Brian Keating: I’m Spending $200 Million To Explore Existence! How God Fits Into Science Explained!

This is the shrapnel of an exploded. star, and this is a meteorite still from. over 4 billion years ago. And this is. what Elon will kill for. Wow. And all of this is to understand that. fundamental question people want to. know, how did we get here? And how does the question of God tie. into all of this? Well, for the first time in history, we. might be able to answer that question. with scientific hard data. Brian Keating is an astrophysicist and. professor whose groundbreaking research. and digestible explanations uncover. everything we want to know about the.

universe and what lies beyond. Let me go way back. 400 years ago, a. genius named Galileo looked through a. telescope, and he realized that we are. not the center of the universe. And now. we know the universe is vaster than you. or I can comprehend. How big would Earth be on this table? Small. Not even a grain of sand? Even our galaxy wouldn't be a grain of. sand. But we still don't know how did. the universe begin. And so one. experiment took me to the South Pole, to. the bottom of the planet, and we thought. we discovered the creation of time and. space itself. Took me to the brink of a Nobel Prize.

We were on the front page of every. newspaper, but it turned out we didn't. see that at all. What we saw was. and we were crushed. I'm going to get too emotional, but. we had to retract these discoveries, and. it was the most crushing experience a. scientist can have. But you cannot stop doing experiments to. answer these questions. Now you've lost this $20 million. project. Yeah. And the data that this experiment. is seeing is exquisite. Because now we. know 100% that.

This has always blown my mind a little. bit. 53% of you that listen to this show. regularly haven't yet subscribed to this. show. So could I ask you for a favor. before we start? If you like this show. and you like what we do here and you. want to support us, the free simple way. that you can do just that is by hitting. the subscribe button. And my commitment. to you is if you do that, then I'll do. everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better. for you every single week. We'll listen. to your feedback, we'll find the guests. that you want me to speak to, and we'll. continue to do what we do. Thank you so.

much. Dr. Brian Keating. What is the mission that you're on? I think I'm the luckiest man on Earth. I. get to get paid, not that much, but I. get to get paid to study the questions. that I was most interested in as a. 12-year-old pimple-faced kid in Upstate. New York, which is how did we get here? You know, I think it's a question that. people just want to know. It's the only. question you can't know, right? What. happened before you were born? You have.

to rely on other people's word for it, right? You have to ask questions and be. curious. And what is the only event that. ever happened for which there was nobody. around to ask? And that's the origin of. our universe. And the universe. contains everything. Contains life, minds, consciousness, everything down to, you know, podcasters. and and uh. and daily life. What are some of the most sort of. controversial existential questions that.

you seek to answer with all the research. that you do? So, you've talked about this before on. the show. Uh the the question of of, you. know, finite versus infinite games. And what we do in science, science is an. infinite game, right? You can't win. science. But along the way, there's. many, many finite games. In other words, fixed competitions for which there's. only one victor, right? I got, you know, uh. offered a professorship at UC San Diego. That means 399 other people didn't get.

that job. I got tenure. A lot of people. don't get tenure. I got this, I got. that. And then eventually, I didn't get, you know, spoiler alert, my first book's. called Losing the Nobel Prize, but. there's only, you know, at most three. people that can win a Nobel Prize every. year. In my field, the the the infinite game. is comprised of many, many finite games. And the most important questions that. generate the most controversy, the most. heat, the most passion have to do with. the nature of the origin of our. universe. It's actually not a settled. science. It's not actually known for a.

fact whether our universe came once, existed in a certain way eternally, in a. way I can describe, went through cycles. of creation and destruction, and or it. follows sort of a biblical creation. narrative. These are all kind of open. questions in a certain sense, and. because they're not yet resolved, and. because the only way to resolve them is. through data, we cannot actually answer these. So, the. human mind is in a. hybrid. It's in a superposition. We kind.

of have a lot of knowledge, but we have. a lot of questions. We have a lot of. solutions, but we have a don't have a. lot of answers. We're trying to. understand that fundamental question, and I always say, "I want to know what. happened. on the Tuesday before the Big Bang.". Imagine this, a day before which there. was no yesterday. You couldn't even speak about it if you. were there. Of course, obviously nobody. was there to witness it. But, even conceptually speaking, how does time. progress. if time starts?

All right. We think about time, and time. is very mercurial. It's very hard to. describe, define what time is. Is time what a watch measures? Is time. how your my hair gets gray over the. years? Is is time how, you know, we. perceive it sitting on a hot stove. versus being with a pretty girlfriend? Are are those methods unequal? Are they. equally valid? But, at at its base layer, if the. universe began, if it truly had a. singular origin, then time came into. existence at that moment as well.

And how does the question of God tie. into all of this? And what are the sort. of I guess the most controversial. question is, is there a God or is there. not a God? Right. And then, a sub-question to that would. be, what form does this God take? Are these questions that you seek to. answer? Me personally, yes. My colleagues tend. to shy away from it. It's considered. somewhat anathema or distasteful for a. real honest-to-goodness, you know, workaday scientist to talk about to even. contemplate the possibility of God.

And for me, I I call myself a practicing. very devout agnostic. In the sense that uh. I I take my Judaism, in my case I'm I'm. a practicing Jew. But the question of what to take on. faith, which um which in which in Hebrew, by. the way, the the word amen comes from. the Hebrew word emunah, which means. faith. It means to believe in something. I would say I don't believe in gravity. You know, if I take this rock and I drop. I I don't have to believe in it. I have.

evidence for it. Science, the word science means. knowledge. It doesn't mean, you know, uh. faith. It doesn't mean, you know, religion or theology. But for me, thinking about God. mm provides a certain. the most um the most luxurious or the. most delightful sort of spice to the. research, to the hard work that I'm. doing. Knowing that the the team and I. that are trying to answer these. questions, we can possibly resolve the.

question of whether or not the universe. began as, for example, it begins in the. Torah, the Old Testament, the biblical. narrative that underpins the Judaism and. Christianity and and in Islam as well, of, you know, half the world's. population. What if we could. substantiate that narrative? What if we. could refute it? A good scientist has to. be open to both. So, for me personally, I've always been interested in those. existential questions. I I I don't put. myself out there as a, you know, as. rabbi or as an exemplar of perfection as. religion.

But I'm trying. I'm trying to improve. I'm trying to dedicate my life to. answering questions that others have. posed and stand on their shoulders to. hopefully get a closer glimpse of truth. But it's absolutely 100% in my mind. inexorably linked the question of a. creator and the question of the its. creation or his creation, if you will. But, as I say, for the first time in history, myself, my colleagues, and I, we might. be able to start to answer that question. with scientific hard data.

The question of whether there's a god or. not and which god is most accurately. represented by the science. down the creation stories that those. religions tell themselves or tell the. world. You've raised a $200 million project. What does that mean? And what what is. the question you're seeking to. fundamentally answer with that $200. million project? Yeah. Let me take a step back. So, for 2,000 years, most scientists, people believed the. universe was eternal.

It had been around forever. And then, not not far from here, in. north of north of Hollywood, is a. telescope, 100-in diameter telescope. It's 5 m across. And that telescope was. used by Edwin Hubble. Hubble observed that every single galaxy. that he could see is moving away from. the Milky Way galaxy. So, every galaxy, which are collections. of 100 billion suns, just like our sun, is expanding away from us.

How can he see that through a telescope? Uh so, he used what's called the red. shift. So, the red shift is an effect. that is related to Christian Doppler uh. discovered called the Doppler shift. You. ever heard an ambulance and it's coming. towards you and. it gets higher in frequency? Mhm. Then it goes. That's the Doppler shift. The waves of. sound are piling up, their frequency is. getting short getting higher and higher. The wavelength is getting piled up in. the direction it's going, the the the. source, and it's getting lower in the.

opposite direction. The same exact thing happens with light. Instead of getting higher pitch and a. lower pitch, lower frequency means. redder colors. So, red is a longer. wavelength of light than is blue light. He saw everything is moving away from. it, us in the Milky Way. It was a very. puzzling discovery. It went against. 2,500 years of received wisdom. He observed it with data. It was. incontrovertible. Every single galaxy is. moving away from the Milky Way galaxy, our galaxy. He said, "Either, you know, we didn't.

put on our cosmic deodorant and no one. wants to be around us or the universe is. getting bigger. Tomorrow, it will be. bigger than it was today. The separation. between galaxies will be larger than it. is today.". The implication, Stephen, if you go back. another day before today, yesterday, things were closer. Keep playing that movie backwards, you. come to a point, perhaps a singularity. Where all the matter, all the energy, everything that is, was, or ever will be.

was concentrated effectively at a single. point. That's the Big Bang. And so, in the Big Bang cosmology, the. universe starts at a particular moment, time comes into existence, the elements. come into existence. All the elements, you know, in in water, you know, etc., hydrogen in water rather, they all come. into existence. And then over billions. of years, those elements come together. over the force of gravity. They will. eventually fuse two hydrogens together. to make helium and so forth, and you get. the heavier and heavier elements.

Eventually, those objects called stars, they eventually burn up and blow up in. what's called a supernova. And before. they blow up, they create all sorts of. other matter that we're made of, calcium, oxygen, nitrogen, iron. And in. their death throe, in their explosive, fireworks-like ending of their lives, they give life to us. Because they blast out into the cosmos, into the galaxy, the material that we're. made of. So, literally, as Carl Sagan.

said, we are star stuff. And I brought. some star stuff here today. So this is. these are different byproducts. This is. the shrapnel of an exploded star. This is mostly made of iron here. I. brought these and I give these away on. my website. I made a special website for. your listeners, BrianKeating.com/diary. This is a meteorite, Stephen. Have you ever seen a meteor in the. atmosphere? That's a rock like that, a. mineral. coursing through our atmosphere at tens. of thousands of miles per hour.

How do you know? How do we know? We measure the velocity, we can track them on radar. you know that this is a meteorite? Oh, well this has all the. characteristics of a meteorite. It's. composition, its density, its uh. structure, it has that weird pattern on. it. But if you're really curious, what. we could do. So where does this come from then? Well, this one was found in uh in uh in. Argentina, in a place called the field. of the stars. And this could have come from anywhere. in the universe. Exactly. This came from This is basically a. fragment of an asteroid that existed. before the Earth, Stephen. This is a.

fragment, a fossil relic of our solar. system from over 4 billion years ago, older than our Earth. Because our Earth. formed at its core, our Earth has iron. inside of it. It has an iron core just. like that. That's pretty heavy, right? That's not And then also made this here. This, if you give this to your. sweetheart, if you compress this by. 100,000 times and give it to your. sweetheart, she'll be really happy about. that. That's pure carbon. So that'll turn into a diamond. Turn into a diamond. Like I say, you.

know, pressure is what turns dust into. diamonds. For anyone that can't see this right. now, it looks like a a dice. It's It's. almost identical to a like a black dice. Exactly. Yep, it's very light. Now. contrast that to And here's a piece of. rock. This is mostly volcanic rock. I. collected that in uh in Antarctica. I've. been to Antarctica twice, to the South Pole. I collected that. specimen there. It has holes in it. See. the holes? Those come from bubbling. escaping volcanic gases. Ah. So there's volcanoes down at the south. uh uh at the in Antarctica, not the.

South Pole. And then here's this one. This is found. Oh gosh, heavy. So this is a meteorite formed in found. in Namibia. Also from the same process. that formed our solar system. This was. found by the natives that live there. several hundred or maybe even a thousand. years ago. This one's particularly nice. if you're not watching it looks like a. human foot. I don't know. I can't explain how. unbelievably heavy that is. I don't. think I've held something that's this. size but this heavy before.

It's extremely dense. It's one it's the. dense So what happens when a star tries. to make the iron in that? It takes more. energy to make that fuse that nuclei of. iron than is given off in the fusion. process. So therefore the star can't. support its weight. It collapses, it. explodes and rebounds. Now when your. listeners or viewers you know go to my. website and and if they win one you'll. see how attractive these things are to. magnets. It's a very powerful It's. called a rare earth magnet, neodymium.

magnet. Jesus. So attach it to the meteorite. It's fine. to do that. You can do that. Wow. That sound I love that sound. A ping. So this material. is highly magnetic. And. iron, which is primarily the. constitution of this meteorite, is has. the exact same chemical structure as in. your blood there's a molecule called. hemoglobin. Mhm.

It's almost identical to the chlorophyll. molecule that plants have except. chlorophyll has a magnesium atom at the. center of its chemical matrix. But in. hemoglobin that's going through your. veins right now. is iron. That iron came from that. supernova. Eventually your mother, you know, in the. food that you eat has some iron in it. and then your body starts to produce. blood. And that blood has the same chemical. composition as the stars. So, this 200 million. what are you doing with. Okay, we're going to get back back to. the money. Yep, exactly. So,

What is the fundamental question you're. seeking to answer? So, let's say you see someone shooting a. a gun, right? You want to see the but. you see the smoke from the gun, you see. the bullet moving at great speed, but. you'd like to see who actually shot it. Was it God, you know, was it was it. Mother Nature, was it some quantum. fluctuation in the multiverse? And so, we're trying to capture that, to to take. a picture of the infant universe, to. take the earliest baby picture possible. using sensors that are sensitive to. to microwave light that we cannot see,

that's invisible to us. We could capture. a pattern which would only be present if. the universe had a singularity, if it. went through this incredible rupture of. space-time called the Big Bang. The. details of the experiment were worked. out over several years. We realized we. had to go down to the South Pole, to the. bottom of the planet, a place that was. only reached 112 years ago. And the enemy of what I'm trying to. detect is water. Water absorbs microwaves.

That's how your microwave oven works to. heat up coffee. So, we we took that telescope there, we made an observation. We claim we detected that baby picture, that snapshot, that reverberations of. the creation of time and space itself. called inflation. We were heralded around the world. This. is the greatest discovery of all time in. science, literally. There was just one problem. When we made this measurement, we were aware that we could fool.

ourselves into seeing what we wanted to. see because we knew how important this. discovery would be, but we kind of. convinced ourselves that we had seen the. true. birth pangs of the Big Bang. But, it turned out we didn't see that at all. Instead, what we saw were trillions and. trillions of tons of dust in our galaxy. for technical reasons that mimicked the. signal of the Big Bang. Mhm. And we were crushed. It's literally. dust. We saw cosmic dust, the leftover.

byproducts of exploded stars. So, let me be clear here. So, so I'm um. I don't want to move on until I'm I. fully understand. So, you you went down. to the South Pole. Yeah. You looked up expecting to see these. sort of. these waves that show that the universe. is expanding. Yes. What you actually saw like lines of. dust. Right. Is that a simplified way of saying it? But you thought you'd sort of seen these. sort of sort of microwaves of the. universe expanding. Yes. Exactly. You're simplifying it. perfectly. We made the discovery and.

then immediately, effectively in. scientific terms, 6 months later, this. is in early 2015, we basically had to. admit we were wrong. And fortunately, for me and for the. universe as a whole, um I was very close with a man named Jim. Simons. He was a monumental scientist. mathematician without peer, effectively. And he said, "Brian, I I've been. thinking about this experiment and um I. want to I want to have a merger." So, he. put together this this dream team and.

we're still together to this day. We're. building an observatory in Chile, not the South Pole, in Chile, to do what. BICEP couldn't do. BICEP being the telescope you built in. the South Pole. Yeah, that lost the Nobel Prize in my. first book's language. And we're just now getting data. It got. first light a month before Jim Simons. passed away. And so, we were able to. show him the data that this experiment. is is is seeing. I can't show it to you. It's as confidential as a diary is. You. hope nobody's looking, but you don't. know if anybody is. I can't show it to.

you, but the data is exquisite. So, what do you um. what do you suspect is the origin of the. universe? Mhm. Well, uh. Is it God? Is it. some kind of strange cosmic reaction. took place for no reason at all. I know. you must have a suspicion. You know, if the universe began with a. singular Big Bang, if it began on a certain day or it. didn't, I just want to know the truth. The interpretation of it, that's going. to be going on for I mean, people are. battling about As I said, we thought we.

detected that signal, right? So, we. already have um a simulation of what. will happen when this is discovered for. good. Finally, no dust, right? We know exactly. what the media will say. At that time, on one side of the equation, were the. greatest, you know, religious thinkers. and theologians of the time saying, "This proves the existence of God, that. God created the universe in a singular. moment. Let there be light. Fiat lux.". That's exactly what the Torah, the Old.

Testament, the Bible says. So, they. said, "It agrees with our hypothesis.". On the other side, there were militant. atheists, Richard Dawkins, you know, other people. saying, "This proves there's no need for. a God. The universe came into existence, like you said, meaningless quantum field, a fluctuation. out of nothingness. It proves nothing. about God. In fact, it invalidate. Literally, Stephen, there were people. publishing articles. in major newspapers everywhere. It proves God, proves no God.

So, it's not like I'm going to think that I. have the temerity to say I'm going to be. the final word or we're going to be the. final word. I know this is going to. resonate and echo through the through. the, you know, annals of history, but at. the same time, we could also see. nothing. And that's the hardest thing, when you. see nothing. The human mind doesn't like ambiguity, you know, like you talk about um. something very uh you know, non-controversial. Let's talk about. abortion rights. Let's talk about trans. rights. Now, these are incredibly. controversial things, right? So, what.

does the human mind do? It selects a side. It says, "No abortions. Abortion for. everybody. No trans rights. Yes, trans. rights. Uh Immigration. No immigration. Yes, immigra-. The human mind hates that. And for good. reason, there's an old Yiddish. expression, "He who stands in the middle. of the road gets hit by both sides of. the traffic.". So, the human mind cleaves to one side. or the other. I don't think, you know, in terms of, you know, religion or. whatever, that will be the definitive. final word on it, but it's sort of a.

privilege to play the game. What is the most compelling evidence. that you've ever encountered that there. might be a god? Mhm. That's a long long question. Well, I I hope you'll find it someday, too. Um. At least in my religion, in Judaism, God is the creator and he's the. organizer. He creates. um light and darkness, he creates day. and night, he creates heaven and earth,

he creates beasts and um and earth and. fishes and so forth. And then he creates. man. And. we can't really emulate God. Even if you. don't believe in God, you can imagine. what a god would be like, right? You can. conceptualize, imagine, you know, King. Charles, you know, times a trillion or. whatever. Like the all-powerful force. But at the same time, we're told God is. a father, our father who art in heaven, right? Um. and he's a lord, he's like a politician, he's a king, he's their father in this.

Judeo-Christian concept. It's hard to. kind of reconcile what that means cuz we. don't really have analogies to it, but. the one analogy we do get is the one. thing that we can create, which is a. which is a human. Now, I think for that reason, men and. women have a stake in what it means to. feel a connection to God. Women much. more so. It's almost impossible to for a. man to comprehend what it's like to have. the ability to be a vessel for life's. creation.

I think that's part of evidence for it. Um I also think there's some there's. some clues, but again, it's not proof. You cannot prove God exists. You cannot. prove God doesn't exist. You have to be. comfortable with that ambiguity, and. very few people are. If we came from a single-cell organism, as some people say, then there was then. giving birth seems to be quite a new. concept. Because, you know, if you think about. some of the evolutionary stories of, you. know, the single-cell organism that then. divided and then, you know, if.

Darwinism's theory that it was the. environment that defined how we give. birth and different animals give birth. or replicate in different ways. So, if you go back far enough, it seems. that like giving birth as we know it, which is this like process where the. baby comes out and then they cut the. cord, is actually quite recent in the. history of. consciousness, but also just like. living organisms. Mhm. Does that make it more or less. miraculous or. It's so amazing, but it. I it doesn't feel like it gives me.

I don't know, there's something in my. mind that thinks if a single-cell. organism, I don't know, gazillion years. ago. split. because of some mutation which caused. more single-cell organisms. to split. I mean, I guess it's still creation, isn't it? And then you could ask the question, what if there was a creator. and this creator. not only um. you know, created that first cell but.

created within that cell the. possibility, the propensity. and had the knowledge, you know, we. can't comprehend it, but but had the. knowledge. that that will eventually make. a person and have consciousness and be. able to conceptualize God. Now, I'm not. saying that's evidence for it, but just. you can you can. you can see which would be a greater. miracle. That like God encrypted in the. DNA code that eventually there'll be a. Stephen Bartlett or Brian Keating. Or. you know, that those are natural. processes that are the inevitable.

conclusion of of creation of life and. evolution, as you say, in Darwinian. theory, for which we have abundant. evidence, right? I don't know which is more miraculous. And and that's why. you know, miracles. Humans are pretty new, aren't they? So. Oh, yeah. I'm almost I'm almost like. like a. How old is the conscious human? The conscious I mean, the first like. Homo sapiens that are of our species. probably 200,000 years old, maybe. So it's only been for 200,000 years that. we've been even been able to think about. the possibility of God, which is almost. in a weird way. It's it almost you could. say God has only existed for 200,000.

years. Right. Yeah, that's that that's a good. way of putting it. And and in fact, many. people I like to say this, you know, to. you, like what's your favorite day of. the year like on the calendar? I was going to say my birthday. Okay. I always ask people that. I say. like what's your favorite day? And. usually I get Christmas, my anniversary, my birthday, my first. kid's birthday, whatever. But those are. all origins. We're fascinated by origins. cuz you weren't there. Like you can't. witness like the whole process of your. birth. You have to rely on your mother. and your father, and maybe there's some. pictures and a nurse. But now go back to.

the beginning of the universe. Well, maybe there was only one entity, you. know, maybe it was only God. And why did. God make the universe? And then of. course there's many many questions. The. most kind of stringent, you know, our. our our. perhaps most challenging question is, you know, why does evil exist? Why would a good God create suffering, you know, childhood leukemia? Like it doesn't make. any sense. So the the standard answer. for that question is that to not have.

randomness, to not have chaos, to not. have. variability in life would would. necessitate. a predetermined existence. And a lot of. people believe that. I've talked Sam. Harris on my podcast. He's been on here. Um. yeah, he believes strict determinism. Every single thing that's happening to. us right now, the words that are coming. out of my mouth, your uh twitching, or. whatever. It's. That's all determined. There's no. control. There's free will is a complete. and utter illusion. And uh because of that, then there.

doesn't have to be an explanation of why. there's, you know, leukemia in children, or whatever. And and yes, that is that. is an unanswered question. And I think. But but I don't think it's a sufficient. question not to do stuff. People would. ask, why does a child get leukemia? But. they won't ask, why do humans experience. uh the highest the highest pleasures, the highest sensations, both physically, viscerally, but also emotionally and. spiritually? That we, unique among all. the creations on Earth, have this. ability to appreciate our finite.

existence, to have love, to have, you. know, whatever these connections are. That's what makes life living. Now, we. can't answer, why is that? Like, do we. deserve that? So, for me, the evil and good and like. pleasure and pain make lots of sense. from an evolutionary perspective. Mhm. It makes a lot of sense as to why you. would feel. this overwhelming sense of like love and. protection when you give birth when your. your your son or your daughter arrives. in the world, because.

that that feeling is passed down from. your ancestors, and your ancestors had. that feeling, so they survived, and. their offspring survived, and that. feeling gets stronger as it's passed. down, because those that have it are. more likely to pass on their DNA. So, the DNA of that feeling keeps passing. through the through the generations. So, I get that. And then with the with evil, I also I can also understand that pretty. well, um because, you know, if we think. of evil maybe as a feeling, or something. that happens, or a disease, I can. understand that theoretically. evil's human as as human related.

There's no evil cancer. Cancer's not. evil. And even that I can understand, because. I can understand the brain is so. fragile, and I can understand all these. human instincts and chemicals and. jealousy, and, you know, all of even. love comes with it. But, you know, if. some if if If dies, it's probably her. husband, statistically. So, like I understand You know, that's. evil, isn't it? But it But it's love, as. well. So, I understand that the. complexities of all of that. What I. can't understand is. what active role God is playing in any.

of this stuff. And. yeah, and I was I was religious until I. was 18, and then I think I I fell down a. rabbit hole listening to like Richard. Dawkins and some of the others and Sam. Harris, and. it let left me in a position where I. would probably define myself as being. ag-. Agnostic. Mhm. But there's still this big question mark. which hangs above my life, which is like. where did where did. human life come from? And is there Is it. possible that. it just didn't come from anywhere? Is it. possible that there was a big bang, the.

you know, at the very start of all of. this, it caused lots of reactions, one such. reaction was fusing some chemicals which. fused in the right order over a millions. and millions of years, and it started to. move in a way that like plants can't. move, and that then led rise to this. sort of evolutionary process, and now. here I am, and my brain was just bigger. 200,000 years ago than the other. monkeys. So, now that I've developed. this thing called conscious, where I can. think about things, and here I am trying.

to figure it all out now that I have. this bigger brain thanks to Darwinian. evolution. Is that Is that the game? And it's And. you know, when people hear me say that, they probably think, "Oh, you know, the. the the the natural reaction to that is. cuz it threatens your sense of like. purpose and belonging, and it threatens. justice. Your natural reaction to that. is, "No, I hope it's not." And so, let me. think of ways that that can't possibly. be true. But I'm I'm not tempted by. that. I'm tempted by figuring out what's. true, ir- irrespective of how warm and.

fuzzy it is. Mhm. And um. I still don't know. But I'm hoping. science. has some answers for me. Well, yeah, sorry to disappoint. Right. now the the the connection that logical. chain that you that you produced has a. lot of so-called missing links. But I. you said something that's very. interesting to me. You said you consider. yourself an agnostic. It sounds like In. other words, it sounds to me like you're. more you're doing things that an atheist. does. Like you're not going to church,

you're not. you know, cele- observing mass or. whatever you would do if you're. But what do you do do do. in the cuz if you're an agnostic, there. should be some behavior that's similar. to a theist. Why? But because then you're just an atheist, right? I mean, in other words, how do. you What practices I'm a behaviorist in. in in my life, you know, so I judge. people on how they act and what how they. behave and and you you know a lot about. this. So. how do you do behave as if there could. be a god? Do you you said maybe you want. science to explain it. You didn't say.

like, I would like to have a personal. revelation from Jesus. I I would like to. encounter him. or whatever Vishnu. I don't care what. religion is. But how do you in practice. live your life such that if God does. exist that that it would make a. difference in the way that you're. perceived or judged if you will. Yeah, well, I I I don't because I guess. I don't know what I don't know what. practice cuz I don't know what god. exists or what story is true. I don't. know what practice is true. Do you think of God? Let's say you were. Hindu, right?

Yeah. Let's say let's say you're not Hindu. Let's say you are what you are. Presbyterian or the Church of Latter-day. I had a practice, wouldn't that make me. religious? No, I'm saying Do you think if there is. a god we have to do this matrix, right? We have to say God exists, God doesn't. exist. Stephen behaves like he's. religious, Stephen doesn't behave like. he is religious, right? So right now. you're in one of those quadrants. You're. you're not sure a god exist. So you're behaving maybe as if he. doesn't exist. And I'm asking you and now he could. exist or he could not exist. So imagine. you move into another quadrant. You say. I'm going to behave like I'm Hindu or.

come down to my temple in San Diego or. whatever. You're going to behave in some. religion. Do you think if God exists, he's going. to say, "Oh God, Steven, you picked the. wrong one. It's not It's not It's. Jainism. It's It's. It's whatever. It's It's It's. Latter-Day Saint.". I don't think I think revolutionary. statement. I think God has common sense. If he exists, if he doesn't exist, it. doesn't matter what you do, right? But. if God exists, he must have common. sense, meaning that if you make an. earnest attempt to understand or at.

least engage yourself religiously, not. believe and force yourself to believe, not make excuses for evil that happens. in the world or cancer for kids. But if. you behave in a certain way, I don't. think if God exists, big if, you'll be judged harshly. I This is exactly the conclusion that. stopped me being religious when I was. 18. Really? Yes, exactly conclusion because So I we. would go to. church every week. We grew up going to. church, read the Bible, all of those. things. And then I When I was younger, I. was operating under this assumption that. I was going to go to hell and burn if I. didn't like obey this this person in the.

sky. Then I read these books. I. Steve Richard Dawkins' books and a bunch. of other books on the subject matter. And I heard that God was omnipotent and. omniscient, which makes a lot of sense. cuz if you create this world and you. can, you know, you're you're active in. it, you must be pretty powerful and. pretty knowing. And then I concluded. that if I basically concluded God would. have common sense. And I thought he. would understand that I'm struggling. And he would understand that as long as. I live a good life and I'm not murdering.

people and I'm not mean to people. and I'm kind and I'm respectful to. people and I'm a net positive on the. earth, then if heaven does exist, any God that I would want to support. anyway would let me in. And he would. understand that I didn't have enough. information to to put my flag in any. particular religion. So he would let me. in. So my my thesis then became, "I'll. just be a good person and you're kind of. hedging your bets because any decent God. that's I think worth supporting would. go, "That was a decent person. He. couldn't quite see it, you know, whatever, but.

But you wouldn't see the little dude. like that. I'm sorry push back, but. No, we're getting into If if you if you. Let's say I say I want to get in shape, Steven. And and yeah, I deserve it. I. got kids, you know, I want to be. healthy, live a long life. But you see. me eating, you know, my I wouldn't eat. cheeseburgers kosher, but hamburgers, french fries, you know, just just I. don't I'm think Well, like, you know, whatever will understand. Like I. In other words, you you would agree that. if you knew God exists, you would do you. would behave very radically differently. Right? If you If I If you had an.

encounter with God, Well, Jesus or or. God himself, right? It depends if I knew for sure that he. existed and a particular book and. doctrine was correct, I would 100%. behave in line with that book and. doctrine. But if I knew he existed, but. I didn't know which book was correct, then I probably would behave exactly how. I do now. Mhm. So, but what if. Because the behavior the practice the. Sabbath comes from one of those books or. doctrines, so. Right, but but even if you couldn't. choose, right? What if it's like.

What if it's possible that all of them. are right and all of them are wrong? In other words, you. we are so frail, fragile, and and and. and adequate to the task of. understanding what the true nature of. God is, that he made it such that again, I'm not saying this is true, but but it. made it possible that there would be. ways of interpretation for how he. existed, right? Like I as a Jew don't. believe in Jesus's divinity, right? But. I don't I don't fault my friends, you. know, Jay Bhattacharya, I don't fault. him. I don't In fact, I think it's.

beautiful that that's his avenue for. worship. He believes that Jesus died for. his personal sins. Now, you would admit. that you would have Jesus will still die. for your sin, or you know, he did die. for your sins if you're an axe murderer, you know, so I just think that level of. saying it's. As long as you don't murder anybody, you. know, it's like me saying, well, you. know, if I'm destined to get in the. shape, I'll get in the shape, you know, my metabolism work it out without me. taking the the the serious action and. working hard, cuz you do it in the rest. of your life, right? And I'm not By the.

way, I'm not proselytizing. It's. actually forbidden in my religion. I'm. not proselytizing. But but the but that. concept of God is that Richard Dawkins. doesn't believe in. I also don't believe. in that guy. Like he's omniscient, he's. going to prevent, you know, babies from. dying from cancer. He's going to do this. or that. Like that's where they make fun. of it. Or they they they relegate it to the a. friend in the sky, you called it, right? I I don't believe there's a friend in. the sky. I don't think that even makes. sense. Um but I believe that we are. seeing something so heavily refracted, again, if it exists.

It's It's like a showing a microwave. telescope, you know, showing BICEP or. the Simons Observatory. to, you know, Gog who lived in a cave. 200,000 years ago. Like there's no way. to get from there to here. But that. doesn't mean like there isn't an. ultimate there and an ultimate here. For. me, I I Let me just say the final thing. I want to say cuz I don't want to make. too much about this, but but. there's a value in practicing even if. you don't believe. Just like I say. sometimes, like even if you got. divorced, like you should still get. married cuz it changes you and it opens.

you up to the full panoply of human. experience that. a lot of people don't get to experience. And when people have the capacity, the. capability to do it, they should, in my. opinion. By the way, I'm not advocating to get. divorced either. But the point being. you obviously wrestle with it. And and. interestingly enough, the word Israel, which is the central, you know, country. of of Judaic faith, means fight with. God. It means wrestle with God. El is. God. Israel means fight. So, how do you. wrestle with it? Do you wrestle with it? Do you think about it? Or do you say,

you know, I'm not going to read these. books that I read before I was 18. because it seems so childish to me now. and so. I I do I certainly wrestle with it. So, when I say wrestle with it, not in a way. that is causing me any pain or agony or. deep frustration, but it's. It's kind of. It's a recurring thought. And I actually. think from doing this podcast and just. um I can maybe growing up and uh the. journey I've been on, I have.

more questions now. than I ever have since I became agnostic. at 18. So, I have more questions now. It's funny, I've been on this bit of an. arc where I was certain when I was. younger that God was real. And then I. was really um certain that. the God I believed in probably wasn't. real. And now I've kind of found myself going. back to position where I'm like. almost like I'm starting the research. project again to figure out what. actually is. what actually is real. I I sometimes. wonder if I'm looking for the wrong. thing cuz I think because we've been so.

sort of indoctrinated into this idea. that it is a man in the sky and. all these the white beard and stuff. So, we're like looking for evidence of that, but maybe I should be searching for. evidence of something else. May- is it. like a feeling I'm searching for? Is it. It's interesting that you said that. It's remin- reminds me of Einstein. Einstein said. um he never asked his father, "What. would happen, Daddy, if I was traveling. at the speed of light and I looked at. myself in a mirror?". And he said, "It was good I didn't ask. those questions when I was five because. my dad would have given me the standard. answer of the 1800s, which was, you. know, you see your refle- or whatever.".

And then Einstein said, "I would have. just accepted that, and then I would. never have gone on to create the theory. of relativity." What you said echoes. what he said cuz if you if you hadn't. asked these questions and just accepted. the belief that you had when you were. 12, you would not be approaching them with. the maturity of a Steven Bartlett at age. uh 32, right? And now you have this. perspective. You have a wisdom that. you've accrued from your life. experiences, from the the millions of. people that you've helped around the. world to expose them to different. things, and you're on a journey. yourself. So, anyway, I I I I.

I just I don't So, I don't have. tolerance for scientists that dismiss it. and say it's stupid and all that, but I. also I I I find that religious people. are too comfortable with saying. everything is described by God. Everything happens because of God. And I. see this a lot with religious children. Um sometimes I'll go into kids' school. and teach them. uh you know, about science and I'll. bring these, you know, props and stuff. Uh, but when I talk to them, sometimes. I'll say like, "Oh, look, there's a. rainbow over there." Oh, that's great. Where did it come from? They'll say God. made it. I think that's a joke. That's a. form of child abuse, you know. If you.

just say that God made it, you're A, completely ignorant about the science. But B, you're also diminishing God's. power, right? If you say, "No, actually. that's an effect of of water droplets, which are formed of hydrogen and oxygen, and here's their chemistry, and here's. how they form, uh, the different state. of matter when they're in collective, and here's how that causes light to. diffract at different wavelengths, and. here's wavelength electromagnetic. radiation. Where does that come from?". And you keep asking the question why, why, why, why, why? Only when you get to. the question the answer, the final.

answer, "I don't know." That's the only. time I would say, "Okay, God could come. in there." But that takes you back. You. know, that whole chain of refraction of. light, of dielectric material, of of of. wavelengths, of of color, all that. stuff. That takes you back till almost. to the Big Bang, which then intersects. with what I do. You said um that you think of God as. almost like a force. Do you think it's a conscious force? I, if you if I sit down and pray to this. God, will they hear me? I honestly could say I don't know, but I.

know that you'll change. I know that. you'll hear yourself. Okay, so. If you can go down to the ocean, Steve. If you can go down to the Pacific Ocean. and just be isolated. and just pour yourself out for an hour, I guarantee it will change your life. You will be in tears, but no one will. see you, and that's the thing. That's. why you have to be alone. You cannot do. it with any other person. You must do it. on your own because. there's no Sam Harris meditation waking. up app. It's not going to do the same. for you as as just you alone. And not. knowing is part of the point, I think.

But what's that got to do with God? What's me going down to the beach and. pouring my heart out, which would get me. into my amygdala or get me thinking. about, you know, make me emotional? I. can imagine, you know, if even listening. to certain music can make you feel that. What what role is God playing in in that. moment? Because if God exists, I do believe that. he's inside of you and that you can. connect with him. Again, you can't. detect him with an MRI machine. or you can't detect him with a laser. But, you know, can if he Again, it's a. big if. I'm not guaranteeing I you know, I'm sorry to disappoint. I'm not that.

kind of doctor, you know. I I can't give. you a prescription that will make you. believe, but to have access to it, you. have to be open to a communication, right? Imagine you got, you know, a you. know, an email and you just never. respond to it. Like people Remember the. movie Interstellar? Have you seen that. movie? So, uh they're you know, the the. people on Earth are communicating with. the people on you know, Matthew. McConaughey's daughter and she had she. doesn't know if he's listening and he. doesn't and he knows that she's but in. that sense he's kind of like this God. like he has knowledge that she doesn't. have. But if she doesn't try, maybe she.

wouldn't maybe just the the aspect of. trying, the attribute of trying is what. opened her up to that return signal, the. communication that she eventually. received. cuz. when I ask the question about can God. hear me and if he can hear me, I guess. the second question is can he do. anything about what he's hearing? Mhm. Mhm. Um there's so much evidence in the world. that he can't hear you and he's not. going to do anything about it. But again, you say that, but like what. if uh you know, who knows? If If you're If your parents, you know,

like there were a lot of the stories in. the early in our our testament are about. sterile barren women that couldn't. conceive, you know, from Sarah that. uh Rebecca to to uh Rachel. All these. women, they couldn't conceive, they. cried out, they they prayed. And again, women are closer to God in many ways cuz. they contain life within them. Um. again, in what sense. are you not already the recipient of the. beneficence of something that you just. don't understand? Potentially, yeah. But But But when I. ask this question about like could I.

if I pray, is it going to influence my. outcomes in any way? You know, there's a. natural process. it does. I don't believe does for the reason I. said before. Like people were praying. here for the Dodgers, I'm sure there. were equally virtuous people praying for. the Yankees. That's what I mean. If you think about. the scientific method. That's why I said I don't. we could apply that and say does prayer. work? Right. And you could get I don't know, look. through history at the Holocaust or look. at some other world natural disaster and. think it has praying swayed the the. probabilities of bad things happening to. these people. So I don't believe that at all, but I do.

believe that a fundamentally. person who believes that their. that their actions have some impact will. feel at least a sense of gratitude. Let. me let me give you an example. You're. familiar in Christianity, you know, people say a a blessing before the meal, like grace before a meal. So in Judaism. you do that before the meal, after the. meal, sometimes during the meal. But the point is the more you express. gratitude, you you cannot be a happy. person and be an ingrate. Yeah. The more you're grateful for.

like the sound of you know, of of you. know, a song that is just so meaningful. to you, the sight of a painting or a. sunset. The more that you're and and. Judaism we say blessings for those. things. Like we say if we see a meteor. shower, we say a blessing. It's hard for. me as an astronomer, you got to say. bless. A rainbow, another thing. Those. are like kind of things we become. desensitized to in life and we just take. for granted. When you taste a fine wine. or you taste you know, some delicious. food. Again, it could just be.

chlorophyll. Here Steven, have here's. your plate of agar gum. Like okay, great. I could live. Here's whey powder. That's all you ever get to eat. And then. you'd be like this sucks. I know what. I'm I had and if I could only go back to. it after I get out you know, the. situation, I'm going to be so grateful. To me that grateful gratitude connects. to the ultimate source. of that provided that we can't. understand. It's true. I cannot give you. and I told you I have problems with. prayer cuz I don't like to be told what. to do. I don't like to be told I have to. say this in this order, stand up, sit. down, fast on this day, do this thing,

not eat that delicious pink guy with the. curly tail. Like, but when you do that, you know this, the more you're disciplined, the happier. life is. You know, who's who's more. happy? The guy who eats everything he. wants or Jocko, you know, like the the. the the person who just gives in to all. their temptations of alcohol? The person who abstains and and elevates. what they do. And I think we want to. elevate ourselves above the level of an. animal of the animals. But I can have all those behaviors of. like a gratitude practice. I can have a. meditation practice. I get onto the.

beach. I can do all of those things. And. I still I can still do all of those. things without the need of a god. Oh, sure. Sure. And and I'll get all the benefits of. those things. I'd get When I when I. express gratitude before I eat or. sometimes when I'm getting on a plane. and I I I touch the plane to remind. myself. And I can almost make myself. emotional just thinking about how. remarkable it is that I get to do some. of the things I've had been able to do. in my life to the point of like physical. emotion. Yeah. Um but without the presence of of. needing to equate that to God in any.

way. Hm. I So I'm I'm trying to find I guess I'm. searching for where God fits in all of. this. Why why why is God Why is a God. required? Is it just because I have so. many blessings that I should be thankful. to someone for these things? Which I do. contend with. I go, "Okay, I literally. think about how my life has changed in. the last 10 years of you know, from. going from someone who was shoplifting. pizzas to sitting here and getting to do. this It's It's remarkable. You start to. think you're a little bit in the Truman. Show if you're not if you you think. about it too deeply." But um and you do. feel you think, "Who do I thank for. this?" You think, "Do I thank my. parents?" Like. Right.

Do I thank myself? Or you So you. Do I thank a god? Um but I But is that the reason? It just. to just just to be thankful. But then I. go, "There's a bias there because. there's kids in the town in Botswana. that I was born in. that are still in the town in Botswana. that I was born in. And they're not. doing so good. So they Do they have Did. God not like them? Did. And then if you go, "No, God likes both. of you." Then I go, "Okay, well then God. isn't responsible for this. It was. something that I did or my parents did. that are responsible for this. So I. should thank them. So, where does God. fit again? And I just go around in these.

loops and I go, I don't know what Are we. trying to create a God to make sense of. the things we feel and the experiences. we have and the baby that grabs off. finger and the gratitude and the the the. the solar eclipse and the the sunset. Are we trying to. trying to give that to someone because. it's just so the awe is just so much or. did God give that to us? Mhm. Well, I mean, the perspective that you're bringing is. obviously you've thought about this a. lot and obviously your attitude is.

healthy and I think it's you have, you. know, on balance I think yeah, obviously. living as a a good life even if you I'd. never say that an atheist can't be a. good person or can't be happy or any of. those things. The question is what Where. does it augment and affect your life? Like for example, I don't know if I. would give 10% of my income to charity, before tax income to charity, if I if it. wasn't a commandment in my religion. But. I don't feel shame for that. I don't. feel like, "Oh, you needed religion to. tell you this?" Cuz again, I'm still.

searching just as much as I think that. you are. I don't feel like uh as. untroubled by the answers of it, right? I don't feel like that not knowing for. sure that God exists, which I don't. believe is possible anyway, that that. should be an impediment to me practicing. giving charity, being in a community, um. uh raising my kids with an appreciation. of their history and their culture, um. and and just the contributions of their. religion, of your religion, whatever, to to the world.

So, if you found out from this new. project that you've you've launched, this 2 million $200 million project that. you've launched to figure out the. existence of or I guess what the what. not the existence, but the origin of the. universe, the origin of life, if you. found out unequivocally that God isn't. real, Mhm. pre- convinces you to the point that you. now believe that God is not. the creator of the universe. And that I. don't know you figure out some other way. we can create universes in little labs. and maybe a thousand years from now we. can create our own little universes from. nothing somehow.

Or we find out we're in a simulation. out. Yeah, whatever. Yes, exactly. How. does that change you? Uh because I'm a behaviorist, I I I don't I really don't feel like my. life would be better to act as if God. doesn't exist. In other words, if I know. God doesn't exist then I'm going to act. like he doesn't exist, right? That's a. logical assumption. Yeah. Right? So, I'm going to stop giving. charity. Like is that going to make me. happier in life? Is that going to. benefit society or my or, you know, Zeus.

or whatever doesn't exist? Like I. already know that's not true, right? So, I've kind of done this experiment. Like. all these other gods I know I don't. believe in Ra, you know, Akhenaten. So, you wouldn't do anything. differently? Benefits to my life are so substantive. that I would not change my behavior. But you you're being guided then by your. be- your behavior and the rewards from. behavior, which is pretty much my life. Yeah. Well, okay. So, right. I'm being guided and the meditation. I'm. being guided by like if gratitude feels. good, I do it. If going down to the. beach feels good, I do it. If having a.

baby feels good, I'll do it, you know? So, like. It'd be dangerous to devolve into. hedonism. add God to my life or take it away, my. behaviors are going to be the same. because I'm I'm being guided by. the things that are making me feel good. But I don't think so. You're not like. those hedonistic Instagram influencers. No, cuz that wouldn't make me feel good. Like a donut I've run the experiment. And eating the donut makes me feel okay. for the time it's touching my tongue but. then bad for 12 hours when my gut starts. reacting badly. So, I don't do that. anymore. Well, I mean I see this question. So, if.

they found out that working out is. eventually it's it's actually going to. shorten your life or it's going to do. the opposite of what you're intending it. to do necessarily, would you keep. working out? How much is it going to shorten my life. by? Um every every. you know, ab crunch you do every bench. press takes an hour off your life or. something or couple minutes off your. life. Ooh, this it's an interesting one. Um. I would probably live.

10 years less. to live. like 10 years better like to have a. better health span. So I if you tell me. I'm going to live to 100 100 with. without working out or I could live to. 90 but I'm going to be strong and fit. for those 90 years I'll take the 90. years. So in my analogy that's exactly right. So I feel like that level of of. perfecting or enjoyment and the. ancillary benefits of gratitude and and.

happiness that I've received tangibly. you cannot convince me as I can't. convince you that working out feels I. couldn't convince you working out is bad. it feels bad for you. It does something. to you physically, mentally, emotionally. I don't want to say spiritually but for. me to see the benefits to see the things. that I've seen like like. Look Steven, I've. buried my father. Okay? And in in Judaism one of the core. tenants is that. it's the highest it's sort of the. highest mitzvah it's the highest. commandment to take care of someone. who's died. Why? Cuz they can't.

reciprocate. Most of what we do in life. we have some kind of contract you know. we play by the rules we do things nicely. we have contractors we invest in drugs. den whatever. We're going to get some. there's nothing good there's nothing. that will come out of it that will. benefit you. I've seen things I've seen people that. are saints that I can't aspire to even. be in their presence of. But it's made my life better. I wouldn't. change the things that I've done or. seen. And you couldn't convince me it wasn't.

good for me and as I said before maybe. you think I'm weak but I wouldn't have. done it if I. didn't feel it was commanded to me. You mentioned the word simulation. Yeah. a second ago. This is something that I've been. thinking a lot about. What is Just for people that don't know, what is the simulation theory and. are we living in a simulation? Mhm. Great question. So, the simulation. theory was really conjectured by a. British uh philosopher or he's actually.

Swedish and I believe Nick Bostrom. He. conjectured the following. He said, "Compute is getting so phenomenally. powerful in just our recent time. horizon." So, the notion that Nick and. others have proposed is that if this is. extrapolated indefinitely into the. future, whether or not that can happen. is a question about planetary resources, you know, part of the reason Elon wants. to go to Mars and I do want to talk to. you about Mars in a bit. Mhm. Um and. that uh that extrapolation leads. inexorably to the to the conclusion that.

compute will be effectively free and. it'll be infinite. It'll be completely. democratized democratized. It'll be. completely demonetized. It'll be almost, you know, as I said, too cheap to to to. measure the expense of computing and. it'll be everywhere. Uh in just a short. amount of time. I mean, remember the the. phone that we have, uh the iPad that. you're using, these are like these. things would literally be a mythological. witchcraft, you know, 80 years ago and. now they're they're they're commonplace. And so, the the notion that Nick.

proposed Bostrom proposed is that that. trend continues into the future that. basically the capability of those. computers would be to be able to model. entire planets, entire ecosystems, even. cultures, communities, maybe even people. themselves. So, we let's take a parallel. um uh uh detour for just a bit. You're not seeing me necessarily. You're. seeing photons are coming into your. retinas, right? Photons are uh packets. of energy, form of light. They travel at.

the speed of light. They have different. wavelengths. The wavelengths we call. color. They're going into your uh. cornea, getting bent a little bit, then. they're going to your lens getting bent. more, then they're going to your retina. and they're getting detected on this. basically. a detector just like a a sensor in a. camera which has pixels except it has. trillions of pixels instead of millions. of megapixel or you know a few. megapixels. And those are being. transduced. The color gets transduced on. on cells that are called cone cells. The. intensity is rod cells. And and those are getting transduced.

into electrical impulses that go from. the optic nerve right into your brain. And remember Andrew Huberman told you on. the show the retina is the only part of. the human brain that's outside of the. cranium. It's outside of the skull. And. so it's a part of your brain that's. outside so it transduces it makes. electrical impulses. Those electrical. impulses then get conducted like wires. conducting electricity. And then those. go into your brain and synapses in your. brain and the neural pathways in your. brain can reproduce those. Now, you have. an Apple Vision Pro I think I I saw you.

with once. So that can you know kind of simulate it. could make very accurate representation. of me a holographic perhaps and you. would want to reach out and touch me. Now imagine instead of just. instead of just the. just the raw the physical electronics of. a of a headset Apple Vision Pro, you. just inject the electrical signals into. the brain. So that's plausible. It's just purely. physical material processes. Photons converted to electrons get. converted to neuron signals get.

processed in the brain. And so all you. have to do is get that input sensory. inputs and you could have a digital. retina. Let's fake retina and you just. simulate it goes into your brain. They're working on that. Same with sound. Sound is even easier to. put a little speaker in your ear and. you'd hear. But so the notion is that we could. physically just be disconnected brains. in a vat, right? We could just be in in. this vast system just bunches of brains. Don't ask how they got there, but we're. all just receiving stimuli and we're. just being fed. I'm being fed an image. of you over there. You're being fed an.

image of me over here. I don't know why. Nobody knows why this would occur. But. the computing power is there. If you. think that the Apple Vision Pro, if if. you were alive in 1971, uh you could not have necessarily. predicted the Apple Vision Pro. It was. too far advanced from from what we have. right from what we had at that point in. time. But imagine it just keeps. increasing at any rate you like. Eventually, there'll be a point where. every bit of information, every atom in. the universe, every photon in the. universe could theoretically be. simulated.

Again, I don't know why this is, but it would be indistinguishable from. our reality, according to people like. Nick Bostrom and others. That suggests. this is so so that our existence is we. are essentially in a simulation. So, the notion is that we're all these. characters in this literal simulation. run on some computing device, some. hardware device that we don't. necessarily understand at this point. And we're calling that God. Oh, that was I was going to get to. Uh so, eventually you get to a point.

where if you could simulate everything, then you would have to ask there must be. some simulator. Right? There must be some master. simulator. So, let's say I'm a. simulation. Well, who simulated me? And. then oh, who simulated them? And then. who simulated them? So, that's the. recursion. That's infinite regress. You. can't actually get to a base level of um. you know, a final simulator. And if you. did, it would kind of be like God. Like. you're talking about this brain in a jar. that's created out of silicon and and. and oxygen and whatever we're made of,

but it's physically created by human. beings. What if you can't pay the power. bill that week, and um you know, you. have to choose between unplugging your. refrigerator or unplugging the brain? Like, is that killing something? You. know, like it starts to enter into the. realm of ethics and maybe even these. concepts of a deity. What I've heard and I find quite. plausible is um. remember I said the the implication of. having infinite computing is that you. can simulate everything in the universe. Yeah. Uh but can it simulate itself? So, I.

want to digress into what's called. complexity theory. There are two different types of of. difficult things. There's like a complex. thing, like building an Airbus 320. It's. very complicated, right? You can do it. if I give you all the parts, all the. instructions, give you the right order, and I keep you energized with that like. anybody can follow the instructions and. make it. The Earth's weather pattern state right. now is complex. There's no way that you. can actually create that. Like you would. need another planet-size thing to create.

that. That's called irreducibly complex. You cannot make it simpler and then. build it up from simpler and simpler. things. Unlike an Airbus, you can build. it up from smaller and smaller parts and. as long as you follow the recipe, you. know, if you follow the recipe for the. Simons Observatory, you'll get the. Simons Observatory. But if you try to. simulate and it may be to simulate the. weather, you do need another planet. Like we need a another planet just like. the Earth and then we'd introduce carbon. dioxide at a certain rate and we'd see. is it really going to cause it like. that's totally impractical, right? Mhm.

So, the question of these things is. um. is it really a simulation if it's not. 100%? Like you could make a very, very. good weather simulation. We do have. that. Uh but but famously they're only. accurate for a few days, right? So, so. how do you build up, you know, an. accurate simulator? It'd have to be the. same So, in other words, do we need like. another Is there another universe where. the simulators are that's equally. complex to the simulation creation that. they made? And then did they stop like. did they get Are they made of silica? Are they artificial? Are they.

So, there are proposals that you could. detect the presence. It's kind of like. you mentioned the Truman Show. Where how all computers work right now. is is on this binary code, zeros and. ones, 5 volts 0 volts. Um but um and that means that the world. is fundamentally discretized. It's. broken into little chunks, like the. screen on your computer or your iPad. It's pixelated. In space, it'd be called voxels, volume. elements. Um and so, you can um.

you can have an a large number of them, but it's a big difference between a. large number and infinity. To really. have a continuous, like like um. temperature is continuous, like go from. 0° to 100° and there's every step in. between. But, in the simulated world, because you couldn't have you need an. infinite number of computer power to. simulate just from 0° to 1°. Not let alone from 0 to 100 or every. possible combination. So, at some level, you'd be you'd see if you zoomed in. really close on the on the thermometer,

you'd see there's a little jump. So, you. could detect the presence of the. simulator. It's more complicated. Actually, it's done using astrophysical. sources called gamma-ray bursts and. other things that are um that have. properties that are seemingly. incompatible with there being a. simulation at the most distant and. therefore earliest moments in the. universe. So, right now, there's zero. evidence for it. Nick Bostrom will tell. you, and you should have him on, uh that. that, you know, that that's basically a. cop-out and and there are ways around. that that that fail-safe mechanism. Aliens.

Do aliens exist? Yes, aliens do exist. Uh there's an old joke, they're called. Hungarians. Hungarians have so many. countries. Um. so, I I Yes, there's old joke, there are. aliens, they're Klingons, and they're. around Uranus. But, I wanted to give. this to you, Stephen, as one of the. gifts of for you today. This is some. soap for you. This is soap. Uranus soap. It's Uranus soap. So, you want to keep. Uranus clean. Um. Thank you so much. seriousness, uh there's no evidence for.

aliens. There's no. There's what's I call possibility does. not equal probability. The existence of. so many stars in the universe means. there's so many planets, which is true. We found almost every single star has. maybe 10 planets around it. And we have. 100 billion in our galaxy alone. There's 100 billion galaxies in our. universe. We're talking. a one with 24 zeros after it. That's how. many planets there are in the observable. universe. Planets? Planets. People say, "That means that it's got to.

be life in the universe." No, it doesn't. mean anything. There could be so many hurdles for life. to get started, let alone to create. complex technology producing life like. us. That we're essentially we're it. And I'm. not saying we are it, but I'm saying. there it's been 0.000%. evidence that life exists beyond the. Earth. I know you've had Lou Elizondo. on. Uh, the claims that he's making are. controversial. They're not scientific. They're. government. I'm not dismissing his. experiences of people he talks about.

They're not persuasive. They're not. addressing fundamental characteristics. The universe is vaster than you or I can. comprehend. You know, if this was our. solar system, the nearest star would be. like near in San Diego. There's almost. no way for us to comprehend how enormous. our solar our universe is, let alone how. vast the cosmos is. How much of it can we see? We can see, technically we can see a lot. of the universe, but most of that is way. before even molecules formed. In other.

words, there's no possibility of life. Let's restrict ourselves to the Milky. Way galaxy, which is the only galaxy. we'll ever be able to explore, etc., at. least unless we invent wormhole travel. like Interstellar. But but for now, we have sent probes. The farthest probe we've ever sent was. launched in 1977. It's one light day away from the Earth, okay? So, that means traveling at the. speed of light, the fastest speed. possible. 186,000 miles per second. 300,000 km per.

second. It's only quote unquote It's only gotten. one light day away. The nearest star. is 1,200 times farther away than that. It's four light years away. So, it'll never get to that other star. I mean, it took and it took 50 years to. get one light day, so it need 1,200 * 50. years, call it 100, so you're talking. like vast numbers of of millennia to get. to the nearest star. And that star, we. don't even know if it has life on it or. not. And it's not actually going to that. star. But the point is the the galaxy.

itself is so large. And the types of. environments in which life can take hold. are so so precarious. It's It's actually. we we tell ourselves a story, like you. said, with molecules and then they start. to evolve and then they get It's It's. really not known how life got created. It's not known how life came from. nonliving material, from hydrogen, helium, oxygen, how that turned into a. cell. It's a It's a vast challenge in. what's called organic synthetic organic. chemistry and the formation origin of. life.

Uh and then to say that those entities. then evolved into some kind of. technologically produced No, if we found. a dinosaur on Mars, that would be the. the discovery of the of the of the. history of the planet of of all time, right? A or whatever. Even a bacterium. on Mars, that would be an incredible. discovery. So, some people try to defeat this. notion and say, "Well, life didn't have. to necessarily get started in all these. planets. It could have started once. and then get brought to those other.

planets through meteorites." Yeah. This. is actually created This theory was. created by the same Fred Hoyle came up. with the Big Bang theory. They called it panspermia. Sounds dirty, but it's not. So, these meteorites could. carry genetic material. and they could land on another planet. They could have landed on Earth. That's. one theory, that life on Earth. originated from another planet that had. life on it. And in fact, this is one of. your lovely parting gifts. Um this.

is what. Elon will kill for. I'm going to give. you something that Elon doesn't have. This is a piece of Mars. This is a real piece of Mars. It's 1.524 g. of another planet. I want you to touch. it. You can see it's a little bit reddish, like the planet Mars. This is much better than the. that soap you gave me. I gave you a piece of Uranus and a piece. of Mars. Here's some information about. it. I give out, as I said, these. meteorites on my website, Brian. Keating.com, to lucky winners each.

month. And I'll give out the. information. This was found in Africa. And. how did it get here? Well, a meteorite hit. the planet Mars, shattered off debris. That debris orbited around Mars for. millions of years, perhaps. Eventually, it plowed into the Earth. and landed. in Africa. They found it. They said this They knew it came from. space. They analyzed it. It has the same.

chemical composition, molecular. structure as the landers that are on. Mars right now measure for Mars. So, we. know 100% that's from Mars. It's incredible. So, Elon is desperately. trying to get there. That's your little piece. Please keep. Keep it safe. And that's one way that life could have. gotten to Mars. from the Earth, right? If the same freaking thing happens on. the Earth as happened to Mars, so it. could have hit uh Earth, blasted off um. some amoebas, some uh orcas, some.

kangaroo, whatever, and whatever was on. the Earth at the time and then. eventually landed on Mars with the DNA. of it, but it didn't take hold, right? So, planets exchange DNA. It is. possible. But, we don't see life on Mars. If we think about this table, yeah. Um give to put in context how big the. universe is. If the universe was the. size of this table, how big would Earth be on this table? Uh incomprehensibly small. Not even a grain of sand? No, no, no, far, far smaller. Not even a grain of.

Even in wouldn't be a grain of sand. Even if this were our galaxy it wouldn't. be a grain of sand. No, no, no. Our. solar Our whole solar system would be. perhaps, yes, one grain of sand. If this. were the Milky Way galaxy, which is. 100,000 light-years across, it would be like one tiny little grain. of sand. What would be? Of the solar system. Out to the planet. Neptune. So that What's that? 10 planets? What. does that mean? Well, we have uh there's eight planets. in our solar system including the Earth. Used to be nine, but Pluto's no longer a. planet. Um so and we're about 1/3 of the.

way from the edge of the disc of the. Milky Way. So traveling all across there, yes, we. would be perhaps the entire solar system. actually smaller than maybe half a grain. of sand. And can we travel to the end of the. solar system? Well, we sent uh this object has gone. well beyond it. So the edge of the solar. system is about four light hours. So we. in 50 years, Stephen, we've only gone. quote unquote I'm not denigrating this. as an historic accomplishment. We. actually put on these on these. spacecraft. um digitized pictures of human life, of. voices, of songs from every continent,

of culture, of recipes, of laughter, of. children, crying of babies. They put. this called the golden disc. Uh Carl. Sagan was responsible for this. And they. mounted it to it and it's now uh well, as I said, 24 light hours away. And the. farthest edge of our solar system, the. planet Neptune, is is four light hours, sorry, 24 light hours is the Voyager. spacecraft. So we've only gone 1/6 of. the We've gone only six times the. diameter of our solar system. So our entire solar system would be a. grain of sand on this table. Yes, even yeah, about half a grain.

Yeah, half a grain of sand on this. this table. This table's about 2 1/2 m. roughly big. Mhm. And how many tables. are there? That's a very good question. We think at. least 100 billion tables. Each one with 100 billion grains of. sand. There are more. There are more grains uh sorry, there. are more stars. in the entire universe that we can. observe than every grain of sand. on every beach. on every continent on our planet.

That's really wobbled my head. So, there's. our entire solar system is half of grain. of sand on this sort of 2-3 m table, and. there are a hundred billion tables. So, you know, when you hear that, you. go, "Okay, we really don't matter.". Like, we're really It's It's so bizarre. that we've fallen into the trap of. believing that we're like important in. any way. And then that For me, that even. throws another question mark it towards. religion. But, the other thing it makes. me go is. surely.

there's got to be. some other life on one of these grains. of sand on the hundred billion tables. Again, well, let me just address the. first thing. So, um you're. about 10 maybe 2. 15 trillion times bigger than a virus or. bacteria. Um Can that bacteria affect you or a. virus hurt you? Of course, it can. So, size doesn't really make that big a. difference in this context, right? Jupiter's a hundred times, you know,

bigger in diameter than the Earth. Does. it make it more important? I think the. Earth is much more important. I like the. Earth a lot better. Um the Sun is a hundred times bigger. than Jupiter. Like, would you like to. live there? The point I'm trying to make is size. isn't really that important. Number's. not really that important. And remember, don't ever forget. we're the only. conscious, you know, entity that we know. about in the universe, right? There's. There's literally like 70 different. types of of primates, right? Like, monkeys you talked about before, bonobos, orangutans.

None of them have what we have. None of. them can have this. Probabilistically. Let me give you an example. Uh I've been to Antarctica twice for. bicep experiments. When I go there, Antarctica is the. seventh continent to be discovered on. Earth. It's approximately 12% of the. land mass of the Earth. It's a huge enormous continent with. extreme mountains, weather, extreme. cold, but the one thing it doesn't have. as much life. But if you did that same thing, I said, "Look, Steven, there's this continent.

You could hardly walk across it and you. know, 5 or 6 years even if you're a. great athlete." You know, people do it, but you. it would be very challenging to do it. Um it's enormous. It's got all the. support for life. It's got. hydrocarbons. It's got heat. It's got. our rocks. You can build shelter. You. can have water, which is the most. important thing. How much life do you. think is there? Let me just tell you, Steven, there's it makes up 13% of the. Earth's surface. There's 8 billion. people on Earth. How many people do you. think live there? I mean, as a. scientist, you don't have to be a. scientist. You'd say, "I think there's probably,

you know, maybe 800 million people. there." There's zero people there, basically. So, just the probability, I'm. not saying it's impossible. Probability. is not determined by possibility. Cuz the the thing with the South Pole. is, okay, so there's no one there. And. if if you put me there and said, "Is. there life?" and I got a telescope out. and I looked around, I'd go, "There's no. life here. I can't see anything.". Right. I think I'd say I'm the. the only person here. And then I'd have. a positive meeting to myself and say, "I. must be really important." I I might. think that I'm a god if if if I'm the. only life there. I'd look around and go, "It's for miles." And I'd walk for days.

and days and days and send out pigeons. and whatever. And I'd go, "There's no. one. It's just me." But then little do I. know that although this little space is. inhabitable, if you go get on a plane. and go a little bit further, you get to. the land of the free. Right. But what if we can't do that? What if there's no plane? What if. there's nothing? What if this is all we. have? I think that a lot of the sightings and. stuff, I've interviewed the top fighter. pilots, you know, in the world that claim to. have witnessed these encounters. I've.

you know, interviewed the top, you know, people. that claim these things exist. I've. interviewed Avi Loeb. He's a good friend. at Harvard. He runs a project. He claims. he's discovered material from. interstellar, you know, technology. perhaps, like a garbage barge that was. floating throughout friend. He's a very eminent scientist. At no point do I ever understand the. fundamental answer to the question. How. did they get here? What properties what physics properties. do they use? You know, they always say, "Oh, well, they defy the laws of.

physics." Well, I'm a physicist, you. know, I can understand some of the most. deep physics you want. Um and by the. way, there are many times in history. where if I showed you something that was. made by the US government, you would say. that is witchcraft magic. Like the iPad thing you said. iPad is just one thing. You know that in. the movie 2001 a Space Odyssey. You know that By the way, I have to tell. you this. If you don't know, the word. podcast, do you know that it comes from. the movie 2001 a Space Odyssey? Oh, yeah, I read the article. First of. all, it's good good good good. Yeah, it was an engineer at.

at who called it an iPod and the iPod. came from the pod in 2001. So, we owe podcast to 2001. So, in that. movie, there are iPods. They're guys. communicating with iPods. But they. thought it was like technology of like. 20th century. No, I'm talking about the. technology that would take to make. traversable. distances out of this incomprehensible. cosmos that I talked about. When you apply that thinking to God, it changes though because earlier you.

said we just can't fathom. Mhm. We can't fathom this creator and the the. factors that would go into this creator. So, we almost have to. you know, some people just choose to. believe. Right. Yeah. And the same can be applied to the this. thinking of how they got here. It's like. listen, maybe we don't know their. technology because it's just. unfathomable. Like the iPod or the iPod. was 100 years ago. You're absolutely right. So, they're just 100 years ahead of us. technologically, we'd think that they. were doing witchcraft. We would we. wouldn't understand the the basis of the. technology that they used to travel. here. Sure. But people like Lou will talk.

about things that are exactly. scientific claims. One of the things in. his book. which I read, he hasn't come on my. podcast. I'd like to talk to him, but. he talks about these these craft and and. the properties of them and how when. you're inside of them they're bigger. than they are when you're outside of. them. and how they affect and they they. interact with human biology and cause. burns and so forth and the technology. he's talking about there it's not like. some fifth force that I don't know about. it's using the properties of.

general relativity of space time. We do know enough about these things. whereas God you're right I'm not I'm not. being. so so critical maybe when it comes to. this notion of God. Remember I said I. don't I don't have to say I believe in. gravity or in string theory or whatever. We can have evidence for it. So when. they make claims that have to do with. physics they should be tested by the. laws of physics. When you talk about God I'm saying I'm. stipulating you can't test those with. with laws and therefore I can't prove. God exists despite how much I would like.

to or not like to. So what do you think the probability is. that. we are alone? Do you think we're alone. in the universe? Mhm. I think it's very high. You think it's high? I think it's very high that we're alone. Let me make an analogy. For us to be here. we Earth had to have the following. circumstances happen. We had to have Can you pass me the moon? The moon? Yeah. And actually can you pass that there's a. globe behind you? Love to have that. Perfect.

Okay. So I put here a globe. and I put here the moon and these are. almost an exact ratio of size. This is. about how big the moon is compared to. the Earth. Now originally before the moon didn't. exist when the Earth was was first. formed the the Earth condensed out of a. giant version of trillions and trillions. and trillions of tons of these. meteoritic materials. They sank to the. bottom made the core of the Earth the. Earth Earth's core is made of iron. The. heavier lighter elements like carbon. nitrogen oxygen they kind of accreted.

onto it. and eventually this super planet formed. And that planet or the the Earth was. called Theia. And it's called that. because eventually there was a planet. the size of that. Can you get me that. beach ball, please, Steve? A planet. about this size, maybe a little bit. smaller. Just for people that are not watching. Yeah, so there's a beach ball that's a. little bit smaller than the globe that. we're looking at. It impacted this early. Earth, Theia. Blasted out material into the solar. system. And over millions and millions of years,

some of that material condensed and. formed the moon. The moon and then the Earth formed as we. know it today. Uh now the moon is 250,000 mi away from. the Earth. It's exactly at the right. place and size that we have tides on the. Earth. We have ocean tides four times a. day. So right now I'm showing where high. tide would be, say, where this part of. the moon's uh gravity is pulling on the. ocean here, so it rises it up. That. means that some of the tides on the. other side are also high tide, and then. night right angles, low tide, low tide. Oh, so that's how the tides work. Basically, wherever the moon is, it's.

pulling the ocean up. Yeah, it's actually pulling the Earth uh. and the Earth is surrounded by this this. this sphere of water, and so it sloshes. that moves the Earth within that water, and the water gets turned into like a. lozenge shape. So the high tides will be. twice a day, and the low tides will be. twice a day right angles to them. So that happens, and we believe that. that process is what was necessary to. make the materials from the oceans where. life started, and eventually get that on. the land and fertilize and make people. eventually. Okay, so remember, I'm. trying to explain how we got here. So. there had to be this enormous collision.

from an a pre-existing object in our. solar system to create the moon and the. Earth as we know them now. But that. wasn't enough. Then there had to be these giant. icebergs called comets. Comets bombard the Earth over periods of. millions of years. The comets brought. the ocean-bearing material. They brought. water to the Earth's surface and. minerals and so forth to the Earth's. surface. Eventually the Earth cooled. down, and those oceans covered about 70%. of the Earth's surface is covered by.

ocean as shown here. So that comet had to occur that. bombardment in the and the. the fertilization of water or providing. of water hydration of the earth came. courtesy of comets. Then lastly, for us. to be here, these guys, these are. dinosaurs. Here I brought a. actual representation of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were roaming the earth, we. know that, right? Uh 65 million years. ago, an asteroid about this size, which is about an inch across, hit the earth traveling 250,000.

mph, something like that, hit it near. Mexico in the Yucatan Peninsula right. here, created this enormous devastation, this crater, that obliterated the. atmosphere, filled the atmosphere with. pollution and and basically made like. nuclear winter like you and I talked. about, and that cut off light to plants. and eventually the dinosaurs, most of. the dinosaurs, almost all the dinosaurs. died. Now, that allowed mammals, the first. mammals were little tiny rodents, rats,

right? And I believe all evolution is. true, right? So, those little rats then. eventually evolved and made whales and. people and and bats and all sorts of. cool stuff, and eventually we came from. that. So, I've described to you. three very important bombardments of the. earth. One, earth moon formed from a. huge collision. Two, comets bombard the. earth flooding it with water, just the. right amount, not too much, not too. little, just perfect. And three, a. meteor kills off. the dinosaurs. If any of those came in a.

different order, we would likely not be. here. So, not only did they occur, three incredibly improbable things, which you would never predict would. occur in that order, happened to occur, and they happened to occur in the right. order. It was the first two created life. though, right? Say again? It was the first two of those three that. created life. But. allowed for life to exist. Yes, you're. right. But remember, I'm trying to. explain how the OAC occurs, right? For. us to to here, if there are dinosaurs. here, if the dinosaurs had a space. program, you know, where they could zap. away the with a laser and they could.

deflect the asteroid they would have. done it and we wouldn't be here. Likely, okay? So, you're right. But, let's say. those events occurred in a different in. a different pattern. The small asteroid. hit the Earth first, nothing happens, there's no dinosaurs to kill. Uh then. the comets come in, flood the Earth with. ocean, but then this huge uh you know. the Theia. hits the the Earth forms into its moon. That would have boiled off all the ocean. as well. So, we wouldn't have any water. there for life to exist on. And then the. dinosaurs wouldn't even need to exist. So, those are just three things, Steven.

By the way, we have also the planet. Jupiter I talked about before Galileo. discovered its moons. Jupiter is like a. bodyguard. It protects the Earth from almost every. major deadly impact. The moon is also. like a bodyguard. See all the craters on. this moon that my son 3D printed? He's. proud to show it to you. Yeah. Uh these are death strikes that could. have taken out the Earth. Look how big. some of them are. They're as big as the. Earth as the dinosaur-killing meteorite. in some cases. So, we have all these conditions. I've only. named five or six. Imagine each one. of the five or six only occurs with a.

probability of one in 10,000. One part. in 10 to the fourth. Well, guess what happens? You take 10. one in 10,000 multiplied by one in. 10,000, one in 10,000 six times. Just say that. You get a number that's. smaller than the number of planets in. the universe. In other words, the probability of all. just those six things, I think there's. trillions of things, how life formed, the cell formed, the chemistry, the. biology, and then the culture, whatever. All those things have formed to make us. technological, I think the probability. is is extremely small, which is why I.

said I think the probability is low that. we are that there are other life forms. or another way to say it, I think it's. very high that we are alone. And that might be for a reason. You. know, there might be some reason. Maybe. we're meant to really take care of. Earth. Maybe we're meant to really. appreciate the blessings of what we have. on Earth. If you're an entrepreneur, you're. probably going to want to listen to. this. It's a message from one of our. sponsors on this podcast, which is. LinkedIn. If you've listened to me on this podcast. for a while now, you'll know that I've.

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listeners, a discount and four. additional months free on a 2-year plan. It's also completely risk-free with. Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. So, head to nordvpn.com/doac. or click the link in the description. below. Star signs and horoscopes. Yeah. Is there any possibility. in your view, from everything you've. you've done in your research and your. studies of the universe, is there any. possibility that anything up there in. the stars is determining our outcomes.

and our personality and whether he's. going to dump me or I'm going to do well. on Bitcoin? Is there anything? Uh no. There. There's There's no evidence for it in. the sense that you can do randomized. control trials or double-blind surveys. You can do exact simulations, as I said. The The theory that the position of. Jupiter at the moment that you were born. can literally be replicated. There's. something like a million people born. every day. And then at the exact same. time, there's probably, you know, 14,000 or whatever. You know, you could. do the math and figure it out. Um for.

them all to have For no person to ever. have, you know, sort of duplication of. luck or circumstance, the the effect um. in terms of physical forces, the gravity. of Jupiter, the the pull of of the sun, the position of the Earth on the day you. were born. Now, there are correlation. effects, right? So, you have to be. careful not to confuse correlation with. causation, right? So, someone I'm. actually born on the most. frequently frequent birthday. uh on all the calendar, September 9th.

Now, what is Septem- September 9th is. about 9 months after the holiday season, right? So, in a Western culture, you. know, women are partying. Maybe my mom. and my dad had a nice, you know, New. Year's Eve or Christmas party or. whatever, and that's led to me being. here, right? So, there are correlation. And then that So, that means that. there's a lot of people that are Virgos. born on September 9th, none of which are. like me. Or in the Southern Hemisphere. versus the Northern Hemisphere, a woman. who's has gestation during the summer. might feel differently than if she's. gestating during the winter, even though. the babies are born at the same day, right? They're just born on opposite.

sides of the Earth. So, they will have. very different personalities, whereas. astrology says they should be the same. It's interesting, cuz people will, especially people that are precious. about horoscopes and. astrology and those kinds of things will. say. I have just as much evidence for my. thing as you do for your thing. Like. they cuz they they almost consider it to. be a religious belief. And these people. that I know literally some people have. designed their entire lives. and the meaning of their life around. meaning that they're finding out in by.

looking up at the stars. How is it different from religion. astrology? Um there are elements of religion. Yeah, certainly it came it came out of. religion. I don't think people now. worship, you know, constellations or I. don't think there's many major religions. that are based on astrological, you. know, constellation. Maybe without the worship part, but they. they're seeking guidance. in their lives. They're getting answers. from the stars. They're making decisions. based on it. Much of their moral compass. is being determined like much of their. um.

yeah, much of their morals and ethics. and decisions and behaviors are being. determined by by it in the same way that. it's. being determined by someone that. believes in a god. Yeah. It's it's hard to you know, It's I'm a wrong person to ask in some. ways. Why why do people need this? People need answers to to to contemplate. the universe. First of all, it's a scary universe, right? We we were. confronted by things that none none of. us can understand entirety of. Uh no. brightest Nobel Prize winners, the the. the greatest scientists, the greatest.

thinkers can't really contemplate it. So. we we go through life, we try to make. the best of it, but we also have this. sense of self and a theory of self and. theory of mind that, you know, we can. relate to other people and we want. answers. So we want and I think that is. in common. I think you're right. Religion is very I almost wish I Do you. ever wish that you were more religious? I mean I don't Yeah, I wish I was too. and I'm not and I hopefully my kids. won't hear it. No. I heard from a psychologist once he. said, "You should. endeavor in your life.

that you pass on only half of your. neuroses to your kids.". Neuroses? Um crazy anxieties, fears, a weird. pathologies, you know, psychological. deficiencies. Cuz if every parent did that, you know, the species is going to get better and. better. But if you keep making everyone. as anxious, as nervous, and there's no. progress in history. A lot of the zodiac. religions that you talked about or. astrological religions, they view time. as a as a circle. In other words, a flat circle. A spiral. goes into the future. That's Western. civilization. That's progress in.

science. That's forward moving to the. stars, to wherever we're going to go and. more and more human knowledge and. flourishing. But if you just stay um committed to I'm. going to be repeating every year on the. birthday I'm going to be repeating what. all that my ancestors did, that's very. depressing and it doesn't lead to. innovation, to find cures for diseases, to find explanations for fields and. forces and technology that we have. So, what is the What is the meaning of life? Glad you asked. Um. to me. the meaning of life is to do as many.

things. that if taken away from you. would be devastating to you. That which you do should be so. consequential that to not have done it. or not have it. would literally. destroy you to your core. For me, it's. my kids. Those connections, the the bonds, the. the the hopefulness for the future. I. never said this, Stephen, but.

I don't get too emotional, but. I think about death a lot more, you. know, especially in my case since. October 7th last year. A lot of my. friends and family were impacted by that. in Israel and. it's I've never cried so many times than. I have in the past year. But thinking about all those, you know, kind of tears and and emotions and. saying, do I wish I never felt that? Do I wish I didn't have the pain if it. meant I didn't have the joy of having.

those people in my life? And I'm not ready to die. I'm hopefully, you know, maybe middle-age. I don't. know. I don't know if I'll live to 104, but hopefully, you know, maybe I will. But I've done a lot in my life. I've. done things that, you know, I didn't. think I could do when I was a kid. I've married the love of my life. I've. brought incredible souls into the world. If I did die, I'm not scared. I don't want to. I'm working on my body. I'm working on.

my diet. I'm trying to do what's right. for me and so I can be here as long as. possible. But the meaning of life is making. connections. It's making these bonds. such that, you know, you hope that people will be. sad, devastated, and even when you're. gone. So too, the connections that I've made, I can't see my life without them. I. don't want to. I don't think about it. It's morbid. To me, it's make those connections while. you can. Not. I mean, when I listened to that episode.

that you did with Annie Jacobsen, it's terrifying, and you were like visibly scared in that. episode. She's amazing. We don't know. I mean, God forbid. I. don't think it's super likely. Maybe it. is. She don't know. Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn't. Maybe I'll die. But the point is we don't know. The point is we're here now. The point is we might be alone. But that should fill us with meaning to. do what we can do uniquely so. Before you had kids, what was the meaning of your life?

Uh it was very easy. I wanted to win a. Nobel Prize. And that's changed now? It has. It has. Uh partially because my. father was a great scientist. I wanted to show him up. He never won a. Nobel Prize. He won a lot of awards. I. wanted to show him up. Now he's dead. You know, there's no one. to prove stuff to. You know, you should. live life to impress yourself. And I. feel like, yeah, if they gave me the. Nobel Prize, if someday I would merit it. with my team of these brilliant. scientists just that's pretty unlikely.

but let's say it happened. It doesn't It doesn't mean. what it once meant to me when I was your. age. When it When When I was your age it. was an idol to me. It was a god like you. win it you're as close to scientific. royalty and god-like status as possible. to imagine much more than Oscar gold. medal in the Olympics. It is There's. only 200 or so I've ever won it. It's. like a small book and actually I've. talked to people that have won it. Actually the forward to this my second. book into the impossible is written by.

Barry Barish. He won the 2017 Nobel. Prize. He told me Brian. cuz I always ask my final question I. know we're getting to the end here. Like. your final question I learned from you I. have my own final question. It's. if you could go back in the past and. meet your 20-year-old self. what would you say to him to give him. the courage to do as you've done to go. into the impossible? And he said to me Brian I would say to. stop having the imposter syndrome. And I said well you know yeah you just. tell me you won the Nobel Prize and he.

won't No no no. I have the imposter syndrome now. I said Barry you're kidding me. You won the Nobel Prize. How could you. possibly have imposter syndrome? He said Brian let me tell you something. When you win a Nobel Prize you go to. Stockholm you meet the King of Sweden. they give you this buffet dinner you're. dressed in white tie not black tie white. tie. You get this huge gold medal solid gold. You get a million dollars possibly. And they want to make sure you're not. going to come back and say hey.

you know Gustav there where's my money. where's my So they make you sign a. ledger not unlike the ledger in front of. you. And it has your signature. I Barry. Barish received the Nobel Prize. And. Barry said I took that book the first. thing I did is I turned the page who won. it last year who won it the year before. who won it I saw Richard Feynman. I saw. Marie Curie. I saw Albert Einstein. He said, "I don't deserve to be in the same. universe as Albert Einstein, let alone. the same book.

How could they give the same prize to me. they gave to him?". And I realized this was like an idol to. him, too. I said, "Barry, I've got good. news for you. Albert Einstein had the imposter. syndrome.". He's like, "You're kidding me.". I said, "No, no, no, Barry. He had the. imposter syndrome and his hero. was Isaac Newton.". Einstein said, "Isaac Newton did more. for science and Western civilization. than any human being before or since.". That's a pretty tall order. How could. Einstein live up to that?

But I said, "Barry, we'll go one step deeper. Isaac Newton. had the imposter syndrome.". What the heck? How could he use the greatest mind who. invented calculus, discovered the laws. of universal gravitation, the principles. of optics, invented this telescope? No, no, no. He felt wholly entirely. unworthy of his hero, Jesus Christ. So much so, Stephen, that he attempted to do the same thing.

that Jesus Christ did. He knew he. couldn't work miracles, he knew he. couldn't walk on water and turn loaves. into fishes, but he could do what. was in some sense a greater struggle, which was to die a virgin, as Jesus did. And so he did. So the lesson is, imposter syndrome is normal. Don't pet Don't idolize something. Literally, you get a graven golden image. of a man. Who cares he's a man? I don't care. I I take time home with my. family over that on the Shabbat.

As I invite you down to come to me in. San Diego anytime you want. I didn't realize that all of these great. individuals felt like imposters. themselves, which is, um, I think will liberate a. lot of people from the way that they. feel. I mean, we I feel this every day. Like people into introduce me on stages. it's an interview or a podcast. I'm. like, what the Just was never. conceivable to me. And I know Jack's. talked about the same thing. Like, it's. never conceivable to me that I'd be. doing a podcast and it'd be big and that. people would think you're good at it in. some way for some bizarre reason. you're not just good, Stephen. Come on,

you're at an elite level. You're a Nobel. Prize winner. What is that, though? I mean, and how. did that happen? I didn't go to school. for that. I just sat here and started. asking people questions in my kitchen. and then. more people tuned in and they said. you're good at it. I'm like, what what. does good mean? I don't do it the same. as Rogan and Rogan's good at it and. human is good at it. I've been with them all. Look, you're. you have a unique angle that that is not. rep- replicable, but I want to leave you. with a mission that kind of has guided. me. And again, I've learned a lot from. you for, you know, it's no secret I have. the high-energy opening to the Into the. Infinit- Can you imagine how hard it is.

to take like someone who studied like. some chemical pathway and some. thermodynamic system to make it like the. hype show that you guys open these. episodes with? I learned that from you. But Carl Sagan said, "What an amazing. thing a book is. In it, you have the words of a long-dead. author and you're reading it to yourself. and he or she is communicating with you. across the ages. Nowadays, people, millions of people, have you in their ears and you're. communicating potentially across the. generations. And you're again, I don't.

want to keep be right, you know, be like. a Jewish mother, but. your kids, your your grandkids, they're. going to have access to this. It's not. going to be some some even a book, which. is wonderful. It's going to be visceral, audible, and it's going to have an impact you. can't even imagine right now. Creep me out. I'm like, "Wow.". The meteors didn't do it. Yeah, the. meteors didn't do it. It's crazy to think about that the the. impact and the lasting impact that this. medium. might have because of the internet. But.

just even I mean, even books now, they're books are turned into audiobooks. and to. digital books and such. Look at this last election. This was. like the podcast election, right? Not going on a podcast, going on. a podcast. Um and and there are many. people that attempt to imitate what you. do and and you know, it is it's I I. don't do it for money. I don't do it to. sell my career. I do it for fun because. I want to give back to to young people. the way that I learned from Carl Sagan. or Isaac Asimov. I read their books. It inspired me to be. a scientist. When COVID hit in 2020,

they couldn't do book tours. And so I. invited all my scientist friends to come. on. I had some Nobel Prize winners come. on and just keeps amplifying. But I view. it as, you know, For me it's a it's a passion project, but it's a way of giving back, returning. to the community from whom I've taken so. much. I've learned so much. With that in mind, with this knowledge. that what we're creating, what all of us. are creating, whether you have a podcast. or not, or you're just writing on the. internet, whatever it might be, with the. knowledge that it's going to. sustain and it's going to be here. potentially in many generations to come.

How does that How is that supposed to. change how someone creates? Mhm. Cuz I'm thinking you just said that. to me and I was like, "Jesus Christ, that's quite profound." But then. seconds later I was like, almost like the simulation theory, I. just thought, "Fuck it, crack on.". Do you know what I mean? Just carry on. with what you're doing. Because if you. can you can get too deep into it that. you can either distract yourself or ruin. yourself from. the essence of what makes the thing. special. So am I meant to change in any. way with that knowledge? I think you I think you are. I think. you're doing it already. I mean, you've. spoken again. I've you know, tried to. study the the the glimpses of of morsels.

that I can comprehend. The. experimentation process is a process of. fundamentally being dissatisfied with. the current product, even though it's. wonderful, it's great, it's top top, you. know, leading in its category. But still. just not being satisfied. You always. want to make a little bit better, see. what works, see what doesn't work. That's pleasurable because you Even when. you get a failed There's no such thing. as a failed experiment. I tell my. students, "You always learn something.". And that brings you closer to truth. And. that's what is so meaningful. What I was. wondering what I thought you were going. to say is like, when you're out in. public and people see you, and I asked.

this of Lex and Joe, I want to ask you. too, as I put on my podcast or had turn. the microphone to you. Um, there's this there's a scene the book. Animal Farm um where there's this donkey. named Benjamin and he's talking to the. pig um and the pig says to the donkey um. you know, I love your tail. It's so big. I got this short little curly tail. It's. good for nothing. You got this beautiful. tail. It could sweep away the flies. And the donkey says, "Yeah, but you know. what? I wish I didn't have the flies so I. wouldn't need the tail.".

I want to ask you, do you ever. worry about the attention? Would you. ever trade the attention, the fame, the. lack of privacy, the intrusions, the. you know, everything for. for the alternative? I don't know. Would. you? It's funny cuz when I go towards that. question and I remove the all the. downsides from my life, they're like glued to the upsides. Yeah. So I'm like. So it's always a question of like, is. the trade-off worth it? Is the question. that I ask myself all the time every. week, every month. And I remind myself.

sometimes. I said this to Trevor Noah, but he told me that it gets to a point. where you can't just reverse the. decision. I try to remind myself that there's I. could delete this podcast. I could. quit Dragon's Den. I could delete all my. social media channels and I could right. now go to Bali. And I was playing this. out the other day in my head. I was. thinking, you know, if if if I say to. myself that I'm optimizing for peace in. this season of my life, then why the. hell am I doing all this stuff? Cuz this. is not peace necessarily. Um and then I play out the scenario. I. go, "Okay, so I'll move to Bali. I'll. I'll I'll chill out there. I've got the. the the financial means to just live.

there for the rest of my life. I'll. chill and then I'll START. THIS IS WHERE IT GETS YOU. OKAY, AND. THEN I'LL start I'll start writing. Yeah, and then and then, you know, I. might start making videos about what I'm. writing about cuz that's what I'll be. Behind the diary. Yeah, and I'll start painting and I you. start creating again and then if the. creations are good. You want to show it. And then you go share it to someone and. then they're going to buy it and. whatever and then you're back here. again. Look, I think that's what you're meant. to do. I think you know, people have a. mission in life. You know, I don't have. a body, you know, to be an Olympic.

athlete, you know, but you know, I have. a mind of a curiosity. This is what you. got to This is what you should lean in. I always feel like do I teach my. students to like overcome their. deficiencies or do I teach them to lean. into their successes? I always feel like. progress feels good no matter what. I'm. trying to lose weight. I lose a pound. It feels so much better to lose a pound. than gaining Yeah, it feels awful to. gain an ounce, you know? So, the the. fact is are you useful? Are you doing. you know, Freud said there's only two. things in life, work and love. It's all you got to do. You were doing. your work,

doing your love, take your vacation, and enjoy Bali for a while it lasts and. then come right back. Brian, we have a closing tradition on. this podcast where the last guest leaves. a question for the next guest not. knowing who they're going to be leaving. it for. And the question that's been left for. you is. if you found out. that the world was ending in 10 minutes, who would you want to speak to. and what would you tell them? Ah, that's an easy I mean it's. horrifying, but it's but it's easy. Well, first of all, I'd I'd call my.

friends at NASA and tell them to direct. a giant space light. No, it would be my wife. My wife, you know, it's funny to to. think about how improbable life is, but. when I got fired, I told you, from. Stanford, she was actually an. undergraduate there. and luckily we met cuz I'm 8 and 1/2. years older than her and I'd be some. lecherous 28-year-old when she was 20. I got fired. I felt it was horrible. Turned out to be the best thing that. ever happened to me. Got me a job that. job led to this experiment called BICEP.

That experiment called BICEP took me to. the South Pole. Took me to the brink of a Nobel Prize, but it also brought me to San Diego, which is her hometown. We would not have met. There's no We. didn't meet at Stanford. We were. literally 100 ft away from each other at. one point. We wouldn't We wouldn't have met. She's meant to be. If I hadn't gotten. fired, if I hadn't been dreaming and. fantasizing about experiments that I. wanted to do, not to be someone else's. employee, but to be my own CEO, my own. world, my own laboratory, my own brand.

I wouldn't have met her. I wouldn't have. my precious, precious kids. There's no doubt it would be. to call her. What would you What would you tell her? I would just reminisce about how we met. And what we brought into the world and. you know, kind of uh sure we'd laugh and. cry. Brian, thank you. Really appreciate it. It's been a such a. wonderful conversation and I highly. implore everybody that's listening to go. and check out your show, to go and read.

your books, all of which I'll link. below. Super fascinating. And also to. get your website if they want to be in. with a chance of winning some of this. space material, which is I'm so This is. amazing that I have this. I'm such a big. fan of space, so and space X and. everything that's going on out there in. the universe. So, thank you so much for. this present. You can keep the Uranus, so. Um but I'll keep the mark piece of Mars. Um the work you're doing is so important. cuz it's helping to demystify and. helping us to understand the nature of. some of these really profound questions. Not ever because. you know, we're we're seeking to figure.

it all out so that we can change how we. live. But just because there's so much beauty. and. joy and um meaning that is derived. irrespective of what the the answer is. And I and I I It's people like you that. blow our minds open in a way that helps. me even though I'm never going to build. a telescope and I'm never going to go to. the South Pole and I'm never going to. put my head in the sky and I'm not never. going to seek to answer these questions. in my life, but your work expands my. mind. It expands my my like thoughts of.

like possibilities. And as an. entrepreneur, as a creator, I think. that's a net positive for for everyone. that receives the work that you do. Um it's so wonder It's so bizarre that. we're so we're so curious about. about the stars, but it's such a. beautiful thing. Um and long may you. continue. There's very few people like. you and I was thinking the minute we got. going today. I was thinking there's very. few people in the world that are both. smart, which is. I think pretty common, but but then able. to communicate. And that is really I've met you and Neil.

deGrasse Tyson who have this remarkable. ability to communicate science in a way. that inspires, galvanizes, and sort of. cultivates curiosity. It's a really. wonderful thing. No, I appreciate that. it's exceptionally rare. That. combination of forces, like you said. about the. probability of the comet hitting the. universe and that bouncing off and. creating a moon, the probability of. those two things happening in the same. place is so exceptionally rare, but. it's wonderful that we have people like. you in this world of podcasting because, you know, maybe once upon a time the.

it would have been harder to hear your. voice, but now everybody can go and. listen to you. And I highly recommend they do. Your. YouTube channel is exceptional. So, thank you so much, Brian. Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank. you. for me. Thank you, Stephen. This diary won't change your life, but. the habit it teaches you definitely. will. The most unhelpful advice that I. ever received was don't sweat the small. stuff. You have to sweat the small stuff. I. sweat the small stuff. I always have. I. always proudly will because small things.

that are easy to do are also easy not to. do. It is easy to save a dollar, so it's. also easy not to. It is easy to brush. your teeth, so it's also easy not to. It. is easy to make a 1% improvement, so. it's also easy not to. Understanding the power of compounding. 1%, you can absolutely change your. outcomes in your life. It isn't about. drastic transformations or quick wins. It's about the small, consistent actions. that have a lasting change in your.

outcomes. So, 2 years ago, we started. the process of creating this beautiful. diary, and it's truly beautiful. Inside. there's lots of pictures, lots of. inspiration and motivation as well, some. interactive elements. And the purpose of. this diary is to help you identify, stay. focused on, develop consistency with the. 1% that will ultimately change your. life. We're only going to do a limited. run of these diaries. So, if you want. one for yourself or for a friend or for. a colleague or for your team, then head. to the diary.com right now. I'll link it. below.