And I can't convince you that we're not

in the matrix. Why? We could be. Is this

table real? Am I really here? Am I a

simulation sitting [music] inside some

computer? Maybe there's a kid in 29th

century Earth and they happen to allow

you and I to exist sitting at this

table. And here's a big assumption.

[music]

Can you create a computer program that

has consciousness? Nobody knows the

answer to that. But I've spoken to some

of today's AI researchers who think that

chat GPT is conscious. And in the back

of my mind, [music] I do think it's

possible.

>> But if we considered robots to be

conscious, would they then get rights?

>> I think that's something we should think

about now. Actually,

>> Professor Brian Green, what is the

ultimate question that you're seeking to

answer? [music]

>> We find ourselves thrust on this planet.

We're trying to figure out why we're

here. Is there some ultimate purpose?

We're a little dot on planet Earth. And

you begin to see our sun, one of many

stars within [music] the galaxy. You can

look at our Milky Way galaxy within the

setting of the entire universe. [music]

>> And what's beyond?

>> Well, if the universe is infinite, if

you go sufficiently far out into space,

you're virtually guaranteed to find a

copy of yourself out there.

>> There's a version out there of me that

just loves wine.

>> There you go.

>> So, should I feel insignificant?

>> I would urge you not to because fact

that we can understand that we are so

small, that's what gives us [music] a

sense of connection to something larger.

Do you think it could lead us to God?

>> If you mean the kind [music] of God our

forebears often have spoken, that feels

to me very much a human creation. I will

tell you why I'm skeptical of that. But

another thing we [music] should think

about is the end of the earth because if

we go arbitrarily far into the future,

the earth is [music] going to spiral.

It's not going to get scary.

>> Well, it's scary the whole way.

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I'll make sure every single week, every

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help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get

on with the show. [music]

Professor Brian Green,

what is the ultimate question that

you're seeking to answer?

>> The ultimate question, I would say, is

what is the true nature of reality? We

find ourselves thrust on this planet and

we look out and we're trying to figure

out why we're here, what it's made of.

Is there some ultimate purpose or is it

just some interesting accident that

allowed us to have self-awareness and

ask these kinds of questions about the

nature of the world? And I think that to

me is the the deepest kind of question

that we humans can ask.

>> Do you feel like over the last 30 years

of your career, you've gotten closer to

understanding the answer to that

question? Yes, but you know, it's kind

of like picking up grains of sand on a

beach, right? You pick up more and more

and that that pouch of sand gets

heavier. So, you're understanding is is

deeper. It's weightier, but you look out

and there's just almost infinitely more

grains of sand that are out there. We

understand the world better than we once

did. But does that really take us some

significant way toward assessing the big

deep questions of say why is there

something rather than nothing maybe

that's the deepest question of all but

which I don't mean empty space I mean

nothing nothing at all

>> well we'll in this conversation go in

the pursuit of that answer to tell

people who you are and to let them

understand the journey you've been on

academically and through your career

Where did you study? Where have you

worked over the last couple of decades?

>> Yeah, sure. Well, I grew up in

Manhattan, right across from the Hayden

Planetarium. I would wander the hallways

of the planetarium and come upon a

meteorite and the universe was sort of

my backyard because of that. And that

really set me on a trajectory that I

continued following when I went to

college, went to Harvard and studied

mathematics and physics. Then from there

was to uh Oxford where I got my

doctorate pursuing work in a field

called string theory and then through

the academic ladder Cornell and

ultimately Colombia where I've been a

professor now for 30 some odd years you

know director of the center for

theoretical physics at Columbia

University.

>> If you were to explain string theory to

me like I was 12.

>> Yeah.

>> How would you do it?

>> Yeah. I would simply say this. Your

12-year-old self probably knew that

matter was made up of stuff called

molecules that themselves are made up of

atoms that are stuck together. And the

the atoms are made of smaller things.

Electrons in orbit around a nucleus that

has neutrons and protons and neutrons

and protons. They even have smaller

particles, particles called quarks. The

question is, is that the end of the

story? Is it electrons and quirs and

you're done? everything is made up of

them. Or might there be a finer level of

structure inside the electron, inside

the quark? You take a powerful

microscope, you look deeply. Would you

see anything else? And the idea of

string theory is yeah, you would. Inside

an electron or inside a cork, you'd see

a little tiny vibrating filament. And

the different vibrations of the string

yield the different particles. So much

like a string on a violin, when it

vibrates in one pattern, you hear it as

a C or or an A sharp.

>> The different vibrations of the strings

in string theory, they don't produce

different musical tones. They produce

different particles. So a string

vibrating one way, electron. A string

vibrating another way, a cork. So matter

at its most fundamental level, if you

were to take a powerful microscope and

look deeply inside of any piece of

matter, you'd see all these little

vibrating filaments, these vibrating

strings. That's the idea of the theory.

>> So two questions come to mind when you

say that, which is how do you know? And

the second one is what if you zoomed in

even further?

>> Yeah, good. Both good questions. How do

we know? We don't. Everything I just

said could be utter nonsense. I don't

think it is. But the only way that you

know if an idea in science is correct is

you need to make predictions that you

can go out and test measure and see

whether you can confirm the ideas. We

don't have the technology to look

sufficiently deeply into matter to see

the strings. We don't have the particle

accelerators, the particle colliders

with enough power to slam things

together to access this finer level of

structure that the theory is suggesting.

So you might say then where do these

ideas come from? Right? Answer

mathematics. The power of mathematics is

that it can take us to places that we

can't yet go literally using equipment.

When we look at the mathematics of

quantum mechanics, the mathematics of

general relativity, and we put that math

inside the math of string theory, all of

a sudden the equations work. They come

together harmoniously, and we like,

whoa, the math of quantum mechanics,

we're confident in that. We have

predictions and observations. The math

of general relativity, we're confident

in that. It makes predictions. We've

confirmed through observations. Now

we're willing to go where the math takes

us. And the math takes us in this

approach to these vibrating filaments,

>> these vibrating strings.

>> These vibrating strings.

>> So if you pass me the string.

>> So essentially, if you zoom into every

cell on my body,

>> Yeah.

>> you will find that there's different

shaped strings vibrating.

>> That's the prediction.

>> That's the prediction.

>> Correct.

>> And what is causing them to vibrate in a

certain way? Who's telling them?

>> Yeah. Yeah. The idea is we recognize

that the universe has energy. If you're

to ask me where does the energy come

from. Nobody can answer that. That is

the question of why there is something

rather than nothing. The something is a

fundamental currency called energy. If

string theory is correct, then that

energy manifests as these vibrational

patterns of the strings themselves. If

the theory is wrong, then the energy

manifests through other things like

motions of particles and the way in

which spaceime warps and curves. But if

string theory is correct, the energy of

the universe is manifested in the

vibrational patterns of strings. Now

when you say like who mandates that that

string vibrates in one pattern, that

string vibrates in a different pattern.

If we go back to the big bang, the

energetic explosion that resulted in

space expanding, the detailed way in

which that happened ultimately dictates

how this or that string vibrates in the

aftermath of that rapid cosmological

explosion.

>> Does this string theory idea tell us

anything about why we're here?

>> I would like to think that it does. It's

very indirect and we are aggregates of a

huge number of particles or if string

theory is correct of a huge number of

strings. I mean inside your body you've

got something like a billion billion

billion particles and if string theory

is correct each of those particles is a

vibrating filament. It is a gargantuan

challenge to understand why those

billion billion billion particles came

together to yield you or me or somebody

else. But again, that's a historical

progression and I think we understand

the broad outlines of that narrative

that there was some initial event called

the big bang that resulted in space

expanding.

The energy of that big bang ultimately

transmuted into particles. Those

particles were wafting through space.

Gravity caused collections of those

particles to clump together. Some of

them clumped together into stars like

our sun. Some of them clumped together

into planets like our earth. And on our

earth, some of those particles began to

coalesce into more exotic and refined

forms, giving rise to atoms, giving rise

to molecules. And over the course of

billions of years on our planet, those

little molecules grew into more complex

structures, ultimately giving first

cells. And once you have a cell, cells

divide and they come together into

larger multi-ellular aggregates that

give rise to the beginnings of life in

the ocean. And those life forms evolve

further until they can walk out of the

ocean and begin to live on land. and

they begin to stand upright and after a

billion more years you and I are sitting

here at this table and so yeah there is

a story that's the brief version that

takes us from the big bang to us on

planet earth

>> is it theoretical that this is all just

a I was going to say perception but the

other word might be a simulation of

sorts theoretically we don't even know

if yesterday exists or if it was just we

were just implanted with the memory of

it

>> absolutely Hey, we're in this age of AI

now. And I wondered if this insurgence

of AI and how powerful it is and if you

imagine it on a sort of an exponential

curve, has it made you question some of

your like fundamental assumptions about

that overarching question of why we're

here?

>> Well, yeah. In fact, even before AI, we

were tustling with the very notion that

you mentioned, which is

all we ever have access to

is now, right? We can try to remember

yesterday's now, but as you say, that's

happening right now through patterns

that are in my brain or yours that we

think reflect something that happened

yesterday or the day before, but that's

a leap of faith, right? So, there's a

kind of, you know, skeptical nightmare

scenario where we begin to question

everything. You know, is this table

real? Am I really here? Am I a

simulation sitting inside some computer

right now? Are we in the matrix right

now? These are the kinds of things which

you naturally can come to when you take

a deeply skeptical attitude to the

nature of reality. Bottom line is I

can't convince myself and certainly I

can't convince you that we're not in the

matrix. Why? We could be. It is

logically consistent and sensible to

imagine that you and I are sitting in

some computer. Maybe it's not, you know,

some dark dystopian computer the way it

was in the Matrix. Maybe there's a kid

in, you know, 29th century Earth who's

in his or her garage right now and they

came up this wonderful computer program

and they're simulating historical

episodes in the past and they happen to

allow you and I to exist sitting at this

table. I don't know how to prove that

that's not the case. What I can say is

if I'm willing to buy into that,

everything falls apart. I can't trust

any I can't trust my reasoning. I can't

even trust my thinking that it's logical

to imagine that individual because that

individual may have implanted the false

reasoning that it could be logical for

us to be sitting here. What do I do at

that point? And so, as a scientist, what

I say is, I'm going to allow that as a

possibility, and then I'm going to park

it right over here. I allow it. I look

at it every so often. I say, "That's

scary, that possibility that we're in a

simulation, but I'm not going to let it

overwhelm me because then I'll be

stuck." The simulation argument

popularized by philosopher Nick Boston

relies on probability.

>> Yeah. Um, it essentially says that if an

advanced civilization, which I would

argue we're an advanced civilization,

ever develops the technological capacity

to run conscious highfidelity computer

simulations of their ancestors, they

will likely run millions of or billions

of them. And because these simulated

realities would vastly outnumber the

single raw physical universe, any given

conscious observer is statistically

almost certainly living inside a

software code rather than base reality.

The big assumption is, can you create a

computer program that has

self-awareness, that has consciousness?

[sighs and gasps]

You know, nobody knows the answer to

that. I' I've spoken to some of today's

AI researchers who think that chat GPT

is conscious, that who think that Claude

is conscious. Now, I look I I talk to

them and I'm respectful. That's the kind

of person I am, but in the back of my

mind, I'm like, are you kidding me? You

really think that chat GPT has feelings

that it thinks about its own existence

and has anxieties?

I think it can simulate that. But

regardless,

I don't think today's technology is

there. Is it possible that tomorrow's

technology broadly defined a year, five

years, a hundred years really will yield

self-aware, sentient artificial systems?

Yeah, I do think it's possible. Now, not

everybody agrees with that. I mean, no

one knows, right? It's a logical

possibility, but we don't know. Let us

assume following Nick Bostonramm that

consciousness can be created in a

mechanical box.

If that's possible, then Nick simply

says, "Look, our progyny in the future,

they're going to be fascinated with

creating sentient systems." And so,

they're going to create millions and

billions and trillions of of sentient

systems in the box. And they're going to

get really elaborate and create a

version where the sentient beings are

led to think that they're on a planet.

And in fact, they're going to do it a

thousand billion trillion different

ways. Some are going to be a planet like

Earth. Some are going to be on a planet

like Mars. Some are going to be a planet

like around some star in the Andromeda

galaxy. They're going to be an enormous

number of simulated beings.

Enormous number of universes that are

simulated. So the question is if we have

one real universe, let's say this is

real, and a gazillion artificial ones

that are created in various laptop

computers of the future. We're one of a

billion trillion zillion

instantiations of people who think that

they're real. Now, one truly is real.

The other are not real. So, if you're

just talking about odds, the odds are

anybody who thinks they're real is not.

The odds are anybody who's got a

self-aware sense of the world is

probably in a simulation.

>> You used anxiety as a sort of a proxy

for consciousness almost like the being

able to feel these things.

>> Yeah. I guess the question then becomes

like what is what is it? What is

anxiety?

>> Yeah.

>> Is it an electrical signal going through

from

>> I do think it is. I think that love and

hate and anxiety and jealousy and

gratitude and grief and all human

emotion is nothing but electrical

impulses going through our brains. And

electrical impulse is just particles

moving or strings moving along various

connections. I think that is all that it

is. Now, some people hear it and they're

like, "Wow, that is a pretty bleak way

of looking at life." We're these

wondrous beings who can have all this

emotion, right? The emotion captured by

Shakespeare in the sonnetss, right? The

emotion captured by Beethoven in the

ninth symphony, you can't reduce that to

electrical signals in the brain. And I

say, "Yeah, you can. I really do think

that you can. I don't think that

diminishes the wonder of what we can

feel and sense and articulate and

express through the various ways that we

have be it through music or theater or

art or literature or poetry. Yeah, I am

as aruck by our capacity to create as as

anybody else. But in the end, I think it

all does reduce to electrical impulses

going through this gray piece of meat in

this bone cage that's sitting on our

shoulders.

>> And if you imagine any rate of

improvement from today, presumably at

some point in the future, our future

ances, our future progyny, you called

them,

>> yeah,

>> would be able to create.

>> Why not? That's my view. I don't think

there's something special about the

brain as a substrate. I think as long as

you have the same electrical impulses,

if they're housed in silicon inside a

metallic box, I don't think that makes

them fundamentally different than what's

happening inside of our heads. Now,

philosophers argue this, you know,

psychologists argue this. They say, "No,

no, no, no. It's not just the brain.

It's the brain. It's the connection to

the body. It's the tactile sense of the

world. It's the olfactory sense of the

world. It's the visual sense. It's only

when you put it all together that you

get the full experience of what it means

to be self-aware, self-aware human

being. And my view is well maybe that's

true. But if so, give the artificial

version tactile sense and alactory sense

and visual sense. We will have the

capacity to do this. And at that point,

I just don't see a fundamental

difference between the artificial

version and shall we call it the

organic. And so, yeah, I think there's a

really interesting argument to be made

that simulations will outnumber real

worlds and therefore there's a chance

that right now we are in one of those

simulated worlds.

>> Does it change anything even if that's

true? No, I don't think it does. And I

think that's the beauty. If I'm in a

simulation, I'm going to live out my

life in this simulation to the fullest.

>> Now, I'd like to think that as a

physicist, what I do, what my colleagues

do is try to figure out the laws of the

universe at large. But if we're in a

simulation and all we're doing is

figuring out the laws that the

15-year-old futuristic kid decided to

impose on this artificial world, hey,

that's not a bad way to spend your time,

too.

>> On this subject of AI, do you I mean, a

lot of people that have sat here, people

like Jeffrey Hinton, have told me that

it's quite inconceivable that when there

is a more intelligent life form on this

planet, i.e. AI which is accelerating in

its intelligence towards super

intelligence and AGI and all these terms

that these smart people use. It's

inconceivable that we will remain in

control.

>> Yeah.

>> Logically that kind of also stacks up.

>> It does. But but I think there are

alternatives. We tend to speak very much

at the extremes, right? Humans are in

control. AI is in control. AI wipes us

out for reasons that might be benign or

might be dystopian. It seems to me that

what will likely happen is something

more in the middle which is we are going

to work with artificial systems. We're

doing it right now and look how quickly

we have acclimated to a world that would

be unthinkable in 2021. There are many

examples now, but there's a beautiful

one that's on my mind. An 80-year-old

mathematical conjecture. I believe it's

called the Jacobian conjecture

was solved very recently by a

mathematician using AI. I see us

blending with AI. Not necessarily that

we have implants, but maybe we will. But

there will not be as sharp a distinction

between the biological intelligence and

the artificial intelligence. And that to

me, if that ultimately yields a new life

form that no longer

can be called human,

that may be the way things evolve. And

so evolution is something that is

inherent to how we got here.

Why would we think that this moment in

the evolutionary progression was the end

of it all? We weren't going to continue

to evolve. And maybe the continuation of

our evolution is in partnership with the

artificial intelligence systems that we

ourselves create

>> that we give birth to.

>> Yeah, it's us, right? It's our creation,

you know, it's not an alien. We haven't

been taken over. And so, yeah, I think

that is a a real possible way that this

story plays out.

>> How do you feel about it?

>> I am fine with it. You know, I think

that we tend to become very attached

>> to the way things are and we gain a

sense of the way things are is the way

it will always be. I think that's a

natural way that we humans have lived

our lives. Why? Because the time scales

for change in our past have been

relatively slow, right? We lived what

30, 40, 50, call it 80 years, 100 years,

whatever. But the time scales for change

were typically much larger than that.

The time scales for political change and

the time scales for technological change

much larger. So as a species, we've

grown accustomed to the thought that

yeah, what we see is how it will always

be. But of course, as we look back

through history, we can see the changes.

And so we're uncomfortable with change

because we're unus to living through

that kind of change at the kind of speed

that we are and will continue to

encounter. But I think we just have to

get with it. Now look, I don't want AI

system to wipe us out. Don't get me

wrong. But I think if we recognize that

change is happening, will happening, we

can embrace it in a way that will have

an outcome that will be acceptable, that

will in fact be wonderful in the things

that it will allow us to do.

>> I'm quite curious. You talked about AI

being able to solve that complex math

problem.

>> I'm wondering if with accelerating ever

more intelligent AI, there's a bunch of

other things within physics that you

think might become possible in the near

term. I mean, one of them I was thinking

about, we can talk about some of the

others that I have in my mind, but and

any others that you think are

interesting, but one of them is us being

able to live forever.

>> Yeah.

>> Do you think we're going to be able to

live forever?

>> Yeah, that would be a that would be a

good one. I don't think that death is

inevitable

in the sense that

death can be thought of as the increase

in entropy, the increase in disorder in

a physical system. And when the entropy

gets too large, the system can't

function the way it once did. And that's

really what we call death, right? That's

really what it means. And so in

principle, we can imagine harnessing

some of the processes that have caused

the degradation in the human body that

have naturally resulted in us typically

not living more than 100, 120 years. I

mean, people like, you know, David

Sinclair who I've spoken to about things

like this. Yeah, you know, I think we

can forestoall the kinds of degradation.

Now, if you're talking to me, I think on

time scales that are so much longer than

a human life. I think about time scales

that speak to the entire

time frame of the cosmos from beginning

to the closest that science can take us

to the very end. And on those scales, I

don't think that we will be able to

forstall death. But please note the time

scales I'm talking about are ludicrous

compared to any time scale that we are

familiar with. 100 more years, 200 more

years, maybe 500 more years. I don't

think anybody can really say for sure. I

do think that is within the possible

range of what science and medicine will

ultimately be able to accomplish. And I

will say though, you know, I I read a

book I was about in my 20s called The

Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. He was

a social psychologist, I guess,

sociologist who believed strongly that

so much of what we do in our lives is

driven by our awareness of our own

mortality. And as I began to think more

and more about that, it made more and

more sense to me, which had a dual

effect on me. very interesting framework

to think about your life within the

context of recognizing its finite

nature. But the flip side of that is

you're constantly thinking about your

own death, you know, which, you know, is

a a curious way to go about your life.

But I don't think the denial of death

that human motivation would go away if

we live 200 years or 300 or 500. Yeah,

we'd have longer lifespans. we'd be able

to do more things. But, you know, if we

live to 500, you know, as we approach

450, 475, we'll be thinking the exact

same thoughts that we think now as we

approach 70 or 80. It'll be no

different. And so, from a fundamental

perspective, yeah, I would choose to

live longer, but I don't think it

changes anything fundamentally.

>> I find it quite interesting. I was

actually writing a letter about this

sort of an article to myself really

about this yesterday about this idea of

long-termism and how when you just

change the time horizon of something the

decisions you make today are different.

Yeah. And a simple way of explaining

this through the context of like

business would be if I told you to build

a business then I gave you one year and

unlimited resources but you had to build

it as big as you could

>> you would take certain shortcuts

>> and you would maybe not think about the

foundations but if I gave you 20 years

you'd really make great foundations and

then you know you'd build up from there

and I think about the same in our lives

because we do have this sort of sort of

inbuilt time horizon. Okay, I'm going to

live maybe 80 years and then I'm 30 and

then 40 and then kids and then I start

to, you know, change and maybe at some

deeper level we are making a certain set

of decisions based on that time horizon

that we wouldn't make otherwise.

>> Yeah. I mean when I was 20 or 30, you

know, even though I had this mindset

that was inculcated by reading Becker's

book, there was a certain sense of an

infinite horizon that somehow was

infusing your decisions, you know, to

write a book. Well, that's like a

four-year undertaking. But, you know,

when you're 30, you're like, "Yeah,

sure. Yeah, I'm going to do that now.

I'm gonna choose those books with a

certain kind of care, right? You know,

there's a different kind of mindset that

that is brought to bear. So, I certainly

agree that the time horizon has a

profound impact on the momentto moment

choices, but the pattern that we humans

go through from birth, you know, to

adolescence,

adulthood, middle age to ultimately old

age if we're lucky and then, you know,

we disappear. that pattern will persist

regardless of what the ultimate scale of

it is. Whether it's 80 years or 800

years, I think that we would go through

a very similar kind of rhythmic

variation in how we approach the world.

>> If we were immortal,

that would change a lot, but I don't see

immortality in our future.

>> What is the sort of the least inspiring

possibility of the sort of answer to the

big question of why we're here? And then

I'll ask you the the most optimistic

possibility.

>> Yeah. I think the least inspiring would

be if what if in the end of the day it's

all just an accident. There is no deep

explanation for why the world is the way

it is. There's no deep explanation for

why there's something rather than

nothing. And if that's the truth, I'm on

board. But it wouldn't feel as enriching

as it might be if I can now jump to the

other side of your question. You know,

if there is a true fundamental answer to

the question of why there is anything at

all and I recognize that that answer

dovetales with everything else that

we've been developing. That answer

ultimately yields quantum mechanics and

yields the general theory of relativity

and maybe even yields string theory.

That would feel deeply satisfying. Why

did our brain evolve? So we could get

the next meal. So we could get shelter.

So we could get a mate and have progeny,

allowing our genetic material to

propagate into our descendants. Right?

This is what the brain was meant to do.

And yet this brain can do so much more

than that. It can figure out the

equations of physics. That's that's a

miracle right there. And so the deep

gratification would come from this brain

being able to figure out some stuff and

then it dovetales with the deep

explanation for why there's anything at

all giving us a coherent narrative from

the beginning until today and perhaps on

into the far future.

>> Yeah.

>> Do you think it's going to happen? Do

you think we're going to answer that

question?

>> I don't know. Nobody does.

I think all vectors are pointing in a

direction that suggests that there are

real explanations that it's not just

happen stance. There are these particles

we mentioned before called electrons.

Here it is my spinning electron, right?

And so when an electron spins, it can

rise to a little magnetic field sort of

like a trillionth of the strength of the

magnetic field of a magnet on your

refrigerator. We can use the math of

quantum mechanics to predict the

strength of that magnetic field and we

can do it and it comes out 2 point blah

blah blah 15 decimal places long. We can

do the math. We then can measure the

magnetic field and it agrees digit by

digit by digit by digit by digit with

what we calculate.

Our prediction is borne out by our

observations to 15 decimal places. I

mean that's breathtaking. We should not

have been able to do that in some sense

to understand the world that deeply with

a brain that really was focused upon,

you know, getting the bison. And so the

fact that we can do that suggests to me

that there are these deep patterns in

the world that will ultimately stitch

together into a coherent story.

>> Do you think it could lead us to God?

>> Well, or religion. Yeah, it depends what

you mean by God. You know, if you mean

the kind of God that our forebears

often have spoken of and people today as

well, a kind of anthropomorphized being,

you know, sitting on the throne in some

heavenly place. I suspect not. That

feels to me very much a human creation

and a wondrous human creation. And I'm

not of the mindset, as some of my

science colleagues are, that religion is

an enemy of science and needs to be

wiped. It can be, but anything can be an

enemy of anything else. It depends how

you use it. I see religion not as a

structure that tries to explain the

world in terms of its workings. I see it

as a structure that tries to quell our

anxiety, our existential anxiety. Where

did religions come from? They came from

our forebears recognizing that they

would die. So you know our forebears had

these elaborate rituals of burying their

dead. There are these wonderful caves um

in various parts of the world that have

been excavated where the grave goods as

they call it involving you know animal

teeth stitched together care. It would

take a single individual years to create

the grave goods that are buried with an

individual. Why would they spend the

time on that? Well, they were imagining

that death is not the end. That that

individual needed those grave goods for

their next journey into the afterlife.

And why were they thinking about that?

Because it's too terrifying

to imagine that death is truly the end.

And so from that you can see the

glimmers of a religious sensibility

emerging where we want to have something

that suggests that death is not the end.

So we invent these beautiful structures

called religions and I say that even

from a personal standpoint. I don't

believe in any of the traditional

religious practices. Right? I'm Jewish.

I was raised sort of Jewish more

culturally than religiously.

Do I pray on occasion? Yeah, I do. Do I

believe that I'm praying to an actual

god? I do not. But the act of

going through the kind of ritual that

our ancestors did and giving yourself

over momentarily to something that you

imagine is being more powerful. I think

it's deeply in our nature.

>> So, who are you praying to?

>> I am praying to the universe if I have

to give a word to it. Recognizing that

this prayer is going to fall on deaf

ears because there's nothing else out

there to hear it, but it makes me feel

better. And so there's a part of my mind

that's willing to allow the scientific

understanding to have its place, but the

irrational human side to have its place,

too.

What is the the most compelling argument

or idea or experience you've ever

encountered for a god like the ones we

read about in the Bibles?

>> Very little. Very little. You know,

somebody died in the operating room and

they were able to uh leave their body

and see things that they could not

possibly have seen and then they

reported back when they were revived and

people like, "Oh, you must have died and

left your body." That's the only No, no,

no, no. The human brain has this

wonderful imaginative capacity to see

things inside of its head that it

doesn't literally see. That's what we

can do. And so I've never seen a single

example where I couldn't feel that I

could give a logical explanation which

was more compelling than the

supernatural explanation.

>> What about the big bang then?

>> Good. So the big bang is a question of

how it got started. Yeah. And over time

we have been able to push our

understanding ever further back. So in

about 19 uh call it 29 or so Edwin

Hubble who is a great astronomer

noticed through powerful observations

through the telescope at Mount Wilson

Observatory in California that the

distant galaxies all seem to be moving

away. Interesting. Others, George

Lmetra, who is a Belgian priest, as it

turns out, who also knew Einstein's

general relativity, said, "Well, look,

if all the galaxies are moving away,

just wind that cosmic film backwards."

Back in time, they must have been closer

and closer and closer together. Way back

in the beginning, they must have all

been on top of each other, and then

everything running the film forward must

have swelled outward in a big bang-like

explosion.

>> Let there be light.

>> Let there be light. Yeah. And so

starting in 1929, we began to have a

scientific account of how it is that the

universe may have been billions of years

ago. And in our era, other scientists

took the story even further, suggesting

that there was an earlier era when the

universe was just infused with a kind of

uniform energy. You could say, where did

the energy come? I don't know. But if it

was infused with this uniform energy,

they showed that the math required that

the universe underwent this rapid

swelling, the big bang. And so era by

era by era, my point is we can push our

understanding ever more deeply trying to

get at cosmic origins. We have not been

able to push back to time zero itself.

But because we're able to push our

understanding further back and make

predictions about, for instance, what's

known as the cosmic microwave background

radiation. This is heat that we can

observe today that was left over from

the big bang. Big bang was very hot. The

universe has cooled ever since for 13.8

billion years. We can detect the

residual heat from the big bang. And so

this gives me confidence that we're

inching toward the answer to the

question that you asked. Now, will we

require God at some point? By which I

mean, will we say we've gone as far as

we can? Will we have to invoke something

else? I can't say no. But I don't see

any reason at this point to envision

that we won't be able to push all the

way to a full understanding. Most of us

don't really understand um I guess how

scale

>> Yeah.

>> and time have a relationship which means

that you know I've been alive for 33

years now and it feels like a long time.

>> Yeah.

>> But I'm presuming the further and

further you zoom out and the sort of the

bigger the wider the scale gets time is

experienced differently. So actually I

could have been here for a second in a

toddler's universe who's created the

simulation.

>> Yes. All of this is possible when

simulations are part of the story. But

if you put that to the side and just

look at our universe, yeah, the time

scales even there are shocking. I mean,

Carl Sean used an analogy. He said,

"Look, if you want to understand the

time scales of the universe from the

beginning until today, which is billions

of years, like 13.8 billion years, he

said, here's one way to do it. Imagine

that all of cosmic history from the

beginning until today, you compress it

down to one year.

>> Now, in that scheme, that means each day

is about 40,000 years. But you can then

put all of the milestone moments in the

evolution of the universe on the

calendar. So imagine you have the big

bang is January 1st. Then the Milky Way

galaxy forms like something around you

know March 15th or something like that.

And the sun and the earth form sometime

you know in May you know and then the

first you know life on earth is sometime

in December like December 2nd and then

you know the first modern humans they

appear like on New Year's Eve right

>> and then all of civilization

takes place in the last 10 seconds right

so like 11:55

you know it's the it's the rise of the

Buddha 1156 the fall of Rome 1158 ate

the Renaissance 11:59

like 1 second to the stroke of midnight

you get modern science. So like modern

science is like 1 second in this cosmic

calendar. And so that helps you get a

feel for the time scales that are

involved when you're talking

cosmologically because you're right, 33

years in a lifetime.

You know, I'm I'm going to posit you're

going to live to 99. Let's say that's

oneird of your life. You know, that's

that's not small. It's not big, but you

know, it's a significant part of it. on

cosmic terms 33 years it's zero it

doesn't register that's how tiny it is

on the scales that we're talking about

cosmologically

>> so should I feel insignificant

>> you can I would urge you not to one of

the reactions to all this certainly can

be look we're a little tiny speck in

space right I mean you can give the same

kind of context for space itself Right.

Because we're on a planet around the

sun. The sun is one star of a 100red

billion others or so in the Milky Way

galaxy.

>> Have you got a

>> Yeah, I think there's a a little version

of this thing here. If we can get this

guy to go on. Right. Yeah. So, if you

sort of start like here, right here we

are in the studio. Right. And if here we

then begin to pull out to planet Earth,

like we're a little dot on planet Earth.

And then if you pull out from there,

this is Earth within the solar system.

You begin to see how tiny we look even

on the scale of the solar system. But of

course here you can pull out further and

you begin to see our sun, one of many

stars within the galaxies. You only see

a few here. But you know there are 100

billion stars in our galaxy. And then

you can go even further than that. You

can look at our Milky Way galaxy within

the setting of the entire universe that

has at least a hundred billion other

galaxies.

So we as a little tiny speck around our

star, our star is one of 100 billion

stars in a galaxy that's one of 100

billion galaxies. That can certainly

make you feel small in space.

The beauty though is that our minds can

reach out to the edge of the cosmos. The

fact that we can understand that we are

so small is what gives us heft. That's

what gives us a sense of connection to

something larger. I imagine that fish

don't realize

that they're like in one ocean of many

oceans on the earth. That's one planet.

I I don't think maybe I'm wrong and

maybe the fish are like ah yeah yeah

yeah you you know [clears throat] but

but assuming that the fish don't know

that they don't know that they're

insignificant they don't even really

think in those terms per se but the fact

that we can do that the fact that we can

realize how insignificant we are when

you talk about the expanse of space you

realize that there are other measures of

significance and one measure of

significance is your ability to

understand your own predicament

and the fact that we can do that is what

to me is wondrous.

>> How do we know we're not just that whole

universe there isn't just a we're just a

a microbe in the in the gut of a of a

fish?

>> Yeah, we we could and again that's much

like this simulation argument. But let

me give you an example in here that

helps give you a sense of why we believe

this stuff. This here is the cosmic

microwave background radiation. This is

the heat left over from the beginning.

Now, it's colorcoded. The different

colors correspond to different

temperatures in space. This is a picture

of space with a device that measures the

temperature at each location and assigns

it a color.

>> How much of space or just a segment?

>> This is a segment of the observable

universe. The segment that we can see.

Now, space can be much larger than

things that we can see. That's

absolutely the case. But my point is

these tiny color variations correspond

to tiny temperature differences. We can

use mathematics to predict the pattern

of the temperature variations.

And what we predict matches this image

to incredible precision.

And so the fact that we can do a

calculation right at this table with a

piece of paper, a pencil, and a computer

and generate an image that agrees with

what we see, we say, "Look, yeah, we can

be skeptical. Maybe we don't have the

full answer, but that agreement gives us

confidence that we've got something in

the direction of truth." And that to me

is what gives us something that

counteracts the feeling of

insignificance.

>> And on that, if you just pull that up

again. So this is the observable

universe, which is I mean, how big is

that?

>> The universe is about 13.8 billion years

old. So you'd think that the univer the

distance we could see would be about

13.8 billion light years. The distance

light can travel in one year. We can

actually see a little bit further more

like 45 billion lightyears. So you can

think about this as here we are we look

out billions of light years that way

billions of light years that way

billions of light years in every

direction and this is like a big sphere

that surrounds us and we're measuring

its temperature. The temperature of

space the photons that have traveled to

us from about 300,000 years after the

beginning. So this picture is a snapshot

in essence of what the universe was like

a mere moment in cosmological terms

300,000 years after the beginning. That

is an amazing picture.

>> And what's beyond?

>> I don't know. I don't have any reason to

suspect that reality radically changes

just beyond the place that we can see. I

think it's incredibly unlikely that the

world is so consistent with our

scientific understanding for it to all

be a ruse.

>> So, is it infinite?

>> It could be. And if it is infinite,

there are some really weird things. If

what we have been talking about isn't

weird enough, right? You know, if the

universe is infinite, if you go

sufficiently far out into space, you're

virtually guaranteed to find a copy of

yourself out there and a copy of the

Earth out there and a copy of our galaxy

out there. It's virtually impossible to

imagine a universe that goes on

infinitely far and doesn't repeat. You

know, in fact, I see a prop here. I can

sort of tell you why, right? So, here's

a deck of cards, right? And I think it's

a new deck. Yeah. So everything is in

order, right? It's all perfectly ordered

like that. Now, if I was to take this

deck of cards and I start to shuffle it,

right? So, you know, I'm not a

particularly good shuffler, but you

know, you get the basic idea. You know,

I keep shuffling. And of course, the

order changes every time, right? So, if

I now, you know, I'm not a great

shuffler. So, there probably still, you

know, some things that are still, you

know, in numerical order, but it's more

mixed up than it was before. And I can

keep on doing this. Now, sooner or

later, if I continue to shuffle these

cards over and over and over and over

and over and over again, sooner or

later, it will get back to the

completely ordered arrangement. Why?

Because there aren't enough different

arrangements to go around. Right? That

idea applies in the universe in the

following way. In any region of space,

there are particles. Those particles can

be arranged in a variety of different

ways. Here they're arranged so that you

and I are sitting at this table and we

got the cameras and everything. This is

just a particle arrangement. There are

only a finite number of arrangements of

particles in any given region of space.

This you can establish from the laws of

quantum physics. So if you go out far

enough in space, region by region by

region, the particles will have

different arrangements, but they have to

repeat much like the order of the cards

has to repeat. So there has to be a

place out there. In fact, if it goes on

infinitely far, if you imagine that I

shuffle these cards infinitely many

times, I'll get that nice ordered

arrangement infinitely many times, too.

Similarly, there are infinitely many

copies of you, of me, of everything

we're familiar with out there in the

cosmos. And so, if the universe is

infinite, it kind of challenges a little

bit our sense of self, right? Like what

does it mean to be who you are if there

are other versions of you having the

exact same thoughts? They had the same

childhood. They had the same history

because again that's just an arrangement

of particles over time and it has to

repeat.

>> There's a version out there of me that

just loves wine.

>> There you go. Right. In fact, it's even

easier, I should say, for the particle

arrangement to almost but not quite

exactly replicate what we're familiar

with, which would mean there's a

universe out there in which you and I

are interchanged or you grew up in New

York City and I grew up something. Yeah,

because those are again almost

replications. You got the earth, you got

the sun, but the detailed particle

arrangement is close to but not

identical to what we are used to. So

yeah, an infinite universe brings in

some fairly strange ideas.

>> But even in the observable universe, I

mean this transitions nicely to the

subject of aliens which people are um

yeah

>> very obsessed about. I guess there's two

questions here which is why do we care

so much I guess philosophically about

aliens? You know, I think we at least in

this country and elsewhere too, we love

the idea of conspiracy. We love the idea

that the deep state is hiding things

from us. And by we, I don't mean me. I

sort of mean the zeitgeist, you know,

loves the idea of this Area 51, you

know. So, I think there's a a a desire

for there to be more than what's

apparent on the surface. And wouldn't it

be exciting if you know we've long known

that there are these aliens they visited

us and it's been kept under wraps.

That's like the deep conspiracy that

feeds that hunger for there to be

something that is being hidden from us.

Now I think the other reason is we're

deeply lonely as a species. Sure, we've

got people around, but you know, I think

this sense, the desire for a god, I

don't think is that much different from

the desire for there to be other life

out there. It's the desire to be part of

something bigger. Now, if you ask me, do

I think there are actually other life

forms out there? I'd like to think of it

in two ways. One, yeah, I think it's

hard to imagine that we're the only

life. I mean the more we look the more

we find the organic molecules necessary

for life you know amino acids nucleic

acid you know the the raw material seems

to not be too hard to come by in the

cosmos so to imagine that there's other

you know bacterial life or viruses out

there that seems to me a reasonable

working hypothesis but if you then say

but what about intelligent life and by

intelligent life let's just call us

intelligent and it's debatable but let's

just say that you know that is a harder

question I mean even on our planet right

it was an asteroid 65 million years ago

that wiped out the dinosaurs and in that

way opened up the evolutionary pathway

by which we came to dominate in the way

that we do without that it could still

be the dinosaurs are grazing around on

various plant life and other life forms

on on the surface of this earth. And

without that kind of accident on some

other world, maybe intelligent life is

rare or even so rare that we're the only

example. So I don't consider that an

absurd perspective as well that there is

life, but there may not be any

intelligence beyond us.

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>> If one of your children came to you and

said, "Dad, um, what is the what is the

meaning then of this life? If we're

we're alone in this universe, it's a

gazillion miles away from anything

interesting in the cosmic spectrum of

things. What is the meaning of all of

this, Dad?"

>> Yeah. Well, they do ask.

>> Oh, they do.

>> You know, unfortunately or fortunately,

because I spend a lot of time thinking

about this stuff and writing about it,

it's sort of in in the familial

zeitgeist at home, if you will. But you

know my answer generally is I don't

think that hovering out there in the

depths of space there is the answer. You

know I I think you know this this urge

to look out and have the answer brought

to us. I think that's needs to be

inverted. I think that we need to come

to the universe with our answer to that.

And I think the charge of every sentient

living being is to come to their own

rationale for their life, their own

answer to your question, their own set

of activities and desires and

achievements and relationships that

gives their life meaning and combine to

make me feel connected.

One of the things that does make me feel

connected is just knowing that the

particles that I'm made out of existed

at the Big Bang.

>> Yes, exactly. Isn't that wondrous?

You are the universe constructed in a

way that you can reflect on the

universe. Now, some would say, "No, no,

no. We're special. We're like these

divine offspring, you know, made in the

image of God." And sure, I mean, I like

the way that that sounds, but I find it

much more satisfying to describe it the

way you did. There were particles that

emerged from the Big Bang that coales

into a form that allowed us to

momentarily, cuz we're here for a brief

flicker of cosmic time, to momentarily

reflect on our own existence. That's a

connection. One of the things that

actually helped me a lot through my

life, funnily enough, is um is kind of

watching what you just showed on the

screen there, which was I watched a

video when I was younger of them just

zooming out from Earth.

>> Yeah.

>> And we talked about feeling

insignificant earlier. Um I mean,

there's some of them here. I'll just

pick one at random like this one here.

Well, it's just a a lady sat on some

grass and

>> she she zooms out further and further

and further. And when I saw this, I must

have been h it was a video like this

one. I must have been about 14 years

old. And at first I had the thought that

a lot of people might have which was oh

like none of this matters because we're

so insignificant on the grand scheme of

things that like what's the point? And

then I I had this other thought which

has stayed with me ever since which is

it liberated me from worry.

>> Yeah.

>> Because if if all of my worries are just

a speck in this bigger thing which are a

speck in a bigger thing and a speck in a

bigger thing it meant that I could take

more risks in my life. Yeah.

>> And not be encumbered by what will

happen if and what will people think and

etc etc etc which kind of liberates one

to go and pursue whatever they want to

pursue.

>> Yeah. Carl Sean with the pale blue dot.

You know if you're familiar with that

terminology he he had the uh Viking

spacecraft when it was going by Saturn

turn around and take a shot of planet

Earth through the gossamer rings of

Saturn. And in that photo, the Earth is

this little tiny pale blue speck, sort

of as we saw in the film as it went by

there. And he in this wonderfully poetic

passage described how everything we care

about, everything we love, everything we

fight, the rivers of blood that have

been spilled to conquer a tiny little

fraction of a pixel in space. that gives

you a setting where the concerns that

you're mentioning of an individual human

life of of countries of nations you

realize how utterly small it is in the

cosmological setting and again that to

me isn't insignificance as you were

saying it's liberation

>> we have this um [clears throat] this

spectrum of I guess confidence yeah in

front of us here and on one end of it it

says low confidence on this end it has

high confidence and there's

five little uh figurine type things

there next to you. And what I would like

you to do is to place them in line with

your confidence that the thing is real.

So the first one I'm going to ask you to

place is those mini scales which

represent free will.

>> This guy here, free will.

>> That's free will. Do you think humans

have free will? Are you low confidence

or high confidence? I'll push that

further towards you so you can

>> uh well uh I do not think we have free

will and I have high confidence in that

assessment which I guess means low

confidence that we have free will.

>> What is free will

>> to me? Free will is really just the

everyday

sense that you are the ultimate author

of your actions. that the buck stops

with you when it comes to the decisions

that you make for how you are going to

respond one way or another in the moment

to moment existence of life. I don't

think that freedom of the will is real.

And I can give you a quick sense why it

really is an extension of everything

that we've already spoken about, which

is, you know, when I look at you, I see

a man, but I also imagine that I'm

looking inside you and I see your

particles. And so, you are a man-shaped

collection of particles. That is what

you are. And each of those particles and

the elomeration of those particles are

fully governed by the laws of physics. I

don't say that we have those laws yet.

We have an approximation to them with

Schroinger and Einstein and all those

folks. But I do believe that there is an

ultimate set of principles that guide

how your particles behave. You do not

have the capacity to intercede in the

lawful progression of your particles. So

if you raise your hand,

it is not you who is doing that. It is

the laws of physics guiding the

particles in your brain, sending an

electrical signal down your arm, causing

your muscle to contract or expand,

resulting in your hand going up. You

don't control the laws that govern those

particles.

>> I didn't make the decision.

>> You did not. You felt that you did. And

so the feeling that you and I and

everyone else have that we make

decisions and those decisions result in

our actions. It's a powerful it's a

seductive sensibility. But no, I do not

think that you are the place where that

choice if you will occurred. The choice

is actually within the lawful unfolding

of the particles. And I can't control

that particle motion. Therefore, I can't

control the decision. Therefore, I don't

control the motion of my arm.

>> Therefore, I don't control my life.

>> You don't in some sense if you buy into

it fully. [snorts]

It can be paralyzing. Or you can

recognize it, which I do. And I say,

"Okay, within that structure, I'm going

to live my life as fully as I can." And

I am able, not always cuz I'm a human

being, but in the best of moments, I can

pull back and have a certain objectivity

about the things that happen in my life

and I observe them at a remove as

opposed to being completely wrapped up

in the moment to moment. Now that

doesn't make me an aloof person. It

doesn't make me somebody who somehow is

detached. No, it's just I can analyze

the world at multiple levels.

>> So who is and what is guiding those

particles to make the decisions that

those particles are making?

>> The best I can say and I think the best

that we can say right now is that there

is some body of law. Now what does that

mean a body of law? There is some

patterns that repeat in the world. Now

you drop an apple and it falls on

Newton's head repeatedly. You can rely

upon certain kinds of particle motion

because there's certain regularities in

the world. And the regularities in the

world are what I mean by the laws of

physics. They may be articulated

mathematically. Our best guess is as of

today that math is the best language we

have for describing those laws. But out

there, I think there are some

fundamental patterns and those patterns

ultimately are what determine how the

particles move. And so that's all that

we are. We are a body of particles that

move and that's responsible for why

things do what they do. And remarkably,

our brains allow us to self-reflect, to

look at what we do and analyze it. And

when we do that, we tend to ascribe

authorship to ourselves.

But that's a story that we tell

ourselves. It makes us feel good. It

makes us feel part of the unfolding. It

perhaps has an evolutionary utility that

if you feel responsible for what you're

doing, maybe it helps you to survive.

Maybe that's why this way of thinking

was inculcated over the course of

generation upon generation. Maybe

there's an evolutionary explanation. But

fundamentally speaking, I don't think

it's real. I was going to say then,

well, maybe the the particles are trying

to survive in this form. But even as I

thought about that, I thought, so maybe

my particles are making the decisions

they make to raise my hand, to go on a

holiday with my fiance, to have kids

because they want to survive in this

form, but actually I disappear at some

point.

>> Yes.

>> But my particles don't,

>> right?

>> They then become dirt or someone else or

whatever or child. It doesn't seem that

they care much about necessarily being

in this form.

>> They don't. I don't think they do. So I

don't think they care. I don't even

think the word care is applicable to

them. The notion of caring is a

highlevel construct that only emerges

when the particles are configured

sufficiently to yield a complex

information processing system called the

human brain

>> and consciousness.

>> And consciousness. Now if you ask me

where consciousness comes from, I don't

know. sort of as we discussed before, I

think it's just physical processes.

Let's go with that. Assuming that's the

case, this conscious self-awareness

invents the idea of caring because it's

a useful concept for us to organize our

lives and our experiences. This

conscious self-awareness in invents all

the other words happy, sad, meaning,

purpose, morality, activity, action,

choice, decision, freedom, will all

humanmade. These concepts don't exist

out there in the universe. There's no

notion of freedom of the will floating

in space outside the Andromeda galaxy.

This is a selection of ideas that we

humans as a species have found to give

us utilitarian advantage in organizing

our experiences. That's all that it is.

That doesn't diminish it. I don't go

around trying to erase my sense of self.

I accept my sense of self, but I also

see it for what it is, a human

construct.

>> Does that mean that consciousness and

everything that I am could theoretically

just be, as you said earlier, in the

sort of pessimistic version of events?

Random. Totally random. like

consciousness itself was just the

particles came together over a long

enough period of time and then they they

found this form and now I can

>> it could and maybe it was random and

happened only once on this planet right

I mean again maybe there is life out

there and maybe there's even complex

life out there maybe even like as big as

us or bigger but maybe when we encounter

those life forms they have no idea of

what it means to have an inner world

>> this I think it was a physicist said to

me Uh it was a bit of a spiritual

esoteric idea, but they basically said

to me that they think consciousness

could be it could come from this sort of

original source and it's divided itself

up into the humans, the bees, the birds

>> to go out there and understand the

nature of the universe.

>> Yeah.

>> And then when we die, we kind of return

to the source. But you know, I'll give

birth to a baby. They'll go off into

different corners of the the earth and

look at different things and have

different experiences and it's all

feeding back into this central

consciousness which is sole objective is

to understand itself. And it's funny cuz

I heard this idea from this physicist

and then I I was in a somewhere in

Europe and I was driving down the road

and I saw all of these tourists just

like looking up at a mountain and they

were just like looking out at the sea

and they were looking at things that

were interesting. Sure. Which is what we

do as humans and I thought kind of makes

sense

>> that we're like we're actually just like

consciousness.

>> There's a philosophical position called

idealism. And idealism holds that the

fundamental truth of reality is

consciousness. But fundamentally,

everything that I've seen throughout my

life suggests to me that that's not how

it is. I can't prove it. I hope it's

true. But if you ask me what I think is

really true, I think that consciousness

is something that emerges when there's a

sufficient amount of information

processing that itself is carried by the

motion of particles through various

interconnected structures.

>> Is my dog conscious?

>> It is, but I think it's got a different

level of consciousness. You can tell

when they're feeling good, happy, or sad

or frustrated or intrigued. The ears

change, the eyes change, the shape of

the face. You can't help but ascribe an

inner world to that. And again, I always

worry that the dogs, like the fish, are

like these humans think they're so damn

special, but we actually are

welldeveloped, well beyond them, and

we're just playing along. In fact, in

New York City, who picks up the poop,

right? We pick up the poop. So, the dog

walks along as like this, you know,

king-like being, and we behind them with

these little plastic bags. So, who's

really in charge? But putting that to

the side, I do think that the dogs and

the cats have a level of conscious

awareness. And I think you go down

through the animal kingdom. If you were

to ask me, does an insect have

consciousness? Then I'm less clear. I

suspect not. If you ask me whether a

virus or a bacterium has consciousness,

I don't think so. I don't think there's

adequate information processing capacity

in those structures to have the kind of

rich inner world that we would normally

ascribe to a conscious being, but that's

all that I think it is. I don't think

that there's some uber universal

consciousness that's out there that we

go back to when we die. Not that I

wouldn't like it. I just don't think

it's true. Moreover, I can understand

why humans would introduce this idea.

Again, it's Ernest Becker and the denial

of death. How wonderful to say, yeah,

our bodies die. Sure. But our

consciousness, it doesn't die. Our

consciousness, it floats off and it

rejoins the universal. Wow. That makes

you feel good. And we tell these stories

that make us feel good. And there's

nothing wrong with that. However, I do

think it's important that we see them

for what they are, which are human

authored stories to compat our own

recognition that we are mortal beings.

>> Moving on to the next one is the

universe there on the little card. We

talked about this a little bit and

you've given your answer already, but do

you think the universe is infinite?

>> I don't know, but I'm going to put it

sort of around here. You know, in fact,

lately I should tell you the work that

I've been doing has imagined that the

universe is not infinite. So, I've been

doing a lot of scientific exploration

with mathematics with a handful of

colleagues and the kind of weird things

that can happen if it's not infinite.

And it's very interesting. There's a lot

of mileage that you can extract from a

universe that you go off in that way and

you wind up coming back to your starting

point much like you would on the surface

of the earth. It's a finite extent. But

if you ask me in my heart of hearts, if

I was forced to make a choice, I would

say infinite with a medium level of

confidence.

>> What about do you think life could exist

outside of Earth? And I'll say

intelligent life.

>> Intelligent life.

>> Do you think intelligent life exists

outside of Earth?

>> Yeah. So for intelligent aliens, I'm

going to definitely go a little bit more

over here. You know, I put it as uh it's

possible. Obviously it happened once

therefore it could happen again. Yeah.

Obviously intelligence is not somehow

contradictory to the way the universe

evolves. It can support conscious and

intelligent beings. But I think it may

be special.

>> Is there not a bit of a contradiction

here though with these two things that

you think the universe is infinite?

>> Oh when I say this I should say within

the observable universe.

>> Oh okay.

>> Yeah. So in the entire expanse of the

universe as opposed to the observable

part which again is a part that even in

principle we could have connection with

then yeah I would absolutely put in

exactly the same place because there'd

be copies of us out there. But if we

talk instead about are we going to get a

signal

are we going to be visited then I put

that at much lower confidence. And in

fact, I I would say one thing about the

visitation because you mentioned the

interest that people have on aliens. I

find it really odd that people are taken

with these photographs that are meant to

sort of just catch the alien ship as it

was racing. If an alien could travel

across the galaxy, say to reach us, they

are so technologically advanced that the

idea that our araic airplanes and their

cameras could capture a photograph of

them is ludicrous. They will be able to

evade us in so simply that the idea that

we just barely caught them on our

cameras is is absolutely ridiculous.

Moreover, if they could travel to us,

again, I'm talking about traveling

across light years, right? I mean, our

galaxy, 100,000 light years, end to end,

right? To be able to traverse that

requires a level of technological

sophistication that is so beyond

anything that we can do. To imagine that

beings that advanced would be interested

in us. So interested that they would

like kidnap us. That'd be like saying,

"I was walking to the park yesterday.

Don't tell anyone, but I kidnapped an

ant. There's an ant walking along and

nobody was looking and I sort of

kidnapped it." We don't do that because

it's not interesting. Similarly, we

would not be of interest to the aliens

because they're so incredibly advanced

that this idea that they're abducting us

is just ludicrous.

Is it going to be possible? You know, we

were talking earlier on about the

possibilities that artificial

intelligence is going to unlock. Is it

possible within the laws of physics for

us at some point when we get

sufficiently intelligent to travel

across the universe?

>> It's a that's a it's a great question.

It's a tough one. So,

if the technological advancement was

simply making our ships faster, no.

Because even if you traveled near the

speed of light, which is the ultimate

speed limit, you know, to go to the

nearest star, Alpha Centuri, it would

take you four years even at the speed of

light to get there, right? And then if

you actually want to go not just to the

nearby star, but to actually across the

galaxy, again, you're talking a 100,000

years to do that. So that brute

straightforward approach will not

succeed. However, there are exotic ideas

of things called wormholes you've

probably encountered. These are these

ideas of a wormhole is like a tunnel.

What is a tunnel on Earth? A tunnel is a

shortcut that gets you from here to here

without having to go over the mountain,

right? Tunnel it right through. There's

an analogous idea that people float in

the universe where to get from here to

there, there may be a shortcut, a kind

of tunnel that connects them and is a

quicker way of getting from point A to

point B. We don't know if these tunnels

through space exist. We don't know if

they existed whether we could actually

get through them. And so it's a highly

speculative idea. But if they do exist

and if we one day can create them and

manipulate and control them, then at

least in principle we could take two

distant locations like this corner and

this corner. But imagine that we could

manipulate this surface, fold it

together to bring the two corners next