WEBVTT - The Dawn of a Mindful Universe, with Marcelo Gleiser 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:15.280 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name's 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:19.239 Robert Lamb. On today's episode, I chat with distinguished theoretical 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.720 physicist and a professor of natural philosophy, physics, and astronomy 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:27.320 at Dartmouth College, Marcello Gliser, the first Latin American recipient 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.560 of the Templeton Prize. His new book is The Dawn 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.480 of a Mindful Universe, a manifesto for Humanity's future, out 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.920 now in all formats, and it's just a tremendous read 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.560 to kick off a new year with optimism and determination 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:45.080 about our relationship to the planet. So without further Ado, 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:50.880 let's jump right into the interview. Hi, Marcello, Welcome to 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:51.280 the show. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:53.040 My pleasure. Thanks Rob. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.360 The new book is The Dawn of a Mindful Universe, 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.320 out now in all formats. You stress that this is 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.840 not an doom book about the dire trajectory of human civilization. 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.640 You point out that, particularly with the existential crisis of 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:11.240 climate change, scare tactics don't seem to work. What is 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.160 it about humans that make us so resistant to change? 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.120 When confronted with problems like climate change? 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:17.640 Yeah. 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.080 So I think what makes climate change different is that 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.839 you don't see the eminent danger in front of your face. 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:25.120 You know. 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.720 It's not sort of like the Japanese just bald pearl harbor, 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.560 we got to mobilize and five back kind of thing. 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:32.880 You know. It's sort of like. 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:38.760 This slow, slowly encroaching thing, and we tend to not 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.119 push back whenever we don't feel this kind of oh 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.200 my god, you know, the world is about to end 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.920 kind of thing. And so there is a disconnect between 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:53.240 what people keep saying, Look, global warming, it's real, it's happening. 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:57.040 You know, it's affecting all of us. For example, I 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.080 live in northern New England. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.320 And it's late December here and there is no snow 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:04.400 right then. 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:06.480 There should be two feet of snow out there, and 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.760 it's like, oh, it's al Nino. It's normal. It's not 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:10.560 really normal. 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:10.960 You know. 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:16.639 This is the hottest year ever recorded apparently in the planet. 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.720 So I'm talking about twenty twenty three. And so that 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.960 means that I think the problem, the challenge that people 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.160 have is convincing people of two things. First of all, 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.160 that yes, it's not happening right now, but it's happening slowly, 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.640 and when it starts unfolding, it's going to just get 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:37.680 worse and more challenging. 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.920 So it's like the slow approach to the danger. 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.239 And the other one is that most people say that, 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:46.360 you know, I'm just one person. 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:47.560 What am I going to do? 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:49.720 You know, if I stop eating meat right now, it's 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.720 not going to make a difference, And if I buy 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:54.760 an electric car, it's not going to make a difference, 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.360 because I'm just a little little person in this giant 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:02.480 eight billion people world controlled by corporations and governments. So 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.320 my actions are useless. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.640 And the point is that that is only true to 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:13.200 a certain degree, because what you do is a statement 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.800 of who you are and why you believe in right, 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.880 and the way you position yourself in the world. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.040 Really is a mirror of your attitudes and your value system. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.399 And so if you are a person that is bothered 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.920 by global arming, by the fact that the big oil 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.760 companies are polluting the world because we need the fuel 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.560 and that's the only way mostly that we can use it, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.960 you can do something about it, not so much to 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.240 stop global arming by yourself, but to make a statement. 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.920 And I am an optimist. That's why when you talk 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:46.600 about doom. 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.560 You know, like, I'm an optimist and I think that 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.440 the alternative, you know, to be a pessimist is a 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.840 total disaster, right, because you know, I grew up in Brazil, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.440 and as you know, Brazil, we love soccer, and so 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.320 I'm using a soccer metaphor, which is this, right, So 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.480 if you are pessimists, you're the kind of guy that 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.000 is going to go to a game and even before 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.000 the ball is kicked for the first time, you sit 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.040 down on the ground and say, oh, there's no way 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:13.960 I can win this game. 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.640 I'm giving up, you know. And what kind of game 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.839 is that? Right? What kind of life is that? So 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:21.640 you have to try to. 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.040 Make a difference and make a statement because you will 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.200 influence people around you. And I think that I'm a 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.080 believer in the chain reaction of social forces, and so 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.680 that as more and more people engage with this way 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:40.520 of thinking about preservation sustainability, the more difference you know, 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:42.880 we are going to feel in a society as a whole. 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.200 It's a big, big challenge, but I think it's possible. 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.599 In the book, you propose a transformation of the collective mindset, 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.920 particularly the adoption of a post Copernican worldview. Can can 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.160 you walk us through this beginning with just a reminder 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.400 of who Nicholas Copernicus was and how he helped transform 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:02.600 an established worldview. 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.520 Absolutely, So this is a very long story. This is 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.520 sort of the core kind of aspect of the whole book. 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.320 And the idea is this that even before Copernicus's starting, 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.840 really from the beginning, if you think about our species, right, 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:21.120 so we are Homo sapiens, and we've been here on 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.880 this planet for about three hundred thousand years. Just give 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:28.120 perspective to people, if you look at the history of 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.280 the world, right, the planet Earth, Right, planet Earth has 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:35.080 been around for four and a half billion years. So 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.200 if you take three hundred thousand of four and a 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.200 half billion years, you're talking. And if you take four 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.039 and a half billionaires and compress it into twenty four 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:47.000 hours in one day, right, we basically arrived a few 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:52.400 seconds before midnight. So we are the newcomers on the planet, right, 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.240 that's for sure. But on the other hand, we have 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.000 changed the planet dramatically. And it's not three hundred thousand 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.200 years of Homo SAPIs that did it is about ten 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.520 thousand years of agrarian and industrial civilization. That they did 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:08.920 it so in about ten thousand years, which changed everything. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:11.680 So if we look at our history sort of like 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:13.960 in what we call deep time, right, so we start 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.560 from the beginning. For most of the time that we 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:21.360 existed in this planet, we were organized socially. 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.520 In a completely different way. Were what we call hunter gatherers, right, 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.280 So people organize themselves into small bands. 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.960 They all helped one another. The idea that we're savage 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.400 caveman is kind of silly and it's old fashioned. You know, 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:41.520 all the anthropology studies now mentioned that actually those bands 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:46.320 of hunter gatherers they'd stuck together, but they also collaborated, interbred, 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:47.600 you know, with. 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:52.080 Each other, and they had a relationship to the planet. 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.080 And this is the essential point, which is very very 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.400 different from the one we have now. And nowadays, the 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.360 only cultures that still relate to the planet. 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.640 In a similar way other indigenous cultures. And what do 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.720 they say. They say the planet is sacred, right, that the. 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:14.000 Mountains, the rivers, the forests, the animals, everyone is interconnected 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.000 in a very fundamental way. And you have to respect 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.520 this chain of being because if you don't, you're going 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.160 to pay a very high price. So there was this 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:28.600 notion of everything had an enchanted kind of reality about it. 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:32.480 There were spirits everywhere. The ancestors were there too, and 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.160 there was really no separation between the reality that we 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.560 see with our eyes right now and this kind of 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:45.040 fantastic other world of spirits and forces beyond their control. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.480 So there was a way of dealing with the planet 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.560 which was in a sense deeply respectful. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:51.120 Right. 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:56.280 So with a grand civilization, many wonderful things happened. For example, 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.520 we started to plant and we could feed more people, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.679 and of course of that, the population started to grow, 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.920 and we started to condense more and more into small 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.400 areas which became city states. 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:15.680 And you know, life expectancy didn't grow much for that 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:17.960 because once we start putting a lot of people together, 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:22.000 there all sorts of issues like sewage and diseases. And 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.560 so for most of the history of our species, the 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:30.000 life expectancy was between thirty and forty years old. This 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.680 is including Victoria and England in nineteenth century. We never 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:34.679 lived very long. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.320 But the point back to your question is that what 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.680 changed with their ground civilization was the notion that now 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.400 we can control the planet, we can control nature. Look, 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.760 we are planting, we are making things grow, we can 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.880 domesticate animals, and more and more. 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.600 We felt like we are the owners of the place. 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.120 Right, And it is no coincidence when you look look 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.000 at monotoistic religions which came at about the same time, 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:08.200 you know, Judaism and then Christianity, they all talk about 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.320 us as being above the world. You know, God created 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:16.040 the land to serve you. You take ownership of the animals, 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.720 et cetera. That's in Genesis in the Bible. Right to say, 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.280 all right, this is our place, this is our world. 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.760 We control it, and we are above nature. And this notion, 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.880 you know, that we are above nature kind of pervaded 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.640 all of what happened in the last two thousand years 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:37.640 that we are going to be creating technologies that we 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:43.880 can't use to basically protect us from the forces of 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:47.319 the world. Right, So we build our homes, we warm 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.559 them up, we create clothes, they are warm, we eat 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:53.280 and cook our food, etc. 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.280 So we tried to really control the forces of nature. 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:58.960 But then comes a storm. 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.960 There comes about panic eruption, or an earthquake or a 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.840 tidal wave. And to teachers that you know what folks 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.560 is not that simple, right. We are not really above nature. 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.880 We are really very much part of the natural world, right. 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:20.400 But we kept on going and became very successful developing technologies. 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.840 And this is our story, right. We are a species 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.760 that tells stories about who we are and the place 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:32.680 we have been. Now back to Copernicus. So Copernicus showed 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:36.720 up in the early fifteen hundreds, and in fifteen forty 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:37.840 three he wrote a book. 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.480 He published the book which is sort of like the 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.200 big book of his life, okay, And the book was 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:44.959 called on the Revolution of. 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.720 The Celestial Spheres. And what the story was with that 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.560 book is that up to his time, everyone believed that 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:54.920 the Earth was the center of the universe. 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.320 That there was the Earth in the middle, and then 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.800 you had the moon and had Mercury and Venus around it, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.520 and the Sun and all the other planets up to Saturn, 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:05.640 because that's all. 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:09.839 They could see. In the fifteen hundreds, everything revolved around us, 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.880 and so the Earth was the center of everything. 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.280 And of course we, according to religion, were created in 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.160 the image of God. So we were like, you know, 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.839 even though we were being kicked out of paradise, we 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.080 were sort of the God emissaries in this planet, right, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.800 and so we had this value system where we were 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.920 the best, right, our planet was the center. When Copernicus 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:39.760 comes in, he basically changes this story and he says, sorry, folks, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.640 it turns out that from what we can say from astronomy. 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.960 That is not the story. The story is that the 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:50.440 Sun really is the center of our solar system, and 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.120 the Earth is just a planet, just like Mercury and 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.880 Venus and Jupiter, which means that it just goes around 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:57.400 the Sun. 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.760 And at that point something very profound happens, because if 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.280 Earth is just a planet like any other planet, it 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.080 does not have the value that people believed it had. 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.520 So all of the philosophy and the cosmology, you know, 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.080 the way we thought about the universe at the time 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.040 was based on the Aristotelian So Aristotle, this Greek philosopher 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.920 about three hundred years BCE, built a whole system, a 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.800 whole worldview, you know, based on the fact that the 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:30.720 Earth is the center. 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:32.040 Everything falls to it. 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:37.600 Everything changes here by the heavens, the planets, and the 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.600 moon and the stars are all eternal and changing. So 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.000 the Earth was the place whereas everything was changing, the 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:45.200 skies were eternal. 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:50.200 There was some hierarchy. There was vertico, you know, from 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.440 the center of the earth changing all the way up 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.160 to the sky. And the Catholic Church bought that and said, 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.640 that is exactly how the world should be if God 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.720 created it. And God is not on earth anymore like 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.560 he was for our ancestors. God is way up there 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.480 in the skies. And it's a very abstract idea, you know. 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.839 The more the idea of the monotheistic God advanced in time, 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.800 the more remote God became. You know, in the Old 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.680 Testament it was around a lot, you know, it was 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.800 like burning bush with Moses and doing all sorts. 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:30.200 Of other things. 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.520 And then in the Christian times, you know, it became 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.120 sort of like this idea in the skies. 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:39.480 It sent a sun, you know. But and so the point. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:45.240 Is that as religion left the planet, the planet became 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.560 an object, became not sacred anymore, a place where you 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.600 could exploit as you wanted. And that attached to the 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.960 notion from astronomy from Copernicas, Hey, the Earth is just 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:00.640 a planet. Meant that the combination of the science of 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.679 the time and this religion of the time meant that, yes, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.520 you can do to the planet whatever we want. It's 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.280 just another world. It's not that important. If there is 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.280 life here, there will be life and other planets too. 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.200 So it's really cool. 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.200 Actually, if you look at the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:23.240 all these guys, like very famous scientists were speculating about 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.360 life and another world, like, you know, like is it 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:28.120 going to be just like here or not? And if 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.520 it's just like humans, would they be sinners? And if 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.720 there is a sinner there, well you need another Jesus, 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:35.480 you know, And are there many Jesuses and. 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.120 All these different planets to save people. It was like 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:42.200 this wild conversation about this other life. And the end 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:46.320 result of this, right as the centuries advanced, is that 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:50.760 the Earth was objectified and became a place where you 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.600 could do as we wanted to. And so that's the 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.920 impact of the Copernican idea, which was not really his. 0:14:58.080 --> 0:14:59.840 I mean, all he said is that, look, the Earth 0:14:59.880 --> 0:15:03.760 is planet, but the whole everything else that followed, and 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:08.760 this has been the narrative of modern astronomy and cosmology, 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.040 which is what I do for a living, you know, 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.400 as a researcher, which is essentially this and you must 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.640 have heard this before. It's like, man, these are scientists 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.600 keep telling us that the more we know about the universe, 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.200 the less important we become. You know, if the Earth 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:24.760 is just a. 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.720 Planet, and then the Sun was the center of everything. 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.200 But then, sorry, folks, know, the Sun is just a 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.960 star and this star they are in this galaxy in 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.400 the Milky Way where we live, there are about two 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.120 hundred billion stars, you know, and the Sun, the kind 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.640 of star that the Sun belongs to, which is it's 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.280 called g star, is only about three percent. 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:46.880 Of all the stars. 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:51.520 And then the galaxy that we thought until one hundred 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.240 years ago, everybody thought the Milky Way was the only 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.600 galaxy in the universe. And then this American astronomer called 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.440 Hubbo said, nope, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.960 out there, and these galaxies, furthermore, are moving away from 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.800 one another. The universe is expanding, and so like, we're 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:14.040 really becoming smaller and smaller and smaller, right, And then 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:14.880 to top it. 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.480 All, in the last forty years or so, we discovered. 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.320 That the matter that we are made of, the atoms 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.240 in your body are just about five percent. 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.600 Of the stuff that fills up the universe. 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.920 So all the stars and the planets and the gas 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:32.120 clouds and the people. 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.040 All this stuff is only about five percent of what's 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.320 out there. So now even the stuff we are made 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:42.160 of is important, right, and then to finish the whole thing, right, 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.920 to less nail on the coffin. In the last twenty 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.800 years or so, even our universe may not be the 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.160 only universe. That may be part of what's called a multiverse, 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.880 which is like a bubbling soup of. 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.680 Different universes, and each universe has a different set of 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.840 proper And so the narrative that I'm trying to build 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.440 here is that we went from a species that thought 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.120 of this world as their mother, as the sole responsible 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:16.280 for our existence, to a species where the development of 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:23.160 industrial technologies and this way of looking at the universe 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.080 as this very very big place, which is all true scientifically, 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.800 you know, took the value of our planet and objectified it, 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.960 and it created this mindset where we don't have to 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.600 worry about the world. That's the story, you know, that 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.840 comes into this book. And then the point is, okay, 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:43.560 now that story needs. 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:47.280 To change because if we keep telling this story to ourselves, 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.040 we are not going to be here telling the story 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.239 for much longer. So The question is how can we 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.040 build a different argument to explain who we are now? 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.480 Some might, you know, criticize this notion as something radical 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.040 that could never captivate the mainstream, but you rightfully point 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.000 out that the major shifts in worldview and cultural narrative 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.840 occur throughout human history. So it's it's not an unreasonable hope. 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:12.239 Right, I hope not. You know. 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:16.720 For example, the shift to Copernicanism, the shift from an 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.199 Earth centered cosmos to a Sun centered cosmos was like 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.359 profoundly changing, right. I mean, there was the whole issue 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.600 with Galileo and the Inquisition because he was, you know, 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.400 about one hundred years not quiet eighty years after Copernicus. 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.480 He was saying, folks, Copernicus is right, you know, and 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.800 if you keep insisting that the Earth is the center, 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:39.800 you're going to embarrass yourselves, you know. And only in 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:44.119 the nineteen eighties the Church forgave Galileo. 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:43.840 You know. 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:48.840 And so changes of mindset they do happen, right when 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.480 there's enough evidence for them to happen, either moved by 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:59.080 fear or moved by scientific evidence. You don't have to believe, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.959 because science is exactly what tells you you don't need 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:03.880 to believe in this. You need to look at the data, 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.720 interpret it properly, and understand what's going on. Right, So 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.200 where does the fun new story comes in? 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:11.760 Right? 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.320 The story that comes in is that you can rescue 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:21.280 this notion of belonging to the natural world that ancient 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.960 cultures have had for a long time and couch it 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.119 in a scientific narrative. And that's what I tried to 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:29.520 do in this book. 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:31.879 Right, And how do you do that? Well? First of all, 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.280 there is the story that everybody knows already that we 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:37.400 are made of star dost right, you know. So you have. 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.880 Johnny Mitchell and you have Carl Sagan, all of us 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.320 saying these things, and people have to internalize that this 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:45.359 is really true. 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:45.920 Right. 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.600 And I love to talk about this because it is 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.320 so beautiful. You know, it's kind of at the same 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.160 time lyrical and scientifically accurate. 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.880 That you know, the iron in. 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.560 Your blood, and the calcium in your bones, and the 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.400 carbon in your cells, all of these chemical elements, they 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.560 all came from stars that blew up over five billion 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.320 years ago. So if you stop to think about this, 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:15.280 for instance, so what you know, so because the stars 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.760 are what are the great alchemists. So what a star 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.800 does essentially is that it grabs hydrogen. A star is 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:27.160 a giant ball of flaming hydrogen. Hydrogen, you guys don't remember, 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:31.239 is the simplest chemical element that exists in nature. It 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.240 has one proton and one electron in the one proton 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.639 in the nucleus and one electron moving about it. So 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.359 that is the simplest thing that exists chemically speaking. And 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:46.840 what a star does it grabs hydrogen, pushes it together, 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:52.920 compresses it really hard, and this compression transforms hydrogen in 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.280 all the other chemical elements that exists. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:56.720 That's called nuclear fusion. 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.760 So a star is essentially a giant nu clear fusion 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:06.439 device that transforms hydrogen into helium, carbon, oxygen all the 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.919 way to iron. And then when it gets to iron, 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:13.359 big stars tend to explode in what we call super 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.879 and over explosions, and when that happens, the heavy elements 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.080 all the way to uranium. 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:20.080 Are forged in different ways. 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.040 So and then when the stars explode, they spell all 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:29.440 that stuff out into interstellar space, and all these gas 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.840 clouds filled with all these chemical elements travel around hit 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:37.840 all the floating clouds of hydrogen sprinkle them with the 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:41.800 heavy chemical elements. And when this star is born and 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.280 the planets are born, they carry with them all the 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:49.600 chemistry that will become part of life. So that's who 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.639 we are, you know. So the star do story is 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:56.800 really true. So that's connecting us to the history of 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:01.800 the universe as a whole, right, So we connect ourselves 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:04.600 to billions and billions of years of cosmic history. 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:05.760 So that's one point. 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.040 There's this Buddhist monk that I like a lot called 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:13.200 ticknot Hunt, who talked about this thing called interveing. 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.199 The notion of intervening is really cool, he says. You know, 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.399 pick up a book and read a poem, and you 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:23.040 look at that page in that book and you say, wow, 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:26.040 this page is made of paper. So that means that 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:28.920 as I'm reading this book and I'm looking at this 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:33.320 page of paper, there is a cloud that made this 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:37.000 paper possible, you know, because this paper is made of wood. 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:38.320 Wood is tree. 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:43.159 Tree needs water. Water comes from rain, rain comes some clouds, 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.680 and the planet made that happen. But it only made 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.480 that happen because there is a sun giving it energy 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.199 to make it happen and to drive its climate. And 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.840 so you're already connected to the Sun, so when you're 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:59.160 reading a page of a book, you're really already. 0:22:58.720 --> 0:22:59.760 Connected to this. 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:02.520 But the Son, of course, is a star that belongs 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:05.399 to a galaxy that belongs to the universe. So in 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:08.359 this page of paper that you're reading, you have the 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:11.400 whole history of the universe, and that's the notion of intervening. 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.240 So this vision that this guy had. 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:18.800 It really is completely supported by scientific research. 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:23.200 So that's all good. Now comes the second part. 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.160 That's where it becomes a little provocative from my end, 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:30.440 which is this, In the last fifteen or twenty years, 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:36.080 this new branch of astronomy called astrobiology came out, and 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:40.440 what is astrobiology. Astrobiology is essentially the study of life 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.840 in the universe. Right, So now it's kind of awesome. 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.560 You can actually get grants from NASA and National Science 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:51.320 Foundation to study aliens or the possibility of alien life 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:53.600 in the universe. You know, twenty years ago that was 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:57.399 not possible at all. And what we have been doing 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:00.040 with the Hubble Space Telescope and now the James we 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:04.400 have space Telescope, which is this spectacular machine that allows 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:10.879 us to look at planets going around other stars, to 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:14.760 search for chemical elements, look at these chemical elements in 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:19.000 their atmospheres to see if the atmosphere stell is about 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:22.560 life in that world or not. So, to make this 0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:25.800 a little more concrete, if a native astronomer looked at 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:28.800 Earth from far away, from like ten light years away, 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:32.040 you would say, oh, look at that blue planet over there. 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:37.040 It has a very thick atmosphere. It has water, it 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:42.359 has carbon dioxide, it has methane, it has ozone. That 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:46.720 planet is alive just because of the combinations of possible 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:52.800 chemicals in their atmosphere. So to find life elsewhere, you 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:55.920 don't really need to take a spaceship and go interstellar, 0:24:56.040 --> 0:24:56.960 which would. 0:24:56.720 --> 0:24:59.600 Be awesome, but it's not possible yet. But you can 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:03.080 look those planets thirty their atmospherees S thirty the chemical 0:25:03.119 --> 0:25:07.240 composition of the atmosphere, and say, yep, it really indicates 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:09.440 the presence of biological activity there. 0:25:09.920 --> 0:25:13.879 So we're doing that now, and we have found so 0:25:14.119 --> 0:25:19.560 far over five thousand, five hundred exoplanets we call them, 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:25.200 that is, planets rotating orbiting around other stars far away, 0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:27.879 and we have been able to study the atmospheres of 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:30.440 a small amount of them. But we have also found 0:25:30.560 --> 0:25:32.520 what kind of planet is that? Is it like an 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:36.640 Earth like rocky solid guy, or is it more like Jupiter, 0:25:36.760 --> 0:25:40.919 which is this big, giant, buffy ball of gas. And 0:25:40.960 --> 0:25:44.440 what we have found out is that the vast majority 0:25:44.440 --> 0:25:48.639 of worlds I have nothing to do with Earth, a 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:54.560 much more like Jupiter on neptunes of big gas planets. 0:25:54.600 --> 0:25:58.720 Only about three percent of the planets that we have 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:03.480 found so far have a similar look to Earth. But 0:26:03.640 --> 0:26:07.240 of those, very few of them orbit a star like 0:26:07.320 --> 0:26:10.280 the Sun. Some of them orbit stars which are much colder. 0:26:11.040 --> 0:26:14.120 Most of them, in fact, orbit stars which are much colder. 0:26:14.680 --> 0:26:18.680 And so as you start looking at this in more detail, 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:23.080 you realize that even from an astronomical perspective, even though 0:26:23.119 --> 0:26:26.400 there are trillions, and I'm not joking, trillion is one, 0:26:26.440 --> 0:26:30.240 trillion is a one with twelve zeros, there are trillions 0:26:30.240 --> 0:26:35.719 of planets in our galaxy alone, okay, but very few 0:26:36.160 --> 0:26:38.240 are going to be similar to this planet. 0:26:38.840 --> 0:26:41.919 So what we're beginning to learn is that despite you 0:26:42.000 --> 0:26:45.399 have this gigantic diversity of worlds out there which is 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:50.120 really spectacular, and they are all magically amazing, right, I mean, 0:26:50.240 --> 0:26:53.120 you have moons in our Solar system, not just the planets. 0:26:53.160 --> 0:26:56.840 You have the moons too, like Enceladus and Europa, which 0:26:56.880 --> 0:27:01.280 is this moon of Jupiter that has a crust, and 0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:05.439 the underneath the ice crust there's a nocean of salt 0:27:05.480 --> 0:27:09.719 water that carries four times more water than all the 0:27:09.720 --> 0:27:12.760 oceans of our planet together. So like damn. 0:27:12.840 --> 0:27:16.240 You know, if there is that, then maybe hey, salt water, right, 0:27:16.280 --> 0:27:18.880 that may be life there, So there'll be there are 0:27:18.920 --> 0:27:22.920 planned missions that will go there, hopefully at some point 0:27:23.840 --> 0:27:26.879 land drill a hole, try to get some of the 0:27:27.040 --> 0:27:29.880 water to analyze if there are any little create creatures 0:27:29.920 --> 0:27:33.120 out there. But even if there are, they're not going 0:27:33.160 --> 0:27:35.920 to be as complex as life here. See, the thing 0:27:35.960 --> 0:27:38.520 about Earth is not that it's just a living planet 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:41.760 as a whole, but it's a living planet with very 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:47.480 complex life, and that makes all the difference. So Avatar, 0:27:47.920 --> 0:27:51.159 you know, that's that that movie was made for a 0:27:51.280 --> 0:27:54.240 very good reason, you know, which is there will be 0:27:54.359 --> 0:27:57.600 very few planets like was similar to there will let 0:27:57.600 --> 0:28:00.479 me be the more more bombastic here I do this. 0:28:00.680 --> 0:28:02.879 There will never be another Earth in the whole of 0:28:02.920 --> 0:28:03.520 the universe. 0:28:03.920 --> 0:28:09.160 You can have planets similar to Earth maybe, and even 0:28:09.200 --> 0:28:12.760 if they have life, life on those planets, even if 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:16.320 it's kind of like our life, like carbon based water bays, 0:28:17.119 --> 0:28:21.160 that life is going to be completely different from life here, 0:28:21.840 --> 0:28:24.800 which means which I think is really cool, and it's 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:27.959 part of the fundamental soul of the book that we 0:28:28.240 --> 0:28:32.320 are the only humans in the universe. There will be 0:28:32.600 --> 0:28:37.040 no other humans. There could be other humanoid like things. 0:28:36.760 --> 0:28:39.080 With like a left right symmetry like you have, you know, 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:42.760 left right eye and stuff, but there will be no 0:28:42.920 --> 0:28:46.680 other human species in the whole of the universe. And 0:28:46.800 --> 0:28:51.560 that puts us back in the center of the universe, 0:28:51.600 --> 0:28:55.640 but in a completely different way from before Copernicus, because 0:28:55.720 --> 0:29:01.800 now we become the species that is self aware and 0:29:01.960 --> 0:29:03.920 is able to tell its own story. 0:29:04.800 --> 0:29:08.000 And the biggest story that we tell is the story 0:29:08.000 --> 0:29:10.720 of how we belong to the universe as a whole. 0:29:11.240 --> 0:29:14.600 So we are in a sense, telling the story of 0:29:14.640 --> 0:29:18.160 the universe. We are the voice and the mind of 0:29:18.200 --> 0:29:28.560 the universe telling its own story. 0:29:29.960 --> 0:29:33.120 And so is this this basic idea, this this idea 0:29:33.120 --> 0:29:35.560 of the Earth is this precious gem and it being 0:29:35.880 --> 0:29:39.640 vitally connected with us. This gets into this idea of 0:29:39.720 --> 0:29:42.240 the secular sacredness of the planet. 0:29:42.400 --> 0:29:46.800 Correct exactly so in this so I propose this thing 0:29:46.840 --> 0:29:50.200 called biocentrism, which is not a word I invented. Other 0:29:50.240 --> 0:29:52.080 people have used it, but I used it in a 0:29:52.160 --> 0:29:55.800 somewhat different context. I think the context that I use 0:29:55.960 --> 0:29:58.080 is similar to the people. 0:29:57.840 --> 0:30:01.240 That we're doing this logical theology. 0:30:01.360 --> 0:30:04.920 I guess in the seventies and eighties, you know, they said, 0:30:05.040 --> 0:30:08.360 you know, religion abandoned the world, then we need to 0:30:08.360 --> 0:30:11.400 go back to that. And what I'm saying is that, yes, 0:30:11.560 --> 0:30:15.680 religion abandoned the world, so did science, because you know, 0:30:15.840 --> 0:30:18.920 science also sort of like took the world as a 0:30:18.960 --> 0:30:22.800 big laboratory without really respecting it for what it is. 0:30:23.400 --> 0:30:26.400 And now we have this new science coming out and 0:30:26.440 --> 0:30:29.920 we can bring this notion of what I would call 0:30:29.960 --> 0:30:34.480 a secular spirituality, the idea that you can relate to 0:30:34.520 --> 0:30:36.400 the world. It doesn't matter if you believe in God 0:30:36.480 --> 0:30:39.200 or not. This has nothing to do directly with God. 0:30:39.280 --> 0:30:42.160 If you do, that's great, bring God back to the planet. 0:30:42.640 --> 0:30:46.880 But if you don't, you can relate to the awesomeness 0:30:46.920 --> 0:30:51.320 of being part of this deep connection to the history 0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:55.520 of the universe in this planet that allows us to 0:30:55.640 --> 0:30:57.320 be able to tell this story. 0:30:57.440 --> 0:30:59.440 Right. It's not just that we exist here. 0:30:59.720 --> 0:31:03.640 But this planet has had even though it has had 0:31:03.760 --> 0:31:08.600 wild climate changes, you know, there was this planet has 0:31:08.640 --> 0:31:12.520 been an ice ball completely. It has been a tropical forest. 0:31:12.840 --> 0:31:15.160 You know, it has gone through all these different phases 0:31:15.200 --> 0:31:19.240 in these four billion years of existence, but it always 0:31:19.520 --> 0:31:24.280 allowed a certain amount of stability in the climate for 0:31:24.440 --> 0:31:27.880 life to persist. Right, And life has been around here. 0:31:28.440 --> 0:31:31.000 So I told you that the planet's fare and a 0:31:31.040 --> 0:31:33.960 half billion years old. Life has been around for three 0:31:33.960 --> 0:31:37.680 and a half billion years in here, and it became 0:31:37.720 --> 0:31:41.560 incredibly complex. And once you start to look at nature 0:31:41.760 --> 0:31:45.000 with these eyes, you know, with the eyes of awesomeness, like, 0:31:45.720 --> 0:31:49.479 be grateful for what you have, because this is a jam. 0:31:49.600 --> 0:31:52.320 Look at look what happens to us when we try 0:31:52.360 --> 0:31:55.720 to get out of the atmosphere. Right, the universe is 0:31:55.800 --> 0:32:02.320 profoundly hostile to life. When I read things like life physubiquitous. 0:32:01.200 --> 0:32:03.720 In the universe, that the universe is filled with life, 0:32:03.720 --> 0:32:07.040 and like, I find that almost offensive because first of all, 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:12.600 we have zero evidence of that. Okay, so there's zero 0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:16.800 evidence that we have been certainly visited by aliens. Right, 0:32:16.840 --> 0:32:20.520 there's another whole conversation. And I have lots of friends 0:32:20.520 --> 0:32:25.160 writing books about that, but more than that, we have 0:32:25.280 --> 0:32:27.800 zero evidence that there is life in other places, which 0:32:27.840 --> 0:32:31.080 doesn't mean there isn't. See, this is where you have 0:32:31.120 --> 0:32:34.840 to be very careful with scientific statements. We cannot prove 0:32:35.760 --> 0:32:38.840 that there is no life in an other world. That's impossible. 0:32:38.880 --> 0:32:41.600 I'll tell you why. It's because we simply cannot go 0:32:41.640 --> 0:32:44.840 and visit every other world in the universe to find 0:32:44.840 --> 0:32:47.600 out if there is life there or not. So we 0:32:47.680 --> 0:32:51.440 may say life is rare, or life in our bubble 0:32:51.800 --> 0:32:55.800 like cosmic bubble like within a big distance from our 0:32:55.840 --> 0:32:58.880 planet here is rare, but we cannot. 0:32:58.560 --> 0:32:59.120 Rule it out. 0:33:00.080 --> 0:33:02.400 But what we can rule it out, as I said before, 0:33:02.520 --> 0:33:05.280 is that definitely there will be no other. 0:33:05.160 --> 0:33:08.000 Human species in the universe, and even. 0:33:07.800 --> 0:33:10.840 If there would be, they'll be so far away and 0:33:10.880 --> 0:33:13.320 so remote that for all. 0:33:13.160 --> 0:33:17.280 Purposes, all practical purposes, we really are alone telling our 0:33:17.320 --> 0:33:19.720 own story of what's going on. Now. 0:33:19.840 --> 0:33:21.800 You talk about this a little bit in the book. 0:33:22.360 --> 0:33:25.960 I was wondering if you might feel this question. Do 0:33:25.640 --> 0:33:30.720 you believe that various sci fi, futurists and transhumanist ideas 0:33:30.760 --> 0:33:34.680 such as the digitization of consciousness and even things like 0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:38.560 interplanetary colonization no matter how far fetch some of the 0:33:38.640 --> 0:33:42.360 concepts may be, or you know, just outside of immediate grasp. 0:33:42.960 --> 0:33:45.600 Have they played a negative role in moving sort of 0:33:45.600 --> 0:33:48.920 the public imagination away from more life centric and earth 0:33:48.960 --> 0:33:49.959 centric worldviews. 0:33:50.240 --> 0:33:53.960 I think absolutely yes, because you know, just it's a 0:33:54.000 --> 0:33:56.840 matter of focus, right, you say, look, we are going 0:33:56.920 --> 0:33:59.840 to mess this planet up, and we're just going to 0:33:59.840 --> 0:34:03.000 move somewhere else, so it doesn't matter, you know, let's 0:34:03.080 --> 0:34:06.160 just keep doing it. Let's just keeping it up, and 0:34:06.200 --> 0:34:10.320 we're just basically eating its entrails, right, that's what fossil fuels, 0:34:10.320 --> 0:34:12.960 they come from underground, right, So we're sort of feeding 0:34:13.320 --> 0:34:16.600 from the entrails of the planet to sustain this big 0:34:16.680 --> 0:34:20.719 civilization on the surface. And hey, if there are other 0:34:20.760 --> 0:34:23.080 worlds out there for us to colonize, just like we 0:34:23.160 --> 0:34:30.160 did here. So this whole notion of colonizing other planets 0:34:30.360 --> 0:34:32.680 is a repetition of what we have. 0:34:32.719 --> 0:34:35.120 Done to this planet if you think about this, right, 0:34:35.160 --> 0:34:36.279 I mean, what happened. 0:34:36.000 --> 0:34:40.960 Here is that there were native populations around the planet. 0:34:41.440 --> 0:34:45.839 But then you had the Europeans that had the technology 0:34:45.920 --> 0:34:51.520 to explore and go across vast distances and in the oceans, 0:34:51.560 --> 0:34:54.040 and that's what they did, and they moved on to 0:34:54.160 --> 0:34:57.759 these other places. And what did they do? They plundered, right, 0:34:57.800 --> 0:35:00.840 I mean I grew up in Brazil. Brazil was colony 0:35:00.880 --> 0:35:03.400 of Portugal that in the fifteen hundreds was the most 0:35:03.440 --> 0:35:07.600 powerful country or you know, kingdom in that case in 0:35:07.640 --> 0:35:10.520 the world. And they you know, you look at all 0:35:10.560 --> 0:35:13.879 the gold in the churches in Europe and cathedrals, where 0:35:13.880 --> 0:35:14.680 did that come from? 0:35:14.719 --> 0:35:17.000 Well a lot of it came from South America? Right, 0:35:17.440 --> 0:35:20.680 And so are we going to just repeat that model 0:35:21.000 --> 0:35:23.959 as we move on? So let's go to the moon, 0:35:24.040 --> 0:35:26.600 and let's go mind the moon, and then we make 0:35:26.600 --> 0:35:28.680 a base on the Moon, and then we colonize, so 0:35:29.040 --> 0:35:32.239 we tear a four Mars, which basically means we make 0:35:32.360 --> 0:35:35.640 Mars into our earth thing, which is completely ridiculous. It 0:35:36.280 --> 0:35:38.280 just doesn't work and it will not work. 0:35:38.680 --> 0:35:43.120 You can make an igloo like life, a biosphere kind 0:35:43.160 --> 0:35:48.319 of thing in another world and recreate the earth conditions 0:35:48.360 --> 0:35:51.640 in that world locally, but at. 0:35:51.480 --> 0:35:55.320 A global level that is so far away, as you said, 0:35:55.480 --> 0:35:59.000 so far Thatch, that it is at this point, given 0:35:59.040 --> 0:36:02.719 the problems we have in this planet right now, we 0:36:02.760 --> 0:36:04.920 should be focusing everything. 0:36:04.520 --> 0:36:07.680 That we've got here and not and can I go 0:36:07.719 --> 0:36:11.839 to Mars and you know, colonize Mars or whatever. So 0:36:12.000 --> 0:36:14.480 that's the planetary aspect of things. 0:36:14.520 --> 0:36:19.040 And then the other one the transhumanist idea that we 0:36:19.120 --> 0:36:22.000 can and I write a lot about that, not in 0:36:22.040 --> 0:36:25.520 this book so much, but in other places, that we. 0:36:25.520 --> 0:36:26.760 Can't actually. 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:31.280 Create some sort of scientific based immortality. 0:36:31.920 --> 0:36:33.160 Right, is a. 0:36:33.160 --> 0:36:37.480 Very very old idea, right, I mean, at least you 0:36:37.600 --> 0:36:41.800 can go back to Frankenstein. So you know eighteen nineteen 0:36:42.640 --> 0:36:47.160 where Mary Shelley she used the cutting edge science of 0:36:47.200 --> 0:36:52.839 her time, which was look, electricity can make muscles twitch. Right, 0:36:53.160 --> 0:36:57.080 that was like Galvani, you know, Volta had discovered this 0:36:57.120 --> 0:37:01.040 stuff in Italy and people are like amaze by this, right, 0:37:01.080 --> 0:37:05.279 They're like wow. So basically the secret of motion is 0:37:05.960 --> 0:37:09.560 electricity growing through your nerves and your muscles. So that 0:37:09.680 --> 0:37:15.319 means that if you could recreate a dead person and 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:19.760 pass electricity to that person, science would conquer death. 0:37:20.520 --> 0:37:20.719 Right. 0:37:21.120 --> 0:37:27.200 Transhumanism is exactly the same notion, but now using our cutting. 0:37:26.960 --> 0:37:29.359 Edge technology, which is digital technology. 0:37:29.480 --> 0:37:34.640 So the sense the essence being if we could capture 0:37:35.560 --> 0:37:39.040 the essence of who you are, right, so essentially look 0:37:39.080 --> 0:37:45.360 into your brain and somehow can download your memories and 0:37:45.480 --> 0:37:49.359 the circuitry in your brain, and you can recreate all 0:37:49.400 --> 0:37:52.120 of that complexity in a it's. 0:37:51.920 --> 0:37:55.440 Called the connectome. You know, how all the synapses of 0:37:55.480 --> 0:37:58.279 your neurons connect to one another. It's like a map, right, 0:37:58.560 --> 0:38:01.239 so this would be the map to yourself, right, and 0:38:01.360 --> 0:38:02.120 each one of us. 0:38:02.200 --> 0:38:06.000 Even though we have brains which are very similar, they're 0:38:06.000 --> 0:38:09.160 also very different because I'm not Rob, and Rob it's 0:38:09.200 --> 0:38:13.080 not me. Even though we share so much of what 0:38:13.200 --> 0:38:15.680 we are, right, there is a difference there. So the 0:38:15.719 --> 0:38:19.360 idea is if you could capture the assence and create 0:38:19.400 --> 0:38:23.120 a giant simulation, then that simulation will be you. 0:38:24.320 --> 0:38:28.640 Or an approximation of you. And I find that very 0:38:28.640 --> 0:38:33.440 disturbing and also very kind of like, uh, far fetched 0:38:33.560 --> 0:38:37.000 is not even a word for this, because we have 0:38:37.200 --> 0:38:41.640 zero idea of what it means to capture ourselves, you know, 0:38:41.719 --> 0:38:45.440 the essence of who we are from a digital perspective 0:38:45.640 --> 0:38:48.680 or any kind of perspective, because we don't know what 0:38:48.880 --> 0:38:53.400 consciousness is of how it works. But as you said, 0:38:53.440 --> 0:38:55.600 the way you phrase the question, which is very clever, 0:38:55.680 --> 0:38:57.799 it is like those things, even though they are very 0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:02.160 far fetched, can they be taking us away from our task? 0:39:02.280 --> 0:39:06.440 Right now, which is to really celebrate the life that we. 0:39:06.520 --> 0:39:10.200 Have and the planet that gives us the possibility of 0:39:10.280 --> 0:39:14.680 having this life, as opposed to spending so much energy 0:39:14.800 --> 0:39:18.960 and fantasy and money and resources in dreaming up a 0:39:19.000 --> 0:39:21.120 future which is not going to help us in the 0:39:21.160 --> 0:39:23.799 next few decades, which is when we really need the help. 0:39:24.120 --> 0:39:26.960 And the answer is absolutely that's why we should be focusing. 0:39:27.000 --> 0:39:30.760 And the hope of this book is to help people 0:39:31.120 --> 0:39:35.320 maybe refocus a little bit on the beauty and the 0:39:35.560 --> 0:39:39.040 tremendous miracle in a sense that life in this planet 0:39:39.120 --> 0:39:40.120 really is and. 0:39:40.440 --> 0:39:42.799 What a place that we have, that we should be 0:39:42.880 --> 0:39:45.280 thinking about it very differently than we are. 0:39:55.280 --> 0:39:57.319 Now. Part of the hopefulness of the book is that 0:39:57.480 --> 0:40:01.040 it's not just big ideas. You also discuss concrete steps 0:40:01.080 --> 0:40:05.360 that individuals and society can take. So what can we do, 0:40:05.400 --> 0:40:07.359 what can link listeners to the show do to help 0:40:07.400 --> 0:40:11.359 adopt these principles and drive positive change as individuals? 0:40:11.920 --> 0:40:15.080 Right So, so the subtitle of the book is a 0:40:15.160 --> 0:40:19.160 Manifesto for Humanity's future. Right So, manifest is kind of 0:40:19.200 --> 0:40:21.600 like a little bit of a pretentious thing to say. 0:40:21.640 --> 0:40:24.359 There are lots of people writing manifesto about this or that. 0:40:24.440 --> 0:40:26.640 But so what I did is I went back to 0:40:26.719 --> 0:40:28.799 something I read but I was a teenager, which was 0:40:28.800 --> 0:40:32.120 a communist manifesto about Marx and angels, you know, said 0:40:32.160 --> 0:40:34.480 to say, Okay, what the heck is a manifester and 0:40:34.520 --> 0:40:35.479 how do you write one? 0:40:35.800 --> 0:40:39.480 Right? And so basically the manifesto has two parts. 0:40:39.560 --> 0:40:42.600 Right, he has this is the argument of why the 0:40:42.640 --> 0:40:45.920 world needs to change, Right, So you bring that argument 0:40:46.000 --> 0:40:48.840 forward and you say, look, in their case was about 0:40:49.000 --> 0:40:52.239 capitalism and the bourgeoisie and we need to you know, 0:40:52.360 --> 0:40:55.160 save the workers, et cetera. So that was their story. 0:40:55.680 --> 0:40:59.359 Our story is we are making a planet sick, and 0:40:59.520 --> 0:41:03.240 we can be healthy as humans in a sick planet. 0:41:03.680 --> 0:41:06.279 So we have to change the way we relate to 0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:09.640 the planet. It's that simple, right. I Mean, it's a little. 0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:12.240 More sophisticated that in the book, but the bare bones 0:41:12.320 --> 0:41:15.359 is this, you know, a sick planet cannot support a 0:41:15.400 --> 0:41:18.719 healthy life or any kind of life, human or otherwise. 0:41:19.160 --> 0:41:21.640 So then the second part of the manifesto is, okay, 0:41:21.719 --> 0:41:22.640 what do you do about this? 0:41:22.800 --> 0:41:26.200 What are the action items? Right? And in their case 0:41:26.400 --> 0:41:29.759 was you know, workers of the world unite and you know, 0:41:29.880 --> 0:41:32.839 let's throw out the kings and all that, and that's 0:41:32.880 --> 0:41:35.080 what happened with Itzar in Russia. 0:41:35.200 --> 0:41:39.399 But in our case is about what can we do 0:41:39.600 --> 0:41:43.920 as individuals and as a society in order to actually 0:41:44.760 --> 0:41:48.280 start really making a difference, right, And I suggest several 0:41:48.400 --> 0:41:52.279 different things. Okay, So at the individual level, and not 0:41:52.440 --> 0:41:56.319 just at individual I also at the corporate level. Is 0:41:56.360 --> 0:42:01.320 the notion of I call it the doctrine of less what. Well, 0:42:02.480 --> 0:42:06.560 you don't need to become vegan overnight, because you know 0:42:06.719 --> 0:42:10.400 that doesn't work. But if you cut your meat consumption 0:42:11.000 --> 0:42:15.800 in half, if everybody cut the meat consumption in half, 0:42:15.920 --> 0:42:19.600 a fifty percent solution, you will make a tremendous impact 0:42:20.040 --> 0:42:24.440 on the amount of not just the methane and the 0:42:24.440 --> 0:42:28.319 carbon dioxide, but the water pollution and soil pollution, the 0:42:28.400 --> 0:42:32.239 cattle grazing and cutting the forest to have area for 0:42:32.320 --> 0:42:34.560 the cattle to graze would make Okay. 0:42:34.600 --> 0:42:39.400 So the notion that it is possible to make personal choices, 0:42:39.480 --> 0:42:43.320 that's the real challenge. There are personal choices that you can. 0:42:43.200 --> 0:42:46.399 Make that may not be ideal for you, that may 0:42:46.440 --> 0:42:51.280 involve a certain level of self sacrifice that will impact people. 0:42:51.280 --> 0:42:53.480 And some people are man, I don't care, you know, 0:42:53.560 --> 0:42:54.560 I don't want to do that. 0:42:55.000 --> 0:42:57.800 Well, if we don't care, we're going to be a price. 0:42:58.080 --> 0:43:01.560 Like if we didn't care about the Japanese invasion of 0:43:01.600 --> 0:43:04.600 the Nazis in Europe, we would have lost Second World 0:43:04.680 --> 0:43:07.399 War and the world will have been a very very 0:43:07.400 --> 0:43:08.560 different place right now. 0:43:09.120 --> 0:43:11.640 So we care, and when we care, we. 0:43:11.560 --> 0:43:15.200 Make change happens. Right The Manhattan Project is a great 0:43:15.239 --> 0:43:18.480 example that. You know, if people watched Openheimer, they know 0:43:18.520 --> 0:43:22.000 what I'm talking about. That was an incredibly difficult technical challenge, 0:43:22.440 --> 0:43:26.680 very expensive. But you put a bunch of great minds 0:43:26.719 --> 0:43:29.240 together and give them the resources, and we can solve 0:43:29.280 --> 0:43:31.400 problems to a certain point. 0:43:31.520 --> 0:43:33.160 I'm going to get to that in a second. 0:43:33.760 --> 0:43:40.439 So less meat, less energy, less water, less garbage. These 0:43:40.480 --> 0:43:44.080 are the four lessons that we can all work on together. 0:43:44.600 --> 0:43:48.680 Shorter showers, more coposting, et cetera. So all these things 0:43:48.960 --> 0:43:51.520 can be done. And then there is the doctrine of 0:43:51.560 --> 0:43:56.040 the more more, what more? Engaging with the natural world. 0:43:56.880 --> 0:44:00.440 What does that mean? It means go out look at 0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:02.799 nature once now, I look up at the sky. If 0:44:02.800 --> 0:44:05.920 you live in the city, find a darker corner, go 0:44:06.000 --> 0:44:09.759 to a park, look at the park, pay attention to 0:44:09.800 --> 0:44:10.560 what's going on. 0:44:11.040 --> 0:44:11.799 Walk by the. 0:44:11.719 --> 0:44:15.200 Ocean front, you know, engage with the natural world, because, 0:44:15.600 --> 0:44:17.920 as I was saying earlier, you know, for most of 0:44:17.960 --> 0:44:22.920 our existence, we were beings in the natural world. 0:44:23.200 --> 0:44:25.120 That's what we vote for. That's why we. 0:44:25.280 --> 0:44:28.480 Sweat and we run distances. You know, I'm a long 0:44:28.520 --> 0:44:32.200 distance runner. I love that and because that connects me 0:44:32.880 --> 0:44:34.520 with really the essence of what. 0:44:34.440 --> 0:44:35.120 We have volved here. 0:44:35.160 --> 0:44:38.600 For we were like hunting antelopes and gazelles, you know, 0:44:38.640 --> 0:44:42.600 two hundred thousand years ago, and we got them even 0:44:42.680 --> 0:44:44.719 though they're much faster than we are, because we could 0:44:44.800 --> 0:44:47.319 do this for a long time. So we have all 0:44:47.360 --> 0:44:53.200 those senses of very good vision, very good resistance, and 0:44:53.480 --> 0:44:57.520 ways of moving which are designed to be in the world. 0:44:57.600 --> 0:45:01.400 But what we have done since Sagra Sation is we 0:45:01.560 --> 0:45:04.880 created cities which are the anti nature. 0:45:04.960 --> 0:45:08.239 Think about that, right. A city is a ball of 0:45:08.280 --> 0:45:10.640 concrete surrounded by nature on all sides. 0:45:11.080 --> 0:45:15.120 And the idea is that we can engage with nature 0:45:15.200 --> 0:45:19.000 much more. And once we do that, you feel better 0:45:19.040 --> 0:45:22.280 about yourself. Even if it's just a walk in the park. 0:45:22.320 --> 0:45:25.040 You know, people have been talking about forest bathing and 0:45:25.080 --> 0:45:28.560 all these things. Just walk and look at the trees, 0:45:28.600 --> 0:45:30.600 you know, and the clouds in the sky and stuff 0:45:30.640 --> 0:45:35.800 like that. He has measured physiological benefits. You know, lots 0:45:35.800 --> 0:45:39.120 of studies, a few of them at Stanford have already 0:45:39.719 --> 0:45:42.359 demonstrated that we feel. 0:45:42.000 --> 0:45:43.920 Better when we engage with the world. 0:45:43.960 --> 0:45:49.160 So that's the more connection to the world, more respect 0:45:49.239 --> 0:45:52.919 for animal life, right, because that story I was telling 0:45:52.920 --> 0:45:57.040 in the beginning where I said, we have basically deemed 0:45:57.080 --> 0:45:59.319 ourselves the owners of the planets, and we can do 0:45:59.360 --> 0:46:03.480 too everything like we can kill them, we can eat them, 0:46:03.680 --> 0:46:06.759 or we can have them as pats, which is you know, 0:46:06.960 --> 0:46:10.040 think of this this. It's kind of uncomfortable to say this, 0:46:10.160 --> 0:46:12.600 but I'm going to say it because why not look 0:46:12.640 --> 0:46:17.120 at the cognitive dissonance here. We love our pats, We 0:46:17.320 --> 0:46:20.880 love our dogs and our cats and our bunny rabbits 0:46:21.000 --> 0:46:22.839 or even our fish, you know. 0:46:23.280 --> 0:46:26.320 But then we go out and we eat a calf. 0:46:28.600 --> 0:46:31.200 How does that work exactly? And you go visit the 0:46:31.239 --> 0:46:33.719 farm and you go, oh, look, how cute, you know, 0:46:33.840 --> 0:46:35.000 like when you have little kids. 0:46:35.040 --> 0:46:37.640 You go and you go look at the beautiful cow, 0:46:37.760 --> 0:46:39.279 and then we go eat them. 0:46:39.920 --> 0:46:43.200 So what is going on here? You know? And you 0:46:43.280 --> 0:46:45.239 love your dog like yourself, like the. 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:48.360 Dog dies or like in the deep depression, it's just 0:46:48.400 --> 0:46:48.960 an animal. 0:46:49.120 --> 0:46:51.960 I love my dog deeply. It's just the best dog 0:46:52.000 --> 0:46:54.839 in the world. But so, what is going on here? 0:46:54.960 --> 0:46:58.080 How do we get to be that way? You know? So, 0:46:59.080 --> 0:47:00.880 and that's an uncalled conversation. 0:47:01.120 --> 0:47:03.520 You know, they're like, look, there's a story that can 0:47:03.560 --> 0:47:06.360 be told from the farm to the junk of meeting 0:47:06.400 --> 0:47:10.080 a supermarket, but it's so far removed that we just 0:47:10.160 --> 0:47:13.000 go to the market and we buy that, and we 0:47:13.000 --> 0:47:14.560 we just you know, we don't care. 0:47:15.560 --> 0:47:18.360 But we should be caring more. That's the point. You know. 0:47:18.400 --> 0:47:21.080 It's because we didn't care for thousands of years that 0:47:21.200 --> 0:47:22.000 we are. 0:47:21.680 --> 0:47:25.960 In a difficult situation now. So it's a hard conversation 0:47:26.120 --> 0:47:30.040 to have. But the more engagement of the natural world 0:47:30.160 --> 0:47:33.640 is essential. And the other thing I suggest is two 0:47:33.640 --> 0:47:36.719 more things, just because you know, the Eyasa could talk 0:47:36.760 --> 0:47:37.279 for too long. 0:47:38.160 --> 0:47:42.120 One is the notion of education. 0:47:43.160 --> 0:47:47.600 Every school, at any level, from elementary school to pach 0:47:47.760 --> 0:47:51.160 d level, should tell the story of who we are 0:47:51.200 --> 0:47:54.480 in the universe. This whole conversation that we had about 0:47:55.280 --> 0:47:58.200 where we come from from stars, how we evolved in 0:47:58.239 --> 0:48:01.040 this planet, how connected we are to all forms of. 0:48:00.960 --> 0:48:03.920 Life and to this world in particular. This is a 0:48:04.000 --> 0:48:08.279 story that should be told at all levels, you know, 0:48:08.400 --> 0:48:11.239 and we hardly have a talk about this, and that's 0:48:11.239 --> 0:48:13.160 why we don't know who we are. That's why we 0:48:13.200 --> 0:48:14.880 think we are the owners of the place, because we 0:48:15.000 --> 0:48:17.279 forgot to tell this story, which is. 0:48:18.160 --> 0:48:21.799 The most important story. And finally, as a consumer, you 0:48:21.840 --> 0:48:25.560 have choices too, you know. If you think that that 0:48:25.760 --> 0:48:29.400 certain corporation does not align with your ethical values about 0:48:29.440 --> 0:48:32.600 the environment and about how they treat animals, don't buy 0:48:32.600 --> 0:48:37.439 from that business. Buy from another business. And that has 0:48:37.520 --> 0:48:41.040 more power and more pressure than any think. Consumers have 0:48:41.880 --> 0:48:46.280 power when they unite and boycott a certain company because 0:48:46.320 --> 0:48:48.560 they don't align with their values, you know. And so 0:48:48.960 --> 0:48:51.719 there's this Being an optimist, I have to say, there 0:48:51.760 --> 0:48:54.920 is this thing called bi corporations now, which are corporations 0:48:54.960 --> 0:48:58.680 that have an ethos, have a way of dealing with 0:48:58.719 --> 0:49:03.279 the world which is much more alignment sustainability and circular economics, etc. 0:49:04.840 --> 0:49:07.839 And so this is happening already, and I have tremendous 0:49:07.880 --> 0:49:10.960 fate that all this work is going to kind of 0:49:11.040 --> 0:49:14.400 crystallize into a different way of thinking about who we 0:49:14.440 --> 0:49:16.560 are in the next decade or so. 0:49:17.840 --> 0:49:20.600 And you also point out that there's a responsibility for 0:49:20.640 --> 0:49:22.040 the scientific community as well. 0:49:22.160 --> 0:49:25.880 Correct, there is because and that's the hard one because 0:49:25.960 --> 0:49:30.320 as a scientist, I know how my peers think, and 0:49:31.560 --> 0:49:35.880 the scientific community should be telling the story I believe 0:49:36.480 --> 0:49:39.960 as it is, which is not like, oh, there are 0:49:40.040 --> 0:49:42.600 lots of Earth like you know, you know, people talk 0:49:42.640 --> 0:49:45.640 about other earths out there. Now there are no other 0:49:45.760 --> 0:49:49.040 earths out there. There may be Earth analogus, but there's 0:49:49.120 --> 0:49:51.880 only one Earth. So it's just a way of telling 0:49:51.920 --> 0:49:54.440 the story. As you know, the way you tell a 0:49:54.520 --> 0:49:57.719 story makes a huge difference. You could be telling the 0:49:57.800 --> 0:50:01.840 same story and completely change the meaning of that story. 0:50:02.239 --> 0:50:05.040 And so I think we should be very careful about 0:50:05.120 --> 0:50:08.080 telling the story of our planet and our species in 0:50:08.120 --> 0:50:15.120 this planet in a much more environmentally aware way. And 0:50:15.239 --> 0:50:17.880 with this notion, and you know, when you use the 0:50:17.920 --> 0:50:22.000 word sacred, you know most scientists scringe, right because they 0:50:22.000 --> 0:50:25.560 associated that with other kinds of sacred. No, but I'm 0:50:25.600 --> 0:50:29.560 talking about the sacredness of life that that perhaps is 0:50:29.560 --> 0:50:34.799 the most fundamental universal moral value, which is life is 0:50:34.840 --> 0:50:39.439 sacred right and our life of another human, but other 0:50:39.560 --> 0:50:40.400 life forms do. 0:50:40.600 --> 0:50:42.719 And so if you relate to that in a more 0:50:42.800 --> 0:50:46.000 concrete way, not just as you're just saying that. As 0:50:46.000 --> 0:50:48.040 a scientist, you have a role to play. 0:50:48.520 --> 0:50:50.680 You are a role model for this way of thinking 0:50:50.719 --> 0:50:53.480 about the world because you are the one bringing all 0:50:53.480 --> 0:50:56.520 this information to the public. Right, so the people that 0:50:56.560 --> 0:51:01.040 are writing books about science should be thinking a little 0:51:01.040 --> 0:51:04.720 more carefully about what are they saying of the power 0:51:04.760 --> 0:51:07.880 of science, and science, for example, solve all the problems. 0:51:07.920 --> 0:51:09.680 I probably always going to go back to that, and 0:51:09.719 --> 0:51:11.719 I can go back to that right now, and the 0:51:11.760 --> 0:51:15.719 answer is absolutely not. You know, science not all problems 0:51:15.760 --> 0:51:19.759 have a scientific solution. You know, some problems have a 0:51:19.880 --> 0:51:24.600 complicated solution that also uses science, but it uses philosophy. 0:51:25.080 --> 0:51:29.520 He uses anthropology to anthropological ways of thinking about who 0:51:29.560 --> 0:51:33.280 we are in a culture, and native ways of thinking 0:51:33.320 --> 0:51:36.120 about who we are and how we relate to certain values. 0:51:36.200 --> 0:51:39.399 So I would believe that now we are. 0:51:39.280 --> 0:51:44.080 At this point where the science that we are using 0:51:44.120 --> 0:51:47.440 to describe the planet, you know, it's called systems science, 0:51:48.160 --> 0:51:51.439 is telling us a story that we have to bring 0:51:51.560 --> 0:51:56.040 together different ways of knowing in order to tell people 0:51:56.760 --> 0:52:00.440 what really matters in this world. Not just we are 0:52:00.440 --> 0:52:03.880 going to sequest the carbon with our machines, and that's. 0:52:03.680 --> 0:52:05.000 Going to solve oup all as well. 0:52:05.080 --> 0:52:10.080 Will not because guess what science historically, and that's a 0:52:10.080 --> 0:52:13.560 hard thing to say, but it's true. Historically science always 0:52:13.600 --> 0:52:19.520 has served those in power because science needs money to operate, 0:52:20.080 --> 0:52:24.000 and this alligance between science and state and science and. 0:52:24.040 --> 0:52:26.600 Industry is what has pushed science forward. 0:52:26.960 --> 0:52:30.160 So unless you have an industry that has a certain 0:52:30.160 --> 0:52:32.840 way of thinking about the world, or powers in state 0:52:33.400 --> 0:52:35.360 they have a certain way of thinking about the world, 0:52:35.400 --> 0:52:39.120 the science that is going to be mostly funded is 0:52:39.160 --> 0:52:41.040 not going to be the science that is going to 0:52:41.080 --> 0:52:44.840 bring us out of our mindset unless we have a 0:52:44.840 --> 0:52:47.400 different mindset, which is what I'm proposing. 0:52:47.960 --> 0:52:51.319 So again it falls to us. It falls to society 0:52:51.440 --> 0:52:54.520 to really be the major movement here. 0:52:54.880 --> 0:52:58.920 It falls to society. It falls to families, communities, schools. 0:52:59.000 --> 0:53:01.640 You know, it's a rest roots thing. You know, it 0:53:01.719 --> 0:53:05.440 goes from every In my opinion and of course, you know, 0:53:05.560 --> 0:53:09.200 is that every family should be sitting down together and 0:53:09.280 --> 0:53:12.600 talking about this problem because if you have kids, hey, 0:53:12.840 --> 0:53:14.520 this is the world they're going to be living in, 0:53:14.680 --> 0:53:18.719 you know, and and it's our responsibility to kind of 0:53:19.280 --> 0:53:22.640 make them aware of what's going on and what the 0:53:22.680 --> 0:53:25.640 possible choices we have for a future that is going 0:53:25.719 --> 0:53:29.360 to be a great future, not just a horrible dystopic future, 0:53:29.400 --> 0:53:30.680 which is what so. 0:53:30.680 --> 0:53:33.200 Many people are talking about, right. I mean, it's you 0:53:33.280 --> 0:53:35.320 talk about doomscrolling for a reason. 0:53:35.840 --> 0:53:40.560 Lots of public intellectuals are talking about a world with 0:53:40.719 --> 0:53:44.319 a horrible future ahead, right, like digital doom and you 0:53:44.360 --> 0:53:48.719 know you name it, like none of technology taking over, 0:53:49.000 --> 0:53:52.640 you know, like noneobots and all sorts of existential risks, 0:53:53.120 --> 0:53:56.040 and very few people are talking about Okay, these are. 0:53:55.880 --> 0:53:59.880 The risks, what are the solutions? How can we revert that? 0:54:00.000 --> 0:54:02.720 And that's a much harder job because it's so easy 0:54:02.760 --> 0:54:05.400 to point fingers and say this is happening. So this 0:54:05.480 --> 0:54:08.000 is going to happen, But what about what can we 0:54:08.040 --> 0:54:11.440 do even though it costs? That's the thing, you know, 0:54:11.520 --> 0:54:15.680 every choice we make involves a little level of self 0:54:15.719 --> 0:54:19.160 sacrifice because you cannot leave the other choice. So you're 0:54:19.160 --> 0:54:22.279 always losing something when you make a choice. But some 0:54:22.400 --> 0:54:25.600 choices are for the common good, and it's time for 0:54:25.680 --> 0:54:28.400 us to be thinking about us and this planet in 0:54:28.520 --> 0:54:31.960 terms of the common good. Ours and everybody else is 0:54:32.000 --> 0:54:32.359 in it. 0:54:33.120 --> 0:54:36.000 So thank you so much. For writing such an inspirational 0:54:36.040 --> 0:54:37.960 book and for coming on the show to discuss it. 0:54:38.560 --> 0:54:40.879 I recommend it to all our listeners. It's a great read. 0:54:40.880 --> 0:54:43.920 It's a very consumable read. You just end up reading 0:54:44.160 --> 0:54:46.920 the entire book in a single session, And I think 0:54:46.960 --> 0:54:48.799 it's a great read to kick off the new year, 0:54:48.840 --> 0:54:49.560 wouldn't you say? 0:54:49.760 --> 0:54:52.680 Absolutely? Twenty twenty four, folks, you know this is the 0:54:52.760 --> 0:54:57.880 year where if things don't change radically, you know, we 0:54:57.960 --> 0:54:59.560 are going to be paying more and more of a 0:54:59.600 --> 0:55:01.839 price every year. And we don't want that. We want 0:55:01.840 --> 0:55:03.960 a better place. We don't want a worse place. So 0:55:04.080 --> 0:55:07.160 let's wake up and work together to make this happen. 0:55:07.920 --> 0:55:11.160 Well said. Where can our listeners follow you and learn 0:55:11.200 --> 0:55:12.040 more about your work? 0:55:12.440 --> 0:55:15.920 Oh, I'm all over at social media. You know. There 0:55:15.960 --> 0:55:20.040 is a Marcella Glizer dot com. I am on x 0:55:20.280 --> 0:55:23.440 and Instagram, and I have a ton of followers on 0:55:23.520 --> 0:55:28.200 YouTube and so and also LinkedIn because I'm starting a 0:55:28.239 --> 0:55:33.839 new think tank in Tuscany actually, which is precisely to 0:55:33.880 --> 0:55:38.400 help corporate leaders rethink about their roles in the world. 0:55:38.680 --> 0:55:40.759 You know. So I'm thinking that one way we could 0:55:40.800 --> 0:55:44.080 affect change is by going straight to the power source 0:55:44.719 --> 0:55:47.799 and making them see other ways of thinking about the 0:55:47.840 --> 0:55:52.000 world and then implement them in their business. So, in 0:55:52.000 --> 0:55:54.560 a sense, even though I don't like trickle down economics, 0:55:54.600 --> 0:55:58.160 this would be a trickle down worldview change, and that's 0:55:58.200 --> 0:56:00.719 what we're trying to do. So I'm all over. I 0:56:00.880 --> 0:56:02.640 just look for my name and you'll find. 0:56:02.400 --> 0:56:06.280 Me excellent, and we'll have our social media accounts tag 0:56:06.320 --> 0:56:07.640 you where we can as well. 0:56:08.000 --> 0:56:10.160 Awesome, Rob, Thank you so much for your time and 0:56:10.239 --> 0:56:11.000 fight invitation. 0:56:11.440 --> 0:56:13.920 Thank you for chatting with us, Thank you, thank you. 0:56:15.760 --> 0:56:18.200 Thanks again to Marcello Glizer for taking time out of 0:56:18.200 --> 0:56:20.799 his holiday to chat with me here. The Dawn of 0:56:20.840 --> 0:56:24.919 a Mindful Universe, a manifesto for Humanity's future, is out now. 0:56:25.280 --> 0:56:29.000 Grab a copy. I highly recommend it. A reminder to 0:56:29.040 --> 0:56:31.040 everyone out there that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is 0:56:31.040 --> 0:56:35.239 primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 0:56:35.360 --> 0:56:37.920 though on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to 0:56:37.920 --> 0:56:40.520 just talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema. 0:56:40.920 --> 0:56:43.480 Also a reminder to everyone to please rate and review 0:56:43.520 --> 0:56:45.719 the show wherever you have the power to do so, 0:56:45.760 --> 0:56:48.240 and hey, if you listen to us on an Apple device. 0:56:48.480 --> 0:56:50.719 Maybe check in and make sure that you're still subscribed 0:56:51.000 --> 0:56:54.880 and receiving downloads. It helps us out. Thanks as always 0:56:54.880 --> 0:56:57.759 to the excellent JJ Possway for producing the show. 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