Mister Tachyon (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Is Everything in the Universe Connected? - full transcript

There are
people who believe that

everything in the
universe is connected.

Not in a hypothetical way,
but along a vast network

that literally links
everything together.

How is this possible?

This is something I
need to investigate.

My father was a scientist

running a top secret
government project.

One night in his lab,
an experiment went horribly wrong,

rendering him invisible.

Fearing he was
disappearing forever,



he rushed home to see my mother.

And nine months
later, I was born.

My life's mission is to
investigate concepts

on the fringe of science,
conducting experiments

to test those claims
regardless of taboo

or seeming unprovability,

searching for the clues
that will make me visible.

I walk on the edge of science.

I am Mister Tachyon.

Some people believe in
a network consciousness,

the idea that our minds
could all be connected

to create a super consciousness.

Underlying this idea
is the concept of

collective intelligence.



This is when groups collaborate
to achieve something greater

than what they
could on their own.

In the animal kingdom,
we see this in schools of fish,

flocks of birds, beehives,

as well as ant and
termite colonies.

All of the individuals seem
to work together seamlessly

to accomplish complex
goals, including feeding,

self defense, and
building structures.

When humans have no clear
leader, groups can take on

a mob mentality, which
may be counterproductive

when trying to
accomplish a goal.

Can we avoid this pitfall
by using networks

like certain species?

Perhaps the closest example
we have of this potential

in human society today
is the internet.

Is it possible that a wired
world can allow us to achieve

a global brain?

I've traveled to Portland
to speak with someone

who has been studying
how humans and technology

interact and evolve together.

I'm meeting with digital
anthropologist Amber Case.

What's your take on
network consciousness?

Network consciousness
is a bunch of individuals

who are connected digitally
with the capacity to

connect to each
other at any time.

And why is this beneficial?

There are some problems that
just can't be considered by

a single individual, and
a network consciousness

can have larger brain
capacity for that.

Every once in a while, there are
these breakthroughs like seeing

the Mars Rover, or seeing us
land on another planet that are

really, really exciting,
where we say this took

a collective of people to do.

We would've never, ever been
able to do this as individuals.

Do you think that the internet
will eventually become

independent of us?

I don't think we can create a
disembodied conscious network.

You're uploading parts of your
consciousness to the web, right?

You're making a
website with information.

So the more of us that
kind of gets uploaded,

the more we can kind of
understand things

and have those things
outside of us,

and the more that like a computer
can use that to research that

to train itself to be
artificially intelligent.

But fundamentally, all of that
information is going to still

come from an embodied place,
and it's going to be given

right back to people
who are embodied.

How close are we
to this being real?

We are just in kind of a
teenage phase of the web still.

We should be able to lend either
our computing power or our

mental power for a little
while and solve these problems,

but a lot of the times we use
that collective consciousness

to turn inward and
look at our phones.

It's not that technology
isn't ready for humans,

it's that humans are usually
not ready for technology.

So do you think I could use the
power of network consciousness

to cure my invisibility?

I think if you ask that
question to enough people

on a global network, we
could probably figure out

how to restore your
visibility in some way.

I bet there are a lot of
people that would be into that.

Amber believes that for a
network consciousness to emerge,

we need to have a collective
intelligence with a goal

to focus our energy on.

I wanna understand how
collective intelligence works,

and how humans might
harness this knowledge.

I've learned about
an example in nature

that seems to have a collective
intelligence, but lacks a brain.

Can this organism help me
understand how to harness

a network consciousness?

I've travelled to London to
meet an artist working with

this incredible single-celled
organism that uses networking

to thrive and survive.

My name's Heather Barnett,
and I'm an artist working with

living systems,
including slime mould.

Slime mould tend to
live in woodland areas,

so they help break down
foliage in the forests.

In a single slime mould cell,
you might have thousands,

sometimes millions of individual
nuclei all sharing a single cell

membrane, and all operating
as one single organism.

Heather started working with
slime mould in her studio,

and observing its behaviour.

It can solve problems,
it can navigate,

it can optimize networks,
it can learn and remember

and anticipate events.

Slime mould uses networking
to achieve common goals

like finding food.

It appears to be displaying
a collective intelligence,

the foundation for a
networked consciousness.

Do you think slime
mould has intelligence?

Intelligence is a really key
question with slime mould,

and a highly contentious one.

If we're defining intelligence
as an organism that is aware of

its surroundings, and
able to respond to them

and be resilient to changing
environmental conditions,

then it's highly intelligent
on its terms, not on ours.

And slime moulds, ant
colonies, termite mounds,

they all share these
properties of resilience.

And there are many, many
areas of human research,

whether it's kind of
technological, transport,

societal, are looking
to these seemingly

simple biological
models to find answers

to very, very human
global problems.

The idea that something
as genetically simple as

slime mould could be
intelligent is interesting,

but hard for me to
believe without doing

some experiments of my own.

I've seen slime mould
navigating mazes online.

This appears to display the
ability to solve problems

using a network.

I'd like to conduct
an experiment to see

if the same is possible
with human subjects.

I'm going to run an experiment
to compare behaviour between

slime mould and humans.

Do we use similar strategies
to solve problems?

I've created a maze
for the slime mould

and placed food sources
throughout to keep it alive.

I'm going to ask human
volunteers to navigate

a scaled-up version of
the maze in a cornfield

to collect data on
how an intelligent,

non-networked
organism problem solves.

My goal is to find evidence that
the kind of network intelligence

slime mould appears
to demonstrate

is possible in humans.

I'm looking for evidence of

network consciousness.

How does a brainless network
like slime mould solve problems

compared to an
intelligent individual,

and what potential benefits
could this represent for humans

and my invisibility?

I've been recording a
time lapse of the mould

as it attempts to solve
a maze in my lab.

For the second part
of the experiment,

I've asked four
volunteers to navigate

a scaled version of the
maze without any assistance.

My volunteers enter
the maze one at a time.

Drone footage will allow me
to record and examine

their movement and actions.

What I'm hoping to observe are
distinct strategies and patterns

that the volunteers
use to solve the maze.

How will they compare
to the slime mould's?

Oh, I feel like
this is a dead end.

Yes, that would be a dead end.

So the maze was a bit of
a challenge, definitely.

I relied too much on my memory,
and I made it to an end I guess

eventually, which turned
out to be the beginning.

Maybe there's a
life lesson in that.

My first participant could
not complete the maze.

The other volunteers
made it through,

and displayed some very
interesting behaviour.

My strategy was just
to always turn right

and use sort of the
process of elimination.

If I went right and then I
reached another decision point,

I would turn right, and if
I eventually found a mistake,

I would go back to the
last point of decision

and take the next right.

Uh-oh.

And if something was
proven to be a dead end,

I would like scuff it
with my foot so I knew

not to go back that way.

I made a turn which I
thought was gonna lead me to

the next turn, but it stopped,
and I just had to refocus.

And every time I
passed a right-hand turn,

my gut was telling me
to take that turn.

Either this is the right way,
or it's a really punishing...

dead end, yep.

It was a really difficult thing
not to fight my gut instinct

and go right when it seemed like
that was the way I should go.

I had to keep repeating that.

Keep going left,
eventually you're gonna get out.

I typically have a very
good memory for pathways

and decisions that I've made.

I had to figure it out
as I went and backtrack

without being able to
see where I had been.

Once the volunteers complete
this part of the experiment,

I head back to my lab to
check in on the slime mould

and see how it performed.

The slime mould successfully
completed the maze,

and appeared to use
a distinct strategy.

Whenever it hits a
dead end, it leaves behind

thin traces of acid so as not
to make the same mistake twice.

Very interesting.

This volunteer used
a similar strategy.

One section of the
slime mould went rogue,

and found its way quickly
to the nearest food source.

None of my volunteers
even tried a shortcut.

The slime mould was able to
officially navigate the maze.

With one goal - to find food -
the organism seemed to display

collectively
intelligent behaviour.

My volunteers had to rely
on individual intelligence.

Two stuck to one strategy and
were able to complete the task.

Two others did not, and
only one of them succeeded.

Slime mould used better
strategies than humans.

They seemed to benefit from
using network behaviour.

Is it possible for humans
to mimic this system?

I wanna run an experiment to
find out if people focusing on

a simple goal can adopt network
behaviour like slime mould used

to navigate the maze, and
determine if this creates

behaviour similar to
collective intelligence.

I recruit a group of
volunteers to help.

Heather Barnett has come up
with a set of rules she believes

slime mould uses to
give us the impression

its network is conscious.

Using the same rules
with my volunteers,

I start my next experiment.

Will the humans
connect and behave

like a slime mould network?

Some volunteers wearing red
hats take the role of food.

The rest of the volunteers
are given the following rules:

they must stay connected,
they can only communicate

with their bodies,
and they must branch out

to find their food
source, the red hats.

Amber's research shows a
simple common goal seems to be

necessary in order to achieve
networked consciousness.

I'd like to know if the slime
mould strategy for producing

collective intelligence
is transferable to humans.

If she's right,
our participants will form a network that

mimics the slime mould.

I actually you know, I
couldn't move because

we all couldn't move,

so I kinda had to rely
on other slime moulds.

It did feel like we were just
one organism trying to survive.

My preliminary observations
seem to confirm my hypothesis.

The volunteers followed
the slime mould rules

and successfully replicated
network behaviour.

It actually felt normal,

'cause I think that's
the way society should work.

The problem is that nowadays,
we're all going up to

what each other wants instead of
what the community wants.

So we're always breaking
the chain, in other words.

We're always
breaking the networks.

My experiment relied on
the volunteers being

physically linked, the
same way that slime mould

and our vast global
networks are connected.

I wonder if it's possible
to have a universal

network consciousness that
doesn't need direct contact

through touch or technology.

If we can rally
around a common goal,

can our minds alone create a
global network consciousness?

To investigate this,
I'm going to meet someone who's been

studying the brain for decades.

I'm investigating
network consciousness.

So far, I've observed that
slime mould seems to display it

in order to survive,
and that humans can mimic this behaviour

under certain conditions.

If collective intelligence
allows slime mould to

solve problems greater than
their individual capacity,

can the same be true
for human societies?

I wanna find out if a more
metaphysical consciousness

could exist beyond
a physical network.

To explore this, I'm
meeting with Christof Koch,

president and chief scientist

at the Allen Institute for Brain
Science, one of the world's

leading research
facilities in this field.

The brain is by far
the most complex piece of

highly excitable matter
in the universe,

and we are just beginning to
scratch the surface of that.

What do we actually
know about the brain?

We're still very far away
from understanding the brain.

It feels a little bit
like being astronomers.

And likewise with the brain,
every time we look

with new tools, with
better instruments

that can allow us to
look deeper and more finer,

we see more and more
and more complexity.

A typical human brain
has on the order of

100 billion nerve cells.

That's roughly the number
of stars in our galaxy.

The number of connection
is vastly bigger than that.

The Allen Institute has
collected over 5 petabytes of

data on the brain alone.

That's equivalent to
over 5 million gigabytes.

Is it possible for humans to
have a network consciousness?

I certainly have no evidence as
to any consciousness right now

above the level
of the individual.

There's you and there's me, but
there isn't something called

a Tachyon/Christof
consciousness.

There's your consciousness
and my consciousness.

Same thing if we sit in a
stadium and we all do the wave.

Yes, we can do
this group action,

but every individual still has
his or her own consciousness.

There isn't anything what it
feels like to be the stadium.

So in that sense
we are synchronized,

but there's still you
and there's still me,

and that's the
tragedy of our life.

People talk about
global consciousness,

but I think that's
more metaphor.

There isn't anything
what it feels like

to be this global consciousness.

So in that sense,
it doesn't exist.

Do you think the internet
is a conscious network?

Certainly collectively
over the entire world,

the internet is much more
complex than let's say

my or your brain.

So in principle it's possible.

In practice I doubt it,
at least today.

Christof says he's
found no evidence that

a global consciousness exists.

The closest I've come to
observing network consciousness

is through slime mould.

I've connected with researcher
Dr. Andrew King to investigate

more complex animal networks.

I research collective behaviour
or all sorts of animal groups,

from flocks of birds,
shoals of fish

to troops of monkeys
and crowds of people.

We see how people are able to
follow the rules that we think

animals are using, and see what
global patterns have produced,

and see if they look anything
like the animal systems

that we study.

Why are you studying how humans
can use networks like animals?

If we understand our own
behaviour and the heuristics -

or rules of them we use -
when making decisions,

and we're aware of our
biases and perhaps

some of the decisions that
we make, as long as we know

what they are, then
we can put measures in

to stop those pitfalls or
misinformation being spread.

What have you learned so far?

So, so far we learned that
yeah, people don't follow rules

particularly well, but also
they invent their own rules.

The humans give us two
things: a noisy system,

so people don't really
follow the rules very well,

but they also give us a insight
into what people are thinking

and how people are doing.

So there's two kinda
sides of the coin.

Yes, we wanna reproduce the
simulations in the real world,

but we also get a bit of insight
into how we think people

operate in crowds as well.

Andrew focuses on how we can
adapt this information to

human networks,
and collective consciousness scenarios

like in crowd control
and evacuations.

When I ask people to
act as slime mould,

they seem to
mimic its networking.

What can slime mould tell us?

Slime mould illustrates
quite nicely that

collective intelligence works
best when it's decentralized.

The main thing that
it can tell us is that

you don't have to have very
intelligent rules to produce

complicated collective
patterns of behaviour.

Andrew has inspired me
to look closer at animals

that act as a collective.

The main theories of why
birds flock and fish school

are to help with feeding,
avoid predators,

and save energy when moving.

The commonality here is that

these species need to
network to survive.

Complex goals, not
just simple ones,

drive networking
for these species.

And only through collaboration
can they succeed.

Andrew and his colleagues also
believe that simple rules like

"stay close to your neighbours
but avoid colliding" are key

to network behaviour.

I'd like to conduct
another experiment

to investigate this idea.

I'm exploring whether
network consciousness exists.

Christof Koch told me he's found
nothing in the brain thus far

that indicates
humans can network

without being hardwired
to each other.

I've seen evidence
that slime mould

uses networking to survive.

I'm curious if any other
species show signs of

group consciousness
when they cooperate,

and whether people
could use similar rules

to create a networked
consciousness of our own.

I've asked collective behaviour
researcher Dr. Daniel Strombom

to help me conduct a few basic
experiments with a large group

of volunteers to understand
this phenomena better.

For the first experiment,
I wanna see if by following

Daniel's simple rules,
my volunteers will mimic

a survival behaviour found
in nature called "milling".

Certain animals will begin
moving in circles, or milling,

when confined to a particular
space, like fish in a bowl.

When threatened by a
predator, flocks of birds

and schools of fish do
something similar to milling,

using simple rules to
move as a cohesive unit

in an effort to save themselves.

The volunteers are instructed
not to talk to each other,

to keep walking at
a constant speed,

and avoid bumping
into each other.

With this one rule,
we found that the participants did begin

to walk in circles around the
testing area after 10 minutes.

It really felt good
as a group because

you're part of something.

My first experiment showed
that with a simple common goal,

my volunteers were
able to mimic milling.

My second experiment will add
complexity to the scenario

by introducing
an outside threat.

Flocks of sheep also use a
form of milling to survive,

and Daniel believes sheep dogs
have learned simple rules to

take advantage of this to
solve the problem of herding.

I want to test Daniel's
theory with my volunteers.

If they can follow the simple
rules laid out for them,

they should be able to
replicate this behaviour.

Most of my volunteers
will act as sheep and will

repeat the rules given to them
in the milling experiment.

Five others wearing red
hats will act as sheep dogs.

The sheep dogs are given the
goal of corralling the sheep

to a particular
location on the field.

To do this, they've been given
two rules: put on a red hat and

try to get everyone without a
hat to one corner of the field.

My hypothesis is that by
following the two rules,

the red hats will be
able to corral the sheep.

When you come together
with a group like that

and told not to talk to
anybody else about it,

you almost make
the group disjointed.

And as you see the group
moving in a similar fashion,

then you sort of
understand that okay,

well this is somewhat
of a herd mentality.

So I think that was
an interesting dynamic,

you know, within the group.

I felt like everyone wanted
to be a bit more individual.

After 15 minutes, they
were still working on it.

This is an
extremely tough crowd.

Today, we used more
people than normal.

For some reason, the
herding became very complicated.

Normally the sheep dogs are
sort of pushing the sheep over

to where they wanna go.

They managed to get subgroups of
the sheep over to the target

at times, but there were always
groups of sheep people elsewhere

in the arena that the
shepherds failed to collect up.

My second experiment has
not matched my hypothesis.

The sheep could
not be corralled.

Andrew mentioned that people
often have difficulty following

rules, and this experiment
seems to confirm this.

We literally and figuratively
do not wanna become sheep.

Though these rules
guide animal behaviour,

human behaviour proved
far more unpredictable.

We automatically add layers of
decision-making to the rules

we're given, and plan
around what others do.

Slime mould uses unique
strategies to help it

achieve goals, and it
still seems possible that

humans could adopt some
parts of this strategy.

My slime mould experiment
suggested they used strategies

that humans did not to
help it achieve goals,

and that the simple network
rules slime mould uses

can be extended to
networks humans create.

But my other experiments
indicate strong common goals

seem necessary to drive
collective intelligence.

Earth is threatened
by many crises.

Can any of these
effectively align humanity?

I need to do more experiments.