The Pursuit of Knowledge, with Larry King

Neil deGrasse Tyson and broadcast icon Larry King explore Larry’s approach to interviews, his life-long pursuit of knowledge, and more. Featuring comic co-host Chuck Nice, neuroscientist Heather Berlin, PhD, and media scholar Robert Thompson, PhD. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/the-pursuit-of-knowledge-with-larry-king/ Thanks to this week’s Patrons for supporting us: Natalie Rosa, Scott Saponas, Jose Clark, Christopher Cohen, Sergio Rizzuto, Michael Staples Photo Credit: National Geographic.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and beaming out across all of space and time, this is StarTalk, where science and pop culture collide.

• 0:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. Welcome back. I am your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and we are coming to you from my office at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City. And today's show is all about curiosity.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Curiosity, what does that even mean? Are we still curious? As a species, curious as individuals. And it will feature my interview with the one and the only Larry King.

• 1:01Chuck Nice?

  Very curious.

• 1:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My boy's interviewed like 100 billion people.

• 1:07Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 1:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everyone who's ever lived.

• 1:09Chuck Nice?

  Everybody, exactly. I interviewed Moses.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got with me is my co-host Chuck Nice. Chuck, welcome back.

• 1:18Chuck Nice?

  Always a pleasure.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tweeting at ChuckNiceComic.

• 1:20Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, sir.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very nice. I follow you. And I only follow 38 things. And not all of them are people, so just letting you know.

• 1:26Chuck Nice?

  I feel somehow devalued. I don't know. I follow 38 things.

• 1:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And since we're touching on the brain here, because curiosity is a human state of mind, we go to our go-to person, Heather. That's right. Heather Berlin. Heather?

• 1:42Heather Berlin?

  Hey, I'm here.

• 1:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather in the house? Okay.

• 1:45Heather Berlin?

  Yes, I tweet too. Heather underscore Berlin.

• 1:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you're gonna let Meets tell people that? Heather tweets too. Heather underscore, I hate underscores. Heather underscore Berlin. And so...

• 1:58Heather Berlin?

  That was a great endorsement, Neil. I hate underscores.

• 2:01Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, wouldn't it be funny if people were looking you up right now? Heather, I hate underscores.

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, welcome back to StarTalk. You're like old regular now. It's always good to have you. So, Larry King, I bumped into him in Norway, of all places.

• 2:15Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 2:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, I gotta...

• 2:16Chuck Nice?

  The life you live.

• 2:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was my first time in Norway.

• 2:20Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know if it was his, but I said, we gotta get a StarTalk interview with him.

• 2:23Chuck Nice?

  I summer in Norway.

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's been a talk show host since 1978. Really? Forty years. I thought it would be longer than that. I know, it feels like, all the jokes put it longer. Right. He was like interviewing Jesus, right? Exactly, right. At the Last Supper. Right. So, he was a long time on CNN. Now, he's like, his post-CNN career is Larry King Now and Politicking with Larry King. Oh. So, Larry King, he's still at it. He's still at it. A Peabody Award winner for excellence in broadcasting. So, Heather, what do you, what do you think is, has made him so popular?

• 3:04Heather Berlin?

  Well, I think he's just really good, first of all, connecting with people, but also just removing himself from the picture. I think any good interviewer, it's about eliciting information from people, asking the right questions.

• 3:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, if he didn't do that, you don't think he'd have the longevity that he did? He just, because a lot of interv-

• 3:21Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's countless interview shows.

• 3:23Heather Berlin?

  I mean, look at you.

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was about to say, but his rises up above the rest. Now I can't say that, now that you-

• 3:33Heather Berlin?

  Well, I think it's, you know, the best interviews are the ones when it's not about the interviewer.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:38Heather Berlin?

  And you're really genuinely interested in, in understanding the human being that you're there interviewing, and, and also asking questions that haven't been asked, being, being creative in terms of the kinds of questions you ask to elicit new and novel information from these people.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, and Chuck, you, you, you know, you've been interviewed, you've been, you know?

• 3:57Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 4:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Last time I had you on the show.

• 4:02Heather Berlin?

  So, another sign of an illicit interview is to ask questions that elicit more than a "yeah" response.

• 4:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. So, I failed.

• 4:09Heather Berlin?

  You failed.

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who failed, me or Chuck? One or the other. So, so I asked Larry, what does it take to make a good talk show host? Let's check him out.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  I always love my ego at the door. I didn't use the word "I" in interviews. I asked short questions. I didn't read the great books. So my curiosity delved into people and the way they act and the way they move.

• 4:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Today, talk shows are all about the host and not even about the guest.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  That's why I can't watch them. If you watch a talk, if you watch, if you tune in to a television talk show, a good television talk show, nine out of ten times, you should see the guest.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of total video time, yeah.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  The guest should be talking. My truism in life is I never learned anything when I was talking. I never learned anything. So I can tell stories, I can make people laugh, but I never learned. I only learned something when I asked a question and someone was talking to me.

• 5:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a feature of the wisest people we have ever met or know. They spend less time talking and more time listening. There it is.

• 5:29Chuck Nice?

  There you have it. Now I'm scared to talk.

• 5:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, me too. Heather, just talk.

• 5:33Heather Berlin?

  I'll take over, I'll take over.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I ain't saying nothing evermore.

• 5:39Heather Berlin?

  I thought it was interesting that he said, like, he didn't read the great books. He doesn't really prepare. He's just this sort of open.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He didn't say he doesn't prepare.

• 5:46Heather Berlin?

  Well, he didn't say he doesn't prepare, but he said he doesn't... Well, in my sense, that's not a lot of preparation if you're not, like, say, reading the person's book before you interview them, for example.

• 5:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he said he didn't read the great books, which I interpreted as, if you read the great books, now you have to show off that you know what's in the great... Shakespeare said, and all of a sudden, you're bringing a whole mental baggage, intellectual baggage into a conversation.

• 6:09Heather Berlin?

  So maybe it's restrict...

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe not restrictive, but it forces you to be a bigger part of the conversation than you should be. Because you have too much you could say.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, let's bring some more expertise here, some expertise about journalism, basically, and, and pop culture and television and, and the like. So I've got Robert Thompson. I've got you on Skype. Robert, are you there?

• 6:31Speaker 04

  I am.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are a trustee professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University. Is that the orange folks up there?

• 6:38Speaker 04

  It is.

• 6:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is. Well, welcome to StarTalk. And you're the founding director of the Blyer Center for Television and Pop Culture?

• 6:44Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I pronounce that right? Good. And author of Television's Second Golden Age, From Hill Street Blues to ER.

• 6:52Chuck Nice?

  Right. So would that mean we're in the third golden age? Because this is the best television that's ever happened.

• 6:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think so. I gotta agree, yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  I wrote that book in, uh, uh, like 96, and I think we're still in that, uh, uh, second, but maybe we'll call it the third, starting with about The Sopranos.

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so you have a very long baseline of analysis of things that operate in pop culture. What is your perspective on Larry King's longevity in this?

• 7:18Speaker 04

  I think Larry has a couple of things, uh, up his sleeve that people really like. And some of it was, and you guys were talking a little bit about this, forget not reading the great books, he didn't read the books that he was talking about on the air, usually. And he bragged about it.

• 7:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, that's a dig right there.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  He also said that he didn't know on the way to the station who he was interviewing that night, unless it happened to be the, uh, you know, a prime minister or someone, uh, important. Uh, he was quite proud, I think is quite proud of the fact that he doesn't do a lot of, uh, preparation. And he gets in trouble with this every now and again. Do you remember when he interviewed Jerry Seinfeld? Uh, Jerry Seinfeld had just come off this, of course, spectacularly successful show. It ends at number one. Uh, and Larry says, uh, so, uh...

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why was your show canceled? I remember this!

• 8:06Chuck Nice?

  That's it.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yes! Yes, okay, keep going, keep going, tell the story.

• 8:10Speaker 04

  And Jerry, Jerry really is kind of mean. You, you, you almost want to give Larry a hug after this, because Jerry says, starts saying things like, uh, um, uh, you know...

• 8:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does this guy know who I am?

• 8:20Speaker 04

  Do you need my resume? Do you, uh, uh, don't you realize we had 75 million viewers? And he will not let up. And, uh, uh, by the end... Larry King has almost cried uncle, not quite, but he's close.

• 8:33Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 8:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, wait, wait, so it bit him, it bit him in the ass this one time, all right? But the rest of it, apparently, it's a successful formula, apparently.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  Well, maybe that lack of preparation is, it is very much a part of the element. I think there is a sense that he comes in and he, he talks about the fact how he is interested in people, he certainly has a high level of curiosity, and I think he wanders in there and kind of goes on to that set, and he doesn't ask a lot of hardball questions, he doesn't seem to be incredibly prepared, but he kind of seems like what somebody would ask if you ran into them and you were waiting for, uh, waiting for a bus, and I think for a lot of people, that is really appealing.

• 9:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you bump into somebody, you're sitting next to them on the airplane, you didn't do your homework before then.

• 9:22Speaker 04

  Exactly. Now, don't get me wrong, I do not recommend people that do interviews take pride in the fact that they're unprepared, uh, to do them, but Larry King, I think, has managed to make an art with this, and then there's the second thing that I think is at the key to his magic, and that is, he has been around forever. He has talked to so many people, and every interview that he does is somewhere humming in the background, a fugue with all the other interviews, uh, he's done. I, I will, I'll give you a challenge, watch one of Larry King's interviews, and do it as a drinking game, and, uh, take a shot every time he says, "When I was talking to Anthony Quinn," or "Derek Jeter once told

• 10:07Speaker 04

  me," or "Lenny Bruce, my good friend," you will be hammered by the end of the first break and you will be out by the end of the show.

• 10:15Chuck Nice?

  Okay, so he's, he's a name dropper.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  No, but it's, but it's not just name dropper, because he's actually talked to these people, he's got a sense that Larry King is this human database, he's talked to all these people, so he's got a comment from an interesting person and a famous person to match any single thing that ever comes up in a, uh, in a conversation.

• 10:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he is his own landscape of knowledge on which he...

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  conducts his next interview. So he can draw from all of the vegetation that is grown on the landscape that he tilled.

• 10:55Speaker 04

  Completely by instinct, I might add.

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, of course, technology has changed over the time that he's been in business.

• 11:01Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, means of obtaining information, delivering information, how people consume information. And so I just wanted to get his thoughts and his reflections on this state of technology in his business. Let's check it out.

• 11:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How's your life been touched by technology? Because you've been at this for 60 years. I can't even do the math on that.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  I push it, I push against it. I started in radio when we had landlines and phone lines. And then came satellites and Ted Turner and the world expanded. And now there's the internet and what, but I'm doing exactly what I did 61 years ago. Asking questions.

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On Larry King now.

• 11:52Speaker 03

  But I'm transmitted differently. I was transmitted by phone lines. I was, look, if you, I was, I did a satellite show on television. Ted Turner saw this in which, imagine if you'd have said this to Franklin or Jefferson or. I sat in a studio interviewing you. We together would be beamed up 23,800 miles. Hit a machine that's traveling with us, beamed up and went down and reached someone in Moscow or across the street, same way from that beam. How the hell do you do that? Now, that amazes me.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  If you gave me the scientific explanation, I would be lost in E equals mc squared. But the very thought that I can go up is so amazing to me that I don't need an explanation of how it works. But I would love to talk to the guy who invented satellites. And what was he thinking? Did he sit down and say?

• 13:00Speaker 03

  I can hit a moving object and transmit you 10,000 miles away. What made him think that? That's what fascinates me. So I love technology, I love what it can do, but I always attempt to push back at it.

• 13:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There he is.

• 13:21Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 13:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So.

• 13:23Chuck Nice?

  Technology is the thing I don't care about at all, but I love to death.

• 13:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd forgotten, you know, we announced him as having been a TV since 1978, but he was on radio.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  He was radio before that.

• 13:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Decades before that. So, Robert, how has, has?

• 13:38Chuck Nice?

  I was there when Alexander Graham Bell said, Watson, come here. I showed up instead. That was my first radio broadcast over a phone line.

• 13:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know how that works. How does he, how does he do this over a phone line?

• 13:54Speaker 04

  He's sitting over a phone line.

• 13:55Chuck Nice?

  Chuck. My first show was calling people and saying, is your refrigerator running?

• 14:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the first talk show. So, so, Robert, has the fact that our capacity to communicate with one another, having become more prevalent, easier, more mobile, has that increased or decreased the percentage of talk shows that are out there? Has it improved them? Has it made them too easy? So anybody can have a talk show? And what, what's the status of it today relative to then?

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Okay, well, first of all, yes, it's increased the number. The, the real estate where we can put this stuff now is almost infinite. There used to be, you know, a few national television networks and there was radio and that was it. So there's lots more opportunities and it's true. If I went down to my, uh, uh, class tomorrow and, uh, asked how many people in the class had a podcast, my guess is that at least half of them, uh, uh, would have one. And most of them interview because that's a, a natural thing to do. Now as to the quality, um, back in the day, we had Carson, we had what? Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  amusing enough, but when I compare the kind of interview that Johnny Carson used to do with the kind of thing that John Stewart would do, or Colbert, even though that was in the key of comedy as opposed, well, so is Carson. I think it, a lot of it is way, way better. The other thing is, we get to hear talk shows and conversations about things other than what Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas wanted to talk about. And let's face it, that was a pretty narrow set of definitions. So, overall, more voices, more subjects, lower budgets in many cases.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let's move forward a little bit from, from those three classic names. There was also Dick Cavett, right? That was a little more thoughtful.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  It was kind of the egghead. Yeah, right, exactly. So that there were others. I mean, it wasn't like Carson was the only one in town, but there weren't a lot. And I think there's still, what Larry King has done is he's kind of straddled, as he very much points out. I love that ode to satellite, because he started the ode to the satellite with the ode to the landline. I mean, that, that guy is a real, when you think about it, Larry King has done the interview format in every other electronic medium except the telegraph. And, and now he's doing it as well in, in his.

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Larry King coming to you by Morse code.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  I started off with a tin can on a string. Anyway, and he talks loud enough that that would have probably been effective. So, I think we've got more, much more variety, much more diversity, and it's one of the reasons why, to younger people, Larry King does seem like such an anachronism.

• 16:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but he still rises up in the din of talk show hosts that are out there. Like you said, that number is semi-infinite, if not actually infinite, of number of people who have talk shows, podcasts, we call them today. So, yet, he still rises up, even in a generation that.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because very few people his age can resonate with people who are very young. I guess Bernie Sanders does, but these people are far and few between. So somehow he still resonates.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  Well, I don't know. I'm not sure how much Larry King is resonating with, you know, let's say my students at the age of 18 to 24. They've probably heard of him. I have a very strong doubt that many of them have seen an interview that he's done. I think Larry King continues to resonate across the board because he is, and I hate to throw this word around, we use it way too much, but he is an icon. He is one of those, he's been, you know, imitated on Saturday Night Live, he's being imitated here as we speak. Any decent comedian can pull a Larry King out of their bag of tricks.

• 18:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And joke about how old he is, yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  Jokes about how old he is and how many times he's been married. I mean, there is a body of work of people who do Larry King stuff. So that's why I think he continues to resonate. How many young people are watching Comrade King on his Russia Today broadcast or are going onto Hulu to see Politicking or, what's it called now, Larry King Now? I have a feeling not a whole lot.

• 18:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So but you make an important point, that it is possible to have such a body of work that has had such influence over the years that you elevate and you become an icon. You become a fundamental part of pop culture.

• 18:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Robert, thanks for this video call. It's great to have you.

• 18:44Speaker 04

  Well, I was honored to be in the presence of three such accomplished performance artists.

• 18:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Well, thanks. So we're gonna take our first break, and when we come back, more of my interview with the inimitable Larry King.

• 19:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk. Got Chuck Nice, my co-host. That's right. And Heather Berlin, a friend of StarTalk.

• 19:31Heather Berlin?

  Hello.

• 19:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is like your millionth time on StarTalk.

• 19:33Heather Berlin?

  I love being here.

• 19:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus or minus.

• 19:35Heather Berlin?

  Plus or minus.

• 19:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we always have brain issues. And you are our

• 19:39Heather Berlin?

  Especially you guys.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brain person. So remind me, you are a professor of neuroscience at Mount Sinai?

• 19:45Heather Berlin?

  Psychiatry, professor of psychiatry. And I'm a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At Mount Sinai School of Medicine, right here in New York. And a doctor.

• 19:51Heather Berlin?

  Yes. Oh, yeah, that would be me. Well, it's actually now called the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

• 19:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Icon.

• 19:56Heather Berlin?

  Because they gave us a lot of money.

• 19:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As in Carl?

• 19:59Heather Berlin?

  Yes, as in Carl.

• 20:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carl Icon.

• 20:00Heather Berlin?

  So we changed the name.

• 20:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:02Heather Berlin?

  But it's the same place.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we're featuring my interview with the one and only Larry King. And we connected up in Norway. I was at a conference. We were both at a conference. Right. And so I wanted to get an understanding of his perspective on his own success. Ooh. And so let's check that out.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  How come in daily life, I have been so stupid? I mean stupid. I did not handle money well. Now, I'm talking to you like a psychologist. I've been married many times. I didn't handle relationships well. But when that light went on.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That light?

• 20:38Speaker 03

  When I went into that studio, I asked a psychologist once to explain that to me. Because I'm supposed to be wise, but I do stupid things. Why do smart people do stupid? And he said, because when that light goes on, you have control. Who doesn't like control? So I was doing an hour television show every night and a five-hour radio show. That's six hours. Eight hours sleep. So there's 10 hours a day I didn't control. I wasn't good at it. But those six hours, I control.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  And I never thought of it as controlling. But the host of any interview show is the control of that show. You are the control of the... even if I'm talking now, you're in control. You cut me off, you could stop me, go to a different... you're in control. What a joy that is. What a life that is, to be in control of something.

• 21:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Most people in adulthood control nothing. There's a boss, there's an organization, they're beholden to so many other forces.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, that's an excellent point, that you're in charge.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  I had control of my environment for that period of time. It's true.

• 22:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Except for when the producers tell you to shut up because they gotta put in a commercial.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  Even then, I could say, "Oh, the commercial could... wait a minute. You're still, you're still in control. You really are."

• 22:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Heather, I mean, he, he comes to this revelation, which sounds very eye-opening.

• 22:21Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As an eye-opening experience for him. He came to this revelation through the efforts of a psychologist. Is this, is this a common need that people have? They, they need to be in control?

• 22:31Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, I mean, so in addition to being a neuroscientist, I also see patients for treatment, doing psychotherapy, and, um...

• 22:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, we gotta see if we, we have issues.

• 22:39Chuck Nice?

  Without a doubt.

• 22:40Heather Berlin?

  Everybody has issues.

• 22:41Chuck Nice?

  I already see Heather once a week.

• 22:45Heather Berlin?

  But I'm taking new patients.

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're taking new patients, okay.

• 22:48Heather Berlin?

  But no, it is, it is a common issue because, you know, relationships are about compromise. And, um, which is hard because you have to give up the way you think things should be.

• 22:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give up control.

• 22:57Heather Berlin?

  Give up control. And so the ideal circumstance is if you're in a situation where everything goes exactly the way you want it to go, there is no compromise, so there's no friction. And part of working out relationships is learning how to give up, how to concede things for the other person, and having some empathy. It's ironic though, because, you know, part of what he does is trying to reach in and understand other people, yet when it comes to his own life, um, he's not very good, perhaps, at, um, maybe conceding to other people in his life and having a bit of empathy in that respect.

• 23:28Chuck Nice?

  He should've just had his wife on his show.

• 23:31Heather Berlin?

  Mmm.

• 23:31Chuck Nice?

  And just like, when he got done his show, just come home and just be like, interview his wife. So he would like, just keep, keep the work going.

• 23:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Keep the work going.

• 23:40Chuck Nice?

  Keep the work going the entire day, you know, just...

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but then he's in control and anyone he has to compromise with would not be. And that would be a recipe for disaster, it sounds.

• 23:50Heather Berlin?

  A lot of also, you know, celebrities have this phenomenon where everyone is sort of bowing down to them like, you know, every one of their needs is met. And then they go off set and it's like, hey, you know, why isn't this happening at home? And they're sort of had that level of expectation set, whether it's conscious or not. It can also lead to depression. I mean, and on a smaller scale, I hosted a Discovery Channel show and I had that similar experience where every need was met. And then the show ended and I went back to my normal life. And at least I had something sort of to go back to. And it was like, okay, I still had a purpose, even though people weren't, you know, bowing down for me every minute. But I can imagine.

• 24:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had another job, a whole job.

• 24:24Heather Berlin?

  I had another job. I went back to doing research. But, but let's say an actor or someone whose TV show is canceled.

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is their job.

• 24:29Heather Berlin?

  That is their job. So not only does all of that stop, but now they have nothing to go back to. And sometimes that can lead to depression.

• 24:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:36Heather Berlin?

  You know, I'm not important anymore. Nobody, you know, cares about me, those kinds of things.

• 24:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What about all the people and all the institutions and all the cultural,

• 24:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  cultural forces, cultural elements that lead people to just obey other people? There are many people where control is not their goal. They're happiest following rules established by others.

• 25:04Heather Berlin?

  Yeah. There are different personality types. So some people really want to be in control, others want to be told what to do. They want to concede control. So even with learning, we see that. Like, some people work very good in learning environments where it's very structured because they want to be told what to do and have set exams. Whereas others are more comfortable in situations where they can learn at their own pace, where they can sort of set their own schedule.

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the big discovery that has to happen in school. Are you one of these or the other?

• 25:29Heather Berlin?

  Yes, yes.

• 25:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one, the other fails the other, if you're in the wrong place.

• 25:34Heather Berlin?

  Right, right. So there's no one learning technique that's good. It's about the learning technique combined with that particular personality that's going to be best.

• 25:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Larry also, as an understanding of his success, he credits his insatiable curiosity. Now, as a scientist and as an educator, my ears perked up. They were all already up, but it perked up even more because curiosity is the center of anything we do in science. And so I just had to get to the bottom of that. Just check it out. You wanna know how somebody ticks? So, I think of you and your line of questioning and your perceptive ways that you reach people and have them become comfortable in your presence. I think of that as what any good psychologist should do.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  You know what I'm curious about? I've been that way all my life. I remember being eight years old, getting on a bus and asking the bus driver, "Why do you wanna drive a bus?" And all my life, I've asked what to me is the simplest of questions. I remember asking a pilot, "When you're going down the runway, do you know it's gonna take off?"

• 26:46Speaker 03

  Those are things I think about. I don't have to know about propeller or division of the...

• 26:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've invented jets since the propeller.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  The jets, the propeller know it's gonna take off. Those are things. The whys. "Why do you care about this?" I interviewed Walla White, who was the first cardiologist. There was no specialties until he was determined. You went to medical school, but there was no specialty in cardiology. He was Eisenhower's physician. And I asked him,

• 27:21Speaker 03

  "If you were starting medical school today, what specialty would you choose?" And he said neurology.

• 27:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Because what we know about the heart now, which we know so much, we know this much about the brain." But that's from asking. From the curiosity that comes is, "What boggles your mind? What makes you tick? What are you..." Like I've asked you in the past, "Why do you look at the sky? What do you wonder about?"

• 27:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Heather, why do some people lose their curiosity? Because let's assume we're all curious as children. That's a very natural thing.

• 28:06Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scientists never really grow up, so they're still, they're adult children in their curiosity. But I think many people just lose curiosity. And sometimes it's rejuvenated. That's possible, I've seen it. You fan the flame and it reignites and their eyes brighten. But for many, it's not the case. Is there some neuroscience study of this?

• 28:25Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, well, it's actually, only recently has there been neuroscience studies looking at what's happening in the brain when people are curious. So they'll give people, for example, a riddle or a quiz, pub quiz kind of question to solve. And then they wait and they look at just what's happening in the brain when the person's curious to hear the answer. And then they give them the answer. And what they find is that curiosity stimulates this, the wanting system of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, which is that sort of dopaminergic system in the brain that drives us. It's the same kind of drive as we have.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dopaminic, meaning it provides dopamine, which we want and enjoy.

• 28:59Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We want more of.

• 29:01Heather Berlin?

  Exactly. So it starts, you see activation in the midbrain.

• 29:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Curiosity is a drug.

• 29:04Heather Berlin?

  Yes. Yes. It's the same wanting feeling you get with drugs of addiction or when you're hungry and you're seeking out. So you're basically, instead of food being the reward, knowledge, information is the reward that you're getting. And what's really interesting is you see this sort of upside down U-shaped curve in terms of satiation of curiosity. So if you know nothing about, somebody asks you a question, you know absolutely nothing, you're not going to be that curious. You know a little bit and you want to know more, you're going to increase your curiosity. Until you get to sort of the highest point, and the more you know, actually, more information you start to accumulate, curiosity goes down and the brain activation related to that wanting and that drive goes down because you've gotten enough information. So it's just like when you're hungry.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's time to go on to the next subject.

• 29:45Heather Berlin?

  It's time to go on. Yeah. And so we see that there is a neural process because it makes sense, if you, evolutionarily speaking, to seek out information, to explore things that you don't understand.

• 29:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're telling me I am high? I am in search of cosmic truths.

• 30:00Heather Berlin?

  Yes, actually, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have a song Californication and there's a line where it says-

• 30:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Red Hot Chili Peppers, the group.

• 30:05Heather Berlin?

  The group, and it goes, "She's getting high on information." I love that line.

• 30:10Chuck Nice?

  Gina Californication.

• 30:11Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, Californication. But anyway, so, um, but it, it, so we see it, it's a natural human drive. The reason, um, children seem to be more curious is, we also have another part of our brain that kind of restricts, um, these desires, these basic instincts that we have.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, it could kill us.

• 30:28Heather Berlin?

  Right, right. I mean, we're see, curiosity killed the cat, right? We need another part of the brain.

• 30:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What the edge of this cliff looks like.

• 30:34Heather Berlin?

  Right, right, right. How far can you go?

• 30:36Chuck Nice?

  Look at that, he OD'd on information. This guy was just too curious.

• 30:42Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, sort of like you're looking, looking up and you just sort of fall back and fall off the cliff. So we've developed these prefrontal cortices that kind of can curb those basic desires. Curiosity being one of them, one might be food, one might be drive for sex or drugs. Whatever those drives are, we have something that limits them as we age so that we can-

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Attempts to limit them.

• 30:59Heather Berlin?

  Attempts to, exactly. And there's a balance between these two symptoms. Between that wanting dopamine system and that kind of controlling system, the prefrontal cortex, which isn't developed until around in your mid twenties. So adults are more restrictive and they sense, adults can become more curious if they just kind of turn down activation of that prefrontal cortex. And we can get them to do that in various different ways.

• 31:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You turn yours down each morning?

• 31:21Heather Berlin?

  He does it all the time.

• 31:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow, she's doing it right now.

• 31:26Heather Berlin?

  But I mean, the more we let go of control, the more we can kind of engage that curiosity, which is an interesting, um, conundrum with Larry King because he's both curious yet like staying in control.

• 31:36Chuck Nice?

  And in- curious, right.

• 31:36Heather Berlin?

  So it's interesting dynamic.

• 31:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Larry King called it a simple question, but I don't want to call it that. Let me call it a naive question.

• 31:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a naive question, you make no assumptions about anything, because you don't know anything. So you ask a basic question that would be overlooked by anyone who knew even a little bit more than you did.

• 32:00Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And yet, sometimes, that's the very question that gets to the heart of the matter.

• 32:04Heather Berlin?

  Absolutely. So the more we kind of learn, the more restricted we are in many ways in our thinking. And we learn what's not, what's a normal question, what would be, you're trying, putting in a lot of effort, what's a smart question? And then you're losing some of these very basic, simple things. So kids ask the best questions, you know? Because they haven't been sort of filtered yet. And so, one way that we can get around that is to release the filter, is first of all, try not to take in too much information, so that you become sort of tainted in a way. Or to just, like, let go, in a way, let yourself be in that flow state, where in the moment, and anything goes, and then you can access those unconscious processes.

• 32:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why I prefer to be, because I don't want to restrict what I know out of fear that I won't be as curious.

• 32:48Heather Berlin?

  Right.

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just go into, like, let the information be whatever it is. Whatever happens. And float where I float next. Let's let it happen. Yeah, let's let it happen.

• 32:55Heather Berlin?

  And you also let your...

• 32:56Chuck Nice?

  Tell me why this propeller doesn't care that we're taking off.

• 32:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A propeller?

• 33:02Chuck Nice?

  I only fly props.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That just rolled out of his mouth.

• 33:08Heather Berlin?

  But I think another thing that motivates, maybe this works...

• 33:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When the Wright Brothers gave me a lift.

• 33:16Heather Berlin?

  I don't know if this is what happens with you when you're interviewing people, but we tend to let our curiosity guide us. And so, you get excited about a particular question, and that guides where you're going to go, or about some information you're curious about. And that's that dopamine system at work. And so, I think really good interviewers are using that to navigate their questions, rather than some piece of paper that has all the questions written down.

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, exactly. Because you want to be organic in the path that you take through the information. Otherwise, you're not tapping the richest parts of what can be contributed to.

• 33:45Heather Berlin?

  And the unexpected things that come up.

• 33:47Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 33:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, more of my interview with Larry King.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hey, here's a Patreon shout out to the following Patreon patrons. Christopher Cohen, Sergio Rituza, and Michael Staples. Thank you, guys, for helping us as we journey through the cosmos. And if you want to have your name shouted out, go ahead to patreon.com and support us.

• 34:24Speaker 05

  The future of space and the secrets of our planet revealed.

• 34:33Speaker 05

  This is StarTalk.

• 34:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're back on StarTalk, featuring my interview with Larry King. And we left off with learning about curiosity, just the neuroscience of curiosity. Delighted to learn that I'm high when I'm curious. I never thought about it that way, but I feel really joyous.

• 35:02Chuck Nice?

  Come on, help a brother out. Just a little more information, man. Just need a little more information. Come on, come on, baby. I'm into you, man. Come on, just help a brother out.

• 35:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Earth's rotation rate is slowing down.

• 35:19Chuck Nice?

  Oh, thank you, baby.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Triggered by the tidal forces of the moon.

• 35:24Chuck Nice?

  Okay, alright.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How's that for a little bit of info today?

• 35:26Chuck Nice?

  Oh, yeah, that's good. That'll hold me up for another 15 minutes.

• 35:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Talking about curiosity with Larry King. And so I went back at him regarding curiosity. And I asked him, where does he think he gets his own curiosity? Yeah, let's find out. Check it out.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  We would have occasionally guys like you would come from the Bronx High School of Science to give us science lessons. I had Bill Nye on my show a lot. And he'll tell me how if I put this gas, brought this pellet in, it will go into that glass. And when we mix it together, the blue and the yellow will come out green. I don't care. I don't have curiosity. I have curiosity about space and how it exists. But the things you explain about oval and circular, microcosms and things, that I'm more interested in the whys of people. Why do people? Do what they do. You know, it's a truism.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  No evil person thinks they're evil. If I were interviewing Osama bin Laden, who murdered a lot of people that day in September, I wouldn't ask him about murdering people immediately. But I would ask him, why? Why did you? From one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia, why'd you go live in Afghanistan? Why'd you live in a cave? See, that to me is the whys of life. Not, as you would understand, the distance or parameter that it goes from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan in mileage from an orbit.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  I wouldn't think about that.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's the difference. The difference is, you are curious about people.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Very.

• 37:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What makes them tick? What motivates their actions? What inspires them to do and be what they become?

• 37:31Speaker 03

  I'm curious about you. No, here's a true story. Black kid growing up in the Bronx. Astrophysics? Come on.

• 37:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's a little weird, yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  So, I'm curious, not in your how you devise the formula. If I'm interviewing Einstein, I don't care so much about E equals mc squared, which I still don't know what that means. I would interested in how Einstein got interested in that. And why that matters to him and to me.

• 38:09Chuck Nice?

  Black kid, growing up in the Bronx. Seriously? Did you look up into the blackness of the night sky and think, I see myself?

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Heather.

• 38:20Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me oversimplify something just to get into the conversation. There are people who are immensely curious about other people. If they took that to an academic level, they'd become psychologists or anthropologists, you know, cultural anthropologists. I am very curious, but less so about other people and more about how the universe works. So I become a physical scientist, where my topics are not people, but the laws of nature.

• 38:46Heather Berlin?

  And I'm curious about how the brain works.

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you're curious how a brain as a thing, but brain is not only in humans, but other animals as well. Here's my question. There are people out there who are just curious about other people. And they would read the National Enquirer, or Page Six in the Post, or... What is driving the interest in other people that is not of an academic nature, more of a nosey, curious, voyeuristic nature? What's going... And what's this... Why are we fascinated by famous people at all?

• 39:21Heather Berlin?

  So I think there's an evolutionary explanation for this, right? First of all, famous people are taking the place of what was in the local tribe as the alpha male. Or it's signifying, this is an important person, I should know, they have power, status, they can... If I'm friends with them, that could help me have an advantage, right? So that's innate.

• 39:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would have to be a reproductive advantage for it to work, to make its way...

• 39:43Heather Berlin?

  Or protection, or protection.

• 39:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you don't die.

• 39:45Heather Berlin?

  Right, right, right. So it's either two things, procreate or...

• 39:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or not die.

• 39:49Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, or not die, exactly. So I think that that's part of what's driving us for these interests. We're social creatures, so, again, we care about knowing more about these high-status people, because is that a person I can trust? Are they someone that I can, you know...

• 40:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it's broken there, because when they're in the tribe, they're bringing back the food. They wrestle the saber-toothed tiger, he's a big, strong man, they come back, and that's shared with the tribe.

• 40:18Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That tribe is much smaller then than today. Today, the tribe is a million people in your city. You are still interested in that person, even though they're not actually putting food on your plate.

• 40:26Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, because we're these cavemen brains in this modern world. Our brains have not evolved quick enough for...

• 40:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The imprint is still there. The technology has moved along.

• 40:36Heather Berlin?

  So it's old mechanisms that keep running, and they're not adaptive, right? So then when people get obsessed, and then you feel like you know the celebrity, you feel like they're part of it, because they look into a camera, they look into your eyes, and so these older mechanisms...

• 40:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I was a kid, I thought I knew the people on TV, but then I grew up.

• 40:50Heather Berlin?

  Right, but the interest in their lives is still there. So that part is hard to... Well, I think the circuitry of curiosity is in all of us, and what it sort of is...

• 41:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How it manifests.

• 41:01Heather Berlin?

  How it manifests is different, right? So you are interested in space, me, the brain, Larry, and people's histories and stories, but it's all that same mechanism. And I think everybody has that in them that drives them, they just have to find the right outlet.

• 41:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why are some people just really interested in the lives of other people?

• 41:17Heather Berlin?

  I think that that's an evolutionary advantage to have that. So people who are interested.

• 41:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was the newsy cave, man. The newsy, yeah, the gossipy cave. The nosy, gossipy cave.

• 41:27Heather Berlin?

  Right, right.

• 41:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The neighbor cave. Right. Oh, they got a new lawn out front of the cave. What did they do?

• 41:32Heather Berlin?

  And that's why that's the stereotype, though, of the nerdy professor who's not very social, because their interests lie in trying to figure out the universe. That's what they're busy caring about, not about who is Mary dating.

• 41:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So my next question to Larry King is kind of obvious when you think about it. It's, who's the guest that you never got? That you would definitely want to have? And what would you ask? Really? Oh, yeah. Okay. I went there. I'm asking, now you've piqued my curiosity. I've piqued curiosity. We're Velcro all over. That's right. The vortex is ready to swallow whatever happens next. Go for it. If you could interview God, what would you ask?

• 42:08Speaker 03

  I was asked that today at a forum I did on one of my forums.

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  And they said, who would you like to interview that you haven't interviewed? And I said, well, I always wanted to do Castro, but I went to Havana, we didn't get him.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  And that hurt me, but I've interviewed like eight, nine presidents and world leaders and Brando and Sinatra.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  But if I could interview God.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  God. My first question? Do you have a kid?

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Now, if he says no.

• 42:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  I throw half of the major religions of the world into chaos. Didn't have a kid?

• 42:59Speaker 03

  The Vatican closes, right? What would you ask God?

• 43:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, now suppose he says yes, he has a kid.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  I'd say, who was he and what was his name? Was he Jewish?

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Was it a girl? Was it a boy? And what if he said Madonna?

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So he should have gotten that interview with God, right at the beginning, at creation. Yeah.

• 43:27Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, he missed that one.

• 43:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He missed that?

• 43:28Heather Berlin?

  He missed that interview.

• 43:31Chuck Nice?

  I just, do you have a kid? Is he Jewish?

• 43:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's hilarious. That's, that's, he, he should do stand-up.

• 43:40Chuck Nice?

  I'm not gonna go that far.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says a professional stand-up comedian in our midst.

• 43:45Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, but he's, he's got a good sense of humor.

• 43:47Chuck Nice?

  He really does, yeah.

• 43:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A good, good sense of humor. So who would you interview who exists in this world?

• 43:52Heather Berlin?

  Oh, who exists in this world? Who's alive?

• 43:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 43:55Heather Berlin?

  Um, I think I'd, I'd like to talk to Obama for a bit.

• 43:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To, uh, which Obama?

• 44:01Heather Berlin?

  Uh, I think-

• 44:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  President Obama.

• 44:02Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, President Obama.

• 44:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Michelle Obama.

• 44:04Heather Berlin?

  Well, there's so many people, this is, there's so many people I wanna talk to. But, but yeah, I think, I think he'd be someone interesting to talk to.

• 44:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, the president?

• 44:10Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And dead?

• 44:13Heather Berlin?

  So I, I wanna go back to this God issue. Because I would love to talk to God. I wanna know, first of all, why are we here?

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why?

• 44:21Heather Berlin?

  Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing? And what happens when we die? That's like a fundamental burning question. I'd really like the answer. I don't care about all these religions, whatever, whatever. Just tell me what happens when I die and what I'm supposed to be doing here.

• 44:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Chuck.

• 44:35Chuck Nice?

  Uh, who would I wanna talk to living today?

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:40Chuck Nice?

  Uh, it's not who, it's how I would like to talk to them. And that would be under the influence of sodium pentathol or some type of truth serum. It's really not like the interview. Uh, Vladimir Putin.

• 44:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 44:54Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You wanna get to the bottom of what he's about?

• 44:56Chuck Nice?

  I wanna know what the deal is, baby.

• 44:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You wanna get the deal.

• 44:58Chuck Nice?

  Cause he's doing, let me tell you, he's up to no good. That Putin.

• 45:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That Putin.

• 45:05Chuck Nice?

  That Putin is up to no good. And I just would like to know.

• 45:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now who dead?

• 45:10Chuck Nice?

  Dead? I'm, I'm gonna go with Jesus.

• 45:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 45:14Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 45:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very nice.

• 45:15Chuck Nice?

  I would love to actually sit down and talk to Jesus. And I'm gonna put him on the spot.

• 45:22Chuck Nice?

  I ain't gonna put Jesus on the spot. I'm gonna say, you know, I'm like, okay, now, I don't want any of these parables. And I don't, I want a yes or no question. Are you the son of the living God and did he?

• 45:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The living son of God.

• 45:39Chuck Nice?

  Are you the living son of God and did, is there a God that created the universe? And then it's like, I want a yes or a no. And if it's no, you got some splaining to do. I mean, all those other people got some splaining. Yeah. Who would you do?

• 45:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So for me, uh, living, it would be President Obama.

• 45:55Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 45:56Heather Berlin?

  Oh, we're on the same page.

• 45:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's odd because I've actually had dinner with him, so.

• 45:59Chuck Nice?

  And you didn't talk to him the whole time?

• 46:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there were like five other people in the room. So there was like dinner for six or seven. Yeah, I couldn't do a deep dive. Just, but I, uh, I, while he was in law school, he wrote a paper for the Law Journal, whatever it is, that, that tapped tenets of quantum physics. So I just wanted sort of, I wanted to just have a one-on-one, get him on StarTalk and do that. On StarTalk, we've had three presidents, two, two presidents. We had, uh, Clinton.

• 46:24Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no, yeah, Clinton and, uh, uh, Jimmy Carter.

• 46:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, yeah, so I haven't had eight presidents, right? But we've had two.

• 46:32Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 46:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Two presidents, right?

• 46:33Heather Berlin?

  I think chances are high you can get Obama.

• 46:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe we get Obama. So that's, that's living, just because he's seen a lot. The night I had dinner with him was the evening of the, uh, the terrorist attack in Paris, where someone shot up the arena.

• 46:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:49Heather Berlin?

  Wow.

• 46:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so he's, he's, you know, we're there having cocktails. Excuse me.

• 46:53Chuck Nice?

  I gotta go.

• 46:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta get a call.

• 46:54Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 46:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then he, and then he comes back. And he picks up exactly where we were, but he said, what was it? That was the French president who had said we give support, but it was like, this is, this, this, this man is badass. Um, so, so Obama, but I, dead?

• 47:11Chuck Nice?

  Dead.

• 47:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, give me two, Isaac Newton.

• 47:13Chuck Nice?

  I was about to say.

• 47:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My boy. Isaac Newton, I just want to get inside his head. He said, how are you thinking, dude? Because we need some of that. You could solve some problems in your day. We need, we need some of that brain matter. Now, if I could interview God, okay? Uh, let's assume I'm dead at this point and I encounter him. If he just shows up, then I don't have to interview, it's manifest, right? But it's like.

• 47:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  After I'm dead is too late for me.

• 47:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 47:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? So that would be the time. That'd be an interesting moment.

• 47:49Heather Berlin?

  He can always send you to hell.

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying, but I, but if I get one question before I'm sent to hell.

• 47:53Heather Berlin?

  Okay.

• 47:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I would ask, before you send me to hell for not entirely embracing your existence, please answer for me, why did you create a universe, a universe that was so

• 48:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  devoid of your existence?

• 48:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why is there so much evidence for your absence

• 48:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  rather than evidence for your existence? And as someone who studies the universe and asteroid impacts and extinction episodes and all, it's just like, if you're there, you ain't benevolent, or you ain't all-powerful, but you ain't both. Okay? So that would be my question, and then he'd send me to hell.

• 48:40Chuck Nice?

  No, maybe he'd say, you know, that's an excellent question, and I'm gonna take the next eternity to tell you about it. And then you got, and then you're the only guy that got out of hell.

• 48:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 48:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, cuz you asked a great question.

• 48:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Asked a great question, and he's gonna say, well, sit down in my, on my cloud.

• 48:56Chuck Nice?

  Right, exactly. Now let's talk.

• 48:58Heather Berlin?

  Maybe that is hell. You just have to listen to God go on and on.

• 49:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the end of this episode.

• 49:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Somebody's really going to hell on that one.

• 49:12Heather Berlin?

  I'm screwed.

• 49:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  God is droning on.

• 49:14Chuck Nice?

  This guy never shuts up, does he?

• 49:17Heather Berlin?

  Just send me to hell already.

• 49:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On the fifth day, let me tell you. Did I tell you what I did on the fifth day?

• 49:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I thought I was bad. Heather, you ain't coming back on that one. All right, this has been StarTalk with a delightful interview with the one and only Larry King. I want to thank Heather Berlin. Heather, as always, we'd love to have you, and this won't be the last. And Chuck? Great to be here.

• 49:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heaven, you're on the air. God, you're on the air. But only for 30 seconds. We don't have all night. We don't have seven days for you to figure this one out. All right, I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.