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Speaker 1: Or Hey, how do you feel when you get an

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Speaker 1: unexpected piece of mail, like a letter to my house?

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Speaker 1: It's usually either good news or bad news exactly, But

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Speaker 1: do you get a feeling about it before you open it,

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Speaker 1: about whether it's good or bad? Sure, Like, if it

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Speaker 1: looks like a check, it's probably good news. If it

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Speaker 1: comes from the I R S, probably not good news. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and anything handwritten is probably also not bad news. What

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Speaker 1: if the I r S says your handwritten note, that's

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Speaker 1: probably extra bad news. Actually, well, it could be a

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Speaker 1: fan from the I R S. You could have a

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Speaker 1: fan letter, unless it's cut off from little pieces of

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Speaker 1: magazine fonts. I don't want anybody the I r S

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Speaker 1: to be impressed by the creativity of my tax return.

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Speaker 1: I am more handmay cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics.

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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at

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Speaker 1: u C Irvine, where my mailbox is usually filled with

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Speaker 1: people sending me their theories of the universe and letters

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Speaker 1: from prisoners. Is that true you get letters from prison

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Speaker 1: like physical letters, I do. I get handwritten letters from

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Speaker 1: prison from folks who have found our book in their

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Speaker 1: prison library. Wow. That's pretty interesting. That's pretty cool. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a little window out into the universe. I thought you

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Speaker 1: were going to say they're from your friends in prison,

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Speaker 1: although I guess now you have friends in prison. There

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Speaker 1: are my friends now. I actually used to teach in

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Speaker 1: prison when I was at Berkeley. I used to go

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Speaker 1: up and be a t a at San Quentin. They

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Speaker 1: had a class there in mathematics for prisoners. So go

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Speaker 1: and help teach arithmetic to prisoners. Oh, that's pretty cool,

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Speaker 1: until the day I discovered that one of the prisoners

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Speaker 1: there used to be a grad student working for my advisor,

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Speaker 1: also at Berkeley. No way, so you were, you thought,

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Speaker 1: because they do more than you, or it sort of

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Speaker 1: scared you about your potential future. I thought, Wow, there

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Speaker 1: are more career paths from grad school than I realized,

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Speaker 1: creative ones at that But welcome to our podcast Daniel

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Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio in which we try to unlock your mind and

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Speaker 1: release you from the prison of our human ignorance. We

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Speaker 1: want to set everybody's brains free, and we want to

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Speaker 1: understand everything that's out there in the universe from the

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Speaker 1: true nature of the fundamental elements of the universe, our

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Speaker 1: space and time fundamental, or do they emerge from some

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Speaker 1: crazy frothing quantum reality all the way up to the largest,

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Speaker 1: most dramatic structures in the universe, to the very edges

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Speaker 1: of the known universe and beyond. We aim to explain

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Speaker 1: all of it to you. Yeah, because it is a

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Speaker 1: pretty amazing universe. It's vast and full of interesting and

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Speaker 1: crazy mysteries. But we seem to be sort of maybe

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Speaker 1: stuck and maybe sort of also prisoners in one little

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Speaker 1: tiny corner of it, sort of blocked off by the

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Speaker 1: huge walls of space around us that make it really

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Speaker 1: hard for us to go visit other places. It does

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Speaker 1: sort of seem like we are in solitary confinement, and

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Speaker 1: we don't know if there are other intelligent beings out

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Speaker 1: there in the galaxy also wondering about the same questions

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Speaker 1: that we are proving the nature of matter, and wondering

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Speaker 1: if they are also alone. Yeah, we're like in a

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Speaker 1: cosmological time out. Maybe we misbehave We've definitely been misbehaving,

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Speaker 1: But I don't know if we deserve to be in

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Speaker 1: isolation for thousands and thousands of years. It seems a

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Speaker 1: bit extreme. We can't play with the breast of the

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Speaker 1: kids kids species in the universe. Maybe we're just waiting

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Speaker 1: for the day we get let out into the yard

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Speaker 1: and we get to meet all the other prisoners. Although

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Speaker 1: it's not a bad prison metaphorically speaking. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: Earth is pretty comfortable. It's like home confinement. That's right.

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Speaker 1: I got no complaints. I love the Earth, And we

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Speaker 1: got a pretty good view out of our window. We

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Speaker 1: can see really far into the universe, across billions and

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Speaker 1: billions of light years and are witnessing cataclysmic cosmic events

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Speaker 1: that give us clues into the nature of reality. One

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Speaker 1: thing we haven't seen yet, however, is evidence that there's

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Speaker 1: somebody else out there. Yeah, it kind of makes you

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Speaker 1: wonder if there are other alien species sort of looking

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Speaker 1: at the universe like we are, and maybe looking at

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Speaker 1: the same events at the same time as we are,

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Speaker 1: and asking the same questions we're asking about the universe.

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Speaker 1: I think it's even more interesting if there are alien

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Speaker 1: astronomers looking at the same events but before we are,

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Speaker 1: Like some photons that have taken five hundred million years

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Speaker 1: to get to Earth, aliens might have seen photons from

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Speaker 1: that same event. A hundred million years ago, they might

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Speaker 1: have been like working on this and writing papers and

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Speaker 1: scooped us by a hundred million years. Are you saying

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Speaker 1: the science we have right now is old news like

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's based on stale data. That's right. It's

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Speaker 1: time to go out there and get some fresh results.

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Speaker 1: But depending on where you are in the universe, you

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Speaker 1: may see something a lot sooner then somebody else. So

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Speaker 1: it could be that there's something amazing that happened in

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Speaker 1: the universe and the light from it is still getting here,

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Speaker 1: but it's already hit alien astronomers and they have received

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Speaker 1: this incredible insight from this one of a kind cosmic event. Right,

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Speaker 1: But I guess in a relative universe there's such a

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Speaker 1: thing as sort of instantaneity, right, Like, maybe they saw

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Speaker 1: it before we did, But by the time they tell

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Speaker 1: us they saw it, we have already seen this discovery.

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Speaker 1: That's true. Photons from the event will arrive here before

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Speaker 1: their paper on it arrives here, so we'll have a

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Speaker 1: narrow window to claim that we came up with the

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Speaker 1: ideas ourselves, unless their paper is about wormholes and somehow

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Speaker 1: they get it to us before we see the light,

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Speaker 1: in which case it's like maybe getting a preview or something.

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Speaker 1: Maybe or maybe the first interstellar war will be started

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Speaker 1: by physicists arguing about who came up with an idea first. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it'll be fought on the wormhole Internet probably, or maybe

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Speaker 1: their first paper will be like, hey, Earth, watch out,

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Speaker 1: there's a giant gamma raypers coming your way that will

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Speaker 1: kill you. Would be very kind to them. I hope

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Speaker 1: that aliens are out there and looking out for us,

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Speaker 1: But it is a pretty big question of whether or

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Speaker 1: not we are alone in the universe. That you know,

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Speaker 1: it's a vast universe and we are able to sit

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Speaker 1: of sea and look out there, and we're also able

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Speaker 1: to send messages. But it's a little bit of a

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Speaker 1: debate about whether we should be sending out messages or not.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Some folks are desperately curious to contact aliens

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Speaker 1: or even just to know about their existence, and other

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Speaker 1: folks are wondering, is it a good idea for aliens

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Speaker 1: to know that we are here? Yeah, because you might

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Speaker 1: be a learning dangerous aliens to our presence. Right, you

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Speaker 1: might be telling them, Hey, there's a whole bunch of

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Speaker 1: delicious looking meat running around here in this blue planet

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Speaker 1: where you can also get a nice drink of water,

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Speaker 1: come get it, that's right, Or you might accidentally say

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Speaker 1: something offensive to spark an interstellar war. Sometimes just staying

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Speaker 1: quiet is the best approach. You're saying, the aliens could

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Speaker 1: have thin skin. Maybe they don't even have skin, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe they just take offense to everything instantly, that's right.

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Speaker 1: Who knows they're aliens? Right, it could just be like

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Speaker 1: a cloud of group or something. But I guess it's

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Speaker 1: sort of the idea that maybe our quest to be

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Speaker 1: like reach out and contact other civilizations maybe naive, right,

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Speaker 1: because it could be leading us into a potentially dangerous

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Speaker 1: situation exactly. And it's a question we often are confronted

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Speaker 1: by in physics, not just whether we can, but whether

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Speaker 1: we should. So today on the podcast, we'll be tackling

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Speaker 1: the question is it dangerous to try to communicate with aliens?

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Speaker 1: That question sounds dangerous. I mean, anytime you say sort

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Speaker 1: of aliens, you gotta you gotta step back for a second.

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Speaker 1: You and I often joke about this on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to the day the aliens arrived because

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Speaker 1: I hope I can ask them physics questions about like

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Speaker 1: what is the true nature of reality and quantum gravity

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Speaker 1: and how did the universe begin? Etcetera. But sometimes you

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Speaker 1: get the impression that you're a little bit more concerned

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Speaker 1: about whether or not the aliens will just fry us

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Speaker 1: from orbit. Yeah, well, you know, you look at it

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Speaker 1: from all sides, I guess. But um, you know, first

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Speaker 1: of all, I guess you're assuming that the aliens know

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Speaker 1: the answer to these questions. Maybe they're just as clues

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Speaker 1: as as we are and hungry. That's a great point.

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Speaker 1: It depends a lot on how we actually get in

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Speaker 1: touch with these aliens. If aliens come to Earth, and

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Speaker 1: it's likely that they have traveled through space in a

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Speaker 1: way that we haven't been able to, so it's very

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Speaker 1: likely they're more advanced than we are, and so probably

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Speaker 1: they have some answers or at least different perspectives on

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Speaker 1: these questions. But if we just get a message from them,

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Speaker 1: then there's no guarantee that they have developed anything that

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Speaker 1: we haven't developed. And if they all they do is

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Speaker 1: here our message, they might not have very sophisticated technology

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Speaker 1: at all. I think it's just kind of dangerous to

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Speaker 1: have those expectations. You know, like, what if you hail

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Speaker 1: the aliens they come all the way here, and then

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Speaker 1: you ask them like, hey, what are the secrets to

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Speaker 1: the universe? And they're like, we don't know. What are

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Speaker 1: you gonna do? It's gonna be really awkward to I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna be like, I made all this guacamole just just

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Speaker 1: for have this party with you to celebrate this, you know,

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Speaker 1: solutions to the universe, and now it's just gonna go bad. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And then what are you gonna do? Or you can

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Speaker 1: disinvite them? What are you going to talk about for

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Speaker 1: the next you know, billion years with them in your house.

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Speaker 1: I'm definitely not great at keeping conversation going, especially with strangers,

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Speaker 1: so it would be a tricky situation. But I think

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Speaker 1: it's worth the risk because they could have incredible answers,

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Speaker 1: or at least, you know, maybe they even just ask

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Speaker 1: different questions, questions we haven't thought to ask. I think,

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Speaker 1: joking aside, the greatest thing we would learn from communicating

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Speaker 1: intellectually with another species is just learning from all the

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Speaker 1: differences in our approaches, not even necessarily the answers interesting.

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Speaker 1: Yet it wouldn't it be easier just to try a

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Speaker 1: different approach ourselves. Yeah, sit down, brainstorm, other ways we

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Speaker 1: could think about things. What do you need to outsource?

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Speaker 1: Sometimes I think the human thought is sort of trapped

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Speaker 1: in a rut and we don't even realize all the

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Speaker 1: time the decisions we've made in the arbitrary choices that

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Speaker 1: have influenced us. And just like the path of human thought,

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Speaker 1: you know who thought of what when and who had

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Speaker 1: time to go into science and influence the direction and

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Speaker 1: of human science. So I think if you ran the

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Speaker 1: Earth is an experiment a thousand times, you would probably

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Speaker 1: get lots of different ideas about science. But we only

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Speaker 1: have this one experiment. So it's a little frustrating, all right. Well,

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Speaker 1: as usually, we were wondering how people thought about this

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Speaker 1: idea of contacting aliens or looking for aliens, or whether

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Speaker 1: they thought it was a good idea or risky one.

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Speaker 1: So Daniel went out there, this time in person, out

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Speaker 1: into the campus of you see Irvine, to ask people

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Speaker 1: this question. That's right, you see, I opened up again

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Speaker 1: after the pandemic, and so I was able to walk

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Speaker 1: around campus and make people feel weird by asking them

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Speaker 1: about aliens. To thank you to all the u c

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Speaker 1: I students, who answered this question. Wow, was it extra

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Speaker 1: weird being back and asking questions of strangers? Like I

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Speaker 1: imagine it was weird before to have this, you know,

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Speaker 1: scurfy looking physicist approach you and ask you questions about

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Speaker 1: the universe. But now you're doing it with a mask

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Speaker 1: and there's a pandemic going on. How was that weird? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think I'm a little less scruffy because of the mask.

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Speaker 1: It hides some of the rough so maybe it makes

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Speaker 1: me look a little more professional. But it was nice.

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Speaker 1: It's good to be out there again. It's good to

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Speaker 1: see people. It's good to have the campus be alive.

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Speaker 1: So I think people are a little hungry for some interaction.

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Speaker 1: I was surprised everybody was very receptive. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: think about it for a second. If someone asked you

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Speaker 1: whether it's a good idea to look for aliens or

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Speaker 1: is it risky? What would you answer. Here's what people

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Speaker 1: had to say. I don't really know. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think it's pretty cool. I guess I think it's more

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Speaker 1: interesting rather than like dangerous if you were to try

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Speaker 1: to communicate. So, yeah, there is always a risk, but uh,

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Speaker 1: there's also an opportunity. So I feel yeah, I feel

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Speaker 1: it's actually not necessarily It's hard for me to say

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Speaker 1: it's cool or bad, but it's also hard for me

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Speaker 1: to say it's necessarily bad. I think it's incredibly risky.

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Speaker 1: I think that the prospect of an extra strestrial civilization

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Speaker 1: showing up on Earth is very scary. You don't know

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Speaker 1: what they what their intentions might be, and I think

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Speaker 1: history kind of shows us that when people who are

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Speaker 1: outsiders show up in a place where you know they

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Speaker 1: don't really think of the other inhabitants, is so much

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Speaker 1: like then, or you know, the equivalent of them, then

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Speaker 1: these are usually turn out so well, really, because we

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Speaker 1: could advance our knowledge about how life is form and

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Speaker 1: how it functions and ways we cannot even begin to

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Speaker 1: comprehend right now. And what about the risks worth it?

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Speaker 1: Every new idea brings risks, and everything we do depends

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Speaker 1: on on who we are and how we go about it.

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Speaker 1: So based on that, we could never do anything if

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Speaker 1: we don't trust the people that doesn't, they could bring

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Speaker 1: us diseases that we couldn't fight. Well. I think it's

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Speaker 1: a good idea for a multitude of reasons. I think,

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Speaker 1: first and foremost, it's just informative to know whether or

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Speaker 1: not where alone or not? And then that just opens

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Speaker 1: up a whole new lineup questioning, which is, you know,

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Speaker 1: how do they develop differently from us? Where did we diverge?

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Speaker 1: Do we look at the universe in the same way?

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Speaker 1: You know? I think in much the same way that

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Speaker 1: it's informative to get other cultures experiences on certain things.

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Speaker 1: It can be interesting to get an entirely different species

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Speaker 1: perspective on something. What about the risks? There are risks,

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Speaker 1: but there are risks inherent in anything, right, Um, the

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Speaker 1: Manhattan rodinking built a new you know, the risk was,

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Speaker 1: are we going to ignite the atmosphere? We're just gonna

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Speaker 1: wipe out the human race right now? Probably not if

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Speaker 1: the risk is there, right, And if we go out

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Speaker 1: into space looking for extra terrescials, the same risk is

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Speaker 1: inherentble But I think the benefits out where the risks.

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Speaker 1: But then if it's pot wiping out the human race, well,

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Speaker 1: some might argue that there is a benefit to wiping

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Speaker 1: out the human race. I wouldn't go that far, but

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Speaker 1: but some people would make that argument. But that is

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Speaker 1: actually a benefit. I definitely think it's a good idea

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Speaker 1: of course we should. I guess it doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: be balanced with other needs for resources. So, for example, um,

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Speaker 1: should we educate our children or do biomedical research versus

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Speaker 1: for all our resources into the hope of maybe finding

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Speaker 1: alien life. I guess I'd still vote for like, keeping

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Speaker 1: our planet working right here at home, I think would

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Speaker 1: be a good idea. I could see how it would

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Speaker 1: be dangerous if but I would choose to believe that

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Speaker 1: they would be just as curious as we are and

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Speaker 1: not aggressive or hostile in anyway, and then it would

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Speaker 1: be a mutual communication between both of us. All Right.

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Speaker 1: We have a pretty wide range of opinions here from people.

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Speaker 1: Some people think it's super risky, some people think it's

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Speaker 1: super cool, yeah, And some people think it's risky but

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Speaker 1: worth the risk. I guess I wonder if they're thinking

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Speaker 1: about the full range of risk potential here. You know,

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Speaker 1: there was somebody who argued that the human race itself

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Speaker 1: getting wiped out might be a benefit, not necessarily a risk.

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. There was some pretty dark thoughts going on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: pretty uh dark people who go to uc I apparently.

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Speaker 1: But it's an interesting question whether it's worth the risk, right,

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Speaker 1: because the risk could be a pretty bad You could

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Speaker 1: wipe out the whole maybe human race potentially. Yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about alien technology with unknown capabilities. So definitely, like

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Speaker 1: sterilizing the entire planet is in the realm of possibility,

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Speaker 1: And so it seems like a weird balance to strike

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Speaker 1: the right, Like, on the one hand, we could be

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Speaker 1: destroyed and wipe out our species. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: we might satisfy Daniel Whiteson's curiosity. I don't know, man,

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Speaker 1: that's a tough call. That is a tough It's a

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Speaker 1: tough call for the rest of us to be audest well.

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Speaker 1: I promised to share some of the insights if they

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Speaker 1: do come. How about that balance a little bit? Of

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Speaker 1: course you're going to share that, Daniel. I mean you

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Speaker 1: were you thinking that you're going to keep it to yourself.

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Speaker 1: I might. I might just build a prison of solitude

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Speaker 1: and sit there knowing all these answers on my own.

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Speaker 1: I see, you're gonna put the entire human race and

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Speaker 1: risk and then keep all of the reward to yourself.

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Speaker 1: I'll just dribble out of paper every ten years or so,

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Speaker 1: blowing everything out of the water. From the alien prison.

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Speaker 1: You'll be writing us and then the rest of us

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Speaker 1: will get it through the prison newsletter? Is that the

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Speaker 1: said the idea, and then we're gonna think, oh wow,

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Speaker 1: that was totally worth it. Yeah, well, jokes aside, there

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Speaker 1: are some really interesting questions there about how to communicate

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Speaker 1: with aliens if they do come, or if they do

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Speaker 1: send us a message, how to speak for Earth, you know,

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Speaker 1: like who gets to speak for Earth? It's a difficult question.

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Speaker 1: We actually talked to Jill Tartar, head of CETI about that,

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Speaker 1: about how they get a community together, a multicultural, multi

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Speaker 1: perspective community to think about how to respond potentially to

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Speaker 1: an alien message. It's a hard question. Interesting all right,

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Speaker 1: But before I guess we get into those details, let's

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Speaker 1: maybe take a step back here and think about this

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Speaker 1: larger question of are we alone? What have we learned

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Speaker 1: about that question? What have we done to answer that question? Daniel?

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Speaker 1: It's a really interesting question, and obviously we all want

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Speaker 1: to know the answer are we alone? But it's sort

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Speaker 1: of puzzling that we don't know the answer already. It's

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Speaker 1: famously said by for me that was wondering, like where

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Speaker 1: is everybody? Because the galaxy is pretty big? I mean,

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Speaker 1: stars are far away, but it's also really really old

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Speaker 1: and then filled with planets, And so if you think

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Speaker 1: that life is not like totally unlikely, not like one

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Speaker 1: in a trillion, then the number of planets means there

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Speaker 1: should be a lot of life out there, which is

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Speaker 1: a lot of opportunity for intelligent aliens. And because the

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Speaker 1: galaxy is really old compared to how big it is,

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Speaker 1: it's totally possible for an intelligence civilization to have sent

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Speaker 1: us messages or to have explored the universe. So it's

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Speaker 1: sort of puzzling, like why we haven't been contacted yet?

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Speaker 1: Why aliens haven't found us or sent us messages yet? Right?

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Speaker 1: That's the famous form me paradox, right, Like we look around,

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Speaker 1: there's so many stars, so many potential habitable planets. There

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Speaker 1: must be other we can't be like the only ones.

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Speaker 1: That would be sort of a crazy coincidence, And so

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Speaker 1: you've got to wonder where why haven't we made contact?

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Speaker 1: Though you sort of also think that, you know, being

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Speaker 1: an old universe, it also makes it harder to contact

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Speaker 1: people if it's an old universe, right, because maybe there

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Speaker 1: was an alien species nearby, but they lived billions of

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Speaker 1: years ago, and so maybe they did some messages, but

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Speaker 1: we weren't around or listening to to hear them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's lots of potential solutions to this paradox. And that's

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Speaker 1: why I love about the paradox. It's not really like

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Speaker 1: a contradiction necessarily makes you question your assumptions and you say,

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Speaker 1: if all these things I think are true, then we

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Speaker 1: should have been contacted. So let's go back and examine

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Speaker 1: those assumptions. And one of the important ones is that

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Speaker 1: when you just mentioned which has to do with how

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Speaker 1: long civilizations survive, like if intelligence civilizations only last for

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Speaker 1: a few thousand years before they blow themselves up or

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Speaker 1: you know, ruin their environments or something, then to be

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Speaker 1: very difficult to have them line up in time so

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Speaker 1: that they could discover each other and maybe even communicate

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Speaker 1: with each other. This is sometimes called the great filter,

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Speaker 1: that maybe most civilizations are extinguished before they can become

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Speaker 1: long lasting civilizations. Yeah, like it's inevitable sort of yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then the question is like, well, did we already

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Speaker 1: survive the Great filter? Are we through it or is

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Speaker 1: it ahead of us? You know, are we about to

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Speaker 1: extinguish ourselves? All signs point to yes. It depends on

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Speaker 1: whether those planets have a Daniel Whites and who's crazy

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Speaker 1: curiosity leads them down the wrong path. I see, So

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Speaker 1: you're the filter. Is that what you're saying, the thing

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Speaker 1: that filters us from a longevity. All I'm saying is

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Speaker 1: that we have one of me and we've survived so far.

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Speaker 1: You know, that's what the data says. Years Daniel, you're

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Speaker 1: barely getting started. Look, I have destroyed the Earth and

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Speaker 1: extinguished humanity exactly zero times in my life. So that's

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Speaker 1: all I can say. In fact, the trend is going

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Speaker 1: the wrong way, Like recently you've got a microphone and

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Speaker 1: reaching more people, and so the filter is she's getting

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Speaker 1: more clogged up. I think that's true. But there's lots

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Speaker 1: of ways to attack this problem. You know. One is

385
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Speaker 1: to say, well, maybe life just is much more rare

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Speaker 1: than we ever imagine. Maybe we really are alone out

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Speaker 1: there in the universe, and that's certainly possible. You know,

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Speaker 1: we don't know how many times life started. We've only

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Speaker 1: ever seen this one example though. If you look at

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Speaker 1: the history of life on Earth, we see that it

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Speaker 1: started pretty quickly after the conditions were favorable, and we

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Speaker 1: think those conditions are not that rare. So it'd be

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Speaker 1: pretty strange if life itself at least you know, heiny

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Speaker 1: microbial life started somewhere else. What do you mean it

395
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Speaker 1: started early, like as soon as the Earth form we

396
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Speaker 1: had sort of self assembling molecules in our primorial soup.

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Speaker 1: After we had reasonable conditions and liquid water. It only

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Speaker 1: took a few hundred million years at most before we

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Speaker 1: had very simple forms of life. You know, on the

400
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Speaker 1: time scale of the Earth billions of years, that's not

401
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Speaker 1: that long. And it might have started sooner. That's just

402
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Speaker 1: like the oldest evidence that we have for life. It's

403
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:46,480
Speaker 1: very difficult to find very very ancient signs of life

404
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Speaker 1: in old rocks, so it could have started even sooner. Wow.

405
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Speaker 1: So I guess the fact that we got it early

406
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Speaker 1: means it must have been easy, right, I guess is

407
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:56,359
Speaker 1: that the reasoning, like, oh, we got it pretty quick,

408
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Speaker 1: it must not be that hard, that's the reasoning. Although

409
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Speaker 1: we only have one example, it could be that we

410
00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:04,159
Speaker 1: got super duper crazy lucky, right, We just don't know.

411
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Speaker 1: We need to find life somewhere else to get a

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Speaker 1: clear view of that situation. But you know, intelligence arrived

413
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Speaker 1: fairly late on Earth, and so that makes the opposite suggestion.

414
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Speaker 1: Maybe life is fairly common in the universe, but mostly

415
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Speaker 1: it's not very smart and intelligence is very rare, or

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Speaker 1: maybe the Earth is unusual. Right. We just can't draw

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Speaker 1: a lot of conclusions from one example, right, Right, That's

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Speaker 1: why I'm always late making things and turning things in,

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Speaker 1: because if you do it too early, people are going

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Speaker 1: to think it's too easy. Right, Jo must be really

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Speaker 1: intelligent because he's always very late. That's exactly exactly, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: Or what he's doing must be really hard it's taking

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Speaker 1: in so long, another argument for procrastination. And there are also,

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Speaker 1: of course questions about the nature of intelligence. You know,

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Speaker 1: would we even recognize intelligent life if it sent us

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Speaker 1: a message or if it flew by? Are we trapped

427
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Speaker 1: into a box of thinking about intelligent life as sort

428
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Speaker 1: of variations on the human experience and the human an example,

429
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:04,240
Speaker 1: unable to even imagine the crazy forms that life or

430
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,320
Speaker 1: intelligence might take out there in the universe. Yeah, you mean,

431
00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 1: like they could have been sending us message all this time.

432
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,960
Speaker 1: There could be messages from aliens washing over us right now,

433
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,320
Speaker 1: but maybe in a totally different way than what we

434
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:20,040
Speaker 1: were expecting. Right, Like, we're listening the way we send signals,

435
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 1: but maybe they're sending sending signals in a totally different

436
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:25,280
Speaker 1: way exactly, And we're sending signals in ways that seem

437
00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:28,159
Speaker 1: obvious to us, and like anybody would do it this way, right,

438
00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 1: But that's exactly what we want to learn when we

439
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 1: talk to aliens. We want to learn how they might

440
00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:35,240
Speaker 1: think differently. So when we start by assuming that they're

441
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:37,760
Speaker 1: doing things the same way, we trap ourselves and only

442
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 1: being able to find aliens that are basically like us,

443
00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 1: you know, with maybe wrinkly foreheads or pointy ears, right,

444
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 1: But to be honest, that seems like a very human

445
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:51,200
Speaker 1: thing to do, like, let's only talk to people who

446
00:22:51,240 --> 00:22:55,000
Speaker 1: are exactly like us. I try to only talk to

447
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 1: physicists except twice a week. When I talk to you, good,

448
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:02,360
Speaker 1: I'm your alien. He's taking a risk here, a big

449
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 1: risk that I might destroy you, but you get so

450
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 1: much out of our conversations exactly, it's worth the risk

451
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,720
Speaker 1: because I always say that's right. Yeah, Well, thank you, Daniel,

452
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Thank you for not frying me with

453
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:18,680
Speaker 1: your death ray so far. Yet, well, there are other possibilities,

454
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 1: and it also raises a question, why should we be

455
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: looking for aliens out there. So these are interesting and

456
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,120
Speaker 1: big questions that we are going to talk about. But first,

457
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:41,920
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. All right. We're talking about

458
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 1: whether it's a good idea or a bad idea to

459
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:47,680
Speaker 1: look for aliens out there in the universe, and it's

460
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: a tricky balance, Daniel, I guess maybe what are some

461
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:53,680
Speaker 1: of the arguments for looking for aliens? The arguments for

462
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: are easy to make. I mean, we just want to know.

463
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: It's one of the deepest questions in modern science. Are

464
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: we alone in the universe? It tells us so much

465
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 1: about the nature of our existence. You know, I'm always

466
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:07,440
Speaker 1: saying that the reason we do science is not just

467
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,600
Speaker 1: to have spinoffs and technology and faster phones, but to

468
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:13,920
Speaker 1: understand the very context of our lives. What is this

469
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 1: universe we're living in? How did it come to be?

470
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: Because it changes how we live our lives. And knowing

471
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: that we are alone in the universe or knowing that

472
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:26,120
Speaker 1: we are not, both of those totally change the context

473
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,040
Speaker 1: of our lives. And so I think it's just one

474
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,160
Speaker 1: of the deepest questions and we're desperate to know. Yeah,

475
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: I totally agree, although I also have to kind of

476
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 1: say that we sort of have that answer in a way, right, Like,

477
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 1: at this point, we know so much about the universe

478
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:41,680
Speaker 1: that we think that the answer is probably right, like

479
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: probably there's life out there or most likely there's life

480
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 1: out there. Isn't that sort of good enough? Yeah, I'd

481
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: say the answer is plus or minus. You know, but

482
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: we we basically don't know anything. You know, we have

483
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 1: this one example. We can make estimates, but until you know,

484
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: you don't really know anything. That's why we do experiment, right.

485
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:02,159
Speaker 1: We think we figured out how this works, and we

486
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: go out there, and then the universe surprises us. Every

487
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,920
Speaker 1: time we open up new eyeballs or new ears into

488
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 1: the universe, we learned something surprising and shocking that changes

489
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: the very way we think about the universe. So it's

490
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: definitely worth looking because I bet the answer is pretty

491
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: different from what we expect. Well, I guess, you know,

492
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: we expect it to be yes. So you're saying maybe

493
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: the answers no, The answers very so much depends on

494
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 1: who you ask. Like, personally, I think it's very likely

495
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: that there's life all over the universe in lots of

496
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 1: ways we can't even imagine, and that intelligence takes such

497
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: a varied forms that would be very difficult for us

498
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 1: to recognize it, not to mention, communicate with it, or

499
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: understand a message. I think aliens are probably more alien

500
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 1: than we can even imagine interesting, and so you just

501
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: want to kind of find them and to just to

502
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 1: see how weird they can be. Yeah, absolutely, the same

503
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: reason I like to go traveling, Like, Wow, look what

504
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: people put on their French fries in this country. I

505
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 1: never even thought of that. Oh my gosh. It just

506
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: you know, expands ther insense of your brain. It makes

507
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: you think in Newton different ways, right, But would you

508
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: still eat it? Though? Do you always try them? I

509
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: try every condiment once I see you just want to

510
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: sample the aliens. He's not take a picture of him.

511
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 1: Maybe these aliens are delicious also, you never know. Oh jeez, well,

512
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 1: I guess. Um. Now the question is how are we

513
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: looking for these aliens? Are we actively listening? I know

514
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 1: there's a SETI program out there, Um what else is

515
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: out there? And setting means search for an extraterrestrial intelligence.

516
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: They're the biggest deal out there in terms of trying

517
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: to identify messages from space, and so this is very

518
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: different from like questions about whether alien craft are in

519
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,159
Speaker 1: the skies and these alien UFO videos said, He's like,

520
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: let's just listen for messages from across the universe, trying

521
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: to see if somebody out there is similar enough to

522
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: us in intelligence and technology that they're sending us messages.

523
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 1: At least we should be listening. They got about a

524
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: hundred million bucks from a centric billionaires about five years ago,

525
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 1: and they've been using it to buy telescope time like

526
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 1: the Green Bank Observatory and the Park Observatory to try

527
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: to listen for these messages. But I guess they're listening

528
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: in the electromagnetic spectrum, right, like looking for radio signals,

529
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,879
Speaker 1: just like we use radio signals. And so that's assuming

530
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: the aliens use radio signals and within a certain frequency

531
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: range they are doing that. They also have some visible

532
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: light observations and they also look for this weird stuff.

533
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: Jill Tarter was on the podcast a few weeks ago,

534
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: and she was telling us about how they're trying to

535
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 1: imagine other ways aliens might communicate, like what if they're

536
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 1: changing the frequency of pulsars through some crazy engineering project,

537
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 1: and so not just like listening for messages in the

538
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 1: way that we might format them. They're out there trying

539
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:48,879
Speaker 1: to think about other ways aliens might be affecting the

540
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 1: cosmos that we could discover, right. We we talked once

541
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: on the podcast about like our aliens building a giant

542
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 1: Dicen sphere, or are they you know, moving galaxies around

543
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 1: or something. And so they're being actually very thoughtful about

544
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: this and involving philosophers and cultural historians and trying to

545
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: think really carefully about the assumptions they are making when

546
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,400
Speaker 1: they're searching for these signals. But in the end, it's

547
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: limited to our imagination. Right It's possible that there are

548
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:15,399
Speaker 1: signals already out there in our data that we just

549
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: haven't interpreted in the right way. Interesting, So listen to

550
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: that episode if you have a chance. But there are

551
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,920
Speaker 1: other things we're doing, not just listening for messages or

552
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: strange things in the universe. We're also sending stuff out there,

553
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 1: that's right. There's another program called METTI m e t I,

554
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: which is messaging extraterrestrial intelligence, And this is a community

555
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: people who think that we should not just be listening

556
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 1: for these messages, we should be broadcasting our location into

557
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: space and letting other civilizations know that we are here

558
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: interesting like a group of people who think we should

559
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: be more proactive about content ing aliens. Yeah. Absolutely, And

560
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: this has actually a long history. It's not just a

561
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: recent effort. There's some really fun stories. There's an Austrian

562
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: astronomer who wanted to dig massive trenches in the Sahara desert,

563
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: fill them with water, top them with kerosene, and then

564
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: set them on fire to communicate with people who might

565
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: be living on Mars. What this was recent or a

566
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: long time ago? This is a long time ago. This

567
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: is like more than a hundred years ago, back when

568
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: we didn't know are their civilizations on Mars, and people thought, well,

569
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: here's the way we could send a message because we

570
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: saw what looked like canals on Mars, and so for

571
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: a while people thought maybe there was a civilization on Mars.

572
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: So it's like writing help in the sand on your

573
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: desert island, you know. Yeah, it seems a live with

574
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: desperate if you ask me, think you might as well

575
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: stand outside their driveway holding a boom box or something.

576
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: And there was a French guy who asked for money

577
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 1: from the French government because he wanted to build a

578
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 1: giant mirror which would focus sunlight and write messages onto

579
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: the surface of Mars, Like wouldn't that piss people might

580
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: send them message? Don't you think so? Sorry about frying

581
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: your elementary school filled with alien children. We just really

582
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: wanted to get in touch. Boy. Well, it also doesn't

583
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: see make a lot of sense because if there were

584
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: Mars Martians looking at us, they would already see us, right,

585
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: they would look at our you know lights at night

586
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: and stuff, right, because you can see those from space. Yeah,

587
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: you could. But this is a long time ago, before

588
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,479
Speaker 1: I think the Earth was as electrified, some people were

589
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: thinking about this kind of stuff. But more recently, you know,

590
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: people like Carl Sagan have thought about how somebody might

591
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 1: respond to seeing one of our space probes, until like

592
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: on the Voyager, we sent this golden record that has

593
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: transmissions from Earth, you know, whale songs and people singing,

594
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: and this information on there about like how to find

595
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: the planet, done in a way that's supposed to be

596
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: sort of self explanatory that anybody with a mathematical and

597
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: astronomical understanding might be able to decode, right, yeah, and

598
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: you can you can find images of the plaque online, right, Yeah,

599
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: that's right, and more aggressively. We actually sent a dedicated

600
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: message to space from the air Receiva Observatory, this huge

601
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: radio dish that used to be operating in Puerto Rico.

602
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: We sent a message out in to space specifically for

603
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: aliens in designing a way we thought maybe they would

604
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: be able to decode. It's sort of a pictogram. Interesting. Now,

605
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: is this group of people METI. Is this like an

606
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: actual institution or is it just sort of like what

607
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: you call people who want to send messages out. It's

608
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: an actual institution. There's a longer history here of this

609
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: sort of movement of people sending messages out. But there

610
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: is a group actually, it's based in San Francisco called MEDI,

611
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: and they are sending messages. Like in two thousand and seventeen,

612
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:30,920
Speaker 1: they sent a message consisting of a scientific and mathematical

613
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: tutorial to one particular star that's located twelve light years

614
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 1: from Earth, you know, hoping that the aliens would get

615
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: it then learn about our math and science. Is there

616
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: a shorter version of this group called the eye MEDI

617
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: instant messaging extra terrestrial intelligence somebody wants to text to

618
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: other planets. Yeah, it seems like it might be a

619
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: little more efficient and you know, casual cash. Maybe that's

620
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: the problem. You know, their inboxes are so overflowing with

621
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: interstellar spam that they're not reading our That's right, we're

622
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: in their spam folder. Yeah, that's the nightmare, isn't it

623
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: the nightmare? Like, hey, we're here, we're desperate to connect

624
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: with other people. Spam delete exactly. They get so many offers.

625
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 1: That's the great filter that I think. Really it's the

626
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: great spam filter of the Google of the universe. You see,

627
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: spam really does have costs. Well. Despite this idea of

628
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: sending messages to aliens, some people think it's a bad

629
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 1: idea and something that maybe the reason it's a bad

630
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: idea could be maybe an explanation for why we haven't

631
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: contacted other aliens, Like maybe it's a bad idea. That's

632
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: why nobody else in the universe is sending signals out. Yeah,

633
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: that's right. Such famous physicists as Michio Kaku said, trying

634
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:51,479
Speaker 1: to contact aliens is quote the biggest mistake in human history.

635
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: So there are definitely some people who think this is

636
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: not a good plan. Yeah. I think the pictures they're

637
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: trying to pain is like maybe the universe is kind

638
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: of like a dark force, and they're be predators out there,

639
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: and so we're sort of like a vulnerable species. We

640
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: maybe don't want to advertise our presence exactly in the

641
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: same way that if you're in a horror movie and

642
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: you're walking through dark woods, you don't start singing a

643
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: loud song, right. You tiptoe very carefully because you don't

644
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: want to announce your presence, and that's why everybody else

645
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: is being quiet. So the lesson is like, if the

646
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: universe seems quiet, maybe there's a reason that's right. And

647
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: if you're a cheerleader or a football player, you're probably

648
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: toasted exactly. And we are alone, right, we have separated.

649
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 1: We decided to go out into this forest by ourselves,

650
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: and so maybe we should think twice before announcing our location.

651
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: So it's it's sort of an interesting scenario and a

652
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: potentially dangerous idea to contact other aliens. And so to

653
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: get more perspective, Daniel went out there to interview an

654
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: expert on this topic. That's right. I found a really

655
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: interesting paper from Dr Kareem Jabari, a professor of philosophy,

656
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: who are the paper about the dangers of communicating with

657
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: aliens I reached out to him and he was kind

658
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: enough to spend a few minutes explaining the ideas to me.

659
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: So here is Daniel's interview with Dr Kareem Jabari on

660
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 1: whether it's a good idea or a bad idea to

661
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: contact aliens? All right, So then it's by great pleasure

662
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: to introduce to the program Dr Kareem Jabari, who has

663
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: a PhD in philosophy and as a researcher at the

664
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: Institute for Future Studies. Kareem, thank you very much for

665
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 1: joining us today. Thanks for the invitation. So you wrote

666
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: this fascinating paper about the dangers of communicating with extraterrestrials.

667
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit how you got interested in

668
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: this topic. Is this something people discuss a lot at

669
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: the Institute for Future Studies And not at all. Actually,

670
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: it's more focused around the future of child poverty and

671
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: those kind of more Monday issues. But I've always been

672
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: a huge fan of science fiction, and I made a

673
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:57,320
Speaker 1: stab at trying to write a short science fiction story.

674
00:34:57,520 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: It turned out to be much more difficult than I

675
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: anticipate paid it. But I did a lot of research

676
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: for that story, and that research led me to this idea.

677
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: And so how was it received by your colleagues. Do

678
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 1: they see this as like, Wow, what a fascinating discussion

679
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: of this important topic, or do they think of you

680
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: as like, oh my gosh, it's kareem In contacted by aliens. No, no,

681
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: I think my colleagues really appreciate it. Although there a

682
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 1: lot of the ideas that I presented this paper are

683
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 1: not especially novel for other philosophers, so when I talk

684
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 1: to them, they go like, yeah, this is interesting, but yeah,

685
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 1: we know this already. But I thought that the added

686
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 1: value was trying to reach out then and try to

687
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: share these ideas with the non philosopherical community right well.

688
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: As a non philosopher or an amateur philosopher science, I

689
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: found it very interesting. So I want to begin by

690
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 1: speculating with you about what level of technology or civilization

691
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: we might be able to guess that extraterrestrial intelligences have.

692
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: I mean, if they arrive on Earth, obviously they have

693
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:04,839
Speaker 1: some technology that we don't have. But in the case

694
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 1: that we're communicating with distant civilizations around other stars, do

695
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: we know anything or can we guess anything about what

696
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: level of technology or civilization they might have. Sure, if

697
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: if we got a signal from them, for example, by

698
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:22,800
Speaker 1: radio waves, we could infer that they have some machine,

699
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: some apparatus to produce that signal, because I think that

700
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: most people in the field assume that biological systems could

701
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 1: not produce a signal that is strong enough and an

702
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: accurate enough to to convey through many light years. So

703
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: so I think we could we could conclude that, and

704
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 1: if the signal allows us to know where the planet is,

705
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: we can pain point it. Then we could direct our

706
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: telescopes there and and maybe that would help us to

707
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: find out other things about about these creatures. Maybe if

708
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 1: if their star is a yellow star like ours, then

709
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: that may is it more likely, for example, that they

710
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: would have a visual system that is similar to ours,

711
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 1: because eyes are really good to have, and we see

712
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:11,320
Speaker 1: that a lot of different animals on Earth have developed

713
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 1: ice independently of each other. So if they have a

714
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 1: sound like star, then the adds are pretty good that

715
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,280
Speaker 1: they would have eyes. Other than that is kind of difficult.

716
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: Can we get anything based on the fact that many

717
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: stars out there are older than our son, So it

718
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 1: might be that other civilizations have had, you know, a

719
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 1: billion year head start in terms of evolution, and developing technology. Yes, well,

720
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly possible that they could be really advanced. Um.

721
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: On the other hand, if they're so advanced, how calm

722
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: they have not changed more stuff. So one of the

723
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 1: ideas out there is that if on a civilization is

724
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,800
Speaker 1: very advanced, they will have a great energy needs. And

725
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 1: if fat civilization has all this need for energy, they

726
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: would cons shuck, dison, swarm, or they would cover their

727
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 1: sun or their starring in solar sales or something like that,

728
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 1: and that would be visible for us because we would

729
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:13,800
Speaker 1: see stars disappearing. That suggests that if we don't see it,

730
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: then we can assume that there may be not that advanced.

731
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: But of course it's also possible that they are very

732
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 1: advantage just don't care about don't care about energy, or

733
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:25,800
Speaker 1: they get their engine in some other way. Well, I

734
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: think the prospect of receiving a message from an alien

735
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 1: civilization and then trying to figure out what they're like

736
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: and what that message means, and what they're trying to

737
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 1: communicate to us and how we might communicate with them

738
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,800
Speaker 1: is certainly a very fascinating one. In your paper, you

739
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 1: make the argument that this problem might be harder than

740
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 1: people anticipate. In fact, you write in the paper, no

741
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,759
Speaker 1: entity can translate any message that humans could send with

742
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: nothing but electromagnetic transmission. Essentially, you're saying that it's impossible

743
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: for us to send something which could be decoded by aliens,

744
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,399
Speaker 1: which I guess means in converse, that there's no way

745
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: we could understand any message aliens and with just electromagnetic transmissions.

746
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: He sketch out that argument for us. Why do you

747
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: believe that it's impossible for us to understand the alien message?

748
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: I can also add that this would be true even

749
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 1: if the aliens were very similar to us. So, just

750
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 1: as a thought experiment imagined that the aliens are actually

751
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 1: biologically identical to us, they just look like humans. According

752
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: to this argument, it would be impossible for us to

753
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 1: translate that message. But of course they it's very unlikely

754
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:35,839
Speaker 1: that they would be identical to us, so that would

755
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: make it even more difficult. So the argument basically goes

756
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 1: a theory that is fairly prominent in the philosophy of

757
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 1: language that was articulated by William van orman Quin. But

758
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: and that builds on some very interesting insights that were

759
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: formulated by the philosopher a little big Wittgenstein, and the

760
00:39:56,360 --> 00:40:01,280
Speaker 1: idea is that utterances in a language do not contain

761
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 1: the meaning that they are trying to convey. Rather, meaning

762
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: is something that that exists entirely in our heads and

763
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: that we derive from observing the behaviors of other people.

764
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: And to illustrate this, Equin has this for experiment where

765
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: he imagines a person going into a jungle and this

766
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: person is a linguist, so he tries to communicate with

767
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: the people who are living in the jungle. They don't

768
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:33,880
Speaker 1: know his language and he doesn't know their language. And

769
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 1: the way you start to communicate or start to learn

770
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 1: another people's language is by observing their behavior in their environment,

771
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:47,839
Speaker 1: and with the help of different hypothesis of how these

772
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: people work and what they do, you can slowly but

773
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: surely construct a translation. Manue. So let's say that that

774
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 1: you have this person in the jungle and he points

775
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:00,399
Speaker 1: at a rabbit and he says, gabba guy. And then

776
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: you make a hypothesis here that gaba guy can mean rabbit,

777
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 1: but gaba guy could also mean food, and or maybe

778
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 1: gave a guy could be I mean rabbitness or being

779
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: very fast. Because this rabbit happened to be very fast,

780
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 1: and all these hypothesis are consistent with your observation. So

781
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: what you need to do is to make more observations.

782
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: For example, if the people that you're trying to talk

783
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: to they point at a potato and they say, have

784
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 1: a guy, then we can start discarding some of the

785
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:38,239
Speaker 1: hypothesis because the potato is not fast, right, but the

786
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 1: potato is food or so you assume. So then you

787
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 1: say that, yeah, it's more likely that you have a

788
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 1: guy means food, because that's what is common with these

789
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: two things. But this is just a tentative hypothesis, right,

790
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: But at some point, after a long period of interaction,

791
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: you will be good enough in understanding them that you

792
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: will be able to ask them. So you you will

793
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:02,879
Speaker 1: be able to ask them by rabbit, do you mean

794
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,400
Speaker 1: this or that? But this is not something you can

795
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: do initially. Initially, the only thing you can do is

796
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: to observe behavior and from your understanding about how humans work.

797
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: For example, you you know that humans eat rabbits sometimes

798
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: and they also eat potatoes, and that's why you can

799
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: kind of make this hypothesis. But with the help of

800
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: this knowledge, this background knowledge about how humans work, you

801
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,879
Speaker 1: can start producing these hypothesis. The problem is that when

802
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 1: when we're dealing with a string of digits that an

803
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial might send to us, then we have, first of all,

804
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: we don't have any information or very little information about

805
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: you know, if they like potatoes or not, or if

806
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: they call them French fries or if they call them

807
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: something else, or if potatoes are like some ritual object

808
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 1: in their everyday lives, or maybe potatoes do move fast

809
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: on their planet. But let me back you up and

810
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: ask you a question, just to make sure I understand

811
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 1: the point you're making. You're saying that even just pointing

812
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: to things and saying the words requires some sort of

813
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: common context. Have to have some common experience, some common cultures,

814
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: some common inherent understanding to make those connections. That you

815
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: can't truly translate an alien language because you don't have

816
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 1: the context to understand that that the framework to fit

817
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 1: those things into. So what Chrime actually says is that

818
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:20,320
Speaker 1: you can never truly translate anything. So think about it.

819
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 1: We learn language by observing human behavior and inferring an

820
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:31,359
Speaker 1: observing utterances and inferring what those utterances can mean by

821
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 1: then observing their behavior. For example, if you say, pass

822
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: me the salt, and then I give you the salt.

823
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: Then you seem satisfied with that. Then I infer that

824
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:42,879
Speaker 1: you know I was in the ballpark of what you meant.

825
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: But we can never have a complete total understanding of

826
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:50,719
Speaker 1: what you meant by the different utterances that you make,

827
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: all right, but sometimes we can accomplish what we need

828
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:55,279
Speaker 1: to write. I don't really know if you have like

829
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: a deep, you know, philosophical understanding of salt, but I

830
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: know that you passed me the salt, just like you know.

831
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:03,440
Speaker 1: We are speaking English, which is not a perfect language

832
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: to convey all of our ideas as well. In that sense,

833
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 1: you know, you could say no language is perfect, but

834
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 1: that's not the sense that we're grasping for, right, We're

835
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: trying to develop some basic understandings. So it was this

836
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: argument saying, you can never have a perfect translation of

837
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: an alien language, or you can never have any translation.

838
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: So Twiet theory would allow for a good enough translation

839
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 1: of an alien language if we had those two preconditions,

840
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 1: if you had the interaction, and if that interaction was

841
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,280
Speaker 1: in a in a context where we can observe the behavior.

842
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 1: So imagine you get these people coming here from proximal

843
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:47,239
Speaker 1: Centauri with their embassy, their alien embassy, and then we

844
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:50,399
Speaker 1: can look at their behavior and then we can see like, oh,

845
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: they eat, they seem to be absorbing substances from that orrifice.

846
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: Let us postulate that they're eating now, and they seemed

847
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 1: to be eating this kind of I don't know, it

848
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: looks like porridge, and then we can do a chemical

849
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:06,320
Speaker 1: analysis of that and realize that, yeah, it's pretty similar

850
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: to porridge. And then that would allow us to slowly

851
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 1: but surely construct a translation manual over many interactions. But

852
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:18,440
Speaker 1: when we just get the string, uh, we we we

853
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 1: can't make much of it. I see. So if we

854
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: could spend some time with the aliens and develop some

855
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: common context, then we could have the framework for developing

856
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: some sort of effective but imperfect translation. But you're saying,

857
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: if all we get other messages, even if they're actually

858
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: biologically humans and think the same way we do, it

859
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: would be impossible for us to translate because we don't

860
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:41,320
Speaker 1: have a context or what their lives are like and

861
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: what they might mean exactly. That's really interesting, And you

862
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 1: make this comment in your paper about Chomsky's analysis of

863
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: language is universal grammar. This claim that all human languages

864
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 1: are based on the same sort of mathematical structure. And

865
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 1: you're write in the paper that Chomsky never claimed that

866
00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:00,799
Speaker 1: universal grammar was universal in the sense that it would

867
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 1: be shared across all possible species able to use language.

868
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: That is, you know, is universal grammar universal in the

869
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:11,320
Speaker 1: sense that it might also apply to structures of alien languages,

870
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: which is a really cool concept. And Chomsky was here

871
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 1: on our podcast a couple of weeks ago. I actually

872
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: asked him about this whether he thought that it was

873
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: possible that alien languages might be constructed in the same

874
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: way as human languages, and he made some argument that

875
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: the development of language and symbolic thought might be due

876
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:31,919
Speaker 1: to evolutionary pressure, and so it might be some sort

877
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,840
Speaker 1: of like optimum solution to this problem, and therefore it

878
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: might be or it could be likely, or you could

879
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:42,320
Speaker 1: argue at least that alien languages might have a similar

880
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: structure if that were true, are you saying that that

881
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: still doesn't help us, Like even if we have human

882
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 1: biological aliens with minds similar to ours that have a

883
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 1: universal grammar, in that case, we still couldn't develop enough

884
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 1: common understanding just by sending signals to effectively communicate. I'm

885
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: not exactly sure what chance the means by that, but

886
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: it's only true that we can see convergent evolution across

887
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: many traits, right. But for example, the wings of baths

888
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: are similar to the wings of birds, but they're not identical. Right,

889
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 1: So they're similar in some respects and different in other respects.

890
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: And I think that a language that emerges some say

891
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: proximus century, it's probably going to emerge under you know,

892
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:31,760
Speaker 1: some evolutionary pressure. And I think it's sensible to assume

893
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 1: that it would be similar in some respects to human languages,

894
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:39,439
Speaker 1: and and and different in other respects. The crucial point

895
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: here is that would it be similar in the sense

896
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:47,400
Speaker 1: that would allow this innate language sense or innate language

897
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: grammar to allow us to pick out the right translation

898
00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:57,840
Speaker 1: from a whole range of potential translations. And I think that,

899
00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 1: you know, it might be possible, But I think then

900
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 1: you would be committed to some fairly controversial views in

901
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 1: the philosophy of language. And I think that, I mean,

902
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: I have the utmost respect for Chomsky and his work,

903
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 1: but I think that his view of universal grammar remains

904
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: quite controversial to this name. Yeah, I agree I think

905
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:21,280
Speaker 1: it's interesting also to wonder why we haven't been able

906
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:24,400
Speaker 1: to cross the species barrier. I mean, if we're going

907
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: to solve the puzzle speaking with another intelligent species from

908
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:30,479
Speaker 1: another planet, we might first want to tackle the question

909
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: of like speaking to dolphins or two other intelligent mammals.

910
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 1: Do you have thoughts about why we have not yet

911
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: been able to crack the dolphin language. Well, it's controversial

912
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 1: as to whether the dolphins have a language. I mean,

913
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 1: we know that they communicate, and I think this is

914
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: what Chomsky says too, that that dolphins and other clever mammals,

915
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: they they have advanced communication, but they don't have this

916
00:48:55,239 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: ability to generate an infinite amount of center from a

917
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 1: finite set of words. So so they don't have grammar basically,

918
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: and that makes their communication fundamentally different from what we

919
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: call language. But if we think about the bracket that

920
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 1: sort of speak, we think that we are actually pretty

921
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: good at communicating with some animals, especially animals we have

922
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:24,799
Speaker 1: bread to be attentive to our utterances, for example, dogs.

923
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 1: I don't have a dog myself, but I find it

924
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 1: amazing the things that people can do when they train

925
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: their dogs. And I think it shows a very high

926
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: level of communication, of ability to communicate. I mean, you

927
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 1: can't use understand the language of dogs because they don't

928
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: have a language. On on that kind of more precise

929
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:47,800
Speaker 1: notion of what languages. I understand that you also have

930
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:51,879
Speaker 1: a pet, one that you've named after Chomsky. Yeah. Yeah,

931
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 1: she's a rabbit. Her name is Chomska, and she's not

932
00:49:56,160 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 1: as eloquent as as Chomsky, but she's very charismatic. I

933
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: hope that you have a shared emotional context with your

934
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:06,800
Speaker 1: Chomska at least so a lot of people speculate that

935
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: it might be impossible to have a common cultural context

936
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: with aliens, and therefore these questions of language are always

937
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 1: going to be impossible. But many folks argue that mathematics

938
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:19,719
Speaker 1: and physics and the sort of physical rules about the

939
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 1: universe might be that context that we might be able

940
00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 1: to communicate with aliens by first starting with simple mathematics

941
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:29,040
Speaker 1: and building up from there. You make a reference in

942
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: your paper to Frudenthal's self explaining message in his language,

943
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 1: the lingual Cosmico, which is built up from these mathematical primitives.

944
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: Do you think it's not possible to start from just

945
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:42,759
Speaker 1: mathematics and develop some way to discuss with each other,

946
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:46,279
Speaker 1: some way to communicate and transfer information. I think that

947
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:50,040
Speaker 1: would run into similar problems. So, first of all, if

948
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 1: we just talk about science and this is this goes

949
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: also back to a theory articulated by Quine and others

950
00:50:55,719 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 1: in that philosophical movement. But what clients is that science

951
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: is underdetermined by observation. So imagine that you have a

952
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,840
Speaker 1: theory and you make an observation that seems inconsistent with

953
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: that theory. That means that, as a good scientist, we

954
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 1: need to revise something right, But the observation doesn't tell

955
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:20,760
Speaker 1: you what to revise. So, for example, um, the according

956
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 1: to Nitsonian mechanics, um, the behavior of the planet Mercury

957
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: was rather odd. But one of the suggested solutions to

958
00:51:30,080 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 1: this problem was to postulate that there was a planet

959
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:36,160
Speaker 1: there that we couldn't see that they named volcan, which

960
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:38,400
Speaker 1: I think is a pretty awesome name for a planet.

961
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 1: It's a very logical choice. Yes, but but yeah, and

962
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 1: I don't think it was a bad hypothesis. But it

963
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 1: just shows you that making the observation that Mercury behaves

964
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: in an other way doesn't tell you what is the truth.

965
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 1: It just tells you that something needs revising. So the

966
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:04,040
Speaker 1: idea that Quin has is that you could imagine two

967
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: distinct scientific um worlds or or scientific systems, with coherent

968
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 1: theories about everything about you know, evolution and physics and chemistry,

969
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 1: and that you can do the same things with these theories,

970
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: but that that these theories imply very different views about

971
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 1: the world. And in the paper, I have an example, uh,

972
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's mine. Actually it's it's also

973
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: from Quin, where you can imagine a civilization, perhaps in

974
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 1: an Alpha centauri, that that developed general relativity and special

975
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: relativity without first having developed Newtonian mechanics. Might be unlikely,

976
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 1: but it's certainly possible. Uh. And that means that if

977
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:54,600
Speaker 1: they had this, then they could make the same predictions,

978
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: and you know, they could be as a as a

979
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:02,440
Speaker 1: Newtonian civilization like we could in the nineteenth century, but

980
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 1: they would have very different views about the world, because

981
00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 1: Newtonian physics implies one set of beliefs about the worlds

982
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:13,360
Speaker 1: about the universe, and general and special relativisty implies a

983
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 1: very different set of beliefs. So you're saying that even

984
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:18,720
Speaker 1: though we exist in the same physical universe and observe

985
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 1: the same things about the universe, we might come to

986
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 1: different internal mental explanations of that universe, two different theories

987
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 1: of science that both work, and therefore just being in

988
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 1: the same physical universe doesn't give us enough of a

989
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: shared mental context to develop communication. Is that the argument

990
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: I would like to say that this is different from

991
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:43,720
Speaker 1: because sometimes this view is conflated with relativism, for example

992
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 1: Koon's view about you know, scientific revolutions and so on.

993
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 1: But this is different. This is not relativism because here

994
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:55,360
Speaker 1: we would say that both scientific theories or scientific systems

995
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:58,920
Speaker 1: are true in the relevant sets. So let's say that

996
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:01,840
Speaker 1: you have a scientific system that can make correct predictions

997
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 1: about the universe and about physical systems and so on,

998
00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: and it also gives an adequate explanation of how things work.

999
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 1: I think in many respects we would say that that

1000
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,200
Speaker 1: is sufficient for us to say that this is true.

1001
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:19,200
Speaker 1: The fact that there are other descriptions of the universe

1002
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: and other ways of making the same predictions that is

1003
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: also true but different, does not make our of you

1004
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:28,480
Speaker 1: less true, right. I think that that would blow the

1005
00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:33,280
Speaker 1: minds of most practicing scientists, especially particle physicists to imagine

1006
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 1: that the description we're building of the universe, you know,

1007
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:41,240
Speaker 1: whether it be tiny strings or bouncing particles or wiggling fields,

1008
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:44,359
Speaker 1: that these are not necessarily unique. That even if it's

1009
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 1: true and it works perfectly, it might just reflect mathematical

1010
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 1: models in our minds rather than the actual structure of

1011
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: the universe in any sort of objective way. That's the argument,

1012
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:58,320
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah, well almost, because I would say that

1013
00:54:58,840 --> 00:55:03,799
Speaker 1: what makes a very true if our ability to understand

1014
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:07,360
Speaker 1: and manipulate the world around us. So if if a

1015
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 1: theory is good at that, then it's true in the

1016
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:13,839
Speaker 1: relevant sense. I see. So you're saying my theory could

1017
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:16,239
Speaker 1: be true and your theory could be true, and they

1018
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:20,400
Speaker 1: could have basically nothing in common other than that they

1019
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:23,680
Speaker 1: both work. Yes, But it's also true that that a

1020
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:26,160
Speaker 1: theory could be better than the other even though both

1021
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 1: are true. So, for example, we would say that special

1022
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: and general relativity as a theory is better than Newtonian mechanics,

1023
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:39,840
Speaker 1: but Newtonian mechanics is true for predicting the behavior of

1024
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:43,600
Speaker 1: small objects moving at non relativistic speeds. All right, well,

1025
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:47,120
Speaker 1: this is really fascinating. Dive into how to communicate with aliens?

1026
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:49,400
Speaker 1: Are a lot more questions for you, but first we

1027
00:55:49,480 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: have to take a short break. All right, we're back

1028
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:06,840
Speaker 1: and we're talking with Dr Kareem Jabari about how to

1029
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:11,719
Speaker 1: communicate with aliens and especially how to stave off interstellar war.

1030
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:14,800
Speaker 1: So the reason that we're talking about how to communicate

1031
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: with aliens is that we're wondering about the question of

1032
00:56:17,719 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 1: how to get along with aliens or why aliens haven't

1033
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: contacted us, and the hypothesis that the universe out there

1034
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:27,040
Speaker 1: is like a dark forest where everybody is being quiet

1035
00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:30,879
Speaker 1: to avoid being wiped out by some sort of predator race.

1036
00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:34,360
Speaker 1: So in your paper, you build on this argument that

1037
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 1: we can't understand aliens to suggest that we might essentially

1038
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 1: stumble our way into an interstellar war because we have

1039
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:44,960
Speaker 1: no good way to communicate with them. So walk me

1040
00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 1: through the argument there. You use some game theory to

1041
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:49,880
Speaker 1: suggest that will end up in a situation where it

1042
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:54,120
Speaker 1: seems logical to us to essentially first strike against these aliens.

1043
00:56:54,239 --> 00:56:56,600
Speaker 1: How do we get there from we got a message

1044
00:56:56,640 --> 00:56:59,000
Speaker 1: and we don't understand it too. Now we're sending a

1045
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:04,359
Speaker 1: nuke to Alpha Centauri. Yeah, that would really suck. Yeah.

1046
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 1: So the idea comes from a game game theories called

1047
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:12,880
Speaker 1: Thomas Shelling that in turn got the idea from Thomas Hobbes.

1048
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: And the idea is that we can think about our

1049
00:57:16,360 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: interactions with this extraterrestrial as a coordination game and in

1050
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 1: a coordination and that there are many classical coordination games.

1051
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 1: But basically in a coordination game, you you you have

1052
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 1: two alternatives. One is to cooperate and the other is

1053
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: to play it safe and don't cooperate. And the idea

1054
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 1: is that when you cooperate, then you take a small

1055
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 1: risk or you take a risk. But if I also cooperate,

1056
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 1: then there will be a great advantage for both of us.

1057
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:48,439
Speaker 1: But if you played safe and don't cooperate, then you're

1058
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 1: not taking as much risk. On the other hand, you're

1059
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 1: not getting a chance to get a big payoff. And

1060
00:57:53,680 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 1: a classical example to illustrate this is to imagine two

1061
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 1: people walking in the forest and decide as to whether

1062
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 1: or not to chase a stag or to chase a rabbit.

1063
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 1: And to chase a stag, we need to cooperate. So

1064
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 1: if we both choose to chase a stag, then we'll

1065
00:58:11,160 --> 00:58:13,640
Speaker 1: get the stag and we'll get a lot of food

1066
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 1: and we'll be very happy. But if you choose to

1067
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:20,480
Speaker 1: chase the stag and I go for the rabbit, then

1068
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:25,280
Speaker 1: you won't get get the stag and you'll be very hungry.

1069
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:28,920
Speaker 1: Whereas to get the rabbit, you don't. You can do

1070
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 1: it by yourself. So I'll get the rabbit. I'll get

1071
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:34,400
Speaker 1: one one piece of food, not as much as the stag,

1072
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:35,920
Speaker 1: but I would get enough. You know, I have to say,

1073
00:58:35,960 --> 00:58:38,320
Speaker 1: you talk a lot about eating rabbits for somebody who

1074
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:40,600
Speaker 1: has a pet rabbit, you know, in there's a little

1075
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 1: bit of a mental tension there for you. Well, yes, sometimes,

1076
00:58:44,800 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 1: but it's just because they appear so much in the

1077
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 1: philosophical literature. Well, I hope you cover her ears when

1078
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 1: you talk about this in front of her, all right,

1079
00:58:54,560 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 1: saying you're explaining why you need to communicate in order

1080
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:01,240
Speaker 1: to cooperate and take risks together. So if we trust

1081
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:03,960
Speaker 1: each other, then of course we'll corporate, right because I

1082
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:06,400
Speaker 1: know that you're a good guy that corporates with people.

1083
00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 1: And then we'll go and we'll get a stag and

1084
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:11,920
Speaker 1: will be very happy. But if I am suspicious about you,

1085
00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:14,440
Speaker 1: then I will try to go for the rabbit, So

1086
00:59:14,720 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 1: you would say that the rabbit is a risk dominant equilibrium,

1087
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:21,840
Speaker 1: whereas this stag is a payoff dominant equilibrium. And both

1088
00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 1: of these strategies are rational, or none of these strategies

1089
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 1: is more rational than the other if we don't know anything.

1090
00:59:30,360 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 1: But the problem here is that if we can't communicate,

1091
00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:37,600
Speaker 1: then there will be and we we also have this

1092
00:59:37,760 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 1: opportunity to defect, to not be cooperative. Then Hobbes and

1093
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: Shelling and others argue that the option to defect or

1094
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: to be non cooperative becomes the focal point. So we

1095
00:59:53,600 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 1: get both attracted to that option because I start thinking that,

1096
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 1: oh my god, he's the going to go for the rabbit.

1097
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:04,440
Speaker 1: And he also probably thinks that I think that he's

1098
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:06,800
Speaker 1: going to go for the rabbit. But that means that

1099
01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 1: he's more inclined to go for the rammit himself, and

1100
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:14,320
Speaker 1: he knows that I know that he knows that I

1101
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:16,840
Speaker 1: think this way, so that means that he will be

1102
01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:18,920
Speaker 1: even more inclined to go off to the rabbit, which

1103
01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 1: makes me more inclined to go off to the rabbit,

1104
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 1: and so on. And in the context of interstellar war,

1105
01:00:23,960 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: going for the rabbit or or being non cooperative could

1106
01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 1: imply a first strike. Right, So if our options instead

1107
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:33,400
Speaker 1: of hunting for a stag or hunting for a rabbit,

1108
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:37,320
Speaker 1: if our choices are a share all of our theories

1109
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:39,520
Speaker 1: of physics and all of our knowledge and the beauty

1110
01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:42,520
Speaker 1: that we develop this humanity and be send a nuclear

1111
01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:45,360
Speaker 1: weapon to avoid being wiped out by their nuclear weapon,

1112
01:00:45,520 --> 01:00:48,640
Speaker 1: then you're saying that a rational choice would be to

1113
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:52,800
Speaker 1: fire first to avoid being wiped out by their new

1114
01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:56,840
Speaker 1: rather than just like dumping the Encyclopedia Britannica into a

1115
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:59,680
Speaker 1: message and sending it to Alpha Centauri. Yeah, that's are

1116
01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:02,240
Speaker 1: going to ocean in this paper. But I was always

1117
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 1: very dissatisfied with this conclusion, so I wrote another paper

1118
01:01:05,720 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 1: where I argue that that we are wrong. But that's

1119
01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:13,560
Speaker 1: another kind of discussion. But but yeah, basically, if we

1120
01:01:13,640 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 1: assume that there's only one other player there, then the

1121
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,680
Speaker 1: rational strategy should be to attack first. I think this

1122
01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:24,080
Speaker 1: game theory approach is really fascinating because you're thinking carefully

1123
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:26,640
Speaker 1: about the risks you want to take, and obviously we

1124
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:28,880
Speaker 1: have a lot at stake here. We're just on one planet,

1125
01:01:28,960 --> 01:01:31,400
Speaker 1: and it goes to the heart of understanding what the

1126
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:33,720
Speaker 1: other player might do, you know, the choices that the

1127
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:36,000
Speaker 1: other player might make, and the risks we are taking.

1128
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:37,600
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, we see that of course

1129
01:01:37,600 --> 01:01:39,560
Speaker 1: a lot on Earth and game theory developed in the

1130
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 1: context of you know, human warfare and the prisoner's dilemma

1131
01:01:43,320 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff. But isn't that also

1132
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:48,240
Speaker 1: a case of projection? I mean, aren't we assuming in

1133
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:50,960
Speaker 1: that case that the aliens would be thinking in a

1134
01:01:51,040 --> 01:01:53,680
Speaker 1: game theoretical way, that they would be rational in a

1135
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:57,280
Speaker 1: way according to our definition of rationality. You know, if

1136
01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: we don't understand these aliens and we can't communicate with them,

1137
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 1: should we just assume we may never even understand their motives,

1138
01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:07,600
Speaker 1: that they might operate essentially randomly. Yes, No, that's certainly true.

1139
01:02:07,680 --> 01:02:09,840
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a pretty big assumption that we're

1140
01:02:09,880 --> 01:02:14,120
Speaker 1: making here that that game theory is a plausible tool

1141
01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 1: to understand or predict alien behavior. I can add that

1142
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:22,960
Speaker 1: game theory has, with some success, actually been used in

1143
01:02:23,120 --> 01:02:27,200
Speaker 1: many non human contexts. So we've used to game theory

1144
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 1: to understand how pathogens emerge and behave and evolve, but

1145
01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:39,200
Speaker 1: also how animal populations interact with each other in complex

1146
01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:45,240
Speaker 1: ecological systems. So there seems to be some fundamental aspect

1147
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:48,760
Speaker 1: of game theory that allows us to predict these systems

1148
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:52,040
Speaker 1: where where we're dealing with utterly alien life forms. So

1149
01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:55,040
Speaker 1: that is one reason to believe that that perhaps this

1150
01:02:55,240 --> 01:02:57,240
Speaker 1: this tool can be used in this context. But yeah,

1151
01:02:57,280 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 1: it's certainly an assumption that needs to be made, will

1152
01:02:59,920 --> 01:03:02,400
Speaker 1: be fascinating problem to have. I think that a more

1153
01:03:02,520 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 1: likely scenario if we do meet aliens or get messages

1154
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:10,320
Speaker 1: from aliens, is that we sort of hilariously misunderstand them,

1155
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:12,760
Speaker 1: or that we send them a message of friendship which

1156
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:15,920
Speaker 1: is interpreted to be offensive in their context. You know,

1157
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:17,720
Speaker 1: we send them a picture of our rabbit and then

1158
01:03:18,080 --> 01:03:24,479
Speaker 1: you know, to them, rabbits are terrifying or yeah. Yeah.

1159
01:03:24,840 --> 01:03:27,040
Speaker 1: The paper that I wrote was in the context of

1160
01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 1: this idea that some astronomers have that we should send

1161
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:35,880
Speaker 1: out signals to nearby solar systems um, even though we

1162
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:39,240
Speaker 1: don't know if somebody is there, just just to see

1163
01:03:39,280 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 1: what happens. And we argue that this could be very

1164
01:03:42,680 --> 01:03:45,720
Speaker 1: dangerous if because it were would alert the aliens of

1165
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:48,720
Speaker 1: our presence. Perhaps, I mean, it's it's not certain that

1166
01:03:48,800 --> 01:03:51,120
Speaker 1: they know where we are, But if we do this,

1167
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:55,720
Speaker 1: then that chance increases. If they contact us first, that

1168
01:03:55,880 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 1: means that we are not certain that they know where

1169
01:03:58,320 --> 01:04:01,240
Speaker 1: we are. Maybe they have these kind of equivalent of

1170
01:04:01,640 --> 01:04:04,760
Speaker 1: the seat set people who won't just want to send

1171
01:04:04,800 --> 01:04:08,800
Speaker 1: out some random signals. So answering could also be very

1172
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: dangerous because it could reveal our location. But as a

1173
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 1: philosopher of science and somebody who's desperately curious about the world,

1174
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:18,080
Speaker 1: if we get a message from a distant star and

1175
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:21,480
Speaker 1: it clearly has information in it, we spend time decoding it.

1176
01:04:21,640 --> 01:04:24,000
Speaker 1: Are you saying that we shouldn't respond, for example, that

1177
01:04:24,040 --> 01:04:27,840
Speaker 1: we should stay silent, that we should ignore a message

1178
01:04:27,920 --> 01:04:30,560
Speaker 1: from an alien world. I don't think we should ignore it,

1179
01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:33,040
Speaker 1: but I don't think we should respond, and we should

1180
01:04:33,840 --> 01:04:39,120
Speaker 1: instead invest every effort that we can spare to gather

1181
01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:42,000
Speaker 1: more information about about them. So that would be my

1182
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 1: first option. But of course, if I am correct in

1183
01:04:47,120 --> 01:04:50,560
Speaker 1: the article that I'm writing at the moment, then then

1184
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:53,840
Speaker 1: it would be fine to to answer them. But I

1185
01:04:53,960 --> 01:04:57,800
Speaker 1: think that, yeah, I think we we would rather want

1186
01:04:57,840 --> 01:05:00,160
Speaker 1: to collect as much information as possible before or we

1187
01:05:00,240 --> 01:05:02,800
Speaker 1: do it. In any case, I mean, if if it's

1188
01:05:02,840 --> 01:05:05,440
Speaker 1: going to go, if a message is going to travel

1189
01:05:05,520 --> 01:05:09,200
Speaker 1: for fifty or sixty years, it wouldn't hurt to, you know,

1190
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:13,360
Speaker 1: take five years, build some cool space based telescopes and

1191
01:05:13,440 --> 01:05:16,480
Speaker 1: try to gather as much information about that's the planetary

1192
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: system before. And then we discovered that they all look

1193
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:21,800
Speaker 1: like rabbits, and then we think, oh, how could they

1194
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:25,440
Speaker 1: possibly be dangerous? So one last question is you suggested

1195
01:05:25,600 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: that you're writing an article currently which disagrees with the

1196
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:31,080
Speaker 1: previous article and suggest it might be fine to talk

1197
01:05:31,160 --> 01:05:34,200
Speaker 1: the aliens. What's the essential argument there were evolved in

1198
01:05:34,240 --> 01:05:36,120
Speaker 1: your thinking to make you think it might be fine

1199
01:05:36,280 --> 01:05:40,840
Speaker 1: to talk to the aliens. So let's assume that we

1200
01:05:41,360 --> 01:05:46,080
Speaker 1: stumble upon some aliens in a nearby planetary system, let's

1201
01:05:46,080 --> 01:05:51,040
Speaker 1: say Intel or Trappists. So that means that either alias

1202
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:56,800
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial intelligence are extremely common. That's one possibility that would

1203
01:05:56,840 --> 01:06:02,160
Speaker 1: explain why we find aliens so close, or it would

1204
01:06:02,160 --> 01:06:07,919
Speaker 1: be a fantastic coincidence that too intelligent beings involved independently

1205
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:11,920
Speaker 1: of each other in in in in such proximity. And

1206
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:15,200
Speaker 1: the second alternative is of course not very plausible. So

1207
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:19,080
Speaker 1: so the the idea is that upon finding one alien

1208
01:06:19,080 --> 01:06:21,680
Speaker 1: species on say Tau City, then that would mean that

1209
01:06:21,800 --> 01:06:25,280
Speaker 1: we may should make a basion update on our subjective

1210
01:06:25,320 --> 01:06:32,280
Speaker 1: probability on the average density of extraterrestrial intelligences in the galaxy.

1211
01:06:32,440 --> 01:06:35,000
Speaker 1: And at the moment we don't know. We don't have

1212
01:06:35,080 --> 01:06:38,160
Speaker 1: any information about that, so we have a uniform prior

1213
01:06:38,560 --> 01:06:41,200
Speaker 1: we you know, the closest we might be alone in

1214
01:06:41,240 --> 01:06:44,000
Speaker 1: the galaxy, or there might be aliens in almost every

1215
01:06:44,040 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 1: solar system. We don't know. But if we will find

1216
01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:48,800
Speaker 1: some aliens at Tau City that's about twelve life years

1217
01:06:48,840 --> 01:06:52,320
Speaker 1: from here, then we should expect that there to be

1218
01:06:52,680 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 1: lots of them and and lots of them nearby. The

1219
01:06:55,160 --> 01:06:58,400
Speaker 1: next step is that in that case, we should ask ourselves, like,

1220
01:06:58,600 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 1: how come we're still here? You know, if there's so

1221
01:07:02,040 --> 01:07:07,000
Speaker 1: many aliens out there and it's it's very unlikely that

1222
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:11,960
Speaker 1: nobody is aggressive, you get a conundrum like how come

1223
01:07:12,240 --> 01:07:14,680
Speaker 1: we're still here? And the only way to explain that

1224
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:18,720
Speaker 1: would be to postulate that there must be some reason

1225
01:07:19,120 --> 01:07:21,919
Speaker 1: for why aliens don't attack each other, and that could

1226
01:07:21,960 --> 01:07:24,720
Speaker 1: be many different reasons, but there must be some reason

1227
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:29,960
Speaker 1: for why that explains our existence. So it's sort of

1228
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:33,200
Speaker 1: like an inverse firm me paradox for me, a paradox

1229
01:07:33,320 --> 01:07:36,360
Speaker 1: saying why is nobody out there? The answer is maybe

1230
01:07:36,520 --> 01:07:39,520
Speaker 1: there's somebody out there squashing anybody who raises their head.

1231
01:07:39,840 --> 01:07:41,600
Speaker 1: But you're saying, if we go out there and find

1232
01:07:41,720 --> 01:07:44,280
Speaker 1: that actually the galaxy is filled with aliens, and that

1233
01:07:44,360 --> 01:07:48,200
Speaker 1: suggests that there isn't anybody out there hunting species that

1234
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:51,520
Speaker 1: speak up and make themselves known exactly, because otherwise we

1235
01:07:51,640 --> 01:07:54,640
Speaker 1: would be dead, or we would have an evational already

1236
01:07:55,000 --> 01:07:57,720
Speaker 1: on our way or something like. So for some reason,

1237
01:07:58,040 --> 01:08:04,040
Speaker 1: aliens seeing peaceful in in or an observation of that

1238
01:08:04,240 --> 01:08:07,200
Speaker 1: kind would suggest that aliens are peaceful, and that means

1239
01:08:07,320 --> 01:08:11,520
Speaker 1: that if the cloud setiens see us, then they would

1240
01:08:11,560 --> 01:08:14,360
Speaker 1: think the same thing. If we both have this assumption,

1241
01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:18,600
Speaker 1: then we can move ourselves in the coordination game to

1242
01:08:18,760 --> 01:08:22,479
Speaker 1: the other equilibrium, to the payoff dominant equilibrium, because we

1243
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:25,400
Speaker 1: are not concerned about them attacking, because we assume that

1244
01:08:25,520 --> 01:08:29,080
Speaker 1: it's uncommon for aliens to attack each other, and that

1245
01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:32,519
Speaker 1: makes us more confident that they think that we are

1246
01:08:32,560 --> 01:08:35,400
Speaker 1: not going to attack them, and that makes us even

1247
01:08:35,680 --> 01:08:38,559
Speaker 1: more confident that we shouldn't attack them, which makes us

1248
01:08:38,600 --> 01:08:41,280
Speaker 1: even more confident that they shouldn't attack us, all right,

1249
01:08:41,360 --> 01:08:44,280
Speaker 1: So I guess the message is if we discover aliens,

1250
01:08:44,360 --> 01:08:46,960
Speaker 1: we hope that they are nearby, because I suggests that

1251
01:08:47,080 --> 01:08:52,080
Speaker 1: there's lots more aliens out there and maybe they're all peaceful. Yeah.

1252
01:08:52,280 --> 01:08:55,360
Speaker 1: Or another possibility, of course, would be that imagine that

1253
01:08:55,439 --> 01:08:58,800
Speaker 1: we would find an alien civilizations but they were not

1254
01:08:59,120 --> 01:09:02,160
Speaker 1: very advanced, say that there in the Bronze Age or

1255
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:05,519
Speaker 1: the Iron Age. Then that would not rule out the

1256
01:09:05,640 --> 01:09:10,120
Speaker 1: possibility that aliens in general are aggressive, because if if

1257
01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:13,160
Speaker 1: we would find that primitive civilization, that would rather suggest

1258
01:09:13,240 --> 01:09:16,120
Speaker 1: that we just happened to be lucky to be first

1259
01:09:16,479 --> 01:09:20,160
Speaker 1: in our neighborhood or very early. So if we would

1260
01:09:20,160 --> 01:09:23,640
Speaker 1: find a civilization like that, then we couldn't draw the

1261
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:26,520
Speaker 1: same influence. On the other hand, a Bronze Age civilization

1262
01:09:26,680 --> 01:09:28,880
Speaker 1: is not gonna be a threat to us, um, not

1263
01:09:29,080 --> 01:09:32,760
Speaker 1: for some time, so yeah, that's also a consideration. All right,

1264
01:09:32,800 --> 01:09:34,760
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for coming on the podcast and

1265
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:37,920
Speaker 1: talking about these amazing and super fun and mind bending

1266
01:09:38,000 --> 01:09:40,799
Speaker 1: ideas with us. Very grateful for your time and your energy,

1267
01:09:41,200 --> 01:09:44,559
Speaker 1: and give our regards to your rabbit. I will thank

1268
01:09:44,600 --> 01:09:48,160
Speaker 1: you all right. Pretty interesting interview and I'm sort of

1269
01:09:48,200 --> 01:09:50,320
Speaker 1: getting the general message of these things. It's a bad

1270
01:09:50,400 --> 01:09:55,800
Speaker 1: idea because of the potential for miscommunication or misunderstandings, yeah,

1271
01:09:55,960 --> 01:09:58,600
Speaker 1: or just lack of ability to communicate at all. And

1272
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:01,240
Speaker 1: so if they misinterpret our message and they don't know

1273
01:10:01,360 --> 01:10:04,560
Speaker 1: what we mean, they might be worried about our intentions.

1274
01:10:04,760 --> 01:10:07,040
Speaker 1: And then who knows what they would do if they're

1275
01:10:07,200 --> 01:10:09,680
Speaker 1: you know, run by some generals that are have their

1276
01:10:09,760 --> 01:10:11,960
Speaker 1: fingers on the button. They might get nervous and launch

1277
01:10:12,040 --> 01:10:15,000
Speaker 1: a first strike when they get our message. You mean,

1278
01:10:15,040 --> 01:10:17,000
Speaker 1: like they're going to get a message and they're gonna

1279
01:10:17,080 --> 01:10:21,360
Speaker 1: interpret the message as like a first strike or something

1280
01:10:21,760 --> 01:10:23,960
Speaker 1: like who gets a message that you can't understand then

1281
01:10:24,000 --> 01:10:28,240
Speaker 1: and then assumes that they're trying to they're insulting you. Well,

1282
01:10:28,320 --> 01:10:30,439
Speaker 1: you don't know, like the Daniel on that planet is

1283
01:10:30,479 --> 01:10:32,920
Speaker 1: probably like, yeah, we heard from aliens, let's send them

1284
01:10:32,960 --> 01:10:35,639
Speaker 1: all of our physics textbooks, you know, But everybody else

1285
01:10:35,680 --> 01:10:37,760
Speaker 1: in that planet is like, hold on a second, do

1286
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:39,599
Speaker 1: we really want to let those folks know we're here?

1287
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:41,840
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a trap, and the risks, as you say,

1288
01:10:42,040 --> 01:10:44,080
Speaker 1: are large, And so if you put yourself in the

1289
01:10:44,200 --> 01:10:46,960
Speaker 1: minds of those aliens, they might have the same worries,

1290
01:10:47,040 --> 01:10:50,360
Speaker 1: and so they might be aggressive in response. I see.

1291
01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:52,120
Speaker 1: But then he said sort of said that, you know,

1292
01:10:52,439 --> 01:10:54,600
Speaker 1: if there are a lot of aliens out there, the

1293
01:10:54,680 --> 01:10:57,679
Speaker 1: fact that nobody has attacked us maybe means that maybe

1294
01:10:57,760 --> 01:11:00,800
Speaker 1: that's not a realistic scenario. Perhaps there aren't a lot

1295
01:11:00,840 --> 01:11:03,320
Speaker 1: of trigger happy aliens out there. Yeah. I like that

1296
01:11:03,400 --> 01:11:05,680
Speaker 1: he ended on a hopeful note there. If there are

1297
01:11:05,720 --> 01:11:08,439
Speaker 1: a lot of civilizations out there, they've somehow learned to

1298
01:11:08,520 --> 01:11:11,160
Speaker 1: live together, and that gives us hope that we can

1299
01:11:11,280 --> 01:11:13,800
Speaker 1: join that community. I guess either way, you're sort of

1300
01:11:14,280 --> 01:11:18,080
Speaker 1: projecting our own human bias onto these scenarios, right, Like,

1301
01:11:18,400 --> 01:11:20,479
Speaker 1: maybe we would react a certain way, but that doesn't

1302
01:11:20,520 --> 01:11:22,920
Speaker 1: mean other aliens would react the same way exactly. And

1303
01:11:22,960 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 1: I put that same question to him, and maybe you

1304
01:11:25,400 --> 01:11:27,799
Speaker 1: heard his answer. He thinks that this game theory analysis

1305
01:11:27,960 --> 01:11:30,680
Speaker 1: might be universal, that it goes just beyond humans, that

1306
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:33,920
Speaker 1: it's useful in understanding like even microbes and all sorts

1307
01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:36,560
Speaker 1: of systems. And so there's some arguments made there that

1308
01:11:36,640 --> 01:11:38,519
Speaker 1: it might be universal. But in the end, you're right,

1309
01:11:38,720 --> 01:11:41,320
Speaker 1: we don't know what motivates an alien, so we definitely

1310
01:11:41,439 --> 01:11:44,760
Speaker 1: don't have a basis for speculating about their choices, right,

1311
01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:47,120
Speaker 1: And then I know you've brought something up before, which

1312
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:49,320
Speaker 1: is like, it doesn't make a lot of sense for

1313
01:11:49,439 --> 01:11:52,640
Speaker 1: aliens to come here for our resources or to eat us, right,

1314
01:11:53,080 --> 01:11:56,200
Speaker 1: Like that's what the alien movies and TV shows always show.

1315
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:58,000
Speaker 1: But I'm always like you, I think thinking in the

1316
01:11:58,080 --> 01:11:59,800
Speaker 1: back of my head, like why would you come all

1317
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:02,080
Speaker 1: this way just for like a little bit of water

1318
01:12:02,400 --> 01:12:05,880
Speaker 1: or just to eat like you know, a few billion humans,

1319
01:12:06,000 --> 01:12:08,559
Speaker 1: Like it's like trying across the country to eat a hamburger.

1320
01:12:08,680 --> 01:12:10,760
Speaker 1: You know, I know you want some water. Neptune is

1321
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 1: basically all water. Help yourself, right, You want platinum? We

1322
01:12:14,439 --> 01:12:16,880
Speaker 1: got asteroids filled with platinum. We don't even know how

1323
01:12:16,920 --> 01:12:20,320
Speaker 1: to get to take some. Please, nobody would come here

1324
01:12:20,400 --> 01:12:22,960
Speaker 1: just for those resources. Or you like meat. Hey, we

1325
01:12:23,200 --> 01:12:27,559
Speaker 1: have this great animal thing called the impossible burger. That's

1326
01:12:27,640 --> 01:12:29,960
Speaker 1: just as good. I'm sure with your advanced illuciation you

1327
01:12:30,040 --> 01:12:32,160
Speaker 1: can figure it out too exactly. And so I agree

1328
01:12:32,200 --> 01:12:34,640
Speaker 1: with you that it's unlikely to have interstellar war for

1329
01:12:34,920 --> 01:12:38,479
Speaker 1: resources because they seem essentially infinite. But this is another angle.

1330
01:12:38,600 --> 01:12:40,680
Speaker 1: You know, we might have an interstellar war due to

1331
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:44,440
Speaker 1: a misunderstanding if those aliens are worried that we're aggressive,

1332
01:12:44,520 --> 01:12:46,760
Speaker 1: they might be aggressive in response, even if it doesn't

1333
01:12:46,800 --> 01:12:49,560
Speaker 1: make any sense for anybody to be aggressive. And so

1334
01:12:49,680 --> 01:12:52,479
Speaker 1: there is the potential there for misunderstanding, like maybe the

1335
01:12:52,520 --> 01:12:55,120
Speaker 1: aliens are just doing it for support, you mean, like

1336
01:12:55,240 --> 01:12:57,400
Speaker 1: they just maybe like going to war. Maybe they're just

1337
01:12:57,479 --> 01:12:59,720
Speaker 1: not as curious about the universe. They don't really care

1338
01:12:59,760 --> 01:13:03,120
Speaker 1: about everything. We figured out we need to Daniel dim Daniel.

1339
01:13:03,640 --> 01:13:07,320
Speaker 1: We need to like implanted Daniel in there amongst their ranks. Now,

1340
01:13:07,400 --> 01:13:09,919
Speaker 1: you got it. We need to spread Daniel across the universe.

1341
01:13:13,640 --> 01:13:15,599
Speaker 1: And that's what this podcast is all about. So maybe

1342
01:13:15,680 --> 01:13:18,400
Speaker 1: if they hear this podcast, they'll realize, hey, we're just

1343
01:13:18,520 --> 01:13:21,400
Speaker 1: kind of goofy and curious. We pose no harm. That

1344
01:13:21,400 --> 01:13:23,800
Speaker 1: would be hilarious. They like in a thousand years alien

1345
01:13:23,920 --> 01:13:26,040
Speaker 1: come and they say, hey, we're going to wipe you out.

1346
01:13:26,080 --> 01:13:28,400
Speaker 1: But then we picked up this podcast that you're transmitting,

1347
01:13:28,520 --> 01:13:33,880
Speaker 1: and this famous profit that Daniel, Why the Lights and

1348
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:37,000
Speaker 1: the Chosen One illuminated us into what it means to

1349
01:13:37,040 --> 01:13:40,200
Speaker 1: be curious about the universe. We were slightly offended Jorge's jokes,

1350
01:13:40,280 --> 01:13:43,759
Speaker 1: but we decided that's right. All the Banana Joeys were terrible.

1351
01:13:44,280 --> 01:13:47,760
Speaker 1: We wish or would just go away. Bring on this

1352
01:13:47,920 --> 01:13:50,679
Speaker 1: other guest, Hose, and they were much more interesting. Anyways,

1353
01:13:52,080 --> 01:13:54,639
Speaker 1: Can we be a guest on your show? Yeah, exactly, Aliens,

1354
01:13:54,680 --> 01:13:56,320
Speaker 1: you are welcome to come and be a guest in

1355
01:13:56,360 --> 01:13:58,679
Speaker 1: the show. Please do come and tell us all about

1356
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:01,320
Speaker 1: the secrets of the universe. That is my scientific fantasy.

1357
01:14:01,479 --> 01:14:04,439
Speaker 1: That's right. Just don't eat horrete or anybody. You don't

1358
01:14:04,479 --> 01:14:09,160
Speaker 1: eat anybody. Have some impossible burghers, have some impossible humans.

1359
01:14:10,080 --> 01:14:12,040
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I guess it's something to think about,

1360
01:14:12,120 --> 01:14:14,120
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not we want to contact ailings

1361
01:14:14,160 --> 01:14:16,640
Speaker 1: out there, whether it would be worth the risk. You know,

1362
01:14:16,720 --> 01:14:20,000
Speaker 1: how would our lives change? And we newly precise answer

1363
01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:22,800
Speaker 1: to that question. Yeah, it is an important question, and

1364
01:14:22,880 --> 01:14:25,880
Speaker 1: it's a question that no individual person can or should

1365
01:14:26,040 --> 01:14:28,640
Speaker 1: make on behalf of humanity. That's what scares me a

1366
01:14:28,760 --> 01:14:31,639
Speaker 1: little bit about this rogue group that's just sending messages

1367
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:34,120
Speaker 1: out there. You know, they're making decisions for the entire

1368
01:14:34,320 --> 01:14:37,360
Speaker 1: human race, and it's not a small decision to make. Right. Well,

1369
01:14:37,400 --> 01:14:40,320
Speaker 1: I have bad news for you, Daniel. The fate of

1370
01:14:40,400 --> 01:14:42,920
Speaker 1: human kind is already in the hands of like four people.

1371
01:14:43,280 --> 01:14:46,080
Speaker 1: That's true, So it sounds like you have a little

1372
01:14:46,080 --> 01:14:48,880
Speaker 1: deeper problem with the way humans organize themselves. That's true,

1373
01:14:48,920 --> 01:14:52,240
Speaker 1: but out of scope I think for today's podcast. Let's

1374
01:14:52,240 --> 01:14:55,719
Speaker 1: try stay tuned for our next episode. Daniel and jorgey

1375
01:14:56,000 --> 01:15:00,200
Speaker 1: overthrow the global elite. That's right, yes, don't wipe obile

1376
01:15:00,240 --> 01:15:03,439
Speaker 1: politics and other political leadings. All right, Well, we hope

1377
01:15:03,479 --> 01:15:06,320
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that. Thanks for joining us, see you next time.

1378
01:15:14,200 --> 01:15:17,000
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain

1379
01:15:17,080 --> 01:15:19,920
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For

1380
01:15:20,080 --> 01:15:23,000
Speaker 1: more podcast For my heart Radio, visit the I heart

1381
01:15:23,120 --> 01:15:26,680
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

1382
01:15:26,760 --> 01:15:29,400
Speaker 1: favorite shows. H