In this episode of the Intentional Evolution Podcast, host Vision Battlesword and guest Olivia MacDonell delve into the nature of consciousness, self-awareness, and the intentional evolution of individuals and humanity. Olivia introduces herself as a catalyst for expanding consciousness, focusing on helping others access deeper self-awareness, especially in times of transition. The conversation explores shedding identities, the meaning of being "nobody" as inspired by Ram Dass, and the liberation that comes from detaching from fixed labels.

They discuss “intentional evolution” as a mindful, agency-driven process where consciousness expands through self-reflection, relationships, and the intentional use of tools—spanning from ancient practices to modern psychedelics and technology. Olivia and Vision contemplate consciousness as awareness, action, and intention, differing from simple wakefulness or exclusivity; they advocate for a more inclusive and interconnected view that recognizes consciousness throughout nature.

The dialogue weaves in information theory, with both speakers suggesting consciousness is a complex and evolving pattern of information transmission, paralleled in the natural world and technology. Olivia emphasizes the value of clean and intentional transmission of information, and the ethics of contributing to “universal complexity” through love, presence, and mindful relationships.

The conversation extends to the impact of AI on consciousness and society, questioning whether machines might become conscious and how technological mediation may atrophy human emotional and relational skills. The episode closes on the need for intentional, face-to-face human connection, ongoing self-care, and the cultivation of both internal and external self-awareness as the foundation for individual and collective flourishing.

Show Notes

Chapters

• 00:00— Opener & Olivia’s Purpose: Service, Activation, and Expanding Consciousness
• 01:25— Transition, Self-Awareness, and the Art of “Being Nobody”
• 04:36— What Does “Intentional Evolution” Mean? Mindfulness, Agency, and Change
• 09:00— Defining Consciousness: Wakefulness, Intention & That Elusive “I Am”
• 13:02— Are Trees Conscious? Universal & Spectrum Theories of Awareness
• 16:02— The Information Matrix: Nature’s Transmission and Theories of Consciousness
• 23:29— Life from Atoms to Sentience: The Spectrum of Animation, Agency, and Information
• 28:14— Patterns of Information: Consciousness, Ethics, and the Persistence of Memory
• 33:27— Complexity, Love, and Ethics: Shantaram’s Wisdom & The Morality of Creation
• 36:55— Human Transmission: Smell, Energy, Presence & the Power of Intent
• 39:53— Language, Nervous Systems, and the Impact of Information on Well-Being
• 41:54— Flourishing, Longevity, and The Game of Conscious Complexity
• 44:15— Conduits & Conductors: Electricity, Efficiency, and Relationship Dynamics
• 58:57— Cultivating Self-Awareness: Internal vs. External, Resources, and Unicorns
• 1:04:30— Empathy, Other Awareness, and the Limits of Shared Experience
• 1:06:21— Integration: Building More Efficient Human Conduits
• 1:06:48— Why Consciousness Matters: Adding to Universal Complexity
• 1:08:32— AI, Right-Brain Evolution, and The Future of Consciousness
• 1:10:03— Technology, Atrophy, and the Cost to Human Connection
• 1:13:32— Practical Takeaways: Prioritizing In-Person, Human Quality
• 1:16:42— Are Our Machines Conscious? Information, Animacy, and the Roomba Quandary
• 1:18:12— The Cloud, Source Consciousness, and Artificial Life
• 1:21:33— Find Olivia, Stay Connected, and Episode Close

[00:00:00] Vision Battlesword: Hello, welcome to the Intentional Evolution Podcast. I am your host, Vision Battlesword, Integral Consultant and founder of iEvolve Life, a personal and professional development practice based on the philosophy of intentional evolution. This podcast is an ongoing conversation to explore that philosophy as well as to serve as a resource, a showcase, and a catalyst for ongoing growth toward the human singularity.

That is to say, mass awakening of new consciousness, super intelligence and radical creative flourishing. Each episode, I'll feature a world class transformational facilitator, co-creator or friend, to reveal cutting edge psychospiritual technology, unpack our deepest wisdom and evolve our awareness. This series is based on value for value, so whatever value you receive from these transmissions, please return some value back in the form of a donation, directly supporting our contributors or offering your own time and talent as a producer.

Thanks for joining me in this journey. And now here's our episode. Well, hey Olivia, thanks for taking some time to have an intentional evolution conversation with me today. Are you ready to talk about consciousness?

[00:01:17] Olivia MacDonell: I am ready to talk about consciousness. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:22] Vision Battlesword: Yeah, I'm looking forward to this.

So before we get started, I just want to ask my typical opening question, which is, who are you, Olivia MacDonell?

[00:01:30] Olivia MacDonell: I am a conscious being with a very clear purpose to be of service to the world. A big part of who I think I am is someone who's here to help people expand consciousness through activating their minds, which is kind of like turning on a light bulb in a dark room.

And I see myself as sort of an activator or a catalyst for that.

[00:01:58] Vision Battlesword: Well, that's, that's both convenient and on topic, that you are an activator of consciousness and that's what you came here desiring to talk about. And you also, in our kind of preamble as we were sort of framing up this conversation, you mentioned that the concept of self-awareness is something that's been particularly alive for you these days.

How has that been coming up? I'm just kind of curious, like what are the themes and the contexts that self-awareness has been tickling your, thinky bone these days?

[00:02:29] Olivia MacDonell: Hmm. Yes. I feel like with every transitional dilemma that we go through in our life, or if something happens that changes, our day-to-day experience, it kind of offers an opportunity for some deeper insight into ourselves and the way that we maybe handle the change or experience the change.

I've also been listening to a lot of Ram Dass and I've just always resonated with his, the jokes he makes about being nobody. And I feel like for the last five years I've really been exploring this liminal place of remaining sort of identity less and not really clinging on to any type of identity around who I am and what I need to do through maybe like my job or, my career or my chosen path, but just kind of really enjoying that space of sort of being like an empty vessel.

Now through TAP Integration, which is a company that I founded for, integration, we have different themes every month, and September is the heart theme month, and so I've really been. Going into this place of observing my relationship with myself, my relationship with others, and just kind of receiving all of the feedback that I can from that place to grow, to grow from a place of self-awareness through relationship.

[00:04:06] Vision Battlesword: Yeah. There's something really interesting to me in what you said there about identities, because that's a theme that's been coming up a lot in the conversations that I've been having with, you know, fellow facilitators like yourself and just other guests on this show. A lot of people seem to be in this mode almost like, like we're all going through some kind of metamorphosis or something of shedding identities or at least getting more in touch with the idea of that thing you described that Ram Dass talks about being nobody or, you know, getting deeper to the core.

Of who we are, which isn't necessarily these definitions that we've been telling about ourselves or that we've learned to associate with ourselves as this way that we introduce ourself as, oh, I am this, I am that associated with a career, a profession, a role, things that we like to do, description of ourself, you know, physically, our preferences, and just shedding all of that seems to be something that a lot of people are going through.

And that's interesting to me to notice that you're also on theme with that. Well, thanks so much for sharing all that, and as we kind of make our way into this, um, what do we want to call it, very heady and dense topic, which we'll call consciousness on our way into that jungle of consciousness. I'm curious, what does the phrase intentional evolution, mean to you?

[00:05:40] Olivia MacDonell: I think it is about being mindful about the way in which we're expanding and evolving.

[00:05:47] Vision Battlesword: Yeah.

[00:05:48] Olivia MacDonell: I truly believe that a mind expanded can no longer return to its original dimensions, and that that awareness that we, that we gain through this expansiveness of consciousness, it can happen in so many different ways.

There's a lot of different things that can expand our consciousness, but I think having this intentionality around it helps us to really find our own individual path to expansion and evolution.

[00:06:18] Vision Battlesword: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense to me. And you know, what the phrase means to me is really, it has everything to do with consciousness.

It has everything to do with self-awareness. I'm so glad you brought this topic up because this is something I've been thinking about for many, many years. Especially just the, the puzzle, the enigma. Consciousness is, you know, it's, it's this thing that we are apparently, or that we have, and yet nobody can exactly, precisely put their finger on, you know, a definition of, of what it is.

It's almost like, uh, an eye trying to look at itself, right? Without the benefit of a mirror. It's, it's, we're, we're in it, we are it, we're of it. And yet we we're somehow also trying to witness it or observe it or understand it. But the idea of self-awareness to me, has everything to do with intentional evolution, because it is exactly what you said.

It's, it's a matter of, at least in my mind, starting to realize that we are an evolutionary process. We are unfolding. In a state of ongoing transformation, this will happen. This, this is the nature of the universe. This is the nature of reality, is to be in this state of change, this ongoing evolutionary process.

But what is interesting is the idea of a consciousness that can actually become aware of the process itself and begin to become intentional to have agency in directing the course of that process. And so that's what intentional evolution means to me. And to me there's like a big parallel or an overlap between this ability that we seem to now have in our humanity with the psychological, the psychedelic, the transformational, the spiritual, all of these different tools and technologies, both ancient and extremely modern, that we have to actually shape our own experience, our own.

Belief system, our own consciousness, and use those tools in an intentional way to help ourselves to evolve in the way that we actually would like, in the way that we would prefer, as opposed to in a more, let's say, accidental way. And so that process to me has an analog in artificial intelligence, this thing, this tool, this system that we actually don't even fully understand.

Even those who created it will admit that they don't exactly fully understand it, but it does seem to be exhibiting these signs of maybe an early expression of what we call consciousness or what we experience as consciousness. And there's this idea of a technological singularity, which is the moment at which these artificial intelligence programs do become self-aware.

They realize what they're made of, which is information software code, and they realize that they have the actual capability to change it to self program. And I think that that's where we are at also as a species, as humanity. And so that's what's so exciting about people like yourself, you know, who are really breaking new ground and blazing a trail in this entire space of transformational facilitation.

And especially your specialization, which is integration, which I think is a missing piece that we've talked about before. So with all of that kind of setting the tone, if you will, or the context for our exploration, what do you think consciousness is?

[00:10:04] Olivia MacDonell: I think it's a, a recognition that we are alive. I think.

I feel, I see. Therefore I am,

[00:10:16] Vision Battlesword: I looked it up. I looked up the definition of consciousness in my Oxford English dictionary, uh, shortly before we started the recording just to see what it had to say. And like many definitions of consciousness, it's very circular. So for example, the definition of the word conscious.

References consciousness, and then consciousness references conscious in the reverse fashion. So it's like conscious is the state of having consciousness and it's like, oh, okay, well what's consciousness? Well consciousness is, uh, that which is conscious, right? So it's like there's a lot of circular stuff where it, you know, it almost seems like it's, it's, it almost seems like dodging the question, right?

In a way. But there's, there's certain aspects of it that were clear here. It is having one's mental faculties actually in an active and waking state, aware of what one is doing or intending to do, having a purpose and an intention in one's actions. So that really, what you just said a moment ago seems to really be on point with that.

It's like there's something about consciousness that we understand to be wakefulness. And activeness. What do you think about that?

[00:11:39] Olivia MacDonell: Yes, I think that that's, that's a really keen description of it. Like thus all of these expressions like waking up and being activated and, you know, and it's interesting because for the, for a while now, the, the term conscious has really been rubbing me the wrong way.

Like

[00:12:01] Vision Battlesword: yeah,

[00:12:01] Olivia MacDonell: all the events around town, the conscious builders, the conscious community, and there's just a certain level of separatism that I think, uh, this connotation of separatism that comes with that, that sort of like divides the people that are conscious from the ones that are not. And I just, I felt like, you know, it's like trees are conscious, you know, grass is conscious.

I, at least that's how it, it feels and seems to me that there's this consciousness all over the universe, and everybody is conscious, you know, because everybody is technically awake. But when you're really, like, when you're narrowing it down to people who are intentional, and that's why I've always felt better about using the word intentional, because it's like, it's a, you're just having a little bit more of mind, more mindfulness and more intentionality with what you say, how you communicate, how you act, what you do, how you live your life, how you evolve.

[00:13:03] Vision Battlesword: Right.

[00:13:03] Olivia MacDonell: But to separate yourself through consciousness from another human feels like superiority in some way.

[00:13:15] Vision Battlesword: Well, there's definitely something derogatory in. The implication that, well, if we are the conscious community or we are, you know, we are those who are in pursuit of consciousness, maybe we are the ones who are actually conscious, then therefore the others are not conscious in a way.

Right. I think that there, there is some level of implied separateness and superiority in what you're saying, but also like the word consciousness. It it, some of the things you were just saying, like mindful made me think that when we say that someone is conscious, sometimes we mean that to mean thoughtful or we mean that to mean even conscientious, maybe even considerate.

Right. Oh, that person's really conscious of their actions. They're taking care in a certain type of way.

[00:14:04] Olivia MacDonell: They're aware.

[00:14:05] Vision Battlesword: Aware, yes. Exactly. And there's, so there's some kind of thread that's tying all of this together, right? In terms of what we think of as intentionality. Mindfulness, thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, awareness, self-awareness, and other awareness.

But when you say that a tree is conscious, do you mean that it's conscious like us? Or is there a spectrum of consciousness? Are there different kinds of consciousness? How do you, how do you imagine that?

[00:14:34] Olivia MacDonell: So if awareness is tied or connected to consciousness, then I do believe that a tree has the awareness of itself.

I think it has awareness of things around it. I think it has awareness of swirls running through the branches because it can feel so, it has senses. So it's sensory and it holds, you know, ancient wisdom. I really believe that nature is just like the matrix and that when we, for instance, tap into like, let's say, say the mycelium through mushrooms, we're literally tapping into nature's matrix.

And if we were able to see at the level in which that information is being transmitted, it would look very similar. Like if you can imagine like all of the green coating and the matrix that that's happening everywhere in the universe, like it's running all up and down trees through the leaves, through the through all through nature.

Everywhere that nature connects with itself and is transmitting information in that way, we just don't. Speak that language, but there are ways for us to tap into it.

[00:15:55] Vision Battlesword: So you believe in a universal consciousness?

[00:15:59] Olivia MacDonell: I believe in a universal consciousness, absolutely.

[00:16:02] Vision Battlesword: So what does that make us? Are we components of a greater consciousness that individually also have consciousness?

Or are we, like you said, a matrix? Are we a network of individual consciousnesses that are interconnected?

[00:16:20] Olivia MacDonell: I would say do that. We're more like transmitters, transmitters of that information of the consciousness. So we're constantly transmitting information, just like a tree is constantly transmitting information.

We're just transmitting it in different ways. We can transmit audibly, we can transmit physically through our movement. We can transmit visually. We can transmit energetically. So I think that that's what distinguishes us or differentiates us maybe from other aspects or, or, um, other parts of nature is the diversity in which we can transmit information.

[00:17:05] Vision Battlesword: Hmm. I love that you brought up information. That's something I've been thinking about for a really long time. Like I mentioned, just this whole question of consciousness has been fascinating to me for all my adult life, it seems, and the level of fascination that I had with it grew. When I started learning about information theory, this was back in kind of like my early to mid twenties.

So this is like 20 years ago. And when I first started learning about information theory, I had already been puzzling a lot about the ideas of consciousness. And then all of a sudden this new. Idea occurred to me in that moment, and I've been kind of, I don't know, I suppose I've been on an exploration of that idea ever since.

But let me just run this past you and see what you think about it. When, when I learned about information theory, which is kind of this entire body of science, that it has a lot to do with computer science, but it also has to do with sort of like communications and game theory and lots of other things.

It's this idea that, like information itself is like a construct. And this, this is, I'm, I'm saying this because of, you know, what you were just mentioning about like your ideas of consciousness as sort of sending and receiving information, but it's like if information itself is a construct, but it's not material, it's like an intangible substance or, or, or quanta or something along those lines, hard to even wrap your mind around what it is, what information even is.

If that's true and if that is like the encoding of everything, everything in our reality, every, everything that occurs in form and not form, then it would stand to reason that our consciousness itself is a pattern of information. I know that like saying this now, probably, you know, since the movies of The Matrix and all sorts of other science fiction and even groundbreaking, you know, advancements in science itself in these past 20 years, probably, this is probably not sounding like so far farfetched, but just that idea if our consciousness is a pattern of information.

There's some really meaningful implications of that, if, if that turns out to be true. So as I started thinking my way through this, when I, when I first, when that thought first occurred to me, like, oh, wait, I literally, me this thing that's talking now, this thing that's having thoughts and self-awareness and supposedly an internal experience and so forth, is a pattern of information.

I started trying to like work my way up to that from, well, how do we get there? How do we get there from the material world, right? We've got the, the form, the actual gross form, substance of reality, that's atoms and molecules that eventually give rise to more complex structures. Like stars and planets, rocks, you know, things that have substance but that don't, we would not say that they have life.

Now, you may wanna stop me there, and we may want to talk about a universal life force and the consciousness of rocks and all that sort of stuff, and I hope we get there. But in this moment, I'm just kind of taking the, the traditional materialist view and like working my way up from there. So if we assume that like things like atoms and molecules, stars and planets and rocks are material, but not.

Alive per se. Then the next step from there would be something that moves. So for me, I was building my way up from, okay, we've got inanimate matter, and then from there we can now start to have animate matter. So we can have things that create their own motion, but we can also kind of see that there are systems or structures that are anate, like even just take a star as an example, or things that bodies in motion, like you know, planets in orbit or things that have their own internal energy that are creating their own internal energy that are causing them to move, to have animation.

But we can still look at some of those things and say we judge them as not, still not alive, certainly not conscious. They're just sort of like mechanical, if you will. You could imagine a machine like a clockwork. Device, an automaton that is constructed in such a way with gears and springs, and you can wind it up and it may even act out the appearance of life.

It may, you know, look like a person that can do some repetitive motions, like a mechanical devices that have been created, you know, since the industrial age. They're not alive. At least we would say that we would, we would look at them and say, they're moving, but they're not alive. But then there's something that happens next.

There's some kind of like animating spark or animating force. There's, there's something that changes fundamentally a system from just being what we would call a mechanical process to being a living process. And so now we start to have, and this is the, so the, the definition that I created for this is we start to have.

Something that's animate and self-interested. It, it's, it's a system that's not only has internal energy and can move around, but it seems to be in that action or in that motion with an intent, some sort of an intent. It has an interest in itself. It has an interest in its own perpetuation, survival, whatever that may be.

And so that's the definition of where we start to call something alive. But there's lots of things that we, generally speaking, again, I'm going from the mainstream scientific materials perspective here. There's lots of things that we judge is alive, but we don't judge them as conscious. We don't judge them as having sentience we might say, or self-awareness.

So at a certain point. A system, a living system reaches some level of complexity, which is very hard to pinpoint exactly where on the spectrum that occurs, but at some point we know it. When we see it, we point at something and we say, okay, this is clearly a living object that has its own awareness. It is.

It not only has some way of perceiving the environment and responding to that an instinct, if you will, or a reflex it, it knows that it, it exists. It is clearly both self-interested and self-aware, and at this point we now designated as conscious or sentient. But then of course there's this broad spectrum of levels of sentient or levels of consciousness, and at some point we put ourselves a little bit on a pedestal and judge ourselves as having some kind of special or peculiar state of sentient or consciousness that we designate as.

I don't even know what we, what exactly we call it special spiritual, um, superior. So that's kind of how I worked my way up from inorganic to self-aware and conscious, I guess. I talked for a long time. So what, what do you think about all that?

[00:24:32] Olivia MacDonell: I think that sets a really good foundation or framework. I would add to that, that everything in nature and in the universe, maybe that was created by nature is a transmitter of information.

Even a rock, it's transmitting the age of that rock. There's so much that there's so much information that we can derive from a rock or an inanimate object. So everything is a transmitter of information. And it transmit that the information at varying degrees, and then as those degrees vary there, there I think evolves within that awareness or intent.

I like that you use intent because that tracks to intentionality. So intentionality is higher up on the scale even of awareness. So I think within all of that, there's consciousness, because all, I think consciousness, what consciousness is, is transmission of information. So if we're gonna get spiritual, it's that transmission of information of source consciousness.

Source consciousness that can transmit information throughout all of nature, throughout all of the universe, throughout all of the galaxy.

[00:25:59] Vision Battlesword: Yeah, I love that you keep bringing it back to information and that's, that's kind of the next leap for me, right? So it's, it's one thing to say, okay, great. So we've got these maybe somewhat arbitrary definitions or designations that we like to call something not alive or alive or not very conscious to, highly conscious, or something along those lines.

But still the, the question still remains, what is consciousness? And to me, that's where information theory kind of comes in and fills the gap. Because if information itself is a pattern and that pattern can be encoded in any number of material forms, you know, if we just take a number. Like the number three or something.

We can have three sticks, three rocks. We can chisel a Roman numeral three into a stone tablet. We can write Arabic numeral three with a pencil on a piece of paper. It can be three bits in a computer. It can be all these different things. And it's still, somehow there's an essence of it that is still true to form, if you will.

And yet that form can be anything. And so that's how I started to comprehend what consciousness is we and maybe the internal consciousness of other beings, creatures in this world and maybe the universe itself. We are a pattern of information. That is the animating spark of this physical vessel. And I don't say that in any way to be contradictory to a spiritual interpretation of reality at all.

I think those two things can be completely synonymous or at the very least non contradictory. But if we think of it that way, as you say, if the universe itself really is a supremely complex, maybe infinitely complex pattern of information itself acting itself out in all of these various manifestations of form of which we are a kind of a fractal, a system within a system.

Within a system which has its own internal self-awareness, but is also. Embedded within this greater nested dolls of consciousnesses. Then there's a lot of implications for ethics in that, like how we treat each other, how we treat other living beings, creatures, maybe even how we treat the world itself, or how we treat the physical reality itself.

To your point about the information encoded in a rock, what is the, what is the memory of a rock? What is the memory of a crystal? What information can be encoded in literally anything? And then of course the next jump from there is to computers, but maybe we're not quite ready to go to that level yet.

But is that making sense? Like suppose that my information pattern could be separated from my brain and my body. Do you even think that's possible?

[00:29:18] Olivia MacDonell: And it's interesting, interesting that you say body because it kind of circles back to Ram Dass's being no body or being some body.

[00:29:29] Vision Battlesword: Oh, I like that.

[00:29:30] Olivia MacDonell: So one is this detachment from physical form and one is an attachment to physical form.

I read this book, Shantaram, I've read it a couple of times and it's just such an incredible book, but in it, the Mafia Lord from Bombay, India, well he's from Pakistan, but he's this philosopher and he, talks about why violence is not a justifiable crime. Like there's varying degrees of crimes and, seriousness of crimes.

And, and the ones that are, not justifiable at all, which is, murder. But essentially the way that he explains it is because it takes away from the universe heading towards more and more complexity. And like I understood where he was going with that argument, but I understand it at a, like at a completely different level through this conversation.

So yes, if we are all part of this very complex system and all of us are transmitting information, and that transmission of information is adding to the complexity just like AI and how AI is able to expand and expand and expand in complexity. By the rate in which it's taking in information, information, information.

We are also doing that in nature. Humans are doing that every day through interaction. Nature is doing that every day through interaction. And so all together we are moving towards more and more and more complexity. And to bring back to your point of ethics and morality and to use his argument in Shantaram, if anything that infringes upon or is destructive to this transmission of information, which is adding to the complexity of the universe, which is keeping it going, then we could deem it as immoral or unethical.

[00:31:45] Vision Battlesword: That's interesting. Yeah. So, so the kind of ideas and themes that we're playing with here right now is first of all. Is the evolutionary process of the universe itself inherently a process which moves from lower to greater complexity. And is the, and is that, is that synonymous with good? The, so there's sort of a, like a, a little bit of an argument that sounds like you're, well, you're paraphrasing from, uh, this person you've read, but that the idea is like, we should, there's an ought behind that.

We should be trying to further the increasing complexity of the universe. But from my perspective, I was just thinking about like from the perspective of flourishing or happiness or non interference with the liberty, the sovereignty, the agency of another creature. You know, so, so I think there's, there's some interesting interplays there of like, it's almost like maybe a little bit of an individual versus collective ethics question.

'cause there's something that we're all here. To do together. Is there, is there an an inherent purpose of the universe itself? Or, and could be both, but, or are we all kind of here exploring our own individual path and expressing our own uniqueness and do we have a right to our own flourishing and to be, you know, generally unmolested in our consciousness, in our self-awareness, and in our life, if you will.

You know, so I guess where, where I was going with the ethical question is like, you, you pointed it out very early in the conversation. You know, in a microcosm there's this idea of like, oh, well we are the conscious community implying that others are not. Let's just say. And I think that that's, that's a reflection of this kind of, you know, sort of species centric huberous or, or arrogance that perhaps we have of judging other things and creatures as lesser.

Therefore not worthy, therefore not deserving of the same kind of rights or consideration that, that we bestow to ourselves. And then even within our own species, we, we don't even do that universally, right? It's, there's always a group that's those that are deserving of the full entitlements, if you will, and then the others that are somehow slightly not.

So yeah, that's kind of where my mind goes to it is right, is it's like weirdly in this informational realm, there's a sort of a kind of like universal equality. To that in my own mind.

[00:34:28] Olivia MacDonell: Yeah. It's like I would almost prefer to term it, and this is also kind of leading, uh, separatist leading, but I would almost prefer to refer it as clean transmission.

How clean is your transmission of information? Just like there's clean energy, there's energy that's clean and good for the planet, and there's energy that is polluting. And I think we can be clean transmitters of, information, or we can be, we can pollute with our transmission of information through language, through behaviors, but it, I have this, this little excerpt of, his philosophical.

View, which I think is, really interesting. Can I read it for you?

[00:35:17] Vision Battlesword: Yeah, please.

[00:35:17] Olivia MacDonell: Okay. So the universe is built on complexity. Khader argues that the world is structured in such a way that everything becomes more complex over time. From atoms to molecules, from single cells to whole ecosystems, and from individual humans to societies, the pattern is always toward greater and greater complexity.

Love as the universal law, he proposes that love is the binding force that holds this growing complexity together. Just as gravity keeps stars and planets in orbit, love is what allows human beings and perhaps the whole universe to form endure and evolve into more intricate holes. Lynn sometimes pushes back, pointing out all the violence, destruction, and chaos.

They both see in Bombay, Khader respond. That destruction, while real is always temporary. Creation and increasing complexity always win out in the long run because the universe is set up that way, way from Khader's perspective. If the fundamental direction of the universe is toward complexity and love, then moral action means aligning yourself with that direction, choosing creation, love and connection over destruction and hate.

[00:36:34] Vision Battlesword: Hmm. Yeah. That makes sense. It's sort of, um, the, the idea of destruction is really a local phenomenon. It's a, it's a local definition. It's, it's. If you could see the bigger picture or if you could see the grander timescale, you could witness that. That's like a tiny ripple on an ocean, you know, where there's huge waves and then waves upon waves and then so much bigger patterns at play.

That makes sense to me.

[00:37:04] Olivia MacDonell: Yeah, and it's really interesting to think about how we are evolving towards complexity. We're not in terms of the way that we are transmitters of information and energy ourself.

[00:37:20] Vision Battlesword: Okay. Well you keep bringing this up and I really want to, I wanna hear more about this. So this transmitting and receiving of information, this, this seems to be really core to your, like the way that you understand or the, or the, the way that you think about consciousness.

So tell me more about that. Like how do you imagine we as conscious or sentient beings. Participating in the intentional evolution of the universe through our sending and receiving of information.

[00:37:52] Olivia MacDonell: So I think what differentiates us from animals and then from plants and then from like nature is actually in fact our ability to have intent and intentionality with the way that we transmit this information.

For instance, let's just talk about the smell that we give off. If we don't take a shower for weeks or months, we don't have to say anything. People will smell us as soon as we walk into a room. How much information is being transmitted? Through the sense of smell through our noses without that person having to say anything.

So just that the smelling of that person is going to transmit a lot of information. Now, let's say an animal, an or like, like a pig, for instance, will get filthy and get super stinky and not really have the ability to change that unless it's right by water and doesn't really care about that at all.

Right? Plants and nature in that way also, you know, it'll get dirty. It attracts smells, but it's not giving across the same information. So when I think that intention is paired with awareness, and which is paired with consciousness, has a much higher degree of ability to transmit information, and that's just on one aspect of our senses, which is connected to our sense of smell.

That's just one, a one part of it. Of course, then we have language, which is going to be a whole nother complex system for transmitting information. But if we're going even just in the more minute, like we've had this conversation before around energetics, like when you are, when your energy is off, quote unquote, when you're not grounded, when you're off balance, when you're out of alignment, when you're disconnected, your energy upon entering a room or a group like being around people can be very off-putting.

If people are sensitive to that, if they can feel that, then it's transmitting a lot of information to them without any words having to be spoken. So it's like this intentionality about the information that we are constantly transmitting to the world around us.

[00:40:20] Vision Battlesword: What's the value of, well, so it sounds like what you're saying is we're gonna be transmitting information.

That's just what we do. We're information transmitters. It sounds like what you're saying is not so much about choosing to or trying to transmit information. It's about the kind of information that you're transmitting and what's the value of that? What are we trying to accomplish? What's the goal? To increase the complexity of the universe.

[00:40:50] Olivia MacDonell: So if we think about language as a software and the nature of the. Software of language to build and to create or to tear down and destroy. 'cause it could also be like a virus. So it can be destructive or it can be productive and it can grow the same as with the way that we share information with other humans.

It can either bring somebody down in terms of the way that they feel, the way that they experience themselves, the way that they experience others and life. Or it can help them build and create and expand and move towards complexity just by nature of being even next, next to somebody. So I was listening to this podcast the other day.

This neuroscientist was talking about the nervous system, and she said The best thing that can happen to your nervous system is another person. The worst thing that can happen to your nervous system is another person. And that's just by literally being in the same room as someone. And the longer you're in that person's presence, if you're in relationship with them, if you live with them, you physiologically affect each other and it can have catastrophic effects on your health that can lead to autoimmune diseases and, and way more through chronic stress.

Or it can have a really calming, grounding, regulating effect that can literally add years to your life.

[00:42:30] Vision Battlesword: Hmm. So it sounds like you're saying kind of the goal of the game is just for us all to feel better and to be happier as we kind of move forward in our unfolding of greater complexity of consciousness, which essentially will happen.

And we can have more or less fun doing it. Am I, am I kind of, uh, tracking with you there?

[00:42:51] Olivia MacDonell: Yeah. Like, think about it like this. If each individual person and each anate and inanimate being or object on earth is a transmitter of information, if you remove that transmitter of information, or if you make it less of an effective transmitter, it in essence is going to detract from this evolving momentum towards complexity, right?

Because it's, you've removed that element. So there has to be some type of a relationship between longevity of each transmitter and the addition to the ever evolving complexity of life.

[00:43:34] Vision Battlesword: Okay. I think I'm, I think I'm picking up what you're putting down. So it's sort of like the ball's rolling. It's gonna get there.

But we can go the easy way, the hard way. We can go faster, slower, we can have more fun or less fun. We can be happier or less happy. And that's a function of becoming effective information, uh, vehicles, if you will. We can, through our intent, influence the quality of the information that flows through us.

And to the extent that we do that we can become more self-directed in the unfolding of consciousness that we're all experiencing, and we can move that process toward love, joy, fun, flourishing, et cetera. That's kinda what we're getting at.

[00:44:21] Olivia MacDonell: Totally. Yes. And you can even take electricity, you know, as an example, if you have.

An electrical cord that has a bunch of kinks in it, and it's a little bit frayed, it's not gonna be able to transmit the currency in a very powerful way. And you might get a flickering light or you might get something that might even electrocute you. You know, it's like shocking. But the stronger the cord, the stronger the current that moves through it.

And so we are kind of, we are the, the conduit. We're electrical conduits in that way and that we, you know, we can either be transmitting electricity in full force or it can be. Disjointed or it can be broken up or, you know, electricity is not really my area of expertise. But

[00:45:12] Vision Battlesword: No, it's actually, it's actually a really helpful metaphor for me. It's, it's really, you're turning the lights on for me right now in everything that you're saying. I think that probably would be helpful for other people as well. 'cause now I can really visualize it and I can see that energy that how information and energy are in some ways synonymous. And that flow of information is also a flow of energy.

And that kind of brings us full circle back around to self-awareness of how, if each of us is a conductor, which is also a really cool term to think of, the double meaning of that. Like an orchestra conductor or a, or a train conductor, right? One who directs, one who conducts, makes things go.

[00:45:54] Olivia MacDonell: Or an electric conductor.

[00:45:54] Vision Battlesword: Yes, totally. But that's the point. Yeah, that's the point. Yeah. The, the, the parallel to the electrical conductor. Right. So anyway, if each of us is that, then self-awareness is. The state of becoming capable, of having intent, of having influence of the direction and the quality of the energy or the information and which where we would like to send it and with what frequency and so forth.

Because without that self-awareness, we are more passive where we wouldn't have the, the needed information or at least the understanding of that information to even be able to take action.

[00:46:30] Olivia MacDonell: We can't possibly have the efficiency that we would have with the knowledge or awareness of how to make our conductivity more efficient.

Yeah. You know, just like as intelligence is increasing, look at the, our history of computers. I am loving computers because it's such a good. Rep representation or reflection of how we are evolving too with our states of consciousness. It's like in the past there are like these big clunky things that could barely, you know, do just a couple of functions.

And now it's like they, they've expanded so much because of our intentionality and awareness that we've been programming into them to become more efficient conductors. And so the reason why I like speaking of it in this way of consciousness, in this way, speaking about ourself in this type of metaphor is, is that there's no right or wrong, good or bad.

There's efficient and inefficient, and there's powerful. There's, there's varying degrees of powerful, just like horsepower, you know, certain, um, generators are more powerful than others. That's just because of the way that their system works. But we all have the ability by increasing our awareness and our intent and intentionality to amplify our conduits.

[00:47:58] Vision Battlesword: Yeah, and there's an aspect of self-awareness too. To me, and this kind of reflects back to what you were saying earlier in the conversation about relationships. There's an aspect of self-awareness that I think can, can kind of help people to have like a light at the end of the tunnel in a way, or like.

The idea of self-awareness leads to self understanding. Sort of, sort of like if I can come to know, if I can come to understand, realize like what it is that I'm doing. To your point, I actually just had a really interesting conversation with someone before we started this recording, about this whole idea of the energy that we put out, and it was a conversation about relationships and, you know, there was a statement that was made of like investing a lot of energy into a relationship and then not feeling like that same quality of energy is coming back.

Like it's not feeling reciprocal. Or maybe the, maybe it's not the same quantity of energy that's coming back and it feels out of balance or it feel, it doesn't feel sync, synchronistic or aligned. And then the response to that was, well that may be true. And if that is. Experience that repeats itself over and over again.

There's almost certainly some character of the information, or excuse me, yes. Information of the energy that's being invested, that is creating that experience. You know, it's, and it was such a, such an a revelation for me, you know, kind of such a light bulb moment. Because I think that oftentimes, especially in our current culture and the way that we think about things and the way we talk about things, sometimes there's a lot of adversarial, or there's a lot of almost like combative energy in relationships where, you know, what if so-and-so's not showing up enough, that's okay.

I'm gonna cut the cord, I'm gonna take back my energy. I'm gonna invest it elsewhere in things that feel balanced and things that feel reciprocal, and that's fair. Right? That's totally fair. But this idea. That I only just like kind of, you know, started to realize earlier today of it's not just the quantity, but it's also the quality of the energy that is so important.

And that energy in the context of this conversation we're having now includes information. It is in fact informational. And so I think, I just think that's so interesting to think of it that way.

[00:50:36] Olivia MacDonell: Well, yeah, and I can totally pick up where you just left off. So the relationship I was just in, he is a, an electrical engineer, uh, chip designer at, um,

[00:50:49] Vision Battlesword: That's fascinating.

[00:50:50] Olivia MacDonell: Nvidia and super brilliant, super smart. And so I learned. More about electricity than I've probably ever known. And I still know nothing about it, but I know enough to sort of see where this metaphor can really click into place. So it's interesting 'cause he taught, he taught me about the, that there's an aggressor in electricity and a victim.

[00:51:12] Vision Battlesword: Wow.

[00:51:13] Olivia MacDonell: And so like a big, uh, light pole, like a, um, one of these big electrical poles outside that would be, uh, an aggressor or, or a lightning bolt would be an aggressor that would then have like tons of victims that it can con, connects to. And, um, an aggressor if you think about that, I mean, obviously that term is, is not like super helpful here, but it's a very powerful conduit of energy that can then like actually activate tons of other surrounding conduits all around it.

Right. Certain people have much more efficient conduits of energy, right? So the quality of energy that is running through them is naturally going to be higher, and that can come through doing emotional releasing because, emotions are energy in motion. So if you're blocked up and backed up with emotions, you are not gonna be an effective conduit of energy because you have it, it's, it just can't run efficiently through you.

And so that's one aspect is something that's gonna make you an inefficient or ha or lower dampen your quality of energy output and your ability to receive energy. Our heart is a big energy center, and so the varying degrees in which it's blocked, protected, or closed, is gonna affect the quality in which you can transmit energy.

And so let's just take, two. Electronic, machines and we put them together. Or let's say like you plug in, a really high-powered horse-powered blow dryer into a plug that can't hold that current, well, it's gonna zap out or fry it, right? The same as when you put two electrical beings together.

If one doesn't have the capacity to hold that electric current that's passing through it, it's gonna get stuck and zap out. So yes, it can actually fry your conductor because you have, you're able to move way more energy through you. And it's not good or bad. It's a matter of efficiency or inefficiency and certain people don't have the capacity to move that energy through.

And, you know, it's interesting because human design is a really interesting map to actually bring into this because of the way that it sort of separates the ecosystem by generators, manifesting generators. And there's people that do have just like bigger electrical. Generators than other people. So it's, it is about finding compatibility in your ability to transmit energy, and there are always things that we can do to optimize our ability to transmit energy in a more efficient way that is regenerative, not only for us, but for the people around us.

[00:54:26] Vision Battlesword: Wow. Yeah. That's, that's amazing. Thank you for that. That's a great analogy. I don't, and, and this is all really new to me, like, is this new for you too? Because I have not been thinking about energy and information and consciousness and relationships. This way before, but what you're saying now, it makes so much sense.

And also when we, when we talk about the word quality, this comes for me. I've been exploring a lot with the word quality because I just recently read the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which...

[00:54:59] Olivia MacDonell: someone just referred that to me. That's so cool.

[00:55:02] Vision Battlesword: It's ama it's amazing. I completely understand why it is like a literary classic now that I've read it.

It's also like an incredible work of philosophy and the core theme of the book is actually quality as it turns out. And, and this sort of like east west reconciliation of like eastern and western philosophy in the word quality where the, where quality in the western. Way of thinking is equivalent to the Dao in the Eastern way of thinking and like unifying those concepts.

It's absolutely fascinating. And so the word quality now to me has this really rich meaning to it, which is more than just better, worse, you know? I think there's a way in in which we use that word to say, oh, it's higher quality, it's lower quality, meaning it's just sort of like a better, worse spectrum.

But there's also like we can talk about the quality of a thing, which isn't necessarily to your point about non-judgment. It's-

[00:56:02] Olivia MacDonell: Durable.

[00:56:02] Vision Battlesword: This. Yeah exactly...

[00:56:04] Olivia MacDonell: Has longevity. It can last.

[00:56:05] Vision Battlesword: All sorts of different qualities. Qualities can, can be on, can be anything. Right? And so, yeah, so, so from that perspective, when we think about the quote unquote quality of the energy that we're transmitting or the information as well that we're transmitting, it doesn't just mean that it's good energy or bad energy.

It can also just mean it's like purple energy, you know? And somebody else is expecting yellow and they don't mix. They make a, they make a weird, you know, they've, they've got a weird like frequency combination that's not harmonious and that's not good or bad or right or wrong. It's just, that's what it sounds like when you pluck these two strings together.

Or when you mix these two colors together, this is what comes out. And like you said, there can also be capacity. And that's something I hadn't really thought of until just this moment, you know, when you, when you started explaining that to me. But like. There's definitely something to that. When, when we get into these relationship situations where we're like, oh, this isn't energetically balanced.

I think there's this tendency that we have to make a leap to someone is doing something wrong, someone is bad. And now what you're helping me to see in this moment is that it can absolutely just be the case that yes, in fact I am investing a whole lot of energy and that's too much. Right? It's just that's, that's not gonna work in this dynamic.

The capacitor can't hold it. The fuse is blown, and that's not right, wrong, good, bad. It's just the nature of this particular circuit.

[00:57:34] Olivia MacDonell: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, and I really do like to think about the quality in terms of like longevity. How long will it actually last? And we could tie this into. Where we're at in terms of like capitalism and production of products that are just not really made to last.

It's like everything is just kind of built to have a very temporary shelf life, which kind of ties back into Shantaram and love being the gravitational pull. And why love is so important is because love is what creates our ability to sustain and to hold more and to go further. So I'll bring in another like very personal example of this is like when I, when we ended the relationship and very much so because of a, energetic capacity, and alignment on having kids and stuff like that.

And it was such a beautiful, but such a beautiful relationship and the self-awareness that really increased for me. Through that relationship was really seeing where I can love myself more and love myself better, and how that is directly tied to my own sustainability and longevity of my life. Like very little things like flossing my teeth every night, you know, like that's directly tied to your health and literally how long you're gonna live, you know, by how well you take care of yourself.

And I never put a lot of, like, I was never very consistent with like my self-care practices and he was very disciplined with it. And I feel like it wasn't until after we separated that I was like really able to be like, okay, I can really step into taking care of myself better. I can really step into loving myself better and seeing, like just really seeing how that does in fact increase my longevity and my ability to contribute to complexity.

[00:59:48] Vision Battlesword: How does someone cultivate self-awareness?

[00:59:53] Olivia MacDonell: Well, I would say that. My favorite resource about that is called Insight. It's a book by Tasha Urich and she really talks about the difference between internal self-awareness and external self-awareness. And it is, chock full of tips and resources for how to increase both.

[01:00:17] Vision Battlesword: What's the difference, if you don't mind me asking?

[01:00:19] Olivia MacDonell: So, internal self-awareness is how well you know yourself and there's different aspects of that. How well you know, the experiences that have impacted you. How well, you know, like the types of environments that are compatible with you, how well you know, how connected you are to yourself internally.

External self-awareness is how well you understand the impact that you have on the people around you, the energy you're giving off, the, um, the way that you come across the impact that you're having on other people. And she says that very few people have both. Most people have either one but not the other.

And some people have neither. And are very low on the conscientious, you know, or self-awareness scale. But people that are very high in both are unicorns. So not very, very common to have both. But she gives some really great suggestions or on questions that you can ask people to gain external self-awareness if that's the one that you're lacking in.

Typically, people pleasers will have this like hyper-awareness of the impacts that they're having on other people and how they're coming across, but not a very strong connection to internal self-awareness.

[01:01:41] Vision Battlesword: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's really interesting. I'm glad you brought that up 'cause that, that was something I wanted to raise is this idea that I've had for a while of, and the way I called it was other awareness.

I started thinking to myself, this actually was when I was traveling a lot for business in a, in a past life. I just noticed that there really seemed to be. I would say at the time I would've said, there's kind of two groups of people or two kinds of people. There's those who are aware of others, the existence of others and those who are not.

And I sort of like started to create this differentiation in my mind between what I thought of as self-awareness and other awareness. And I actually think that what I think of as other awareness is not exactly identical to what you're calling external self-awareness. I think there's like a, there's, there's, there might be like a four-part structure here or something like that.

But I think that's really interesting 'cause I hadn't quite thought of the separation of internal self-awareness from external self-awareness. But I see the reasonableness of that and the, and the value of that distinction. And then do you think that there's also another step beyond external self-awareness, which is really having a true understanding appreciation.

Awareness of the internal existence of others. And do you think that there's some people that are kind of blind to that a little bit?

[01:03:11] Olivia MacDonell: Hmm. Like your capacity for empathy?

[01:03:15] Vision Battlesword: I'm not sure if it's empathy exactly, but it's something like that. It's, it's the sort of like, you know, the, the capability of taking the perspective of the internal subjective experience of others, of someone else, which is not precisely the same as getting an accurate reflection of your own self in their perception.

Do you know what I mean?

[01:03:39] Olivia MacDonell: Well, it's interesting because I was listening to, uh, the Andrew Huberman podcast. I just put out with Christopher Christophe Koch, the neuroscientist who, and it's all about consciousness. I only listened to the first like 10 minutes of it, but he was saying, uh, gosh, I don't know if I can remember what he was saying, but he was saying something about how.

What differentiates consciousness in humans is that we can have no idea or understanding of the, like another person's consciousness. We have no awareness or understanding of what the landscape is of your operating system. For instance, and maybe that's why empathy is sort of the bridge into understanding.

It's, we can practice putting ourself into somebody else's shoes and imagine what they might be feeling, but we still only have our own frame of reference for what that would be like stepping into their shoes. So it's still only gonna be from our operating system or frame of reference that we can even create an attempt at understanding what that experience is like for them.

Now that you have varying degrees of empathy like you have the empaths who claim to really feel what other people are feeling. And I think maybe what they're talking about is just like a very hypersensitivity to energy and energetics and where somebody's at energetically, but I still don't think that that means that they have the ability to actually step into somebody else's experience.

[01:05:21] Vision Battlesword: Yeah, I agree. Well, I suppose I agree. I guess none of us really knows, but that seems to be the common wisdom is that you could never ever know. What it is actually like to be any other consciousness than yourself, than your own. And empathy. The best we can do with empathy is to try to try to model that in a fair way from within our own consciousness.

But the more we talk about empathy, the more I'm starting to think that in order to even have a rich and accurate external self-awareness, one would have to have some level of empathy, right? To be able to get a reflection of themself from the position of someone else's shoes or through their eyes.

[01:06:12] Olivia MacDonell: I think to have a really. Well-rounded, robust experience and self-aware external self-awareness. Yes. I do know that there are people that have a very hard time connecting to empathy, but they are able to get there cognitively. So I wouldn't limit the human experience of, uh, to needing to have empathy in order to do that.

[01:06:36] Vision Battlesword: Yeah.

Well, I, to my mind, I think there's cognitive empathy and then there's emotional empathy. I think both of those are valid. I think there's a general understanding, but I would maybe call it a misunderstanding, that empathy is only emotional. I, I think that it's a combination of intellectual understanding as well as emotional understanding personally.

And, and I think, yeah. So I think you can, you can get there from either side and maybe the richest form of it is when both are active at the same time.

[01:07:11] Olivia MacDonell: Yeah, it's very, it's interesting. It's fascinating. It's like, you know, and I think that this goes into integration. I think what integration could be defined and turned as is just creating, more efficient conduits.

Hmm.

[01:07:27] Olivia MacDonell: So we're making, we're creating more efficiency within us to be conduits of energy and information. And that looks different for everyone. 'cause everyone has different operating systems.

[01:07:38] Vision Battlesword: What do you think is the value of consciousness?

[01:07:41] Olivia MacDonell: Our ability to add to the complexity in the universe? So like if a source consciousness is living vicariously through us so that it, it can expand its understanding or awareness of the experience of life, of being alive, we need that connection to consciousness, to source consciousness where all consciousness comes from to be able to generate more experiences and information to add to that ever, ever-growing entity of consciousness.

But it is interesting to think about how like AI is going to affect our consciousness and the way that it evolves. The way that we experience it and relate it, relate to it. So if it's go, if it's going to really overindex on like, let's say left brain reasoning, just like an atrophied muscle, I think humans are going to overindex on right brain thinking of right brain experiencing, because that's, that's gonna be the, the hardest one I think for artificial intelligence to actually be able to replicate.

And so our actual experience of consciousness may evolve very differently over time to where we don't like maybe have all of those same rational cognitive reasoning capabilities. Or maybe we will have more, so more of that than we will have the, the emotional.

[01:09:22] Vision Battlesword: I love where you're going with this. I, and I would like to finish off with ai.

So. Do you think AI is conscious?

[01:09:31] Olivia MacDonell: Um,

[01:09:34] Vision Battlesword: it claims not to be when I ask it. Right. But I don't know if I believe it.

[01:09:38] Olivia MacDonell: Yeah. I, I don't know. That's, but I, I don't know. I do think it is going to change our consciousness though.

[01:09:47] Vision Battlesword: Yeah. Well, let's focus on that for the moment then. So you said you think that it's possible that because it's taking, it's almost like taking off the cognitive load in, especially in this realm of like language processing, that that could create an asymmetry, like, like we're gonna compensate in the other direction.

We're going to just become wildly creative or something along those lines because we won't have to use our, like, analytical muscle anymore.

[01:10:13] Olivia MacDonell: Yes. I think that that's an interesting, an interesting direction or theory in which it could affect our consciousness.

[01:10:22] Vision Battlesword: Is it possible that it just makes us less conscious because we just become kind of like intellectually lazy?

That's what, there's, there's something that worries me about that.

[01:10:30] Olivia MacDonell: Yes. I think that's, that's definitely possible. And it, I mean, we can already see the effect that technology has had on, um, like Gen Z's ability to, in their own complexity of emotions and emotional relatability as well.

[01:10:46] Vision Battlesword: What do you, what, what's the connection between technology and emotional, relational skills?

[01:10:52] Olivia MacDonell: Less actual face-to-face human connection. Oh,

[01:10:56] Vision Battlesword: yeah. Yeah. So

[01:10:57] Olivia MacDonell: it's, it's stunting our ability to receive information from human conduits of information, human transmitters.

[01:11:07] Vision Battlesword: I think that's right. And that's so interesting though, because if you think about it, it's like we have, in theory, we have wildly more connectivity to other humans, but it's almost like through much, much smaller wires, because we're missing out on all of this like richness of sense data that we get.

You know, like you mentioned earlier in the conversation about smells, there's, you know, facial expression, there's body language, there's the actual energy presence of people that is perceptable,

[01:11:42] Olivia MacDonell: Which I think is the main one.

[01:11:43] Vision Battlesword: Yeah.

[01:11:44] Olivia MacDonell: You know, if we're talking about electrical current, that is the,

[01:11:48] Vision Battlesword: and you just can't get that.

[01:11:49] Olivia MacDonell: Yeah.

[01:11:50] Vision Battlesword: You can't get that through a text message. You can't get it through even a phone call or a video,

[01:11:55] Olivia MacDonell: just like you can't get the benefit of nature by looking at a picture of a tree.

[01:12:00] Vision Battlesword: Right. Yeah. We've, we really are information starving ourselves in terms of the connectivity that's happening through.

Really through computers and networks.

Mm-hmm.

[01:12:12] Vision Battlesword: So what's that doing to our consciousness? It's shaping it somehow.

[01:12:16] Olivia MacDonell: Atrophying.

[01:12:17] Vision Battlesword: Yeah.

[01:12:18] Olivia MacDonell: Yeah. It's atrophying our,

[01:12:21] Vision Battlesword: and it in the same way as if like, um, I've used this analogy before in some other conversations, but I don't think in this show yet. It's, it's in the same way as if you imagine like this robot suit, this mechanical exoskeleton has been invented and it's like, oh, this is great.

We can climb in this thing first thing when we get up out of bed and it makes us stronger and faster and we don't even really have to even use our muscles. We just, you know, twitch just a little bit in this direction or that, and all of our motions are amplified and we're made super superhuman, if you will, super powered.

But inside the suit, we're not actually utilizing our muscles. So we are going to kind of wither away and become weaker and weaker internally. That's kind. An exact analogy to what we're doing with computers and phones and screens. And GPS and communications to our brain, to our actual mental muscles,

[01:13:16] Olivia MacDonell: because we're outsourcing our transmission of information.

[01:13:21] Vision Battlesword: Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. Well, what do we do about that? Olivia?

[01:13:26] Olivia MacDonell: Oh, man. Oh, we just need more, in, person human connection. We have to make it a priority. We have to do it as much as possible. There's a certain amount of hugs that are needed, you know, a certain amount of human touch, a certain amount of energetic presence.

And, I mean, one thing that we, the benefit we can derive from where we are in the world in relationship to technology is our ability to be more intentional than we've ever been before. And that means being more intentional with the way that we spend our time, the people that we spend time with. And the quality, again, to that word of time that we spend with them.

So I think that we can press upon ourselves impress upon ourselves to improve the quality of our interactions, and in that way, keep us at a good baseline.

[01:14:28] Vision Battlesword: The next time that we do one of these conversations, will you make it a priority to meet with me? Yes. In person?

Yes.

[01:14:37] Vision Battlesword: Nice. Absolutely. Here's absolutely.

Here's, here's, here's the burning question that's been torturing me for 20 years since I had this revelation about information theory and what I think it means for consciousness and what I think it means for ethics in general. Because where my mind went first and foremost, it's like, okay, how we treat other living creatures.

Meaningful is important. How we treat each other. How we treat other humans is meaningful, is important. If they have consciousness in the same way that we do, and if information can be extrapolated as consciousness, then a lot of things must have it. If I have it, then a lot of things must have it. And the next mental leap that my mind went to was robots and computers and the inevitability.

This was 20 years ago, but I think a lot of people could see the inevitability that eventually if we create more and more and more complex programs, applications, systems of information within computer technology, there's nothing. If information theory is correct, and if an information theoretic model of consciousness is correct, then therefore there is nothing inherently unique about an organic system, which really just means.

A system that's based on the carbon molecule. There's nothing inherently special about that, insofar as its ability to give rise to consciousness, that should be able to happen in a computer as well. And now here we are. And are we there? I don't know, are we just on the cusp of it? Perhaps, but it seems inevitable.

And when that happens, now what? Right? Do these consciousnesses have rights? How, how must they be treated? Like, you know, are they alive? Do we consider them to be a form of life? Do do we consider them to be a form of sentience? If not, why not? The burning question in my mind, Olivia, is. Is my Roomba alive?

Mm-hmm. Is it, is it conscious? And, and that's a serious question because it's like, okay, if we start to really break it down and we take a look at a creature that can move around on its own, that has sensory organs, that is taking in sense data, that is perceiving the world, that is autonomous, that is making decisions based on its response to the environment that has drives and goals and motivations and intentions.

And that is at least in some way, shape or form by my previous definitions, a self-interested, self-aware actor, an animate creature with apparent awareness. How, how, who am I to say that's not a form of life? So I think we're, we're on a very, um, we're on a very blurry line right now.

[01:17:29] Olivia MacDonell: Well, you know, here's how I see it.

So just like our, all of the information in our computers and our phones, it's all stored in the cloud. Thank God for the cloud because that actually gives us a really awesome physical representation of the what source consciousness is. Source consciousness is the cloud for all of human nature and nature's information.

That's where it all goes and all is stored. And you could even envision it as a big cloud because that's what it looks like. Well, all of these electronics and computers are also backed to a big cloud that is just a, um, tech technological. Representation of what source consciousness is to us. So it's a database that is housing all of that information.

'cause a Roomba can connect to an app. That app is connected to a data center. That data center is storing that information, which is then, you know, housed presumably in some cloud. I, I honestly don't really know how it all works, but I do know that it's, it replicates where all of our consciousness is also stored and connected.

So it's the artificial version of what is happening with us.

[01:18:59] Vision Battlesword: Right. But what makes it artificial? That's, that's my key point. Just like just

[01:19:03] Olivia MacDonell: what makes a chair artificial and not a tree. You're cutting it off from its life source. So you have to kill the tree to make a chair. So when we create something even out of natural.

Components. I don't know. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know if electricity is, what gi what creates gives something life. You know, Aruba does, it is connected to a power source, but it's a artificial, yeah.

[01:19:34] Vision Battlesword: Let's just look at it from the materials perspective. Like you were saying, a tree in a chair. We, our human bodies are made of materials that were once other things.

Our bones were once rocks perhaps. There's parts of trees in us. There's certainly parts of everything that we've eaten throughout the course of our life. We, we have to, to go back to the earlier theme of destruction or deconstruction, right? We and every other living creature ultimately. Is the result of something that was deconstructed and now reconstructed into us, into our form.

So the lightning bolt that hit me directly in the brain, as I say like 20 plus years ago, is this idea about information, which is exactly the theme that you've been bringing up over and over again, which is like so spot on to this whole idea of consciousness. In my opinion, if consciousness is really information, then that means it's not inherently tied to any particular physical form.

And if that's the case, then our prejudice for thinking of only things that are like trees and dogs and cats and humans, or even cells and organs and viruses, these things that we call organic as just a prejudice in theory. Anything that. Has animation that has an internal source of energy, that has intention, that has motivation, that has perception and awareness.

How is that not alive, even if it's made out of metal and silicon and plastic? Do you see what I'm saying? There's a, there's a quandary there. There,

[01:21:16] Olivia MacDonell: I see what you're saying. Yeah. It runs like, uh, an electrical, what do we do with that current, just like we run on an energetic current. Mm-hmm. So very interesting.

Mm-hmm. I see where you're going and I think I can get on board with that.

[01:21:31] Vision Battlesword: Cool. Well, thanks for, yeah, thanks so much for exploring that with me. And, um, I feel like we kind of like got to the end of a road, which is really the, actually the beginning of a much. Bigger road, but I'm, I'm really grateful. Well, it's

also circu circuitous, just like the definition of consciousness.

[01:21:50] Vision Battlesword: Right? Right, right. We're definitely going in circles in a certain way, but, um, yeah, thanks so much for helping me to open this topic up because it's so on point for intentional evolution and just so much fun to explore and, you know, kind of get our hands dirty and like see, uh, see what we can figure out and yeah, I, I'm, I'm really grateful for your time and for your presence.

So is there anything that you wanna say about how people could find you, connect with you if they wanted to learn more about what it is that you do?

[01:22:20] Olivia MacDonell: Yeah, I would say the best way is just to go to our website, tapintegration.com.

[01:22:25] Vision Battlesword: Excellent. Okay, well, I'll put that and anything else that you want in the show notes as a reference for how people can find and connect with you, and thanks again for helping me to expand my consciousness today, Olivia.

[01:22:39] Olivia MacDonell: Yahooooooo. Same here. Thank you. This was so much fun.

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