Federico Faggin on Idealism, Quantum Mechanics, Free Will, and Identity

Federico Faggin is an engineer and physicist who invented the world's first commercial micro processor, the Intel 4004. He is also the founder of the Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation which is dedicated to the scientific study of consciousness.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
2:40 Federico’s awakening experience
12:24 Consciousness, free will, and identity
17:43 Truth and freedom from suffering
21:21 “The one” that seeks to know itself
25:49 How “the one” becomes the many
28:07 “The one” and classic/quantum physics
41:07 Fundamental entities with free will, identity, and consciousness
45:25 Consciousness needs classical memory to store experience
47:04 Was the Big Bang a free will choice
57:02 The reality of the irreducible
1:01:37 Semantic space
1:05:37 Methods of inquiring into symbolic and semantic space
1:12:14 Will everything eventually converge?
1:15:54 Taking semantic reality seriously
1:22:10 Near death experiences
1:24:29 Taking experience seriously
1:30:26 Quantum information as a representation of inner experience
1:34:01 What do we do given this understanding?
1:36:35 We are not machines
1:43:11 Negating the reality of the soul
1:47:05 Meaninglessness and dynamic truth
1:52:26 Goodbyes

[mu]

It was wonderful connecting with Federico! This episode is a compilation of a series of three interviews we did together. You can find timestamps below and help support the podcast at these links:


Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
2:40 Federico’s awakening experience
12:24 Consciousness, free will, and identity
17:43 Truth and freedom from suffering
21:21 “The one” that seeks to know itself
25:49 How “the one” becomes the many
28:07 “The one” and classic/quantum physics
41:07 Fundamental entities with free will, identity, and consciousness
45:25 Consciousness needs classical memory to store experience
47:04 Was the Big Bang a free will choice
57:02 The reality of the irreducible
1:01:37 Semantic space
1:05:37 Methods of inquiring into symbolic and semantic space
1:12:14 Will everything eventually converge?
1:15:54 Taking semantic reality seriously
1:22:10 Near death experiences
1:24:29 Taking experience seriously
1:30:26 Quantum information as a representation of inner experience
1:34:01 What do we do given this understanding?
1:36:35 We are not machines
1:43:11 Negating the reality of the soul
1:47:05 Meaninglessness and dynamic truth
1:52:26 Goodbyes

[wings]

so glad people with real engineering backgrounds are here to explain thoroughly, that Consciousness is NOT an aftereffect of chemical nor electrical activities.

I read Federico's book Silicon, as well as Bernardo Kastrup's books. Two brilliant minds.

Hoping that this new paradigm can slowly trickle down to the mainstream, specially those people who think that materialism is the only way to interpret the world.

[joebiz]

I come at this with no real educated background. A layman through and through. He's confirming what I've been writing down over the past 5 years. When I turned 60 for reasons I cannot know, I began to write. Essays describing this whole realm of consciousness, the experiential and the knowing element. And redefining what we think of as Free Will within consciousness. Up to this point, I had no drive to write about anything, let alone something as esoteric as this. Which I could have not even the awareness of as I had no OBE or anything drug-induced. It just came to me and I wrote it down.

[mickeymitchell]

I had a similar experience, although I profess no scientific background. He described mine in a way I didn’t have the words for, but I knew it was Love and I’ve never, ever doubted it. This confirmation is a gift.

[marktwain]

The man who invented the first working Microprocessor! One of the Great Men of World History! What a treat to hear of his ongoing searches in Spiritual Philosophy!

[lucianmaximus]

Federico is the Bomb. He's exposing the prevailing paradigm that leaves so much to be desired. He's the coolest of the awaked ones -- the ones that have seen the true light of consciousness.

[quixodian]

So impressed with Federico. I got his book Silicon last year, and learned a ton from it, both about chip design practices and his amazing insights into consciousness. True hero of our time, he could be swanning around enjoying his millions but instead has dedicated himself to higher consciousness.

[nazarenoorefice]

You don t have to be a believer to venerate the greatness of the consciousness spirit and soul .
federico opens your mind within a scientific perspective . a scientific spirituality so interesting and different from the mainstream thinkers .
Very interesting

[angiehewerdine]

This man is amazing! I am going to rewatch this numerous times. I can already tell.

[AscendingSpirals]

20:20 Dear Federico,

First of all, thank you for your wonderful work and everything you are doing in order to promote the importance of a global shift of paradigm.

So profoundly needed in today’s world and society.

Thank you for spreading the knowledge to such an high extent in the scientific community, the public and the political world.

Thank you, from the heart.

Like the peak experience of Love you went through, in that precise day, that made you (com)participating of the understanding of a picture much bigger than what your (our) usual comprehension is.

That vibrational wisdom, like Fire in your chest emanating through all your bodies (physical, mental, emotional, etc.), able to shift profoundly, radically and forever the significance of the Whole.
Your whole.

The awareness of you as not separated, in joy, peace and great love, as you described it, the one that allowed you to instantaneously “download” at all levels (macro to microscopic & beyond) the higher vibrations of Love that withstand reality in all dimensions.

Consciousness, as you call it.

Awareness & Realization, as some other call it too.

The Advaita Vedanta, the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali and several other in the Western world like Plato or Plotino, put a name on what you went through.

Using the Sanskrit word “Savikalpa Samadhi”, or what Yogananda would have called “Christ’s Consciousness”, they (the Wises) would have said that you, your person and your actions, are driven today by such an experience.

Patanjali speaks also about the knowledge through “direct experience” (or better, through vibrational alignment with the so called object wanted to be known, until identity is made). Giving huge credit to the reasoning method of understanding and creating knowledge, but considering it limited, compared to the above mentioned way of comprehension (experiential, we could say, but in a non-dualistic way).

The Vedanta, in the form of the Advaita, with Śankara, in the VIII century was able to go a step forward from the so called “Savikalpa Samadhi” state.

Śankara described the obtainment of “Nirvakalpa Samadhi” = “Unity with Oneness”, to the point that all the rational conceptualizations cease to exist (no observer separated from the observation, any longer).

When that happens, we understand why Plato talked the way he talked about the ultimate reality. We understand why the creation is what it is. And the concept of omniscience doesn’t infringe any longer with self awareness and free will.

My relative understanding of Truth says, that It/He/She/They doesn’t need to create the physical experience/existence. It just do it because It/He/She/They can.

And the existence of everything is happening out of pure love.

That is, the emanation/vibration of all forms, at all levels.

And the beauty is that opposites are just paradoxically included.

Anyway, it is easier to cover those aspects live. So, I wish we’ll have the opportunity to clarify this in person.
E a dire il vero, sono sicuro che ne avremo l’opportunità, presto.
Stiamo a vedere.

By the way, there was an Italian man, few years ago, able to put together the path that bring to Oneness. Like other before him.
His name was Raphael. Your father, Giuseppe, had the opportunity to meet him and also published a book about Plotino, through his publishing house.
Edizioni Aśram Vidya.

I strongly recommend Śankara’s Vivekacudamami with Raphael comments.

So, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, also commented by him.

I wish you Federico and all the video spectators and readers of this comment, all the best.

I wish you guys Peace.
A profound One.
Śanti.

Jody

[E-Kat]

I felt unexpected love in my chest area just after receiving the First Communion!
I wasn't looking forward to that day as I was unhappy with my dress and accessories and my mum even didn't come to the church with me.
I wanted the whole thing to end, so I can take my dress off, so I was shocked when the feeling of love had entered my chest and stayed with me for sometime, I can't remember how long.
I saw the surroundings looking much prettier than they were and something was telling me this was a new beginning for me.
I was dazzled and overwhelmed by this. ❤

[retrogore]

Really grateful that synchronicity brought me to this incredibly thorough interview. Thank you.

[ConsciousnessRC]

amazing to see a scientist and engineer talk with such insight and passion about the Truth of consciousness! 
he is certainly enlightened. he understands much better than most so-called 'spiritual' teachers. such a pleasure to hear him speak so insightfully about ontology, meaning and consciousness. he is speaking the same Truths as the Vedānta.

[ChristianSt]

great! Federico is one the most wise persons of our time!

[sscalercourtney]

In college and much of my life I wondered about an existence in afterlife, or not. I worried about free will, or not. I wondered if consciousness. I took two philosophy elective courses to study the issue. And read a lot after college. Then one day I realized it doesn't matter for me.
When I die much will be answered. As to the rest of it. It doesn't really matter if we know and understand or not. So I quit worrying about it. If nothing exist after I die, then that will be as much an answer and if something exist.

[eastbrecht]

Consciousness is what drives the brain. Great guy.

[franzrichter]

All this was known in the Veda and Vedic literature. It was probably also known by Plato in his secret teachings, it was certainly known in the neo-platonic prologue of the 4th gospel by St. John: "In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and God was the logos." What was described there was not only information (or better knowledge - in India called Veda) but the whole interplay of the knower, the known, and process of knowing, in the gospel depicted by the metaphor of the (quantum-mechanical?) Father and the Son (who enters space-time) plus the spirit (consciousness, i.e. the computer). Note that in interprocess-communication you also have parent and child processes and in object-oriented programming you have inheritance of classes.)

Another strange sentence in the gospel of John (challenging all the intellectuals of all times) was "Before Abraham was - I AM". In the Vedic tradition of India one of the final cognitions of enlightenment is "Veda aham" ("Knowledge I am"), and Aham Brahmasmi ("I am wholeness"). I don't know whether the theoretical physicist of Oxfort, David Tong also is enlightened, but he said a few years ago in a beautiful lecture available on YT on the question what we are made of: "Atoms are a lie, we are the field".

So not information is fundamental but the holy TRINITY of the sender, receiver, and flow of information. My Indian master Maharishi called it "Self-interacting wholeness". This involves symmetry and broken symmetry - for the game does only work when there is something that the other does not know and yet both are on the same wave length and understand each other. (By the way every equation has both symmetry and broken symmetry, so also mathematics comes from self-interaction.)

This leads to the conclusion that space-time is only a kind of a monitor (like the flat-time monitor in front of me). And behind this there would be, let's say in the quantum vacuum, the holy trinity of
- processor (creating change and thus bringing forth time)
- memory (creating dimensions and objects in them) and
- programs / processes bringing about inter-process-communication

Another brief revival of this knowledge of trinity happened around 1300 by a German mystic called Meister Eckhard. However, he disappeared in Avignon when he was trying to present his findings to the exiled Pope. I give you here my translation of a poem ascribed to him. Note that he hints at a possible measurement theory as he mentions the senses, and (cosmic) senses you need for measurement. He also indicates that we cannot know "IT" (unless we ARE IT as Vedic teachers tell us: "Thou art THAT")

Anonymous poet Trinity Song

IN dem begin, Where you commence,
hoch über sin High above sense,
was ie das wort. The Word is stored,
o richer hort, Abundant hoard,
do ie begin begin gebar. Where origin gives birth to origin. (self-interaction)

O vater brust, O Father‘s breast
us der mit lust From which with zest (joy)
das wort ie floz: The Word outpours
doch hat diu schoz And yet the source (womb, vaccuum?)
das wort behalten, Has always kept the Word within.
das ist war. (That is true.)

Von zwein ein fluz, Of two a flow,
der minnen guz, Of love a glow,
der zweier bant The bond of two,
den zwein bekant, From both who knew
fliuzet der vil süeze geist Flows the Holy Spirit very sweet -

Vil ebenlich, Quite evenly.
unscheidenlich In unity, (non-duality)
diu dri sint ein: The three are one:
weistu waz? nein, Who knows it? None!
ez weiz sich selbe aller meist. IT knows ITSELF, it is complete.

Der drier stric The bond of three
hat tiefen schric, Shocks sanity,
den selben reif And to that ring, (ring theory instead of string theory)
nie sin begreif: Sense cannot cling.
er ist ein tiefe sunder grunt, It is a depth that has no ground.

Schach unde mat, Check and checkmate
zit, form und stat; Time, form, and state,
der wunderrinc The magic ring,
ist an gesprinc, Is not a thing (of physical origin)
gar unbeweget stet sin punt. Immovable its point is bound.

Des puntes berc The point! Its mount
stigt ane werc Cannot be found
verstentlicheit, By work of mind,
der wec der treit The way to find
in eine wüesten wunderlich, Is vastness of unbounded kind.

Diu breit diu wit Which wide and wise,
ungmezzen lit. UNMEASURED lies.
diu wüeste hat The void displays
wedr zit noch stat, Neither time nor space
ir wise diu ist sunderlich. Its kind transcends your very mind.

[CM]

What a beautiful human being Federico is.

[nuranigeria]

One good thing about the universe is that, we all draw a conclusion that nothing happened without cause

[infoarmed]

The question about mysticism and science taking different paths to reach the same destination is worthy of more discussion than what was given during the interview. It is an observation that many of us have made in our youth and are delighted to discover that great minds have also considered. The onions in the dish on the shelf behind Federico cannot be there by accident. 😁