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

0:00 Surveys find that roughly eighty percent of Gen Z believe in astrology and each allow it to influence major life decisions. But what would be sad is if that number got to a hundred percent, then this civilization just goes back to the cave, where everything that happened in the natural world was created by forces beyond our knowledge and understanding. So if you want to think you're not in control of your fate because the sun, moon, and planets are. It's a free country. But I'm creating meaning in my life. 'Cause I can control that. But is there anything that the universe does to influence us? Yes. Really? Yeah.

0:31 I'll tell you how. Ready? Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the most recognizable voices in modern science who turns the mysteries of the universe into simple truths and simple truths into life lessons. As a scientist, it's disturbing how easily people divide each other based on skin color religion, what food you eat, what language they speak, and then they find some other philosophy that differs, and then they go to war. But when I step back with a cosmic perspective, you realize how ridiculous it is. Give me the cosmic perspective. Well, there's nothing that we can put on the table that can rival the measurements of the universe. And we are literally composed of stardust. So when people think they're different, they have DNA in common with all of the life forms on Earth. Like you have twenty percent identical genes to a banana. Excuse me. Okay We all do, not just you. And that's not it. There are molecules that went in and out of your lungs that are in China being breathed by people. And go further back. Jesus inhaled. So how's that the oneness with others?

1:23 That can't be true. And that's the next problem. People value what they think is true more than what is true. That's a recipe for the unraveling of civilizationism. No. But as a scientist, show me the data. And as someone that knows so much about the universe and objective truth, I've got a lot of questions. So what do you think is the probability of me getting to another planet in my lifetime? And then could you make the case that the universe is simulated by some sort of advanced life form? And also Did humans evolve at some point to believe? And do you think you would be happier if you believed in God? Oh, so you're gonna spice this up a bit. Okay. So Just give me thirty seconds of your time.

2:00 Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here. Please join the twenty four percent of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm gonna make to you. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're gonna deliver the guest that you want me to speak to, and we're gonna continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show.

2:38 Thank you. I've been watching a lot of v videos of yours, I think, because I've reached the stage in my life where I've become really Existentially curious.

2:49 I think we all do. At some point. And especially the more you've lived. More And all sort of.

2:58 You ask what does it all mean? How does it all come together? What will it mean and To me in five years, ten years. Uh I don't know if you're old enough to Think about your mortality.

3:09 Uh. But that's a thing. When you have fewer years left than the years you've lived. And And you can

3:17 I think The way they say it is there's You can have a good expectation. to live as long as your parents did. I lost both of them in the last five years.

3:26 So So that's my Horizon. And The fact that we die.

3:35 Has it. Capacity to bring focus. into the remaining time you're alive. 'Cause think about it, if knowing you're gonna die Brings focus.

3:47 And purpose. And resolve. In action. Then if you live forever. What's your hurry?

3:58 For me, knowing I'm gonna die. gives meaning. to my remaining life. Whereas if I'm never gonna die Then mathematically.

4:08 That we mean. I'd lead. A life of no meaning at all. Because there's there's no way to focus an infinity amount of time into anything and have it. Yeah.

4:18 So I'm taking mortality as a very Serious force operating. On happiness, productivity. Can you do something for the world?

4:29 And on my Tombstone. What I want to say. What I want it to say is a quote from Horace Mann. Be ashamed to die.

4:39 Until you have won some victory. for humanity. I want to have made a difference in the world? I want the world to have been better off because I lived in it. Is that too much to ask of any of us?

4:50 Really? We're all capable of good deeds. So If the world is better off I'm

4:58 Um Play my part. As a citizen of planet Earth. And this all sort of dovetails into This new book that you've written?

5:07 Um it's I call it a new book, but it's really a revision of a Very successful book that uh I think the first copy was published in nineteen ninety eight. Called Just Visiting the Planet Further Scientific Adventures of Merlin. From Amnisia? Amnisia, yeah.

5:23 When I think about these bigger questions about the universe Meaning purpose death. Why am I here? religion, all these things. So often I think about them through the context and information that I find in your work because when I think of

5:36 Like the world being so big as you talk about in this book and so infinite and all these st stars I feel meaningless. In a nice way sometimes. I feel like the shit that I that I worry about no longer matters. But then when you talk about You feel meaningless in a happy way. I feel like the things that cause me Uh suffering.

5:57 don't matter as much as I thought they did. And then you talked about ex shortening time by realizing that you're gonna live for ninety years or or eighty years, creating great amounts of meaning. And it feels somewhat like a I don't know. Yes, the universe is huge. In size. Mm.

6:13 Age. Um Contents. There's nothing we can put on the table. That can rival.

6:21 those measurements that we make of the universe. However How big? Uh well. There's the light.

6:30 From the Most distant galaxies has been traveling for Nearly fourteen billion years. Ten billion years more. than Earth has even existed.

6:41 If you want to get a sense of that. And So But think about it. A whole other way.

6:48 That If you look at the ingredients of life. Not just human life, but life on earth. And you can rank The elements. What's the number one element in life?

7:00 We could mention the human body, number one element. Is hydrogen. That's contained in the H two One. of the water content of your body. Which depending on how

7:10 Chubby UR can Anywhere from a half to Three quarters of your body weight. Is water. And all right.

7:18 What's the next most Abundant. Element in your body. It's oxygen. Attached to the water.

7:25 Okay. H two O and both the H and the O appear in many, many other molecules in our body. in the DNA and in your muscle tissue, all of this. And in the blood. Okay.

7:37 What's third? Carbon. Which you would have. Thought had to be somewhere in the list'cause you know we're carbon based life. Fourth is nitrogen.

7:47 Okay. Fifth, I'll put'em all together and just say other. Okay. So that's the sequence of elements. And now you say What are the sequence of elements?

7:56 In the universe. The number one is hydrogen. The number two is helium, but that's chemically inert, you might remember from high school chemistry. You can't do anything with it. Anyway.

8:07 Helium. Next in the universe, oxygen. Next, carbon. Next, nitrogen. Next. Other. Okay. So we are one for one. Matched.

8:19 To the ingredients of the universe. And One of the gifts of twentieth century astrophysics. Yeah. Gift to civilization.

8:29 is where those ingredients came from. We trace those ingredients. The hydrogen to the big bang itself. And all these heavier elements to stars that manufacture those elements. In their core.

8:43 and the crucible that is their core. They lived out their lives. They exploded, scattered that enrichment into gas clouds, so that the next generation of stars Would have planets. And on at least one of them. Have life. As we know it.

9:00 Life on earth. So that We You you can think of us not just figuratively. But literally composed of star dust.

9:13 And so so that it's not that We are alive in the universe? Yes, that's true. But the universe is alive. Within us. So

9:22 We're special. Because we're the same. as the universe. Often when people think they're special, I wanna be different. Come.

9:31 No. We're saying because we have human DNA. On an earth Where we have DNA in common with all other animals. All of the life forms on Earth.

9:43 Do you realize we we And mushrooms. have more in common With each other. than either we or mushrooms have with green plants.

9:54 The common ancestor between fungus and animals split later in the tree of life. Then its common ancestor split with green plants. You you have twenty percent identical. Jeans. to a banana.

10:09 Excuse me. We all do, not just you. Not just you. You have it. So When you Consider all of this.

10:21 It's it's it's not just that we're gonna be able to do it. Alive in the universe. The universe is alive within us. And that That discovery.

10:32 Borders on the spiritual. Yeah. And it's a scientific result. So when I look up at night I never feel small. I feel large.

10:43 I feel as large as the universe itself. 'Cause that's where we came from. We're participant. And a great unfolding story.

10:52 Of cosmic evolution. The minute you said that I thought of all these eastern traditions and religions that say We are one. And from a scientific perspective As you say, we very much are

11:05 One. Yeah. Yeah. One of my deep concerns about the world is many

11:13 philosophies or religions that say we are one. They find some other philosophy that differs and then they go to war. Yeah. I don't mean to Laugh that but it's we're not good at

11:23 Feeling oneness with everyone. It's easy to feel oneness with our tribe. A tribe could be skin color, religion, who you sleep with, who you don't sleep with, what food you eat. What rituals you perform. And so Those

11:39 People choose sides. Based on So many. Factors. That

11:46 Uh I it's actually to me, just as a scientist, it's disturbing. How Easily and quickly we will divide. Each other.

11:55 Without and make that the reason for how you interact. Rather than see what we have in common. And make that. The reason for why we would come together. This has been really friend of mine for me for the last twenty four hours. 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 we've got all these people that are marching next week, I believe, um, through London because of, you know, various political things. And I was saying to my friends last night, I said, I think actually that the root cause isn't this or that. It's the division itself. And it's Yeah, you can over analyze. I mean, if you look deeper than whatever people are saying is the reason they Or marching or arguing. If you just Um you know, park the curtains and unpack it all.

12:40 At the bottom of that is There's a tribe here and a tribe here. And they think this way and they think that way. And never the Twain meet. Unless we rethink.

12:53 How we interact. With one another. Yes. It's I mean think about it.

12:59 You know, with The race What's The race friction that existed. Around the world, but especially in in

13:09 Colonial. Europe and the slave trade and all of this. And And Okay, that's not good.

13:17 It's bad. Uh and All right, but then you look at World War One and World War Two. That's white people fighting white people. Slaughtering them in great numbers.

13:29 So you can divide by skin color, but apparently People find plenty of reasons To divide and conquer. to divide and kill. To divide and oppress.

13:39 And And skin color is one in a long list of all the reasons people have given. to the religious wars, to You worshiping the different God, or you're worshiping the God differently. These are human beings. And

13:53 You know, I wrote a whole book, one of I think one of those books in your stash there, that one. Yeah, cosmic perspectives. On civilization, one in your left hand there. That one is Is what

14:05 conflict in the world looks like. When you are scientifically literate. And you have a dose of cosmic perspective on top of it. Give me the cosmic perspective, please. It's

14:19 Mm. Uh you're fighting over that line in the sand? When I'm out here at the moon looking at Earth. This fragile ecosystem. Do you realize Earth's atmosphere is to Earth?

14:32 With the skin of an apple? Is to an apple. In terms of thickness. So Uh I see people

14:39 Trashing the planet. Fighting one another. 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, what language they speak, what accent they have. And I step back and from orbit It's

14:56 Ocean. Where? Clouds. From the moon, there's earth suspended there. In space.

15:07 I almost don't want to zoom in on it. Because People. Value what they think is true. More than what

15:19 Is true. There are objective truths out there. But It's almost as though people Fight.

15:28 and argue more vehemently the less evidence there is to support what it is they think is true. Mm. There's an old saying. If an argument lasts more than five minutes, Then both sides are wrong.

15:40 Mm-hmm. This it's true probably eighty, ninety percent of the time. But it's something definitely something to think about. How h have your spiritual and religious beliefs evolved throughout the course of your career based on all that you've come to know about the objective nature of the universe? Has there been an evolution?

15:58 It depends on what you mean by evolution. I was raised Catholic. Yeah. But we were raised basically in a secular household. Even though we would go to church every weekend. We come home at no time do either of my parents say, Don't do that, Jesus is watching. You keep that up, you'll go to hell. Do this because it'll please God.

16:18 Yeah. Never. Was there such a conversation as that? In the household. So the household was driven by

16:27 Objective truths or or life experience. As would be brought from elders to a next generation. Something that was more common. in that generation than in the current generation. Because now elders don't know anything about anything. You know, your kid comes up to you and say, Mommy, daddy, I wanna be a

16:43 A YouTube influencer. And you're saying, what? Go back to school. No, and then they become a YouTube influencer and they out earn you. So there's the the The divide is greater than ever before between one generation and the next. For sure. But By the time I turn eight.

17:00 I found the religious teachings less and less convincing. And so By the time I I was nine when I discovered the universe. Or really the universe discovered me.

17:12 to my local planetarium. So yeah, I I wouldn't call it an evolution, but I will say this. You didn't ask this, but it relates. Before I was More recognized.

17:23 You know, you'd be on an airplane. What do you do? What do you do? Okay. They find out I do astrophysics. Then out come the questions. Okay. Oh tell me about black holes, relativity, the big bang, good uh aliens, okay, and would always Land. On God.

17:39 And I used to give Pretty straight. Unforgiving answers to that question. to that inquiry. But then I thought that's not fair. There are people whose lives pivot.

17:50 around their religious beliefs and their spirituality. And Just'cause I've been discounting it since I was eight. I shouldn't Use that as a

18:00 Force. Against him. I should at least Understand where they're coming from. So I systematically acquired religious books.

18:13 What kind? So the Torah. I multiple copies of The Quran. Joseph Smith's account.

18:20 That led to the Mormons. I have Uh multiple Uh uh. bits of literature from Jehovah's Witnesses. Because they'll come to your door and they want to hand you 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. On doing so That Enable me.

18:44 Empowered me. to have more meaningful conversations with people. Who were religious. Much more meaningful and more informed. That's the key.

18:55 I don't want to speak about a religion unless I know as much as I can about it. As an academic That should be what would be true of any subject. You're an academic, you care what's true. Not what you think is true, what is true.

19:08 Or what people think. All right. And There's no doubt that religion has been one of the greatest forces operating on civilization. Ever since civilization. When you look at

19:20 uh as a source of people's behavior. What they eat. Like I said, who they sleep with. Where they sleep. Where they worship.

19:27 Who they worship. All around the world. From animistic Native people? Where there's a spirit energy imbued

19:35 In the in the mountain, in the brook. In the wind. Two Uh the monotheistic religions to the polytheistic religions? Th we don't call them that.

19:47 to put distance between us, but The Greek Gods well. It was their religion. We call it mythology.

19:55 It was their religion. The Greek gods, the Roman gods. I'm I'm conversational. In all of this, so that when someone says, How do I feel? What do I think, I can do that.

20:06 Without Just Being Obnoxious. Yeah. And so and and it's a have a meaningful conversation.

20:15 I haven't done that. You haven't? No, I haven't. I haven't uh but it it's such a good idea to do that, especially as someone in my position that does a lot of talking with people and asking questions. But my the first thing that sprung to mind was there was actually two questions that sprung to mind. The first was How did that change you? Reading all those books. outside of you being able to relate um with those well being able to talk to them different way. And the second question,'cause I've watched Cosmos I've watched it several times. I'm one of my me and my partner's favorite things to watch is you you

20:45 going from the very beginnings of time through the universe and to where we are. Yeah, I love that calendar too. Oh my God. And I try and persuade everybody to watch that. My question was about because I watched that and I watched um how the universe has evolved over time. Or at least our understanding of it and and how it came to be. Is did humans 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 Neanderthal. For example. Uh Neanderthal is is a branch

21:21 Uh Hamid is that went extinct. Basically. There's some cross breeding. And there's Neanderthal DNA. In many humans today.

21:31 But as a as a branch of of the hominids, they they went extinct. So the Neanderthal, then there's Cromagnon. Uh we're you know, Homo sapiens. Uh Coming after Cromagnon.

21:43 And So when you look at Burial grounds. The Neanderthal bury their dead with Things.

21:53 With parts of their Life of the person. Who died. Now why would you do that? Unless you had some belief.

22:04 that there was something more to come for that person. I mean the probably the people who took it To the limit were the Egyptians. Alright, for the Egyptian. I mean they bury you with all kinds of stuff. And in fact in Greece

22:19 I I read this. I it's not that I researched it and I'm I'm not a scholar in this, but that When they buried you, they put a coin. In your mouth. Or in your hand, somewhere on your body. So that when you got

22:33 Into Hades. You can tip the ferry boat driver. To cross the river sticks. to get into Hades. You might even say

22:42 That's the beginning of what it was to be human when people started thinking that way about dying. Mm. Mm might even invert the question and say It's not When did we start? It's

22:56 We existed. in all the ways we know our sel know what ourselves to be. When that Ritual. Came upon.

23:06 Our ancestors. And the survival benefit in believing. I I don't know. Really? Yeah.

23:12 I I don't know. We we're pretty sure there's a survival benefit. Uh group think. And Religion.

23:23 is groupthink, if there ever was. It was we will all believe this. 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 Package. of beliefs include 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. I don't think Judaism has a hell, but you you you're not as rewarded. Now that forms a

23:54 A corpus of beliefs. That can be highly binding. Of a people's. And Especially if some other people's come up and they do other things and you don't understand it, you don't know what it is, and they're

24:07 Their threat. And so You keep them out. 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 at war. Where you just kill people who don't believe the way you do. So So maybe Religion.

24:29 Defined humans. In the fossil record. I mean I I I like I said, that's an interesting inversion of that question. Not when did humans begin being religious.

24:40 You define religion showed up in the The burial grounds of Um cavemen.

24:50 You just talked about us being bound there by certain shared beliefs and ideas. Yes. And I think in case it I I think ritual is one of the strongest binding forces. of society that we have. Or maybe unbinding? You can if you look at the narrative in society, it's about be your own boss, standing your own two feet, more people are lonely, living alone.

25:09 Um having less kids. are working freelance and remotely. So it feels like in a weird way we're becoming more Independent. Somewhat of a cost to that. And actually my friends that are struggling the most in their lives are those that have the least dependents.

25:26 On a village. So I always wonder if peop we need to ladder up to the universe. I. Me My family Maybe my village. Maybe my country. The planet.

25:37 The universe Yeah. The multiverse. Yeah. Yeah so let me just react to that. There have been studies about the psychological effects of this kind of life. Basically the

25:50 the social media. Mm. Uh. force that operates.

25:56 I So I don't know. I don't wanna be the person who says, In my day we did it right and you you youngins don't know what you're doing and you're all gonna I mean I've seen the films of people of officials smashing pinball machines with sledgehammers saying it will be the death of the next generation.

26:16 Because It's they're not studying their There it's gambling. They I've seen you see see people burning rock and roll records. You know, you've seen We've seen this.

26:28 And I I'm I don't wanna be that guy. Well I'd rather be the person that says. they're gonna create a whole other reality. That

26:39 was not my reality growing up. And I don't know that I can or should value judge that. When they come up in the ranks, they'll be mature adults. They'll figure out. what the rhythms are of that world.

26:52 And I will say, however, that if you go far enough back, no one ever traveled anywhere. You You'd spend your whole life not going more than thirty miles from your home town to a couple of hundred years back. So

27:04 Now people do actually communicate. With countless thousands of people. Around the world. 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 maybe it tribalizes you more or maybe it softens you. It has the power. To do both.

27:26 What concerns me It's'cause when I post to social media, I've learned the art of not expressing an opinion. Because I don't know Care what your opinion is. 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. On objective reality. Objective truths.

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 And then if you rise to power Um

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. That's a recipe for the unraveling of civilization as we know it. So I this loneliness bit, I I don't know how to comment on that.

28:16 I don't have the expertise. But I do know that I don't wanna be the person on the rocking chair. Get off my wand. You know.

28:25 Mm. And I I I I guess I've I've been trying to figure out if we if I need to make Try and make sure my life ladder's upwards. Oh, let me get back to that. So It may be.

28:36 That The most important role of church Wasn't to give a specific Recipe for how you pray or again, who you pray to or when you pr maybe that's maybe that wasn't his greatest value.

28:50 Maybe it's greatest value. Was the community. That it created. Mm-hmm. Everyone comes together.

28:57 And all in one room. At the same time. That's not happening today. Like you said, there's a People are less religious today than ever before.

29:07 Uh there p many people who were once religious would today, statistically, would today say they're spiritual. Which means they're separated from the Rules and regulations that That Typically

29:20 Um dictate how you behave within a religion. But the fact is you're talking about going upwards. So you have your Your city. your community, your neighbors.

29:29 And your church. Your synagogue, your mosque, your Your Yeah. Temple. Whatever is the

29:36 The the place Will you gather? With some frequency. Uh that Surely has value.

29:45 Because We need each other. I'm jealous when I you know, you drive down the country road and there's a deer just walking around. And I'm thinking You know, if society collapsed, that deer is just fine.

29:59 The deer was born in the woods? Is finding food is grown up? Whereas I need other people. To survive in this world. I don't know how to hunt. I don't know how to

30:11 I don't know. I 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

30:24 We have an interdependent as never before. Mm. And how do we maintain that without Scattering to the winds. 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, how do you how do you contend with grief in that scenario, but also how does that ch does that change you in any way? It did, a little bit. Not as much as I thought it might have. Uh my father was eighty nine when he died. That was five years ago. My mother was Two days shy of her ninety fifth 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 ninety two. It's it's the average of those two, you know. So When you die at that age. It's sad, but it's not tragic. Mm.

31:14 So I That's an important distinction for me. Tragic life is a life that could have been lived, but through Active. war or negligence or

31:25 Or negligence of the person or of others. The life is cut short. Then that's Tragic.

31:35 It's a life not fully lived. But if you lived a full life. They were married fifty something years? Uh It's sad but it's not tragic.

31:46 In fact, it's not even sad. It's something to celebrate. And So I miss them. I 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 Was a gerontologist. So they both Cared very deeply about the plight of others. And I'm their son, the astrophysicist. But

32:10 So I go off with my head in the sky. Yeah. I was anchored. into the human condition. And

32:17 Anchor to think about it. To care about it. And When I Encountered

32:25 things in modern life. It's I wonder what my mother would say about that. I wonder what insights my father and they're not there. I don't have them for that. So the way it's changed me is

32:37 It has put a greater Expectation. Of me on myself. 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. So that Again, this is not wisdom of what car to buy or what job to have'cause they have other Values.

33:00 They have other expectations of society. But in terms of human to human interaction in terms of love. Terms of Challenges in life and overcoming them.

33:15 Some of those are timeless. Some of those are you know how to how to navigate difficult people. How to Appreciate

33:24 Nature. So you don't take it for granted? Uh one of the things I liked about Joy Kilmer's poem. On a tree. Uh it's about a tree.

33:37 And We've all seen trees. So Why does this matter? Because It takes an artist.

33:46 A poet, a writer, a sculptor, a painter. For me. Job. is to

33:55 Encourage us. Stimulate us. to pay attention to things we might otherwise take for granted. Because so much of life Is what you might just walk by.

34:09 And not even give it any thought. And so I don't walk by trees without thinking something about that. Oh. What is the poem?

34:19 I think that I shall never see A poem. Lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowering breast. A tree that looks at God all day.

34:34 and lifts her leafy arms to pray. A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins. Yeah. upon whose bosom

34:45 Snow has lain. Who ultimately lives. With rain. Homes are made. By fools like me.

34:55 But only God. Can make a tree. But only God can make a tree. I spend so long these days thinking and talking to people about

35:09 what all of this means. And uh I've got more and more I saw you talking about the simulation theory. Once or twice. And I I started to fall into that whole lifting. Oh yes, it's no, you gotta you know Step outside every now and then and you know.

35:26 Smell the roses. But you said you wouldn't be surprised. If people found out the universe is simulated by some sort of advanced life form. Yeah. Given what we can now compute. Throw in quantum computing on top of that. Yeah.

35:40 We 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. And then they conduct themselves and then they invent computers and then they make a world inside of their computer. And where their characters think they have free will.

35:57 And then they're then it's that Simulated universes all the way down. And Close your eyes and throw a dart. Which of these un are you gonna get the first universe that invented the

36:09 Simulated universe or the zillion ones that followed. The dart's likely to hit. But my My escape hatch.

36:18 From that. Yeah. Since we do not yet know Or have the power to make a perfectly simulated world. It means

36:29 We are either the first universe that's real That hasn't created one yet. Okay. Or with a last universe. That hasn't evolved yet.

36:39 to have created one of its own. 'Cause all the middles have the power to create one. So that takes it, you know. A zillion to one against us to maybe Fifty fifty.

36:50 Oh interesting. So I'm a little I'm a little more comfortable that way. Comfortable. Yeah. I sleep a little better at night. But'cause it wouldn't matter anyway if we actually it wouldn't matter. If we're completely simulated, what do you care?

37:05 You're living your life. I know we don't want to believe that there are Puppet strings. Honest? Um

37:13 Part of me thinks that, though. You know, just when earth is kinda everything on earth is kinda stable. Oh Covid shows up. Oh. So this this is the programmer saying, you know, the earth is too boring now. We got it. Spice it up a bit.

37:28 They've thrown a pandemic. Okay, a once in a century pandemic. Now we're entertaining for them. What do we do? Who gets vaccinated? Who doesn't, who's gonna fight. Who dies, who lives. Okay, so then we kinda get through that. We get the vaccine.

37:44 Okay, just calming down off of that. They said. Oh. Let's make a billionaire real estate developer from New York City the most powerful person in the world. Let's stir the pot again. And so now the whole other set of stir pot stirring that's going on. So that's Kind of consistent.

38:02 With A snot nosed alien. programm our Existence.

38:13 Ha That's what I would do. I would throw in Interest th there's a game, Sim Sim City. Yeah. I played that. Uh that's how old I am. Sim City. So you were mayor of the city. And

38:25 Піполкин вочів out of офис. Uh, 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, you're not spending money on the schools, that's bad, but then there's crime goes up and you're realizing, Oh my gosh, in even this simple simulation, so many interdependent Phenomenon are taking place. Then Then

38:47 You think it happened? Then Godzilla steps through. and ploughs through the city. Okay, now Godzilla's not real. But It kinda is. Because that would be a disaster that is it a flood, uh is it fires?

39:01 It's it's a thing that n nobody saw coming. Okay. We are recording this interview. On September eleventh. I live four blocks from ground zero.

39:13 That's Godzilla walking through the city. Well, how do you respond to that? What you know, you didn't know that was gonna happen the day before. So Realizing that in this game It's only interesting to play.

39:26 When Disastrous things happen. Not too many in a row'cause you have to be able to recover. So when I look at our world, I'm thinking the best argument I have for being in a simulation is how often some big disaster takes place. When it was the first

39:42 Uh World War. And then after that The piece Oh pandemic. Okay. The f the nineteen eighteen flu pandemic. Hey now we got out of that? Oh Uh no uh second world war.

39:54 Okay, we get out of that. The Cold War! Nuclear Holocaust. Okay, so That's mine.

40:02 That's me looking over the shoulder of the programmer. Oh God. I think I prefer the world where I feel like I have free will and there's no Does it make a difference?

40:15 If you believe you have free will, even if you don't. No,'cause I'll never know. And you know the fun the fun answer to that. Uh. Ask me. Uh

40:25 Do you have free will, ask me that. Do you have do do we have free will, do you have free will? What choice do I have? Yeah. No, if you don't have free will, then you don't even have a option to say you don't.

40:40 So I so you just live life. Just live your life. So that the world is better off for you having lived in it. And what does that mean for you? Like it res people are better off.

40:53 Institutions are better off. People are Happier. Healthier. Wealthier

41:02 Safer. Better fed. That rationality matters. And Politics and lawmaking.

41:13 And That helps to will help to ensure Stability. of anything you build going forward. But

41:21 Yeah, that's all I mean. It's not it's not complicated. And you were talking about meaning before. I stopped looking for meaning decades ago. Because I realise. I we any of us

41:33 Has the power. Two Make Meaning. In life.

41:38 If you're gonna look for meaning, are you looking under a rock, behind a tree? W what it It's as though meaning is sitting there waiting for you to find it. Oh I found meaning. There it is, now my life is complete. That feels so

41:53 So Powerless. On your own destiny. Whereas Th I I make meaning I I want to learn something today that I didn't know yesterday.

42:05 I want to lessen the suffering. compared with however that person was living yesterday. I want to I want to use what I learn.

42:20 To well up within me. And manifest as wisdom. Because information is not really useful until it becomes knowledge. And then knowledge is good. You can show off if you have a lot of knowledge. That's what these game shows do.

42:36 But in the end. The best use of knowledge is when it becomes wisdom. And wisdom. People say, I don't like getting older, I wanna be young. I don't want to be young again. When I was thirty, I was an idiot.

42:51 Even when I was thirty, I thought I was brilliant. Right. So Don't get older. 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. You're just getting old with nothing to show for it. But I continue to learn things every day. Passively and actively.

43:16 Passively is you just Notice. You know? Open your eyes sometimes and see what's happening. 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. Do something about it. If you can.

43:34 So that's how I derive meaning. Hence my tombstone. Be ashamed to die unless you Scored some victory for humanity. There's the meaning.

43:44 There's a whole class of billionaires that are trying to live forever now. And I think we are on the verge of being able to extend life Potentially indefinitely. Yeah, we're looking for the date. It's called escape velocity. You know about that phrase?

43:57 It exists in astrophysics, of course. But The escape velocity for Earth, for example, is seven miles per second. So Escape philosophy in astrophysics is the speed

44:08 W that you launch something so that it never comes back. No matter how hard the gravity tries. Okay. So every object has an escape velocity. Escape velocity in aging is The idea is There is

44:24 A generation Yet to be born. But In the very near future. Mm.

44:31 will not e not only live longer than the previous generation So So here uh here's a s a cleaner way to say this. Every year. 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. Yeah. And so we know what to eat, what not to eat, how to exercise, how to not over exercise, how to m how to maintain Your health. Well, your health and physiology.

45:01 All right. There will come a day. Where? Every year that you're alive. Medic has figured out a way.

45:11 for you to live an extra year. That's the escape velocity. So Every year you live another year. And after that it could be every year you live two years.

45:23 So that's the escape velocity. So it's not just everybody lives forever today. It sort of works its way into the population. And Yeah, I don't I don't want to live forever. I don't

45:38 Take me off this earth. Provided I mean I wanna 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. So I don't want to die before I Get as much of that. Done as I can. But he's scared of the thing.

45:58 Death. No. Although That's easy to say'cause I'm not at death's door. Mm.

46:05 And I had someone. rationalize with me, which was th they made a potent argument. It's I can say now

46:14 With another. Twenty years life expectancy. Fifteen, twenty years. 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? The answer's probably gonna be yes. And at the end of that year if they so Uh I don't know.

46:35 If my Sentiments about life and death will change. On my deathbed. I know my mother Th 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. Like that put me in in Palliative care and then hospice. And she was dead. Ten days later.

46:57 So She was was in charge of her. Sh they could have fed her. With a tube. And she would have been completely healthy for another, you know, five years perhaps.

47:07 But you know. She raised two kids. Three kids? You know? Fifty year marriage.

47:14 Happy life, stable life? And 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 Who you're taking resources from. Who would come behind you. That's one. But two Uh. Are you still contributing to the world?

47:37 Should you give another person a chance? Who's in school now, who might be the next genius. It'll figure out the energy problem, the poverty problem, the uh the pollution problem, the the Are you figuring that out? No. You're in the last

47:49 Y you're you're ninety years old. And you're just living on your yacht. So There's the pro there's the problem That

47:59 The last years of your life. Are not the most creative. The most ambitious. The most irreverent. It's a reverence that where new ideas come.

48:11 You know, you you've perhaps seen s episodes of Shark Shark Tank. You know, half or more of those people are thirty and under. They got ideas. Fresh ideas. Everyone else is entrenched. So if People Start living for ever

48:27 They're living forever in the part of their life that is least useful. To the progress in advance. And so Uh

48:37 of civilization will stagnate. Did do you think um it but in your lifetime you said you've got a twenty year life expectancy. Well fi fifteen to twenty. Fifteen to twenty year life expectancy. Based on my age now and the age my my parents died. Yeah. But I mean you've done a lot of Neurological work in

48:53 lay down a lot of good foundations with all these books you've written, so maybe it'll be the upper end of that. It's food for AI. It was good for chat GPT. What do you make of AI? What's your what are your thing? I love it. Yeah. I love it. But I I'm It's it's by the way, it's been here for a while. It really spooked people. When it started.

49:12 writing your term paper and composing your Your painting. And your set design. All right. That the whole other category of people got spooked by that. Meanwhile, AI has been harnessed.

49:22 And being fully used in my field. And in most of the physical sciences. Uh it's doing work. If you can do the work and and I can go to the Bahamas. Let it do the work. We have telescopes coming online that could not exist without the intervention of AI. to access the data, reduce the data, analyze the data, make a decision about whether it should go back to the thing that it just observed, because that was weird 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 We're we're we're living with it. What it means is it up It'll have to up the game of people who say they are creative. And what I mean by that is

50:01 I can say Chat GPT. Take this picture of us. And say Chappy Chi P T? Uh paint this scene. In the style of Van Gogh.

50:12 It'll come back, the colors will be just right. They'll have the swirly lines. It'll be perfect if Van Gogh standing here, that's what Van Gogh would have painted. But I say chat GPT. Paint us in a style that of no artist who has ever lived.

50:25 I don't know what it's gonna give us, but it'll probably suck. Okay. And so true creativity. It's not Aping what has happened before and making adjustments.

50:38 True c creativity, yes, you always build on others. I'm not in denial of that. But true c creativity takes leaps. That most people don't even know. Can be taken.

50:50 Mm. And so the artist so that gap I think is what chet what what AI in the arts world is gonna force Creative people.

51:01 to reach for. Otherwise you're replaced by Yep. Replaced by a A simple request.

51:10 And the And the input line. Uh of a large language model. Or of an art. I was just wondering then if I watch Cosmos in

51:19 Thirty, forty years time, let's say a hundred years time. I was wondering if this is the moment where humans and computers In the h story of humanity. become one and intertwine. If you think about things like Neuralink, which Elon's working on to me, when he first made that company, all of the narrative that he put out there was about us being able to interface with AI. So we'd need like a brain chip computer interface. More recently it's been about people that are paraplegic and disabled and helping blind people see, but I think that's a socially acceptable way to advance the technology. But in his early work he said.

51:51 Superintelligence is gonna arrive and we're gonna need a way to basically keep up w where we have better sort of latency with um With the technology. And I'm wondering if that's like what we're seeing now. Yeah, super intelligence. You know, if that happens.

52:08 Then It becomes our overlord. And we become its pet. Okay. Scary.

52:17 But Don't we treat our pets better than we treat Other humans? In the world. Think about it.

52:26 The pet is kept warm and fed and happy and you And would you do that for a homeless person in the street? A person of your own species? Probably not. So if we're the pet for the superintelligence What about the chicken? How bad could it be? We used to have chickens when we were younger, and I watched my Nigerian mother chase that chicken around the garden, grab it, pull its head off, and cook it. Wow, okay. Yeah. Oh oh you worry that it's gonna do that for us? Not all my pets made it. Not all the pets survive. 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. Maybe we'll be courtchesters with the entertainment.

53:05 Until then. I I don't know that this is some special moment. Uh. I do a lot of reading of history and throughout history. Most

53:16 occasions, especially in the era of the industrial revolution. People think they're living in a special moment. So I'm not gonna be that guy who says today is special. Because e everyone has thought they were in a special moment. And what do you think is the probability of

53:29 Me getting to another planet in my lifetime. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Well. Yes. Please. Yeah, it's just zero.

53:43 I thought SpaceX Gonna go to Mars. I have an unorthodox view on this, so you don't have to You don't have to believe me. You know.

53:52 But My read of history tells me. That we only do big expensive things. If there's a geopolitical reason for it, either Economic.

54:03 Reason or A defense reason. Uh not just'cause it's the next thing to do. And when we went to the moon Realize in nineteen sixty one.

54:15 May twenty fifth. President Kennedy just six weeks after Yuri Gagarin. flew around the earth in orbit. We didn't have a A ship that wouldn't blow up.

54:26 on the launch pad that could carry humans yet. He calls a joint session of Congress. and says if the events of recent weeks couldn't even utter the man's name. The events of recent weeks. And I paraphrase.

54:40 or any indication of the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, then we need to show the world the path of freedom over the path of tyranny. It's a battle cry against communism, the godless Russians. Everyone in the whole Soviet Union. We were losing A

54:59 Technological race. And that was the battle cry. That prompted Congress to write the check. Oh, later on he says, Oh, it'll be w uh put a man on the moon and before return him to safely earth and oh that's so beautiful. That's so beautiful. No one ever spent scads of money.

55:20 Just because it was a cool thing to do. That has never happened ever. So We go to the moon. People forgetting why we went to the moon. Say while we're on the moon

55:35 At this rate we'll be on Mars by nineteen eighty five. That'll be the next ambitious goal we'll take on. No. Because we didn't just go to the moon because that was the next thing to do. We went to the moon to beat the Russians, and when we got to the moon...

55:52 and we looked over our shoulder and the Russians weren't there, we canceled the Apollo program. Nineteen said we haven't been back to the moon in fifty three years. We canceled it. Apollo eighteen was ready to fly. It's now in captivity in Huntsville, Alabama, in a museum.

56:10 On its side, it's fascinating to walk the full length of it. All rocket re flight ready parts. It never flew. We ended it at Paul seventeen. No, we didn't go to Mars. Because we didn't have geopolitical reasons to do so. Neither economic

56:25 Nor For defense reasons. Historically people explored. Did expensive things. For the glory of God.

56:34 And royalty. Very expensive. The pyramids. The honor of royalty. Okay. The church building, cathedral building.

56:43 All of these activities were in the glory Uh Power. Deity. And royalty.

56:52 There's none of that happens today. We're past that. The power of kings and gods. It doesn't happen. Nobody Dislodges.

57:01 Major resources. of the capital resources of a nation. In the interest of a god or a king. Anymore. Okay.

57:09 It's secular. And secular means it's money. Or it's war. Because you feel threatened. Okay.

57:15 So You know, we're going back to the moon now. Yeah. Project Artemis. Did you ever think to stop and ask why? Why didn't we stay on the moon in nineteen seventy two? Why don't we go back in nineteen eighty, nineteen ninety, two thousand, two thousand and ten.

57:30 Oh, all of a sudden, let's go back to the moon. Wouldn't that be cool? Do you know when Artemis began? In the late teens? Right about when China says we're gonna put Pychonauts on the moon.

57:45 Technology. Take a note. Yeah. Right? That's when we so let's go back to the moon. What a good idea. Let's do that.

57:54 Really? 'Ca we'cause it's just a good idea. Because we're a little bit spooked. By a friendly foe. Across the around the world.

58:06 Mike Get The glory of that exercise. And once again it's a godless Country.

58:13 Okay. Communism. Mm. is godless. By design.

58:18 By construct. So Here we are going back to the moon. All right. What motivation do we have to go to Mars? Are there oil wells there?

58:30 Is there you know, diamond mines? We're not going to Mars. We're just not. Unless China says they want to put military bases on Mars.

58:43 We're gonna be on Mars in ten months. Mm-hmm. One month to design, build and fund the thing, and nine months to get to Mars. A geopoliting. Oh, and by the way, NASA doesn't have a rocket that'll get us to Mars. They think they do, but I don't really have one yet.

58:59 Time to do that, and say, Well does anybody have a rocket? Elon says, I have a rocket. So if Elan Rocket goes to Mars. It's not'cause he sends it there, it's because taxpayers sent it there. By the way, he could go there. On a vanity project.

59:14 But there's no business case. He he could fly to Mars. Team up with Jeff Bezos. They can send people to Mars. It's not a business case. And if you are an investor in his company

59:27 You would not agree to do that. You wouldn't. But he doesn't need investors'cause he's very wealthy. He could do it on his own. Are you going to Mars as a tourist? І за із а бізнес кей?

59:40 No. It's a trillion dollars to get to Mars. First, Second will be a little less. I don't see that.

59:47 Happening a trillion dollars. About that. Yeah. If Earth were a schoolroom globe.

59:56 With your fist, show me where you think the moon is. This is earth. Take your fist and put it at the distance. The moon is. Your fist is about the right size. Compare it.

1:00:07 Okay. Right there? Yeah. Okay, not too bad. It's thirty feet away. It's in the next room.

1:00:15 Okay, thank you. Thirty feet away. Okay. That's the moon. Let's keep going. How far away from Earth did the Bezos Branson

1:00:25 Uh Rockets go. Oh no. The thickness of two dimes. above the surface of the earth. How far away is Mars? It's a mile away.

1:00:37 From here. Yes. From this earth. It's a mile away. The moon thirty feet away? Mars a mile away.

1:00:45 Yeah, it's a trillion dollars tomorrow. Yes. How long? Nine months. If you have to wait till the Planets.

1:00:52 Are configure so that When you travel You arrive where Mars will be when you get there. And that's a minimum energy orbit. If you had filling stations along the way, you can just fill up with fuel and get there as fast as you want. But minimum energy orbit takes about nine months. And then to come back, you have to wait till the

1:01:11 It's w configured again. A few years later. So a round trip to Mars is three or five years. 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 a SUV sized rover there now, all right, discovering potential life from a billion years ago. It's not like we don't know how to get to Mars. This is not a technological statement I'm making. I'm talking about a practical statement. So no. My read of history tells me no. I 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 Starlink as a way to fund it, whatever, that The problem is Elon's gonna die.

1:01:49 He's gonna die in the you know, the next couple of decades, which means the vanity element that comes from his childhood situation where he wanted to get out there and explore the stars'cause he read that book. Has got thirty years, forty, fifty years left on it. Well that would make'em wanna hurry, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah, and plus he said, I don't want to die on Earth, I want to die on Mars. Mm-hmm.

1:02:11 I'm paraphrasing, but that's the idea. So that's a goal. Sure. But don't tell me it's a it's it's a It's a business case. I can see a Taurus case going into orbit and even possibly visiting the moon. It's three days there, three days back. That's a week's vacation.

1:02:27 That you would take? And I would save up Five years, ten years of vacation money. If that was the amount that it would take to go to the moon in for one week, that would be a really fun bucket list. Item

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1:03:33 Trial at Shopify.com slash Bartlett. That's Shopify.com slash Bartlett. One dollar a month. No way. You know y you've written this you've revised this book. Oh yeah, just visiting this planet. Yeah, I wrote a a column. A question and answer column.

1:03:51 Like Ten years, fifteen years. Where people just ask me questions from the public. And I had a pen name. called Merlin. And Merlin was friends with with Newton and Galileo and

1:04:02 Marie Carey. All these people. So if you ask Merlin, dear Merlin, I don't quite understand gravity. Merlin said, Oh, Merlin had a conversation with Isaac Newton in his back yard. And here's

1:04:12 How he answers that. Think in the book you talk about a golf ball sized black hole would weigh more than earth and swallow it whole, leaving behind something The size of a lion. Yeah, oh slightly bigger. Right.

1:04:24 What is uh you've been asked this so many times, but I still don't know the answer. What is a black hole and how do we even know if they're real? If no one's ever been to one. Well, you can know things without visiting them. I mean

1:04:36 That's The methods and tools and machines of science. A remarkable. in their ability to learn something. 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. We have 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'cause there's nothing more feeble in this world. Then you thinking you understand reality. Through your five senses. Th th I don't want to call it feeble, I would call it error prone.

1:05:12 Error prone. Remember I told you about escape velocity of Earth? Yeah. You remember like The value I said it was? Seven miles per paid attention. Per second.

1:05:22 It's very fast. Seven miles per so the adage what goes up must come down. It's not true. It's true for almost anything you would experience. But you can s launch something.

1:05:34 Seven miles per second, it'll never ever come back. That's the escape velocity for Earth. Okay. If Earth had more mass And the gravity were stronger?

1:05:45 Mm-hmm. The escape velocity is higher. That would make sense. Because it's more gravity. Mm-hmm.

1:05:54 Let's keep up that exercise. cram in more and more mass. Just keep doing that. Scale velocity keeps going up. Eventually the escape velocity hits.

1:06:06 The speed of light. At that point, Mike can't even escape. Light is the fastest thing in the universe. If light can't escape, if you fall in, you don't escape either. There's no better Description of a whole

1:06:20 Than that. And worse yet, it's a hole in any direction you approach it. Not just a hole in the street. Or in the floor. It's a three dimensional whole.

1:06:34 And how do we know it's there?'Cause it distorts the fabric of space and time. Around it. We see galaxies behind. Concentrations of matter. Black holes and the shape of the galaxy is distorted.

1:06:47 'Cause Einstein tells us tells us that gravity distorts. The fabric of space and time. That's one way we discover black holes. Another way is most stars in the night sky are binary and multiple star systems. Most of them. You can't see it because you just have human vision.

1:07:03 Yeah. Whip out a telescope. You see, Oh my gosh, there are two stars, not just one. If there's a pair of stars And one of them becomes a black hole. And this one ages.

1:07:13 It expands. And some of its material spills onto and orbits around The event horizon. The swirling material?

1:07:23 Gets hotter and hotter and hotter. And it radiates. X rays and ultraviolet. We have X ray and ultraviolet telescopes. That's C

1:07:33 Every one of these in the night sky. Do all black holes. And it's created from an explosion? Uh, there's a s a star that wants to explode, but it has so much mass. The explosion doesn't

1:07:45 Overcome the gravity. And the star collapses down on itself. There's one way to make a black hole. So our son. When that remains.

1:07:54 is pretty wimpy in that department. It'll still kill us. But for different reasons. So the mass of the object is so big that it can't actually explode because the gravitational push 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 spread. 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 the size of a lime. Yeah, so when black holes eat. They get bigger. So lime is bigger than a golf ball. But not by very much.

1:08:39 We can calculate what the size is. Where would everything go? It's in there. It's compressed down inside the hole. And i if I was and everything near it's gonna get pulled in there as well. If it comes too close, right. If it comes too close. Yeah, you can stay you can keep your distance.

1:08:54 Black holes don't they're not giant sucking devices. I mean if you keep your distance, you're f the sun became a black hole right now? We would still orbit it. The gravity we feel at our distance is no different. You say that if the sun suddenly shut off, we'd freeze at minus four hundred and sixty two Fahrenheit.

1:09:12 Which is the background temperature of the universe. Once the stored energy ran out. Yeah. Once the stored energy warehouse. Well in this in the well, so there's the sun's energy. If the sun Yeah.

1:09:23 Blotted out. But earth has energy. 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 son You want to live near a volcano. Or something that is a source of energy for you. And then you'll live on Earth until the earth's energy died out. Ideally by then you just go to another planet.

1:09:45 Mean why not? How long is house? Our sun got left. How would we know? It's a good question. That's a The product of

1:09:53 twentieth century modern astrophysics. It w then it was modern. I think of it as modern. Where you say, What kind of star is this? They've look around the universe for other stars that are just like it.

1:10:04 And then you see those stars in their stages of Evolution. Stars being born. Living out their lives.

1:10:12 And dying? And the star changes its properties. From birth to death. And so you can line up what Where the sun is in that

1:10:22 Chart. And then plus we know how old Earth is. So we can directly measure the age of the earth. And so There's no reason to think that Earth

1:10:34 Did not form at the same time the sun did. Another really um Fascinating one was every breath you take contains molecules once inhaled by every human in history. Yep. That can't be true.

1:10:49 Chat GPT it. No, so here it is. You ready? Yeah. There are more molecules of air. In a single breath of air. Then there are breaths of air. in Earth's entire atmosphere.

1:11:10 So If you breathe in. And then breathe out. There's enough molecules that you breathed out. To populate every breath.

1:11:21 That anyone will ever again take on this earth. And air mixes. Rather quickly. Okay. So you it has to mix.

1:11:32 Immediately give it some time. But you give it some time. There are molecules that went in and out of your lungs that are in China being breathed by people there. Uh when enough time has elapsed. You can calculate that. It might it's years, ten years, something like that. There's tremendous mixing.

1:11:48 of air. So How's that for feeling kinship? With others. Same with water. You drink it water. There are more

1:11:57 Molecules of water in a glass of water. This is a mug of water. Then there are Mugs of water. In all the world's oceans. 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. There's enough molecules to scatter into every other mug of water in the world. So someone gets a mug of water, your molecules will be plenty more plenty of molecules. To go.

1:12:24 If I Big in hell. I'm also I'm inhaling air that contains molecules. That all of my living relatives Once inhaled.

1:12:34 And go further back. Jesus. Inhale them. Mohammed. With every breath. Yes, every breath. This is the the the the The oneness of it all.

1:12:45 That's why it's a beautiful thing. Astrophysics. I wouldn't live without it. Do you think it's makes us kinder. Learning about the universe? Or do you think it makes us more nihilistic and narcissistic and No, if you learn about it.

1:12:59 As you should. You shouldn't be nihilistic. There's no force of nihilism. In the knowledge, wisdom, and insight you get by studying the universe. I you you will never find marching armies led by astrophysicists.

1:13:12 We The cosmic perspective. Prevents that. The cosmic perspective.

1:13:23 Yeah. By the way, if you look at the chapter titles in there. They're each pairs of words. That we've all used and but we've argued over many of them. over our Thanksgiving dinner. I don't know if there's a version of Thanksgiving in the UK. E maybe it's just Christmas, everybody gathers.

1:13:40 And the crazy uncles and aunts come in. And you gotta argue with them. About You know, and you Then you you reminded why you only see them once a year. Because No, there are topics in there, color and race is in there.

1:13:53 Law and order? Body and mind? Meetarians and vegetarians? Life and death? Lot of reflective

1:14:01 Moments in there. So this book, though it's all these Topics that people fight about? Its goal is to say you think that and you think that You gotta look at it this way.

1:14:11 Mm-hmm. Meet in the middle. No. It's meat. 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. Chapter ten of the book it says human physiology may be overrated. Yeah. Yeah. What do you mean by that?

1:14:33 Well You know, we like to think of ourselves at the top of Evolutionary. Uh Properties.

1:14:42 But it's really m your mind, s surely, but Not much else. You know, we It's odd because we always imagine aliens having humanoid bodies. 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. The banana doesn't have a humanoid body and you have DNA in common with it. You don't have any DNA in common with an alien from another planet, yet it's walking around with a neck, eyes, nose, mouth, head, ears. Shoulders.

1:15:13 Arms. Fingers. Kneecaps. Feet. Really?

1:15:18 That is that Is that your best imagination that you can come up with? Alien from another planet? Is the is the universe Infinite.

1:15:28 I've often wondered that. Does it just go on forever? We're not given reason to think it doesn't. But our horizon has a edge. What we can see. Yeah. But there's no reason to think.

1:15:39 So you're you're a ship at sea? Mm-hmm. And you have a horizon. Are you saying well that's the extent of the ocean? No.

1:15:47 'Cause if you sail towards the horizon, more horizon shows up. And you keep that up until you hit land. Yeah. So In

1:15:57 The universe we have our horizon. And If we went to that horizon, we'd have a whole other horizon beyond that. If we travel to that horizon. You a whole other horizon there.

1:16:09 The question is how How far does that go? We don't know. We have no idea. It's simpler mathematically to think it goes forever.

1:16:22 It's curious how there's some equations where infinities Work just fine. Uh so we don't know. We can talk about to our own horizon, that's it.

1:16:34 There's so many people saying that they've seen aliens. We had someone on this podcast actually that said they'd seen a aliens not they'd seen aliens, but they had evidence that aliens existed. And they worked in the military and said that they'd uh You know, some of these spacecraft footage that you see from the name.

1:16:50 Show you the alien? No, but you see the videos of the things Bouncing. Fuzzy videos. Fuzzy videos. So those are UFOs, they're not aliens. UFOs, yeah. There's a difference. Oh yeah. Many people equate the two.

1:17:02 But if you see something in the sky and You don't know what it is? It's a UFO. And what does the U stand for? Unidentified.

1:17:11 Until you can identify it. It's a UFO. And because it does things that you don't understand. You cannot equate that with it being An alien.

1:17:23 You just said you don't know what it is. Wow, that's amazing. I don't know what it is. Therefore it must be a y uh alien? If once you just said you don't know what it is, that's the end of the sentence. You can't go on and say, therefore it must be anything. You can be impressed with videos.

1:17:41 That have no explanation. I don't have a problem with that. But you want to turn around and say his Aliens? You wanna say it's a government cover up?

1:17:50 Do you really think the government is that competent? Often the same people who say there's a mastermind of government. Complain that the government is a bloated bureaucracy. Inefficient bureaucracy that should be replaced by private enterprise. There's the same people making those same states.

1:18:06 State statements. So I I I love the aliens. I want to meet them too. Mike My people, the astrophysics community's been searching for aliens for decades. And you've never found evidence of any?

1:18:17 Not So The community of Amateur astronomers in the world. Okay.

1:18:26 Amateur astronomy is a that's a badge of honor,'cause you means you know the night sky and you own a telescope and it's not Like amateur neurosurgeon, okay? You don't want to go to an amateur neurosurgeon. You wanna know the night sky, go to an amateur astronomer. Amateur astronomers know the night sky. They know what the sun, moon, and stars are doing every night. They know They're very good at Climate and weather because that affects

1:18:49 Whether things are visible. So they know when weather systems come in and go out and what things look like. You would think If aliens were About

1:19:00 Up and about. That amateur astronomers would have seen more of them than anyone else. But they've seen less. Because we know what we're looking at. It's kinda that simple.

1:19:13 The moment you know what you're looking at, it's an IFO, isn't it? Yeah. It's not a UFO. And So yeah, I I want to meet the aliens, but You gonna show me fuzzy video, or you're gonna say you've

1:19:25 Have an alien. But it's in a locked box and you're not gonna show it. If you have an alien in a lockbox and you're not gonna show it. That's the same thing to a scientist. As not having an alien at all.

1:19:37 Could you make the case for why aliens probably do exist and also the case for why they probably don't exist? No. No, they surely exist. In this universe. The universe is fourteen 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. When Earth finally cooled down after it being f formed, it was about two hundred million years. First signs of single celled life. So even though we can't Duplicate that yet.

1:20:09 We don't know how, that's a frontier of biology. Earth didn't seem to have problems. Getting the job done. within two hundred million years. That's Earth. Now you have

1:20:19 Exoplanets everywhere across the galaxy? To suggest that life on Earth is alone in the universe? You'd have to have some point of philosophy that requires you believe that. Because it's not derived from actual

1:20:32 Uh evidence or observations. Of the universe itself. So Uh aliens usually people mean intelligent aliens, but

1:20:42 We're happy to find any kind of life at all. Bacterial life. That would be that would transform biology. What about in our galaxy in the Milky Way galaxy? So we've looking we've looked for exoplanets. So a planet orbiting another star.

1:20:58 If you're gonna look for life? You wanna We presume it's gonna be on a planet. So if this table is the galaxy? Mm-hmm. And the solar system would be about right there.

1:21:08 We've searched a circle about this big. Exoplanets. And what's the solar system versus the It's just the sun and its planets. Oh okay. Yeah. Solar system. And then That's our solar system there and we are part of Several hundred billion.

1:21:22 Stars. In the galaxy? Mm-hmm. And this galaxy is One of perhaps as many as a trillion

1:21:30 Galaxies. In the observable universe. So to say we're alone that's just You're being you're being Philosophic irresponsible.

1:21:40 So this table is Yeah. If it were the galaxy. Coin sies, that's a good word to use, a coin size. volume of this galaxy. We've searched for exoplanets.

1:21:52 And by association life. So Folks at the SETI Institute. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Uh they come up with an analogy.

1:22:02 So there people have said, Well we haven't found life yet, so maybe there's no life anywhere. And we say no. Take a cup. And scoop it into the ocean. That's like saying.

1:22:13 Hm. The ocean has no whales in it. Is that the equivalent? Yeah, it's equivalent. In terms of the space of uh of searching. 'Cause it's not only in in physical space. But it's in time.

1:22:29 Suppose the aliens send radio signals to us. And they arrived two thousand years ago. Do the Romans have radio telescopes? No. But we would all count them as intelligent. So communication requires intelligence and technology.

1:22:46 How long have we had technology to do that? Eighty years. On the court trans probability, do you think there are aliens in the Milky Way galaxy? Yeah. Oh, sure. You think they're all?

1:22:56 I don't see why not. It's a calculation you can do. I did it with two colleagues of mine. We have about a hundred civilizations. In the galaxy. Alive now.

1:23:06 That's not many out of the total number of stars, but again. A civilization ev has to evolve out of whatever it was, and it's a tiny little slice of time. relative to how long the planet has been there. A hundred different Living.

1:23:24 Well, I mean 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. But You wanna now tell me it has visited you.

1:23:42 In with fuzzy lights in the sky. And no one has like brought forth an alien. I I need better evidence'cause you're making an extraordinary claim. Human's fascination with meeting these aliens when we've got Crazy species we've never met on our own planet.

1:23:58 And plus what do we need real aliens for when we have Hollywood? Ha ha ha. The funny part to me is we have no Knowledge. That aliens want to harm us.

1:24:11 But we do have knowledge. that humans want to harm humans. Any encounter between an advanced civilization And one that was less advanced. In the history.

1:24:22 Of exploration. has never boded well. for the less advanced civilization. So for me We are describing aliens.

1:24:34 Not As we think they would be. But as we know we are. Mm-hmm. to one another.

1:24:43 A mirror. And we've only got to play out what we would do as well if we found an alien civilization. What would humans do? I mean, I think we'd go and try and Steal some of them and bring them here. Well no, they're probably smarter than us.

1:24:59 That's like the that's like worms saying, Oh, we found some humans, what should we do with them? Should we corral them? No. If if aliens came here, they clearly are more advanced than we are. We haven't

1:25:11 Left low Earth orbit. In fifty three years. So if they cross the galaxy to visit us. Oh we're gonna take a shoot a gun at him?

1:25:24 You know. In all the movies though we beat them That's so funny. I've never thought about that before that yeah, we just shoot guns at the shoot guns at'em. And did it really make a difference? You know. We put like Brad Pitt or whoever in like a Tom Tom Cruise and What's your favorite space movie? Space movie? Well, sci fi is the matrix.

1:25:46 Why? I love everything about it. The story is tight. One physics error in it. But Without it they don't have a movie. So you gotta give it I g wrest.

1:25:56 Which I feel That I have the power to do. They got the It's bad physics in it. Okay. So if you m if you remember

1:26:10 The AI Computer That's running everything. Needs an energy source.

1:26:18 Mm. And so they're growing humans. In these pods. Knowing that each human Radiates at about

1:26:26 Eighty watts. They didn't give that number, but it's a true fact. uh eighty watt, like an eighty watt bulb. That's how much energy you are consuming And using. It's a energy rate. Okay.

1:26:37 So they And s one of the writers must have known that. And so that's kind of cool. Let's use humans as an energy source for the machines. All right. So there are these pods of humans. And they grow the humans from childhood. To adulthood.

1:26:50 And they put in their head A world that they're living in which is just in their head. And they think it's real. But it's not. That's the matrix.

1:27:00 Okay. But wait a minute. How do the humans get their energy? They feed the humans food. Well, why are you feeding food to humans and then using the energy from the humans to the machine? Bypass the middle man and just feed the machine.

1:27:20 Something called the second law of thermodynam for first or second law of thermodynamics. Any time energy changes from one form to another It's not a hundred percent efficient. You drive a car, if you drive a combustion engine car You drive it? Fifty miles, get out.

1:27:36 The engine's hot. Where did he come from? Wasted energy converting chemical energy of the gasoline into to kinetic energy of your car. It is never one hundred percent perfect. So

1:27:50 They are losing energy in the with this middle man and they should just feed themselves Whatever the food they're feeding the humans. And If they're smart, they wouldn't not have humans at all. But then there's no movie. So that's my point.

1:28:06 Road'ma hall pass. You're okay with that. Are you an easy person to watch movies like this? Yeah, I'm not I'm not Th I'm not the guy you think I am. I will watch it and silently yes, I'll

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1:30:26 What's the one outstanding question, if there is one? You're desperate to know the answer to I don't. Live life that way. Really? Yeah. It's a sensible question that you're asking me. I don't want to Diminish.

1:30:38 the sensibility of it. But I want to say The That's not how I view the world. The world is not There's the one question I need answered.

1:30:48 The world is What do I need to learn? So that I'm standing in a place I can yet imagine. Asking a question I have yet to think of. In other words,

1:31:04 As the area of our knowledge grows. So too does the perimeter. Of our ignorance. And so You say what one question? No, there'll be a bunch of questions.

1:31:16 V Area grows some more, I'm standing in a new place. Now there's a question I didn't even think. Could be asked. Before. And that's the question that matters there and then. But then there's another question later on, as this frontier continues to advance.

1:31:32 So I don't think About the one question or the two questions that matter. I think about questions. yet to be dreamt of. That we don't even see.

1:31:43 because we haven't taken the frontier to that vista yet. And so yeah. It's some of that that's unknowable. But I kinda like that. There's the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the poems

1:31:56 I don't remember all the lines, but the one that matters to me most is Learn to love the questions themselves. You try to find answers. And I'm trying to find the questions. Learn to love the questions themselves. This kind of brings me back to the top of the conversation where I was talking about I've got a lot

1:32:15 More questions these days. Love it. Sometimes it's difficult. can be answered, given the state of knowledge. Some questions are Illegitimate questions. Not all questions are legit questions.

1:32:29 For example, At what Temperature does the number seven melt? What kind of cheese is the moon made out of? These are

1:32:40 Just'cause the nouns and verb are lined up and there's a question mark doesn't mean the qu and by the way, when you're Mm. Facing the unknown. You don't know. If your question later on would look that ridiculous.

1:32:52 What separates the great scientists from the average scientist is that they cued into what questions to ask. Do you think we hurt ourselves by our asking these invalid questions? No. No. You need You don't know if it's invalid.

1:33:06 Like the I know the moon is not made out of cheese. Today. I know that, because we've been there. We brought back moon rocks. So today that question is invalid.

1:33:16 But if you never Imagine ever going to the moon and you don't know anything about physics or rocks. And you look up and it looks like a a chunk of cheese you're eating. A completely legit question. There's a bit of a there is a bit of a conversation raging in my friendship circle at the moment about religion and meaning and what's the point.

1:33:33 Should we be arguing about these these things? About meaning, religion. Is there any is there any better I think meaning is a very personal thing to people. So why should you Jump in the middle of their attempt. to establish meaning in their life.

1:33:47 We're all very different people. And so meaning ought to be different. The meaning was the same for everyone, you just publish it, everyone reads it, and then we all have meaning. No, you gotta

1:33:58 Make it yourself. Some people want to search for it, fine. I don't have a problem with that. I'm not searching for meaning. I'm creating meaning. In my life. 'Cause I can control that.

1:34:08 Not that it's important to control everything. Uh You know, I I like magic as an adult. Because it reminds me I can still be fool. Okay.

1:34:18 That's So I don't I don't need to know everything. I just need to Maintain curiosity. You've got kids. Yeah.

1:34:26 Twenty nine and twenty five. Is that the most meaningful thing you've done? In your life. Raising kids? Yeah.

1:34:32 Uh it's among the m meaningful things that I would say They did a lot of their own raising because they're highly independent and So Th there's a limit to how much I should take credit.

1:34:43 For who and what they have become. There are a lot. of what they did themselves. But My wife who's just

1:34:50 Science scientist? She's a Mathematical physicist. We we made sure That both our kids were scientifically literate. At an early age.

1:35:00 By age thirteen. Certified. So at that point I said I don't care what grade you get from now on. I don't care. I know no one will exploit you.

1:35:11 For your lack of curiosity about the The objective universe. Mm. And You know, we'd be at a a dinner party and

1:35:20 Th they're like they're In middle school, right? And someone says, Oh, I had a bad day'cause Mercury was in retrograde. And And and my son would say

1:35:31 What actually happened to you today? Uh has that happened on days when it was they know how to ask questions. Okay. By the way, if you just reject what someone says Outright.

1:35:42 That's as intellectually lazy. As it is to accept What they say outright. Yeah. What's harder

1:35:49 But I think more fun. Is lining up a series of questions to probe the statement. To explore What is going on in the thoughts? And then the claims.

1:36:00 Of the person With whom you're conversing. So if someone says I have these crystals and you rub them together, it'll heal you. Uh my kids would say What are the crystals made of?

1:36:12 And What tests have you made? For this. Uh could be it could the healing have been explained in another way. And in what way are the Chris and they'd start asking these questions and then the person will probably just walk away.

1:36:24 because they would not have the answers to all of them. And then you know that remember I said If an argument lasts more than five minutes then both sides are wrong, the person would there's nothing There's no place for that to go. Should truly curious person.

1:36:38 Here's another interesting fact. Crystals represent the lowest energy state. Of the atomic or molecular configuration. That it's comprised of. The lowest energy state.

1:36:49 So people say I have crystal energy. No, you don't. You have the lowest energy state of that core of that silicon dioxide that you're calling quartz. There is no there's no energy you're gonna take out of it. It is in its lowest energy state. These are people who have never had chemistry. And and as an educator, I I don't want to make fun of this. But when people

1:37:09 Think they know something. And are audacious about it when in fact they don't. That makes it much harder for an educator to break through. Horoscopes.

1:37:23 Yeah. Well I've got some stats for you here. Sure, Neil. Surveys find that roughly eighty percent of Gen Z Believe in astrology in to some degree. Mm-hmm. Seventy two percent of those Gen Z and millennials allowed astrology to influence major life decisions like romance, health work. And education.

1:37:40 And many Gen Zs. Now, Are checking their horoscopes weekly. Yeah. We live in a free country. So I don't

1:37:48 I'm not gonna try to stop them. Uh What would be sad is if that number got to a hundred percent. And then then you wouldn't be generatists or engineers. Or people who

1:38:00 The objective truths of the world matter. And then the civilization just goes back to the cave. where everything that happened in the natural world was mysterious. created by forces beyond our knowledge and understanding.

1:38:15 And Uh this is the the title of cr one of Carl Sagan's books, The Demon Haunted World. Sance as a candle. In the dark. That was the subtitle.

1:38:26 That book. So If you want to think you're not in control of your fate because the sun, moon and planets are. It's like I said, it's it's a free country. Is there anything that you've learnt that the universe

1:38:39 Does to influence the Us. Yeah, the sun rises and I wake up because I want to be awake during the day. Yes. Yeah, the tide comes in and I move my my my my

1:38:51 Beach chair back. Because the tide came in. Yeah. Th there are things that influence my behavior. Yes.

1:39:01 But it's not much more than that. Uh the earth is tipped on its axis, so we have seasons. I'd buy coats and wear them in the winter. That influences my behavior. What's your star sign? Well

1:39:15 I once had someone take a class of mine. F the Hayden Planetarium that I taught. on astrophysics. And at the end she played the second to last class. She came to say, Oh, thank you, I thank you for the class. I enjoy I'm enjoying the class.

1:39:28 But I want you to know I'm an astrologer. I'm taking the class so I can cast horoscopes better. So I said, it's really working for you? She said, Yeah, yeah, yeah. She said, For example, what's your horoscope sign? And I said Shouldn't you be able to figure that out?

1:39:46 If all this works. And you cast horoscopes? You ought to tell me what my sign is. Okay, okay. She said, Are you Gemini? I said, No. Yeah.

1:39:57 Answer. I said no. Uh it must be Leo, I should know. Eight horoscopes later. She gets the correct answer and says, I knew it. So

1:40:10 I'm simply saying. The Her ninth guess. Out of twelve. Was correct.

1:40:19 And she declares, I knew it. Why do people want to believe in things like this? I I think they What

1:40:28 the world to still have mysteries. Because mysteries are beautiful things. However The world still has mysteries. They're just different mysteries from whatever There used to be. And

1:40:39 So Follow the mysteries where they take you. And there's another branch of all of us. who must have answers to every question. Because they're not learning to love the questions, they only want to love the answer.

1:40:52 So they say, what was around before the big bang? I said, I don't know. We got to top people. Something had to be around. I said, I don't know. Must have been God. So there's their answer. And then they're happy. What happens after death? Well, it looks like you rot in the ground. But otherwise and that's what physical It's gotta be something to your soul I said

1:41:11 There's gotta be the God heaven? Okay, that's their answer. We've got their answer. And if that's your answer at every turn. You you make a you're not as good an investigator.

1:41:21 Of the unknown. Because you just invented the answer. To the unknown. Your contempt what is dark matter dark? I don't know. We got top people working. Is that the the spirit of God? Okay.

1:41:34 Then that person won't walk into a lab to continue to study what dark matter and dark energy is. I don't mind if you want to say it's God, but don't let that stop your curiosity. But if you save God and then you're done. Then you're not very useful in the lab.

1:41:50 Those people seem to be happier and healthier though which is the surprising thing. Religious people. Well, again, so it 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 Because they have a regular dose. Of community. I don't know that those are completely separable variables.

1:42:10 There are people who they love and care about that they see every week. Which is not happening with so many people today. Do you think you would be happier if you believed in God? I'm a pretty happy guy. Do you think you'd be happier? I don't know, I see people I've seen very happy people.

1:42:26 In uh celebrating their version of God. But then there are other people who are really happy in their version of God. And here's the problem. Deeply religious people.

1:42:40 Typically. Find other religions. Deeply religious people will declare. For themselves and others in that religion that all the other religions are false. 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. It is obvious how preposterous the rest of the religions are. You go around religion to religion. And

1:43:11 So what's really going on here is devout people in so many of these religions Are atheists? To every religion but their own. Every religion but their own. Okay?

1:43:25 How can a mountain move to Muhammad? That can't be. But okay. Oh, but yes, the creator of the universe impregnated a woman in the Middle East. Two thousand 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 you're Jesus is the Son of God What are you crazy? Where'd you get that from? He's a good Jew, nice prophet, but son of God, you're going too far. So everybody's saying what's not true. So The atheist for every other

1:43:56 They just don't believe any other religion. Actual atheist. Just has one more religion to that category. It's your religion. The atheist agrees with you that all the other religions are preposterous.

1:44:09 In their claims. But they also believe You also think your religion It's preposterous. And people don't

1:44:17 Except that they don't It doesn't land well. So I don't have any problems with people being religious. I don't have any Issues with that. It's Um I don't try to

1:44:27 Impose my I other people try to do it. I've seen them do this. I have a quote. Where I'm misquoted.

1:44:36 Just because they want me on their side. Okay, you ready? It's a simple quote. If every time I tell you Science doesn't understand it. You say, Well, God must be that.

1:44:50 God made the universe'cause we don't God made life'cause we don't know how to make life yet. God if that's If that is your definition and understanding of God. Then as science progresses It will solve these questions. Pushing the god back.

1:45:11 Outward. to places that have yet to be discovered. And so the quote is If to you, God is where science has yet to tread. Then God is an ever recing pocket.

1:45:26 Of scientific ignorance. That that that references what philosophers have called God of the Gaps. It goes way back thousands of years. It we don't understand it, there's a guy. The storm is Poseidon. Okay. Lightning bolt struck is Zeus.

1:45:44 Right? That's God of the Gaps. God of the Gaps is a time honored Exercise. In human civilization. All I'm saying is That statement.

1:45:55 is objectively true because it's an if statement. If to you God is where science has yet to tread. Then as science continues to tread, you're a pocket, a shrinking pocket. Of scientific ancients. That's your God. Okay?

1:46:11 That's not an opinion, that's a statement. Of an if statement. the consequences of an ifstamp. I've had people take the second half and put it on a T shirt. God is an ever receding pocket of scientific interest.

1:46:24 Uh ignorance. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. That's not what I said. That's half of what I said. And that's only true if to you, God. Is where science has yet to tread.

1:46:35 But to pull that out and make that the truth? No. I would never make such a statement. Ever. You're sixty six, right?

1:46:44 Hang on. Mm-hmm. I will be sixty seven. In a month. In a month. Okay, so you're from this recording. So I'm thirty three.

1:46:53 Okay. Exactly half. I I was wondering. You're a very wise man. What is the advice?

1:47:01 That you wish someone had said to you. At thirty three. But you could give to me now. I have no such advice and I'll tell you why. If you're alert

1:47:13 And you're smart. Alert meaning you notice things and you're you're smart. And you You learn. living life itself.

1:47:30 Is the lesson. So if so a version of what you just asked is What given what you know today, what would you tell yourself If you met yourself when you were fifteen twenty, twenty five thirty, whatever.

1:47:44 And I say I wouldn't tell him anything. Because If I gave a bit of wisdom Sho I say You're about to do that, but don't do that.

1:47:54 Okay. There's no better lesson than doing something. And learning that you shouldn't do it. That's the best lesson. We don't live life because there's a list of things that other people said don't do. You gonna explore your life.

1:48:10 That's what you're gonna do. And some things are great and some things you don't want to do again, some things you're bad. That's where the wisdom comes from. You earn. It's the most

1:48:25 It's the most It's the strongest kind of wisdom you can have, provided you learn from a mistake. If you're just an idiot and you just keep making the mistake. My advice with you is don't make the same mistake twice. But that's you don't 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. Here's a better example of this. Ready? This is a very American kind of story I'm about to tell. Immigrant comes over. Back when that was a thing you could do. comes to p United States and they work hard.

1:49:01 Very hard working. They s first sweep the the street in front of a store up front. And then they're in the store and they learn the trade. And then the owner dies and they take over the trade. And they're working hard and they're scrapping and they're can and then they buy uh 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. Okay. And he says to himself

1:49:29 When I was Your age I had to like Sc ground for Food. And I had to like sweep things that and I wanna make sure

1:49:38 My kids don't have to do that. I want to make sure they don't have to do that. Okay. So You provide

1:49:46 things for them. So they don't have to do this. And now they grow up? And they're adults. And they're deadbeats.

1:49:57 They have no motivation. They have no ambition. They have no vision statement. 'Cause everything got handed to them. And what what does the adult say to the kids? What?

1:50:08 Where did I go wrong? I gave you everything I didn't have. That's where they went wrong. Because they gave the kids everything he didn't have. And what made that person was what they struggled the d the decisions they had to make. The decisions they got right, the decisions they got wrong, who they met. How they treated people.

1:50:28 This is life experience. And it doesn't come on a bumper sticker. Doesn't come on a What's the secret? Just like going to someone's home and one of the

1:50:39 One of the hosts. Well, is a is actually a trained chef. Right, and maybe worked in a restaurant. And they prefer this ex exquisite meal. And you say this is delicious. What's your secret?

1:50:53 Oh, the secret? I went to chef school for six years. That's the secret. You're thinking this is one sentence I could tell you and then you'll th that'll make everything better. No.

1:51:05 No. Just stay alert. Learn new stuff every day. And learn from your mistakes. Because those lessons are greater.

1:51:15 than someone just telling you to not do it. Then you have no such life experience. that you want to acquire. In the years to come.

1:51:27 My last question for you is and I I hear it the other I don't think you'd ever have a last question. No, yeah, I mean for now. I should say my last question for now. 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, so I've just moved to Los Angeles. How do you feel about America right now? Well You know, it's a free country and we vote in our leaders. 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 Uh years previously Leaderships. even previous leaders of that same political party. Th the what's going on is very different.

1:52:06 from anything that I think people would have predicted. A lot of people like Complaining about leadership? But We live in a country where we choose our leaders.

1:52:17 So we're gonna complain about the leadership. You should be complaining about the people. The about the electorate. I'm an educator. I I've never I I've never

1:52:29 that uh I complained about politicians. They represent People. I was once in the Rayburn office building.

1:52:39 Washington D C In the science committee's room. Beautifully decorated with science. Um Art and sculptures and things.

1:52:48 One of the members of the science committee back then was a young earth creationist. Young earth creationists. Universe created in six days, earth created in six thousand years. At most ten thousand years.

1:53:02 And I knew he was gonna be there. And I thought to myself. Do I grab him by the lapels and say, What do you think? You're on the science committee And then I thought, No. No If he thinks that

1:53:15 Presumably So does his electorate. They voted him in. And this electorate of fellow citizens, as am I in this country. So I can't indict him.

1:53:28 Let me go have a conversation with the folks who voted for him. I said, why do you think this? And if you consider this and why that's my duty as an educator, not to hit anybody on the head. Who's in Washington? So do we blame the educators and the media people like you know, people like me that No, I d that's

1:53:45 The blame game is I don't Feel that way. My parents when we sh they showed us the images Of the

1:53:54 dogs and the water hoses on the protesters in in the South, American South. They were never bitter. They said these people don't No any better. They don't know any differently.

1:54:08 You have to talk to them and You know, teach them. That's very different from saying Holding up your fist. Saying I'm gonna fight them because they're my enemy.

1:54:19 It's I wanna teach them because they're my fellow Citizens. And that's how I feel. So My worry is that

1:54:28 There are decisions made that are not in the best interest of the people who voted for those decisions. the longer term implications. Or Um Could be devastating. If you cut

1:54:39 Basic science. Basic science feeds engineering, engineering feeds economies. And so if you don't think basic science matters,'cause you don't either understand the title of the research or the scientists 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. You'll be ossified in place. And is that what's happened? We are on the brink of that happening. The average person has no idea about this. I've tried to You know. Illuminate.

1:55:10 The public. About it. It's easy to say that basic science doesn't matter or can't matter or will never matter. Because We don't know yet.

1:55:21 Right now it's the centennial decade. So let's go back to the nineteen twenties where Quantum physics If you were around back then, what would you say? Why are you studying atoms? I'm 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. Yeah. It would take decades. But The information

1:55:47 Technology revolution. Has as its core The creation, storage, and retrieval of digital information that can only happen With the exploitation of the quantum. So this decade of science, physics that was discovered.

1:56:08 By the nineteen fifties it was like Whoa this is some important physics here. No one would have known that at the time. Why?

1:56:20 Uh Philadelphia Expo? Alexander Graham Bell showcases his new Contraption. The telephone.

1:56:32 And people say, Wow, this is kinda cool. You should read what people wrote about it. This is a great invention. I can imagine there might be one in every city in the future. Mm. In this book.

1:56:46 Uh the uh that one. Yeah. There's a whole chapter called Science and technology. Where I chronicle. Like 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. Because Foundational science comes in at the bottom and you don't see that coming. and it gurgles its way up. Clever engineers apply it.

1:57:12 And then You have an iPad. Yeah. Neil, thank you so much. Thanks, Red Kip, for having me back. This is our second time together. It is you bought out the bookstore here? What'd you do? Yes, we wanted to to come prepared. I mean you have you write the most

1:57:28 Incredible books. Um And you talk in the most incredible ways. I said this to you last time, but you're one of the most incredible storytellers I've ever heard. You make something which is I really did have a huge amount of interest in in school suddenly interesting to us as adults, which is a remarkable thing. 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. Oh, is 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 What

1:57:56 you will regret. And is there anything you do regret? Yeah, I think Regrets are things that you only realize When it's too late.

1:58:06 Otherwise you would have preempted it. And not have to regret it. So Uh I don't know that I'm any better than anyone else at it. 'Cause if you're good at it, you'll never be in a position

1:58:18 To have to do something that you would regret. The fact is you went past something. that you did and say, damn, I shouldn't have done that. I gotta regret that. So I to be good at knowing in advance that you're gonna regret something. That's almost an impossible scenario.

1:58:35 If I'm good at seeing it, then I would never have to regret anything'cause I would have preempted it. So for all of us the fact that we have regrets is we move past something. That we did. I was like, damn I I regret that. After the fact. Do you have any regrets?

1:58:50 Uh I was a A Uh in college. I majoring physics and I think I was a junior. There were students that came in

1:59:01 From other schools for a summer program. Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh high school seniors, I think they were. Uh They might been freshmen in their college, but I think they were high school students.

1:59:11 And I was a ment not a mentor, but I would guide them in these research projects. Then at the end we had to write An e evaluation. Of them.

1:59:22 There's one student. I wrote an evaluation that Was accurate. But Unnecessary.

1:59:35 I said Mm. And he's You know, he's

1:59:44 And I didn't yet know. How to Speak encouragingly.

1:59:52 About someone. Separate from just speaking factually about someone. So Is that an art? Is it a science to do that? I don't know, but I know I didn't have it.

2:00:05 At the time. I just simply described what I saw. And I said, He you know, he this is not gonna work. He this this is It was very Deflating.

2:00:17 To him. Mm-hmm. And Uh. Considering that at the time I'm majoring in physics

2:00:26 Yeah. Harvard. He's coming from some High school somewhere. And I'm a Harvard student telling him that

2:00:34 You know, he ain't shit. And I should not have done that. Contact you later. No.

2:00:42 Uh he might have taken up another field. I don't know. But so I 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 Two. Have that person eradicate them, improve upon them.

2:01:04 Rather than just Shape. This is not working. Go home. Why why I regret that and uh that's probably the thing I regret most.

2:01:11 In life. Really? Yeah. Because It was Who knows what consequences that has on that person's life. And you remembered that? Oh yes. Oh my gosh.

2:01:22 Yes. What how how do you remember that?'Cause You wrote you write it down in his report card or whatever, on his assessment. Time goes on, does something happen for you to think back to what you wrote? Uh well I've written many

2:01:36 Letters of reference for people? More than I can count. Mm-hmm. 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. And I live with that. I can see you live with it. Yeah. So I think I made up for it. Just in how many people I and there are other people who needed help.

2:01:59 And so you find out how they can improve it and advise on that so that everybody lifts Yeah. That's how you make a better world. 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're telling me I can die now? Is that what you just you just said that you can go on holiday? It's up to you. Um but thank you so much for being here you are. You're a huge inspiration to me. I know Jack is a mega, mega fan of yours as well and has um loves your work and you're the both the reason. That I Well I

2:02:33 I I l let go of my religious belief at eighteen years old. And I find it. Don't blame me for that. I don't want you to lose your religion. I let go of my religion before eighteen years old and I became an atheist agnostic. Then I became really agnostic, but then I kinda fell in love with the universe. And I fell in love in the universe because of you. And because of Cosmos, which is one of my favorite things ever to watch. And I found all the curiosity and awe and magic. That I needed to find by by reading your work and watching the the the wonderful movies that you've made. So thank you so much for that. Well the universe is a rich repository.

2:03:04 Uh Spiritual fulfillment. Yeah. If I may. Yes, to say the least, yeah. Well.

2:03:12 And your book is exactly that. I highly recommend everybody goes and checks it out. It's out on I think it's the twenty first of October. Oh yeah, yeah. The n the the next instalment in Merlin, yeah, in in October. Yeah. I'll link it on the screen. I'll link it below. It's called Just Visiting This Planet. So so Uh so I lied before. I can give you some advice. Please. Yeah. This is sixty seven year old device. Yeah.

2:03:34 At no time. Should you Overvalue. Your own thoughts. You should you should.

2:03:51 You should allow yourself To be humbled daily. With new ideas. The challenge any or everything. That you currently think.

2:04:04 That's wisdom. I think. How do I know who I am? If I didn't want to. 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. You're still in pr work in progress. You're thirty three, so last year When you were thirty one. You would have lived your billionth second.

2:04:25 Okay. And if you if you lead a healthy life, you should get three billion seconds out of it. You get to ninety three. At least that. So Time passes. If you learn something new every day that forces

2:04:38 Extra context for Extra perspective. New perspective on whatever you knew yesterday. You have to stay open to that. And I read old science books.

2:04:50 'Cause I watch people's confidence that they had in what they thought they knew. It can be embarrassing in some cases. Yeah. And it's very humbling. To look back. uh people writing about their own world.

2:05:02 There's a book from eighteen ninety nine, the guy on on the sun, and it says. We've learned so much about the sun in the last three years, I had to up the edition of the th book I wrote three years ago. I don't think You don't know shit about the sun Okay. Uh in nineteen in eighteen ninety nine. But he's feeling it. He's feeling that joy. And so I

2:05:23 Yeah. It keeps me humble on the frontier. On this perimeter of ignorance. Mm-hmm. 'Cause there's way more to discover.

2:05:33 than anything you've already learned. Maybe that's the antidote and medicine that society needs right now, too. I think so. 'Cause everybody is running things thinking they know better than everybody else.

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