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Chapter 5. Machine minds: scepticism,
robots and cheap AGI patronage.

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Argument.

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Epstein mocked the idea that
the brain is a computer.

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Yet for years he paid small sums to
people trying to build artificial general

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intelligence.

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He imagined machines that would deceive,
and a robot built to his own specifications.

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The money was small and early, and what it
bought was mostly access and a story to

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tell about himself.

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Section 5.1. The sceptic: "as
silly as artificial intelligence".

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In June 2015 Epstein and Noam Chomsky,
the MIT linguist, argued by email over a

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paper Chomsky had sent him,

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and the exchange shows both his
scepticism and how it was answered.

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Epstein opened by saying that the paper's
"mathematical descriptions lack rigor" and

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that it suffered from describing things
"using the engineering metaphors or the

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tools of the moment.ex.

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The human or its brain as a computer".

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Chomsky's "Merge", the single operation of
combining two items into a set that sits

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at the core of his theory of grammar,

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was in Epstein's words "quite
naive and unfortunately incorrect".

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Chomsky answered that he loved criticism,
"But in this case, I just don't see the

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arguments".

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The papers, he said, assume that language
in the mind "is a computational system...

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easily formalized.

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I don't know of any coherent alternative."

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Epstein came back with "brain as a computer?

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as silly as artificial intelligence.," and
a picture of choice: "The simple example

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I teach re quantum is when i try to
decide should i order fish or meat...

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both choices like schroedingers cat exist
as a superpostioned wave function that

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collapses and a choice is made..

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yes i am taking liberties".

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Schrödinger's cat is the famous thought
experiment in which a quantum object is in

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two states at once until it is observed.

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Chomsky agreed that for choosing an action
"the computer model is not helpful at all",

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a view he had long held, but added,

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"I don't frankly see how the
Schrodinger analogy helps in this case."

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He also corrected Epstein's description
of people who attended his seminars:

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they "weren't students working on computers.

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Rather, professional
mathematicians and physicists."

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When Epstein said the computer model
of living systems "has not led to many

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conherent theories", Chomsky replied that
it "is often misused, but it's often used

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quite effectively", for language and "to
study insect navigation and much else".

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The same month he told Rupert Sheldrake
that "intelligence has too often been

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modeled after computation".

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In May 2016, writing to Larry Summers, he
dismissed the big machine-intelligence

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efforts of the day, "deep mind.

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blue brain. paul aliens brain
institute, watson, ( ibm ), all.

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engineering attmpts..

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Its the e incarnation of cybernetics.

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from the 50s".

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Cybernetics was the 1950s science of feedback
and control in machines and animals.

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In 2018 his "radical breakthrough" list
still had "questions = AI to the minus 1"

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(see section 3.4).

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Section 5.2. "A computer that will lie to me".

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Because he believed deception was the
signature of life (Chapter 4), he drew the

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obvious conclusion for machines.

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On 29 August 2013, after a sushi dinner
with an unnamed correspondent (the To line

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of the original is blank), he wrote: "for
the agent to protect itself it needs Alice

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and Bob like behavior and all its permuations..

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protetcion from viruses, it
might engage the same methods.

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add junk, encrypt, have
third party verification.

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etc.

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Unfortunately computers don't lie
they merely generate some errors.

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I want build a computer that will lie to me.

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( a female turing machine )".

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A Turing machine is the mathematician Alan
Turing's abstract model of a computer.

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"A female turing machine" is Epstein's own
gendered joke: in his framing, lying is

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what would make a machine female.

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The line is short, but it joins his two
recurring preoccupations, deception and

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women, in one sentence.

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Section 5.3. "An intellignet
robot... what she should look like".

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On 20 January 2013 he wrote to a recipient
whose name is redacted in the original

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([R-6]): "I am builidng an intellignet robot.

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really, i am trying to decide
what she should look like?

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age body type. its a high level project
„ you can you tube some of it on david

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hanson robotics".

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Hanson Robotics is the company later
known for the humanoid robot Sophia.

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Jmail shows a first name as the recipient,
but the government original has a

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redaction box in the To
line (Table J1, row J1-4).

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In 2019 a journalist reported that
Epstein had told him he funded Sophia.

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The checks for this paper found no payment
to Hanson Robotics and no Hanson reply in

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the archive.

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The email shows what Epstein said he was doing,

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and the specification he cared about: a
female robot of a chosen "age" and "body

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type".

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Section 5.4. Paying for AGI: Goertzel,
OpenCog and the Singularity Institute.

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The actual money for machine intelligence
went mainly to Ben Goertzel,

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an American AI researcher who leads
the open-source OpenCog project,

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an attempt to build artificial
general intelligence.

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The flows were small and spread over years:

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April 2009.

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Goertzel asked whether Epstein would pay
$2,000 to record AGI Summer School lectures.

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A check "should be sent to the Singularity
Institute for AI (a nonprofit)".

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Epstein's forward to Richard Kahn,
his accountant, reads "Send 5k".

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The Singularity Institute, now the
Machine Intelligence Research Institute,

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was then a small charity built around the
idea of a coming "singularity", a point at

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which machine intelligence
outruns human control.

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September 2009.

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"is there a 501 c3 that i
could give the 50k to/?"

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Goertzel: "Yes: the Singularity
Institute for AI [address redacted]...

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which is where your donation
to AGI-09 was routed".

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Epstein: "please send details
i will send 50k monday".

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Goertzel: "The AI we build
will thank you one day!".

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The message's From line reads
"[R-17] on behalf of Ben Goertzel";

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it is signed "ben".

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A 501(c)(3) is a U.S. tax-exempt charity.

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AGI-09 was the second conference on
artificial general intelligence.

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June 2011.

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Goertzel asked again for "financial support
of OpenCog HK project" and mentioned

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that he had covered a $10,000 payment himself.

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Epstein wrote "10k" on the forward to Kahn.

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December 2013.

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Goertzel asked for $45,000 as the "10%
corporate donation" that a Hong Kong

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government grant required, routed
through the charity Humanity+, and added,

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"I want to see the deception character
too, and I look forward to helping my team

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create it using OpenCog;)".

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Epstein to Kahn: "send 45k".

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Later that month Goertzel asked Kahn when
"Jeffrey's generous grant of $60K" would

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reach his company, Novamente LLC.

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January 2015.

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On 24 December 2014 Kahn asked Goertzel
"whom we shall direct funds to for attached",

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and on 4 January Goertzel asked: "has
Jeffrey decided to fund this proposal?"

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On 6 January Kahn replied: "Due to the
current environment with all the bad press

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Jeffrey is receiving we are going to
have to put this funding on hold".

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Goertzel then asked "if Jeffrey might
still be able to help with $25K for my

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"corporate contribution" to
the OpenCog Hong Kong project.

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He has helped in this way every year since 2010,

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usually via a donation to Humanity+."

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Epstein's reply reads, in full, "yes 25".

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The top message of the chain, signed "ben"
(its From line is boxed, redacted, label

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R twenty-one), thanks him and proposes
to "resume conversation btw you, me and

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Joscha on the larger proposal".

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Goertzel forwarded the reply to Kahn

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("OK that is great news if he
can help with the $25K now").

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The next day Kahn wrote to Epstein,
"confirming ok to send ben 25,000", and asked

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"if we should send from Enhanced or STC".

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Epstein answered "enhanced".

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The e-mails do not expand "STC";

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Business Insider reports that Epstein
used his Southern Trust Company to send

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Goertzel money.

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The e-mails do not spell out "Enhanced".

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"yes 25" names no unit or purpose, and the
25 thousand dollars and 25,000 readings

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are Goertzel's and Kahn's.

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No payment record was seen.

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The printed times in this chain mix time
zones (Epstein's reply is printed at

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6:54 PM, earlier than the
7:26 PM message it answers),

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so the order is taken from the quoting (J1-11).

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Goertzel's reply to Kahn about the
allegations is discussed in section 11.4.

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An undated proposal, its title page naming
"Ben Goertzel and Gino Yu, Principal

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Investigators" (Yu is an academic in Hong
Kong) and marked "Rough draft, not yet for

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distribution", is headed "OpenCog AGI
Toddler Project" and 'Open-Source "Human

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Toddler Level" AGI by 2015 for
US 3 million dollars Total'.

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The PDF shows no sender, recipient or date.

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No payment of that size was found.

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In 2014 Goertzel told a writer preparing
an article that, "technically", the

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foundation had not funded his Ethiopian lab,

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and said he did not mind a
press release associating them.

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That episode belongs to Chapter 10.

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Joscha Bach, a German cognitive scientist
who studies how minds could be built, was

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the other main beneficiary.

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MIT's report found that $300,000 of Epstein's
Media Lab gifts in 2013 and 2014 paid

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for Bach's research, and that the Lab
hired him "in large part because Epstein

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subsidized the cost".

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Section 5.5. Arguing with Chomsky about meaning.

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Epstein used his access to argue with
the scientists he funded or courted.

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In July 2016 Bach presented an argument
about learning at a meeting with Chomsky.

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Afterwards Bach wrote to Epstein, copying
"Martin" and Moshe Hoffman: "thank you for

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your support and encouragement,
even where I fail.

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Sorry for being such an embarrassment today",

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adding that Chomsky was "very generous,
patient, kind and humble on the personal

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level, even though he did not feel like
conceding anything on the conceptual one".

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The same message went on to a claim
about race: "In the US, black children

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outperform white children in motor
development, even in very poor and socially

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disadvantaged households, but they lag
behind (and never catch up) in cognitive

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development even after
controlling for family income"

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(letters lost to encoding on the page,

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00:12:40,528 --> 00:12:43,441
as in "=ouseholds", are restored).

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Epstein's reply to this message is the
"ubermensch" email discussed in section 8.1.

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On 26 December 2016 Epstein
put his own idea to Chomsky:

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"has anyone in the past made a linguistic
model that used fields instead of

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definitions. similar to a magnet field.

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to some degree. there is no one vector that
describes the word but a field of them...

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not sure it is useful. but having fun".

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00:13:13,843 --> 00:13:16,125
Chomsky answered the same day.

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The closest thing he knew was "an array of
meaning postulates, in Carnap's sense...

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Multidimensional, but not a field.

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00:13:25,370 --> 00:13:29,744
I don't see how to work it out, or to
extend it to the interpretations of longer

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units".

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00:13:31,291 --> 00:13:35,454
Later he added, "Still don't see
how to work out field models".

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Meaning postulates are the philosopher
Rudolf Carnap's rules linking words to other

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00:13:40,672 --> 00:13:41,599
words.

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00:13:42,107 --> 00:13:47,120
Today's language models do represent words
as points in spaces with many dimensions,

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built from the contexts in
which the words appear.

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00:13:51,054 --> 00:13:53,738
Epstein's "field" is a
loose cousin of that idea,

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00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:58,191
but nothing in the record shows that
he developed it beyond this email.

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00:13:59,431 --> 00:14:03,294
Section 5.6. Triad.

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00:14:04,795 --> 00:14:05,958
Ideals.

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00:14:06,455 --> 00:14:09,797
"AI (-1)", a machine that asks questions;

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00:14:10,113 --> 00:14:11,639
"a computer that will lie to me";

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00:14:11,916 --> 00:14:17,026
"an intellignet robot" (his spelling);
and his scorn for "engineering attmpts".

200
00:14:18,259 --> 00:14:20,790
Pushback, and decisions anyway.

201
00:14:21,314 --> 00:14:26,222
Chomsky's replies are the clearest intellectual
pushback in this strand: courteous,

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00:14:26,432 --> 00:14:28,674
specific and unconvinced.

203
00:14:29,182 --> 00:14:33,169
He defended the computational view of
language that Epstein called "silly"

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00:14:33,538 --> 00:14:37,801
("I don't know of any coherent
alternative"), rejected the quantum analogy,

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00:14:38,195 --> 00:14:41,543
and later could not see "how
to work out field models".

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00:14:42,064 --> 00:14:45,095
Bach reported that Chomsky conceded nothing.

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00:14:45,617 --> 00:14:49,227
Epstein's response was to
keep funding his own picks.

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00:14:49,735 --> 00:14:56,538
He promised $50,000 for AGI-09 ("i will
send 50k monday"), told his accountant to

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00:14:56,590 --> 00:15:02,623
"send 45k" for OpenCog Hong Kong, and,
through the Media Lab, paid for Bach's

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00:15:02,643 --> 00:15:06,924
research ($300,000, by MIT's count).

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00:15:07,445 --> 00:15:13,202
In January 2015 his own office put an
OpenCog payment "on hold" because of "all the

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00:15:13,222 --> 00:15:14,477
bad press".

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00:15:14,998 --> 00:15:18,643
He then replied "yes 25" to
Goertzel's renewed request,

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00:15:19,038 --> 00:15:24,241
and when Kahn asked "confirming ok to send
ben 25,000" and whether to use "Enhanced

215
00:15:24,261 --> 00:15:27,056
or STC", he answered "enhanced".

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00:15:28,291 --> 00:15:30,533
Supporters, then and later.

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00:15:31,056 --> 00:15:35,812
At the time Goertzel was effusive ("The
AI we build will thank you one day!").

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00:15:36,333 --> 00:15:42,706
In February 2026 he published "Goertzel vs
Epstein", his account of the relationship.

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00:15:43,227 --> 00:15:47,339
Press reports that month described the
funding and an introduction that helped him

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00:15:47,359 --> 00:15:48,588
in Hong Kong.

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00:15:49,109 --> 00:15:53,930
Bach thanked Epstein for "support
and encouragement" in 2016.

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00:15:54,438 --> 00:15:58,543
In November 2025 he published
"On the Jeffrey Epstein Affair",

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his statement on the relationship, after
the Boston Globe reported on his emails.

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WIRED in 2025 described the 2002 St.

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Thomas meeting on human-level AI that
Epstein hosted with Marvin Minsky.

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What the money points to.

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Machine AI was a small, early
and cheap part of the portfolio:

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thousands to tens of thousands
of dollars at a time,

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00:16:23,938 --> 00:16:27,930
plus about $300,000 for Bach through MIT.

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Even these gifts were framed through
deception (the "deception character") and

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through his scepticism of computation.

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He funded people more than programmes.

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Some of them, Goertzel above all,
told him what he wanted to hear.

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00:16:43,451 --> 00:16:47,483
Others, like Bach and above
all Chomsky, argued with him.

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Chapter 6. Quantum minds and
the Penrose–Hameroff circle.

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Argument.

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00:16:58,644 --> 00:17:05,124
From 2014, and especially in 2017,
Epstein's attention moved towards quantum

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theories of consciousness and quantum computing.

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He committed money to the consciousness
conference before knowing the details.

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The leading quantum-consciousness theory
is disputed by most physicists and

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neuroscientists.

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00:17:19,842 --> 00:17:24,860
The record shows no scientist warning
him off it, which is itself informative.

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00:17:26,083 --> 00:17:32,248
Section 6.1. "In for at least
50k, before knowing anyhing".

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Stuart Hameroff is an anaesthesiologist
at the University of Arizona who runs the

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00:17:38,867 --> 00:17:43,189
Center for Consciousness Studies and its
long-running conference, "The Science of

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00:17:43,209 --> 00:17:44,504
Consciousness".

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With the Oxford mathematician
Roger Penrose he proposed "Orch-OR"

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(orchestrated objective reduction).

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00:17:52,422 --> 00:17:57,330
The theory holds that consciousness arises
from quantum effects inside microtubules,

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the tiny protein tubes that act
as scaffolding in brain cells.

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00:18:02,277 --> 00:18:09,376
On 30 March 2017 Hameroff told Epstein
that the 2017 conference in Shanghai had

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collapsed after a dispute
with its Chinese partner,

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00:18:12,527 --> 00:18:17,138
who had promised his centre
"$100,000 per year for 5 years".

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00:18:17,659 --> 00:18:21,711
The Center had already "put
out 35 to 50k for speakers

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00:18:22,067 --> 00:18:26,256
(Including 9k for Roger Penrose
business class from London)".

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00:18:26,764 --> 00:18:30,598
Epstein replied: "who are the
speakers and what is the cost.

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00:18:31,106 --> 00:18:34,822
Im in for at least 50k, before knowing anyhing".

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In the same chain Hameroff
explained the move to San Diego,

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"fortuitously where the Penrose
Institute will be formed".

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00:18:43,119 --> 00:18:48,113
Two days later Epstein asked Deepak Chopra,
the alternative-medicine author: "Should

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I send some small support to penrose?

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00:18:51,277 --> 00:18:53,177
I see you are scheduled there".

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00:18:53,698 --> 00:18:58,619
In May 2017 Hameroff asked whether to
"reserve a room at the Hyatt for you",

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and Epstein forwarded the Penrose
Institute thread to Masha Drokova,

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a venture investor in his circle.

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Section 6.2. The Penrose Institute.

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00:19:12,835 --> 00:19:18,827
James Tagg, who was helping to organise the
Penrose Institute, kept Epstein informed.

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00:19:19,337 --> 00:19:22,653
On 20 February 2017 he wrote,

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00:19:23,021 --> 00:19:27,304
"We are making progress on the Penrose
Institute and have now found a person to lead

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00:19:27,324 --> 00:19:31,699
the physics side... the first demonstration
of brain tissue preserving entangled

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photons was demonstrated by a team in New York,

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not a proof of any quantum effects in
the brain but an important enabler".

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00:19:39,719 --> 00:19:44,291
Entangled photons are pairs of light
particles whose properties stay linked however

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far apart they are.

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00:19:46,377 --> 00:19:50,237
Epstein's question was practical:
"how is the funding coming?

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00:19:50,745 --> 00:19:54,027
sources amounts? etc".

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00:19:54,521 --> 00:20:00,929
A 2016–17 prospectus for the Institute listed
"Human and Artificial Intelligence", a

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00:20:00,982 --> 00:20:05,909
"Quantum Biology Lab", "New Physics" and
"Aging and Cognitive Longevity" (see the

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00:20:05,929 --> 00:20:06,869
notes).

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00:20:07,390 --> 00:20:12,000
No payment by Epstein to the Penrose
Institute was found in the emails.

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00:20:12,508 --> 00:20:18,908
Jmail also shows staff emails about a
personal gift for Penrose in June 2017.

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00:20:19,429 --> 00:20:24,145
These were not checked against the originals,
so they are treated only as a lead.

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00:20:25,363 --> 00:20:30,607
Section 6.3. Quantum computing: the Lukin day.

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00:20:32,143 --> 00:20:37,215
Quantum computers compute with quantum
states rather than ordinary on/off bits, and

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00:20:37,235 --> 00:20:40,161
for some problems they could be vastly faster.

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00:20:40,685 --> 00:20:47,308
On 23 October 2017 Drokova told
Epstein: "just spoke to Misha Lukin.

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00:20:47,816 --> 00:20:52,453
you're meeting him at 11:30am tomorrow
-- Martin Novak connected you...

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00:20:52,974 --> 00:20:57,415
I think quantum computer is not existing
yet and I think Misha has the highest

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00:20:57,435 --> 00:21:01,006
chances to build it. he is brilliant".

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00:21:01,514 --> 00:21:06,296
Mikhail Lukin is a Harvard physicist and a
leader in building quantum computers from

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00:21:06,316 --> 00:21:08,243
arrays of single atoms.

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00:21:08,751 --> 00:21:13,402
A staff-prepared schedule lists "Appt
w/Misha Lukin" among meetings at Martin

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Nowak's office (see the notes).

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00:21:16,435 --> 00:21:18,611
Jmail heads the block "Mon.

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00:21:19,119 --> 00:21:21,862
Oct.

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00:21:21,882 --> 00:21:27,809
23, 2017 NY (cont.)"; the original
has a redaction box there ([R-3]), and

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00:21:27,829 --> 00:21:34,494
by page order the block falls between the
23 and 25 October pages (Table J1, row

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00:21:34,514 --> 00:21:36,190
J1-2).

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00:21:36,698 --> 00:21:40,808
The page also carries redactions [R-4].

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00:21:41,329 --> 00:21:46,356
In January 2018 Drokova offered to
introduce "my ex boss Serguei",

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00:21:46,724 --> 00:21:49,145
who "founded Russian and London quantum center",

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00:21:49,501 --> 00:21:53,637
describing him as Lukin's
"classmate/friend/sponsor".

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00:21:54,158 --> 00:21:59,033
Two independent documents, Drokova's
email and the staff schedule, agree on the

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00:21:59,053 --> 00:22:01,532
meeting and on Nowak's part in it.

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00:22:02,053 --> 00:22:05,743
Nothing in the record shows
Epstein funding Lukin's work.

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00:22:06,251 --> 00:22:11,402
As far back as December 2009 he had
described himself as "funding a project on

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00:22:11,422 --> 00:22:13,703
quantum computing at mit".

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00:22:14,224 --> 00:22:20,829
MIT's report found $225,000 of post-conviction
gifts to the physicist Seth Lloyd,

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00:22:21,224 --> 00:22:23,295
who works on quantum computing.

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00:22:24,535 --> 00:22:29,003
Section 6.4. What the physicists say.

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00:22:30,547 --> 00:22:33,157
Orch-OR has strong critics.

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00:22:33,668 --> 00:22:38,635
In 2000 the physicist Max Tegmark calculated
that quantum states in the brain would

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00:22:38,655 --> 00:22:43,503
break down, or "decohere", in between a
ten-trillionth and a hundred-quintillionth

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00:22:43,523 --> 00:22:46,831
of a second, far faster than nerve cells work.

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00:22:47,339 --> 00:22:51,371
He concluded that the brain "should be
thought of as a classical rather than quantum

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00:22:51,391 --> 00:22:52,344
system".

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00:22:52,865 --> 00:22:57,963
Hameroff and colleagues replied in 2002
that Tegmark had modelled the wrong process

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00:22:57,983 --> 00:23:00,818
and that protected states could last longer.

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00:23:01,326 --> 00:23:06,516
In 2006 the neuroscientist Christof Koch
and the physicist Klaus Hepp reviewed the

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00:23:06,536 --> 00:23:11,633
field in Nature and found no evidence
that brains rely on quantum coherence.

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00:23:12,141 --> 00:23:17,345
Penrose shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in
Physics for work on black holes, not for

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00:23:17,365 --> 00:23:18,660
Orch-OR.

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00:23:19,181 --> 00:23:23,870
The theory remains a minority position,
though one with prominent defenders.

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00:23:25,099 --> 00:23:28,857
Section 6.5. Triad.

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00:23:30,367 --> 00:23:31,530
Ideals.

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00:23:32,027 --> 00:23:35,382
"Im in for at least 50k,
before knowing anyhing";

327
00:23:35,698 --> 00:23:38,027
"Should I send some small support to penrose?";

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00:23:38,330 --> 00:23:41,677
"funding a project on quantum computing at mit".

329
00:23:42,919 --> 00:23:45,450
Pushback, and decisions anyway.

330
00:23:45,974 --> 00:23:51,177
No one in the archive warned Epstein
off Orch-OR or the Penrose Institute.

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00:23:51,698 --> 00:23:54,961
The mainstream critique existed
in the scientific literature,

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00:23:55,316 --> 00:23:57,874
but no email found puts it to him.

333
00:23:58,395 --> 00:24:06,882
(Coverage: all 1,755,614 non-promotional
emails were searched for "decoher", "Tegmark",

334
00:24:07,092 --> 00:24:12,059
and words such as "wrong", "nonsense",
"pseudo" or "sceptic" within 300 characters

335
00:24:12,079 --> 00:24:16,427
of "Orch-OR", "Penrose",
"Hameroff" or "microtubule".

336
00:24:16,934 --> 00:24:22,020
The 82 matching documents are guest lists,
programme links and a Chopra–Tegmark

337
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:24,387
debate video, not critiques.)

338
00:24:24,908 --> 00:24:27,716
He committed money before seeing a programme.

339
00:24:28,951 --> 00:24:31,193
Supporters, then and later.

340
00:24:31,716 --> 00:24:34,998
Hameroff, Tagg and Drokova brought him in.

341
00:24:35,506 --> 00:24:40,407
Hameroff was later reported by the University
of Arizona's student newspaper as one

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00:24:40,427 --> 00:24:42,972
of two professors named in the files.

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00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:47,440
The paper quotes his post of 3 February 2026:

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00:24:47,795 --> 00:24:53,196
"I deeply regret interacting with Jeffrey
Epstein in 2017 and strongly condemn his

345
00:24:53,216 --> 00:24:54,840
awful activities.

346
00:24:55,348 --> 00:24:59,735
He offered to help financially with
a conference problem and I accepted.

347
00:25:00,256 --> 00:25:01,616
Nothing more".

348
00:25:02,124 --> 00:25:07,111
No public statement by Roger Penrose or
by Mikhail Lukin about Epstein was found

349
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:13,275
(web searches on 11 October 2026 covering
general news and the main file-aggregator

350
00:25:13,295 --> 00:25:16,511
sites; the project file gaps phase2).

351
00:25:17,743 --> 00:25:19,340
What it points to.

352
00:25:19,851 --> 00:25:23,303
The quantum strand fits a
pattern visible elsewhere.

353
00:25:23,811 --> 00:25:27,943
Epstein was drawn to theories that
promised one grand key to mind and matter,

354
00:25:28,337 --> 00:25:33,264
and he funded the people around them
quickly, informally and in modest amounts.

355
00:25:33,785 --> 00:25:38,041
The physicists' disagreements show up
in the published literature, not in his

356
00:25:38,061 --> 00:25:39,114
correspondence.