Stuff They Don't Want You To KnowAre we living in a simulation? What's the future of AI? How can humans understand the past, present, and future of the universe -- assuming, of course, that time exists? In this interview segment, Ben, Matt and Noel welcome special guest Dr. Jorge Cham, the creator of the new hit podcast ScienceStuff, and pick his brain about some of the biggest questions in all of human civilization.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeart Radio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noal.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. And guys, you know it's been a thesis of our show for quite some time that history and the present and the future, these are riddled with unexplained events, questions that are left unanswered. And we're in a very exciting time in civilization right There are dangers that are unprecedented, there are questions that have never been addressed, and at the same time, there are astonishing breakthroughs in almost every field of science imaginable. And we got together off air, as we do, and we said, we've got a lot of questions about the world of science. Who's the guy who could answer these for us, or who is the genius nice enough to humor us with questions about simulation theory AI, regrowing limbs, interstellar objects, everything from the past and the way we reevaluate it to the questions and the big breakthroughs of the modern day. So with that we do have good news. We found a guy to talk to us. We proudly introduce you to the author, the engineer, the cartoonist, the roboticist, the podcaster, Fello Georgia tech alum by the way, all around science expert or Hey cham or Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Man, Hello, Hello, so happy to be here. Thanks for having me on your show and calling me a genius. That's probably overrated.
No, that's something.
A genius is a self deprecating genius.
Jorge is also an author you can check out Out of your Mind right now and in book form. I'm looking at a hardcover. It looks amazing, written with Dwayne Godwin. Is that correct?
Yeah, Duyne Godwin. He's a neuroscientist m M and dean of a graduate studies at wake Forest University. So he's a pretty knowledgeable guy.
And we're big fans of your comic series PhD as well. We're going to get into some of that. You may recognize Orgey as the co creator and host of Daniel and Jorge Explained the Universe, as well as your newest podcast project, Science Stuff. Could you tell us a little bit about your background and your own words and what led you to Science Stuff.
Yeah.
So I have a PhD in engineering in robotics actually from Stanford University. But then I decided to become a cartoonist, which is still something of a concern to my parents. So my career took a little bit of a creative turn there. I've done comics, I've done movies, I've done TV show and my latest and books as well nonfiction books. And my latest is this podcast with iHeart called Science Stuff Amazing. Yeah, yeah, where we answer all kinds of fascinating questions about science for anyone.
And look, we're some of the original stuff guys over here with one of these weird little stuff shows. We are so excited that the format you've chosen for Science Stuff includes interviews, includes all sorts of different explorations that I don't want to downplay just conversational style shows, but you are really putting in the work to bring in other voices and explore things to their fullest. I really love it.
Yeah, thanks, you know, I basically have no rules on the show. You know, whatever it takes to best explain the whatever question we're trying to answer. You know, if we find an expert and he's amazing and engaging or she's amazing and engaging throughout, then that's what you'll hear. But if it's better for me to like go to a quantum computer lab and have you hear what a quantum computer sounds like, that's that's what we'll get amazing.
And you also, I've got to say, you're also super into self experimentation when appropriate. I'm thinking specifically about the hypnosis episode.
Yeah, yeah, I try to make it as you know, experiential, experiential as possible.
That's a word. Yeah, I should know that.
And can I you know, take the listener long into whatever topic we're doing. So I did one where I got hypnotized. I went into the computer lab. They had quantum computers. I'm doing one coming up where we're testing whether frog meat really tastes like chicken.
WHOA, I'm sorry, I gotta quickly double back hypnotized. So how did did it take? How did that go for you? And what are your thoughts on that? From a scientific perspective.
Yes, super fascinating. You know, I think what we all think of hypnotism when we hear the word hypnotism is this kind of like mystical or hoaxy, kind of hokey, you know, entrancing people. But nowadays what people call hypnotism is more like therapy, you know, like guided meditation, kind of guided therapy really kind of getting you into your thoughts and getting you to use your imagination to really kind of basically simulate your life or simulate different situations so you can get better perspective on.
It, to live in a simulation. Yeah.
Yeah, that's that's how they describe it.
Yeah, that's how they describe ith.
Can we go that route?
Guys?
Can we go ahead and jump off that cliff.
Or not?
It feels like we're tittering on the brink already.
Okay, So, so for years, the better part of a decade, we have been fascinated with the concept of simulation theory or hey, could you explain just in the brief baseline what people mean when they say simulation theory.
Yeah, Basically, it's the idea that we're not really really real, like you're not real biological animals with brains. We're actually just characters in a video game. So that's the basic idea. We're all just kind of like, uh, non player characters NPCs, and in some sort of computer program, maybe run by some alien or advanced human civilization in the future, where they have a giant computer the size of the planet maybe, and in this computer they're simulating artificial beings, and the idea is that maybe we're some of those artificial beings. We're not real we're not real people, we're actually just computer programs.
Well, and this sounds a little out there when you put it that way, but there's some incredibly smart people that go all in for this, right for sure?
For sure.
Yeah, I think Elon Musk is pretty famous. Not our favorite guy as for some people these days, but he's pretty famous as being sort of all in on this theory. Anybody else really, Yeah, Like Neil de Grassy Tyson, he's on records saying like, oh, this is pretty This is a pretty compelling argument for the idea that we are in a simulation, and I can't think of an argument against it.
So it's like, you know, it's a pretty it's.
Kind of a very intelligent, compelling argument that people who are for the simulation theory put forth, and you know, smart people can't really argue against it.
It's also fund this as a thought experiment. That's how I found it to be the most engaging personally.
Well, you get into that in your episode Are we living in a simulation featuring Nick Bostrom? With Nick Bostrom because he's the guy who put forth the philosophical argument essentially that this could be true? Right? And if it were true, why? And I gotta tell you, going through and listening to that, I wanted to ask you. I want to ask you both, like I want to sit down with you and Nick in that moment just say, well, guys, what I feel like we're thinking in human terms for a lot of these arguments, for like what we can imagine as being possible scientifically technologically we're talking about computing power and how you know, putting a bunch of computing power towards one thing or another thing. I do wonder if people like Nick Boscherman and you, like hyper intelligent human beings, ever imagine that the universe entire that we experience and believe to be the universe could be the thing that's being simulated rather than just a planet size simulation or something like that.
Yeah, I mean, like the is the universe itself a simulation?
Yeah?
Yeah, because it's very suspicious, right, because there's laws that basically help you predict what's going to happen in the universe, Like if you throw a baseball up in the air, you know exactly where to catch it. And so it's kind of weird that it almost feels like a program, right, Like it almost feels like a video game. And so yeah, there's some people think that maybe the universe itself, the whole universe, is some sort of simulation. But then you get to the question of what is it running on, like right on a computer, right, yeah, well yeah.
Or is is what we imagine to be reality just based on the constraints of this simulation. So what we think is possible or even could be is in a box that is you know, this place. I don't know. I'm sorry, maybe that's too weird.
Okay, yes, good question, because it's all so further to add to that box analogy. Part of the box is the limited the limited ways in which the human minds can experience data. Right. We know that we were talking earlier on ridiculous history about the concept of the observable universe and or hey you were you took great care to point out that the observable universe is not the whole universe, not the universe entire, and therefore the things that we can observe through a relatively limited set of sensory inputs are not necessarily, you know, the whole pizza pie is. I want to go back to something you mentioned in your in your setup for this concept of simulation theory, you noted, Yes, it's a coherent it's a brilliant it's a well thought out argument. It's also sometimes criticized as something that is impossible to disprove. Could you tell us a little bit about what people mean when they say that?
Yeah, yeah, so well, maybe we should talk about the argument first, in case people don't know the argument. The argument is that that and this was put by this person called Nick Boston. He's a philosopher, Oxford professor at the time, and he really took this idea that's been around, you know, basically since computers have been around. People thought, well, if we can program little agents or little programs, maybe you can program people. And then those people think they're in the real world, but they are actually programs. But Nick Boston put out this sort of logical argument that said that there's really three possibilities that could be true, or one of them only one of them can be true. So one of them is that most civilizations really don't make it very far, you know, they don't make it to the stage in their technological development where they can build the planet sized computer and build these massive simulations. Possibility too, is that some civilizations can make it to that stage, but they don't have any interest in creating these simulations, like it's maybe they find it unethical, or maybe they think it's just a waste of resources and auction three is that, you know, there are some civilizations that make it to this super advanced age, and some of them love to make simulations, in which case there's probably billions of simulations in the history of the universe. And so the number of simulated beings outnumbers would outnumber the number of regular, real physical beings. And so if you have to make a bet whether you're real or simulated, the rational bet, you know, if you're placing a bet on this, it would be that you are a similant being because you know, the odds are that you are if you believe these arguments.
It's amazing, so good. Uh hoor hair. Are you a father?
I am? Yeah.
Okay, So did you have a Minecraft phase or like with your kids at all?
Yeah, it's it's still lingering. It's it's surprisingly a longing's got.
A staying power.
Yeah, even like I mean kids you know, grow up with it and continue to enjoy it until like adolescence. I mean, it's just such an incredible, uh and creative platform.
So my kids are gone starts playing Minecraft right now as we're recording this, and they are in a procedurally generated world where if they go out far enough and their character via you know, as a user, can see the next stage, right, the next chunk of data that needs to get loaded, it gets loaded up and they can interact with it. But it's not real until they get to it. Right that that concept of procedural generation feels uncomfortably real to me. I uh, in this world it's but again, it doesn't mean it is. It just feels uncomfortably like that thing when we're looking deeper and deeper into quantum mechanics and deeper and deeper into some of the stuff that makes up this world. It does feel as though when we're actually looking at things and studying things, we're getting a ton of data. But then you back up just a little bit and not so much. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, No, it's an interesting thing because you know, in this back and forth argument between people saying like, oh, we're in a simulation, most likely, we're not likely in a simulation, that point gets really kind of thrown around a lot back and forth, and so some people say like, oh, it would be it would be impossible to simulate the whole universe, every atom of every particle of everything object around us. And then the people who are for the simulation say, oh, well, then you can use procedural algorithms where you only simulate the things you're looking at, and like if a scientist goes into gets on a microscope and looks really closely at something small, then then you simulate that little bit of with more detail. Quantum scientists are now saying, well, that's fine, but even and even if you did that, simulating quantum physics is so outrageously expensive for computers, then you would have to have quantum computers. But even if you had quint of computers, then you have to simulate those, and then you even those are super inefficient, and so it gets thrown back and forth, even with this argument of like using procedural algorithms.
It reminds me a little bit of your your recent conversation on science stuff with the world experts on the idea of terraforming Mars, and one of the one of the big things that comes up for people who are quite bullish on the concept as well as for people who are very much against it, is the sheer amount of energy, right, and the ambitious technological breakthroughs that would have to occur. And I just want to say that one of my favorite moments in that episode was when you add these experts if they actually wanted to go to Mars, and one of your experts straight up set no.
Yeah, I know.
It's fascinating because Mars right now is very inhospitable. You know, it's like a desert. You went there and your your space suit had a leak in it, you would die. You know, there's no air, no oxygen. Your blood will will boil, your saliva will boil. You want to survive there?
Uh?
And so I think one of the experts that they wouldn't want to go there right now, first of all, because it's uh, you know, she has a family and it would be kind of tough call there to make. But the other side just said that, you know, marsh is another planet and we kind of have no rights to it, you know, we should leave it at pristine and untouched, the like we have national parks here in the on Earth.
Well, that's not going so well.
The I know, it might be in the minority.
The prevailing attitude, you know, it would seem in this country is one of colonization, you know, one of like everything belongs to us, everything is fair game. And that certainly seems to be the perspective of someone like Elon Musk, who seems really hot on colonizing Mars and keeps i would say, over promising and under delivering in terms of timeline around that. Any thoughts on that and like why that's such a hot no pun intended kind of topic for that kind of billionaire techie class.
Yeah, yeah, Well, I think the main problem is that there hasn't been a lot of research onto this topic. You know, there were some papers back in the nineties, maybe in the seventies and eighties, and some a few people have wrint papers since then, but a lot of it is kind of speculative, were kind of opinion based or very like back of the envelope kind of calculations. So it's kind of a field that right now is very open to different opinions, you know, Like some people say, ah, yeah, we can, well, there's not enough CO two in the polar ice caps of Mars to really kind of fill up the atmosphere there. And then some people say, well, that's all right, we can just round up some comets and the meteor and the asteroid built and have them crash on Mars. And some people say, what are you talking about. That's insane, but it's possible. And so that that's kind of how it goes back and forth.
Is that maybe also one of those kind of move fast break things kind of approaches that a lot of Silicon Valley type folks where it sort of like trot this idea out there because it sounds on its surface so futuristic, like the O week we should be on Mars, like we deserve that as a human race, as a human civilization, But then sort of sort out the details later.
Yeah, yeah, it definitely sounds like it. And it's also sort of something that it seems also possible in this problem to kind of trigger something. It could run away from you in either a good direction or a bad direction. So for example, if you melt, let's see a little bit of the polar ice caps that bring some into the atmosphere, and then that creates a greenhouse effect, which heats up the atmosphere and the more which melts more water or CO two, which blocks more sunlight. And so you know, you could maybe do something small and it will kind of cascade into this huge change in the in the atmosphere, possibly possibly.
Right a wave we can't turn back.
Yeah, yeah, And so it's sort of at some point it feels like, oh, we could, yeah, we could totally trigger you know, global warming on Mars. What's the worst that could happen? And then some people say, there's a lot of that worst that can happen.
There.
We'll pause for a word from our sponsors and return with more from who Hate, And.
We've returned a while back. We I can't remember the name of the episode, guys, or exactly what it was on, but we talked about potential fixes or like, let's say, terraforming light here on Earth to address some of the climate issues that we are now in the midst of you. For a long time, it was this thing that was coming, that might come, that could be out there, And it does feel, at least in this moment that with things like the flooding in Central Texas that just occurred as we're recording this on July seventh, some of the warnings about iceberg. There's a doomsday iceberg or ice shelf that is essentially showing signs that we are very soon going to have a lot more water flooding the oceans, and it's making the oceans more salty, not less salty for some reason, which is just it feels like we have a lot of problems hanging out here on Earth that deal specifically with climate and things that could be addressed with some form of advanced terraforming or light terraforming, just little things we could do. But when we looked at it, Ben Nol, do you remember the concept was to in some way blot out part of the solar energy coming through.
Are you talking about the physicists that proposed setting off a nuke that would potentially fill the atmosphere with soot, and uh, you know, he claims would in some way the climate change.
That's what got what I wanted to bring that up.
Maybe we'll get to that, but I just think it it triggers me in that way. But Matt, maybe clarify what you're talking about.
I'm sorry if you're talking about the the proposition of blocking the sun.
Yes, right, but but again just as a way to curb some of the heating, the overall you know, trend that we're seeing in heating temperatures. It just seems like they're maybe to somebody standing on the outside like I am in this moment, how can we funnel more resources, minds and just energy into that kind of thing?
Yeah, because it seems kind of almost silly to be thinking about, you know, terraforming Mars when we can't even like terror anything here right.
But here, you know, I mean, I don't know, it makes me think about Mar the thoughts that potentially there was life on Mars at some point in it's in its past, you know, or at least there were there was at least waters there and put the potential for life maybe.
Yeah, I don't know, yeah, I know, it's it's wild, it's and it's interesting because here in the Solar System, we basically have like three data points, right, we have Venus, Earth, and Mars, three rocky planets about the same orbit, the same amount of sun, but all three turn out super duper different. It's almost like if you have the triplets and a triple experiment and you see what happens to each one, and you know, one of them is a super dry desert with no atmosphere, even though they all started about the same. Mars is a desert with no atmosphere. Venus is the complete opposite. It has like too much atmosphere, huge clouds of CO two that make it nine hundred degrees fahrenheit, and the surface of Venus, and then in the middle we have Us. And so I think, you know, we have a pretty good idea of what could happen if things go wrong either way.
Right, Yeah, that's why they call it the Goldilock zone. Right. And there's there's something that I was talking about some of your work and your conversations was with some old friends of mine from Georgia Tech. Weirdly enough, and one of us stumbled on this point that I'd love your reaction to, Uh, it's the idea that, yes, terraforming already exists. Humans are currently terraforming Earth, just not in the best ways. How would you how would you react to that? Does that sound accurate or on base?
Yeah?
For sure, I mean we are. We are definitely changing Earth. I mean Earth has changed a lot since the beginning. You know, we started with no atmosphere, and then it had an atmosphere, and then it it didn't have any water, then it had water. You know, initially it was ASCO two than you know, uh, bacteria converted all to some of it to oxygen and that's what we have now. So it's everything. It's always changing. But the idea that humans can affect that is definitely true. You know, we've definitely, through our activity, are causing the atmosphere in the planet, temperatures to change. And so that's actually one of the kind of ideas that they have for Mars. It's like, hey, maybe we can go to Mars and just polluted right.
Well, you know, I brought up that, frankly pretty ridiculous proposal by a computer scientist, not a physicist. I was mistaken a guy named Andy Haverley, who's a Microsoft software engineer from Washington State, and he wrote a paper in an admittedly non peer reviewed scholarly journal or I think it's a web based collection of non peer reviewed scholarly articles that proposed sequestering thirty years worth of CO two emissions in underwater rock by andating a nuclear bomb underground within the Earth's crust. And he said he got the idea from the movie Oppenheimer, which seems like a really sound science there. Obviously, there's a lot of people saying this is absurd, and I'm sure that you'll probably fall on that side as well, but it does speak to something that is similar to terraforming, or maybe it is a discipline that is what sort of is the father of terraforming. This idea of geo engineering, and it's something that I guess been around since the forties. But the problem is, and the critiques that are often leveled at geoengineering are those knock on consequences, those domino effect, butterfly effect things down the chain that can really happen without proper care being taken to prevent things like that. Do you have any thoughts about the concept of geoengineering or you know, if burying a nuke in the Earth and blowing it up is a smart way to be good stewards of the planet that we've already kind of jacked up beyond repair.
Yeah, no, for sure, I think most people kind of it's all sort of loved into the same thing. Terraform geoengineering. You know, crazy things like exploding a nuclear bomb mat like you said, like to cause basically a nuclear winter to cool down the planet. Or some people talk about like releasing special aerosols or special like little tiny needles kind of that will sort of reflect the certain wavelengths of light and things like that. I think, you know, I was clearly pointed out in the movie Jurassic Park. Sure, chaos is hard to predict, you know, when you have a complex system like this, it's like it's they're basically ruled by chaos rules, which means, you know, things can take a turn for the worst really really quickly and without us being able to predict it unless you know, like everything, every single variable possible, which we cannot have.
And this remulation an answer to that, running these elaborate algorithms and these elaborate simulations that could potentially show more of those knock on consequences, trying to maybe put a little positive spin on some of this kind of runn amock AI or you know, machine learning type stuff. And I don't mean to pivot too quickly, but do you have any thoughts around how these kind of models, you know, could potentially be helpful with combating things like climate change?
Or is the genie already too far off and out of the bottle?
Yeah?
No, I think modernly is the best tool we have basically because we only have one Earth, we can't like experiment with it. You can try something and see how it works if it kills us all and so basically simulations computers, huge computers, it's the only way you can really test these things and figure out solutions.
I want to pivot us just a little bit here, and I think we all agree. I think we're all on the same page and agree with that answer. But in the course of your expiration, you've run into a lot of what we used to call ad science, right so, or let's be diplomatic out of the box propositions. Right there we go dream big. Humanity has always been a hold by beer species. So with that in mind, could you tell us some of the most wildly ambitious like scientific propositions you've run across, you know, the nuke stuff, the blocking the sun. What's the most sci fi kind of proposition you've run into that has been seriously considered, whether in the past or the present, to address some of these big scientific issues.
Yeah, well, let's see. Just in the episode on terraforming Mars, one of the ideas that's being floated out there kind of seriously to heat up Mars because it's too cold there is to basically create giant space mirrors, like flood one hundred or thousands of mirrors around Mars and basically have them point the sunlight that Mars gets to, like the north or south pole, like a giant space magnifying glass.
Yeah, what could go wrong?
And then yeah right right, doesn't sound too too expensive. And then then you could start melting the poles and then that might trigger global warming, and then that might heat up the rest of the atmosphere. That's one crazy idea.
That's nuts.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Have you have you all heard of the Dyson sphere?
Ye?
Yes, dice swarm baby.
That's another wild, wild idea, just like cover a star maybe and suck up all the energy.
You'd have all the energy you need to simulate other places.
Probably so yeah, yeah, And people you said as maybe a way that we could detect advanced alien civilizations out there. And you see where there used to be a star. If you see that it's blocked off and it only gives you know, infrared radiation, then then maybe they invented a Dyson sphere there, and that means there's aliens there.
How satisfied would it be to first find an extraterrestrial civilization and then secondly to see that one of our crazy ideas made it off the drawing board. It's pretty inspiring.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it means more ontocenting, right maybe hopefully hopefully they're nice aliens and good role models for us.
The concept of a Dyson sphere Joree specifically reading about that for today, thinking about some of the simulation theory stuff, and it appears that at least the way was originally imagined with the Kardashev scale. This concept of fully covering a star in some kind of I don't know, a literally a sphere of technology to then absorb one percent of that star's energy wouldn't be at least to the understanding. Now, that wouldn't be physically possible because of the gravitational forces at hand. But this, this swarm concept, to me feels well again, I'm using the word feel because I am not smart enough to fully understand it. But I would say, if you had some kind of grid system, satellite system, imagine Starlink but around a star. But then imagine the number of Starlink satellites multiplied by a thousand, then you know that kind of conceptually, at least in my mind, I can picture it. I do wonder if, as we've got these new pieces of technology, some of the new satellites, some of the new imaging tech that's even land based, like Earth based, where we can see out much deeper and much further into the universe, if we will ever discover something that we just don't understand. Our sensors don't understand the light kind of have you, as you're saying you can only detect infrared light or something coming off of a star. We just can't understand what that light is. But it's just, you know, millions of satellites rolling around a star. I don't know what I'm saying other than that makes me very very excited.
Yeah.
Yeah, well yeah, because you know, it seems very unlikely because the universe is so big and it's so sparse. Even though it's there's so many stars and plants out there, it's it's still pretty sparse, and so I think the chances that we'll ever meet an alien species or you know, run into them are pretty slim. So it is super interesting to think about, like, well, how else could we detect them? How else could we know they're there? And to think about, you know, like if they had similar technology to us, what would be the signatures of those technologies? You know, could we see radio waves coming out of it? Can we hear music coming out of their Are there radios and things like that?
Yeah?
Or could we detect them using starlink satellites to cover up their sun?
You know, it's such a pickle. We've talked about it a little bit in the past on our sister show, just the on episodes of this show, just the problem of time and space and while we're here conceptually in outer space, while we're running our own simulation and model thereof there's a question that I think has been on a lot of our minds ever since the story of a mua mua. Why are interstellar objects so rare? Like, why is it so rare for us to encounter them? I think there have only been check me on this guy's three documented so far.
Three confirmed that we've observed, right.
Right, yeah, and the third one was very recently, basically last week.
So why is it if the universe is so big? One of the first questions lay folks would have is why is it so rare for stuff from the outside of the Solar System to make it to this neighborhood right right?
Well, the first thing is that that's a good thing, ben because you know, like you don't want stuff crashing into your planet. You don't want to be living in like a debris zone. Basically, we just did an episode about what it's like to be a planet in the center of the galaxy. Oh wow, And the analogy there is pretty fascinating. So if you take if you make a bubble around us, like around our Sun, a bubble that's four light years big, like if you look ford light years in all directions, all that's in that bubble is basically Us. Most of the mass in that huge bubble is just the Sun and Jupiter and the rest is just like little tiny rocks like our planet. If you take that same bubble and you put it in the center of the galaxy, you would find about ten million stars in that same bubble in addition to the super massive black hole that's in the middle of our galaxy. So if you live there, you're basically toast. Like like you know, so many things can have things in crash into you. Another star could be flying by and like kick you out of your orbit, or it could steal and you suddenly be orbiting another sun. And with so many stars, there's like super nova's going on all the time. Quasars from the super massive black hole would be like basically roasting your planet. So it's sort of a good thing that we're living in the suburbs of the galaxy.
Yeah, there's probably a reason life, you know, proliferated out here, way out here in the quiet, right.
Yeah.
Okay, But let's say it's thought that this one three I Atlas, this this most recent interstellar object, it's thought that it's potentially a comet. We need more information on it. Kind of the way, what was There's a second one, guys, and I cannot remember it. It's not amua mua. It's not this one. It was the it was the third one, which is I guess officially the second one, but it was. I think that one was proven to be a comment. That seems like an interstellar or an object that exists in space that is just moving. It seems like the kind of thing that could, with its own propulsion, just continue moving, even outside of one solar system into another. Do you think it's possible that an intelligent civilization would send something like that ever, in an attempt to get out of their own solar system, not even really to make contact or you know, nothing, not applying any kind of thoughts on it as to what its purpose is, but just sending something outside to see what's there.
Yeah, well, I think you know, the way the physics works is that most likely these things do come from another solar system, because you know, to get rocks or comments or anything that kind of complicated elements to form like in the middle of nowhere, like just out of a gas cloud is very unlikely. So most of these things probably come from another solar system. And then probably about happened with something knocked in and it kind of got knocked up at door of it and then got thrown out into space and we just happened to sort of catch it. Yeah, but whether they're sent by.
Well, I'm not saying this one is. Yeah, I guess it just I mean, I'm wondering if it could be Yeah, yeah, I'm wondering if that's a viable thing that we could even imagine or think to look for. Almost like again, I can only imagine some of the satellites, the early satellites that we sent out. Was the one that had the Golden Record on it, Voyager. Yeah, just something like that, but more complicated and perhaps a little more rocky.
I mean, use the use the materials you have right, use the stuff that has proven to already be spaceworthy. So it's a it's a brilliant thing to think about. Also, to that point we brought up earlier, I believe the the second interstellar object confirmed in recent observation is Comic two I or Comic when it's called Borisov. Yes, but yeah, confirmed to be a comet. This stuff is. This stuff is so cool because it shows us first that it's good, as you said, Jorge, to live in the verbs of the galaxy where it's not always a constant peel of Quasos. But then it also yeah, yeah, I mean I live in the city, so that analogy really hits up. But there's I think there's another aspect of this to explore, kind of speaking to Matt's question about humanity sending stuff out right, just sending out voyage or whatnot into the darkness. What do you see right now as the future of human space exploration in the broadest of senses.
Yeah, I think, you know, the media future is just to like check out our neighborhood, you know, like what's going on in Europe by one of the moons of Jupiter. Is there water down there? Could there be life in that water? Or what's going on in Mars underneath the surface of Mars? You know, was there life there at some point? Could there still be Like technically there could still be you know, little aliens living down there in the underground pools of Mars. So I think that's I think that basically our priority right now is just to learn from our solar system so that we can then know more about planets, how they form, what's going on with different planets, not just Earth, And then I think from there you can then start looking at exoplanets. So we've detected, you know, thousands of other planets around other Solar systems, but we know very little about them, Like we don't know how they form, what's normal out there. You know, there's so much we don't know yet.
Don't We kind of know that planet nine is out there, or there is some kind of object out there, trans Newtonian object.
You mean, like on the other side of the Sun.
Or yeah, there was oh gosh, there was more rumblings coming out of BBC Sky at Night magazine something. I was reading a couple other things on this show. Way back in the day, we used to call it Niberu because that was the like fabled, you know, secret planet that was going to destroy our Earth one day. It was a really fun hypothetical thing that was talked about on message boards and talked about for a long time. But it does appear that there is something out there beyond Pluto essentially, or out close to the area where Pluto is located.
Yeah, no, I think that's something I think that's hotly debated right now. It's like, is there is there are there more planets even in our Solar system that we just haven't seen and you know some people, I know, some folks at Caltech kind of like study everybody's orbits, all the planets, and they from just the gravitational signature. They're like, oh, wait, these orbits tell us that there's something there, but we don't know if for.
Something else acting on it.
What you mean like they can detect the force the sum of the forces includes something that isn't immediately visible.
Yeah.
Yeah, Like they see the for example, the orbit of Neptune and they see it's not as perfectly accounted for with all the planets we know about. Maybe there's something else tugging it out there, and that's why they think maybe there's another planet out there. But I think it's still hotly debated, which means it's still a possibility.
Up for grabs. Love it, love the love that great expanse. We're sort of any we're in that method of as a writer, you know this, We're in that stage where we've got a couple of paragraphs and the rest of the book is kind of blank pages, right, so we're trying to figure out this saga together.
Hey, let's take a quick break right here, hear a word from our sponsor, and then come back with more or hey, and we're back.
This is heading in the direction of science fiction. But we had a very brief conversation in the past about so called artificial intelligence or AI. So what do you think about the idea that the future of space exploration by humans doesn't involve actual humans? What if we create some kind of inorganic sentience or very highly sophisticated algorithm to be the next wave of astronauts. Is that a possibility or how crazy? Like on a scale of one to backcrap crazy?
What is this?
No, it's not crazy at all. I mean, I'm sure whatever we're sending to space right now you probably use this AI to some degree, you know, And even the instruments we use and ASSAD I imagine use some AI. It's being used more and more and even in science and engineering. So it's not totally crazy at all. And in fact, some scenarios that people paint are like, well, maybe you can send one robot with like instructions to land on an asteroid and make two robots and copy the program, and then those two robots have the instructions to go out there, look for an asteroid, mine it, you know, get energy from it, and make two copies of it, and then that's how you could maybe like you know, see the whole galaxy for example, So it's not not totally crazy.
No, should we be sending people into space.
I think if people want to go to space, they should go. You know what, why not? I mean, you know, if they know the risk and there's a lot of people that want to have that experience and they like I think that they open up volunteers to go to Mars and thousands of people signed up, so you know, I think it's part of human nature to be explorers and to you know, want to find out what it's like to be there.
Well, hot take, maybe I'm interested in yours.
The whole space tourism thing and this sort of like upstairs downstairs of it all where it's like, you know, a lot of folks that are going to space, like the Katie Perrys of the world, are coming back and acting like they've accomplished some great feat and feel as though they should be looked at in the same way as astronauts and scientists and folks that have trained their whole lives to do that. And what they've done is more or less taken a little joy ride out in the space and back, and it really does seem to kind of further drive this wedge between like folks with lots of money and regular folks, and further maybe even solidifies this idea of space not being.
For everybody, and that if anyone.
Were to colonize Mars, I don't know that folks like you or I might get the invites. I'm just wondering about, you know, your thoughts on the whole social aspect of space travel, space colonization, and space tourism.
Yeah.
You know, I think these days, anything that gets people excited about space or science or exploration, I think that's all great.
That's good.
You know, whether or not, you know, getting to the edge of the atmosphere counts to space, and whether or not it should be something that only rich people can do, that is the thornier kind of mindfield there, you know, But ultimately, I think anything that gets people excited about space is good.
I guess I would say that this whole thing that Blue Origin did maybe had the opposite effect of that, And I guess that's sort of maybe what I'm getting at is this whole idea of like what maybe once would have gotten people excited about space seems to have blown up in the faces of the folks that sort of staged this pr event and maybe had the opposite effect and maybe made it seem a little bit more like this sort of bougie tone death thing, and maybe is making people look scants a little bit at folks these private space travel companies. Just I don't know, Maybe that's my two cents, but that is the way it seems like people are reacting to that particular event.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, I can totally see that too. I guess one point of view against that sort of downplane of those flights is that I think somebody told me that they've only done like ten or eleven or twelve of these things with people in it, and so there is still kind of a significant risk for Katie. There was a significant risk for Katie Perry and all those folks to go up there. You know, Like I don't know if I would go if I was only the twelfth person to go on this airplane or the spaceship, you know what I mean, Like I always always like a thousand people have gone.
Or you know, not that dissimilar from the folks that got you know, imploded in that experimental deep sea you know situation.
Yeah, that could have been them well you know, but.
Then that deep sea thing, a lot of people were like almost like they were rich people but maybe deserved it or something. I'm not saying I think that at all, but that was sort of the internet perspective. One of the hot takes was like it was poorly planned, it was really expensive.
It was sort of this like prestige thing.
But I'm with you or hey, I think you're right about the how few attempts have been made, and so anyone that's that's participating in it is taking their lives into their own hands. And the question there then becomes is that worth you know, reverence in some way or is it just.
Kind of a little bit blind, you know, like risk taking.
You got to wonder about that, right, just the conversation you say, oh, well, how many times have we tried this? And as you're getting into the ship, someone says eleven of these went great, and then you say how many and they're like, okay, well close the door.
Jolly good.
I am jumping and turning an to hear guys, hey, chim, given your experience with and expertise in robotics, what do you see as humanity's relationship with robotics, with synthetic you know, pieces of a human with things like neulink. Where do you see us going in the future.
I see us getting more and more and meshed with robots. You know, it seemed like a fantasy when I was a roboticist, just because the technology wasn't there. But I was just reflecting recently on just even things that you don't think about, like motors, Like the technology and motors from the time that I was a roboticist to now is has jumped, you know, several generations, several huge leaps. You know, you can make motors so much stronger and more efficient to the point where like a human sized robot was sort of unthinkable in my time. But now you know, there's like one hundred companies.
Question really quickly or robotics isn't Oh, it doesn't necessarily have to include some kind of intelligence, and it can just be like automated mechanized machinery that accomplishes tasks, right, Like you know, like motors, that would be a form of robotics if it were programmed in a way that it would get an automated task.
Is that right.
I just want to make sure I'm wrapping my head around the concept of robotics, and I'd love to hear more about how maybe that concept has evolved since you got started in it.
Yeah.
No, you're asking a very deep philosophical existential question that all robotics is it kind of struggle with, like what is a robot? Like can you call your car a robot? You know, if it was a manual gear or even if it's automatic, would you call it a robot? Or does it need to have sentience or some sort of program on it.
In the UK they call microwaves robot cooking.
Yeah.
Yeah, and now microwas are super smart too. Now they probably had to have AI agents like recognizing your food and figuring it helping you figure it out.
Do you follow one side or the other on that argument about what makes what makes a robot? Would love to hear your thoughts on it, and that is interesting, the philosophical kind of quandary of it all.
Yeah.
I mean I would say if it's totally remote controlled, it's probably I wouldn't call it a robot, it would just call it like a machine maybe, Okay, Yeah, but if it's doing things on its own somehow, either mechanically or through a computer program.
And then I'm pretty lenient what you call a robot?
Yeah, I see it. Also, I think it's also a good time to point out the fascinating etymology of the word robot in the beginning, which itself was a I think it was a check play from the nineteen twenties that was automaton.
It was the term that was used robot was yeah, yep, sorry.
Ben robot robot nick, right, is this term that already entered into our language with some social baggage, right, with some statements and some deep philosophical quandaries. So as this technology, I love that you point out there are hundreds of companies who are working on things that we could think of as house assistant robots in some limited function. Would you and your family ever consider acquiring one? Or like, would you buy the twelfth one or would you wait for a few thousands?
If I can get one to wash the dishes for me, I would tomorrow.
The worst.
Yeah, yeah, you know, if it could do yeah, things like that. I would love to have a robot. Dude, I guess I have a dishwasher, but they still have to unloaded or hound my kids.
To they basically got a free wash them.
I mean honest, yeah, right, yeah.
And we see it too with it seems like the at least the current the current speculation I've been reading about both in private industry and academia, seems to argue that a normalization or proliferation of robots in some way is inevitable as the economy scale kicks in, prices decrease, they become more affordable, and they also seem to I love your dishwasher example. The argument also seems to be that, similar to the Rumba, the new home robot assistants will be specifically geared for certain tasks, starting like in a kitchen, or starting with medical assistance. You know, picture the TV commercial I've fallen and I can't get up. Would you agree with that? And kind of dovetail on Matt's earlier question, how far do you think the prevalence of robotic assistants will go?
Oh?
Boy, I think it probably depends on obviously your income level, you know, and also where you live in the world. You know, if it's much more economical for you to hire someone down the street to wash dishes, then then that seems like a better situation because then two people benefit from that, right, and it's supposed to one person and a robot.
I do wonder though, like where, you know, a lot of the problems that we run up against when we're talking about mechanization and roboticization and involving you know, artificial intelligence or machine learning in tasks, is where is that cut off? At what point are we going to pump the brakes and say no, no, no, we want to replace these tasks that we have deemed to be menial and not worthy of human involvement without throwing out tons of jobs and and things that people rely on for their economic well well being to protect and to to you know, feed and and raise their families. Because it seems to me like there's really no way back, because the technogy is out there, and the nature of economics and the nature of capitalism is such that if it can be done, someone's going to do it, and someone's going to sell it. I just I don't know, do you have any philosophical thoughts around that?
Yeah, I mean it's sort of the history of humanity is always taking inside of automation and efficiency and and you know, letting people figure out other jobs that they can do, you know, if it's cheaper to use robots. But you know, most of our cars are made using robots too, and people are getting operated on sort of by robots now. Yeah, and so it's all it's all coming, and it's all I think, it's not probably not going as fast as people maybe imagine twenty years ago.
There's always a backlash.
I mean even historically you've got like the luttites and stuff, people smashing printing presses and you know, backlash against industrialization. So it's really no different than that. And I'm not coming down on one side or the other. I think to your point, it is absolutely just a product of human vanity and just the nature of progress and all of that. But if you look back, even like people were very upset about the idea of the synthesizer, people you know, in orchestras, thought it was going to replace them. But what ultimately happened was people figured out how to use synthesizers to make sounds that an orchestra couldn't make. And I think that's the neat part about all of this stuff, is figuring out those other things.
But it doesn't entirely get rid of the fear that a lot of.
Folks have about, you know, being supplanted, you know, by these types of technologies.
So I don't know the answer. I just it's a tricky one.
And I think you've you've pointed to that and everything that you said, and I appreciate them.
Yeah, yeah, And all those ethical concerns are one of the reasons that know a cartoonists and a podcaster.
Well, with that, there's so much we want to get to that we may not be able to get to in our time today. But I can hear some folks in the crowd right now immediately asking a question that I don't I don't think we've gotten to previous conversations. With the rollout normalization of robots, where does society land in its relationship to a surveillance state? You know, like that's the reason a lot of people have the it's the old joke about engineers, dude, you know it from Georgia Tech too. A lot of engineers, if you go to their house, they're going to avoid smart devices, right.
Right, right?
Yeah, yeah, Well, but you also don't want to be the person wearing the tinfoil, you know, Yes.
Yeah, that's the issue, right, there's like a fine line between being the lutte, being the person that's getting left behind, being the person shouting at clouds or whatever, or smashing printing presses, and being someone that's completely blind to the potential negative aspects of.
A lot of this stuff.
So my question then directly is should people be concerned of increased surveillance with smart devices robot nicks in their hole or is that kind of much ado about nothing?
You know, I think if you're someone with ill intent, you know, if you're a criminal, if you're someone who wants to do bad things, then you probably should be worried. My personal point of view is, you know, if you're not doing anything that bad and you still have some space where you have complete privacy in your home or things like that, or you're able to switch these things off, and generally I think it can be helpful. You know, there have been several cases here in Stufn, California, if people like going missing, but then they were sort of found or tracked through people's ring cameras or traffic cameras, and so those kinds of things can also be sort of useful.
I think that's where I fall on it. I've always said, like, I don't really have anything to hide. I'm not that concerned. I think the benefits outweigh the negatives for me personally. But I know that that's not the way other people might feel about it. But I am with you on that one, and I think that that's a really good point, that the triangulation, the pinging, finding folks that maybe never would have been found otherwise. There's always a double edged sword to that kind of surveillance state aspect of things.
How is the Department of Homeland Security gonna know you're not a threat if they can't know what alphabet ads should be served to you? So they got to listen in and you know what card purchases shout talent, go boundary. It's all helpful.
Yeah, well honestly, yeah, obviously anything can be abused, I think, right, yeah, I definitely don't want it to be abused.
Please please don't continue abusing it.
Please shout out to our hapless n Essay in turn, Steve, thanks for putting in the work man the.
Best or Hey, we're we all love science fiction and we assume you also appreciate it. We we love out there things that are hilarious like Rick and Morty huge fans of that kind of thing, but also something you know, like Prometheus and the Alien franchise. Is there anything that we maybe have missed in the science fiction universe that you could put us onto or anything we should be watching, like a series?
Anything oh interesting?
Well, you know, I can point out to the usual things like Black Mirror or the Expands, but maybe something your listeners have been heard about is this book called Simbulacrum three and this was published in the sixties and it's basically what most people think of as the first novel with this idea that we might all be living in a simulation neat So this was way way back in the day when you know, computers were the size of a building they could processes like ones and zeros in a card. But even then there was this writer who was thinking about, like, wait a minute, what if we're all just programs? And it's a really true to be booked because it's like about this ad executive who's programming this simulated city as a as a kind of a test bed for like testing out you know, marketing ideas, slogans and things like that. I mean, little by little he realizes that maybe he's not real himself.
This is very Philip K. Dick ask I like it right.
Right is sixty, very forward looking, very twisty.
And speaking of four looking, y'all might have heard this as well. But I believe finally William Gibson's Neuromancer is getting a proper adaptation into a series. And I know that's a big one in terms of futurists and the idea of cyber space.
I think was coined in that. And I know Ben you're a big fan.
But I did just see news the other day that that's that got greenlit, So that'll be interesting because I have not read the book, but I need to.
But thank you for Similarchrum three.
Yes, yes, wonderful three.
I'm putting it on the list. That's awesome. That was a great question, Matt, and we have we have another question for you or hey, as we're as we're wrapping up today, we cannot thank you enough for being so generous with your time. Where can people learn more about you, learn more about science stuff, and learn more about your many other projects.
Yeah, so I'm on social media and all the platforms. Just search for PhD like the Greek comics, and then you'll see me posting things about my uh the TV show I have on PBS Kids, to the book series I have for kids called Oliver's Great Big Universe, to this awesome podcast I have with my heart now call Science Stuff One word, and every week we answer fascinating questions like is it a good idea to get crygentically frozen hard?
Yes?
About the water, the way water expand oh no, that there's a twister, Ben, it's not about It's not about the water expanding. A lot of people think it's like that's what kills you, but it's not.
We have no.
No, let's for the episode.
Listen to the episode.
There we go, Well that that is fantastic? Is or hey, cham please check out the podcast Science Stuff. Please get the to the website. We are not blowing smoke. We are tremendous fans. And now we have to call it a day because I think we have to figure out what's going on cryogenic freezing. You know that that's going to stick with me. I totally thought it was the water.
But if you want to find out, do tune into that episode of Science Stuff.
Yeah, thanks, guys. I'm a big fan of y'all as well.
Same appreciate it, brother, Thanks Lore.
And that was or hey cham as We've said, not to sound like a broken record, but we really dig this guy. And if you want to pick his brains. For more historical aspects of brain science, of quantum mechanics, the history of the Big Bang, check out our two part interview series with Orge on Ridiculous.
History Indeed and meantime.
If you want to check us out all over the Internet, you can do so at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, on xfka, Twitter, and on YouTube where we have videos for your perusing enjoyment. On Instagram and TikTok. However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
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