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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And today we're going to be looking at a question

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Speaker 1: about the future a sort of today will be a

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Speaker 1: speculative out ing. So the question that we want to

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Speaker 1: start with today is the broad one, and then we'll

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Speaker 1: break it down into specific, specific ways of looking at

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Speaker 1: this question. The question is how long could a technological

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Speaker 1: civilization last? And notice that I just used the word

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Speaker 1: civilization and technological not necessarily human civilization, since time and

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Speaker 1: space scales the kind we're talking about could really blur

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Speaker 1: the lines of what it means for a civilization to

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Speaker 1: be human or consistently any one biological species. So for now,

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Speaker 1: I'd say, let's just define civilization as something like a

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Speaker 1: continue this tradition of intelligent behavior. Uh, if you've got

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Speaker 1: something like that, Assume a civilization like ours leaves Earth

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Speaker 1: and spreads out to colonize other star systems and becomes

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Speaker 1: a presence on the galactic stage. How long could a

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Speaker 1: civilization like that actually survive into the future. You kind

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Speaker 1: of have to think of of civilization as a virus

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Speaker 1: spreading through this uh, this galactic and ultimately I as

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Speaker 1: a universal host. How how far could it spread? How

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Speaker 1: long could it maintain the infection? Um? And it's it

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Speaker 1: is challenging at times just to think about it because

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Speaker 1: we we can't help but extrapolate what we have now

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Speaker 1: and what we know, and we have to do that

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Speaker 1: in order to to sort of scale up the model

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Speaker 1: of what a galactic civilization might look like. Um. And

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Speaker 1: at the because I think back to Star Trek for instance.

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Speaker 1: You know, Star Trek is essentially a show about clipper ships.

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Speaker 1: It's about seafaring individuals. It's just extrapolated into space and

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Speaker 1: then uh, you know, with a lot of cool science

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Speaker 1: science and science fictional elements explored within it, exploring the

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Speaker 1: planets of potted plants. Yeah. But but ultimately it is

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Speaker 1: it is based on the model of the president in

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Speaker 1: the past. Um. And then then there's also this this

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Speaker 1: element too of just um you know, uh, grandiose pride

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Speaker 1: and human accomplishment to to wonder where will we be

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Speaker 1: uh in this distant age. It reminds me of of

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Speaker 1: a quote from J. M. Coats. He's waiting for the barbarians,

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Speaker 1: and which he writes, quote one thought alone preoccupies the

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Speaker 1: submerged mind of empire, how not to end, how not

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Speaker 1: to die, how to prolong its era. I think that's

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Speaker 1: quite true, though, I mean the conception of empire that

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Speaker 1: we have is so time limited. I mean people who

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Speaker 1: are trying to prolong the empires that were used to

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Speaker 1: thinking about, say Cotsy probably has in mind something like

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Speaker 1: the British Empire um. That is an empire that, even

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Speaker 1: though it existed for a long period of time, was

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Speaker 1: on the scale of you know, people's recognizable descendants. You know,

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Speaker 1: you would be saying, I want to hand on my

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Speaker 1: empire to my child, or my grandchild or my great grandchild.

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Speaker 1: Do you do you want to hand on your empire

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Speaker 1: to something that is maybe not even recognizably the same

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Speaker 1: species as you a million years down the road. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It kind of becomes the situation where one is, say

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Speaker 1: passing on a typewriter or or some other piece of technology,

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Speaker 1: where you're like, this has been in our family for years,

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Speaker 1: and then you're like, well, thanks, but it's and it

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Speaker 1: is now obsolete. It is it is kind of useless.

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Speaker 1: It's it's actually of more value perhaps now as a

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Speaker 1: mere museum piece or just as a metal to be recycled.

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Speaker 1: That's true, I guess it. Also it sort of works

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Speaker 1: out how you don't have to care about that thing

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Speaker 1: that's a million years down the road, whether or not

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Speaker 1: you think of that as your direct descendant or not,

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Speaker 1: because you care about next generation, and that generation will

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Speaker 1: always care about the next generation. It's just an echo

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Speaker 1: through through time and space. Yeah. I think one of

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Speaker 1: the important things to deep in mind and all of

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Speaker 1: this is just to what extent to things UH scale up,

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Speaker 1: you know, because we think about the empires and the

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Speaker 1: technology we have today and UH, I think is what

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Speaker 1: As we proceed through this discussion, it will be reminded

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Speaker 1: time and time again that that that human life, human empires,

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Speaker 1: they don't really scale up when you start applying them

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Speaker 1: to even even at the interplanetary stage, things begin to

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Speaker 1: get a little difficult. But certainly when you get beyond

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Speaker 1: beyond that, when you talk about UH, an empire that

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Speaker 1: spans solar systems or or or manages to spread throughout

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Speaker 1: an entire galaxy and human life as well, there are challenges. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: there are challenges when we think of of what we

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Speaker 1: have now, and even if you achieve some sort of

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Speaker 1: biological or digital immortality, um, it's it's difficult to put

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Speaker 1: that in context. Yeah. Now, one of the first questions

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Speaker 1: that you might ask is, well, how long would it take?

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Speaker 1: How long is it gonna take for a galactic civilization

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Speaker 1: to emerge? Okay, we gotta get there before we can

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Speaker 1: ask how long it will exist or survive? Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And this is something that science fiction and authors often

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Speaker 1: kind of hatch you out, depending on how into you

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Speaker 1: know defining a timeline they are. Now. In his book Cosmos,

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Speaker 1: Carl Sagan commented on the Drake equation. Right. So, the

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Speaker 1: Drake equation we we've talked about on the show before,

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Speaker 1: but if you'll recall, it's essentially an equation put together

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Speaker 1: to come up with a rough estimate based on some

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Speaker 1: some variables where you can plug in your assumptions for

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Speaker 1: the answers UH to figure out how many technological civilizations

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Speaker 1: you would expect to find in a galaxy. So basically,

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Speaker 1: the short version is you take the number of planets

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Speaker 1: that there could be life on and then multiply that

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Speaker 1: by some probabilities like the fraction of planets where life emerges,

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Speaker 1: the fraction of the is where intelligent life evolves, the

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Speaker 1: fraction that's capable of interstellar communication, and the years a

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Speaker 1: civilization tends to remain detectable before for whatever reason, uh

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Speaker 1: disappearing right. And Sagan pointed out that civilizations might tend

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Speaker 1: to destroy themselves soon after reaching the technological phase, but

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Speaker 1: that at least some civilizations might learn to live with

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Speaker 1: high technology. He figured that, using the Drake equation, if

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Speaker 1: just one percent of all emergent technological civilization survived this

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Speaker 1: technological adolescence, then there could be millions of civilizations out there. Now,

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Speaker 1: there don't appear to be millions of civilizations out there

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Speaker 1: well as far as we know, as far as we know.

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Speaker 1: But but here's the thing. Sagan and William Newman calculated

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Speaker 1: that if a mill that if a million years ago

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Speaker 1: a space faring civilization emerged two hundred light years away

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Speaker 1: from us and spread outward, survey ships would only just

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Speaker 1: now be entering our solar system. And then what would

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Speaker 1: that even look like? What would a million year old

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Speaker 1: civilization uh, you know manifest as uh? I mean, our

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Speaker 1: current and only model outside of sci fi dreams is

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Speaker 1: our civilization. It's me. And it's a mere you know,

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of years old, and we've only been

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Speaker 1: a technological civilization for a few centuries. So what would

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Speaker 1: these presumed immortals even be interested in when it comes

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Speaker 1: to exploring and colonizing new worlds? Would they have would

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Speaker 1: would they be interested in that at all? Would they

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Speaker 1: sort of would they perhaps give up on their colonization efforts,

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Speaker 1: uh after they realize that they need to perhaps extend

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Speaker 1: their their energy and other directions. It's a good question.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think that it helps, um it helps

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Speaker 1: when trying to imagine the future behavior of civilizations, whether

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Speaker 1: alien or ours, to try to have as few assumptions

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Speaker 1: baked in as possible. And so you can make assumptions

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Speaker 1: maybe about what alien psychology might be, like, what their

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Speaker 1: their directives are an exploration, but all of those are

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Speaker 1: somewhat fallible. One of the things I think we can

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Speaker 1: bank on as an assumption about future your civilizations is

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Speaker 1: that they will need energy. That that's that's a that's

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Speaker 1: a kind of ground level assumption that just you can

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Speaker 1: count on that. But then how how might their goals change?

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Speaker 1: Like they have energy, they could have all the energy,

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Speaker 1: certainly in a world, in a solar system, in across

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Speaker 1: multiple systems. But then what do they really want to

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Speaker 1: do with it? And and indeed do they want to

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Speaker 1: survive the long term challenges of life in our universe

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Speaker 1: with their goals understanding? And even experience of time and

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Speaker 1: space differ from what we humans value and experience today. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it could be, but once you get into those scenarios,

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Speaker 1: it's just hard to it's hard to predict anything with

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Speaker 1: any confidence. Yeah, I mean so, yeah, this is where

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Speaker 1: you get into the really the domain of science fiction. Um,

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Speaker 1: I don't Oh, and there's plenty of great science fiction

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Speaker 1: along these lines. Yeah. I'm reminded of the various advanced

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Speaker 1: Elder civilizations in Ian Ebanks culture books. Um, because beyond

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Speaker 1: the the high level involved civilizations that engage with other

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Speaker 1: galactic civilizations in these books, there are what's known as

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Speaker 1: the sublime. The sublime these are advanced civilizations that basically,

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Speaker 1: at some point they just left all of their their

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Speaker 1: works behind because they've left the known dimensions of space

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Speaker 1: time behind to take up residents in several higher dimensions

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Speaker 1: higher dimensions. Now, does this what assumes string theory or

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Speaker 1: something like that, in which they're they're tiny higher dimensions

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Speaker 1: where you can somehow bacond your consciousness into some kind

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Speaker 1: of substrate that can transcend into those hidden dimensions. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's where my mind goes to, especially since we've we've

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Speaker 1: very recently spoken about dimensions and string theory. Uh. Now

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Speaker 1: I haven't I haven't read some of at least one

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Speaker 1: of the key books that deals with the sublime in

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Speaker 1: the culture A series. But it's basically the idea that

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Speaker 1: that suddenly that this particular group has reached a level

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Speaker 1: of technological and cultural advancement where they're not even playing

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Speaker 1: the same game as we are, that they are perhaps

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Speaker 1: not even really experiencing the universe in the same way

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Speaker 1: as we are, and they just kind of leave it behind.

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Speaker 1: Uh indeed, like a like like like something emerging from

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Speaker 1: a chrysalis and uh in taking off into a new

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Speaker 1: realm of being. And but in doing this, at the

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Speaker 1: same time, it's possible that sublimation uh might actually protect

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Speaker 1: them from the truly long term environmental risks of living

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Speaker 1: in our universe. So maybe it accomplishes the same go

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Speaker 1: But of course that is that is the benefit afforded

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Speaker 1: by playing in the realm of imagination. We don't know

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Speaker 1: if anything like that is possible or not. So let's

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Speaker 1: get into some of the long term environmental challenges of

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Speaker 1: of life in a hostile universe. Well, I guess first

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Speaker 1: we should look just the planetary level. Yeah, let's start

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Speaker 1: with with Earth itself, right, So there are a number

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Speaker 1: of factors to consider here, the most obvious being threats

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Speaker 1: from within and threats from beyond. So we certainly have

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Speaker 1: the ability to drastically damage the life sustaining properties of

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Speaker 1: planet Earth. In fact, we are we are currently doing that. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: with with say greenhouse gas emissions leading to global climate change,

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Speaker 1: we are verely hampering the Earth's ability to sustain a

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Speaker 1: civilization like ours far into the future. Yeah, the results

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Speaker 1: can be catastrophic. Now, could we actually wipe out all

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Speaker 1: life on the planet if such an evil aim possessed us?

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Speaker 1: I think we would probably have a hard time doing that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, life is pretty resilient, but we could come

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Speaker 1: frighteningly close. I've seen some estimates for how a large

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Speaker 1: enough nuclear war uh could could severely damage and wipe out,

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Speaker 1: you know, a significant number of of life forms on

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Speaker 1: our planet. I also read get this, um how even

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Speaker 1: even an extremely powerful detonation in the Mariana Trench could

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Speaker 1: collapse the food chain and wipe out most plant and

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Speaker 1: animal life specifically. And this is according to uh x

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Speaker 1: k c D s Randall Monroe uh x k c

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Speaker 1: d as a science blog and comic series online. Uh He,

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Speaker 1: according to his calculations, a fifty three million in megatun

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Speaker 1: explosion down in the trench might just do the trick.

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Speaker 1: This would be equal to the chicks Aloop impact that

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Speaker 1: occurred roughly sixty six million years ago, which led to

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Speaker 1: the Cretaceous Paleogene extinction event, and that killed sev of

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Speaker 1: all animal and plant species. That was the size of

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Speaker 1: a city, and it had the power of a billion

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Speaker 1: nuclear bombs. And this brings us to the extinction events

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Speaker 1: that can occur due to unchecked space collisions. Yeah, now

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Speaker 1: there's there's actually been some evidence to support the idea

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Speaker 1: that there's a a twenty six million year cycle linking

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Speaker 1: comet showers and global die offs. Yeah, there are people

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Speaker 1: who pause it all kinds of like like periods of

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Speaker 1: space impacts and what the causes of those might be.

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Speaker 1: But one thing we can say is that space impacts

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Speaker 1: are just a statistics game. I mean, you're it's just

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Speaker 1: a waiting game. Like you know, every so many years,

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Speaker 1: you're you're pretty much statistically guaranteed to get X number

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Speaker 1: of powerful storms that hit a certain part of the world.

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Speaker 1: Space impacts are the same way. There are a bunch

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Speaker 1: of objects out there, they're flying around, and you can

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Speaker 1: just calculate it out over certain periods of time, statistically

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Speaker 1: you're going to be hit by X number of objects

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Speaker 1: above a certain mass. So when you're we're talking about

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Speaker 1: a human civilization, uh, surviving however many you know, thousands

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Speaker 1: upon thousands upon thousands of years, certainly reaching like the

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Speaker 1: million or two million. Your point. If you want life

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Speaker 1: to continue on Earth, then you have to do something

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Speaker 1: about the potential impacts. Because defense, Yeah, you gotta have

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Speaker 1: planetary defense, which is something that uh that people are

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Speaker 1: working on. Uh we've discussed it on the show before.

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Speaker 1: It's still not as much of a priority as it

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Speaker 1: should be. You have all of these uh, these politicians

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Speaker 1: out there, you know, making campaign promises and talking about

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Speaker 1: what they're gonna do for for for to improve everyone's life,

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Speaker 1: and it always floors me that this is not something

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Speaker 1: that people take up because this is one of the

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Speaker 1: This is perhaps the only, or at least one of

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Speaker 1: the very few causes where we can say this is

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Speaker 1: something we can do to save the world. This is

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Speaker 1: something we can do to protect the planet. Yeah, what

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Speaker 1: what if there? That was like a what if that

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Speaker 1: was a campaign platform? It was basically civilization level defense.

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Speaker 1: So your your campaign platform is fight climate change, protect

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Speaker 1: the planet from space object impacts, and let's say the

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Speaker 1: other big one would be prepared for the next superflu

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Speaker 1: It makes sense to me, I mean, I guess the

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Speaker 1: the the the counter argument here is that most these

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Speaker 1: are these are generally longer term threats. Uh, so people

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Speaker 1: are going to be less inclined to let it impact

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Speaker 1: their voting behavior. It's frustrating. But anyway, uh some other

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Speaker 1: problems that, of course so be as we've discussed before.

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Speaker 1: Venus offers an example of this of a sort of

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Speaker 1: worst case runaway greenhouse effect that could leave a planet,

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Speaker 1: even a planet like Earth, uninhabitable, And there are also

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Speaker 1: various long term scenarios involving the world's oceans, the magnetosphere,

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Speaker 1: which if you listen to the show, you know that

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Speaker 1: the magnetosphere plays a vital role in protecting our planet

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Speaker 1: from silver and cosmic radiation, and if something were to

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Speaker 1: happen to that, then we're unprotected. There are also biological

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Speaker 1: threats from within Earth's biosphere. That's right. You have to

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Speaker 1: consider the likes of Peter Ward's media hYP hypothesis. I

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Speaker 1: was actually not familiar with this. This is a kind

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Speaker 1: of an opposite of the Gaia hypothesis and uh, the

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Speaker 1: Medeia hypothesis is that multicellular life is a suicidal superorganism

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Speaker 1: leading to microbial triggered mass extinctions. I mean, whether you

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Speaker 1: buy the framing is a suicidal superorganism, it is clear

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Speaker 1: that there have been times in the past where life

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Speaker 1: on Earth caused massive extinctions of other types of life

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Speaker 1: on Earth. I mean, we think about the oxygenation of

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Speaker 1: our atmosphere that we are now adapted to was initially

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Speaker 1: tragedy that killed killed off tons of life, and then

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Speaker 1: of course we've seen this this particular primate species rise

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Speaker 1: up and uh and and alter the atmosphere from a

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Speaker 1: very early time. And then of course there are the

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Speaker 1: outside context problems to consider, which, of course is a

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Speaker 1: term that was coined by Ian M. Banks but has

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Speaker 1: been used since then by various other authors and even scientists.

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Speaker 1: You call them outside context problems to consider, but sort

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Speaker 1: of the nature of them means that what you can't

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Speaker 1: consider the right right. Yeah. Banks said that an outside

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Speaker 1: context problem is the sort of thing most civilizations encounter

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Speaker 1: just once, in which they tend to encounter rather in

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Speaker 1: the same way as sentence encounters a full stop. Um.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, if we could. The classic example, of course

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Speaker 1: is um, if you have a primitive terrestrial society and

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Speaker 1: then uh, a colonial force shows up with advanced technology,

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Speaker 1: you know, and then to extrapolate that into space, an

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Speaker 1: alien civilization shows up with it with advanced head ology.

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Speaker 1: But of course, when the thing about the the alien

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Speaker 1: consideration is that a lot of very intelligent folks have

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Speaker 1: thought about this problem. There are even some rudimentary plans

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Speaker 1: in place to deal with it when it occurs, you know,

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Speaker 1: people who think about first contact. So it's not really

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Speaker 1: a completely outside contact problem. Yeah. You could look at

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Speaker 1: a lot of science fiction as us doing our very

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Speaker 1: best to use our imaginations to prepare for this potential conflict. Right.

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Speaker 1: But one of the big hard limits for life on

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Speaker 1: Earth uh and in our solar system itself, concerns the

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Speaker 1: life cycle of our son. Now maybe we should take

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Speaker 1: a quick break and then come back to UH to

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Speaker 1: discuss and weep in anguish over the death of the Sun.

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Speaker 1: Than alright, we're back. So we we've talked about the

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Speaker 1: life cycle of the Sun before on this show, but

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Speaker 1: just to refresh, this is basically how it it works.

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Speaker 1: So our son has been going strong for four point

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Speaker 1: five billion years and it has another five billion years

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Speaker 1: left in the town. When the courts roughly speaking, roughly speaking, now,

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Speaker 1: when the core runs out of hydrogen fuel, it's going

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Speaker 1: to contract under the weight of gravity. Some hydrogen fusion

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Speaker 1: will occur in the upper layers at this point. But

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Speaker 1: as a depleted core contracts, it heats up, and this

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Speaker 1: heats the upper layers of the Sun, causing them to expand.

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Speaker 1: And as the outer layers expand, the radius of the

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Speaker 1: Sun will increase and it will become a red giant.

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Speaker 1: And the radius of the of a red giant son,

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Speaker 1: our red giant son would be a hundred times what

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Speaker 1: it is now. It's not good. Now, that's that's not

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Speaker 1: good for anybody, because this would this would put the

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Speaker 1: put the the the the outside of the Sun just

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Speaker 1: beyond the Earth's orbit, and some scientists have estimated that

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Speaker 1: this would just vaporize our planet, but there's also a

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Speaker 1: good chance it would push Earth and its moon outward

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Speaker 1: after consuming mercury and venus. In any case, whatever it does,

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Speaker 1: it does not sound like a survivable event for the

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Speaker 1: inhabitants of Earth. That's right, It's just it's it's bad news.

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Speaker 1: And long before this happens, say in a mirror one

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Speaker 1: to two billion years, the Earth is gonna go hot

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Speaker 1: enough to to boil away its oceans as well. And

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Speaker 1: if we're looking really long term, um, here's how it'll

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Speaker 1: it'll all play out. According to Ethan Seagull, who wrote

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Speaker 1: how our Solar System will end in the Far Future

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Speaker 1: for Forbes. Uh. He says that in nine point five

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Speaker 1: billion years, the sunile collapse into a white dwarf, and

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Speaker 1: the remaining dead worlds will continue to orbit it, and

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Speaker 1: eventually the white dwarf will go dark in the inevitable

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Speaker 1: collision between it and another black dwarf will blast apart

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Speaker 1: the remnants of our solar system. So all that and

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Speaker 1: the Sun doesn't even get to turn into a black hole.

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Speaker 1: That's right, the Sun will never get to turn into

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Speaker 1: a black it's not massive enough. Uh, and yet it

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Speaker 1: will wreak havoc. Nonetheless, So what's our fight or flight

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Speaker 1: response here? Well, it obviously means if our civilization is

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Speaker 1: going to survive into the realm of say billions of years,

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Speaker 1: if you're on the billions order of magnitude for the future,

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Speaker 1: we can't stay here, that's right. We've got to build ships,

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Speaker 1: We've got to build colonies. We've got to estab colonies

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Speaker 1: on other worlds and other systems as well. Or perhaps

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Speaker 1: we do something to just move the Earth itself, because

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Speaker 1: as we ascend the Kardashian scale, such things do theoretically

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Speaker 1: become possible. Sure, at least in theory. For instance, we

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Speaker 1: can harness comments and asteroids so they gravitationally slingshot past

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Speaker 1: Earth and move us into a wider orbit away from

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Speaker 1: the Sun. We could build planetary sunshades that have the

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Speaker 1: same effect, or or very or even just sort of

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Speaker 1: turn the Earth into a spaceship of sorts, you know,

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Speaker 1: just take it with us. Well, there are versions, like,

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Speaker 1: for example, there is one idea that's not for moving

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Speaker 1: planets so much as it is for moving stars. But

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Speaker 1: I wonder if similar principles could be applied to planets,

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Speaker 1: where it's known as the Scatoff thruster if you're read

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Speaker 1: about the Yeah, so this is for stars. But what

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Speaker 1: it would do would be would be sort of a

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Speaker 1: large reflective encasement for part of a star that would

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Speaker 1: cause a positive radi asian pressure in one direction back

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Speaker 1: against the star. And by reflecting all of this radiation

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Speaker 1: back in the direction of the star, you could actually

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Speaker 1: steer the movement of a star. One wonders if you

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Speaker 1: could create some kind of similar solar sale like thing

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Speaker 1: for a planet. Then again, the planet is not emitting

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Speaker 1: radiation the way a star is, So I don't know,

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe possible, maybe not, Yeah, or ultimately we could

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Speaker 1: just leave it behind, move on to better worlds, make

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Speaker 1: better worlds. Exodus from an uninhabitable Earth has been a

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Speaker 1: sci fi staple for decades, going back at least to

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties. That's when British sci fi author Olaf

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Speaker 1: Stapleton wrote about it and uh during the events of

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Speaker 1: Frank Herbert's Dune, Old Earth is said to be an

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Speaker 1: uninhabited waste. Oh yeah, do they ever go there? I

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Speaker 1: don't not. In the the original books that they might

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Speaker 1: have something that takes place in the more recent Dune

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Speaker 1: franchise books, but I have not read them, so I

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Speaker 1: would love to hear from from hardcore Dune readers on that. Now.

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Speaker 1: When it comes to moving the planet, though, we also

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Speaker 1: see some work there in science fiction. Sci fi writer

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Speaker 1: Stanley Schmidt explored it in nineteen and Ian M. Banks

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Speaker 1: also wrote about it. So we're kind of climbing a

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Speaker 1: Kardashian scale of destruction here. So planetary power and the

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Speaker 1: ability to save one's planet in some sense, then solar

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Speaker 1: system power and the ability to save oneself or roll

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Speaker 1: with the changes to a single star system. But what

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Speaker 1: about beyond that? What about the fate of galaxies in

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Speaker 1: the universe itself. Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. I

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Speaker 1: guess that's where we have to go next. Now, before

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Speaker 1: we do that, we should pause for the reality check

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Speaker 1: and and not ignore the much much nearer, more salient

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Speaker 1: threats facing our species right now. We mentioned some of

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Speaker 1: those earlier, primarily things like climate change in all of

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Speaker 1: its myriad downstream effects, killer pandemics like the next super flu,

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Speaker 1: the threat of space impacts, nuclear war. Maybe some people

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Speaker 1: would throw artificial intelligence in there. I don't know. That's

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Speaker 1: that seems like a much bigger question mark to me.

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Speaker 1: But I think the big ones we really know to

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Speaker 1: be concerned about, based on the most solid science, would

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Speaker 1: be things like climate change in pandemics. We know those

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Speaker 1: are real threats right now. We have to be fighting

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Speaker 1: and preparing today if we want to thrive in the future. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And of course we've discussed those in the past and

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Speaker 1: we will revisit them in the future. But to continue

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Speaker 1: today's thought experiment, let's let's go that next step. So

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Speaker 1: we imagine our technological behaviors can be changed, and we

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Speaker 1: beat back global climate change, we survive all these other

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Speaker 1: threats in the near term, We expand our space exploration

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Speaker 1: and colonization ability. We spread out our civilization so that

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Speaker 1: no one local event in any individual solar system can

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Speaker 1: bring it to an end. When do much bigger concerns

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Speaker 1: like the space, time, and energy dynamics of the larger

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Speaker 1: universe start to actually become a threat to our survival, Well,

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Speaker 1: not anytime soon, right, but but as far as we know,

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Speaker 1: as far as we know, but there are predictions for

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Speaker 1: how it might go down. The sort of universal apocalypse.

431
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:07,440
Speaker 1: In fact, they're there at least four main models here.

432
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,159
Speaker 1: We're gonna start with the two older models. One is

433
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: the Big Freeze. Uh. And this has to do with

434
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: just an eternally expanding universe. Uh. And we know the

435
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:21,200
Speaker 1: universe is expanding. Uh. So the idea here is that

436
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: everything expands to the point where there's just heat death

437
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: across the universe, the triumph of entropy in your life

438
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:30,199
Speaker 1: with just a cold, dead universe. According to some of

439
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: the models. One thing that can often be misleading about

440
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:34,959
Speaker 1: the idea of the heat death of the universe is

441
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,200
Speaker 1: that if you if you're not familiar with this term,

442
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: it sounds like that might be hot. It's not hot.

443
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: It's the opposite. It means it means usable energy gets

444
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 1: converted into heat, which is entropy energy you can't use,

445
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: and everything is just this cold bath of slightly above

446
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 1: absolute zero radiation. Now, the the other side of that,

447
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: of course, is the idea that what if things expand

448
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:01,000
Speaker 1: to the point and then they retract uh in a

449
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 1: collapsing mechanism. This was this would lead to what is

450
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: considered the big crunch. So the universe stops expanding, crunches

451
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: back down over time into the reverse of the Big Bang.

452
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound good for you know, but yeah, but

453
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: this would be this would be a hot death as

454
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: a cold as opposed to a cold death. Now, back

455
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine, physicist Freeman Dyson. Dyson is still

456
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:28,679
Speaker 1: with us as of this recording. He was born in

457
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: But he pondered just how these two possibilities would impact

458
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: humanity or whatever humanity becomes over the course of time,

459
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 1: and he was he was pretty optimistic. Yeah, we should

460
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: know that this paper we're gonna be talking about is

461
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: fantastically readable. But Dyson was working with the knowledge available

462
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,439
Speaker 1: to him at the time in nineteen seventy nine. So,

463
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:53,360
Speaker 1: for example, this predates the discoveries that seemed to indicate

464
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Dyson didn't

465
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: know that at the time. At the time, he vote, quote,

466
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: the prevailing view holds the future of open and closed

467
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: universe versus this being the idea that to a closed

468
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: universe is one that will eventually collapse into the Big crunch,

469
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: and an open universe is one that will just continue

470
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: to expand towards this big freeze. He said, uh uh,

471
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: quote the future of open and closed universe is to

472
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 1: be equally dismal. According to this view, we have only

473
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: the choice of being fried in a closed universe or

474
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 1: frozen in an open one. And he can He goes

475
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 1: on regrettably, I have to concur with es verdict that

476
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: in the case, in this case, we have no escape

477
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: from frying. No matter how deep we burrow into the

478
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: earth to shield ourselves from the ever increasing fury of

479
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: the blue shifted background radiation, we can only postpone by

480
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: a few million years. Are miserable? End? Oh wow, I

481
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: was just thinking. So the blue shifting of radiation means

482
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: that if radiation sources are accelerating towards you, the radiation

483
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 1: they emit gets uped in frequency, gets blue shifted up higher.

484
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: So does that mean like radio waves, the cosmic microwave

485
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,400
Speaker 1: background radiation and all that as it closes in towards

486
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 1: you gets blue shifted up and turned into gamma rays.

487
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:12,719
Speaker 1: I get something like that. That's that's That's what I'm

488
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: getting from this. But this is with the closed universe model, right,

489
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: and and he he largely avoids the quote unquote claustrophobic

490
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: nature of the closed universe in this paper, but he

491
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 1: does offer this. Uh, this idea, he says, supposing that

492
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: we discover the universe to be naturally closed and doomed

493
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: to collapse, is it conceivable that by intelligent intervention converting

494
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 1: matter into radiation and causing energy to flow purposefully on

495
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: a cosmic scale, we could break open a closed universe

496
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:42,640
Speaker 1: and change the topology of space time so that only

497
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: a part of it would collapse, in another part of

498
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: it would expand forever. Uh. Yeah, I would call that optimistic. Yeah,

499
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:52,919
Speaker 1: but I mean he's he's basically throwing it out here

500
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 1: and saying, look, I'm not sure how this would work exactly,

501
00:27:55,800 --> 00:28:00,080
Speaker 1: but if we're talking about a significantly advanced civilization, this

502
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: sounds like the kind of thing such a civilization would

503
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: be into doing and maybe maybe have the ability to

504
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah. Uh. One thing I like about Dyson's

505
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 1: attitude here is that he he's essentially saying, you know, physicists,

506
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: you should explore extreme implications. Uh. He starts off his

507
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: paper by talking about Stephen Weinberg, the Stephen Weinberg quote

508
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:24,880
Speaker 1: that the problem with physicists is not that they take

509
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: their theories too seriously, but that they don't take them

510
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,719
Speaker 1: seriously enough. You know that they scoff at some of

511
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 1: the discussing some of the more outlandish implications of theories

512
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: that we know to be good theories and are confirmed

513
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: by evidence. Uh, and Dyson's like, no, let's get into

514
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: the weirdness. Okay, we've got a theory. We think it's

515
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: a good theory because it predicts all the stuff we see.

516
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: What does it imply? What are the weirdest things that implies? Again,

517
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: this paper is uh is really readable, very accessible, especially

518
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: for a paper that has so many equations in it.

519
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: But but he also has some some very helpful timetable

520
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: scale els. For instance, he has his table one summary

521
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: of time scales, and he he holds it in a

522
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: closed universe, you'd have a total duration for the universe

523
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: of ten to the eleventh power years or a hundred

524
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: billion years. And and then when he looks at the

525
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: open universe, he basically takes it by by order of magnitude.

526
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: So he taught this is what he says, quote, it

527
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: takes about ten to the six or one million years

528
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: to evolve a new species tend to the seventh power,

529
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: or ten million years to evolve a genus tend to

530
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: the eighth power or a hundred million years to evolve

531
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: a class ten to the ninth power, or one billion

532
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: years to evolve a phylum in less than ten to

533
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: the tenth power years, or ten billion years to evolve

534
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: all the way from the primeval slime to Homo sapience.

535
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if his taxonomic organization of of time

536
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: scales of evolution is exactly right, but I mean he's

537
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: working essentially with orders of magnetzya. He's definitely rounding up.

538
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: He's so, for example, he says, you know, less than

539
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: ten billion years, I guess that's actually that's a fair

540
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: number to work with if you're just trying to estimate

541
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: galactic evolution, right, because you're ultimately trying You're you're dealing

542
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: with with life and life on Earth, which is just

543
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: a pin drop in the in in terms of cosmic history.

544
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:20,479
Speaker 1: But you're you're, so you have to work with these

545
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 1: exceedingly large orders of magnitude, right, But but playing with

546
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: rough orders of magnitude gives you more, essentially more room

547
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 1: to play around. So life on Earth has not been

548
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: around for ten billion years, but it's been around for

549
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: more than one billion years, So you can essentially just

550
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: round up or down to the nearest order of magnitude.

551
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 1: Now ultimately for an open universe scenario. He does say

552
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: that he does think it's pretty hopeful. He says, quote,

553
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: so far as we can imagine into the future, things

554
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: continue to happen in the open cosmology, history has no

555
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: heir and his in this paper. His basic breakdown in

556
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: this paper is that consciousness is not bound to biology

557
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: of it is structural. Then we can move beyond the body.

558
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: We can become digital machines, we can become uh, you know,

559
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: black clouds of particles. That intelligence doesn't necessarily have to

560
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: be confined to flesh beings anymore. And he had There's

561
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: also an interesting point in this where he talks about

562
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: immortal computing, which I hadn't really thought about. He says, quote,

563
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: a society with finite material resources can never build a

564
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: digital memory beyond a certain finite capacity. Therefore, digital memory

565
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: cannot be adequate to the needs of a life form

566
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: planning to survive indefinitely. Fortunately, there is no limited principle

567
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: to the capacity of an analog memory built out of

568
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: a fixed number of components in an expanding universe. For example,

569
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: a physical quantity such as the angle between two stars

570
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: and the sky can be used as an analog memory unit.

571
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: The capacity of this memory unit is equal to the

572
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: number of significant binary digits to which the angle can

573
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: be measured. As the universe expands and the stars recede,

574
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: the number of significant digits in this angle will increase

575
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: logarithmically with time. Measurements of atomic frequencies and energy levels

576
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 1: can also, in principle be measured with a number of

577
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: significant figures proportional too, and then he refers to an

578
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: equation log T. Therefore, an immortal civilization should ultimately find

579
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: ways to code its archives in an analog memory with

580
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: capacity growing like log T. Such a memory will put

581
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 1: severe constraints on the rate of acquisition of permanent new knowledge,

582
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: but at least it is not forbid it altogether. WHOA,

583
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: So I love that because he's he's really thinking big

584
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: about about how even you know, memory and recorded history

585
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: would work with a civilization that is this far advanced

586
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: beyond what we have now. Again, what we have now

587
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: does not scale up well, So ultimately Dyson is taking

588
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: a very optimistic view of the ways that intelligence civilization

589
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: could adapt to the changing physical environment of the universe.

590
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 1: At large, right, but again this was this was We've

591
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 1: had some some some changes since then. And in fact

592
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: BBC writer Adam Becker reached out to Dyson in um

593
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: on the matter of of of the expansion in our

594
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: universe seeming to accelerate, which which puts a new spin

595
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 1: on everything that we've discussed thus far. And uh, and

596
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: so he reached out to Dyson, and Dyson said that

597
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,719
Speaker 1: he's he's far less optimistic, and that the most optimistic

598
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: view is that perhaps the acceleration will slow down on

599
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: its own, because he points out, we we don't know

600
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: what's accelerating it, so it's still possible that it could

601
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 1: stop um or slow down. Otherwise, Uh, he says, our

602
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: descendants will lose touch with most galaxies, drastically limiting the

603
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: available energy that he's discussing in these models. And that

604
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: sets us up in a pretty key way to talk

605
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: about one of the papers we wanted to discuss today,

606
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 1: a new paper from the physicist Dan Hooper. But first, Robert,

607
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: did you want to mention a couple of other hypothesized

608
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 1: ways that the universe could end? Yeah, yeah, they we'll

609
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:11,720
Speaker 1: throw these out here. The first one is the big change.

610
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: This is in this a bubble of new lower temperature

611
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: vacuum emerges in our own universe and expands at the

612
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: speed of light, converting everything in our universe. As Adam

613
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: Becker wrote in that BBCO in his BBC article how

614
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: will the universe end? And could anything survive? Um quote,

615
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: the properties of fundamental particles like electrons and quarks could

616
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: be entirely different inside the bubble, radically rewriting the rules

617
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: of chemistry and perhaps preventing atoms from forming. Plus a

618
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: dark energy inside the bubble might behave in a different matter,

619
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 1: perhaps causing collapse rather than expansion. So um this this

620
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:55,800
Speaker 1: sounds like a very problematic scenario if it where to

621
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 1: come to pass. It almost is love craft Ian and

622
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: it's uh and it's a scope right, the idea that

623
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 1: suddenly here is an emergence of a part of our

624
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: space that is not bound by the same rules. Yeah.

625
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:11,919
Speaker 1: Nice laws of physics you've got. There be a shame

626
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: if something happened to them. Now. Another another apocalyptic scenario

627
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: for the universe is the Big Rip and this one

628
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 1: was presented by Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College in two

629
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: thousand three based on the idea of phantom dark energy,

630
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: in which the intensity of dark energy increases as the

631
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 1: universe expands. So it's the density of of dark energy

632
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 1: right now, as we understand it is pretty low, but

633
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:44,320
Speaker 1: if it builds up, it would rip the universe to shreds.

634
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: So maybe overcoming the other forces, Like right now we

635
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: see dark energy increasing the distance between the galaxies out there.

636
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: But things that are gravitationally bound to each other, or

637
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 1: say bound by the nuclear force that holds atoms together, Uh,

638
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 1: that stuff is pretty safe from dark energy. If dark

639
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: energy said no, I'm going to overcome your gravity, overcome

640
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: your nuclear force, that would be a problem. Yeah, this

641
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: is This is how Caldwell described it in his in

642
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:15,480
Speaker 1: his presentation quote, the positive phantom energy density becomes infinite

643
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: in finite time, overcoming all other forms of matters, such

644
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 1: as that of gravitational repulsion, rapidly bringing our brief epoch

645
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: of cosmic structure to a close. The phantom energy rips

646
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: apart the Milky Way solar system, Earth, and ultimately the molecules, adams,

647
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: nuclei and nucleons of which we are composed before the

648
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 1: death of the universe in a big rip. Who gives

649
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 1: a rip. So so that sounds that sounds terrifying as well.

650
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: And on that note, let's take one more quick break

651
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: and then we'll return to the discussion. Thank you, all right,

652
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 1: we're back. Okay. So what spurred this whole conversation was

653
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: that we wanted to talk about a highly speculative but

654
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: very fun paper that just was just published online by

655
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: the physicist Dan Hooper, in which Hooper tries to imagine

656
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: and scientifically characterize a survival strategy for a galactic civilization

657
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: that sees the writing on the wall about the long

658
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: term fate of the universe and decides it wants to

659
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,879
Speaker 1: survive as long as possible, because it turns out, if

660
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: you are a galactic civilization, you don't need to wait

661
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: until the cold death of the entire universe to have

662
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 1: a problem. You just have to discover that usable energy

663
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 1: is becoming scarce where you live. Hooper's paper is called

664
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: Life versus Dark Energy, How an advanced civilization could resist

665
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: the accelerating expansion of the Universe. Uh. And we should

666
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: point out that this has not been published in a

667
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: peer of view journal yet or anything. This is just

668
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: something he put out on the internet ahead of publications

669
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: so people could comment on it and talk about it.

670
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: I think it may eventually come out in the Journal

671
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 1: of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, but we'll pay attention there.

672
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 1: But as always with anything that hasn't been uh been

673
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 1: put through peer of view yet, grain assault. So who

674
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: is Dan Hooper? He is an associate professor of astronomy

675
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, and he's a

676
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: senior scientist and the head of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group

677
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 1: at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. And a lot of his

678
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: work focuses on the intersection between particle physics and the

679
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: evolution of the universe at large. So he's interested on

680
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:24,800
Speaker 1: where the biggest stuff we know about in the smallest

681
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:27,919
Speaker 1: stuff we know about effect one another. So what's what's

682
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: Hooper's argument about the future survival of a galactic civilization. Well,

683
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: he turns his attention to dark energy what we've just

684
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,320
Speaker 1: been talking about, So on the scale of the universe

685
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: at large, not necessarily in our own local neighborhood, but

686
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 1: averaged across the entire observable sky, we've discovered that the

687
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 1: energy that dominates the vacuum of space is not gravity,

688
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: not electromagnetism, not any of the normal forces that govern

689
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: our lives and our solar system, but a poorly understood

690
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: form of energy that we call dark energy, which drives

691
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 1: expansion of the universe. So mass and gravitation attract objects

692
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: to one another, dark energy drives them apart. It's the

693
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: energy that causes the space between galaxies to spread, meaning

694
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: that the whole universe is growing larger and all the

695
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,320
Speaker 1: stuff within it is growing farther apart, and the galaxy

696
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: is farthest away from us are receding from us the fastest.

697
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: So as far as we know right now, dark energy

698
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: might not have any practical applications for life bound to

699
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,240
Speaker 1: Planet Earth outside of scientific research, that is. But then again,

700
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: we should know better than to dismiss the usefulness of

701
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: any scientific discovery ahead of time. I'm always reminded of

702
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: the English physicists who is credited as one of the

703
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: discoveries of the electron, J. J. Thompson, who originally thought

704
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 1: that the electron, which he was calling it the corpuscles uh.

705
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 1: He thought this particle he had discovered would not be

706
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 1: very useful outside of the lab, had no idea had

707
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: anything to do with electricity. But Hooper points out how

708
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 1: once a civilization expands to a S and scale and

709
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: its energy needs scale with that expansion, dark energy becomes

710
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 1: a pressing concern for the future of that civilization. And

711
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: this is because dark energy presents us the future of

712
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: an encroaching cosmic horizon. So we are unable to interact

713
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: with anything beyond what's known as our cosmic horizon. This

714
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: is the distance beyond which it is impossible to see

715
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 1: because light from beyond this distance will never have time

716
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: to reach us. Beyond that distance, everything is causally cut

717
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,800
Speaker 1: off from us. We can't see it, we can't talk

718
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 1: to it or travel to it. Uh. You can think

719
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: about it this way with an analogy. Imagine that the

720
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 1: city or the neighborhood you live in is expanding. Are

721
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:48,080
Speaker 1: you there, Robert, Yeah, I'm there. It seems to be

722
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 1: the case. Actually no, no, no no, no. What you're thinking

723
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: of is the increasing density of the city you live in.

724
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 1: More stuff is filling it. But instead you actually need

725
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:01,399
Speaker 1: to think of exactly the opposite. The distance between your

726
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 1: house and other buildings is steadily increasing at an accelerating rate,

727
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: so at normal walking speed. You say, used to be

728
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: able to walk to the post office or the grocery

729
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: store and then back to your house in what half

730
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:18,800
Speaker 1: an hour something like that, But as the distance between

731
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: your house and these locations expands, the trip starts to

732
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 1: take forty five minutes than an hour, then longer and

733
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: longer at normal walking speed. Now you could try to

734
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:33,319
Speaker 1: walk faster, you could run, ride a bike, drive a car,

735
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 1: and this would help. But eventually, as the space between

736
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 1: the locations keeps expanding faster and faster, even these more

737
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: powerful vehicles and methods of travel will take longer and

738
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 1: longer to get you between locations, until eventually you reach

739
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: a point where no vehicle you can get can make

740
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 1: the trip because the distance between the two points expands

741
00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: faster than you can travel. You could travel toward the

742
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 1: grocery store at maximum speed for the rest of your

743
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 1: life and never get there, and this would mean that

744
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 1: the grocery store has crossed beyond your cosmic horizon from

745
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: your house. Uh So, now, beyond the cosmic horizon of

746
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: the real universe, there might be lots of other stuff

747
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: we can only see to our cosmic horizon, and beyond

748
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 1: that it's possible there are other galaxies, stars, planets, but

749
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 1: because the interaction, our ability to interact with all that

750
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,400
Speaker 1: stuff is cut off by the speed of light, we

751
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: will never be able to touch it. We can't land

752
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,320
Speaker 1: on those planets, we can't send messages to those civilizations

753
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: or get messages from them. We're just cut off by

754
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,319
Speaker 1: the universal speed limit of the speed of light and

755
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: a vacuum. So, for instance, if you had this vast

756
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:45,360
Speaker 1: galaxy spanning uh Empire where everything everything is kind of compartmentalized.

757
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 1: You have all these different divisions of the empire, and

758
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: maybe they're they're not even in direct communication anymore. They

759
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 1: just kind of have periodic updates about what culture and

760
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: life is like in these distant places. But eventually you

761
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: reach the point where they're just too far from each

762
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: other for there to ever be contact again. Well, it

763
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: would depend on how far away from each other they are,

764
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: because if they're within a galaxy or even within nearby galaxies,

765
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:13,240
Speaker 1: within what's known as the local group. The local group

766
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 1: is a cluster of roughly fifty something nearby galaxies, they

767
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 1: will probably one day merge into the same big old clump.

768
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:23,800
Speaker 1: The local group is gravitationally bound, so we're going to

769
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,359
Speaker 1: pretty much stick together with the other stuff in the

770
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: local group. So it's the galaxies far far away we

771
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: have to worry about. Right. So if if, for instance,

772
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:35,080
Speaker 1: if Star Wars films were actually made in a galaxy

773
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: far far away beyond the local group, and they have

774
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: to be shipped back to us, there would reach a

775
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: point where we could receive no more new Star Wars films.

776
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:44,879
Speaker 1: It would be a tragedy, wouldn't it. That's why we're

777
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 1: stockpiling them now. We're getting as many per year as possible,

778
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: because eventually it's going to pass beyond the cosmic horizon.

779
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 1: Oh no, wait, I don't want to be misinterpreted, because

780
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 1: I know there are actually people who like hate the

781
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: last Jedi. I am not one of those. I liked

782
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: it too. Um, but yeah, I've seen this all over

783
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: the internet. People are like, people are like pulling their

784
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,479
Speaker 1: hair out about how much they hated. I don't understand. Yeah,

785
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: I mean they're talking about making a Boba Fett movie, Like,

786
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: do not disappoint like five year old Robert lamb and

787
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: and and and ruin the possibility of a boa Fett

788
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 1: movie for because I know that that he really wants

789
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 1: to see it now. We'll come back to the cosmic

790
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:23,520
Speaker 1: horizon and the universal speed limit in just a minute,

791
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 1: but uh to to shift our attention to another issue.

792
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 1: It's often supposed that far far future civilization can keep

793
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 1: itself alive and create usable energy by harvesting the energy

794
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 1: from stars, and this is a good strategy. We we

795
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: often think about future energy sources. We think about what like, oh,

796
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:47,360
Speaker 1: cold fusion or something like that, but these are paltry

797
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,839
Speaker 1: energy sources. Any kind of like human made reactor that

798
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: we can can feasibly think of right now would be

799
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: a very paltry energy source compared to what's already out there,

800
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:00,120
Speaker 1: which is the Sun right that. I mean, that is

801
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: the energy source for everything that we hold dear. I mean,

802
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: there's there's a reason that we we have worshiped it

803
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 1: as a god in in previous ages because it it

804
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:13,360
Speaker 1: essentially is the almighty in our solar system. It is

805
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: our creator. It is everything you know. I mean, it

806
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: is a thing I used to say that I haven't

807
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,239
Speaker 1: thought of in a while, but I still stand by.

808
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,399
Speaker 1: Is that when you think about energy sources, really it's

809
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 1: with a few caveats, it's all solar Yeah, Like if

810
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: you're eating a steak or or a Caesar salad, what

811
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: have you, you were eating uh, converted sunlight, Like this

812
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 1: is sunlight you were eating. That's where the energy came from.

813
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: It's just you're getting it downstream coal or oil or

814
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: something like that that you would burn. Fossil fuels that

815
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 1: you burn have chemical energy baked into them that was

816
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: created when ancient organisms photosynthesized with the with the energy

817
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: of sunlight. They took carbon out of the air, used

818
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 1: the energy from sunlight to make that into sugar that

819
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:58,359
Speaker 1: turned into chemicals later down the road that you're now

820
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: burning to power your car. And this is why Kardaschef

821
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: Scale level two is to simply master a sign to

822
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: say all this energy that is uh, it's maintaining the

823
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: solar system. This is now all mine, right uh, And

824
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: so how would you do that? I mean to come

825
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: back to Freeman Dyson. We've discussed on the show before

826
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: the idea of the Dyson's Fear. The Dyson's Fear comes

827
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:22,400
Speaker 1: to us from Freeman Dyson, and he basically says, you know,

828
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 1: a civilization in the future that has a lot of

829
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 1: technological power and wants to get the most bang for

830
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: its buck will just completely surround its star with the

831
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:37,279
Speaker 1: equivalent of solar panels, right. And this brings me back

832
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:39,799
Speaker 1: to Star Trek, because I earlier was talking about Star

833
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: Trek and you know, scaling up of our current models

834
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:44,319
Speaker 1: of life and all I do have to point out

835
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: that Star Trek the next Generation is the first place

836
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: I saw any mention or depiction of a Dycen sphere.

837
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: And it blew me away then, and it still blows

838
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,919
Speaker 1: me away now. Yeah. I mean, it's fantastic to think about. Uh.

839
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 1: And one of the ways that it's actually relevant to us.

840
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it could be relevant in the far

841
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 1: future if we wanted to try to build something like this.

842
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: It's not technologically relevant to us today, except in the

843
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 1: sense that if we're doing say CT and we want

844
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: to look for ways of detecting alien civilizations out there

845
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,040
Speaker 1: that maybe aren't beaming us radio signals on purpose or

846
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: anything like that. One thing that Dyson proposed is, hey,

847
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 1: you know, we could look for Dyson's fears out there.

848
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: I don't think he called them dycens fears, but I

849
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 1: don't know Dycen spears Dyson clouds, but I don't know,

850
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 1: I'm not true to what extent he referred to them

851
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 1: with his own name somehow I doubt it. I don't remember,

852
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 1: but uh, if he did, that kind of be awesome anyway. No,

853
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: but I mean he was like, you know, you could

854
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 1: look for this kind of thing, and so people people

855
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: have looked for this kind of thing. It would have

856
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: a certain kind of signature. One of the things that

857
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:53,240
Speaker 1: we could observe about a Dicen sphere is that if

858
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 1: it completely surrounded a star and turned all of the

859
00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 1: stars solar radiation into usable in gy that could be

860
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: used by the civilization somehow to survive after all, that,

861
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: it would have to have a waste product, which would

862
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 1: be heat, which we would be able to see as

863
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 1: infrared radiation, like submillimeter infrared radiation. And so if you

864
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 1: see like darkened stars out there that are not producing

865
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: any kind of light you can see, but are producing

866
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: infrared radiation and the certain kind of with a certain

867
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: kind of band, you've gotta wondering, is this just a

868
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:30,720
Speaker 1: giant hot ball that's taken everything a son's got, using

869
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 1: it and then spitting some heat into space. Now, because

870
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: sons and stars are already plentiful and they're already a

871
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:39,840
Speaker 1: great source of energy. I think it is a fairly

872
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,239
Speaker 1: safe assumption to think that if there is a galactic

873
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: civilization anywhere, will try to make use of something like

874
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 1: a dicensephere, maybe not exactly the original design, but he

875
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 1: will try to use stars as an energy source to

876
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:57,960
Speaker 1: sustain the civilization and feed its people and power its

877
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 1: machines and do all that kind of stuff. And they're

878
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: gonna need more than one. Yeah, and as the civilization

879
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: scales up, it will need more and more energy needs

880
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: scale up with population increasing. So what if your galaxy

881
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 1: runs short on stars? You've got them all sphered up,

882
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: all the usable ones, and you're getting all the energy

883
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: you need from them, but your population is still growing.

884
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: What do you do then? Yeah? I mean you're essentially

885
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 1: using all of your farmland here to produce the crops

886
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: that are necessary for life, or that the model of

887
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: life that you've built. And uh, yeah, what what do

888
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: you do when you maxed out? And then what do

889
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: you do when say one of the stars blinks out

890
00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:39,279
Speaker 1: on you? Uh, You're gonna have to scale back on

891
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:41,719
Speaker 1: what you can do as an empire. Stars also have

892
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,800
Speaker 1: finite lifespans. You eventually are going to need new stars

893
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: to replace the old ones that are that are running

894
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:49,799
Speaker 1: down their fuel. Now, one thing you could do is

895
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:53,800
Speaker 1: just continually keep expanding, right, You could expand other galaxies.

896
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is very crazy and very

897
00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:58,719
Speaker 1: far future, because we don't have anything like the ability

898
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:01,319
Speaker 1: to travel to another gal see today. But if you

899
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: imagine one of these Cardashev three type civilizations that has

900
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 1: mastered in an entire galaxy, it could spread to other galaxies.

901
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: It could keep on expanding. But we're limited to our

902
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: local group right now. Because if you imagine just trying

903
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 1: to continue expanding to other galaxies beyond into the far future,

904
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 1: you would eventually come up against the problem we were

905
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: mentioning earlier, the cosmological horizon problem. That's right, because even

906
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 1: if you imagine and that releast is what I'm imagining,

907
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:30,800
Speaker 1: is that you know, just cosmic marauders. And this is

908
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: something that is Hawking has has touched on himself. Uh,

909
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 1: and to a certain extent I think was touched on

910
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:39,400
Speaker 1: and that uh in the film Chronicles of Riddic and

911
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 1: that it's kind of what the necromongers were doing, right.

912
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 1: I don't think they're doing it with stars. But you know,

913
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: they had the whole kind of like life sucking undead um,

914
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:51,839
Speaker 1: you know, ravager kind of thing going on. I mean

915
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: I never saw Chronicles. Well, yeah, you've got to see it.

916
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 1: I've seen Pitch Black at your recommendation. Well, that's the

917
00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 1: necessary precursor to Chronicles of Riddic. You should see it.

918
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 1: Is Keith David in it? Yes, okay, yeah, it's it's

919
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 1: it's fun. It's fun. But yeah, I'm picturing a marauding

920
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 1: um interstellar civilization. It just goes from one system to

921
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,240
Speaker 1: the next, using up sons and then spitting them out again.

922
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:16,719
Speaker 1: But eventually they're going to reach that point where there

923
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:20,799
Speaker 1: are no new sons to conquer. And Alexander wept where

924
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:22,759
Speaker 1: there were no worlds to conquer. Yeah, and then you're

925
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 1: just left to uh just stew in the in the

926
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 1: cosmic darkness. Uh So, if we're gonna keep expanding, we

927
00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 1: need stars, and if we run out of local stars,

928
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to get him from somewhere else. And

929
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 1: Hooper writes, quote over the next approximately one billion years,

930
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:44,800
Speaker 1: so basically times the age of the Earth. He writes,

931
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 1: all stars residing beyond the local group will fall beyond

932
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 1: the cosmic horizon and become not only unobservable but entirely inaccessible.

933
00:51:55,200 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 1: So he's saying, like, we're going to run out of

934
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 1: time if if you know, a civilization doesn't do something

935
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:03,480
Speaker 1: early on, it's going to run out of time to

936
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:06,360
Speaker 1: get at all those extra stars to give them, to

937
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 1: give them more energy. So you've got stars speeding away,

938
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: how do you make use of them for the future.

939
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: Hooper has an idea. What if you go out to

940
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 1: those stars, you go snag them, and then you use

941
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 1: the Dyson's fears that you build around them as a drive.

942
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: We talked earlier about the idea of scattow thrusters and

943
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: things like that. What if you used a Dyson sphere

944
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:34,720
Speaker 1: to steer and drive a star back home to where

945
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 1: your civilization is, so that you can hoard stars from

946
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 1: the entire universe at large and keep them nearby to

947
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:46,399
Speaker 1: use them for the future before they go beyond your

948
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:49,320
Speaker 1: cosmic reach. I think we should call this star jacking.

949
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: That's what it sounds like to me. It's star hoarding.

950
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:56,280
Speaker 1: And so the the emitted radiation from a star could

951
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 1: provide some thrust which could be used at least in theory,

952
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:01,080
Speaker 1: to steer a star are and it s Dyson's fear

953
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:05,239
Speaker 1: in a particular direction, meaning that you know, this civilization

954
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 1: could gather stars close together and keep them from expanding

955
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 1: out of reach and great leaks in the lifespan of

956
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: their civilization. But there are limits on this, and a

957
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:17,920
Speaker 1: lot of Hooper's paper is used to calculate types of

958
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:21,400
Speaker 1: stars that would be fruitful for this. Only certain types

959
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 1: of stars would work, mainly stars somewhat within the range

960
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: of the mass of our Sun, because stars that are

961
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 1: much bigger tend to be older or tend to not

962
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 1: have as much life left in them. Yeah, you don't

963
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 1: want to go to the trouble of Jack and those

964
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 1: stars if they're just going to burn out or collapse

965
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: before you can make use of them exactly. So this

966
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:43,359
Speaker 1: is a problem. The bigger stars would not have enough

967
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: life left in them to survive the journey back to

968
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 1: the home base, and so they're not really worth hoarding.

969
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 1: On the other hand, stars much smaller than our Sun

970
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:55,560
Speaker 1: would not provide enough energy to drive the star to

971
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:59,720
Speaker 1: its central star Hoarde fast enough before it passed beyond

972
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 1: the cosmic horizon, and so there is kind of a

973
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 1: Goldilocks star. You know, a Goldilocks star that you want

974
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:08,480
Speaker 1: that that is big enough to give you enough energy,

975
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: that's small enough that it's still going to have plenty

976
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:12,839
Speaker 1: of life left in it by the time you get

977
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 1: at home, And that's the kind you want to bring home. Interestingly,

978
00:54:17,040 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 1: Hooper points out that if alien civilizations anywhere out there

979
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 1: are doing this quote, this would not be a subtle activity,

980
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 1: so we should be able to detect it. Kind of

981
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:30,440
Speaker 1: like the original idea of the Dicen sphere. If anybody

982
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 1: out there is doing anything like this, you've got a

983
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:36,399
Speaker 1: galactic civilization in one of those galaxies far out there,

984
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:39,840
Speaker 1: and it's making these kinds of preparations for the future.

985
00:54:40,239 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 1: This could give us a new path to setty observation.

986
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 1: Can we look out at galaxies out there and detect

987
00:54:45,760 --> 00:54:50,839
Speaker 1: the removal, transport, and hoarding of certain kinds of stars? Yeah,

988
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:52,439
Speaker 1: I mean it makes it makes sense. Like you said,

989
00:54:52,440 --> 00:54:54,200
Speaker 1: this would not be a subtle act. This would be

990
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that we would conceive will be

991
00:54:56,040 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 1: able to observe. Yeah, and so Hooper writes, quote, such

992
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 1: a civilization could pier as a region up to tens

993
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:05,319
Speaker 1: of mega par sex and radius in which most or

994
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,400
Speaker 1: all of the stars lighter than about two solar masses

995
00:55:08,719 --> 00:55:12,839
Speaker 1: are surrounded by Dyson's fears. Now that's a cool image. Yes,

996
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 1: the star hoarde, the star hoard Yeah, there the empire

997
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: of the star hoarders or star jackers, which whichever one,

998
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,040
Speaker 1: whichever one you want to use. Star jacking is the verb,

999
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:24,640
Speaker 1: the star hoarde is the Now the star jackers work

1000
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 1: for the star hoarders. Yeah, and then our only hope

1001
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:30,480
Speaker 1: is to just, I guess, somehow present a case that

1002
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:34,840
Speaker 1: we're we're worth keeping around, like we're culturally interesting enough,

1003
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: or maybe they have rules. Maybe they don't take stars

1004
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:40,360
Speaker 1: from systems with the inhabited worlds. I don't know, I

1005
00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 1: could go virtually anyway. Yeah, maybe they only use stars

1006
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:49,279
Speaker 1: from inhabited worlds. Now, of course, with an idea this

1007
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 1: far out there, you at least want to hear what

1008
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:55,040
Speaker 1: some other scientists in the field have to say. Fortunately,

1009
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 1: there was a right of this in Science News that

1010
00:55:56,920 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: got some quotes from some other astrophysicists, for example, the

1011
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:04,799
Speaker 1: theoretical astrophysicist Katie Mack of North Carolina State University. They

1012
00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:06,920
Speaker 1: asked her opinion and She pointed out that, you know,

1013
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:10,520
Speaker 1: one thing is that you might have an easier time

1014
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:13,759
Speaker 1: surviving if you just uproot your civilization and move it

1015
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: to a different galaxy cluster that's got a bunch of

1016
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:19,719
Speaker 1: different stars you could use. So instead of bringing all

1017
00:56:19,719 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 1: the stars to you, you just go where they're already are,

1018
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:27,040
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of already untapped stars the Marauder model, Yeah,

1019
00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 1: and settle in there. But then again, you know, maybe

1020
00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 1: they maybe there are reasons they want to stay where

1021
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 1: they are. It might be easier to send out autonomous

1022
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 1: star collection, you know, robots that would build Dyson's fears

1023
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: around stars and bring them home than it would be

1024
00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 1: to move the conscious inhabitants of a place. Maybe they

1025
00:56:46,280 --> 00:56:50,239
Speaker 1: like where they are and the movement would be stressful. Yeah,

1026
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:52,600
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, who's going to argue with them? Right? Right?

1027
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:54,520
Speaker 1: Because they would be where would they be on the

1028
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:58,720
Speaker 1: Kardashi of scale, they would be between two and three,

1029
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 1: Perhaps they would be threes. I don't know, three, it's

1030
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:03,719
Speaker 1: pretty lofty. Oh yeah, I think we're talking about a

1031
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:08,160
Speaker 1: level three cardship civilization right here. You're you're controlling a galaxy.

1032
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:10,400
Speaker 1: If you're going out to other galaxies to get stars

1033
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: to bring home. Yeah, yeah, you would be Yeah, so

1034
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:15,520
Speaker 1: I guess you would be a little beyond three. You

1035
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 1: would be up towards us. You would be moving towards four. Whatever.

1036
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 1: Four would be like if we can even comprehend such

1037
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:24,800
Speaker 1: a thing, a mastery of the local group or something.

1038
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:29,479
Speaker 1: The physicist Avy Loeb of Harvard University also points out

1039
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:32,400
Speaker 1: the same issue that you know, it might not be

1040
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 1: necessary to go get stars from other places, because he says, quote,

1041
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 1: nature did it for us. You've already got There are

1042
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 1: places in the universe where they're huge clusters of galaxies

1043
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:44,680
Speaker 1: that are all sort of near by each other, and

1044
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:46,440
Speaker 1: maybe it would be better to go to one of

1045
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 1: those galaxy clusters that's got lots of stars already there.

1046
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:53,120
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a relative lots of stars, because

1047
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:55,520
Speaker 1: there are lots of stars in our galaxy. But if

1048
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:58,400
Speaker 1: you're talking about this Cardassian you know, three point five

1049
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:01,960
Speaker 1: or four type civilization and it's got ridiculous energy needs,

1050
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:04,600
Speaker 1: then there are places you could go that would have

1051
00:58:04,680 --> 00:58:07,800
Speaker 1: more stars nearby already. Right. And again this is assuming

1052
00:58:07,840 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 1: they don't say, you know, guys, this is a bit nach.

1053
00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:12,439
Speaker 1: We don't need this much energy, let's scale back a bit. Yeah,

1054
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: But then again, our tribal ancestors could have said that

1055
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:16,640
Speaker 1: about our world today and now here we are and

1056
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:19,720
Speaker 1: we need the energy. True though there we do, see,

1057
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:22,600
Speaker 1: I mean, there obviously is a movement to cut back

1058
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 1: on energy to find more sustainable ways. Uh you know,

1059
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:30,320
Speaker 1: whether that will that argument will win out in the end,

1060
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:34,760
Speaker 1: uh you know, remains an open question. But um, well,

1061
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:37,160
Speaker 1: I would say, I don't know. Maybe maybe you can

1062
00:58:37,240 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 1: make the case to me, I don't know if any

1063
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 1: good reason that we need to cut back on energy

1064
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:45,040
Speaker 1: itself is just like types of energy, you know, certain

1065
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 1: types of energy are more destructive than others. And if

1066
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:50,360
Speaker 1: we had a truly I mean, I think there is

1067
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:53,920
Speaker 1: no such thing as a perfect energy source, because even

1068
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 1: the most benign forms of energy maybe solar, wind power,

1069
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 1: whatever you have, have some kinds of construction and costs

1070
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:04,800
Speaker 1: and stuff to build the panels. Um. But but there

1071
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:08,200
Speaker 1: are relatively benign forms of energy that I don't I

1072
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:10,560
Speaker 1: don't know. Is there an argument that we shouldn't even

1073
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 1: be trying to maximize our collection of solar energy or something? No?

1074
00:59:14,920 --> 00:59:17,280
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of comes down to though, to

1075
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:21,960
Speaker 1: like how much energy can we conceivably harvest? And then

1076
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:25,120
Speaker 1: how are we living our lives in accordance to it?

1077
00:59:25,240 --> 00:59:28,960
Speaker 1: You know? Um? So I yeah, I don't see anybody

1078
00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:33,880
Speaker 1: as saying let's stop harvesting energy, but but also asking

1079
00:59:33,920 --> 00:59:37,320
Speaker 1: the question, is our consumption lining up with our current

1080
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:40,520
Speaker 1: and even near future ability to harvest it? Maybe the

1081
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 1: answer to that is no, right, yeah, but but it's

1082
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:49,080
Speaker 1: certainly based on our own model of intelligent um technological behavior,

1083
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:52,320
Speaker 1: it makes sense that uh, an alien species, we just

1084
00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 1: continue to jack as many stars as as as possible

1085
00:59:57,160 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 1: to sustain itself. I mean, I I like I was

1086
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:03,439
Speaker 1: saying earlier, I think we want to avoid making too

1087
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:07,919
Speaker 1: many assumptions about future civilizations or alien life, because there's

1088
01:00:07,960 --> 01:00:10,360
Speaker 1: a lot we just can't know about their minds, about

1089
01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 1: their culture and all that. But one thing we pretty

1090
01:00:13,200 --> 01:00:15,960
Speaker 1: much know no matter what is they need energy. Yes,

1091
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:18,040
Speaker 1: but I'm saying they could scale back if they if

1092
01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:21,840
Speaker 1: they really wanted to. I mean, it's I think that

1093
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:24,920
Speaker 1: is a possibility. And certainly if they see the writing

1094
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:27,720
Speaker 1: on the wall, you know that that energy is going

1095
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 1: to become less abundant, and then it's about survival. Now,

1096
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:34,640
Speaker 1: speaking of survival, um, I do have one last survival

1097
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: scheme dimension here, and this one was exploring in that

1098
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:40,960
Speaker 1: Adam Becker BBC article their referenced earlier. Alan Gooth of

1099
01:00:41,080 --> 01:00:44,000
Speaker 1: m I T contends that the laws of physics might

1100
01:00:44,560 --> 01:00:48,400
Speaker 1: imply that that this is possible, uh, that you could

1101
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:52,920
Speaker 1: essentially escape into a universe of your own making. Yeah. Now,

1102
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 1: it would require vast amounts of energy, which of course

1103
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:59,560
Speaker 1: is we're discussing the players in this kind of game

1104
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 1: would have have. But it might go down like this.

1105
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:04,280
Speaker 1: First of all, you need to create an incredibly dense

1106
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: form of matter, so dense that it barely avoids collapsing

1107
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:11,520
Speaker 1: into a black hole, and you quickly clear the matter

1108
01:01:11,560 --> 01:01:14,000
Speaker 1: out of the way, forcing the region of space to

1109
01:01:14,080 --> 01:01:17,640
Speaker 1: start expanding, and this would jump start, in theory a

1110
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:21,160
Speaker 1: new universe. Quote. As the space in the region expanded,

1111
01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:24,680
Speaker 1: the boundary would shrink, creating a bubble of warped space

1112
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:29,400
Speaker 1: where the inside was bigger than the outside, which is

1113
01:01:29,480 --> 01:01:31,520
Speaker 1: kind of like it reminds me of the bag of

1114
01:01:31,560 --> 01:01:34,720
Speaker 1: holding from Dungeons and Dragons. The Gooth actually compared it

1115
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 1: to the tartest dr who looked it looks bigger on

1116
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 1: the inside. Yeah, yeah, and they on the outside it's

1117
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:41,600
Speaker 1: what a phone phone booth, and then on the inside

1118
01:01:41,600 --> 01:01:45,160
Speaker 1: it's this large, expensive room and so forth. So eventually

1119
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:48,560
Speaker 1: the new universe would pinch off from the old doomed universe.

1120
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:52,400
Speaker 1: But he stresses that this might not be possible at all. Sure,

1121
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:55,680
Speaker 1: it depends on a lot of assumptions that could be true,

1122
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:58,440
Speaker 1: but we don't know for sure. But then also the

1123
01:01:58,440 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 1: other way of looking at things, he says, is it, Uh,

1124
01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 1: you know, if if the multiverse model holds true, then

1125
01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:06,200
Speaker 1: that's probably our best bet. The universe may end, but

1126
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 1: the multiverse continues eternally. No way that that might mean

1127
01:02:10,800 --> 01:02:14,440
Speaker 1: though we can't get there, just some other version of us. Yeah,

1128
01:02:14,520 --> 01:02:16,400
Speaker 1: and but that might be the best we can you know,

1129
01:02:16,600 --> 01:02:18,240
Speaker 1: for in the end is just to realize, all right,

1130
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:22,479
Speaker 1: we've we've we've jacked a thousand stars, we've hoarded them,

1131
01:02:22,760 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 1: we've done what we can. But hey, the writings on

1132
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 1: the wall, we're gonna blink out. But somewhere out there

1133
01:02:28,600 --> 01:02:31,920
Speaker 1: in the multiverse, Uh, this thing called life is still going.

1134
01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 1: I believe in the thing called technological civilization. One final

1135
01:02:36,120 --> 01:02:38,160
Speaker 1: note is a side tangent. Well, one thing I loved

1136
01:02:38,160 --> 01:02:41,120
Speaker 1: about the Freeman diys in paper we talked about earlier

1137
01:02:41,160 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 1: from seventy nine, is that at the end he invokes holdings, uh,

1138
01:02:45,920 --> 01:02:48,640
Speaker 1: quoting of of G. K. Chesterton on the role of

1139
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:53,480
Speaker 1: human intellect in the future of of of civilization quoting

1140
01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:56,120
Speaker 1: from the Ballot of the White Horse by Chesterton, where

1141
01:02:56,120 --> 01:02:59,000
Speaker 1: he writes, so rides my soul upon the sea that

1142
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 1: drinks the howling ships, though in black jest at bows

1143
01:03:02,920 --> 01:03:06,560
Speaker 1: and nods under the moons with silver rods. I know

1144
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:10,040
Speaker 1: it is roaring at the gods waiting the last eclipse.

1145
01:03:10,360 --> 01:03:13,520
Speaker 1: Oh that's nice. So maybe find peaceful ways to survive

1146
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:15,880
Speaker 1: that last eclipse. All right, So there you have it.

1147
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:19,680
Speaker 1: If you want to hear more episodes like this dealing

1148
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:24,200
Speaker 1: with the the long term future of humanity and this

1149
01:03:24,720 --> 01:03:29,040
Speaker 1: universe of change and hostility, uh, then you can check

1150
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:30,600
Speaker 1: out all the episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind

1151
01:03:30,600 --> 01:03:32,240
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the

1152
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:35,280
Speaker 1: mother ship. That's where you'll also find social media links

1153
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:39,640
Speaker 1: to our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it. Huge things

1154
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 1: as always to our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and

1155
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:45,120
Speaker 1: Tary Harrison. If you want to get in touch with

1156
01:03:45,200 --> 01:03:47,360
Speaker 1: us to let us know feedback on this episode or

1157
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: any other, or to suggest a topic for future episodes,

1158
01:03:50,520 --> 01:03:52,520
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, let us know where you

1159
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,280
Speaker 1: listen from. You can email us at blow the Mind

1160
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:57,720
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot com. And I want to

1161
01:03:57,760 --> 01:04:00,560
Speaker 1: close out here with a really cool tray guy came

1162
01:04:00,600 --> 01:04:05,280
Speaker 1: across from the group We Plants Are Happy Plants, titled

1163
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 1: an Incredible Pearl, which makes use of a passage from

1164
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 1: American writer philosopher in ethnobotanist Terrence McKenna, who who we

1165
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:14,640
Speaker 1: discussed on the show in the past. Kind of a

1166
01:04:14,640 --> 01:04:17,880
Speaker 1: wizard figure. Yeah yeah, so, uh so check this out.

1167
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:19,880
Speaker 1: If you want to hear more from We Plants Are

1168
01:04:19,880 --> 01:04:23,960
Speaker 1: Happy Plants to simply look them up on Spotify or iTunes,

1169
01:04:24,040 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 1: wherever you get your music. You can also go to

1170
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:30,040
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com, slash w P a h P. We're

1171
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:33,000
Speaker 1: going to have to make a decision about human nature

1172
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:41,360
Speaker 1: to wit. Is this our home to be cherished and nurtured,

1173
01:04:41,560 --> 01:04:46,160
Speaker 1: an incredible pearl flung out in a universe of ashes

1174
01:04:46,320 --> 01:04:51,960
Speaker 1: and darkness? Or is this a hell world, a tiny,

1175
01:04:52,120 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 1: confining prison at the edge of a dying universe from

1176
01:04:56,080 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 1: which it is our destiny to break free and recover

1177
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:04,000
Speaker 1: our higher and hidden nature from which we have become separated.

1178
01:05:06,440 --> 01:05:09,080
Speaker 1: You know, this is a choice which as a culture

1179
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:13,680
Speaker 1: we face. Are we to go into the divine imagination

1180
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:19,040
Speaker 1: and create you know, starships the size of Manitoba that

1181
01:05:19,120 --> 01:05:23,520
Speaker 1: will apply between here and Andrama and exist in a

1182
01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:30,360
Speaker 1: world of our complete syntactical self expression. Or is man's

1183
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:37,000
Speaker 1: place humbler than that? Is that grandiose steeped with megalomania,

1184
01:05:37,280 --> 01:05:42,240
Speaker 1: touched with the kind of political taint that's had this

1185
01:05:42,520 --> 01:05:45,160
Speaker 1: raping and pillaging ever since we got out of those

1186
01:05:45,200 --> 01:05:49,320
Speaker 1: miserable ice bound villages in Jutland or wherever it was.

1187
01:05:50,360 --> 01:05:54,440
Speaker 1: Is it that? Or is it our challenge and our destiny?

1188
01:05:54,520 --> 01:05:57,080
Speaker 1: It's really a choice about human nature.