Talking physics with an alien civilization: what could we learn?

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Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly

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podcast.

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I'm Hamish Johnston.

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It's book week here at Physics World. And

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over the course of three days, we're presenting

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conversations with the authors of three fascinating and

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fun books about physics.

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Today, my guest is the physicist Daniel Whiteson,

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who along with the artist Andy Warner

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has created the delightful book, Do Aliens Speak

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Physics?

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This episode is supported by the APS

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Global Physics Summit,

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which takes place on March

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2026

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in Denver, Colorado

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and online.

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At the largest physics meeting in the world,

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you can join thousands of physicists,

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connection and collaboration.

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Immerse yourself in the cutting edge science that's

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shaping our shared future, and be part of

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driving innovation forward.

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Explore the meeting at summit.aps.org.

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Is physics universal,

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or is it shaped by human perspective?

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This will be an important question if and

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when we are visited

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by an advanced alien civilization.

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Would we recognize

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our visitors alien science?

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Or indeed, could a technologically

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advanced civilization

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have no science at all?

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These questions and much more are addressed in

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do aliens

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speak physics?

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And here to talk about his book is

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Daniel Whiteson.

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He's a particle physicist at the University of

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California,

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Irvine

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from where he joins me. Hi, Daniel.

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Welcome to the podcast.

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Hi. Thanks very much for having me. I'm

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so excited to talk about aliens with you.

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Yeah. Well well well, so am I. I

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really I really enjoyed,

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reading your book. It was it was a

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lot of fun. And and and I have

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to say, you know, there's a lot of

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really

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fascinating

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and, you know, dare I say, profound ideas

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in there about,

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I mean, maybe not so much about aliens,

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but more about how we

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perceive science,

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today, and, you know, what science was like

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in the past, and and what it could

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be in the future. So,

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yeah.

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Dear reader, if you think this is only

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about aliens, it's not. There's lots of, of

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of really interesting stuff about

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science and the philosophy of science.

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Well, you really put your finger on it

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actually because the book I originally wanted to

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write was,

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do we think about

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physics in a way that's universal

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or has our humanity somehow

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injected itself into our science in a way

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that's imperceptible to us? And I actually pitched

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that idea to my 14 year old, who's

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my Gage. And he was like, boring.

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And so instead I said, all right, what

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if it's a book about when aliens arrive,

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could we talk to them about science? And

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he was like, oh, that sounds like fun.

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And I thought, cool. It's actually the same

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book, but, you know, just in this sort

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of more concrete

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context where you're, like, faced with the task

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of communicating with your interstellar

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colleagues.

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But, yeah, in the end, I really just

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wanted to think and write about the nature

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of science and what we've learned and how

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much humanity is in it.

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Yeah. That I mean, that's definitely what I

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what I got out of it.

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And, yeah, I I I really did enjoy

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that sort of aspect of it. But let

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let let's go for the first,

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you know, the first sentence of the book.

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I think you begin the book, imagine the

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day

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the aliens

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arrive. And

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I'm just I'm just curious.

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Do you

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I mean, do you think that one day

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we will be

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visited by

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representatives

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of an alien

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civilization? Because, you know, you know, that's the

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whole premise of the book. Mhmm. But is

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that is that purely rhetorical?

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Or,

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you know, do you do you have an

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inkling or or a wish for that to

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happen?

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I certainly do have a wish. I mean,

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I've literally fantasized about that because

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it feels to me like we are slowly

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chipping away in the minds of truth trying

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to understand how the universe works. And we've

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been going at it for thousands of years,

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and we've made some progress, but we also

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have these hints that there's so much left

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to understand, you know, dark matter, dark energy,

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the expansion of the universe, cosmological

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questions.

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So it's frustrating to imagine that there could

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be aliens out there that have spent a

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billion years working on these projects. They could

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just have the answers.

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And the day they show up, if we

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are working on the same questions and if

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we can communicate, then they could leap us

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forward into our scientific future and just tell

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us these truths.

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Wow. What an amazing day that would be.

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I mean,

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it's like seeing the face of God, you

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know, or, you know, revealing the source code.

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Wow. That would be amazing. So I definitely

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wish that would happen and fantasize about it.

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Whether I think it's likely to happen, you

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know, that's

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nonscientific

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speculation, but, you know, there are many, many

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planets out there

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and around many, many stars, and the universe

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is quite old, so there's a lot of

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chances for it. On the other hand, you

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know, we haven't seen anybody yet. And, of

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course, there's the famous Fermi paradox about why

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that might be. And my suspicion

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is that,

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aliens will arrive in the future. It's just

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a question of time. You know, it's an

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issue of overlapping for long enough

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for somebody to develop the technology to explore

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the galaxy. And

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so I think it's important to sort of

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mentally prepare ourselves.

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What would it really be like when they

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arrive? Are we ready for it? What work

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do we need to do before they get

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here to make sure we have a chance

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to leap forward into our scientific future? And

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it is, you know, it is interesting that

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over the last thirty years,

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you know, we went from knowing about zero

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exoplanets,

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that's planets that orbit stars other other than

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the sun. Now we know that there's thousands

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out there. Yeah. So, you know, in a

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sense,

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you know, maybe if you had asked me

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that question thirty years ago, I would have

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said no, maybe not. But now that I

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know about all these exoplanets and the fact

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that we're discovering more and more every day,

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it it it it sort of hits home,

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doesn't it? Quite literally that,

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that that it is a possibility. And I

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suppose that makes the Fermi paradox, you know,

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the idea that,

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if there are aliens out there, why why

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don't we know about them?

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Even more positive, isn't it? Yeah. It does.

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And I think you're right. We're living in

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a very exciting time to be thinking about

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these questions because

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for hundreds or thousands of years, we've known

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about, you know, fewer than 10 planets in

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the universe. Now we know 5,000.

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We're looking on 10,000

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soon.

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And I think in the next few decades,

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we're very likely to see,

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you know, undisputable

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hints of or or indisputable evidence

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of life around,

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other planets on around other stars. You know,

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not direct imaging or visitation yet, but, you

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know, biosignatures

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in atmospheres,

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we have the technology very soon to be

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able to do that. I think it's likely

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that will happen. And so we're living in

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a moment when our understanding of who else

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might be out there is really changing so

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rapidly. And so it's very difficult to predict

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what we're gonna know in a hundred years.

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But, you know, the situation I'm imagining requires

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much more than knowing there are aliens around

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another star because

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the difficulties of communicating with distant aliens

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are really enormous. I mean, I spoke to

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linguists and philosophers

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who think it might be literally impossible to

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decode an alien message

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without some sort of common context, you know,

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without them arriving here and us being able

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to, like, point at an apple and say

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apple and point at two apples and say

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two apples and build up a dictionary.

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I think at a distance, it would be

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very, very difficult,

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maybe impossible,

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to actually figure out what they are saying.

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You know, this symbolic language is very frustrating

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and cultural.

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So that's why I imagined aliens arriving on

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Earth, because then we can maybe make some

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progress and figure out, you know, do we

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have mathematics in common? Can we begin and

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from that and build up into an actual

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linguistic communication?

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I wanted to ask you about,

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the extended Drake equation, which is something that's

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central

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to your book.

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You know, it's I suppose it provides a

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scaffolding

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for Yeah. For you to hang a lot

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of of your ideas and analysis on. Now

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this extended Drake equation, is that something that

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you came up with, or you and Andy

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came up with? Because you you didn't come

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up with the Drake equation. That's that's existed

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for a while now. So is, I mean,

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may maybe I could ask you to very

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quickly explain what the Drake equation is,

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and then maybe

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the extended

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Drake equation.

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Yeah. Well, you already touched on the ideas

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quite quite well, I thought. You know, a

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lot of these questions,

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are there aliens out there that we communicate

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with? They have a lot of parts to

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them. And in order for it to work,

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in order for us to meet aliens or

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hear from aliens, you need a lot of

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things to all fall in place simultaneously.

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You need enough stars. You need enough planets.

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You need enough of those planets to have

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life. You need enough of those to become

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civilized. You need that all to happen at

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the same time.

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And the Drake equation

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does two things wonderfully. I think it breaks

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this big question into pieces that you can

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think about individually, like,

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what do we know about how many stars

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have planets, etc?

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And because it's multiplicative, it takes all of

276
00:10:07,490 --> 00:10:09,829
these factors and multiplies them by each other,

277
00:10:10,129 --> 00:10:10,870
it emphasizes

278
00:10:11,250 --> 00:10:12,929
that you need all of them. I mean,

279
00:10:12,929 --> 00:10:14,690
it doesn't matter how many stars there are

280
00:10:14,690 --> 00:10:17,024
and how many planets there are If the

281
00:10:17,024 --> 00:10:19,745
probability for life around a planet is one

282
00:10:19,745 --> 00:10:20,884
over 10,

283
00:10:21,264 --> 00:10:23,664
right, then the number is tiny. Or if

284
00:10:23,664 --> 00:10:25,345
we are if it's one over, you know,

285
00:10:25,345 --> 00:10:27,504
the number of planets in the universe because

286
00:10:27,504 --> 00:10:28,245
we're alone.

287
00:10:28,705 --> 00:10:31,930
Right? Any individual factor can kill you. So

288
00:10:31,930 --> 00:10:33,450
I was thinking about that when I was

289
00:10:33,450 --> 00:10:36,009
tackling this bigger question of not just are

290
00:10:36,009 --> 00:10:38,170
there aliens out there, but are there aliens

291
00:10:38,170 --> 00:10:40,090
out there that do science the way we

292
00:10:40,090 --> 00:10:42,889
do and decided to break it down in

293
00:10:42,889 --> 00:10:45,445
pieces? So the first piece we added to

294
00:10:45,445 --> 00:10:48,085
the Drake equation, because we're looking for something

295
00:10:48,085 --> 00:10:51,044
more specific than just aliens communicating, it's aliens

296
00:10:51,044 --> 00:10:53,125
who we can talk to about physics. The

297
00:10:53,125 --> 00:10:55,524
first piece was number one, do they even

298
00:10:55,524 --> 00:10:57,924
do science, right? Could there be aliens out

299
00:10:57,924 --> 00:11:00,050
there who are just, you know, slime on

300
00:11:00,050 --> 00:11:02,050
planets or even aliens out there who are

301
00:11:02,050 --> 00:11:02,550
technological

302
00:11:03,490 --> 00:11:04,710
but not scientific,

303
00:11:05,330 --> 00:11:07,810
who develop, you know, techniques to manipulate the

304
00:11:07,810 --> 00:11:10,610
universe without wondering why, without having that same

305
00:11:10,610 --> 00:11:12,825
human curiosity about how it works?

306
00:11:13,705 --> 00:11:15,625
And then the second piece was, can we

307
00:11:15,625 --> 00:11:17,705
communicate with them? Can we establish, like, a

308
00:11:17,705 --> 00:11:19,705
mental bridge so we know we're talking about

309
00:11:19,705 --> 00:11:22,024
the same stuff, and, you know, we could

310
00:11:22,024 --> 00:11:24,105
even get their answers, you know, even if

311
00:11:24,105 --> 00:11:26,184
they have some, like, deep understanding of quantum

312
00:11:26,184 --> 00:11:28,620
gravity, could they communicate it to us?

313
00:11:29,080 --> 00:11:31,000
And the next piece we thought about was

314
00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:33,639
what about their questions? Would they ask the

315
00:11:33,639 --> 00:11:36,540
same questions about the universe? Are our questions

316
00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:37,980
human? Would they be curious

317
00:11:38,360 --> 00:11:40,904
about different things? And then the last piece

318
00:11:40,904 --> 00:11:41,884
are the answers.

319
00:11:42,585 --> 00:11:45,225
In order to fulfill my fantasy where we

320
00:11:45,225 --> 00:11:47,545
sit down and learn about what's inside black

321
00:11:47,545 --> 00:11:49,384
holes and where the universe came from from

322
00:11:49,384 --> 00:11:50,684
these super advanced aliens,

323
00:11:51,144 --> 00:11:52,985
we also be have to be able to

324
00:11:52,985 --> 00:11:54,365
appreciate their answers.

325
00:11:54,820 --> 00:11:58,019
You know, I found when reading about the

326
00:11:58,019 --> 00:12:00,679
philosophy of science and how science has evolved,

327
00:12:01,299 --> 00:12:02,839
that there's a lot of subjectivity

328
00:12:03,220 --> 00:12:05,459
in the answers that we accept, what we

329
00:12:05,459 --> 00:12:06,279
find intuitive,

330
00:12:06,820 --> 00:12:08,259
you know, and then there's also the question

331
00:12:08,259 --> 00:12:10,394
of like, would we even be smart enough

332
00:12:10,475 --> 00:12:12,875
to answer to hear their answers and understand

333
00:12:12,875 --> 00:12:15,274
them? Wouldn't that be so frustrating to have

334
00:12:15,274 --> 00:12:17,375
aliens show up, have them be friendly,

335
00:12:17,754 --> 00:12:20,394
have them, you know, possess the knowledge of

336
00:12:20,394 --> 00:12:22,394
how the universe works that we've been desperately

337
00:12:22,394 --> 00:12:24,730
working towards and for us to just go,

338
00:12:24,730 --> 00:12:26,610
I don't get it. Right? I mean, what

339
00:12:26,610 --> 00:12:28,570
a sad trombone that would be the end

340
00:12:28,570 --> 00:12:30,490
of that story. But the so to answer

341
00:12:30,490 --> 00:12:32,330
your question about the extended Drake equation, this

342
00:12:32,330 --> 00:12:34,409
is a way to break up this very

343
00:12:34,409 --> 00:12:36,269
amorphous question into pieces

344
00:12:36,794 --> 00:12:38,794
and and tackle them one by one. And

345
00:12:38,794 --> 00:12:40,955
also to emphasize that for this fantasy to

346
00:12:40,955 --> 00:12:42,955
come true, we really need all those things

347
00:12:42,955 --> 00:12:44,634
to happen. They need to do science. We

348
00:12:44,634 --> 00:12:46,235
need to be able to communicate with them.

349
00:12:46,235 --> 00:12:48,475
We have to have questions and answers in

350
00:12:48,475 --> 00:12:50,870
common with them. I see. And I I

351
00:12:50,870 --> 00:12:52,950
wanted to start with the first one, which

352
00:12:52,950 --> 00:12:53,690
is science.

353
00:12:54,389 --> 00:12:54,790
And,

354
00:12:55,590 --> 00:12:56,090
so

355
00:12:56,470 --> 00:12:58,790
I think there in in the book, you're

356
00:12:58,790 --> 00:13:00,730
you're sort of making a a distinction

357
00:13:01,430 --> 00:13:03,610
between science and technology.

358
00:13:04,325 --> 00:13:07,065
And I think right to begin with,

359
00:13:07,605 --> 00:13:10,024
I suppose me with my physics background,

360
00:13:10,485 --> 00:13:12,725
that gets me scratching my head because I

361
00:13:12,725 --> 00:13:14,404
think, well, you know, how can you have

362
00:13:14,404 --> 00:13:14,904
science

363
00:13:15,524 --> 00:13:18,070
how can you have techno technology without science?

364
00:13:18,070 --> 00:13:19,289
How can you have science

365
00:13:20,230 --> 00:13:21,129
without technology?

366
00:13:21,509 --> 00:13:23,589
But then I thought because I was talking

367
00:13:23,589 --> 00:13:24,649
to somebody a

368
00:13:25,190 --> 00:13:27,129
few days ago about thermodynamics,

369
00:13:28,389 --> 00:13:30,250
and how, you know, thermodynamics

370
00:13:30,789 --> 00:13:32,649
came about in the nineteenth century,

371
00:13:33,054 --> 00:13:35,134
basically by people who wanted to make better

372
00:13:35,134 --> 00:13:37,875
steam engines and pumps and things like that.

373
00:13:37,934 --> 00:13:40,175
And so I thought, well, okay. Yeah. I

374
00:13:40,175 --> 00:13:41,394
can sort of understand

375
00:13:42,254 --> 00:13:43,554
in that situation

376
00:13:44,175 --> 00:13:45,235
that the technology

377
00:13:45,615 --> 00:13:46,115
led,

378
00:13:46,449 --> 00:13:47,829
and maybe the science

379
00:13:48,209 --> 00:13:49,110
came later.

380
00:13:49,649 --> 00:13:51,570
But are are you saying that it it

381
00:13:51,570 --> 00:13:53,429
could be that there are civilizations

382
00:13:53,809 --> 00:13:54,709
out there where

383
00:13:55,490 --> 00:13:57,990
there's only technology and no science?

384
00:13:58,449 --> 00:14:00,004
I'm, you know,

385
00:14:00,545 --> 00:14:02,705
I'm struggling with that, but I suppose your

386
00:14:02,705 --> 00:14:04,945
point is that that could exist and that

387
00:14:04,945 --> 00:14:07,764
could make it very difficult for us to

388
00:14:07,825 --> 00:14:08,325
to

389
00:14:09,264 --> 00:14:09,845
to understand,

390
00:14:11,105 --> 00:14:12,004
such a civilization.

391
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:14,559
Yeah. You put your finger on it again.

392
00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:16,399
I mean, the whole exercise of the book

393
00:14:16,399 --> 00:14:19,919
is let's investigate our assumptions. It's very natural

394
00:14:19,919 --> 00:14:22,000
for us to think, well, science is the

395
00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:23,379
engine for discovering

396
00:14:23,839 --> 00:14:25,860
the way the world works, which technology

397
00:14:26,319 --> 00:14:28,754
requires. Right? But that's the way we've done

398
00:14:28,754 --> 00:14:31,154
it. That's the way our civilization works. That

399
00:14:31,154 --> 00:14:32,995
doesn't mean it's the only possible way, and

400
00:14:32,995 --> 00:14:35,174
the book is basically an exercise in, like,

401
00:14:35,714 --> 00:14:38,274
let's think about if we can imagine another

402
00:14:38,274 --> 00:14:40,595
way. That doesn't mean that we're arguing it's

403
00:14:40,595 --> 00:14:42,115
the best way or it's the only way,

404
00:14:42,115 --> 00:14:44,200
but, like, let's explore the edges of the

405
00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:45,980
sandbox and question our assumptions.

406
00:14:46,759 --> 00:14:48,600
And we can't do that, of course, by

407
00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:50,600
visiting aliens yet. But what we can do

408
00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:52,600
is look back at the history of our

409
00:14:52,600 --> 00:14:55,080
development and think about whether things could have

410
00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:57,365
been different. And right away, when you look

411
00:14:57,365 --> 00:14:59,684
back into our history, as you say, we've

412
00:14:59,684 --> 00:15:02,165
been technological a lot longer than we've been

413
00:15:02,165 --> 00:15:05,065
scientific. You know, people have been making incredible

414
00:15:05,365 --> 00:15:05,865
swords,

415
00:15:06,644 --> 00:15:09,045
improving on the technology to be sharp and

416
00:15:09,045 --> 00:15:10,689
hard without understanding what's going on at the

417
00:15:10,689 --> 00:15:10,760
microscopic level and the solid state physics. You

418
00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:11,545
know, and there's lots of things that

419
00:15:16,779 --> 00:15:18,299
universe today, technology that we have that we

420
00:15:18,299 --> 00:15:21,019
don't fully understand. You know? Nobody knows how

421
00:15:21,019 --> 00:15:23,039
Tylenol works. Right? Like,

422
00:15:23,340 --> 00:15:24,080
it's amazing.

423
00:15:24,965 --> 00:15:28,085
But we can develop technologies without understanding them.

424
00:15:28,085 --> 00:15:30,085
The crucial thing, of course, is we want

425
00:15:30,085 --> 00:15:32,825
to understand them. We have this innate curiosity.

426
00:15:33,045 --> 00:15:36,004
To us, it's satisfying to know why. And,

427
00:15:36,004 --> 00:15:39,259
of course, understanding it, building a mental model

428
00:15:39,259 --> 00:15:41,339
of how it works lets you accelerate that

429
00:15:41,339 --> 00:15:41,839
development.

430
00:15:42,299 --> 00:15:43,820
But, you know, as I said, for a

431
00:15:43,820 --> 00:15:46,139
long time, we were technological before we were

432
00:15:46,139 --> 00:15:48,379
scientific. And so I thought about, you know,

433
00:15:48,379 --> 00:15:50,379
is it possible to have a species that

434
00:15:50,379 --> 00:15:51,360
is just technological?

435
00:15:52,294 --> 00:15:53,654
And one thing we did in the book,

436
00:15:53,654 --> 00:15:55,115
which I had a lot of fun with,

437
00:15:55,174 --> 00:15:57,894
was come up with these hypothetical case studies

438
00:15:57,894 --> 00:16:00,454
rather than just thinking about it abstractly. Is

439
00:16:00,454 --> 00:16:02,694
it possible? I sat down to write these

440
00:16:02,694 --> 00:16:05,095
little fictional narratives, you know, a couple of

441
00:16:05,095 --> 00:16:05,595
pages

442
00:16:05,919 --> 00:16:07,299
to imagine a scenario

443
00:16:07,679 --> 00:16:09,759
which bends our assumptions. And so in this

444
00:16:09,759 --> 00:16:12,480
case, I thought about how a civilization might

445
00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:13,379
actually develop

446
00:16:13,759 --> 00:16:14,419
an understanding

447
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:16,100
of general relativity

448
00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:19,115
and the way space works is an intuitive

449
00:16:19,174 --> 00:16:20,855
way, in a way that they just use

450
00:16:20,855 --> 00:16:23,674
it and become familiar with it, and eventually

451
00:16:23,735 --> 00:16:25,274
use it to travel the galaxy

452
00:16:25,654 --> 00:16:27,754
so that they could even show up here

453
00:16:27,975 --> 00:16:28,794
with effectively

454
00:16:29,095 --> 00:16:31,035
wormhole or warp drive technology.

455
00:16:31,495 --> 00:16:32,934
And we ask them, hey, how does that

456
00:16:32,934 --> 00:16:34,639
work? And they're like, well, I can show

457
00:16:34,639 --> 00:16:36,320
you how to do it. What do you

458
00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:38,100
mean? How does it work? You know?

459
00:16:38,639 --> 00:16:39,940
They might be technological

460
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:42,720
without being curious. It might be enough for

461
00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:44,399
them to be like, well, here's how you

462
00:16:44,399 --> 00:16:46,959
do it. You surf the curvature of space

463
00:16:46,959 --> 00:16:47,459
time.

464
00:16:48,654 --> 00:16:50,414
I'm not saying that's more likely, and of

465
00:16:50,414 --> 00:16:52,095
course I'm not saying that we don't need

466
00:16:52,095 --> 00:16:53,475
science to develop technology,

467
00:16:54,014 --> 00:16:55,294
but, you know, if you have a lot

468
00:16:55,294 --> 00:16:56,514
of time and incredible

469
00:16:56,815 --> 00:16:58,975
variety in the universe, you might get all

470
00:16:58,975 --> 00:17:01,259
sorts of weird aliens, and we should be

471
00:17:01,259 --> 00:17:03,899
prepared for aliens who show up and don't

472
00:17:03,899 --> 00:17:06,539
understand why we want to ask why about

473
00:17:06,539 --> 00:17:07,200
the universe,

474
00:17:07,500 --> 00:17:09,759
why it's not enough for us to just

475
00:17:09,819 --> 00:17:11,579
do it and to use it, you know,

476
00:17:11,579 --> 00:17:14,424
to wonder how those swords work and why

477
00:17:14,424 --> 00:17:16,984
yeast ferments and how Tylenol works and all

478
00:17:16,984 --> 00:17:18,904
these things. So a lot of this book

479
00:17:18,904 --> 00:17:20,664
is about asking how much we have in

480
00:17:20,664 --> 00:17:23,644
common with aliens. And this part, this curiosity,

481
00:17:23,945 --> 00:17:25,325
this desire to understand,

482
00:17:25,705 --> 00:17:28,424
boy, that's, you know, subjective. It feels very

483
00:17:28,424 --> 00:17:28,924
cultural.

484
00:17:29,609 --> 00:17:31,049
And, you know, also, if you if you

485
00:17:31,049 --> 00:17:32,910
look back at just the history of science,

486
00:17:33,210 --> 00:17:36,269
people have this conception that science came together

487
00:17:36,329 --> 00:17:37,069
as empiricism

488
00:17:37,450 --> 00:17:40,029
on top of, you know, just platonic thinking.

489
00:17:40,089 --> 00:17:42,410
A few hundred years ago when Galileo and

490
00:17:42,410 --> 00:17:45,174
Bacon, you know, were inspired to do experiments

491
00:17:45,234 --> 00:17:47,894
and to actually, you know, confront ideas,

492
00:17:48,355 --> 00:17:49,414
with with data.

493
00:17:49,795 --> 00:17:51,394
But the truth is a little bit more

494
00:17:51,394 --> 00:17:53,234
subtle than that. You know, science is a

495
00:17:53,234 --> 00:17:55,634
process that's been evolving for a long time.

496
00:17:55,634 --> 00:17:58,069
The Greeks did some experiments and, you know,

497
00:17:58,069 --> 00:17:59,930
the Arab scholars did experiments,

498
00:18:00,309 --> 00:18:02,950
and the Chinese did experiments. And so it's

499
00:18:02,950 --> 00:18:04,869
not just like a eureka moment where we

500
00:18:04,869 --> 00:18:06,869
develop science itself, and now we have this

501
00:18:06,869 --> 00:18:09,529
process which is fixed. It's growing and evolving.

502
00:18:10,325 --> 00:18:10,825
It's

503
00:18:11,445 --> 00:18:13,365
it's, hard to imagine that in a thousand

504
00:18:13,365 --> 00:18:16,005
years, our own conception of the process of

505
00:18:16,005 --> 00:18:18,244
science would be exactly the same. Probably it's

506
00:18:18,244 --> 00:18:20,105
going to keep changing. And so

507
00:18:20,404 --> 00:18:22,085
when aliens show up, if they've been doing

508
00:18:22,085 --> 00:18:24,460
this for a billion years, they may either

509
00:18:24,460 --> 00:18:26,140
have no idea what science is and not

510
00:18:26,140 --> 00:18:28,079
care about it, or they could have some

511
00:18:28,140 --> 00:18:30,619
super far in the future developed version of

512
00:18:30,619 --> 00:18:32,940
science as a process. And they look back

513
00:18:32,940 --> 00:18:34,619
on our science, they're like, y'all are kind

514
00:18:34,619 --> 00:18:37,045
of primitive. Like, how come you didn't consider

515
00:18:37,345 --> 00:18:39,904
this other way to develop knowledge about the

516
00:18:39,904 --> 00:18:40,404
universe?

517
00:18:41,105 --> 00:18:43,424
And so the first chapter is just to,

518
00:18:43,424 --> 00:18:45,424
like, get you warmed up to think about

519
00:18:45,424 --> 00:18:47,904
how aliens could really approach a lot of

520
00:18:47,904 --> 00:18:50,964
these questions of science and technology very differently

521
00:18:51,169 --> 00:18:52,069
than we might.

522
00:18:52,529 --> 00:18:52,929
And,

523
00:18:53,329 --> 00:18:55,650
so moving on to communication, I mean, I

524
00:18:55,650 --> 00:18:56,869
suppose there again,

525
00:18:57,970 --> 00:18:59,669
you, you know, you've got,

526
00:19:01,089 --> 00:19:03,089
I suppose different ways. I've you know, I

527
00:19:03,089 --> 00:19:05,785
think in the book you point out very

528
00:19:05,785 --> 00:19:08,205
nicely that humans have used,

529
00:19:08,664 --> 00:19:10,825
you know, sort of a wide range of

530
00:19:10,825 --> 00:19:13,724
of, well, languages and and ways of writing

531
00:19:14,345 --> 00:19:16,045
that, you know, even,

532
00:19:17,799 --> 00:19:19,880
I suppose the classic example that you give

533
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:21,099
are the Egyptian

534
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:21,980
hieroglyphics

535
00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:23,400
where,

536
00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:25,960
you know, for a very long time, I

537
00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:27,420
think thousands of years,

538
00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:31,580
scholars were trying to interpret them

539
00:19:32,125 --> 00:19:33,345
in the wrong way.

540
00:19:34,365 --> 00:19:35,265
You know, sort

541
00:19:35,724 --> 00:19:37,984
of weirdly sort of thinking that the Egyptians

542
00:19:39,085 --> 00:19:42,525
didn't communicate like we did. Obviously, it was

543
00:19:42,525 --> 00:19:46,204
something completely different and and and completely missing

544
00:19:46,204 --> 00:19:47,490
the point until the,

545
00:19:47,890 --> 00:19:49,589
I suppose, the Rosetta Stone

546
00:19:50,049 --> 00:19:53,109
turned up and, and set people straight.

547
00:19:53,490 --> 00:19:53,990
So,

548
00:19:54,450 --> 00:19:57,250
I mean, one sort of idea that I

549
00:19:57,250 --> 00:19:58,230
think you introduce

550
00:19:58,529 --> 00:19:59,029
is

551
00:19:59,809 --> 00:20:01,109
the question of

552
00:20:01,650 --> 00:20:02,150
whether

553
00:20:02,775 --> 00:20:03,275
physics

554
00:20:03,575 --> 00:20:04,955
or maybe mathematics

555
00:20:05,414 --> 00:20:06,154
or maybe

556
00:20:06,775 --> 00:20:07,755
computer science

557
00:20:08,375 --> 00:20:08,875
could

558
00:20:09,335 --> 00:20:10,315
form the basis

559
00:20:11,095 --> 00:20:13,355
of, I don't know, a universal

560
00:20:14,215 --> 00:20:15,755
language or a universal

561
00:20:16,710 --> 00:20:19,609
translator that Mhmm. Could we could go from

562
00:20:19,990 --> 00:20:21,210
our way of communicating

563
00:20:22,230 --> 00:20:24,809
into, let's say, physics and then

564
00:20:25,349 --> 00:20:26,410
out to,

565
00:20:27,750 --> 00:20:28,569
the alien

566
00:20:29,029 --> 00:20:31,855
way of communicating. Is that can can you

567
00:20:31,855 --> 00:20:33,375
talk a bit about that? Because I found

568
00:20:33,375 --> 00:20:36,575
that really fascinating. And it sort of made

569
00:20:36,575 --> 00:20:37,554
sense to me

570
00:20:38,174 --> 00:20:38,674
when

571
00:20:38,974 --> 00:20:40,974
when I I sort of gave up some

572
00:20:40,974 --> 00:20:42,595
of your ideas about how

573
00:20:42,894 --> 00:20:45,390
maybe physics is very different. And,

574
00:20:46,589 --> 00:20:47,570
but yeah,

575
00:20:47,950 --> 00:20:49,009
I thought it was

576
00:20:49,470 --> 00:20:51,950
a very interesting concept. Can you talk about

577
00:20:51,950 --> 00:20:52,849
that a bit?

578
00:20:53,230 --> 00:20:55,329
Yeah, I think a lot of people imagine

579
00:20:55,789 --> 00:20:58,509
that, you know, when aliens arrive, obviously they

580
00:20:58,509 --> 00:21:00,289
won't speak English. That'd be ridiculous.

581
00:21:01,475 --> 00:21:03,394
And they might use some weird sort of,

582
00:21:04,115 --> 00:21:07,154
language or communicate with their senses, with their

583
00:21:07,154 --> 00:21:09,335
sense or with colors or whatever.

584
00:21:09,715 --> 00:21:11,015
But that at the foundation,

585
00:21:11,315 --> 00:21:14,099
we have math and physics in common. And,

586
00:21:14,099 --> 00:21:16,179
you know, Carl Sagan has a famous quotation

587
00:21:16,179 --> 00:21:18,980
about this, and he designed the pioneer plaque,

588
00:21:18,980 --> 00:21:22,200
which describes some basics of, you know, hydrogen

589
00:21:22,339 --> 00:21:25,220
and our representation of the solar system. And

590
00:21:25,220 --> 00:21:28,019
it's all, you know, pictograms. It's obviously not

591
00:21:28,019 --> 00:21:30,085
using words. And I think, you know, the

592
00:21:30,085 --> 00:21:30,585
inspiration

593
00:21:30,884 --> 00:21:32,884
is, is, is right there. It's a way

594
00:21:32,884 --> 00:21:35,365
of saying, like, let's try to describe some

595
00:21:35,365 --> 00:21:37,525
core basic concepts that maybe we have in

596
00:21:37,525 --> 00:21:38,025
common.

597
00:21:38,404 --> 00:21:39,924
But, you know, in the end, all of

598
00:21:39,924 --> 00:21:41,224
these things are symbols.

599
00:21:41,700 --> 00:21:44,019
All of our attempts to transmit an idea

600
00:21:44,019 --> 00:21:45,859
from one brain to the other have to

601
00:21:45,859 --> 00:21:47,079
pass through this

602
00:21:47,380 --> 00:21:49,480
symbolic representation where we

603
00:21:49,859 --> 00:21:52,419
scratch images onto a surface and pass them

604
00:21:52,419 --> 00:21:54,259
to somebody or encode them in data and

605
00:21:54,259 --> 00:21:56,884
pass them pass them on. And that encoding,

606
00:21:57,184 --> 00:21:59,984
that translation into symbols is totally arbitrary. You

607
00:21:59,984 --> 00:22:02,065
could pick any symbols you want. And so

608
00:22:02,065 --> 00:22:03,904
to imagine that aliens are gonna, like, look

609
00:22:03,904 --> 00:22:05,904
at the pioneer flag and go, oh, yeah.

610
00:22:05,904 --> 00:22:08,144
I can tell you met hydrogen atom. And,

611
00:22:08,144 --> 00:22:09,585
oh, yeah. I see what you mean. This

612
00:22:09,585 --> 00:22:10,565
must be a pulsar.

613
00:22:11,130 --> 00:22:14,029
It's hopeful, but a little bit naive maybe.

614
00:22:14,570 --> 00:22:16,890
And so I was thinking, you know, what

615
00:22:16,890 --> 00:22:19,289
could we rely on? What way could we

616
00:22:19,289 --> 00:22:22,430
use to try to establish connections with aliens?

617
00:22:22,970 --> 00:22:24,990
And so I actually called up Noam Chomsky

618
00:22:25,434 --> 00:22:27,914
because he famously answers his emails and asked

619
00:22:27,914 --> 00:22:29,775
him. I thought, you know, who else better

620
00:22:29,835 --> 00:22:30,654
to ask about

621
00:22:31,035 --> 00:22:31,535
communicating,

622
00:22:32,075 --> 00:22:34,234
with aliens and the foundations of language? That's

623
00:22:34,234 --> 00:22:35,535
the the famous linguist,

624
00:22:35,835 --> 00:22:37,295
Noam Chomsky. Yeah.

625
00:22:37,890 --> 00:22:40,130
And, you know, he said we should begin

626
00:22:40,130 --> 00:22:42,450
with arithmetic. He said arithmetic is very likely

627
00:22:42,450 --> 00:22:44,210
to be something we have in common. And

628
00:22:44,210 --> 00:22:45,970
he had a reasonable argument for that. You

629
00:22:45,970 --> 00:22:46,789
know, he imagined,

630
00:22:47,490 --> 00:22:49,750
that aliens probably count themselves.

631
00:22:50,049 --> 00:22:51,349
You know, they are individuals.

632
00:22:51,730 --> 00:22:54,204
And so there's one alien, two aliens, they

633
00:22:54,204 --> 00:22:56,444
learn, you know, counting. And from that you

634
00:22:56,444 --> 00:22:57,744
build arithmetic and,

635
00:22:58,525 --> 00:23:01,105
he and Marvin Minsky together have this argument

636
00:23:01,164 --> 00:23:03,904
about how from arithmetic, you can build up

637
00:23:03,964 --> 00:23:05,505
essentially all of language

638
00:23:06,039 --> 00:23:08,119
that from arithmetic, you get all of math

639
00:23:08,119 --> 00:23:10,519
because we've learned the last few hundred years

640
00:23:10,519 --> 00:23:11,019
that

641
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,799
all of math rests on arithmetic, which is

642
00:23:13,799 --> 00:23:16,599
based on these PNO axioms, which are the

643
00:23:16,599 --> 00:23:18,059
foundation of all of mathematics.

644
00:23:18,474 --> 00:23:20,315
And so basically once you have arithmetic, you

645
00:23:20,315 --> 00:23:22,394
can build up all of math. So imagine

646
00:23:22,394 --> 00:23:24,474
a scenario where aliens show up and we

647
00:23:24,474 --> 00:23:27,034
establish one and two and one plus one

648
00:23:27,034 --> 00:23:28,335
equals two etc etc

649
00:23:28,714 --> 00:23:30,794
and from there we can build, most of

650
00:23:30,794 --> 00:23:34,075
mathematics and from there we can communicate perhaps

651
00:23:34,075 --> 00:23:36,710
in the language of computers writing programs

652
00:23:37,490 --> 00:23:37,990
essentially

653
00:23:38,289 --> 00:23:41,250
as Turing machines. Turing machines are the simplest

654
00:23:41,250 --> 00:23:43,029
possible computer that you could build.

655
00:23:43,410 --> 00:23:44,850
Not that you have to build them in

656
00:23:44,850 --> 00:23:47,230
this silly way with tapes and and and

657
00:23:47,230 --> 00:23:49,755
and rulers etcetera, but just as an argument

658
00:23:49,755 --> 00:23:51,295
for what computers can do.

659
00:23:51,755 --> 00:23:54,075
That from arithmetic, you can get to mathematics,

660
00:23:54,075 --> 00:23:55,434
and then you can get to algorithms, and

661
00:23:55,434 --> 00:23:57,595
then you can use algorithms as the foundation

662
00:23:57,595 --> 00:23:59,595
of a way to communicate with an alien

663
00:23:59,595 --> 00:24:02,715
species. You know, essentially moving information around, writing

664
00:24:02,715 --> 00:24:04,174
a program to do something

665
00:24:04,570 --> 00:24:06,090
as a way to communicate this is what

666
00:24:06,090 --> 00:24:07,769
we want or this is how we do

667
00:24:07,769 --> 00:24:08,509
this calculation.

668
00:24:09,849 --> 00:24:12,009
And that's very attractive, but still at the

669
00:24:12,009 --> 00:24:13,230
foundation of it

670
00:24:13,529 --> 00:24:15,450
are some assumptions. You know, how do we

671
00:24:15,450 --> 00:24:16,430
know that aliens

672
00:24:17,315 --> 00:24:18,214
have individuals

673
00:24:18,515 --> 00:24:20,994
that they count? What about aliens that are

674
00:24:20,994 --> 00:24:23,875
like beings in the atmosphere of a star

675
00:24:23,875 --> 00:24:25,954
and they're made of plasma and the edges

676
00:24:25,954 --> 00:24:28,375
of their bodies are not so crisp?

677
00:24:29,250 --> 00:24:30,690
If you dig into it, it's not even

678
00:24:30,690 --> 00:24:32,849
easy to understand where is the edge of

679
00:24:32,849 --> 00:24:34,769
me. I mean, you have this concept of

680
00:24:34,769 --> 00:24:36,529
yourself as an individual and you and I

681
00:24:36,529 --> 00:24:38,289
are different people. But, you know, if we're

682
00:24:38,289 --> 00:24:40,450
in the same room, where exactly would we

683
00:24:40,450 --> 00:24:42,230
draw the line and say, this is Daniel,

684
00:24:42,369 --> 00:24:44,125
this is not Daniel. Is it at the

685
00:24:44,125 --> 00:24:45,724
edge of my skin? Is it the little

686
00:24:45,724 --> 00:24:48,224
hairs that perturb? Is it my personal space?

687
00:24:48,444 --> 00:24:51,164
Very quickly, you find the philosophy there is

688
00:24:51,164 --> 00:24:53,025
somewhat cultural and arbitrary.

689
00:24:53,484 --> 00:24:55,005
And if we had a different kind of

690
00:24:55,005 --> 00:24:55,505
body,

691
00:24:55,884 --> 00:24:58,544
ones that were more flowy and less less

692
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:00,480
crisp, we might never come up with the

693
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:02,960
concept of integers. You know, it might all

694
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:03,460
be,

695
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,480
real numbers. And so start trying to start

696
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:08,720
with one and, and one and two might

697
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:10,900
get us off in on the wrong foot.

698
00:25:11,255 --> 00:25:13,835
So everywhere you go, there are these philosophical

699
00:25:14,295 --> 00:25:17,434
assumptions we're making, these cultural assumptions we're making

700
00:25:17,495 --> 00:25:19,815
about how to communicate and what's really at

701
00:25:19,815 --> 00:25:20,475
the foundation.

702
00:25:21,255 --> 00:25:22,455
But it's a lot of fun to dig

703
00:25:22,455 --> 00:25:24,375
into these things and to wonder about various

704
00:25:24,375 --> 00:25:24,875
scenarios

705
00:25:25,190 --> 00:25:27,289
where aliens might arrive and and the difficulties

706
00:25:27,509 --> 00:25:29,750
we might face with communicating with them. Yeah.

707
00:25:29,750 --> 00:25:31,670
Because one one thing that, you know, I

708
00:25:31,670 --> 00:25:33,829
I thought, you know, from the point of

709
00:25:33,829 --> 00:25:35,829
view of physics is I I I think

710
00:25:35,829 --> 00:25:37,670
you allude to this in the book somewhere

711
00:25:37,670 --> 00:25:38,025
about,

712
00:25:39,545 --> 00:25:40,765
an alien civilization

713
00:25:42,025 --> 00:25:42,525
seeing,

714
00:25:42,825 --> 00:25:44,525
you know, the Earth as a

715
00:25:44,825 --> 00:25:46,664
as a system in the same way that

716
00:25:46,664 --> 00:25:48,424
we would see, I don't know, the electrons

717
00:25:48,424 --> 00:25:49,244
in a semiconductor

718
00:25:49,785 --> 00:25:51,005
Mhmm. As a system.

719
00:25:51,384 --> 00:25:53,325
And so, you know,

720
00:25:53,990 --> 00:25:55,289
humans would be,

721
00:25:56,070 --> 00:25:58,309
well, I suppose from our point of view

722
00:25:58,309 --> 00:25:59,930
would be sort of an an emergent

723
00:26:00,390 --> 00:26:00,890
phenomenon

724
00:26:01,430 --> 00:26:01,930
within

725
00:26:02,390 --> 00:26:03,289
that system.

726
00:26:03,830 --> 00:26:05,690
And, you know, would they necessarily

727
00:26:06,230 --> 00:26:06,914
see us

728
00:26:07,315 --> 00:26:08,535
or perceive us

729
00:26:09,154 --> 00:26:10,615
as individuals, or

730
00:26:10,994 --> 00:26:12,914
would, you know, would they be you know,

731
00:26:12,914 --> 00:26:15,335
would would we be sort of like quasi

732
00:26:15,394 --> 00:26:16,615
particles to them?

733
00:26:17,394 --> 00:26:19,955
You know, things that that that sort of

734
00:26:19,955 --> 00:26:20,934
exist, but

735
00:26:21,690 --> 00:26:22,190
really

736
00:26:22,809 --> 00:26:23,869
are are completely

737
00:26:24,490 --> 00:26:25,470
dependent on

738
00:26:25,849 --> 00:26:28,190
the environment, which I suppose we are,

739
00:26:29,049 --> 00:26:30,649
you know, to a certain extent. We are

740
00:26:30,649 --> 00:26:31,710
quasi particles

741
00:26:32,490 --> 00:26:35,375
within Earth because we we couldn't exist, you

742
00:26:35,375 --> 00:26:36,815
know, in the same way that,

743
00:26:37,455 --> 00:26:40,654
I don't know, phonon doesn't exist in, in

744
00:26:40,654 --> 00:26:43,215
a vacuum. We wouldn't exist in space for

745
00:26:43,215 --> 00:26:45,475
very long. It you know, I

746
00:26:46,414 --> 00:26:48,494
I I suppose those were the the sort

747
00:26:48,494 --> 00:26:49,154
of thoughts

748
00:26:49,619 --> 00:26:51,299
that I was having when I read the

749
00:26:51,299 --> 00:26:51,799
book.

750
00:26:52,740 --> 00:26:55,059
And, you know, I I, you know, it

751
00:26:55,059 --> 00:26:56,019
was real it was

752
00:26:56,500 --> 00:26:58,200
I suppose it just made me think

753
00:26:58,579 --> 00:27:00,359
in a in a very different way,

754
00:27:01,220 --> 00:27:03,319
about what it means to be human.

755
00:27:03,974 --> 00:27:06,454
Yeah. That was something that I didn't expect

756
00:27:06,454 --> 00:27:08,154
to get from the book, I suppose.

757
00:27:09,015 --> 00:27:10,855
Yeah. Well, this is a really fun topic

758
00:27:10,855 --> 00:27:13,434
and and one that's so fascinating and mysterious.

759
00:27:13,494 --> 00:27:16,474
This question of, you know, why things emerge.

760
00:27:16,890 --> 00:27:18,490
You know, as you say, we are emergent

761
00:27:18,490 --> 00:27:20,570
phenomena. We're not fundamental to the universe. There

762
00:27:20,570 --> 00:27:22,089
was a time before there were humans. There

763
00:27:22,089 --> 00:27:23,450
may be a time after there were humans.

764
00:27:23,450 --> 00:27:26,509
We're not necessary. We're like this special combination

765
00:27:26,570 --> 00:27:27,230
of particles

766
00:27:27,529 --> 00:27:29,130
that do this thing when they're all together.

767
00:27:29,130 --> 00:27:31,450
It's like ice cream or kittens. Right? It's

768
00:27:31,450 --> 00:27:31,785
not,

769
00:27:32,744 --> 00:27:35,545
fundamental fields or strings or whatever, and that's

770
00:27:35,545 --> 00:27:38,105
obvious. But the thing that's fascinating is that

771
00:27:38,105 --> 00:27:40,585
you can sort of zoom out from the

772
00:27:40,585 --> 00:27:43,465
microscopic details of the universe and think about

773
00:27:43,465 --> 00:27:46,119
people and build from that an understanding of

774
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,140
society and psychology and economics,

775
00:27:48,519 --> 00:27:50,279
the way you can, like, zoom out from

776
00:27:50,279 --> 00:27:52,359
particle physics and do chemistry and think about

777
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:54,539
atoms. Even though atoms are not the fundamental

778
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:56,835
building block of the universe, it's possible to

779
00:27:56,835 --> 00:28:00,855
tell fairly simple, fairly understandable stories about chemistry

780
00:28:00,914 --> 00:28:02,595
or to zoom out to biology and think

781
00:28:02,595 --> 00:28:05,554
about ecosystems. And it's amazing to me that

782
00:28:05,554 --> 00:28:06,294
the universe

783
00:28:06,835 --> 00:28:07,815
is understandable

784
00:28:08,115 --> 00:28:10,375
at all these different levels of zoom.

785
00:28:10,789 --> 00:28:12,630
It's not obvious to me why that even

786
00:28:12,630 --> 00:28:15,509
is, you know, why can you make chicken

787
00:28:15,509 --> 00:28:19,049
soup or understand humans without knowing quantum gravity?

788
00:28:19,509 --> 00:28:21,109
You know, I can imagine a universe where

789
00:28:21,109 --> 00:28:23,204
that's not possible at all, where everything is

790
00:28:23,524 --> 00:28:26,484
just chaotic from the fundamental level and nothing

791
00:28:26,484 --> 00:28:27,464
simple emerges.

792
00:28:28,005 --> 00:28:31,625
And because we don't know why simplicity emerges

793
00:28:31,684 --> 00:28:33,304
and why at these levels,

794
00:28:33,684 --> 00:28:34,984
then we can't be sure

795
00:28:35,619 --> 00:28:37,940
that it is emerging, that it's a property

796
00:28:37,940 --> 00:28:40,579
of the universe. It's not some bias that

797
00:28:40,579 --> 00:28:43,220
we have where we're seeing it in some

798
00:28:43,220 --> 00:28:45,779
way because that's what's important to us. You

799
00:28:45,779 --> 00:28:48,579
know, the famous experiment where you watch a

800
00:28:48,579 --> 00:28:50,579
video of a basketball game and they tell

801
00:28:50,579 --> 00:28:52,664
you to count the number of passes and

802
00:28:52,664 --> 00:28:54,184
you don't notice that there's like an ape

803
00:28:54,184 --> 00:28:55,944
walking through the background. And Right. Yeah. What

804
00:28:55,944 --> 00:28:58,025
you perceive and what you see and what

805
00:28:58,025 --> 00:29:00,025
you ask questions about in the universe depends

806
00:29:00,025 --> 00:29:02,105
very much on what you're interested in and

807
00:29:02,105 --> 00:29:03,565
what's important to you.

808
00:29:04,025 --> 00:29:06,430
And so it may be that our, you

809
00:29:06,430 --> 00:29:07,950
know, the fact that we grew up on

810
00:29:07,950 --> 00:29:09,250
a planet, for example,

811
00:29:09,630 --> 00:29:12,509
makes us preordained to think about planets and

812
00:29:12,509 --> 00:29:14,430
to think planets are really important in the

813
00:29:14,430 --> 00:29:14,930
universe.

814
00:29:15,630 --> 00:29:18,349
And maybe that's not. Maybe planets are trivial

815
00:29:18,349 --> 00:29:21,174
and not interesting and other aliens could think

816
00:29:21,174 --> 00:29:23,434
about the universe in terms of different foundations.

817
00:29:24,295 --> 00:29:25,734
So if you look at the way we

818
00:29:25,734 --> 00:29:27,994
represent the solar system, for example,

819
00:29:28,375 --> 00:29:30,775
planets are, like, always out of scale. We,

820
00:29:30,775 --> 00:29:33,035
like, zoom them out way out of scale,

821
00:29:33,369 --> 00:29:34,890
And we don't even have, like, a good

822
00:29:34,890 --> 00:29:37,450
definition for what is a planet, right? We

823
00:29:37,450 --> 00:29:38,829
have this very awkward

824
00:29:39,369 --> 00:29:42,890
sort of, you know, the retcon definition to

825
00:29:42,890 --> 00:29:45,869
make planets an interesting and special thing because

826
00:29:46,089 --> 00:29:47,894
we grew up on one. But, you know,

827
00:29:47,894 --> 00:29:48,394
aliens

828
00:29:49,174 --> 00:29:51,575
who again grew up in interstellar space or

829
00:29:51,575 --> 00:29:53,335
the atmosphere of a star or inside a

830
00:29:53,335 --> 00:29:55,734
star or on a moon or, or something

831
00:29:55,734 --> 00:29:57,894
might have a very different sense of what's

832
00:29:57,894 --> 00:29:59,755
foundational, what's important. And

833
00:30:00,070 --> 00:30:02,309
they could see different, I don't know, layers

834
00:30:02,309 --> 00:30:04,710
of Zoom, see different things emerge and and

835
00:30:04,710 --> 00:30:06,650
use that as the basis of their questions

836
00:30:06,710 --> 00:30:08,710
and of their science. And so, yeah, they

837
00:30:08,710 --> 00:30:10,650
might not even recognize that humans

838
00:30:11,029 --> 00:30:12,970
are what we consider to be the foundational

839
00:30:13,190 --> 00:30:15,029
element of our society. They could think of

840
00:30:15,029 --> 00:30:17,345
groups of humans or, you know, parts of

841
00:30:17,345 --> 00:30:17,845
us.

842
00:30:18,224 --> 00:30:19,744
And and again, not to say this is

843
00:30:19,744 --> 00:30:21,605
the most likely, but it's just an exercise

844
00:30:21,664 --> 00:30:23,684
in questioning our assumptions and wondering

845
00:30:24,065 --> 00:30:26,404
where our humanity is biasing our perspective.

846
00:30:26,784 --> 00:30:28,859
So so if we assume that we can

847
00:30:29,500 --> 00:30:31,900
we can have some sort of communication with

848
00:30:31,900 --> 00:30:33,279
an alien civilization,

849
00:30:34,059 --> 00:30:35,900
we we sort of move on to the,

850
00:30:35,900 --> 00:30:37,039
I suppose, the questions.

851
00:30:37,660 --> 00:30:40,640
Yeah. You know, human human scientists

852
00:30:41,179 --> 00:30:41,679
scientists

853
00:30:42,299 --> 00:30:42,799
ask

854
00:30:43,144 --> 00:30:44,684
certain questions of nature,

855
00:30:45,784 --> 00:30:48,024
and you know, I suppose you've pointed out

856
00:30:48,024 --> 00:30:50,345
that those questions are probably very biased

857
00:30:50,825 --> 00:30:52,605
Mhmm. In terms of our environment.

858
00:30:52,984 --> 00:30:55,625
What, I mean, what are the possibilities for

859
00:30:55,625 --> 00:30:56,684
the sort of questions

860
00:30:57,420 --> 00:30:57,920
that,

861
00:30:58,539 --> 00:31:00,160
an alien civilization

862
00:31:01,500 --> 00:31:02,559
could ask?

863
00:31:02,940 --> 00:31:05,259
And, you know, would the answers to those

864
00:31:05,259 --> 00:31:07,519
questions even be meaningful to us?

865
00:31:09,019 --> 00:31:10,700
Yeah. Well, one way to start to think

866
00:31:10,700 --> 00:31:12,320
about that is to think about

867
00:31:13,035 --> 00:31:13,535
You

868
00:31:14,715 --> 00:31:16,734
know, what universe are they

869
00:31:17,195 --> 00:31:19,055
perceiving? Right? We have a certain

870
00:31:19,434 --> 00:31:21,914
set of senses about how the universe, it

871
00:31:21,914 --> 00:31:23,434
says that our senses that give us a

872
00:31:23,434 --> 00:31:24,575
window to the universe,

873
00:31:25,130 --> 00:31:26,970
They may have a different set of senses

874
00:31:26,970 --> 00:31:28,670
or it could be very similar.

875
00:31:29,049 --> 00:31:31,049
You know, we know for example, that most

876
00:31:31,049 --> 00:31:33,710
of the universe is invisible to us, neutrinos

877
00:31:33,930 --> 00:31:36,090
and dark matter and dark energy. None of

878
00:31:36,090 --> 00:31:38,430
this is something we can register directly.

879
00:31:39,154 --> 00:31:41,095
We, of course, can build technology,

880
00:31:41,394 --> 00:31:44,755
which senses it and translates it into something

881
00:31:44,755 --> 00:31:47,414
we can sense scribbles on the computer screen,

882
00:31:47,554 --> 00:31:49,174
but we can't immediately

883
00:31:49,554 --> 00:31:50,454
understand it.

884
00:31:51,474 --> 00:31:53,730
And I think this definitely shapes the kinds

885
00:31:53,730 --> 00:31:55,809
of questions we ask about the universe, you

886
00:31:55,809 --> 00:31:56,869
know, what's out

887
00:31:57,170 --> 00:31:59,890
there. And what's interesting to study. We spend

888
00:31:59,890 --> 00:32:02,130
most of our time thinking about the 5%

889
00:32:02,130 --> 00:32:04,450
of the universe that we can directly interact

890
00:32:04,450 --> 00:32:04,950
with,

891
00:32:05,424 --> 00:32:06,244
but also

892
00:32:06,865 --> 00:32:09,744
it changes the way we get those answers

893
00:32:09,744 --> 00:32:11,845
and the answers that we find intuitive.

894
00:32:12,464 --> 00:32:14,785
You know, think about how we ask and

895
00:32:14,785 --> 00:32:16,724
answer questions about quantum mechanics.

896
00:32:17,345 --> 00:32:20,325
We tend to talk about these quantum objects

897
00:32:20,839 --> 00:32:23,720
in analogy to things we find intuitive, to

898
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,200
things we can sense. So we talk about

899
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:28,039
the photon and we describe we compare it

900
00:32:28,039 --> 00:32:30,759
to waves in the in water. We compare

901
00:32:30,759 --> 00:32:33,000
it to tiny bits of rock, you know,

902
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:34,299
essentially mini particles.

903
00:32:35,204 --> 00:32:36,724
And we know that neither of those are

904
00:32:36,724 --> 00:32:38,964
correct. The photon is neither a particle nor

905
00:32:38,964 --> 00:32:40,565
a wave. And, you know, there's lots of

906
00:32:40,565 --> 00:32:43,125
confusing popular science about how it's both and

907
00:32:43,125 --> 00:32:45,444
sometimes or whatever. But the reality is it's

908
00:32:45,444 --> 00:32:47,924
neither. It's something new and weird that can

909
00:32:47,924 --> 00:32:50,669
only be partially described by our intuition.

910
00:32:51,049 --> 00:32:53,390
And so in that sense, we're fundamentally limited

911
00:32:53,609 --> 00:32:54,909
from deeply understanding

912
00:32:55,450 --> 00:32:57,769
what is a photon because we're coming at

913
00:32:57,769 --> 00:33:00,569
it from these intuitive concepts that are based

914
00:33:00,569 --> 00:33:02,409
on the way we perceive the universe. And

915
00:33:02,409 --> 00:33:06,065
so imagine aliens that are like really microscopic.

916
00:33:06,765 --> 00:33:08,305
So for them, quantum phenomena

917
00:33:08,924 --> 00:33:11,884
are not a bizarre recent discovery, but something

918
00:33:11,884 --> 00:33:12,945
they find intuitive.

919
00:33:13,565 --> 00:33:16,765
Maybe they can interact with quantum objects without

920
00:33:16,765 --> 00:33:18,900
collapsing them. And so they can like per

921
00:33:19,380 --> 00:33:20,279
perceive superposition

922
00:33:21,220 --> 00:33:23,559
to them. The quantum objects are intuitive

923
00:33:23,940 --> 00:33:25,700
and so, you know, the kind of questions

924
00:33:25,700 --> 00:33:27,140
they would ask could be different, but most

925
00:33:27,140 --> 00:33:30,119
importantly the kind of answers they find intuitive

926
00:33:30,180 --> 00:33:30,680
and

927
00:33:31,105 --> 00:33:33,505
and the answers they accept could be very,

928
00:33:33,505 --> 00:33:34,325
very different,

929
00:33:35,024 --> 00:33:37,505
because to them these things are intuitive. In

930
00:33:37,505 --> 00:33:39,284
the end, we're always translating

931
00:33:39,585 --> 00:33:42,224
our explanations for the universe back into the

932
00:33:42,224 --> 00:33:45,480
concepts we find intuitive, which are shaped by

933
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:47,559
our senses, which affect the way that we

934
00:33:47,559 --> 00:33:49,720
think. And so, you know, what is it

935
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:50,940
like to be an alien

936
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,680
that can taste electrons and experience photons and

937
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:56,599
and to think about the quantum universe in

938
00:33:56,599 --> 00:33:58,365
that way? It's it's hard for me to

939
00:33:58,365 --> 00:34:00,605
even put myself in that in the mind

940
00:34:00,605 --> 00:34:02,445
of that kind of creature. But I think

941
00:34:02,445 --> 00:34:04,765
it's important to recognize that they could be

942
00:34:04,765 --> 00:34:07,164
inspired to ask different questions about the universe.

943
00:34:07,164 --> 00:34:09,405
Maybe they're not so interested in drilling down

944
00:34:09,405 --> 00:34:11,324
and to understand the fundamental nature of the

945
00:34:11,324 --> 00:34:13,360
universe. Maybe they figured out that there is

946
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,000
no fundamental nature. Maybe it's all just layers

947
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:16,739
of emergence.

948
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:19,599
And the answers that they find acceptable, you

949
00:34:19,599 --> 00:34:21,920
know, we struggle with photons, but they might

950
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:23,519
be like, yeah, okay, it's just like that,

951
00:34:23,519 --> 00:34:25,139
and move on, you know?

952
00:34:25,855 --> 00:34:27,934
And and do you think, you know, let's

953
00:34:27,934 --> 00:34:30,835
say, for example, we were able to communicate

954
00:34:31,055 --> 00:34:31,555
with,

955
00:34:31,934 --> 00:34:33,954
let's say, this micro microscopic,

956
00:34:35,934 --> 00:34:37,075
civilization that

957
00:34:37,454 --> 00:34:39,474
exists in a quantum world.

958
00:34:40,199 --> 00:34:41,500
I mean, do you,

959
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:46,199
you know, there's the the the possibility that

960
00:34:46,199 --> 00:34:47,659
we could learn

961
00:34:48,119 --> 00:34:49,500
a lot from them

962
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:51,900
about quantum mechanics. And

963
00:34:52,514 --> 00:34:54,514
they might be oblivious to a lot of

964
00:34:54,514 --> 00:34:57,414
things in the in the classical world. Mhmm.

965
00:34:57,875 --> 00:34:59,315
I mean, do you do you think that

966
00:34:59,315 --> 00:35:00,534
there could be a meaningful

967
00:35:01,635 --> 00:35:02,135
exchange

968
00:35:02,755 --> 00:35:04,694
of knowledge between

969
00:35:05,074 --> 00:35:06,454
two such civilizations,

970
00:35:06,914 --> 00:35:07,409
or

971
00:35:08,369 --> 00:35:08,869
will

972
00:35:09,809 --> 00:35:11,030
they always exist

973
00:35:11,489 --> 00:35:12,309
in solitude

974
00:35:12,849 --> 00:35:13,589
just because,

975
00:35:14,369 --> 00:35:15,109
you know,

976
00:35:16,369 --> 00:35:18,449
the the the the meaning of things is

977
00:35:18,449 --> 00:35:19,190
so different

978
00:35:19,650 --> 00:35:21,329
in each, you know, it's almost like two

979
00:35:21,329 --> 00:35:21,829
different

980
00:35:22,369 --> 00:35:22,869
universes.

981
00:35:23,625 --> 00:35:24,125
Yeah.

982
00:35:24,505 --> 00:35:26,184
No. I think there's a lot that we

983
00:35:26,184 --> 00:35:28,025
could learn and a lot of information we

984
00:35:28,025 --> 00:35:30,505
could exchange. And I really hope that when

985
00:35:30,505 --> 00:35:32,744
the aliens arrive, even if they're super advanced,

986
00:35:32,744 --> 00:35:34,824
that we do have some nuggets that we

987
00:35:34,824 --> 00:35:37,724
worked out that they find fascinating and useful.

988
00:35:38,599 --> 00:35:41,160
But I think that regardless, we'll learn something.

989
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,440
I mean, imagine aliens arrive, microscopic or not,

990
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:46,840
they might just have a very different set

991
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,400
of answers to how the universe works. You

992
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,954
know, we have a theory of the universe,

993
00:35:51,954 --> 00:35:54,514
and it's very, very effective. It's so precise

994
00:35:54,514 --> 00:35:56,755
and accurate that it makes people feel like,

995
00:35:56,755 --> 00:35:58,514
Wow, this is like the source code of

996
00:35:58,514 --> 00:36:00,835
the universe. It must be true. But we

997
00:36:00,835 --> 00:36:03,635
really have no guarantee that it's true, and

998
00:36:03,635 --> 00:36:05,789
specifically in the sense that there could be

999
00:36:05,789 --> 00:36:08,670
a second theory. You know, philosophers of science

1000
00:36:08,670 --> 00:36:11,890
debate this endlessly, whether there could be multiple

1001
00:36:12,670 --> 00:36:13,170
independent,

1002
00:36:13,949 --> 00:36:14,449
conceptually

1003
00:36:14,750 --> 00:36:16,610
different, but both simultaneously

1004
00:36:16,910 --> 00:36:18,590
effective theories of the universe. And when I

1005
00:36:18,590 --> 00:36:20,190
first read about this, I thought, no, that's

1006
00:36:20,190 --> 00:36:20,690
impossible.

1007
00:36:21,545 --> 00:36:23,224
If you have two theories that are making

1008
00:36:23,224 --> 00:36:24,204
the same predictions,

1009
00:36:24,505 --> 00:36:27,005
they must be fundamentally equivalent at some level,

1010
00:36:27,065 --> 00:36:28,744
and this is sort of an open question

1011
00:36:28,744 --> 00:36:30,045
in philosophy of science,

1012
00:36:30,585 --> 00:36:32,664
but it might be that aliens show up

1013
00:36:32,664 --> 00:36:34,440
and, you know, we have a theory of

1014
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:36,119
quantum fields and they have a theory of

1015
00:36:36,119 --> 00:36:38,380
schwontum fields or something, you know, some

1016
00:36:38,679 --> 00:36:39,179
categorically

1017
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:39,980
different

1018
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:41,980
story about what's happening

1019
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:44,440
in the universe because in the end our

1020
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:46,519
theories of the universe are theories about the

1021
00:36:46,519 --> 00:36:47,019
invisible.

1022
00:36:47,375 --> 00:36:49,375
They are talking about what's going on behind

1023
00:36:49,375 --> 00:36:51,954
the scenes to explain what we do see.

1024
00:36:52,255 --> 00:36:54,494
You know, for example, nobody's ever seen a

1025
00:36:54,494 --> 00:36:57,214
field. We only see fields when they affect

1026
00:36:57,214 --> 00:36:59,375
things we can see. Like, we talk about

1027
00:36:59,375 --> 00:37:02,420
electric fields, but really it's an intermediate calculation

1028
00:37:02,420 --> 00:37:04,260
in our minds to explain what happens to

1029
00:37:04,260 --> 00:37:05,079
an electron.

1030
00:37:05,460 --> 00:37:08,199
Right? The field is never observed directly. So

1031
00:37:08,260 --> 00:37:09,779
is that a real thing, or is that

1032
00:37:09,779 --> 00:37:11,239
a fiction in our minds?

1033
00:37:11,699 --> 00:37:13,779
So when aliens show up, if they have

1034
00:37:13,779 --> 00:37:15,159
a completely unique

1035
00:37:15,465 --> 00:37:18,025
description for how the universe works totally different

1036
00:37:18,025 --> 00:37:19,405
conceptually from ours,

1037
00:37:20,105 --> 00:37:21,644
we will still learn something.

1038
00:37:22,025 --> 00:37:24,184
Even if they don't improve our knowledge, we

1039
00:37:24,184 --> 00:37:25,785
can look at theirs and compare and say,

1040
00:37:25,785 --> 00:37:27,465
Oh, this is interesting. These parts are similar,

1041
00:37:27,465 --> 00:37:28,765
but this is very different.

1042
00:37:29,159 --> 00:37:31,559
So no matter what happens, we'll learn something

1043
00:37:31,559 --> 00:37:34,780
about how human, how arbitrary our theories are.

1044
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:36,440
And if they show up and they are

1045
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,000
doing quantum field theory and string theory, that'll

1046
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:40,940
also tell us a lot like, wow, maybe

1047
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,480
this is true. Maybe this is fundamental. Maybe

1048
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:44,619
this is this is universal

1049
00:37:45,305 --> 00:37:47,704
beyond just the human scope. So I think

1050
00:37:47,704 --> 00:37:49,805
we're guaranteed to learn something either way.

1051
00:37:50,345 --> 00:37:52,184
I see. Well, that's great. I mean, that

1052
00:37:52,265 --> 00:37:54,025
I suppose that brings us to the end

1053
00:37:54,025 --> 00:37:54,684
of the

1054
00:37:55,144 --> 00:37:55,644
extended

1055
00:37:55,945 --> 00:37:57,164
Drake equation.

1056
00:37:58,340 --> 00:37:59,940
I I wanted to ask you about,

1057
00:38:00,340 --> 00:38:01,239
your collaborator,

1058
00:38:01,940 --> 00:38:04,280
Andy Warner, who's who's done some fantastic

1059
00:38:05,219 --> 00:38:05,719
cartoons

1060
00:38:06,019 --> 00:38:08,340
that, I think there's there's at least one

1061
00:38:08,340 --> 00:38:10,119
on every page, isn't there? Yeah.

1062
00:38:10,500 --> 00:38:12,519
At least in the in the PDF version

1063
00:38:12,894 --> 00:38:15,215
that I have. And we were chatting before

1064
00:38:15,215 --> 00:38:16,835
this interview, and you said that

1065
00:38:17,295 --> 00:38:20,095
Andy doesn't have a physics background. Is that

1066
00:38:20,095 --> 00:38:20,595
right?

1067
00:38:20,974 --> 00:38:22,735
That's right. He's an artist, but he also

1068
00:38:22,735 --> 00:38:24,675
knows a lot about the history of science.

1069
00:38:25,349 --> 00:38:28,309
I've, been following his cartoons online for years.

1070
00:38:28,309 --> 00:38:29,289
He does fantastic,

1071
00:38:30,470 --> 00:38:33,990
nonfiction cartoons. He's written really fun books, you

1072
00:38:33,990 --> 00:38:36,710
know, like the history of ordinary objects, everyday

1073
00:38:36,710 --> 00:38:37,210
objects.

1074
00:38:38,094 --> 00:38:40,175
And I really enjoyed his style and his

1075
00:38:40,175 --> 00:38:43,055
humor. And so one day I just cold

1076
00:38:43,055 --> 00:38:45,135
emailed him and said, hey, do you wanna

1077
00:38:45,135 --> 00:38:47,155
collaborate on a book about aliens?

1078
00:38:48,015 --> 00:38:50,414
And we started chatting and explained to him

1079
00:38:50,414 --> 00:38:51,075
the idea.

1080
00:38:51,460 --> 00:38:53,140
And then I realized not only could he

1081
00:38:53,140 --> 00:38:55,219
add a lot of really fantastic visuals because

1082
00:38:55,219 --> 00:38:57,300
I think it's really helpful to, you know,

1083
00:38:57,300 --> 00:38:59,300
see what these aliens might look like, but

1084
00:38:59,300 --> 00:39:00,980
he also knew a lot about the history

1085
00:39:00,980 --> 00:39:02,920
of science and was into the philosophy.

1086
00:39:03,394 --> 00:39:05,714
So, yeah, he doesn't just illustrate the book.

1087
00:39:05,714 --> 00:39:07,474
He also took all of my writing and

1088
00:39:07,474 --> 00:39:09,795
made it under more understandable and added lots

1089
00:39:09,795 --> 00:39:11,494
of details to it and history.

1090
00:39:11,875 --> 00:39:13,714
We had a great time working together on

1091
00:39:13,714 --> 00:39:15,315
this book. It was it was a pleasure

1092
00:39:15,315 --> 00:39:18,510
working with Andy. Oh, that's great. And I

1093
00:39:18,510 --> 00:39:19,329
suppose another

1094
00:39:19,869 --> 00:39:21,869
another thing I'd I'd like to ask you

1095
00:39:21,869 --> 00:39:23,150
about I know I know this is a

1096
00:39:23,150 --> 00:39:24,610
bit of a downer, but,

1097
00:39:25,630 --> 00:39:27,150
you know, there there is a school of

1098
00:39:27,150 --> 00:39:27,949
thought that,

1099
00:39:28,829 --> 00:39:30,369
an alien encounter

1100
00:39:30,844 --> 00:39:31,744
could be a complete

1101
00:39:32,045 --> 00:39:32,545
disaster.

1102
00:39:32,924 --> 00:39:34,625
You know, it's a sort of colonial,

1103
00:39:35,964 --> 00:39:38,204
idea. It's you know, go ask,

1104
00:39:38,764 --> 00:39:41,324
the indigenous people of The Americas how great

1105
00:39:41,324 --> 00:39:44,284
it was when the Europeans turned up, that

1106
00:39:44,284 --> 00:39:46,559
that sort of thing. Are you,

1107
00:39:46,940 --> 00:39:47,839
does that

1108
00:39:48,219 --> 00:39:49,900
worry you? I mean, I suppose in a

1109
00:39:49,900 --> 00:39:52,000
sense there's nothing you can do about it.

1110
00:39:52,299 --> 00:39:52,619
But,

1111
00:39:53,420 --> 00:39:57,039
do you see different degrees of encounter?

1112
00:39:57,579 --> 00:40:00,735
Mhmm. Some being very positive and others, well,

1113
00:40:00,735 --> 00:40:03,055
maybe being a disaster. I mean, I think

1114
00:40:03,055 --> 00:40:04,815
there is a a cartoon right at the

1115
00:40:04,815 --> 00:40:07,454
beginning, isn't there? Where you address that. You

1116
00:40:07,454 --> 00:40:09,315
and Andy address that in the book.

1117
00:40:10,815 --> 00:40:13,055
Yeah. We we have no idea what aliens

1118
00:40:13,055 --> 00:40:14,139
would do if they show up. Up. You

1119
00:40:14,139 --> 00:40:15,739
know, are they gonna nuke us from space?

1120
00:40:15,739 --> 00:40:17,900
Are they gonna enslave us or eat us

1121
00:40:17,900 --> 00:40:20,539
or drop wisdom bombs on us? We really

1122
00:40:20,539 --> 00:40:21,599
have no idea,

1123
00:40:22,059 --> 00:40:24,300
what they might do. I'm a big reader

1124
00:40:24,300 --> 00:40:26,300
of science fiction, and obviously this is all

1125
00:40:26,300 --> 00:40:27,039
just speculation.

1126
00:40:27,625 --> 00:40:29,625
But to me, it seems strange to imagine

1127
00:40:29,625 --> 00:40:31,545
aliens would come and, like, try to take

1128
00:40:31,545 --> 00:40:33,224
over the Earth or whatever. It's not like

1129
00:40:33,224 --> 00:40:35,085
the Earth has special resources.

1130
00:40:35,625 --> 00:40:37,864
You know, you want water? There's, like, planets

1131
00:40:37,864 --> 00:40:39,704
filled with water in the outer solar system.

1132
00:40:39,704 --> 00:40:40,445
Help yourself.

1133
00:40:40,900 --> 00:40:42,739
You know, you want heavy metals? The asteroid

1134
00:40:42,739 --> 00:40:44,900
belt is filled with platinum and gold and

1135
00:40:44,900 --> 00:40:45,400
whatever.

1136
00:40:46,019 --> 00:40:48,019
The only thing that's really interesting about the

1137
00:40:48,019 --> 00:40:50,440
Earth is the life here and the intelligence

1138
00:40:50,579 --> 00:40:52,500
here. And so, like, yeah, come talk to

1139
00:40:52,500 --> 00:40:52,815
us.

1140
00:40:53,454 --> 00:40:54,894
It's hard to imagine, but, you know, I

1141
00:40:54,894 --> 00:40:56,734
just written a whole book about how we

1142
00:40:56,734 --> 00:40:58,894
shouldn't base our assumptions. We shouldn't make assumptions

1143
00:40:58,894 --> 00:41:00,974
about what aliens might do or think or

1144
00:41:00,974 --> 00:41:01,474
want.

1145
00:41:02,014 --> 00:41:04,414
So there obviously is the potential for great

1146
00:41:04,414 --> 00:41:05,635
danger there. Civilization

1147
00:41:06,094 --> 00:41:06,989
is at stake.

1148
00:41:07,469 --> 00:41:09,889
But, you know, I am so curious about

1149
00:41:10,349 --> 00:41:12,429
what aliens might be thinking about the universe

1150
00:41:12,429 --> 00:41:14,190
and if we could learn from them that

1151
00:41:14,190 --> 00:41:14,690
personally,

1152
00:41:15,309 --> 00:41:16,989
I would take the risk. Like, if there's

1153
00:41:16,989 --> 00:41:19,230
an alien ship zipping by the solar system,

1154
00:41:19,230 --> 00:41:20,829
we have the option of whether to let

1155
00:41:20,829 --> 00:41:23,054
them know we're here. I'm saying yes. Let's

1156
00:41:23,054 --> 00:41:25,054
hit that red button and let's gamble it

1157
00:41:25,054 --> 00:41:27,155
because we would learn so much

1158
00:41:27,534 --> 00:41:30,034
about life and the universe and ourselves

1159
00:41:30,335 --> 00:41:33,295
by talking to alien scientists. I I wouldn't

1160
00:41:33,295 --> 00:41:34,594
wanna pass up the opportunity.

1161
00:41:35,215 --> 00:41:36,434
And and what about,

1162
00:41:37,070 --> 00:41:39,409
you know, this idea of trying to communicate,

1163
00:41:41,070 --> 00:41:43,329
with aliens, you know, in the sense of,

1164
00:41:44,349 --> 00:41:45,570
sending out messages,

1165
00:41:47,389 --> 00:41:49,755
you mentioned the sort of Carl Sagan and

1166
00:41:50,074 --> 00:41:52,335
and is it Frank Drake Frank Drake,

1167
00:41:52,875 --> 00:41:54,815
messages that were sent out on,

1168
00:41:55,114 --> 00:41:57,134
is it Pioneer and and Voyager?

1169
00:41:57,755 --> 00:41:59,775
Is that, I mean, is that something

1170
00:42:00,634 --> 00:42:02,909
that we should be doing? Is it,

1171
00:42:03,869 --> 00:42:05,949
you know, could it work or is it

1172
00:42:05,949 --> 00:42:08,130
futile? The distances are so great.

1173
00:42:09,949 --> 00:42:12,190
I think it's worth doing, but obviously I

1174
00:42:12,190 --> 00:42:14,989
shouldn't speak for humanity and it's a complicated

1175
00:42:14,989 --> 00:42:16,994
question. I know the folks at SETI have

1176
00:42:16,994 --> 00:42:19,394
spent a lot of time thinking carefully about

1177
00:42:19,394 --> 00:42:21,714
this. I spoke to Jill Tartar about this

1178
00:42:21,714 --> 00:42:24,594
and building a consensus on the Earth from

1179
00:42:24,594 --> 00:42:27,474
all different cultures and backgrounds about whether or

1180
00:42:27,474 --> 00:42:29,154
not this is the right thing to do

1181
00:42:29,154 --> 00:42:31,154
is a challenge, and that's the right way

1182
00:42:31,154 --> 00:42:32,969
to do it. You know, like one flipping

1183
00:42:32,969 --> 00:42:35,130
physicist who's curious about the universe should not

1184
00:42:35,130 --> 00:42:37,309
be determining the fate of the planet.

1185
00:42:38,329 --> 00:42:40,250
We should be careful and thoughtful about that.

1186
00:42:40,250 --> 00:42:42,329
And I know people send messages into space

1187
00:42:42,329 --> 00:42:43,309
without necessarily,

1188
00:42:43,849 --> 00:42:45,630
you know, coming to a consensus.

1189
00:42:46,094 --> 00:42:48,195
But personally, I think it's unlikely

1190
00:42:48,574 --> 00:42:49,715
that we are going

1191
00:42:50,255 --> 00:42:52,734
to receive a message that we understand. For

1192
00:42:52,734 --> 00:42:54,894
that to happen, you know, we have to

1193
00:42:54,894 --> 00:42:55,394
anticipate

1194
00:42:55,855 --> 00:42:58,755
the technology they use, the encoding they use,

1195
00:42:59,295 --> 00:43:02,519
reverse engineer it when we have no idea

1196
00:43:02,519 --> 00:43:04,440
what the message is supposed to look like?

1197
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:06,680
That's very, very difficult. Mhmm. As we were

1198
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,079
talking about earlier in the podcast, like, even

1199
00:43:09,079 --> 00:43:10,700
breaking down human languages

1200
00:43:11,079 --> 00:43:14,144
is challenging and almost impossible, and we weren't

1201
00:43:14,304 --> 00:43:16,224
able to do it for hieroglyphics without the

1202
00:43:16,224 --> 00:43:18,385
Rosetta Stone. And even still, it took twenty

1203
00:43:18,385 --> 00:43:20,945
years, and there are existing human languages we

1204
00:43:20,945 --> 00:43:23,184
have not been able to decode. So the

1205
00:43:23,184 --> 00:43:24,784
idea that we could get, like, a a

1206
00:43:24,784 --> 00:43:27,985
snippet of alien language and somehow be able

1207
00:43:27,985 --> 00:43:30,130
to figure out what it says seems very

1208
00:43:30,130 --> 00:43:31,269
unlikely to me,

1209
00:43:31,730 --> 00:43:32,929
which is why in the book, again, I

1210
00:43:32,929 --> 00:43:35,090
focused on aliens arriving because then we have,

1211
00:43:35,090 --> 00:43:37,170
like, a physical context from which to build

1212
00:43:37,170 --> 00:43:39,269
up potentially some kind of communication.

1213
00:43:40,130 --> 00:43:42,710
But so personally, I say yes. Let's broadcast

1214
00:43:42,849 --> 00:43:44,610
to the universe because I wanna start the

1215
00:43:44,610 --> 00:43:47,714
first inter stellar science conference. But I acknowledge

1216
00:43:47,714 --> 00:43:49,635
there are risks there, and everybody's read the

1217
00:43:49,635 --> 00:43:52,114
Dark Forest trilogy knows all about them, and

1218
00:43:52,114 --> 00:43:54,534
my voice definitely shouldn't be the loudest. But

1219
00:43:54,594 --> 00:43:57,074
for me, the curiosity about the universe is

1220
00:43:57,074 --> 00:43:57,574
paramount.

1221
00:43:58,449 --> 00:44:00,690
Well, that's great. That's, that's a good place

1222
00:44:00,690 --> 00:44:02,150
to leave it, Daniel.

1223
00:44:03,090 --> 00:44:05,110
So that's, that's your book,

1224
00:44:05,410 --> 00:44:06,230
Do Aliens

1225
00:44:06,530 --> 00:44:07,510
Speak Physics,

1226
00:44:08,289 --> 00:44:12,130
and, that's cowritten with, Andy Warner. And I'll

1227
00:44:12,130 --> 00:44:13,110
put a link,

1228
00:44:13,795 --> 00:44:15,474
to the book in the notes for this

1229
00:44:15,474 --> 00:44:15,974
podcast.

1230
00:44:16,515 --> 00:44:17,894
Thanks very much for the conversation.

1231
00:44:18,275 --> 00:44:21,894
Always wonderful to talk about aliens with interested

1232
00:44:21,954 --> 00:44:24,515
folks. Great. Thanks for coming on the podcast,

1233
00:44:24,515 --> 00:44:25,015
Daniel.

1234
00:44:33,710 --> 00:44:36,909
That was Daniel Whiteson of the University of

1235
00:44:36,909 --> 00:44:37,409
California,

1236
00:44:37,710 --> 00:44:38,210
Irvine.

1237
00:44:38,795 --> 00:44:39,614
He's cowritten,

1238
00:44:39,994 --> 00:44:43,434
Do Aliens Speak Physics? With the California based

1239
00:44:43,434 --> 00:44:45,055
artist, Andy Warner.

1240
00:44:45,755 --> 00:44:48,494
Their book is published by w w

1241
00:44:48,795 --> 00:44:50,015
Norton and Company,

1242
00:44:50,315 --> 00:44:51,914
and I'll put a link to it in

1243
00:44:51,914 --> 00:44:53,135
the podcast notes.

1244
00:44:53,619 --> 00:44:55,880
Thanks to Daniel for joining me today

1245
00:44:56,260 --> 00:44:58,679
and to our producer, Fred Isles.

1246
00:44:59,380 --> 00:45:02,099
Thank you for listening to this podcast, which

1247
00:45:02,099 --> 00:45:03,880
is supported by the APS

1248
00:45:04,260 --> 00:45:05,880
Global Physics Summit.

1249
00:45:06,485 --> 00:45:07,224
To continue

1250
00:45:07,605 --> 00:45:09,864
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1251
00:45:10,405 --> 00:45:12,105
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1252
00:45:12,565 --> 00:45:14,105
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1253
00:45:14,485 --> 00:45:16,894
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1254
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1255
00:45:19,260 --> 00:45:20,559
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1256
00:45:21,260 --> 00:45:22,239
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1257
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1264
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