WEBVTT - If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:14.520 Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.759 I'm Robert glam and I'm Julie Douglas. Tell me, Julie, 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.799 what does your cat do all day when you're not 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:22.919 at it hide out? Well, I think I've told you 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.720 before that he is working allah inception to plant thoughts 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.159 into my mind. Okay, yeah, so he's just working on 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:34.800 mathematical models basically. Okay, Yeah, that's your that's your theory, right. Uh, no, 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:37.000 that's that's that's what my webcam is telling. Oh, that's 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.400 what your webcams. Yeah, we got a little blackboard office 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:42.080 and see I knew I should see. We don't have 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:43.800 a webcam set up. So it's all a mystery to 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:45.680 me what the cat may or may not be doing 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.880 in the house or outside the house while I'm away. 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:51.720 She could be sleeping on the pillows all day where 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.520 she's not allowed. She could be, uh, you know, turning 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.480 on the Xbox. I have no idea. Huh. This is 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.720 sort of like that proverb. Yeah, if tree falls in 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:02.640 the forest and no one is around here, it doesn't 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.080 make a sound. Yeah, it's a it's a this is 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.360 an old philosophical question. The idea. The idea is not 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.559 necessary to answer the question. Um. You know, of course 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:14.479 some people listening this probably have that kind of mind 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:16.000 where they're like, this is something we can test, we 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.560 can do this, but but it's more about training the 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.320 mind and and uh and you know, throwing a good 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.600 paradox at it to beef it up, you know. Okay, 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.080 So it's like a thought sandwich that we can chew on. Yeah, 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.040 a big chewy thought sandwich. It's a double decker. Yeah, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:31.680 have a sandwich. You can soften it up if you 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:33.600 put in the microwave a little bit, but straight up, 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.520 it's gonna be it's gonna be pretty tough, should we 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:38.600 talk about I mean, just like the bones of it 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:40.920 like that. The fact that the sound is sound is 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:45.000 vibration that's carried through a medium at a frequency range 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.600 capable of being heard by the humanity here. So there's 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.600 there's that, But there's the sound that's out there. So 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.840 regardless of whether or not you're here to listen to it, 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.000 I'm here to listen to it. Sound is going to exist, right, yes, 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.080 But if the sound is that seeve though, that's that 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:02.800 kind of gets into the question like if the sound 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.160 is not received by by a listener by an observer, 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:11.800 then did it take place? What's it really sound? See? 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.720 And I think there are multiple multiple answers to this, 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.600 right right, because you could say, well that you know, 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.560 other organisms are listening first of all, but I guess 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.520 this is just concerning us Homeo sapiens. Yeah, and it 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.080 really comes down to what it says about our perception 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.800 and how it affects our understanding of the universe. Okay, 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.760 so um, I'm thinking right now, like patterns that we 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:42.040 tend to pick up on, right right. So, um, sometimes 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.400 I'll notice something that's happening in the world and I'll 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.400 start think, oh, my goodness, armageddon is is It's just 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.080 around the corner. Yeah, there's always something like, you know, 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.480 especially if teenagers do something like suddenly everybody's paying attention 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.880 to what these teenagers are doing and it's oh, my goodness, 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.839 the end of the world isn't here, right, Yeah, they're 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.160 they're all listening to this horrible music or they're wearing 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.679 these gene shorts that are that are going to bring 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.400 about the end times and and and people have been 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.560 saying this for you know, for ages. I didn't know 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.520 that Jeane Shorts was the queue for the four Horsemen 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.600 of the Apocalypse. Well, no, it's the Antichrist. The Antichrist 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:20.200 will will come in the form of Yeah Shorts, Gane Shorts. 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.040 I've been rereading the Name of the Rose recently, so 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:25.400 I have a lot of this like apocalyptic stuff in 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:27.000 my mind. So I can imagine like an old monk 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.680 talking about, like explaining very detailed why teenagers and Geane 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.760 Shorts are the sign of the Antichrist is walking among us. 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.720 So but anyway, but but at any rate, we've been 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.240 reading too much into data for a long time, and 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.280 we continue to do it um even though it might 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.800 relate more to say, geothermal events than it does to 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.840 the you know, the you know, the arrival of the 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.440 Antichrist on Earth. Okay, So if I'm looking at the weather, 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.800 for instance, and I noticed that there have been a 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.960 ton of floods or hurricanes or tornadoes, and I start 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.280 to think to myself, you know, oh my goodness, look 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.840 what's going on. There seems to be more activity and 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.920 whether than ever before. Couldn't be true, And you can 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.080 you can totally freak out like that on like an 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.480 individual level, but you also see it in like broadly 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.960 and scientific studies, where it's called a reporting effect. Now, 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.839 a great example of this, uh is something that I 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.320 came across when I was writing an article titled all 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:29.600 our Volcanic Eruptions Increasing for Discovering News, and it's I've 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.520 done a number of these at all tackle seemingly simplistic questions, 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.000 and uh and I was really delighted with how how 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.800 interesting this one was. The short answer is is no. 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.200 And and I didn't just look this up. I talked 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.080 to some experts. I talked to uh Lee Siebert, the 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.280 director of the Smithsonian Global Vote of Volcanism Program, or 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.760 the g v P as the kids call it in 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.440 their gene shorts, and uh and and he broke it 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.400 down for me, the great guy. He said that basically, 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.440 we've been he they've been looking at the g VP 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.320 has been looking at volcanic eruption for forty years. And 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.000 if you you really start digging, you have about two 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.680 hundred years worth of data to look at. So if 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.279 you plot those last two hundred years, there's a clear 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.000 increase in the number of eruptions over time. Look at 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:16.440 the data and you're like oh, well there, you know, 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:18.920 and this is totally the numbers are totally off, and 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:20.320 they're like, oh, there's five this year, and then next 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.280 year there's two, and then there's fifteen. Volcanic activity is 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.480 clearly going up. But that's but it's not the case. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.840 This is this is the reporting effect in an action, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.800 because what does that mean? Like why why would we 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:33.960 see that pattern and why wouldn't it be true. Well, 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.320 you take this apparent increase in volcanic eruptions and you 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.920 can compare it to other data, and things start making 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.760 a whole lot more sense. For instance, the apparent increase 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.320 in volcanic eruptions parallels the rise in global population. It 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:52.279 parallels human encroachment into areas of volcanic activity. There's suddenly 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.760 more people around to observe volcanoes erupting. There are more 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.280 people of living in the vicinity of volcanoes to report 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.600 on it. You see the number increase with the evolution 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:06.440 of our telecommunication systems Suddenly, not only can more people, 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.320 more people in a position to observe volcanic activity, but 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.839 they're in a better position to report it. So, yeah, 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.680 tweeting what's going on? Tweeting about it? You know, you know, 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:18.720 emailing call. I mean just as simple as like being 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:21.200 able to call somebody or instead of just writing a 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.479 letter or just marking in your journal. So that means 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:25.920 that all of a sudden we have an avalanche of data. Right. 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:31.360 And then another interesting aspect that they encountered is that 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.359 if you you look at the apparent of volcanic activity, 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.480 just based on reports, you see two really curious depths 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:44.440 in volcanic activity in the twentieth century, once during the 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.559 First World War and then again during the Second World War. Now, 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.520 you could make the argument that that the that these 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.160 world wars caused volcanic activity around the world to decrease, 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.440 but of course you would be and that would be insane, right. 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.640 I'm raising my eyebrows right now at you. That's kind 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.440 of like, um, I mean, it comes down to the 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.919 fact that we were pretty distracted during those times. We 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.640 had world wars going on, and we just didn't have 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.840 time to really focus on what the volcanoes were doing 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.320 for the most part. Again, it's kind of like the cat. 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.160 If you've ever been been really busy and you don't 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.600 notice the cat doing anything. Don't mean the cat is 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.160 not doing anything in fact, it may result in the 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.560 cat doing all sorts of horrible things to get your attention, 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.440 depending on the cat. Uh, it's it's just where your 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.800 attention is at. Likewise, they found that the following, uh, 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.800 the really dramatic eruptions of Krakatoa in eighteen eighty three 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.680 and Mount Pele in nineteen o two, you saw an 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.640 apparent increase in volcanic volcanic activity following those events. Now, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:46.840 it would be a lot easier in this case to say, oh, well, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.680 there's just a huge volcanic events, so there you know, 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.160 these other volcanoes were acting up to. No, it's just 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:53.800 that you have this huge event and people were suddenly 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:55.400 paying a lot more attention to what all the other 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.480 volcanoes are up to. It's kind of like, uh, you know, 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.960 some some it hits the news for you know, for 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:04.960 for something. Uh, like you know, if somebody robs a 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.480 bank while wearing tight jean shorts, right, and then suddenly 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.040 everybody's focused on geene shorts or more people wearing jeene shorts, 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:12.960 or more crimes being committed with jeane shorts. No, it's 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.400 just suddenly our our mind is focused on It was 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:17.800 that one monk right, Ye, should we go back and 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.800 look at this seriously? Yeah? Really? Yeah? Alright, Okay, so 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.520 I'm seeing so the pattern isn't necessarily telling the whole truth. 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.000 When you really peel back the layers, you see that 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:29.880 we just have more access to more data. So even 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.560 like with hurricanes, right, this is the same right hurricane 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.800 you see reporting effects in hurt with with hurricanes, other 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.840 kind of atmospheric anomalis, you see it in like economic studies, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.280 you see it in health reports, And it just underlines 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.360 that no matter what we're looking at and trying to understand, 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:49.560 we can we can look at to the point where 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.760 we we don't really have a good understanding of it. 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.000 We've we've analyzed it too much, we've over analyzed it, 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:56.200 and we we were not were We have to take 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.480 that information that we've gathered and gathered and put it 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.800 in perspective with pretty everything else in the universe to 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:04.640 to make complete sense of it. Yeah, And I'm even 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.719 thinking about Slate. Don't they have a feature that's sort 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.120 of the bogus trend of the week. Oh yeah, I 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.120 think they do that. They sort of debunked the myth 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.400 I think they have. One was like rompers, like everybody's 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:17.120 wearing rompers now refreshment my memory. What is a romper? 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.280 Romper is how to explain this. It's a it's a 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:26.240 sort of onesie for grown ups. Um and and it's 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.480 like first person outfit or like big feetie pajamas. No, no, 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.520 I should say that it's like shorts, like shorts onesie. 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:35.520 And uh so there are a lot of magazines that 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.319 we're saying that, you know, it's come back and it's 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.160 the sexiest thing ever and men love it like cut 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:46.840 off overalls. Yeah, but with sleeves sometimes. Yeah, you see, 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.680 you're getting the idea. It's kind of sounds like a snead, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.959 you know. Oh right, this is the blanket the that's 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:59.199 the snug snuggy. But then the sneed was the thing 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.679 that everyone needs that the the one sler in the 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.800 Lorax made. There was some sort of horrible garment that 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.720 appeared to have no function but became really popular because 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.280 the one Sler was telling everybody that they needed it. 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.319 If I remember correctly, Yes, that's right. So there you get. 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.600 I mean, you're you're there's pattern recognition everywhere, even when 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:18.800 patterns don't exist. I think is what we're saying, So 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.280 whether or not it's an increase in volcanic activity or 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:28.040 um the onslaught of the romper onto American women's bodies, 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.280 or more trees falling all over the world, Yes, because 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.760 we're paying attention to them, that's right. Going back to 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.160 the lorax. Actually, yes, a lot of trees fall on that. 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.360 It all comes together, that's right. So I'm thinking about 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:47.599 quantum inter indeterminacy and how this relates back to that, 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:49.760 because you know, we always have to take on a 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:54.079 little quantum in each podcast. Quantum indetermacy, and this is 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.880 the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system. 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.959 It has become one of the characteristics standard description of 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:07.600 quantum physics, right, and that the stuffy description, right stuff 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.040 in The important part of that is the apparent necessary 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:14.319 and completeness. So before this, prior to quantum physics, it 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.240 was thought that a physical system had a determinate state 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.720 which uniquely determined all the values of its measurable properties, 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.040 and conversely, be the values of its measurable properties uniquely 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.199 determine the state. But the quantum into the mix, and 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:32.360 essentially quantum in determinacy is saying actually there's all sorts 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.280 of outcomes, and in fact, we could be wrong. We 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.400 could you know, this is this is a sort of 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:42.559 placeholder and um, what we're trying to determine, and it 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.040 is We'll just go ahead and say right off the 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.960 bat that it is incomplete. It is not the end 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.360 all of the be all. We don't know if a 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.679 tree is falling in the forest with quantum indeterminacy, but 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.520 we know the possibility is there, right, all right, So 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.360 it's the game of possibilities. Well, of course it instantly 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.760 brings to mind, especially since we mentioned cats earlier, the 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.480 idea of Schrodinger's cat, which of course the ideas of 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:09.959 the cats in a box. And you have this sort 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.680 of elaborate system set up with with the decaying radioactive 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.160 substance and tomic particle writer. It has like an hour 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:22.959 and it there's a chance of decaying, right yeah, yeah, 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.839 and chance of nutcaing, and there's a Geiger counter, and 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.160 if it decays and a hammer hits a flask and 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:30.480 poison or it fires a gun, they're very I think 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.800 they're very various ways to kill the cat. Yeah, But 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:34.640 but it basically comes down to the fact that there's 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.800 a box kind of like your home, and there's a 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.400 cat in it, and you cannot be sure exactly what 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.600 state the cat is in. And since you can't be sure, 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.120 in the case of Shroudinger, if the cat is alive 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.800 or dead, the cat is there in a what it's 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.880 called a superposition, meaning that it is both alive and dead. 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.720 You don't know for sure. It's just a complete uncertainty. Likewise, 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.520 right now, what's my cat Biscuit doing? She laying on 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.400 a pillow? Is she playing the xbox? I don't know. 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.959 My mind don't know. Mine has just broken through the 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.319 theory of everything. Well, that's because you get the webcam. 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.440 I know, I know, I just saw it. I saw Wow. 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:12.959 Let's see, the box is open for you because of 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.160 the webcamp webcam. For me, the box is closed. So 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.240 anything is possible. Right. So what I think is cool 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.760 about this concept is that it really is a driving 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.760 force in science. When we think about science, we think 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:28.679 about um than what we know, and we think about 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.839 this sort of infaillible like you know A is A 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.559 and B, S B and c SC and that's that's 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.360 the story, folks, When in fact, science is just a 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.520 murky murky field UM with all sorts of spooky things happening. 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.160 And there's a neuroscientist named David Eagleman who gave a 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.760 talk at the School of Life about this uncertainty, this 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.359 this quality in our universe that we've come to understand 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.920 is the limits of our knowledge essentially. Right. He's a 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.120 he's he has a kind of a rock star personas 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.240 I remember, he's pretty a pretty hip dude. Oh yeah, yeah. 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.000 He He starts out this conversation by saying, hey, do 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:10.440 you guys know about deep field observation? The host, the audience, 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.559 and uh, you know this is in the UK s 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.640 of course, like you half of them now And he says, 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:17.440 all right, well cool, let me let me just blow 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.400 your mind, you know, right off the bat. And he says, okay, 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.720 there's the Hubble telescope went up, but you know, two 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.320 thousand and three and it's been orbiting UM and a 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.720 geosynchronus synchronous orbit and they just decided to point their 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.720 lens a little tiny spot in space. And what did 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.440 they find? After millions of seconds of data, They thought 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:39.960 maybe I'd find a star or something. They ended up 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.760 finding ten thousand galaxies, which is thousands of billions of 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:48.280 sons observed in a tiny, tiny patch. Um. And to 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.720 me that was the ultimate example of the vastness of 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.400 what we don't know, right, especially he in this he 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:56.400 mentions that, you know, people are like, well, why don't 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.280 you we just do analyze everything to that extent, And 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.680 we could, but it would take like millions and millions 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.000 a yeah, yeah, if you pointed that lens, if you 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.280 tried to map out the entire space, there's no way 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:08.720 we could do it. But we can that tiny little spot. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.320 We can gather data. Yeah, just a tremendous amount of 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:15.840 focus on one portion of the sky. Yeah. And so 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.920 he uses this as a jumping off point to say, 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.000 you know, everything that we thought was true, we we 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.080 kind of have to back up and and look at 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:30.120 and and then he goes into this concept of possibilionism, 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.360 which he he used actually as a joke term um 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.360 a while back, and it's actually gained some legs. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.320 he sounds like something Jack donaghe would make up on 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:46.360 thirty rocks. That's right, possibillionism, lemon, it's the new when 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:50.760 you're writing your Reaganism like that. Um. But basically what 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.440 he's saying, is it's the act of exploration of new ideas, 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.240 which is trying to understand the structure of that possibility space. 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.480 So he's saying, basically, everybody is welcome at the table, 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.240 but we're going to use science to try to cut 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.600 away the parts that don't make sense to us, and 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.080 we're going to acknowledge real the real limits of knowledge 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.840 that we have um and and then he kind of 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:19.000 talks about all the different puzzle parts that we have 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:22.720 that we know about right now, but what we don't 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.240 know about, and quantum theory is basically when those things 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.640 that he talks about, he says like it's given us 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.280 a tremendous amount of information, but at the same time, 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.600 we still are kind of stuck even in that mode 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.400 of well, what's what's right the Copenhagen interpretation or the 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.840 many worlds theory? Right, so so you know, time collapse theory, 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.040 which one of them is right? Are there are many 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:46.920 many worlds that we can observe or is there just 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.360 this one world that we can observe because nothing beyond 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:54.080 that exists, which goes back to that tree in the 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.520 forest you know, now you mentioned when we were prepping 0:16:57.600 --> 0:16:59.800 for this we want to relativity a little bit. Yeah, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.960 and about how the original theory relativity is the idea 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:04.800 of it. It's it's you can sort of compare that 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.560 to a tree following in the forest right right with 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:11.359 Einstein and basically saying, Okay, this is this is my 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:16.239 projection based on mathematics, but this is still just a thought, right, 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.000 this is still a thought experiment in a sense, and 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.280 and and and it was something that subsequently we had 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.879 to prove. We had to prove the things like you know, 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:28.800 observable time dilation uh uh and and also like gravitational 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.879 lensing with stars of observing how you know this this 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.159 interesting relationship between time and space and it's reality at 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:45.119 space time. This presentation is brought to you by Intel 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:52.920 sponsors of Tomorrow. So yeah, basically when Einstein was looking 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.080 at that, this was just the seeds for for what 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.480 we now can apply to different disciplines. Um to breakthroughs 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.879 that we've had in science. But still we have this 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.600 unknown quantity. And I think about dark matter as an example. Um, 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.800 you know, we we definitely underestimated the gravitational pool and 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.200 now we found out that or we think of the 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.840 matter of uh of the universe that we don't know 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.400 what it is or where it's coming from. Yeah, it's 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:21.760 kind of like there was a one particular Sherlock Holmes 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.880 story and I forget the title of it, but they're 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.480 investigating a house and Sherlock was able to determine that 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.639 there's not enough based on the visible space. There's a 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.600 secret room here somewhere and uh, and dark matter is 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.800 kind of a similar situation based on how much matter 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.800 there should be the universe or something missing for dark matter, right, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.600 then that's a great example or a great technology because 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.200 we can't see it, but we know that based on 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:52.040 our models that there has to be something there. There's 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.240 a there's a hidden room and it's filled with dark matter, 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.640 and we just have to figure out exactly what that means. Yeah, 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.159 and then if you take it down to even just uh, 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:05.240 the level of what's available to us now, like, for instance, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:09.240 you've got photography, which high speed photography now which we 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:13.040 can slow down mundane events. Um, even like a dog 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:16.919 lapping up water, Oh yes, or a cat. They're recently 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.000 studying on exactly how a cat's drinking. It's completely different 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.640 than we ever thought. I mean, especially with a dog 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:24.639 if you look at it. I used to think that 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.159 the dog was using its tongue is a sort of 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.040 cup and bringing all that water up into him. But 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.960 now we understand that it's actually curling its tongue under 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:35.880 and getting the water in that way. So you begin 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.440 to think to yourself, how many things am I actually 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.520 missing on a day to day basis because I'm not 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.800 quite equipped to perceive things like We slow it down 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:47.959 even more and we see that when the tongue curls 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.200 like a tiny doghead comes out of a hole in 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.520 the tongue and then drinks the water. That's not true. 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:55.360 That's it might be true. We just don't know yet. 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.240 We don't know yet. We just can't be certain. I 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.080 really wish that word here, but it does make me 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.879 think about like Another example, which David Eagleman gives, is 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.720 that we've got photo receptors at the back of our 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.280 eyes picking up signals and picking up a tiny slice 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.920 of electromagnetic radiation spectrum, which is what we call visible light. 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:21.000 The same stuff is passing through us via cell phones, right, 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.520 But the difference is that cell phone signals we can't 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.520 decode them because we don't have the specialized receptors for it. 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.520 So again it brings us back to that question of 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.760 maybe we're just ill equipped to be able to do 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.040 more at this point in time. Evolution kind of end 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.399 up thinking of the visible world. The world is visible 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.800 to humans as being reality, but in but it actually 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:49.160 may work out to where the version of reality we're 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.200 just seeing like a slim slice of reality. The rest 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.720 is like we've got blinders like a horse. Yeah. Yeah. 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.240 David Eagleman had this really great point. He was sort 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.359 of talking about all the where we are history really 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:02.920 in terms of breakthroughs and saying, you know, can you 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:07.240 imagine being able to even understand a computer lit alone 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.800 quantum computing if you didn't even have electricity to plug 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.479 in that computer? Yeah, I can't even imagine understanding one 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.159 with electrics, right, It still breaks my brain. But but 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.720 so we think about where we're going to be on 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.040 that timeline a hundred years from now, our thousand years 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.480 from now, and we essentially might look like Caveman. And 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.640