Garry Nolan: UFOs and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #262

The video is an interview with Garry Nolan, a professor at Stanford, discussing topics such as UFOs, aliens, and the biology of the human organism at the level of individual cells.

The video is an interview with Garry Nolan, a professor at Stanford University who studies the biology of individual cells. The conversation covers a range of topics, including the possibility of extraterrestrial life and the complexity of human biology at the cellular level. Nolan discusses the idea that DNA is a dynamic computer within every cell, constantly processing its environment and embodying the expectation of the world in which an individual will grow and develop. He also suggests that the universe itself may be a computational process, with biology embedded within it. Overall, the interview explores the intersection of science and philosophy in understanding the origins and complexity of life.

• Aliens may represent themselves as technology to communicate with humans.
• Humans are not alone and there is something else with them.
• UFO sightings did not start in 1947.
• The DNA is a dynamic machine that is constantly processing its environment.
• The universe appears to be a computational process.
• There are trillions of environments where life-like organisms can exist.
• It's impossible to know how many alien civilizations are currently there.
• Creating enough machines with AI to take care of us may be a solution to humanity's future.
• Interacting with the environment is necessary to understand the human mind and how it interacts with the environment.

Garry Nolan: UFOs and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #262 - YouTube

Representing Higher Intelligence to Lesser Intelligence

• Aliens may represent themselves as a form of technology to communicate with humans.
• The common thread is that humans are not alone and there is something else with them.
• It is not easy for aliens to communicate with humans.
• UFO sightings did not start in 1947.
• Humans believe in technology, so aliens may use technology to represent themselves.

The Fascinating Aspect of Human Biology at the Level of the Cell

• The most interesting aspect is the micro and nano machines that proteins make and become.
• The DNA is a dynamic machine that is constantly processing its environment.
• The DNA is both information and a computer.
• The epigenetic state is doing amazing processing.
• The DNA is a basically dynamic computer within every cell.

The Origin of Life on Earth and the Universe as a Computational Process

• The universe appears to be a computational process.
• All the atoms of a protein sit in that computational matrix.
• The DNA is a computational reservoir of information and expectation.
• The DNA embodies the expectation of the environment in which you will live and grow.
• The DNA is a memory system that is not just the linear version but is also everything that it could become.

Garry Nolan: UFOs and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #262 - YouTube

The DNA and the Context of the World in Which You Grow Into and Develop

• The DNA embodies the expectation of the environment in which you will live and grow.
• All the information that is you is embedded in the DNA and the context of the world in which you grow into and develop.
• The DNA assumes the context of the body and the environment in which it's going to live.
• The DNA contains more information than the entire computational memory resources of our current technology.
• The DNA is a computational reservoir of information and expectation that you will become.

Information Storage Outside the Body

• Information is stored outside the body because of the context of expectation.
• If Earth were to run over again a million times, we would get different versions of life each time.
• If there is no such thing as fate and there is some sort of variation or randomness at the beginning, we would get as many different versions of life as we could imagine.
• It wouldn't always be left-handed proteins unless there's something built into the substrate of the universe.
• The system is really good at finding the efficient answer, and maybe the efficient answer is only a small finite set of them for this particular environment.

Alien Civilizations

• There are trillions of environments, aka planets, where life-like organisms can exist.
• The rate of zero is much greater than zero in terms of how many alien civilizations are out there.
• It would be a waste of all that space just for us if we're never going to get there.
• There are probably a zillion other kinds of universes out there if you believe in multiverse theory.
• We only live in the ones where the rules are such that life like ours can exist.

Science Fiction and Evolution

• Science fiction writers base their ideas in good science and evolution.
• If you evolve a civilization from something life-like, its assumptions about the universe will come from the environment in which it grew up.
• Larry Niven imagines different kinds of civilizations, such as what happens if intelligence evolved from a herd animal.
• Bryn David Brin takes different intelligences each from a different evolutionary background and posits a civilization based around where and what they came from.
• As many stars as we can see, that's how many alien civilizations there are.

Number of Alien Civilizations

• How long can a civilization last before it runs out of steam?
• That's the whole question of how many alien civilizations are currently there.
• It's impossible to know how many alien civilizations are currently there.
• It's impossible to know how long a civilization can last before it runs out of steam.
• It's impossible to know if a civilization just gets bored or if it runs out of resources.

Speculation on the Future of Humanity

• Humanity may run out of steam and stop reproducing or collapse due to slow reproduction rate.
• Creating enough machines with AI to take care of us may be a solution.
• Elon Musk worries about the population going to zero and collapsing.
• There could be a possibility of destroying itself or getting bored.
• The only way to get around this is to create enough machines with AI to take care of us.

Stories of UFO Encounters

• Speculation is just creativity and the beginning of hypothesis.
• None of the anecdotes are necessarily believed to be true.
• The similarity and uniformity of the stories are fascinating.
• There might be something to it, like a Jungian background in the human mind and consciousness that creates these stories.
• The most interesting story is the constant message of not taking care of the planet.

Zimbabwe UFO Encounter

• A group of 50 or 60 children in Zimbabwe saw a craft and little men during lunchtime in the playground.
• They all ran into the teachers and told the same story and drew the same pictures.
• The message several of them got was "you are not taking care of your planet."
• 30 years later, the children who have now grown up say it happened to us.
• Whether it's real or not, it's fascinating data and worthy of further inquiry.

Interpreting Novel Ideas

• Humans have limited cognitive capacities and are trying to make sense of the world.
• DNA interacts with the environment in complex ways, and we get novel ideas that make us wonder about what it all means.
• From an alien perspective, finding endpoints on the interaction between DNA and its manifestations in the human mind and environment is necessary to communicate with other life-like organisms.
• Interacting with the environment is necessary to perturb the system and interact with it.
• Understanding DNA and the environment is necessary to understand the human mind and how it interacts with the environment.

UFOs and Intelligence

• Ants can be steered in one direction or another by perturbing them.
• Greater intelligence may want to take care of us, like we take care of gorillas in national parks.
• There is a line we draw in taking care of different species.
• Higher intelligence may be keeping an eye on us.
• Higher intelligence may represent itself differently to lesser intelligence.

Truth about UFO Sightings

• People saw things in their farm fields in the 1800s in the US.
• Stories of UFO sightings go back to the 1800s.
• People saw what they were shown, not just what they saw.
• Higher intelligence may represent itself as a form of technology.
• Common thread is that we are not alone.

Brain of People who Encounter UFOs

• Majority of patients with MRI damage had Havana Syndrome.
• Enriched patch of MRI dense neurons in the center of the basal ganglia was initially thought to be damage.
• Enriched patch of MRI dense neurons is actually living tissue.
• Basal ganglia is involved with higher intelligence and downstream of the executive function.
• Basal ganglia is involved with intuition and planning.

Conclusion

• Higher intelligence may be keeping an eye on us.
• People saw what they were shown, not just what they saw.
• Basal ganglia is involved with higher intelligence and downstream of the executive function.
• Learning requires mistakes.
• Common thread is that we are not alone.

Basal Ganglia and Higher Functioning Individuals

• All planning is done in the basal ganglia, a goal processing system within the brain.
• It is subservient to executive function.
• Higher connectivity is found in families of higher functioning individuals.
• Higher functioning individuals are people who are savants.
• Higher connectivity is only found in higher functioning individuals.

Restricted Breeding Group or Attraction

• Higher connectivity is only found in a small percentage of individuals.
• It is found in families and husband-wife pairs.
• Statistically, it is rare for two sets of individuals to come together both of whom have higher connectivity.
• This implies either a restricted breeding group or attraction.
• Higher connectivity seems to be in experiencers or people who claim to have intuition.

Seeing the Magic in Life

• Some people are more receptive to anomalous information.
• They see the magic and possibility in the novel thing.
• Our brains and genetics enable us to see certain slices of the world.
• Some people are more grateful to be alive and see the magic in life.
• Human perception system first tries to classify anomalous information and get it out of the way.

Chemical Nature of Excitement

• Chemicals in the brain can make people excited about life.
• Some people are over the top grateful to be alive on a lot of stupid reasons.
• Our brains and genetics enable us to see certain slices of the world.
• Some people are more receptive to anomalous information.
• Human perception system first tries to classify anomalous information and get it out of the way.

UFO Encounters

• A report of two little girls seeing a craft right over their car in the middle of the day on a busy highway.
• The mother sees it, but nobody else seems to see it.
• The girls take a picture of it and when they get home, they look at the picture and there's no craft, but there's a little object about 30 feet above their car or so.
• The photograph was capturing something very different than what they were seeing.
• Memory isn't anywhere near what we think it is.

Perception System

• People see a very different thing almost as if whatever it is, is projecting something into the mind rather than it being real.
• It's almost some sort of an altered virtual reality that is imposed on you.
• The fundamental question from an alien perspective is how does the perception system operate?
• How does the human mind operate and how does their perception system operate so that we can stimulate the perception system properly to get them to think certain things?
• Humans think that the only way to communicate is in 3D or 4D space-time, but there could be just so much more richness in how you can communicate.

Alien Communication

• From an alien perspective, somebody has much greater technological capabilities.
• You have to figure out how to use the skills you have to stimulate the limited humans.
• There could be just so much more richness in how you can communicate.
• How do you use the skills you have to stimulate the human mind?
• How do you interact with their perception system?

Biology of the Human Organism

• There's a lot of biology that we don't understand.
• There's a lot of biology that we don't understand at the level of individual cells.
• There's a lot of biology that we don't understand at the level of the immune system.
• There's a lot of biology that we don't understand at the level of the brain.
• There's a lot of biology that we don't understand at the level of the microbiome.

Communication with Aliens

• Aliens may have a pheromone system that they use to interact with each other.
• Humans could create molecules to manipulate aliens in ways that they want.
• Advanced technology could be used to stimulate the neurons of aliens in a telefactoring way.
• Humans could telefactor information into the sensory system of aliens.
• Aliens would need to figure out what kind of things humans are used to observing on Earth.

Representation of Aliens

• The representation of aliens as the so-called grays is interesting because they are different enough but not so different as to be scary.
• Grays could be a manifestation of a communication strategy that says "we're like you but not the same as you."

Tic Tac UFO Sighting

• Pilots who have seen objects that seem to defy the laws of physics should be taken at their word.
• Credible individuals have given testimony about the Tic Tac UFO sighting.
• There is data and simultaneous ship analysis from the USS Princeton and radar analysis.
• It would be nice to remove some of the stigma about this topic because it's all just data and anomalous events.
• It's not a conclusion, and it could be a hoax, but other things might not be.

Conclusion

• Communication with aliens is complicated, and it's challenging to figure out what kind of things humans are used to observing on Earth.
• The representation of aliens as the so-called grays could be a manifestation of a communication strategy.
• The Tic Tac UFO sighting is fascinating, and credible individuals have given testimony about it.
• It's essential to remove some of the stigma about this topic because it's all just data and anomalous events.

Stimulating Scientific Curiosity

• Full range of data needs to be considered to discover extraterrestrial or deep phenomena on earth.
• Stimulating people to think about momentum-less movement can inspire young individuals to go into sciences.
• Openly talking about UFOs and aliens has led to students from top schools expressing interest in helping.
• Considering the possibility of extraterrestrial vehicles can open up the mind to create new technologies.
• Imagining what doesn't exist today can lead to practical solutions and reverse engineering the future.

Motivation to Study UFOs and Aliens

• Elon Musk doesn't think too much about propulsion systems that could defy the laws of physics.
• Considering the possibility of extraterrestrial vehicles can inspire and create new technologies.
• Observing UFOs and aliens can open up the mind to what is possible.
• Imagining the future can lead to practical solutions and reverse engineering.
• Believing that technologies are possible is necessary before creating them.

UFOs and Aliens as a Study of the Future

• Imagining the future can lead to practical solutions and reverse engineering.
• Creating new technologies requires imagining what doesn't exist today.
• Gene therapy with retroviruses was created using a basic approach that couldn't be done before.
• The UFO phenomenon is inspiring people to imagine a future with new technologies and avoiding self-destruction.
• Encounters with alien civilizations may be motivated by a desire to steer humanity away from the precipice.

Motivations for Alien Visitation

• Alien civilizations may want to ensure that their neighbors are not unruly or psychopathic.
• Visiting other civilizations may be a moral imperative, similar to creating national parks for animals.
• Studying other civilizations may help aliens understand their own past.
• Aliens may want to steer humanity away from self-destruction.
• Aliens may be motivated by a desire to ensure that other civilizations are not a threat to them.

Alien Life and Understanding

• Alien means a whole different way of thinking and a whole different level of experience.
• Encountering aliens might happen if we ever make it past our current problems.
• When encountering life, we need to be careful not to step on it.
• Talking about UFOs expands our understanding of what possibly could be life.
• Aliens may take form more and more as information that can influence the space of ideas of the processing of data itself.

Embodiment and Efficiency

• Embodiment may be an inefficient thing.
• AI may be embodied directly into the physics of the universe.
• It doesn't require a physical manifestation, it just sits in space-time.
• Maybe they found a way to embody it there.
• The better your technology gets, the easier it is to accidentally destroy simpleton biological systems.

Disparate Aliens and Self-Tension

• Aliens may not be unified, but disparate.
• What keeps them from stomping all over the ants is each other.
• There's always going to be a hierarchy that's formed of greater and greater intelligences.
• They're all probably also wondering what's bigger than them.
• What keeps them in line is something that is beyond them.

Communication with Aliens

• It's hard to communicate with aliens.
• There's a barrier of understanding.

Communication with Aliens

• Communication between biological systems and aliens is difficult.
• It is relatively straightforward if you are smart enough or technologically enabled enough.
• Concepts may be hard to dumb down to humans.
• Ants are like humans in terms of communication with aliens.
• Aliens may give limited information to humans to avoid muddying the picture.

Assumptions about Aliens

• Humans would make assumptions about aliens that are not true.
• Aliens may stay at arm's length and give limited communication.
• Aliens may not want to step in because they have seen every kind of thing that can go wrong.
• Religions may call aliens angels or devils.
• Aliens' communication is limited, and they give delphic pronouncements.

Atacama Skeleton

• Stephen Greer claimed that a skeleton discovered in Atacama region of Chile might be an alien.
• Garry Nolan reached out to him and took on the task of proving or disproving that with the rigor of science.
• The result is a paper titled "Whole Genome Sequencing of Atacama Skeleton Shows Novel Mutations Linked with Dysplasia."
• The skeleton was human, not an alien or a monkey.
• The skeleton had dysmorphias of the brain.

Unique Characteristics of Atacama Skeleton

• The skeleton had dysmorphias of the brain.
• The skeleton was human, not an alien or a monkey.
• The skeleton had a particular collection of mutations that a world expert in pediatric bone dysmorphias had not seen before.
• The size of the skeleton and the bone density suggested that it was human.
• The team of 11 people, including two other Stanford scientists and Roche sequencing group, worked on the project.

Watch the video on YouTube:
Garry Nolan: UFOs and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #262 - YouTube