WEBVTT - Listener Questions #20 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:03.559 Quick note before today's episodes to let you know about 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.560 my new book, Do Aliens Speak Physics, which is available 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:08.879 for pre order now and can be at your house 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.959 on November fourth. It's all about my favorite scenario, aliens 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.440 arriving on Earth and what it would be like to 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.720 try to talk to them about physics. Is that really possible? 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.440 We don't know, but the book is a fun exploration 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.680 of the potential challenges. If you've enjoyed my science outreach, 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:26.840 this is a nice way to support me. Check it 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.440 out at www dot alienspeakphysics dot com. Okay, on to 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:45.080 today's episode. I like to think about alien life, But 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:49.040 where are they all? If aliens are so rife. 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.680 If you don't metabolize and reproduce, then science says you're dead. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.200 Does a recently discovered critter turn this definition on its head? 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.200 A curious listener wants to know what would the universe 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.720 be like if light were very slow? 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.800 Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:08.840 answers will make it right. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.720 Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.280 Hello. I'm Kelly Wader Smith. I study parasites and space, 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.840 and I'm excited that we're talking about aliens today. And 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:34.840 the reason I'm excited about that is because I'm really 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.600 excited about this book that's coming out called Do Aliens 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:38.400 Speak Physics? 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.280 Oh my gosh, for a moment, I thought you were 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:42.200 going to tell me about another book about aliens, so 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:47.240 it's going to scoop mine. Oh no, my nightmare. Hi. 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:49.920 I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I do love 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.000 thinking about aliens because I worry that the way we 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.840 do science is somehow infected with our humanity and there's 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.520 somebody out there getting deeper at the truth of the. 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.320 Matter infected by our humanity. That is a like surprisingly 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:04.760 negative view from you. 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.720 I think I was trying to speak biology, you know, 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.040 like you know, it's trying to use some sort of 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:11.520 parasitical language there. 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.960 I think you're implying that we're all like pessimists and negative. 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.320 But you know I am. So that's that's fine with me. 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.359 Well, thank you for bringing up my book, which is 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.800 coming out in November. It's called Do Aliens Speak Physics? 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.320 And you can get it all fine booksellers and probably 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.840 several others. And you're right that it's a little bit 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.600 pessimistic because the book is in response to my concern 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.320 that we were sort of putting ourselves at the center 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:39.040 of the universal intellectual stage by saying, like, everything we've 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.720 discovered is true, it's real, you know, it's universal that 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.839 other scientists around the galaxy will find the same thing. 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.200 To me, that smacks a little bit of like the 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.760 Earth is the center of the solar system or the universe, 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.560 you know, or we are important somehow on a cosmic stage. 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:56.920 And so I just wanted to ask, like, well, is 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.639 that really true? Are there ways that our humanity has 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.120 affected in our science? And so that's what the book 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.280 is about, is what aliens do physics differently? And how 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:05.840 could we know? 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.080 And at a future date we will have a whole 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.320 episode talking about that question and what you learned while 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.280 you were researching that problem. But today I wanted to 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.000 ask you what is your favorite part of writing a book? 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.120 Very part of writing a book. Oh, it's definitely not 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.280 coming up with the title. I don't know why, but 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:26.120 that's so frustrating. It's so hard to capture everything about 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.840 the book in a few words. You know, you have 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.400 to like meet the reader where they are, get them interested, 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.639 tell them a little bit about the book. Also, it 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.080 should be like clever in some way. So, boy, that 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.119 is really tough. And you and I have had lots 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:44.640 of conversations and titles. It's tricky. Yeah, it's tricky. I 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.800 think my favorite two parts of writing a book are 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.520 having the initial idea, Like it's always fun to come 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.360 up with a new idea for a project, you know, 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.000 as an academic, Like new projects are shiny and fun, 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.960 and current projects are like, ugh, man, I just to 0:03:58.000 --> 0:03:58.600 get that thing. 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.200 Finished, got to get it up the door. 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.680 But also the research, like I love digging in deep 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.640 and reading a bunch of papers, and I wonder sometimes 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.120 like why didn't I just do this before? But for 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.440 some reason, like having a reason to dig in and 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.200 to read up about it and to learn about it. 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.400 If that excuses like I'm writing a book about this, 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.560 or I'm doing research for a listener or something. It's 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.000 easier to do, it's more fun. It feels like you're 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:22.920 allowed to do it instead of you just goofing off 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:24.320 and reading philosophy papers. 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.320 I absolutely agree with you, and that is also why 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.200 I love our Listener Questions segment so much, is that 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.800 we whenever a question comes across my inbox where I'm like, oh, 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:36.960 I want to know more about that than I'm like, 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.480 that immediately goes in the listener questions pile. And then 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.960 while I'm researching it, I don't feel like I'm slacking off. 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.560 I'm doing my quote unquote work and it's awesome. 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:48.760 There you go. And so, is that also your favorite 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.080 part of writing a book? The deep research dive? 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:52.800 The two things I hate the most. I always write 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.159 the title last because I hate it, I agree, And 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.800 then I hate the part where I'm supposed to promote 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.400 the book and ask people for favors, And that's my 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.280 least favorite part, but it's part of the job. But no, 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:05.960 my favorite is just getting to do the research and 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.479 learning about new stuff, which is why I so rarely 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.360 write books about things I already know about, because I'd 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.640 rather have an excuse to read about something new and 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.760 like going through space law textbooks. On the one hand, 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.880 there were days where I'm like, why do I enjoy. 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:21.760 This so much? 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.880 Do I enjoy this? I'm not sure, I'm on the fence. 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:27.680 Then at the end of the day I'd be like, 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.400 oh my gosh, I just learned about like the laws 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.839 governing and the cosmos and that's pretty cool, and also 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:38.280 how they are inadequate, and so yeah, it's a fun 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:39.000 research topic. 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.000 I think it's also really fun to discover the things 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.479 that are interesting to you. And you've done a day 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:46.080 of reading and then you come to dinner with a 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.360 family and you're like excited to talk about some nerdy 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.840 detail you read about that was really cool, or some 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.960 new critter or some crazy idea you thought about and 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:57.960 had never considered before. It shows you, like which parts 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.600 of the universe inspire you and connect with you. And 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.400 that's what I love about science, that there's just so 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.360 much like that we just find cool. I mean, it's 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.880 an emotional response, right, And this is actually one of 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.840 the things I'm curious about aliens, Like do aliens have 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.120 the same emotional reaction to the mysteries of the universe? 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.400 Are they curious? Do they care? Right? Is that human 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.840 or is that universal? That's like a very basic question 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.080 we don't know the answer to, but for me, it's 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:24.760 one of my favorite things about being human. 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:26.800 Yeah. Yeah, Well, and what I want to know is 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.679 do they care about us? Yeah, which leads us nicely 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.839 into our first question from a listener, So let's go 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:34.000 ahead and hear that question. 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:39.080 Hi, I'd love to hear your thoughts about the Fermi paradox. 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.359 Is it really a paradox? While I think the theory 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:47.280 is about the great filter, like if there's some big 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:51.800 thing that always prevents beings from reaching interstellar travel. I 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.800 think that's a really interesting thought experiment. But in general, 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.240 I've never really seen the Fermi paradox as a true paradox, 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.520 just do to how big the universe is and how 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.440 spread out everything is, like the odds of two kinds 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:11.480 of intelligent life. Somehow intercepting just feels too unlikely not 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.239 to mention the significant time delay. Like if alien friends 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.520 from thirty thousand light years away, which is, you know, 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.920 relatively our neighbors on the scale of the universe, if 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.640 they sent out a signal right now, or even one 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.640 hundred years ago or a thousand years ago, we're not 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.679 getting that signal for tens of thousands of years. Still, 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.240 Am I right to think that this isn't really a paradox? 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.320 Or am I misunderstanding something or not thinking about it correctly. 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.720 I'd be happy to be proved wrong here, So I'm 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:43.600 looking forward to your answer, thank you. 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.600 Yay, all right, Daniel, So tell us about the Fermi paradox, 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:49.760 which in an earlier version of the book that I 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.720 read explains the Fermi paradox. So if anyone wants to 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.120 dive deeper, they should check out your book. I assume 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:55.800 it's still in there. 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:00.440 Yeah, So the Fermi paradox quickly is essentially asking, hey, 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.280 the galaxy is filled with stars and planets. There are 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.440 hundreds of billions of stars, and we now know that 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.000 most of them have planets and many planets, and so 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:16.040 there are tens of billions at least of rocky planets 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:18.960 around stars, which are a lot of places for aliens 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.120 to form and to learn and to develop technology and 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.200 to send us messages or to come visit us. And 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.360 space is big, but the Milky Way is not that 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.319 big compared to its age. I mean, the Milky Way 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.760 is like one hundred thousand light years across, so it 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.200 would take a long time to traverse it. But you know, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.120 a long time is a few million years, and the 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.920 Milky Way is billions and billions of years old. We 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.000 think more than ten billion years old, and we've been 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:50.000 here for several billion. Of course, humanity is younger than that. 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.800 But you can imagine scenarios where aliens have traversed the 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.680 galaxy and left relics or filled it with messages. It's 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.800 not that difficult to imagine. So the question is where 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.160 is everybody? Why haven't we been contacted by aliens or 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.920 visited by aliens? So this famously and probably apocryphally, is 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.240 something Fermi said at lunch at Los Almos about fifty 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.839 or sixty years ago, and people have been wondering about since. 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.559 But he did at some point make an equation, right, 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.960 So it maybe started as a lunch conversation, but where 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:22.079 did the equation come from? 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.320 So this is an equation by Drake. That's the Drake 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:28.880 equation that tries to calculate how many aliens should be 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.040 contacting us. And it's pretty simple as an equations go. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.560 It's just a multiplication of a bunch of factors. But 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:36.400 there's actually a lot you can learn just from the 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.880 structure of the equation. So the equation is like the 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.200 number of stars times the fraction that have planets, times 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.960 the fraction that might have life, times the fraction that 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.120 might be civilized, times of fraction you know that develop 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.120 technology and I don't remember exactly the structure of the terms, 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.079 but the fact that they're multiplied together is important because 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.520 that emphasizes that to hear from aliens, all of those 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.520 factors have to be non zero. Like, it doesn't matter 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:03.920 if the universe is filled with life, if none of 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.400 it is technological, right, if there's life everywhere but it's 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:11.199 all just like sheets of algae or heaps of microbes, 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.480 then we're not hearing from anybody, we're not getting visited. 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.160 Or if they become intelligent, but none of them ever 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.520 developed technology, for example, So all of those things have 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:22.640 to work. All of those factors have to be non 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.199 zero for us to hear. And we know that the 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.800 number of planets is large, number of stars is large. 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.719 We don't know, for example, what is the fraction of 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.360 those planets that have life on them. We know there's 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.400 one hours, but it could be the only one, and 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.840 the denominator is large, So it could be that the 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.360 fraction of planets with life on them is like one 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.520 over a gazillion, in which case we're the only life 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.880 in the Milky Way. Or it could be fifty percent, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.839 you know, or ten percent, so that the Milky Way 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.080 is filled with life. We just don't know so many 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:54.040 of these fractions. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.840 So Julie asks something about the Great Filter. What does 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:58.800 the Great filter mean? 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:02.480 Yeah, the Great filters suggests that there might be life everywhere, 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.200 and there might even be intelligent and civilized life everywhere, 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.880 but it might not just last very long. That civilizations 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.280 might essentially burn themselves out. And there's a few ways 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.960 that this could happen. You know, civilizations might become technological 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.320 and then develop the means to kill themselves and end 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.360 up basically nuking each other. And that might be like 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.000 a trend that happens, not in the sense that it's 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.760 inevitable or that it has to happen necessarily. You could 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.880 never prove that, but it might be something that's fairly common. 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.920 Or it could be that civilizations pollute their atmospheres right 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.839 or cause global warming, or in some other way end 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.840 up killing themselves off. So that's the idea of the 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.280 Great Filter to explain the lack of contact or observation 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.040 of aliens by saying that life is very short lived, 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.680 and remember time is very very deep, and so even 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.760 if there have been a thousand civilizations in the Milky Way, 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.560 if each of them only lasted a few thousand years, 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.840 like the length of human civilization so far. Then in 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.200 space of billions of years, it's very unlikely that we 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:05.920 would hear from them now, or that we would happen 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:07.800 to be in life at the right moment to receive 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:08.880 messages from them. 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.520 Okay, that's kind of a bummer, which is right up 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.680 my alley. So what do you think the answer is? 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.480 So now we have to depart from well founded science, 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.480 right and just speculate because we just don't know and 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.080 everything we're doing. I've heard a lot of you know, 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.800 semi scientific analyzes of these things, but in the end, 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.800 we're always extrapolating from one example, and you can learn 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.640 things from one example. You could say like life didn't 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.280 take very long to develop on Earth, so maybe it's 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.800 not unusual, whereas intelligence did take a long time to 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.360 develop on Earth, so maybe that is weird and rare. 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:46.200 Like you can do those analyzes, but in the end, 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:48.920 it's just one. You know. It's like if you roll 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:50.800 a die with a million sides on it and you 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:52.720 get a six, You're like, hmm, that's kind of a 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.480 weird number. But you'd like another roll, right, You'd like 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.040 more measurements before you decide if the die is fair 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.560 or not. So you know, everything we're we talk about 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:05.080 now is non scientific extrapolation and really just wish fulfillment. 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:07.679 But that doesn't mean we can't do it, you know. 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.360 And so my sense is that we're not great at 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:15.840 imagining the scope of possibilities. Right. We tend to do 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.599 perturbation theory basically, take our example and tweak it a 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.720 little bit. And you know, that's what people did for 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.679 a star trek, like you know, Klingons are humans with 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.360 weird foreheads or Vulcans are humans with weird ears. Right, 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.520 we tend to start from our example and then go 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.679 off in some direction. But aliens are not limited by that. 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.079 They don't have to start from humanity and then tweak it. 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:38.880 They can start from a completely different place. And because 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.600 we have only one example, it's very likely that we're 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.200 not considering the full landscape. And so the short answer is, 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.840 I expect aliens are going to be way more alien 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.000 than we can even imagine, in ways that would prevent 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.640 them from wanting to contact us, or from having what 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.600 we would recognize as civilization or technology, or to send 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.679 us messages that we don't even interpret or notice or 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.160 understand to be alien. So my favorite explanation for the 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:11.040 firmi paradox is in that direction that aliens are too alien. 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.520 Interesting. So Eric Kershenbaum wrote Zoologists Guide to the Galaxy 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.240 and great book. Great book, And you know, one of 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.520 the arguments there is that you might expect to find 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.560 organisms to have happened upon some of the same solutions 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:25.960 that we see here are on earth, because probably the 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.320 principles of natural selection act the same no matter where 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.040 you are, and there are similar pressures and a lot 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.840 of environmental pressures in a lot of different places. And 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:39.120 so why give me some examples then of what you're thinking, 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.840 and like why you expect things will be so different. 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:43.760 So, first of all, I really like that book. I 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:45.800 recommend everyone he read it. I had a lot of 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.240 fun reading it, and I actually chatted with him on 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.960 the previous podcast about it, so folks can check that out. 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.120 But I think that that line of argument is a 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.239 little dangerous. You know, it's sort of like post factor rationalization. 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.560 It's like saying, like it's easy to convince yourself that 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.920 humans are a natural endpoint to evolution, like well boy, 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.520 bipedalism makes a lot of sense. Having two eyes makes 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.560 a lot of sense. It makes sense to have a 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:12.880 nose on your face, and you could get yourself towards 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:14.720 arguing like, yeah, aliens are going to look a lot 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.280 like humans because we make sense. But what we don't 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.400 know is how many other ways evolution could have gone 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.920 right and arrives at other solutions that those folks would 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:26.280 also say, gosh, it just makes sense to have a 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.600 hand sticking out of your forehead, you know, or to 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.960 have a transient aus or whatever. Fun you could rationalize 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.240 those things. It's sort of like counting coincidences, right, We're 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.960 not good at thinking about the breadth of possibilities. And specifically, 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:42.920 I think that our evolution a lot of the arguments 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.640 that he makes, you know, like critters will eat other critters, 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.640 precise predation is universal, depend on the environment that we've 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:51.960 evolved in, you know, and some of the sort of 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:56.480 fundamental economics of it, like imagine if instead of critters 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.560 walking across a surface of a planet or even swimming 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.360 in its ocean, and what if we were life forms 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.240 that existed in the atmosphere of a star, right, we 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.120 were like currents of plasma and the distinction between alien 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:13.040 bodies wasn't even that crisp, right. I think about where 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.560 you define the edge of your body. Is it at 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.160 your skin? No, because it's hair there. Okay, your hair's 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:20.400 But now you have like a weird fuzzy definition for 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.280 like where it's Kelly and where it's not Kelly. And 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.920 if you dig down and you're like really philosophical about it, 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.840 it's not well defined. Like there's a fuzzy edge between 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.680 Kelly and the universe. And we like to think of 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.920 ourselves as a thing, a one thing that's distinct from 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.200 the universe because it's important to us sort of like 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.560 culturally and mentally. But what if we weren't you know, 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.160 if we were like flowed between each other and we 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.400 like shared plasma or whatever, we would have a very 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.720 different sort of relationship with the idea of identity, and 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.440 that could change fundamentally what it's like to be a 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.400 critter in that kind of you know, evolutionary economics, that's 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.400 just one example, you know, or in that and if 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.200 we evolved in a very different kind of situation, like 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:06.200 a subsurface ocean. You know, we think that there might 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.879 be oceans even in our solar system, under thick layers 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:12.080 of ice, and so if you're some sort of like 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.320 weird critter that flips around a completely dark ocean, you 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:19.320 might evolve, and then you might have no interest in 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:21.880 the outer universe because you don't even know that it's there, 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.919 and maybe you don't develop thumbs or technology or do 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.320 anything interesting like that. And so there's lots of situations 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:35.119 where aliens are just weirder than I think zoologists mighte. 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:37.800 I don't know why you need to, you know, hone 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.800 in on my people, but all right, I see your point, 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.680 and I think that your imagination is why I enjoyed 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:45.320 your science fiction so much. 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:47.800 Thank you. I think the lesson here is that there 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.520 are a lot of human patterns that we don't recognize 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.000 our human patterns, and the best thing about meeting aliens 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.080 will be discovering those things, will be understanding Oh my gosh, 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.879 we never even imagined that you didn't have to have X, 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:02.320 Y or Z for life, and would tell you what X, 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.159 Y and Z were if I knew now, But I 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.159 don't write, And so that's one of the reasons I 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:09.399 had so much fun writing that book. Is like thinking 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.800 about the edges of our knowledge and where we might 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.840 be making assumptions if we hadn't realized. And frankly, I 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.679 think biologists are way ahead of physicists in this regard. 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.719 You know, y'all have thought about like, hey, do we 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.000 need water for life? It might be possible to use ammonia. 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.600 Do we need carbon for our chemistry? No, you could 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.280 actually maybe use silicon. And that's been helpful because it's 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:31.600 changed the way we look for life and imagine where 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.080 it is. I think physicists are well behind because they 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.640 all just assume that aliens will do physics the way 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:39.679 that we do, and that's probably wrong. 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.400 On behalf of my community. I thank you for the compliments. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.639 All right, let's see what Julie thinks of your answer, 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.320 And thank you to Julie for giving me the opportunity 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:54.400 to talk about how great Daniel's book is. Hi, thanks 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:55.280 for answering my question. 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:57.600 I really like what you said about how the Milky 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.520 Way isn't that big compared to its age, and there 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.400 would maybe be relics out there that in theory we'd 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.920 be able to detect. I was kind of just thinking 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.439 about how big the universe is without necessarily factoring in 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.160 how old it is too, so I think I'm overall 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.600 back on team Paradox. But the explanation for the paradox 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.160 could be many, many different things beyond just how far 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.360 apart everything is, like all of the many different factors 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.800 that you mentioned, and just how truly alien they could be. 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:29.959 I think it's so fun to think about this stuff. 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.480 So really enjoyed how you talked through it. Thanks again, Well, 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:33.200 love the show. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:54.720 All right, So next up we have a question from 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.199 our Discord channel, and if you want to join us 0:19:57.200 --> 0:19:59.679 on Discord, and I really hope that you will, you 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.959 just go to our website at Danielandkelly dot org and 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:06.119 you can click the link to find our Discord group. 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:12.000 And today's question is from Pip Darcat on what. 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.439 Do you do the day Kelly when somebody has a 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.080 Discord handle that's not safe for podcasting? 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.680 Ooh, I will ask our amazing audio engineer Matt Kesselman 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.159 to bleep it for me. No promises, I already have 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:30.920 a plan. Hey, they're extraordinaries. It turns out that listener 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.080 Pip Darcat from Discord wasn't able to get back to 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.399 us in time for putting the audio together for this episode. 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:39.800