Habits and Hustle - Episode 251: Neil deGrasse Tyson: Why Embracing Wonder is Critical For Personal Growth

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Do you consider yourself to be curious enough? In this episode of Habits and Hustle, Neil deGrasse Tyson and I explore the importance of retaining our childhood curiosity and how it plays a crucial role in our lives as adults. Neil shares his insights on nurturing curiosity and how fear of failure can hinder our progress in maintaining that innate sense of wonder. During our conversation, Neil also shares his unique perspective on using pop culture in education, the future of AI, and the complexities of quantum physics and philosophy. As an astrophysicist, Neil brings a cosmic perspective to our discussion, offering wisdom and knowledge that will surely spark your curiosity and ignite your passion for learning. Finally, we touch on the challenges and opportunities in transforming the school system, the role of religion, and even ponder hypothetical conversations with interesting historical figures. Don't miss this captivating episode with the one and only Neil deGrasse Tyson as we explore the universe and beyond together. Neil deGrasse Tyson earned his BA in Physics from Harvard and his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia. In 2001, Tyson was appointed by President Bush to serve on a twelve-member commission that studied the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry. The final report was published in 2002 and contained recommendations (for Congress and for the major agencies of the government) that would promote a thriving future of transportation, space exploration, and national security. What we discuss: (0:00:01) - How important is it to retaining childhood curiosity and exploration in adulthood? (0:13:08) - What role does pop culture have in education? (0:17:09) - How Neil used Twitter to spark curiosity (0:29:25) - What does Neil think of AI's Future and implicated ethics? (0:38:50) - What do we know to be true in quantum physics and philosophy? (0:54:19) - How can we transforming the school system? (1:04:19) - A discussion about religion, gender, and continuums (1:19:13) - Who would Neil like to have a conversation with if given the opportunity? (1:27:36) - Why you should be Ashamed to die Key Takeaways: Living forever comes with its own set of challenges, including resource conservation, terraforming Mars, and the lack of urgency in life. We explore the concept of 'escape velocity of aging,' where the number of years that passes equals the increase in the average life expectancy of civilization, and how it could lead to humanity living forever. However, living forever comes with a bigger existential problem. See, knowing our mortality gives us meaning to our lives and how living forever could potentially lead to a life with no meaning.   Curiosity and exploration are important. However, most parents have a natural instinct to protect their child may prevent them from learning important lessons in life. Think of how a seemingly mundane event such as a child playing with an egg can become an entire conversation about the natural world, and how the cost of ignorance can be more expensive than the cost of education.  There are three categories of truth: personal truth, objective truth, and truth that is repeated. We acknowledge personal truths can invoke powerful emotions and even lead to armed conflict. Each one of these truths have their own characteristics that make it true in its own definition.  To learn more about Neil: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neildegrassetyson/ Website: https://neildegrassetyson.com/ My links: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen 

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Neil, I got to tell you, I'm like really kind of nervous with you and I'll tell you why. And I've interviewed like everyone on the planet. And I'll tell you why I'm so nervous with you. Because you're literally like the smartest human I think I've ever like encountered. I've seen so many interviews with you and read so many things and watched you so often. And like you're like, it's not like even though you're an astrophysicist, I feel like you're have such an elaborate, unique perspective on like everything in life? Well, I think as an astrophysicist, you come back to Earth with a cosmic perspective, right?

You're not limited to what things look like as you turn your head around. So it adds an extra sort of dose of sensibility, I think, that we might lose track of on Earth trying to find reasons to argue with one another. Well, you make things also like the very complex, like, I mean, like, let's not kid ourselves. Like your topic, it's not so easy. It could be complicated to understand to the best of us, you're right? But in all fairness, I, in all honesty, I cherry pick stuff from the universe that I share with you. So this stuff I don't tell because, no, that's too complicated.

No one will understand that. Leave that one behind. And I find the cool, wacky, fun things, that gets you. you excited, then you say, now I want to learn more. So the flame getting ignited under you doesn't have to be the complete syllabus. It just has to be things enough to spark your interest, or maybe to reignite the embers that might have once been a flame when you were a kid. Oh, my gosh. The moon, the stars, heaven. Oh, my gosh. And now you're an adult, right? And so it's not there. And maybe maybe it can light a fuse that could do wonders for you for your adult curiosity.

So that's what I focus on. Yeah, and you do a really good job at it. That's the number. Yeah, no, you're very welcome. Were you always like this as a kid, though? Like, were you always super curious and interested and thoughtful with how you think? Like, was your brain always activated in this way, or did you work on it? So, yeah, there's a lot in that question.

Let me unpack it. So when we were all kids, we're all curious. It seems to be a fundamental part of what it is to be human and maybe more broadly what it is to be mammal. You have a look at infant mammals. They're running around. They're doing mischievous stuff just the way we do. And mischievous that gives a bad spin on it. Let me say they're curious about their environment in just the way we are.

and on a level where it could put your own health and survival at risk when you're a toddler. So that's why parents always have to go running behind the toddlers so they don't kill themselves. But we think of them as being at risk of killing themselves. But what they're really doing is they're experimenting and exploring with their environment. Yeah, it's true. They're explorers. Yeah, it happened. They want to explore the knife blade, okay, or the ledge.

So, yeah, so you have to like stay close. I'm not saying to not stay close. But I'm betting you that there are a lot of things you prevent your kids from doing that could have been a lesson, something they learned about the natural world if you let them continue. For example, if there's an uncooked egg, like you just pulled it out of the refrigerator, it's like on the ledge, and your toddler's reaching up to try to grab the egg,

essentially every parent who say, no, you can't do that. Because everybody knows if the toddler takes the egg, the egg is going to break. Everybody knows this, okay? However, let's look at it differently. Let the toddler grab the egg. Then they'll start playing with it. And then eventually the egg breaks. We know it will break.

Well, they just learned that something can be hard yet fragile. Yeah, it's true. Think about that combination of features. Most things that are hard, tables, chairs, wall, are not fragile. This was solid yet fragile. Okay. Now, what comes out? There's this transparent liquid in there. What is that? Right? That liquid when heated turns white. What's that about? How often when you heat something, does it completely change color? When you heat water, it doesn't turn white. It starts out transparent. Then there's this yellow goopy stuff. And then you tell them that yellow plus the transparent stuff one day would make a chicken. So this is an entire conversation you could have with your toddler that you're not having if you prevent them from grabbing the egg. And you might say, well, the egg costs money.

Today, it might even be 50 cents. I don't know. Today it's like $50 for one egg. So the eggs have risen in price. However, let's say 50 cents. That would be $6 a dozen possibly. So 50 cents. And you say, all right, the toddler learns something that costs 50 cents.

The president of Harvard, when someone complained saying, why is education cost so much? And he said, if you think the cost of education is high, try the cost of ignorance. That's a great line. Totally great line. Totally great line. So to get back to your question, there was a long detour here. I like the detours. I think the devil's in these detours, actually.

Okay, okay. All right. Or God is in the details. Yes, that's going to say. That's a whole other part we're going to talk of. You've heard both of those work as metaphor. So if you retain your childhood curiosity into adulthood, so you basically become a grown-up kid, you're a scientist,

because that's all that scientists do. Oh, what is that? Let me poke that. Let me rearrange it. Let me see what happens. Let me, that's all we do. I still have my childhood curiosity. And that's a great way to like get back to that.

So do you believe that as we get older, we lose our curiosity? Is it because we're scared of like failing, scared of all these other nonsense things that we don't try? Interesting point. I hadn't thought about that, but that's, you know, based in your world and what you talk about and the lessons you give people,

let me think more deeply about fear of failure because fear of failure is probably one of the greatest forces operating against success, right? And so fear of failure, I had a mentor in graduate school. Actually, I was in my years as a post-referral. His name is Martin Schwartzschild. And he said the day he spoke of science and research and lab, he said, the day you stop making

mistakes is the day you know you're no longer on the frontier. And I said, ooh, that's good. That's good. So, yeah, fear of making mistakes because somebody's out there about to judge you because of it and you might have some emotional investment in being right. And so, yes, you have forced me to agree, not that it was called me, you convinced me to agree with you that fear of failure is a force operating against retaining curiosity into adulthood. But also, you know, life kicks in, right? I mean, you have relationships, you got, get a job, you might have kids. And the freedom to just explore the latitude that you once had as a child is no longer there.

So I would say it's not that people are born curious and others aren't. We're all born curious. You have to find ways to retain it, to nurture it through years where you might otherwise be susceptible to it getting squashed. So you're a smart guy. How do we retain it? Because most of us don't. And we lose it as we go for all those reasons. Well, what is it? You know, when you have, I don't know if you have kids. You have kids. I've got two kids. How old are they? Ten and eight. Okay. Yeah. So you're recent enough on the early childhood scale there. So think about it. We spend the first couple of years teaching our kids with great investment of energy to walk and talk. And then we spend the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit. So what? So fine. No, don't tell them to shut up and sit down. So true.

What do kids do? They are, as we would say in physics, very high centers of entropy. Okay. Entropy is disorder. Now think about it. Every mess that's in your house made by your kids. kids, one or both of them, is the consequence of an experiment they conducted. You don't think of it that way, but that's what it is. Oh, let me take the Legos and build this and let me see what that

makes. Then they just kind of leave it there. Okay. But that was an exploration. Now, if you want to teach them to clean up after themselves, what might happen is they make such a mess. They might not want to make the mess again and therefore not do the experiment. So what I would recommend is, is, you say, okay, time for cleanup, and everybody cleans up together. That way, the prospect of making a big mess again does not fear, they don't fear that. Yes, that's a great point. I agree with that. So, Billy, the onus is actually on the parents to make sure that we put in this. Entirely. Our kids are the age where the TV show Barney was big. Yes, of course. I remember that Barney. With human teeth. Yeah. There were no sharp.

I remember Barney. It's a completely neutered T-Rex. That's so true. That's exactly it. Barney, they had a song. It was a cleanup song. Clean up, clap, clean up. Everybody does their share.

Clean up, clean up over here and everywhere, something like that. And so we would clean up with the kids. So cleaning up was a fun thing to do just as making the mess was fun. But that might be one of these little things that slowly errone. roads your curiosity. 100%. And I got one other example. Again, I don't want to fill our time together with just anecdotes.

But you're good of the anecdotes. You're very good. This is what you're kind of known for. Okay. And then I want to get back to because you're asking about me and where I am today versus yesterday. So I'm in Central Park, New York City, where I live. And I was actually waiting in line to, there's a Shakespeare in the Park Festival

that they have there. So I'm waiting in line there. It had rained that afternoon. So there were certain puddles at the bottoms of walkways in Central Park. And there's a mother and daughter. I assume they're mother and daughter, the right age to be that, walking down the path. And the kid has on full raincoat and galoshes.

Okay? The mother's holding an umbrella. They're walking down the path. Oh, my gosh. I wish my thoughts were screaming out loud, but they were just in my head. and I was saying that the girl is, she couldn't be more than five. Okay.

I said, the girl wants to jump in the puddle. Let her jump in the puddle. That's exactly what the girl wants to do. She's a kid. Kids love jumping in puddles. As they got close to the puddle, the little girl is walking straight towards it. And what does the mother do? Pull her around to not jump in the puddle.

And I said to myself, this is a lost opportunity. Why? Because, for example, it was a nice, Muddy puddle? This is an experiment in cratering. This is what meteors do when they hit the ground. They make a crater. They make a splash. You prevented that. Mommy? Why did you do that? Oh, because you didn't want the galoshes to get dirty. Oh, is that it? Really? Did you have kids so that you would maintain a clean house? Really? Was that on your list? That's not how that works. So true. Everything a kid does that gets dirty and breaks things and messes things up is what it is to be

a kid, I maintain, I will submit to you that had she let her daughter smash up that puddle and make everything dirty, maybe they later could have cleaned the galoshes together. That could have been fun. All right. Things you can do with this. No, this is not in anyhow. I think these are like what you're good at and this is what I've seen and I've heard everything and people say it all the time. You're really good, like you give life lessons by these anecdotes and these analogies. So even though you're this astrophysicist who's obviously very, very intelligent with out of space and the world. You have this perspective and this wisdom in so many ways that a pair, someone who's not interested in, you know, aliens or UFOs or the world or cosmic or whatever, Big Bang, they'll still find and glean information that's pertinent

to their life. You do a great job. Well, first of all, everybody's interested in aliens. That's true. A lot of people are. A lot of people are. Yes. Everybody's. I'd never met anybody's. I don't want to meet the alien. No, everybody wants the alien. So just more broadly, I'm, I count myself among the ranks of old men right now. I'm old. I'm old. Okay. And anything that you don't think is old is just Hollywood, you know. Really? I go on, I visit Hollywood every three months and I come back and they. How old are you? How old are you? I was born in 1958. 68, 70. Oh, really? Yes. So wait, but that hair, you don't color your hair. You don't lie to me. No, no, no. So, so, so here's the thing. So my hair, it is tinted, but for only one reason, because the gray was coming in in patches. And it looked like I had some kind of mangy skin disease because it wasn't coming in uniformly. And so I give a public talk and my hair, people would be distracted by my hair. Like, what's wrong with his hair? Does he have some fungus skin disease? So I'm tinting it until it's more uniformly gray.

then I'll come out and I'll be like, you know, more than you have the gray apro. And, and, I'll come out of time. We'll do it. But I'm not trying to completely hide the ground. I'm gray here and here and gray mustache. So I'm not ashamed of the gray.

I just, as an educator, I don't want to. It's distracting. I don't want what I look like to distract you. So that's, so it's tactical. It's not, it's not very. It's not vanity. No, no, no, no, not in the least. Not in the least.

But this is all my hair. I mean, you know, it's thinning now. So, so there's some, you know, but this is my real hairline. That's great. That's amazing. Yeah, it's just, is that. But anyhow, so go, but here's a broader point I want to make. I've always been embedded in society, as we all are, but it's easy to go to the lab and

separate. Yeah. Okay. The proverbial science lab and separate. I've always tried to keep one, at least one and a half feet in pop culture, because I learn as an educator, when I put on my educator hat, that if I know the pop culture that you know,

this scaffold, call it a scaffold of pop culture, and I look at it from different angles, I say, hey, if I'm going to teach you something about science, I can clad it to the outer surface of this pop culture scaffold that you already have. Right. I don't have to explain to you who Beyonce is or what a football touchdown is. You already know that.

And so now I can come at it and I say, I can attach the science to it. And you can say, hey, I never knew that. And all I found is that the more I do that, the more potent is the educational moment to care. The more, the more, the more, the potent is not the right way. Just the more thoroughly you will receive the fundamentals of what I'm trying to tell you. And this was long earned. I mean, before I was recognized, I just, you'd be on the airplane and you sit next to say, oh, what do you do?

do. I say, I'm an astrophysicist. Then the questions start coming. Okay. Tell me, black holes and quasars and expanding universe. God, all right, it all comes out. And while I'm replying to them, I am paying attention to their eyebrows, to what they're focusing on. And I noticed that when I describe some things, they'll drift a little, and other things, they're like intense. And I say, all right, not everything I'm explaining is landing equally on this listener. And so I've kept basically a lifetime of interpersonal data of my teaching people things about the universe or about anything else I know. And so this has been cold, tuned, trimmed, fed, redo, all of this so that I have a pretty good idea, I think, if you're going to enjoy what I tell you or if you're not. And sadly, what has helped

me with this is Twitter. Yes. Sadly. Why? Because I'll post a tweet that I, let me back up. When I'm an early Twitter adopter and people say, you got to have a Twitter account. I said, why? Oh, because

I said, no, I don't want, no. No. I said, all right. I did it just to get my name in there. All right. Then I started tweeting what everybody else was tweeting. Oh, I'm having a hamburger now. You know, you have a hamburger too. And I said, I can't, I'm an educator. I'm a scientist. Then, here's what happened. Okay? All right. I'm in loss. This is a long story. I'm sorry.

You haven't asked me any questions. It's okay. This is actually more interesting. Go ahead. We're okay. Okay. Okay. But I don't want to be just the only talk of the. No, no, no. I find you, I find you fascinating in so many ways. You've no idea. I forgot the, it was 2009, something like this. Maybe 2010. And a year before I had written a book on Pluto, it's called the Pluto files. The rise and fall of America's favorite planet. Okay. I'd written that book. Anyhow, that was out.

All right. And so now I'm visiting Las Vegas to do some filming for Nova. We're filming some magicians to learn how they trick your mind. Okay. All right. So I'm in Vegas. I land at McCarran Airport. And there's a boarder's books back when they were still in business.

So they're bigger than just the small Hudson books. They had categories of books on shelves, all right? So I go in there and I do the vain thing that authors do. check to see if your book is there on sale. And I didn't see my book. Then I asked the person at the counter, do you have a science section? Okay. And they said, no, I'm sorry, we don't have a science section at this branch. And I had a thought in that moment. I said, wouldn't want any rational thinking to go on before you gamble. Because this is lost making. That's right. Okay. So I said, oh my gosh that's a tweet so i tweeted at macarren airport in Vegas look for this there's no science

section wouldn't want rational thinking to go on before you gamble and people lost their minds all right and i said that's the kind of stuff i'm going to tweet thoughts i'm having as i interact with life all right and but when i see people's reactions if i think it's funny and nobody's laughing it's not funny. If I think it's enlightening and people complain, it's not enlightening. If I think it's enlightening and people think it's enlightening, that's a hit. That's so true. So I have an ongoing record, a neurosynaptic snapshot of words I use, concepts I try to convey. If I dip my toe in any kind of political world, how is that reacted to? How do people respond? And that deeply informs any next encounter I have with other people. That's amazing. So you are pretty,

methodical then. Like you are paying attention. It's systematic. Okay, systematic in that. Is that how you became so well known is through Twitter? Because you have like a crazy following. Is it like 14 million now on 3rd? Yeah, it's 14, 15 million. It was a slow build. It wasn't what, even though I did Cosmos, which was very hosted Cosmos, which was very visible. You can look at the social media following, for example. it's been a steady, very steady increase, which makes it much more sensible to handle. Yeah. I would be recognized by total strangers once a month,

then it was once a week, then it was once a day, then it was 10 times a day, then it was 50 times a day, and it was 100 times a day. And I take these steps to react and accommodate in ways that my life doesn't collapse or become weird and where I can still be respectful of people's interest.

So it was a slow build. So I know this because I've asked people, how do you know about it? Oh, I saw you on John Stewart. Yeah, of course. I saw a public talk. I saw you on Cosmos. Well, I listened to your podcast. I have a podcast too.

It's called Star Talk. And unfortunately, hardly ever is it because someone read one of my books. Because many more people watch media than read books, unfortunately. 100%. But books are another force that's out there. And I had a couple of bestsellers. So it's all, it's an amalgam. So everything.

the Twitter and between the John Stewart or between Nova or not a Cosmo. Nova was a Nova was big. That was big back then. I mean, that was a, that was big. Well, there was a spinoff from Nova called Nova Science Now, which I delighted in hosting. Nova never had a host before. It was just a disembodied narrator's voice. This was a host.

So I'm your lens into all these cool sciencey things that are happening in the world. So I delighted in it. It went about three years, four years, and then we all moved on. But anyhow, so my, just back to who I am and what drives me, Carl Sagan once said that when you're in love, you want to tell the world. And my first love is the universe. And it's, yes, I love my wife and kids. And the universe is right after that.

Or they're equal. It's equal. It's equal. No, I can't. I will not say that bubble food. But so, no, the universe is up there. And if I delight in something that I just learned, I find it hard. it to myself. It's, I just can't. I want to share it. And it could be annoying sometimes to people,

you know, who, all right, here he goes again, you know. But what you want to make sure, here's an interesting fact, when you're in college, you attend lectures. Yeah. Right. This is a fundamental part of what it is to be educated. After college, lecture is a bad word. If someone starts talking to you and you don't want to hear what they, stop lecturing me. It's so true. It's exactly true. When did lecture become bad? All right. If you're lecturing me with cool stuff, I say, keep lecturing me. I want to learn more.

So something made it bad over in there. So I have to, I think about. It's true. Is there a limit to how much I should be educator if I'm just hanging out? Should I just shut up? And by the way, very important point. If I'm in a group, I will only talk about the universe if I'm asked. Really?

Really. Yes. Yes. Now, it never feels that way because someone always asks me about the universe and I end up talking, right? But here's just something to remember. You will never learn anything while you're talking. That's true. Okay.

So if I'm in the company of someone who's an expert in something I don't know anything about, I am all questions. Oh, but tell me about this and how about it doesn't matter what it is. What do you the most interest? What would you be the most, like besides, of course, the universe? What are you? I'm most interested in that which I know nothing about. Name me one topic. That is an honest.

Okay, what don't you know anything? What is like the one thing that you may not know as much about as something else? Sanitation disposal. Oh, wait, what waste management? It goes off to the horizon. Like, where does it go? You can figure that out in an article or two. That's, maybe, but I don't carry enough.

If I met an expert who, I'd be all, I'd spend two hours asking them questions. Other things. What is the training regimen for a soprano singer? Okay. Or opera. What's going through your head when you compose music? All right? I don't know anything. I'm not a musician. I don't know, but I would be asking such people questions. I get it. And what else? If I was with a politician, I would ask things like, when do you decide that you're going to lead your electorate versus when you will follow? follow them. That's a good. Are you a leader? Are you a follower of your electorate? Right?

So there were questions I have that are in me. My point is that's just childhood curiosity. And this book I wrote seven months ago now is all about taking my scientific insights and applying them to everyday things we do where your awareness of a decision you've made can be deepened by learning what it looks like through a scientific. I really like your book, by the way. I was nervous. I told you because I was like, oh, God, am I going to get through this thing?

And I will tell you something. It's very easy. It's not as hard as I thought because you can put it down. You can pick it up again. Everything has a different chapter, like a truth and beauty, man eaters versus vegetarians. There was like the gender and identity. There's a bunch of them. And it was very.

Yeah. Life and death. That was a great one. Yeah. Risk and reward. Law and order. these are things that we've all heard we've all used these phrases totally and and one thing about just because I'm an old part is I don't either regret or fear getting old I have no reason to long I haven't

given myself reason to wish I were younger because one of my personal mission statements is every day I want to learn something that I didn't know yesterday really so what was it today well I say I want to learn that doesn't mean I always succeed I have to think about it today. Oh, I learned that in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, graffiti is not only there but celebrated and encouraged. Oh. On all buildings, on all the sides of all buildings,

and they give tours of graffiti through that section. I did not know that until this afternoon. Wow, so you did learn something today. Yes, my brother, when he was younger, he painted graffiti, and he had a tag, and I'm fascinated by that fact. So I did learn something about life and about what people, and it has art in it and personal expression and how something that can initially be viewed as renegade and you put him in jail and it turns into something that becomes celebrated as an

outdoor art project. So what I found was that if you continue to learn, become a lifelong learner and you process that information, you don't just become an encyclopedia, that's, you know, what good is that? What I want to happen within me is that I can take data, turn data into information, then turn the information into knowledge, turn the knowledge into wisdom, and ultimately turn the wisdom into insight. This is an arc that will stagnate if you don't keep learning things. Well, you might rearrange some ideas you had, but there's a limit to how you would ever break out of whatever box contained those ideas. As you continue to learn, the box continues to grow.

And as the box continues to grow, there are more pathways of thought that are now available to you because you have more things to think about. And so as I get older, I can definitely say that I'm wiser. And that book, I could not have written it 10 years ago. There's wisdom in there that only really came to the surface in the last 10 years of my life, evaluating all of my previous life. I'm not reincarnated here. Yeah, yeah.

All of the life I had led previous to that. And all of what society looks like to me since then. And so, yeah, this, no, I don't want to be 30 years old. And when I was 30, it was like, yeah, I'm badass. I'm 30. No, you didn't know shit about anything. When I was 30 years. Totally true.

I agree. That's why it's interesting. In social media, you had these 30-year-old life coaches. I'm like, what do you know about life? You're like 30. You're 25 years old, right? Like, it's like a whole other world. But you said something that I want him to touch upon, which is like aging and all this other stuff. Like in time right now, everybody is a living so much longer than they used to, right? By 20 years or so. Is it 20 years more? How is it? What is it? Like, what's the? No, no. So you go back, well, let's go back 150 years, which is small compared with civilization. 150 years ago, the life. expectancy in the world was about 35. When you add infant mortality and all other ways of dying, it was about 35. And now it's up pushing mid-80s and 90s. And it's increasing everywhere in the world. Everywhere in the world. Yeah, so it's not as high in some places as others, but everywhere it's

increasing. And you have every right to think you'll live to 90, provided you stay free of disease or, but for dying of old age, you have every right to think you'll live to 90. And, and, If I ask how old are you now about? How old do you think? Oh, I don't know. I've been my 40s, 46. 46. Okay, I was going to say somewhere between 30 and 40.

Well, you're my new best friend. Oh, okay. I'm telling you, I want to get your number now. We're going to be friends for life. So if you're 31, in your 31st year of life, you've lived your billionth second. Oh, of course, this is Graham Bell. Hold on now. Graham, some investment guy put this.

I don't know. I just, I did it's on my own. Okay. I hope I'm talking to. Exactly. You're thinking I'm making calculations only after hearing an investment person? Excuse me. No. Let's put it another way. When I was 31, I celebrated my billionth second, okay?

Before there were podcasts, before there was social media. I calculated. I figured you can do that probably on your own. Okay. The calculation is not trivial. because you add up seconds in an hour, hours in a day, days in a year. But then you have to track leap days, all right? And you have to trap leap seconds.

And I will bet you whoever you were quoting here did not include leap seconds. Nope, they did not. I'll bet you, all right. That's true. I'm going to tell you who it is, too. I'm curious. Okay. No, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. So my only point here is, so by the time you're 63, that's 2 billion seconds. By the time you're 95, it's 3 billion. So we should all strive to live three billion seconds in our lives. My billion second had a very small, quick glass of champagne. It's only in that second that is that second, right? But my broader point is we are living longer. And in the final chapter of the book, it's called Life and Death,

I explore the consequences of what happens if we were to live forever. Because we might be on the heels of that. You know, there's something called the escape velocity of aging. Do you know about this? Tell me about it. Tell me about it. All right. So right now, as you know, we're living longer.

Every year, we're living longer. So I'm making up these numbers, but they give the sense of what matters here. So let's say 20 years from now, the life expectancy has increased by five years. That's just say, okay? So that's pretty good. 20 years after that, life expectancy increases by 10 years. 20 years after that, life expectancy increases by 15 years. 20 years after that, life expectancy increases by 20 years.

That's escape velocity for civilization. When the number of years that passes equals the increase in the average life expectancy of civilization, at that point, we live forever. That's unbelievable. And what do you think about this whole concept, though? People now are striving and trying to live forever, like anti-aging. I have fragmently thought out thoughts on this. I think it's selfish to be so into yourself that you want to live forever,

using resources that someone who's new and born might want to use. If we live forever, we cannot stay on Earth because the population will outstrip the supply of what is supporting us. So we'd have to, like, terraform Mars. I don't have a problem with that in and of itself. Just keep that in mind the day we hit Escape Velocity. Third, one of the things that motivates me most when I wake up in the morning is the knowledge that I'm going to die.

That creates a sense of urgency in what I want to accomplish, what I want to do for other people, the people I want to love and to share time with, and problems I'm trying to solve in my head, astrophysical problems, I don't want to die before I have a chance to solve those or attempt to solve them. And I can give a kind of an obscure analogy to this.

Let's go back to a time when we were dating, let's say, and then someone brings you flowers, all right? And that's a nice gesture, flowers. Suppose they brought you plastic flowers. You would think much less of that person, I'm thinking. I don't want to speak for you, but I'm guessing. Okay, so why? Because plastic flowers, they would last forever.

So if that affection of love is now a forever affection of love, but somehow it doesn't work for you. I'll tell you why. Because when they buy real flowers, they don't last forever. They last maybe a week, and you have to care for them. You have to freshen their water. But while you're doing this, you watch the buds open and responding to sunlight. You smell the flowers.

You guide them and nurture them through their senescence until the stem can no longer hold the bulb, and then at the end of a week, you discard them. It is because you know they're going to die, that you will give them. them attention every day, every day they are alive. It has brought focus to your relationship with those flowers. And I submit to you that if the knowledge you're going to die brings meaning to your life, then to live a life forever is to live a life with no meaning at all. See, this is exactly what I'm saying about you. I love when you speak like this. It's exact, that's perspective. It's 100%. Like, it resonates. I agree with that. But,

now, of course, you could live forever and still have meaning. So that's a little bit of an exaggeration. But mathematically, it's true that if knowing that I'm going to die gives meaning to every day of my life, never dying, you wake up tomorrow. Why do anything? So it breeds laziness. It breeds laziness. Yes. And also complacency. Yes. Yes. Also, you'll be very careful crossing. the street because if you live forever, you don't want to die by getting hit by a bus. Right, right. Exactly. That's absolutely true. You're right. Do you believe, like, what's your theory on AI then? You know, I had, do you know,

Noria Robini, he was on the podcast before. He's an economist. And he was saying very soon, actually, much sooner than we all think, machine and humans are going to merge together and be one. What do you believe? Like, what's your whole take on AI and? human race as we know it. Okay, so let me preface this in two ways. One of them is I don't present myself as an AI expert. All people who do that I've met want all of us to fear the consequences of AI running amok. Okay.

That's one fact I just want to lead with. Another fact I'll lead with is I've programmed computers since the early 1970s, and I've written probably 50,000 lines of code. So I think a lot about computers and what their abilities are, what they can or can't do. When computers became powerful enough and inexpensive enough to do long division for you, okay? The scientists didn't run for the hill, say, oh, we're out of a job. Oh, my gosh, this is terrible. We said, oh, my gosh, let us apply the computer to our hardest problems and let it solve them instead of us cranking away on paper.

We totally embraced all the computing brought to our field. Okay? And that's the way it was for decades. And the computers keep getting more and more powerful in my field. So now computers start doing language models and things. And now we have people seeing computers in your face, composing your term paper, and now the teachers are afraid that everybody is afraid. And I'm saying to myself, is this really any different from the first computer doing my long division?

Do we still teach long division? Are there still rooms of people calculating with pen and paper? No, they're out of jobs because we have computers doing it, all right? We have been so comfortable with this. I am surprised and a little bit shocked to watch people fear AI reaching into the world of language. By the way, I don't want to call it AI, but early, highly intelligent computers controlling robots. They build our cars. They build our cars.

quite old enough, I don't think, just barely on the cusp. I remember when there was a real chance in the morning that your car would not start, no matter what condition the car was in. There was a chance it would not start. And you drive down the road and every now and then you see a car with its hood open and someone sort of pacing in front of it, wondering why the car isn't running. You know when all that went away? When robots started building cars. That's true. That's why People are fearful, though. That's why they fear they fear their jobs. They fear that they're like smarter enough.

And they should fear their jobs, but this has been going on since the Industrial Revolution. There's no, there's no. Yes, fear your job. If you were in the business of making horse-drawn carriages in 1910, fear your job. Yes, because automobiles came in. Oh, by the way, I now need somebody to fix the automobile. I now need someone to build roads. that cars can drive on and now need someone to obtain the oil and gas to put in the car.

Whole industries rise up as these new developments occur. So in the 1920s, we are in the centennial anniversary of the major discoveries in quantum physics. It happened in the 1920s, all right? If you were around back then and you're worried about budgets, you might say, why are you worrying about this? They're atoms. We can't even see atoms. What do you care?

Molecules? What? I just care that my wood atoms can cut. That's all I care about. It would take 40 to 50 years before quantum physics would become the foundation of information technology. There is no creation, storage, or retrieval of information without the exploitation of the quantum. That was 50 years in the making. Okay.

I used to do this back when phone books existed, the yellow page. I used to keep a yellow page every few years, and I'd watch what industries would rise and fall at taking out ads in the yellow pages. And I watched from the 1970s into the 80s into the 90s, computer ads just started taking over the book. First, the big expensive clunky ones, and then the personal desktops, and then the laptops. And I said to myself, there are people working in these industries, getting salaries. What were they doing 20 years ago? Not that. I don't know what they were doing.

So, yeah, we're going to lose jobs. But don't think that's some unique challenge that we will confront. It's always been that way, basically. It is as perennial as the grass in the era of the technological revolution. Let's talk then about truth and beauty and like the, you know, objective truth, personal truth, all that. I find that to be very. One of the chapters of the book.

Thank you for. Exactly. That's why. To your point, I have like a billion things we have. I haven't been asked you any of my real questions yet, which is ironic. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, I want to get going on it. No, this is actually great.

In fact, I want to have a conversation. I don't want to be like, so my next question, that's not how I do it anyway. But I like to have certain things that really kind of stuck out with your book was this whole truth and beauty. Because your objective truth, all the different truths, like what I found interesting when you were saying about like observations, like seeing something, that's your highest sense, right? Like it doesn't even have to be true, but people believe it if they see it. Like if someone says to them, can you talk about it? Like, why am I saying it? You're here.

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Check it out. T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E. You're going to love it. Well, just to shape your question precisely, I'm happy to hear you put it to the airwaves here. But what I did in writing that chapter, truth and beauty. So the first half is about truth.

The second half is about beauty. Beauty is, of course, something that has been talked about and debated for millennia by philosophers and beauticians and just people in general and artists, of course. So I just offer a scientist lens on that. It's not meant to settle it once and for all, but I'd like to think I've offered some insights that you might not otherwise have gleaned if you hadn't heard a scientist talk about beauty. So with the truth part, I looked around and I noticed there are people who use the word truth in ways that I don't as a scientist. Preamint among them is religion. If you look at religious websites, you see the word truth. Often they'll say, in Christian websites, they'll say, Jesus is truth or God is truth.

And this invocation, I said to myself, I'm not going to take this away from them. I don't want to redefine it and tell them, no, you're all, no, there's no point to that. So what I ended up doing was saying, recognizing that there are three categories of truth. So one of them is a personal truth. This is where something is true, true to your bones. It is true and no one can shake you of it. All right, that's a personal truth. An example of a personal truth is Jesus is your Savior.

Well, in a free country, no one can take that from you. No, in a free country. You're good to go. Jesus or Muhammad is your last prophet on earth or Beyonce is your queen, right? No one is going to take these from you. But keep in mind, if you want to convince another person of your personal truth, it will require often an extraordinary act of persuasion. In the limit, it has invoked all-out armed conflict. This is the Crusades, Christians and Muslims at war with each other because they have different personal truths. A comment I make in that half of the chapter is it seems that the less evidence that is available for something to be true, the more strenuously a person ends up believing in it.

I find this fascinating. So your personal truth, this is your own relationship with God, all right? and it's your own. Is there external evidence? Well, not really. I just feel it. Okay? I feel it.

And I will go to war over it. And I will kill you if you, no, it's, okay, this has happened. Yeah. So I'm intrigued by the anthropologically intrigued by this. Okay. Because when I have actual objective evidence for something, I'm not going to die for. I don't need to. It speaks for itself.

You know, it's just, it's a fact. fascinating reality we live in as humans. All right. So another truth I call, this is a truth that becomes true because it gets repeated so often. What it's doing is hijacking something that we evolved with, which is if you see something repeat, it's probably true. And you should either do it or not do it in the future, depending on whether it helps you or hurt you.

If you see your loved ones try to pet a lion and they get eaten, by the fourth time you're saying, I'm not going to pet that lion. So you establish your interactions with the world around you based on repeated things that are surely true because they were repeated. That has been hijacked basically by politicians and others who are very much into propaganda. Propaganda is the very essence of repeating something until you think it's true. Then you end up believing it. And in the limit, you might even lay down your life for it, as Nazis did in the 1930s and 40s.

They really believe that Aryans were some kind of superior form of human being, and others were not, especially not the Jews and not the gypsies and not all manner of other people who had birth defects or other things they considered not worthy of being alive. And they believe this and acted on it. Okay. Propaganda makes that happen all the way. We had propaganda against the Japanese. Okay, just look at propaganda. You're books on this. There's propaganda.

Find the group that you're not supposed to like and look at the propaganda that your own culture and your own society created about them. And that dehumanizes them so that you can go kill them and not feel bad about it. It's pretty clear that this is what's going on. All right.

A third kind of truth is just what I call objective truth. This is the kind of truth that the methods and tools of science are exquisitely tuned to establish. I perform an experiment. I get a result. Someone else verifies the experiment. Or not.

If they don't verify, they can't verify my experiment, maybe I was biased in that result. They caught my bias. This is what peer review is about. No one scientist can run away with the truth that nobody else can verify. We're built-in error-checking mechanisms because scientists are human too. We can have biases. Ideally, it's a neutral bias that doesn't affect your results. But if it's a bias that can affect your results and you don't know it,

that's why we have peer review, just to diminish the chances of you declaring something that's true that isn't or declaring something that isn't true that is. That, in a nutshell, is the scientific method. So I get to say at the end of the day, the good thing about science, is that it's true whether or not you believe in it. Do you believe in coincidences or no? I mean, do I believe coincidences or not coincidences? Do you believe that, exactly, because that's, yes, do you believe that there's no such thing? as a coincidence. That's what, thank you.

So the power of coincidences is extraordinary. And you know where it comes from? It comes from our abject failure of our brain wiring to think natively about probability and statistics. Flat out. Flat out. Yes. Okay?

It sounds blunt and I'm sorry. No, I love it. in a way that it's insensitive, but probability and statistics is the foundation of understanding coincidences. So let's say you're traveling in Europe and you're in a town you've never been in, and you see a high school trend there. You say, what are the odds? This can't be just coincidence.

You might say to yourself. And I would say to you, yes, it is. But it's hard to convince you because your brain is not wired to see it. But here's my attempt. All right. Next time you're traveling in Europe, go up to a random person in the street and say, oh, by the way, when you see the person, say small world. Yeah.

Oh, my God. What a small world. Yeah. Small world. All right. So here you go. Go up to a random person in the street, grab them by the lapels and say, do I know you? And they'll say, but no, you know, whatever language they're going to step.

No. Do that to every single person in the street. street. How many people will you pass before you just give up and say, large world? Yes. Okay? You're passing thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people in the airport, on the airplane, through the day, in the taxi, in the bus, in the street, in the thing. And you take 10 vacations, and one of them you meet someone, and you say, oh, this was preordained. this is no it's because you really just don't understand statistics well you also taught that's why like in Vegas you were talking about like I heard you talk about what it was in the book too but

the lowest what like when when all the physic what was it the the the physicists or whoever in the casino you know your people your people my people my peeps the american physical society is the nation's community of physicists and we get together you know I don't go to as many as I want to or should but we meet once a year at a big meeting, and there's thousands of physicists, believe it or not, walking among you, and they blend in. Not all wear pocket protector.

So they were scheduled to have a meeting in San Diego. And for some snafu of hotel reservations, something happened and the hotel need could not be fulfilled. The MGM, upon learning about this, the MGM, Marina today, the MGM Grand, said, we'll take you. We're one of the biggest hotels in the world and we're in Vegas and you can have a good time and just come. So thousands of physicists descended on Las Vegas. Now let me preamble this by saying there is no required probability or statistics

class between kindergarten and 12th grade, nor is there one in college. Meanwhile, I have taken some form of probability and statistics for every year of high school, college, and graduate school. I'm telling you, it's not native to think this way. Otherwise, it would be everyone's easiest subject and you wouldn't even have to teach it. But it's not taught, and when you do learn it, the scientists learn it. Okay. So, physicists are there in Vegas. The week is over. There's a headline. Physicists in town lowest casino take ever. The physicists were told to never return to their city. It's not because we were counting cards or

cleverly figured out the slot machines. We were not betting, period. Because we understand what's happening at the craps table and at the roulette table. And you have people throwing dice hard so that they get high numbers. And they throw it gently so that they get low numbers.

You have people blow on my dice. So true. So true. Okay. Stand a little further away from all this superstition. If there's anything we are, it's superstitious and non-analytical. And those two do not go together. And what saddens me is that an entire industry has risen to exploit our inability to think probabilistically and they're called casinos.

That's true. That's why on a roulette table, you have people betting, let's say, the number seven multiple times. I say, why are you betting on seven? Well, it's due. I said, how do you know it's due? Well, they show the previous 10 numbers that came up and there's no seven. So they said, therefore it's due. I say, no, it's not due.

It's exactly the same probability every single time. But it doesn't feel that way. Even if you know it intellectually, doesn't it something more just human nature or propel someone to do it anyway, right? Correct. And by the way, this manifests on simple levels. For example, if I have a very good product and I want to take out an ad and sell it, I could just show a bar chart to say, look, we're at the top end of this bar chart.

But no, advertisers know that that just doesn't work. You have to get a human being, another person of your species, to extol the virtues of the product. I bought one the other day and my life has changed. And you say, boy, I want my life to change just like you. And I'm saying, no, I need data. I don't want the one person. No, I mean, give me all the data personally.

Because I'm trained to reject eyewitness testimony. So why do we do it? Why do we like it? Because we trust, because the math is not. not native to us, but our relationship to other humans are. So this has been hijacked by the advertising industry. Will you allow me one conspiracy theory? Yes, please.

You ready? I am seated. There's one conspiracy theory here. Okay. All right. Do you know what state lottery money goes to that's raised by that? No. It goes to education.

Really? Did you know that? Yeah. In most states, it goes to education, which it makes it easier for people to agree to vote to have a lottery, because they see the revenue is going to education. All right. Well, I just told you that K through 12,

hardly anywhere in the country, teaches probability and statistics. That way, when you graduate, you have no idea that you shouldn't play the lottery. That's 100% true. So I think they're intentionally keeping it out of the schools so that they can take your money later and then claim that it's for education.

Because if they actually taught probability and statistics, not a fraction of the people who play it would. That is for certain. Just like, No, 100%. And that's true. And that's also goes into a whole other area of the school system here. Because you talk about the school system here.

And the how where you feel, I heard this a bunch of times about you, about the fact that we hate school for a reason, right? Because that kind of just people, you're just learning in one way, which again, talks about the curiosity. What would be your take of how we can make the school system, the education, system better? I don't have it. That's a great and important question. I don't have a silver bullet. But I'm going to cite something.

I'm going to cite a problem with the school system that people hardly ever cite. And maybe that will respond to solutions in ways that others won't. Right. People say, we need to pay teachers more. We need to do, by the way, what they don't tell you about paying teachers more, they don't tell you this. I'm going to tell you. All right.

That implies that if you pay teachers more, they will do it. a better job. But that's not how the economics of that works. The economics of it, the way it works is, you pay teachers a much higher salary. Now, people who would be better teachers than you want your job because they want the high

salary. And you lose your job because you suck at your job. Right. And now we get much better people talented at it. And that's how that plays out. It's not going to be the same teachers getting more money. Okay? You're going to make that clear. Okay.

All right. So that's the economics of raising a salary in a particular job. By the way, a version of that happened back in the 1970s. Think about it. Again, I'm that old, so I get to speak about it firsthand. In 1970s and 1960s, essentially all school teachers were female. I had one male teacher, and that was just kind of weird. Right, right.

School teachers were women. Typically unmarried women, okay? Really? Well, because if you got married, then you went home and had babies. We're talking about a whole other era. We're talking a whole other era here, okay? They were either married or they were much older and never married or older and not raising kids anymore. So you have this sort of, but that's not what's important here for what my example.

So if you are a brilliant woman who graduated college with a specialty, you majored in geology or physics or math or art, all right, and you were good. among the best and you had enthusiasm all right there were four jobs you could have in life in America it was a nurse a school teacher a flight attendant then known as stewardess and I surely left a secretary that was basically it anybody who was not that was an extraordinary exception to that okay oh sorry fifth one you could be a housewife okay by the way just as a reminder the Sunday newspaper back then, which is that and had many sections, the sports section, the arts and entertainment. One of the sections was the women's section.

Oh, wow. That's what it was called, the women's section. Why? Oh, because that had the recipes for you to go out and buy food to feed your husband and your kids, all right? Wow. This is the world we came out. So people say, oh, it's worse ever for women.

No, it's not. Okay? Just go back, okay? If you had a time machine, no. No, stay in the present or go in the future. Don't tell me stuff was better in the past. All right. So now watch.

If you were a brilliant woman, you did not become a lawyer, a doctor, a scientist. The most brilliant women became school teachers. They had no, that's where, you're not going to be a brilliant woman and become a secretary. That's not how that plays out. You'll become a flight attendant. No, you're becoming the school teacher. So what happens? The 1970s, the second wave women's lib movement,

Women marching in the streets, their anthems from Helen Reddy and Jane Fonda, and there's a newfound power of control of your body and of your career in society. And so professions that were not previously open to women, all of a sudden, the doors opened. And sometimes opened reluctantly by those who controlled the lock, but they opened. And so now the most brilliant women were not becoming school teachers. They were becoming corporate executives and entrepreneurs and medical doctors and attorneys. And who fills this gap? Idiot men who can't.

Job. Yeah, that's right. Okay. So ask yourself, when did people start complaining about the school system? Not in the 1950s. Not in the 1960s. That all began in the 1970s. Where the schools are going to hell.

How come Johnny can't learn because Johnny's teacher can't teach or whatever? that all happened in the 1970 and beyond and continues to this day. So it's a fascinating consequence to liberation. Yeah. Right? Because it's evidence that the women were way underpaid for what they were doing because they could have been doing much greater things. Yeah.

But the opportunities were not given unto them. So you raise the price back. Now the most brilliant of the men and women will want to go, back to teach. And then their enthusiasm will become contagious, bad word in this climate, sorry. Yeah. That's just no. Their enthusiasm will spread. Oh, that's a bad word too. That's a bad word too these days. Yeah, you never know what word is next. But especially me, I'm old and tired and slow moving. Please, not true. Yeah. So anyhow, it's, these are the

things I see. And did I finish the truth part in your question? Yeah, you did finish it. And And what I was going to say, does that mean now we're still- Oh, my recipe for education? Here's what it is. What happens at the end of the work of the school day? People are looking at the clock. Can't wait until the buzzer sounds and then they run. And you're old enough now to remember Alice Cooper's song,

Schools out for the summer. Schools out for ever. This is an anthem that students would sing as they ran down the steps on the last day of school in the spring. And they toss their books in the air. notes in the air. And you can feel that emotion. You know what that's like. And I ask you, what is going on in that building for you to be glad you're no longer in it when your only job was to learn? Learn something new today you didn't know yesterday. It's your only job. So I'm not

going to blame you for celebrating the end of school. I'm going to blame the school for creating a learning environment that people want to escape. Something's wrong, not only in what's taught, but how it's taught. And I want a school where the end of the school day comes, the kids are sad that they can no longer learn because it's the end of the school day. I want a school where summer comes. I don't want to go to camp. I want to stay in school. Imagine what kind of society that would be. Oh, my gosh, you would be transformed. But how do we do that? The question still, how do we change? How do we change? You're like, I don't know, it would be nice. I know how you do.

I know how to do it. I know how to do it. I know how to do it. And I've done this experiment. I gave a lecture to a big room, and I say that because I've repeated this question. I get the same answer every time. I put my hands behind my back and I extend some number of fingers, okay? I'll tell you right now with that number, the number is three, okay?

But the audience doesn't know this. And I say, of all the teachers you had in life, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, graduate school, if you went, how many of those teachers had like a singular effect on you as a person or you as a student? How many? Well, because what's the total number? For some people, it's 100 teachers. In college, easily you'd knock down 50 teachers in high school, maybe another 20 or 30. A hundred teachers for everybody. How many? And I say, for how many is it 10? One person of a thousand raises their hand. Nine, eight, seven, seven. and six, five, then there's like 10 people raise their hand.

Four, 20 people raise their hand. Three, 300 people raise their hand. Okay, two, one. So it peaks in the low single digits. So I tell teachers, school teachers, they say, what can I do differently? And I say, become the teacher that singularly influenced your life. Become that teacher. Aspire to be that teacher.

And we will all be transformed overnight. Easier said than done, though, right? Well, they exist. It's not some magic thing. Or just get all the superteachers and phone. Exactly. That would be great. Let them line up first.

That's right, which is going to happen pretty soon too, right? I want to know, actually, what is the most popular or the most asked question that people ask you? Have we been visited by aliens? Well, closely by, do I think God exists? Can you answer both of those? Yeah, sure. Anyone who studied the size and scale and age of the universe and what it's made of, it would be inexcusably egocentric to declare that we alone here on Earth is the only life in the universe.

So anyone who studied the problem and say life is going to be plentiful. We just haven't found it yet, but we're looking and we haven't looked very far. It's like scooping a cup of water into the ocean and looking at it. Oh, the ocean has no fish. Or work, take a bucket. And so the ocean has no whales, right? that we've only looked the tiniest bit in in in the universe for it and so so we look forward to discovery any kind of alien life microbial okay fungal on a you know or some other kind of life that

we don't even have a word for that would I want to know if there's actual aliens like living in Mars or Jupiter like real what you see like you know ET looking things is that really something that we see but what you're asking for is what we would call intelligent life that's what steady does the search for extraterrestrial exactly not just aliens and We have people listening for radio waves to detect radio waves that might be sent to us. Plus, occasionally we'll send out some purposeful signals to be received by aliens. But beyond that, there are TV waves that have been emanating ever since the dawn of television that were not contained within our atmosphere.

And so there's this radio bubble extending 90 light years out, 80 light years out. And there are exoplanets orbiting stars within that. bubble. Any aliens on those planets with sufficiently precise technology and sensitive technology, in principle, could decode our civilization based on that first wave of television signals. So that would include, they might learn how men and women interact by looking at the honeymooners. Okay. By the way, there was a line in the honeymooners that people at the time laughed at. And today it's like, where Ralph Cramden gestures to his wife. with a moving fist, bang zoom to the moon, Alice,

where he lovingly threatens to punch her. To the moon. On a level where she lands on the moon, and everyone laughed, right? This is like the sensitivities of society are ever-increasing scale. Okay? Do you think that's going to change, by the way?

That's another question I have for you. No, no, I think there'll be more things that'll come up that no one is paying attention to now, right? does Hollywood give best director to women separately from men? No. No, of course not. Why would you? Well, why are they giving best actor to women separate from best actor to men?

Ah, no, as anyone thought of that, okay? Different roles, you're right. So in 20 years, you will look very unwoke for talking about best actor in a female role, best actor in a male role. As the gender spectrum manifests as a spectrum, that will look increasingly, at best quaint and at worst, incomplete denial of the full gender expression that we know exists among us.

These are things that we today just do and don't even think about. And I think about this all the time. Well, that's, is okay. Can I ask you a question? I want to talk about gender and identity. I do. I have something, but now I have 10 minutes.

I'm like getting nervous. Okay, oh, sorry, because I made it away. I'll go quick. I'll go quick. So what do I think of God? there's a website where you type God into it. It lists all the gods that humans have ever worshipped. And it's basically this practically continuous scroll.

So God worship has been with us ever since we've been human, which fascinates me that people want or need or require some power beyond themselves to account for things that they cannot otherwise account for, or to make sense in their lives. We live in a country that gives total freedom to that, provided it doesn't take away the freedoms of others, total freedom to express religion in whatever way you need or want or feel. When you say, here's my religion, and this religion requires that you cut off the tip of the penis after eight days, and you have to eat this animal, but not

that animal, on this day, but not that day, that's a God that's in your life rather than a God about the universe. So Einstein would say, do you believe in God? Well, if there's any God I believe in, it's Spinoza's God, the God of the laws of the universe. That'd be a whole other kind of God, rather than the one that cares about who you sleep is. Right. Right. And so

if there's a God of the universe that creates the laws, I would say, why do we need a God? Why can't the universe just exist with laws? Right. So I'm an agnostic, skeptic, in these matters, but I'm not so ardent as to chase after you to talk to your complaint about

whatever religion you might embrace. I don't... So wait, but you don't believe in God. I'm not convinced. But by the, what people cite as their evidence for God, I find not convincing. Right, because you're all about the science and facts and data. So... Well, just evidence.

I would say, yeah. Yeah. I don't... There's no evidence for it. I don't... I'm not going to jump on it and say it's true. I'm going to... If there's intriguing evidence, I'll say, let's investigate it further.

That's cool. So where did this whole idea of like, you know, Adam and Eve and... and like the eating of the apple and this and the Noah's Ark and the Ten Commandments and all the 10 plagues. And I'm talking about a lot of the Jewish stuff obviously. Yeah, of course. Because I'm obviously Jewish. And we have a lot of, we have a lot of laws and Orthodox people who are very committed to the, you know, eating kosher in itself is about 70,000 laws. And so in your opinion, then there's real no proof of this stuff. And yeah, so what's the point? Well, I mean, if you look at it anthropologically, there's in-group out-group that seems to have mattered ever since we've come out of the caves.

So if you're having a Passover Seder and you know every other Jew in the world is also having a Passover Seder, there's a certain communality to that. That is a binding force among cultures. Is that really any different in this respect from watching the Super Bowl on Sunday? There's a binding force. In America, we're watching the Super Bowl together. As a community. As a community, precisely. And the more laws and rules there are in the community,

the more ways they are to test to see, to check your loyalty to the community. And so this in-group out-group, on many levels it's innocent, but taken to an extreme, it's all-out warfare. It is, actually. Violent warfare. Do you own an AR-15 or you don't? Well, you're not in the club.

Yeah. All right, I own an AR-15, and I have something in common with this group of people. So it's important. for order and a sense of purpose or placement. Or control. There's a quote. I forgot.

It was a Seneca. One of the people from thousands of years ago said, to the common man, religion is true. To the philosopher, religion is false. But to the politician, religion is convenient. And so, yeah, I mean, just let's be honest with ourselves about how religion has been invoked over history in exactly those ways. So, yeah. That's my response to you about God.

You have another question about gender, did you? I did, yeah, like binary and all. I mean, what's happening now, where does your whole take? You have a whole chapter on, and I don't want you to, I don't need you to go through everything, but you think that people, in gender and identity, you say people are more the same than different, right? Well, that's an easy one. That's an easy thing, right? But I would be curious to understand in a deeper way about what you believe with binary, non-binary,

transgender, everything fluid, like the whole fluidity of what's happening. Yeah, so it's not a matter of belief, you know. I know. Yeah, I just, the point of the book is to share with you what it looks like, whatever it is you're doing, it's what it looks like through a scientific lens. And maybe you'll rethink what you're doing. Maybe you'll think more deeply about it or you'll maybe it'll unravel what you're thinking.

I don't know. But the book is not to hand you an opinion. the book is to reveal to you aspects and nuances of your thoughts that you might not have realized. All right. So, for example, we, once again, another limitation of the human brain is not only that we can't know how to do statistics, we and leading us to say things like, there's no such thing as coincidences. There's no better evidence that we don't know about statistics than that comment. But so here we are.

There are things that exist on a continuum that we force into boxes because it's easier for us to think about it that way. All right. I think one of the best examples is hurricane strengths. Hurricane strengths is a smooth scale, one mile an hour at a time, a scale from low strength to high strength hurricanes in the speed and the barometric pressure. Yet we have compartmentalized it into five categories. I don't have a problem with that, but the five categories have forced a way of thinking about these hurricanes that's not true. What is it? Okay, Hurricane Irma.

We'll go from low category three to high category three. And, okay, it's still just category three. Then it goes up one mile per hour, crosses the threshold, and it's now category four. That's breaking news. It's not breaking news that it went from low three to high three. It's breaking news when it crossed over that border that we have artificially created. This is, let's be honest with ourselves, that this is, we are trying to accommodate a weakness of our capacity to think. And try to not put that weakness and impart it on reality.

Because reality in most cases is on a continuum. So let's keep going. All right. You know about computer bits? So a bit is either a zero or a one. And that's a bit. It is literally and mathematically binary. All right.

Do you know the future of computing will be in quantum computing? And there's something analogous to a bit in quantum computing. It's called a quantum bid or a qubit. But what is a qubit? It is either a zero or a one. or any combination of the two. It could be 90% zero, 10% 1, 30%, 1, 70%, 70%. Any statistical...

There's that problem with statistics again. Yeah, yeah. Any statistical mixture of those two, that bit has that value. And you say, that doesn't make any sense. The universe doesn't have to make sense. If it's real, it doesn't have to... I said that in one of my books. The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

her senses forged on the plains of the Serengeti, just to know to not get eaten by a lion, are not tuned to understand probability and statistics or quantum physics. Here's my point. Chromosomally, are you X, X, or X, Y, I can say unambiguously whether you are chromosomally male or female, okay? Period. All right. Now, what do you look like? That's an interesting question.

Does your X, X, X, X, and X, Y chromosomes, do they, manifest outwardly. Well, let's think about this. And I did this experiment. I sat in the subway in the winter. Everyone's wearing a heavy coat. You can't really see the bodies much under heavy coat. I looked at people's faces. And I say, can I unambiguously identify who's girl, who's boy? Yes, 100% I was able to do this in what way? Okay? Well, the girls on average had longer hair, more likely to wear lipstick. More like this is a statistical. statement now and you add up the statistics it becomes practically a certainty more likely to wear nail polish to have longer nails to wear dangly earlings that like i said to have long hair to wear blush

or rouge to to have tweezed eyebrows all right to all of this and how about the boys oh the boys um they if they were thin they might have go to the gym so that you have muscles right people are born with muscles, you got to go to the gym and get those. So they're too thin and shit. Now I got a muscle shirt on. You know what clothes to wear because you went to a store that told you how to look like a boy. And you as a girl went to

a store and they told you what the section of the store is to buy clothes. Everything I was queuing on, queuing on, not queuing on. Everything I was queuing on to put people in the boy or girl bin

was secondary and tertiary trained factors. Everything. And what happens if the woman's breast is not large enough? Go get it in large, as 300,000 women do every year. Because apparently the chromosomes are not showing it enough. Okay? So if all of these factors I'm using

to decide if you're male and female, and all of them are products of the beauty industrial complex and of the fashion industrial complex, then it's never been about the X, X, X, or the X, Y chromosomes. It's been about your expression of your gender. And if your expression of your gender is fluid, I feel half girl and half boy today. I'm going to dress that way.

Or I feel 90% girl and 10%. I'm going to dress that way. So I don't know if my perfect assignments matched chromosomes, but I know they matched expression. And so in that group, there didn't happen to be androgyny, all right, but we get some of that too. I don't know if it's a boy or girl because they're not buying into the industrial complex that requires you look one way or another. Let us be honest with ourselves about people's interest and energy to express themselves on a gender spectrum. Oh, but you have to ask, not you, you, the person has to ask, I don't care, are you a boy or are you?

you a girl i have to well hold on you want me to comply with your inability to think on a spectrum i'm not going to do that you're going to have to adapt adapt your primitive mind that can only think in binary put it on a spectrum oh you know something that'll be hard for you maybe because you you'll probably have friends that are not as macho as you and they express a little femininity that may make make you uncomfortable and there's a whole spectrum that'll track you you to someone with male chromosomes looking completely female. Should the society adapt to you in a free country? When they're acting, where they're dressing somewhere on a gender spectrum,

has no impact on you at all? Really? You want to force me because you can't think on a spectrum? That is not the land of the free. That is not. I read somewhere, are we pursuit of happiness? I think that's in one of our documents. Pursuit of happiness.

in the land of the free. You're passionate about this one. Well, it's science. So maybe we're not bits. Maybe we're qubits. All of us. Do I get that from quantum physics? It's an analogy that I'm offering the world in that book.

That's all? That's it. That's all. Yeah. I want to leave with one question. If you could talk to one person you haven't met yet, that you haven't spoken to that you're super interested in, who would it be? Just one person.

Well, I think about that often, and I always come up with Isaac Newton because he was so brilliant, and he invented calculus and gravity and the laws of motion. And then I realized the conversation would not be interesting. It just wouldn't be. Invite him to the table, and he probably hasn't bathed in three weeks because this is in the 1600s. So I toss him in the shower. He said, what are you doing?

Water all over me? No, all right. So I get through that, and now he smells nice. And now I wanted to help us solve our problems. And I'd say, you know, we have this greenhouse problem with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that comes from fossil fuels. What's a fossil? What are fuels? Well, they drive our cars.

What's a car? What's a horse-drawn carriage without the horse? Well, then how does it move? Well, it has an engine. Well, what's an engine? Well, we use these fossils. Where are the fossils coming? Dead creatures prehistoric.

And then the average daily information that anybody carries walking down the street so transcends the minds of the most brilliant people from centuries ago that I would spend the whole time just catching them up with what we were. I don't want, I don't, I'm not that patient. Ike, stay in the 1600s, okay? I'm in the early 1700. That's hilarious. I don't have that patient.

So I'd want to get someone a little more recent, a little more modern. So. Like, like, I'm sure you've spoken to him many times, like Elon Musk. What do you think of Elon Musk? Yeah, he's a little bit on the spectrum. So people expect him to be the life of the party or to say things that are just right in the right time. No, it's not what's coming out of him. People, you know, it's the fashion to hate on him for whatever reasons, Twitter especially.

But I tweeted this recently. So while you're hating on him, just occasionally, not every day, but occasionally reflect on the fact that he made conversations about electric cars routine that did not exist before him. And this is transformative. And before him, no one really fully took the reins of affordable space exploration, access to space. He did that. No one else did that. So just while you're hating on him, just tip your hat, at least in those two categories. And so, but yes, who would I want to talk to? I got one.

Have you had, hold on. Have you had a lot of conversations with him before? Yeah, yeah, no, we've been on my podcast. I visited him. Yeah, we're not beer drinking buddies, but no, we know each other. Sure. Yeah. We've exchanged emails and other matters as well. So, yeah, we're good. We good. So I'd like to meet Joan of Arc. Okay. And why? Because I want to know the true meaning of courage. I want to know you're this girl. Was she 19? Yeah, you're a teenager. You're a girl.

She was a girl. Yeah, a young girl, and you want to lead soldiers into battle against the British? What, in the name of God and country? I want to feel her passion. I want to know what that is. there are people today who have passion, but it's a passion about a TikTok video that they posted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I think we lost all measures of this. And do you know why she was burned at the stake? Why? Take a guess. Just guess why. Because she fought against whatever the... Yeah, that's the obvious thing you would say. Of course, of course.

And it's not because she wasn't pious. She was very religious, okay? Right. fully half the charges brought against her were for cross-dressing. Yes. Go read the trial. There is a sentence in, was it Deuteronomy that says a man, and it has both versions of the sentence. So a woman shall not don the clothes of a man lest she be an abomination to the Lord thy God.

And they reverse it. A man shall not don. So this religious people who like inviose. BIP Bible passages for secular law cite that as a reason why we shouldn't have, you know, Rupal's drag race, right? So, so this is in the Bible. Therefore, it is an offensive count against her for dressing like a man. By the way, how's she going to lead soldiers into battle in a skirt? Of course, we've got to dress in man's clothes. And maybe she was, she was on this gender spectrum. There's been people, we don't have enough information to really know for sure,

but maybe she was what any of us would have called a tomboy. All right, tomboy is not some unknown archetype. There was a tomboy in West Side Story, and her name was anybody's. She had a dirty face, wore pants, could fight like any of the boys. She wanted to be in the jets in the gang. And no, she couldn't be because she was a girl. That was their only argument against her. But she thought better than some of the other boys.

You know, so there are people who just can't relate. And they're not recognizing that, yeah, your brain isn't wired for that. Just get over it and let's move on. But don't hold people in judgment because you can't think that way. So I would talk to, I have to learn French, of course, but then I'd talk to Joan of your. You're so cute. By the way, you've been very generous with your time.

So thank you for. Well, I'd like speaking to audiences I don't normally speak to. And you got a whole following that I don't know how often they know what I do or what I exist. So I'm delighted to share my life's wisdom and insights, whatever I've been able to muster over my decades of life with a very fresh audience for me. So thank you for this. I count it as an opportunity. Well, thank you. I feel like you've been so wonderful.

And in fact, I love doing these things in person. I'm not much of a virtual person. I think something gets lost in translation. But you've been so delightful. I would love for you to come on if you're ever in L.A. soon. Are you ever in L.A.? Occasionally, you know, L.A., I can only do L.A. in doses. Yeah. I can, I understand that. My name. Yeah, I did say doses. But I enjoy it when I'm there. I mean, the climate and the people, everybody's friendly, right? So that's not it. It's just at some point,

I need a real, I got to get back to reality. And L.A. never feels real to me. It's not. It's an alternate reality for sure. Yeah, it's an alternate reality. That's, that's, yeah. So if you embrace that alternate reality, it's fine, but I never completely warmed up to it. So I take it in doses. No, I'm Canadian. So for me, it's very, very different.

I thought I heard an about. Just one about? You didn't hear more than that? I'm losing my talk about it. You're losing that. Like I said, I really appreciate you coming on. And I really enjoyed your book. By the way, I'm happy to say I did the calculation.

So in the book, I read the audio book for it. Okay. Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah. I use my Cosmos voice. No, I don't know. So I did the order book, but so it would take you three morning commutes to listen to the whole book in Los Angeles. Really?

Maybe three days, three or four days of a full up 405 parking lot morning commute. So if you want to measure it in those terms, that's that's easy for people. Like everyone should just basically download the book and listen to it. Sorry messages, right? Sorry, messenger. Messengers. Messager. The messenger are the messages from the stars that tell us, give us insight into who we are

and what our place is in the universe. My book, I will tell you, I did read it. It's upstairs, though, and I keep on calling it. In my notes, I keep on calling it messages, and I don't know why. So that's my bad. Well, the stars are giving messages, but they themselves are the messengers. Oh, the messengers. Exactly.

You're so delightful. Thank you so much for coming on. Well, I'm happy to serve and to do this. And thanks for your interest in anything I do. Absolutely. I'm just here trying to make the world a little better off. Let me end with one of the final quotes in the book. Yes.

In the life and death chapter where, again, giving meaning to life, knowing you're going to die. A great educator from two centuries ago, Horace Mann, you surely heard his mind. Yeah, Horace Mann. My kids play soccer at the school. Yeah, there's a school named Horace Mann. He was an educator two centuries ago. And in one of his final addresses to the graduating class at his university, he said, said, I beseech you.

Love that word. I want to bring it back. It's lost in the ages. But I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts, these my parting words, be ashamed to die until you've won some victory for humanity. That's a good one. I want that on my tombstone. Do you? There it is. Yep. Yep.

Well, you're working, you're going to, why wouldn't you have it? You probably will have it now. Yeah, I hope so. You've done a lot for humanity. So far. You will. What do you mean? You've another, you're, you're, you're very young and you're doing such great things. And so, and they're teaching people things that they otherwise would never know because you do it in a way that is interesting and not lecturing. Yeah, Lexington, Wes, we agree. That's a bad word. Well, I hope I have another billion seconds to give to the world. I hope so too. Ready for it. Okay. Thank you. You're going to come on again in person. I'm going to, I'm going to hope to see you soon in L.A.

All right. Well, maybe another book. We do another book. Oh, yeah, another ball. Exactly. There you go. There you go. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye.