WEBVTT - Brian Greene on the End of Time 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.560 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.239 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.440 today we're bringing you an interview with the physicist and 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.520 author Brian Green. This one was a real treat, except 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.800 we did have a major audio snag that did mean 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.319 that I was not able to be on the call 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.200 during this interview. So if you hear any kind of like, uh, 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.160 weird sound shenanigans going on in the moments my questions 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:39.080 come in, will be real with you, it's because I 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.120 had to go back and record them later. But Robert, 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.080 you you did me a great honor and asking my 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.040 questions for me during the interview. Uh, so thank you 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.120 for doing that. Uh, Robert, what was it like speaking 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.680 to Brian Green? I have to ask, Uh, it was 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:54.680 it was pretty great. I had. I had interviewed him 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.080 once before at the World Science Festival. The World Science Festival, 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.040 for anyone who who doesn't know and remember, is, uh, 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:06.039 is this awesome gathering of of minds that happens every 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.200 year in New York. But then it is then all 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:13.600 these different panel conversations about these mind blowing topics they 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.320 go out on the internet, um over you know, the 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.240 months to follow, and so I had I had talked 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.520 to him briefly about black holes, kind of a rushed, 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.600 uh you know, busy kind of interview, and that was 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:28.600 a couple of years ago. But this was this was 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.759 a lot more relaxed. Like I was talking from my closet. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:33.960 He was talking from you know, I think a study 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.759 or or or some similar room in his own home. 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.800 And so it felt felt a bit more laid back, 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.399 uh this time around, though it was of course, you know, 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.400 disappointing we weren't able to have you in there as well, Joe. 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:50.560 But more to the point, Brian is just, uh, you know, 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.320 a brilliant mind. He's you know, one of the best 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.360 known proponents, if not the best known proponent living proponent 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.840 of superstring theory. Uh. The co founder of the World's 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.600 Fiance Foundation, UH, Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Department of 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.080 Mathematics at Columbia University in New York City, and he's 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.679 the author of several books, UM The Elegant Universe, in 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.320 UM The Fabric of the Cosmos in two thousand four, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:17.880 Icarus at the Edge of Time in two thousand eight, 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.680 which is a children's book. Uh that that you know, 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.400 breaks down black holes for young readers. Uh, there's the 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.280 hidden reality parallel universes in the Deep Laws of the 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.160 Cosmos from eleven and then his latest book. Uh. One 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.519 of the main reasons we uh we we decided to 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.480 chat with him in this episode until the end of 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.240 time mind matter in our search for meaning in an 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.960 evolving universe. I really enjoyed this book. One thing I 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.520 was surprised by is how many subjects he gets into. 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.600 This book is about the idea of of finitude and 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.840 impermanence and he so he of course explores physics, you know, 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:56.880 the history of the universe and the future fade of 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.680 the universe, uh, in a physical sense, but he also 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.160 a lot of time talking about like the social sciences 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.280 and the humanities and our obsession with living forever or 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.120 or with impermanence and loss and uh. And I found 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.840 it a really interesting and actually kind of beautiful book. 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.200 Yeah I I'm gonna stress this again during the interview itself, 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.840 but if you are hesitant about picking up this book 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.120 because you're thinking, oh, it's it's a book by physicist 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:22.919 it's gonna be it's just gonna be a bunch of 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.200 physics stuff. It's gonna be about black holes. It's gonna 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.320 be hard to relate. No, no, no no, this book is 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.040 is very relatable. It's you know, what's somewhere in the 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:34.000 neighborhood of three hundred and something pages, but but covers 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.800 a lot of ground and a lot of relatable ground, 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.160 getting into you know, at times, how the how, how 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:45.320 the how our brains contemplate the cosmos, where religion comes from, uh, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.240 you know, the the role of scientific investigation in our 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:54.800 sort of h quest to deal with the undeniable reality 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.840 of mortality in our lives. Yeah. He even gets into 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.120 realms like like philosophy, fee of mind and like you know, 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.000 the cognitive science of religion, which we've talked about on 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.960 the show a good bit and and uh and mythology 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.480 and all that. And I would say I was really impressed. 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.520 He does a really good synthesis of complex topics that 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.279 are outside his field. And um, I thought it was 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:21.159 just a really thoroughly informative and entertaining, uh journey to 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.720 go on. Yeah, And of course, if anyone out there 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:25.919 is is if you are familiar with the World Science Festival, 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.119 then you you you get it. You have a taste 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:30.320 of the sort of interest Brian has because you see 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.280 the sort of topics that are covered at World Science Festival. Uh, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:37.640 the diverse array of individuals who are who gathered gathered 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.240 there to discuss these topics, and I think that's reflected 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.800 in this book especially, so highly recommend the book. It 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.400 is available now, I think in all formats you can 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:50.080 get a kindle edition. I think the audio book is available. Uh. 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.160 So it's a it's a great book for any time. 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.120 I think it's especially a good book, uh for our 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.599 current reality. Totally. All right, Well, without further ado, let's 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:05.400 jump into the interview. Brian. Your new book is Until 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.200 the End of Time, which is an incredible title because 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.520 there's this literal expectation of cracking open a book with 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.359 a name like that written by a noted physicist. But 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.080 there's there's also the personal aspect of that title and 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.680 the religious connotations of the phrase, you know, all of 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:21.880 which are a major part of the book as well. 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.720 How did all of this come together in your your 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.560 writing of Until the End of Time? Well, it's a 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.400 book that I've been thinking about in one form or 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:37.520 another for maybe thirty years, slowly gestating and really recognizing 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:43.080 the power of having a cosmic perspective where you see 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.560 your life as we all do in the everyday sense 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.080 of human experience, but you're able to tell a parallel 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.240 story where you recognize that you are part of this 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.080 grand cosmic involting that reaches back to the Big Bang 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.640 and goes as far as our equations can take us 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.720 into the far future. And the depth of perspective that 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.400 that can provide is I think quite gratifying, and that 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:09.919 really was the motivation for writing the book, So that 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:14.400 people can see their lives within a whole variety of stories. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.160 The reductions to count, to the physicist, all the way 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.960 to the cosmological account of the astronomer. You eve a 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:25.080 wonderful interconnected tapestry of these subjects. But but I do 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.800 wonder did anyone try to dissuade you from writing a 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.960 book that covers ultimately the entirety of human history and 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.640 the known universe in a single volume. No. But the 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:38.120 usual reaction before had written the book was how many 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.560 volumes is it going to be? Is it ten thousand pages? 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:43.719 You know, there was a limit to the number of 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.600 words that anybody in a single lifetime will be willing 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.599 or able to read. Those sort of equips were quite common, 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.560 but the the idea of say a three hundred page book, 0:06:55.600 --> 0:07:00.320 an ordinary length book taking on cosmology, the origin of 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.479 the universe, the origin of life, the origin of mind, 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.400 the meaning of consciousness, theorizing of language, the telling of stories, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.400 the origin of myth, the origins of religion, how that 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:17.520 interweaves with human culture, creative expression, and then onto the 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.960 developments from today until time scales that are so fantastically 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.360 long that we don't even have names for the numbers 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.880 that describe the durations that we're talking about. Yeah, it's 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.480 a it's a hefty chronicle. But being able to sit 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.600 down and read it in three hundred pages, to me 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.080 was the point that you would be able to see 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.520 all of these unfoldings in a reasonable period of time 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:46.080 with minimal effort, and to recognize your place within it. Yes, 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.280 and I do want to stress to our our readers, 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.480 our listeners rather that it is a very very readable book. 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.520 It's just there's you know, it contains a dense amount 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.240 of information, I guess, but it is um uh one 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.120 never feels overwhelmed by all of this data. It's it's 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.360 presented in a wonderfully and at times personable way. Yes, 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:07.720 thank you. A core theme of this book is the 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.240 concept of entropy. Entropy is kind of the evil sorcerer 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.760 driving the magic of impermanence. And I think sometimes people 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:20.120 get confused when they hear about entropy as tending toward disorder. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.720 You know, it's often defined as as the tendency of 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.640 things to move into disorder, because order and disorder seem 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.920 like subjective concepts depending on human judgment. And in the 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.400 book you have a wonderful way of explaining entropy in 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.760 terms of statistics. It's a way that makes clear how 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:41.040 it's actually an objective phenomenon, not depending on what feels 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.280 orderly to a human observer. Can you explain this here? Yes, 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:51.760 And the quantitative version of entropy does rely upon and 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:57.800 resonate quite strongly with the qualitative version that you just describe. 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:02.839 So roughly speaking, when we talk about entropyople're talking about disorder. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.040 And the second law of thermodynamics is this idea that 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.200 things tend to go from order toward disorder. That's the 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.480 natural direction in which events unfold. And when you want 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.360 to make this more precise, because you're right when you 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.040 hear that, you're like, come on, physicists, you're talking about 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.960 like order and disorder. You know, there doesn't seem to 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.600 be enough rigor in that kind of description, but we 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.559 can make it quite rigorous in the following sense. When 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.840 things are highly ordered, if you arrange the ingredients, you 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.560 typically mess up that order. Right, If your books are 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.959 all in nice alphabetical order, someone comes along when you're 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.120 not looking and sort of rearranges a few books, it's 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.280 obvious that things have changed because they're no longer in 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.040 that nice orderly progression from A to Z. So that's 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.840 a situation in which there are very few rearrangements that 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:58.520 would leave the system unchanged, And that counting of the 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.920 number of rearrangements is what we mean by low disorder. 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.120 On the contrary, if those books, if they're all just 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.000 kind of, you know, thrown in a heap on your desk, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.280 someone comes along and they rearrange the disordered mess. You'll 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.000 never even know that they were there, because that rearrangement 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.560 and a whole host of other rearrangements leave the messing 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:24.360 looking heap of books looking like a messy heap of books. 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.840 So in that case, there are many rearrangements that leave 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.240 the system looking pretty much unchanged. And so what we 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.160 physicists do We simply count. It's accounting exercise. Give us 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.319 a system, will count how many rearrangements of the ingredients 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.839 leave it looking the same unchanged, versus how many leave 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.440 it looking changed. And a disordered system high entropy means 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.280 there are many rearrangements that have no impact. An ordered 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:52.160 system low entropy means are very few rearrangements that leave 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.320 it looking the same. That's how we make it precise. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.520 Why is it that seemingly orderly structures like stars, planets, 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.840 and life forms are not violations of the universe's tendency 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.840 toward disorder. Yeah, that's the big that's a big puzzle, 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.560 and it's certainly an issue that I spend some time 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.680 on in the book because it's one of the critical 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.320 questions to ask and one of the important questions to answer. 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:21.920 And here's how the answer goes. This law of thermodynamics, 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.080 the second law that says that things go from order 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:30.200 to disorder, says that in an overall sense, if you 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.400 look at the entirety of a physical system, or let's 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:37.360 just be grandiose, the entirety of the universe. Over time, 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.160 the entirety will go from order toward disorder. But that 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.520 does not prevent little pockets of order from forming here 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:50.120 and there, so long as in the process of those 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:55.040 orderly formations coming together, they release enough heat and waste 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.920 and disorder to the environment to compensate for the order 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.760 that happens in that local environment. And stars are the 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.960 perfect example. You've got this gas, it's floating in space. 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:12.800 Gravity has the capacity to pull things together, and as 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:17.480 the gas comes together, it ultimately ignites nuclear processes because 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.920 it becomes so hot and dense through the gravitational pull, 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.560 driving it into an ever smaller region of space. And 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.640 that actually is an orderly configuration. But in the process 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.480 of that orderly configuration forming, heat and light is given 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.520 off by the birth of the star, and that heat 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:41.760 and light spreads to the wider environment, injecting disorder into 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:46.480 the surroundings. And that disorder in the surroundings compensates and 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:50.679 more than compensates for the order that's formed in the 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.760 star itself. And I call this the entropic two step. 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.680 What it is, it's kind of a dance. Right, you've 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:01.679 got order happening here. Right, you've got disorder happening here. 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.160 And if they choreographed their dance in the right way, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.720 then the overall entropy goes up, even though you can 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.840 have orderly structures form in the process. Now, some of 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:16.280 my favorite passages in the book concern it's core contemplation 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.840 of impermanence. Specifically, when you get into into discussions of 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.360 consciousness and the human experience and religion, you write that 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.280 you're you remain partial. To Stephen J. Gould's take that quote, 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.640 all religion began with an awareness of death. Can you 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:39.040 expound on this, well, Religion is this wondrous, really human 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.600 construct that allows us to cope with some of the 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:48.480 most difficult of challenges that we face. In the most 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:53.360 difficult challenge of all is the realization that we are impermanent, 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:58.360 the realization that we will all die. And early on 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:05.200 religion came up with a number of very powerful ways 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.840 of dealing with that singular realization. I mean, think about it. 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.520 There are species on the planet that react to death, 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:15.040 elephants more, and they're dead. But I don't think that 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.200 their elephants that are walking around saying, Wow, I'm going 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.160 to die one day, what's the point of being here? 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.000 And then what's it all about? I don't think that 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.040 they take it in in that way, while we humans do, 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.520 and so religion came up with or provided us a 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.320 number of ways of dealing with it. I mean, you know, 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.200 if you don't view death as the end, if you 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:41.840 view death as a stepping stone to another existence, another life, 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.760 well that certainly is is something that is deeply consoling, 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.840 right if you think of death as one of a 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.480 cycle of births and deaths and rebirths, so that again, 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:57.560 it's just part of this ongoing cyclical process that ultimately 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.120 will take it to some promised state of being, some 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.400 state of calm, nirvana, whatever you want to call it. 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.920 That's another powerful way of dealing with this realization. So 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:15.000 within almost every religion is some means of coping with death. 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:19.200 And that's why Stephen J. Gould described religions as originating 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.040 in the realization of our own mortality. And to me, 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:28.440 it's a very powerful tool that some rely upon in 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:33.720 order to cope with a devastating recognition of mortality. And 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.800 do you see that as part of the the human condition? 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.520 Reflected in the pursuit of science as well. I do 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:45.480 in a different way. We scientists are are driven to 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:49.920 understand where we came from, how we develop, how we evolve, 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.360 how the universe will evolve, or driven to find the 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:57.480 deep laws that undergird existence and look. Different scientists will 0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.960 do this for different reasons, but I can speak personally. 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:05.359 I am driven at a fundamental level by the recognition 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.480 of the finite time that I have here, and I 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.400 deeply want to know as much as I can about 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:17.120 how I find myself in this predicament at all, and 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.920 I want to understand, and it's a beautiful story when 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:25.000 you understand it, how the big bank gave rise to galaxy, stars, planets, 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.480 and ultimately life. I deeply want to understand how life 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:35.160 emerge and how consciousness flourishes within certain of those living systems. 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.760 I mean, we are conscious beings and that's where our 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:43.840 footprint in reality has it's it's it's impact right without 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.120 consciousness says, as a number of great thinkers across the 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:52.160 ages have said, You've got nothing, and so deeply understanding 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.800 the sequence of events that led us to this place 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:59.080 where we can look out and wonder and ask questions 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.000 and and experience each other and experience beauty to me 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.560 in the brief flash of time that I have here, 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.640 I want to understand that as fully as possible. So, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:14.200 you know, there's this wonderful sociology social anthropologist Ernest Becker 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:16.280 who had a great impact on me back when I 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.400 read his work, and I guess it was the seventies 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.480 and eighties, a long time ago now. And you know 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:24.720 he said in a book called The Denial of Death 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:29.800 that all of human activity can be traced to trying 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.080 to cope with this realization that we have these minds 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.720 that can soar to the edge of the universe, and 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.560 yet after a century we are put into the ground 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:44.080 and we're turned into dust. That is a stunning collision 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.320 of perspectives, and we struggle to make sense of it. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:50.480 All right, we need to take a quick break, but 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:56.560 we will be right back with more. And we're back 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.800 in chapter seven, Brains and Belief. You follow the evolution 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.280 of religious thought and you compare it to scientific investigation, 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:08.200 specifically mathematics and physics. Could you speak to the basic 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.680 similarities as you see them, between Eastern religious cosmologies and science, 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:18.119 as well as where the often popularized similarities end. Well, 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.680 that's right. So a lot of people are fond of 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:30.160 citing parallels between insights that emerged from Eastern religions, Eastern philosophies, 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.760 and things that have emerged in science, and in fact, 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.280 in the book I describe a little bit of how 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:43.080 you know, My older brother is Hari Krishna devotee and 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:48.359 has been for decades, and certainly in the early days 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:52.480 of his involvement in that practice, when we would talk 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:56.119 about work I was doing in cosmology or physics, it 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.080 was not infrequent for him to say to made, we 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:01.840 already know all that you know. It's in this or 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:07.080 that Vedic text, which I found both curious and frustrating 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.600 at the same time. And when I followed some of 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:15.120 those through I understood where he was coming from. There 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.720 is a resonance of of language and perspective that you 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.080 do find between some of the things that we seek 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.399 and some of the things that have been sought after 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:32.480 by thinkers throughout the ages. We asked similar questions. In science, 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.840 we answer those questions with mathematics and with experiment and 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.200 with observation, and that's the way in which we feel 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.000 that we're making progress. And we can write down an 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:45.879 equation that can predict things about the universe that happened, 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.840 you know, billions of years ago, and then we look 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.320 out in the night sky to see what we think 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.600 should be the remnant of those processes from thirteen billion 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:56.919 years ago. And when we see those things out in 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:01.600 the night sky today, we say, wow. We we we 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.119 seem to understand something may not be the full truth, 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.560 but we're heading towards truth. And and the issue with 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:12.080 Eastern philosophy and Eastern religions is much of it emerges 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:16.919 from introspection, from an inner journey to understand the human 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:22.000 reaction to the universe. And so the barometer of of 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.480 success and truth is quite different. The barometer of truth is, 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:27.960 you know, does it feel right? Does it seem that 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.600 this gives me a better sense of how I fit 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.320 within the wider world. Those are important questions, but they're 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.199 different questions from the ones that we answer, or at 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.440 least try to answer in science. And I would stress 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.520 right here, and this is vitally. I think both are 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:49.320 crucial to having a full experience of the world. If 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:53.880 you stop with understanding the objective world through the language 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:56.920 of mathematics and observation and experiment. That's all that you do. 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.360 You've cut off the dominant thing that makes us who 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.160 we are, which is our inner world, our inner experience. 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.560 So I think you really need to blend the insights 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.440 from all of these perspectives in order to have the 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.880 fullest experience of reality. In one of the early chapters 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.240 of the book, you mentioned as an aside that physicists 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.240 use not just what they know, not just proven theories 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.359 and mathematical reasoning to drive their research focus, but also 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:28.520 what you call a hard to describe intuitive mathematical sensibility. Now, 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:30.359 I know you say it's hard to describe, but can 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:34.480 you talk anymore about this kind of physicist's intuition. Yeah, 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:36.560 I thought I was getting myself off the hook by 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.520 objecting the hard to explain there, But but I'll do 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:44.520 my best. When you're trained in the language of mathematics, 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:51.880 you acquire a sense of which mathematical sentences are good, 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:56.320 ones are sharp, ones are effective, ones are economical, ones 0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.000 are beautiful, ones are elegant ones. It's like in England, 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.720 it's like we all are trained in a natural language. 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.080 I mean, you and I both speak English, maybe speak 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:10.600 other languages too. But in English, we can recognize those 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:15.840 sentences that are are special. Right. We can reach Shakespeare 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.760 and we recognize what a turn of phrase that was 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.920 in king Lear, Or we can read Whitman and say, Wow, 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.600 what a collection of words to put together in that 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.800 line of that poem and say leaves of grants or 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.120 whatever it is that moves us. Similarly, we can do 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:39.240 that as as scientists, as as mathematicians. And what we 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.159 have found, and this is the danger this is the 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.120 danger zone. What we found over the years is that 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:51.200 those mathematical sentences that have the cleanest, most economical, widest 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:56.200 explanatory reach, with the fewest number of assumptions, the fewest 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.840 number of instructions, other sentences that you need to combine 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:01.720 the with to make sense of them, they seem to 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:05.840 be the mathematical sences that describe reality. And why I 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:09.639 say that's dangerous is because it could easily be that 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:18.280 our mathematical aesthetic sensibility changes over time so that those 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:21.720 sentences and math that have proven relevant to the world 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:25.560 are the ones that strike us as beautiful and elegant. 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:28.600 It could well be this feedback loop, and so you 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.560 have to be very careful using this approach in trying 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:36.879 to go forward and understanding things. But when you're doing 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:40.320 your cutting into research at the frontier of understanding and 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:43.399 you don't have experiment, you don't have observation yet to 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:49.520 guide you, that mathematical aesthetic sense is what we often 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:52.280 do make use of in order to go forward. So 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:56.679 you've at times described yourself as a reductionist in common usage, 0:23:56.720 --> 0:24:00.240 I think this label is often a pejorative. It's um 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:02.800 It's what you call somebody when you mean that they're 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:07.119 ignoring important qualities, nuances, or context in the course of 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:11.080 explaining something. Obviously you don't mean it in this pejorative sense. 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:14.919 So what is the scientific project of reductionism and how 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:18.120 does it influence the way you see the world. Well, 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:22.399 the project is quite straightforward. It's attempting to reduce reductionism, 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:27.560 trying to reduce all physical phenomenon, matter, and the processes 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:30.200 that happen in the world, reduce them to their most 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:35.200 fundamental ingredients, the most fundamental constituents, and the fundamental laws 0:24:35.200 --> 0:24:38.439 that govern how those constituents interact with each other, how 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:42.639 they come together into larger agglomerations that ultimately yield structures 0:24:42.680 --> 0:24:46.800 like stars, desks, planets, microphones, computer screens, and everything else 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:49.360