Cosmic Queries – Quantum Consciousness with Charles Liu

26:06Neil deGrasse Tyson:by the way just a shout out to my wife we met in graduate school she got her PhD in physics she specialized her PhD thesis was on path intervals that was her so technically her PhD is in mathematical physics so I was like putting in on that as the question unfolded yes isn't that something that in Neil's family he ain't even the smart one it's true my family too i'm a big fan yes i i have i had the pleasure to to meet all various spouses and like none of us can match up to our spouses in their in their brilliance it's so true uh well okay yes we don't get too deeply into the vocabulary of it i agree but andrew that is a very good question and let's just cut to the basic chase yeah andrew is basically asking with the way that we're trying to figure out how the universe works on the quantum level, is it true that time could be considered as running backwards and forwards at the same time, and therefore the entire universe is filled, not just in space, but also in time?

27:16In other words, the past, the present, the future, all already exist. And all we're doing is either moving forward into it or standing still. We're not moving backwards, right? That's basically what he's asking. And then the corollary to that is - Which means all trajectories are predetermined. That's right. So if that's true, right, then should we do physics backwards as well as forwards? Can something happening in the past cause what's happening or predict what's happening in the future and vice versa? Hence the retrocausality. Retrocausality, right. Fancy word, but just time running backwards.

27:47Great word, though, if you think about it. That's right. Pretty clear what it means. So here's the bottom line, in my opinion, on that one, which is, again, a great question. Thank you, Andrew. The idea is, does time already fill all of the dimension, the fourth dimension, or does it not? Right. What do you mean by fill it? What do you mean by fill it? Well, okay. Think of the universe as a big, tall glass of water. Okay. And time zero is the bottom of the glass. As you're filling the glass, you're basically adding more and more content in the vertical dimension of the glass. until it's full and until it's full but if we right are right at the surface of where the water is now right is the glass already full okay that's what you mean has time already timed out that's right has already ticked and we're just experiencing it this has been explored in several science fiction stories for example uh ted chang's excellent story uh called story of your life which became adapted into the movie Arrival that starred Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.

29:01Neil deGrasse Tyson:It was also in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. That's right. That's right. Yeah, where the main character, who's loosely autobiographical from his time as a prisoner of war, cleaning up Dresden after the bombings, he's abducted by an alien. Right. And put in an alien zoo. So that doesn't sound very free, except they grant him access to his entire timeline. Right. Don't spoil it for those people who haven't read it yet. It's worth reading once. But yes, your point is exactly taken. There's a movie of it too. There's also a movie. That's right. For me, the fun part is it changes how you even speak of things.

29:43Neil deGrasse Tyson:That's right. You don't say, well, when were you born? Well, I was always being born. right i'm always dying i'm always because that timeline is just always filled out right that's right so so this is um sometimes referred to as what's called block time or a block universe where there are four dimensions of space and time and it's already filled it's a block that's already filled and we just happen to be moving through it and because of our physical limitations we can only move it in one direction okay but that is only one possible solution to the mathematical equations right andrew invoked quite a bit of advanced mathematics but that math has yet to be borne out in experiment and so his asking you know has an experiment been borne out the answer is no experiment has yet shown that the universe is in fact a full block so uh we will see i'm trying to What experiment would you, how would you, how would you, what experiment could you concoct that would actually show that?

30:48One thing that people think might help is if we could somehow send information faster than light through perhaps quantum entanglement or some kind of quantum teleportation. It is at the moment absolutely technically impossible. But some people have thought, imagine if we could create an experiment between here and the moon, where somehow we could send a signal and see if we could get a different signal before the light from the Earth would get to the moon. That's a really cool idea. Some people think that we could get that experiment off the ground in half a century or so. I am less optimistic, but it's a possibility.

31:32Interesting. It would have to be through quantum entanglement. Well, that's one way to do it. You have to get rid of what we call local hidden variables in order to be able to do that. But that's, again, a deep conversation for another time. That's a lot of Bell's theorem stuff to unpack in quantum. All right. All right. Okay, this is Janata. Jayanta. No. Jayanta. Jayanta. Jayanta Banik. I like Janata better. Okay. You're going to finish this. It's not your choice, Chuck. I know. It's not you. Okay. This is Jay Antobanek, who says, Dear Dr. Tyson, Lord Nice, warm greetings. My name is Jay Antobanek from California.

32:21I'd love to get your take on quantum entanglement exhibiting instantaneous correlations, even though no information can travel faster than light. Could this apparent non-locality be explained by particles being adjacent in a higher spatial dimension, appearing distant only in 3D? Or is the institution fundamentally incompatible with quantum field theory? My intuition is further supported by the recently measured speed of quantum entanglement formation of 232 atoseconds. There's a new one on me. Atosecond. Atosecond. And so, like, the whole deal is happens in another dimension, which doesn't make a difference what time it takes if you're outside the dimension.

33:07And then back here in 3D, instantaneous, faster than light. So what do you think, Chuck? First of all, did you pick that question just because we started talking about quantum? Or was that question predetermined, in which case it might have been leading back to the mention we had about quantum entanglement in a sort of block time kind of way? What a coincidence. That's really awesome. I see what you did there. Yeah, isn't that something? I see what you did there. I know. Well, it's not what I did. It's what the universe has done because of its strange structure. I don't know. So to answer this very good question, what I would say is that if you invoke an additional dimension to move through literally anything, right?

33:49Then you don't have to follow the rules of physics as they currently exist. You just add, as long as you can make the math work, you just add a loop or a different travel time of that information. So your suggestion that quantum entanglement just merely means that there's actually an entanglement that's physical, but it goes through a different dimension to get from one part of the entangled pair to the other part of the entangled pair, is a mathematical strategy that can explain a bunch of things. The only thing is, if you're doing that, then you have to explain what that other dimension is doing, right?

34:28Where is it affecting the rest of the universe in other ways? Is it true for every entangled particle that they go through the same dimension? Does it go through a different dimension? Also, philosophically, does that mean that there is actually a hidden local thing going on right the idea of quantum entanglement fundamentally is that once you have these two particles or two pair two parts of a pair of an entangled pair separated or once they've created it doesn't matter if there's a physical space in between them there's nothing connecting them at that moment other than the fact that they were entangled at one point in the past.

35:10And so there is no real way that we can show that that extra dimension is necessary or even effective. The time, the 223 attoseconds in which quantum entanglement occurs that you quoted, is a very cool experimental result. It needs to be further confirmed and things like that. But the idea is that it doesn't give us a lot of insight as to whether or not another dimension is necessary. At the moment, we probably don't want to go in that direction yet. We don't have enough information to know whether or not that's a fruitful path, so to speak, for entanglement. So it's a known unknown. It's an unknown unknown, right.

35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson:But it would allow us to accept this faster-than-light communication because it's happening in another dimension. Precisely. We're not actually moving faster than light. Right. Right. That's the thing. It's still not moving faster than light. It's just – isn't that what subspace would be? Well, subspace is only vaguely decided or defined in Star Trek, right? Yeah, exactly. But yes, if you're in a, it could be a warp drive or something like that, right? And you are in subspace as a result of being in a warp bubble, right? That could be considered a dimension or it could be considered something that is in the existing spatial dimensions that just happens to be temporarily not accessible.

36:42And yet you have subspace communications in Star Trek. So it is accessible and it's just all kinds of weirdness.

36:49Neil deGrasse Tyson:But also thought about it and try to come up with a solution to it. Yes. Unlike Star Wars that doesn't try to find solutions to anything. Correct. Well, that's one of the interesting things between Star Trek and Star Wars, right? I love them both. But even though Star Trek has tried to be much more scientific, right? Star Wars just gave up on being scientific. Star Wars is just a space opera. And so in that sense, it's actually still kind of fun. Although things like the Mandalorian and so forth, they still have a little bit of science thrown in there. Right. The ideas in general of things like the force and whatnot in Star Wars.

37:24Yeah, not so much.

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40:41Are we ready for another question? Yeah, bring it on. All right, this time we are Cindy Brill. Hi, it's Dr. Tyson Liu and Lord Nice. Cindy from Tua Latin, Oregon. My question, oh, I like this. My question is consciousness, is consciousness the result of quantum physics? Ha, ha, ha, ha.

41:04Neil deGrasse Tyson:What a great question. Because we don't really understand consciousness and no one understands quantum physics. So you just get one of those to explain the other and we're all fine. This is another great question. Thank you, Cindy. And in fact, this is a question that I was asked like exactly word for word when I was at the American Astronomical Society meeting back in January. Yeah, I know, like I said earlier, I'm still feeling really good about that meeting. I really was. I mean, you know, the world is on fire. I mean, things, it's also in ice. Things are just messed up. But when I went there, it was so...

41:42Yes, it's also in ice. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That was Robert Frost, everybody. I didn't invent that. But when I was there and I was just with all the wonderful young people at the American Astronomical Society meeting, presenting their research, asking questions, talking, being together, it just felt so good. It felt like the future is what matters. You know, we not, things can suck, but that's only now. And the world is in good hands. Not if I can help it. But anyway, yes, this was asked a student of mine. Now, Neil, you, of course, you were even a trustee, a counselor of the American Astronomical Society.

42:27So you're deeply into the society. As were you. I mean, you were on the board as well for a while.

42:32Neil deGrasse Tyson:That is correct. Yes. So people know, the American Astronomical Society is the organizing group of professional astrophysicists in the country. That's right. And in fact, all of North America, there are more members of it than the International Astronomical Union, which was the organization that, amongst other things, helped you demote Pluto, Neil. Don't blame that on me. Pluto had it coming. Pluto so had it coming. But the official vote was the IAU. I-A-U, right. So the AAS is a great organization. And how many is it up to? 8 ,000 members. 8 ,000 members. And there are 8 billion people in the world.

43:11That's right.

43:11Neil deGrasse Tyson:So that makes us... One in a million. If you do the math, one in a million. That's right. So it's very cool. And so many people there, there were about 3 ,000 people there overall. And so many of them were students, younger people. and one of those folks had come up to me and said, hey, you know, I remember hearing you guys talking about free will. And that made me wonder, is consciousness quantum? Is it quantum consciousness? And is that why there's free will? Because there's uncertainty in the quantum realm that we can't pin down. And so we can't determine what we're going to do at any given moment.

43:47So we interpret that uncertainty as free will. Possibly, right? Yeah. Yeah. When we talked way back in the day, right? It wasn't that long ago, but it feels like a long time ago about free will. We were actually asking ourselves, right? At what point do we say we don't know what's coming next, right? And the more and more science we've done about human behavior and physics and so forth, the more we think we know how determined the system is, and we just have reached a boundary where we don't know. It could be all the way down at the quantum level. Now, there have been ideas about consciousness for a long time tying to physics.

44:28In fact, Nobel laureate Roger Penrose had come up with a hypothesis with some of his colleagues decades ago, suggesting that consciousness is sort of like the quantum spaces in between our synapses. And that is not why he got his Nobel Prize. That is not why. No, that's a different thing. He got it for black holes. That's right. But nevertheless, he, very creative guy, he did all kinds of stuff about tessellations, mathematics, and things like that as well. So he gave this particular hypothesis about how we store information, right? The bottom line is, in my opinion, and I use that term a lot because I like putting things down to the bottom, we haven't yet defined consciousness, right?

45:13Philosophers will, and I know you love philosophers, Neil. I mean, you embrace them and you think that they're awesome so yeah so i'll quote philosophers as much as i can here that everything is conscious it's just the different levels of consciousness that matter right gary let me ask you when you played soccer did you sometimes feel like the ball had a mind of its own uh yeah there were days but basically i i worked i worked out that it was mainly user error on my behalf. Nice. Nice. Right. So philosophers of consciousness sometimes do argue that the soccer ball does have its own consciousness, but it's at such a low level, right?

46:01Such a level that we cannot understand that the, how hard it's kicked, whether the valve was affected or not, whether the wind is blowing, whether there's a spin, things like that, that fully explains how it moves and that its own free will or its own consciousness has no effect. Well, then what good is it? The soccer ball? Yeah. What good is it to have consciousness if it's of no effect, zero agency and zero influence on outcomes? The whole idea of consciousness is that you somehow can influence an outcome. other than that what good is it really well i don't know that's a really great point let's let if if you have this kind of consciousness if even exists right think uh we humans i don't know what what is something that we have that has no that serves no purpose and yet we have it and therefore it is part of who we are an appendix ah there you go there you go um the fact that you have an appendix, does that make you different from when you have your appendix removed because it got infected?

47:13Are you the same as you were before? And if you aren't, what is it about removing that particular part of you? Is it that part's consciousness, that part's quantum effects, that part's physical effects that make you a different person? Now, do I have insurance or not? Because I live in America. You know, that is. Well, that's a good point. You can have, there is obsolescence that is a part of us. So, you know, and I'm sure it served a purpose at some point and now it doesn't. Right. Consider it on an even deeper level, right? Surgery isn't necessary. Our skin cells completely cycle through every month or so, right?

48:00Everything that used to be the dermis, epidermis, and then it flakes off. Yeah, they slough off. It is completely true that none of us here at this meeting have the same skin cells that we did when we were growing up. Maybe not even, yeah, might be not even same muscle cells. We have a lot of the same bone cells, a lot of the same brain cells, but a lot of them are gone now, right? But our consciousness continues. And in fact, our consciousness continues to grow because we continue to experience things. You and I, I think my consciousness is enriched and improved because I'm hanging out with you guys today.

48:34Right? So how does the consciousness... Give it time. Give it time. How does our consciousness continue, even though our physical characteristics have discontinued?

48:45Neil deGrasse Tyson:You know, the best evidence that nobody understands consciousness is how many books are written on the subject. That's true for quantum physics, too. The book that says consciousness explains means no one really understands it. But it's worth thinking about, isn't it? Definitely. So this is... It's just for context. That's on the consciousness shelf of the library and the bookstore. There's no end of consciousness books. But you go to the gravity section, there's like two books. Yeah, but one of them is big.

49:15Neil deGrasse Tyson:It's Thorne, Meister, and Wheeler, right? Like another book. Yeah. But I'm just saying we're not continuing to rewrite a book on gravity because gravity is understood. So don't confuse the existence of a book that says something is explained as a statement of the state of the science behind it. I think that's a very good point. And so this question that Cindy has about quantum consciousness, right, is that point. Can the quantum properties that are inherent in our brains or in our overall physical systems allow us to hold together something, what we're calling consciousness, that persists despite our physical changes being so radical?

49:59I hope so. That's all I can say is because that that is the greatest possibility that our consciousness will extend beyond our so-called life, you know, physical life. That is the greatest case to make that we could in some way go on, especially when you think about the fact that the question before that, when we talk about entanglement and different dimensions, that maybe we could actually exist on a higher plane of being in another dimension because of quantum consciousness. And the only way we can find out, people, is to go ahead and die. No.

50:41Thanks. That's great advice there. I love the fact you end it with a laugh. Actually, that's the point, right? Right now, research in things like consciousness and quantum awareness and things like that are dependent on the fact that we don't want people to die as a result of that. And people have tried to make these experiments. More than 100 years ago, for example, there were some experiments about people who were about to die, and they were willing to be subjects of an experiment that were carefully weighed. Neil, you know this better than I do.

51:16Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah, yeah. It started out with, you know, after the x-rays were invented, they said, let's x-ray dying people, see if there's a soul that comes out. And, you know, in retrospect, it's like, what were you doing? But at the time, that's a completely sensible experiment. That's right. Religion makes a prediction, and now you have a means of probing what's inside the body. If the soul is inside the body, maybe the x-rays will find it. Nothing wrong with that as an attempt to gather evidence for those whose faith is challenged. That's right. All right, so let me ask you this then. Okay. This is a philosophical question.

51:49Do you think that perhaps we do a disservice by looking for something like that, an afterness, I will call it, an afterwards, I will call it, because it robs us of the urgency and importance of being here now. So here's the deal. If I understand the urgency and importance of being here now, and that is always at the top of mind and at the forefront of my consciousness, then it allows me to live to the fullest. Whereas if I retreat to this sense of there's going to be something after I'm waiting for the after, then I am robbing myself of the fullness of life in the here and now.

52:46Well, I'll just say one thing about that. And I'd love to hear everybody else's opinions on this. But here's here's my take on that. go ahead your idea of that sort of thing talking about afterlife and things like that um has been the basis of just about every apocalyptic cult or uh evangelical religion you know where where you are going to be saved or that you were heading on to be better better

53:11Neil deGrasse Tyson:things each one of them requires an end of the world scenario for you yeah yeah in your lifetime not that's right the world might end in a thousand years you're not getting anybody in that cult something like that right so so the idea for that one is that if current life is worth living if you feel good about your life right now then looking for an afterlife is kind of like a bummer but if current life sucks in your personal opinion maybe you want to be delivered somewhere else right that this has become in so many different religions i'm not actually the religion expert in my family uh my my eldest daughter actually studied religion in school but the bottom line oh again the bottom line thing there for there is that this idea of the afterlife has been used by organized religions co-opted yeah to do anything right um the caste system that is uh part of some religions well you you may be really bad right now but that's okay you you do the thing that we ask you to do and maybe you'll be born again as a higher caste individual you know or you that so that's a way to sort of make people not worry about their current lives but it can bring hope if your life currently sucks but you're like you know if i keep working i'll do better and life will become better but you're not looking at the present as much as you're looking at the long game And reincarnation in that flavor also gets you the other way.

54:47Neil deGrasse Tyson:That's right. If you misbehave, you'll come back as something maybe not even human. Yeah. Right. Oh, you come back as a soccer ball getting kicked around by Gary and his friends. And that little bit of consciousness that's in the ball. Right. Ah, I'm really effed up. It's a tough call, right? Yeah. So it's a great question in the end. we know that we human consciousness we're no longer able to communicate our consciousness once we have expired. Except we don't want to upload it into software. We can't tell people if we're still alive or not but there's been some really neat fiction these days, right?

55:25Where people have uploaded themselves into some sort of an AI system. Oh, I think there's a great show, I think it's called Altered Carbon if anybody wants to check it out, where the idea of your consciousness can be downloaded into a little disc. And then the corporeal body is called the skin. It's just skins. And you can put it in whatever skins you would like to put it in. And yeah, and so you could go from being, you know, a really attractive woman to a fat stubby guy to, it doesn't make a difference because it's just your consciousness that gets loaded into another body, including bodies that can be especially made just to hold your consciousness wow wow yeah the the altered carbon now the problem with that and just to wrap up quantum consciousness on this idea okay is that if we are thinking that consciousness is quantum in nature we can't digitize it because digitizing would mean that you could get every single bit of information correct and properly reproduced but if you're In a quantum system, right?

56:37You only have possibilities. Your qubits settle only when they are read. And then they're destroyed. That's right. So you can never actually get a perfect copy of your brain. You only get an imperfect copy every time you try to retrieve that information. So in the altered carbon situation, every time you're put into a new body, you could be fundamentally different in your consciousness. Interesting. Damn, you just ruined their whole show. Don't tell them. Don't tell them. Charles, to that point, if you were to upload, download whichever load of your consciousness, all you would be doing is taking a snapshot of your consciousness at that moment.

57:22100%. You keep existing. Your consciousness, as we've just discussed, grows. Even though you will lose cells, your consciousness is there and continues to grow. So you'll only have a snapshot if you're able to capture it. Good point. What's wrong with the snapshot?

57:37Neil deGrasse Tyson:Because every neurosynaptic connection with the chemistry, the electromagnetic fields, if I get a snapshot of that and put that in a jar and then re-engage it later, why isn't that an exact copy of where I am the moment that copy was taken? Like Apple Time Machine. It is an exact like Apple Time Machine. It is an exact copy as well as it can be digitized. But then once you start running it, if you're a quantum consciousness, then all the decisions start changing again. Right. So everything is different the moment you turn it back on. Or or no, no. OK, I think you missed something there. OK. OK.

58:24Neil deGrasse Tyson:So what I said is not even possible. That's the point. Yes. You cannot know the state of every particle down to the last particle that's running your brain because quantum physics prevents that knowledge. So to say I have an exact copy of it cannot be a real statement. Excellent way to put it. Excellent. And that front ends what you just said about trying to recover what your thoughts were. Right. Right. Okay. Interesting. Wow. God. That put a kibosh on all uploading consciousness.

59:26Absolutely. And if you can get to that point, and then the future time evolution is also digital, right, and not quantum, then maybe you can get some semblance of consciousness. But if it's quantum, no chance. No chance. Now, how about this? Suppose I'm able to run subroutines in a program that is everything about me, every single thing. so i have the main program which is chuck and then i have like just almost it can't be infinite but

59:59Neil deGrasse Tyson:like i got one you need a whole subroutine that has you put on lip balm 20 times a day oh absolutely speaking of which subroutine yeah that's good you've reminded him now so the subroutine would be called chuck chuck and then the then the sub subroutine would be chuck chuck chuck right exactly yeah so so there's this kind of replication of everything that i am and that i am all the way down turtles all the way down okay that's just a map that's not consciousness and that's my point but everything about that is me and when you run that program you're talking to me and then let's put an ai an ai element we'll call it that allows that same program to grow and flourish mentally the same way I would.

1:00:49So being able to take in information, process it the way Chuck would and do every. So it's me on every single level. You're describing Chuck.

1:00:57Neil deGrasse Tyson:But digitized. Okay. Chuck, what you're describing is the last chapter, if memory serves, of the book Goodle Escher Bach written by Douglas Hofstadter. It's called what? God bless you.

1:01:12what's it called girdle girdle escher bach girdle escher bach okay a girdle is a a philosopher

1:01:21Neil deGrasse Tyson:mathematician who did some important contributions in the early 20th century okay but point is uh it's a philosopher wrote the book and it's a very it's it's quite the meandering of ideas is inspired by these brilliant three people in our history. Good old Escher and Bach. Point is, the last chapter he reserves, if that's the book I'm remembering, it might have been one of his other books, I think it's in that book, where he has a conversation with Einstein's brain. Uh-huh. So you take Einstein's brain, like right when he dies, and then you map everything that's there, okay? And then it has an auditory capacity.

1:02:00Neil deGrasse Tyson:So you ask it a question, and you watch the sound waves trigger neurosynaptic connections, and then it goes through, and then it triggers a connection back because it knows it's a question, and then Einstein's brain speaks back to you. And he made a very convincing account of how and why that kudos should work, at least in principle, but no mention of quantum uncertainty was given. Right. So the principle is good. I mean, we humans don't interact with one another on the quantum level. So it's certainly possible that we could get to a point where we humans could not tell the difference between Chuck and Chuck 2, right?

1:02:42But that doesn't mean that they're the same, right? True. And this is, you know, you don't even have to go to 20th century nonfiction to think about this. On Broadway, there is actually a pretty acclaimed play recently. It was called Marjorie Prime, if you guys are familiar with that, where a character is speaking to a deceased spouse via artificial intelligence. it's really a very black mirror yeah but but it wasn't dark or anything it was just a kind of a a plot device to have someone try to think about what does it mean to be alive or is it better to have yourself alive in some way uh even if you actually aren't alive is it worth it or is it better that you just not and you know things like that it's not worth it to me but it may be worth to like, you know, maybe my children who could benefit from my life experience even though I'm not there and my spouse who could be comforted by the fact that you know, I know them better than anybody else and so they can talk to me the way they can't talk to anyone else.

1:03:50There are benefits to that. They're just not benefits to me. I would love to have that.

1:03:54Neil deGrasse Tyson:I met your kids. They ain't coming to you for advice.

1:04:00Neil deGrasse Tyson:They were done with you years ago. Brutal. I was going to say that would hurt if it weren't true.

1:04:13Especially that daughter of yours, Chuck. Yeah, well, that's so true. Yeah. I'd go to Charlie for advice. That's what I'm saying.

1:04:21Neil deGrasse Tyson:Let's get to the next question. We luxuriant on that one. We did. We took a bath in that one. Wow. Okay. All right. So let's have a little run and a jump at this particular contributor's name. Amagericana. Yes. Drs. Lou Amagericana. Sorry if I apologize if I've missed that. You sound like Chuck. Gary, I thought you were better than that. I don't speak Danish very well. Danish? Oh, okay. Yes. So Drs. Lou Tyson and – oh, Chuck, you'll love this. Just smart enough, Lord Nice. Hello from Copenhagen. You guys are smart enough. Wait, wait, wait. Chuck, that's the name of your comedy special. That is the comedy special.

1:05:02Which, by the way, you can watch on the YouTube. Let me say it.

1:05:05Neil deGrasse Tyson:You can watch on the StarTalk YouTube. Yes, Ken. All right, here we go. We've recently seen people that believe there are penguins in Greenland. What are other – please hold that thought. What are other glaring examples of scientific ignorance you have witnessed in the realm of public opinion, which make your collective jaws drop, please. And he says, tak, which is, I know, thank you in Danish. We'll just go round robin. I got one. You ready? Not only penguins in the Arctic, bears in the Antarctic. The very word Arctic means bear. So Antarctic should tell you there are no bears there. That's true.

1:05:46That's true. All right. All right. Well, I would say, because you said tak, I would say velkommen. Thank you very much. You're welcome. I would. That's a great question. And there are a lot of misconceptions, but the one that I find probably the most saddening for me is the idea that vaccines are dangerous. That one is the problem that bothers me a lot because there's probably no science that has been better tested. And when mistakes have been made, they have been corrected faster than good vaccine science. And the attempt of a lot of people to prey on the fears and the insecurities of parents or just people in general, that bothers me a lot.

1:06:36I think that's the thing that drops my jaw the most.

1:06:40Neil deGrasse Tyson:Charles, that's deep. I'm just going to say Flat Earth, but after that. Yeah, man. Flat Earth ain't great either, okay? We'll say that. Flat Earth never killed anybody, I think, is the thing. Well, actually, it did kill one person. It killed one guy. It killed a guy who built his own rocket. Built his rocket. to go up supposedly to prove that the earth was flat right but he didn't get the darren award you know why why you already had kids oh the darren award you can't have you can't right camp kids because the whole idea is that the whole idea is you know you removed well i don't i don't want to you know disparage anybody who falls for the pseudoscience right i mean these are these are not necessarily dumb people these are not necessarily no because it's an emotional decision that is made in ignorance.

1:07:24And I say, I use the word ignorant there for in its most technical sense. And people think that they are protecting a child, their child, but their ignorance, unfortunately, puts the child in peril because many, many needless deaths happen because people do not vaccinate their children. And we have probably the most tragic account of that was in Samoa when RFK Jr., God only knows how he became in charge of our country's health. He says he did not encourage anyone to steer away from vaccines. But the truth is he went there. He preached against it. People stopped vaccinating. They had a measles outbreak and many children died.

1:08:15So it's just that simple. Yeah, it's true. We don't remember anymore how you would come back to school after summer vacation and look around and see who amongst your friends from last year aren't there anymore because they died of polio during the summer or because they had some sort of childhood disease. We don't remember that. And so it's easy for us to say. Yeah, it's easy for us to think it's all fake. But it absolutely is not. And the reason that we are so luxuriously comfortable in our public health these days, as bad as some health care issues are, we don't get those kinds of diseases anymore is because of the success of the scientific vaccinations.

1:08:56Absolutely. That we have been fortunate enough to enjoy.

1:08:59Neil deGrasse Tyson:It's the victim of its own success. It's the victim of its own success. It's the same thing as in the simplest example, why are you using dandruff shampoo? You don't have dandruff. Right. there you go no it's true and you will and you will have dandruff and another thing we're recording this in January 2026 it's still football season and I will highlight for people on the east coast because the sun sets early so it gets dark around 5 or 6 o 'clock when you are watching a football game on the west coast and the sun is still up this is the evidence earth is round round okay i don't know how well that's the simplest evidence i can give you yeah yeah it's unfortunate um i the sun has not yet set in the west right people three time zones away for me it's you know windmills are are a hoax right well look um i to me uh you know and this is such a good question and of course it comes not from the united states so it's not at all anything about our country or any individual society or country but when there is the origin of the question the person yeah yeah yeah the question thank you we have to remember that everybody is subject to ignorance there are things that each one of us does not know.

1:10:34It may be different depending on where we are. So instead of like forgetting about it and just being angry about it, we got to reach out and continue to convince folks and help them understand that whatever you think you may know, please be sure to check it with as many people as possible and as many different reliable sources as you can so that you can really get it done, right?

1:10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson:All you need to do is look at a 20-minute YouTube video, and then you become the expert. Right. Thanks, Neil. Especially if that video is hosted by Joe Rogan. Oh, my goodness. So what you're missing there, Charles, I think, is we're all educators here. And the word ignorance, as Chuck accurately described, in its formal definition, it just means you don't know something. Right. So we thrive in the space of where others are ignorant because we teach them. That is what we do as educators. The problem is not when people are ignorant of a truth. The problem is when they are ignorant of a truth and don't know they're ignorant of the truth and assert that they know what they're talking about.

1:11:46Neil deGrasse Tyson:Then it's a battle. It's not just a student in your class eager to learn what is true from an expert. There's some other construct in society where people are rejecting the advice of experts on the basis of what someone who's not an expert told them, like I said, or they did their own research spending 20 minutes on YouTube. So what we need to do is just remind ourselves that too, right? Yes. Our greatest… Practically, it's two different things. Right. As scientists, our greatest power is to be able to say, I don't know, and not feel bad about ourselves. Right. Right. And what we want to do is to help other people do that.

1:12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson:It was the first branch of human inquiry where I don't know became a fundamental part of discovery. And something good. It's something good. And you know what? That's, I hate to, I don't hate to say this. I'm happy to say that it's the number one thing that I have learned from scientists and hanging out with scientists for all these years now is one I celebrate my own ignorance I think it's a great thing because when I don't know something guess what I do

1:13:12it's that simple and so there's no shame in not knowing and it's a wonderful thing. You're just ever growing. Not knowing is ever growing. That's the way I look at it.

1:13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson:Nice little phrase. Ooh. Yeah. Catchy. Not knowing plus curiosity is ever growing. Yes, yes, exactly. Right, yeah, you can't just stop with not knowing. Gary, what do you have on that list? Not much, really. I think it's... In the UK, was there anything specific when you were growing up that was particularly anti-science or science ignorant? I remember, you know, get vaccinated, get there, do this, do that. My father was chief technician in the physics lab at East London Polytechnic, which is now East London. You never told us that. Oh, cool. Yeah. And you're the son of a soccer player. Okay. Yes.

1:14:03The fruit fell off the tree and rolled him away. The only professional footballer in the UK whose father is like, such a disappointment.

1:14:17where did we go wrong all right son that professional footballer I'd walk in the room life that everybody wants to live I'd walk in the room and you just see his head go hilarious hilarious all right I think we've got time for one last question if we do it quick all right uh Margot Lane uh Osage is on the cosmic mountain as I watch the monks for peace walk from texas to dc i'm struck by the constancy of their energy how they all seem like one on some molecular

1:14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson:level are we all one being wow deep into the swimming pool guys be quick starter there but it's not the answer but it's a starter information i we walked out of africa into europe asia across the bering strait north america into south america we walked that so human beings and walking is something we genetically know how to do. I just want to put that on the table right now. So if they're constantly moving and so forth, I don't know that they're one single organism, but what they are is they're communicating really well. They're able to listen to each other or see each other and they can synchronize their steps and their pace and their speed and things like that.

1:15:35So in a sense, although we are many, uh, or although they are many, they are able to put themselves together and move as one.

1:15:43Neil deGrasse Tyson:And clearly being a monk is not the prerequisite for that because soldiers do that as well who are marching somewhere to do harm. Okay. And so it's a human thing, not so much that they are monks in the interest of peace. Chuck. Okay. That is why we have the Department of War and no DEI. Well, I think the monks have something to say about that. Yeah, exactly. There you go. I love it. But Chuck, you did ayahuasca at one point. I did. Did you find yourself resonating spiritually with others on the same wavelength kind of thing? I know we don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to make this quick. The oneness you feel is not just with person kind.

1:16:32You actually feel connected to everyone who's in the Malacca with you, which is the sacred place where the ritual is in. But you also feel like all the other people out there, like everywhere, all at once. And then, I can't explain this, you feel a oneness with all that is the universe itself. Wow. And this is all happening inside of your head, but outside of your being all at once.

1:17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson:So monks are trained. I mean, I don't know if this is the meditative branch of monks, but presumably, Chuck, one might be able to reach that state of consciousness without drugs. Oh, without a doubt. Yeah. Just and so and you feel that connectivity just as the questioner was inquiring. You know, I don't have time for that. So I went to a place called Rhythmia in Costa Rica, and I spent a week. You don't have time to learn any mental tricks. I don't have time to learn it, and they did it for me. And it was amazing. Well, plus we all like choruses when they sing together. And, you know, we highly value coordinated efforts in our culture and our society.

1:17:47Neil deGrasse Tyson:And Charles, you sang in a solo or a chorus? Everything. and whether it was solo and you're connecting with an audience or whether it was in a choir when you're with a whole bunch of like-minded people trying to produce one single piece of music it was a connection that really transcends the individual it does no there was no need for any kind of uh external you know drugs or whatever nor years of training it was just listening watching following and everybody together somehow trying to get something more than themselves of a common mind. Yeah, and if the monks were able to achieve that. Mind, body, spirit.

1:18:25Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing. I would love to see these monks singing on ayahuasca. Okay.

1:18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson:On that note. Exactly.

1:18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson:I think that's all the time we have. So Charles Liu, you've got the quantum physics. handy answer book. This thing. The Handy Quantum Physics Answer Book. I'm not in my office right now, but I have two copies on my shelf. That's very sweet of you. That makes you just a little wealthier because I bought an extra copy. Oh, thank you. There that is. No, it's quite the complete because there's so many dangling bits that people, they hear bits and pieces of quantum, they don't put it all together and that book does that. Well, in the year or so since that book came out, there's been all kinds of new stuff.

1:19:18So there's going to have to be another edition soon because it just keeps growing. It just keeps growing.

1:19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson:And Chuck, we posted your comedy special, Just Smart Enough. That's correct. It was New Year's Eve Eve, I think we posted it. That is correct. On our main channel, wasn't it? That's correct. And so this is, it dropped then. Check it out. It's all there and it's free. Yep, go watch it. Apparently it's been well-received. The people are loving it and I'm very, very happy about that. It's very satisfying to see the StarTalk audience supporting the show that much. It's very cool. You know the most evil thing someone said in the comments? What? They said, you know, I used to come to StarTalk to hear Neil deGrasse Tyson, but now I do it to hear Chuck.

1:20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson:Yeah. That was my brother who wrote that.

1:20:10Tony, I owe you$20. It's coming soon.

1:20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson:Gary. Yes, Neil. Got to get a gig for announcing for the World Cup, and we'll all come listen. All right. Let's see what I can do. Before we go, I'd like to say thank you to all our Patreon group that has supplied questions here today. There were so many, and we just only have time for so many. And we luxuriate occasionally on one. Yeah. There were 35 pages of questions. Thank you. Thank you so much to the good guys at Patreon. All right. Well, that's been yet another installment of StarTalk Special Edition. This one was a grab bag, a good one, too, with our Geek-in-Chief, Charles Liu. Guys, always good to have you here.

1:20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson:Always a pleasure. Thank you, Neil. What a joy. Thank you. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. As always, keep looking up.

1:21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson:The Perpetual Pen Tapper. The Arbitrary Fridge Reorganizer. The Holiday Party Planner that starts in May. Principal knows your star employees have their work quirks. Principal also knows how much these employees mean to your business. You need them. They need benefits. Work with principals so they can help you help your team with a retirement and benefits plan that's right for them. Principal Life Insurance Company, Des Moines, Iowa. This episode of StarTalk is brought to you by six all-new McCafe drinks at McDonald's. We're talking crafted sodas made with your favorite sodas and topped with velvety cold foam, like a Spriteberry Blast made from Sprite and blueberry raspberry syrup.

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