Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's not Saturday,
Speaker 1: but we are going to be airing a vault episode
Speaker 1: today to help us get through some holiday outages. Uh
Speaker 1: so this is going to be the episode that originally aired.
Speaker 1: What date was this, Rob, This would have been uh four,
Speaker 1: six early pandemic days. I think this was one where
Speaker 1: so this is an interview with the physicists Brian Green,
Speaker 1: who had written a great book called Until the End
Speaker 1: of Time. But I think this is one where my
Speaker 1: my internet failed and I had to duck out at
Speaker 1: the last minute before the interview. But you you bravely
Speaker 1: soldiered on. Robert. Yeah, that's right, we had we had
Speaker 1: we both prepared some questions to ask him, so I
Speaker 1: ended up asking questions on your behalf. And I can't
Speaker 1: remember if we went and went back and re recorded
Speaker 1: you so that you were asking your own questions, or
Speaker 1: we just talked about doing that. I don't remember how
Speaker 1: it came together, as is the case for a lot
Speaker 1: of you. Um that month is kind of a blur,
Speaker 1: but we managed to pull it off and it was
Speaker 1: a fun chat. I think I might have rerecorded my questions.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but if if you hear me sounding
Speaker 1: weird in this episode, that's why. Yeah. I think one
Speaker 1: day we'll just put together a super cut of us
Speaker 1: doing uh uh, you know, introduction chats with our guests
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, where we talked through our technical problems
Speaker 1: and what the headphones we have and where we're recording.
Speaker 1: Um is a but probably a lot of amusing behind
Speaker 1: the scenes stuff there that would be massively entertaining to
Speaker 1: all the people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, alright, Well, anyway, we
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: today we're bringing you an interview with the physicist and
Speaker 1: author Brian Green. This one was a real treat, except
Speaker 1: we did have a major audio snag that did mean
Speaker 1: that I was not able to be on the call
Speaker 1: during this interview. So if you hear any kind of
Speaker 1: like uh, weird sound shenanigans going on in the moments
Speaker 1: my questions come in, will be real with you. It's
Speaker 1: because I had to go back and record them later.
Speaker 1: But Robert, you you did me a great honor and
Speaker 1: asking my questions for me during the interview. So thank
Speaker 1: you for doing that. Uh, Robert, what was it like
Speaker 1: speaking to Brian Green? I have to ask, Uh, it
Speaker 1: was it was pretty great. I had I had interviewed
Speaker 1: him once before at the World Science Festival. The World
Speaker 1: Science Festival for anyone who who doesn't know it doesn't remember,
Speaker 1: is uh is this awesome gathering of of minds that
Speaker 1: happens every year in New York. But then it is
Speaker 1: then all these different panel conversations about these mind blowing
Speaker 1: topics they go out on the internet, um over you know,
Speaker 1: the months to follow. And so I had I had
Speaker 1: talked to him briefly about black holes, kind of a rushed,
Speaker 1: you know, busy kind of interview, and that was a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. But this was this was a
Speaker 1: lot more relaxed, Like I was talking from my closet.
Speaker 1: He was talking from you know, I think a study
Speaker 1: or or or some similar room in his own home.
Speaker 1: And so it felt felt a bit more laid back,
Speaker 1: uh this time around, though it was of course, you know, disappointing.
Speaker 1: We weren't able to have you in there as well, Joe.
Speaker 1: But more to the point, Brian is just, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a brilliant mind. He's you know, one of the best
Speaker 1: known proponents, if not the best known proponent living proponent
Speaker 1: of superstring theory. UH. The co founder of the World
Speaker 1: Science Foundation, UH, Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Department of
Speaker 1: Mathematics at Columbia University in New York City, and he's
Speaker 1: the author of several books UM The Elegant Universe in
Speaker 1: UM The Fabric of the Cosmos in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: Acharus at the Edge of Time in two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: which is a children's book, UH that that you know,
Speaker 1: breaks down black holes for young readers. UH, there's the
Speaker 1: Hidden Reality, Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the
Speaker 1: Cosmos from eleven, and then his latest book, UH one
Speaker 1: of the main reasons we uh, we decided to chat
Speaker 1: with in this episode until the end of time mind
Speaker 1: matter in our search for meaning in an evolving universe.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this book. One thing I was surprised
Speaker 1: by is how many subjects he gets into. This book
Speaker 1: is about the idea of of finitude and impermanence and
Speaker 1: he so he of course explores physics, you know, the
Speaker 1: history of the universe and the future fade of the universe, uh,
Speaker 1: in a physical sense, but he also spends a lot
Speaker 1: of time talking about like the social sciences and the
Speaker 1: humanities and our obsession with living forever or or with
Speaker 1: impermanence and loss and uh. And I found it a
Speaker 1: really interesting and actually kind of beautiful book. Yeah I
Speaker 1: I'm going to stress this again during the interview to itself.
Speaker 1: But if you are hesitant about picking up this book
Speaker 1: because you're thinking, oh, it's it's a book by physicist,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be it's just gonna be a bunch of
Speaker 1: physics stuff. It's gonna be about black holes. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be hard to relate. No, no, no, this book is
Speaker 1: is very relatable. It's you know, what's somewhere in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood of three hundred and something pages, but but covers
Speaker 1: a lot of ground and a lot of relatable ground,
Speaker 1: getting into you know, at times, how the how, how
Speaker 1: the how, how our brains contemplate the cosmos, where religion
Speaker 1: comes from, uh, you know, the the role of scientific
Speaker 1: investigation in our sort of you know, quest to deal
Speaker 1: with the undeniable reality of mortality in our lives. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He even gets into realms like like philosophy of mind
Speaker 1: and like you know, the cognitive science of religion, which
Speaker 1: we talked about on the show a good bit and
Speaker 1: and uh and mythology and all that. And I would
Speaker 1: say I was really impressed. He does a really good
Speaker 1: synthesis of complex topics that are outside his field. And um,
Speaker 1: I thought it was just a really thoroughly informative and entertaining,
Speaker 1: uh journey to go on. Yeah. And of course, if
Speaker 1: if anyone out there is if you are familiar with
Speaker 1: the World Science Festival, then you you get a you
Speaker 1: have a taste of the sort of interest Brian has
Speaker 1: because you see the sort of topics that are covered
Speaker 1: at World Science Festival. Uh, the diverse array of individuals
Speaker 1: who are who gathered gathered there to discuss these topics.
Speaker 1: And I think that's reflected in this book especially, So
Speaker 1: highly recommend the book. It is available now. I think
Speaker 1: in all formats you can get a you know, kindle edition.
Speaker 1: I think the audio book is available. Uh. So it's
Speaker 1: a it's a great book for any time. I think
Speaker 1: it's especially a good book for our current reality. Totally alright, Well,
Speaker 1: without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Brian. Your
Speaker 1: new book is Until the End of Time, which is
Speaker 1: an incredible title because there's this literal expectation of cracking
Speaker 1: open a book with a name like that written by
Speaker 1: a noted physicist. But there's there's also the personal aspect
Speaker 1: of that title and the religious connotations of the phrase,
Speaker 1: you know, all of which are a major part of
Speaker 1: the book as well. How did all of this come
Speaker 1: together in your your writing of Until the End of Time? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a book that I've been thinking about in one
Speaker 1: form or another for maybe thirty years, slowly gestating and
Speaker 1: really recognizing the power of having a cosmic perspective where
Speaker 1: you see your life as we all do in the
Speaker 1: everyday sense of human experience, but you're able to tell
Speaker 1: a parallel story where you recognize that you are part
Speaker 1: of this grand cosmic convolting that reaches back to the
Speaker 1: Big Bang and goes as far as our equations can
Speaker 1: take us into the far future. And the depth of
Speaker 1: perspective that that can provide is I think quite gratifying,
Speaker 1: and that really was a motivation for writing the book
Speaker 1: so that people can see their lives within a whole
Speaker 1: variety of stories. The reductions to count, to the physicist,
Speaker 1: all the way to the cosmological account of the astronomer.
Speaker 1: You eve a wonderful interconnected tapestry of these subjects. But
Speaker 1: but I do wonder did anyone try to dissuade you
Speaker 1: from writing a book that covers ultimately the entirety of
Speaker 1: human history and the known universe in a single volume. No.
Speaker 1: But the usual reaction before had written the book was
Speaker 1: how many volumes is it going to be? Is it
Speaker 1: ten thousand pages? You know, there was a limit to
Speaker 1: the number of words that anybody in a single lifetime
Speaker 1: will be willing or able to read. Those sort of
Speaker 1: equips were quite common. But the the idea of say
Speaker 1: a three hundred page book, an ordinary length book taking
Speaker 1: on cosmology, the origin of the universe, the origin of life,
Speaker 1: the origin of mind, the meaning of consciousness, theorizing of language,
Speaker 1: the telling of stories, the origin of myth, the origins
Speaker 1: of religion, how that interweaves with human culture, creative expression,
Speaker 1: and then onto the developments from today until time, scales
Speaker 1: that are so fantastically long that we don't even have
Speaker 1: names for the numbers that describe the durations that we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, it's a it's a hefty chronicle. But
Speaker 1: being able to sit down and read it in three
Speaker 1: hundred pages to me with the point that you would
Speaker 1: be able to see all of these unfoldings in a
Speaker 1: reasonable period of time with minimal effort and to recognize
Speaker 1: your place within it. Yes, And I do want to
Speaker 1: stress to our our readers, our listeners rather that it
Speaker 1: is a very very readable book. It's just there's you know,
Speaker 1: it contains a dense amount of information, I guess, but
Speaker 1: it is um uh. One never feels overwhelmed by all
Speaker 1: of this data. It's it's presented in a wonderfully and
Speaker 1: at times personable way. Yes, thank you. A core theme
Speaker 1: of this book is the concept of entropy. Entropy is
Speaker 1: kind of the evil sorcerer driving the magic of impermanence.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes people get confused when they hear
Speaker 1: about entropy as tending toward disorder. You know, it's often
Speaker 1: defined as as the tendency of things to move into
Speaker 1: disorder because order and disorder seem like subjective concepts depending
Speaker 1: on human judgment and in the book. You have a
Speaker 1: wonderful way of explaining entropy in terms of statistics. It's
Speaker 1: a way that makes clear how it's actually an objective phenomenon,
Speaker 1: not depending on what feels orderly to a human observer.
Speaker 1: Can you explain this here? Yes, And the quantitative version
Speaker 1: of entropy does rely upon and resonate quite strongly with
Speaker 1: the qualitative version that you just described. So roughly speaking,
Speaker 1: when we talk about entropy, we're talking about disorder. And
Speaker 1: the second law of thermodynamics is this idea that things
Speaker 1: tend to go from order toward disorder. That's the natural
Speaker 1: direction in which events unfold. And when you want to
Speaker 1: make this more precise, because you're right when you hear that,
Speaker 1: you're like, come on, physicists talking about like order and disorder.
Speaker 1: You know, there doesn't seem to be enough rigor in
Speaker 1: that kind of description, But we can make it quite
Speaker 1: rigorous in the following sense. When things are highly ordered,
Speaker 1: if you arrange the ingredients, you typically mess up that order. Right,
Speaker 1: If your books are all in nice alphabetical order, someone
Speaker 1: comes along when you're not looking and sort of rearranges
Speaker 1: a few books. It's obvious that things have changed because
Speaker 1: they're no longer in that nice orderly progression from A
Speaker 1: to Z. So that's a situation in which there are
Speaker 1: very few rearrangements that would leave the system unchanged. And
Speaker 1: that counting of the number of rearrangements is what we
Speaker 1: mean by low disorder. On the contrary, if those books,
Speaker 1: if they're all just kind of, you know, thrown in
Speaker 1: a heap on your desk, someone comes along and they
Speaker 1: rearrange the disordered mess you'll never even know that they
Speaker 1: were there, because that rearrange mint and a whole host
Speaker 1: of other rearrangements leave the messing looking heap of books
Speaker 1: looking like a messy heap of books. So in that case,
Speaker 1: there are many rearrangements that leave the system looking pretty
Speaker 1: much unchanged. And so what we physicists do We simply count.
Speaker 1: It's accounting exercise. Give us a system, will count how
Speaker 1: many rearrangements of the ingredients leave it looking the same unchanged,
Speaker 1: versus how many leave it looking changed. And a disordered
Speaker 1: system high entropy means there are many rearrangements that have
Speaker 1: no impact. An ordered system low entropy means are very
Speaker 1: few rearrangements that leave it looking the same. That's how
Speaker 1: we make it precise. Why is it that seemingly orderly
Speaker 1: structures like stars, planets, and life forms are not violations
Speaker 1: of the universe's tendency toward disorder. Yeah, that's a big
Speaker 1: that's a big puzzle, and it's certainly an issue that
Speaker 1: I spend some time on in the book because it's
Speaker 1: one of the critical questions to ask and one of
Speaker 1: the important questions to answer. And here's how the answer goes.
Speaker 1: This law of thermodynamics, the second law that says that
Speaker 1: things go from order to disorder, says that, in an
Speaker 1: overall sense, if you look at the entirety of a
Speaker 1: physical system, or let's just be grandiose, the entirety of
Speaker 1: the universe, over time, the entirety will go from order
Speaker 1: toward disorder. But that does not prevent little pockets of
Speaker 1: order from forming here and there, so long as in
Speaker 1: the process of those orderly formations coming together, they release
Speaker 1: enough heat and waste and disorder to the environment to
Speaker 1: compensate for the order that happens in that local environment.
Speaker 1: And stars are the perfect example. You've got this gas
Speaker 1: is floating in space. Gravity has the capacity to pull
Speaker 1: things together, and as the gas comes together, it ultimately
Speaker 1: ign Night's nuclear processes because it becomes so hot and
Speaker 1: dense through the gravitational pull driving it into an ever
Speaker 1: smaller region of space. And that actually is an orderly configuration.
Speaker 1: But in the process of that orderly configuration forming, heat
Speaker 1: and light is given off by the birth of the star,
Speaker 1: and that heat and light spreads to the wider environment,
Speaker 1: injecting disorder into the surroundings, and that disorder in the
Speaker 1: surroundings compensates and more than compensates for the order that's
Speaker 1: formed in the star itself. And I call this the
Speaker 1: entropic two step. What it is, it's kind of a dance. Right,
Speaker 1: You've got order happening here, right, you've got disorder happening here.
Speaker 1: And if they choreographed their dance in the right way,
Speaker 1: then the overall entropy goes up, even though you can
Speaker 1: have orderly structures form in the process. Some of my
Speaker 1: favorite passages in the book concern it's core templation of impermanence. Specifically,
Speaker 1: when you get into into discussions of consciousness and the
Speaker 1: human experience and religion, you write that you're you remain
Speaker 1: partial to Stephen J. Gould's take that quote, all religion
Speaker 1: began with an awareness of death. Can you expound on this, Well,
Speaker 1: religion is this wondrous, really human construct that allows us
Speaker 1: to cope with some of the most difficult of challenges
Speaker 1: that we face. In the most difficult challenge of all
Speaker 1: is the realization that we are impermanent, the realization that
Speaker 1: we will all die, and early on religion came up
Speaker 1: with a number of very powerful ways of dealing with
Speaker 1: that singular realization. I mean, think about it. There are
Speaker 1: species on the planet that react to death, elephants more,
Speaker 1: and they're dead. But I don't think that their elephants
Speaker 1: that are walking around saying, wow, I'm going to die
Speaker 1: one day, what's the point of being here? And then
Speaker 1: what's it all about? I don't think that they take
Speaker 1: it in in that way, while we humans do. And
Speaker 1: so religion came up with or provided us a number
Speaker 1: of ways of dealing with that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't view death as the end, if you
Speaker 1: view death as a stepping stone to another existence, another life,
Speaker 1: well that certainly is is something that is deeply consoling.
Speaker 1: Right if you think of death as one of a
Speaker 1: cycle of births and death and rebirths, So that again
Speaker 1: it's just part of this ongoing cyclical process that ultimately
Speaker 1: will take it to some promised state of being, some
Speaker 1: state of calm, nirvana, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: That's another powerful way of dealing with this realization. So
Speaker 1: within almost every religion is some means of coping with death.
Speaker 1: And that's why Steve even Jay Gould described religions as
Speaker 1: originating in the realization of our own mortality. And to me,
Speaker 1: it's a very powerful tool that some rely upon in
Speaker 1: order to cope with a devastating recognition of mortality. And
Speaker 1: do you see that as part of the the human
Speaker 1: condition reflected in the pursuit of science as well? I do.
Speaker 1: In a different way. We scientists are are driven to
Speaker 1: understand where we came from, how we develop, how we evolve,
Speaker 1: how the universe will evolve, or driven to find the
Speaker 1: deep laws that undergird existence. And look, different scientists will
Speaker 1: do this for different reasons, but I can speak personally.
Speaker 1: I am driven at a fundamental level by the recognition
Speaker 1: of the finite time that I have here, and I
Speaker 1: deeply want to know as much as I can about
Speaker 1: how I find myself in this predicament at all, and
Speaker 1: I want to understand, and it's a beautiful story when
Speaker 1: you understand it. How the Big Bank gave rise to galaxy, stars, planets,
Speaker 1: and ultimately life. I deeply want to understand how life
Speaker 1: emerge and how consciousness flourishes within certain of those living systems.
Speaker 1: I mean, we are conscious beings and that's where our
Speaker 1: footprint in reality has it's it's it's impact right without consciousness,
Speaker 1: as as a number of great thinkers across the ages
Speaker 1: have said, you've got nothing, and so deeply understanding the
Speaker 1: sequence of events that led us to this place where
Speaker 1: we can look out and wonder and ask questions and
Speaker 1: and experience each other and experience beauty. To me in
Speaker 1: the brief flash of time that I have here, I
Speaker 1: want to understand that as fully as possible. So, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this wonderful sociology social anthropologist Ernest Becker. I've had
Speaker 1: a great impact on me back when I read his work,
Speaker 1: and I guess it was the seventies and eighties, a
Speaker 1: long time ago now. And you know he said in
Speaker 1: a book called The Denial of Death that all of
Speaker 1: human activity can be traced to trying to cope with
Speaker 1: this realization that we have these minds that can soar
Speaker 1: to the edge of the universe, and yet after a
Speaker 1: century we are put into the ground and we're turned
Speaker 1: into dust. That is a stunning collision of perspective, and
Speaker 1: we struggle to make sense of it. All right, we
Speaker 1: need to take a quick break, but we will be
Speaker 1: right back with more thank and we're back in chapter seven,
Speaker 1: Brains and Belief. You follow the evolution of religious thought
Speaker 1: and you compare it to scientific investigation, specifically mathematics and physics.
Speaker 1: Could you speak to the basic similarities as you see them,
Speaker 1: between Eastern religious cosmologies and science, as well as where
Speaker 1: the often popularized similarities in Well, that's right. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people are fond of citing parallels between insights
Speaker 1: that emerged from Eastern religions, Eastern philosophies, and things that
Speaker 1: have emerged in science, and in fact, in the book
Speaker 1: I described a little bit of how you know, My
Speaker 1: older brother is Hari Krishna dev devotee and has been
Speaker 1: for decades, and certainly in the early days of his
Speaker 1: involvement in that practice, when we would talk about work
Speaker 1: I was doing in cosmology or physics, it was not
Speaker 1: infrequent for him to say to me how we already
Speaker 1: know all that you know? It's in this or that
Speaker 1: Vedic text, which I found both curious and frustrating at
Speaker 1: the same time. And when I followed some of those
Speaker 1: through I understood where he was coming from. There was
Speaker 1: a resident of language and perspective that you do find
Speaker 1: between some of the things that we seek and some
Speaker 1: of the things that have been sought after by thinkers
Speaker 1: throughout the ages. We asked similar questions. In science, we
Speaker 1: answer those questions with mathematics and with experiment and with observation.
Speaker 1: And that's the way in which we feel that we're
Speaker 1: making progress. And we can write down an equation that
Speaker 1: can predict things about the universe that happened, you know,
Speaker 1: billions of years ago, and then we look out in
Speaker 1: the night sky to see what we think should be
Speaker 1: the remnant of those processes from thirteen billion years ago.
Speaker 1: And when we see those things out in the night
Speaker 1: sky today, we say, wow. We we we seem to
Speaker 1: understand something may not be the full truth, but we're
Speaker 1: heading towards truth. And and the issue with Eastern philosophy
Speaker 1: and Eastern religions is much of it emerges from introspection,
Speaker 1: from an inner journey to understand the human reaction to
Speaker 1: the universe, and so the barometer of of success and
Speaker 1: truth is quite different. The barometer of truth is, you know,
Speaker 1: does it feel right? Does it seem that this gives
Speaker 1: me a better sense of how I fit within the
Speaker 1: wider world. Those are important questions, but they're different questions
Speaker 1: from the ones that we answer or at least try
Speaker 1: to answer in science. And I will stress right here
Speaker 1: and this is vitally. I think both are crucial to
Speaker 1: having a full experience of the world. If you stop
Speaker 1: with understanding the objective world through the language of mathematics
Speaker 1: and observation and experiment, that's all that you do. You've
Speaker 1: cut off the dominant thing that makes us who we are,
Speaker 1: which is our inner world, our inner experience. So I
Speaker 1: think you really need to blend the insights from all
Speaker 1: of these perspectives in order to have the fullest experience
Speaker 1: of reality. In one of the early chapters of the book,
Speaker 1: you mentioned as in the side that physicists to use
Speaker 1: not just what they know, not just proven theories and
Speaker 1: mathematical reasoning to drive their research focus, but also what
Speaker 1: you call a hard to describe intuitive mathematical sensibility. Now,
Speaker 1: I know you say it's hard to describe, but can
Speaker 1: you talk anymore about this kind of physicist's intuition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I was getting myself off the hook by
Speaker 1: objecting the hard to explain there, but but I'll do
Speaker 1: my best. When you're trained in the language of mathematics,
Speaker 1: you acquire a sense of which mathematical sentences are good.
Speaker 1: Ones are sharp, ones are effective, ones are economical, ones
Speaker 1: are beautiful, ones are elegant ones. It's like in English,
Speaker 1: like we all are trained in a natural language. I mean,
Speaker 1: you and I both speak English, maybe speak other languages too,
Speaker 1: but in English we can recognize those sentences that are
Speaker 1: are special. Right. We can read Shakespeare here and we
Speaker 1: recognize what a turn of phrase that was in king Lear.
Speaker 1: Or we can read Whitman and say, wow, what a
Speaker 1: collection of words to put together in that line of
Speaker 1: that poem and say leaves of grass or whatever it
Speaker 1: is that moves us. Similarly, we can do that as
Speaker 1: as scientists, as as mathematicians. And what we have found,
Speaker 1: and this is the danger this is the danger zone.
Speaker 1: What we found over the years is that those mathematical
Speaker 1: sentences that have the cleanest, most economical, widest explanatory reach,
Speaker 1: with the fewest number of assumptions, the fewest number of
Speaker 1: instructions other sentences that you need to combine them with
Speaker 1: to make sense of them. They seem to be the
Speaker 1: mathematical sentences that describe reality. And why I say that's
Speaker 1: dangerous is because it could easily be that our mathematical
Speaker 1: esthetic sensibility changes or time, so that those sentences and
Speaker 1: math that have proven relevant to the world are the
Speaker 1: ones that strike us as beautiful and elegant. It could
Speaker 1: well be this feedback loop, and so you have to
Speaker 1: be very careful using this approach in trying to go
Speaker 1: forward and understanding things. But when you're doing your cutting
Speaker 1: into research at the frontier of understanding, and you don't
Speaker 1: have experiment and you don't have observation yet to guide you,
Speaker 1: that mathematical aesthetic sense is what we often do make
Speaker 1: use of in order to go forward. So you've at
Speaker 1: times described yourself as a reductionist. In common usage, I
Speaker 1: think this label is often a pejorative. It's um It's
Speaker 1: what you call somebody when you mean that they're ignoring
Speaker 1: important qualities, nuances, or context in the course of explaining something.
Speaker 1: Obviously you don't mean it in this pejorative sense. So
Speaker 1: what is the scientific project of reductionism and how does
Speaker 1: it in fluence the way you see the world. Well,
Speaker 1: the project is quite straightforward. It's attempting to reduce reductionism,
Speaker 1: trying to reduce all physical phenomenon, matter, and the processes
Speaker 1: that happen in the world, reduce them to their most
Speaker 1: fundamental ingredients, the most fundamental constituents, and the fundamental laws
Speaker 1: that govern how those constituents interact with each other, how
Speaker 1: they come together into larger agglomerations that ultimately yield structures
Speaker 1: like stars, desks, planets, microphones, computer screens, and everything else
Speaker 1: that we experience in the world around us. Now, you're right,
Speaker 1: the phrase reductionists is often used as a pejorative and
Speaker 1: the reason for that is partly maybe one of our
Speaker 1: own making. Sometimes we scientists, when we speak of reductionism,
Speaker 1: we end the conversation with the reductionist perspective, as if
Speaker 1: that's all you ever need to know to understand the
Speaker 1: deep qualities of reality. What we really mean by that,
Speaker 1: or again, maybe I should speak for myself. People have
Speaker 1: different views. What I mean by that is the reductionist
Speaker 1: account the ingredients, and the laws provides the rock bottom
Speaker 1: substrate on which reality is then built. And I fully
Speaker 1: do believe that everything, people to planets are nothing but
Speaker 1: collections of particles, large collections governed by physical law. But
Speaker 1: I also saying, exactly the same breath, with the same
Speaker 1: level of intensity, that you need to invoke other layers
Speaker 1: of description that are more appropriate to the kinds of
Speaker 1: questions that may interest you at other layers of reality.
Speaker 1: So the chemist comes along and says, yeah, you physicists,
Speaker 1: you talk about those fundamental particles, but I want to
Speaker 1: talk about things that the level of adams and molecules. Fantastic.
Speaker 1: The biologists comes along and says, look, your physicists, your
Speaker 1: chemists assure, but I want to talk about things with
Speaker 1: the level of cells and organ ells and the prophecies
Speaker 1: that are underlying life. And yes, that's the right language
Speaker 1: and the right level of description to use. And the
Speaker 1: psychologist comes along, and the neuroscientist comes along and says,
Speaker 1: I want to understand things at the level of human experience,
Speaker 1: like what's happening in the brain. And so those are
Speaker 1: the ingredients, and that's the language that those scientists and
Speaker 1: those thinkers will use, and then the philosophers and the
Speaker 1: humanists come along and they say, great, you physicists and scientists,
Speaker 1: you talk about the underlying structure. But I want to
Speaker 1: talk about things like human reflection and love and grief
Speaker 1: and achievement and aspiration and and all those things that
Speaker 1: occur up here at the human level. And you should
Speaker 1: use that language, and you should describe reality in those terms.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't make any sense to talk about the experience
Speaker 1: of grief at the level of atoms, molecules, particles, and
Speaker 1: Maxwell's equations of electro magnetism, right, You wouldn't gain the
Speaker 1: kind of insight that you want. But the point that
Speaker 1: I make in the book is that these stories are
Speaker 1: not distinct in the sense that the physicists reductions account
Speaker 1: threads through all of those stories, and it can give
Speaker 1: you surprising insights even up here at the human level.
Speaker 1: I would never want to use it as a substitute
Speaker 1: for Shakespeare, or for Rembrandt, or for Picasso, the or Beethoven,
Speaker 1: the kinds of creations that deeply affect us as human beings.
Speaker 1: I don't want to describe that in terms of molecules
Speaker 1: and atoms, but in principle you could, and that in
Speaker 1: principle can give you some insights into particular the issue
Speaker 1: of free will and so so there are connections between
Speaker 1: these stories. But if you leave out the upper levels
Speaker 1: and you focus solely on the reductions account, you deserve
Speaker 1: to use it as a pejorative because you're missing out
Speaker 1: on so many other qualities that are better described in
Speaker 1: different languages. Let's talk about entropy in the long term
Speaker 1: fate of the universe. What is the fate ultimately of
Speaker 1: beings that can think, Well, it's a question that we
Speaker 1: can address at least under the assumption that our current
Speaker 1: understanding of the laws of physics and our current understanding
Speaker 1: of the matter that makes up reality, that that is
Speaker 1: a good description that will continue to hold arbitrarily far
Speaker 1: into the future. If it doesn't, then then radically different
Speaker 1: things might happen, But we'll be shooting in the dark
Speaker 1: with our current level of understanding to conjecture what those
Speaker 1: alternative futures might be. So if you grant me that
Speaker 1: that I can use my current understanding of things to
Speaker 1: go forward, then you can show that roughly by about
Speaker 1: ten to the fifty or so years from now, it's
Speaker 1: a big number. Right, we're now about ten to the
Speaker 1: ten years from the Big Bang, and that difference of
Speaker 1: forty is in the exponent so it's not forty more years, right,
Speaker 1: it's multiplying it by tent at the forty which is
Speaker 1: a huge factor. So very very far in the future,
Speaker 1: you can argue, as actually Freeman Dyson, great physicist, once did,
Speaker 1: that the process of thought considered to be a process
Speaker 1: of computation, and that's really what each individual thought is.
Speaker 1: It's taking some inputs and it's yielding some outputs. That
Speaker 1: physical process necessarily is an entropically increasing process. Second thermodynamics,
Speaker 1: which means it necessarily yields waste heat, and that waste
Speaker 1: heat needs to be admitted to the wider world. And
Speaker 1: we do that all the time. Right. If you had
Speaker 1: a nice infrared camera on me right now, in my head,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking hard to answer your questions, and you'd see
Speaker 1: the heat coming off of my head. Right. We know
Speaker 1: that like the military infrared goggles, you know that imagery
Speaker 1: that that you can see that heat emanating from biological source.
Speaker 1: Now in the far future, you can argue that the
Speaker 1: universe at some point will not be able to absorb
Speaker 1: that heat, It will be kind of stuffed with as
Speaker 1: much as it can hold, and at that point of
Speaker 1: thinking being thinks one more thought, it will not be
Speaker 1: able to admit the heat, so it will burn up
Speaker 1: in the entropic waste generated by the very process of
Speaker 1: thought itself. So that's the sense in which thought will
Speaker 1: come to an end under the assumptions that we're making.
Speaker 1: Thought is not something that will be able to last
Speaker 1: into eternity. And does that does that change the way
Speaker 1: you or or affect the way you view the you know,
Speaker 1: our current lives. What does that make what we do
Speaker 1: you know, pointless? Or does it make what we do
Speaker 1: more beautiful? I know you get into this a little
Speaker 1: bit in the book. I do, and in many ways
Speaker 1: it's the main point of the whole narrative is to
Speaker 1: address that question. Because a natural reaction certainly is, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's all going to go away, if matter is
Speaker 1: going to disintegrate, if everythinking being will ultimately I think
Speaker 1: it's final thought, then what's the point of it all?
Speaker 1: Because I think many of us, and certainly I for
Speaker 1: a long time, even if implicitly imagine that the importance
Speaker 1: of a life or thinking personally in my own life
Speaker 1: is that I'd leave some kind of mark, some kind
Speaker 1: of legacy, either through my family and my kids, or
Speaker 1: maybe through my work or through some kind of interaction
Speaker 1: that would continue to ripple through the unfolding of the future,
Speaker 1: having less and less impact over time, but nevertheless still
Speaker 1: having an imprint out there, even if just in some
Speaker 1: modest implicit way. But if there's no thinking beings left
Speaker 1: in the far future, like like, what's the point? And
Speaker 1: I went through a dark period in my own life
Speaker 1: coming into terms with this question, but ultimately had kind
Speaker 1: of I don't I don't know what the right word is.
Speaker 1: An epiphany, uh, spiritual moment. I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: right language is. But there was a moment when I
Speaker 1: kind of shifted my perspective radically and quickly to the
Speaker 1: recognition that it's actually more powerful to recognize that we
Speaker 1: have this little cosmic oasis in the unfolding of the
Speaker 1: universe in which living beings and thinking beings can exist.
Speaker 1: It's as if the universe rises up for a brief
Speaker 1: moment and is able to look around and contemplate itself,
Speaker 1: and we are the beings that allow that contemplation to
Speaker 1: take place, and when you do that contemplation and recognize
Speaker 1: that you are the result of quantum processes stretching back
Speaker 1: to the beginning, each of which that could have turned
Speaker 1: out like that way instead of this yielding a world
Speaker 1: in which we would not be here. You recognize it's
Speaker 1: astonishing that we are here, against astounding odds, we exist.
Speaker 1: And it's even more than that. We are these special
Speaker 1: collections that can think and reflect, and we can we
Speaker 1: can do things right. We can have these conversations, we
Speaker 1: can join into powerful coalitions that can do things that
Speaker 1: the individual would be unable to write. We can build
Speaker 1: the pyramids, we can we can write Beethoven's ninth cent
Speaker 1: And if you allow us to take credit as a
Speaker 1: species right, we we can figure out the equations of
Speaker 1: quantum mechanics, the equations of the general theory of relativity,
Speaker 1: allowing us to figure out all these qualities of the universe.
Speaker 1: And to me, that just fills me with gratitude for
Speaker 1: being here at all. So, rather than sort of looking
Speaker 1: to the future or looking to some deity to bestow
Speaker 1: meaning upon us, we recognize that we are empowered to
Speaker 1: find our own meaning. That's the only place that meaning
Speaker 1: is going to come from and when we do come
Speaker 1: to terms with what matters to us in the here
Speaker 1: and now, it's a more powerful version of meaning because
Speaker 1: it's organic, it comes from ourselves. We manufacture it, for sure.
Speaker 1: But how wonderful that we can manufacture it. How wonderful
Speaker 1: that the collection of particles can ask these questions and
Speaker 1: come to answers, even if our presence in the universe
Speaker 1: is fleeting. It's such a powerful sentiment, such a powerful
Speaker 1: view of things. I mean, it's the one century. But
Speaker 1: but but even like specifically to what everyone is going
Speaker 1: through right now, I think, yeah, for sure, I mean,
Speaker 1: we are in an astonishing, devastating, painful, tragic era right
Speaker 1: now that we hope will pass, of course, But I
Speaker 1: do find solace in taking this cosmic perspective. It doesn't
Speaker 1: take away the pain. Nothing will you lose a loved one,
Speaker 1: Nothing will take away that pain. Time can sometimes heal,
Speaker 1: but nothing can or should take away that pain. But
Speaker 1: if at the same time, you can take a step
Speaker 1: back and see the cosmic perspective, recognize that there is
Speaker 1: this little piece of the cosmos that we inhabit in
Speaker 1: both space and time, And how wondrous that is. I
Speaker 1: think there's a degree of solace. Doesn't take away the tragedy,
Speaker 1: but there's a degree of solace that that can provide,
Speaker 1: which I think is quite powerful. All Right, we need
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but we will be right
Speaker 1: back with more. And we're back now. You're, of course
Speaker 1: the the co founder of the World Science Festival. Uh,
Speaker 1: something that I look forward to every year. Such a
Speaker 1: wonderful collection of great minds coming together to discuss scientific topics. Um.
Speaker 1: But of course you had to make a very understandable
Speaker 1: call to cancel the live portions of the through May
Speaker 1: one event this year. Can can you touch on on
Speaker 1: what the current or emerging plans are for for online presentations? Well,
Speaker 1: the idea is to see this as both a challenge
Speaker 1: an opportunity for the festival to create a new kind
Speaker 1: of program. And what really distinguished us, say thirteen years
Speaker 1: ago when we began the live Festival. At that time
Speaker 1: there was not as much live event focus as there
Speaker 1: is today, and we were kind of a pioneer in
Speaker 1: taking ideas that are normally viewed as sort of abstract
Speaker 1: and not for general consumption, and through the clever and
Speaker 1: powerful production techniques of Tracy Day, the other co founder
Speaker 1: who really cut her teeth in some of the best
Speaker 1: broadcast television, you know, from Nightline and programs on CNN
Speaker 1: and things of that sort. To take those techniques and
Speaker 1: to create live programming that people would totally be immersed
Speaker 1: even if they had no background in homology or neuroscience
Speaker 1: or astronomy or you know, personalized medicine, you know, topics
Speaker 1: across the board. So now we're changing gears and trying
Speaker 1: to find a new way of doing digital programming that
Speaker 1: will inject that same kind of creative focus to bring
Speaker 1: these intellectual ideas out to the public. And you know,
Speaker 1: independent of the current crisis. We began this already, so
Speaker 1: we feel like we're well equipped to do so. We
Speaker 1: had I don't know if you saw it, but last
Speaker 1: maybe we had a special on PBS. It was our
Speaker 1: first broadcast special. It was a live theatrical exploration of
Speaker 1: Einstein's discovery of the general theory of relativity. And you know,
Speaker 1: we teamed up with some of the greatest artists in
Speaker 1: the live theatrical space, together with great performances on PBS,
Speaker 1: to film in a manner a live presentation that would
Speaker 1: work on a two dimensional screen and through interesting visual
Speaker 1: and through a powerful musical score, and through taking the
Speaker 1: ideas of general relativity and making them widely accessible, I
Speaker 1: think we've created a very different experience of ein science discovery.
Speaker 1: So that's the direction that we're head not with that
Speaker 1: level of production for every event that will put online,
Speaker 1: for sure, but that's our thinking to inject a new
Speaker 1: level of creativity into online programming dealing with scientific subjects.
Speaker 1: That's awesome because that's that's that's one of the things
Speaker 1: I really love about the World Sciencestival every years that
Speaker 1: you you know, you you bring in art, you bring
Speaker 1: in music, and then in terms of the all these
Speaker 1: great minds that come together to discuss it. You know,
Speaker 1: you're bringing in you know, scientist, biologist, physicists. You know
Speaker 1: you're bringing in occasionally philosophers or even the theologian thrown
Speaker 1: into the mix to tackle these these you know, at
Speaker 1: times just staggering questions about the cosmos and the human condition.
Speaker 1: Exactly right, Yes, that's that's the philosophy, and you know,
Speaker 1: to to bring together great thinkers that don't often talk
Speaker 1: to each other, and to structure the conversation in a
Speaker 1: way that the novice can feel that they're part of
Speaker 1: the exploration. Now you you launched a web series on
Speaker 1: March I Believe Your Daily Equation, which is available via
Speaker 1: World Science Festival dot com but also the World Science
Speaker 1: Festival YouTube page. Can you discuss your inspiration for this
Speaker 1: series and and just tell us how it's been going. Well,
Speaker 1: it was just a lark off the top of the head.
Speaker 1: We're having a conversation one day about you know, typically
Speaker 1: World Science Festival programs involve a lot of productions. It
Speaker 1: takes a long time to create them. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: now there's an opportunity to go to the other direction.
Speaker 1: What if I just turned on my my webcam thing
Speaker 1: and just each day talk about a new equation and
Speaker 1: we're like, yeah, sure, why not go for it? So
Speaker 1: so that's all it is. So there's literally no production.
Speaker 1: I film it right here and each day I just
Speaker 1: think about, Hey, what what equation would be kind of
Speaker 1: and to describe to somebody who likes the ideas of
Speaker 1: science but math is not really their thing, but they
Speaker 1: might get a kick out of seeing the actual symbols
Speaker 1: that are behind the scenes and gaining a quick understanding
Speaker 1: of what they are. So we started with equals MC squared.
Speaker 1: How could you not? So I sort of explain that,
Speaker 1: and then did a bunch of equations in relativity time
Speaker 1: slowing down lengths being contracted for an object in motion.
Speaker 1: And then I've moved on to quantum mechanics. So I've
Speaker 1: been sort of doing the very basic equations of quantumic
Speaker 1: acts and I find it fun. And you know, the
Speaker 1: audience that is sticking with me. You know, daily equation
Speaker 1: is not exactly the title that may appeal to the
Speaker 1: mass of public out there, but there are there are
Speaker 1: people for whom that idea is a kick, And I
Speaker 1: think we're all just having a good time, and it's
Speaker 1: a sense of a little sense of community, a sense
Speaker 1: of a small group of folks who come together each
Speaker 1: day just to put the news to the side, put
Speaker 1: all the difficult stuff to the side, and just think
Speaker 1: about these simple, beautiful equations that touch on things that
Speaker 1: transcend all of us. Yeah, that's great. We we do
Speaker 1: really need content like that right now. Um On, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, do do you feel that the world's
Speaker 1: current struggle with the pandemic Do you think it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it has sharpened or is sharpening the public's appreciation
Speaker 1: for science and the importance of science communication. Well, I'd
Speaker 1: like to say yes, but my experience is that even
Speaker 1: in the face of great tragedy, when it passes, people
Speaker 1: tend to revert to their more conventional ways of thinking
Speaker 1: about things. And it is awful that we have leaders.
Speaker 1: And this is the main thing. It's all of that
Speaker 1: we've leaders who for the past number of years have
Speaker 1: been casting a spurs is on science, detegrating scientists and
Speaker 1: substituting opinion for observation, fact, data, and analysis. That I
Speaker 1: hope will change. But the easiest way to change that,
Speaker 1: of course, is a change of leadership, because most leaders
Speaker 1: of the world recognize that power that science provides us
Speaker 1: for figuring out the right path forward on a variety
Speaker 1: of issues that will determine our fate. And it's just
Speaker 1: tragic that there are leaders who don't think that way.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, the book is until the end of time.
Speaker 1: It's it's out now, and yeah, I just want to
Speaker 1: just drive home just how how wonderful this book is.
Speaker 1: We're just really thrilled to help, at least in some
Speaker 1: small way, boost the signal on this one, that you know,
Speaker 1: let our listeners know that they should they should check
Speaker 1: it out. It's just it's just really excellent. Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 1: Thanks for taking time out of your data to chat
Speaker 1: with me. This has been a pleasure. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Enjoyed it all right, So there you have it. Thanks
Speaker 1: again to Brian Green for dropping by the show to
Speaker 1: discuss his new book, Until the End of Time, Mind
Speaker 1: Matter in Our Search for Meaning in Evolving Universe. It's
Speaker 1: it's a brand new book just came out here in
Speaker 1: available I believe in pretty much all formats right now.
Speaker 1: So if you want to listen to it, if you
Speaker 1: want to read it, uh digitally or in a physical copy,
Speaker 1: you should be able to get your hands on it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this one, and I think you will too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and keep an eye on World Science Festival because, like
Speaker 1: Brian said, they're gonna be busting out some some online
Speaker 1: content this year. So the same sort of great discussions
Speaker 1: that they've had in previous years they're going to offer again,
Speaker 1: but of course, due to our current circumstances, is going
Speaker 1: to be in a slightly altered form. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your mind, you can find us wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast and wherever that happens to be.
Speaker 1: Just make sure that you rate your review and you
Speaker 1: subscribe huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hi,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow your Mind is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, this is the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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