Speaker 1: Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: today we're bringing you an interview with the physicist and
Speaker 1: author Brian Green. This one was a real treat, except
Speaker 1: we did have a major audio snag that did mean
Speaker 1: that I was not able to be on the call
Speaker 1: during this interview. So if you hear any kind of like, uh,
Speaker 1: weird sound shenanigans going on in the moments my questions
Speaker 1: come in, will be real with you, it's because I
Speaker 1: had to go back and record them later. But Robert,
Speaker 1: you you did me a great honor and asking my
Speaker 1: questions for me during the interview. Uh, so thank you
Speaker 1: for doing that. Uh, Robert, what was it like speaking
Speaker 1: to Brian Green? I have to ask, Uh, it was
Speaker 1: it was pretty great. I had. I had interviewed him
Speaker 1: once before at the World Science Festival. The World Science Festival,
Speaker 1: for anyone who who doesn't know and remember, is, uh,
Speaker 1: is this awesome gathering of of minds that happens every
Speaker 1: year in New York. But then it is then all
Speaker 1: these different panel conversations about these mind blowing topics they
Speaker 1: go out on the internet, um over you know, the
Speaker 1: months to follow, and so I had I had talked
Speaker 1: to him briefly about black holes, kind of a rushed,
Speaker 1: uh you know, busy kind of interview, and that was
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. But this was this was
Speaker 1: a lot more relaxed. Like I was talking from my closet.
Speaker 1: He was talking from you know, I think a study
Speaker 1: or or or some similar room in his own home.
Speaker 1: And so it felt felt a bit more laid back,
Speaker 1: uh this time around, though it was of course, you know,
Speaker 1: disappointing we weren't able to have you in there as well, Joe.
Speaker 1: But more to the point, Brian is just, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a brilliant mind. He's you know, one of the best
Speaker 1: known proponents, if not the best known proponent living proponent
Speaker 1: of superstring theory. Uh. The co founder of the World's
Speaker 1: Fiance Foundation, UH, Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Department of
Speaker 1: Mathematics at Columbia University in New York City, and he's
Speaker 1: the author of several books, UM The Elegant Universe, in
Speaker 1: UM The Fabric of the Cosmos in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: Icarus at the Edge of Time in two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: which is a children's book. Uh that that you know,
Speaker 1: breaks down black holes for young readers. Uh, there's the
Speaker 1: hidden reality parallel universes in the Deep Laws of the
Speaker 1: Cosmos from eleven and then his latest book. Uh. One
Speaker 1: of the main reasons we uh we we decided to
Speaker 1: chat with him in this episode until the end of
Speaker 1: time mind matter in our search for meaning in an
Speaker 1: evolving universe. I really enjoyed this book. One thing I
Speaker 1: was surprised by is how many subjects he gets into.
Speaker 1: This book is about the idea of of finitude and
Speaker 1: impermanence and he so he of course explores physics, you know,
Speaker 1: the history of the universe and the future fade of
Speaker 1: the universe, uh, in a physical sense, but he also
Speaker 1: a lot of time talking about like the social sciences
Speaker 1: and the humanities and our obsession with living forever or
Speaker 1: or with impermanence and loss and uh. And I found
Speaker 1: it a really interesting and actually kind of beautiful book.
Speaker 1: Yeah I I'm gonna stress this again during the interview itself,
Speaker 1: but if you are hesitant about picking up this book
Speaker 1: because you're thinking, oh, it's it's a book by physicist
Speaker 1: it's gonna be it's just gonna be a bunch of
Speaker 1: physics stuff. It's gonna be about black holes. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be hard to relate. No, no, no no, this book is
Speaker 1: is very relatable. It's you know, what's somewhere in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood of three hundred and something pages, but but covers
Speaker 1: a lot of ground and a lot of relatable ground,
Speaker 1: getting into you know, at times, how the how, how
Speaker 1: the how our brains contemplate the cosmos, where religion comes from, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the the role of scientific investigation in our
Speaker 1: sort of h quest to deal with the undeniable reality
Speaker 1: of mortality in our lives. Yeah. He even gets into
Speaker 1: realms like like philosophy, fee of mind and like you know,
Speaker 1: the cognitive science of religion, which we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show a good bit and and uh and mythology
Speaker 1: and all that. And I would say I was really impressed.
Speaker 1: He does a really good synthesis of complex topics that
Speaker 1: are outside his field. And um, I thought it was
Speaker 1: just a really thoroughly informative and entertaining, uh journey to
Speaker 1: go on. Yeah, And of course, if anyone out there
Speaker 1: is is if you are familiar with the World Science Festival,
Speaker 1: then you you you get it. You have a taste
Speaker 1: of the sort of interest Brian has because you see
Speaker 1: the sort of topics that are covered at World Science Festival. Uh,
Speaker 1: the diverse array of individuals who are who gathered gathered
Speaker 1: there to discuss these topics, and I think that's reflected
Speaker 1: in this book especially, so highly recommend the book. It
Speaker 1: is available now, I think in all formats you can
Speaker 1: get a kindle edition. I think the audio book is available. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a great book for any time.
Speaker 1: I think it's especially a good book, uh for our
Speaker 1: current reality. Totally. All right, Well, without further ado, let's
Speaker 1: jump into the interview. Brian. Your new book is Until
Speaker 1: the End of Time, which is an incredible title because
Speaker 1: there's this literal expectation of cracking open a book with
Speaker 1: a name like that written by a noted physicist. But
Speaker 1: there's there's also the personal aspect of that title and
Speaker 1: the religious connotations of the phrase, you know, all of
Speaker 1: which are a major part of the book as well.
Speaker 1: How did all of this come together in your your
Speaker 1: writing of Until the End of Time? Well, it's a
Speaker 1: book that I've been thinking about in one form or
Speaker 1: another for maybe thirty years, slowly gestating and really recognizing
Speaker 1: the power of having a cosmic perspective where you see
Speaker 1: your life as we all do in the everyday sense
Speaker 1: of human experience, but you're able to tell a parallel
Speaker 1: story where you recognize that you are part of this
Speaker 1: grand cosmic involting that reaches back to the Big Bang
Speaker 1: and goes as far as our equations can take us
Speaker 1: into the far future. And the depth of perspective that
Speaker 1: that can provide is I think quite gratifying, and that
Speaker 1: really was the motivation for writing the book, So that
Speaker 1: people can see their lives within a whole variety of stories.
Speaker 1: The reductions to count, to the physicist, all the way
Speaker 1: to the cosmological account of the astronomer. You eve a
Speaker 1: wonderful interconnected tapestry of these subjects. But but I do
Speaker 1: wonder did anyone try to dissuade you from writing a
Speaker 1: book that covers ultimately the entirety of human history and
Speaker 1: the known universe in a single volume. No. But the
Speaker 1: usual reaction before had written the book was how many
Speaker 1: volumes is it going to be? Is it ten thousand pages?
Speaker 1: You know, there was a limit to the number of
Speaker 1: words that anybody in a single lifetime will be willing
Speaker 1: or able to read. Those sort of equips were quite common,
Speaker 1: but the the idea of say a three hundred page book,
Speaker 1: an ordinary length book taking on cosmology, the origin of
Speaker 1: the universe, the origin of life, the origin of mind,
Speaker 1: the meaning of consciousness, theorizing of language, the telling of stories,
Speaker 1: the origin of myth, the origins of religion, how that
Speaker 1: interweaves with human culture, creative expression, and then onto the
Speaker 1: developments from today until time scales that are so fantastically
Speaker 1: long that we don't even have names for the numbers
Speaker 1: that describe the durations that we're talking about. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a hefty chronicle. But being able to sit
Speaker 1: down and read it in three hundred pages, to me
Speaker 1: was the point that you would be able to see
Speaker 1: all of these unfoldings in a reasonable period of time
Speaker 1: with minimal effort, and to recognize your place within it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I do want to stress to our our readers,
Speaker 1: our listeners rather that it is a very very readable book.
Speaker 1: It's just there's you know, it contains a dense amount
Speaker 1: of information, I guess, but it is um uh one
Speaker 1: never feels overwhelmed by all of this data. It's it's
Speaker 1: presented in a wonderfully and at times personable way. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you. A core theme of this book is the
Speaker 1: concept of entropy. Entropy is kind of the evil sorcerer
Speaker 1: driving the magic of impermanence. And I think sometimes people
Speaker 1: get confused when they hear about entropy as tending toward disorder.
Speaker 1: You know, it's often defined as as the tendency of
Speaker 1: things to move into disorder, because order and disorder seem
Speaker 1: like subjective concepts depending on human judgment. And in the
Speaker 1: book you have a wonderful way of explaining entropy in
Speaker 1: terms of statistics. It's a way that makes clear how
Speaker 1: it's actually an objective phenomenon, not depending on what feels
Speaker 1: orderly to a human observer. Can you explain this here? Yes,
Speaker 1: And the quantitative version of entropy does rely upon and
Speaker 1: resonate quite strongly with the qualitative version that you just describe.
Speaker 1: So roughly speaking, when we talk about entropyople're talking about disorder.
Speaker 1: And the second law of thermodynamics is this idea that
Speaker 1: things tend to go from order toward disorder. That's the
Speaker 1: natural direction in which events unfold. And when you want
Speaker 1: to make this more precise, because you're right when you
Speaker 1: hear that, you're like, come on, physicists, you're talking about
Speaker 1: like order and disorder. You know, there doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be enough rigor in that kind of description, but we
Speaker 1: can make it quite rigorous in the following sense. When
Speaker 1: things are highly ordered, if you arrange the ingredients, you
Speaker 1: typically mess up that order. Right, If your books are
Speaker 1: all in nice alphabetical order, someone comes along when you're
Speaker 1: not looking and sort of rearranges a few books, it's
Speaker 1: obvious that things have changed because they're no longer in
Speaker 1: that nice orderly progression from A to Z. So that's
Speaker 1: a situation in which there are very few rearrangements that
Speaker 1: would leave the system unchanged, And that counting of the
Speaker 1: number of rearrangements is what we mean by low disorder.
Speaker 1: On the contrary, if those books, if they're all just
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, thrown in a heap on your desk,
Speaker 1: someone comes along and they rearrange the disordered mess. You'll
Speaker 1: never even know that they were there, because that rearrangement
Speaker 1: and a whole host of other rearrangements leave the messing
Speaker 1: looking heap of books looking like a messy heap of books.
Speaker 1: So in that case, there are many rearrangements that leave
Speaker 1: the system looking pretty much unchanged. And so what we
Speaker 1: physicists do We simply count. It's accounting exercise. Give us
Speaker 1: a system, will count how many rearrangements of the ingredients
Speaker 1: leave it looking the same unchanged, versus how many leave
Speaker 1: it looking changed. And a disordered system high entropy means
Speaker 1: there are many rearrangements that have no impact. An ordered
Speaker 1: system low entropy means are very few rearrangements that leave
Speaker 1: it looking the same. That's how we make it precise.
Speaker 1: Why is it that seemingly orderly structures like stars, planets,
Speaker 1: and life forms are not violations of the universe's tendency
Speaker 1: toward disorder. Yeah, that's the big that's a big puzzle,
Speaker 1: and it's certainly an issue that I spend some time
Speaker 1: on in the book because it's one of the critical
Speaker 1: questions to ask and one of the important questions to answer.
Speaker 1: And here's how the answer goes. This law of thermodynamics,
Speaker 1: the second law that says that things go from order
Speaker 1: to disorder, says that in an overall sense, if you
Speaker 1: look at the entirety of a physical system, or let's
Speaker 1: just be grandiose, the entirety of the universe. Over time,
Speaker 1: the entirety will go from order toward disorder. But that
Speaker 1: does not prevent little pockets of order from forming here
Speaker 1: and there, so long as in the process of those
Speaker 1: orderly formations coming together, they release enough heat and waste
Speaker 1: and disorder to the environment to compensate for the order
Speaker 1: that happens in that local environment. And stars are the
Speaker 1: perfect example. You've got this gas, it's floating in space.
Speaker 1: Gravity has the capacity to pull things together, and as
Speaker 1: the gas comes together, it ultimately ignites nuclear processes because
Speaker 1: it becomes so hot and dense through the gravitational pull,
Speaker 1: driving it into an ever smaller region of space. And
Speaker 1: that actually is an orderly configuration. But in the process
Speaker 1: of that orderly configuration forming, heat and light is given
Speaker 1: off by the birth of the star, and that heat
Speaker 1: and light spreads to the wider environment, injecting disorder into
Speaker 1: the surroundings. And that disorder in the surroundings compensates and
Speaker 1: more than compensates for the order that's formed in the
Speaker 1: star itself. And I call this the entropic two step.
Speaker 1: What it is, it's kind of a dance. Right, you've
Speaker 1: got order happening here. Right, you've got disorder happening here.
Speaker 1: And if they choreographed their dance in the right way,
Speaker 1: then the overall entropy goes up, even though you can
Speaker 1: have orderly structures form in the process. Now, some of
Speaker 1: my favorite passages in the book concern it's core contemplation
Speaker 1: of impermanence. Specifically, when you get into into discussions of
Speaker 1: consciousness and the human experience and religion, you write that
Speaker 1: you're you remain partial. To Stephen J. Gould's take that quote,
Speaker 1: all religion began with an awareness of death. Can you
Speaker 1: expound on this, well, Religion is this wondrous, really human
Speaker 1: construct that allows us to cope with some of the
Speaker 1: most difficult of challenges that we face. In the most
Speaker 1: difficult challenge of all is the realization that we are impermanent,
Speaker 1: the realization that we will all die. And early on
Speaker 1: religion came up with a number of very powerful ways
Speaker 1: of dealing with that singular realization. I mean, think about it.
Speaker 1: There are species on the planet that react to death,
Speaker 1: elephants more, and they're dead. But I don't think that
Speaker 1: their elephants that are walking around saying, Wow, I'm going
Speaker 1: to die one day, what's the point of being here?
Speaker 1: And then what's it all about? I don't think that
Speaker 1: they take it in in that way, while we humans do,
Speaker 1: and so religion came up with or provided us a
Speaker 1: number of ways of dealing with it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't view death as the end, if you
Speaker 1: view death as a stepping stone to another existence, another life,
Speaker 1: well that certainly is is something that is deeply consoling,
Speaker 1: right if you think of death as one of a
Speaker 1: cycle of births and deaths and rebirths, so that again,
Speaker 1: it's just part of this ongoing cyclical process that ultimately
Speaker 1: will take it to some promised state of being, some
Speaker 1: state of calm, nirvana, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: That's another powerful way of dealing with this realization. So
Speaker 1: within almost every religion is some means of coping with death.
Speaker 1: And that's why Stephen J. Gould described religions as originating
Speaker 1: in the realization of our own mortality. And to me,
Speaker 1: it's a very powerful tool that some rely upon in
Speaker 1: order to cope with a devastating recognition of mortality. And
Speaker 1: do you see that as part of the the human condition?
Speaker 1: Reflected in the pursuit of science as well. I do
Speaker 1: in a different way. We scientists are are driven to
Speaker 1: understand where we came from, how we develop, how we evolve,
Speaker 1: how the universe will evolve, or driven to find the
Speaker 1: deep laws that undergird existence and look. Different scientists will
Speaker 1: do this for different reasons, but I can speak personally.
Speaker 1: I am driven at a fundamental level by the recognition
Speaker 1: of the finite time that I have here, and I
Speaker 1: deeply want to know as much as I can about
Speaker 1: how I find myself in this predicament at all, and
Speaker 1: I want to understand, and it's a beautiful story when
Speaker 1: you understand it, how the big bank gave rise to galaxy, stars, planets,
Speaker 1: and ultimately life. I deeply want to understand how life
Speaker 1: emerge and how consciousness flourishes within certain of those living systems.
Speaker 1: I mean, we are conscious beings and that's where our
Speaker 1: footprint in reality has it's it's it's impact right without
Speaker 1: consciousness says, as a number of great thinkers across the
Speaker 1: ages have said, You've got nothing, and so deeply understanding
Speaker 1: the sequence of events that led us to this place
Speaker 1: where we can look out and wonder and ask questions
Speaker 1: and and experience each other and experience beauty to me
Speaker 1: in the brief flash of time that I have here,
Speaker 1: I want to understand that as fully as possible. So,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this wonderful sociology social anthropologist Ernest Becker
Speaker 1: who had a great impact on me back when I
Speaker 1: read his work, and I guess it was the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties, a long time ago now. And you know
Speaker 1: he said in a book called The Denial of Death
Speaker 1: that all of human activity can be traced to trying
Speaker 1: to cope with this realization that we have these minds
Speaker 1: that can soar to the edge of the universe, and
Speaker 1: yet after a century we are put into the ground
Speaker 1: and we're turned into dust. That is a stunning collision
Speaker 1: of perspectives, and we struggle to make sense of it.
Speaker 1: All right, we need to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: we will be right back with more. And we're back
Speaker 1: in chapter seven, Brains and Belief. You follow the evolution
Speaker 1: of religious thought and you compare it to scientific investigation,
Speaker 1: specifically mathematics and physics. Could you speak to the basic
Speaker 1: similarities as you see them, between Eastern religious cosmologies and science,
Speaker 1: as well as where the often popularized similarities end. Well,
Speaker 1: that's right. So a lot of people are fond of
Speaker 1: citing parallels between insights that emerged from Eastern religions, Eastern philosophies,
Speaker 1: and things that have emerged in science, and in fact,
Speaker 1: in the book I describe a little bit of how
Speaker 1: you know, My older brother is Hari Krishna devotee and
Speaker 1: has been for decades, and certainly in the early days
Speaker 1: of his involvement in that practice, when we would talk
Speaker 1: about work I was doing in cosmology or physics, it
Speaker 1: was not infrequent for him to say to made, we
Speaker 1: already know all that you know. It's in this or
Speaker 1: that Vedic text, which I found both curious and frustrating
Speaker 1: at the same time. And when I followed some of
Speaker 1: those through I understood where he was coming from. There
Speaker 1: is a resonance of of language and perspective that you
Speaker 1: do find between some of the things that we seek
Speaker 1: and some of the things that have been sought after
Speaker 1: by thinkers throughout the ages. We asked similar questions. In science,
Speaker 1: we answer those questions with mathematics and with experiment and
Speaker 1: with observation, and that's the way in which we feel
Speaker 1: that we're making progress. And we can write down an
Speaker 1: equation that can predict things about the universe that happened,
Speaker 1: you know, billions of years ago, and then we look
Speaker 1: out in the night sky to see what we think
Speaker 1: should be the remnant of those processes from thirteen billion
Speaker 1: years ago. And when we see those things out in
Speaker 1: the night sky today, we say, wow. We we we
Speaker 1: seem to understand something may not be the full truth,
Speaker 1: but we're heading towards truth. And and the issue with
Speaker 1: Eastern philosophy and Eastern religions is much of it emerges
Speaker 1: from introspection, from an inner journey to understand the human
Speaker 1: reaction to the universe. And so the barometer of of
Speaker 1: success and truth is quite different. The barometer of truth is,
Speaker 1: you know, does it feel right? Does it seem that
Speaker 1: this gives me a better sense of how I fit
Speaker 1: within the wider world. Those are important questions, but they're
Speaker 1: different questions from the ones that we answer, or at
Speaker 1: least try to answer in science. And I would stress
Speaker 1: right here, and this is vitally. I think both are
Speaker 1: crucial to having a full experience of the world. If
Speaker 1: you stop with understanding the objective world through the language
Speaker 1: of mathematics and observation and experiment. That's all that you do.
Speaker 1: You've cut off the dominant thing that makes us who
Speaker 1: we are, which is our inner world, our inner experience.
Speaker 1: So I think you really need to blend the insights
Speaker 1: from all of these perspectives in order to have the
Speaker 1: fullest experience of reality. In one of the early chapters
Speaker 1: of the book, you mentioned as an aside that physicists
Speaker 1: use not just what they know, not just proven theories
Speaker 1: and mathematical reasoning to drive their research focus, but also
Speaker 1: what you call a hard to describe intuitive mathematical sensibility. Now,
Speaker 1: I know you say it's hard to describe, but can
Speaker 1: you talk anymore about this kind of physicist's intuition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I was getting myself off the hook by
Speaker 1: objecting the hard to explain there, But but I'll do
Speaker 1: my best. When you're trained in the language of mathematics,
Speaker 1: you acquire a sense of which mathematical sentences are good,
Speaker 1: ones are sharp, ones are effective, ones are economical, ones
Speaker 1: are beautiful, ones are elegant ones. It's like in England,
Speaker 1: it's like we all are trained in a natural language.
Speaker 1: I mean, you and I both speak English, maybe speak
Speaker 1: other languages too. But in English, we can recognize those
Speaker 1: sentences that are are special. Right. We can reach Shakespeare
Speaker 1: and we recognize what a turn of phrase that was
Speaker 1: in king Lear, Or we can read Whitman and say, Wow,
Speaker 1: what a collection of words to put together in that
Speaker 1: line of that poem and say leaves of grants or
Speaker 1: whatever it is that moves us. Similarly, we can do
Speaker 1: that as as scientists, as as mathematicians. And what we
Speaker 1: have found, and this is the danger this is the
Speaker 1: danger zone. What we found over the years is that
Speaker 1: those mathematical sentences that have the cleanest, most economical, widest
Speaker 1: explanatory reach, with the fewest number of assumptions, the fewest
Speaker 1: number of instructions, other sentences that you need to combine
Speaker 1: the with to make sense of them, they seem to
Speaker 1: be the mathematical sences that describe reality. And why I
Speaker 1: say that's dangerous is because it could easily be that
Speaker 1: our mathematical aesthetic sensibility changes over time so that those
Speaker 1: sentences and math that have proven relevant to the world
Speaker 1: are the ones that strike us as beautiful and elegant.
Speaker 1: It could well be this feedback loop, and so you
Speaker 1: have to be very careful using this approach in trying
Speaker 1: to go forward and understanding things. But when you're doing
Speaker 1: your cutting into research at the frontier of understanding and
Speaker 1: you don't have experiment, you don't have observation yet to
Speaker 1: guide you, that mathematical aesthetic sense is what we often
Speaker 1: do make use of in order to go forward. So
Speaker 1: you've at times described yourself as a reductionist in common usage,
Speaker 1: I think this label is often a pejorative. It's um
Speaker 1: It's what you call somebody when you mean that they're
Speaker 1: ignoring important qualities, nuances, or context in the course of
Speaker 1: explaining something. Obviously you don't mean it in this pejorative sense.
Speaker 1: So what is the scientific project of reductionism and how
Speaker 1: does it influence the way you see the world. Well,
Speaker 1: the project is quite straightforward. It's attempting to reduce reductionism,
Speaker 1: trying to reduce all physical phenomenon, matter, and the processes
Speaker 1: that happen in the world, reduce them to their most
Speaker 1: fundamental ingredients, the most fundamental constituents, and the fundamental laws
Speaker 1: that govern how those constituents interact with each other, how
Speaker 1: they come together into larger agglomerations that ultimately yield structures
Speaker 1: like stars, desks, planets, microphones, computer screens, and everything else
Speaker 1: we experience in the world around us. Now, you're right,
Speaker 1: the phrase reductionists is often used as a pejorative, and
Speaker 1: the reason for that is partly maybe one of our
Speaker 1: own making. Sometimes we scientists, when we speak of reductionism,
Speaker 1: we end the conversation with the reductionists perspective, as if
Speaker 1: that's all you ever need to know to understand the
Speaker 1: deep qualities of reality. What we really mean by that,
Speaker 1: or again, maybe I should speak for myself. People have
Speaker 1: different views. What I mean by that is the reductionist
Speaker 1: account the ingredients and the laws provides the rock bottom
Speaker 1: substrate on which reality is then built. And I fully
Speaker 1: do believe that everything, people to planets are nothing but
Speaker 1: collections of particles, large collections governed by physical law. But
Speaker 1: I also saying, exactly the same breath, with the same
Speaker 1: level of intensity, that you need to invoke other layers
Speaker 1: of description that are more appropriate to the kinds of
Speaker 1: questions that may interest you at other layers of reality.
Speaker 1: So the chemist comes along and says, yeah, you physicists,
Speaker 1: you talk about those fundamental particles, but I want to
Speaker 1: talk about things that the level of Adams and molecules. Fantastic.
Speaker 1: The biologists comes along and says, look, your physicists, you
Speaker 1: chemist assured, but I want to talk about things at
Speaker 1: the level of cells and organelles and the processes that
Speaker 1: are underlying life. And yes, that's the right language and
Speaker 1: the right level of description to use. And the psychologist
Speaker 1: comes along, and the neuroscientist comes along and says, I
Speaker 1: want to understand things at the level of human experience,
Speaker 1: like what's happening in the brain, and so those are
Speaker 1: the ingredients, and that's the language that those scientists and
Speaker 1: those thinkers will use. And then the philosophers and the
Speaker 1: humanists come along and they say, great, you physicists and scientists,
Speaker 1: you talk about the underlying structure, but I want to
Speaker 1: talk about things like human reflection and love and grief
Speaker 1: and and achievement and aspiration and and all those things
Speaker 1: that occur up here at the human level, and you
Speaker 1: should use that language, and you should describe reality in
Speaker 1: those terms. It wouldn't make any sense to talk about
Speaker 1: the experience of grief at the level of atoms, molecules, particles,
Speaker 1: and Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, right, You wouldn't gain the
Speaker 1: kind of insight that you want. But the point that
Speaker 1: I make in the book is that these stories are
Speaker 1: not distinct in the sense that the physicists reductionist account
Speaker 1: threads through all of those stories, and it can give
Speaker 1: you surprising insights even up here at the human level.
Speaker 1: I would never want to use it as a substitute
Speaker 1: for Shakespeare, or for Rembrandt, or for Picasso, the or Beethoven,
Speaker 1: the kinds of creations that deeply affect us as human beings.
Speaker 1: I don't want to describe that in terms of molecules
Speaker 1: and atoms, but in principle you could, and that, in
Speaker 1: principle can give you some insights into particular the issue
Speaker 1: of free will and so so there are connections between
Speaker 1: these stories. But if you leave out the upper levels
Speaker 1: and you focus solely on the reductions account, you deserve
Speaker 1: to use it as a pejorative because you're missing out
Speaker 1: on so many other qualities that are better described in
Speaker 1: different languages. Let's talk about entropy in the long term
Speaker 1: fate of the universe. What is the fate ultimately of
Speaker 1: beings that can think, well, it's a question that we
Speaker 1: can address, at least under the assumption that our current
Speaker 1: understanding of the laws of physics and our current understanding
Speaker 1: of the matter that makes up reality, that that is
Speaker 1: a good description that will continue to hold arbitrarily far
Speaker 1: into the future. If it doesn't, then then radically different
Speaker 1: things might happen, but we'll be shooting in the dark
Speaker 1: with our current level of understanding to conjecture what those
Speaker 1: alternative futures might be. So if you grant me that
Speaker 1: that I can use my current understanding of things to
Speaker 1: go forward, then you can show that rough by about
Speaker 1: ten to the fifty or so years from now. It's
Speaker 1: a big number, right, We're now about ten to the
Speaker 1: ten years from the Big Bang, and that difference of
Speaker 1: forty is in the exponent so it's not forty more years, right,
Speaker 1: it's multiplying it by tent at the forty, which is
Speaker 1: a huge factor. So very very far in the future.
Speaker 1: You can argue, as actually Freeman Dyson, great physicist, once did,
Speaker 1: that the process of thought considered to be a process
Speaker 1: of computation, and that's really what each individual thought is.
Speaker 1: It's taken some inputs and it's yielding some outputs. That
Speaker 1: physical process necessarily is an entropically increasing process. Second, thermodynamics
Speaker 1: which means it necessarily yields waste heat, and that waste
Speaker 1: heat needs to be admitted to the wider world. And
Speaker 1: we do that all the time. Right, if you had
Speaker 1: a nice infrared camera on me right now, in my head,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking hard to answer your questions, and you'd see
Speaker 1: the this heat coming off of my head. Right, we
Speaker 1: know that like the military infrared goggles, you know of
Speaker 1: that imagery that that you can see that heat emanating
Speaker 1: from biological source. Now in the far future, you can
Speaker 1: argue that the universe at some point will not be
Speaker 1: able to absorb that heat. It will be kind of
Speaker 1: stuffed with as much as it can hold. And at
Speaker 1: that point, if a thinking being thinks one more thought,
Speaker 1: it will not be able to admit the heat, so
Speaker 1: it will burn up in the tropic waste generated by
Speaker 1: the very process of thought itself. So that's the sense
Speaker 1: in which thought will come to an end under the
Speaker 1: assumptions that we're making. Thought is not something that will
Speaker 1: be able to last into eternity. And does that does
Speaker 1: that change the way you or or affect the way
Speaker 1: you view the you know, our current lives. So does
Speaker 1: that make what we do, you know? Pointless? Or does
Speaker 1: it make what we do more beautiful? I know you
Speaker 1: get into this a little bit in the book. I do,
Speaker 1: and in many ways it's the main point of the
Speaker 1: whole narrative is to address that question, because a natural reaction,
Speaker 1: certainly is, you know, if it's all going to go away,
Speaker 1: if matter is going to disintegrate, if everythinking being will
Speaker 1: ultimately I think it's final thought, then what's the point
Speaker 1: of it all? Because I think many of us, and
Speaker 1: certainly I, for a long time, even if implicitly, imagine
Speaker 1: that the importance of a life or thinking personally in
Speaker 1: my own life is that I'd leave some kind of mark,
Speaker 1: some kind of legacy, either through my family, my kids,
Speaker 1: or maybe through my work or through some kind of
Speaker 1: interaction that would continue to ripple through the unfolding of
Speaker 1: the future, having less and less impact over time, but
Speaker 1: nevertheless still having an imprint out there, even if just
Speaker 1: in some modest implicit way. But if there's no thinking
Speaker 1: beings left in the far future, like like, what's the point?
Speaker 1: And I went through a dark period in my own
Speaker 1: life coming into terms with this question, but ultimately had
Speaker 1: kind of I don't I don't know what the right
Speaker 1: word is and epiphany, uh, a spiritual moment. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what the right language is, but there was a
Speaker 1: moment when I kind of shifted my perspective radically and
Speaker 1: quickly to the recognition that it's actually more powerful to
Speaker 1: recognize that we have this little cosmic oasis in the
Speaker 1: unfolding of the universe in which living beings and thinking
Speaker 1: beings can exist. It's as if the universe rises up
Speaker 1: for a brief moment and is able to look around
Speaker 1: and contemplate itself, and we are the beings that allow
Speaker 1: that contemplation to take place. And when you do that
Speaker 1: contemplation and recognize that you are the result of quantum
Speaker 1: processes stretching back to the beginning each you which that
Speaker 1: could have turned out like that way instead of this
Speaker 1: yielding a world in which we would not be here.
Speaker 1: You recognize it's astonishing that we are here, against astounding odds,
Speaker 1: we exist. And it's even more than that we are
Speaker 1: these special collections that can think and reflect and we
Speaker 1: can we can do things right. We can have these conversations,
Speaker 1: we can join into powerful coalitions that can do things
Speaker 1: that the individual would be unable to write. We can
Speaker 1: build the pyramids, we can we can write Beethoven's Ninth
Speaker 1: sent And if you allow us to take credit as
Speaker 1: a species, right we we can figure out the equations
Speaker 1: of quantum mechanics, the equations of the general theory of relativity,
Speaker 1: allowing us to figure out all these qualities of the universe.
Speaker 1: And to me, that just fills me with gratitude for
Speaker 1: being here at all. So, rather than sort of looking
Speaker 1: to the future or looking to some deity to bestow
Speaker 1: meaning upon us, we recognize that we are empowered to
Speaker 1: find our own meaning. That's the only place that meaning
Speaker 1: is going to come from. And when we do come
Speaker 1: to terms with what matters to us in the here
Speaker 1: and now, it's a more powerful version of meaning because
Speaker 1: it's organic, it comes from ourselves. We manufacture it, for sure.
Speaker 1: But how wonderful that we can manufacture it. How wonderful
Speaker 1: that the collection of particles can ask these questions and
Speaker 1: come to answers, even if our presence in the universe
Speaker 1: is fleeting. It's such a powerful sentiment, such a powerful
Speaker 1: view of things. I mean, it's for the century, but
Speaker 1: but but even like specifically to what everyone is going
Speaker 1: through right now, I think, yeah, for sure, I mean,
Speaker 1: we are in an astonishing, devastating, painful, tragic era right
Speaker 1: now that we hope will pass, of course, but I
Speaker 1: do find solace in taking this cosmic perspective. It doesn't
Speaker 1: take away the pain. Nothing will you lose a loved one,
Speaker 1: Nothing will take away that pain. Time can sometimes heal,
Speaker 1: but nothing can or should take away that pain. But
Speaker 1: if at the same time you can take a step
Speaker 1: back and see the cosmic perspective, recognize that there is
Speaker 1: this little piece of the cosmos that we inhabit in
Speaker 1: both space and time, and how wondrous that is. I
Speaker 1: think there's a degree of solace. Doesn't take away the tragedy,
Speaker 1: but there's a degree of solace that that can provide,
Speaker 1: which I think is quite powerful. All Right, we need
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but we will be right
Speaker 1: back with more than and we're back now. You're, of
Speaker 1: course the the co founder of the World Science Festival, uh,
Speaker 1: something that I look forward to every year, Such a
Speaker 1: wonderful collection of great minds coming together to discuss sign
Speaker 1: centific topics. Um. But of course you had to make
Speaker 1: a very understandable call to cancel the live portions of
Speaker 1: the through event this year. Can can you touch on
Speaker 1: on what the current or emerging plans are for for
Speaker 1: online presentations. Well, the idea is to see this as
Speaker 1: both the challenge and an opportunity for the Festival to
Speaker 1: create a new kind of program And what really distinguished us,
Speaker 1: say thirteen years ago when we began the Live Festival.
Speaker 1: At that time there was not as much live event
Speaker 1: focus as there is today, and we were kind of
Speaker 1: a pioneer in taking ideas that are normally viewed as
Speaker 1: sort of abstract and not for general consumption, and through
Speaker 1: the clever and powerful production techniques of Tracy Day, the
Speaker 1: other co founder who really cut her tea fin some
Speaker 1: of the best broadcast television you know, from Nightline and
Speaker 1: programs on CNN and things of that sort, to take
Speaker 1: those techniques and to create live programming that people would
Speaker 1: totally be immersed even if they had no background in
Speaker 1: cosmology or neuroscience or astronomy or you know, personalized medicine
Speaker 1: or you know, topics across the board. So now we're
Speaker 1: changing gears and trying to find a new way of
Speaker 1: doing digital programming that will inject that same kind of
Speaker 1: creative focus to bring these intellectual ideas out to the public,
Speaker 1: and you know, independent of the current crisis. We began
Speaker 1: this already, so we feel like we're well equipped to
Speaker 1: do so. We had I don't know if you saw it,
Speaker 1: but last maye we had a special on PBS. It
Speaker 1: was our first broadcast special. It was a live theatrical
Speaker 1: exploration of Einstein's discovery of the general theory of relativity.
Speaker 1: And you know, we seemed up with some of the
Speaker 1: greatest artists in the live theatrical space, together with great
Speaker 1: performances on PBS, to film in a manner a live
Speaker 1: presentation that would work on a two dimensional screen and
Speaker 1: through interesting visuals and through a powerful musical score, and
Speaker 1: through taking the ideas of general relativity and making them
Speaker 1: widely accessible, I think we've created a very different experience
Speaker 1: of einsteience discovery. So that's the direction that we're head.
Speaker 1: Not with that level of production for every event that
Speaker 1: will put online, for sure, but that's our thinking to
Speaker 1: inject a new level of creativity into online programming dealing
Speaker 1: with scientific subjects. That's awesome because that's that's that's one
Speaker 1: of the things I really love about the world Sciencestful
Speaker 1: every years that you you know, you you bring in art,
Speaker 1: you bring in music, and then in terms of the
Speaker 1: all these great minds that come together to discuss it,
Speaker 1: You're you're bringing in you know, scientist, biologist, physicists. You know,
Speaker 1: you're bringing in occasionally philosophers or even the fel Gen
Speaker 1: thrown into the mix to tackle these these you know,
Speaker 1: at times just staggering questions about the cosmos and the
Speaker 1: human condition. Exactly right, Yes, that's that's the philosophy, you know,
Speaker 1: to to bring together great thinkers that done often talk
Speaker 1: to each other, and to structure the conversation in a
Speaker 1: way that the novice can feel that they're part of
Speaker 1: the exploration. Now you you launched a web series on March,
Speaker 1: I Believe Your Daily Equation, which is available via World
Speaker 1: Science Festival dot com but also the World Science Festival
Speaker 1: YouTube page. Can you discuss your inspiration for this series
Speaker 1: and and just tell us how it's been going. Well,
Speaker 1: it was just a lark off the top of the head.
Speaker 1: We're having a conversation one day about you know. Typically
Speaker 1: World Science Festival programs involve a lot of productions. It
Speaker 1: takes a long time to create them. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: now there's an opportunity to go to the other direction.
Speaker 1: What if I just turned on my my webcam thing
Speaker 1: and just each day talk about a new equation and
Speaker 1: we're like, yeah, sure, why not go for it? So
Speaker 1: so that's all it is. So there's literally no production.
Speaker 1: I film it right here and each day I just
Speaker 1: think about, Hey, what what equation would be kind of
Speaker 1: fun to describe to somebody who likes the ideas of
Speaker 1: science but math is not really their thing, but they
Speaker 1: might get a kick out of seeing the actual symbols
Speaker 1: that are behind the scenes and gaining a quick understanding
Speaker 1: of what they are. So we started with equals MC squared.
Speaker 1: How could you not? So I sort of explained that,
Speaker 1: and then did a bunch of equations in relativity time
Speaker 1: slowing down lengths being contracted for an object in motion,
Speaker 1: and uh, then I've moved on to quantum mechanics. So
Speaker 1: I've been sort of doing the very basic equations of
Speaker 1: quantumic acts and I find it fun, and you know,
Speaker 1: the audience that is sticking with me, You know, daily
Speaker 1: equation is not exactly the title that may appeal to
Speaker 1: the mass of public out there, but there are there
Speaker 1: are people for whom that idea is a kick and
Speaker 1: I think we're all just having a good time, and
Speaker 1: it's a sense of a little sense of community, a
Speaker 1: sense of a small group of folks who come together
Speaker 1: each day just to put the news to the side,
Speaker 1: put all the difficult stuff to the side, and just
Speaker 1: think about these simple, beautiful equations that touch on things
Speaker 1: that transcend all of us. Yeah, that's great. We we
Speaker 1: do really need content like that right now. Um On,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, do do you feel that the
Speaker 1: world's current struggle with the pandemic do you think it's
Speaker 1: had it's it's it has sharpened or is sharpening the
Speaker 1: public's appreciation for science and the importance of science communication. Well,
Speaker 1: I'd like to say yes, but my experience is that
Speaker 1: even in the face of great tragedy, when it passes,
Speaker 1: people tend to revert to their more conventional ways of
Speaker 1: thinking about things. And it is awful that we have leaders.
Speaker 1: And this is the main thing. It's all of that
Speaker 1: we leaders who for the past number of years have
Speaker 1: been casting aspersions on science, detegrating scientists, and substituting opinion
Speaker 1: for observation, fact, data, and analysis. That I hope will change.
Speaker 1: But the easiest way to change that of course is
Speaker 1: a change of leadership, because most leaders of the world
Speaker 1: recognize the power that science provides us for figuring out
Speaker 1: the right path forward on a variety of issues that
Speaker 1: will determine our fate. And it's just tragic that there
Speaker 1: are leaders who don't think that way. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: the book is Until the End of Time. It's it's
Speaker 1: out now, and yeah, I just want to just drive
Speaker 1: home just how how wonderful this book is. We're just
Speaker 1: really thrilled to help, at least in some small way,
Speaker 1: boost the signal on this one that you know, let
Speaker 1: our listeners know that they should they should check it out.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just really excellent. Thank you, Brian. Thanks
Speaker 1: for taking time out of your data to chat with me.
Speaker 1: This has been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Enjoyed
Speaker 1: it all right, So there you have it. Thanks again
Speaker 1: to Brian Green for dropping by the show to discuss
Speaker 1: his new book, Until the End of Time, Mind Matter
Speaker 1: in our Search for Meaning in an evolving universe. It's
Speaker 1: it's a brand new book just came out here in
Speaker 1: available I believe in pretty much all formats right now.
Speaker 1: So if you want to listen to it, if you
Speaker 1: want to read it, uh digitally or in a physical copy.
Speaker 1: You should be able to get your hands on it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this one and I think you will too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and keep an eye on World Science Festival because, like
Speaker 1: Brian said, they're gonna be busting out some some online
Speaker 1: content this year. So the same sort of great discussions
Speaker 1: that they've had in previous years they're going to offer again,
Speaker 1: but of course, due to our current circumstances, is going
Speaker 1: to be in a slightly altered form. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find us wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be.
Speaker 1: Just make sure that you rate your review and you
Speaker 1: subscribe huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hi,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your minds production
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