November 18, 2010 • 30 mins
How do individuals relate to reality? How has humanity attempted to interpret its position in the universe? From navel-gazing to the geocentric universe and beyond, the search for humanity's place has become a long -- and mind-blowing -- enterprise.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. This is
Robert Lamb and this is Julie Douglas. Tell me this, Julie,
what is it about the human navel that makes people
question the very fabric of existence? Well, you say fabric.
(00:24):
I think of land, of course, but beyond that, um,
I think that I think of the proverbial sixteen year
old sitting around wondering why he or she is on
this earth made to endure high school? Um? Or you know,
why am I the daughter or the son of my
particular set of parents and so on and so forth. Yeah, yeah,
(00:47):
And then the navel makes one think of this because
it's like where does it begin? Where does it end?
That's right origins, you know, that's that's where we hooked up.
If you were willing pull on the navel like this,
the person unravel. You know, what does an audi mean?
What is any mean? This lint come from without or
from within? Because I always thought it came from within,
but I could it comes from a without. I think
(01:08):
the lint comes from without. I don't know. I have
a self cleaning belly button, so I can't really those
are great. I heard those are on the market. Yeah yeah, um,
they're kind of expensive, but they're well worth it. Yeah. Um.
But no, I mean I think that when you had
proposed doing this podcast, I thought about the navel gazing
(01:28):
for sure, But um on a cosmological level, yeah, yeah,
I think on like on the individual level, and I'll
throughout this podcast, we're gonna start with the individual on
sort of you know, span out like powers a tent,
you know, until we reach the you know, the boundaries
of of understanding, because we're vinglorious like that. Yes. Um,
So it's like on a on a very simple level,
(01:50):
it's like, yeah, we all give those moments. It's just
this little like generalis like just one little nugget of
pure thought, you know, I mean, unformed thought. We we
kind of think, you know, here I am, I and
I exist. I'm thinking right now. You know, just just
stop for a second and do that, gentle listener, Yeah
that right there isn't that amazing? Yeah? You know, and
then other stuff comes crashing in. We end up thinking
(02:11):
about the grocery list or or you know, or we
we throw religion in on top of it and explain
everything away to a certain extent. But but for that
one moment, for that one moment, for that one brief,
glorious moment, you get a sense of the the gravitas
of this moment where we're actually existing. And and if
(02:32):
you're an astrophysicist, you have been thinking about this. You're
probably your entire life, not just nable gazing about it
when you were sixteen, and you're applying it to not
just hey, we're sitting here in a podcast booth talking
about this. Why are we in particular sitting here on
Earth in this solar system? What what makes us so
(02:53):
special or not special? Exactly? Yeah, that's that's that's what
people keep discussing time and time and end though there
was a time when, in the same way that you
know that that we're at the center of any of
these questions. You know, why am I here? You know what?
How did how did I get to be here? Um?
You know people have used to have the sen sort
(03:13):
of models for the cosmos. You had the geocentric model. UM.
That was sort of an early scientific way of understanding, um,
the visible Solar system and how the planets and everything
moved in our relationship to right and so geocentricism is
the Earth is the center of the universe and everything
else revolves around us. And uh, and that was a
(03:36):
big medicine back in the back in the day. But
then you ended up having a new theory come up
come along called the heliocentric theory, which said, actually, Earth
isn't the center of the universe. The Sun is the
center of the universe. I saw I saw something Africa,
which which thinker it was? But someone had like, no, no,
it was Tico Bray, the guy with the who's amazing
(03:58):
we had like the fake nose because he lost a
nose in a duel. Yeah, and he had a he
had like a pet deer that lived in the in
the mansion with him or the castle with him or whatever. Yeah. Yeah,
and he would like feed the deer beer. And then
the deer drank itself to death and fell down some stairs.
And then someone may or may not have poisoned Tico,
or he may have um his bladder may have exploded
(04:22):
because he was too drunk to get up from the
dinner table. There are different theories. He was a great man,
but uh, he kind of had like he was he
wasn't like fully ready to adopt the heliocentric model. At
one point he was that he said, you know, okay,
the Sun is the center of the universe, and then
the Earth revolves around the Sun, but then everything else
revolves around here or or it was a variation on that.
(04:43):
But so yeah, but one of the early um, uh,
you know, one of the early guys that really committed
to this was Nicholas Copernicus. Uh. And to give him
more of a frame of reference, this guy lived fourteen
seventy three to fifty three, and you know, he's a
mathematician astronomer and uh. And yeah, he was cool with
the idea that Earth was not the center of everything.
(05:04):
And out of a lot of his thinking comes this
thing called the Copernican principle. And this just says that
there's uh, there's no there are no special observers, there
are no special origins or viewpoints and uh. And so
that if you have a theory about about humanity, about
humanity's origins or its place in the cosmos, um that
(05:26):
you know that that gives you know, humans a privileged position,
then from a scientific standpoint at least, that theory is bunk. Okay, Alright,
So the really intriguing part of this I think that
you had sent me is is something about a little
lady named Goldilocks. Yes, uh, and everyone's familiar with the
Goldilocks story. Can you tell us the story? Yeah, yeah,
(05:47):
you've got Goldilocks, she of the blonde tresses who breaks
in um to this house with three bears are the tenants, right,
And it's like a mother and a father and a
child bear. Right. Yeah, So I mean, you know she's
they're not there, so she can't terrorize them, but she
does rifle through their stuff. She eats their food, she
(06:08):
tests out their beds um, and she's very particular, this Goldilocks.
It's interesting I read that they are older models of
the story, because of course all these folk tales are
as old as time, and but in some of the
older models of it, apparently Goldilocks was like an old
woman and the bears like catch her and like try
and like drown her and burn her and all these
(06:31):
other things. And then I think she still slips out
the window. But yeah, so at some point she switched
from like horrible old lady burglar to like shift her. Yeah,
she was a shape shifter, that was it. But to
this young innocent that we would all be really upset
about if the bear's mauld right. Yeah, it becomes more
of an innocent thing. And in a way, it's like,
if you're thinking of in cosmological terms, it's like, which
(06:52):
which model are humans? Are we the innocent child stumbling
through the universe or the um the nasty old woman
who comes in to steal things? I don't know, or
are we the bears? Maybe we're the bears? Um? Of course,
the whole thing is she ends up finding the porridge
that's just right, the bed that's just right, the chair
that's just right, because the other options are either you know,
too big or too small, too cold or too hot.
(07:14):
And if you look at our solar system you can
identify a similar situation with some of the inner planets.
Look at Venus, Earth and Mars. Venus, Uh, the atmosphere
is too thick, too dense, it's insane pressure crushed like
a grape, and it's too hot. Go over to Mars.
Not enough atmosphere, and you'll freeze to death. If you
(07:35):
happen to land on Earth, though, you'll find everything is
just right. We have thriving life everywhere because conditions are
fine for that to happen right Florida. It's sunny all
year long, right, and and there are a number of
different The thing that really gives people thinking is that
there are a number of different um situations that line
up just so you know, um, it's uh, you know,
(07:58):
it's like when when you start thinking about like if
my mom and dad hadn't met and you know then
and and hooked up, I wouldn't be here today. And
then if you started, you know, uh, pointing out other
things about it, like well, if my dad hadn't gone
to this school, he wouldn't have met her. And if
my mom, you know, had done such and such, then
she wouldn't have been you know, they're all these different factors.
You can start laying out right, and you can even
(08:18):
kind of go deeper back and say, if my great
grandfather hadn't dodged that straight bullet, or you know, his
grandfather hadn't done this, and then you can sort of
expand out from there and start to apply this to
the universe. Right, Like I'm just to run through some
of the things about Earth. Uh, the temperature is just
right for the to be liquid water. We have a
large enough moon to give us climate stability. The Sun
(08:41):
is stable and isn't you know, expanding and destroying us anything.
And compared to other suns, it's a pretty stable sun. Um.
It's uh, we have just the right core um only
of the inner planet's only Mercury and Earth have a
liquid solid core that creates this uh this um uh
this dynamo effect that produces an electromagnetic shield to that
(09:04):
ends up protecting us from a lot of the harmful
effects of the Sun and uh and yeah, so we
just happened to have that going for us. Uh. And
then we have the right neighbors, Jupiter shields Earth from
a lot of the stellar bombardment we'd end up suffering
through otherwise and would have very likely um um ended
um evolution before it really got rolling at some point, right.
So yeah, all these things are you know, situations where
(09:26):
it's like, oh, if it wasn't for that, would we
be here? Maybe not? So yeah, you on this that's
forty seven billion years in the making, about a couple
million years ago we came into existence or evolved in
to to what we are today. So it is pretty
amazing when you stop and think, um, when you clear
that grocery list out of your head or or whatever
(09:48):
else is popping up on your computer to distract you
to think, again, why am I here? Why I'm Why
are we here in this particular universe? Are we unique?
Are there other universes out there? Their other means? How
does how is that working? And so I think that's
why the Goldilocks principle is so very interesting because it's
(10:09):
it's not um. It's not a sort of uh, mathematical
proof in the sense that we have a theory um
that we can say, Okay, we have this overwhelming theory
and it's gonna it's gonna tell us exactly why we exist,
but it does lend some credence to the anthropic principle.
(10:29):
And the anthropic principle is basically saying, to paraphrase Stephen Hawking,
that things are as they are because we are, which
sounds a lot like dey card part of my frolish,
which would be I think therefore I am Yeah. So
you have this principle which a lot of scientists, astrophysicists, theologians,
(10:55):
you name it, have seized on to try to explain
why we are able to hang out here in this
universe observe the fact that we're here and the fact
that we're supported by it. Yeah, and then you have
you have the Commernican principle in the background the whole time,
reminding you that there's nothing special about about Earth, nothing
(11:16):
special about humanity. So when you look at the at
everything being just right on the Earth, you know, it
leads to theories. You know, um that a lot of
people hold about there being other planets where life could
could potentially evolve because there's nothing nothing special about Earth,
then it couldn't be the only one, right, right, right,
So the multiple universes, and of course you can get
(11:37):
really deep into this and say there are parallel universes,
there's another universe where you and I are talking in
a completely different place right now, although maybe we're talking backwards,
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that you get into the
whole area of like it's like a Library of Babbel
kind of situation where all possible universes exist with all
possible variations and outcomes. Yeah, one way we're having a
different conversation, one where like we all ball caps, one
(12:01):
where our son was kind of a jerk and blew
up before we could evolve, right, Yeah, Yeah, because if
we're just gonna be anthropic principle, and again, anthropic means
of or relating to human beings or the period of
their existence on Earth. Um, there are several um anthropic coincidences.
They're kind of like those the list of things that
we lined up for the planet, you can make a
(12:24):
similar list for the cosmos itself. They just tend to
be a little more complex. Like uh, and I'm not
gonna go into too much depth here because he's getting
kind of crazy. But when you compare the electromatic force
to gravity, we find that electromagnetism is thirty times stronger.
And that's fortunate because if the two powers were more
evenly matched, stars wouldn't burn long enough for life to
(12:45):
develop on an orbiting planet. So uh, and they're all
you know, things of that nature where if like numbers
were a little different, if the dye roll you know,
from the Big Bang were had come out just just
slightly skewed, then nothing might have nothing could exist or
or things would exist in a vastly different shape than
they are now. So that's I think why anthropic principle
(13:08):
is so intriguing, because it does give us a way
to say, okay, we are in this universe, and perhaps
everything isn't happening by chance. Right. The problem with this
is that when we when we traps out of the
area of chance, we start to look for some sort
(13:30):
of theory. I'm gonna go ahead and say it's super
being God Creator, and that's what the anthropic principles sort
of points to when you think about it. Yeah, and
a lot of people end up using it as an
argument for um, you know, um, intelligent design and things
of that nature and the existence of God and other
things that can't actually you know, actually be proved you know, scientifically, um.
(13:56):
And a lot of this also, this comes from a
guy named brand and Carter was the guy who initially
sort of kicked off out there. Yeah, and he actually
I believed that he just put out two of these
two variations on the theory, weak anthropic principle and strong
anthropic principle. And if the cool kids tend to offense,
just call it ap franthropic principle, or if you're talking
(14:18):
about weakenthropic principle, you call it like WAP. I guess right,
that is so wa yeah, or like they said, like
WAP is lack right. If they don't like it kids
these days, But weekend thropic principle is probably my favorite
because it's just so simple and it doesn't overthink itself.
It's actually kind of elegant. Basically, Carter just pointed out
(14:40):
that if our universe weren't hospitable to life, then we
wouldn't be here to think about it being hospitable to life.
That's right. It's like if your mom and dad hadn't
hooked up, Yeah, you wouldn't exist. You wouldn't be here
to think about the fact that you exist. So it's
I love it because it's kind of like that. The
weekendthropic principle is kind of like an end of the argument,
and it's elf it's kind of like, well, stop worrying
(15:02):
about it, because it's you know, the answer is in
the question. Yeah, yeah, I I think, therefore I am
and quit thinking yeah yeah, And it's a it's an
unconditional truth. So yeah, you're right. It's it's very simple
in that way, and it's very comforting. And then you
have a strong anthropic principle, right, So that's basically saying,
(15:22):
because we live in a universe that supports life, only
life supporting the universes exists. Essentially, it's creating the observer. Yeah,
it's kind of like if you were inside, you know,
you're hanging out in your living room. You've never been
outside of your living room, and you know, she had
a fireplace and you and if you went with the theory,
maybe the world. I guess all houses have fireplaces, you know,
(15:42):
because there's nothing unique about this one, because it's the
only thing that you know, right, Or on a more
like true level, you could be like, this room has
a roof. I guess all living rooms have roofs to them,
you know. So I guess that shows where this principle
has a bit of weakness is that you can't If
you can't observed beyond your own understanding, then how can
(16:05):
you presuppose that there are other universes that exist out there?
If you can't see it, then how do you know,
Because if you could see it, it it would be part
of your universe. Yeah, it's like, on one level, we
have to use our our selves in our world and
our view of the world as the model upon which
(16:26):
to base our theories and all, you know, but that
that can also develop certain problems, right, And then the
cool thing about science, I think is that we could.
We have our five senses and we rely on that,
but science sort of uh takes up where our five
senses peter out. You know, Um, those are five senses
fail us. They do not always um accurate. Um. Our
(16:48):
instinct isn't always accurate. So we have science, you have
mathematicians who are creating those models based on what we
know and then sort of trying to predict these other
um thoughts. Universes constructs that we can try to get
our heads around. And so I think that's why this
the anthropic principle is so important, because that's the principle
(17:11):
that is being used in m theory or string theory,
which presupposes that these other universes exist um. And that's
also it's Achilles heal, because well, hey, you've got this
sort of stand in theory the anthropic principles saying well,
if we can observe this, then we know we're in it,
(17:34):
and there's the possibility of other universes just like ourselves existing.
And yet we cannot bear this out. We cannot, we
can we can't ring up the little large Hadron collider
and say hey, can you bear this out first? Simply
because we don't have the technology yet to prove it out.
And that's not true of other theories that we have
(17:55):
been able to use technology to to bear out the
results and say, ah, yes, this, this, um, this mathematic
prediction was correct. Yeah. I think the other day when
we're talking about this, you you pointed out that some
of these things are just kind of a kind of
like place holders for actual answers. They're like scientific placeholders
for you know. Um. And the other interesting thing about
(18:16):
anthropic principle is that people kind of take take it
and spin off their own like variation of the anthropic principle,
and sometimes uh, you know, mind blowing or just crazy directions,
you know. Um, there are like thirty album I think
based on one estimate I read, but like the participatory
(18:36):
anthropic principles pretty wild, did you? Is that the quantum
space one? Yeah, well this is the one that spins
off from some some stuff like the the Copenhagen interpretation
of quantum mechanics and the whole idea of like things
not being actualized until they're observed and measured, you know, yeah, right,
and not and not actually even acting like we think
they act simply because at this one state it happened
(18:59):
to be here. In other words, you can't predict the
results every single time, and you know, not to get
into quarks. Um, I don't think anybody wants us to
go that deep, but sorry, go ahead. No, it's just like, basically,
the the idea is that only universes that have an
observers in them to observe it exists. It's kind of like,
you know, kind of a tree falls in the forest
(19:20):
kind of thing. In a weird way. It's like like
the universe. The universe can only exist if there's somebody
there to observe it and give it form. In a way,
it's kind of crazy right without the observer. Yeah, well
(19:46):
I was thinking about this too. Um, you've got Stephen Hawking,
who obviously some people think he is God and has
created the universes and that maybe we don't know. Um,
we don't have a mathematical constructor hear that up. But
we do have John Horgan, who was the former Scientific
American editor who actually took him to task. I thought
(20:09):
that was, Um, he has some big spheres for doing that. Yeah,
it's kind of it's always a brave move when you
go after go after Hawking or or you know, pick
at something. He said, yeah, yeah. I was like, wow, dude,
I hope that you have bulletproof glass there. Um, well,
not really, I don't think that astrophysists are gonna Hawking
(20:31):
was packing. I was thinking more of his followers, but
but now I think they're probably kind and gentle souls.
But basically what he said is, Okay, you've got Hawking
wanting to forward this idea of a theory of everything
too for short and uh in particular m theory, which
(20:53):
is an extension of string theory. Just if you look
at them, it's membranes instead of strings. And Hawking is
actually saying, you know what, we need to use the
anthropic principle in order to help bear this theory out.
And Horgan's basically saying, hey, there's there's a real problem
with us. We can't that the anthropic is something that
we can't actually um say that there's any data to
(21:18):
to bear it out, but we don't have the technology
and to to do this. And essentially, and here's where
the it's kind of the beach slap. It's cosmology's version
of creationism. And he's loving that against Hawking and I
think you know, you know, this is not my wheelhouse,
but do you have to say, I think that there's
(21:38):
a point with us and you can't help but see
where you'd want to have a theory of everything, where
you want to have something unifying saying finally, we have
reached the end of meaning. We understand exactly why we're
all hanging out here in this podcast booth at this
very moment um. But we just we're limited where you know,
(21:59):
language fails us as well. We can't actually describe where
we're at at this point of revolution cognitive closure at
some point, and it's just only so much we can do. Yeah, yeah,
cogniti closure. I like that. Yeah. And then there's another
aspect of this UM which is called carbon chauvinism. Yeah,
this one is really cool, and it's just basically the
(22:21):
idea that we are we are carbon based life forms UM,
and we often find it hard to imagine that there
are other UM that they're biochemical forms out there that
are based on other recipes, if you will, right right,
So that and in fact, I think they've used the
example before of silicon. That's something that UM that you
(22:42):
can get actually some complex results from and they're even
saying that, um, it's molecular chauvinism, that we just don't
understand that there are other ways maybe to come to
the table as a being, which makes me wonder about
extraterrestrials because they're you know, in all that there's really
no discussion. Yeah. I mean like if you look into
(23:04):
science fiction, and there's plenty of examples. I know, I've
read things with with silicon based life forms in them,
and of course you're always encountering like energy beings and
things of that nature. Um. So, so yeah, it's like,
you know, if we we we put the carbon chauvinism
the side would be able to you know, potentially imagine
um or not imagine, but you know receival world where
(23:25):
a universe where there are other very forms of life
out there. I have to ask you a really personal question.
Where are you on the ET scale? Um? I don't know. Well,
the ET scale has been interesting throughout my life because
I used to be terrified of being abducted by aliens
when I was in like junior high and before that
I kind of got out of it in high school,
(23:46):
so that that was a time where it's like I
was really terrified of them, and then I decided that
I was going to make a conscious effort just not
to believe in aliens. So I was really against the
idea of them for a while. And uh, I don't know.
Now I try and keep an open mind, so I
feel like they could be out there. I don't So
there's a whole separate podcast to be done on this.
(24:08):
But I mean, I think that a lot of what
we end up perceiving in this world that we think
are aliens, it's actually there are actually a lot of
really good explanations, logical explanations for what those uh events are,
or what those experiences are. But but no, I think
there could be There could be life in this year. No, yeah,
my my intelligent maybe more intelligent. Yeah, And that's what
(24:32):
I think is interesting. It could be Yeah, it could
be a very super intelligent being or not so much.
I don't know, just hanging out at the bowling alley.
Nothing that there's nothing about the warning alleast by the way,
I love bowling. I have to say, um, but yeah,
I just had to throw that out there. It's just
because my own world view was tinged by this by
my grandmother, who you know, I grew up hearing about
(24:54):
how she and my grandfather on a lonely country road
came across which she called little green men. So I
always grew up with this idea of, well, cool, maybe
these little green men do exist, and so, well, yeah,
we'll definitely have to get into this in a later
to say yeah, we did, definitely. But looking at the
inn profit principle and looking at ourselves in the universe,
(25:15):
you gotta wonder why that isn't a larger part of it,
particularly since Stephen Hawking has you know, pulled the trigger
around the warning shots to say, hey, guys, don't talk
to the aliens, don't let them know we're here, because
if there anything like us, then they're they're probably really
they're really jerks. Yeah, they're going to colonize this um.
So I think that's why this, this theory or this
(25:39):
principle really is interesting, because again we get down to
this individual level of you know, scrapping all of our
grocery list and everything else and wondering why in the
world and this carbon based life form and allowed to exist.
And I think the bigger problem here, um is that
(26:01):
we're mortal. We know that we're going to die, And
so I think this is why we're grappling with this
so much as scientists, as human beings, um, because we
know that this universe forty seven billion years in the
making is not essentially for us, or if we do
think it's for us, then we think, well, why does
it all have to end? And so on and so forth.
(26:23):
So then you begin to reach beyond that, and you
can see how the polled toward of this sort of
all unifying and or creation myth, this god like super
being is so enticing. Yeah, I mean there's some really
kind of out there ones to like finally, unthropic principle,
it's a variation that says that once intelligence, um, not
(26:44):
intelligent beings, but actual intelligence like pops up in the universe,
then it's never going out that it's gonna pretty much
thrive and eventually become God. It's gonna propagate itself. Yeah
and and yeah, so you know take that and run
with it with your imagination, because that's pretty out there.
Well that always makes me think of the computer simulation, Like,
are we just hanging out in a computer computer simulated
(27:06):
program right now? All of the matrix, um, you know,
is this is this even real. Is this a virtual existence,
which is of course in another one of the anthropic
principles people explored. I love thinking about that kind of stuff.
I just finished reading a book called The Disciple of
the Dog, in which there is a cult um that
(27:28):
believes it's it's it's members believe that the Earth is
actually fifty billion years older than we think it is,
and that the life in the world that we perceive
is actually um it's actually the dream. We're actually the
dreams of quantum computers in the far, far distant future
that I guess got really bored and you know, end
(27:49):
up dreaming of this this you know, past life for
them to wander through. And so if we could see
through the illusion, we'd see that the sun fills up
the entire sky and we'll uh, you know, consume the
earth at any moment. Wow. So our existence is just
fodder for computers to to sort of work through their
boredom issues. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. The authors are Scott Baker,
(28:12):
and he's he's like a philosophy dude. So he's always
all of his books end up like bringing all these
like philosophical questions about who we are and what makes
you know, our heads work. Yeah, well, I don't know.
I think obviously in this podcast we're not going to
reach the end of meaning. But I do feel that
we have reached perhaps the end of the podcast, end
(28:32):
of the podcast, so which actually makes me think of
another philosophy Wabi Sabby, which I think most people think
of as embracing in perfection. But another and more nuanced
reading is that you're either emerging of nothingness or you're
essentially returning to nothingness, which I don't know. That's that's
maybe more comforting to me, um, And at least it's
(28:57):
a it's a way to say, I think that we
are now entering into nothingness. Yes, yes, so hey, if
you listeners have any thoughts on some of this heavy material, um,
then feel free to shoot them to us. Yeah. Yeah,
you can email us at blow the Mind at how
stuff works dot com, and you can also find us
on Facebook and Twitter, where you can also find us
(29:18):
as blow the Mind. Yeah, and please, if your grandmother
told you stories about aliens, we want to hear about them. Yes,
we also want to hear about your own cosmological navel gazing. Yes,
tell us about your navels. Well, not too much, but
just enough for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(29:40):
Is it how stuff works dot com, The House stuff
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Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. This is
Robert Lamb and this is Julie Douglas. Tell me this, Julie,
what is it about the human navel that makes people
question the very fabric of existence? Well, you say fabric.
(00:24):
I think of land, of course, but beyond that, um,
I think that I think of the proverbial sixteen year
old sitting around wondering why he or she is on
this earth made to endure high school? Um? Or you know,
why am I the daughter or the son of my
particular set of parents and so on and so forth. Yeah, yeah,
(00:47):
And then the navel makes one think of this because
it's like where does it begin? Where does it end?
That's right origins, you know, that's that's where we hooked up.
If you were willing pull on the navel like this,
the person unravel. You know, what does an audi mean?
What is any mean? This lint come from without or
from within? Because I always thought it came from within,
but I could it comes from a without. I think
(01:08):
the lint comes from without. I don't know. I have
a self cleaning belly button, so I can't really those
are great. I heard those are on the market. Yeah yeah, um,
they're kind of expensive, but they're well worth it. Yeah. Um.
But no, I mean I think that when you had
proposed doing this podcast, I thought about the navel gazing
(01:28):
for sure, But um on a cosmological level, yeah, yeah,
I think on like on the individual level, and I'll
throughout this podcast, we're gonna start with the individual on
sort of you know, span out like powers a tent,
you know, until we reach the you know, the boundaries
of of understanding, because we're vinglorious like that. Yes. Um,
So it's like on a on a very simple level,
(01:50):
it's like, yeah, we all give those moments. It's just
this little like generalis like just one little nugget of
pure thought, you know, I mean, unformed thought. We we
kind of think, you know, here I am, I and
I exist. I'm thinking right now. You know, just just
stop for a second and do that, gentle listener, Yeah
that right there isn't that amazing? Yeah? You know, and
then other stuff comes crashing in. We end up thinking
(02:11):
about the grocery list or or you know, or we
we throw religion in on top of it and explain
everything away to a certain extent. But but for that
one moment, for that one moment, for that one brief,
glorious moment, you get a sense of the the gravitas
of this moment where we're actually existing. And and if
(02:32):
you're an astrophysicist, you have been thinking about this. You're
probably your entire life, not just nable gazing about it
when you were sixteen, and you're applying it to not
just hey, we're sitting here in a podcast booth talking
about this. Why are we in particular sitting here on
Earth in this solar system? What what makes us so
(02:53):
special or not special? Exactly? Yeah, that's that's that's what
people keep discussing time and time and end though there
was a time when, in the same way that you
know that that we're at the center of any of
these questions. You know, why am I here? You know what?
How did how did I get to be here? Um?
You know people have used to have the sen sort
(03:13):
of models for the cosmos. You had the geocentric model. UM.
That was sort of an early scientific way of understanding, um,
the visible Solar system and how the planets and everything
moved in our relationship to right and so geocentricism is
the Earth is the center of the universe and everything
else revolves around us. And uh, and that was a
(03:36):
big medicine back in the back in the day. But
then you ended up having a new theory come up
come along called the heliocentric theory, which said, actually, Earth
isn't the center of the universe. The Sun is the
center of the universe. I saw I saw something Africa,
which which thinker it was? But someone had like, no, no,
it was Tico Bray, the guy with the who's amazing
(03:58):
we had like the fake nose because he lost a
nose in a duel. Yeah, and he had a he
had like a pet deer that lived in the in
the mansion with him or the castle with him or whatever. Yeah. Yeah,
and he would like feed the deer beer. And then
the deer drank itself to death and fell down some stairs.
And then someone may or may not have poisoned Tico,
or he may have um his bladder may have exploded
(04:22):
because he was too drunk to get up from the
dinner table. There are different theories. He was a great man,
but uh, he kind of had like he was he
wasn't like fully ready to adopt the heliocentric model. At
one point he was that he said, you know, okay,
the Sun is the center of the universe, and then
the Earth revolves around the Sun, but then everything else
revolves around here or or it was a variation on that.
(04:43):
But so yeah, but one of the early um, uh,
you know, one of the early guys that really committed
to this was Nicholas Copernicus. Uh. And to give him
more of a frame of reference, this guy lived fourteen
seventy three to fifty three, and you know, he's a
mathematician astronomer and uh. And yeah, he was cool with
the idea that Earth was not the center of everything.
(05:04):
And out of a lot of his thinking comes this
thing called the Copernican principle. And this just says that
there's uh, there's no there are no special observers, there
are no special origins or viewpoints and uh. And so
that if you have a theory about about humanity, about
humanity's origins or its place in the cosmos, um that
(05:26):
you know that that gives you know, humans a privileged position,
then from a scientific standpoint at least, that theory is bunk. Okay, Alright,
So the really intriguing part of this I think that
you had sent me is is something about a little
lady named Goldilocks. Yes, uh, and everyone's familiar with the
Goldilocks story. Can you tell us the story? Yeah, yeah,
(05:47):
you've got Goldilocks, she of the blonde tresses who breaks
in um to this house with three bears are the tenants, right,
And it's like a mother and a father and a
child bear. Right. Yeah, So I mean, you know she's
they're not there, so she can't terrorize them, but she
does rifle through their stuff. She eats their food, she
(06:08):
tests out their beds um, and she's very particular, this Goldilocks.
It's interesting I read that they are older models of
the story, because of course all these folk tales are
as old as time, and but in some of the
older models of it, apparently Goldilocks was like an old
woman and the bears like catch her and like try
and like drown her and burn her and all these
(06:31):
other things. And then I think she still slips out
the window. But yeah, so at some point she switched
from like horrible old lady burglar to like shift her. Yeah,
she was a shape shifter, that was it. But to
this young innocent that we would all be really upset
about if the bear's mauld right. Yeah, it becomes more
of an innocent thing. And in a way, it's like,
if you're thinking of in cosmological terms, it's like, which
(06:52):
which model are humans? Are we the innocent child stumbling
through the universe or the um the nasty old woman
who comes in to steal things? I don't know, or
are we the bears? Maybe we're the bears? Um? Of course,
the whole thing is she ends up finding the porridge
that's just right, the bed that's just right, the chair
that's just right, because the other options are either you know,
too big or too small, too cold or too hot.
(07:14):
And if you look at our solar system you can
identify a similar situation with some of the inner planets.
Look at Venus, Earth and Mars. Venus, Uh, the atmosphere
is too thick, too dense, it's insane pressure crushed like
a grape, and it's too hot. Go over to Mars.
Not enough atmosphere, and you'll freeze to death. If you
(07:35):
happen to land on Earth, though, you'll find everything is
just right. We have thriving life everywhere because conditions are
fine for that to happen right Florida. It's sunny all
year long, right, and and there are a number of
different The thing that really gives people thinking is that
there are a number of different um situations that line
up just so you know, um, it's uh, you know,
(07:58):
it's like when when you start thinking about like if
my mom and dad hadn't met and you know then
and and hooked up, I wouldn't be here today. And
then if you started, you know, uh, pointing out other
things about it, like well, if my dad hadn't gone
to this school, he wouldn't have met her. And if
my mom, you know, had done such and such, then
she wouldn't have been you know, they're all these different factors.
You can start laying out right, and you can even
(08:18):
kind of go deeper back and say, if my great
grandfather hadn't dodged that straight bullet, or you know, his
grandfather hadn't done this, and then you can sort of
expand out from there and start to apply this to
the universe. Right, Like I'm just to run through some
of the things about Earth. Uh, the temperature is just
right for the to be liquid water. We have a
large enough moon to give us climate stability. The Sun
(08:41):
is stable and isn't you know, expanding and destroying us anything.
And compared to other suns, it's a pretty stable sun. Um.
It's uh, we have just the right core um only
of the inner planet's only Mercury and Earth have a
liquid solid core that creates this uh this um uh
this dynamo effect that produces an electromagnetic shield to that
(09:04):
ends up protecting us from a lot of the harmful
effects of the Sun and uh and yeah, so we
just happened to have that going for us. Uh. And
then we have the right neighbors, Jupiter shields Earth from
a lot of the stellar bombardment we'd end up suffering
through otherwise and would have very likely um um ended
um evolution before it really got rolling at some point, right.
So yeah, all these things are you know, situations where
(09:26):
it's like, oh, if it wasn't for that, would we
be here? Maybe not? So yeah, you on this that's
forty seven billion years in the making, about a couple
million years ago we came into existence or evolved in
to to what we are today. So it is pretty
amazing when you stop and think, um, when you clear
that grocery list out of your head or or whatever
(09:48):
else is popping up on your computer to distract you
to think, again, why am I here? Why I'm Why
are we here in this particular universe? Are we unique?
Are there other universes out there? Their other means? How
does how is that working? And so I think that's
why the Goldilocks principle is so very interesting because it's
(10:09):
it's not um. It's not a sort of uh, mathematical
proof in the sense that we have a theory um
that we can say, Okay, we have this overwhelming theory
and it's gonna it's gonna tell us exactly why we exist,
but it does lend some credence to the anthropic principle.
(10:29):
And the anthropic principle is basically saying, to paraphrase Stephen Hawking,
that things are as they are because we are, which
sounds a lot like dey card part of my frolish,
which would be I think therefore I am Yeah. So
you have this principle which a lot of scientists, astrophysicists, theologians,
(10:55):
you name it, have seized on to try to explain
why we are able to hang out here in this
universe observe the fact that we're here and the fact
that we're supported by it. Yeah, and then you have
you have the Commernican principle in the background the whole time,
reminding you that there's nothing special about about Earth, nothing
(11:16):
special about humanity. So when you look at the at
everything being just right on the Earth, you know, it
leads to theories. You know, um that a lot of
people hold about there being other planets where life could
could potentially evolve because there's nothing nothing special about Earth,
then it couldn't be the only one, right, right, right,
So the multiple universes, and of course you can get
(11:37):
really deep into this and say there are parallel universes,
there's another universe where you and I are talking in
a completely different place right now, although maybe we're talking backwards,
I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that you get into the
whole area of like it's like a Library of Babbel
kind of situation where all possible universes exist with all
possible variations and outcomes. Yeah, one way we're having a
different conversation, one where like we all ball caps, one
(12:01):
where our son was kind of a jerk and blew
up before we could evolve, right, Yeah, Yeah, because if
we're just gonna be anthropic principle, and again, anthropic means
of or relating to human beings or the period of
their existence on Earth. Um, there are several um anthropic coincidences.
They're kind of like those the list of things that
we lined up for the planet, you can make a
(12:24):
similar list for the cosmos itself. They just tend to
be a little more complex. Like uh, and I'm not
gonna go into too much depth here because he's getting
kind of crazy. But when you compare the electromatic force
to gravity, we find that electromagnetism is thirty times stronger.
And that's fortunate because if the two powers were more
evenly matched, stars wouldn't burn long enough for life to
(12:45):
develop on an orbiting planet. So uh, and they're all
you know, things of that nature where if like numbers
were a little different, if the dye roll you know,
from the Big Bang were had come out just just
slightly skewed, then nothing might have nothing could exist or
or things would exist in a vastly different shape than
they are now. So that's I think why anthropic principle
(13:08):
is so intriguing, because it does give us a way
to say, okay, we are in this universe, and perhaps
everything isn't happening by chance. Right. The problem with this
is that when we when we traps out of the
area of chance, we start to look for some sort
(13:30):
of theory. I'm gonna go ahead and say it's super
being God Creator, and that's what the anthropic principles sort
of points to when you think about it. Yeah, and
a lot of people end up using it as an
argument for um, you know, um, intelligent design and things
of that nature and the existence of God and other
things that can't actually you know, actually be proved you know, scientifically, um.
(13:56):
And a lot of this also, this comes from a
guy named brand and Carter was the guy who initially
sort of kicked off out there. Yeah, and he actually
I believed that he just put out two of these
two variations on the theory, weak anthropic principle and strong
anthropic principle. And if the cool kids tend to offense,
just call it ap franthropic principle, or if you're talking
(14:18):
about weakenthropic principle, you call it like WAP. I guess right,
that is so wa yeah, or like they said, like
WAP is lack right. If they don't like it kids
these days, But weekend thropic principle is probably my favorite
because it's just so simple and it doesn't overthink itself.
It's actually kind of elegant. Basically, Carter just pointed out
(14:40):
that if our universe weren't hospitable to life, then we
wouldn't be here to think about it being hospitable to life.
That's right. It's like if your mom and dad hadn't
hooked up, Yeah, you wouldn't exist. You wouldn't be here
to think about the fact that you exist. So it's
I love it because it's kind of like that. The
weekendthropic principle is kind of like an end of the argument,
and it's elf it's kind of like, well, stop worrying
(15:02):
about it, because it's you know, the answer is in
the question. Yeah, yeah, I I think, therefore I am
and quit thinking yeah yeah, And it's a it's an
unconditional truth. So yeah, you're right. It's it's very simple
in that way, and it's very comforting. And then you
have a strong anthropic principle, right, So that's basically saying,
(15:22):
because we live in a universe that supports life, only
life supporting the universes exists. Essentially, it's creating the observer. Yeah,
it's kind of like if you were inside, you know,
you're hanging out in your living room. You've never been
outside of your living room, and you know, she had
a fireplace and you and if you went with the theory,
maybe the world. I guess all houses have fireplaces, you know,
(15:42):
because there's nothing unique about this one, because it's the
only thing that you know, right, Or on a more
like true level, you could be like, this room has
a roof. I guess all living rooms have roofs to them,
you know. So I guess that shows where this principle
has a bit of weakness is that you can't If
you can't observed beyond your own understanding, then how can
(16:05):
you presuppose that there are other universes that exist out there?
If you can't see it, then how do you know,
Because if you could see it, it it would be part
of your universe. Yeah, it's like, on one level, we
have to use our our selves in our world and
our view of the world as the model upon which
(16:26):
to base our theories and all, you know, but that
that can also develop certain problems, right, And then the
cool thing about science, I think is that we could.
We have our five senses and we rely on that,
but science sort of uh takes up where our five
senses peter out. You know, Um, those are five senses
fail us. They do not always um accurate. Um. Our
(16:48):
instinct isn't always accurate. So we have science, you have
mathematicians who are creating those models based on what we
know and then sort of trying to predict these other
um thoughts. Universes constructs that we can try to get
our heads around. And so I think that's why this
the anthropic principle is so important, because that's the principle
(17:11):
that is being used in m theory or string theory,
which presupposes that these other universes exist um. And that's
also it's Achilles heal, because well, hey, you've got this
sort of stand in theory the anthropic principles saying well,
if we can observe this, then we know we're in it,
(17:34):
and there's the possibility of other universes just like ourselves existing.
And yet we cannot bear this out. We cannot, we
can we can't ring up the little large Hadron collider
and say hey, can you bear this out first? Simply
because we don't have the technology yet to prove it out.
And that's not true of other theories that we have
(17:55):
been able to use technology to to bear out the
results and say, ah, yes, this, this, um, this mathematic
prediction was correct. Yeah. I think the other day when
we're talking about this, you you pointed out that some
of these things are just kind of a kind of
like place holders for actual answers. They're like scientific placeholders
for you know. Um. And the other interesting thing about
(18:16):
anthropic principle is that people kind of take take it
and spin off their own like variation of the anthropic principle,
and sometimes uh, you know, mind blowing or just crazy directions,
you know. Um, there are like thirty album I think
based on one estimate I read, but like the participatory
(18:36):
anthropic principles pretty wild, did you? Is that the quantum
space one? Yeah, well this is the one that spins
off from some some stuff like the the Copenhagen interpretation
of quantum mechanics and the whole idea of like things
not being actualized until they're observed and measured, you know, yeah, right,
and not and not actually even acting like we think
they act simply because at this one state it happened
(18:59):
to be here. In other words, you can't predict the
results every single time, and you know, not to get
into quarks. Um, I don't think anybody wants us to
go that deep, but sorry, go ahead. No, it's just like, basically,
the the idea is that only universes that have an
observers in them to observe it exists. It's kind of like,
you know, kind of a tree falls in the forest
(19:20):
kind of thing. In a weird way. It's like like
the universe. The universe can only exist if there's somebody
there to observe it and give it form. In a way,
it's kind of crazy right without the observer. Yeah, well
(19:46):
I was thinking about this too. Um, you've got Stephen Hawking,
who obviously some people think he is God and has
created the universes and that maybe we don't know. Um,
we don't have a mathematical constructor hear that up. But
we do have John Horgan, who was the former Scientific
American editor who actually took him to task. I thought
(20:09):
that was, Um, he has some big spheres for doing that. Yeah,
it's kind of it's always a brave move when you
go after go after Hawking or or you know, pick
at something. He said, yeah, yeah. I was like, wow, dude,
I hope that you have bulletproof glass there. Um, well,
not really, I don't think that astrophysists are gonna Hawking
(20:31):
was packing. I was thinking more of his followers, but
but now I think they're probably kind and gentle souls.
But basically what he said is, Okay, you've got Hawking
wanting to forward this idea of a theory of everything
too for short and uh in particular m theory, which
(20:53):
is an extension of string theory. Just if you look
at them, it's membranes instead of strings. And Hawking is
actually saying, you know what, we need to use the
anthropic principle in order to help bear this theory out.
And Horgan's basically saying, hey, there's there's a real problem
with us. We can't that the anthropic is something that
we can't actually um say that there's any data to
(21:18):
to bear it out, but we don't have the technology
and to to do this. And essentially, and here's where
the it's kind of the beach slap. It's cosmology's version
of creationism. And he's loving that against Hawking and I
think you know, you know, this is not my wheelhouse,
but do you have to say, I think that there's
(21:38):
a point with us and you can't help but see
where you'd want to have a theory of everything, where
you want to have something unifying saying finally, we have
reached the end of meaning. We understand exactly why we're
all hanging out here in this podcast booth at this
very moment um. But we just we're limited where you know,
(21:59):
language fails us as well. We can't actually describe where
we're at at this point of revolution cognitive closure at
some point, and it's just only so much we can do. Yeah, yeah,
cogniti closure. I like that. Yeah. And then there's another
aspect of this UM which is called carbon chauvinism. Yeah,
this one is really cool, and it's just basically the
(22:21):
idea that we are we are carbon based life forms UM,
and we often find it hard to imagine that there
are other UM that they're biochemical forms out there that
are based on other recipes, if you will, right right,
So that and in fact, I think they've used the
example before of silicon. That's something that UM that you
(22:42):
can get actually some complex results from and they're even
saying that, um, it's molecular chauvinism, that we just don't
understand that there are other ways maybe to come to
the table as a being, which makes me wonder about
extraterrestrials because they're you know, in all that there's really
no discussion. Yeah. I mean like if you look into
(23:04):
science fiction, and there's plenty of examples. I know, I've
read things with with silicon based life forms in them,
and of course you're always encountering like energy beings and
things of that nature. Um. So, so yeah, it's like,
you know, if we we we put the carbon chauvinism
the side would be able to you know, potentially imagine
um or not imagine, but you know receival world where
(23:25):
a universe where there are other very forms of life
out there. I have to ask you a really personal question.
Where are you on the ET scale? Um? I don't know. Well,
the ET scale has been interesting throughout my life because
I used to be terrified of being abducted by aliens
when I was in like junior high and before that
I kind of got out of it in high school,
(23:46):
so that that was a time where it's like I
was really terrified of them, and then I decided that
I was going to make a conscious effort just not
to believe in aliens. So I was really against the
idea of them for a while. And uh, I don't know.
Now I try and keep an open mind, so I
feel like they could be out there. I don't So
there's a whole separate podcast to be done on this.
(24:08):
But I mean, I think that a lot of what
we end up perceiving in this world that we think
are aliens, it's actually there are actually a lot of
really good explanations, logical explanations for what those uh events are,
or what those experiences are. But but no, I think
there could be There could be life in this year. No, yeah,
my my intelligent maybe more intelligent. Yeah, And that's what
(24:32):
I think is interesting. It could be Yeah, it could
be a very super intelligent being or not so much.
I don't know, just hanging out at the bowling alley.
Nothing that there's nothing about the warning alleast by the way,
I love bowling. I have to say, um, but yeah,
I just had to throw that out there. It's just
because my own world view was tinged by this by
my grandmother, who you know, I grew up hearing about
(24:54):
how she and my grandfather on a lonely country road
came across which she called little green men. So I
always grew up with this idea of, well, cool, maybe
these little green men do exist, and so, well, yeah,
we'll definitely have to get into this in a later
to say yeah, we did, definitely. But looking at the
inn profit principle and looking at ourselves in the universe,
(25:15):
you gotta wonder why that isn't a larger part of it,
particularly since Stephen Hawking has you know, pulled the trigger
around the warning shots to say, hey, guys, don't talk
to the aliens, don't let them know we're here, because
if there anything like us, then they're they're probably really
they're really jerks. Yeah, they're going to colonize this um.
So I think that's why this, this theory or this
(25:39):
principle really is interesting, because again we get down to
this individual level of you know, scrapping all of our
grocery list and everything else and wondering why in the
world and this carbon based life form and allowed to exist.
And I think the bigger problem here, um is that
(26:01):
we're mortal. We know that we're going to die, And
so I think this is why we're grappling with this
so much as scientists, as human beings, um, because we
know that this universe forty seven billion years in the
making is not essentially for us, or if we do
think it's for us, then we think, well, why does
it all have to end? And so on and so forth.
(26:23):
So then you begin to reach beyond that, and you
can see how the polled toward of this sort of
all unifying and or creation myth, this god like super
being is so enticing. Yeah, I mean there's some really
kind of out there ones to like finally, unthropic principle,
it's a variation that says that once intelligence, um, not
(26:44):
intelligent beings, but actual intelligence like pops up in the universe,
then it's never going out that it's gonna pretty much
thrive and eventually become God. It's gonna propagate itself. Yeah
and and yeah, so you know take that and run
with it with your imagination, because that's pretty out there.
Well that always makes me think of the computer simulation, Like,
are we just hanging out in a computer computer simulated
(27:06):
program right now? All of the matrix, um, you know,
is this is this even real. Is this a virtual existence,
which is of course in another one of the anthropic
principles people explored. I love thinking about that kind of stuff.
I just finished reading a book called The Disciple of
the Dog, in which there is a cult um that
(27:28):
believes it's it's it's members believe that the Earth is
actually fifty billion years older than we think it is,
and that the life in the world that we perceive
is actually um it's actually the dream. We're actually the
dreams of quantum computers in the far, far distant future
that I guess got really bored and you know, end
(27:49):
up dreaming of this this you know, past life for
them to wander through. And so if we could see
through the illusion, we'd see that the sun fills up
the entire sky and we'll uh, you know, consume the
earth at any moment. Wow. So our existence is just
fodder for computers to to sort of work through their
boredom issues. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. The authors are Scott Baker,
(28:12):
and he's he's like a philosophy dude. So he's always
all of his books end up like bringing all these
like philosophical questions about who we are and what makes
you know, our heads work. Yeah, well, I don't know.
I think obviously in this podcast we're not going to
reach the end of meaning. But I do feel that
we have reached perhaps the end of the podcast, end
(28:32):
of the podcast, so which actually makes me think of
another philosophy Wabi Sabby, which I think most people think
of as embracing in perfection. But another and more nuanced
reading is that you're either emerging of nothingness or you're
essentially returning to nothingness, which I don't know. That's that's
maybe more comforting to me, um, And at least it's
(28:57):
a it's a way to say, I think that we
are now entering into nothingness. Yes, yes, so hey, if
you listeners have any thoughts on some of this heavy material, um,
then feel free to shoot them to us. Yeah. Yeah,
you can email us at blow the Mind at how
stuff works dot com, and you can also find us
on Facebook and Twitter, where you can also find us
(29:18):
as blow the Mind. Yeah, and please, if your grandmother
told you stories about aliens, we want to hear about them. Yes,
we also want to hear about your own cosmological navel gazing. Yes,
tell us about your navels. Well, not too much, but
just enough for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(29:40):
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