StarTalk Radio - Science and Art, with Carolyn Porco - StarTalk All-Stars

Episode Date: October 11, 2016

Carolyn Porco is back, and she’s brought her friend, “Bad-ass Science Groupie” Sean Ono Lennon. Together with Chuck Nice, they answer Cosmic Queries about art, science, and math; the Anthropocene Age; and the lack of civility on Twitter. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

This is StarTalk. Hello and welcome everyone to StarTalk All-Stars. I'm your All-Star host of the evening, Carolyn Porco. I'm a planetary scientist, which means I love planets. I'm the leader of the imaging science team on the Cassini mission, presently in orbit around Saturn, and a veteran imaging scientist of that fabled mission Voyager to the outer solar system in the 1980s.

Joining me as my comedic co-host is StarTalk veteran, the very funny Chuck Nice. That remains to be seen. Thanks for being here today. Not so nice. Thanks for being here today, Chuck. Last time we did this, you were such a champ. You came here and did two shows, and you had a cold and the flu. Yes, I had the flu.

And you're okay today. You know what? I'm not contagious. So we are in a much better position. Okay, because today we have a very special guest with us, and that is Sean Ono Lennon. Welcome, Sean. Hello. Howdy. Good to be here. You are here.

Thanks for having me. I made it. You made it. Sean, hello. Howdy, good to be here. You are here. Thanks for having me. I made it. You made it. In the humidity. As I like to say, if you were alive and alert during the 1960s, and it would be forgivable if you weren't either, you will certainly recognize Sean's last two names. Yes, he is the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and I know what you're all thinking, but that is not why I invited him here today. He is, of course, a musician and has been for decades, right? That's correct. He's just completed a tour with his new band called the Claypool Lennon Delirium, which is fronted by

both Sean and Les Claypool. Most people will know Les as the lead guy in Primus. Referred tous. Primus, yeah. Referred to on Wikipedia. I'm sorry I had to do this. As a funk metal band. Is that an accurate description? You know, it's good enough for now. Okay. Wait around 10 minutes and it'll change. But actually, none of that is why Sean is here today.

He's here because I noticed as I followed him on Twitter that he's a serious, I called him badass, science groupie. He pays attention to what's going on in all sorts of arenas like planetary exploration and cosmology, artificial intelligence, technology, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and on it goes. He even wears glasses. That makes him official. And there's no prescription in them. It's just for effect. It's just for effect. Well, looking this good is not easy. And I found he was enamored with Saturn, which was cool by me. And in fact, when he was a teenager, he painted a painting of Saturn that he recently sent me,

which I think was adorable. And through all of this in the last few months and lots of email exchanges and discussions, I found him to have a really incisive intelligence, a gentle soul, and he's a staunch feminist to boot. So I thought he'd be perfect to have on StarTalk. Thank you. Anyway, it's a delight to have you. I'm really excited to be here, guys. Okay. Excited to have you. Okay, so there's so much we could talk about, but I wanted to begin with this. Since you are a science groupie, what is it about science that draws you to it? You didn't become a scientist, although you told me you spent some time at Columbia. You actually went through three semesters at Columbia.

Well, at one point, I was interested in anthropology at Columbia, but then I kind of got distracted by a record deal and all this. And I'm not sure if I regret it, but I just left and went to do music, and I've been doing that ever since. I had a similar experience where I went to Columbia and they said, listen, you can't just be on campus. You actually have to go here. And then I had to leave. Yeah. What do you mean? You have to go attend classes, they said?

Oh, gee, you didn't know that was part of the contract. Yeah, I'm just like, what a cool campus. Okay. Why didn't I go into science? Well, you know, I think when I was young, I was in a boarding school. It was kind of a strict British boarding school. And, you know, they were pretty, you know, they discouraged people who were, you know, hippie, you hippie children like me

So I don't know I felt maybe that I didn't have the mathematic aptitude For science Wait, wait, wait They discouraged people who were hippie children? Yeah, I think so I mean, there was sort of like What year are we talking?

Well, you know, when I was I guess between 12 and 15 So you were like This was the late 80s Yeah But I still don't know if I have the aptitude For real scientific work Or at least not the diligence but I'm certainly a fan. Definitely are a fan. I can tell you're a fan. You know, you think deeply, you wonder about the state of the world,

like many of us do, the future of humanity, from where you sit, on Twitter, everywhere, wherever you look, what do you think are the biggest issues? Yeah, well, you know, I think we've all been really concerned recently. And I mean, you know, everyone that I know, at least, with the state of the world, I mean, politically, you know, environmentally. And I remember growing up, and you've mentioned this before, the movie 2001, remember growing up, and you've mentioned this before, the movie 2001, it seemed like we might at least be, you know, taking trips to the moon and living in some sort of utopic, you know, futuristic society. When I was young, there was a kind of optimism about the future. And I've noticed in the last 10 years, that that kind of inherent optimism has kind of been replaced by a real pessimism and negativity about,

you know, the potential for humans to survive at all. So, you know, and I think that it's concerning because, you know, people tell me, oh, well, you know, there's always been people worried about Armageddon throughout any period of history, but it's the first time I've noticed that people, that scientists sort of unanimously talk about the Anthropocene and the human-caused extinction epoch as something we just sort of have to accept, which in essence means that we're bringing about our own demise and, you know, learning to live in today's world means accepting that demise as a given. Well, I don't know that I'm hearing scientists say this, but it's interesting that you think you're hearing them say that we have to accept it.

I think the role that scientists are playing is to illuminate the facts. No, of course. I agree with you. But the term Anthropocene means human-caused extinction epoch. And so if that's real, which essentially I feel— I think it just means it's a network. Does it mean that that's a foregone conclusion or does it mean that we have that potential?

Because I think the Anthropocene age that we live in shows that we are on the precipice, that we can definitely bring about our own demise, but that it's up to us whether or not that happens. Well, hold on, hold on. I don't think it means... Yeah, happens. I don't think it means the term means that we are going to bring about our own demise. The way it just means that we are in a period of geological history now where humans are a global effect. A major effect. A global effect. An effect, right. A major effect. It's not, you know.

When you say, Carolyn, that all those effects are pretty bad, and that's why the assumption is we're going to bring about our own demise. But also, aren't the epochs distinguished by extinctions? Not all of them. I don't think the boundaries are all that way. I think basically. Some of them have been. But I think it's more. Certainly like one species

becomes more dominant after that. Isn't that true? Okay, I forget. Maybe you know more about this than I do, but I... I'm the comedian. Please do not look at me. Either way, I'm not saying that everyone agrees about what the Anthropocene is. I just mean that I'm hearing more and more legitimized scientists say that, you know, humans aren't going to make it. You know why? Because we are facing absolutely out of control, unprecedented problems. Right, yeah.

You know, it's one thing to be depressed that you're not going to, you know, have the job you want by the time you die or, you know, any number of things we all get depressed about. But when you start being depressed as I am, and I think there's a word for it, I'm sorry, I don't know, when you're actually depressed about the state of the world and not about, you know, your lover leaving you. And it's not a neuroses. I mean, to think that, you know, I thought like 2001 was horrible because

you just wouldn't think a building like that would just, buildings would have planes flying into them and they would go away. You live in New york right yeah i was skyline changed like that yeah suddenly things are not immutable sure but in my mother's generation that happened to tokyo and i mean so it's arguable that that the world has you know always had challenges through every generation but the question is is there something distinctly different now? And I think... Yes, it's environmental change that is going to bring about all sorts of bad things, including geopolitical instability. Exactly. But I've heard a lot of people say that it's not, the environmental change is going to be nothing

compared to just simply making most jobs obsolete through automation and robotics. you know, where you just pay people to be so that as a means of getting rid of poverty, because we're going to have a huge increase in the amount of poverty globally because of automation. It's hard to anticipate what's going to happen. But even when I go to the airport now and they force you to use the robotic kiosk, I remember the woman was like, you got to go use it. She was kind of rude to me. And I was like, well, wouldn't you prefer you help me? Because, you know, these robots are displacing hundreds of people employed in your field. You're one of them to me. And I was like, well, wouldn't you prefer you help me? Because, you know, these robots are displacing hundreds of people employed in your, you know, in your field.

You're one of them, lady. Yeah. And I was like, why are you so happy about, you know, promoting the use of these robots that are replacing you? And she didn't even know what I was talking about. But I do find it ironic, you know, that these kinds of, these kinds of automation are being sort of, you know, forced upon us when we do have a choice. We can still employ people to work at the airport. So I think that's just the beginning of it. But who knows how many jobs could be misplaced by automation.

And the potential for a division between the rich and the poor is so great. I mean, we think it's bad now, but it could be much worse in 100 years. So, I mean, that worries me almost as much as the Anthropocene. There are a lot of worrisome things. Maybe we should go to Cosmic Queries and see what they've got in store for us. Maybe they've— See what other dark tales that we can glean from the Internet. But I will recommend that book by Roy Scrandon called Learning to Die in the Anthropocene because ultimately he does have a sort of Zen view of, you know, how we have to be motivated to have families and, you know, be ambitious and work and be productive.

You know, in a sort of Zen sense and just live in the moment and be happy to, you know, exist despite, you know, the potential for a meteorite impact in 100 years or something. So I do think it's a good book, but it did make me a little nervous. But I will say that it's beautifully written. Okay. Awesome. We'll note it. Well, we have queries from all over the Internet, whether it's Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or you name it, where people have written their questions to you guys on all of these things that we just talked about and more.

So why don't we take our first one, which is from Patreon, a Patreon patron. And for those of you who don't know, if you support us on Patreon financially, we give you precedent. Basically, you have bribed us into reading one of your questions. And we don't mind. We'll admit that. reading one of your questions. And we don't mind.

We'll admit that. So this is from Nick Sazafronsky. Okay, Nick, I hope I got it right. All right. Nick Sazafronsky says this. With the Earth adding leap days to the calendar every four years, and Carolyn, this is probably more you than... Oh, I'm worried already.

Are you ready? Are we as human beings moving our perception of the seasons backwards, or is the hotter temperatures later in the year due to climate change? Okay, so that's a non sequitur. Okay, thank you, because I thought maybe... And listen, Nick, by no means

am I going to disparage your question, but the two really aren't related, right? It's pretty interesting, though. It's making me think. Well, yeah, but... Okay, so, yeah, I? It's pretty interesting though. It's making me think. Yeah, but I'm, okay. So yeah, I don't even know where to go with that. Okay. Well, you know,

leap seconds being added is just a way to bring about some kind of accounting of time. Caesar was the first one to do it. Didn't he invent the leap year? You always ask me these questions. Yeah, well, I'll say that it's true. I know, okay. Just assert that it's true. Caesar invented, yeah, he invented the modern calendar. You always ask me these questions. Well, I'll say that it's true. Okay, disassert that it's true.

Yeah, he invented the modern calendar. Yeah, okay. You know who knows a lot about this is Neil. He loves the calendars. You know what's very interesting in terms of the calendar is that you can memorize which months have less than 31 days. If you start with January as F on a piano keyboard, and then the sharps, F sharp, G sharp, and A sharp are the less than 31-day months. And it actually corresponds all the way up. All the 12 notes correspond exactly to the numbers of days in each month.

Oh, my God. That's pretty cool. That's weird. I like it. Okay, but starting with F. F is January? Yes, F would be January. I am going to learn to read music just so I can put that to work in my life. And then C would be December.

I like, you know, 30 days has September, April, June, and November. That's harder to remember for me as a musician because the piano keyboard is in my head. All right. But it's interesting that it corresponds. I mean, I think this is an interesting segue to the intersection between art and science because, I mean, the diatonic scale was started by Pythagoras you know I told you we wouldn't have any trouble with this guy no but it's interesting because also there's seven days of the week you know and Monday is moon day Tuesday Monday

Mars day is Tuesday Mercury is Wednesday that's Jupiter, right? So they're named after the spheres. And as you know, the diatonic scale was also related to the music of the spheres because in those days they believed that the harmony of the ratios that they found in the octaves, which is, you know, he plucked a string, added a weight, and doubled it, and then a third was actually the ratios of fifths and thirds that are the diatonic scale. And he thought that corresponded directly, well, not just Pythagoras, but they all did, to the music of the spheres, which was a sort of planetary symphony that was the music of God or something.

But I find that to be interesting in that you find these same ratios at least, you know, and Fibonacci can be found in the music scale as well. Are you talking about the golden mean, which I think is the coolest thing? The Greeks used the golden mean, right? Exactly. So there are these sort of mathematical connections between music and math. And, you know, I actually, this morning I was trying to think about the topic of, you know, what is the influence of science on art? And I was actually trying to figure out, well, when did actually, when actually was the

separation of science and art? Because I think early on, I mean, if you think about, you know, Babylonians, Egyptians, even Greeks, art and science were totally intertwined. And I think it was probably all... Is that right? Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course, because mathematicians were musicians and music was made by a mathematician. And, you know, the people that built the pyramids were craftsmen. I would call them scientists because they were masons. They understood, you know, astronomy. And so what I mean is I think even all the way up to the Renaissance, scientists were artists, basically. So I'm just trying to wonder when did that actually, when did the separation happen?

Because I think fundamentally... It could have been when, I'm just going to take a guess. It could have been when scientists no longer were supported by a benefactor. Yes. You know, you could apply for grant money from the government. I was going to say this. Maybe, but I mean— We only have two minutes, you know.

Wow, look at that, man. We really got off on it, didn't we? We did. Wow. Sorry to be the wet blanket, but do we need to ask— No, it's okay. Sorry, we need to ask some questions. All right, let's get to another question, but that was great stuff.

That was fascinating. Well, I did want to tell you one quote. You can edit this out. James Sylvester, he was the Oxford scientist who taught Florence Nightingale, who basically invented modern nursing. And he said that music is the mathematics of sense, and math is the music of reason. Hold it. Say it again. Music is the mathematics of sense, and math is the music of reason. Hold it. Say it again. Music is the mathematics of sense.

Yes, and mathematics is the music of reason. Oh, wow. Nice. Very nice. Yeah, well, I find that to be true. Who said that? His name is James Sylvester. He was the Oxford scientist who was the tutor for Florence Nightingale, who invented modern

nursing in the Victorian era. There's a beautiful reciprocity there that works wonderfully. I like that. All right, we're almost out of time. So I'm going to get one. We are. One minute and 15. We've got one minute. So I'm going to get one, Carolyn, that maybe you can knock out for us in a minute.

Let's hope. Okay, here we go. Rodney A. Morrison Jr. from Facebook wants to know this. Hey, so, Carolyn, what in the world is at Saturn's core? Could it be some kind of dense liquid that's not molten? Or is it just boring old rocky material? Thanks a lot. It's boring old rocky material.

Saturn has a boring old rocky core. outer layer where you go from atmosphere to, oh God, fluidized, ionized hydrogen, helium, and then you get into metallic hydrogen and then you go into the core. You go into the core. Yeah, it's pretty- Is plasma, is ionized hydrogen just plasma? Yeah, you're too damn smart. Well, at what point will the- I don't understand why you didn't become a scientist.

But at one point... Wait a minute. Stop right here. We have to take a short break, but we'll be back shortly. And I need a break, too. Talking more science here on StarTalk All-Stars. Welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. I am your host for today, Carolyn Porco,

and we have the always humorous Chuck Nice here today. Thank you. As well as our in-studio guest who regards himself as less humorous, but I don't, science groupie and musician Sean Lennon. So thank you both for being here. And we're finding out that Sean is extremely science literate. That's not exaggerating. And well informed. Well informed.

Well informed, man. Super cool, man. Just Googling under the table. Oh, okay, well. Wouldn't that be hilarious, though, if you had like a little phone right here? Exactly. I'm like, it was actually 13 atoms in aluminum. So we were talking about, you know, the Anthropocene and all the awful things that are happening, climate change and…

All the good stuff. …grade inequities, all the things that really are concerning people today. And they come with a bigger punch than usual because they really seem, like, catastrophic, right? Yeah. Like, you know, we're on an exponential curve to the end. So this is something that Sean and I talked about over email. And even when I went to see you, I went to see his show. Boston.

It was very nice of you to come to that. Boston, it was a rocking show. I hadn't been to a concert in God knows how long. She got to play my guitar. I have a picture of me with his sparkly green guitar. And I thought, well, for a moment there, I was infinitely cool. Carolyn Porco, rock god. Goddess, I think.

I don't believe in terms for that. That's gender. God is God. Sorry, I didn't mean to be sad. So anyway, I think about how horrible our stewardship of the planet has been, how we have behaved collectively with no regard to animals and animal life as if they are there for us or from that, I wonder, you know, our fundamental nature seems to be angel and devil together in the same package. And it seems to be to our evolutionary advantage to kill or at least regard with great suspicion everything that is alien to us and to protect our own. Will we ever be able to get beyond this? Is anything on the planet Earth really alien to us, though? That's

an interesting question. Well, no. In fact, you know, and I love when I'm talking to people or on Twitter, I always love to regard, talk about anything we show on Twitter, an animal, a bug, you know, anybody. It's another Earthling earthling. It's really just let's reset the perception. But this is a serious question. You know, it's, we have both. Both are the reason why we have become so successful, right? We kill things that let our genetic material advance into the future. Is that going to be the thing that kills us? Where is, and where can, how can we be optimistic? Where is there that we can find? Aren't there examples? There's so many examples in nature of sustainable systems though. That's the thing. So I feel like we could easily benefit from natural resources without destroying them.

Because there are a lot of examples in nature where it's a symbiotic relationship where, you know, bacteria are happy to, you know, live in our gut. Without them, we would die. We're happy to give them ice cream, you know what I mean? So I feel like it's possible to have a sustainable society. But what I really want to ask you is how do you feel about the potential of, I mean, this is

the kind of stuff that I'm sure your audience likes to hear about anyway. I mean, how do you, everyone's talking about colonizing Mars, like Elon Musk is talking about getting there. I mean, if we can't even terraform Arizona, what are the chances of us terraforming a planet that has no magnetic field, no continental drift, I mean, no protection from, you know, the radiation of the sun, and we can't even terraform Arizona. So I don't really see what the realistic thinking is there. This is how I view this whole topic.

First of all, I'm a big fan of human exploration, that is, as opposed to robotic. I'm a big fan of both. I think they go hand in hand. There's a place for both. Or like cloak. Glove to glove. Yeah, exactly.

Human exploration for, you know, the practical reasons. Like it takes, it would take a human, you know, an instant to be walking around on the surface of Mars and identify a rock that was of interest. It would take a long time, longer, for a robot to do it because the robot's got to be in touch with the ground. And maybe you could train them to recognize it. But, you know, we've had, you know, billions of years or, yeah, billions of years of evolution to work off of to get to where we are. We're pretty good at that. So that's good. But I also think human exploration, I'm digressing here, is important for the inspiration that it allows people. You know, seeing someone do something that is on the very edge of what is humanly possible.

But I don't think that people should be thinking we're going to take 7 billion people or 9 billion people and move them to Mars. That is not going to happen. The analog that I think is applicable here is one where we are going to set up the equivalent of scientific research stations on Antarctica. We've had for decades now a continuously inhabited research outpost on Antarctica, and valuable things are done there, and I think that's what we'll do in the solar system. valuable things are done there. And I think that's what we'll do in the solar system. But that's a much more realistic view then. But I've read a lot of, you know, books, even Michio Kaku, when I was young, I read a book of his, I was talking about this Russian scientist who has qualifications for phase one society, phase two society. And I think it was your friend, Carl Sagan, who actually just made more distinct, like smaller distinctions between the phases, but that essentially if you survive a nuclear age, then you get to another phase of a possible extinction threat.

But then you can eventually build a geodesic dome or something or a Dyson sphere around the sun and you get all this energy and then you can make wormholes and you can essentially populate the universe. I just feel like a lot of people use that kind of theoretical thinking to sort of justify the survival or the optimism that we might survive as a species if we actually populate the solar system or, you know, elsewhere. And I just feel like it's so unrealistic because we, as you said, we're not very good custodians of our own planet.

So how could we possibly make a place as inhospitable as Mars ever? You know, the antithesis of what you're saying, or the flip side more than an antithesis, the flip side of that is perhaps that's how we are here. It is not really about us populating other places as in colonization, but in seeding other places the same way that we seed each other to send our DNA into the future. That's why we have sex

and we have kids. You want to impregnate Mars. Right. I just want to impregnate Mars is what I'm saying. I'm going to knock you up, Mars. That's what's happening right now. I want to watch. I'll pay to see that. He wants to watch. I'll pay to see that. He wants to watch. I want to watch. I'll pay to see that. I'll pay to see that.

Bow wow. Yeah, totally. Mars is getting sexy. Yeah, but yeah. But yeah, you understand what I'm saying? So maybe it's not about colonization.

Maybe it's the survival, you know, the same way on a cellular level, we survive because we send a single cell to a single cell and then boom, that's how life... I'm just saying this is the expression of the base need to survive. Exactly. It's an expression of a base need to survive.

That's a good question because I just read an article that said if humans will go extinct or we actually face the extinction of life on the planet, do we have an obligation then to seed other exoplanets with, you know, earthbound DNA? Like, should we send rockets and do our own anthro panspermia project to spread life if we're looking at our own extinction? Do we have a duty to do that or is it bad to do that? I don't know. Violating the prime directive?

These are moral questions, but isn't it just an incredibly fascinating question to ponder? Yeah. You could spend an evening drinking a glass of wine in front of a fireplace thinking about all these things and have a really good time. I think you said bottle of wine. Should we do? Let's get into another one. Let's switch gears here. Let's switch gears.

Because, you know, you guys kept bringing up Twitter. So we have some questions where people want to talk about Twitter and let me see who this person is oh Kavon or Kavon Kutai that's alright don't apologize you did

you gave it your best shot I think these people are sending me fake names just so I can struggle I swear people call me sayon every day. Sayon? Every day. Every day. I get Sayon.

Sayon. I do. Okay. So here's what Kavan wants to know. Social media has a representation for disseminating false and misleading information. But since people are also being exposed to the collective knowledge, wisdom, education, and expertise of other users, education and expertise of other users, aren't they getting a more stimulating and meaningful experience than they would from just watching or reading news by more traditional means? So is that collective knowledge that is represented on a base like Twitter or Facebook,

is that greater or is it more harmful in that you could have more people just believing wrong stuff? Well, here's you know, it's the yin and yang of everything. It's not older. The older I got, I've gotten, the more I realize just about everything you can think of has a good side and a bad side. To me, the good side of Twitter is that, first of all, you are accessing the knowledge of lots of people that you wouldn't otherwise have access to. I mean, it's out there. Sometimes I've sent things out on Twitter and I realize, oh, my God, that's wrong. I'm sorry I just hit the send button. Three seconds later, someone's back and saying, that's not right.

I've got smart people following me. That's great. It's also great that it bypasses the what's the word here? The guardians of the news. The standard gatekeepers. The gatekeepers.

Aren't we finding that the regular news media are just It's all sensational. It's tabloid now. It's tabloid.. It's tabloid. They are doing it for profits. They're not doing it to convey accurate information. This whole business of setting up a false equivalence between someone who's knowledgeable, someone who doesn't know jack,

but just for the sake of making it look like they're having a reasonable discussion. It looks like it's an intellectual tennis match, and it's not. So I like that about social media a lot. But the downside is that you're also accessing people who have no self-control and they don't really know how to engage in logical reasoned discussion. And they think the purpose of Twitter is just to let it all hang out, meaning their anger, you know, even if it's misdirected. I've been contemplating the ugliness of Twitter, you know, a lot recently because I'm pretty active

on Twitter. And, you know, I think at first my criticisms were of the medium of Twitter. And then I started to realize that really it's more of a cross-section of people. And it's my issues have to do with us, with people. I think it's just people expressing what they think. And I think normally we wouldn't be exposed to such a cross-section of society. But, you know, Twitter is just us. But it's depressing how many people don't know how to engage. They don't know that you could criticize something they've said and not criticize them. They take it personally.

That's a lack of critical thought right there. It is a lack of – It's a lack of critical thought when somebody takes a disagreement as a personal attack, you know, and so many people do that on Twitter. Yeah, but so many people just do that. Period. And that's – you know, I really do think people need to be trained. They need to be trained in critical thought. They need to be trained. They need to be trained in critical thought.

They need to be trained. People need to be told how to vote. I don't even think people know how to vote. No ad hominem. No straw man arguments. I mean, you know, it's easy to, I mean, these, you know, if you actually spend a little time, you can learn how to debate, you know, with civility. But I think, again, the ugliness of Twitter is just the ugliness of people. And the beauty of Twitter is the beauty of people. But I would say the biggest problem to me with

social media, since that's, you know, the topic, is that I think a generation of kids are learning how to represent themselves through a two-dimensional Facebook page very well, but they're not learning how to represent themselves to real physical human beings in a relationship with them in a room and in their lives. And I think- Totally different thing. Definitely, Sean. I totally disagree with you. No, I'm joking. Exactly. But those are different skills. And in fact, you can get a very good job being a master of social media these days. Yes, I know that.

So that's a skill in itself. So do you think that at some point in time in the future that we'll actually have training for people? Because when you think about it, we're still in the nascent stages of social media. It's not just training for social media. If you take a logic and rhetoric class at any university, you're going to learn about ad hominem attacks and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's been a part of education forever. I think it needs to be almost like vocational. You do it, you teach people how to interact with other human beings,

and I just don't think we are given enough of that. Well, kind of civility is out of fashion, though. That's the thing. Well, we were saying that. You know, there's no empathy on Twitter. It's not cool to be compassionate. I actually, I won't tell you, it was the election season. I expressed compassion

on some topic, and the woman I was having this fight, this argument with referred to my response as maudlin, because I actually expressed, like, you know You said something nice. I said something. You said something that held compassion.

Should we take another question? Because we're getting to the end of this segment. Modeling is a good vocabulary word, though, kids. Absolutely. All right, here we go. Let's go to Huzefa Larry from Facebook. That was an easy one. That was an easy one, right?

Okay. Art has evolved through time incorporating scientific advancements at every step. So maybe in the future, is it possible that animations or visual effects that we see now may be considered a form of primitive inspiring art? Oh, of course. Yeah, that's kind of like a no-brainer. I think so. Well, I think they're more talking about like the work that you do with your visual imaging. Do you look at that as an art form as well? Oh, I do. Do you understand?

I think that was the one thing I did as the leader of the imaging team. You know, we all, well, I'll speak for myself. I didn't want to do what other people who came before me had done. You know, with the images that we were collecting, I wanted to do something different just to kind of add my mark. And I was always very disappointed. Oh, we have to go. No, it's okay. Go ahead. Finish your point.

No, seriously. I was always very disappointed with the way, for example, not to criticize because the Voyager project was like the best thing that ever happened to me and I think ever happened to anybody. But I just thought they didn't treat the images as well as they should have. They didn't present them as beautifully as they could have. It was all get the science out. We're just making pictures for the public because we got it. We have a press conference coming up and we have to do it. I thought I want this to be the mechanism that takes the public along for the ride. So we spent a lot of time, I spent a lot of time, thinking about how to present the pictures, how to get the colors right, and so on.

The portrait through the rings of Saturn was such a beautiful classic. My mom is a big fan of that photo. I know, and I loved it. Yoko Ono actually complimented the Day the Earth Smiled. Like, how cool is that? That is amazing. I mean, that's great that you brought artistic integrity to the science, thereby increasing the value of the science. And engaging the public. And engaging the public. That's fantastic. Well, yeah, thank you. I'm very proud of that. So I

guess we are going to have to take a short break, but don't go too far. We'll be right back here on StarTalk All-Stars. Hello, and we are back with StarTalk All-Stars. I'm Carolyn Porco, your All-Star host, with Chuck Nice, my comedic co-host. That's right. Thank you for being here, Chuck. And joining us in person is musician and total science groupie, Sean Lennon.

Yes. Bad-ass groupie. That's the most important part. Bad-ass groupie. So So where do we go from here? Well, one topic we haven't discussed, I feel honor bound and actually interested to get to this topic. I just caught you and Les Claypool and the gang at the House of Blues in Boston just a couple of weeks ago. It was great. Thank you. I loved it. I hadn't been to a concert in a long time. I forgot how great live music is.

It was wonderful. It's not always that great. And he actually dedicated a song to me. I just felt so thrilled. Astronomy Domine. Whoa. Sid Barrett, Pink Floyd song. Pink Floyd.

And I got to take a picture with his sparkly green guitar, so I got a moment of feeling what a rock star is like. The lyrics are Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania. Wow. Wow. And you know what all those are? Well, you can tell me. Go there later. So I want to know, is there something in particular that you feel you like to convey with your music? You write your own. And, you know, just go there. Do you have plans to take it in a different direction? How has it evolved over the years? It's all about you as a musician. And, you know. Yeah, interesting. I mean, and one thing I will ask, I don't want to dwell on this. I promise we wouldn't dwell on things like this. But do you

feel almost, is it like a calling because of your heritage, you know, your parents and so on, you felt a calling to be a musician? Did you feel almost everyone's expecting me to do that, so that's what I'll do? How did that come about? Well, I mean, there were several phases to it. The truth is I was playing music before I was conscious of what a career was or even what the public was. I mean, my introduction to the public kind of came when my dad was murdered because there was just crowds of people outside of the house. Oh, and suddenly, oh, my God, there's a public out there.

Yeah, and they were singing Give Peace a Chance every day. I mean, it was for actually years they'd always come back on the anniversary and stuff. So I think my introduction to him being a public person was through that and I I remember learning to play his songs on the piano when I was very young very young I knew as a way of um you know five six yeah kind of as a way of feeling like I was you know getting closer to him especially after he'd passed away it was a way of me sort of communing with him

or getting a piece of him back, you know, learning music. So by the time it came to think about what is your career, I'd already kind of been doing music. And, you know, that's why I left school was to pursue music because it started taking over my life. So it was never really a choice for me. I was kind of thrust into it for personal reasons. But you know, I think that's a calling of sorts. I was going to say, I don't think it's a choice for any musician. What you just

described, I've heard so many musicians describe the same thing. My brother is a musician and he went from being a fund manager. Right. Okay? And doing that for a while and then just going, I can't take it anymore. I have to go do this. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it's that same thing

where it's like, you're, it's, at first it feels like it's thrust upon you, but at the same time, you're, you can't live without it. Well, yeah,

it wasn't until I was 19 or 20 that I started realizing there would be a public reaction to whether I should or shouldn't have played music in the first place. And, you know, it's been a learning process since then. But I mean, most of what I've learned is that I just have to kind of not think so much about what people how people feel about me being a musician and just focus on, you know, the work. I imagine you have a very, you have the canonical burden of a child of a very famous person, right? You're, you're always going to be compared. That must be like so painful and so irritating. And yet you're so delightful. And handsome.

Can I, can I tell, okay, you said that. Can I tell you a little you said that. Can I tell you a little story? Sure. Can I tell you a little story? No, I'm not so sure. I don't know, can you? This is not to embarrass you, but I'm walking to this studio, right? Because I'm staying only on 25th Street. I decided to walk in the heat.

And I pass two young girls. They look like they're teenagers or 20 years old. And I hear them talking about you. Really? They're talking about you. And one says, yeah, yeah, I kind of like Sean Lennon. Yeah, I think he's really cute. Oh, that's nice.

Isn't that? You met the two girls in all of America. No, I don't think so. Anyway, so. So that's very cool, though. Yeah. Well, listen, speaking of that, let's get to a cosmic query about kind of like art and science, since you kind of embody both. And this is from Chris Emmett. And he says, how does art inspire your boundaries, your perspectives further out?

And for you, how does science push your artistic boundaries? I know you did, what was it, the Monolith of the Phobos, right? Yeah, Monolith of the Phobos is our record title. Yeah. So, I mean, clearly there's an association there for both of you. Yeah, I mean, for me, for me, fundamentally, music is mass. I mean, you know, there's basically a X, Y, Z axis of, of the time in which the note is placed, the pitch of the note, and then the volume of that note. I mean, timbre could be

arguably a fourth axis, but I mean, it's very mathematical. It's easy to chart music on a graph. And so, you know, I think any musician who stops to think about it would really, you know, think of melody as a kind of audio geometry, you know. So, I mean, it is math. And most of the people that I know who are very mathematically minded are huge music nerds. You know, my friend Eric Weinstein, who's a famous mathematician, physicist, economist, you know, he all he ever wants to talk to me about is like whether Robert Johnson is cooler than Roy Harper. Well, for me, you asked me this question. Well, for me, you asked me this question.

I know that I'll just say that I love space art. I love space art. I love what space artists do, the scenes that they create. You need them at NASA, don't you? Because often you have to visualize illustrations that I notice. I mean, you can't take a picture of an exoplanet, but NASA releases these sort of illustrated, what if it, you know, what if we're sitting on, you know, Titan or something. Right. Yes. But I'm talking about the genuine space artists who just do it for a living. And I'm so, this is another one of those things I did that, you know, I'm very happy I did. I don't think anybody was doing it before I did. But on our Cyclops website that we set up for the public, that is, you know, me and the Cassini imaging team, there's a special section there that is devoted to space artists.

You know, just what the scenes they've depicted of Saturn or we actually go beyond Saturn, but the rings and Titan. And I love looking at those and I love looking at, you know, just what the scenes on exoplanets because that's a way to be there. You know, these people. There's a beautiful painting your friend did of the rings of Saturn, the view of looking at those irregularities that are like, how high are they? Oh, they're fabulous. Okay, wonderful that you brought that up because we found in the rings, we found this incredible thing. I mean, the rings are only 30 feet thick. They're so wide.

They're bigger than the Earth, like much bigger, right? They would fit in from end to end between the Earth and the moon. Wow. And then we found on the edge of the B ring, and we also found a similar thing on the edge of a gap in the outer A ring. We found these mountainous waves of rubble that extend two and three miles high. Is that the resonance with the moons, right? Yeah, it's a little complicated.

In one case, a moon is nearby, and it actually, because it's on an inclined orbit, it draws the particles out of the plane. It's not complicated. It's just like pushing a kid on a swing, and every time you push him, it goes farther. Right, okay, except that what's complicated is because of that pushing on the swing, the orbits of the particles become eccentric, and that means in certain regions of the orbit, they get squeezed together, and that has to push them higher.

Right. But on the outer edge of the B-ring, these things, these rubble piles, these rubble mountains are very irregular looking, but they're high. So imagine this. You've got a sheet of material that's 30 feet thick, something coming out. It's miles high. And I've often said in public, I love... And how fast are you spinning? Like 40,000 miles an hour?

Yeah. Right. And so you say you'd like to take a craft there one day, but are you just being hyperbolic? Because, I mean, that sounds like a very dangerous place to drive a vehicle. I don't care. I'm just, this is just like all in my mind's eye. I'm in a shuttlecraft. Would it ever be possible to actually have a shuttlecraft that close to these spinning debris rings? Really? Yeah. Oh my God. That sounds like some serious extreme sports to me. You could be over the rings, you know, and if you're really close to the rings, the rings would look like they extend to infinity to you effectively. Sure.

Because you're so low. And imagine you're flying, you're flying, you're flying, and then you come across a wall of rubble that's two or three miles high. So the artist who did this, I think had heard me say that, and he wanted to paint it. So we went back and forth as to what it should look like. You're in a Chevy Nova. No, I'm kidding. No, Chevy Nova, no. Great name for the car, though, by the way.

We're not sponsored by Chevy. I love the connection between art and science. I think they're just two products of the human soul and mind. So lightning round. Da Vinci's a perfect example of someone who could be a scientist and an artist kind of at the same time. The confluence of engineering and art in his brain was amazing. It was a harmony. It's not only that.

It's I think they derive from the same wellspring. You know, the same kind of deep soul that loves to, you know, wants to make, this is how it is for me, wants to make a connection with the natural world. I mean a deep, like almost high priestess kind of connection. Yeah. And science is the only way to do it and music is, I shouldn't say the only,

but music is another. Well, I think that's why music is beautiful because we recognize harmonies which are harmonic geometries that are the same reason that numbers describing the universe can have their own beauty to them

and I think it's exactly the same thing. Absolutely. All right, speaking of beauties, let's get to the rest of our questions. We're going to move to a lightning round right now. Okay, I hope I do this right. As many questions in as possible

in the short period of time remaining, okay? Make them good. Here we go. Let's make them good. Here we go. This is from Michael Wojtas, who says, do you see how virtual reality and augmented reality can influence art and architecture?

Do I see how? It already has. It already has with very ugly buildings in Germany. Okay. Bing! There we go. John Allen would like to know this. Do you think that social media spreads more misinformation than information is a net gain or loss for our understanding of science?

It's impossible to measure. Come on. It's either and, not either or. Ooh, both and, not either or. I was going to say the same thing. It's going to be a wash. It's impossible to measure. Come on. It's either and, not either or. Ooh, both and, not either or. I was going to say the same thing. It's going to be a wash. It's a wash. There you go.

Boom. Let's move on to David Connolly. David Connolly from Facebook would like to know this. The oceans are expanding, so maybe we should consider returning to the water. Under the sea. That'll take too long, so let's just stay land level. Do dolphins return to the water after being a pig-like mammal?

Well, yeah, they still breathe air. They do. Okay, let's go to Stephen B., who comes to us from Twitter, who says this. Hi, Carolyn. What would be the social and religious impacts of the discovery of a more advanced alien civilization? Oh, my God. Catastrophic. It would confirm all of religion.

No, I'm kidding. It would. World peace. Why do they have to be more evolved than us? I mean, just even equals or early hominids. I think the person is getting to the issue, like, would we be so freaked out we'd run for cover? Right?

It would be great. I hope I live to see it. Me too. Great answer. Amen. There you go. This is Solidamian from Instagram, would like to know this. Do you think that social medias are getting or making people dumb?

What? What? What is it? Today. Today. All right. Here we go. This one is from Hubert.

Oh, I am not even trying. I'm not trying. I'm sorry. It's Hubert. Hubert Togafross, whatever. He wants to know this. Do you consider cheating to use technology to create arts? This is for both of you.

Is technology cheating? No. Is a paintbrush cheating? No. I don't know. I'm passing. A guitar is technology. Obviously, that's not cheating.

No, but I mean to have no human inspirational input into it? You mean like the deep dream bot that made all those weird surrealist Google images? I mean, even dream bot was programmed by people. So then, you know, we have yet to have art created by no one. We have to wrap it up. We've got only nine seconds left. Thank you to all our wonderful listeners for all those great questions. You can get more StarTalk by following us on Twitter at Star Talk Radio.

Chuck, where can the people get more of you? My living room. I'll be there this afternoon. Please come by. Come by. No, I'm on Twitter at Chuck Nice Comic

and that's where I interact with most people. Okay, and Sean, I know you are at Sean Ono Lennon because that's where you and I met up. Yep, that's me.

One of the really good things about Twitter for me. And you can find me at Carolyn Porco. All one word. My record company is Camiramusic.com, if you're interested in music. Yeah, and go see CL Delirium. They can't see you anymore, right? Yeah, the Claypool Lennon Delirium is my band.

No, I'm playing in October, and we're about to make another record. So yeah, check us out. Another record, great. Okay, looking forward to that so thank you Chuck for co-hosting tonight and to

our special guest Sean Lennon for geeking out with us tonight even though he doesn't think he geeked out I am your host Carolyn Porco

until next time this is StarTalk