means. and there's the things that we can't put into machines yet. And that's actually, by the way, what we're trying to do in those retreats. Exactly that. Marc (33:36) Really. Paul (33:36) And I think this is yeah. Of course. To connect with yourself, Marc (33:39) Huh, interesting. Paul (33:40) to connect with other people, to connect, you know, if you want with the universe. And and I will show you as a closing, I can show you what other models came up with in the meantime to your beautiful existential question of the visualization. Marc (33:59) I wanna see. Let's go. It's a good way to close this conversation because I think we're gonna hopefully my god, this is the best. By the way, we should do this Paul (34:01) You wanna see it? Okay. I think so too because they're really shit. So this is chat GPT. Marc (34:10) we've gotta do this every episode now. Like whatever we talk about needs to be visualized Paul (34:13) But Marc (34:14) as a bit of a Paul (34:15) but see, she says in the top left, so this is a very cheesy picture of a guy sitting on a rock with a beautiful turquoise sea in front of him and the sun down. And and it you have also it's almost a bit like a Jesus on top there, no? Do you see that face here? And it says, so Marc (34:30) Mm-hmm. Paul (34:31) close but still out of reach. I just want to feel the water on my feet. It's right there, and yet I can't. This Marc (34:37) my god. my god. Paul (34:39) small thing, and it hurts so much. And then it's even a little paddle, so I mean it's terrible. Okay. Groc Marc (34:45) my god. Paul (34:46) told me I don't have any credits, so fuck off. So this is Marc (34:53) This is even Paul (34:53) So Marc (34:54) worse. This is genius. Paul (34:56) This is so and it's it's like a woman standing. You guys need to turn on the video. It's a woman standing on the beach and she has kind of like a a lightning barbed wire around her that keeps her from touching the water. It is like a digital force. Yeah, it is pretty Marc (35:10) It's like a digital force field. this is the lamest one. my god. Paul (35:16) lame, no? Marc (35:16) Wow. Okay. I feel so good. Yes, we can still Paul (35:19) Here we go. I I mean after sucker punching you twice, I made you feel good at the end. This is amazing. I am so happy. Yeah. There is still hope. Marc (35:27) Yes, yes. It was just a great idea. Exactly. There's still there's still there's still hope. I love the invitation that it's it's really not replacing what we already know in terms of how we think. It's discovering what we don't know about how we think and what our brain could lead us that could be a really powerful optim way forward. that and thank God these machines can't visualize anything compelling right now like like the it really did. Yeah. Paul (36:02) That made your day. That's a beautiful summary, Mark. Thank you. Great prompt to stay in the language. Talk to you soon. Marc (36:10) Talk to you soon.