Surveys find that roughly 80% of Gen Z

believe in astrology and many allow it

to influence major life decisions.

>> But what would be sad is if that number

got to 100%. Then the 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 cuz I can control

that. But is there anything that the

universe does to influence us?

>> Yes.

>> Really?

>> Yeah. And I'll tell you how. You 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 20%

identical genes to a banana.

>> Excuse me.

>> Okay, we all do, not just you. And

that's not there are molecules that went

in and out of your lungs that are in

China being breathed by people there.

And go further back. Jesus inhaled them.

So, how's that the oneness with others?

>> 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 civilization as we know

it. 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 you

think you would be happier if you

believed in God.

>> Oh, so you're going to spice us up a

bit. Okay. So,

>> I see messages all the time in the

comments section that some of you didn't

realize you didn't subscribe. So, if you

could do me a favor and double check if

you're a subscriber to this channel,

that would be tremendously appreciated.

It's the simple, it's the free thing

that anybody that watches the show

frequently can do to help us here to

keep everything going in this show in

the trajectory it's on. So, please do

double check if you've subscribed and uh

thank you so much because in a strange

way you are you're part of our history

and you're on this journey with us and I

appreciate you for that. So, yeah, thank

you.

[Music]

>> I've been watching a lot of videos of

yours I think because I've reached the

stage in my life where I've become

really existentially curious. I think we

all do at some point and especially the

more you've lived the more it all sort

of you ask what does it all mean? How

does it all come together?

>> What will it mean in to me in 5 years 10

years?

>> Uh I don't know if you're old enough to

think about your mortality.

Uh but that's a thing when you have

fewer years left than the years you've

lived and and you can 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 5 years. So so that's my horizon.

And the fact that we die

has a capacity to bring focus into the

remaining time you're alive.

Cuz think about it. If knowing you're

going to die

brings focus and purpose

and resolve

and action,

then if you lived forever, what's your

hurry? For me, knowing I'm going to die

gives meaning

to my remaining life. Whereas, if I'm

never going to die, then mathematically

that would mean I'd lead a life of no

meaning at all because there's no way to

focus an infinity amount of time into

anything and have it be meaningful. So,

I'm taking mortality as a very serious

force operating on happiness,

productivity. Can you do something for

the world?

And on my tombstone,

what I want to say, what I want it to

say is a quote from Horus man. Be

ashamed to die 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?

Really, we're all capable of good deeds.

So

if the world is better off, I'm I've

played my part as a citizen of planet

Earth.

>> And this all sort of dovetales into this

new book that you've written. 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 1998

called Just Visiting the Planet. Further

scientific adventures of Merlin from

Amnesia.

>> Amnissia. Yeah. 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 like the world

being so big, as you talk about in this

book and so infinite and all these

stars, I feel meaningless in a nice way.

Sometimes I feel like the that I

that I worry about no longer matters.

But then when you talk about

>> you feel meaningless in a happy way.

>> Yeah. I feel like the things that cause

me uh suffering don't matter as much as

I thought they did. And then you talked

about shortening time by realizing that

you're going to live for 90 years or or

80 years creating great amounts of

meaning. And it feels somewhat like a I

don't know.

>> Yes. The universe is huge in size, in

age, in contents. There's nothing we can

put on the table that can rival

those measurements that we make of the

universe. However,

>> how big?

>> Well, there's the light from the most

distant galaxies has been traveling for

nearly 14 billion years. 10 billion

years more than Earth has even existed

if you want to get a sense of that. And

so but think about it a whole other way

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 we could

mention the human body number one

element is hydrogen

that's contained in the H2O

of the water content of your body which

depending on how chubby you are can

anywhere from a half to 3/4 of your body

weight is water

and all right what's the next most

abundant element in your body it's

oxygen attached to the water okay H2O

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 what's third

carbon which you would have thought had

to be somewhere in the just because you

know we're carbon based life. Fourth is

nitrogen.

Okay. Fifth, I'll put them all together

and just say other. Okay. So that's the

sequence of elements. And now you say,

what are the sequence of elements 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. Helium. Next in

the universe, oxygen. Next, carbon. Next

nitrogen. Next

other. Okay. So we are one for one

matched to the ingredients of the

universe. And one of the gifts of 20th

century astrophysics

is gifts to civilization 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

manufactured those elements in their

core 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 at least

one of them

have life as we know it, life on Earth.

So that

we you you can think of us not just

figuratively

but literally composed of stardust.

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

we're special because we're the same as

the universe. often when people think

they're special, I want to be different

from No, we're saying because we have

human DNA on an earth where we have DNA

in common with all other animals, all

other life forms on Earth. Do you

realize we we and mushrooms have more in

common with each other than either we or

mushrooms have with green plants? 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 20% identical genes to a

banana.

>> Excuse me.

>> We all do. Not just you. Not just you.

Okay.

>> You have it. So when you consider all of

this,

it's it's not just that we're alive in

the universe.

The universe is alive within us.

>> And that that discovery

>> 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. I feel as large as the

universe itself because that's where we

came from. We're a participant in a

great unfolding story 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 one.

>> Yeah. It's what's interesting is one of

my deep concerns about the world is many

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 at that, but it's

we're not good at feeling oneness with

everyone. It's easy to feel oneness with

our tribe. Our 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

people choose sides based on so many

factors that

I I it's actually to me just as a

scientist it's disturbing how easily and

quickly we will divide each other

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 front of mind for me for the

last 24 hours. There's been a lot of

things that have happened in the news

that have 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 overanalyze I mean if you

look deeper than whatever people are

saying is the reason they are marching

or arguing If you just, you know, part

the curtains and unpack it all, 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 how we interact with one

another. It's it's I mean, think about

it, you know, with the race

the race friction that existed around

the world, but especially in in colonial

Europe and the slave trade and all of

this and and okay, that's not good. It's

bad. Uh, and all right, but then you

look at World War I and World War II,

that's white people fighting white

people,

>> slaughtering them in great numbers. 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. and and

skin color is one in a long list of all

the reasons people have given to the

religious wars to worshiping the

different god or worshiping the god

differently. These are human beings. And

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. The one in

your left hand there, that one is is

what 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

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 what the skin of

an apple is to an apple in terms of

thickness. So, I see people 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 or 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

ocean, land, clouds.

From the moon, there's Earth suspended

there in space.

I almost don't want to zoom in on it

because people value what they think is

true

more than what

is true. There are objective truths out

there, but it's almost as though people

fight and argue more vehematly the less

evidence there is to support what it is

they think is true.

There's an old saying, if an argument

lasts more than five minutes, then both

sides are wrong.

>> This it's true probably 80 90% of the

time, but it's something definitely

something to think about.

>> How have your spiritual and religious

beliefs evolved throughout the course of

your career based on all that you've

come to know about the objective nature

of the universe? Has there been an

evolution?

>> 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. What I mean

by that is we come home at no time do

either of my parents say, "Don't do

that. Jesus is watching. You keep that

up, you'll go to hell. Do this cuz it'll

please God."

Never was there such a conversation as

that in the household. So the household

was driven by

objective truths or or life experience

as would be brought from elders to the

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 want to be a 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 this the the the divide is

greater than ever before between one

generation and the next for sure. But by

the time I turned eight, 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, a

first visit 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, 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. Uh,

aliens. Okay. And would always land on

God. 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 around their religious beliefs and

their spirituality.

And just cuz I've been discounting it

since I was eight. I shouldn't use that

as a force against them. I should at

least

understand where they're coming from. So

I systematically

acquired religious books

of all kinds. So I have the Torah. I

have multiple copies of the Quran,

Joseph Smith's account that led to the

Mormons. I have uh multiple

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. I've skimmed all of them and

read some of them with a little more

intensity than others. All right.

On doing so, that enabled me, empowered

me to have more meaningful conversations

with people who were religious,

much more meaningful and more informed.

That's the key. 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 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 as a source of people's

behavior, what they eat, like I said,

who they sleep with, where they sleep,

where they worship, who they worship,

all around the world, from animistic

native peoples where there's a spirit

energy imbued in the in the mountain, in

the brook, in the wind to

uh the monotheistic religions to the

polytheistic religions.

We don't call them that to put distance

between us. But the Greek gods were it

was their religion. We call it

mythology.

It was their religion. The Greek gods,

the Roman gods. So 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 without just

being obnoxious.

And so and and it's a have a meaningful

conversation.

>> I haven't done that.

>> You haven't?

>> No, I haven't. I haven't. But 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 in a different way? And the

second question cuz I've watched Cosmos.

I've watched it several times. It's my

one of my me and my partner's favorite

things to watch is you you going from

the very beginnings of time through the

universe into where we are.

>> You gotta love that calendar too.

>> That's my favorite thing 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, 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, Neanderthal is is a branch

of homminids that went extinct.

Basically, there's some crossbreeding

and there's Neanderthal DNA in many

humans today, but as a as a branch of of

the homminids, they they went extinct.

So the Neanderthal then there's

Cromagnon uh we are you know Homo

sapiens

coming after Cromagnon and so when you

look at burial grounds

the Neanderthal bury their dead with

things with parts of their life of the

person who died. Now, why would you do

that unless you had some belief

that there was something more to come

for that person?

I mean that probably the people who took

it to the limit were the Egyptians. All

right. For the Egyptian royalty. I mean,

they bury you with all kinds of stuff.

Yeah.

>> And in fact, in Greece, I I read this,

it's not that I researched it, and 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 into Hades,

you can tip the ferryboat driver to

cross the river sticks to get into

Hades. You might even say that's the

beginning of what it was to be human

when people started thinking that way

about dying.

>> I mean, you might even re invert the

question and say it's not when did we

start. It's we existed

in all the ways we know oursel know what

ourselves to be when that ritual came

upon

our ancestors

>> and the survival benefit in believing. I

I don't know

>> really.

>> Yeah. I I don't know. We We're pretty

sure there's a survival benefit of group

think

and

religion is group think. If there ever

was. It was we will all believe this

>> in this way and we will behave in that

way on those occasions and you will not

deviate from it. Yes.

>> And part of that package of beliefs

includes statements about the afterlife

and how you should behave in this life.

Otherwise, you don't go to heaven. You

go to hell. I don't think Judaism has a

hell, but you you're not as rewarded as

you'd otherwise be. Now that forms a a

corpus of beliefs that can be highly

binding of a peoples

and especially if some other peoples

come up and they do other things and you

don't understand it, you don't know what

it is and they're they're a threat and

so you keep them out. You you do

whatever you can to preserve your

traditions relative to theirs.

Ultimately the worst that in its worst

manifestation is all out war. we just

kill people who don't believe the way

you do. So, so maybe

religion is kind of what defined humans

in the fossil record. I mean, like I

said, that's an interesting inversion of

that question. Not when did humans begin

being religious?

>> You define

who we are as humans as when religion

showed up in the in the burial grounds

of

of cavemen. you just talked about as

being bound there by certain shared

beliefs and ideas. And I think in

>> I think I I think ritual is one of the

strongest binding forces of society that

we have.

>> And I I think that people are maybe

unbinding. You can if you look at the

narrative in society, it's about be your

own boss, stand on your own two feet.

More people are lonely, living alone, um

having less kids, are working freelance

and remotely. So it feels like in a

weird way we're becoming more

independent and there's a somewhat of a

cost to that and actually my friends

that are struggling the most in their

lives are those that have the least

dependence

on a village. So I always wonder if

people we need to ladder up to the

universe i.e. me, my family, maybe my

village, maybe my country, the planet,

the universe

in God

>> the metaverse.

>> Yeah. And like God

>> the multiverse. Yeah. So let me just

react to that.

>> There have been studies about the

psychological effects of this kind of

life. Basically the the social media too

early in one's life

>> uh force that operates. But I

so I don't know. I don't want to be the

person who says in my day we did it

right and you you youngans don't know

what you're doing and you're all going

to 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 because

it's they're not studying. They're

they're it's gambling. They I've seen

you've seen see people burning rock and

roll records

>> you know. We've seen We've seen this and

I I'm I don't want to be that guy. I'd

rather be the person that says

they're going to create a whole other

reality

that 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. And

I will say, however, that if you go far

enough back, no one ever traveled

anywhere, you you you'd spend your whole

life not going more than 30 miles from

your hometown. Two, a couple hundred

years back. So 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

you're exposed to different ideas. think

maybe it tribalizes you more or maybe it

softens you. It has the power to do

both.

What concerns me is because when I post

to social media, I've learned the art of

not expressing an opinion because I

don't care what your opinion is. I don't

care that you have my opinion. What I

care about as an educator and as

especially as a scientist is that your

opinion is based on objective reality,

objective truths. 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

of 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 this

loneliness bit I I don't know how to

comment on that. I I don't have the

expertise, but I do know that I don't

want to be the person on the rocking

chair. Get off my lawn. You

>> and I I I guess I I've been trying to

figure out if we if I need to make try

and make sure my life ladders upwards.

>> Oh. Oh, let me get back to that. So it

may be 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 pray. Maybe that's maybe that

wasn't its greatest value. Maybe its

greatest value was the community that it

created.

>> Mhm.

>> Everyone comes together and they're 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. Uh there 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

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 and your church, your

synagogue, your mosque, your your your

temple, whatever is the the the place

where you gather with some frequency. Uh

that

surely has value

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, society collapsed. That deer

is just fine. 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 skin game. I don't

know. 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

we have an interdependence as never

before.

>> And how do we maintain that without

scattering to the winds?

>> You said you lost both your parents in

the last 5 years.

>> Yeah.

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 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

89 when he died. That was 5 years ago.

My mother was 2 days shy of her 95th

birthday. So that's what So I'm putting

myself like right between them in my

life expectancy. I think I'll get to 92.

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.

>> So I that's an important distinction for

me. A tragic life is a life that could

have been lived, but through act of war

or negligence or or negligence of the

person or of others, the life is cut

short.

Then that's

tragic.

It's a life not fully lived, but if you

lived a full life,

they were married 50 something years.

Uh

it's sad, but it's not tragic. In fact,

it's not even sad. It's something to

celebrate.

And so I miss them.

I miss them more than I thought I would

because they carried quite a bit of

wisdom with them. My father was active

in the civil rights movement. My mother

uh was a gerontologist. So they both

cared very deeply about the plight of

others and I'm their son, the

astrophysicist, but so I go off with my

head in the sky. But I was anchored into

the human condition and anchored to

think about it, to care about it. And

when I encounter

things in modern life

is 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 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. the kind

of wisdom that I gleaned from my

parents.

So that again this is not wisdom of what

car to buy or what job to have because

they have other values they have other

expectations of society but in terms of

humanto human interaction in terms of

love terms of challenges in life and

overcoming them. Some of those are

timeless. Some of those are, you know,

how to how to navigate difficult people,

how to appreciate nature so you don't

take it for granted.

Uh, one of the things I liked about

Joyce Kilmer's poem

on a tree,

uh, is about a tree. And we've all seen

trees.

So, why does this matter? Because it

takes an artist,

a poet, a writer, a sculptor, a painter.

For me, the artist job

is to 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 and not

even give it any thought.

And so I don't walk by trees without

thinking something about that poem.

>> What is the poem?

>> 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 and lifts her leafy

arms to pray. A tree that may in summer

wear a nest of robins in her hair. Upon

whose bosom snow has lain, who

ultimately lives with rain? Poems are

made by fools like me.

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 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 that

hole of thinking.

>> Oh yes it's No, you got to you know

>> step outside every now and then and you

know 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,

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 and then they so then

it's this simulated universes all the

way down and

close your eyes and throw a dart. Which

of these are you going to get the first

universe that invented the simulated

universe or the zillion ones that

followed? The dart's likely to hit one

of the others. But my my escape hatch

from that is

since we do not yet know or have the

power to make a perfectly simulated

world, it means we are either the first

universe that's real that hasn't created

one yet or we're the last universe

that hasn't evolved yet to have created

one of its own cuz all the middles have

the power to create one. So that takes

it, you know, a zillion to one against

us to maybe 50/50.

>> Oh, interesting. Never heard that

before.

>> So I'm a little I'm a little more

comfortable that way.

>> Comfortable?

>> Yeah, I sleep a little better at night.

>> But I guess it wouldn't matter anyway if

we

>> It actually it wouldn't matter if we're

completely simulated. What do you care?

You're living your life. You I know we

don't want to believe that there are

puppet strings on us.

Um, part of me thinks that though,

you know, just when Earth is kind of

everything on Earth is kind of stable.

Oh, CO shows up. Oh, so this this is the

programmer saying, you know, the earth

is too boring now. We got to spice it up

a bit. They throw in a pandemic. Okay. A

once in a century pandemic. Now, now

we're entertaining for them. What do we

do? Who gets vaccinated? Who doesn't?

Who's going to fight? Who dies? Who

lives? Okay. So then we kind of get

through that. We get the vaccine.

Okay. Just calming down off of that and

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

there's a whole other set of stir pot

stirring that's going on. So that's kind

of consistent with

a snot-nosed alien

kid in their parents' basement

programming our existence.

That's what I would do. I would throw in

interest. There's a game Sim Sim City.

>> Yeah,

>> I played that. That's how old I am. Sim

City. So you were mayor of this city and

people can vote you out of office. 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 you things that happen then

Godzilla steps through and plows through

the city. Okay. Now, Godzilla is not

real, but it kind of is because that

would be a disaster. That is it a flood?

Is it fires? It's it's a thing that

nobody saw coming. Okay, we are

recording this interview on September

11th. I live four blocks from ground

zero. That's Godzilla walking through

the city. How do you respond to that?

What's You know, you didn't know that

was going to happen the day before. So

realizing that in this game it's only

interesting to play when disastrous

things happen, not too many in a row

because 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 world war and then after that

the peace, oh pandemic. Okay, the the

1918 flu pandemic. Hey, now we get out

of that. Oh, no. Second World War. Okay,

we get out of that. The Cold War,

nuclear holocaust. Okay, so that's my

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

not.

>> Does it make a difference if you believe

you have free will even if you don't?

No, because I'll never know.

>> And you know the fun the fun answer to

that uh ask me say uh 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?

>> No. If you don't have free will, then

you don't even have an option to say you

don't. So I So you just live life. Just

live your life so that the world is

better off for you having lived in it.

>> And what does that mean for you? Like

>> it means people are better off. The the

institutions are better off. People are

happier,

healthier,

wealthier,

safer,

better fed.

That rationality matters in politics, in

law makingaking.

And that helps to will help to ensure

stability of anything you build going

forward. But 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 realize

I we any of us has the power to make

meaning in life. If you're going to look

for meaning, are you looking under a

rock, behind a tree? What? 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

so powerless

on your own destiny.

Whereas

I I make meaning I want to learn

something today that I didn't know

yesterday. I want to lessen the

suffering of someone today

compared with however that person was

living yesterday. I want to

I want to use what I learn

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. 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 want to be young again. I don't want

to be young again." When I was 30, I was

an idiot. Even when I was 30, I thought

I was brilliant. Right? So,

don't get older unless you have wisdom

to show for it.

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. Passively is you just notice,

you know, open your eyes sometimes and

see what's happening, where things are

headed, what they're doing. 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. So

that's how I derive meaning. Hence my

tombstone. Be ashamed to die unless

you've scored some victory for humanity.

There's the meaning for you.

>> 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? It exists in astrophysics

of course but the escape velocity for

earth for example is seven miles per

second. So escape velocity in

astrophysics is the speed 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. The scape philosophy in

aging is

the idea is there is a generation yet to

be born but in the very near future

who

will not not only live longer than the

previous generation.

So so here here's a a cleaner way to say

this.

Every year

you can expect to live one month longer

>> 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 how to maintain your

health, well, your health and

physiology. All right. There will come a

day where

every year that you're alive, medicine

has figured out a way 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. 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

take me off this earth

provided I mean I want I still have more

to give more books to write that in my

judgment would make the world better

than it currently is.

So, I don't want to die before I get as

much of that done as I can.

>> But are you scared of death?

>> No. Although that's easy to say cuz I'm

not at death's door.

>> And I had someone

rationalize with me, which is they made

a potent argument. It's I can say now

with another 20 years life expectancy,

15 20 years that I don't fear death. But

if I'm on my deathbed and someone says,

"If I can wave my hand and you could

live another year, would you?" The

answer is probably going to be yes and

at the end of that year if they So

I I don't know if my sentiments about

life and death will change

on my deathbed.

I know my mother there's a point where

she couldn't swallow and she didn't want

a feed tube and she said my time has

come

put me in in paliotative care and then

hospice and she was dead 10 days later.

So she was was in charge of her. They

could have fed her with a tube and she

would have been completely healthy for

another, you know, 5 years perhaps, but

nope. She raised two kids, three kids,

you know, 50-year marriage, happy life,

stable life,

and

yeah, I'm good with that. So the

billionaires, you know, that that's ego

for sure. 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? Should you give another person a

chance who's in school now who might be

the next genius that'll figure out the

energy problem, the poverty problem, the

the pollution problem, the the Are you

figuring that out? No. You're in the

last You're You're 90 years old and

you're just living on your yacht.

So there's the pro there's the problem

that 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. You

know, you've perhaps seen episodes of

Shark Shark Tank. You know, half or more

of those people are 30 and under. They

got ideas, fresh ideas. Everyone else is

entrenched. So if people start living

forever,

they're living forever in the part of

their life that is least useful to the

progress in advance of culture and

civilization. And so all of civilization

will stagnate.

>> Do do you think um in your lifetime you

said you've got a 20-year life

expectancy?

>> Well, 15 to 20.

>> 15 to 20 year life expectancy

>> based on my age now and the age my

parents died. Yeah,

>> but I mean you've done a lot of

neurological work and laid 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.

>> Food for chat GPT.

>> True.

>> What do you make of AI? What's your What

do you think?

>> 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 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

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 had just observed

because that was weird compared the last

compared to the last time it was

observed. This is the Ver Rubin

telescope that I'm literally describing

now. And so we're we're we're living

with it. What it means is it ups it'll

have to up the game of people who say

they are creative. And what I mean by

that is I can say chat GPT take this

picture of us and say Chappie GPT

paint this scene in the style of Van Go.

It'll come back. The colors will be just

right. It'll have the swirly lines.

It'll be perfect. If Van Go were

standing, that's what Van Go would have

painted. If I say, "Chad GPT, paint us

in the style of no artist who has ever

lived."

I don't know what it's going to give us,

but it'll probably suck. Okay. And so

true creativity

is not aping what has happened before

and making adjustments. True creativity,

yes, you always build on others. I'm not

in denial of that. But true creativity

takes leaps

that most people don't even know can be

taken. Mhm.

>> And so the artist So that gap I think is

what what AI in the arts world is going

to force creative people to reach for.

Otherwise, you're replaced by

you're replaced by a a simple request in

the in the input line of of a large

language model or or of an art. I was

just wondering then if I watch Cosmos in

30 40 years time let's say 100 years

time I was wondering if this is the

moment where humans and computers in the

story of humanity become one and

intertwine if you think about things

like Neuralink which Elon's working on

to make 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

parapolgic 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

>> super intelligence is going to arrive

and we're going to need a way to

basically keep up 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,

then it becomes our overlord and we

become its pet.

>> Okay.

Now, that sounds pretty scary, but don't

we treat our pets better than we treat

other humans in the world? Think about

it. The pet is kept warm and fed and

happy and 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 super

intelligence,

>> 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 worried

that it's going to do that for us, so

we're going to run around.

>> Not all my pets made it

>> and snap. Not all the pets survive. Uh,

yeah. Depends on whether it needs us to

be alive or dead. We have to be relevant

to it in some way. Maybe we'll be

courtesters. We have to be

entertainment. 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 occasions, especially in the era of

the industrial revolution, people think

they're living in a special moment.

>> And so I'm not going to be that guy who

says today is special because everyone

has thought they were in a special

moment.

>> And what do you think is the probability

of me getting to another planet in my

lifetime?

>> Zero.

>> Zero. Really?

>> Yeah.

You want to know why?

>> Yes, please.

>> Yeah, it's just zero.

>> I thought SpaceX going to 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. But

my read of history tells me that we only

do big expensive things if there's a

geopolitical reason for it. either an

economic

reason or a defense reason.

Uh not just cuz it's the next thing to

do.

And when we went to the moon, realize in

1961,

May 25th, President Kennedy, just 6

weeks after Yuri Gagarin flew around the

Earth in orbit, and we didn't have a a

ship that wouldn't blow up 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, are 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 battlecry against communism, the

godless Russians,

everyone in the whole Soviet Union. We

were losing a technological race.

And that was the battlecry that prompted

Congress to write the check. Oh, later

on he says, "Oh, it'll be put a man on

the moon and before return him to safely

Earth and oh, that's so be let's hold

hand. That's so beautiful."

No one ever spent scads of money 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, at this

rate, we'll be on Mars by 1985.

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

and we looked over our shoulder and the

Russians weren't there, we canled the

Apollo program.

197 We haven't been back to the moon in

53 years.

We canled it. Apollo 18 was ready to

fly. It's now in captivity in

Huntsville, Alabama in a museum on its

side. It's fascinating to walk the full

length of it. All rocket flight ready

parts. It never flew. We ended at Apollo

17.

No, we didn't go to Mars because we

didn't have geopolitical reasons to do

so. Neither economic nor for defense

reasons. Historically, people explored,

did expensive things for the glory of

God and royalty,

very expensive. The pyramids, the honor

of royalty. Okay. the church building,

cathedral building, all of these

activities. We're in the glory of power,

deity, and royalty. There's none of that

happens today. We're past that. The

power of kings and gods, that doesn't

happen. Nobody dislodges major

resources, capital resources of a nation

in the interest of a god or a king

anymore. Okay? It's secular. And secular

means it's money or it's war because you

feel threatened. Okay. 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 1972?

Why don't we go back in 1980 or 1990,

2000, 2010? 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

going to put Tykenauts on the moon."

>> Tyos.

>> No. Yeah. Chinese astronaut. Tyonaut.

>> All right. That's when we say, "Let's go

back to the moon." What a good idea.

Let's do that.

Really? Cuz we because it's just a good

idea. because we're a little bit spooked

by a friendly foe across the around the

world

might get the glory of that exercise.

And once again, it's a godless

country. Okay,

communism is godless by design, 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? 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.

We're going to be in Mars in 10 months.

One month to design, build, and fund the

thing, and nine months to get to Mars. A

geopolitical force operating. Oh, by the

way, NASA doesn't have a rocket that'll

get us to Mars. They think they do, but

they don't really have one yet. Time to

do that. And say, "Well, does anybody

have a rocket?" Elon says, "I have a

rocket." So, if Elon rocket goes to

Mars, it's not cuz he sends it there.

It's cuz taxpayers sent it there.

By the way, he could go there on a

vanity project, 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, you would

not agree to do that. You wouldn't. But

he doesn't need investors because he's

very wealthy. He could do it on his own.

Are you going to Mars as a tourist? Is

that Is that a business case? It'll It's

a trillion dollars to get to Mars.

First, second will be a little less.

I don't see that happening.

>> A trillion dollars

>> about that. Yeah.

If Earth were a school room globe,

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 compared. Okay. Put

>> I mean,

>> right there.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Not too bad. It's 30t away. It's

in the next room.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. 30t away. Okay.

>> That's the moon.

>> Let's keep going.

How far away from Earth did the Bezos

Branson

uh rockets go?

>> Oh, not far.

>> The thickness of two dimes

above the surface of the Earth.

How far away is Mars? It's a mile away

>> from here.

>> Yes. From this Earth. It's a mile away.

>> It's in the Central Park.

>> The moon 30t away. Mars a mile away.

Yeah. It's a trillion dollars to Mars.

Yes.

>> How long?

>> 9 months. if and you have to wait till

the planets are configured 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 9 months and then to come back you

have to wait till it it's configured

again a few years later so round trip to

Mars is 3 to 5 years easily. though

there's not an economic case. I'm not

saying we don't know how to get to Mars.

We have a SUVsized rover there now. All

right, discovering potential life from a

billion years ago. It's not about 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 going to 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

Starink as a way to fund it, whatever,

that the problem is Elon's going to die.

He's going to 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 cuz

he read that book has got 30 years, 40,

50 years left on it.

>> Well, that would make him want to hurry,

wouldn't it?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. And plus, he said, "I don't want

to die on Earth. I want to die on Mars."

>> Mhm.

>> 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 tourist case going

into orbit and even possibly visiting

the moon. It's 3 days there, 3 days

back. That's a week's vacation that you

would take. And I would save up 5 years,

10 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 for me.

>> If you're starting a business, that

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You know, 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 for like 10 years, 15

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

Marie Cury and all these people. So if

you ask Merlin, "Dear Merlin, I don't

quite understand gravity." Merlin say,

"Oh, Merlin had a conversation with

Isaac Newton in his backyard." And

here's how he answers that.

>> I 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

lime.

>> Yeah. Slightly bigger. Right.

>> What is 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, that's the

methods and tools and machines of

science are 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 fingers. We have

in fact science didn't take off until

these machines became a fundamental part

of how we investigated the world

replacing our five senses

>> because there's nothing more feeble in

this world than you thinking you

understand reality through your five

senses that that I don't want to call it

feeble I would call it errorprone

errorrone remember I told you about

escape velocity of earth

>> you remember what I the value I said it

7 miles

>> paying attention per minute per second.

>> Per second.

>> That's very fast. Seven miles per. So

the adage what goes up must come down.

>> Mhm.

>> That's not true. It's true for almost

anything you would experience. But you

can launch something at 7 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,

>> the escape velocity is higher.

That would make sense because there's

more gravity that you have to escape.

>> Let's keep up that exercise.

Cram in more and more mass. Just keep

doing that. Escape velocity keeps going

up. Eventually, the escape velocity hits

the speed of light.

At that point, light 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 hole

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 hole.

And how do we know it's there? Because

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

because Einstein tells us tells us that

gravity distorts the fabric of space and

time. So 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. You 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, it expands and

some of its material spills onto and

orbits around the event horizon of the

black hole. This swirling material,

>> gets hotter and hotter and hotter and it

radiates x-rays and ultraviolet.

We have x-ray and ultraviolet telescopes

that see every one of these in the night

sky. They're all black holes. And it's

created from an explosion.

>> Uh there's a a star that wants to

explode, but it has so much mass the

explosion doesn't overcome the gravity

and the star collapses down on itself to

make a black hole. That's one way to

make a black hole.

>> So our sun when that run

>> it's not going to become black. It's

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 pull inwards is so strong.

>> Correct. That's above a certain

threshold. Within there there's the

stars that the explosion is greater than

what the gravity can contain and it

makes a supernova. And those are the

stars that spread heavy elements across

the galaxy enabling us to even exist.

>> So I'm going to 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, a lime is bigger than a golf

ball, but not by very much.

We can calculate what the size is.

>> Where would everything go?

>> It's in there. It's compressed down

inside the hole.

>> And if I was And everything near's going

to 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. Black holes don't they're not

giant sucking devices. I mean, if you

keep your distance, your if 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 -462

F, which is the background temperature

of the universe.

>> Yes.

>> Once the stored energy ran out.

>> Yeah.

>> Once the stored energy where ran out.

>> Well, in this in the Well, so there's

the sun's energy. the sun

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. So if you don't have a

sun, 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. I

mean why not?

>> How long has our our sun got left?

>> About another 5 billion years.

>> How would we know? It's a good question.

That's a the product of 20th century

modern astrophysics.

Then it was modern. I think of it as

modern where you say, "What kind of star

is this?" You look around the universe

for other stars that are just like it.

And then you see those stars in their

stages of evolution, stars being born,

living out their lives, 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 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

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.

>> Chat GPT it.

>> No. So, here it is. You ready?

>> Yeah.

>> There are more molecules of air

in a single breath of air

than there are breaths of air

in Earth's entire atmosphere.

So if you breathe in and then breathe

out,

there's enough molecules that you

breathe out to populate every breath

that anyone will ever again take on this

earth

and air mixes rather quickly.

Okay?

>> So you it has to mix. It's not

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 is elapsed.

You can calculate that might is years 10

years something like that. There's

tremendous mixing of air. So how's that

for feeling kinship with others? Same

with water. You drink a water there more

molecules of water in a glass of water.

This is a mug of water than there are

mugs of water in all the world's oceans.

So you drink a mug of water 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 if someone gets a mug of your

molecules and be plenty more plenty of

molecules to go.

>> So if I do a big big inhale, I'm also

I'm inhaling air that contains molecules

that all of my living relatives once

inhaled.

>> Yes. and go further back. Jesus inhaled

him. Muhammad

>> and with every breath.

>> Yes. Every breath. This is the the the

the oneness of it all. 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 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.

You you will never find marching armies

led by astrophysicists to go slaughter

one another.

We the cosmic perspective prevents that.

>> The cosmic perspective.

>> 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. Every it's maybe it's just

Christmas. Everybody gathers and the

crazy uncles and aunts come in and you

got to argue with them about, you know,

and you then you you're reminded why you

only see them once a year because No,

there topics in there. Color and race is

in there. Law and Order, Body and Mind,

Meatarians and Vegetarians, Life and

Death.

A lot of reflective 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 got to look at it this way.

>> It's not meat 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. That's the goal of

that book.

>> Chapter 10 of the book says, "Human

physiology may be overrated."

>> What do you mean by that?

>> Well,

you know, we like to think of ourselves

at the top of

evolutionary

uh properties, but it's really your mind

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 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, arms,

fingers, kneecaps, feet. Really? Is that

is that is that your best imagination

that you can come up with? Alien from

another planet.

>> Is the Is the universe infinite? I've

often wondered that. Does it just go on

forever or is there a

>> 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. So

you're you're a ship at sea.

>> Mhm.

>> And you have a horizon. Are you saying

that's the extent of the ocean? No,

because if you sail towards the horizon,

more horizon shows up and you keep that

up until you hit land.

So in the universe, we have our horizon

and if we went to that horizon, we'd

have a whole other horizon beyond that.

If we traveled to that horizon, be a

whole other horizon there. 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.

It's curious how there's some equations

where infinities

work just fine in the equation. Uh so we

don't know. We can talk about to our own

horizon. That's it.

>> There's so many people saying that

they've seen aliens. We had someone on

this podcast actually that said they'd

seen 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

Navy.

>> Did they

show you the alien?

>> No, but you see the videos of the things

bouncing around in the sky.

>> Oh, 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, 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.

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.

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 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 that have no explanation.

I don't have a problem with that. But

you want to turn around and say aliens.

You want to say it's a government cover

up. Do you really think the government

is that competent?

Often the same people who say there's a

masterminded government. They're the