Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Avi Loeb

Episode Date: June 1, 2017

Have scientists discovered an alien signal originating from the edge of the universe? Joining the DTFH to answer this question is Avi Loeb, the chair of the cosmology department at Harvard who hypothesizes that Fast Radio Bursts could be the wind in the sails of massive alien ships.

Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. I'm dirty little angel. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Fulton and Rourke. Fulton and Rourke, they produce men's grooming products, wonderful colognes that smell like sacred angelic oils,

incredible exfoliating soap, and some damn good shaving cream. Go to Fulton and Rourke, use offer code Duncan, you'll get 15% off your purchase. Hello my dear sweet friends, and welcome to the Duncan Trustle Family Hour podcast. Do you think that aliens are currently living with us here on Planet Earth? If you do, then you're an excellent company, because so do I, but more importantly, so does Robert Bigelow,

the billionaire founder of Bigelow Aerospace, which is a company that just created the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, also known as BEAM. It's basically an inflatable bouncy house for astronauts that is currently attached to the International Space Station. He was recently interviewed by 60 Minutes, and this is what he had to say about aliens. Do you believe in aliens?

I'm absolutely convinced that's all there is to it. Do you also believe that UFOs have come to Earth? There has been and is an existing presence, an ET presence, and I spent millions and millions, I probably spent more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject. Is it risky for you to say in public that you believe in UFOs and aliens? I don't care. You don't worry that some people will say that you hear that guy?

He sounds like he's crazy. I don't care. Why not? It's not going to make a difference. It's not going to change reality of what I know. Do you imagine that in our space travels we will encounter other forms of intelligent life? You don't have to go anywhere.

You can find it here. Yeah. You could find it here. What does he mean? I don't know. Well, I've got some guesses, but one thing I love about Bigelow is he is not suffering from RTCS, a plague that is currently sweeping across our beautiful planet

and has been for many decades. Reality tunnel constriction syndrome. Generally, it's a direct result of not coming into contact with the very important mystical nutrients that a person needs to have a solid spiritual diet. The moment that you end up not taking in your metaphysical, mystical vitamins is the moment your reality tunnel begins to constrict and pretty soon, like some kind of sad,

emaciated, poor little puppy dog, you go scraping away at the festering demonic underbelly of the media and you start suckling at those black demon nipples and slurping up all of that rotten fucking data that tells you what to believe and what not to believe. And that's when you come down with one of the worst symptoms of RTCS, you stop asking the big questions because you think you've figured everything out.

You think you know somehow some piece of you actually believes that you, yourself, with your one human brain, knows what scurries along the dark depths of the ocean floor. You know what's inside the ice of insulatus. You know what's hovering in the dark, distant cosmos. Way, way, way out in the depths. You've got it all figured out, man, and you know this is it. This is it.

Skyscrapers, concrete roads. We've got traffic lights and police cars. And that's it, man, that's it. And anybody who veers outside of that where there's the government and the president and there's jobs and there's minimum wage and there's problems with health insurance and there's problems with war, but that doesn't really affect me because I'm not in a place where there's war.

The moment you start going outside of that, that's where people who are deeply sickened by RTCS begin rolling their eyes at you. That's another symptom of someone who has RTCS. Eye rolls when anyone around them asks a question that they think they already have the answer for. The good news is a cure may be coming for this terrible plague, and that cure could be that thanks to the advancing technology

that we have here on planet Earth, we may actually in our lifetime get some real hardcore data that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are not alone in this universe. And some of this data might be coming from the far, far, farthest edge of the universe where astronomers have been picking up something called fast radio bursts. Fast radio bursts are bright, unresolved, millisecond flashes found in parts of the sky outside the Milky Way.

Unlike many radio sources, the signal from a burst is detected in a short period of time with enough strength to stand out from the noise floor. The burst usually appears as a single spike of energy without any change in its strength over time. Scientists are really interested in this right now because they can only speculate on what could be powerful enough to produce such an incredibly strong, quick blast of energy.

What is it? Black holes colliding? Magnetars? Could it be a magnetar? An actual super powerful magnetar? Twinkle, twinkle magnetar You're only 20 kilometers But your three times as heavy as the sun

Oh no Magnetar is the car That guy drives home from the bar He runs over three suns But he's having fun Magnetar eats your soul Out of a black hole Magnetar is like a magnetar

Get on your knees for the magnetar Get on your knees for the magnetar Please call me back, magnetar Please call me back, call me back, magnetar Call me back That was Call Me Back Magnetar by Bill Cyanide, the dying guy The truth is these FRBs really have people scratching their heads We don't really know what they are

They're super powerful though The burst from FRB 121,102 was emitted at a time It was first evolving on our planet Yet it was still detectable on Earth 3bn years later Indicating it must have been caused by some of the universe's most energetic phenomena Scientists calculate this eruption emits just for a millisecond As much power as 500 million suns Just think of that, a flickering pulse of energy more powerful than 500 million suns

It's there and then it's gone It really got people scratching their heads And some people think that it might not be originating from a natural phenomena Like black holes smashing into each other Or a neutron star or God throwing his remote control at the TV Some people think that it might be coming from a very advanced civilization That is using FRBs as some kind of propulsion mechanism And one of those people is Avi Loeb

Who is the chair of the astronomy department at Harvard And he's with us here today We're going to jump right into the podcast But first, some quick business This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Fulton & Rourke Fulton & Rourke is a men's fragrance company They produce solid colognes And what that is is these wonderful colognes that smell really good

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You can find on Amazon Want to buy a great book? You've got to read The Lost City of Z If you haven't checked that out yet Holy shit, it's so good And you know what I'm realizing? I prefer flop books to ebooks There was a time when I was getting really into ebooks

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From time to time, I get to talk to people That I normally would never cross paths with And I think Avi Loeb is one of those people He's the chair of the astronomy department at Harvard He has written many books Most recently from the first star To MilkaMeta Which you can find at Amazon.com

If you live in New York City You can see him give a talk On these fast radio bursts That you're about to hear about in this conversation He is going to be at the Alchemist's Kitchen On June 16th Giving a talk about black holes And extraterrestrial contact

And I'm sure a great many other things So widen those magnetars And send out as much love as you can To today's guest, Dr. Avi Loeb Dr. Loeb, welcome You have been, I guess, speculating that FRBs that are being picked up right now Could potentially be some kind of alien signal

Is that correct? Yeah, but first we need to probably explain What FRBs are FRBs are fast radio bursts It's an abbreviation And these are flashes of radio waves That last thousands of a second At least one of them seem to originate

From the edge of the universe That far we know But we don't know what the source is And there are thousands of them Every day across the entire sky And we don't know where they come from And so conventional astronomers Usually assume that they are related to stars

And the conventional wisdom And some people believe that They probably originate from very compact stars Stars that weigh roughly the mass of the sun But are as small as New York City About 10 kilometers or so These are called neutron stars And some people speculate that

Perhaps when they are born They have very strong magnetic fields And they radiate very brightly What we need is a source That is 10 billion times brighter Than any other radio source we have seen We have seen neutron stars radiate They are called pulsars

They have a beam of radiation That sweeps across the sky And we see it just like fast radio bursts But it repeats again and again It's like a lighthouse However, those sources that we have seen Are 10 billion times fainter Than what we need for a fast radio burst

Because fast radio bursts originate From the edge of the universe And so we suggested that perhaps They are not natural Perhaps they are artificial in origin Perhaps there is an advanced civilization Out there that is producing fast radio bursts Many of such civilizations

And the question is why Obviously it's not useful for communication Because if you send a message Billions of light years away It will take billions of years To get a response So it doesn't make sense to send A very powerful radio beam

Just for communication However, it occurred to me That since our civilization Is contemplating right now Using a new technology for travel Perhaps that's the origin Of those fast radio bursts And what I'm referring to

Is a project called Starshot That I'm actually leading As the chair of an advisory committee Yeah, he's on the board The person that initiated it And that funds it at the moment Is Yuri Milner And he committed

A hundred million dollars for the next five years To do a feasibility study Of a new technology that will enable us To reach to the stars In other words, the idea is to send a probe To the nearest star That will reach the star within our lifetime Now the nearest star is four light years away

So it takes like four years to reach us And therefore if you want to get to the star Within our lifetime You need the spacecraft to move At a significant fraction of the speed of light Let's say fifth of the speed of light Would bring it to the nearest star Within twenty years

So the question is how to launch A spacecraft at the fifth of the speed of light That seems like a great challenge And the only technology After studying it for a while The only technology that Together with my students and postdocs We came across that seems feasible

Is a light sail The idea is just like a sailboat That is being pushed by wind You can push a sail with light When light bounces off the sail It will give it a push And what you need is a very powerful beam of radiation So the goal of this project

Is to develop a very powerful laser beam That will be focused on a sail That is roughly twice the height of a person About four meters or so What's the sail made of? So the sail needs to be very light Because only then one can push it To a fraction of the speed of light

So it has to be on the mass scale Of order a gram And also it will carry with it A gadget, a chip of electronics That carries a camera, a navigation device Communication device And so the idea is to have a gram scale spacecraft That is being pushed by a very powerful laser beam

Of the order of 50 gigawatt Which is the amount of power that was used To lift the space shuttle So basically what you need is To give a single gram of material The same amount of energy That the space shuttle got In order to be lifted off the earth

And you need to do it within a couple of minutes So the launch time is a couple of minutes And then there is a cruise that takes 20 years To get to the Alpha Centauri system The nearest star system So you're saying that if you blast this I'm sorry, if you blast this sail With this powerful laser beam

You only have to do it for 20 minutes For two minutes For two minutes That's it Why wouldn't you do it longer to make it go faster? That's a very good question It would be easier if you could extend the illumination Over a longer time

Because then you don't need a laser as powerful As you need in our case But the problem is The laser can be focused only out to some distance You need it to be focused on a few meters The spot of the laser needs to be Roughly the size of the sail Once you go far

More than 2 million kilometers from earth This beam of the laser will not be focused anymore It will start diverging And as a result You can't really accelerate the launch Effectively the sail over greater distances Than roughly 5 times the distance of the moon So you have a limited distance

Along with You can accelerate or launch this spacecraft Sort of like imagining a race Where you have a certain distance That you have to go through And obviously You need to do it very quickly So that you reach a fraction of the speed of light

So you need to accelerate this sail very quickly Because otherwise it will traverse this distance Before you reach a fifth of the speed of light Gotcha So you're saying that Here on earth we've already discovered the potential For this being a way to travel through space And it appears that you have detected

Possibly a civilization that Figured this out a very long time ago And it's producing a lot more energy Than what we would be producing here That's right So the idea is that we are now contemplating this technology It will take us a while, maybe a few decades To bring it to maturity

But you can imagine another civilization out there You know there are billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy With planets like the earth around them And so you can imagine Even if a small fraction of those planets Have intelligent civilizations There might be a civilization out there That is much more advanced than we are

They had a billion years maybe To develop technologies And so they already mastered this technology To a much greater level than we can imagine They can produce a much more powerful beam And so the question then is How would you see a signal from such a beam There would be some leakage

Around the sail that is trying to push And as the beam sweeps across the sky It will appear as a flash of light For us when we observe the sky And so I was wondering Other flashes of light And perhaps these fast radio birds Are an example of such civilizations

That was the suggestion that we made And this is astounding Usually when you hear things like this Speculations like this It's not coming from Harvard professors Isn't this a little risky For you to put out there? Yes, well it is risky

In the sense that it's probably Most likely to be The origin of fast radio birds Is most likely to be much more mundane But I think we should keep it in mind The reason I put it out is because Even if fast radio birds are not Those flashes of light

There might be others And people have to keep that in mind Doing science is often like a detective story You should have an open mind Because sometimes things you don't expect Happen to be real We don't know whether there is an advanced civilization Frankly, I believe that we are not special

I believe that if we find life here on Earth It exists elsewhere Definitely primitive life And quite likely intelligent life At the level of intelligence that we have And perhaps even more And so just out of modesty I think we should be modest enough to admit

That there might be technologies Far more advanced than we have Out there and we should just look for Possible signals from them This is just a sign of modesty on our side If you believe that we are really special That we are the only ones in the universe Then perhaps you are justified in ignoring the sky

And just focusing on Earth And reading the morning newspaper every day I just don't understand how people can adapt To this point of view Given the fact that there are more planets Habitable planets like the Earth In the universe Than grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth

So just think about it It's a huge number And to contemplate the idea Or to believe that we are special Is really, to me, sounds more crazy Than to look at the sky in a search for flashes of light But that's kind of a burn to some of your colleagues Surely you probably work with people

Who think that, right? Okay, so let me tell you that it's not It's actually more surprising than you expect I'm not just one of the scientists out there That writes papers and so forth I'm also chairing the Astronomy Department at Harvard So I'm the chair of the Astronomy Department I'm the director of two centers at Harvard

One is the Institute for Theory and Computation And the Black Hole Initiative Which is the only center in the world That focuses on black holes So a lot of my work is actually A conservative mainstream But I do take risks Because I think that, you know

Just like in investments Financial investments in the stock market In bonds and so forth You have to diversify your portfolio Because if you keep doing the same thing Low risk stuff You are unlikely to discover important things So it's always important

And I advise that I give that advice to young scientists That there should always be A fraction of their portfolio Dedicated to risky investment Now the question is what fraction My advice is 20 to 30% About a quarter

And then without that If we only play conservative We will miss some of the most exciting discoveries That we could have made And so just like investments Financial investments I think it's important to invest your research time In a way that includes some risks

Invest 30% of your scientific career Into aliens I love it I wouldn't say necessarily aliens There are many other risky endeavors Sure And science is so exciting these days At least astrophysics

I wouldn't speak about all sciences But astrophysics has so much going on That there are many avenues To risky investments And I can mention fewer I'm sorry Not to cut you off, forgive me One of the reasons that astrophysics

Is so exciting right now Is because the technology emerging On planet earth is allowing us To have more refined ability To detect what's out there Is that why it's more exciting? Yes, there is actually a book That advocates exactly what you say

That technology enables Discoveries in astronomy So that's definitely a very important aspect But if you look, not just about the tools If you look at what we find There were major discoveries Over the past couple of decades That are really opening new windows

Into the universe So one of them is the discovery Of habitable planets Planets like the earth Roughly the size of the earth That are in the Goldilocks region On their star where liquid water

May exist on their surface If the planet is too close to the star The atmosphere And the water would evaporate If it's too far the water would freeze Into ice And life as we know it requires Liquid water

So you need to be in some zone Where the star is warming The planet to the right temperature Roughly the temperature of the surface Of the earth, room temperature And we Just over the past decade Discovered such planets

That are in the habitable zone About a quarter, we know that a quarter Of all the stars in the Milky Way galaxy Have habitable planets Roughly the mass of the earth And so that's a very important discovery The next step would be To figure out if they have life

And there are plans On how to do that Some of these planets are passing in front Of their star They are just oriented the right way That they pass in front of the star And when the star light Shines through their atmospheres

We can in principle dissect their atmospheres And try and figure out which molecules Are in the atmosphere Is their oxygen Oxygen is a signature of life Maybe methane Or other gases So that's something that could happen within

A decade or two that we will start getting Clues about the composition of the atmospheres Around habitable planets Does that fraud? Does it? The planets were discovered Around the nearest stars The nearest star is Proxima Centauri And it does have

A habitable earth Next to it Wait, I'm sorry You're saying the earth The planet near Proxima Centauri You already know is habitable Yes I have some wealthy friends

And I tell them to buy real estate On the planet If the value will only go up Hey, it just so happens I'm selling real estate on that planet If they're interested Give them my email The key question I should say

We don't know if it has an atmosphere So Mars is habitable Mars would be considered A habitable planet It doesn't necessarily mean There's going to be waterfalls And jungles That's right

That's right In order to have liquid water You need an atmosphere Because if you have ice And you just warm it up in vacuum Then it turns into gas Directly It doesn't turn into liquid

To have liquid water You need an external pressure You need an atmosphere Some gas surrounding you And that's why an atmosphere Is crucial for a planet So Mars lost most of its atmosphere And as a result

It doesn't have rivers But it could have had Before the atmosphere was lost The question is To why Mars lost its atmosphere I mean, there are several possible scenarios One is that Well, Mars is smaller than the Earth

It doesn't have a strong gravity To hold on to the atmosphere And also It doesn't have a strong magnetic field To keep the atmosphere So the atmosphere may have been stripped By the illumination from the sun By the solar wind

Right now Indeed, Mars is not habitable In the way that the Earth is But we don't know If the planet near Proxima Has an atmosphere And there is a way to find out Within a couple of years

With a new telescope That will be launched to space In a year and a half or so Called the James Webb Space Telescope It could tell us The temperature contrast Between the two sides Of that planet

That planet moves around Proxima In 11 days So it takes One year is 11 days For that planet You know, if there is anyone there They celebrate their birthdays Every 11 days

365 And the planet is locked We believe it's facing the star On the same side All the time So basically There is a permanent day side And a permanent night side

My daughter I have an 11 years old daughter And she thought that it would be good To have two houses on such a planet Because you want one house Where you can go to bed It's a permanent night side And then the other house

Or place where you can You know, during your work time Or on vacation You can go to You need to introduce her to sleeping masks Hey, I'm interested I'm sorry I want to know

If you feel personally When you tell me this It is exciting But it's equally frustrating to me Because even if this Is discovered to be a habitable planet With an atmosphere and with water We're never going to get there

Doesn't that bother you On some existential level The feeling of like It's almost like being on a Born on a desert island And then getting some Very rudimentary sketch Of some amazing city

Somewhere on the mainland That you'll never see Doesn't it drive you nuts? No, I'm actually more optimistic than you are I believe that our civilization Will get there eventually It will take a while If we use the standard rockets

The same as the Apollo mission It would take us about 80,000 years to reach that planet But since Now we're developing this technology For Starshot In principle, if we develop it To an advanced enough level

We could launch More massive spacecraft That could potentially Carry Humans In the long term That will take a while But I think that

If our civilization survives For another million years There is very high likelihood That it will spread around the galaxy And You think that our civilization Is going to survive that long? Isn't the general prognostication

Worth working on? The problems that we have Between people are worse Than in understanding nature In physics I'm much more optimistic about The ability to develop the technology That is needed than I am about

The solutions that we will find To human relations Word politics It's quite possible that Our planet will be destroyed by bad politics That's terrifying But isn't one of When I think about

Once I interviewed Once I interviewed Some folks from Singularity University In San Francisco And they were talking about How they're interested in using technology To solve the big problems If you solve the big problems

The little problems get solved Along with the big problems For example, if we can Create a technology that Can easily produce clean water Then we'll get rid of a lot of the diseases Just by cleaning the water Definitely

Everything physical Can be solved by technology But I worry about the mental Aspects of life The politics has to do Not with physical objects It has to do with human pride Jealousy

Hate and so forth These things cannot be cured by technology Technology can only exacerbate them The latest example is The fake news on Facebook The fact that you have better communication Between people doesn't make them better Yeah, because Trump

It's just Trump tweets Trump tweets could cause the apocalypse It's one of the strangest things ever But one of the solutions One of the solutions Would be That You and the people that you're working with

Managed to locate Some advanced civilization And you somehow Figure out a way to gather Information from them This is one of the That would be amazing To me it would feel like

Cheating in an exam If we were to ask them to solve our problems We don't know what most of the Universe is made of It's called dark matter We just gave it a name We don't know what the substance is But most of the matter in the Universe

If we ask another civilization It will feel like cheating In an exam It's possible they had another billion years To explore the Universe So they know much more than we do But we need their help They will give us a much better perspective

Because we will feel as if We are part of one team Here on earth and there is much more out there And I think once you get That perspective The internal fights that we have Become less meaningful It's better for us

To cooperate and constructively Work together To increase Enhance the longevity of our civilization I do believe that it will Actually lead us to a better place If we find evidence for others I should mention that

Astrophysics Has many other examples Of exciting discoveries We talked about planets Just a year ago The first discovery Of gravitational waves These are ripples in space and time

According to Einstein Space and time are not Rigid entities They are being distorted By objects around them If objects move There are ripples in space time That propagate out

When you throw a stone on the surface Of a pond you get waves out When objects move in the universe You get gravitational waves They were never detected directly But last year An experiment Called LIGO

Detected the first signal Of gravitational waves Coming from the edge of the universe From a collision between two black holes It was not only the messenger That was new But actually the message That it carried was amazing

It was a message about Two black holes Two very compact Structures of space and time Colliding with each other Creating a storm A space time storm At the edge of the universe

And those waves from that storm Reached us a billion years later And With our most exquisite Detectors we were able to detect them And it's Quite an amazing Fit

Maybe you could help Explain this to me a little bit I read a little bit about this Apparently there are these things called interferometers That's what they're called Interferometer But the essence of the thing is These waves when they pass through

Planet Earth It's not like wind blowing through It's like for a millisecond Everyone On Earth Was like Contracted and expanded a little bit Like the fabric

Of time and space That is mind blowing to me That we are that interconnected With the universe That these types of events Happening so far away Are actually causing Our atomic structure

To change Temporarily Yes, it's correct But it's a very slight change We're talking about one part In 10 to the power 21 or so It's really tiny

You cannot notice that Through our bodies There are hundreds of Neutrinos that cross Every square centimeter Inside Every square centimeter Every nanosecond

There are hundreds of neutrinos From the big bang that are crossing us We are obviously Influenced by everything But the effect Of those gravitational waves Of those neutrinos Are completely negligible

They're not affecting us much The only thing that truly affects us Are for example cosmic rays Are very energetic particles That come from exploding stars At great distances And they can cause mutations They can affect

The way that we Evolve as biological creatures I'm interested in that Can we talk about that for a moment Because I think one of the Wonderful things about your work Is the encouragement For everyone to think outside

The box a little bit Where you can make the really big discoveries And when we're talking about This idea of there being other Civilizations out there Then we kind of create a potential Spectrum of intelligence Surely human beings

Aren't the An example of the height of intelligence In an infinite universe Surely There must be some spectrum of intelligence I should mention to you that We had some other ideas of Searching for them

For example we can search for industrial Pollution in the atmosphere Of other planets Just like we pollute our atmosphere You know there might be signs Of other industries out there And that is potentially feasible With the next generation of telescopes

But doctor don't you think that If you know Even looking for you know When we look for smog Facing these super advanced civilizations On our own Human Unfolding

On our planet That's right Our imagination is limited By what we see around us And it's possible that nature Is much richer than we can imagine And that often happens To be the case when we make new discoveries

But If you want to guide yourself In the right direction It's best to imagine what you see around you Because You know we can't do much better Another thing that we see around us Are city lights

And one of the papers I wrote Five years ago Was to ask How far can we see a city like Tokyo for example Suppose there is a large Space craft That shines as brightly as the city of

Tokyo Turns out that you can see it all the way To the edge of the solar system With the biggest telescopes we have right now So when I asked an astronomer Someone that discovered A lot of objects at the edge of the solar system I asked him

Have you checked whether they produce Their own light Or whether they are just reflecting sunlight And he said why would I check It's obvious that they just reflect sunlight Those objects that I find Many times people have a prejudice They believe they know the answer

Before they check it And in the case of artificial lights For example you can tell If there is an artificial source of light Because as it changes its distance From you It doesn't get Fainter as fast as it does

If it reflects sunlight And so People just make assumptions That heavy objects fall faster Than light objects You're talking about your idea In the Kuiper Belt Kuiper Belt

Right, that there could possibly Potentially be Artificial light coming from there And we just don't know because we've just been assuming That we're seeing reflected light That's right But has anyone tested this? Have you tested this?

After you spoke with your colleague Did anyone begin to do Your calculations to determine If this light is reflected Or artificial? Not yet I'm still looking forward to An undergraduate student

That will want to do that with me And that would be great We haven't yet done it yet The technique to figure out If it's artificial light Or reflected sunlight Is just by seeing how the object Deems as it moves away from us

Because reflected sunlight The amount of light Intercepted by the object Goes down as it moves away However, if the object produces its own light Then The light, the source of light Stays the same as it moves away

And so you can tell the difference between the two By monitoring how faint does The source get as it moves away from us I have to ask this This is way out there But I get to do that because I have a podcast Because we're talking about this Something that is

Astounding to imagine That there is a civilization sending out These incredible bursts of energy To propel their ships through space But Couldn't there be the potential For Advanced civilizations

To communicate with us In ways that don't match Our current understanding Of how we communicate with each other And this is something Are you familiar with Terrence McKenna? No, I'm not But I completely understand

Your question and I agree with it Go ahead. In other words You say, okay, cosmic rays They can affect our evolution And if we're talking about A civilization that is so advanced That can propel a massive ship

Using some God knows where it's getting the energy from Then Couldn't it equally be possible That an advanced civilization Could in some way or another influence Cosmic rays To produce

The biological life That it could Send out pulses of DNA influencing Rays that could actually Sort of grow life from Potentially habitable planets Or is that crazy?

No, this is a very Interesting question Well, first of all, I should mention that With respect to this hypothesis Of fast radio bus, we calculated How much energy is needed And you need roughly the amount of energy That is intercepted by the earth

From the sun. So that is The reason that we suggested That it might be Interesting because a planet like the earth Collects enough energy Per any time to power These beams of radio waves

But coming back to your question This is an excellent question There are ways to Not only affect the biology on a planet But also in principle Terraform a planet A planet that was not habitable Could become habitable

Work on it if you do some engineering And that could be done In the form of Introducing an atmosphere to a planet That didn't have an atmosphere Or illuminating it Or directing starlight on it With big lenses

Or all kinds of possibilities There is a way Of affecting the evolution Obviously of life on a planet From a distance It's also possible that they don't care about us About the creatures Like we are

Because we are so primitive It's just like you walk down the street And there are ants on the pavement And you don't really care about them You step on them and you move forward I try not to step on the ants I try not to step on the ants But also

When we're talking about Earlier you were saying We have to use what we know as humans To understand what's out there Of so below If we're talking about a super intelligence Out there One thing that I think about

Is how I If we were together And I somehow Pulled a puppy dog out of my pocket And put it on the table We would both start playing With a puppy dog That's something we would do

You would tease it a little That's fun to do This is an example Of a hierarchy of intelligence Because on one Into this temporary spectrum Of intelligence we have you Then much further down

Is me And then there's the puppy dog I once said that I would Sometimes When I'm speculating about a super intelligence And maybe this is naive I like to think of it as more

Than just like look at those little ants No need to interact with them I would think that if we were intelligent enough Then when we looked at an ant It wouldn't just be an ant anymore We would understand It's quite possible That they're looking at us

They have not Interfered in any of our affairs Over the past thousands of years Right I'm sorry I'm sorry to cut you off I'm sorry just right there May I stop you just right there The assumption is they haven't interfered

With our affairs And a lot of us think Actually They have been involved With us but the way that they've been Involved with us is in You know God I'm sorry to say this

Please forgive me you are a Harvard professor Please forgive me But a lot of us think they've been Involved by a decade alex And that Scyvenes Mushrooms Caicha in the case

Of m samen The Diemethyltreptomen These states of consciousness They produce What's interesting about Them is people who go into these states Experience similar things Yes well you see I'm a scientist

It's not so much The title that I have at Harvard But the way I treat Evidence is I want evidence to be reproducible Yes And scientific in the sense that Independent people will agree on the evidence

But this is what's interesting If you can produce such evidence From any experience doesn't matter That is reproducible and that many people Will agree provides solid Proof then that would be fine But so far we haven't seen such a thing Doctor come to New York

And I will produce Evidence That is reproducible I'm talking about the quarters that I'm Going through On my daily routine I understand The other thing I should say is that

If we succeed with star shot It's possible that once we send the spacecraft Outside the solar system We will get a message To the stellar club Right But we've been I'm sorry to keep going back to this doctor

I will stop Because I know this is maybe outside of What you specialize in But this is one of the Fascinating things that humans do And I think it's A very important Maybe one of the most important things

Is to gaze out into the universe And say is anyone out there It's the first thing We should be doing that But also what's interesting Is that we do Have these compounds That when people ingest them

They do come Into contact with An intelligence and you say Well this needs to be reproducible verifiable And what's curious about it If you look into dimethyltryptamine Especially you will find a similarity In these experiences

And it's absolutely I know It sounds so insane But the problem is A lot of us you consider ourselves Explorers in this realm We're kind of like the lunatic explorers From

The time before we knew what was in the amazon And so we come back From these states and we tell these stories And people hear them and it sounds insane And yet People are Reporting contact In these states of consciousness

And I just have to say If there is an advanced civilization And it's interested in communicating With Biological life that has reached Some level of consciousness It might choose to do this In a way that doesn't involve

Technology Well maybe I would not exclude that But by the way You know it needs to be Very dense that one can look at And Demonstrate that That indeed it provides

New information that was not known before And you know it has to pass Scientific tests Well this is and isn't this the interesting Problem because it's like I for example As I'm not aware of their being On planet earth right now

A video Of someone's dreams And yet Everyone it's inarguable That dreams are a phenomena that really happen Right And so in the same way We have and we are getting

It's really curious you know because we are Beginning to understand how these psychedelics Effect the human brain and I guess The essence of it is this In the same way that you are saying This person told you Why would we ever look at that

Why would we ever we know it's light Reflecting in the same way It feels like there is this Overlooked Element of human experience That Is innately Alien which is the

Psychedelic experience and yet because We don't have the gauges yet To measure what's happening in there Outside if we could do MRIs We know there's a kind of super connectivity Happening in the human brain when people are on Silosybing or LSD We can't project these images yet

And From the scientific point of view If you ask people that are In the medical sciences and so forth They would say that your brain Is going through something but it has nothing To do with the world around the brain So it's not like

A scientific detector like a telescope Looking at the sky and collecting it Right but doctor What we are saying is maybe there is some communication That We're being affected by cosmic rays On a daily basis Neutrinos are zinging through us

All the time so there is a And I don't know that you would call that data It's kind of chaos Pouring out of time Interacting with us at the atomic Level That's how we understand it right now But who knows what those are

Who knows if like at every moment We're being washed with Information that the human brain Is able to pick up on When it enters into a kind of refined state Of consciousness and all the Mythologies of people Who have been contacted by

God, the burning bush The millions of stories These are just kind of a primitive A primitive Description of Contact with some kind Of superintelligence It would be fantastic

If that happens to be the case And I will be the last one To say that a particular Path to knowing more About reality should be excluded I would say This should be explored

And scientists should find out If there is something in it Doctor, this is your job You as part of what you do Should Consider Taking ayahuasca Or some kind of psychedelic

For someone like me When we take psychedelics And we lay back and close our eyes And see these incredible patterns Geometries It feels a little bit like a chimpanzee That managed to get into the Cockpit of the space shuttle

You're looking at something that is Completely ununderstandable But for a mind like yours To enter into that state of consciousness Even if you come back from that Reporting, you know, that's just Some kind of like biological Shift in the way that we

Process information in the human brain It's not aliens you hippie Go back to the fish concert hippie Even that It would be a great gift To this particular field Of research, but I think A mind like yours going into

That state and seeing These patterns that are So profoundly And impossibly beautiful You might be able to extrapolate from that Something a little bit more Than folks like me who are like Well, we should put that on a t-shirt

You know, you might be able To see deeper into it and I think That it's interesting That it's interesting That you haven't had a chance To experience No, I haven't because you have to realize That my

Brain is probably the most Important organ that I have In my body It's sort of like the muscles Of an athlete and I You know, if you go to an athlete and say Well, this will enhance the strength Of your muscle, you don't take risks

Very often on those things Because that's the most important Thing for you and But anyway I'm sorry, but with psilocybin If you look at the research right now They're saying It is the safest

It's the safest psychedelic And if you look at the work That's being done at Johns Hopkins And the research That's being done into it, I think you will find That even though I suppose there is some risk It's

Highly improbable That something would happen to you That would in any way shape Or form Effect your ability to Process information In the way that you have trained yourself to I don't know

Look, I'm just a podcaster You're a Harvard, forgive me Again, I feel embarrassed to even mention this to you But This is one of the things Terence McKinnon said Is that we have these I don't remember, somewhere in South America There's one of these incredible telescopes

Gazing out the sky To try to pick up data from some Advanced civilization where right underneath That telescope Mushrooms are growing If you take them You will immediately have contact with Something profound

By the way You keep Mentioning the fact that I'm a Harvard Professor, but I grew up on a farm And That was plan B If I didn't get tenure at Harvard I would go back to collecting eggs every afternoon

And Growing up Vegetation That's an incredible thing to me That someone You have a wild life At the age of 24

You got a PhD You were Inducted or brought into some kind of Elite group of Physicists in the Israeli army And It's When you think about yourself

How do you think You ended up in this situation When did you realize I'm a genius I'm basically a genius Well, I haven't realized it yet And my wife keeps My feet on the ground

I watch the dishes Every evening And I think I just I'm actually quite surprised That I have ideas that other people Other scientists did not have before me

Because they seem to me so Straightforward and Coming from common sense And that's why my papers Appeal to the public because I tend to think the way that Anyone thinks I don't regard myself as

Particularly unusual It's just that I was lucky enough To succeed in Getting the job that I have And the most important thing It's not the title, it's the fact that the job Allows me to continue doing what I enjoy doing I mean

I wouldn't enjoy Being on a farm But I enjoy more the creative Work associated with science And so the fact that I'm able To get paid for what I enjoy doing is unusual Most people in order to make a living

They work on something they don't enjoy And so That is the thing I'm most grateful for And I don't think of myself As very different From anyone else It's just that it surprises me When I look at

When I write a paper That this was not done before The fact that some of my ideas turn out To be original is really surprising It's mysterious That other people do not think the same way Why do people are afraid? This has to do

As nothing to do with me It has to do with them But it also seems like There's so much risk in your field When it comes to Outlandish ideas Somehow I guess you've avoided When I've talked to other scientists

Before and they feel like There's the risk of Being ostracized by your peers That's right I don't care about what other people think About me If I have a good idea And it looks exciting

I don't care what their precautions may be If someone will not give me a prize Or will not admit me To some society as a result Who cares? I really am driven by The novelty of the ideas And whether they describe reality

And trying to figure out what reality is like It's not about showing off It's not about celebrating Status Things like that It's about trying to understand things better That's the way I operate I'm very straightforward in the way

That I Speak with people I never manipulate people That's one of the reasons I'm also department chair For so many years now I was asked to continue for another three years So people

What they see is what they get with me I'm not trying to fool anyone Wow It's a beauty It seems like when you look back At the beginning Of science Scientists were out of their minds

Like Newton Was Kind of obsessed with the occult That's right And didn't I spoke to a high school A few months ago And I said that being a scientist

Is just like staying a kid Throughout your entire life You can allow yourself Not to know everything To ask questions, to make mistakes And that's horrible as a scientist Because we don't understand many things Right

You maintain your childhood Look at things You inquire, you try to figure things out Most of the adults They operate differently They think about their own image The way they appear to others They want to acquire prestige

To acquire money and so on And that causes them Not to admit mistakes Not to admit that they don't understand something As a scientist We have this privilege On a daily basis Just focusing on the things we don't understand

Things that we can make mistakes And we can try and figure things out It's work in progress It's a learning experience I think that's interesting To me, I was reading about how One of the... You have come up with some incredible ideas

One of them blew my mind Which was The idea that In the earlier days of the universe There was the potential For space itself To have enough warmth In it that

Everywhere was kind of Had the right temperature for life Did I say that in the right way? Yeah, so if you go far enough Back in time The universe was sufficiently warm To have room temperature Everywhere

Was room temperature But only for 15 million years It's just 15 million But how did you... Before we get into that The origination of that idea in your mind Because In an interview that I read

It seems like this happened over... You were at dinner or something? No, I was actually... Most of the ideas come to me in the bathroom When I take a shower Because that's when nobody interrupts And so I took a shower that morning And it happened...

Then I thought about this And then I realized, oh, it's Thanksgiving day I won't be able to work on this for the entire day Because guests will be coming in the afternoon And I told my wife I really need the morning to work it out You know, and If she can give me that morning

Then I'll take care of the dishes And arranging everything in the evening And she gave me that time And I sat down and wrote the paper And within a day I finished I mean, the same day I sort of Wrote it up And send it out

I should say that my wife I now realize that I have a lot of good ideas In the shower Two days ago She went to the supermarket And brought me These Notebooks

That never get wet That you can write on the showers That's a great idea Because otherwise there is a risk That I'll forget the idea by the time I dry my seat That is... Oh God, one day I'll be such a genius That I need waterproof notebooks in the shower

What a beautiful thing to have happen Have you had a chance to Go into a flotation tank yet? No I think this is something that you should consider exploring Because You know what these are, these float tanks There's no light

That can get in There's no gravity It has a high high buoyancy So you just float In nothingness As long as you want And it seems like This would be the ultimate version

Of a thinking cap for you If the shower works for you Yeah, it's just... The farther I get from people The better I am In the sense that I have time to think for myself About things The shower is one of these escape routes for me

Because nobody would bother me then Let me ask one last question If you did happen To Come into contact With some kind of alien intelligence If you guys Do pick something up

And you realize this is the real thing What would be the process In disseminating that information To the rest of the world? Well, this is an excellent question And there is no formal Process as of yet And this is something to be thought about

Actually by astronomers There needs to be some procedure By which you notify someone So maybe the White House You notify An international organization But nothing like that exists There is nothing right now

Because people think the chance of that happening Is really small Actually, we had Steven Spielberg as a honorary Degree recipient at Harvard A year ago And I told him about We are searching for potential

Signals from ETs And he said I ask you please The first signal that you get that looks real Please call me first Let me be the first to know about it Wow! So obviously Steven Spielberg after making his

E.T. movie is very Eager to know Can I be the second? Sure, why not? But it seems like This is something like U.F.ologists and people The conspiracy theorists are

Concerned about this because they think that Oh, but Look at the leaks that come out these days From the White House and everywhere else It's really hard, it's very difficult To keep such a secret I don't believe In any conspiracy of this sort

Especially among scientists Who are not trained to keep a secret What would the danger be Of just once you get the signal And discover Whatever that discovery may be Hopefully one that we make That you will make in our lifetimes

What would the dangers be Of just uploading it to the internet And letting everyone know at once That we've made contact The only risk is If these are hostile If the civilization is hostile If we transmit a signal

That tells them about our existence That's the only risk I don't see any other risk So I think the information should be free to the public That's my opinion If it's just a matter of collecting information Because you never know There might be someone that will be able to decode

The signal in a way That other people do not It's actually a challenge similar to Breaking a code sometimes Because we don't know their language And in principle People that work for the intelligence Could figure out

Much more easily using the software They have trying to decode Any signal like that So I would be very much in favor Of allowing the public At large to look at it And perhaps someone will figure out What it means

Wow, doctor This has been an enlightening conversation I'm so grateful, thank you for giving me an hour I'm on Memorial Day If people want to find you How can they find you? Do they have to enroll In one of the most elite colleges on planet Earth Or is there some other way to

Be taught by you Yeah, so Well, first of all, I have a website They can just put my name Avi Loeb on Google L-O-E-B is the last name at Harvard And they will see all kinds of things That they do and research that they do

I will also visit New York City On And speak To the public at the Alchemist's Kitchen On the 16th of June, that's a Friday at around 7 p.m.

So anyone that is in New York City Is welcome to go there Beautiful, I have all the links At dunkintrustle.com Thank you so much That was Avi Loeb everybody And you can check him out if you're in New York City At the Alchemist's Kitchen

On June 16th Much thanks to Fulton and Rourke For sponsoring this episode Remember, go to FultonandRourke.com Buy some of their sacred Colognes Annoint your lover with this sweet smell And if you use offer code DUNKIN

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