Jason Silva

Lewis: This is 5-Minute Friday!!

Welcome everyone to this very special interview an episode with the one and only Jason Silva. We cover a lot today but for those of you who don’t know who Jason is this is the guy you want to make sure to follow online and on TV. Jason is a media artist, featurist, philosopher, keynote speaker and TV personality. He is the creator of shots of all a short film series of trailers for the mind that serves as philosophical espresso shots exploring innovation, technology, creativity, futurism and metaphysics of the imagination. He is also the Emmy nominated host of national geographic channel hit TV series brain games, which airs in over a hundred countries.

What do you think it means to be human today?

Jason: Well, I did a video recently called the redefine billionaire which is inspired by some of the ideas put out there by Rick Gurtzwill from the express foundation which is that the new definition of billionaire today on the back of this exponentially emerging technologies is not somebody who has a billion dollars, but somebody who positively affects the billion people. That’s the new definition of billionaire like empowered by smartphones, like empowered by the fact that you know a young kid in Africa with a smartphone has better communication technology than the US president had 25 years ago. How does that allow us to change the world with the supercomputers of yesterday now fitting your pocket? How does that allow us to impact the world in positive way?

A kid in the garage, a kid with passion has the communication has the power has the technology that only governments and corporations used to have a few decades ago. So to be human today is to crisscross the sky, to be human today is to communicate instantaneously around the world to turn our ideas, electrify them at the speed of thought and get them out there and reach other people, I mean we are miraculous beings you know there’s this philosophers that I love called ‘David Chalmers and Andy Clark’ who wrote a thesis called the extended mind thesis, where they basically put out a notion that I for therefore I am that are tools that this technologies are actually cognitive appendages. Like if you drew the Vitruvian man today and you point it all the physiological features of the ideal human form that he have an iPhone in his hand and you point to it and identify it the same way you point to cortex or like his limbs, like even though it’s outside of our skin tissue it’s very much a part of like the mental apparatus of the human being. So we are extended minds, our intellect our cognitions is distributed between biological and non-biological props. So it’s like that to me today is we are extended.

Lewis: It’s maybe an arm’s length away.

Jason: A thousand percent and it ends up people like a doubt but like we’ve always been symbiotic and co-dependent with our tools like we discovered fire and started cooking tools over a couple of generations. Like our physiology has always been transformed and affected by the tools that we create. Marshal Mcgluin the media theorist in the 70’s a visionary used to say “We build the tools and the tools build us.” Feedback loops, everything we designed designs us in return and Steven Johnson “Our thoughts shape our spaces return the favor.” You know like that’s us and so that’s what it mean to be human today, this cameras are extension of our mindedness and our agencies and our will like our thought you know electrochemical activity within our brain goes way beyond the brain you know. It’s going into other brains, it’s changing other people neurochemistry today. So we’re becoming a super organism or we’ve always have been but not it sort of blooming.

Lewis: I’m just in a jazz pocket.

Jason: Awesome we are.

Lewis: What would you say if you could come up with 3 questions that everyone should ask themselves? To have a rich more fuller expressive healthy life, what would those 3 questions or maybe a couple of questions be?

Jason: You know that great line ‘Ask not what the world needs, ask instead what makes you come alive’ because what the world needs is more people to come alive. So then the question of course is what makes you come alive? What do I mean by that? What gives you the goosebumps? It’s a great line by Ellen DeButton the UK philosopher “We don’t cry because something is sad or we cry because something is more beautiful than we expected it to be.” So those moments make note of those moments, when do you find yourself witnessing something that’s more beautiful than you expected it to be? What induces that? Right because I’m all about control how can we preconfigure more of those experiences, preconfigure more of those moments of great. Reverse engineer author more of those for ourselves, instead of allowing those moments to be half hazard coincidental moment that just happen. I want to just constantly epiphanies myself and people should ask themselves how can I epiphanies myself more?

Lewis: I like that.

Hey guys if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show then you’ll love the free book I’m giving away right now. It’s called the millionaire morning and it includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at the millionairemorning.com and just pay shipping, again check it out right now the millionairemorning.com