# Neil deGrasse Tyson: The Brutal Truth About Astrology! Our Breath Contains Molecules Jesus Inhaled!

An episode of [The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1291423644), 13 Oct 2025, 2 h 06 min.

Audio: https://pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/1390/claritaspod.com/measure/p.podderapp.com/2544644999/mgln.ai/e/1651/episode.flightcast.com/01K76KGJN38N1Y0GY7QXGKXZGR.mp3

Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson, world-renowned astrophysicist, breaks down the universe, space, black holes, and the Big Bang, uncovering how Elon Musk, AI, SpaceX, and NASA are defining the future of humanity. As a science communicator, Neil is the host of StarTalk podcast, which covers science, pop culture and comedy. He is also the bestselling author of several books, such as ‘Astrophysics for People in a Hurry’ and the newly revised ‘Just Visiting this Planet: More Cosmic Quandaries from Dr. Tyson’s inbox’. In this explosive conversation, he explains: ◼️80% of Gen Z believe the stars control their life ◼️The dangerous lie we believe about life’s purpose, and what to do instead ◼️Why you have 20% of the same DNA as a banana ◼️Why AI’s real danger isn’t what Hollywood warned you about ◼️Why simulation theory might explain every disaster on Earth (00:00) Intro (02:43) The Big Questions About the Universe and Our Existence (10:55) Why We're Not Good at Feeling Oneness With Others (15:48) Has Science Shaped Your Beliefs About Religion? (20:15) Did Humans Evolve to Believe in Something? (25:00) Changing the Way We See the Universe (30:32) Did the Loss of Your Parents Change Your Views? (35:05) Do We Live in a Simulation? (40:05) Do We Have Free Will in Our Society? (43:44) Will We Be Able to Extend Our Lives Soon? (45:57) What Happens When We Extend Everyone's Lives? (48:57) Neil deGrasse Tyson on AI (53:28) Will We Travel to Mars in Our Lifetime? (1:00:01) How Long and How Far Is It to Mars? (1:02:43) Ads (1:04:13) What Would Happen If the Earth Got Swallowed by a Black Hole? (1:07:51) Could the Sun Become a Black Hole? (1:09:06) What Happens If the Sun Freezes? (1:10:37) Every Breath You Take Contains the History of the Universe (1:15:25) Is the Universe Infinite? (1:16:34) Do Aliens Exist? (1:19:37) Why Do You Think Aliens Exist? (1:25:38) The Physics Error in *The Matrix* (1:28:22) Ads (1:30:26) The Questions We Dream Of (1:33:26) Should We Argue About Meaning? (1:37:18) Are Horoscopes Really a Thing? (1:42:15) Are You Happier If You Believe in God? (1:46:54) What's the Biggest Advice You Have for Me? (1:51:32) What Do You Think of America Right Now? (1:57:25) Do You Have Any Regrets? Follow Neil: X - https://bit.ly/47m0sAz Instagram - https://bit.ly/48E3kuT Facebook - https://bit.ly/48VGmiL TikTok - https://bit.ly/46Y1na6 UK - You can pre-order Neil’s revised book, ‘Just Visiting This Planet: Merlin Answers More Questions about Everything under the Sun, Moon and Stars’, here: https://amzn.to/43cbEhB US - You can pre-order Neil’s revised book, ‘Just Visiting This Planet: Merlin Answers More Questions about Everything under the Sun, Moon and Stars’, here: https://amzn.to/3Wxvsbq The Diary Of A CEO: ◼️Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼️Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼️The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼️The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb ◼️Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼️Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Shopify - https://shopify.com/bartlett KetoneIQ - Visit https://ketone.com/STEVEN for 30% off your subscription order

## Transcript

[0:00] Service find that roughly 80% of Gen Z believe in astrology and need to allow to influence major life decisions
[0:05] But what would be sad is if that number got to 100% then this civilization just goes back to the cave where everything that happened in the natural world
[0:14] was created by forces beyond our knowledge and understanding
[0:17] So if you want to think you're not in control of your fate because the Sunland and planets are it's a free country
[0:22] But I'm creating meaning in my life because I can control that
[0:26] But is that anything that the universe does to influence us?
[0:30] Yes, really?
[0:31] Yeah, and I'll tell you how.
[0:32] Ready?
[0:33] Neil DeGrasse Tyson is one of the most recognizable voices in modern science
[0:37] who turns the mysteries of the universe into simple truths
[0:40] and simple truths into life lessons
[0:42] As a scientist it's disturbing how easily people divide each other
[0:46] based on skin color religion with food you eat
[0:48] What language they speak and then they find some other philosophy that differs and then they go to war
[0:52] But when I step back with a cosmic perspective you realize how ridiculous it is
[0:56] Give me the cosmic perspective
[0:57] Well, there's nothing that we can put on the table that can rival the measurements of the universe
[1:01] and we are literally composed of stardust
[1:03] So when people think they're different they have DNA in common with all of the life forms on earth
[1:08] Like you have 20% identical genes who are banana
[1:11] Excuse me
[1:13] Okay, we all do not just you
[1:14] And that's not all
[1:15] There are molecules that went in and out of your lungs that are in China being breathed by people
[1:19] And go further back, Jesus in hell
[1:21] So how's that the oneness with others?
[1:23] That can't be true
[1:24] And that's the next problem
[1:25] People value what they think is true
[1:28] More than what is true
[1:30] That's a recipe for the unraveling of civilization
[1:32] No, but as a scientist, show me the DNA
[1:35] And someone that knows so much about the universe and objective truth
[1:38] I've got a lot of questions
[1:39] So what do you think is the probability of me getting to another planet in my lifetime
[1:43] And then could you make the case now that the universe is simulated by some sort of advanced life form
[1:47] And also did humans evolve at some point to believe
[1:50] And do you think you would be happier if you believed in God?
[1:52] Oh, so you're going to spice this up a bit
[1:55] Okay, so
[1:58] Just give me 30 seconds of your time
[2:00] Two things I wanted to say
[2:01] The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show
[2:05] Week after week means the world to all of us
[2:07] And this really is a dream that we absolutely never had
[2:09] And couldn't have imagined getting to this place
[2:12] But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started
[2:16] And if you enjoy what we do here
[2:18] Please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly
[2:22] And follow us on this app
[2:24] Here's a promise I'm going to make to you
[2:25] I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can
[2:30] Now and into the future
[2:31] We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to
[2:33] And we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show
[2:38] Thank you
[2:40] I've been watching a lot of videos of yours, I think
[2:44] Because I've reached the stage in my life where
[2:46] I've become really existentially curious
[2:49] I think we all do at some point
[2:52] And especially the more you've lived
[2:55] The more it all sort of
[2:57] You ask, was it all mean as well come together
[3:01] What will it mean to me in five years, ten years
[3:04] I don't know if you're old enough to think about your mortality
[3:10] But that's a thing
[3:11] When you have fewer years left than the years you've lived
[3:14] And and you can
[3:17] I think the way they say it is there's
[3:20] You can have a good expectation to live as long as your parents did
[3:24] I lost both of them in the last five years
[3:26] So so that's my horizon
[3:31] And the fact that we die
[3:34] has a capacity to bring focus into the remaining time you're alive
[3:42] Because think about it, if knowing you're going to die
[3:46] brings focus and purpose and resolve and action
[3:54] Then if you live forever, what's your hurry
[3:58] For me knowing I'm going to die
[4:00] And I
[4:01] Gives meaning
[4:03] To my remaining life
[4:05] Whereas if I'm never going to die
[4:07] Then mathematically that would mean
[4:09] I'd lead a life of no meaning at all
[4:11] Because there's no way to focus
[4:14] An infinity amount of time into anything
[4:16] And have it be meaningful
[4:18] So I'm taking mortality as a very serious force
[4:22] Operating on happiness, productivity
[4:26] Can you do something for the world
[4:29] And on my tombstone
[4:32] What I want to say
[4:34] What I want it to say is a quote from Horace Mann
[4:36] Be ashamed to die
[4:38] Until you have won some victory for humanity
[4:42] I want to have made a difference in the world
[4:44] I want the world to have been better off because I lived in it
[4:48] Is that too much to ask of any of us?
[4:50] Really?
[4:51] We're all capable of good deeds
[4:53] So
[4:55] If the world is better off
[4:57] I played my part
[5:01] As a citizen of planet earth
[5:03] And this sort of dovetails into this new book that you've written
[5:07] I call it a new book but it's really a revision of a
[5:10] Very successful book that I think the first copy was published in 1998
[5:14] Called just visiting the planet further scientific adventures of Merlin
[5:18] From
[5:19] Amnesia
[5:20] Amnesia
[5:21] Yeah
[5:23] When I think about these bigger questions about the universe
[5:25] Meaning purpose death why am I here
[5:28] Religion all these things
[5:30] So often I think about them through the context and information that I find in your work
[5:35] Because when I think of like the world being so big
[5:38] As you talk about in this book and so infinite and all these stars
[5:42] I feel meaningless
[5:44] And a nice way sometimes
[5:46] I feel like the shit that I
[5:48] Worry about no longer matters
[5:49] But then when you talk about
[5:51] You feel meaningless in a happy way
[5:52] Yeah
[5:53] I feel like the things that cause me
[5:56] Suffering don't matter as much as I thought they did
[5:58] And then you talked about shortening time by realizing that you're going to live for 90 years or 80 years
[6:04] Creating great amounts of meaning
[6:07] And it feels somewhat like I don't know
[6:09] Yes the universe is huge
[6:11] In size
[6:13] Age
[6:14] In
[6:15] Contents
[6:17] There's nothing we can put on the table that can rival
[6:21] Those measurements that we make of the universe
[6:24] However
[6:25] How big
[6:26] How well
[6:28] There's the light from the most distant galaxies has been traveling for nearly 14 billion years
[6:35] 10 billion years more than earth has even existed
[6:40] If you want to get a sense of that
[6:42] And so
[6:45] But think about it a whole other way
[6:48] That
[6:49] If you look at the ingredients of life
[6:53] Not just human life but life on earth and you can rank the elements
[6:57] What's the number one element in life
[7:00] We could mention the human body
[7:01] Number one element is hydrogen
[7:04] That's contained in the H2O
[7:06] Of the water content of your body
[7:09] Which depending on how chubby you are
[7:12] Anywhere from a half to three quarters of your body weight is water
[7:16] And
[7:17] All right
[7:18] What's the next most abundant element in your body?
[7:22] It's oxygen
[7:23] Attached to the water
[7:25] Okay H2O and both the H and the O appear in many many other molecules in our body
[7:31] In the DNA and in your muscle tissue all of this
[7:34] And in the blood
[7:36] Okay, what's third
[7:38] Carbon
[7:39] Which you would have thought had to be somewhere in the list because you know where carbon-based life
[7:44] Fourth is nitrogen
[7:47] Okay
[7:48] Fifth I'll put them all together and just say other okay
[7:51] So that's the sequence of elements
[7:53] And now you say
[7:55] What are the sequence of elements in the universe?
[7:57] The number one is hydrogen
[7:59] The number two is helium
[8:01] But that's chemically inert you might remember from high school chemistry
[8:04] You can't do anything with it anyway helium
[8:07] Next in the universe oxygen
[8:09] Next carbon
[8:10] Next nitrogen
[8:12] Next
[8:14] Other okay, so we are one for one
[8:17] Matched to the ingredients of the universe and
[8:22] One of the gifts of 20th century astrophysics is
[8:27] Gifts to civilization is where those ingredients came from
[8:32] We trace those ingredients
[8:35] The hydrogen to the big bang itself
[8:38] And all these heavier elements to stars that manufacture those elements
[8:42] In their core and the crucible that is their core
[8:45] They lived out their lives
[8:47] They exploded scattered that enrichment into gas clouds
[8:50] So that the next generation of stars
[8:53] Would have planets
[8:55] And on at least one of them
[8:57] Have life as we know it
[9:00] Life on earth
[9:01] So that
[9:04] We you can think of us not just figuratively
[9:08] But literally composed of stardust
[9:13] And so so that it's not that we are alive in the universe. Yes, that's true
[9:18] But the universe is alive within us
[9:22] So we're special
[9:24] Because we're the same as the universe
[9:28] Often when people think they're special I want to be different from it. No
[9:32] We're same because we have human DNA on an earth
[9:37] Where we have DNA in common with all other animals
[9:40] All other life forms on earth
[9:43] Do you realize we we
[9:45] And mushrooms have more in common with each other
[9:50] Then either we or mushrooms have with green plants
[9:54] The common ancestor between fungus and animals split later in the tree of life
[10:00] Then it's common ancestor split with green plants
[10:04] You you have 20% identical genes to a banana
[10:09] Excuse me
[10:11] We all do not just you
[10:15] So when you consider all of this
[10:21] It's it's not just that we're alive in the universe
[10:26] The universe is alive within us
[10:28] And that that discovery
[10:32] Borders on the spiritual yeah, and it's a scientific result
[10:36] So when I look up at night
[10:38] I never feel small
[10:40] I feel large
[10:42] I feel as large as the universe itself because that's where we came from
[10:47] We're participant in a great unfolding story of cosmic evolution
[10:54] The minute you said that I thought of all these Eastern traditions and religions that say we are one
[11:00] And from a scientific perspective
[11:03] As you say we very much are one
[11:06] Yeah, it's what's interesting is
[11:09] One of my deep concerns about the world is many
[11:12] Philosophies or religions that say we are one
[11:15] They find some other philosophy that differs and then they go to war
[11:18] Yeah, I mean to laugh at that, but it's we're not good at
[11:23] Feeling oneness with everyone
[11:26] It's easy to feel oneness with our tribe
[11:29] Our tribe could be skin color religion who you sleep with who you don't sleep with what food you eat
[11:34] What rituals you perform and so those
[11:38] People choose sides based on so many factors
[11:44] that
[11:46] It's actually to me just as a scientist it's disturbing
[11:50] How easily and quickly we will divide each other
[11:55] Without and make that the reason for how you interact
[11:59] Rather than see what we have in common and make that the reason for why we would come together
[12:04] This has been really front of mind for me for the last 24 hours
[12:07] There's been a lot of things that have happened in the news that have
[12:10] thrown the conversation around division to the very front of my mind and that you know in the UK
[12:14] We've got all these people that are marching next week. I believe
[12:18] Through London because of you know various political things and I was saying to my friends last night
[12:22] I said I think actually that the root cause isn't this or that it's the division itself
[12:28] And it's yeah, you can over analyze I mean if you look deeper than whatever people are saying is the reason they
[12:34] Are marching or arguing
[12:36] If you just you know park the curtains and unpack it all at the bottom of that is
[12:43] There's a tribe here and a tribe here and they think this way and they think that way and
[12:49] Never the twang meet
[12:51] Unless we rethink how we interact with one another it's it's I mean think about it
[12:59] You know with the race
[13:03] The race friction that existed
[13:06] Around the world, but especially in
[13:09] colonial
[13:10] Europe and the slave trade and all of this and
[13:14] And okay, that's not good
[13:17] it's bad
[13:19] And
[13:21] All right, but then you look at world war one and world war two
[13:25] That's white people fighting white people
[13:27] slaughtering them in great numbers
[13:29] So you can divide by skin color
[13:31] But apparently people find plenty of reasons to divide in conquer to divide and kill to divide in a press
[13:39] and
[13:41] And skin colors one in a long list of all the reasons people have given
[13:45] To religious wars to worshiping the different god where you're working the god differently
[13:51] These are human beings and you know, I wrote a whole book one. I think one of those books and you're stash there that one
[13:57] Yet cosmic perspectives on civilization one in your left hand there
[14:03] That one is
[14:04] Is what conflict in the world looks like
[14:08] When you are scientifically literate
[14:11] And you have a dose of cosmic perspective on top of it. Give me the cosmic perspective please
[14:17] It's
[14:19] You're fighting over that line in the sand
[14:23] When I'm out here at the moon looking at earth
[14:26] This fragile ecosystem
[14:28] Do you realize earth's atmosphere is to earth
[14:31] What the skin of an apple is to an apple in terms of thickness
[14:36] So
[14:37] I see people trashing the planet fighting one another
[14:42] Again, just based on who's on what side of the line in the sand or who they worship who they don't worship or what their skin color is or where they were born
[14:48] What language they speak what accent they have
[14:51] And I step back and from orbit
[14:53] It's
[14:56] Ocean land
[14:59] clouds
[15:01] From the moon there's earth suspended there in space
[15:07] I almost don't want to zoom in on it
[15:10] Because people value what they think is true
[15:16] more than what
[15:19] Is true their objective truth out there
[15:21] But it's almost as though people
[15:27] Fight and argue more vehemently the less evidence there is to support what it is they think is true
[15:34] There's an old saying if an argument lasts more than five minutes then both sides are wrong
[15:42] This it's true by 80 90% of the time, but it's something definitely something to think about
[15:48] How have your spiritual and religious beliefs evolved throughout the course of your career based on all that you've come to know about the
[15:54] Objective nature of the universe has there been an evolution
[15:58] It depends when you mean by evolution as raised Catholic yeah, but we were raised basically in a secular household
[16:05] Even though we would go to church every weekend
[16:07] What I mean by that is we come home at no time do either of my parents say don't do that Jesus is watching
[16:14] You keep that up you'll go to hell do this because it'll please God
[16:18] Ever was there such a conversation as that in the household
[16:23] So the household was driven by
[16:27] Objective truths or or life experience as would be brought from elders to a next generation
[16:33] Something that was more common in that generation than in the current generation because now elders don't know anything about anything
[16:40] You know your kid comes up to you say mommy daddy. I want to be a
[16:44] YouTube influencer and you're saying what?
[16:47] Go back to school. No, and then they become a YouTube influence and they out earn you
[16:51] So this the the divide is greater than ever before between one generation of the next for sure
[16:57] but by the time I turned eight
[17:00] I found the religious teachings less and less convincing
[17:04] And so by the time I was nine when I discovered the universe
[17:08] Or really the universe discovered me a first visit to my local planetarium
[17:13] So yeah, I wouldn't call it an evolution, but I will say this you didn't ask this but it relates
[17:20] Before I was more recognized, you know, you'd be on an airplane. What do you do? What do you do? Okay?
[17:26] They find out I'd do astrophysics then outcome the questions
[17:29] Okay, well tell me about black holes relativity the big bang
[17:33] Aliens, okay, and would always land on God and I used to give pretty straight
[17:43] Unforgiving answers to that question to that inquiry
[17:46] But then I thought that's not fair
[17:48] They're people whose lives pivot I'm around their religious beliefs and their spirituality
[17:53] And just because I've been discounting it since I was eight
[17:57] I shouldn't use that as a force
[18:02] Against them. I should at least
[18:06] Understand where they're coming from
[18:08] so I systematically
[18:10] acquired religious books
[18:13] Of all kinds so I have the Torah I have multiple copies of the Quran Joseph Smith's account that led to the Mormons. I have
[18:22] multiple
[18:25] Bits of literature from Jehovah's Witnesses because they'll come to your door when they want to hand you
[18:30] So I acquired all these books and I mostly read them
[18:34] I've skimmed all of them and read some of them with a little more intensity than others. All right
[18:41] I'm doing so that
[18:43] Enable me empowered me to have more meaningful conversations with people who were religious
[18:51] Much more meaningful and more informed
[18:54] That's the key
[18:55] I don't want to speak about a religion of unless I know as much as I can about it
[18:59] As an academic that should be what
[19:02] Would be true of any subject
[19:04] Your an academic you care what's true
[19:06] Not what you think is true what is true or what people think
[19:09] all right and
[19:11] There's no doubt that religion has been one of the greatest forces operating on civilization
[19:17] Ever since civilization
[19:19] When you look at as a source of people's behavior what they eat like I said who they sleep with where they sleep
[19:26] Where they worship who they worship all around the world from animistic native peoples where there's a spirit energy and viewed in the in the mountain and the
[19:36] Brook and the wind to
[19:41] The monotheistic religions to the polytheistic religions
[19:45] That we don't call them that to put distance between us, but the Greek gods were it was their religion
[19:52] We call it mythology
[19:54] It was their religion the Greek gods the Roman gods. So I'm
[19:59] I'm conversational in all of this so that when someone says how do I feel? What do I think I can do that without
[20:08] just
[20:09] Being obnoxious
[20:12] And so and it's some have a meaningful conversation. I haven't done that you haven't no I haven't I haven't
[20:18] I've been it's such a good idea to do that
[20:20] But she's someone in my position that does a lot of talking with people and asking questions
[20:24] But my the first thing that sprung to mind was there's actually two questions. It's one point the first was
[20:29] How did that change you
[20:32] Reading all those books outside of you being able to relate with those well being able to talk to them in a different way
[20:37] And the second question because I've watched cosmos I've watched it several times
[20:41] I it's one of my me and my partners favorite things to watch is you you
[20:45] Going from the very beginnings of times through the universe and to where we are
[20:48] Got to love that calendar too. Oh my god. My favorite thing. I tried and persuade everybody to watch that
[20:53] My question was about because I watched that and I watched um how the universe has evolved over time
[20:58] Or at least they're understanding of it and how it came to be is did humans
[21:03] Evolve at some point to believe are we meant to believe? Well
[21:08] So the best way to ask that is let's go back to the earliest humans we have fossil records of and we can go back to
[21:16] Neanderthal for example
[21:18] Neanderthal is is a branch
[21:21] Uh, hominids that went extinct basically. There's some crossbreeding and there's Neanderthal DNA
[21:28] in
[21:29] Many humans today, but as a as a branch of the hominids they they went extinct. So the Neanderthal then there's chromagnon
[21:39] we're you know, homosapiens
[21:41] coming after chromagnan and
[21:45] So when you look at
[21:47] burial grounds
[21:49] The Neanderthal bury their dead with things
[21:53] With parts of their life of the person who died
[21:57] Now, why would you do that unless you had some belief
[22:03] That there was something more to come for that person
[22:07] I mean that probably the people who took it to the limit were the Egyptians
[22:12] All right for the Egyptian royalty
[22:14] I mean they bury you with all kinds of stuff
[22:18] And in fact in Greece
[22:20] I read this it's not that I researched it and I'm not a scholar in this but that
[22:26] When they buried you they put a coin
[22:29] In your mouth or in your hand somewhere on your body
[22:31] So that when you got into Hades
[22:34] You can tip the ferry boat driver
[22:37] To cross the river sticks to get into Hades
[22:40] You might even say that's the beginning of what it was to be human when people started thinking that way about dying
[22:48] I mean might even invert the question and say
[22:52] It's not
[22:53] When did we start it's
[22:56] we existed
[22:58] In all the ways we know our self know what ourselves to be when that ritual came upon
[23:05] Our ancestors and the survival benefit in believing I don't know really yeah, I don't know
[23:14] We're pretty sure there's a survival benefit of groupthink and
[23:22] Religion is groupthink if there ever was it was we all believe this
[23:28] In this way and we will behave in that way on those occasions
[23:33] And you will not deviate from it and part of that
[23:37] Package of beliefs includes statements about the afterlife and how you should behave in this life
[23:44] Otherwise, you don't go to heaven you go to hell
[23:47] And I don't think Judaism has a hell but you you you're not as rewarded as you'd otherwise be
[23:53] Now that forms a a corpus of beliefs that can be highly binding
[23:59] of the peoples and
[24:01] And
[24:02] Especially if some other peoples come up and they do other things and you don't understand it
[24:06] You don't know what it is and they're they're a threat
[24:09] And so you keep them out
[24:12] You you do whatever you can to preserve your traditions relative to theirs ultimately the worst
[24:18] That in its worst manifestation is all our war
[24:22] We just kill people you don't believe the way you do so
[24:26] so maybe
[24:28] Religion is kind of what defined humans in the fossil record
[24:34] I mean, I like I said that's an interesting inversion of that question
[24:37] Not when the humans begin being religious
[24:40] You define
[24:42] Who we are as humans as when religion showed up in the in the burial grounds of
[24:49] Cave men you just talked about as being bound there by certain shared beliefs and ideas
[24:54] And I think it I think ritual is one of the strongest binding forces of society
[24:58] There we have
[25:00] And I think that people are maybe unbinding you can if you look at the narrative in science
[25:05] It's about be your own boss standing your into feet more people are lonely living alone
[25:10] Having less kids are working freelance and remotely so it feels like in a weird way we're becoming more
[25:17] independent and there's
[25:20] Somewhat of a cost to that and actually my friends that are struggling the most in their lives are those that have the least dependence
[25:26] On a village is it so I always wonder if people we need to ladder up to the universe. I
[25:31] Me my family maybe my village maybe my country the planet the universe
[25:39] Metaverse yeah, and like good the multiverse yeah, so let me just react to that
[25:44] They have been studies about the psychological effects of this kind of life basically the the social media
[25:52] Too early in one's life
[25:55] Forced that operates, but I
[25:58] And so I don't know I don't want to be the person who says in my day
[26:02] We did it right and you you youngins don't know what you're doing and you're all good. I mean
[26:07] I've seen the films of people of officials smashing pinball machines with sludge hammers saying it will be the death of the next generation
[26:16] Because it's they're not studying there to they're it's gambling day
[26:21] I've seen you see people burning rock and roll records
[26:25] You know you've seen we've seen this and
[26:29] I'm I don't want to be that guy. I'd rather be the person that says
[26:35] They're going to create a whole other reality
[26:38] That was not my reality growing up and I don't know that I can or should value judge that
[26:45] When they come up in the ranks, they'll be mature adults. They'll figure out
[26:49] What the rhythms are of that world and I will say however that if you go far enough back no one ever traveled anywhere
[26:58] You you spend your whole life not going more than 30 miles from your hometown like two a couple hundred years back
[27:03] So now people do actually communicate
[27:08] With countless thousands of people around the world
[27:12] So that's it's different. I'm again, I'm not value judging it, but it's different and
[27:18] You're exposed to different ideas. It may be it tribalizes you more or maybe it softens you it has the power to do both
[27:26] What concerns me
[27:28] It's because when I post to social media. I've learned the art of not expressing an opinion
[27:33] Because I don't care what your opinion is
[27:36] I don't care that you have my opinion
[27:39] What I care about as an educator and as especially as a scientist is that your opinion is based
[27:45] Unobjective reality objective truth
[27:49] If you have an opinion where the foundation of it is what do you what what then you're just floating there's no
[27:55] And then if you rise to power of
[27:58] Laws and legislation and then you shape a society based on what you think is true or want to be true rather than what is objectively true
[28:06] That's a recipe for the unraveling of civilization as we know it
[28:10] so
[28:12] I this loneliness bit. I don't know how to comment on that. I don't have the expertise
[28:18] But I do know that I don't want to be the person on the rocking chair
[28:22] Get off my lawn
[28:27] And I guess I've been trying to figure out if we if I need to make try and make sure my life ladders upwards
[28:32] Oh, let me get back to that. So it may be that the most important role of church
[28:39] Wasn't to give a specific recipe for how
[28:44] You prayer again who you pray to or when you maybe that's maybe that wasn't as great as value
[28:50] Maybe it's greatest value was the community that it created
[28:55] Everyone comes together and roll in one room at the same time
[29:01] That's not happening today like you said, but there's a people are less religious today than ever before
[29:07] There are many people who were once religious would today statistically, but today say they're spiritual
[29:13] Which means they're separated from the rules and regulations that
[29:17] that typically
[29:20] Dictate how you behave within a religion, but the fact is you're talking about going upwards
[29:25] So you have your your city your community your neighbors and your church your synagogue your mosque your
[29:33] your your temple whatever is the
[29:36] the place
[29:38] Where you gather with some frequency
[29:41] that
[29:42] surely has value
[29:45] Because we need each other
[29:48] I'm jealous when I you know you drive down the country road and it's a deer just walking around and I'm thinking
[29:56] You know society collapse that deer is just fine the deer was born in the woods is finding food is grown up
[30:05] Whereas I need other people to survive in this world
[30:10] I don't have a hunt. I don't have a skin game. I don't know
[30:13] You know, I'd like knowing that there's a quart of milk waiting for me on the grocery store and and you know ready to eat cereals that's
[30:23] We have an interdependence as never before
[30:27] And how do we maintain that without
[30:29] scattering to the winds
[30:32] You said you lost both your parents in the last five years. Yeah
[30:36] As someone that knows so much about the universe and objective truth and reality
[30:40] How do you how do you contend with grief in that scenario, but also how does that does that change you in any way
[30:46] It did a little bit not as much as I thought it might have
[30:50] Uh, my father is 89 when he died those five years ago. My mother was
[30:54] Two days shy of her 95th birthday
[30:57] So that's why so I'm putting myself like right between them in my life expectancy. I think I'll get to 92
[31:03] It's the average of those two, you know, so
[31:08] When you die at that age
[31:11] It's sad, but it's not tragic
[31:14] So I that's an important distinction for me
[31:17] tragic life is a life that could have been lived but through
[31:20] act of
[31:22] war or negligence or
[31:25] or
[31:26] negligence of the personal or of others the life is cut short
[31:31] Then that's
[31:33] tragic
[31:35] It's a life not fully lived, but if you live the full life
[31:39] They were married 50 something years
[31:42] Uh
[31:44] It's sad but it's not tragic. In fact, it's not even sad. It's something to celebrate
[31:50] And
[31:51] So I miss them
[31:53] I miss them more than I thought I would
[31:56] Because they carried quite a bit of wisdom with them. My father was active in the civil rights movement my mother
[32:02] Was a gerontologist so they both cared very deeply about the plight of others
[32:07] And I'm their son the astrophysicist, but so I go off with my head in the sky
[32:12] But I was anchored
[32:14] Into the human condition and
[32:17] anchored to think about it to care about it and
[32:21] When I
[32:23] Encounter
[32:25] Things in modern life
[32:28] Is I wonder what my mother would say about that. I wonder what insights my father and they're not there
[32:33] I don't have them for that. So the way it's changed me is it is put a greater
[32:38] expectation
[32:40] of me on myself
[32:43] To make sure I have wisdom that I can share with my kids my two kids
[32:49] The kind of wisdom that I glean from my parents
[32:52] So that again, this is not wisdom of what
[32:56] Car to buy or what job to have because they have other values
[33:00] But they have other expectations of society, but in terms of
[33:07] Human to human interaction in terms of love
[33:11] terms of
[33:12] Challenges in life and overcoming them
[33:15] Some of those are timeless
[33:17] Some of those are you know how to how to navigate difficult people
[33:22] how to
[33:23] appreciate
[33:24] Nature
[33:26] So you don't take it for granted
[33:29] One of the things I liked about Joyce Kilmer's poem
[33:33] On the tree
[33:36] It's about a tree and we've all seen trees
[33:40] So why is this matter because it takes an artist
[33:46] A poet a writer a sculptor a painter
[33:49] For me the artist job
[33:53] Is to encourage us stimulate us
[33:58] To pay attention to things we might otherwise take for granted
[34:03] Because so much of life
[34:06] Is what you might just walk by
[34:09] And not even give it any thought
[34:12] And so I don't walk by trees without thinking something about that poem. What is the poem?
[34:19] I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree
[34:24] A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowering breast
[34:31] A tree that looks at God whole day
[34:34] And lifts her leafy arms to pray
[34:37] A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robin's in her hair
[34:43] Upon whose bosom snow has lain
[34:47] Who ultimately lives with rain
[34:51] poems are made by fools like me
[34:55] But only God can make a tree
[34:58] I spend so long these days thinking and talking to people about what all of this means
[35:02] And I've got more and more, I saw you talking about the simulation theory once or twice
[35:07] And I started to fall into that whole of thinking
[35:10] Oh yes, it's, no, you got to, you know, step outside every now and then and, you know, smell the roses
[35:19] I've got more and more, I saw you talking about the simulation theory once or twice
[35:23] Every now and then and, you know, smell the roses
[35:27] But you said you wouldn't be surprised if people found out the universe is simulated by some sort of advanced life form
[35:33] Yeah, given what we can now compute, throw in content computing on top of that
[35:40] We don't have this power yet, but to make a world in our computer where the characters that in that world believe they have free will
[35:48] And then they conduct themselves and then they invent computers and then they make a world inside of their computer
[35:54] And where their characters think they have free will and then they so that then it's that simulated universes all the way down and
[36:03] Close your eyes and throw a dart
[36:06] Which are these you're gonna get the first universe that invented the
[36:09] Simulating universe or the zillion ones that followed the darts likely to hit one of the others
[36:16] But my my escape hatch from that is
[36:20] Since we do not yet know or have the power to make a perfectly simulated world
[36:28] It means we are either the first universe that's real that hasn't created one yet
[36:35] Or with a last universe
[36:37] That hasn't evolved yet to have created one of its own because all the middles have the power to create one
[36:44] So that takes it, you know
[36:46] A zillion to one against us to maybe 50-50. Oh interesting. Yeah, so I'm a little I'm a little more comfortable that way
[36:56] Comfortable yeah, I sleep a little better at night
[36:59] But I guess it wouldn't matter anyway if it actually it wouldn't matter if we're completely simulated
[37:03] What do you care you living your life? You know, we don't want to believe that there are puppet strings on us
[37:11] I'm part of me thinks that though
[37:16] You know just when earth is kind of everything on earth is kind of stable
[37:20] Oh, COVID shows up. Oh, so this this is the programmer saying you know the earth is too boring now
[37:26] We got to spice it up a bit. They throw in a pandemic
[37:30] Okay, once in a century pandemic
[37:33] Now that now we're entertaining for them. What do we do who gets vaccinated who doesn't who's gonna fight who dies who lives
[37:40] Okay, so then we kind of get through that we get the vaccine
[37:43] Okay, we're just coming down off of that and they said oh
[37:49] Let's make a billionaire real estate developer from New York City the most powerful person in the world
[37:54] That's stir the pot again and so now the whole other set of pot stirring that's going on so that's kind of consistent
[38:02] with a
[38:05] Snot knows alien
[38:08] Kid and the parents basement programming our existence
[38:13] That's what I would do. I would throw in
[38:15] There's a game sim sim city. Yeah, I played that. That's all damn sim city. So you are mayor of this city and
[38:24] people can vote you out of office
[38:27] So you have to do things that make them happy and there's an opinion poll that's there and if you spend too much money here
[38:33] You're not spending money on the schools that's bad, but then this crime goes up and you're realizing oh my gosh
[38:38] And even this simple simulation so many interdependent
[38:42] phenomenon are taking place then
[38:46] Then you things that happen then Godzilla steps through and plows through the city
[38:52] Okay, now Godzilla is not real
[38:54] But
[38:55] It kind of is because that would be a disaster that is in a flood as it fires
[39:01] It's a thing that nobody saw coming
[39:04] Okay, we are recording this interview
[39:08] On September 11th. I live four blocks from ground zero
[39:12] That's Godzilla walking through the city
[39:15] Well, how do you respond to that? What's you know, you didn't know that was gonna happen the day before
[39:20] so
[39:22] Realizing that in this game it's only interesting to play
[39:26] When disastrous things happen not too many in a row because you have to be able to recover
[39:32] So when I look at our world
[39:33] I'm thinking the best argument I have for being in a simulation is how often some big disaster takes place
[39:40] When it was the first
[39:42] World War and then after that the peace on pandemic
[39:46] Okay, the 1918 flu pandemic and then we get out of that oh
[39:51] No second world war
[39:54] Okay, we get out of that it's a cold war
[39:58] nuclear holocaust okay, so that's my
[40:02] That's me looking over the shoulder of the programmer
[40:07] Oh god, I think I prefer the world where I feel like I have free will and there's not
[40:13] Doesn't make a difference if you believe you have free will even if you don't know because I'll never know and you know
[40:19] The fun the fun answer to that
[40:22] Ask me say
[40:25] Do you have free will ask me that do you have do we have free will do you have free will
[40:30] What choice do I have
[40:36] Well if you don't have free will then you don't even have an option to say you don't so I so you just live life just live your life
[40:44] So that the world is better off for you having lived in it
[40:48] And what does that mean for you like it means people are better off the
[40:53] institutions are better off
[40:55] people are happier
[40:58] healthier
[41:00] wealthier
[41:02] safer
[41:04] better fed
[41:07] That rationality matters in politics and lawmaking and
[41:14] That helps to will help to ensure
[41:16] Stability of anything you build going forward
[41:20] But yeah, that's all I mean it's not I's not complicated and you were talking about meaning before
[41:26] I stopped looking for meaning decades ago
[41:29] Because I realized
[41:31] I we any of us has the power to make meaning in life
[41:38] If you're gonna look for meaning are you looking under a rock behind a tree
[41:42] What it
[41:43] It says though meaning is sitting there waiting for you to find it. Oh, I found meaning there. It is now my life is complete
[41:50] That feels so
[41:53] So powerless
[41:56] on your own destiny
[41:59] whereas
[42:01] I make meaning I want to learn something today that I didn't know yesterday. I want to lessen the suffering of someone today
[42:10] Compared with however that person was living yesterday. I want to
[42:17] I want to use what I learn
[42:20] to
[42:22] Well up within me and manifest as wisdom
[42:26] Because information is not really useful until it becomes knowledge
[42:31] And the knowledge is good you can show off if you have a lot of knowledge. That's what these games shows do
[42:36] but in the end
[42:38] The best use of knowledge is when it becomes wisdom
[42:44] And wisdom
[42:46] People say I don't like getting older. I want to be younger. I don't want to be young again
[42:49] Most 30 I was an idiot even when I was 30. I thought I was brilliant right so
[42:57] Don't get older
[42:59] Unless you have wisdom to show for it
[43:03] It's when you don't have something to show for your age you want to be younger
[43:08] You're just getting old with nothing to show for it
[43:11] But I continue to learn things every day
[43:14] Passively and actively
[43:16] Passively as you just notice
[43:18] You know open your eyes sometimes and see what's happening
[43:22] Where things are headed what they're doing
[43:25] You learn not all things you learn are good and if they're bad or need adjustment or need help
[43:32] Do something about it if you can
[43:34] So that's how I derive meaning
[43:37] Hence my tombstone be ashamed to die unless you've
[43:40] scored some victory for humanity. There's the meaning for you
[43:44] There's a whole class of billionaires that are trying to live forever now
[43:47] And I think we are on the verge of being able to extend life
[43:50] Potentially indefinitely. Yeah, we're looking for the date
[43:53] It's called the escape velocity. You know about that phrase it exists in astrophysics of course
[43:59] But
[44:00] Escape velocity for earth for example is seven miles per second
[44:03] so
[44:05] Escape velocity in astrophysics is the speed
[44:08] That you launch something so that it never comes back no matter how hard the gravity tries
[44:14] Okay, so every object has an escape velocity. The escape velocity in aging is
[44:20] The idea is
[44:23] There is a generation yet to be born but in the very near future
[44:29] Who
[44:31] Will not not only live longer than the previous generation
[44:36] So so here's a cleaner way to say this
[44:41] every year
[44:44] You can expect to live one month longer
[44:47] Because knowledge about human physiology has gotten better. Okay. Okay. Just think about it that way
[44:52] And so we know what to eat but not to eat how to exercise and not over exercise how to maintain your health
[44:59] Well your health and physiology all right
[45:02] There will come a day
[45:04] where
[45:06] Every year that you're alive
[45:08] Medicine has figured out a way for you to live an extra year
[45:14] That's the escape velocity
[45:16] So every year you live another year
[45:20] And after that it could be every year you live two years
[45:23] So that's the escape velocity
[45:25] So it's not just everybody lives forever today. It sort of works its way into the population
[45:30] and
[45:32] Yeah, I don't I don't want to live forever. I don't
[45:38] Take me off this earth
[45:42] Provided I mean I want I still have more to give more books to write that in my judgment would make the world better
[45:49] Than it currently is
[45:52] So I don't want to die before I
[45:55] Get as much of that done as I can but you scared of death
[45:59] No
[46:01] Although that's easy to say because I'm not at death's door
[46:05] and I had someone
[46:08] Rationalized with me which is they made a potent argument. It's I can say now with another
[46:15] 20 years life expectancy
[46:17] 15 20 years
[46:18] That I don't fear death but if I'm on my deathbed and someone says
[46:24] If I can wave my hand and you can live another year would you
[46:27] The answer is probably going to be yes and at the end of that year if they so
[46:33] I don't know if my
[46:36] Sentiments about life and death will change
[46:40] On my deathbed
[46:42] I know my mother that there's a point where she couldn't swallow and she didn't want to feed tube
[46:48] And she said my time has come
[46:50] Like that put me in in
[46:52] palliative care and then hospice and she was dead 10 days later
[46:57] So she was
[46:58] Was in charge over she they could have fed her
[47:01] With a tube
[47:03] And she would have been completely healthy for another you know five years perhaps
[47:07] but no
[47:09] She raised two kids three kids
[47:12] You know 50 year marriage happy life stable life
[47:17] and
[47:19] Yeah, I'm good with that. So the billionaires, you know that that's ego for sure
[47:24] If you live forever there are other people
[47:27] Who you're taking resources from who would come behind you that's one but two
[47:33] Uh are you still contributing to the world
[47:36] Should you give another person a chance who's in school now who might be the next genius
[47:42] That'll figure out the energy problem the poverty problem the the pollution problem the the are you figuring that out?
[47:48] No, you're in the last you're you're you're 90 years old and you're just living on your yacht
[47:54] So there's the problem there's the problem that
[47:58] The last years of your life
[48:02] Are not the most creative the most ambitious the most irreverent
[48:07] That's irreverence that where new ideas come
[48:11] You know you perhaps seems episodes of shark shark tank, you know half or more of those people is 30 and under
[48:17] They got ideas fresh ideas. Everyone else is entrenched. So if
[48:22] people
[48:23] Start living forever
[48:27] They're living forever in the part of their life that is least useful
[48:31] To the progress in advance of culture and civilization
[48:35] And so all of civilization will stagnate
[48:40] Did you think come it but in your lifetime you said you've got a 20 year life expectancy well 15 to 20
[48:45] 15 to 20 year life expectancy based on my age now and the age when they my parents died. Yeah
[48:50] But I mean you've done a lot of
[48:52] Neurological work and lay down a lot of good foundations with all these books you've written so maybe it'll be the upper end of that
[48:57] It's food for AI it was food for chat GP2
[49:01] What you make of AI? What's your what do you I love it? Yeah, I love it, but I I'm
[49:07] It's it's by the way it's been here for a while
[49:10] It really spooked people when it started writing your term paper and composing your
[49:14] Your painting and your set design all right that the whole other category of people got spooked by that
[49:20] Meanwhile AI has been harnessed and being fully used in my field and in most of the physical sciences
[49:27] It's doing work if you can do the work on and I can go to the Bahamas
[49:31] Let it do the work
[49:32] We have telescopes coming online that could not exist without the intervention of AI to access the data reduce the data
[49:39] Analyze the data make a decision about whether she go back to the thing that it just observed because that was weird
[49:44] Compare the last compared to the last time it was observed. This is the very Rubin telescope that I'm
[49:50] Literally describing now and so
[49:52] We're we're living with it. What it means is it up
[49:56] It'll have to up the game of people who say they are creative and what I mean by that is I can say chat GPT
[50:03] Take this picture of us and say chappy GPT
[50:07] A paint this scene in the style of Van Gogh
[50:12] It'll come back the colors will be just right. We'll have this swirling lines
[50:15] It'll be perfect if Van Gogh was standing. That's what Van Gogh would have painted
[50:19] If I say chat GPT paint us in the style of no artist who has ever lived
[50:25] I don't know what it's going to give us but it'll probably suck, okay? And so true creativity
[50:31] is
[50:33] Is not
[50:34] Aping what has happened before and making adjustments
[50:38] Chook creativity. Yes, you always build on others. I'm not in denial of that, but chook creativity takes leaps
[50:46] That most people don't even know can be taking
[50:51] And so the artist so that gap I think is what check what what AI in the arts world is gonna force
[50:59] Created people to reach more
[51:03] otherwise you replaced by
[51:06] You replaced by a
[51:08] simple request
[51:10] In the in the input line of a large language model or an urban art. I was just wondering then if I watch Cosmos in
[51:19] 30 40 years time let's say a hundred years time
[51:22] I was wondering if this is the moment where humans and computers in the story of humanity
[51:29] Become one and intertwine if you think about things like neural ink which Elon's working on to me
[51:33] When he first made that company all of the narrative that he put out there was about us being able to interface with AI
[51:38] So we'd need like a brain chip computer interface
[51:40] More recently it's been about people that are paraplegic and disabled and helping blind people see
[51:45] But I think that's a socially acceptable way to advance the technology
[51:49] But in his early work he said
[51:51] Superintelligence is gonna arrive and we're gonna need a way to basically keep up where we have better sort of latency with
[51:58] With the technology and I'm wondering if that's like what we're seeing now. Yeah super intelligence
[52:05] You know if that happens
[52:08] Then it becomes our overlord and we become its pet
[52:14] Now that sounds pretty scary
[52:17] But don't we treat our pets better than we treat
[52:22] Other humans in the world
[52:24] Think about it
[52:25] The pet is kept warm and fed and happy and
[52:29] And would you do that for a homeless person in the street a person of your own species?
[52:34] probably not
[52:35] So if we're the pet for the superintelligence
[52:38] What about the chicken how bad could it be or you stuff chickens on me or younger and I watch my Nigerian mother chase that chicken around the garden
[52:44] Grab it pull its head off
[52:46] Wow, okay. Yeah. Oh, you worried that it's gonna do that for us
[52:49] We're gonna run around no my pets made it and snap not all the pets survive
[52:55] Uh, yeah, it depends on whether it needs us
[52:58] To be alive or dead. We have to be relevant to it in some way
[53:02] Maybe we'll be court gestures with the entertainment
[53:05] until then
[53:08] I don't know that this is some special moment
[53:10] Uh, I do a lot of reading of history and throughout history
[53:15] Most occasions, especially in the era of the industrial evolution
[53:18] People think they're living in a special moment
[53:21] So I'm not gonna be that guy who says today is special
[53:24] Because everyone has thought they were in a special moment and what do you think is the probability of me getting to another planet in my lifetime zero
[53:34] Zero
[53:35] Really yeah
[53:38] You want to why
[53:40] Yes, please. Yeah, it's just zero. I thought SpaceX gonna go to Mars. I have an unorthodox view on this
[53:48] So you don't have to you don't have to believe me
[53:52] You know, but
[53:54] My read of history tells me that we only do big expensive things
[53:58] If there's a geopolitical reason for it either an economic
[54:03] Reason or a defense reason
[54:06] Not just because it's the next thing to do
[54:10] And when we went to the moon
[54:13] Realize in 1961
[54:15] May 25th
[54:17] President Kennedy was the six weeks after Yuri Gagarin
[54:21] Fool around the earth in orbit and we didn't have a ship that wouldn't blow up on the launch pad that could carry humans yet
[54:29] He calls a joint session of Congress
[54:32] And says if the events of recent weeks couldn't even utter the man's name the events of recent weeks
[54:38] And I paraphrase are any indication of the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere
[54:44] Then we need to show the world the path of freedom over the path of tyranny
[54:49] So battle cry against communism the godless Russians
[54:53] Like everyone in the whole Soviet Union
[54:56] we were losing a
[54:59] technological race
[55:01] And that was the battle cry that prompted Congress to write the check. Oh later on he says
[55:07] Oh, it'll be put a man on the moon and before return him to safely earth and oh, that's so beautiful. Let's hold hand. That's so beautiful
[55:17] No one ever spent scads of money
[55:20] Just because it was a cool thing to do that has never happened ever so
[55:26] We go to the moon
[55:28] People forgetting why we went to the moon
[55:30] Say while we're on the moon at this rate will be on Mars it by 1985
[55:40] That'll be the next ambitious goal we'll take on
[55:43] No
[55:45] Because we didn't just go to the moon because that was the next thing to do
[55:49] We went to the moon to beat the Russians and when we got to the moon and we looked over our shoulder and the Russians weren't there
[55:54] We canceled the Apollo program
[55:57] 19 said we haven't been back to the moon in 53 years
[56:02] We canceled it a Apollo 18 was ready to fly. It's now in captivity in Huntsville, Alabama in a museum
[56:10] On its side is fascinating to walk the full length of it all rocket-ret flight ready parts it never flew we ended at Apollo 17
[56:19] No, we didn't go to Mars because we didn't have geopolitical reasons to do so neither economic nor
[56:26] For defense reasons historically people explored did expensive things for the glory of God and royalty
[56:36] Very expensive the pyramids the honor of royalty okay the church building cathedral building all of these activities were in the glory of
[56:48] power
[56:50] deity and royalty
[56:52] There's none of that happens today
[56:54] we're past that
[56:56] the power of kings and gods that doesn't happen nobody
[56:59] dislodges
[57:01] major resources
[57:02] capital resources of a nation
[57:05] In the interest of a god or a king anymore
[57:08] Okay, it's secular and to secular means it's money or it's war because you feel threatened
[57:14] Okay, so
[57:17] You know we're going back to the moon now
[57:19] Project Artemis
[57:20] Did you ever think to stop and ask why
[57:23] Why did we stay on the moon in 1972 when we go back in 1980 or 1990
[57:28] 2000
[57:29] 2010 oh all of a sudden let's go back to the moon wouldn't that be cool?
[57:34] Do you know when Artemis began in the late teens
[57:38] Right about when China says we're gonna put pecanauts on the moon
[57:43] You know
[57:45] Technos not yet Chinese astronaut
[57:47] Let's pack him up all right
[57:49] That's when we saw let's go back to the moon what a good idea let's do that
[57:54] Really because we because it's just a good idea because we're a little bit spooked
[58:01] by a friendly foe
[58:03] across the around the world
[58:06] might get
[58:07] The glory of that exercise and once again, it's a godless
[58:11] country
[58:13] Okay
[58:15] Communism is godless by design by construct so
[58:21] Here we are going back to the moon all right
[58:25] What motivation do we have to go to Mars other oil wells there is there you know diamond mines
[58:33] We're not going to Mars
[58:36] We're just not
[58:37] Unless
[58:39] China says they want to put military bases on Mars
[58:43] We're going to be in Mars in 10 months
[58:46] One month to design build and find the thing and nine months to get to Mars
[58:50] A geopolitical force operating
[58:52] Well, by the way, NASA doesn't have a rocket that'll get us to Mars
[58:56] They think they do but I don't really have one yet
[58:59] Time to do that and say well, did anybody have a rocket Elon says I have a rocket
[59:03] So if Elon rocket goes to Mars
[59:06] It's not because he sends it there. It's because taxpayers sent it there
[59:10] By the way, he could go there on a vanity project, but there's no business case
[59:17] He can fly to Mars team up with Jeff Bezos. They can send people to Mars
[59:22] It's not a business case and if you are an investor in his company
[59:27] You would not agree to do that
[59:29] You wouldn't but he doesn't need investors because he's very wealthy
[59:32] You could do it on his own
[59:35] Are you going to Mars as a tourist? Is that is that a business case?
[59:40] It's a trillion dollars to get to Mars first second will be a little less
[59:46] I don't see that happening a trillion dollars about that. Yeah
[59:52] If earth were a schoolroom globe
[59:56] With your fists show me where you think the moon is this is earth
[1:00:01] Take your fist and put it at the distance the moon is your fist is about the right size compared. Okay, I mean
[1:00:09] Right there. Yeah, okay, not too bad. It's 30 feet away. It's in the next room
[1:00:15] Okay, okay, 30 feet away. Okay, that's the moon
[1:00:19] Let's keep going
[1:00:21] How far away from earth did the Bezos Branson
[1:00:24] Uh
[1:00:26] Rockets go. Oh, no father the thickness of two dimes
[1:00:30] above the surface of the earth
[1:00:33] How far away is Mars
[1:00:35] It's a mile away from here. Yes from this earth. It's a mile away
[1:00:41] It's the central point the moon 30 feet away Mars a mile away. Yeah, it's a trillion dollars to Mars. Yes. How long?
[1:00:48] Nine months
[1:00:50] And you have to wait till the planets are configured so that
[1:00:54] When you travel you arrive where Mars will be when you get there
[1:01:00] And that's a minimum energy orbit if you have filling stations along the way you can just fill up with fuel and get there as fast as you want
[1:01:06] But minimum energy orbit takes about nine months and then to come back you have to wait till it
[1:01:10] It's configured again a few years later. So a round trip to Mars is three to five years
[1:01:16] Easily so there's not an economic case
[1:01:20] I'm not saying we don't know how to get to Mars. We have an SUV-sized rover there now
[1:01:24] All right, discovering potential life from a billion years ago. It's not like we don't know how to get to Mars
[1:01:29] This is not a technological statement I'm making. I'm talking about a practical statement
[1:01:34] So no
[1:01:35] My read of history tells me no
[1:01:38] I thought you were gonna also add to that that even if Elon wanted to do it as a vanity project because he makes all this money and manages to use
[1:01:43] Starling because the way to fund it whatever that the problem is Elon's gonna die
[1:01:49] He's gonna die and then you know the next couple of decades, which means the vanity element that comes from his childhood
[1:01:54] Situation where he wanted to get out there and explore the stars because he read that book
[1:01:59] Has got 30 years 40 50 years left on it. Well, that would make him want to hurry wouldn't it? Yeah
[1:02:05] Yeah, and plus he said I don't want to die on earth. I want to die on Mars
[1:02:09] Hmm
[1:02:11] I'm paraphrasing, but that's the idea
[1:02:13] So that's a goal
[1:02:14] Sure, but don't tell me it's a it's a it's a
[1:02:18] It's a business case. I can see a tourist case going into orbit and even possibly visiting the moon
[1:02:23] It's three days there three days back. That's a week's vacation that you would take and I would save up
[1:02:30] five years ten years of vacation money
[1:02:34] If that was the amount that it would take to go to the moon and for one week that would be really fun bucket list item for me
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[1:03:40] No way
[1:03:43] You know you've written this you revised this book
[1:03:46] Oh, yeah, just visiting this plant yet. I wrote a column a question and an answer column
[1:03:51] For like 10 years 15 years where people just ask me questions from the public
[1:03:56] And I had a pen name called Merlin and Merlin was friends with with Newton and Galileo and
[1:04:01] Marie Curie and all these people
[1:04:04] So if you ask Merlin dear Merlin, I don't quite understand gravity
[1:04:07] Merlin said oh Merlin had a conversation with Isaac Newton in his backyard
[1:04:11] And here's how he answers that think in the book you talk about a golf ball
[1:04:16] sized black hole would weigh more than earth and swallow it whole leaving behind something the size of a lion
[1:04:21] Yeah, it looks slightly bigger right
[1:04:24] What is uh, you've been asked this many times, but I still don't know the answer
[1:04:28] What is a black hole and how do we even know if they're real if no one's ever been to one
[1:04:33] Well, you can know things without visiting them
[1:04:35] I mean that's the methods and tools and machines of science are remarkable in their ability to learn something
[1:04:43] without actually having to see it with your eyes or hear it with your ears or to touch it with your
[1:04:48] fingers
[1:04:49] we have
[1:04:51] In fact science didn't take off until
[1:04:55] These machines became a fundamental part of how we investigated the world replacing our five senses
[1:05:01] Because there's nothing more feeble in this world than you thinking you understand reality through your five senses
[1:05:08] That that don't want to call it feeble. I would call it error prone
[1:05:12] error prone
[1:05:13] Remember I told you about escape velocity of earth. Yeah, do you remember what I the value I said it was
[1:05:19] Seven miles paid attention a minute per second that's very fast seven miles, so the adage what goes up must come down
[1:05:28] It's not true. It's true for almost anything you experience
[1:05:32] But you can launch something seven miles per second. It'll never ever come back. That's the escape velocity for earth
[1:05:39] Okay
[1:05:41] If earth had more mass and the gravity were stronger
[1:05:46] The escape velocity is higher
[1:05:48] That would make sense because there's more gravity that you have to escape
[1:05:54] Let's keep up that exercise
[1:05:56] Kram and more and more mass just keep doing that
[1:06:01] Escape velocity keeps going up eventually escape velocity hits the speed of light
[1:06:09] At that point light can't even escape
[1:06:11] Light is the fastest thing in the universe if light can't escape if you fall in you don't escape either
[1:06:16] There's no better description of a hole than that
[1:06:22] And worse yet, it's a hole in any direction you approach it
[1:06:26] Not just a hole in the street or in the floor
[1:06:30] It's a three-dimensional hole
[1:06:33] And how do we know it's there because it distorts the fabric of space and time around it
[1:06:39] We see galaxies behind
[1:06:41] concentrations of matter
[1:06:43] Black holes and the shape of the galaxy is distorted because Einstein tells us that gravity distorts the fabric of space and time
[1:06:52] That's one way we discover black holes another way is most stars in the night sky or binary and multiple star systems most of them
[1:06:59] You can't see it because you just have human vision
[1:07:03] You without a telescope you see oh my gosh there are two stars not just one
[1:07:07] If there's a pair of stars and one of them becomes a black hole
[1:07:11] And this one ages it expands and some of its material spills onto and orbits around the event horizon of the black hole
[1:07:20] This swirling material gets hotter and hotter and hotter
[1:07:25] And it radiates x-rays and ultraviolet
[1:07:29] We have x-ray and ultraviolet telescopes that see every one of these in the night sky
[1:07:35] The all black holes and it's created from an explosion
[1:07:39] There's a star that wants to explode but it has so much mass
[1:07:43] The explosion doesn't
[1:07:44] Overcome the gravity and the star collapses down on itself to make a black hole
[1:07:49] There's one way to make a black hole
[1:07:51] So our Sun when that runs it's not gonna become blue it's pretty wimpy in that department
[1:07:57] It'll still kill us but for different reasons
[1:08:00] So the mass of the object is so big that it can't actually explode because the gravitational
[1:08:06] Inwards is so strong correct that's above a certain threshold within there
[1:08:10] There's the stars that the explosion is greater than what the gravity can contain and it makes a supernova and those are the stars that spread
[1:08:18] Heavy elements across the galaxy enabling us to even exist
[1:08:24] So I'm gonna read this again a golf ball sized black hole would weigh more than earth and swallow it whole leaving behind something
[1:08:30] The size of a line. Yeah, so when black holes eat they get bigger. So a line is bigger than a golf ball
[1:08:36] But not by very much
[1:08:39] We can calculate what the size is
[1:08:41] Where would everything go? It's in there. It's compressed down inside the hole
[1:08:47] And if I was and everything near it's gonna get pulled in there as well
[1:08:50] If it comes too close right if it comes too close. Yeah, you can stay you can keep your distance black holes
[1:08:55] They're not giant sucking devices. I mean if you keep your distance
[1:08:59] You're if the sun became a black hole right now. We would still orbit it the gravity we feel at our distance is no different
[1:09:06] You say that if the sun suddenly shut off with freeze at minus
[1:09:10] 462 Fahrenheit
[1:09:12] Which is the background temperature of the universe? Yes once the stored energy ran out. Yeah, once the stored energy were around
[1:09:18] Well in this in the well, so there's the sun's energy if the sun
[1:09:22] Blotted out, but earth has energy
[1:09:26] Inside of itself as well. This is what gives us volcanoes and continental drift and all the rest of this
[1:09:32] So if you don't have a sun you want to live near a volcano
[1:09:36] Or something that is a source of energy for you and then you'll live on earth until the earth's energy
[1:09:42] Died out ideally by then you just go to another planet
[1:09:45] I mean why not how long this house our sun got left another five billion years. How would we know?
[1:09:51] It's a good question. That's a product of 20th century modern astrophysics
[1:09:56] That was then it was modern. I think of it as modern where you say what kind of star is this
[1:10:01] You look around the universe for other stars that are just like it
[1:10:04] And then you see those stars in their
[1:10:07] stages of evolution
[1:10:10] Stars being born
[1:10:11] Leaving out their lives and dying and the star changes its properties from birth to death
[1:10:18] And so you can line up what where the sun is in that chart and then plus we know how old earth is
[1:10:26] So we can directly measure the age of the earth and so
[1:10:30] There's no reason to think that earth
[1:10:34] Did not form at the same time the sun did
[1:10:36] Another really um
[1:10:38] Fascinating one was every breath you take contains molecules once inhaled by every human in history
[1:10:45] Yep
[1:10:46] That can't be true
[1:10:49] Chatchy PT it
[1:10:51] No, so here it is you ready yeah
[1:10:55] There are more molecules of air
[1:10:59] In a single breath of air
[1:11:03] Then there are breaths of air in earth's entire atmosphere
[1:11:10] So if you breathe in and then breathe out
[1:11:14] There's enough molecules that you breathe out
[1:11:18] To populate every breath that anyone will ever again take on this earth
[1:11:25] And air mixes rather quickly
[1:11:29] Okay
[1:11:30] So you have to mix it's not immediately give it some time, but you give it some time
[1:11:35] There are molecules that went in and out of your lungs that are in China being breathed by people there
[1:11:41] When enough time is elapsed I mean calculate that like it's years 10 years something like that
[1:11:46] There's tremendous mixing of air. So how's that for feeling kinship with others
[1:11:54] Same with water you drink a water there more molecules of water in a glass of water
[1:11:59] This is a mug of water then there are
[1:12:02] Mugs of water in all the world's oceans
[1:12:05] So you drink a mug of water
[1:12:08] And then it comes out of you in any one of a half dozen different ways
[1:12:12] There's enough molecules to scatter into every other mug of water in the world
[1:12:18] So someone gets a mug of water your molecules and be a plenty more plenty of molecules
[1:12:23] To go
[1:12:24] So if I do a big inhale I'm also I'm inhaling air that contains molecules that all of my living relatives
[1:12:32] Once inhale yes, and go further back Jesus inhale them
[1:12:37] Mohammed
[1:12:39] With every breath yes every breath
[1:12:41] This is the the the the oneness of it all
[1:12:45] That's why it's a beautiful thing
[1:12:47] astrophysics
[1:12:50] I wouldn't live without it
[1:12:52] Do you think it's makes us kind of
[1:12:54] Learning about the universe. Would you think it makes us more nihilistic and narcissistic?
[1:12:57] No, if you learn about it as you should you shouldn't be nihilistic. There's no force of nihilism
[1:13:03] In the knowledge wisdom and insight you get by studying the universe
[1:13:08] You you will never find marching armies led by astrophysicist to go slaughter one another
[1:13:15] We the cosmic perspective prevents that
[1:13:21] The cosmic perspective yeah
[1:13:24] By the way if you look at the chapter titles in there they're each pairs of words
[1:13:29] That we've all used and but we've argued over many of them
[1:13:33] Over our thanksgiving dinner. I don't know if there's a version of thanksgiving in the UK
[1:13:37] It's maybe just Christmas everybody gathers and the crazy uncles and aunts come in and you got to argue with them about
[1:13:44] You know and you then you you reminded why you only see them once a year
[1:13:48] Because
[1:13:50] No, there are topics in there color and race is in there law and order body and mind
[1:13:56] Meet Terrians and vegetarians life and death
[1:14:00] A lot of reflective moments in there. So this book though. It's all these topics that people fight about
[1:14:06] It's goal is to say you think that and you think that you got to look at it this way
[1:14:11] It's not
[1:14:13] Meet in the middle
[1:14:14] No, it's meet on a plane of existence above what you're arguing and you'll look down on what you're arguing and realize how ridiculous it is
[1:14:23] That's the goal of that book
[1:14:25] chapter 10 of the book says human physiology may be overrated
[1:14:29] Yeah
[1:14:31] What do you mean by that? Well
[1:14:35] You know, we'd like to think of ourselves at the top of
[1:14:38] evolutionary
[1:14:41] Properties, but it's really your mind surely but not much else
[1:14:48] You know, we
[1:14:50] It's odd because we always imagine aliens having humanoid bodies
[1:14:54] Yeah, and there's no reason for that
[1:14:57] If they come from another planet most life on earth doesn't have a humanoid body
[1:15:02] The banana doesn't have a humanoid body and you have DNA in common with it
[1:15:06] You don't have any DNA in common with an alien from another planet
[1:15:08] Yeah, it's walking around with a neck eyes nose mouth head ears shoulders arms fingers
[1:15:15] kneecaps feet
[1:15:17] Really
[1:15:18] That is that is that your best imagination that you can come up with
[1:15:22] Alien from another planet
[1:15:25] Is that is the universe
[1:15:27] Infinite I've often wondered that does it just go on forever or is there a
[1:15:31] We're not given reason to think it doesn't
[1:15:34] But our horizon has an edge what we can see yeah
[1:15:37] But there's no reason to think
[1:15:39] So you're your ship at sea and you have a horizon
[1:15:44] Are you saying let's the extent of the ocean no
[1:15:47] Because if you sail towards the horizon more horizon shows up
[1:15:51] And you keep that up until you hit land
[1:15:55] So in the universe we have our horizon
[1:16:00] And if we went to that horizon we'd have a whole other horizon beyond that
[1:16:05] If we travel to that horizon you'll hold other horizon there
[1:16:09] The question is how how far does that go
[1:16:13] We don't know
[1:16:16] We have no idea
[1:16:18] It's simpler mathematically to think it goes forever
[1:16:22] It's curious how there's some equations where infinities
[1:16:26] Work just fine in the equation
[1:16:28] Uh, so we don't know
[1:16:30] We can talk about to our own horizon. That's it
[1:16:33] There's so many people saying that they've seen aliens
[1:16:36] We had someone on this podcast actually that said they'd seen aliens not they'd seen aliens
[1:16:40] But they had evidence that aliens existed
[1:16:42] And they worked in the military and said that they'd uh
[1:16:45] You know some of these spacecraft footage that you see from the day
[1:16:50] Show you the alien
[1:16:51] No, but you see the videos of the things bouncing around in the sky
[1:16:54] Oh fuzzy videos
[1:16:55] Fuzzy videos
[1:16:56] So those are UFOs they're not aliens
[1:16:58] UFOs yeah
[1:16:59] It's a difference
[1:17:00] Oh yeah
[1:17:00] Many people equate the two
[1:17:02] But if you see something in the sky and you don't know what it is
[1:17:06] It's a UFO and was the you stand for
[1:17:09] Unidentified
[1:17:11] Until you can identify it
[1:17:13] It's a UFO
[1:17:15] And because it does things that you don't understand
[1:17:19] You cannot equate that with it being
[1:17:22] An alien
[1:17:23] You just said you don't know what it is
[1:17:26] Wow, that's amazing. I don't know what it is
[1:17:28] Therefore it must be an alien
[1:17:31] If once you just said you don't know what it is that's the end of the sentence
[1:17:35] You can't go on and say therefore it must be anything
[1:17:38] You can be impressed with videos that have no explanation
[1:17:43] I'll have a problem with that
[1:17:45] But you want to turn around and say aliens
[1:17:47] You want to take it's a government cover up
[1:17:50] Do you really think the government is that competent?
[1:17:52] Often the same people who say there's a mastermind a governor
[1:17:55] The same people who complain that the government is a bloated bureaucracy
[1:17:59] Inefficient bureaucracy that should be replaced by private enterprise
[1:18:03] There's the same people making those same statements
[1:18:07] So I love the aliens. I want to meet him too
[1:18:10] My my people the astrophysics community has been searching for aliens for decades
[1:18:15] And you've never found evidence of any?
[1:18:17] not
[1:18:21] So
[1:18:22] The community of amateur astronomers in the world
[1:18:25] Okay, amateur astronomy is that's a badge of honor because you meet you know the night sky and you own a telescope and it's not
[1:18:32] Like amateur neurosurgeon. Okay
[1:18:35] You don't want to go to an amateur neurosurgeon
[1:18:37] But you want to know the night sky go to an amateur astronomer
[1:18:40] Amateur astronomers know the night sky they know what the sun moon and stars are doing every night
[1:18:44] They know they're very good at
[1:18:47] Climate and weather because that affects weather things are visible
[1:18:50] So they know when weather systems come in and go out and what things look like
[1:18:55] You would think if aliens were
[1:18:59] About
[1:19:00] Up and about that amateur astronomers would have seen more of them than anyone else
[1:19:05] But they've seen less
[1:19:08] Because we know what we're looking at
[1:19:11] It's kind of that simple
[1:19:13] The moment you know what you're looking at it's an IFO isn't yeah, it's not a UFO
[1:19:18] And so yeah, I want to meet the aliens, but
[1:19:22] You're going to show me fuzzy video. We're going to say you have an alien, but it's in a lock box and you're not going to show it
[1:19:29] If you have an alien in a lock box and you're not going to show it that's the same thing to a scientist
[1:19:35] As not having an alien at all. Could you make the case for why aliens probably do exist and also the case for why they probably don't exist
[1:19:43] No, no they surely exist in this universe
[1:19:47] The universe is 14 billion years old and the ingredients of life on earth are the most common ingredients in the universe
[1:19:54] And life began on earth almost as quickly as it possibly could have
[1:19:59] When earth finally cooled down after it being formed it was by 200 million years for signs of single-celled life
[1:20:06] So even though we can't duplicate that yet. We don't know how that's a frontier of biology
[1:20:11] Earth didn't seem to have problems
[1:20:13] Getting the job done within 200 million years. That's earth
[1:20:18] Now you have exoplanets everywhere across the galaxy to suggest that life on earth is alone in the universe
[1:20:26] You'd have to have some point of philosophy that requires you believe that because it's not derived from actual
[1:20:33] evidence or observations of the universe itself
[1:20:37] so
[1:20:39] Aliens usually people mean intelligent aliens, but we're happy to find any kind of life at all bacterial life
[1:20:46] That would be that would transform biology
[1:20:48] What about an on galaxy in the Milky Way galaxy? Yeah, the galaxy is the most sensible place to so we've looking we've looked for exoplanets
[1:20:55] A planet orbiting another star
[1:20:58] Because we're gonna look for life you want to we presume it's gonna be on a planet
[1:21:02] So if this table is the galaxy and the solar system would be about right there
[1:21:08] We've searched a circle about this big
[1:21:11] For exoplanets and what's the solar system versus it's just the Sun and its planets. Oh, yeah, solar system
[1:21:18] And then that's our solar system there and we are part of several hundred billion stars in the galaxy
[1:21:26] And this galaxy is one of perhaps as many as a trillion galaxies in the observable universe
[1:21:34] So to say we're alone. That's just you being you're being philosophically irresponsible
[1:21:39] So this table is
[1:21:41] The galaxy yeah if it were the galaxy and we such the coin coin
[1:21:46] Yes, that's a good word to use a coin-sized volume of this galaxy. We've searched for exoplanets
[1:21:52] and by association life
[1:21:54] So folks at the SETI institute the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
[1:21:59] Uh, they come up with an analogy
[1:22:02] So the people said well, we haven't found life yet. So maybe there's no life anywhere
[1:22:06] And we say no take a cup and scoop it into the ocean
[1:22:11] That's like saying
[1:22:13] Hmm
[1:22:15] The ocean has no whales in it
[1:22:19] Is that the equivalent? Yeah, it's a quim in terms of the space of
[1:22:23] Searching because it's not only in physical space
[1:22:27] But it's in time
[1:22:29] Suppose the aliens sent radio signals to us and they arrived two thousand years ago
[1:22:35] Do the Romans have radio telescopes? No
[1:22:38] But we would all count them as intelligent
[1:22:41] So communication requires intelligence and technology
[1:22:45] How long have we had technology to do that?
[1:22:49] 80 years
[1:22:50] On the court chance of put probability do you think there are aliens in the Milky Way galaxy? Yeah, oh sure
[1:22:55] You think they're wrong. I don't see why not
[1:22:58] That's a calculation you can do. I did it with two colleagues in mind. We have about a hundred civilizations
[1:23:03] In the galaxy alive now
[1:23:06] That's not many out of the total number of stars
[1:23:08] But again a civilization you've has to evolve out of whatever it was and it's a tiny little slice of time
[1:23:15] Relative to how long the planet has been there
[1:23:19] 100 different
[1:23:20] Living yeah, so was it was on the way living because living can mean many things
[1:23:24] Well, I mean
[1:23:26] Mars might have had life, but it would be dead today on the surface. So
[1:23:31] We're looking for living civilizations and does that excite you yes completely
[1:23:37] but
[1:23:38] You want to now tell me it has visited you
[1:23:42] in with fuzzy lights in the sky
[1:23:45] And no one is like brought forth an alien
[1:23:48] I need better evidence because you're making an extraordinary claim
[1:23:52] Humans fascination with meeting these aliens when we've got crazy species. We've never met on our own planet
[1:23:57] That's a good point and plus what do we need real aliens for when we have Hollywood?
[1:24:04] The funny part to me is we have no knowledge
[1:24:08] That aliens want to harm us
[1:24:11] But we do have knowledge that humans want to harm humans
[1:24:16] And any encounter between an advanced civilization and one that was less advanced
[1:24:21] In the history of exploration has never boated well for the less advanced civilization
[1:24:28] So for me
[1:24:30] We are describing aliens
[1:24:34] Not as we think they would be
[1:24:38] But as we know we are to one another
[1:24:43] to mirror
[1:24:44] And we've only got to play out what we would do as well if we found an alien civilization
[1:24:48] What would humans do? I mean
[1:24:51] I think we'd go and try and steal some of them
[1:24:55] And bring them here. Well, they're probably smarter than us
[1:24:59] That's like that's like worm saying oh we found some humans. What should we do with them? Should we corral them?
[1:25:05] No
[1:25:06] If aliens came here they clearly are more advanced than we are
[1:25:10] Because we haven't left low earth orbit
[1:25:13] In 53 years
[1:25:15] So if they cross the galaxy to visit us
[1:25:18] Oh, we're gonna take a shoot of gun at them
[1:25:24] You know
[1:25:26] In all the movies that we beat them
[1:25:28] That's so funny. I've never thought about that before that. Yeah, we just shoot guns at them
[1:25:30] You shoot guns at them and did it really make a difference, you know
[1:25:34] We put like Brad Pitt or whoever in like a some cruise you know
[1:25:38] What's your favorite space movie space movie
[1:25:43] Well sci-fi is the matrix. Why? I love everything about it. The story is tight
[1:25:49] There's one physics error in it
[1:25:51] But without it they don't have a movie so you got to give it I can write him a hall pass
[1:25:55] Which I feel
[1:25:58] That I have the power to do what's the the error everyone's gonna be wondering what the error was in the
[1:26:02] Oh, it's not an error. It's just
[1:26:04] They got the it's bad physics in it. Okay, so if you if you remember the
[1:26:11] AI
[1:26:14] Computer that's running everything
[1:26:17] Needs an energy source
[1:26:19] And so they're growing humans in these pods
[1:26:22] Knowing that each human
[1:26:25] Radiates it about 80 watts. They didn't give that number but it's a true fact
[1:26:29] 80 watts like an 80 watt bulb. That's so much energy you are consuming and using
[1:26:34] That's an energy rate
[1:26:36] Okay
[1:26:37] So they and it's one of the writers must have known that and so that's kind of cool
[1:26:42] Let's use humans as an energy source for the machines all right
[1:26:45] So these pods of humans and they grow the humans from childhood to adulthood and they put in their head
[1:26:53] A world that they're living in which is just in their head and they think it's real
[1:26:57] But it's not
[1:26:59] That's the matrix. Okay, but wait a minute
[1:27:03] How do the humans get their energy
[1:27:06] They feed the humans food
[1:27:11] Well, why are you feeding food to humans and then using the energy from the humans for the machine
[1:27:16] Bypass the middle man and just feed the machine
[1:27:20] Something called a second law of thermonet first or second law of thermodynamics anytime energy changes from one form to another
[1:27:28] It's not a hundred percent efficient. You drive a car if you drive a combustion engine car
[1:27:33] You drive it 50 miles get out the engine's hot
[1:27:38] Where the heat come from that's
[1:27:40] Wasted energy converting chemical energy of the gasoline to kinetic energy of your car
[1:27:47] It is never 100 percent perfect. So they are losing energy in with this middle man
[1:27:53] And they should just feed themselves whatever the food they're feeding the humans
[1:27:57] and
[1:27:59] If they're smart they wouldn't not have humans at all
[1:28:03] But then there's no movie. So that's my point. Road him a hall pass. You're okay with that
[1:28:08] Are you an easy person to watch movies like this? Yeah, I'm not I'm not the I'm not the guy you think I am
[1:28:14] I will watch it and silently yes. I'll
[1:28:16] I'll gather a list of but I'm silent about it and if you're interested, I will tell you later
[1:28:22] Have you ever heard about this before this thing? I'm holding in my hands now
[1:28:26] This is called ketone IQ the website is ketone.com
[1:28:29] You've heard me on this podcast talking about the fact that I stay
[1:28:32] Much of the year in a ketogenic state which is a highly restricted diet
[1:28:36] And the reason I do that is plenty fold one of them as I spend hours and I was talking to people for a living
[1:28:41] So I want to make sure my brain is firing in an optimal way
[1:28:44] And the other reason that I do the ketogenic diet is because I just feel better
[1:28:49] So when I discovered this which is what they call an exogenous ketone product
[1:28:53] where you can drink it and it increases your blood's ketone levels
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[1:29:11] Just visit ketone.com slash Stephen and you'll get 30% off your first subscription order
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[1:29:22] I did something at 24 years old that has had a profound impact on my life
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[1:29:30] And at the time I was doing it to grow my following
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[1:29:37] I managed to learn faster because every single day I'm capturing what is happening to me
[1:29:42] And trying to distill it down into something that I can share with the world
[1:29:45] But more remarkably it led me to building a following of many millions of people
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[1:30:25] What's the one outstanding question if there is one?
[1:30:29] That you're desperate to know the answer to
[1:30:31] I don't live life that way
[1:30:33] Really?
[1:30:33] Yeah
[1:30:34] It's a sensible question that you're asking me
[1:30:36] I don't want to diminish the sensibility of it
[1:30:39] But I want to say that
[1:30:42] It's not how I view the world
[1:30:44] The world is not
[1:30:45] There's the one question I need answered
[1:30:48] The world is
[1:30:50] What do I need to learn
[1:30:53] So that I'm standing in a place I can yet imagine
[1:30:58] Asking a question I have yet to think of
[1:31:03] In other words as the area of our knowledge grows
[1:31:07] So too does the perimeter of our ignorance
[1:31:11] And so you say what one question?
[1:31:14] No, there'll be a bunch of questions
[1:31:16] The area grows some more I'm standing in a new place
[1:31:19] Now there's a question I didn't even think could be asked
[1:31:23] Before and that's the question that matters there and then
[1:31:27] But then there's another question later on
[1:31:29] As this frontier continues to advance
[1:31:32] So I don't think about the one question or the two questions that matter
[1:31:36] I think about questions
[1:31:39] Yet to be dreamt of
[1:31:41] That we don't even see
[1:31:43] Because we haven't taken the frontier to that vista yet
[1:31:47] And so yeah, it's some of that that's unknowable
[1:31:50] But I kind of like that
[1:31:53] There's the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke
[1:31:55] One of the poems I don't remember all the lines with the one that matters to me
[1:31:59] Most is learn to love the questions themselves
[1:32:04] You try to find answers
[1:32:06] And I'm trying to find the questions
[1:32:09] Learn to love the questions themselves
[1:32:11] And this kind of brings me back to the top of the conversation where I was talking about
[1:32:14] I've got a lot more questions these days
[1:32:17] That's good, love it
[1:32:18] Sometimes it's difficult
[1:32:19] And not all questions
[1:32:21] Can be answered given the state of knowledge
[1:32:24] Some questions are illegitimate questions
[1:32:26] Not all questions are legit questions
[1:32:29] For example at what temperature does the number seven melt
[1:32:33] What kind of cheese is the moon made out of
[1:32:38] These are just because the nouns and verbs are lined up
[1:32:42] And there's a question mark doesn't mean the
[1:32:43] And by the way when you're
[1:32:45] In the facing the unknown
[1:32:47] You don't know if you're a question
[1:32:49] Later on would look that ridiculous
[1:32:52] What separates the great scientists from the average scientist
[1:32:55] Is that they're huge into what questions to ask
[1:32:58] Do you think we hunt ourselves by asking these invalid questions?
[1:33:02] No
[1:33:03] No
[1:33:04] You need
[1:33:04] You don't know if it's invalid
[1:33:06] Like to say
[1:33:06] I know the moon is not made out of cheese
[1:33:09] Today
[1:33:10] I know that because we've been there
[1:33:12] We've brought back moon rocks
[1:33:13] So today that question is invalid
[1:33:16] But if you never
[1:33:17] Imagine ever going to the moon
[1:33:19] And you know anything about physics or rocks
[1:33:21] And you look up
[1:33:22] And it looks like a
[1:33:23] A pumpkin cheese you're eating
[1:33:24] It's a completely legit question
[1:33:26] And there's a bit of a
[1:33:27] There is a bit of a conversation raging in my friendship cycle at the moment
[1:33:30] About religion and meaning
[1:33:32] And what's the point
[1:33:33] Should we be arguing about these things
[1:33:36] About meaning, religion
[1:33:38] Is there any is there any better?
[1:33:39] I think meaning is a very personal thing to people
[1:33:41] So why should you jump in the middle of their attempt
[1:33:45] To establish meaning in their life
[1:33:47] We're all very different people
[1:33:49] And so meaning ought to be different
[1:33:51] If meaning was the same for everyone
[1:33:52] You just publish it
[1:33:53] Everyone reads it
[1:33:54] And then we all have meaning
[1:33:56] No
[1:33:56] You got to
[1:33:58] Make it yourself
[1:33:59] Some people want to search for it fine
[1:34:01] And I have a problem with that
[1:34:02] I'm not searching for meaning
[1:34:03] I'm creating meaning in my life
[1:34:06] Because I can control that
[1:34:08] Not that it's important to control everything
[1:34:11] You know
[1:34:11] I like magic as an adult
[1:34:14] Because it reminds me I can still be fooled
[1:34:16] Okay
[1:34:18] That's
[1:34:19] So I don't need to know everything
[1:34:21] I just need to
[1:34:22] Maintain curiosity
[1:34:24] And you've got kids
[1:34:25] So
[1:34:26] 29 and 25
[1:34:28] Is that the most meaningful thing you've done in your life?
[1:34:31] Raising kids
[1:34:32] Yeah
[1:34:32] It's among the most meaningful things
[1:34:34] I would say
[1:34:35] They did a lot of their own raising
[1:34:37] Because they're highly independent
[1:34:39] And
[1:34:40] So
[1:34:41] There's a limit to how much I should take credit
[1:34:43] For who and what they have become
[1:34:45] There are a lot of what they did themselves
[1:34:48] But
[1:34:49] My wife who's a scientist
[1:34:51] She's a mathematical physicist
[1:34:54] We made sure that both our kids were scientifically literate
[1:34:58] At an early age
[1:35:00] By age 13
[1:35:01] Certified
[1:35:03] So at that point I said
[1:35:04] I don't care what grade you get from now on
[1:35:06] I don't care
[1:35:07] I know no one will exploit you
[1:35:11] For your lack of curiosity and knowledge about the
[1:35:14] the objective universe
[1:35:17] And
[1:35:18] You know we'd be at a dinner party
[1:35:20] And
[1:35:21] They're like
[1:35:22] In middle school right
[1:35:23] And someone says
[1:35:24] Oh I had a bad day
[1:35:25] Because Mercury was in retrograde
[1:35:27] And
[1:35:29] And my son would say
[1:35:31] What actually happened to you today
[1:35:33] Has that happened on days when I was
[1:35:35] They know how to ask questions
[1:35:37] Okay, by the way if you just reject what someone says
[1:35:40] outright
[1:35:42] That's as intellectually lazy
[1:35:44] As it is to accept
[1:35:45] What they say
[1:35:46] outright
[1:35:47] What's harder
[1:35:49] But I think more fun
[1:35:51] Is lining up a series of questions
[1:35:52] To probe the statement
[1:35:55] To explore
[1:35:57] What is going on in the thoughts
[1:35:59] And in the claims
[1:36:00] Of the person
[1:36:01] With whom you're conversing
[1:36:04] So if someone says I have these crystals
[1:36:05] They rub them together
[1:36:06] It'll heal you
[1:36:08] My kids would say
[1:36:09] What are the crystals made of
[1:36:11] And what tests have you made for this
[1:36:14] And
[1:36:15] Could be
[1:36:16] Could the healing have been explained in another way
[1:36:18] And in what way
[1:36:19] Are the
[1:36:20] And they start asking these questions
[1:36:22] And then the person probably just walk away
[1:36:24] Because they would not have the answers to all of them
[1:36:27] And then you know that remember
[1:36:28] I said
[1:36:28] Of an argument last more than five minutes
[1:36:30] Than both sides are wrong
[1:36:31] The person
[1:36:32] There's nothing
[1:36:33] There's no place for that to go
[1:36:35] To the
[1:36:36] Truly curious person
[1:36:37] There's another interesting fact
[1:36:39] crystals represent the lowest energy state
[1:36:42] Of the atomic or molecular configuration
[1:36:45] That is comprised of
[1:36:46] The lowest energy state
[1:36:48] So people say I have crystal energy
[1:36:50] No, you don't
[1:36:51] You have the lowest energy state
[1:36:53] Of that
[1:36:53] Of that silicon dioxide
[1:36:55] That you're calling quartz
[1:36:57] There is no there's no energy you're going to take out of it
[1:36:59] It is in its lowest energy state
[1:37:02] These are people who have never had chemistry
[1:37:04] And as an educator I don't want to make fun of this
[1:37:08] But when people think they know something
[1:37:11] And are audacious about it
[1:37:12] When in fact they don't
[1:37:14] That makes it much harder for an educator to break through
[1:37:18] Horoscopes
[1:37:23] Yeah
[1:37:24] Well, I've got some stats for you here
[1:37:26] Neal, surveys find that roughly 80% of Gen Z
[1:37:30] Believe in astrology to some degree
[1:37:32] 72% of those Gen Z and millennials allowed astrology
[1:37:35] To influence major life decisions
[1:37:37] Like romance, health, work
[1:37:39] In education
[1:37:40] And many Gen Zs now are checking their horoscopes weekly
[1:37:44] Yeah, I
[1:37:45] We live in a free country
[1:37:47] So I don't
[1:37:48] I'm not going to try to stop them
[1:37:51] What would be sad is if that number got to 100%
[1:37:55] And then then you wouldn't be generating scientists
[1:37:57] Or engineers
[1:37:58] Or people who
[1:38:00] The objective truths of the world matter
[1:38:03] And then this civilization just goes back to the cave
[1:38:07] Where everything that happened in the natural world was mysterious
[1:38:11] Created by forces beyond our knowledge and understanding
[1:38:15] And
[1:38:17] This is the the title of one of Carl Sagan's books
[1:38:20] The Demon Haunted World
[1:38:22] Science as a candle in the dark
[1:38:25] That was the subtitle of that book
[1:38:28] So if you want to think you're not in control of your fate
[1:38:31] Because the Sun Moon and planets are
[1:38:34] It's like I said, it's a free country
[1:38:36] Is there anything that you've learned
[1:38:38] That the universe does to influence us
[1:38:42] Yeah, the Sun rises and I wake up
[1:38:44] Because I want to be awake during the day
[1:38:46] Yes
[1:38:46] That people aren't
[1:38:47] Yeah, the tide comes in
[1:38:49] And I move my my my my beach chair back
[1:38:52] Because the tide came in
[1:38:55] Yeah
[1:38:56] There's our things that influence my behavior
[1:38:58] Yes
[1:39:01] But it's not much more than that
[1:39:04] Earth is tipped on its axis so we have seasons
[1:39:07] I'd buy coats and wear them in the winter
[1:39:09] That influences my behavior
[1:39:12] What's your stop sign?
[1:39:14] Well, I once had someone take a class of mine
[1:39:17] At the Hayden Planetarium that I taught
[1:39:20] On astrophysics
[1:39:21] And at the end she like the second or last class
[1:39:24] She came to say, oh, thank you. Thanks for the class. I enjoyed I'm enjoying the class
[1:39:28] But I want you to know I'm an astrologer
[1:39:30] And I'm taking the class so I can cast horoscopes better
[1:39:34] So I said it's really working for you
[1:39:36] She said yeah, yeah, yeah, she said for example
[1:39:38] What's your horoscope sign?
[1:39:40] And I said
[1:39:42] Shouldn't you be able to figure that out?
[1:39:44] Ha
[1:39:46] If all this works and you cast horoscopes
[1:39:50] You ought to tell me what my sign is
[1:39:52] She's okay. Okay, she said are you Gemini? I said no
[1:39:57] I know cancer that's it. I said no
[1:40:00] Uh, it must be Leo. I said no
[1:40:03] eight horoscopes later
[1:40:06] She gets the correct answer and says I knew it
[1:40:09] So I'm simply saying that
[1:40:14] Her ninth guess out of 12
[1:40:18] Was correct and she declares I knew it
[1:40:22] Why do people want to believe in things like this? I
[1:40:26] I think they want
[1:40:28] The world to still have mysteries because mysteries are beautiful things however
[1:40:33] The world still has mysteries. They're just different mysteries from whatever there used to be
[1:40:38] And so follow the mysteries where they take you
[1:40:42] And there's another branch of all of us who must have answers to every question
[1:40:48] Because they're not learning to love the questions. They only want to love with the answer
[1:40:52] So they say what was around before the big bang? I said, I don't know we got top people were something had to be around
[1:40:57] I don't know must have been God
[1:40:59] So there's their answer that then they're happy
[1:41:03] What happens after death? Well, it looks like you brought in the ground
[1:41:06] But otherwise and it's what it's got to be something and you're soul
[1:41:10] I said, there's got to be the God heaven. Okay, that's their answer
[1:41:14] We've got their answer and if that's your answer at every turn
[1:41:18] You make a you're not as good an investigator of the unknown
[1:41:22] We could you just invent the answer to the unknown your content. What is dark matter dark? I don't know
[1:41:28] We got top people. We're gonna is that the spirit of God?
[1:41:32] Okay
[1:41:34] Then that person won't walk into a lab to continue to study what dark matter and dark energy is
[1:41:40] I don't mind if you want to say it's God, but don't let that stop your curiosity
[1:41:44] But if you say it's God and then you're done
[1:41:46] Then you're not very useful in the lab
[1:41:50] Those people seem to be happier and healthier though that which is the surprising thing religious people
[1:41:54] Well again, so it could be because they believe there's a God that tells them who to sleep with and where to eat and how to pray or
[1:42:02] Because they have a regular dose of community
[1:42:06] I don't know that those are completely separable variables
[1:42:10] They're people who they love and care about that they see every week
[1:42:13] Which is not happening with so many people today. You think you would be happier if you believed in God
[1:42:18] I'm a pretty happy guy
[1:42:20] Do you think you'd be happier?
[1:42:23] I don't know. I see people I've seen very happy people in
[1:42:28] Celebrating their version of God
[1:42:30] But then there are other people who really happy in their version of God and here's the problem
[1:42:37] Deeply religious people
[1:42:40] Typically
[1:42:41] Find other religions
[1:42:44] Deeply religious people will declare for themselves and others in that religion that all the other religions are false
[1:42:51] False
[1:42:52] And if not false just make preposterous claims it is so obvious to them how false all the other religions are now you go to this religion
[1:43:02] It is obvious how preposterous the rest of the religions are you go around religion to religion
[1:43:07] and
[1:43:11] So what's really going on here is devout people in so many of these religions are atheists
[1:43:17] To every religion but their own
[1:43:21] Every religion but their own
[1:43:24] Okay
[1:43:25] How can a mountain of move to Muhammad that can't be look okay?
[1:43:28] Oh, but yes the creator of the universe impregnated a woman in the middle east
[1:43:33] 2,000 years ago that's more believable than anything in the Quran for this person
[1:43:39] Okay, and then the Jews he's saying here Jesus is the son of God. What are you crazy?
[1:43:45] Would you get that for he's a good Jew the nice prophet but son of God you're going too far
[1:43:50] So everybody's saying what's not true? So
[1:43:53] The atheist for every other they just don't believe any other religion whereas an actual atheist
[1:44:00] Just has one more religion to that category
[1:44:03] It's your religion
[1:44:06] The atheists agrees with you that all the other religions are preposterous in their claims
[1:44:12] But they also believe the also think your religion is preposterous and people don't accept that they don't it doesn't land well
[1:44:20] So I don't have any problems with people being religion. I don't have many issues with that. It's
[1:44:26] Um, I don't try to impose my
[1:44:29] I other people try to do it. I've seen them do this. I have a quote
[1:44:35] Where I misquoted just because they want me on their side
[1:44:39] Okay, you ready it's a simple quote
[1:44:45] If every time I tell you
[1:44:47] Science doesn't understand it and you say well God must be that
[1:44:51] God made the universe because we don't God made life because we don't know how to make life yet God if that's
[1:44:56] If that is your definition and understanding of God
[1:45:01] Then as science progresses it will solve these questions
[1:45:08] Pushing the God back outward
[1:45:13] To places that have yet to be discovered
[1:45:16] And so the quote is if to you God is where science has yet to tread
[1:45:21] Then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance
[1:45:30] That's that that references with philosophers are called God of the gaps
[1:45:35] It goes way back thousands of years if we don't understand it. There's a guy the storm is Poseidon
[1:45:41] Okay, lightning bolt struck it's Zeus
[1:45:44] All right, that's God of the gaps. God of the gaps is a time-honored
[1:45:48] Exercise in human civilization and what I'm saying is
[1:45:53] That statement
[1:45:55] Is objectively true because it's an if statement
[1:45:59] If to you God is where science has yet to tread
[1:46:03] Then as science continues to tread you're a pocket a shrinking pocket of scientific that's your God
[1:46:10] Okay, it's not an opinion. There's a statement of an if statement the consequences of an if statement
[1:46:16] I've had people take the second half and put it on a t-shirt
[1:46:20] God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance
[1:46:24] Neil the grass Tyson is not what I said
[1:46:28] That's half of what I said and that's only true if to you God
[1:46:33] Is where science has yet to tread but to pull that out and make that the truth no
[1:46:38] I would never make such a statement ever
[1:46:41] You're 66 right hang on
[1:46:46] I will be 67 in a month in a month. Okay, so it's a month from this recording. So I'm 33 okay half my eight exactly half
[1:46:56] I was wondering you're a very wise man
[1:47:00] What is the advice that you wish someone had said to you at 33
[1:47:05] But you could give to me now I have no such advice and I'll tell you why
[1:47:11] If you're alert and you're smart
[1:47:15] Alert meaning you notice things and you're you're smart and you you learn
[1:47:27] Living life itself is the lesson
[1:47:33] So if so a version of what you just asked is
[1:47:37] What given what you know today? What would you tell yourself if you met yourself when you were 15 20 25 30 whatever
[1:47:44] And I said I wouldn't tell him anything
[1:47:47] Because if I gave a bit of wisdom
[1:47:51] I say you're about to do that but don't do that
[1:47:54] Okay
[1:47:57] There's no better lesson than doing something and learning that you shouldn't do it
[1:48:02] That's the best lesson
[1:48:04] We don't live life because there's a list of things that other people said known to you're gonna explore your life
[1:48:10] That's what you're gonna do
[1:48:12] And some things are great and some things you don't want to do again some things you're bad
[1:48:17] That's where the wisdom comes from
[1:48:21] You earn it
[1:48:24] It's the most it's the most
[1:48:27] It's the strongest kind of wisdom you can have provided you learn from a mistake
[1:48:32] If you're just an idiot and you just keep making the mistake
[1:48:35] My advice we use don't make the same mistake twice
[1:48:38] But that's you'll need me for that
[1:48:42] So you'll make a decision about this podcast or some business decision and no it didn't turn out right
[1:48:47] Here's a better example of this you ready
[1:48:49] This is a very American kind of story. I'm about to tell immigrant comes over
[1:48:54] Back when that was a thing you could do comes to the United States and they work hard
[1:49:01] Very hard working
[1:49:03] They first sweep the the street in front of a store front and then they're in the store and they learn the trade
[1:49:09] And then the owner dies and they take over the trade and they're working hard and they're scrapping and they kick and then they buys
[1:49:16] The adjacent store and they build the thing and becomes and then he moves and he lives in a big house and he has kids
[1:49:23] okay
[1:49:25] He says to himself
[1:49:28] When I was
[1:49:30] Your age I had to like
[1:49:32] scrounge for food and I had to like sweep thing that and I want to make sure my kids don't have to do that
[1:49:41] I want to make sure they don't have to do that
[1:49:43] Okay, so you provide
[1:49:46] things for them
[1:49:48] So they don't have to do this and now they grow up and their adults and their deadbeats
[1:49:55] They have no motivation. They have no ambition. They have no vision statement
[1:50:03] Because everything got handed to them and what what is the adult say to the kids
[1:50:08] Where did I go wrong? I gave you everything I didn't have
[1:50:14] That's where they went wrong
[1:50:16] Because they gave the kids everything he did that and what made that person
[1:50:20] Was what they struggled the the decisions they had to make the decisions they got right the decisions
[1:50:24] They got wrong who they met how they treated people
[1:50:28] This is life experience
[1:50:31] And it doesn't come on a bumper sticker
[1:50:33] Doesn't come on a what's the secret
[1:50:36] This like going to someone's home and one of the one of the hosts
[1:50:41] Is actually a train chef right and maybe worked in a restaurant and they prefer this is squeeze at meal
[1:50:47] And you said this is delicious
[1:50:50] What's your secret?
[1:50:53] Oh the secret I went to chef school for six years. That's the secret
[1:50:58] You're thinking this is one sentence. I could tell you and then you that that'll make everything better
[1:51:04] No
[1:51:05] No
[1:51:07] Just stay alert
[1:51:08] Learn new stuff every day
[1:51:11] And learn from your mistakes because those lessons are greater
[1:51:15] Then someone just telling you to not do it
[1:51:18] Then you have no such life experience to build into the wisdom
[1:51:24] That you want to acquire in the years to come
[1:51:27] My last question for you is I hear it the other you'd ever have a last question
[1:51:33] No, yeah for now I should say my last question for now
[1:51:36] But um my last question for now and I kind of hear it in between some of the things you say is and I've just moved here
[1:51:42] So I've just moved to Los Angeles. How do you feel about America right now?
[1:51:46] Well
[1:51:48] You know, it's a free country and we vote in our leaders
[1:51:51] And right now there's a whole set of people in charge
[1:51:54] That are doing different things from what had happened in previous
[1:51:58] Years previous leaderships even previous leaders of that same political party
[1:52:04] The what's going on is very different from anything that I think people would have predicted a lot of people like
[1:52:11] Complaining about leadership
[1:52:14] But we live in a country where we choose our leaders
[1:52:17] So we're going to complain about the leadership. You should be complaining about the people
[1:52:21] The about the electorate
[1:52:23] I'm an educator. I've never
[1:52:26] I've never
[1:52:29] The complained about politicians
[1:52:33] They represent people
[1:52:35] I was once in the Rayburn office building
[1:52:39] Washington DC in the science committee's room beautifully decorated with science
[1:52:45] Art and sculptures and things one of the members of the science committee back then was a young earth creationist
[1:52:54] Young earth creationist universe created in six days earth created in six thousand years at most ten thousand years
[1:53:02] And I knew he was going to be there and I thought to myself
[1:53:05] Do I grab him by the lapels and say what do you think you're on the science committee and then I thought no
[1:53:10] no
[1:53:13] If he thinks that
[1:53:15] presumably
[1:53:16] So does his electorate
[1:53:19] they voted him in
[1:53:21] And there's electorate of fellow citizens as MI in this country
[1:53:26] So I can't indict him let me go have a conversation with the folks who voted for him
[1:53:32] I said why do you think this and we've considered this and that's my duty as an educator not to hit anybody on the head
[1:53:38] Who's in Washington so do we blame the educators and the media people like you know people like me that
[1:53:43] No, that's the blame game is I don't feel that way
[1:53:50] My parents when we showed they showed us the images
[1:53:54] Of the dogs and the water hoses on the protesters and in the South American South
[1:54:01] They were never bitter
[1:54:03] They said these people don't know any better. They don't know any differently
[1:54:08] We have to talk to them and you know teach them
[1:54:12] That's very different from saying holding up your fist saying I'm going to fight them because they're my enemy
[1:54:19] It's I want to teach them because they're my fellow citizens
[1:54:24] And that's how I feel
[1:54:26] so
[1:54:27] My worry is that
[1:54:28] Their decisions made that are not in the best interest of the people who voted for those decisions
[1:54:34] the longer term implications are
[1:54:37] Could be devastating if you cut basic science
[1:54:41] basic science feeds engineering engineering feeds economies
[1:54:45] And so if you don't think basic science matters because you don't
[1:54:48] either understand the title of the research or the scientist didn't communicate it interestingly enough whatever
[1:54:55] And you say this is a waste of money. Take it all out. Let's just do the engineering
[1:54:59] You'll be ossified in place and is that what's happened
[1:55:03] We are on the brink of that happening right now. That's correct. The average person has no idea about this
[1:55:07] I've tried to you know
[1:55:09] illuminate the public about it
[1:55:12] It's easy to say that basic science doesn't matter or can't matter or will never matter
[1:55:17] Because we don't know yet
[1:55:20] Right now is the centennial decade
[1:55:23] So we'll go back to the 1920s where quantum physics was developed
[1:55:29] If you were around back then, what would you say? Why are you studying atoms? I can't even see atoms
[1:55:33] Don't waste your time. You're a brilliant person go work on this other problem that we have in society
[1:55:39] and
[1:55:41] It would take decades
[1:55:44] But the information
[1:55:47] Technology revolution
[1:55:50] Has as its core
[1:55:54] The creation storage and retrieval of digital information that can only happen
[1:56:01] With the exploitation of the quantum
[1:56:04] So this decade of science physics that was discovered
[1:56:08] By the 1950s it was like whoa, this is some important physics here
[1:56:13] No one would have known that at the time
[1:56:16] Why
[1:56:18] Let me keep going was it 1876
[1:56:22] Philadelphia Expo
[1:56:25] Alexander Graham Bell showcases his new
[1:56:28] contraption
[1:56:29] The telephone
[1:56:32] And people say wow, this is kind of cool. You should read what people wrote about it
[1:56:36] This is a great invention. I can imagine there might be one in every city in the future
[1:56:44] In this book
[1:56:47] That one yeah, there's a whole chapter called science and technology
[1:56:51] Where I chronicle
[1:56:53] I chronicle
[1:56:56] How people think about the technology of their day and how they always get it wrong when they predict the future
[1:57:04] Because
[1:57:05] Foundational science comes in at the bottom and you don't see that coming and it girdles its way up clever engineers apply it and then
[1:57:14] You have an iPad
[1:57:17] Yeah
[1:57:19] Neil thank you so much. Well, thanks for having me back. This is our second time together. It is what out the bookstore here
[1:57:25] What'd you do? Yes, we wanted to to come prepared. I mean you how you write the most incredible books
[1:57:30] And you talk in the most incredible ways. I said this to you last time
[1:57:33] But you're one of the most incredible storytellers I've ever heard you make something which is I really didn't have a huge amount of interest in in school
[1:57:39] Suddenly interesting to us as adults, which is a remarkable thing
[1:57:44] So thank you for doing what you do. We do have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest
[1:57:48] Oh, it's that right yes, okay, and they don't know who they're leaving it for the question left for you is how good are you at knowing
[1:57:56] What you will regret and is there anything you do regret? Yeah, I think regrets are things that you only realize
[1:58:04] When it's too late, otherwise you would have preempted it and not have to regret it
[1:58:10] so
[1:58:12] I don't know that I'm many better than anyone else at it
[1:58:15] Because if you're good at it, you'll never be in a position to have to do something that you would regret
[1:58:21] The fact is you went past something that you did and say damn. I shouldn't know. I got to regret that
[1:58:26] So I to be good at knowing in advance that you're going to regret something
[1:58:31] That's almost an impossible scenario
[1:58:34] If I'm good at seeing it then I would never have to regret anything because I would have preempted it
[1:58:38] So for all of us the fact that we have regrets is we moved past something that we did I was like damn I got to regret that
[1:58:47] After the fact do you have any regrets? I was a a
[1:58:54] In college
[1:58:56] I majored in physics and I think I was a junior there were students that came in from
[1:59:02] Other schools for a summer program
[1:59:05] Okay, high school seniors I think they were
[1:59:08] All right, there might have been freshmen in their college, but I think there were high school students and I was
[1:59:12] A meant not a mentor, but I would guide them in these research projects then at the end we had to write
[1:59:19] in that evaluation of them
[1:59:22] And as one student I wrote an evaluation that
[1:59:27] Was accurate
[1:59:29] But
[1:59:31] unnecessary
[1:59:35] I said he
[1:59:38] Pretends he knows things that he doesn't and he's
[1:59:43] You know, he's faking this and he's and I didn't yet know
[1:59:49] How to
[1:59:51] Speak encouragingly about someone
[1:59:55] Separate from just speaking factually about someone
[1:59:59] So
[2:00:01] Is that an art is it a science to do that? I don't know
[2:00:04] But I know I didn't have it at the time. I just simply described what I saw
[2:00:09] And I said he you know, this is not going to work. He this is it was very
[2:00:15] deflating
[2:00:17] To him and
[2:00:22] Considering that at the time I'm majoring in physics at Harvard. He's coming from some
[2:00:30] High school somewhere and I'm a Harvard student telling him that
[2:00:34] You know he ain't shit
[2:00:36] And I should not have done that. Did he contact you later? No
[2:00:42] He might have taken up another field. I don't know
[2:00:44] But so I regret that but it would take me four years to even realize that that was a regrettable thing because I didn't know how to
[2:00:53] You know as an educator you want to encourage people you see where the weaknesses are and figure out ways to
[2:01:00] Have that person
[2:01:01] eradicate them improve upon them
[2:01:04] Rather than just say this is not working go home
[2:01:08] Why why I regret that and that's probably the thing I regret most in life really yeah because it was
[2:01:16] Who knows what consequences that has on that person's life and you remembered that? Oh, yes. Oh my gosh
[2:01:22] Yes
[2:01:23] Well, well, how do you remember that because you write it down in his report kind of whatever assessment
[2:01:29] Time goes on does something happen for you to think back to what you wrote
[2:01:34] Well, I've written many letters of reference for people more than I can count
[2:01:39] So I think every time I write a letter of reference I think about how I could have written that letter back then
[2:01:46] That's a regret
[2:01:48] And I live with that I can see you live with it. Yeah
[2:01:52] So I think I made up for it
[2:01:55] Just in how many people like and there are other people who needed help
[2:01:58] And so you find out how they can improve it and advise on that so that everybody lifts up
[2:02:04] That's how you make a better world
[2:02:06] And it goes back to what you said at the start you wanted on your tombstone
[2:02:10] Which is certainly something you've already done in droves more so than I think anybody so you tell me I can die now
[2:02:15] Is that is that would you just you just said that you can go holiday
[2:02:19] It's up to you
[2:02:21] But thank you so much for being here. You are your huge inspiration to me
[2:02:24] I know Jack is a mega mega fan of yours as well in his
[2:02:27] Loves your work and you're the both the reason
[2:02:30] that I
[2:02:32] Well, I let go of my religious belief at 18 years old
[2:02:36] And I blame me for that
[2:02:38] I didn't because of me but I just said I let go of my religious belief at 18 years old
[2:02:42] And I became an atheist agnostic then I became really agnostic
[2:02:45] But then I kind of fell in love with the universe and I fell in love in the universe because of you
[2:02:49] And because of cosmos, which is one of my favorite things ever to watch
[2:02:52] And I found all the curiosity and awe and magic
[2:02:56] That I needed to find by by reading your work and watching the the wonderful movies that you've made so thank you so much for that
[2:03:01] It's a universe is a rich repository of
[2:03:07] Spiritual fulfillment yeah, if I may
[2:03:10] Yes to say the least yeah, wow and your book is exactly that I highly recommend everybody goes and checks it out
[2:03:15] It's out on I think it's the 21st of October. Oh, yeah, yeah, the the next installment in Maryland
[2:03:20] Yeah, in October. Yeah, I'll link it on the screen. Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's all just visiting this planet
[2:03:26] So so I lied before I can give you some advice please see yeah, this is 67 year old device. Yeah
[2:03:34] at no time
[2:03:37] should you
[2:03:39] Overvalue
[2:03:43] Your own thoughts
[2:03:48] You should you should
[2:03:51] You should allow yourself
[2:03:53] To be humbled daily with new ideas that challenge any or everything that you currently think
[2:04:01] That's wisdom I think how do I know who I am if I don't have one maybe you're not maybe you only are who you are on your deathbed
[2:04:13] Because then you would have completed your life
[2:04:16] You're still in your work in progress
[2:04:19] You're 33 so last year when you were 31 you would have lived your 1 billionth second
[2:04:24] Okay, and if you if you lead a healthy life you should get 3 billion seconds out of it you get to 93 at least that so
[2:04:34] Time passes
[2:04:35] If you learn something new every day that forces extra context for extra perspective
[2:04:41] New perspective on whatever you knew yesterday
[2:04:44] You have to stay open to death
[2:04:47] And I read old science books
[2:04:50] Because I watched people's confidence that they had in what they thought they knew
[2:04:54] It can be embarrassing in some cases
[2:04:56] And it's very humbling to look back at people writing about their own world
[2:05:02] There's a book from 1899 the guy said on the Sun and it says
[2:05:06] We've learned so much about the Sun in the last three years. I had to up the edition of this book. I wrote three years ago
[2:05:12] And I'm saying you don't know shit about the Sun
[2:05:15] Okay
[2:05:17] In 1899 but he's feeling it. He's feeling that joy and so I
[2:05:23] It
[2:05:25] It keeps me humble on the frontier on this perimeter of ignorance
[2:05:30] Because it's way more to discover than anything you already learned
[2:05:36] Maybe that's the antidote medicine that society needs right now too
[2:05:40] I think so because everybody is running things thinking they know better than everybody else
[2:05:45] You

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