#165 - Physics and the meaning of it all: A conversation with Tugrul Guner
In this episode of the BTP Podcast, Pouya speaks with Tugrul Guner, a Physicist by training and Machine Learning Engineer by trade. Enjoy!
Tugrul's Social:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tugrul_Guner
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tugrulguner/
Pouya's Social:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pouyalj/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pouyalajevardi/
Episode Transcript...
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
quantum optics, arrogance, imaging, materials, physics, degree, confidence, observe, kinda, people, agree, thinking, science, human, quantum mechanics, postdoc position, field, evolved, point, question
SPEAKERS
Pouya LJ, Tugrul
Pouya LJ 00:00
Well hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to yet another episode of the b2b podcast. We've been away for a while I have for sure. But I am back with a very great friend of mine, tool gunner, and I am happy to introduce him to you what a legendary man he is. He has okay. Oh, you know what? I'm not gonna give you the introduction. I'll let him introduce himself the way he he sees fit. Hey, Joe, how are you doing?
Tugrul 00:43
I'm good, by the way, are legendary?
Pouya LJ 00:48
No, no, I know you well enough to give you that, you know, give you that adjective. So that's all well deserved? For sure. All right, turtle. So why don't you give us a very brief but comprehensive background about yourself, the way you see yourself from your academic background personally. Yeah, go ahead.
Tugrul 01:10
Yeah, sure. Sure. I will start with when everything changed in my life. I was like, I was not cared about anything before, like last year of my high school. So I was like, playing video games going out like playing soccer. And the classes were like, I wasn't. I had zero interest at all. But I wonder I was reading a lot. I was like, I was kind of reading lots of different books, different types of books, mostly like fantasy books, like Dragon land series, forgotten mediums. It all started with a lot of things by the way. Yeah, anyway, but that was also another story. My father, like, gave that present to me like a lot of drinks book. But the second book, he just grabbed a random book from there probably, like, just grab the second book. And then I Oh, what's this looks let me read the first one. Then I started with the Lord of the Rings. Okay. But back then I was reading this Dan Brown's book called demons and angels, or whatever. Demons.
Pouya LJ 02:22
Read the book, but I've watched the movie. Okay.
Tugrul 02:24
Yeah, I also watched the movie, but I don't know. Like, it was a good book. I'm not sure. But the thing that just like was interesting to me when they were talking about like, antimatter. So I just, like stuck at that point, like, Oh, my God, what is this? Like, I never heard of this before antimatter. Like, I wasn't even interested in physics. Okay. No, no, no, no, but antimatter was like, something changed. What? I never heard of this before. And I realized that I mean, we have lots of things we don't know. That was the, like, a break point in my life. Okay. We're, we're just pretending that we are we know stuff that based on our observations, these are like a micro sis macro systems that we are observing daily, like mostly, like, wearing like an eternal outdoors, we all know, so we just ever have that. Like, I mean, if you drop something, it just falls down. Like it's a gravity, I mean, this kind of stuff. But I that was something different. You can observe it you need to be in that field to know what is antimatter. So that was a some kind of like, a break point in my life. Okay, then, I started to read a couple of things about it, then I noticed that oh my god, this is something else. There's another world inside of this like, like quantum mechanics, even though I had no idea what quantum mechanics is, but I was like reading uncertainty principles, something is not clear. But something sounds are like, interesting, like, Oh my God, what's happening here, like the universe is not really like, observed something more and more. I mean, then, last year, in my high school, I develop interest in the physics as you expect, like, then I was like, for the my bachelor degree, I have to study physics. And I have to I have to become a theoretical physics physicist. I mean, because I really wanted to understand everything. That didn't happen, of course, but I'm gonna mention that I'm going to talk about it. So So I in in my country, for bachelor's degree, you have to take an exam and after the exam, you need to write the university and discipline like this university physics. This university for example, electrical engineering
Pouya LJ 05:00
to give his background so when you're originally from Turkey, so you do your Bachelor's there. Yes. Okay. Go ahead.
Tugrul 05:10
Yeah, yeah, my masters and PhD there too, but Right, so, so you have limits, of course. So you can just write 20 University and 20 different subnets. So I wrote physics for all of them. Because I was like, obsessed. So, yeah, I just got into physics. But it was kind of disappointing. Like, okay, I was kind of, I mostly like, thinking about this ideas, thinking about how universe should work. And this kind of like a philosophical way of Lego discussions, I've kind of mostly like that way of it. But mathematics. When it starts to become complicated, you start to lose control of your thoughts. Also, sometimes, like, if it gets too complicated, you start to focus mostly on the mathematics to solve that problem. You're getting away from your first idea, and you can find yourself with into different concepts, different mathematical tools. Of course, it can guide you different discoveries, of course, but you need to, you need to have that skill to have fun with this mathematics. I didn't have that one. So still, I was like, kinda stubborn. So I wanted to do my master's degree also in physics, which did the quantum mechanics from from the fundamentals, which was focusing on the foundations of it like, main things like fundamental things. So we published a paper about quantum tunneling. Because there was a problem about estimating time in quantum mechanics. And tunneling is a phenomenon that happens in time, even though there were people that researchers like arguing about maybe instantaneous, maybe it's not time dependent, but we found the time for that, which we published. It was a nice journey for me, but then I changed my topic, like, very like a, like a 100 watt, like 180 degrees, like, just back with like, a different direction. Which I started doing my like a PhD in material science and engineering, talking about the relevant components.
Pouya LJ 07:35
The way you say. It was 180 degrees deviation. One would think this is a you went to art since fallen artists. No, I'm kidding. Within the realm of physics, you didn't want it okay. Yeah,
Tugrul 07:51
I mean, like, change my direction, like, I mean, it all you can also call it 90 degrees to I mean, I was just like I did, I was like, spanning somewhere else. Yeah, I started to work on some applications. I was kinda materials, material scientist, I was working on polymers, polymer composites, emissive materials, like I was mostly working on alternative materials for the white LEDs, because in LEDs, especially white LEDs, you were using phosphorus, which they contain, like rare earth elements. So I was trying to develop new materials or trying to increase the efficiency of the this phosphor materials inside the tube. It was nice, it was a efficient pH like I published like kinda 20 papers, because it's an application is not a theoretical physicist. So it was kinda like it's highly liked, like you can publish papers, as long as you develop something and you showed us an increase those improvement, it works. Or you even you can come up with a new material, which we were there was like a sample. One kind of material was very popular back then we even published a couple of papers awarded called halide perovskites. Yeah, so I was kinda like optimistic about my postdoc. Because like, 20 papers, so I was like, okay, I can find a good postdoc position around the world, but it didn't go that way. I applied like 600 700 positions with a detailed applications. I didn't get a response from most of it. Probably some I didn't even send the second secondary email to them, but probably they went and noticed, like one of them just, he's a Turkish professor. Also, he's a professor in Montreal,
Pouya LJ 09:59
Montreal. Canada, yes,
Tugrul 10:00
that's Montreal in Canada. So that's he sent me like the position and offered me the postdoc position, which was an amazing subject. It's called water fast electron transmission electron microscopy, which transmission electron microscope by itself is a characterization tool that can image materials at nano scale, which is like 10 to the minus nine is like, how much like 1000 Lower magnitudes higher magnitudes than the human hair, right in 1000, it was micron, so, probably around 1000. Similar things from the human hair. Even more, I don't know, like, probably some that kind of scale. So we were basically imaging nanomaterials at the Nano scale, like we were characterizing them trying to understand the shape some of the properties, but this is regular transmission electron microscopy, ultra fast transmission electron microscopy is where you are integrating your microscopy with laser. Now, you don't only have this imaging, you also have this laser, which you can also send it to your material and observe what's happening when your metal or nanoparticles are interacting with the laser. Which brings, we call it the time dependency for your observations, which is from imaging, a now you start to record movies, and you can visualize what they're doing and understand the interaction of places in time. So, by the way, my professors professor in Caltech, his name was like Zewail, he, like, got the Nobel Prize for this invention, mostly, you got the Nobel Prize for them to chemistry, but this was the part of the invention. So yeah, that that, in today in the world, there are only four or five facilities that can do this. ultra fast transmission electron microscopy is an expensive tool. After that, like I studied two and a half years in Montreal, Canada for as a postdoc, and my second postdoc, I came to Ottawa in Canada again. This time, it is a completely different lab, it is a quantum optics lab, because I also like I am enjoying it. I know I love quantum mechanics. So I came also like to learn quantum optics. And I was planning to apply some of my AI skills. Of course, I don't have any professional skills because I didn't study AI. I didn't study machine learning in any of my degrees. But I, since I love AI and coding, I always like, during my free time as a hobby. I also I tried to improve myself a lot. So then I started to combine quantum optics with deep learning because in quantum optics, you have noisy like results and etc. So you can combine them with the deep learning etc, we
Pouya LJ 13:27
can we take a step back, so can you tell tell me like what is actually quantum optics? Like, can you delve into it? What does that mean? Okay, optics is? Oh, yes, in the quantum, but how do they go together?
Tugrul 13:38
Yeah, of course, I cannot explain that like an expert of it because I work from the burning. But
Pouya LJ 13:43
even if you did, I wouldn't understand.
Tugrul 13:47
In Visual optic isn't just that it's the light. So you don't have to you don't need to have a like coherency, which means that like some kind of like, coherent motion or coherent interaction of your light. Like as a, like a physicist standpoint is like, How can I select it's not random, the photons in the light, if they're not acting random, they are acting in a coherent way. So they have some kind of correlation between them. So regular light is you don't have this year. They're just like, moving. They're just moving like in spacetime. But when you're talking about quantum optics, you need to use some kind of generator of this coherent light because light itself is not generating it with regular light sources. For example, we were using different crystals. You're sending your laser to these crystals. And these crystals are so special that they create coherent light, which they are correlated in the momentum. degrees of freedom. And I mean, they go into two different paths read up, I mean, when you hit them with the laser, out of the crystal, you have two life paths. One goes one direction, or the goals pregnant, the perpendicular direction. The main property of this two beam is their entangled, momentum entangled. So
Pouya LJ 15:25
this one, so the past crystal,
Tugrul 15:28
yeah, after they passed, the crystal crystal generates, of course, what was the efficiency of this generation like 8% 10%, maybe, I mean, it's a lot less not that high,
Pouya LJ 15:41
so you get better you preserve. So the light that comes up at the end of it is less than 50% of what you actually put into it.
Tugrul 15:49
Of course, yes, of course. So you have less light now, but you see that they are momentum in the momentum, degree of freedom, they are correlated, I mean, entangled. One is plus one is exactly the same moment with the negative value. What we can do is that, so if you observe the two beams, so imagine that you have two cameras, one is observing the, one of the beams or the other one is observing the other view. So you have triggers for these cameras. So one photon, when one photon hits one camera, it checks exactly the same time, the other one grabs any photon signal. So if the two photon hits the camera at the same time, you're saying that, okay, two entangled photons, alright. Other than that, you're not capturing anything. These cameras are own only when two photons are era, photons arrive these two different cameras at the same time. Because they, of course, you're designing your optical path in such a way that they like they travel the same distances. Yeah. Okay, because its speed of light is constant. So they have to travel the same distance. So they're like interesting applications of this, if you put an object in one of these beams, if you try to collect the other beam, it gives you the image of the object without touching it. What I mean is that, for example, you have two beams. And in one of the path of one of the beams, if you put an object, you know that right, so some of light is going to pass some of them not because they're gonna be absorbed or reflected by the object. Yeah, so other beam says they're correlated and entangled. So when you get the camera when these photons get the camera, so they are going to be triggered only with the other photons that are passed and reach to the camera. So you're going to have a kind of image of the object with other beam, which has nothing on this path. I mean, this kind of the this is called Ghost imaging. Maybe I just was so bad.
Pouya LJ 18:12
No, no, I think I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Not good boy. Yeah.
Tugrul 18:16
Let's go. Yeah, it's I mean, it was like I was kind of trying to develop a deep learning algorithm to make the resulting images better increase the resolution of it, because you can guess that there's a noisy array. So they're very noisy. Yeah, no, that was a nice thing. Also, I was enjoying working with the group and professional. But so like, last year? Yes, this year right. Now, this year, this is not last year. So I just got an offer. This is really hard to keep track of time. Yeah, exactly. Thanks to COVID. I received an offer from a company, which is not related to my research background, I started to work as a machine learning operations engineer, which are used my skills that I developed during my free time, which I recall, was considering them as my hobbies. Yeah. Yeah, that's a kind of Sir. I mean, I am kinda like, also, like, not because only that was just happened in that way. Not because of that, but also kinda like jumping from subject to subject. Because, I mean, there are lots of things to learn. And I know I'm not gonna be able to learn everything that I want to learn, but still, I'm trying to do my best to learn there's
Pouya LJ 19:47
a there's a huge degree of attention people give to, you know, specializing in something which is like, of course important. I'm not debating the significance of that but I think I Sometimes it gets missed how, how good it is to actually do these jumps between in between topics in that, it gives you a broader sense of understanding because sometimes some knowledge that you gain in one field, although it's not necessarily you're not a specialized, you're not an expert in that field per se. But then it can that knowledge can be analogous in a different field. So it gives you some sort of perspective, I feel. At least that's my personal I had a similar experience, I have a similar experience. And I even for my academic background, I had a similar experience. I didn't know really what I wanted. So I really liked physics. I really like computer science programming, software engineering. I don't know I liked philosophy. I liked psychology I liked, you know, I even liked cinema, like I still do. Photography, cinematography. So it took me a long while to land on where I landed, ultimately. But so yeah, I did jump around quite a bit, too. And I think it is important not to discount it. I'll do a specialization is very important. Again, I'm not doubting that. But I think sometimes when we focus Oh, yeah, you have to specialize. It's what do they say? There's a good thing. Yeah, I don't remember the same but something something and then master of none. Anywhere. Yeah. So it means like, you're you're, you know, so many things, but then you're not a master in any of them. And they see that in it in a in a in a negative direction. Not that either. But there's in a negative way with a negative connotation, meaning it's a bad thing. And I understand they're saying, okay, mastery is important. Of course it is. But one of the things you can master is how to learn different things. And I think that is also important. Anyways, sorry to cut you off, but I just wanted to Yeah, but
Tugrul 21:59
you're right. I think I learned how to learn during all of this time. Yeah,
Pouya LJ 22:03
that's right. That's right. And, and how to think how to think because, again, when you, when you become a master in one very narrow, specific field, then you're very comfortable learning things in that field, but not necessarily in other fields. And you'll get used to and accustomed to thinking a certain way, but not another. If you will, your neural pathways are very much aligned with a certain thing. And I guess in in AI, you're saying you're kind of like memorizing that, that the training set, right. You're overfitting in a way. So that's, that's, that's that's the danger with with over mastering in a very narrow field. I think it's, it's my, from from a personal perspective, of course, it's not going to harm anybody, per se, but it can harm you mentally, not physically.
Tugrul 22:57
But also the other side of it is like, okay, but other than that, like he was, you also, can there's also risk that you can be like, underfitting, I mean, like, he is like, you can have some generalization issue. So, I mean, you can stay like it's not overfitting sense, but I'm kinda you can stay like a generalized way. How can I describe like, you don't have for example, for myself, I have some confidence issues too. So I never I in my life, I never think I am 100% sure of anything. Maybe that's the issue. If you are if I got an expert on some kind of special if I have some kind of specialty if I study or work on something that 20 years, maybe I can build that confidence that level, but
Pouya LJ 23:53
it's tricky. Yeah. Yeah, no, I know. i It's very tricky. I think I agree with you. I don't I don't think I know. I can be 100% Like, I will never give the number 100 I'm 100% sure I'm even if I'm really 100% Sure. I'm 99.999% Sure. Yeah, and okay, but maybe that's part of it. But it's a tricky line though. There's a very fine line between between confidence and arrogance, I think and and that's another issue that arises like you know, when you're too much of an expert in something you're one of the very few in the world who knows something about something then then the ego plays a role and then sometimes it seems it may seem like confidence, but it is actually arrogance. And we see that like I mean the academia that there's plenty of it of course in industry there's plenty of it. There's everywhere like there's plenty of it right? So yeah, I know I confidence aside, you need to like Grow your confidence and all that of course you know you personally but like the rhetorical you any individual needs to go to come Because, of course, but then there's also another aspect of it that I think, you know, I like the fact that I am I remain not 100% Sure on things because I always give myself room to self correct to admit that I was wrong too. Because like, for example, otherwise you become like this politicians like didn't do clearly they're not even sure like, they're not even like if you talk to them in person in a backroom, with nobody listening, no microphones, no nothing with their buddies, for example, they're gonna be like, Yeah, and I don't know, maybe. But then but then they come out and, you know, say with such confidence, because that's how they have to play the game of politics. Right. But then again, you but then that makes them not able to self sorry, course correct. You know, acknowledge mistakes. So I think the fact that you're, you, myself included, like we are, you know, not? How do we say is not? I'm not saying they're not sure, but we leave room for error, or mistake. Because it's how I look at it. It's, even if I am very much comfortable in the field, let's put the word expert or master aside, even if I'm very comfortable in the field, and I have sufficient knowledge i i feel uncomfortable saying that I am 100% sure that something is true or not, or I think that's me leaving myself room that, you know, maybe when I may even caveat that did saying that the current knowledge. And with my current understanding, yes, I'm 100% Sure. But okay, there might be something that I don't know about that, but certainly something that I don't know about and a lot of different ways, maybe in that particular field too. And maybe there's error in the way I think about the world because if history is any indication. Most people most of the time have made mistake, I don't know any famous or infamous individual in the history that you can name that did everything perfectly. Yes. Just outright impossible. And if they if the written record, say that, which I have never heard of any individual, but let's say even if the hidden rows are written record, say that you don't know if they're hidden lives. And anyway, so that's what I think. I don't know. My point is that I think that's not necessarily a bad thing. Although it can have some downfalls in sometimes you seem, may may not even be because I know you'd like your to your humble individual. And sometimes you you know, you're not comfortable. being super confident in your but then, like, I know you like I know that the grasp of your knowledge is high enough that you if you were an arrogant prick, you would be like, Yeah, I'm 100% Sure, get get lost. Right. So, but then you're not that's that's the whole
Tugrul 28:01
thing. No, I mean, I don't understand how you can be like that. How you can be 100% Sure for something doesn't make sense. I mean, today we don't we have so many questions, even Newton dynamics, you can question them, even people came up with like a modification or to Newton dynamics, you can't be 100% Sure, even your observations are like, sinful to fit. With the models you have no, I mean, you can miss something your brain evolved some millions of years as a result of like, trillions of different paths, like a survival tricks, like some extinction, etc, etc. But you're still evolving, your brain is still evolving Darla, so you don't know how much room left for your brain that can evolve, which can be huge, which I think can be huge, because we are probably far from being like reaching the optimal optimum point. I don't even know if there is an optimum point. I don't think so even though we have here like we have full of weaknesses, flaws. And we are not even sure that our brain is really a good tool, even like a perfect tool. Even understanding nature. Maybe this is our problem. Maybe we are not going to be able to solve the universe because our brain is not capable enough of understanding it.
Pouya LJ 29:23
Yeah, no. No, I don't I honestly don't know how you can do that. I think it's not that being too short is a byproduct of arrogance. That's my guess. Like, because the more humble people I've seen, the less sure they seem people who tend to be more humbled who tend to not be arrogant or egotistical. They seem that, you know, they don't seem like that they lack confidence. They're fairly confident, but they're very comfortable admitting that I don't know everything. And I can't possibly know everything. And I may be wrong from time to time. I may I may be wrong a lot of the times, I think that is, again, this is my observation. I don't have empirical evidence to back this hypothesis. But this is my personal observation, the more you know, grounded people I've seen the more humble people I've seen, the less they have that ability to be like, No, this is done. This is settled. And, and let's, let's take a point recently, something from a very recent history, and that was like during COVID, the COVID science, there was plenty of arrogance from very established either scientists or officials in the authorities of science, quote, unquote, that they were like, saying things that you know, this is established science, you should believe it. This is no, this is true. The lab leak is no, I'm not saying that. The you know, COVID leaks from the lab, but they were not even they were they were treating you as a either stupid or racist if you even questioned it. And I was like, How can you be so sure it leaks from not leaked from the lab, and it came from nature, when you don't even know the source of sort of like the origin of species of this thing? How can you be so arrogant about it? And then I gave myself the answer. I was really thinking that and I gave myself the answer. I was like, yeah, that's arrogant. That's why like, there should be no room for arrogance, the human arrogance and, or any kind of arrogance as matter of fact, but we only know one kind. And that's the human arrogance. There should be no room for arrogance in science, but unfortunately, there is. So I think that's that. I think I'd rather being too sure. Is a symptom of arrogance is or is a byproduct of arrogance, I don't know. But they go together. I think that's what that's where he I see it.
Tugrul 31:56
I think this guy, this is kinda like a defense mechanism like this kind of people. I think, probably I'm not sure, of course. They think that they think that maybe, if they're if people start to think that there is a room of questioning their knowledge, they think, in this case, they think they're weak. So that's why they are pretending that they know 100 person, should they become like arrogant? No, you cannot question my knowledge. Yeah. Because they don't want to be seen weak, or maybe they have a higher position in somewhere. If they, maybe they think that if they seem weak, they can lose their status, they lose their position, whatever. I think that's the opposite.
Pouya LJ 32:45
Yeah, so okay, I completely agree. But I also disagree that is completely opposite. I think it's kind of the opposite, depending on how you depending on the area, I think, so for, for, for somebody who's claiming that they are the authority, like a king, or an emperor, or a queen, or whatever, right. So that person needs to maintain that authority. So they need to be listened to and accepted. Right. Okay. So that's that. But that's why I'm saying this should be. So that's, of course, the end. And they lose the grasp if they don't, or they feel that way. Again, it's not necessarily true, I agree with you, if, if a Emperor King was humble, and was like, you know, I'll do my best or even a political leader, I do my best to the best of my abilities to lead, but I'm a human, I'll make mistakes, if they admitted that they probably win a lot of votes. But that's aside, when you're talking about science and technology, you know, specifically science because it's in my mind need to present it should represent something very pure, and remove the elements of human human nature, but rather be a method to evaluate to think essentially. That's why we call it the scientific method, right? It has to leave the interpersonal inter, to like within the human character, human species, ugliness out of it. Of course, it's not going to happen because it's just humans. So I think that's exactly that's the specific area that I agree with you it actually is not. If if you're wrong, and you admitted it, that's the sign of strength. And, and I think people do, maybe not consciously understand that themselves, or or think about it that way. But they really appreciate when you admit a mistake, because then they can rely on your words. Be like, you know what, this guy is not full of shit. This guy admits when he's wrong. If somebody constantly when they when they caught in a lie, or when they caught in a mistake, they still insist, then how can I trust them? So I think I agree with you They just feel that they lose. It's a defense mechanism, they feel like they're losing the grasp on of authority, which is not really true. They're they're losing it when they enforce it too harshly. There was a quote, I don't remember where I heard it or who I heard it from. But basically, it was saying power is like sand in your fist, the more you try to hold on to it, the easier it will spill out of your fist. And if you doubt that just go on a beach someday, not you, anybody who's listening and go grab a because I thought that I thought about I tried to go grab a handful of fist so sad. and strengthen the tighten your wrist fist, rather, and squeeze, the sand will spill out at some point you will not but then the more you squeezed, the more it spills out of your your fist. So that's what they're doing. They feel like they have to, like hold on to this sand tight and make sure it doesn't spill out of their fist, but then doing that they're actually squeezing it out of their, their fists, because by tightening their fist, actually, they're occupying the room that the sand should ergo the sand will spill out because their fingers will not get you know, break the nylon screws that tight. Anyways, so So I agree with you. But the issue is that the thinking is wrong, I think.
Tugrul 36:30
Yeah, but I think yeah, I think the root of this behavior is probably we can investigate, like we can discuss in evolutionary evolutionary way. Probably because of the past like, not too long, like like, if you go to check the history even go like ancestors. Being sure is probably this is above, like a, like a living or death issue, life or death issue. Basically, he has to be shared for a couple of things, really. Because otherwise you can die me somebody can write Okay, so maybe it is rooted somewhere there this kind of behavior? Because you instinctively you want to think that you will surely you have to show us your data, you have to strong you have to seem strong.
Pouya LJ 37:20
Because if you're not so sure you remain indecisive. And that's
Tugrul 37:25
it worse than being so sure in the past, like any evolutionary point of view, probably so, but so sorry, sorry, interrupting you. But sorry, what I was thinking is that, like, when I was saying the opposite is better, like not being sure, I was just thinking in the future. So we already evolved, we already have some complex understanding we already not in the part of nature anymore, we don't we're not scared of like, hunted by like a tiger on the way but so we are even like, not natural about like artificially selected. Because we have our system, everybody surviving. So feature, because we don't have these issues in more which is good, which means that we have a long way to go ahead of us that can focus only on humans feature like including science, technology, etc. So we are also like, complex enough to think about our thoughts. We are in a machine that can question itself. And so we are at this level, and so we can start acting like in a mental like in it, we have to start thinking that we have lots of rules that we can improve ourselves and we can learn a lot with no need to be so sure for everything we are not going to die.
Pouya LJ 38:48
Yeah, yeah. So this is where I classify actually I have this because I've thought about this and I wasn't thinking about it right now but I've thought about this in the past, I actually have I call it I mean I don't have a literal definition out there, but I have internal definition I call it these are two different things though. One is how short I am in theory versus how sure I am theory sorry, practically. So how sure I am in theory okay in theory nobody's chasing me. I have all the time in the world to doubt myself. In practice, in real life, when you're facing life or death or or matters of extreme importance, that can be very costly, either monetary or, or, you know, matter of life and literally metal of life and death then then then it becomes important. So then when it's in practice, then I think you should basically act on the best information you have. Like the highest confidence degree you have about anything, you just act on it. That's it. You're done. You don't need to think, think twice or three times. My point is that you can I agree with you, it's probably something evolved in us. But you can still even in that environment in a chaotic West West world, or or even, you know, rules of the jungle kind of thing, you can still have this element of I'm not so sure about everything and still survive. So long as you're like, I'm not 100% Sure, but I'm 90%. Sure. And that 90% is above everything else I'm sure about. So I'm going to act on that knowledge. That's fine. that'll that'll get you out of it and actually, actually probably get you out of it the best. Because you're not acting on a random information, you're acting on the information that you have the highest confidence. You're most shorter, but basically, but you don't have to say I'm 100% sure about that. You just have to be like, I'm sure enough, but I'm going to act on it. And then the question comes, okay, now I'm sure about something 90% on your shirt about something, some what number of a percent, and we have to do one or the other. And then we get into a fight about who's more sure. So it becomes messy. I understand. That's what I'm trying to say. But But anyway, so that's a theoretical, doubting of yourself. And then the practical being sure of yourself. It's Yes, I agree, sometimes being indecisive because when you don't choose, that's a choice. Sometimes people don't choose because they're terrified of their choice. And then that's the choice itself. They don't choose because if they feel if they don't choose they are they can make a mistake. But then that's the mistake itself, because by not choosing, you're choosing. Anyway, it's not to get too philosophical. But I agree. I think it's it's evolved to be in us because if we weren't so sure, then we were indecisive and would be would be eaten by bears and tigers and such.
Tugrul 42:02
So more. And also, I think we just recently learned what is what does that mean that being sure, I think it's it just came with it like a science and technology or understanding about how we can share about something this came with the some physical philosophical questions, because other than that, we can question about being sure because you don't know what, what is it? I mean, being chill. What does that mean? before?
Pouya LJ 42:30
I think there is a meaning before science in the like, Okay, if we take it to before, 2000 years before,
Tugrul 42:37
like, first of all, let's go down to a Greek oak, but the
Pouya LJ 42:41
Greeks will do the same thing. They would disprove each other. Right? They would but but that's but they were doing science. So I grant that. But let's go even further back, let's go 10,000 years ago, I think there was a degree of being sure and unsure. And I think that was linked to discovery because let's say a caveman that went out of the cave, and they were debating is like, No, I'm sure there's something beyond this hill, I gotta go see it. And the other guy was like, How can you be so sure? I don't know. Like, there is nothing beyond that he'll under you're gonna die and we're gonna starve in the cave because you're the hunter. So
Tugrul 43:11
sorry, I don't agree. I think that okay. Mice kind of my story is like, a guy who is like a strongest one on this, like a society that they had just decides instinctively, everybody follows. There was no debate probably.
Pouya LJ 43:27
Right. But but then he can personally be shown that he his confidence was false. For example, He's sure that there's a, you know, there's nothing beyond the hill. But then to prove himself, he goes, and then he realizes, oh, there's something down the hill. So I was wrong.
Tugrul 43:43
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Probably, like a personal, like, initial level of being sure. Very minor. They didn't question the list.
Pouya LJ 43:51
No, I don't I think you may be right. I think it's it started from the ancient Greeks when they started philosophizing and thinking semi scientifically, yes, I think I think
Tugrul 44:02
because you have different information to be understanding, okay, for the same concept, we have two ideas. Okay, which one is correct? Then you can think about, okay, how we can be so sure about which one is more correct. And compare? Yeah, maybe you need the comparison for ideas, at least. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Like,
Pouya LJ 44:20
I mean, I think, I think for that, as far as we know, at least, as far as I personally know, I think for that you have to, we can only go as far as the ancient Greeks probably. I mean, I think you may be right if we can, or maybe we just don't know about it, because it wasn't well documented. Who knows? Yeah, again, I'm not sure.
Tugrul 44:40
You never know. I mean, you know, you have to go there and observe it.
Pouya LJ 44:43
Even then, you know,
Tugrul 44:46
because we are we're creating stories based on our findings from like for sales, etc, etc. Like his drawings on the cave. They're all good models, but their stories still, like backed by evidences but that everything can be can still satisfy a like all these findings, but in a different way. So you never know you have to go there and observe it with a time machine, which is not possible. But there was that's what all I got all we got.
Pouya LJ 45:17
Yeah, and, you know, these are very interesting questions, and I think we should explore them more. And I'm very happy that we're going to do this. Okay. So for the audience who are wondering, we will be doing more of these kinds of episodes. Now, this was introductory for us to, you know, discuss with turtle get to know Him and who he is where he came from academically. Because not that not in the sense that academic academia is very important, but because first of all, you spend a lot of your life there. And second of all, because I think that kind of tells you what your interests are, where you're coming from where your perspective is at so. So this was the, you know, introductory episode, but we'll continue this discussions, probably from maybe a little bit more narrowed and talk about specific things into future episodes. But for now, before we come to a close, is there something you want to talk about, whether about yourself or about what we talked about or about anything, really, before we close for this episode?
Tugrul 46:22
No, no, I enjoyed this a lot. So I'm just looking forward to other episodes like we can discuss, but I wasn't expecting to talk about cavemen.
Pouya LJ 46:34
That's the beauty of it. I think. I do like some structure in the in the podcasts, but I don't. And I know everybody has a different, you know, style. And I like those who are super structured and those who are completely unstructured. But for myself, I like to be surprised in my conversations in a way that as you said, I didn't expect so. So anyhow. Yeah, there's a degree of chaos and too much control me ruin it. A little bit, just just as ordered enough that it makes sense. Okay, so with that. Thank you all for listening. And thank you all for joining us with the promise of many more of
Tugrul 47:18
these kinds. Of course, of course, I'm looking forward. Thank you.
Pouya LJ 47:22
Fantastic. And thank you all for tuning in. Tune in for more episodes in the weeks and months to come.
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