Monday, October 17, 2016

Rob on Jeff Richards - Part 3

You can view Part 3 on YouTube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbeHXspHAqA

Part One is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aMg9jndaL4
And Part Two is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRjuqo2NVyI

Here's a transcript of our conversation from part 3:

Jeff: Welcome back to the program, my name is Jeff Richards and this is Paranormal. We've been having a "spirited" discussion, I'll say with Rob Bryanton. He has just barely scratched the surface of his brilliant book Imagining the Tenth Dimension - a New Way of Thinking About Time and Space, which is available at tenthdimension.com and also available directly for sale by you, yes Rob?

Rob: Yes, you can go to tenthdimension.com and buy the book, but a lot of people buy it on Amazon as well. The only difference is if you order it from my website you get a free DVD of all the songs. Because we must remember I started all this as a composer who had written 26 songs about the nature of reality.

Jeff: And they're brilliantly hidden, I don't want to say they're hidden, but they're at the back of the book.

Rob: They're at the back of the book but they are connected with little index numbers so the songs are about different ideas found in the book. So that was the second impetus for the creation of this book, which was I went to Australia and on the way back developed blood clots in my legs which went up into my lungs, and I ended up in the Cardiac Surveillance Ward when my poor oxygen-deprived heart went into arrhythmia. I spent two weeks in the Cardiac Surveillance Ward thinking I was about to kick the bucket, and so I wrote this book in those two weeks.

Jeff: So that instance, that sort of near-death moment for you, really led, and pushed you to put pen to paper...

Rob: Well, it was because I had always intended to do it. I mean, the 26 songs were already written, right? I knew what the book was going to be, so it was just finally taking the time to put it down.

Jeff: Now Rob, before the break I called you an "architect of reality", because you're bringing some very interesting technologies, and many people have seen them already I'm sure in play right here in Saskatchewan. A lot of the technology that your studio, Talking Dog Studios,  has put into place can be seen at various places - for instance, here in the city of Regina, the RCMP Heritage Centre museum has a brilliant installation that your group was part of putting together, where you're on the Musical Ride but you're in reality, you're in this virtual reality environment which is just spectacular.

Rob: Exactly, yeah, and the fun thing about the virtual reality then, is it can be "recorded reality" like that, or it can be a completely synthetic reality as well, and that's where you can get into doing some really crazy stuff. So at Talking Dog Studios right now, we're actually building a virtual reality arcade (officially opened October 14th 2016, The Grid VR Arcade), which is going to be fun for people to come in and have these kinds of virtual reality experiences that I can't believe are already in existence.

Jeff: And I'll say I've seen it, I've been there. I saw a little video of this thing called Tilt Brush on Facebook, and I thought "wow, that looks amazing". So I was in Talking Dog Studios doing the voiceover work for The Other Side, third season, and Rob says "hey, you're gotta check this out". He puts this VR headset on me and I'm using that program, I'm at an arcade. At one point I'm playing this zombie game, and there's zombies coming at me from every angle, and then I go from that to being a worker in a convenience store (laughs). For me it was ridiculously cool to be able to move into all those different realities while still within this reality. It's almost like we're moving into all these different dimensions by putting this little plastic piece of technology on our heads and going there. And your company, Talking Dog Studios, is really pushing that, pushing the boundaries of that on a provincial level, which is so spectacular.

Rob: Yeah, and the idea of even, you know, with the RCMP there's national connections there already. We have done stuff in the past for the Mayo Clinic, and for Legendary Pictures... a lot of people know a thing we created for the launch of the Godzilla movie that came out a couple of years ago. A few years before that at ComicCon there was an Augmented Reality thing we created where you had the artist's conception of what the new Godzilla was going to look like on your chest (*on free t-shirts being handed out at the Legendary booth, I should have mentioned), and you walked up (*to the big screen TV at their booth) and the smoke and flame shot out of his mouth... of course, that's "atomic breath" if you're a Fanboy.

Jeff: Yeah. So these new realities that are being created, what do you think of that? Do you feel that as a society, as a populace, that we run the risk of becoming entrenched in these alternate realities as opposed to our own real physical reality as it exists here, talking to you right now?

Rob: I'm really starting to agree with people like Elon Musk who are saying "how do you know you're not in some kind of a virtual reality right now?". You know, the idea that we could already be a game that somebody else created. If you're talking about reality coming from this background that has always been and always will be, then isn't that what you're doing? When you're moving through the reality right now you're moving through a set of probabilistic outcomes. So why shouldn't you be able to then cause those probabilistic outcomes to be observed in other ways? With other outcomes? You know, being able to go back and see what happened that time the drunk came over the hill, you managed to veer out of the way, but there's all those other versions that you could go back and see - if you had that ability.

Jeff: Musk says there's a one in billions chance we're in base reality right now.

Rob: Yeah.

Jeff: That gives me goosebumps to think that! You know, to think that we are potentially the product of somebody else's reality creation program...

Rob: But it don't think it's really about reality creation. It's more like a viewing scope that is being moved around through the probability space that always has existed. That's the thing: the distinction between past present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion, and that's what Einstein told us. And that's what you have to understand: time is not the fourth dimension. It's that whole thing from beginning to end, stretching to infinity in both ways and wrapping around the circle.

Jeff: So now. As exploration continues into things like string theory, things like multi-dimensional theory, what's the next step for you? As a - I'm going to call you a researcher. because that's really what you're doing with a lot of this. You said at the beginning that you're not a scientist, but you're certainly a researcher, and you've got a research paper you put together right here in this book. What's the next step for you Rob?

Rob: Well, the core essential truth of the tenth dimension is that it's really just a filing system. It's a really good way from going from that "everything" down to the very specific, that is the point that we're all experiencing right now as we hurtle through spacetime, you know? So being able to find those connections is what this project is all about.

Jeff: Will we find dimensions beyond ten?

Rob: Here's what I think. You've got that background, that Ultimate Ensemble that's back there. Now, if I look at it through a prism of five dimensions I'm going to see it one way. If I look at it through a prism of twelve dimensions I'm gonna see it another way. I'm not saying ten dimensions is the only way to analyze our reality. You know? But if you're thinking about spatial dimensions, ten is a really good, convenient place to stop. Not because we've got ten fingers, but just because the logic happens to work out to the point that by the time you get to the tenth dimension as we're imagining it with this system, we're back out to that Ultimate Ensemble, that background, that Godelian "outside the system" that is impossible for us to do anything to, or react with, because it's not part of what we're in.

Jeff: Rob Bryanton, the author of Imagining the Tenth Dimension is sitting across from me live in-studio in this dimension right now. We're actually recording this interview in 360 degree virtual reality which you're going to be able to see posted later in various channels. Rob, it's been a pleasure. As we leave you now, what's something you want to leave our listeners with? When thinking about the ten dimensions, and just reality in general, what should people really hold as a core concept? Quickly now, in 30 seconds.

Rob: Sure! We start with a point. You are the point. What is your trajectory right now, and is there something about your trajectory you want to change? The fifth dimension tells us that it's there, you can get to it from here, you just have to figure out how.

Jeff: Brilliant stuff. Rob Bryanton - Imagining the Tenth Dimension. His book can be found at tenthdimension.com and the link for that will be posted on our facebook page very very shortly. Rob, it's been a pleasure.

Rob: Thank you very much, I'm a big fan of the show, it's such an honour to be here with you.

Jeff: Thank you Rob. My name is Jeff Richards, this is Paranormal, and we're gonna take a quick break, when we come back we're answering your questions live. If you have something that's been plaguing you, a question about your future and your own reality, you can contact me... (etc.)

Tenth Dimension Vlog playlist