Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. This is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and this is Julie Douglas. Tell me this, Julie,
Speaker 1: what is it about the human navel that makes people
Speaker 1: question the very fabric of existence? Well, you say fabric.
Speaker 1: I think of land, of course, but beyond that, um,
Speaker 1: I think that I think of the proverbial sixteen year
Speaker 1: old sitting around wondering why he or she is on
Speaker 1: this earth made to endure high school? Um? Or you know,
Speaker 1: why am I the daughter or the son of my
Speaker 1: particular set of parents and so on and so forth. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And then the navel makes one think of this because
Speaker 1: it's like where does it begin? Where does it end?
Speaker 1: That's right origins, you know, that's that's where we hooked up.
Speaker 1: If you were willing pull on the navel like this,
Speaker 1: the person unravel. You know, what does an audi mean?
Speaker 1: What is any mean? This lint come from without or
Speaker 1: from within? Because I always thought it came from within,
Speaker 1: but I could it comes from a without. I think
Speaker 1: the lint comes from without. I don't know. I have
Speaker 1: a self cleaning belly button, so I can't really those
Speaker 1: are great. I heard those are on the market. Yeah yeah, um,
Speaker 1: they're kind of expensive, but they're well worth it. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean I think that when you had
Speaker 1: proposed doing this podcast, I thought about the navel gazing
Speaker 1: for sure, But um on a cosmological level, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think on like on the individual level, and I'll
Speaker 1: throughout this podcast, we're gonna start with the individual on
Speaker 1: sort of you know, span out like powers a tent,
Speaker 1: you know, until we reach the you know, the boundaries
Speaker 1: of of understanding, because we're vinglorious like that. Yes. Um,
Speaker 1: So it's like on a on a very simple level,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, we all give those moments. It's just
Speaker 1: this little like generalis like just one little nugget of
Speaker 1: pure thought, you know, I mean, unformed thought. We we
Speaker 1: kind of think, you know, here I am, I and
Speaker 1: I exist. I'm thinking right now. You know, just just
Speaker 1: stop for a second and do that, gentle listener, Yeah
Speaker 1: that right there isn't that amazing? Yeah? You know, and
Speaker 1: then other stuff comes crashing in. We end up thinking
Speaker 1: about the grocery list or or you know, or we
Speaker 1: we throw religion in on top of it and explain
Speaker 1: everything away to a certain extent. But but for that
Speaker 1: one moment, for that one moment, for that one brief,
Speaker 1: glorious moment, you get a sense of the the gravitas
Speaker 1: of this moment where we're actually existing. And and if
Speaker 1: you're an astrophysicist, you have been thinking about this. You're
Speaker 1: probably your entire life, not just nable gazing about it
Speaker 1: when you were sixteen, and you're applying it to not
Speaker 1: just hey, we're sitting here in a podcast booth talking
Speaker 1: about this. Why are we in particular sitting here on
Speaker 1: Earth in this solar system? What what makes us so
Speaker 1: special or not special? Exactly? Yeah, that's that's that's what
Speaker 1: people keep discussing time and time and end though there
Speaker 1: was a time when, in the same way that you
Speaker 1: know that that we're at the center of any of
Speaker 1: these questions. You know, why am I here? You know what?
Speaker 1: How did how did I get to be here? Um?
Speaker 1: You know people have used to have the sen sort
Speaker 1: of models for the cosmos. You had the geocentric model. UM.
Speaker 1: That was sort of an early scientific way of understanding, um,
Speaker 1: the visible Solar system and how the planets and everything
Speaker 1: moved in our relationship to right and so geocentricism is
Speaker 1: the Earth is the center of the universe and everything
Speaker 1: else revolves around us. And uh, and that was a
Speaker 1: big medicine back in the back in the day. But
Speaker 1: then you ended up having a new theory come up
Speaker 1: come along called the heliocentric theory, which said, actually, Earth
Speaker 1: isn't the center of the universe. The Sun is the
Speaker 1: center of the universe. I saw I saw something Africa,
Speaker 1: which which thinker it was? But someone had like, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was Tico Bray, the guy with the who's amazing
Speaker 1: we had like the fake nose because he lost a
Speaker 1: nose in a duel. Yeah, and he had a he
Speaker 1: had like a pet deer that lived in the in
Speaker 1: the mansion with him or the castle with him or whatever. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he would like feed the deer beer. And then
Speaker 1: the deer drank itself to death and fell down some stairs.
Speaker 1: And then someone may or may not have poisoned Tico,
Speaker 1: or he may have um his bladder may have exploded
Speaker 1: because he was too drunk to get up from the
Speaker 1: dinner table. There are different theories. He was a great man,
Speaker 1: but uh, he kind of had like he was he
Speaker 1: wasn't like fully ready to adopt the heliocentric model. At
Speaker 1: one point he was that he said, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: the Sun is the center of the universe, and then
Speaker 1: the Earth revolves around the Sun, but then everything else
Speaker 1: revolves around here or or it was a variation on that.
Speaker 1: But so yeah, but one of the early um, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the early guys that really committed
Speaker 1: to this was Nicholas Copernicus. Uh. And to give him
Speaker 1: more of a frame of reference, this guy lived fourteen
Speaker 1: seventy three to fifty three, and you know, he's a
Speaker 1: mathematician astronomer and uh. And yeah, he was cool with
Speaker 1: the idea that Earth was not the center of everything.
Speaker 1: And out of a lot of his thinking comes this
Speaker 1: thing called the Copernican principle. And this just says that
Speaker 1: there's uh, there's no there are no special observers, there
Speaker 1: are no special origins or viewpoints and uh. And so
Speaker 1: that if you have a theory about about humanity, about
Speaker 1: humanity's origins or its place in the cosmos, um that
Speaker 1: you know that that gives you know, humans a privileged position,
Speaker 1: then from a scientific standpoint at least, that theory is bunk. Okay, Alright,
Speaker 1: So the really intriguing part of this I think that
Speaker 1: you had sent me is is something about a little
Speaker 1: lady named Goldilocks. Yes, uh, and everyone's familiar with the
Speaker 1: Goldilocks story. Can you tell us the story? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got Goldilocks, she of the blonde tresses who breaks
Speaker 1: in um to this house with three bears are the tenants, right,
Speaker 1: And it's like a mother and a father and a
Speaker 1: child bear. Right. Yeah, So I mean, you know she's
Speaker 1: they're not there, so she can't terrorize them, but she
Speaker 1: does rifle through their stuff. She eats their food, she
Speaker 1: tests out their beds um, and she's very particular, this Goldilocks.
Speaker 1: It's interesting I read that they are older models of
Speaker 1: the story, because of course all these folk tales are
Speaker 1: as old as time, and but in some of the
Speaker 1: older models of it, apparently Goldilocks was like an old
Speaker 1: woman and the bears like catch her and like try
Speaker 1: and like drown her and burn her and all these
Speaker 1: other things. And then I think she still slips out
Speaker 1: the window. But yeah, so at some point she switched
Speaker 1: from like horrible old lady burglar to like shift her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was a shape shifter, that was it. But to
Speaker 1: this young innocent that we would all be really upset
Speaker 1: about if the bear's mauld right. Yeah, it becomes more
Speaker 1: of an innocent thing. And in a way, it's like,
Speaker 1: if you're thinking of in cosmological terms, it's like, which
Speaker 1: which model are humans? Are we the innocent child stumbling
Speaker 1: through the universe or the um the nasty old woman
Speaker 1: who comes in to steal things? I don't know, or
Speaker 1: are we the bears? Maybe we're the bears? Um? Of course,
Speaker 1: the whole thing is she ends up finding the porridge
Speaker 1: that's just right, the bed that's just right, the chair
Speaker 1: that's just right, because the other options are either you know,
Speaker 1: too big or too small, too cold or too hot.
Speaker 1: And if you look at our solar system you can
Speaker 1: identify a similar situation with some of the inner planets.
Speaker 1: Look at Venus, Earth and Mars. Venus, Uh, the atmosphere
Speaker 1: is too thick, too dense, it's insane pressure crushed like
Speaker 1: a grape, and it's too hot. Go over to Mars.
Speaker 1: Not enough atmosphere, and you'll freeze to death. If you
Speaker 1: happen to land on Earth, though, you'll find everything is
Speaker 1: just right. We have thriving life everywhere because conditions are
Speaker 1: fine for that to happen right Florida. It's sunny all
Speaker 1: year long, right, and and there are a number of
Speaker 1: different The thing that really gives people thinking is that
Speaker 1: there are a number of different um situations that line
Speaker 1: up just so you know, um, it's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like when when you start thinking about like if
Speaker 1: my mom and dad hadn't met and you know then
Speaker 1: and and hooked up, I wouldn't be here today. And
Speaker 1: then if you started, you know, uh, pointing out other
Speaker 1: things about it, like well, if my dad hadn't gone
Speaker 1: to this school, he wouldn't have met her. And if
Speaker 1: my mom, you know, had done such and such, then
Speaker 1: she wouldn't have been you know, they're all these different factors.
Speaker 1: You can start laying out right, and you can even
Speaker 1: kind of go deeper back and say, if my great
Speaker 1: grandfather hadn't dodged that straight bullet, or you know, his
Speaker 1: grandfather hadn't done this, and then you can sort of
Speaker 1: expand out from there and start to apply this to
Speaker 1: the universe. Right, Like I'm just to run through some
Speaker 1: of the things about Earth. Uh, the temperature is just
Speaker 1: right for the to be liquid water. We have a
Speaker 1: large enough moon to give us climate stability. The Sun
Speaker 1: is stable and isn't you know, expanding and destroying us anything.
Speaker 1: And compared to other suns, it's a pretty stable sun. Um.
Speaker 1: It's uh, we have just the right core um only
Speaker 1: of the inner planet's only Mercury and Earth have a
Speaker 1: liquid solid core that creates this uh this um uh
Speaker 1: this dynamo effect that produces an electromagnetic shield to that
Speaker 1: ends up protecting us from a lot of the harmful
Speaker 1: effects of the Sun and uh and yeah, so we
Speaker 1: just happened to have that going for us. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then we have the right neighbors, Jupiter shields Earth from
Speaker 1: a lot of the stellar bombardment we'd end up suffering
Speaker 1: through otherwise and would have very likely um um ended
Speaker 1: um evolution before it really got rolling at some point, right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, all these things are you know, situations where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, if it wasn't for that, would we
Speaker 1: be here? Maybe not? So yeah, you on this that's
Speaker 1: forty seven billion years in the making, about a couple
Speaker 1: million years ago we came into existence or evolved in
Speaker 1: to to what we are today. So it is pretty
Speaker 1: amazing when you stop and think, um, when you clear
Speaker 1: that grocery list out of your head or or whatever
Speaker 1: else is popping up on your computer to distract you
Speaker 1: to think, again, why am I here? Why I'm Why
Speaker 1: are we here in this particular universe? Are we unique?
Speaker 1: Are there other universes out there? Their other means? How
Speaker 1: does how is that working? And so I think that's
Speaker 1: why the Goldilocks principle is so very interesting because it's
Speaker 1: it's not um. It's not a sort of uh, mathematical
Speaker 1: proof in the sense that we have a theory um
Speaker 1: that we can say, Okay, we have this overwhelming theory
Speaker 1: and it's gonna it's gonna tell us exactly why we exist,
Speaker 1: but it does lend some credence to the anthropic principle.
Speaker 1: And the anthropic principle is basically saying, to paraphrase Stephen Hawking,
Speaker 1: that things are as they are because we are, which
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like dey card part of my frolish,
Speaker 1: which would be I think therefore I am Yeah. So
Speaker 1: you have this principle which a lot of scientists, astrophysicists, theologians,
Speaker 1: you name it, have seized on to try to explain
Speaker 1: why we are able to hang out here in this
Speaker 1: universe observe the fact that we're here and the fact
Speaker 1: that we're supported by it. Yeah, and then you have
Speaker 1: you have the Commernican principle in the background the whole time,
Speaker 1: reminding you that there's nothing special about about Earth, nothing
Speaker 1: special about humanity. So when you look at the at
Speaker 1: everything being just right on the Earth, you know, it
Speaker 1: leads to theories. You know, um that a lot of
Speaker 1: people hold about there being other planets where life could
Speaker 1: could potentially evolve because there's nothing nothing special about Earth,
Speaker 1: then it couldn't be the only one, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: So the multiple universes, and of course you can get
Speaker 1: really deep into this and say there are parallel universes,
Speaker 1: there's another universe where you and I are talking in
Speaker 1: a completely different place right now, although maybe we're talking backwards,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that you get into the
Speaker 1: whole area of like it's like a Library of Babbel
Speaker 1: kind of situation where all possible universes exist with all
Speaker 1: possible variations and outcomes. Yeah, one way we're having a
Speaker 1: different conversation, one where like we all ball caps, one
Speaker 1: where our son was kind of a jerk and blew
Speaker 1: up before we could evolve, right, Yeah, Yeah, because if
Speaker 1: we're just gonna be anthropic principle, and again, anthropic means
Speaker 1: of or relating to human beings or the period of
Speaker 1: their existence on Earth. Um, there are several um anthropic coincidences.
Speaker 1: They're kind of like those the list of things that
Speaker 1: we lined up for the planet, you can make a
Speaker 1: similar list for the cosmos itself. They just tend to
Speaker 1: be a little more complex. Like uh, and I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna go into too much depth here because he's getting
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. But when you compare the electromatic force
Speaker 1: to gravity, we find that electromagnetism is thirty times stronger.
Speaker 1: And that's fortunate because if the two powers were more
Speaker 1: evenly matched, stars wouldn't burn long enough for life to
Speaker 1: develop on an orbiting planet. So uh, and they're all
Speaker 1: you know, things of that nature where if like numbers
Speaker 1: were a little different, if the dye roll you know,
Speaker 1: from the Big Bang were had come out just just
Speaker 1: slightly skewed, then nothing might have nothing could exist or
Speaker 1: or things would exist in a vastly different shape than
Speaker 1: they are now. So that's I think why anthropic principle
Speaker 1: is so intriguing, because it does give us a way
Speaker 1: to say, okay, we are in this universe, and perhaps
Speaker 1: everything isn't happening by chance. Right. The problem with this
Speaker 1: is that when we when we traps out of the
Speaker 1: area of chance, we start to look for some sort
Speaker 1: of theory. I'm gonna go ahead and say it's super
Speaker 1: being God Creator, and that's what the anthropic principles sort
Speaker 1: of points to when you think about it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people end up using it as an
Speaker 1: argument for um, you know, um, intelligent design and things
Speaker 1: of that nature and the existence of God and other
Speaker 1: things that can't actually you know, actually be proved you know, scientifically, um.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this also, this comes from a
Speaker 1: guy named brand and Carter was the guy who initially
Speaker 1: sort of kicked off out there. Yeah, and he actually
Speaker 1: I believed that he just put out two of these
Speaker 1: two variations on the theory, weak anthropic principle and strong
Speaker 1: anthropic principle. And if the cool kids tend to offense,
Speaker 1: just call it ap franthropic principle, or if you're talking
Speaker 1: about weakenthropic principle, you call it like WAP. I guess right,
Speaker 1: that is so wa yeah, or like they said, like
Speaker 1: WAP is lack right. If they don't like it kids
Speaker 1: these days, But weekend thropic principle is probably my favorite
Speaker 1: because it's just so simple and it doesn't overthink itself.
Speaker 1: It's actually kind of elegant. Basically, Carter just pointed out
Speaker 1: that if our universe weren't hospitable to life, then we
Speaker 1: wouldn't be here to think about it being hospitable to life.
Speaker 1: That's right. It's like if your mom and dad hadn't
Speaker 1: hooked up, Yeah, you wouldn't exist. You wouldn't be here
Speaker 1: to think about the fact that you exist. So it's
Speaker 1: I love it because it's kind of like that. The
Speaker 1: weekendthropic principle is kind of like an end of the argument,
Speaker 1: and it's elf it's kind of like, well, stop worrying
Speaker 1: about it, because it's you know, the answer is in
Speaker 1: the question. Yeah, yeah, I I think, therefore I am
Speaker 1: and quit thinking yeah yeah, And it's a it's an
Speaker 1: unconditional truth. So yeah, you're right. It's it's very simple
Speaker 1: in that way, and it's very comforting. And then you
Speaker 1: have a strong anthropic principle, right, So that's basically saying,
Speaker 1: because we live in a universe that supports life, only
Speaker 1: life supporting the universes exists. Essentially, it's creating the observer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like if you were inside, you know,
Speaker 1: you're hanging out in your living room. You've never been
Speaker 1: outside of your living room, and you know, she had
Speaker 1: a fireplace and you and if you went with the theory,
Speaker 1: maybe the world. I guess all houses have fireplaces, you know,
Speaker 1: because there's nothing unique about this one, because it's the
Speaker 1: only thing that you know, right, Or on a more
Speaker 1: like true level, you could be like, this room has
Speaker 1: a roof. I guess all living rooms have roofs to them,
Speaker 1: you know. So I guess that shows where this principle
Speaker 1: has a bit of weakness is that you can't If
Speaker 1: you can't observed beyond your own understanding, then how can
Speaker 1: you presuppose that there are other universes that exist out there?
Speaker 1: If you can't see it, then how do you know,
Speaker 1: Because if you could see it, it it would be part
Speaker 1: of your universe. Yeah, it's like, on one level, we
Speaker 1: have to use our our selves in our world and
Speaker 1: our view of the world as the model upon which
Speaker 1: to base our theories and all, you know, but that
Speaker 1: that can also develop certain problems, right, And then the
Speaker 1: cool thing about science, I think is that we could.
Speaker 1: We have our five senses and we rely on that,
Speaker 1: but science sort of uh takes up where our five
Speaker 1: senses peter out. You know, Um, those are five senses
Speaker 1: fail us. They do not always um accurate. Um. Our
Speaker 1: instinct isn't always accurate. So we have science, you have
Speaker 1: mathematicians who are creating those models based on what we
Speaker 1: know and then sort of trying to predict these other
Speaker 1: um thoughts. Universes constructs that we can try to get
Speaker 1: our heads around. And so I think that's why this
Speaker 1: the anthropic principle is so important, because that's the principle
Speaker 1: that is being used in m theory or string theory,
Speaker 1: which presupposes that these other universes exist um. And that's
Speaker 1: also it's Achilles heal, because well, hey, you've got this
Speaker 1: sort of stand in theory the anthropic principles saying well,
Speaker 1: if we can observe this, then we know we're in it,
Speaker 1: and there's the possibility of other universes just like ourselves existing.
Speaker 1: And yet we cannot bear this out. We cannot, we
Speaker 1: can we can't ring up the little large Hadron collider
Speaker 1: and say hey, can you bear this out first? Simply
Speaker 1: because we don't have the technology yet to prove it out.
Speaker 1: And that's not true of other theories that we have
Speaker 1: been able to use technology to to bear out the
Speaker 1: results and say, ah, yes, this, this, um, this mathematic
Speaker 1: prediction was correct. Yeah. I think the other day when
Speaker 1: we're talking about this, you you pointed out that some
Speaker 1: of these things are just kind of a kind of
Speaker 1: like place holders for actual answers. They're like scientific placeholders
Speaker 1: for you know. Um. And the other interesting thing about
Speaker 1: anthropic principle is that people kind of take take it
Speaker 1: and spin off their own like variation of the anthropic principle,
Speaker 1: and sometimes uh, you know, mind blowing or just crazy directions,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, there are like thirty album I think
Speaker 1: based on one estimate I read, but like the participatory
Speaker 1: anthropic principles pretty wild, did you? Is that the quantum
Speaker 1: space one? Yeah, well this is the one that spins
Speaker 1: off from some some stuff like the the Copenhagen interpretation
Speaker 1: of quantum mechanics and the whole idea of like things
Speaker 1: not being actualized until they're observed and measured, you know, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: and not and not actually even acting like we think
Speaker 1: they act simply because at this one state it happened
Speaker 1: to be here. In other words, you can't predict the
Speaker 1: results every single time, and you know, not to get
Speaker 1: into quarks. Um, I don't think anybody wants us to
Speaker 1: go that deep, but sorry, go ahead. No, it's just like, basically,
Speaker 1: the the idea is that only universes that have an
Speaker 1: observers in them to observe it exists. It's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a tree falls in the forest
Speaker 1: kind of thing. In a weird way. It's like like
Speaker 1: the universe. The universe can only exist if there's somebody
Speaker 1: there to observe it and give it form. In a way,
Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy right without the observer. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this too. Um, you've got Stephen Hawking,
Speaker 1: who obviously some people think he is God and has
Speaker 1: created the universes and that maybe we don't know. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't have a mathematical constructor hear that up. But
Speaker 1: we do have John Horgan, who was the former Scientific
Speaker 1: American editor who actually took him to task. I thought
Speaker 1: that was, Um, he has some big spheres for doing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's always a brave move when you
Speaker 1: go after go after Hawking or or you know, pick
Speaker 1: at something. He said, yeah, yeah. I was like, wow, dude,
Speaker 1: I hope that you have bulletproof glass there. Um, well,
Speaker 1: not really, I don't think that astrophysists are gonna Hawking
Speaker 1: was packing. I was thinking more of his followers, but
Speaker 1: but now I think they're probably kind and gentle souls.
Speaker 1: But basically what he said is, Okay, you've got Hawking
Speaker 1: wanting to forward this idea of a theory of everything
Speaker 1: too for short and uh in particular m theory, which
Speaker 1: is an extension of string theory. Just if you look
Speaker 1: at them, it's membranes instead of strings. And Hawking is
Speaker 1: actually saying, you know what, we need to use the
Speaker 1: anthropic principle in order to help bear this theory out.
Speaker 1: And Horgan's basically saying, hey, there's there's a real problem
Speaker 1: with us. We can't that the anthropic is something that
Speaker 1: we can't actually um say that there's any data to
Speaker 1: to bear it out, but we don't have the technology
Speaker 1: and to to do this. And essentially, and here's where
Speaker 1: the it's kind of the beach slap. It's cosmology's version
Speaker 1: of creationism. And he's loving that against Hawking and I
Speaker 1: think you know, you know, this is not my wheelhouse,
Speaker 1: but do you have to say, I think that there's
Speaker 1: a point with us and you can't help but see
Speaker 1: where you'd want to have a theory of everything, where
Speaker 1: you want to have something unifying saying finally, we have
Speaker 1: reached the end of meaning. We understand exactly why we're
Speaker 1: all hanging out here in this podcast booth at this
Speaker 1: very moment um. But we just we're limited where you know,
Speaker 1: language fails us as well. We can't actually describe where
Speaker 1: we're at at this point of revolution cognitive closure at
Speaker 1: some point, and it's just only so much we can do. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: cogniti closure. I like that. Yeah. And then there's another
Speaker 1: aspect of this UM which is called carbon chauvinism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one is really cool, and it's just basically the
Speaker 1: idea that we are we are carbon based life forms UM,
Speaker 1: and we often find it hard to imagine that there
Speaker 1: are other UM that they're biochemical forms out there that
Speaker 1: are based on other recipes, if you will, right right,
Speaker 1: So that and in fact, I think they've used the
Speaker 1: example before of silicon. That's something that UM that you
Speaker 1: can get actually some complex results from and they're even
Speaker 1: saying that, um, it's molecular chauvinism, that we just don't
Speaker 1: understand that there are other ways maybe to come to
Speaker 1: the table as a being, which makes me wonder about
Speaker 1: extraterrestrials because they're you know, in all that there's really
Speaker 1: no discussion. Yeah. I mean like if you look into
Speaker 1: science fiction, and there's plenty of examples. I know, I've
Speaker 1: read things with with silicon based life forms in them,
Speaker 1: and of course you're always encountering like energy beings and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. Um. So, so yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, if we we we put the carbon chauvinism
Speaker 1: the side would be able to you know, potentially imagine
Speaker 1: um or not imagine, but you know receival world where
Speaker 1: a universe where there are other very forms of life
Speaker 1: out there. I have to ask you a really personal question.
Speaker 1: Where are you on the ET scale? Um? I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: the ET scale has been interesting throughout my life because
Speaker 1: I used to be terrified of being abducted by aliens
Speaker 1: when I was in like junior high and before that
Speaker 1: I kind of got out of it in high school,
Speaker 1: so that that was a time where it's like I
Speaker 1: was really terrified of them, and then I decided that
Speaker 1: I was going to make a conscious effort just not
Speaker 1: to believe in aliens. So I was really against the
Speaker 1: idea of them for a while. And uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Now I try and keep an open mind, so I
Speaker 1: feel like they could be out there. I don't So
Speaker 1: there's a whole separate podcast to be done on this.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think that a lot of what
Speaker 1: we end up perceiving in this world that we think
Speaker 1: are aliens, it's actually there are actually a lot of
Speaker 1: really good explanations, logical explanations for what those uh events are,
Speaker 1: or what those experiences are. But but no, I think
Speaker 1: there could be There could be life in this year. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: my my intelligent maybe more intelligent. Yeah, And that's what
Speaker 1: I think is interesting. It could be Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: be a very super intelligent being or not so much.
Speaker 1: I don't know, just hanging out at the bowling alley.
Speaker 1: Nothing that there's nothing about the warning alleast by the way,
Speaker 1: I love bowling. I have to say, um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I just had to throw that out there. It's just
Speaker 1: because my own world view was tinged by this by
Speaker 1: my grandmother, who you know, I grew up hearing about
Speaker 1: how she and my grandfather on a lonely country road
Speaker 1: came across which she called little green men. So I
Speaker 1: always grew up with this idea of, well, cool, maybe
Speaker 1: these little green men do exist, and so, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll definitely have to get into this in a later
Speaker 1: to say yeah, we did, definitely. But looking at the
Speaker 1: inn profit principle and looking at ourselves in the universe,
Speaker 1: you gotta wonder why that isn't a larger part of it,
Speaker 1: particularly since Stephen Hawking has you know, pulled the trigger
Speaker 1: around the warning shots to say, hey, guys, don't talk
Speaker 1: to the aliens, don't let them know we're here, because
Speaker 1: if there anything like us, then they're they're probably really
Speaker 1: they're really jerks. Yeah, they're going to colonize this um.
Speaker 1: So I think that's why this, this theory or this
Speaker 1: principle really is interesting, because again we get down to
Speaker 1: this individual level of you know, scrapping all of our
Speaker 1: grocery list and everything else and wondering why in the
Speaker 1: world and this carbon based life form and allowed to exist.
Speaker 1: And I think the bigger problem here, um is that
Speaker 1: we're mortal. We know that we're going to die, And
Speaker 1: so I think this is why we're grappling with this
Speaker 1: so much as scientists, as human beings, um, because we
Speaker 1: know that this universe forty seven billion years in the
Speaker 1: making is not essentially for us, or if we do
Speaker 1: think it's for us, then we think, well, why does
Speaker 1: it all have to end? And so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: So then you begin to reach beyond that, and you
Speaker 1: can see how the polled toward of this sort of
Speaker 1: all unifying and or creation myth, this god like super
Speaker 1: being is so enticing. Yeah, I mean there's some really
Speaker 1: kind of out there ones to like finally, unthropic principle,
Speaker 1: it's a variation that says that once intelligence, um, not
Speaker 1: intelligent beings, but actual intelligence like pops up in the universe,
Speaker 1: then it's never going out that it's gonna pretty much
Speaker 1: thrive and eventually become God. It's gonna propagate itself. Yeah
Speaker 1: and and yeah, so you know take that and run
Speaker 1: with it with your imagination, because that's pretty out there.
Speaker 1: Well that always makes me think of the computer simulation, Like,
Speaker 1: are we just hanging out in a computer computer simulated
Speaker 1: program right now? All of the matrix, um, you know,
Speaker 1: is this is this even real. Is this a virtual existence,
Speaker 1: which is of course in another one of the anthropic
Speaker 1: principles people explored. I love thinking about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I just finished reading a book called The Disciple of
Speaker 1: the Dog, in which there is a cult um that
Speaker 1: believes it's it's it's members believe that the Earth is
Speaker 1: actually fifty billion years older than we think it is,
Speaker 1: and that the life in the world that we perceive
Speaker 1: is actually um it's actually the dream. We're actually the
Speaker 1: dreams of quantum computers in the far, far distant future
Speaker 1: that I guess got really bored and you know, end
Speaker 1: up dreaming of this this you know, past life for
Speaker 1: them to wander through. And so if we could see
Speaker 1: through the illusion, we'd see that the sun fills up
Speaker 1: the entire sky and we'll uh, you know, consume the
Speaker 1: earth at any moment. Wow. So our existence is just
Speaker 1: fodder for computers to to sort of work through their
Speaker 1: boredom issues. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. The authors are Scott Baker,
Speaker 1: and he's he's like a philosophy dude. So he's always
Speaker 1: all of his books end up like bringing all these
Speaker 1: like philosophical questions about who we are and what makes
Speaker 1: you know, our heads work. Yeah, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think obviously in this podcast we're not going to
Speaker 1: reach the end of meaning. But I do feel that
Speaker 1: we have reached perhaps the end of the podcast, end
Speaker 1: of the podcast, so which actually makes me think of
Speaker 1: another philosophy Wabi Sabby, which I think most people think
Speaker 1: of as embracing in perfection. But another and more nuanced
Speaker 1: reading is that you're either emerging of nothingness or you're
Speaker 1: essentially returning to nothingness, which I don't know. That's that's
Speaker 1: maybe more comforting to me, um, And at least it's
Speaker 1: a it's a way to say, I think that we
Speaker 1: are now entering into nothingness. Yes, yes, so hey, if
Speaker 1: you listeners have any thoughts on some of this heavy material, um,
Speaker 1: then feel free to shoot them to us. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, and you can also find us
Speaker 1: on Facebook and Twitter, where you can also find us
Speaker 1: as blow the Mind. Yeah, and please, if your grandmother
Speaker 1: told you stories about aliens, we want to hear about them. Yes,
Speaker 1: we also want to hear about your own cosmological navel gazing. Yes,
Speaker 1: tell us about your navels. Well, not too much, but
Speaker 1: just enough for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com, The House stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. My phone app is coming soon. Get
Speaker 1: access to our content in a new way, articles, videos,
Speaker 1: and more all on the go. Check out the latest
Speaker 1: podcasts and blog posts, and see what we're saying on
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter. Coming soon to iTunes two