1
00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:09,920
Speaker 1: One of the most famous questions in the history of

2
00:00:09,920 --> 00:00:12,959
Speaker 1: philosophy is a simple one. What is it like to

3
00:00:13,039 --> 00:00:16,079
Speaker 1: be a bat? It's not a famous question because anyone

4
00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:19,759
Speaker 1: cares particularly about bats, but because they wonder how our

5
00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:24,280
Speaker 1: senses shape our experience. If you had dramatically different ways

6
00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:26,880
Speaker 1: of perceiving the universe, would your mind form a very

7
00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:30,960
Speaker 1: different mental picture to blind animals even have a mental picture?

8
00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:34,640
Speaker 1: Or is our reliance on vision showing our bias already

9
00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:37,960
Speaker 1: in the phrase mental picture? I wonder about bats, but

10
00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:42,000
Speaker 1: not as much as I wonder about aliens. What is

11
00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:44,720
Speaker 1: it like to be an alien? Do they have some

12
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:48,479
Speaker 1: version of our set of senses? Is their experience as

13
00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:51,640
Speaker 1: alien to us as bats might be, or is it

14
00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:55,760
Speaker 1: much more alien? I'm curious about this, not just because

15
00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:58,760
Speaker 1: it's a fun thought experiment, but because I wonder about

16
00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:02,600
Speaker 1: how it shapes alien science. If they have a very

17
00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:06,680
Speaker 1: different mental picture or sonogram or concept of the universe,

18
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:10,559
Speaker 1: how does that affect how they study it, what questions

19
00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:13,800
Speaker 1: they ask, and maybe most crucially, how they express their

20
00:01:13,840 --> 00:01:18,119
Speaker 1: answers their understanding. This is one slice of a larger

21
00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:20,480
Speaker 1: question that I dig into in my new book, Do

22
00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:23,440
Speaker 1: Aliens speak physics, where I imagine what it might be

23
00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:26,800
Speaker 1: like to chat with visiting aliens about how the universe

24
00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:31,039
Speaker 1: works and whether we'll have much science in common. If

25
00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:32,959
Speaker 1: you're a listener to this podcast, I think there's a

26
00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:36,440
Speaker 1: lot about this book you would enjoy, So please support

27
00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:39,200
Speaker 1: me and the book and the project and order a copy.

28
00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:41,600
Speaker 1: Thanks very much to all of you who already have.

29
00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:45,760
Speaker 1: Consider today's episode a little taste test of do Aliens

30
00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:51,720
Speaker 1: Speak Physics? So welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Alien Universe.

31
00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:05,280
Speaker 2: Hello.

32
00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:08,400
Speaker 3: I'm Kelly Waiter Smith. I what do I do?

33
00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:08,960
Speaker 2: I don't know.

34
00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:13,440
Speaker 1: I don't remember how to start a podcast right, I.

35
00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:18,320
Speaker 3: Don't remember who I am without this podcast. Hello, I'm

36
00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:21,160
Speaker 3: Kelly Waidner Smith. I study parasites and space, and I'm

37
00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:23,799
Speaker 3: excited because today is sort of like the intersection of

38
00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:24,880
Speaker 3: physics and biology.

39
00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,440
Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist. I'm not a

40
00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:30,000
Speaker 1: biologist or a philosopher.

41
00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:36,119
Speaker 3: No, no, no, we are both so out of practice.

42
00:02:37,520 --> 00:02:37,680
Speaker 4: Hi.

43
00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:40,720
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist by training. But I've

44
00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:42,960
Speaker 1: been waiting for this day because I can't wait to

45
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:44,160
Speaker 1: talk to you about.

46
00:02:43,919 --> 00:02:47,040
Speaker 3: Aliens and Daniel wrote the best book about aliens, and

47
00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:49,800
Speaker 3: we're going to start talking about that today. And my

48
00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:52,600
Speaker 3: question for you, Daniel, based on the topic that we're

49
00:02:52,639 --> 00:02:56,400
Speaker 3: discussing today, is if you could perceive one thing that

50
00:02:56,520 --> 00:02:59,960
Speaker 3: humans currently cannot perceive, what would it be.

51
00:03:00,320 --> 00:03:02,360
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, I absolutely know the answer to that question.

52
00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:03,799
Speaker 1: Oh wait, no, can I get too?

53
00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:05,160
Speaker 2: No?

54
00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:08,120
Speaker 3: No, yeah, sure, it's our ritrary why not?

55
00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:12,640
Speaker 1: My first answer was spatial curvature. Oh, you know, I

56
00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:15,679
Speaker 1: think the universe is mysterious, partly because we can see

57
00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:17,120
Speaker 1: a lot of it and we have to infer it.

58
00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:20,680
Speaker 1: But if we could directly see the actual curvature of space,

59
00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:23,320
Speaker 1: look at a black hole and see how space is

60
00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:25,320
Speaker 1: bent around it, I think we could learn a lot

61
00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:28,840
Speaker 1: about general relativity and about the nature of space. And

62
00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:31,440
Speaker 1: I think we wouldn't even have to have learned it.

63
00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:33,600
Speaker 1: It could be intuitive, you know, it could just be

64
00:03:33,720 --> 00:03:37,000
Speaker 1: something that we naturally understand. And so, yeah, I would

65
00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:40,840
Speaker 1: love if we could somehow directly see or experience the

66
00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:43,840
Speaker 1: curvature of space itself. Is that a weird thing to say?

67
00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:46,480
Speaker 3: No, No, it's a much more selfish answer than mine,

68
00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:50,120
Speaker 3: or sorry, let selfless selfless answer than mine. You you

69
00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:52,760
Speaker 3: would like to be able to contribute to our understanding

70
00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:55,840
Speaker 3: of the universe. I want to see pretty flowers better.

71
00:03:56,960 --> 00:03:59,680
Speaker 3: So so I doway your answer way better than mine,

72
00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:01,240
Speaker 3: and go ahead. I'll give you the second one. What

73
00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:03,520
Speaker 3: is the second thing that you wish you could perceive?

74
00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:05,800
Speaker 1: Oh? I wish I could see quantum effects. I wish

75
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:09,520
Speaker 1: I could see things in superposition. You know, like if

76
00:04:09,560 --> 00:04:11,880
Speaker 1: a photon is approaching your eye and has a chance

77
00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:14,240
Speaker 1: to hit your left eyeball or your right eyeball, you

78
00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:16,520
Speaker 1: can only see it in one eyeball. You can only

79
00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:18,640
Speaker 1: experience like a tiny little flash of light. You can't

80
00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:22,160
Speaker 1: experience both probabilities because we're big, classical things. But if

81
00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:25,919
Speaker 1: we were like somehow weirdly small and quantum, then we

82
00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:28,440
Speaker 1: could interact with it without collapsing its wave function and

83
00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:32,719
Speaker 1: somehow experience things in superposition that would be really weird

84
00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:35,480
Speaker 1: and awesome. And maybe then again we would have some

85
00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:38,200
Speaker 1: cool intuition for the way the universe worked, and we

86
00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:42,320
Speaker 1: wouldn't struggle so much to understand quantum mechanics. I just

87
00:04:42,360 --> 00:04:44,760
Speaker 1: also really hunger to know, like what other kinds of

88
00:04:44,839 --> 00:04:48,120
Speaker 1: experiences are? You know? One thing is like how we

89
00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:50,039
Speaker 1: interact with the universe. The other part of it is

90
00:04:50,040 --> 00:04:53,719
Speaker 1: like how we actually experience it. You know, these qualitia

91
00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:56,599
Speaker 1: that are generated in our minds. You know, when your

92
00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:59,680
Speaker 1: eyeballs see a certain wavelength of photon and then your

93
00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:02,720
Speaker 1: brain tells you read right. The red is not part

94
00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:06,200
Speaker 1: of the photon. It's part of your experience. And I

95
00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:07,800
Speaker 1: just think it would be incredible if your brain could

96
00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:10,960
Speaker 1: generate new kinds of experiences, Like if we could somehow

97
00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:14,240
Speaker 1: see space time or see superposition. What would that be Like?

98
00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:16,360
Speaker 1: This is a part of me that wants to sit

99
00:05:16,360 --> 00:05:18,799
Speaker 1: on the rooftop smoke banana peels and just wonder.

100
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:23,760
Speaker 3: I feel like if you could see superpositions, wouldn't the

101
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:26,280
Speaker 3: world be kind of overwhelming because you'd be seeing, like,

102
00:05:26,440 --> 00:05:29,080
Speaker 3: you know, all of these sort of probabilities happening. And

103
00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:31,120
Speaker 3: I think that would be too much for me. I'd

104
00:05:31,160 --> 00:05:31,840
Speaker 3: be overwhelmed.

105
00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:34,760
Speaker 1: Well, the world is already overwhelming. I mean, think about

106
00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:37,640
Speaker 1: all the things that your body is interacting with and sensing.

107
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:40,560
Speaker 1: Mostly your brain is filtering it out to put together

108
00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:43,360
Speaker 1: this story for you about your life and your experience

109
00:05:43,839 --> 00:05:47,520
Speaker 1: and the environment around you. It's highly highly filtered already.

110
00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:50,279
Speaker 1: So if we could see quantum effects or space time curvature.

111
00:05:50,279 --> 00:05:52,520
Speaker 1: That would just be like another part of the story.

112
00:05:52,560 --> 00:05:54,760
Speaker 1: I don't know how your brain would sort it all out,

113
00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:57,640
Speaker 1: but your brain already has to filter through the chaos

114
00:05:57,720 --> 00:05:59,120
Speaker 1: to tell you what the world around you is.

115
00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:01,800
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, but I'm that Daniel, So that's okay. But

116
00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:03,320
Speaker 3: you know what I want to see that I think

117
00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:05,760
Speaker 3: would not be overwhelming and I would absolutely love to see.

118
00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:10,599
Speaker 3: So like, bumblebees can see a greater wavelength of light

119
00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:13,240
Speaker 3: than we can, and there's a bunch of things on

120
00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:15,680
Speaker 3: flowers that are meant to attract bumble bees that we

121
00:06:15,760 --> 00:06:19,280
Speaker 3: can't see. I would love to see flowers in all

122
00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:21,960
Speaker 3: of their intended glory, you know, like those other colors

123
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:25,200
Speaker 3: are meant to signal to bees who are their pollinators,

124
00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:28,120
Speaker 3: that like I'm beautiful, I'm amazing, come over here, and

125
00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:31,000
Speaker 3: I'm missing it, and I wish I could see those things.

126
00:06:31,040 --> 00:06:32,080
Speaker 2: I think that would be amazing.

127
00:06:32,520 --> 00:06:35,120
Speaker 1: I totally agree that there's a lot to the universe

128
00:06:35,120 --> 00:06:38,400
Speaker 1: where missing, and it feels frustrating that we can't interact

129
00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:41,720
Speaker 1: with that. But I'm curious why you put those particular

130
00:06:41,760 --> 00:06:45,120
Speaker 1: emotions and experiences on the bee and the flower, Like

131
00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:47,440
Speaker 1: do you think the bee has to think it's beautiful?

132
00:06:47,760 --> 00:06:50,479
Speaker 1: Does the bee choose pretty flowers? Couldn't there just be

133
00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:53,960
Speaker 1: something much more basic and simple about the bees decisions,

134
00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:56,000
Speaker 1: like smell good or something.

135
00:06:56,320 --> 00:07:00,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally over anthropomorphs five or whatever. Yeah, No,

136
00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:02,800
Speaker 3: I don't think it was cute though. Yeah, I don't

137
00:07:02,839 --> 00:07:05,200
Speaker 3: think the flower is thinking anything. I think the flower

138
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:07,120
Speaker 3: is just like when I have more of this color,

139
00:07:07,279 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 3: I get more insects walking on my face and like,

140
00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:13,320
Speaker 3: and the insects are like, oh, there's this very bright

141
00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:15,520
Speaker 3: stimulus over there, and I should go over to that

142
00:07:15,560 --> 00:07:17,960
Speaker 3: stimulus because my brain is telling me to approach the stimulus.

143
00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:19,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it's bumblebee.

144
00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:22,720
Speaker 3: As being like I love you flower, but uh but

145
00:07:22,800 --> 00:07:24,720
Speaker 3: I still wish I could see more colors.

146
00:07:24,840 --> 00:07:26,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'd be interesting to go to an art gallery

147
00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:28,239
Speaker 1: with the bumblebee be like, which ones.

148
00:07:28,080 --> 00:07:29,720
Speaker 2: Do you like? Yeah, that's all right.

149
00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:32,400
Speaker 3: You know, if I could just like switch between the

150
00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:36,480
Speaker 3: different visual systems of the different organisms that I study,

151
00:07:36,520 --> 00:07:38,320
Speaker 3: that would be like such a great way to know

152
00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:40,280
Speaker 3: how to you know, like did I design the experiment

153
00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:43,360
Speaker 3: correctly or you know, or the animals seeing something I

154
00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:43,760
Speaker 3: don't see.

155
00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:44,920
Speaker 2: I think that would be pretty cool.

156
00:07:45,080 --> 00:07:47,920
Speaker 1: It would be amazing to get to switch, like, let

157
00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:50,040
Speaker 1: me see the universe from a dog's point of view. Okay,

158
00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:52,080
Speaker 1: now from a bath's point of view. Okay, now I'm

159
00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:54,880
Speaker 1: a dolphin, because it would help shake us out of

160
00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:56,440
Speaker 1: the box that we're in. You know, I feel like

161
00:07:56,800 --> 00:07:59,240
Speaker 1: we experience the universe a certain way, and from that

162
00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:02,080
Speaker 1: we assume the universe is a certain way. But there's

163
00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:04,080
Speaker 1: so much out there that we're missing, and we would

164
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:06,840
Speaker 1: be so much better informed and probably more clever about

165
00:08:06,880 --> 00:08:09,320
Speaker 1: figuring out how things work if we had more than

166
00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:10,400
Speaker 1: one angle on it.

167
00:08:10,400 --> 00:08:10,520
Speaker 4: You know.

168
00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:12,760
Speaker 1: Yep, we could somehow triangulate the universe.

169
00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:15,760
Speaker 3: Yes, side note that maybe should get cut out. So

170
00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:18,480
Speaker 3: you said, and now I'm a dolphin. My daughter came

171
00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:20,680
Speaker 3: home and she was like, you know, my friend and

172
00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:24,240
Speaker 3: I we were talking about animals and how we're both furries.

173
00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:30,440
Speaker 2: And I was like, and how you're both what darling?

174
00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:32,240
Speaker 2: And she's like furries and I was.

175
00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:35,880
Speaker 1: Like, and you're imagining this conversation you're gonna have with her.

176
00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:38,319
Speaker 1: You're like, well, okay, let's talk about that.

177
00:08:38,600 --> 00:08:38,840
Speaker 2: Yes.

178
00:08:38,880 --> 00:08:42,840
Speaker 3: And then Zach was in the room and he goes, Kelly, no,

179
00:08:43,800 --> 00:08:46,640
Speaker 3: and I was like, and instead, I said, what does

180
00:08:46,679 --> 00:08:49,040
Speaker 3: that mean to you? And she said it means me

181
00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:51,440
Speaker 3: like pretending to be animals for a little while. And

182
00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 3: I was like, that's different than.

183
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:54,719
Speaker 2: It means for adults.

184
00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:57,240
Speaker 3: But anyway, I didn't say that, and I just said, well,

185
00:08:57,280 --> 00:08:58,960
Speaker 3: that's a lot of fun. Be careful who you say

186
00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:01,040
Speaker 3: that too. I love you, And that was the end.

187
00:09:01,120 --> 00:09:01,560
Speaker 2: Anyway.

188
00:09:01,960 --> 00:09:04,800
Speaker 1: Well, there's something wonderful about children's imagination and how they're

189
00:09:04,840 --> 00:09:08,240
Speaker 1: able to imagine being other creatures. And something I wonder

190
00:09:08,280 --> 00:09:11,760
Speaker 1: about is how creatures on Earth experience the universe, but

191
00:09:11,800 --> 00:09:15,280
Speaker 1: also creatures out there in the universe, because of course

192
00:09:15,320 --> 00:09:17,760
Speaker 1: all the creatures on Earth share this environment we all

193
00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:20,480
Speaker 1: evolved in. And when I think about how the universe

194
00:09:20,520 --> 00:09:22,480
Speaker 1: works and how aliens might be figuring it out, one

195
00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:24,880
Speaker 1: of the first questions you have to ask is like, well,

196
00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:28,000
Speaker 1: what part of the universe are they seeing? What is

197
00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:30,600
Speaker 1: it like to be an alien? If Kelly could put

198
00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:33,199
Speaker 1: on her alien goggles? You know, how many of those

199
00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:36,439
Speaker 1: different goggles are there? Anyway? Are they vastly difference from

200
00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:39,200
Speaker 1: the ones that we wear? And how much would that

201
00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:41,720
Speaker 1: change our understanding of the universe.

202
00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:44,000
Speaker 3: I am dying to know, and I'm dying to know

203
00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:47,079
Speaker 3: what our listeners think, and so we asked our listeners

204
00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:50,560
Speaker 3: how do aliens perceive the universe?

205
00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:54,680
Speaker 1: Thanks very much to everybody who jumped in with crazy speculation,

206
00:09:54,880 --> 00:09:57,120
Speaker 1: lots of fun. If you would like to join the crew,

207
00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:00,000
Speaker 1: write to us two questions at Daniel and Kelly dot org.

208
00:10:00,480 --> 00:10:02,120
Speaker 1: Here's what everyone had to say.

209
00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:08,079
Speaker 4: Aliens could sense fields, magnetic fields or other fields that

210
00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:11,360
Speaker 4: could so differently, so in ultra volt and all what

211
00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:15,280
Speaker 4: kind of thing. There's probably no limit to what other

212
00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:17,000
Speaker 4: creatures could use.

213
00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:20,360
Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to speculate and imagine a sense

214
00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:23,719
Speaker 1: that we don't have. Maybe a magnetic sense. Maybe they

215
00:10:23,760 --> 00:10:27,080
Speaker 1: have a magnetic planet as well, and they can sense

216
00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:28,760
Speaker 1: magnetic north if.

217
00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:33,840
Speaker 3: They are very advanced, maybe they also have quantum sense.

218
00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:39,200
Speaker 2: I think the sense of sight, observation, recordation, and analysis.

219
00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:41,920
Speaker 4: Well, life on Earth has such a variety of senses.

220
00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:46,160
Speaker 4: It's hard to think of anything that's not already been invented.

221
00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:50,280
Speaker 4: Maybe the ability to detect X rays or some other

222
00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:51,680
Speaker 4: form of light.

223
00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:53,959
Speaker 1: What alien life does exist up there?

224
00:10:54,120 --> 00:11:00,800
Speaker 5: Would see the university with either the vibrations radiation, and

225
00:11:00,840 --> 00:11:01,480
Speaker 5: that's about it.

226
00:11:01,880 --> 00:11:04,280
Speaker 6: If I were an alien and could choose a sense.

227
00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:08,440
Speaker 6: I would like quantum entanglement sense, an instantaneous perception of

228
00:11:08,480 --> 00:11:12,679
Speaker 6: distant correlated particles. This would allow for faster than lifestyle coordination,

229
00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:16,439
Speaker 6: seamless real time exploration, navigation, and teamwork.

230
00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:20,079
Speaker 1: It gotta be vision. Whether aliens and humans we actually

231
00:11:20,160 --> 00:11:23,480
Speaker 1: do sense gravity, but maybe they can sense mass, velocity,

232
00:11:23,760 --> 00:11:27,000
Speaker 1: momentum of what's around them, maybe they can sense brain waves.

233
00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:29,520
Speaker 6: Right, just because physics is going to be the same,

234
00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:32,640
Speaker 6: there's no reason to think they would evolve a completely

235
00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:34,840
Speaker 6: different way of sensing the world around them.

236
00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:37,760
Speaker 5: What would be visible light to them would be determined

237
00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:44,359
Speaker 5: by the composition of their local star and their planet's atmosphere,

238
00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:48,160
Speaker 5: so they might see a completely different spectrum than we do,

239
00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:52,760
Speaker 5: and their brain would interpret colors for something that we

240
00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:54,040
Speaker 5: can't even imagine.

241
00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:57,360
Speaker 4: Well, we have animals that currently use son art to

242
00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:01,840
Speaker 4: navigate their world, bats and dolphins, but neither of those

243
00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:03,559
Speaker 4: species has made it into space.

244
00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:05,920
Speaker 3: All right, Well, it looks like some of our listeners

245
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:09,360
Speaker 3: are imagining that aliens have that sort of quantum sense

246
00:12:09,400 --> 00:12:11,560
Speaker 3: that you were talking about, that they could perceive things

247
00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:14,520
Speaker 3: at that level. That's a very good imagination in my

248
00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:16,080
Speaker 3: opinion that had not occurred to me.

249
00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:18,600
Speaker 2: I was like, more colors.

250
00:12:19,520 --> 00:12:21,800
Speaker 1: I love the answer that comments that bats and dolphins

251
00:12:21,880 --> 00:12:24,520
Speaker 1: haven't made it out into space and so maybe sonar

252
00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:27,680
Speaker 1: isn't like the kind of sense that takes you across

253
00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:30,280
Speaker 1: the universe. And my response to that is like, are

254
00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:33,360
Speaker 1: you sure, dude? Maybe all those UFO videos are like

255
00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:35,040
Speaker 1: the Secret Dolphin Air Force.

256
00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,240
Speaker 3: WHOA, Yeah, we're gonna get trippy on today's episode.

257
00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:43,920
Speaker 1: No, I'm just trying to cash in on all the

258
00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:46,199
Speaker 1: UFO cryptozoology nonsense.

259
00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:48,840
Speaker 2: There's a lot of it these days. You have a

260
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:52,280
Speaker 2: lot of opportunities. Okay, so it's time to jump in.

261
00:12:52,679 --> 00:12:55,040
Speaker 3: At the beginning of the episode, we talked about a

262
00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:57,160
Speaker 3: couple things that we can't perceive that you would like

263
00:12:57,320 --> 00:13:00,600
Speaker 3: to perceive. So how much of the universe do we

264
00:13:00,760 --> 00:13:01,840
Speaker 3: perceive as humans?

265
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:03,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question. It's important to start with

266
00:13:04,040 --> 00:13:06,679
Speaker 1: our perception because I think that a lot of people

267
00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:11,360
Speaker 1: have the impression that we mostly understand what's around us. Yeah,

268
00:13:11,400 --> 00:13:14,120
Speaker 1: there are mysteries about how it works, but there aren't

269
00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:17,120
Speaker 1: like things hiding from us that the things you see

270
00:13:17,160 --> 00:13:20,680
Speaker 1: in the universe. Your mental model of the universe is

271
00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:22,760
Speaker 1: what's out there that are your senses give you some

272
00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:27,360
Speaker 1: sort of like direct revelation of reality. Right, your legs

273
00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:29,199
Speaker 1: are out there in front of you, your desk is

274
00:13:29,240 --> 00:13:31,320
Speaker 1: over here, your dog is sitting over there. That you

275
00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:35,040
Speaker 1: understand what's around you in the universe. And it's not

276
00:13:35,160 --> 00:13:37,000
Speaker 1: that I'm saying that your senses are lying to you,

277
00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:38,720
Speaker 1: that your dog is a hologram or something.

278
00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:41,240
Speaker 2: Could be that too, though I'm not gonna.

279
00:13:41,120 --> 00:13:43,720
Speaker 1: Rule that out right, I haven't met your dog. Who knows, right,

280
00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:47,920
Speaker 1: Let's keep an open mind. Maybe your dog is an alien.

281
00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:50,200
Speaker 1: But the point is that there is a lot more

282
00:13:50,360 --> 00:13:54,400
Speaker 1: going on in the universe that we don't see. So like, yes,

283
00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:56,360
Speaker 1: your senses tell you a lot about the universe, but

284
00:13:56,360 --> 00:13:58,640
Speaker 1: there's a lot more out there that they're not telling you.

285
00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:01,319
Speaker 1: And the most immediate is just in the form of light.

286
00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:04,400
Speaker 1: Like your eyes reveal a lot about the universe, but

287
00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:08,760
Speaker 1: they only capture a tiny slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. Right,

288
00:14:11,520 --> 00:14:14,240
Speaker 1: All those flowers out there are beautiful in ways that

289
00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:21,560
Speaker 1: Kelly will never experience. Remember that the wave vision works

290
00:14:21,680 --> 00:14:24,360
Speaker 1: is photons hit your eyeball and if they have the

291
00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:27,040
Speaker 1: right frequency, they flip some protein switch which sends a

292
00:14:27,080 --> 00:14:29,760
Speaker 1: message up your optic nerve, and so your brain can

293
00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:34,000
Speaker 1: then interpret that. But the electromagnetic spectrum is really really wide,

294
00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:37,080
Speaker 1: from radio to infrared and then a little slice of

295
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:40,120
Speaker 1: the visible and then uv X ray and gamma rays

296
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:43,520
Speaker 1: at the very top end. And the universe looks different

297
00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:45,920
Speaker 1: in each one, Kelly was saying earlier, Like you like

298
00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:48,640
Speaker 1: to put on a bat's goggles or a dog's goggles. Right,

299
00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:52,479
Speaker 1: different animals see a different subset. Mostly it's all concentrated

300
00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:56,240
Speaker 1: near the visible range. But the universe looks different in

301
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:59,080
Speaker 1: each wavelength. It's not just like, Okay, your dog sees

302
00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:01,400
Speaker 1: the same stuff, it's a little dimmer, or it's in

303
00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:04,000
Speaker 1: black and white, or an ant sees it in fractal

304
00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:07,520
Speaker 1: patterns or something crazy. Right, the universe really does look

305
00:15:07,680 --> 00:15:10,640
Speaker 1: very different in each wavelength, because different stuff in the

306
00:15:10,720 --> 00:15:14,480
Speaker 1: universe is either opaque or transparent depending on the wavelength

307
00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:15,440
Speaker 1: of light you're using.

308
00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:18,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, and evolution has sort of tinkered with what we're

309
00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:22,240
Speaker 3: allowed to perceive and has focused in on the information

310
00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:25,080
Speaker 3: that's most helpful for particular kinds of organisms. And this

311
00:15:25,160 --> 00:15:27,120
Speaker 3: sort of left the rest of the stuff out so

312
00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:29,240
Speaker 3: that your brain doesn't get overwhelmed, or at least that's

313
00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:31,360
Speaker 3: my sense. Was that your sense by when you were

314
00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:32,520
Speaker 3: doing this research.

315
00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:36,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly what senses you have don't just depend on

316
00:15:36,280 --> 00:15:39,640
Speaker 1: what information is out there. Senses are expensive, right, You've

317
00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:41,440
Speaker 1: got to grow an eyeball, you've got to maintain it,

318
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:44,400
Speaker 1: you got to give it blood. It costs energy and resources.

319
00:15:44,480 --> 00:15:46,520
Speaker 1: So you're only going to develop it if it's useful,

320
00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:49,280
Speaker 1: and you're only going to do the work necessary to

321
00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:51,760
Speaker 1: make it sensitive to the UV if that's useful. It's

322
00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:55,080
Speaker 1: got to have a survival benefit, right, Like wings would

323
00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:57,920
Speaker 1: be awesome. We don't have wings why because it cost

324
00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:00,320
Speaker 1: a lot to make wings and to make the rest

325
00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:02,520
Speaker 1: of your body light enough to fly. So that's why, like,

326
00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:05,680
Speaker 1: not every single critter out there has wings. So it's

327
00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:08,200
Speaker 1: got to be useful in your context for your.

328
00:16:08,040 --> 00:16:10,840
Speaker 3: Survival, and there needs to be an evolutionary path to

329
00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:13,240
Speaker 3: get there. Maybe we don't really have an evolutionary path

330
00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:15,600
Speaker 3: to get to wings at this point, but anyway, Yes,

331
00:16:15,680 --> 00:16:17,320
Speaker 3: no wings, which is another bummer.

332
00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:20,480
Speaker 1: I'm definitely never going to be light enough to have

333
00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:24,120
Speaker 1: wings that were Yeah, no, that's not in my future either,

334
00:16:24,360 --> 00:16:26,760
Speaker 1: No me either. But you know, we have conquered this

335
00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:28,480
Speaker 1: a little bit with technology.

336
00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:28,760
Speaker 4: Right.

337
00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:30,960
Speaker 1: We have eyeballs which only see in a certain wavelength,

338
00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:33,880
Speaker 1: but we have telescopes which can see in other wavelengths,

339
00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:37,760
Speaker 1: Like the James Webspace telescope is an infrared telescope because

340
00:16:37,800 --> 00:16:41,000
Speaker 1: astronomers recognize that the universe looks very different in the

341
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,480
Speaker 1: infrared than it does in the visible You know, for example,

342
00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:49,400
Speaker 1: in the infrared, glass is opaque. Glass, which light can

343
00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:52,680
Speaker 1: fly through in the visible spectrum, is opaque in the infrared.

344
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:54,000
Speaker 1: So if you like to try to look out a

345
00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:57,680
Speaker 1: window in the infrared, infrared light does not pass through glass,

346
00:16:58,040 --> 00:16:59,720
Speaker 1: and so if you take a picture of the universe

347
00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:02,920
Speaker 1: in the you see different stuff out there in the universe,

348
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:06,960
Speaker 1: Like infrared light can pass through different stuff than visible lights.

349
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:08,760
Speaker 1: So if you want to see through gas and dust,

350
00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,119
Speaker 1: you look through an infrared telescope, you get a different

351
00:17:11,119 --> 00:17:14,640
Speaker 1: picture of the universe. We also have X ray telescopes, so.

352
00:17:14,560 --> 00:17:17,840
Speaker 3: You look through an infrared telescope, and then you need

353
00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:21,159
Speaker 3: some sort of technology to translate that into something our

354
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:22,240
Speaker 3: brains can perceive.

355
00:17:22,320 --> 00:17:22,439
Speaker 2: Right.

356
00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:24,600
Speaker 3: So one of the things that frustrates me about thinking

357
00:17:24,600 --> 00:17:26,800
Speaker 3: about wavelengths I can't see is that I can't even

358
00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:31,520
Speaker 3: really imagine what other colors would look like, because I, yeah,

359
00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:33,600
Speaker 3: I just I wouldn't even know where to start. Yeah,

360
00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:35,800
Speaker 3: And so how well do we understand what we see

361
00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:38,400
Speaker 3: in the infrared since it needs to be translated into

362
00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:39,440
Speaker 3: something we can see.

363
00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:41,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is something people don't widely understand.

364
00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:44,000
Speaker 1: When you get one of those beautiful images of the

365
00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:46,760
Speaker 1: James Web space telescope, it's showing it to you in

366
00:17:46,840 --> 00:17:50,080
Speaker 1: the visible If you put your eyeball where the telescope was,

367
00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:52,760
Speaker 1: you would not see the same thing, right, you would

368
00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:55,000
Speaker 1: see whatever visible light is going through the universe at

369
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:57,399
Speaker 1: that moment. But the picture from the James Web is

370
00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:00,160
Speaker 1: of the infrared, and your eyeballs would totally ignore that.

371
00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:03,000
Speaker 1: And so if there was, for example, no visible light there,

372
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:05,359
Speaker 1: you would just see black. You wouldn't see anything. And

373
00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:07,560
Speaker 1: so if they wanted to be as accurate as possible,

374
00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:09,840
Speaker 1: and they took the image from James Web and they

375
00:18:09,880 --> 00:18:12,200
Speaker 1: made a picture on your screen which emitted photons of

376
00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:14,800
Speaker 1: the same wavelength that were absorbed, you wouldn't see it either.

377
00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:16,879
Speaker 1: It would just look black. So in order for you

378
00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:19,680
Speaker 1: to see it, you're right, they shift those wavelengths up

379
00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 1: into the visible. So again, that's not how the universe looks.

380
00:18:23,119 --> 00:18:25,040
Speaker 1: And so I think what you're suggesting is to really

381
00:18:25,080 --> 00:18:27,600
Speaker 1: experience it, you'd need an eyeball which could receive the

382
00:18:27,640 --> 00:18:29,800
Speaker 1: original photons, and then your brain would have to have

383
00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:33,080
Speaker 1: some kind of new response, some sort of like deepest

384
00:18:33,160 --> 00:18:36,480
Speaker 1: darkest red, or some new colors out there. Yeah, exactly,

385
00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:39,600
Speaker 1: And so you can't really experience what the universe looks

386
00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:41,840
Speaker 1: like in infrared. You need to shift it into the

387
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:44,560
Speaker 1: visible and sort of mentally keep track of the fact ooh,

388
00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:48,119
Speaker 1: this is actually infrared light, and I'm seeing it translated.

389
00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:50,720
Speaker 1: And that's important because if we have to translate it

390
00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:53,359
Speaker 1: back into the visible, it means that we're translating it

391
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:56,760
Speaker 1: back into something we find intuitive. It tells you something

392
00:18:56,760 --> 00:19:00,159
Speaker 1: about how we experience, interpret, and understand the universe. Were

393
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:05,320
Speaker 1: always translating everything we experience back into our intuition, which

394
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:09,119
Speaker 1: is partially determined by our native senses. And so the

395
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:11,359
Speaker 1: bigger project of like trying to unravel the mystery of

396
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:15,160
Speaker 1: the universe is a project of transforming the weird universe

397
00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:18,080
Speaker 1: that's out there that doesn't always align with our experience

398
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:21,840
Speaker 1: of it into something we can intuitively understand into something

399
00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:25,680
Speaker 1: we can imagine seeing directly with our senses, but that's

400
00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:27,160
Speaker 1: not something we physically can do.

401
00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:32,080
Speaker 3: Okay, So we've talked about things that we can see. Next,

402
00:19:32,119 --> 00:19:34,440
Speaker 3: let's talk about some things that we can't perceive. And

403
00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 3: let's do that after the break. All right, we're back

404
00:19:56,880 --> 00:19:59,040
Speaker 3: and we spent the last segments sort of patting ourselves

405
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:01,040
Speaker 3: on the back for things that we could see. And

406
00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:03,119
Speaker 3: now we are going to, you know, be a little

407
00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:05,440
Speaker 3: bit bummed out by having Daniel tell us about all

408
00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:06,920
Speaker 3: the things that we can't perceive.

409
00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:10,000
Speaker 1: Right, So, we can see some wavelengths of light, we

410
00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:12,080
Speaker 1: can't see most of the wavelengths of light. But there's

411
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:14,120
Speaker 1: other stuff out there that we can't see, no matter

412
00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:17,440
Speaker 1: what energy it has, and it's everywhere. So an example

413
00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:21,680
Speaker 1: are neutrinos. Right. Neutrinos are produced by the Sun. There's

414
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:24,480
Speaker 1: lots and lots and lots of them. Every sentence we

415
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:27,879
Speaker 1: say on this podcast, there's about a trillion neutrinos that

416
00:20:27,960 --> 00:20:31,520
Speaker 1: pass through your fingernails. Who like a trillion? It's a

417
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:35,040
Speaker 1: huge number, right, And we are pretty far away from

418
00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:36,800
Speaker 1: the Sun, and so for there to be a trillion

419
00:20:36,840 --> 00:20:39,119
Speaker 1: neutrinos that passed with this tiny little area of all

420
00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:41,840
Speaker 1: of your fingernails, this far away from the Sun, not

421
00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:43,960
Speaker 1: trying to imagine how many neutrinos are coming out of

422
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:47,199
Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun. So the entire Solar system

423
00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:52,640
Speaker 1: filled with neutrinos, like almost uncountably many neutrinos, but they

424
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:55,040
Speaker 1: just pass right through us. We don't feel them, they

425
00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:57,560
Speaker 1: don't feel us. It's like another universe sort of on

426
00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:00,639
Speaker 1: top of ours that we hardly interact with at all.

427
00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:02,160
Speaker 2: And all of them come from the Sun.

428
00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:03,720
Speaker 1: Not all of them come from the Sun. They are

429
00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:06,720
Speaker 1: also cosmic rays sources of neutrinos, their neutrinos from the

430
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,359
Speaker 1: center of the galaxy. There are neutrinos from nobody knows

431
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:12,240
Speaker 1: where that are super high energy, just like other kinds

432
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 1: of cosmic rays. Neutrino astronomy is a fascinating area with

433
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:20,520
Speaker 1: just beginning. We have cool, awesome neutrino telescopes at the

434
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 1: South Pole that can see when neutrinos penetrate into the

435
00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:27,240
Speaker 1: ice and create a muon And they've instrumented the ice

436
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 1: in a cubic mile like literally they drill down a

437
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:33,440
Speaker 1: mile and they drop these cameras and then they fill

438
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:35,760
Speaker 1: it back with water again and freeze it into the ice.

439
00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:38,919
Speaker 1: So there's a cubic mile of ice that they have

440
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:43,159
Speaker 1: as a Terenkov detector to see muons moving faster than

441
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:46,200
Speaker 1: the speed of light in ice. It's really incredible, and

442
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,360
Speaker 1: you see those muons that are created by cosmic neutrinos.

443
00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:52,200
Speaker 1: So anyway, neutrinos are out there. They're not rare, right,

444
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:55,640
Speaker 1: they're weird, but they're everywhere, but we can't send them.

445
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,399
Speaker 1: No part of our body interacts with them very well.

446
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 1: A neutrino only feels the weak interaction. It doesn't feel

447
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:04,760
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic because it has no charge, doesn't feel a

448
00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:07,439
Speaker 1: strong force. So the only way for a neutrino to

449
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 1: interact with our bodies or with most kinds of matter

450
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 1: is the weak interaction, which is super duber weak. So

451
00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:16,520
Speaker 1: if you built like a wall made of lead, you'd

452
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:19,200
Speaker 1: have to make it a light year thick a light

453
00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:21,959
Speaker 1: year wow thick before a neutrino would have a fifty

454
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:25,680
Speaker 1: percent chance of interacting with some part of that lead.

455
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:29,159
Speaker 1: So that's how little we can interact with neutrinos. And

456
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:31,560
Speaker 1: that tells you that there's a lot going on in

457
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:35,679
Speaker 1: the universe, literally trillions of things per second that you

458
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,679
Speaker 1: cannot see, that are just sort of here, also in

459
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:40,920
Speaker 1: parallel to us, that we don't interact with, that are

460
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 1: invisible and intangible.

461
00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:45,360
Speaker 3: When you were talking about the Tankov detector, I think

462
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:48,439
Speaker 3: you said that we're not actually detecting the neutrinos directly.

463
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,800
Speaker 3: We're detecting the muons that get produced by the neutrinos.

464
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:54,720
Speaker 3: So these we still can't see. We only know they're

465
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 3: there based on the things that they create.

466
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 2: Is that right?

467
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:01,240
Speaker 1: Exactly? Occasionally, once in a zillion times, and neutrino will

468
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 1: interact with a piece of ice and create a muon

469
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: which we can see, and the presence of the muon

470
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: tells us that a neutrino is there. But yeah, we

471
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: don't have like a neutrino track. We can't say here's

472
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 1: the path of the neutrino, because no neutrino ever interacts

473
00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: more than once. Even to have an interact once with

474
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 1: normal matter is like astronomically unlikely, which is why you

475
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 1: need like gollillions of neutrinos to ever see any of them.

476
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:26,560
Speaker 2: Wow, it's amazing we know anything about them at all.

477
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is something we've discovered only in the

478
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:32,399
Speaker 1: last few decades, and we have built neutrino eyeballs that

479
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 1: can see neutrinos right that like tap into this enormous

480
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: river of information that's happening right on top of us.

481
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: Neutrino's one of the most common particles in the universe.

482
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:47,239
Speaker 1: Really everywhere we like live in a neutrino ocean, a

483
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:51,680
Speaker 1: neutrino river, and we've built these incredible detectors that are

484
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:55,400
Speaker 1: capable of very occasionally forcing a neutrino to reveal itself.

485
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 1: And with that you can look out into the universe

486
00:23:57,840 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: and you can see super cool stuff, like, for example,

487
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:02,359
Speaker 1: you can see the Sun in the middle of the

488
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 1: night because to neutrinos, the Earth is transparent. It's like

489
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:08,440
Speaker 1: just barely there.

490
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:08,879
Speaker 4: Man.

491
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:12,440
Speaker 1: So you have a neutrino detector, it doesn't matter if

492
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 1: the Sun is on the other side of the Earth

493
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:17,679
Speaker 1: or not. There's no day or night in neutrino light

494
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 1: because the Earth is like a pane of glass to neutrinos.

495
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: And so you can keep your neutrino detector running during

496
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: the night. And they've taken a picture through the Earth

497
00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 1: of the Sun in neutrinos. It's super awesome. You should

498
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 1: google it.

499
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 3: Okay, so they took a picture of the Sun through

500
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 3: the Earth, but we don't have detectors. So were they

501
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,919
Speaker 3: looking for muon things in the Yeah, exactly.

502
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: They were looking for upward going muons, muons from neutrinos

503
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: that have passed through the Earth. And you can tell

504
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 1: even at night that there's a bright source of neutrinos

505
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:52,360
Speaker 1: on the other side of the Earth. You can tell

506
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: where the Sun is using only neutrinos, which is pretty cool.

507
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: That is wild, But the sense that it gives you

508
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: is that, wow, there's a lot going on. You sit

509
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 1: in your room and you watch TV. You have no

510
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 1: idea that there's like gazillions of neutrinos flying in the

511
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 1: air between you and the TV, everywhere right flying right

512
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:10,719
Speaker 1: through you. There's a lot going on in the universe

513
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: that we are not sensing.

514
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 3: And I guess it doesn't surprise me that much that

515
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:16,199
Speaker 3: we don't have sensors for neutrinos because they're mostly not

516
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 3: interacting with things. They're not hurting us, they're not really

517
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,399
Speaker 3: doing anything that's important for our survival.

518
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 2: They're just kind of there. Is that fair, that's true.

519
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: I think a couple of things going on. One is

520
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: like would it be useful, right, And your point you're

521
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: making is like they don't really tell you much except

522
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 1: for like basically where is the sun? Right, which maybe

523
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: at night it'd be nice to know, like how far

524
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: are we from dawn? But yeah, that's pretty marginal. On

525
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: the other hand, like petrinos have a lot of energy.

526
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 1: There's an incredible amount of energy. If we could develop,

527
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: like neutrinosynthesis some way to capture that energy, you could

528
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 1: continue to get energy at night, right, Plants wouldn't be

529
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:56,360
Speaker 1: limited to growing only during the day if they could

530
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,959
Speaker 1: develop some sort of neutrinosynthesis. But the other obstacles like,

531
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: well is that technically possible? And the problem there is

532
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: neutrinos hardly interact and there's no way we know to

533
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: have any sort of reasonable interaction rate. And so yeah,

534
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 1: you could have materials which could absorb energy from neutrinos,

535
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: but it would be a tiny little dribble because we're

536
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: just not very good at it, and nothing we know

537
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 1: is capable of interacting with neutrinos.

538
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 3: Okay, so we can't see neutrinos. That's a bummer. What

539
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 3: else can we not see that's apparently maybe everywhere.

540
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, neutrinos turn out to actually just be a clue

541
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:31,880
Speaker 1: that there's a lot in the universe that we can see.

542
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: And famously on this podcast, we talked about dark matter. Right,

543
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:37,920
Speaker 1: most of the mass of the universe is not the

544
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: kind of matter we have any interaction with, Like even

545
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: the weak interaction that we use to detect neutrinos is

546
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,919
Speaker 1: not something dark matter is capable of. And most of

547
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: the matter in the universe, eighty percent of the mass

548
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,640
Speaker 1: in the universe is dark matter. So we could interact

549
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: with a little slice of a little slice of the universe.

550
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: Most of the stuff that's out there that's shaped the

551
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: structure of galaxies, right, that is the reason why there's

552
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: stuff here and not out there that's holding the galaxy together.

553
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 1: We have a lot of gravitational evidence for we have

554
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 1: no other way to interact with it, not even the

555
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 1: weak interaction. And dark matter again is like neutrinos in

556
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: that it's everywhere. There's dark matter in the room with

557
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,880
Speaker 1: me right now. I can't see it, I can't interact

558
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: with it, but it's here. It's not like dark matter

559
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: is some weird blob like a new galaxy. Nobody understood.

560
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,399
Speaker 1: It fills the universe. We're moving through an ocean of

561
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 1: dark matter. This is again another part of the universe.

562
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: It's sort of like not like a parallel reality, because

563
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: it's part of ours, but it's a part of reality

564
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: that we cannot access. It's like being deaf or something. Right,

565
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: Think about what a deaf person is like. There's lots

566
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: of noise going on around them. They can't sense it.

567
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: And I don't know what it's like to be deaf,

568
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: but I imagine if you've been deaf since birth, you

569
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: might not even be able to conceive of what it's

570
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 1: like to hear. Apply that in extrapoli to dark matter, Like,

571
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,640
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on around us, neutrinos and dark matter,

572
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff that we do not know

573
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 1: how to sense. We don't know what's going on, which

574
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: is totally clueless, and we can't even really imagine what

575
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: it would be like to know that it's there.

576
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:16,080
Speaker 3: I feel like that's a very humbling fact. Yeah, how

577
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 3: does it make you feel, Daniel, I'm putting out my

578
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 3: psychiatrist's head.

579
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,120
Speaker 1: Well, it makes me feel a combination of ignorant, right, like, wow,

580
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 1: the things that we think my sense of what the

581
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,679
Speaker 1: universe is is deeply misinformed. Right, it's a little slice

582
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 1: of it. But also excited. Right, anytime we're ignorant about

583
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: the universe, that's an opportunity to learn to pull back

584
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: the veil of reality and say, oh, wow, the universe

585
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 1: actually is this other way and not the way that

586
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: we imagined. And so I would love to meet aliens

587
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: who have different senses who could like somehow detect dark

588
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: matter directly through I don't know what means, or they

589
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: figured out a way to make neutrino interactions higher probabilities

590
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: so they can like directly see neutrinos and have some

591
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:58,959
Speaker 1: cool way to do it. I think it would be

592
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: incredible to meet aliens and to understand how they see

593
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 1: the universe and how that affects their ability to unravel

594
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: the mysteries of it. Right.

595
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 3: So, if we make the assumption that natural selection shapes

596
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 3: organisms throughout the Solar system, which may or may not

597
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 3: be the case, I guess, but it seems like a

598
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 3: reasonable assumption. What survival benefit could you imagine for organisms

599
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 3: that can see dark matter or neutrinos or is it

600
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 3: only beneficial to see them once you get to the

601
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 3: stage where you're like trying to understand physics.

602
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: Well, if you could see dark matter, then you'd be

603
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: like the most awesome physicist. And physicists have a huge

604
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: evolutionary advantage because being a cool physicist makes everybody want

605
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: to have your babies. And so, I don't know, it

606
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: just seems kind of obvious.

607
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 2: Kelly, Okay, right.

608
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: No joking aside, it's a good point. I don't know

609
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: that it is relevant, right, unless you're being made of

610
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: dark matter, Right, you're some kind of alien directly made

611
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: of dark matter, then obviously you'd want to sense dark matter.

612
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 1: But otherwise, yeah, dark matter is mostly irrelevant to our life.

613
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: And that's one reason why I took a long time

614
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: to discuss.

615
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 4: Right.

616
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 1: It's not like it's affecting our life all the time

617
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: in ways that's just a mystery. You know, it doesn't

618
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: cause weather, It doesn't you know, change the growing season.

619
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: It doesn't like attract leopards to us or protect us

620
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: from hyenas or something. It is mostly irrelevant. We live

621
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: in a little corner of the sort of perceptoverse and

622
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: we see most of the useful stuff in that slice

623
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: of the universe, But it's not all of the universe.

624
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's not until you want to extrapolate outside

625
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 1: of the part of the universe you directly sense that

626
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: you need to think about these other parts of the universe.

627
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: But you know, aliens may have grown up in a

628
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: different part of the percepto verse, they may interact with

629
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: it differently, they may have different needs. You know, I

630
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: think the question you're asking is also like, how likely

631
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: is it that aliens grow up in an environment where

632
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 1: they need other senses than the ones that we have.

633
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 3: Right, or in particular where they need senses that pick

634
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 3: up on neutrinos in dark matter.

635
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 1: But yes, and that's a great question. But to answer that,

636
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: I think we again need to look at the experience

637
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: here on Earth, because even here on Earth we see

638
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: a very broad variety of the kind of senses. There

639
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: are animals out there that have senses that we don't have, right,

640
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: and so even though we all share in this common

641
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: environment on Earth, there is I think a broader sense

642
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: of animal sensation than most people understand.

643
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, so let's dive into those animal senses because

644
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 3: this is the you know, like biology part that I'm

645
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 3: super excited about although everything we've said so far about

646
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 3: physics has been fascinating, but biology, let's get.

647
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: Into it for people who want to understand aliens. Of course,

648
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: it feels a little boring to like turn around and say, like,

649
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 1: let's talk about animals on Earth. But you know, the

650
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: argument is that if there are things that evolved many

651
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: times on Earth, then that's a clue, right, It's a

652
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: clue that maybe this is something that's very common, it's

653
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: easy to evolve, and therefore more likely to evolve out

654
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: there in the rest of the galaxy. And if there's

655
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 1: something that took a long time to evolve or evolve

656
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: just once, you know, like human intelligence, then we think

657
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 1: maybe that's something that's more rare, or maybe that's less

658
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 1: likely to have evolved in the rest of the universe.

659
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: Of course, this is all an equals one examples, and

660
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: so you have to be very careful about extrapolading. But

661
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: I think it's the best that we can do.

662
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 3: If I could just push back for a second, like

663
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 3: if something evolves once instead of evolving multiple times, Instead

664
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 3: of that meaning that it's not important to me, that

665
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 3: could mean that it's supremely important. Like it popped up

666
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 3: once and then nothing ever lost it because you can't

667
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 3: survive if you lose it, or something like that in

668
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 3: a world where it's important, and so I could see

669
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 3: many times it evolving or it only evolving once in

670
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 3: everything keeping it either one of those arguing that it's

671
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 3: important personally.

672
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see what you're saying. It depends also on

673
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 1: how long it takes to evolve, right, Because we're asking

674
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: not just is it important, but is it common that

675
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: if it takes a long time to evolve, that suggests

676
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: that it sort of like requires a certain set of circumstances.

677
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: Even if it does give you a huge benefit, it

678
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: might be a difficult thing. It might be like one

679
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: in a gazillion chances for the molecules to align for evolution.

680
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: To put this together, Yeah, yep, and a fascinate the

681
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: example of the sort of timeline there is hearing, Right,

682
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: we think of like hearing is obviously important and so

683
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: many critters on Earth can hear. But it turns out

684
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: that hearing only evolved like about half a billion years ago. Right,

685
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: there was billions of years of life on Earth without

686
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: basically ears.

687
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 2: What was there not?

688
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 3: Was there less to hear, like, was it just bacteria

689
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:26,920
Speaker 3: moving around quietly tiptoeing their way.

690
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 2: Through the earth.

691
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: Nobody really knows, of course, and this is like you know,

692
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: digging through the fossil record and speculating, and so we

693
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: know very very little. But the evolutionary biologists I've talked

694
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: to suggested that that coincides with the explosion of large,

695
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: multicellular life. So life went from single to multicellular many

696
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: times actually in the evolution of life on Earth, which

697
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: is in itself super fascinating and we should dig into

698
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: another episode. But around five hundred or six hundred million

699
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: years ago, life got big and noisy, and like Auric

700
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: Kerschbaum the zoology said, you know that no ecosystem can

701
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: exist for long with that's someone trying to take a

702
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: bite out of someone else. And so his speculation is

703
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: that things got big and noisy, and animals wanted to

704
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,240
Speaker 1: eat each other, and so then it was an advantage

705
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: to be able to hear somebody sneaking up on you

706
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: and like, is my lunch moving around in the bushes,

707
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: And so basically, as soon as life got big and noisy,

708
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:23,400
Speaker 1: hearing evolved. And so that's suggestive, right that it's not

709
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: too complicated. As soon as it was useful, boom, hearing evolved.

710
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 3: So it sounds like it evolved quickly once it became possible.

711
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 3: Do we know how many times hearing evolved.

712
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,359
Speaker 1: It's something people are working on. Still. There's a bunch

713
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,720
Speaker 1: of fascinating includes because there are different pieces of hearing

714
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:41,240
Speaker 1: that all have to come together. Like, on one hand,

715
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 1: there are lots of different kinds of ears, right like

716
00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: our ears and dogs ears and insect ears. They all

717
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:49,319
Speaker 1: look really different, and it might give you the sense

718
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: like hmm, maybe they all work really differently and they

719
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:56,760
Speaker 1: all evolved independently. But if you dig into it, underneath it,

720
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 1: there's only really two sort of fundamental mechanisms for or

721
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,320
Speaker 1: interacting with sound, even if your ears are very different shapes.

722
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: And there's the vertebrate and the invertebrate. So vertebrates basically

723
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 1: vertebrates like us have these systems of hairs like we

724
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 1: have in our ears that respond to frequencies based on

725
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: the length and the thickness of the hair. Essentially the

726
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: string tension of the hair sort of like an equalizer

727
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,359
Speaker 1: in your stereo. Right, the hair is like shake when

728
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: the right frequency comes along and unless you like basically

729
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 1: decomposed sound into frequencies super amazing biological technology. That's one mechanism.

730
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: But invertebrates, insects, et cetera, have a completely different mechanism.

731
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: They have like a drum stretched surface or that vibrates

732
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: in response to different sounds. And so there are these

733
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: two different mechanisms, and that suggests like, okay, maybe there

734
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,879
Speaker 1: were two times that hearing evolved. But then my friend

735
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,239
Speaker 1: Matt Georgiani sent me a paper suggesting that, like, underneath

736
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 1: it all, there's a biochemical pipeline there that might be

737
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 1: actually in common and so it could be that there's

738
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: one core development which gave us the need to be

739
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 1: sensitive to sound, and the rest of it is just

740
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: sort of like frosting on the cake. But you know,

741
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: this is all very fresh research. We don't really know

742
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: the answer. It's super fascinating to me that to dig

743
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: into the history of this and wonder, like how many

744
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 1: different ways of hearing evolved and then died out right,

745
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: maybe those things were outcompeted.

746
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,319
Speaker 2: It's amazing it is, and it involves chemistry.

747
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 3: So I guess if chemistry helps us understand biology, we

748
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 3: ought to give it a shot. But on that note,

749
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 3: so we've talked about hearing and how hearing differs in

750
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:32,839
Speaker 3: the animal kingdom. Let's go ahead and take a break,

751
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 3: and when we come back, we'll talk about some other

752
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 3: senses that earthlings have. All Right, So I've already complained

753
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 3: that like birds and insects can see a greater range

754
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 3: of wavelengths than I can, or at least can see

755
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 3: some wavelengths that I can't. What other things can animals

756
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 3: on this planet that I share with them? What can

757
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 3: they do that I can't, or what can they do better?

758
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,399
Speaker 1: Well, on the topic of things that birds can see

759
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: that you can't, have you heard the story of the

760
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 1: ultraviolet tits.

761
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 3: When I was interviewing for grad school in an animal

762
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:29,720
Speaker 3: behavior lab, I had not heard about great tits before,

763
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 3: which at Paris Major, this is a bird species, and

764
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 3: I had a deer in the headlights look when the

765
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 3: professor whose lab I was interviewing and asked me about

766
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 3: great tits. But anyway, I recovered eventually I thought that

767
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:46,839
Speaker 3: must be a species of some sorts and I got

768
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 3: into that person's lab. So anyway, okay, go ahead, tell

769
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 3: me about the ultra violet tits.

770
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 1: The ultraviolet tits are a species of bird that look

771
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 1: just sort of generic. They're one of these LBJs as

772
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 1: the birders call them, you know, little brown jobs. But

773
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: when they discovered is that those these birds don't look

774
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: very spectacular in the visible. In the ultraviolet, they are

775
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 1: absolutely fabulous. And they discover this using vasoline, and so

776
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:12,240
Speaker 1: they put vasiline on some of these birds. Because vasoline

777
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: is opaque to ultraviolet. You can see through it in

778
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 1: the visible, but it blocks the ultraviolet. And so birds

779
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 1: that used to be like sexually very popular when you

780
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: put vasiline on them, no longer were the ladies interested.

781
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,280
Speaker 1: And then if you take pictures of them in the ultraviolet,

782
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 1: you can see all these colors and patterns. They are

783
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: just not visible to us without ultra violet eyes. So, yes, Kelly,

784
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: you're missing out on the ultra violet tits because of

785
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: your limited eyeballs and mine, and I.

786
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 2: Am missing out on a lot of not safe for

787
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 2: work jokes.

788
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 3: But I'm going to contain myself and let's move on

789
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 3: to the next the next sense.

790
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: You know, there's some things that I think are very

791
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: well known, like bats and dolphins, for example, use echolocation

792
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: to understand what's out there in the universe. Dogs have

793
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 1: a much richer sense of smell in the universe, you know,

794
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 1: akin to like seeing other frequent these of light. Dogs

795
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: can pick up on so many tiny, microscopic amounts of things.

796
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 1: And you know what it's like to be a dog

797
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:10,720
Speaker 1: to experience the universe primarily through smell and with poor vision.

798
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: Can't even imagine. Those are fairly well known, But I

799
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:16,320
Speaker 1: think more fascinating are the things that are less familiar,

800
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: which are directly sensing fields, right, And one of the

801
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: listeners commented like, wouldn't it be amazing to be able

802
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: to sense fields directly? Magnetic fields, electric fields? And you know,

803
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 1: there's fascinating research about how birds migrate across the world

804
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: and whether they have some sort of internal compass that

805
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,359
Speaker 1: interacts with magnetic fields. And we talked about it once

806
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:38,760
Speaker 1: in the podcast before. There used to be a theory

807
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: that birds use these pairs of electrons that would flip spin,

808
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 1: and the spin flip of the electrons would change in

809
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 1: response to magnetic field that maybe they were sensing that

810
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: using some proteins in their eyes. But I think then

811
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 1: you commented that there's actually another theory or that's no

812
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 1: longer the number one theory of how birds sense magnetic fields.

813
00:39:57,200 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 3: I see lots of smart things that might be a

814
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 3: smart thing, I said, but I don't remember.

815
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 2: I do remember.

816
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 3: We were talking about humpback whales and whether or not

817
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 3: they sense magnetic fields, and the current understanding was if so,

818
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 3: we have no idea how they do it. Yeah, and

819
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,279
Speaker 3: so I don't know where we are with birds right now, but.

820
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 1: We do know that lots of fish can sense or

821
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:22,840
Speaker 1: even generate electric fields directly. Right. They have these organs

822
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: in their body they can create like electric pulses, like

823
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:27,760
Speaker 1: you're all familiar with electric eelds, right, They just generate

824
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 1: like a bolt of electricity. Well, in some cases it's

825
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: very useful to be able to sense electric fields left

826
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: by other organisms. Like our bodies all have electric fields

827
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: because our neurons work on electric currents. And so I'm

828
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: generating an electric field right now. And if I could

829
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: directly sense electric fields, I could like tell through a

830
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: wall whether somebody was at my door or stuff like that.

831
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of ways you can interact with the universe,

832
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 1: and fish do this. It's not like a hypothetical. This

833
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: is something that's out there in the universe available for

834
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: bodies to interact with, and you don't have to go

835
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:01,719
Speaker 1: to some alien planet to find an example of it,

836
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:03,320
Speaker 1: like you just have to look underwater.

837
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 3: Okay, So, as far as I know, electric fields like

838
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 3: this are only sensed by fish, and fish are aquatic.

839
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 3: Is there something about being an aquatic organism that makes

840
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 3: picking up on electric fields easier or more useful?

841
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 1: I think it's actually more difficult because water is a conductor, So,

842
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 1: for example, electromagnetic signals propagate more easily through air. But

843
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 1: I think it depends also a lot on the frequency, right,

844
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: because obviously, like photons move through water and they're electromagnetic fields,

845
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: so it must depend a lot on the frequency. Yeah,

846
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 1: it's a good question.

847
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 3: Oh apparently platypus and dolphins can also, but they are

848
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 3: aquatic organisms. And so anyway, so interesting, what a counterintuitive

849
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 3: world we live in, all right?

850
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 1: And so all of this, of course is fascinating because

851
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 1: we're curious about the biology of life on Earth. But

852
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: you know, in my book do Aliens speak physics? The

853
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 1: number one question is how do aliens think about the universe?

854
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: What mysteries of physics have they Any are they tackling

855
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: the same questions, and so this question of perception is

856
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,840
Speaker 1: important because we want to understand how aliens might see

857
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: the universe, which dictates the questions they ask and the

858
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:13,960
Speaker 1: answers that they will accept. And so all of this

859
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: of course building up to the question of you know,

860
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: how do aliens see the universe?

861
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 2: Right, the question that keeps Daniel up at night.

862
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 3: All right, and so what are some options for how

863
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 3: aliens might perceive the universe different than we do?

864
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we talked about some of them already, which

865
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: I think are pretty unlikely, you know, seeing dark matter,

866
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,720
Speaker 1: seeing neutrinos. To have an eyeball they could see neutrino,

867
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: you'd need like an eyeball the size of the Earth,

868
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 1: And it seems pretty unlikely to me that you're going

869
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: to generate that massive an organ for very little payoff.

870
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: So I think that would be very expensive. But you know,

871
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: there is another option out there that I'm kind of

872
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: surprised we don't have, and so aliens might develop it,

873
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 1: which essentially is telepathy. You know, we were talking about

874
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,320
Speaker 1: how our bodies work on electric fields. Well, you're brain

875
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: is electromagnetic, right, there's currents in your brain, and the

876
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 1: way it operates is through electromagnetism, and electromagnetism can be

877
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,839
Speaker 1: transmitted through the air and it can be received through

878
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 1: the air. Right, That's how radios work. So it's not

879
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,719
Speaker 1: conceivable that in your brain you could develop basically an

880
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:22,800
Speaker 1: antenna which can generate electromagnetic pulses not too far afield

881
00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: from what fish and eels can do, and could receive

882
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,399
Speaker 1: electromagnetic pulses. Right, And if you could do this, then

883
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,919
Speaker 1: I could send you a message brain to brain without

884
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: going through sound or without like using some hand gesture,

885
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 1: basically telepathy. And so there's no reason why we shouldn't

886
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 1: be able to communicate brain to brain. I don't know

887
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 1: why we have it. It seems pretty awesome, or maybe

888
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:44,800
Speaker 1: you'd be terrible.

889
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, first of all, when you said telepathy, I

890
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 3: thought maybe were we going to start talking about Bigfoot

891
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 3: or some other cryptid And I wasn't sure I was

892
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 3: on the right podcast. But when I was talking to

893
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 3: the Brain computer interface community, they were saying that they

894
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 3: are essentially trying to like take messa from our brains

895
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 3: and connect the messages so we can all sort of

896
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 3: like humanity as a whole could share all of our

897
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:07,320
Speaker 3: thoughts together.

898
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 2: I find that horrifying.

899
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 3: I think that I get through my life much better

900
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,479
Speaker 3: because most of my thoughts don't get shared, and only

901
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 3: the nice ones get shared.

902
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 1: I think social media is taught us that knowing what

903
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 1: fifteen year olds think is usually a bad idea.

904
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right.

905
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 3: But I wonder, so you know that these brain computer

906
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 3: interfaces I think would include a step where there's a

907
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 3: lot of processing of the electromagnetic information before it goes

908
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 3: from one brain to another. Do you think I mean, so,

909
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 3: there's so many signals that would need to get like

910
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 3: aggregated to give us a memory or a thought. Could

911
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 3: you really transmit that information from one brain to another

912
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 3: just with like the mess of electromagnetic information that comes

913
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 3: out of our brain because that information is also like

914
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 3: Kelly is breathing right now, Kelly's moving her hands. It

915
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 3: seems like it would be very muddled. It would be

916
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 3: hard to know exactly what's going on with the message.

917
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,239
Speaker 1: Well, the same question could be applied to how we

918
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: speak to each other, right, Like Daniel, how could you

919
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 1: possibly convey what it's like to smell a rose just

920
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 1: by pushing sound waves? Through the air at Kellty like

921
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,479
Speaker 1: that seems impossible, But you know there's a process there.

922
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: I think about it, I decide how to capture it.

923
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 1: I represent it somehow, I push it. You interpret it.

924
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,239
Speaker 1: Maybe it comes across wrong. It's not going to be

925
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 1: like here's Daniel's entire brain experience. It's like I'm sending

926
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: you a message. You could start with pings, you know,

927
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: morse code, something very simple. It doesn't have to be

928
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 1: like full direct access to my brain. It's just a

929
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: way for me to communicate with you without going through sounds.

930
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: So like astronauts, right, could just like talk to each

931
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:42,040
Speaker 1: other without needing radios, essentially basically biological radios. And it's

932
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 1: not impossible. I don't know why we don't have it.

933
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,720
Speaker 1: It seems like as we evolve it could have been useful,

934
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: but I guess not. I'm not an evolutionary biologist. But

935
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:52,600
Speaker 1: it also doesn't seem to me to be impossible to

936
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 1: imagine that aliens could have this kind of biological apparatus.

937
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 1: Maybe they find it useful to stay closer together or

938
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: to communicate in situations where voice or smell or site

939
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 1: is not helpful.

940
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and maybe this is the future of podcasting.

941
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:10,800
Speaker 3: We can just really think our conversations hard at the extraordinaries,

942
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,760
Speaker 3: and they'll be like they can communicate with us, like, oh, Kelly,

943
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 3: that didn't make sense.

944
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 2: Try again, Oh sorry.

945
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: Sorry braincasting. Well you can't unsubscribe.

946
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 2: Oh no.

947
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:24,200
Speaker 1: And so that's just an example, and that's you know,

948
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 1: just out of our imagination. But I think there's lots

949
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 1: of situations out there evolutionarily that could create some need

950
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 1: for something we can't yet possibly imagine. So I think

951
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 1: there's lots of possible senses out there, and some of

952
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 1: them that could be available if aliens have a very

953
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 1: different environment than ours, Like in our environment, where we're

954
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: pretty big and we're pretty slow, we're not sensitive to

955
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:50,800
Speaker 1: things like relativity, so we didn't need to be able

956
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:54,399
Speaker 1: to see directly the curvature of space and time. And

957
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: we're not sensitive to quantum mechanics, which is why it

958
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 1: took us so long to discover quantum mechanics. But now

959
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:04,879
Speaker 1: imagine super tiny aliens like microscopic aliens, and I don't

960
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 1: know how you evolve if you're super duper tiny, what

961
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 1: the biochemical infrastructure for life would look like in that scenario.

962
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 1: But if you were small enough to be able to

963
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 1: interact with photons in a quantum way into sense superposition,

964
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: so you could like taste electrons and like see quantum objects.

965
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 1: Then that would be a very different kind of sensation

966
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: of the universe. It would give you a very different

967
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 1: window into how the universe works. And so then you

968
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 1: just have to imagine like very different environments different from ours.

969
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: You know, vast aliens who are made of dark matter

970
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: and are as big as solar systems. Why not aliens

971
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 1: whose life works on very very long time scales instead

972
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:48,840
Speaker 1: of short like hours, you know, where the solar system

973
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 1: looks chaotic instead of you know, slow and stately the

974
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:54,480
Speaker 1: way it does on our time scales. It's so hard

975
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 1: to imagine these things because we're in our little human box.

976
00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:59,839
Speaker 3: When you said earlier that you'd like to be able

977
00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:03,319
Speaker 3: to perceive objects in superposition, would you give up any

978
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 3: of your current senses to be able to see that?

979
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:07,279
Speaker 2: If so, which one?

980
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I cannot imagine giving up taste or

981
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: smell or sight or sound. So yeah, no, I don't know.

982
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 4: I can't.

983
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 3: I have it all killy, because thought experiments are meant

984
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:23,840
Speaker 3: to be tough.

985
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 2: I guess.

986
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 1: And you know, as interesting as it is to imagine

987
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: the biology of these things, would it evolve underwe situations?

988
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 1: Might it evolve?

989
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 4: To me?

990
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: The reason these questions are important is because it shapes

991
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 1: how we think about the universe. Like we were saying earlier,

992
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: you take a picture of the universe in the infrared,

993
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:45,920
Speaker 1: you translated into the visible. When we detect gravitational waves

994
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: from the rest of the universe, typically they're translated into sound,

995
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:52,879
Speaker 1: so we can listen to the gravitational waves. Of course,

996
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 1: sound doesn't propagate through space gliding. Black holes do not

997
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: chirp as they eat each other. But that's how we

998
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:03,319
Speaker 1: can make sense of it, right. And the lesson there

999
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 1: is the kind of senses that we have determine the

1000
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 1: model of the universe we build in our brain. They determine,

1001
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 1: like what's intuitive for us, as we've been talking on

1002
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:15,280
Speaker 1: the podcast a lot recently, what kind of answers we accept.

1003
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: You know, if you ask me a question about the

1004
00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: universe and I explain it to you in ways that

1005
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 1: are intuitive, you're like, Okay, yeah, that makes sense. This

1006
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: planet goes around that planet. I can imagine it and

1007
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:27,360
Speaker 1: it clicks together in my mind. Well, the kind of

1008
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:30,399
Speaker 1: explanations that you accept depend on the kind of ways

1009
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:33,359
Speaker 1: you experience the universe, because that determines the language of

1010
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:36,400
Speaker 1: your intuition. And so if you are a quantum alien

1011
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:39,399
Speaker 1: or a dark matter being, or you can see neutrinos,

1012
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 1: or you can hear other people's thoughts in your mind,

1013
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 1: you could have a very different way to experience the universe,

1014
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: which affects the questions, but then also fundamentally, it can

1015
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:50,799
Speaker 1: affect the answers that you accept and the way you

1016
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 1: think about the universe, and therefore the kind of theories

1017
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 1: you build about the universe.

1018
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 3: So if you've listened to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe

1019
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:02,880
Speaker 3: for thirty seconds ever, you know that Daniel loves aliens,

1020
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 3: and he did an incredible amount of work for do

1021
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 3: Aliens speak physics? And he interviewed a ton of different specialists,

1022
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 3: and of course the chapter where he talked to the

1023
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:15,120
Speaker 3: biologist is the best chapter in.

1024
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 2: A fantastic book.

1025
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 3: Although I got to say that chapter and how hard

1026
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:21,440
Speaker 3: it has been to translate other languages, was also particularly

1027
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 3: like fascinating and at a bunch of stuff I didn't know.

1028
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:27,839
Speaker 3: So anyway, I highly recommend do Aliens speak physics if

1029
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 3: you want to hear more on Daniel's thoughts both scientific

1030
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 3: and philosophical, for what it would be like if we

1031
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 3: were to encounter aliens and how we might be able

1032
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 3: to communicate with them.

1033
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 1: And there's lots of really fun drawings in there by

1034
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 1: my friend Andy Warner. He did an incredible job of

1035
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 1: imagining what these aliens might look like.

1036
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 2: Super fun.

1037
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 1: Thanks very much everybody for going on this tour of

1038
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 1: potential ways aliens might sense the universe and how it

1039
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:53,279
Speaker 1: could shape the way that they understand it. This is

1040
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:55,840
Speaker 1: part of our journey to understand what we do know

1041
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:58,359
Speaker 1: about the universe and what we are missing out on.

1042
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:00,400
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, everybody.

1043
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:00,879
Speaker 2: See you next time.

1044
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:11,320
Speaker 3: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio.

1045
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you.

1046
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: We really would. We want to know what questions you

1047
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:18,920
Speaker 1: have about this Extraordinary Universe.

1048
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 3: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1049
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 3: for future shows.

1050
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,440
Speaker 2: If you contact us, we will get back to you.

1051
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1052
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:32,400
Speaker 1: at questions at Danielandkelly.

1053
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 2: Dot org, or you can find us on social media.

1054
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 3: We have accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky, and on

1055
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 3: all of those platforms.

1056
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 2: You can find us at D and Kuniverse.

1057
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:43,279
Speaker 1: Don't be shy, write to us,