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Speaker 1: Terms apply. When I say the phrase aliens have arrived,

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Speaker 1: what comes to your mind? Do you think about humans

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Speaker 1: getting sliced to pieces and served for a dinner, or

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Speaker 1: alien ships blasting our cities from space. Well, here in

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Speaker 1: our happy corner of the podcast universe, we'd like to

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Speaker 1: be optimistic. There are potentially huge upsides to an alien

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Speaker 1: arrival for the curious among us, and among those I

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Speaker 1: count not just the hosts of this podcast, of course,

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Speaker 1: but you, the listeners in our community of wonderers. For

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Speaker 1: those of us who are curious about the universe, meeting

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Speaker 1: aliens who are technologically advanced enough to arrive on Earth

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Speaker 1: seems like a great opportunity. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a

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Speaker 1: particle fist and a professor at UC Irvine, and I

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Speaker 1: want to know the secrets that aliens have learned about

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Speaker 1: the universe. And welcome to the podcast Daniel and Jorge

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Speaker 1: Explain the Universe, a production of iHeartRadio. My co Hostge

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Speaker 1: Champ can't be with us today, so it's just me

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Speaker 1: and a guest to talk about the secrets of alien science.

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Speaker 1: Imagine for a moment the best case scenario. Aliens arrive

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Speaker 1: on Earth and they are friendly, and we can figure

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Speaker 1: out how to talk to them, and our scientists can

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Speaker 1: talk to their scientists. Maybe these aliens know things about

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Speaker 1: space and time or quantum mechanics that we haven't figured

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Speaker 1: out yet. Maybe we could fast forward human science a

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Speaker 1: thousand years or a million years In this picture, you

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Speaker 1: can imagine human and alien scientists are like together, engaged

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Speaker 1: in some grand project to unravel the secrets of the universe.

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Speaker 1: If we can talk to them, and if they do

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Speaker 1: science like we do, and if we can make sense

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Speaker 1: of what they've learned, it could be an incredi of

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Speaker 1: a moment, really a pivot in human history. But is

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Speaker 1: that possible? As one listener asked a few weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: could we even grocket or would they be too advanced?

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Speaker 1: So today on the podcast, we'll be asking the question

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Speaker 1: could aliens teach us science? Could we establish a common

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Speaker 1: enough understanding to communicate about complex intellectual questions like particle physics?

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Speaker 1: Would they be interested in the same questions we are,

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Speaker 1: Would we be able to understand their science? Could it

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Speaker 1: be incompatible with ours? Are we certain they would even

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Speaker 1: have developed science in order to be technological. To help

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Speaker 1: me explore these questions, it's my pleasure to introduce today's guest,

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Speaker 1: Samuel kimpton I. Samuel is a research associate at the

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Speaker 1: University of Bristol. He works on issues at the intersection

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Speaker 1: of metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Currently, he's working

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Speaker 1: on the Meta Science Project which seeks to unify the

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Speaker 1: natural sciences, but he agreed to join me on the

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Speaker 1: podcast to talk about aliens and how they think about science. Sam,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 4: Thanks so much for having me, Daniel.

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Speaker 1: So tell me first, how often does the topic of

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Speaker 1: aliens and their scientific minds come up in metaphysics and

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Speaker 1: philosophy of science. Is it totally fringe or is there

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Speaker 1: like a whole journal devoted to this topic.

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Speaker 4: Good question.

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Speaker 5: Far from a whole journal, No, that would be a stretch.

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Speaker 5: I mean, philosophers are very interested in thinking about wacky,

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Speaker 5: far out possibilities and scenarios, so aliens do come up occasionally.

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Speaker 5: There are also other monsters in there, sometimes zombies, vampires

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Speaker 5: and the like. So I wasn't completely surprised that you

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Speaker 5: woul choose to ask a philosopher to talk about this

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Speaker 5: sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: It seems to me exactly the kind of things philosophers

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Speaker 1: might love to talk about, because it's a great way

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Speaker 1: to ask one specific question, you know, asking the question

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Speaker 1: how do aliens think about science? Could we understand their science?

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Speaker 1: Seems to me a great way to reflect on whether

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Speaker 1: or not our science is universal or just human, whether

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Speaker 1: it's something we've discovered or something we've invented. So I

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Speaker 1: would be a little surprised if it's not something philosophers

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Speaker 1: are already thinking about.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 5: I mean, it's something that I've been thinking about recently

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Speaker 5: actually in the context of the philosophy of the laws

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Speaker 5: of nature and to what extent we should be kind

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Speaker 5: of realist or pragmatist about these things. And maybe we

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Speaker 5: can get into that in some more detail. But there's

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Speaker 5: definitely some value, certainly in thinking about how just beings

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Speaker 5: with very different modes of cognition might explore the world

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Speaker 5: and kind of systematize their experiences as well. Right, So,

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Speaker 5: you know, we've got our five senses, and that seems

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Speaker 5: to be completely integral to up to how we're going

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Speaker 5: to explore the world, and so we're going to be

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Speaker 5: systematizing the world on the basis of our sense experience.

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Speaker 5: But it seems certainly imaginable that some other creatures would

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Speaker 5: have very different senses, and so the way they systematize

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Speaker 5: the world and do science would be quite different.

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Speaker 1: Indeed, And senses are something that philosophers, I know, talk

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Speaker 1: about a lot. This person isolated in a room who's

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Speaker 1: never seen the color red and the notion of qualia.

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Speaker 1: But it seems to me it needs to be sort

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Speaker 1: of a difficult topic to explore because we are limited

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Speaker 1: to our senses, and so we're sort of in a box,

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Speaker 1: and it's hard to imagine, like what it's like to

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Speaker 1: be in a different box where you experience the universe

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Speaker 1: with totally different senses. It's the goal there to think about,

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Speaker 1: like what it would be like to experience the universe

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Speaker 1: if you could like taste electrons, or if you had

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Speaker 1: some sense for dark matter or neutrinos. Is it possible

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Speaker 1: for us to really take that jump into sort of

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Speaker 1: logic our way into what it's like to be a bat?

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Speaker 1: You know, what it's like to be an alien? Or

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Speaker 1: is that really impossible?

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Speaker 4: Exactly right?

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Speaker 5: I think that's the exact sorts of issues that that

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Speaker 5: people might like to wrestle with in this area, right,

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Speaker 5: And yeah, you've got the reference in there to what

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Speaker 5: it's like to be a bat. And famously, philosopher Thomas

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Speaker 5: Nagel argued that we can't possibly know what it's like

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Speaker 5: to be a bat. But while that might be the case,

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Speaker 5: at least we can sort of start to think about

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Speaker 5: why that's so right. So the bat navigates by sonar

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Speaker 5: as opposed to kind of visual experiences, and while we

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Speaker 5: can kind of do some science of sonar, it seems

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Speaker 5: a lot step from that to actually being able to

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Speaker 5: know what it's like to be that bad. And so

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Speaker 5: it certainly seems imaginable that there are just other actual

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Speaker 5: creatures out there, or possible alien creatures that would just

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Speaker 5: experience the world so dramatically differently to us that it

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Speaker 5: would be impossible to kind of get into their perspectives

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Speaker 5: and their minds. And so this is quite mind boggling

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Speaker 5: to think that the way that we're experiencing the universe

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Speaker 5: is potentially quite limited in a way.

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Speaker 1: And we know that it's limited. I mean, physics at

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Speaker 1: least has told us that most of the universe is

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Speaker 1: invisible to us. You know, most of the universe is

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Speaker 1: dark matter, which we don't even know what it is.

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Speaker 1: And even of the matter that we are familiar with,

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Speaker 1: like neutrinos, are streaming in front of us all the time,

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Speaker 1: but we can't see them. And so there's a lot.

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Speaker 1: We know for a fact that there's a lot going

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Speaker 1: on in the universe that we do not sense, and

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Speaker 1: that therefore, our mental picture of the universe is a

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Speaker 1: very particular one, and it seems frustrating but enticing to

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Speaker 1: me at the same time. Like, if aliens are so

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Speaker 1: alien that they might be impossible for us to like

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Speaker 1: the digest, that also suggest that they have some very

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Speaker 1: valuable insight, Like the more alien they are, the more

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Speaker 1: valuable it is to try to understand their minds. But

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Speaker 1: then paradoxically, the more impossible it might be.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, interesting, right, So, like you say, it's tantalizing because

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Speaker 5: even if we were to encounter these creatures, maybe we

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Speaker 5: just have no way of communicating with them, so we'd

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Speaker 5: have no into their insights. But then I guess there

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Speaker 5: are there might be kind of two dimensions to this issue.

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Speaker 5: So what you said there suggested the possibility of creatures

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Speaker 5: that might be able to perceive things that maybe we

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Speaker 5: have some sort of knowledge of, but no direct perception of,

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Speaker 5: things like nutrinos and that. But I suppose another thing

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Speaker 5: that we might think is just that, going back to

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Speaker 5: the bad example, they kind of the mode of perceiving

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Speaker 5: one's environment might just be very different for the alien.

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Speaker 5: So if they perceived by you know, reflecting sound waves

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Speaker 5: or surfaces that would just give them a very different

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Speaker 5: kind of experience. I also often think about the example

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Speaker 5: of the aliens in that the Ted Chang's story Stories

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Speaker 5: of Your Life or the film Arrival, and they have

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Speaker 5: this very different if I remember correctly as well, I

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Speaker 5: guess so I read the short story, but they have

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Speaker 5: this very different perception of time, right, And it seems

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Speaker 5: plausible to me that there could be a creature with

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Speaker 5: a very different perception of time, and then that would

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Speaker 5: just make the way they systematize and think about their

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Speaker 5: world so different from ours.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I think one of the really fun things

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Speaker 1: about that story and the movie is understanding and appreciating

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Speaker 1: how difficult it might be to communicate with aliens, not

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Speaker 1: to mention, like talk about, you know, their notions and

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Speaker 1: quantum mechanics, but just like get the basics down, you know.

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Speaker 1: And that's a whole other question, you know, and maybe

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Speaker 1: for today we should put that aside, that the question

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Speaker 1: of whether we could discover alien messages, whether we could

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Speaker 1: develop a common language with them. We recently had Gnom

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Speaker 1: Chomsky and Kareem Jabbari in the podcast to talk about,

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Speaker 1: you know, the universality of language and something that comes

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Speaker 1: up often in these conversations is not necessarily like could

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Speaker 1: we understand their lingo and their slaying and how they communicate,

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Speaker 1: but that there might be a deeper way to communicate

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Speaker 1: something that's common, something that's universe. This is I think

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Speaker 1: widely held belief that we can avoid this whole question

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Speaker 1: of language by focusing on the mathematics and the physics,

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Speaker 1: which might be more universal. And Carl Segen famously argued

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Speaker 1: that we could use mathematics to find a common intellectual context.

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Speaker 1: But how much can we say about like the universality

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Speaker 1: of mathematics itself. What do we know about whether it's

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Speaker 1: likely to be just the way humans think, like an abstract,

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Speaker 1: sort of succinct way to describe the thought processes that

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Speaker 1: we have, or something that actually reflects the objective structure

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Speaker 1: of the universe. How do we probe that kind of question?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a great question, Daniel. And this is a

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Speaker 5: whole area of really fruitful research and philosophy, and the

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Speaker 5: philosophy of mathematics, which I certainly can't claim to be

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Speaker 5: any kind of expert on. But it's tantalizing for sure.

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Speaker 5: I Mean, there's this problem right that you might have

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Speaker 5: encountered a problem of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. And

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Speaker 5: it seems kind of surprising and really cool that mathematics

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Speaker 5: turns out to be so good at describing the physical

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Speaker 5: universe that we find around us, right, this abstract formal

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Speaker 5: system that we've perhaps invented, you know, a lot of

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Speaker 5: branches of mathematics come about just by mathematicians thinking in

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Speaker 5: the abstract kind of having fun and doing puzzles, if

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Speaker 5: you like, and then turn out to be applicable to

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Speaker 5: real physical systems. And this is kind of remarkable and

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Speaker 5: maybe something like a hint at the fact that the

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Speaker 5: universe is in a way kind of made in these

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Speaker 5: mathematical terms, and there's something objective going on here.

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Speaker 4: So that's an interesting thought.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe there's some hope that that could be something

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Speaker 5: of a universe, or that even crazy arrival type aliens

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Speaker 5: might be able to communicate with us in terms of.

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Speaker 1: I'd love to believe that, and I'd love to think

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Speaker 1: that mathematics is somehow the language of the universe itself,

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Speaker 1: you know that, like, if we're in a simulation, then

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Speaker 1: mathematics is the way that the source code has been

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Speaker 1: written in some way. But it seems to me a

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Speaker 1: little bit presumptuous, And let me take the devil's advocate

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Speaker 1: position there and argue against it. The thing that makes

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Speaker 1: me wonder about whether mathematics really is fundamental is not

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Speaker 1: that mathematics is not effective, because you're right, it absolutely is.

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Speaker 1: It's incredible how well our physical theories work. And I'm

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Speaker 1: a particle physicist, and we make mathematical predictions to like

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Speaker 1: ten decimal places, and we go out in the universe

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Speaker 1: and we do experiments and while they're bang on right,

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Speaker 1: and that gives you this feeling like, wow, maybe this

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Speaker 1: isn't just a description of the universe. Maybe it is

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Speaker 1: the way the universe does these calculations. But the problem

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Speaker 1: with that argument is that every theory that we have,

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Speaker 1: every mathematical description we have of the universe, we know

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Speaker 1: is an effective theory, not a fundamental theory. We know

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Speaker 1: that it has domains of validity. You know, for example,

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Speaker 1: Newton's theory works really really well until we measured very

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Speaker 1: precisely the orbit of mercury. We were like, wow, this

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Speaker 1: might be the way the universe works. Maybe Newton had

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Speaker 1: revealed the truth of the universe. And so there are

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Speaker 1: many theories out there that only work in sort of

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Speaker 1: a region, you know, under certain conditions or in certain systems,

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Speaker 1: And can you say that they are a fundamental description

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Speaker 1: of the universe, a true description of the way the

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Speaker 1: universe works? Definitely not right. Newton was not correct about

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Speaker 1: the real nature of space and time and gravity, and

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Speaker 1: yet his theory worked really well. And today we have

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Speaker 1: theories that work really well, but we suspect, or we

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Speaker 1: are fairly confident, that they aren't the deepest theories of

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Speaker 1: the universe. The current standard model, for example, will break

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Speaker 1: down at the plank scale, where it needs a description

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Speaker 1: of gravity. So how do we know that there are

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Speaker 1: mathematical descriptions that are really fundamental, not just effective in

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Speaker 1: some regime. Are we just looking at sort of like

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Speaker 1: a patchwork of mathematical ideas, not like a true revealing

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Speaker 1: of the nature of the universe.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, interesting, Daniel, A very good point there, and it

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Speaker 5: reminds me of a debate in the philosophy of science,

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Speaker 5: realism versus anti realism. Roughly, the debate over whether or

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Speaker 5: not science kind of gets at the truth of how

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Speaker 5: things are, and the anti realists say that you say

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Speaker 5: that it doesn't get that the truth have an argument

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Speaker 5: along those lines, right, They say, Look, all of these

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Speaker 5: past scientific theories have proven to be false, so you know,

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Speaker 5: why could we hold out any hope that our current

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Speaker 5: theories are anywhere near the truth.

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Speaker 4: But then the flip side of that, like you say.

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Speaker 5: The perhaps you alluded to that these kind of false

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Speaker 5: theories that are mathematized, as we've mentioned before as well,

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Speaker 5: nonetheless seem to be kind of doing quite well, and

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Speaker 5: we can do some good work with things like Newton's theory.

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Speaker 5: We can send people into space and stuff like that. Right,

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Speaker 5: So although they might be strictly speaking false, they might

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Speaker 5: be kind of getting at something that's kind of almost right,

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Speaker 5: And we might think that the better theories nonetheless preserve

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Speaker 5: something of the structure of Newton's theory. So then, something

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Speaker 5: that some metaphysicians and philosophers of science have said in

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Speaker 5: response to this kind of pessimistic argument for antirealism and

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Speaker 5: a slightly more skeptical stance, is that maybe what we're

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Speaker 5: doing when we're describing the universe kind of imperfectly but

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Speaker 5: in a way that kind of works and is then

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Speaker 5: built on, is we're getting at some underlying deep structure. Right,

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Speaker 5: So then maybe our mass, maybe even something like Newton's theory,

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Speaker 5: is nonetheless latching onto some sort of objective structure in

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Speaker 5: a much kind of broader or deeper sense than whether

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Speaker 5: it's directly true. And so there might be some hope

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Speaker 5: there that the maths is describing something that is fundamentally

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Speaker 5: correct that's then sustained through the theory change.

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Speaker 1: The idea there, I guess is maybe alien physicists also

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Speaker 1: hit on Newton's approach before they hit on Einstein's approach

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Speaker 1: that is not just a human description of the universe,

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Speaker 1: but it really is an effective approximation of the way

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Speaker 1: the universe really works. I guess that is that the argument.

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Speaker 4: I think that might be the idea.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, right, I mean we can also think we know

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Speaker 5: that Newton's theory is false, but but we can still

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Speaker 5: wonder why it's so kind of effective and useful for us.

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Speaker 5: And perhaps an answer to that is that it is

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Speaker 5: getting at some sort of underlying structure in some sense.

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Speaker 5: It might be kind of slightly grappling and groping in

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Speaker 5: the dark at this thing, but it might be kind

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Speaker 5: of getting close, you know. And so that's why we

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Speaker 5: might be able to nonetheless use Newton's theory for all

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Speaker 5: sorts of interests and purposes that we have.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well, I have a lot more questions

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Speaker 1: about how we might probe the universe and how alien

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Speaker 1: we're back and we're talking to my guests, Samuel kim Deny,

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Speaker 1: a philosopher of science and metaphysics, about how aliens might

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Speaker 1: think about science. And when we took a break there,

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Speaker 1: we were examining the question of whether our approximate theories

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Speaker 1: like Newton's series, whether they're just sort of like human

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Speaker 1: versions of the truth, or whether they might be universal

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Speaker 1: alien physicists likely to stumble into sort of the same

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Speaker 1: ideas as we are, or are these just sort of

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Speaker 1: the way the humans think about the universe. And I

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Speaker 1: think one way to maybe probe that is to think

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Speaker 1: about why it's even possible to do what Newton did.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if the universe has some fundamental theory down

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Speaker 1: at the string scale of quantum gravity, whatever is going

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Speaker 1: on down there, why isn't everything at the human scale

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Speaker 1: totally chaotic? You know, if you try to describe a

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Speaker 1: hurricane in terms of its fundamental bits, the rain drops,

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Speaker 1: it's a huge difficult problem. We don't have like a

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Speaker 1: simple equation that tells you where a hurricane is going

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Speaker 1: to land. It's a massively chaotic problem, and you have

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Speaker 1: to model every tiny little rain drop, and if rain

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Speaker 1: drop moves over a meter, it could change the entire

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Speaker 1: path of the hurricane. But in our world, it's possible

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Speaker 1: to do what Newton did and describe the path of

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Speaker 1: a ball through the air without knowing anything about quantum gravity. Right,

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Speaker 1: you can make chicken soup without knowing what the soup

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Speaker 1: is really made out of, and to me, that seems

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Speaker 1: like the key there. If these things are emerging in

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Speaker 1: these descriptions, these simplified mathematical stories of the universe are universal.

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Speaker 1: Everybody else should find them as well. But do we

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Speaker 1: even know why they exist? Why is it possible to

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Speaker 1: find these simplified mathematical stories of the universe. It seems

436
00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:17,879
Speaker 1: to me key to understanding whether aliens are also going

437
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:18,520
Speaker 1: to find them?

438
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:21,359
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, I mean again, this is a thing that philosopher,

439
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:24,960
Speaker 5: science and metaphysicians really puzzle over. It's why do we

440
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:27,160
Speaker 5: need to have all of the different sciences? Why can't

441
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:30,040
Speaker 5: we just have fundamental physics and may be chemistry. Why

442
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:33,080
Speaker 5: do we need biology and psychology and economics as well?

443
00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:35,240
Speaker 1: Right, that's a little bit aggressive. Why do we need

444
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 1: anything but physics? Really, physics is the only science. I'm

445
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:40,280
Speaker 1: not sure I would go it.

446
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 5: Could be taken like that, but it could more be Yeah,

447
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 5: a puzzlement once once we kind of realize or think that, hey,

448
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 5: it looks like everything's kind of composed of fundamental particles

449
00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:51,720
Speaker 5: or fields or something like that. Why can't we just

450
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 5: do it all in fundamental terms? And yeah, I think,

451
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,400
Speaker 5: like you say, it's something of a mystery. I don't

452
00:22:57,440 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 5: know if this is really an answer, but this is

453
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,440
Speaker 5: just kind of refraining the issue. But what sort of

454
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 5: seems to happen is that we can effectively abstract away

455
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,159
Speaker 5: from certain details, right, because when we look at the

456
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:10,000
Speaker 5: level of the weather systems or the ball flying through

457
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:13,199
Speaker 5: through space, we don't need to think about certain details

458
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 5: at the fundamental level. We can kind of coarse grain

459
00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:18,200
Speaker 5: the information, and then that presents a picture that's far

460
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:21,840
Speaker 5: more useful and tractable for us given our interests. Right,

461
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:23,320
Speaker 5: And this is what we do, and this is how

462
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 5: we navigate the world, Like you say, we can we

463
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:27,919
Speaker 5: can make our chicken soup without worrying about what the

464
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:30,160
Speaker 5: what the electrons or the fields are doing.

465
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:32,920
Speaker 1: Right, But you said something really interesting there, you said

466
00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: based on what our interests are. It makes me wonder

467
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: if the universe is sort of like Rassaman. You know

468
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: what if we look at one system and we say, oh,

469
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,120
Speaker 1: the interesting thing here is a ball flying through the air,

470
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 1: and look, I can tell a simple mathematical story about it,

471
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 1: and an alien physicist would be like, ball, what even

472
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: is that? I'm more interested in the flow of these

473
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: particles over here, and I call that a blah blah blah,

474
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: And here's my equation for the blah blah blah, and

475
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:59,199
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. And you know, is there a patchwork of

476
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:03,160
Speaker 1: mathematical story that are only interesting to us? Or are

477
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 1: these stories likely to be universal? And I know that

478
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: the real answer waits until we meet the aliens, we've

479
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: talked science with them, and we figure out if they've

480
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 1: developed completely independent branches of science. But I wonder you

481
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:17,399
Speaker 1: think it's possible to approach that question and address that

482
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 1: question today before we've met the aliens, just by looking

483
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: at the structure of our theories and looking for a

484
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 1: hints that these things might be arbitrary or might be universal.

485
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: How can we possibly pull those things apart today before

486
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 1: we get to talk to the aliens?

487
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 4: Nice?

488
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 5: I mean, I happen to be somewhat skeptical about the

489
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 5: idea that there really is an objective way of kind

490
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 5: of I guess so if we think about the ball

491
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 5: or the chicken soup, talk of that as like a

492
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 5: way of coarse graining the low level information to suit

493
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 5: our interests, I'm kind of skeptical that there is an

494
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 5: objectively right or best way to do that, and it

495
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 5: seems kind of plausible to me that, yeah, the aliens

496
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 5: might be interested in some very different course grainings. Right,

497
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 5: So we're interested in the of matter that kind of

498
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 5: corresponds to what we call the ball, But why not

499
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 5: be interested in the lump of matter that we call

500
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 5: the ball and also my nose every Tuesday?

501
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: Right?

502
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,199
Speaker 5: So this would be a very strange kind of thing

503
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 5: to be interested in because it kind of jumps over

504
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,160
Speaker 5: time and space in strange sorts of ways. But look,

505
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 5: I can define that object, right, this lump of matter

506
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 5: that we call the ball and my nose on Tuesdays?

507
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 5: And why not try and describe the behavior of that thing.

508
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 5: Maybe that's a bit too silly, but I think that

509
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:31,120
Speaker 5: the point is it turns out to be very difficult

510
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 5: to say why objectively we should be interested in the

511
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 5: things that we are interested in. And do we think

512
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 5: that an alien species would be wrong for having some

513
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 5: very interested in very different kind of coarse grainings or

514
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 5: would it be impossible for aliens to have interested in

515
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 5: very different kinds of course grainings.

516
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.

517
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 5: I don't see why it would be wrong if they

518
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 5: had these different interests. It doesn't strike me as impossible

519
00:25:57,320 --> 00:25:59,159
Speaker 5: either if they're again like going back to what we're

520
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 5: saying at the beginning, their modes of perceiving that their

521
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:05,360
Speaker 5: central sense experiences were very different to us, or maybe

522
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 5: if they perceived time very differently than we did, why

523
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 5: not you.

524
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: Know, right? And to me it goes to really the

525
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: heart of the question of the human experience and the

526
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:15,640
Speaker 1: context of it. In the same way that we want

527
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 1: to know are we alone because we want to understand,

528
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:21,919
Speaker 1: like is life rare? And we also like to know

529
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,879
Speaker 1: are there other kinds of life that does biology have

530
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:26,879
Speaker 1: lots of different options and we just got one? Or

531
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,399
Speaker 1: is this basically the only way it can work? Meeting

532
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: aliens can answer that question, and in the same way

533
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: meeting alien physicists could tell us like, oh, look, it

534
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 1: turns out they got their own Newton and they got

535
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 1: their own Einstein, and this is the path you take

536
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 1: to understanding the universe and it basically everybody follows the

537
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: same path, or you know, did they take a completely

538
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: separate path? And a thought experiment I'd love to do

539
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,399
Speaker 1: in reality is to take like a thousand earths and

540
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: have humans evolve intelligently and then let science progress independently,

541
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: you know, Newton almost didn't even become a scientist. What

542
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,880
Speaker 1: would have happened if he hadn't, if we hadn't had Einstein,

543
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: or if somebody else had been even smarter. You know,

544
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:06,439
Speaker 1: it feels to me like the path of human science

545
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: rests so much on these tiny moments, these tiny accidents,

546
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 1: these tiny choices that people make, that it could have

547
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: very well gone a different way, and we have really

548
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: no way to probe, you know, the different paths that

549
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,400
Speaker 1: might have taken, because we haven't met those aliens yet.

550
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: One way I've thought about it to probe that is

551
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: to look at the sort of history of the development

552
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: of intellectual scientific thought here on Earth. Do you know

553
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: anything about like the history of you know, Mayan science

554
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: and Chinese science and Egyptian astronomy, and whether they can

555
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: tell us whether independent groups of humans tend to come

556
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: to the same ways of thinking about the universe, or

557
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: whether there really are divergent ways to attack this problem.

558
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 5: I think that's exactly the right way to kind of

559
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 5: go about investigating this thing a bit more empirically.

560
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:51,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, that sounds like a great idea to me.

561
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, I don't know about any investigations along those lines.

562
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 5: Although I'm sure there are some something kind of similar

563
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 5: that I have heard about in philosoph is there's a

564
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 5: recent movement in experimental called experimental philosophy, which basically surveys

565
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 5: the kind of philosophical intuitions of the folk on various

566
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 5: philosophical puzzles and things like that. So philosophy has kind

567
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 5: of philosophical intuitions have been kind of put in the

568
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 5: spotlight recently because it's like, hang on a minute, these

569
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,439
Speaker 5: are the intuitions generally seem to be the interesting intuitions

570
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 5: of Western philosophers, and maybe they wouldn't be shared across

571
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 5: the board, or they wouldn't be shared even just by

572
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 5: people who aren't kind of indoctrinated into the academy as

573
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 5: it were. And the experimental philosophers have done some work

574
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 5: in this area, and I think they've uncovered more divergence

575
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 5: in kind of philosophical intuitions than the kind of Western

576
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 5: canon would have us believe. So I think there is

577
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 5: some good reason to think that something similar might be

578
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 5: the case with science as well, right, And I mean,

579
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 5: I suppose another thing. I guess why I think this

580
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 5: is relevant is because I think, really at the fundamental level.

581
00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 5: You can't draw sharp dividing lines between a kind of

582
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 5: philosophical blue sky approach to thinking about the world and

583
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 5: the scientific approach. We've all got to kind of start somewhere.

584
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 5: And so if there's some evidence to suggest that these

585
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 5: kind of broad philosophical intuitions on big questions are quite

586
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 5: divergent between different people and different cultures, then I don't

587
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 5: see why that wouldn't maybe lead us to think that

588
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 5: plausibly different ways of doing science and different kind of

589
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 5: foundational thoughts and intuitions on scientific issues might vary quite

590
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 5: radically across people in different cultures as well.

591
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, pascinating. Well, we'll have a scientific anthropologist on to

592
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: talk about how indigenous cultures do science and the history

593
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: of the development there. But I think that'd be a

594
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I'm going to turn us back to

595
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,959
Speaker 1: the question we were discussing a moment ago, which is,

596
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: you know, whether these emergent theories, these mathematical descriptions of

597
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: the world that we see it, are universal or whether

598
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: they're just sort of culturally dependent and could be different

599
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: for aliens. But let's zoom down and talk about maybe

600
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: like the fundamental theory of the universe. Some listeners out

601
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: there might think, well, perhaps we have different descriptions of

602
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: balls versus noses, But at his heart, the universe is

603
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 1: a certain way. There are fundamental vibrating strings, or there

604
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: are space pixels or something at the quantum gravity level,

605
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: and what if we all zoom down there, would we

606
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: inevitably find the same description of the universe because it

607
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: is one way. So. Kareem Jabbari from the Institute of

608
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: Future Studies was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago.

609
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: He made a claim that I found a bit shocking.

610
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: He said that you could have two fundamental theories of

611
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: the universe that both work in the sense that they

612
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 1: succeed at describing what we see, but internally are fundamentally

613
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 1: different pictures of the universe, or like completely different mental

614
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: descriptions and mental structures telling us a story about what's

615
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 1: happening at the deepest scale. Do you agree with that?

616
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: Do you think it's possible to have multiple accurate theories

617
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: of the fundamental nature of the universe?

618
00:30:57,920 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, very interesting.

619
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 5: I think nice like the approach there to think, Okay,

620
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 5: maybe if we zoom down then we can then we

621
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 5: can hope for some more objectivity. I suppose one thing

622
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 5: that comes to my mind is that kind of approach

623
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 5: hopes or assumes that there is such a thing as

624
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 5: a fundamental level. For all we know, it could be

625
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 5: infinitely infinitely divisible all the way all the way down right,

626
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 5: And then I don't know, if we'd be in trouble.

627
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 5: Then that might kind of scuffer our our aspirations for objectivity.

628
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: It might mean a lot of work for particle physicists

629
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: for a long time, though we just keep building bigger

630
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: and bigger atom.

631
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 4: Smasures potentially good news.

632
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 5: Then yeah, so that's something that I would worry a

633
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 5: bit about. I mean, so, like, I suppose the worry,

634
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 5: the kind of anti objectivist or or pragmatist approach or

635
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 5: kind of worry would be that maybe all there is

636
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 5: to the universe is just some kind of homogeneous blob

637
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:50,959
Speaker 5: of matter, and we just kind of cut it up

638
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 5: in ways that serve our interests. And so then your

639
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 5: perhaps counterproposal here is, but but what if we could

640
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 5: just get to the very nature of the homogeneous blob

641
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 5: matter stuff itself? Well, yeah, I don't know. Perhaps it

642
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 5: it depends what we mean by homogeneous exactly. I suppose

643
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,719
Speaker 5: and how homogenous this blob stuff could be and what

644
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 5: there really would be to say about it independently of

645
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 5: how we carve it up. So I think it's it's

646
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 5: the right way to go, but I think it depends

647
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 5: on a fair amount of kind of hope that there

648
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 5: is going to be some fundamental structure beyond which we

649
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 5: can't make any further subdivisions, and that it's going to

650
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 5: be some way that we're going to be able to

651
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 5: latch onto. And maybe I think that's more likely, but

652
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 5: I'm a little bit skeptical, as perhaps you can.

653
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: You can the sense, well, you know, my fantasy is

654
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 1: that aliens come and they've been thinking about physics the

655
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: way we have. They're just like a million years advanced,

656
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: and they can like guide us through what would have

657
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:43,840
Speaker 1: taken us a million years to figure out in just

658
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: one hundred years, and we zoom forwards, you know, But

659
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: that relies on us having sort of the same principles.

660
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: And the flip side of that, my nightmare scenario is

661
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 1: that there is no fundamental true description of the universe

662
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 1: and that everything we have learned is just this like

663
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 1: patchwork of effect theories or like a ladder of effective

664
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: theories where we have like a description at the galaxy scale,

665
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: we have a description at the Solar system scale, and

666
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 1: at the human scale, and at the atom scale and

667
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: at the quark scale. None of these things are like

668
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: deeply true. They're just like our mathematical stories about the

669
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: noses we find interesting. And aliens might have their own ladder,

670
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: They might pick different scales to explore, they might tell

671
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: totally different stories. And so when we go to that

672
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 1: first Interstellar Physics conference to share notes that we basically

673
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: have nothing in common with these folks, and I wonder

674
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: what we could learn at that point, you know, I mean,

675
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 1: you work on this project of unifying the sciences of

676
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: your metascience project, and we thought about, like what it

677
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: might be possible to try to incorporate a new emergent

678
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: theory that sort of straddles our various sciences into our structure,

679
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: Like how do we absorb that into our sort of

680
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 1: mental canon and make use of it If the aliens

681
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: are fascinated in this thing that we've never even.

682
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 4: Thought about, Yeah, very interesting.

683
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 5: I mean I certainly don't share your your concern with

684
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 5: the so called nightmare scenario. That doesn't necessarily seem worrying

685
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 5: to me. I mean, for sure, it seems threatening to

686
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 5: a certain sort of hypothesis, something along the lines of, yeah,

687
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 5: that the sciences are all unified and they're all kind

688
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 5: of ultimately getting at one fundamental objective truth. And so

689
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 5: one could think that that situation would be evidence for

690
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 5: a kind of radical disunity of the sciences. And I

691
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 5: take it that that's the kind of thing that you're

692
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 5: you're finding nightmarish, But why right, like that that would

693
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:31,839
Speaker 5: be an interesting empirical discovery in its own right, and

694
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 5: so why not just kind of wonder at that right

695
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 5: that that seems pretty interesting to me?

696
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: That would be a nice meal for the philosophers if

697
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: it would be disappointing for the physicists, right.

698
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 5: Yeah, well no, look, I mean I'm not particularly confident

699
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 5: about this, but I think there are a great many philosophers,

700
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:49,320
Speaker 5: maybe the majority, who probably do hold out for something

701
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 5: like the unity that you that you sounded like you

702
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 5: were keen on there. So then your other question was, like, Okay,

703
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 5: if if we did find these these aliens who had

704
00:34:56,880 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 5: this very radically way different way of thinking about the

705
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 5: universe and carving things up and doing their science, what

706
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 5: could we learn from that. Well, again, that would strike

707
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:08,840
Speaker 5: me as a very interesting empirical discovery in its own right,

708
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:11,879
Speaker 5: and it looks like it would tell us something along

709
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 5: the lines of, you know, what's kind of important when

710
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 5: we're doing science is doing something and kind of carving

711
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 5: up the world and thinking about the world in a

712
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 5: way that suits us. So then when we're doing science,

713
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 5: we're kind of learning as much about ourselves as we

714
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:30,319
Speaker 5: are about the universe. And again, that seems kind of

715
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 5: okay to me. Maybe it's not what most scientists have

716
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 5: directly in mind when they're doing science, but that seems

717
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 5: again like an interesting discovery and a very very worthwhile

718
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 5: pursuit to find out about what we're like as beings

719
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 5: and how we carve up the universe to suit our

720
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:45,240
Speaker 5: needs and interest.

721
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's like if we meet the Aliens and we

722
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: discovered they don't like hamburgers or pizza, They've invented this

723
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: other weird kind of food, and that tells us something

724
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,600
Speaker 1: about the Aliens, and you know, that's why you go

725
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: traveling to eat weird kinds of food. That tells you

726
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:00,840
Speaker 1: about what those people are like. But their music is

727
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 1: like it it's an insight into that culture. And that's

728
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: only possible if we have enough in common to even

729
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: really understand it, you know, to understand. Oh, this is

730
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: a science question, and here is your answer. I want

731
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: to turn a little bit to that sort of question.

732
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 1: Like we talked earlier about whether it's likely that aliens

733
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:21,239
Speaker 1: even have mathematics, and whether that's universal or not. What

734
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: about the other question of whether aliens are even doing science?

735
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 1: Like could science itself be a fundamentally human pursuit? Not

736
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: in the sense that we might be the only curious

737
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: people about the universe, but you know, science is something

738
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: we've only been doing in this form for a few

739
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: hundred years. Isn't it possible to have a technological civilization

740
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 1: that doesn't use this particular method of building internal mathematical

741
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: models to describe the universe in order to make technological achievements.

742
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: Do philosophers think about this question or the universality of

743
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: science itself?

744
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.

745
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:56,399
Speaker 5: I mean now I'm tempted to give a very stereotypical

746
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 5: philosopher's answer to this thing, which is like, come on,

747
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,320
Speaker 5: we don't really know what's science is. We can't demarket

748
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 5: between science and nonscience, and so and so that would

749
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 5: be a kind of a deflection of the question, I suppose.

750
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:11,360
Speaker 5: But I think ultimately the kind of the history of

751
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 5: this topic of trying to kind of define what constitutes

752
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 5: science shows that's that's hard, if not impossible, to do, right,

753
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 5: And so given that observation, I'd certainly be reluctant to

754
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,840
Speaker 5: rule out whatever these aliens are doing as counting as science,

755
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 5: because we're not really sure where to draw the line anyway, right,

756
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 5: But perhaps more positively, I suppose the point just is, well,

757
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 5: we should be kind of quite broad and quite permissive

758
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 5: in what we mean by science. And it seems plausible

759
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 5: that even if these things were radically differently kind of

760
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 5: cognitively wired than we are, if they're going about trying

761
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:50,320
Speaker 5: to kind of, you know, find their way in the universe,

762
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 5: build machines that suit their interests, inquire into questions they

763
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:57,720
Speaker 5: find interesting and fascinating, then why not call that science?

764
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: Right?

765
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 5: But I mean, maybe that's not quite what you were

766
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:02,839
Speaker 5: getting at. Maybe what you are getting out was more

767
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 5: with the science that they're doing be sufficiently similar to

768
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 5: our science for there to be any interesting points of

769
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 5: contact between us and them.

770
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 4: Was that more what you had in mind.

771
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I want to dig into that a lot more,

772
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: But first let's take another short break. When you pop

773
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: a piece of cheese into your mouth or enjoy a

774
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,879
Speaker 1: rich spoonful of Greek yogurt, you're probably not thinking about

775
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 1: the environmental impact of each and every bite. But the

776
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: people in the dairy industry are. US Dairy has set

777
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:37,760
Speaker 1: themselves some ambitious sustainability goals, including being greenhouse gas neutral

778
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: by twenty to fifty. That's why they're working hard every

779
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 1: day to find new ways to reduce waste, conserve natural resources,

780
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 1: and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. Take water, for example,

781
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: most dairy farms reuse water up to four times. The

782
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: same water cools the milk, cleans equipment, washes the barn,

783
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: and irrigates the crops. How is US dairy tackling greenhouse gases?

784
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,080
Speaker 1: Many farms use anaerobic digestors that turn the method and

785
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:03,560
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786
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: and electric cars. So the next time you grab a

787
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: slice of pizza or lick an ice cream cone, know

788
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:10,439
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789
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:14,000
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790
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:16,839
Speaker 1: dairy products we love with less of an impact. Visit

791
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Speaker 1: us dairy dot com slash sustainability to learn more.

792
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793
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794
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795
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796
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797
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798
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799
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809
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810
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811
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,800
Speaker 10: I did with repairing my credit, you know, hiring somebody

812
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Speaker 10: to do credit repair for me. You know, that was

813
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:32,520
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814
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815
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 10: my first car under my name, then eventually buy my

816
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 10: own home. Like these are all things that are possible

817
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818
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 10: and put in some of the hard work that it

819
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 10: takes to unlearn bad practices we might have, you know,

820
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 10: inherited from our family, and then also educate ourselves on

821
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 10: the things that we don't know, you know, the information

822
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:56,399
Speaker 10: that wasn't passed down to us because our parents weren't

823
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 10: educating on these things.

824
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:00,839
Speaker 9: Like a good neighbor. State farm?

825
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826
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:04,520
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827
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: All right, we're back and we're talking to philosophers science

828
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 1: and metaphysics. Samuel can Deny about the possibility of talking

829
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 1: to aliens about science, learning from them, or maybe just

830
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 1: being puzzled at the way they think about the universe.

831
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: And when we broke off, we were talking about whether

832
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 1: or not aliens do something that we recognize as science.

833
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 1: And you're right, it's not about like whether or not

834
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: we can officially call what they are doing science. It's

835
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: about whether what they're doing is close enough to what

836
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: we're doing that we could learn from them. I guess

837
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: my brain naturally goes to these nightmare scenarios where, for example,

838
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 1: we meet starfaring aliens. They come to Earth in their

839
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: spaceships that have crossed the cosmos because they've developed warp drives,

840
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:55,879
Speaker 1: And our first question is, of course, how does your

841
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 1: warp drive work? But I imagine maybe there are species that

842
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:04,240
Speaker 1: have developed technology not through the methodical development of physical models,

843
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,240
Speaker 1: but just sort of by trial and error. I think about,

844
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: for example, you know, the swordsmiths of ancient Japan or

845
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: Spain or whatever. They didn't have an understanding of why

846
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: their technique made the metal extra hard. You know, they

847
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: developed this technique mostly through trial and error. You dip

848
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: it in this, you dip it in that, you heat

849
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: this temperature, then you cool it. You get a really

850
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 1: hard sword. It's definitely a slower way to make progress,

851
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: but it's possible. Isn't it possible that we meet, you know,

852
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 1: a starfaring race of aliens that have been doing this

853
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:35,359
Speaker 1: for a million years and sort of like stumbled their

854
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: way into a warp drive or you know, lightspeed travel

855
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: or something without having a deep understanding of it that

856
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: they could communicate to us.

857
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, interesting nice.

858
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:46,760
Speaker 5: So, like one way of kind of reading that scenario

859
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 5: is that these aliens needn't be any more intelligent than

860
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 5: us or any kind of radically different to us, But

861
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 5: they could have just been around a lot longer, right,

862
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 5: and so had more time to kind of, yeah, do

863
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:58,399
Speaker 5: the trial and error procedure and come up with some things,

864
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:02,399
Speaker 5: but then some great technology and perhaps innovations that kind

865
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 5: of get them to other star systems or something like that.

866
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 5: But then they're not able to communicate to us how

867
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 5: they've done it because of how they got there. Yeah,

868
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 5: that that certainly seems plausible. But then I guess, like

869
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,319
Speaker 5: like we were saying, that that's different from this other worry,

870
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 5: which is that they've got there in kind of more

871
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 5: of a theoretical ways, that they do have something that

872
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 5: we might want to call understanding of the of the

873
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 5: underlying physical theory that's underpinning their technology, but that it's

874
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 5: just kind of so so different and again, they're kind

875
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 5: of carving up and thinking about the world in a

876
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 5: way so different from how we think about it that

877
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 5: they're not going to be able to communicate their technologies

878
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 5: and their insights to us. For that kind of reason,

879
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 5: something that I do wonder in the kind of this vicinity,

880
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 5: and more related to the latter scenario, where the worry

881
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 5: that these creatures might just be so radically different from

882
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:50,320
Speaker 5: us that we just can't learn anything from them. So

883
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,439
Speaker 5: one sort of optimism might just be that we might

884
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 5: think that the kind of counter as an agent in

885
00:43:57,520 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 5: a sense, right where that's a very broad term, but

886
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:01,319
Speaker 5: it's a kind of a bit of a philosophical term

887
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 5: of art. But you know, we're agents. We have some

888
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 5: sort of some sort of aims and goals and consciousness.

889
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 5: But to count as an agent and to have these

890
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 5: sorts of interests in exploration and building technology, there might

891
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 5: have to be some sort of commonality to what it

892
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:16,880
Speaker 5: is to be an agent, right, So to be that

893
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,719
Speaker 5: highly evolved, to be pursuing those sorts of pursuits and

894
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 5: building those sorts of technologies, it might just kind of

895
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 5: be the case that they'd have to have something somewhat

896
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,880
Speaker 5: in common with other agents, namely us, that we could

897
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 5: find at least some sort of common ground. And again

898
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:33,280
Speaker 5: that's a little bit speculative and hopeful, but it's something

899
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 5: that I kind of and somewhat persuaded by sometimes. So yeah,

900
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 5: that might be a cause for optimism.

901
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: I think that is an attractive argument, you know, to

902
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 1: suggest like, in order to develop in the universe, you

903
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: have to be curious, and you have to build mental

904
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:51,319
Speaker 1: models to explain why things happen in your life, and

905
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: those mental models naturally develop into you know, scientific thinking.

906
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:58,800
Speaker 1: I think that's an attractive argument, but it also feels

907
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: to me a little bit too easy, you know. It's

908
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: sort of like the kind of argument you make where

909
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: you say, like, well, everybody drinks coffee in the morning

910
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: because you know, everybody wakes up and they're tired and

911
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: coffee helps, so therefore all humans must drink coffee. Right.

912
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: It's sort of like and the argument you make, I

913
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: don't mean to be too negative, but it's an argument

914
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: from ignorance, right. It's to say I can't imagine something different,

915
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: therefore this must be universal. Where the whole reason we

916
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,240
Speaker 1: want to meet aliens is precisely to confront those boxes

917
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: and understand the limits of our imagination. And so that's

918
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 1: exactly the kind of argument that I'm very tempted by,

919
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 1: but I reject for that reason that I want to

920
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:36,839
Speaker 1: push my way out of it and understand if there

921
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 1: are other ways to explore this. But fundamentally, I think

922
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 1: it's frustrating because I don't think we can get out

923
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,400
Speaker 1: of that box without meeting those aliens, the way people

924
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 1: can't really understand other cultures without doing some traveling or

925
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: being exposed to them, Because sitting in your little village

926
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:55,280
Speaker 1: at home, it's probably impossible to imagine other ways humans

927
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 1: can be.

928
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:56,879
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.

929
00:45:56,960 --> 00:45:59,800
Speaker 5: That would be the best thing, wouldn't it, if we

930
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:02,840
Speaker 5: can meet these aliens. I mean, I'm not like completely

931
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 5: pessimistic that there are other ways of doing it.

932
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 4: Like we've touched on, I think maybe maybe we.

933
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 5: Could push ourselves really hard to kind of think outside

934
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:14,440
Speaker 5: the box. I mean, something that comes to mind. And

935
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 5: I don't ask too many follow ups on this, because

936
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 5: I'm by far an expert on the topic. But there's

937
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 5: this new thing in physics constructor theory, right, which we're

938
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 5: told is supposed to be a whole new approach to

939
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 5: the foundations of physics, which is nothing like anything anyone

940
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 5: has ever done or thought of doing in terms of

941
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 5: thinking about the universe before. And if that's all it's

942
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 5: cracked up to be, it might be something along these

943
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:38,880
Speaker 5: lines right away of kind of thinking from first principles

944
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 5: in a completely different way. If we think that there

945
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:44,400
Speaker 5: is the potential to really shake up our foundational thinking

946
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:46,720
Speaker 5: in these sorts of ways, then then yeah, again, maybe

947
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 5: we could have some optimism that if there were this

948
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 5: radically different species of aliens that we came into contact with,

949
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 5: that at first it looked like we had no hope

950
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 5: of interacting with them, maybe after some work and some

951
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 5: reconceptualizing of our founders we could get there, right, And

952
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 5: so I think there might be some some reasons to

953
00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 5: be optimistic.

954
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: But yeah, well, if the aliens do arrive and they

955
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: don't just like fry Us from space, do you think

956
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 1: we should send the philosophers first or the physicists.

957
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:15,919
Speaker 4: Oh?

958
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 5: I think maybe the philosophers and the physicists should probably

959
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 5: be working in tandem on this one. I think they've

960
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 5: probably got the strengths and weaknesses in this kind of

961
00:47:23,239 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 5: situation that could complement each other.

962
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:26,960
Speaker 4: So send a team of both.

963
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: I asked Niam Chanski if he thought that scientists would

964
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:33,759
Speaker 1: be allowed to talk to the aliens, and he was

965
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: pretty cynical about whether military and political structures would allow

966
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:41,839
Speaker 1: scientists and philosophers to speak on behalf of Earth, which

967
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 1: is a whole other reason to be pessimistic and not

968
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: a road I want to go down today. I think

969
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: another question people think about when they imagine speaking to

970
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:52,839
Speaker 1: aliens is putting aside all these philosophical questions and say

971
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 1: they have similar structures, and they've thought about physics in

972
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: similar ways. They're just really far advanced from us. A

973
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 1: basic question is how could they teach us what they know?

974
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:05,360
Speaker 1: How could we possibly understand the science of a super

975
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,759
Speaker 1: advanced race. It's sort of like if you gave Galileo

976
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 1: a laptop, where would you even go to explain to

977
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: him how it works and what you could do with it.

978
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: People think about, like, you know, how to bootstrap humanity

979
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,759
Speaker 1: up to the level of potential galactic aliens?

980
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 5: Well, I think there I'd be inclined to be a

981
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 5: bit more optimistic, maybe just from the kind of observation

982
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 5: that we teach children all sorts of complicated things and

983
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:33,360
Speaker 5: I've seen many child I mean, this is not necessarily

984
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 5: a good thing, but you see kids these days just

985
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,799
Speaker 5: taking to laptops and iPads as if it was kind

986
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,760
Speaker 5: of innate in them to use these objects, which strikes

987
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 5: me as kind of crazy, but then also makes me think, look,

988
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,879
Speaker 5: if we can teach kids to use these strange new

989
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 5: bits of technology, and we can educate our children to

990
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 5: do all sorts of funky things like maths and logic

991
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,320
Speaker 5: and art and poetry, then yeah, why couldn't they a

992
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:57,799
Speaker 5: Why couldn't we be the children of the aliens? Why

993
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 5: couldn't they take us under their and teach us their way?

994
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 5: So I have a little bit of optimism there.

995
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:05,759
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, let me take your optimism and turn

996
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 1: it back into a nightmare scenario, which seems to be

997
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 1: my role in this conversation, which is, the aliens come

998
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 1: and they have super advanced science, and US physicists who

999
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 1: have grown up thinking one way can't rock it. But

1000
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:21,400
Speaker 1: we send our children to the alien schools, and you're right,

1001
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:23,719
Speaker 1: to them, it probably feels totally natural. Then there's this

1002
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 1: generational divide where one set of humanity is like super

1003
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: charged in thousands of years ahead of the old ancient

1004
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: of gray haired folks like me who just never really

1005
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 1: understand the modern world.

1006
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:37,760
Speaker 5: Right, and we've got something of a toned down version

1007
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:41,360
Speaker 5: of that, it feels like today, like the Internet natives,

1008
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:44,440
Speaker 5: and that the technology native people growing up do seem

1009
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:47,400
Speaker 5: to be somewhat separated from the older generation.

1010
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's.

1011
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 5: Conceivable that that sort of divide that we actually observe

1012
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 5: could just be a lot more dramatic, right, Yeah, so

1013
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:57,240
Speaker 5: that will be nightmarish for sure.

1014
00:49:57,280 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 1: So I guess the answer is, don't give Galley of

1015
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:03,279
Speaker 1: the laptop. Give Galileo's kids the laptop and they'll be

1016
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:08,839
Speaker 1: playing a wordle within ten minutes. That's it exactly, all right.

1017
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 1: So then to wrap it up, what do you think

1018
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 1: is something we can do to prepare? I mean, I

1019
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:16,239
Speaker 1: don't know if aliens are going to come. I don't

1020
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: know if aliens even exist. I don't know if we

1021
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,839
Speaker 1: will hear a message from aliens. But these are deep

1022
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 1: and important questions and we haven't really resolved any of

1023
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 1: them today. What do you think are the most sort

1024
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 1: of important directions for humanity or philosophy to sort of

1025
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: prepare for that moment so that when it does happen,

1026
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: we have a plan or a thoughtful structure in which

1027
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: to explore these questions.

1028
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:36,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, good question.

1029
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 5: I mean I think actually one thing we could do

1030
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 5: to prepare for that scenario is to look hard at

1031
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 5: the sorts of things we take for granted. Right, So

1032
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:49,279
Speaker 5: I think scientists do this, but non scientists do this

1033
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 5: as well. Of course, we go about the world and

1034
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:53,319
Speaker 5: we take all sorts of things for granted about the

1035
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 5: nature of our reality.

1036
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 4: And really what this is is.

1037
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 5: A kind of a philosophical commitment that we have to

1038
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:03,440
Speaker 5: various assumptions and premises and background kind of structures ways

1039
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:06,479
Speaker 5: of thinking, but that we're not particularly aware of because

1040
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 5: we don't scrutinize them.

1041
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:09,080
Speaker 4: So perhaps we could do something like that.

1042
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 5: We could think about what some of these most basic

1043
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 5: assumptions that we take for granted in science but also

1044
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:18,280
Speaker 5: in everyday life, and see if they could possibly be questioned,

1045
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:21,440
Speaker 5: because look, these aliens might have very different foundational assumptions

1046
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:23,719
Speaker 5: to us, and so I think engaging in this sort

1047
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 5: of exercise could maybe come close to preparing us for

1048
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 5: this kind of encounter.

1049
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:31,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree. It's like preparing for travel. You

1050
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 1: should be asking yourself I wonder if they do drink

1051
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 1: coffee where I'm going, or you know, if they have

1052
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:38,720
Speaker 1: a totally different kind of toilet where you don't squat

1053
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: or you don't sit, or you don't stand, or who

1054
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:43,240
Speaker 1: knows what. Preparing your mind for the breadth of possibilities,

1055
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:45,480
Speaker 1: And for me at least, I totally look forward to

1056
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 1: that day when aliens blow our little minds and tell

1057
00:51:48,680 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 1: us how there are other ways to think about the universe,

1058
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:54,240
Speaker 1: to explore the universe, even to ask questions. What questions

1059
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: are they asking? You know, not just what answers do

1060
00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 1: they have, but what do they find strange and fascet

1061
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 1: about the universe. It seems to me like a lot

1062
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:05,759
Speaker 1: of what we think about as objective in science is

1063
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:08,800
Speaker 1: driven by aesthetics. A lot of the questions we're asking

1064
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: in theoretical particle physics are driven by like this looks weird,

1065
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 1: or I think it would be prettier that other way.

1066
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:18,760
Speaker 1: Even the discovery of the Higgs boson came about because

1067
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:21,560
Speaker 1: people were thinking, this theory seems kind of ugly, and

1068
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 1: it would be much prettier if we added this one

1069
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 1: other piece. And so there's a lot of you know,

1070
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: aesthetics and subjectivity and you know, personality in how we

1071
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: explore the universe. And so I think you're right that

1072
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: we need to look at that and put that under

1073
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 1: a microscope and wonder whether there are other choices that

1074
00:52:38,320 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 1: could have been made great.

1075
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:40,880
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we could even spend some time in some

1076
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 5: art galories thinking about why we like what we like

1077
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 5: and dislike what we dislike. I very much agree with that, Danah, Yeah,

1078
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 5: that sounds very sensible to me.

1079
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, as much as I'd like to

1080
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 1: send artists on that first contingent also to meet the aliens,

1081
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,480
Speaker 1: I think it's almost impossible we will ever understand alien art.

1082
00:52:57,080 --> 00:52:58,480
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that bodes well or not

1083
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: for alien philosophy and alien visits, but I'll look forward

1084
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 1: to one day finding app all right, Thanks very much,

1085
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 1: Sam for joining us with this crazy and wide ranging

1086
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Speaker 1: conversation on how aliens think about science and whether we

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Speaker 1: might ever be able to understand it.

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00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 4: Thank you, Daniel, that was really fascinating.

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Speaker 11: Thanks thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge

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00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,840
Speaker 11: Explain the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. When you

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Speaker 1: pop a piece of cheese into your mouth, you're probably

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Speaker 1: not thinking about the environmental impact. But the people in

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Speaker 1: the dairy industry are. That's why they're working hard every

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Speaker 1: day to find new ways to reduce waste, conserve natural resources,

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Speaker 1: and drive down house gas emissions. House US dairy tackling

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Speaker 1: greenhouse gases. Many farms use anaerobic digestors to turn the

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Speaker 1: methane from manure into renewable energy that can power farms, towns,

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Speaker 1: and electric cars. Visit you as dairy dot COM's Last

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Speaker 1: Sustainability to learn more.

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Speaker 7: There are children, friends, and families walking, riding on paths

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Speaker 7: and roads every day. Remember they're real people with loved

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Speaker 7: ones who need them to get home safely. Protect our

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Speaker 7: cyclists and pedestrians because they're people too.

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Speaker 1: Go safely.

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Speaker 7: California From the California Office of Traffic Safety and Caltrans.

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Speaker 12: We're Paint Care and we're all about keeping it simple.

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Speaker 12: We make recycling leftover paint easy with convenient locations like

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Speaker 12: your local paint store. We have three simple rules for

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Speaker 12: painting smarter and reducing waste. One buy only what you need,

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Speaker 12: two use up what you already have, and three recycle

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Speaker 12: the rest. Visit paintcare dot org slash three Simple Rules

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