The Blindboy Podcast - Quantum Physics in Irish Mythology

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

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Happy New Year, you juddery altons. Welcome to the Blind By podcast. If this is your first episode, maybe consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. You've got nearly 400 episodes to choose from. I think it's only right that we should begin the year 2025 with a poem, I'm gonna read out a poem this week that was submitted to the podcast by Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon, who I met in a dream. The poem is called My Dog's Name is the Bishop's Testicle by Susan Sarandon. My dog's name is the bishop's testicle, because his hair fell off in Portugal. I paint purple veins on his back. He dangles from my

handbag like a stiff ecclesiastical bollock. I rest the bishop's testicle on the Brown Thomas counter to get discounts on perfumes. My dog's name is the bishop's testicle because he looks the same as balls. His ears fold like the Holy Ghost's scrotum. I've stopped washing him. He stinks of untanned leather. And I can hear the smell with my ears. He can put curses on my enemies. And when he dies, I want to die too. Our bones will rot into each other and be worshiped as relics in Dundalk. So that was a piece of prose poetry there by Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon who I met in a dream and also during the dream all of my teeth fell out and I was

suddenly I was a child I was a child again and I was sitting I was sitting in in the doctor's office that I used to visit when I was like four years of age. I was staring at one of those, the old super-sour heaters we used to call them, those old gas heaters with the glowing red hot panel on the front and I could feel the heat on my face and I was watching all my teeth on the ground on the carpet and I was like four years of age and Susan Sarandon was just there beside me telling me everything was gonna be okay everything's gonna be okay did I tell you about my dog?

his name is the Bishop's Testicle but I love that about dreams the way that time and space collapses and you don't question it I wasn wasn't like, oh fuck, I'm suddenly four years old and I'm in my childhood doctor's office. I just accepted it. It's just what was happening in the dream and then you wake up from it and you're just like what the fuck was that? There's no judgment. It's not good or bad. It's not silly. It's just what the fuck was that? Last week, Google unveiled a new quantum supercomputer.

Specifically, a quantum computer chip called Willow. Now quantum computing, I've done two podcasts in the past where I've spoken to experts in the field of quantum physics. If you'd like to listen to them, the first one's called Quantum Quarantino from March 2020, and the second one is called Speaking to a Quantum Physicist about Quantum Mechanics, and that's from November 22. Quantum computing uses quantum physics, which is one of the most fascinating, confusing,

and terrifying areas of science, because it gets right down to the nature and fabric of what reality is. The quantum level is tiny, like much smaller than an atom. What fascinates me when I read about quantum physics is that when the scientists go down to that tiny, tiny subatomic level, the rules of reality, the reality that you and I understand, those rules don't appear to apply at the quantum level. I'm talking rules about things such as time and space,

the fabric of what we understand to be reality. And what's so strange and fascinating about quantum behavior is that quantum particles appear to change their behavior depending on whether or not they're being looked at. Which is just fucking mad. That's just mad. Does the particle know it's being looked at? Or is human consciousness creating reality? So quantum computers try to use all of that shit

to create a power that operates beyond what we understand reality to be. So what regular computers? Binary computing. Binary computing, right? That uses bits. And these bits are either zero or one. On or off.

Black and white. This bit is either a one or a zero. And that's it. That's binary computing. Quantum computing it uses qubits and quantum fucking physics. Which means it can be 0 or 1 or a superposition. Which means it's both 0 and 1 at the same time and that's where that freaky quantum shit comes in. Remember I said a quantum particle appears to change its behavior depending on whether or not it's being looked at.

So as soon as a quantum particle is observed by a human, it becomes either a one or a zero. But when it's not being observed, it's in a superposition. It's both one and zero at the same time. Fucking mad shit. I don't claim to understand it. I feel uncomfortable speaking about it because I'm so unqualified to understand it. What I am doing is accurately reporting my understanding of it based on conversations I've had with experts.

And doing the best I can using words, which is incredibly limiting. The experts understand quantum physics. Not through words, not through words but through maths, through numbers. So me trying to understand quantum physics using words it's probably like trying to understand what music is using words or trying to explain to you a song that I heard but I can't play it for you I have to only use words to describe what it's like and it breaks my. It fucking breaks my heart because I'm fascinated by theoretical physics, I'm fascinated by quantum physics, but I can barely count.

Like, I'm not joking, I can barely count. I'm profoundly deficient in anything to do with numbers. I've difficulty reading clocks. It's an element of minor divergence. But having said that, I do understand maths because if I didn't, I'm a multi-instrumentalist. I can play several different musical instruments. I produce music. I write music. So music is maths. Music is just maths having a laugh. So I do understand maths. I understand it as a feeling, as vibrations of symmetrical air, but I don't understand maths as numbers. And when it comes to quantum physics and quantum computers, I have to try and understand it through storytelling and

imagery. So Google have unveiled this highly powerful quantum computer chip, Willow. So what Google have said about Willow is that it performed a certain mathematical problem, a computation. So this computer chip solved the mathematical problem in five minutes using quantum processing. And then they said for a binary computer, ones and zeros, even the most powerful binary computer in the world right now, if that computer was to try and solve the same maths problem, it would take 10 septillion years. So a septillion, which is a number I've never heard, but a septillion is 1 billion multiplied by 1 billion, then multiplied by 1 billion, and then multiplied by 1,000.

So this new quantum computer chip is after solving a problem that would take a regular computer to do 10 of those, 10 septillion years. The universe as we know it is 13 billion years old. So what Google have said, this isn't conspiracy theory, this is Google's statement, you can look this up. What Google said last week was this willow, this new quantum computer chip

is so powerful that it seems to borrow processing power from parallel universes and parallel realities. That this chip basically proves the multiverse theory. It's able to operate beyond space and time and access parallel realities and take processing power from them. So the multiverse theory, it's a theory about what reality is, proposed in the 1980s by a scientist called David Deutsch. So as I mentioned, at the quantum level, and we know this, we know this,

quantum particles change their behaviour depending on whether someone's looking at them or not. And that's nuts. That's mad. Because why is a particle, why is a little piece of an atom behaving like it's alive? Now that's not what it is, but that's the only way that my human brain can understand it. So David Deutsch explained this by putting forward the theory of the multiverse. That there's infinite parallel realities. So binary doesn't exist, yes and no doesn't exist, black and white doesn't exist. Well they do exist in the sense that that's how you and I perceive reality with our human senses. But with the multiverse theory all possibilities exist in separate

universes and we shimmer between them. So if you flip a coin and it lands on heads there's a parallel universe where it lands on tails, and infinite universes exist all at once, for every single possible choice. And that's the multiverse theory, and it's fucking nuts. That's absolutely insane. But it's a leading legitimate theory on what reality is, and last week, Google is like, yeah we've got this new quantum computer chip, and it can do sums that are so complex that it would take a binary computer many several billion times the age of the universe to do it.

So, I quote, Willow is so fast that it seems to borrow processing power from parallel realities. It's a lot to take on board. That's not science fiction, look it up yourself. But what I adore about it, what I absolutely adore about it is it actually perfectly aligns with Irish mythology and Irish cosmology and the understanding of the known universe within fucking Irish mythology, pre-Christian stories that could be thousands of years old. Is that the fucking police? Is that the guards siren outside? Can you hear that? That is, that's the guards.

The guards are coming. The guards are coming. He's comparing Irish mythology to quantum mechanics again. Arrest him. Shut him up. He's speaking too much troth. So within Irish mythology, and this is what I adore about pre-Christian Irish mythology, is the relationship with time, the relationship, the understanding of time in Irish mythology is non-linear. You see, we think of time as completely linear. There's things that have happened in the past, there's shit that's gonna happen in the future, and also within that understanding of time, it means that there was definitely a beginning. There was definitely a beginning, and there's probably gonna be an end to time too.

What I'm describing there is called eschatological time. I try to avoid using unnecessarily big words because they can get in the way of communication, eschatological time and eschatology it has a very specific meaning. It means the end of days, an understanding of time that we're building up towards something and there will be an end. And for individual humans that makes sense, you know humans are going to die, I'm going to die. But with eschat know, humans are going to die. I'm going to die. But with eschatology, time itself is going to die. Reality is going to die. And Christianity, Christianity is an eschatological religion. Christianity is a belief system where there was a beginning. God created

the universe and it's all going to end on Judgment Day at the apocalypse. So with the influence of Christianity on culture you get this way of thinking about time that we are consistently progressing towards an end point and it's a lovely story that can help you to find a sense of meaning about the world because it's like there's awful terrible suffering all the time in the world but don't worry just behave yourself and be good because judgment day is coming so even though there's evil happening all the time and you feel powerless against it don't worry judgment day is going to come and on that day the evil wicked people will be punished by God, so don't worry about it.

So you can see why an idea like that became so popular in Western civilization. Don't worry, the universe isn't meaningless chaos. There's this thing called time, which is a type of script that's been written by God, and when it ends, all the evil people will be punished. All you gotta do is worship his son, and then you can come and live with God in eternity where time doesn't exist. You're free of it then. But the problem with eschatological time is you then have to start thinking, well if there was a beginning then what the fuck was there before the beginning? There had to have been something. What is nothing

this? So in some civilizations like Ireland before Christianity, our mythology hints that time would have been viewed in a cyclical way, like a continuing loop, a cycle, and also the time was incredibly flexible and there was openness for parallel universes that existed outside of time. And also when Christianity came to Ireland in the 5th century, it's not just bringing this apocalyptic religion, this new religion and philosophy about time being linear and the end times are about to come. Christianity also brought writing. What's your relationship with time when writing doesn't exist? You've got oral stories and mythology

that are related to the cycle of seasons. Seasons are a loop. Take writing out of the equation and your whole experience of reality is loop-based. The moon orbits the earth, the earth orbits the sun. Our environment is consistent, predictable loops. Christianity in writing brought institutional memory. The ability to write shit down and read it and consult it and hold data on a page.

There's a medieval manuscript called the Book of Invasions that Irish monks would have written maybe in the 10th century. And what it is, it's an attempt to take our mythology and write the history of Ireland as a linear story, heavily influenced by Christian writing, but a linear way of holding memory and events in a book that has a sense of distant past and present. What is a society's relationship with time when you can't write stuff down? Anarchist mythology would tell us something a lot more fluid and strange and weird than linear time. And modern science says this too.

Linear time isn't the case. Even though we experience time as linear. Einstein's whole thing was about relativity. Time can bend and warp. As crazy as that sounds, time can bend and warp. And quantum physics shows some pretty mad shit about time as well. In 2022, the Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize for physics, was given out. I can't remember who the fuck it was

given to. But basically, these scientists proved in 2022, quantum entanglement. And so we've got local reality. Local reality is the reality that you and I experience. It's the local reality of its linear time. It's if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, did the tree really fall? Yeah, it did, because that's how reality works. Local reality is... It's the reality that you and I live in that abides by the laws of classical physics. We know that in local reality there's no such thing as instant. If I turn on a light switch now in this room, even though I experience that light coming on as instant, we know that that light had to travel from the light bulb to my eyes,

even though I can't perceive that. I know that when I look at the Sun, the light from the Sun, it takes like 9 minutes I think for that light to get from the Sun to my eyes. So that's local reality. Objects, including me and you, we have definite properties like position or speed. There's no such thing as instant. Instant doesn't exist. Things have to travel through time. But on the quantum level, really really really small, smaller than an atom, there's a thing called quantum entanglement where this local reality that I just explained there doesn't apply. So in 2022 the Nobel Prize was won because these scientists proved quantum entanglement and what that meant is they were able to get two quantum particles and no matter how far apart they

separated these quantum particles, they could talk to or communicate with each other instantly. Like if you could put one on the sun and one here on art. There's no nine minutes. They instantly can communicate with each other. Now I'm using words like communicate and talk because it's the best way to describe this, to describe the absolute weirdness and strangeness of this. Like Einstein theorized this, as in he guessed this is probably what's gonna happen

but couldn't prove it. And Einstein referred to this as Spokey action at a distance. Like, even Einstein's running into the problem of language there. The best that he could do was to describe this as Spokey. Spokey means supernatural,

ghost, spiritual, otherworldly, frightening. Because our Western understanding of reality is limited by that eschatological time, that Christian time I spoke about earlier. The linear plan, the linear script that God has written. Anything outside of that has to be spooky or supernatural or ghost-like and frightening and uncertain. Spooky means frightening. So in 2022, the

Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to these scientists because they proved quantum entanglement. That's what spooky action at a distance is. Quantum entanglement. Quantum particles are entangled. Time and space doesn't appear to apply. How can one particle know what another particle is doing? Across great distance.

How is the information travelling? And it's like traveling doesn't exist. Speed doesn't exist. This is something beyond this that we don't have words for that's outside of our perception of local reality. I'm trying my best to use words, but it's something outside of time and space.

But someone won a Nobel Prize in 2022 for proving it. So it's fact. So quantum computers, quantum computer chips, they make use of this entanglement to allow their qubits to work together in this highly coordinated way. So that's why you get this willow chip that can perform calculations that would take a binary computer, the binary computer working within this local reality, one zero, one and zero, black and white, on and off. The quantum computer is using entanglement

to operate outside of time and space, to perform tasks that takes the binary computer several billion billion years to do. And this is so revolutionary that Hartmut Neven, who's a physicist and he's the founder of Google Quantum AI, he just says straight out, this chip is so fast that it appears to be borrowing processing power from parallel realities, which is a massive statement. And it very much aligns with the theory of the Otherworld in Irish mythology. So when I say Irish mythology,

I'm talking about a massive body of stories that we have to assume Irish people had before Christianity, before the fifth century AD, stories that they could be thousands of years old. But the reason we can read these stories is, from the fifth century onwards, Irish Christian monks, they wrote down our mythology, they wrote our mythology down.

So going back there to the Google Quantum chip, I'm going to speak metaphorically now. That chip did a calculation in 5 minutes that should have taken several billion years. It did these calculations at the quantum level, outside of time and space, or as the Google fella said, accessing parallel universes. These calculations at the quantum level, outside of time and space, are as the Google fella said, accessing parallel universes. If you're hearing banging in the background. It's 12 o'clock, it's a happy new years, I'm recording this. Right now at new years, and now all the local little shits in the neighbourhood are setting

off fucking fireworks. The bollocks, I'm trying to explain. the shits in the neighbourhood are setting off fucking fireworks. The bollocks is, I'm trying to explain, I just got into the point where I'm trying to explain quantum physics and Irish mythology. Happy New Year everybody. I suppose I like the synchronicity of that. You know, I'm doing a podcast about the nature of time, as the new year is ringing in at this very second.

So I'm just going to have to talk through the fireworks. Of course, those fireworks again are part of a pre-Christian tradition. Within Irish mythology, we have this concept called the Otherworld. The Otherworld. And the Otherworld, it's not heaven or hell, it's not in the future, it's not in the past. The other world in Irish mythology is a parallel reality that can be accessed by certain people at certain times and certain points. And the other world in Irish mythology contains fairies, gods, demons, it's supernatural.

And at the celebration of Samhain, for instance, Halloween, it was said on this night on Halloween, the veil between the Otherworld and our world was very, very thin, and demons could escape from the Otherworld, so people did big massive huge bonfires, big bonfires, to scare off the demons from the Otherworld during this transitionary time. And those fireworks that you're hearing right now, all those fireworks because it's it's New Year's Eve, we've ushered in a new year, you can trace all that

back to the lighting of bonfires at important times of transition. But anyway look the fucking quantum computer chip. This quantum computer chip did a calculation that should have taken billions of years. Google said it accessed parallel universes and then it reported back to our time five minutes later and said here's the answer buddy. Irish mythology is rife with stories exactly like that. The other world in Irish mythology it's a parallel universe. It's a mirror that exists right alongside the reality that you and, local reality, that you and I experience right now. In Irish mythology, the Otherworld is just behind the mist, or just at the bottom of

that well, and time doesn't really exist in the Otherworld, this parallel universe. And the Otherworld doesn't have limits like we have in our reality. In the other world is infinite knowledge, infinite knowledge and infinite artistic inspiration, infinite food, infinite peace. In parts of the other world, pain and sorrow don't exist. Sometimes it's called Tyrannonogue. It's a supernatural parallel realm, a parallel universe that exists in Irish mythology. And we've got numerous stories that are so similar to

that Google quantum chip. I'll give you an example. The Voyage of Bran. So this is a story that was written down, it was written in the book of the Dun Cow, which was a book, a manuscript that was written in the 10th century. And this book contains a story called The Voyage of Bran. So ages ago, there was a king in Ireland and his name was Bran. And Bran didn't really like being king. Bran wasn't happy just hanging around, he just didn't like it. So one day Bran, there was a party going on and Bran disappeared, he fucked off into the woods by himself and he went for a walk. And while Bran was walking in the woods and connecting with nature, he heard this

beautiful music, a sweet music unlike anything any musician could play and he followed the sound of this music through the forests. But no matter how he a sweet music unlike anything any musician could play. And he followed the sound of this music through the forests. But no matter how he tried to chase after the music, the music still seemed to be coming from right behind him. It was confusing him. And the music got sweeter and sweeter until eventually it lulled him into sleep and Bran fell asleep in the forest.

And while Bran was asleep, in his dream, he visited the Otherworld. And in this section of the Otherworld, there was a land of beautiful women. It was always sunny, there was plenty of food, everybody was happy. There was no anger. There was no pain, there was no cruelty, this was a wonderful, wonderful paradise. And in his dream, this beautiful woman walked towards Bran and said, what's the crack Bran? You're in the land, you're in the other world now. This is it, it's so peaceful here, you're in the other world. And this was the most beautiful dream and Bran didn't want to wake

up. Then Bran woke from the dream and he's in the forest and he's like, fuck me that was an incredible dream. How strange, what a strange dream that was. And he went back to his castle to the party that was going on and everyone was like, where were you Bran? And he said nothing. He said nothing about what had actually happened. So the party continues on anyway, people are having crack and then all of a sudden this woman appears in the party and it's the woman from Bran's dream. It's the beautiful girl from the other world except now she's at the party with Bran and everybody can see her and everyone's going wow who the fuck is she? She's gorgeous and she walks up to Bran in this reality and whispers into his ear and says,

Bran, you gotta build a boat, build a boat, and you gotta come to the other world. All you gotta do is go across the ocean and sail through the mist, sail through that mist and you can come to the other world, to the land of women that you were in in your dream. So Bran says, fuck yeah, I hate it here. I'm going to the fucking other world. So Bran as king, this is his new secret project. I have to get nine trusted men, and they're gonna build this boat, and we're gonna sail beyond Ireland, and we're gonna reach the other world by sailing through the mist. So he picks nine men, they build the boat,

and then they set sail. And they set sail far beyond the west of Ireland, beyond the edge of the world. And as they go across the waves, they see the mist, and now they start going through the mist. And as they go through the mist, the Irish god of the ocean, Manon Mac Lir, he approaches them, but he's on a horse-drawn carriage. So first of all, Bran and all the lads in the boat are like, fuck me, is that the god of the sea? And secondly, how is that god of the sea riding a horse and carriage on the fucking ocean? And then Menon, the god of the sea,

he rocks up on his horse on the ocean to the lads in the boat and then he says to them you know what lads from your point of view you're actually in the sea on a boat but from my point of view you're not actually in the sea at all your boat is in the middle of a meadow and you're surrounded by apple trees isn't that mad and then the lads are like, no, Manon, we're definitely in the middle of the ocean. We are definitely in a boat in the middle of the ocean. And then Manon is like, I know from your point of view, you're in the ocean, but I'm telling you from my point of view, you're actually in an orchard. And both of these things are true at the same time. And that little detail there, that's really unique to Irish mythology. That's your parallel universe there. That's a mad concept.

That means that like our Irish ancestors who were telling these stories, they had an understanding of reality that incorporated parallel universes. The lads on Bran's boat were in a quantum superposition. They were in a quantum superposition. It's not binary. You're not one on the sea, zero in an orchard. In this story, Bran and his crew are both in the sea and in an orchard at the exact same time, depending on how you observe it. That's quantum mechanics. That's a quantum view of the universe right there. So when the lads in the boat begin to accept, they

begin to accept the strangeness of this. When they begin to accept, alright I get it, we're in a boat, okay I can see the sea, but actually we're in an orchard at the same time, and we accept that these two parallel realities exist at once, then they continue to row forward, and row through the mist, and then they find themselves in the Otherworld. Now they're on land, even though their boat is now on fucking land.

So now that they've landed, they're like, right fuck it, we're in the Otherworld. They're on an island in the Otherworld. So Bran and the lads stay inside the boat on this island in the Otherworld, and they see a bunch of people on land and they shout to them and they say, are we in the island of beautiful women? But all the people on land just start roaring and laughing and pointing at Bran and the lads in the boat. And then they say, tell me, are we in the island of beautiful women? Are we in the other world? What's the story? And

then the people, the people go, no, no, no, this isn't the island of beautiful women? Are we in the other world? What's the story?" And then the people, the people go, no no no this isn't the island of beautiful women, you're on the island of joy, this is the island of laughter. So then Bran and the boys in the boat, they get pissed off. What the fuck are these cunts talking about, the island of laughter? So one of the crew says, I'm gonna get out of this boat and I'm gonna go to one of them and I'm gonna get some answers. So he does, but the second he steps foot outside of the boat, now he starts roaring laughing and he realises shit this is actually the island of laughter and if you stay on this island you can do nothing but laugh. But his laughter was so great that he was utterly helpless. And Bran and the crew are like come back onto the boat come back onto the boat

but your man is laughing so hysterically that he can't make it back onto the boat so the lads eventually just have to abandon him so they sail off again and now they're on the ocean and They're kind of freaked out by this. They're like that last island the island with everybody laughing Jesus Christ that was a bit freaky island with everybody laughing. Jesus Christ, that was a bit freaky. So they go on and they go on and now they see another island and they land and now this is the island of women because the second they land there's nothing but gorgeous women everywhere. And the lads, the boat lands and all the women come up to the boat and they're like, finally you're here. Bran, I was in your dream, I invited you to come to this

island. But the lads stay on the boat and they're like, Bran says, I'm after losing one of my crew. Like 10 minutes ago we visited an island and everybody on that island was laughing and we lost a crew member there. He was in such hysterics that we couldn't get him back onto the boat. We're kind of scared to get off. I know it's the island of beautiful women and I can see you and you're all gorgeous, but we're kind of scared to get off the fucking boat in case of what happens. And then the women say,

don't worry, don't worry, you'll have a lot of fun here. So the lads go, all right, fuck that. They get off the boat and now they're in the island of beautiful women. And in the island of beautiful women, and now they're in the island of beautiful women. And in the island of beautiful women, they have every single possible desire that they want met is met on this island.

The women serve them up a huge banquet of food, and no matter how much they eat, the food keeps replenishing. Same with the drink, Same with the music. This is like the best nightclub in the world. Everything on this island, for a group of young men, is perfect. And then what happens when they're finished eating? Riding. Riding.

Non-stop riding on an island of beautiful women who want to do nothing else other than ride the lads. It's paradise. The rules of this island are pleasure and happiness. Pain doesn't exist, anxiety doesn't exist. It is just pure pleasure all the time. And Bran and his men, they stay on this island for a year, experiencing nothing but pleasure for every one of their senses, until one day one of the men turns to Bran and says,

I can't take it anymore. You can't take fucking what anymore. It's just delicious food and riding. It's too much. It's too much pleasure. There's so much pleasure all the time that I don't even know if I like it or not anymore. And then all the lads go, will you shut the fuck up? This is amazing. But then Nekton is going, no it's not amazing. I can't feel joy anymore. It's too much. I've had enough pleasure. I don't know if I like

it. I need to go home, I need to go home, I want to go back, I need to go back to Ireland." And the lads are like, you want to go back to fucking that? Dirt, misery, rain, treachery, worrying about whether someone's going to double cross you, sadness, you want to go back to that? And Necton is like, yeah, I want to go back to that? And Necton is like, yeah, I want to go back to that. I've had too much pleasure. So eventually Bran says, look, fuck it, he's our buddy. If he wants to go back to Ireland, we should probably take him.

We don't have to go, but we can take him there. So Bran goes to the Queen on the island of beautiful women and says one of the lads wants to go home and the Queen of beautiful women says look all you're gonna get is pain if you go back to Ireland if you go back to that to that spectrum of reality you're just gonna get pain and Bran is like I know but this fella that's what he wants he wants pain we really really want to take him back what do we need to do? So the queen says to Bran, "'Okay, get back on the boat, go the way you came,

"'but when you reach Ireland, leave him off, "'but do not put your feet on the ground. "'Whatever you do, stay the fuck in the boat, "'leave your body go.'" So that's what they all do. Bran and all his men, they get onto the boat with the journey of returning to Ireland So that Necton can go home and let this sail back to Ireland and sail through the mist back to our reality

Your man Necton is on the boat and he's there fucking hell lads. It's been a year. It's been a whole year I hope my dog is okay, I hope my ma is okay, I hope no one has died or anything in the time, in the year that I've been gone. So eventually the boat reaches the shores of Ireland, and Bran and all the crew are there on the boat, and the boat pulls up to the shore, and Bran remembers what the Queen had told him

in the Island of Beautiful Women, don't get off the fucking boat. the boat is on the shores and as the boat lands in Ireland all these people start walking up to the boat going who the fuck are ye and Bran goes I'm King Bran I'm the King and then a very very old man comes up to Bran and says, King Bran? But I remember stories about King Bran from when I was a little child. King Bran and his men went off onto a boat and never came back.

Like, I'm like 80 years of age and I heard this story when I was a kid. And then Bran and the lads are like, No, like, look, we're here, we've been gone for a year. And then Necten, the fella who wants to come home, he starts to freak out on the boat. He's like, what the fuck is going on? What are you talking about, old man? So Necten jumps out of the boat,

and as soon as Necten's feet hit the ground, Necten tries to get the words out to speak to the old man, but within the space of about a minute, when Nekton's feet hit the soil of Ireland, he goes from being a young man to very rapidly deteriorating into an old man, and then turning into a skeleton, and then eventually turning into dust. All in the space of a minute, the people in Ireland on the shore, they start freaking out going what the fuck just happened. And then Bran and the lads on the boat are going what the fuck was this and then it dawns on Bran. We haven't been away for a year.

We've been away for about three or four hundred years. And he looks at the people and he looks at the landscape. And things are very different. And he doesn't fully understand the people and he looks at the landscape and things are very different and he doesn't fully understand the people. Bran very quickly took out a stone tablet and carved the details of his journey on an awam stone and threw it at the people of Ireland and then he turned to his crew and said, Don't put your feet on the fucking land. Fuck this, we're going back to the island of Raidain, and that's what they do. So that there is a very famous story from Irish mythology that's called The Voyage of Bran,

written down in the 11th century, most likely thousands of years old, and passed along orally. And that story tells us about the Irish perception of time, the Irish perception of reality before Christianity. And this idea of the other world. That there is this parallel universe that can be accessed under the right circumstances, but it exists alongside us. And also the quantum superposition of it's both the ocean and it's an orchard at the exact same time depending on how you're looking at it but also Bran in that situation he's a bit like he's like that the data on that Google computer chip

the data on that Google computer chip it wanted to go on that data wanted to reach the other world to figure out a problem. And that's what it did. In our reality, we experienced it as five minutes. But that data, according to Google, accessed parallel universes, and it actually spent several billion years in these parallel universes, and then reported back the findings to us five minutes later. And stories like that are rife in Irish mythology.

But also too, not only is that story about quantum mechanics and superpositions and parallel universes, it's a beautiful story about the human condition. It's a story about the necessity of suffering. Now the thing is, the suffering bit that might actually have been added afterwards by the Christians who were writing it down. That's very possible. But your man Nocton, who, so basically the lads go off to an island, infinite food, infinite sex, infinite pleasure, all the time.

And for Nocton, that then becomes completely meaningless. And he wants to go back to Ireland. And what that story says is, you can't chase pleasure and expect to find happiness. Even though you might think, if you're hungry, if you have all the food in the world, you'll be happy. Or if you don't have a girlfriend, if you have all the riding in the world, then you'll be happy. The story basically says, no, these things are nice in moderation, but life really is

about meaning. You have to have a bit of suffering too. There needs to be darkness and light. If you get too much of a good thing, eventually it will lose meaning. But challenges, hardship, suffering, grief, sadness, these are a very important part of the human condition. And they're just as important as nice things like pleasure. And you kind of want to have a mix of both in order to live a full meaningful life. And that's what that story says. But that message is kind of Christian.

So the Irish monks might have added that bit afterwards, and maybe the original story was like, nah, we went to a land of writing and it was class, and then one stupid idiot was like, I want to go back home and he did and he died. But the Google Quantum computer, that quantum chip Willow, that got me thinking about the voyage of brand because of a complete acceptance and understanding of superpositions and an understanding and an acceptance that there's a multiverse, there's multiple universes that you can slip in and out of. And when you do that, you can exist outside of time. And all of this stuff is very quantum. It's very quantum mechanics. And within Irish mythology too,

you can enter and access the other world through different points in the landscape. Certain points in the landscape are considered very sacred. Anywhere where there's a sheath, as it's known, or like an ancient hill, an ancient hill or barrow is seen as an access point to the other world. Mist, anything misty is seen as a veil where you can slip into another dimension. Shape-shifting. In Irish mythology, fairies, fairies who are deities that exist in the other world, the fairies... Nobody in Irish mythology sees a fairy. Like, when I say fairy, forget about this bullshit of little tiny characters with wings. Forget that. characters with wings, forget that. Fairies present themselves in Irish mythology as animals. A fox or a deer or the morrigan, the crow. And it's not necessarily that the fairy is changing shape. Again, it's that shimmer, it's that spectrum of

reality. So the morrigan, the morrigan in Irish mythology, is a goddess. The goddess of war, destiny and fertility. And the Morrigan, you see the Morrigan as a crow, as a bird, as a crow. But the Morrigan doesn't turn into a crow. It's both a crow and a goddess at the exact same time, depending on where you're looking at it from. And again, that's a tough one to get our heads around but just like that story of Bran where they met the god, the god of the sea, and he said I know you think you're in a boat at the sea but from where I'm standing you're actually in an orchard. Both of these things are true at once. In Irish mythology the Mardigan it's both a

crow and a goddess at once. It appears in our local reality. In this reality right now that we can touch, we see the Morrigan as a crow. But if you're in the other world, the Morrigan is a goddess. Parallel dimensions, a completely different way of understanding the world and reality. Completely different way of understanding reality. But if you're walking by yourself in the woods, and you wander through the mist,

all of a sudden you might see the marigin as a terrifying goddess. You turn again and all of a sudden it's a crow, and you don't know, and that's the fairy stories. That's when people get freaked out in the woods, going, I saw a fairy, I saw a crow, I don't know which one it was. I explored that shit in my fiction. I've got a story from my last book, Topographia Hibernica, called The Puccine Maker. Puccine is, it's Irish moonshine, but Puccine makers, they genuinely believed that they

were, that in order to make this Puccine, that they were, they were stealing whiskey from the other world. Like this, this drink was so powerful, that it must be magic that's been stolen from the other world. Like this drink was so powerful that it must be magic that's been stolen from the other world. And puccine makers used to believe that they were consistently being pursued by fairies who were going to steal their children or kill their children. So in the short story that I wrote, the puccine maker, The central character has a little baby, and this baby is born a boy, but he dresses the little baby as a girl and calls it cat. Again, that was a common tradition with Pudgene Makers. They used to, if their child was born a girl, they'd dress it as

a boy to confuse the fairies. But my character in this story is consistently terrified of animals. He's terrified of cormorants, he's terrified of deer. He can't trust any animal as being just an animal, because he believes that these animals may actually be fairies common for his child. And that was my way of trying to understand what the anxiety must have been like to live in that reality, to believe that animals around you might actually be fairies or were coming to get you. But in Irish mythology, you can access the other world through all these different points. The mist are these barrows, these sheaths, and also holy wells, sacred wells, that's a huge one. Sacred wells,

these natural springs of which there's loads all around Ireland, these were seen as points of access to the other world. Sacred wells in particular, they were seen as more as access points to the other world. They were seen as sites where you could, in this mortal reality, derive some power from the other world. Healing, for example. And like, we've got many sacred wells in Ireland, they've since become Christian, we've got sacred wells in Ireland which are known as shul, shul wells, wells to do with the eyes. So people who would have had conjunctivitis or infections in their eyes, they would go to an eye well and they would wash their eyes with this water and their eyes would heal. But these are natural springs, so if you were to analyse the water

of an eye well, you'll find that there's a fucktonne of zinc, there's a lot of zinc in this water that comes from down underneath the earth, and that will actually heal your eye if you have an infection. But the people would have most likely said, this well is actually connected to the other world. The other world where there's no illness, where everything is plentiful, where it's a paradise. This well is connected to that through these bubbles, and that's what's healed my eye. The magic of the parallel other world is what's after healing my eye,

but also with the other world. Wells were very important for artists. Poets and writers were held in very high esteem in Irish society. If you're a musician or a poet, this was a very important thing to be. And poets would go to Sacred wells to drink from them, to try and get knowledge and information from the other world.

One of the most important wells in Irish mythology that would transmit information, information and knowledge from the infinity of the other world was known as Conla's Well. Now you can visit Conla's Well now. It's up in County Cavan, very very close to the border. It's now called the Shannon Pot. It's called the Shannon Pot. It's a tiny little pole just close to the border in Cavan and you can visit it. And that's most likely Conla's Well. But in mythology, Connell's Well was a pool of water, like a natural spring, that had bubbles at the bottom, and this was seen as a direct entry

point to the Otherworld. And those bubbles contained knowledge and information from the Otherworld. So poets and artists and writers, thousands of years ago, would go to this well to drink the water to get inspiration. How do we know this? Because it's written down in the book called the Dinshencas, which basically means the story of places, the lore of places, and the Dinshencas, it's a book that was written in about the 11th century, again by Irish Christian monks, and it's a list of place names in Ireland

and what those names mean and the mythology associated with all of those places. The most famous story about Cunlaswell of course is this is where the salmon of knowledge swam. So in Cunlaswell was this magical salmon, this magical salmon, and because this salmon lived in this pool of water, the salmon absorbed all the knowledge, all the knowledge of the other world into its body, and whoever could catch that salmon, if they ate it, they would achieve all of the knowledge and information of the other world. Now, if you're Irish, you know the story of the salmon and knowledge.

We all learned that when we were kids, but I'm conscious that most of my listenership is from outside of Ireland so very very briefly the story of the salmon of knowledge is There's a young fella called Fionn Macúil. Fionn Macúil is a great epic Irish hero But within the Fiannian cycle of mythology there's stories of Fionn Macuil as a child. And when Fionn Macuil was a child there was an old poet by the name of Finnegas. And Finnegas wanted to be the greatest poet. So Finnegas was like, the only way that I can write the greatest poetry in Ireland is if I visit Cunle as well,

and I'm gonna have to fish every single fucking day. And eventually I'm gonna catch the salmon of knowledge, and when I eat that knowledge, I'm gonna acquire all of the information and knowledge of the other world and write the best poetry. So Fionn MacCool says to Phinegas, fuck it, I'll help you. So one day Phinegas finally catches the Salmon of Knowledge and he's like, I can't believe it, I've been doing this all my life. Here's the fucking salmon. I caught him. I'm gonna cook him and I'm gonna eat him.

So Fionn MacCool, who's like 12, goes to the old man Phinegas, the poet, and says, I'm gonna help you cook the Salmon of Knowledge. No bother. So they set the salmon up on a spit and they put a fire underneath them and Fionn MacCool's job is to turn the salmon on the spit so that it doesn't burn. But as Fionn MacCool is turning the salmon of knowledge over the fire, he notices a blister appear on its skin because he's not turning it fast enough. So Fionn MacCool goes, Oh fuck, we can't have a blister appearing on the skin.

This owl has been fishing for this salmon his whole life. It's gonna have to be delicious. So Fionn MacCull, he reaches with his thumb to put out the blister on the fish, but as he does it, he burns his finger, and then he sucks his thumb. But in that moment, when he sucks his fucking thumb,

all the knowledge and information of the other world that's in the fish, it goes to Fionn Macúil, and not to Phenegas. It's a beautiful story, but what it also tells us is that pre-Christian Irish people believed that the other world was a source of infinite information, infinite knowledge, infinite wisdom, infinite intelligence. And it shows us most likely that when poets or musicians were writing and creating art,

that they were getting their inspiration from the other world. That's where art came from. And my favorite story about Cunle as well, as a little a sight into the other world, my favorite story, and I've definitely told you this before, is... So like I said, you can visit, you can visit this well up in Cavan. It's called the Shannon Pot. And it's called the Shannon Pot now because it's the literal source of the River Shannon. The River Shannon is the longest river in Ireland.

It starts up at the north of the country, and it goes all the way down, and it finishes in Limerick, in my city. It starts up at the north of the country and it goes all the way down and it finishes in Limerick in my city. It's huge and the Shannon River begins in Connell as well, in this ancient well. And the story in Irish mythology regarding how the Shannon River was made is utterly beautiful. So there was a poet by the name of Shonan and she wanted to be the greatest poet in Ireland. She wanted to write the greatest poetry. So if you want to write the greatest poetry, you go to Cunnallas Well. You go to the well where the salmon of knowledge lived and you drink from that water. So Shonan, she was like, alright, I'm gonna go up to this well, I'm gonna drink the water, and then I'm gonna write amazing poetry. But when Shonin got

to the well, she got a bit greedy. She looked down into the well and she saw the bubbles, the bubbles rising up from the bottom. Now she knew that those bubbles, that that was access to the parallel dimension, that was access to the other world. So she decided, I'm not just gonna drink this water, I'm gonna jump into the well, and I'm gonna swim down to where those bubbles are, and I'm gonna visit the other world, like fucking Bran and all them, at the bottom of that well, if I swim down, I'm gonna break through to the other spectrum of reality and exist in the other world and get all the information that way. So she decides that's what she's

gonna do, she dives into the fucking well, swims down to the bottom, but then the other world rejects her. The other world is like, mortal humans can't come in here, this isn't how you get to the other world. So the Otherworld completely rejects her at the bottom of this well and it rejects her by shooting her body into the air, miles and miles into the air on this torrent of water. So now Connla's well is spouting miles and miles into the air and it begins to flood all the land around it and as Conla's well floods. All the information of the Otherworld floods with it and it flows all the way down through

Ireland, carrying the body of Shunnen. Carries her body all the way down through Ireland, eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean and that, that becomes the River Shannon. So the River Shannon that's still there today, that's the origin story of that river. It's from a poet who tried to swim to the bottom of Connell as well to access the parallel dimension, the other world, to get the infinite knowledge.

What I find so fascinating about that and what it reminds me of this mad Google chip information is the Google quantum computer chip, now I'm taking big poetic liberties here, but if the Google quantum computer chip is heading off to multiple universes, to alternate realities, to solve gigantic maths problems and then traveling back to our reality five minutes later to give us the answer to these problems. Isn't that a bit like the Irish otherworld? Isn't that a bit like Shunnen there? Wanting to travel to the other world so that she can receive all of the information,

all of the knowledge, all of the wisdom. She's going to the multiverse. This is what it feels like. The Google quantum computer chip. Scientists are giving it a problem. Here's your problem. Solve this mathematical equation. Solve this maths problem. That little maths problem is like Bren, that's the hero about to go on the journey. So then the mathematical problem goes on the journey in the quantum computer chip, and it visits the multiverse. While the mathematical problem is in the multiverse, It's spending billions and billions and billions of years there, accessing all the information in the multiverse. And then while it's in the multiverse, in the parallel universe, it solves the problem and then comes back to us. But we experience the whole thing

as five minutes. That's an extremely liberal, poetic interpretation of a quantum computer chip there. I might be miles off. If a physicist is listening, they could be laughing at me. But, using stories from Irish mythology and seeing similarities in these stories around the other world, That helps me to understand quantum computing better. That helps me to understand quantum physics better. Because I don't have access to mathematics. I can't do maths, but I adore and love quantum physics and I'm so curious about it and I want to know everything about it. So my point of access to putting language to something I don't understand is mythology. So I want to view the quantum computer chip. The problem

that you give a quantum computer chip, that that's a little bran on a journey into the other world. And then it comes back, time and space doesn't exist, and we get the answer. This week's podcast was actually supposed to be a mental health fucking podcast for the new year. This was supposed to be a mental health podcast for the new year. And I've just done an hour solid. Not speaking about mental health, but speaking about quantum fucking physics and Irish mythology. But sure, that's what I love about this podcast.

That's what I enjoy about this podcast. To have the space to do something like that. We'll talk about mental health next week. We can talk about that. Maybe it's better next week. You don't want to be here in mental health shit maybe on the first of January. Not the first of January. Let's wait until everybody's back at work at least. And maybe we'll speak about mental health next week. Right now, let's have an ocarina pause. It's actually a bit late here for an ocarina pause, so I'm gonna gently rub my finger on some foam. I don't know if you can even hear that. We need some space for an algorithmically generated and advert to insert itself.

That won't interfere with any dog's ears. Oh, I've got some wax from a mini baby bell. That doesn't make noise. Look, fuck it, enough time has passed for an advert to have inserted itself there. You know the crack. Support this podcast directly via Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast. This is a fully independent podcast. This podcast is how I earn a living.

This podcast pays all my bills, it rents out my office. This podcast is how I exist and live. This podcast is only possible because it's directly funded by listeners via the Patreon page. It's how I'm able to show up each week. It's how I'm able to put in the amount of research and thought and writing that goes into a monologue episode such as this. I'm not pulling this stuff out of my hole, I've spent days researching it. I'd initially intended this to be about mental health, but I followed the feeling, and the feeling took me towards Irish mythology and

quantum physics instead. So if you enjoy this podcast, if it brings you distraction, mirth, merriment, entertainment, whatever, whatever reason has you listening to this podcast, please consider paying me for the work that I do. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month, that's it. But if you can't afford that, if you're out of work, if you just don't have the money, that's fine. That's absolutely fine. You listen for free. listen for free. The person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free.

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Very quickly let's plug some gigs. This month January the 27th which is a Monday night I'm in Vicar Street in Dublin. My Vicar Street Dublin gigs, they're lovely and relaxed, they're fantastic, they're wonderful every time. That one's very nearly sold out. Come to Vicar Street on the 27th of January. Then in February, I'm in Leisureland in Galway, a wonderful guest for that. And that's on the 9th of February. Then on the 21st of February, I'm up in beautiful Drogheda. Drogheda. On the 21st of February, I'm up in beautiful Drahada. Drahada. On the 21st of February in Focain Crescent Hall. Then on the 28th of February, Belfast

at the Waterfront Theatre, wonderful venue. Then March, Eineken Killarney, Cork Opera House there on March as well. Australia and New Zealand sold out. And then a big giant UK tour in June, which is setting out very rapidly, but I'm in Bristol, Cornwall, Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, York, London, East Sussex, and Norwich. And you can get those tickets at fain.co.uk forward slash blind buy.

I did the Ocarina pause at the end there. The flow, I just... The shit that I was talking about this week was very complex. Moving between quantum physics and Irish mythology, that's a lot to take on board and I just felt that throwing an ocarina pause into the middle of it would really interfere with the flow. So fuck it, I just went with the whole shebang. My final thoughts on the Google quantum computing thing. The goal of these quantum computers that are more powerful than anything we can possibly fathom. These quantum computers are using

quantum mechanics. This is how the universe works. This is how reality works. Eventually, they want to create a simulation of reality. A computer simulation of our universe and world. And why would Google want to create a simulation of reality? To test things out. Imagine you have a quantum computer with an exact replica of the universe and every single person in it and every possibility. Well then, if you have that, you can do like, ah, I wonder what a pandemic would be like. I wonder what would happen to this city here with all these people if we gave it a pandemic would be like? I wonder what would happen to this city here with all these people

if we gave it a pandemic. What would a tornado be like? Genocide maybe. I wonder what a big genocide would be like in this little universe that we've made on this quantum computer, this simulation of reality that's exactly like our reality. I wonder what a genocide would be like. What would terrorism be like? What what a genocide would be like. What would terrorism be like? What would a road accident be like? What happens if there's loads of road accidents? So if they can get the quantum computers to create simulated realities where they test out horrible things to try and improve our reality, or let's just say a giant pandemic, so they can figure out how to respond to it

just in case it happens in our reality. If we get to that point, or we're effectively continually inflicting suffering on the simulation of reality, if we get there, we're actually gonna go, hold on a minute, what if we are a simulation? What if that's the reason there's so much pain and suffering and awful things? What if we're a simulation? What if pain exists and suffering and misery exists in our reality? Because someone has created our reality as a test tube for misery. What if that's why things are the way they are?

And I promise you, if they manage to get these quantum computers to create a simulation of reality, and they start testing cruel things on it, that's how we'll start to view our reality. We'll start to think that we are a simulation, with someone testing shit out on us. Because that's a pretty good explanation for why there's so much fear and misery and terrible things that happen in reality.

So I'm gonna leave you with that for the beginning of 2025. And hopefully next week I'll be back with some practical mental health tips. In the meantime, Jen, you flex to a swan, rub a dog, wink at a cat.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk. Dog bless. You So.. Thank you.