Are We Smart Enough to Understand the Universe? Could Humans be Alien Pets? Neil deGrasse Tyson on Simulation Theory, Why Your God is too Small and How Science Will Guide Us into the Future

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Why Your God Is Too Small & The Truth About Alien “Pets” What if humanity is just a 1% DNA shift away from being an alien science project? In this earth-shattering episode of Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, world-renowned astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (Director of the Hayden Planetarium and host of StarTalk) joins us to deconstruct the greatest mysteries of existence. From simulation theory and the multiverse to near-death experiences (NDEs) and the Atheist vs. Spiritual debate, Neil goes unfiltered on why our current understanding of reality might be fundamentally limited by our own biology. Are we smart enough to understand the universe? We might be smarter after this conversation. In this episode, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson breaks down: - The Big Bang Theory Reunion: Neil shares behind-the-scenes stories from his cameos, his “beef” with Raj Koothrappali, and what it was like seeing “his people” represented on a hit sitcom - Alien “Zoo Hypothesis”: Why advanced civilizations might view humans as “toddlers” or keep us in a galactic aquarium - Simulation Theory: Why it is mathematically difficult to argue against the idea that we live in a computer-generated reality - “Small God” Problem: Why Neil believes modern religion doesn’t account for the true scale of the cosmos - 95% of Reality is Missing: Understanding the dark matter and dark energy mysteries that drive the universe - Can We Explain the Soul? Why physics is actually “easier” to solve than the human mind, body, and spirit - Limits of Intelligence: Neil’s fear that humans may not be “neurologically smart enough” to ever truly figure out the universe - NDEs & Psychedelics: A scientific look at what happens to the brain during mystical encounters - Quantum Physics & The Multiverse: Why parallel universes with different laws of physics are scientifically plausible and where we fit in the “Many-Worlds” theory - Spirituality vs. Science: Why Neil refuses to deny anyone’s spiritual experiences, even while offering a different scientific explanation for them - The Ultimate Mysteries: Specific questions about the cosmos that Neil deGrasse Tyson most wants to solve before he dies Are we alone? Are we simulated? Or are we just too small to see the truth? Watch this masterclass in the cosmic perspective and decide for yourself. Go to https://www.kachava.com https://www.kachava.com/ and use code BREAKDOWN for 15% off your first order. Get 20% off all IQ Bar products - plus free shipping by texting BREAKDOWN to 64000. JUST VISITING THIS PLANET: Further Scientific Adventures of Merlin from Omniscia: https://neildegrassetyson.com/books/2025-10-just-visiting-this-planet/ COSMOS CONFIDENTIAL: Neil & Bill's Excellent Bromance: https://a.co/d/5gSkRso Merlin's Tour of the Universe, Revised and Updated for the Twenty-First Century: https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/products/book-ea8l?_pos=1&_psq=merlin&_ss=e&_v=1.0 https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/products/book-ea8l?_pos=1&_psq=merlin&_ss=e&_v=1.0 Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  At any given moment, it's the next round of science mysteries. What is dark matter? What is dark energy? It is 95% of what is driving the universe. What was around before the Big Bang? Is there a multiverse? I lose sleep wondering, are we smart enough to ever actually figure out the universe?

• 0:18Mayim Bialik?

  World-famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is here to help us understand the universe by figuring out where we came from, why we're here, and what our destiny might be beyond the stars. Are there aliens?

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Genetically, we're within 1, 1.5% identical DNA to a chimpanzee. Imagine a life form who has 1.5% DNA in that vector beyond us.

• 0:45Mayim Bialik?

  Wow.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  What would we look like to them? Earth could be a literal aquarium terrarium that they constructed for their own amusement. I'm all in on smart aliens being out there somewhere. And if they find us and they want to make us their pet, that's the best we might be able to hope for.

• 1:03Mayim Bialik?

  Are we living in a simulation?

• 1:06Speaker 00

  It's hard to argue against it. As the area of our knowledge grows, so too does the perimeter of our ignorance. But of anything humans have ever invented, science may be uniquely capable of giving us access to our understanding, our place in the universe, and secure pathways into our future.

• 1:34Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Iain Bialik.

• 1:35Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:36Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our Breakdown. This is an earth-shattering episode.

• 1:40Jonathan Cohen?

  It's also very, very funny.

• 1:41Mayim Bialik?

  It's a universe-expanding episode.

• 1:44Jonathan Cohen?

  We cannot wait to tell you who we're having on today.

• 1:47Mayim Bialik?

  Usually in our intros, we do like a, what happened before the Big Bang? What happens when you die? Are we living in a simulation? Are there aliens? Can we time travel? Guess what? We've got the man who's going to answer all of these things. Jonathan, who's our guest today?

• 2:02Jonathan Cohen?

  Today, we are speaking to Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 2:05Mayim Bialik?

  He is an astrophysicist, as you know, and the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History since 1996. He's the author of 19 books. He's an incredibly, incredibly talented and gifted science communicator. Also, was on two episodes of Big Bang Theory, which we're gonna talk about before we get into, can we time travel? Are there aliens? Are aliens watching us? Are we living in a simulation? What happens after we die? How does he explain near-death experiences? Is there a God? We cover everything possible with Neil deGrasse Tyson in this episode. We do want to mention "Just Visiting This Planet: Further Scientific Adventures of Merlin from Omniscia." I think that's how you pronounce it.

• 2:50Mayim Bialik?

  It was first published in 1998, but there is a new edition that just came out in 2025. It's really, really awesome. It's the Dr. Tyson's character Merlin is answering more questions. Also, Cosmos Confidential: Neil and Bill's Excellent Bromance is an incredible audio project with William Shatner that is out now. So, check that out as well. And Merlin's Tour of the Universe, Revised and Updated for the 21st Century, came out in 2024, so check that out. His books are incredible, wonderful gifts also. Like, this is the kind of book, like, I want to give to my kids. Like, these are all the questions, tackle them. So...

• 3:28Jonathan Cohen?

  We're very excited to have Neil here in person. Without further ado...

• 3:32Mayim Bialik?

  Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, welcome to The Breakdown.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Break it down. Well, thanks, thanks for having me. This is my first time on this, on this show.

• 3:40Mayim Bialik?

  I think so.

• 3:41Jonathan Cohen?

  We've been trying.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh.

• 3:43Mayim Bialik?

  We have wanted to, um, to speak to you for a very long time.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Because I've been around, you know, because you never called, you didn't write, you know? Because you've been on my podcast.

• 3:51Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so this is, yes. So, that was maybe 10 years ago.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 3:56Mayim Bialik?

  Which is a distant memory.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  And I was deeply honored, and I wanted to do right by it.

• 4:00Mayim Bialik?

  Tell us about your Big Bang Theory crossover. Was I there?

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Not the first time, but the second time. But you were not in any of the scenes that I was involved in.

• 4:13Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so my memory is used for Blossom scripts, Big Bang Theory scripts, and music, songs that you haven't heard in 40 years. I remember the lyrics, but I literally, I spent a night with my grandmother in a hotel in Florida, and I don't remember that. And I don't remember if we crossed paths on Big Bang Theory, but there you go.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  It can happen where you don't remember. Don't be upset by that. It's called age. So my first cameo was, I think it was season three, perhaps.

• 4:43Mayim Bialik?

  And I came in at the end of season three.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, this was, and I had a run-in with Sheldon on whether Pluto should be a planet. Because I was just pilloried by, you know, eight-year-olds, third graders

• 4:59Mayim Bialik?

  And me.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  who had just memorized.

• 5:01Mayim Bialik?

  My very educated mother just served us nine pieces of pie.

• 5:06Speaker 00

  Right. And so I have these, I have hate mail from elementary school children, like scrawled in crayon.

• 5:14Jonathan Cohen?

  That's the worst kind of hate.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  It's the worst kind of hate because it's so, it breaks your heart. And, you know, the, "Now I don't have a favorite planet because you took away my favorite. Here's a picture of it. Put it back into the..."

• 5:28Jonathan Cohen?

  I have no hopes and dreams anymore.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  So while I was implicated in the demotion of Pluto, I was really just an accessory. I mean, the data came in. And in New York City, we were the most visible exponent of the demotion of Pluto because we were opening a brand-new exhibit. And we just took Pluto, plucked it from the ranks of planets.

• 5:54Mayim Bialik?

  So rude.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  It had it coming. Plucked it from the ranks of planets and grouped it with the other dirty ice balls in the outer solar system.

• 6:03Mayim Bialik?

  So rude.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  Where it belongs.

• 6:04Jonathan Cohen?

  Dirty ice balls?

• 6:05Mayim Bialik?

  It's just the language that you use. It's insulting.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  It's accurate.

• 6:09Mayim Bialik?

  It's insulting.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  So, so that was-

• 6:10Mayim Bialik?

  For a man of your academic stature, to refer to Pluto as such.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  So, I just want to make it clear, I'm not an actor. So, even playing myself, I needed tips from, you know, the director and the... And so it was very helpful. You know, I would, I would later host Cosmos, which gave me a little more FaceTime to a camera and even script time. How to, how to read a script as though it's just coming out of you fresh.

• 6:37Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  That, you'd take that for granted, but oh my gosh, the, to do that.

• 6:41Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  And, so, they, they wanted, for Cosmos, you didn't ask this, but I'm going there.

• 6:46Mayim Bialik?

  So-

• 6:46Speaker 00

  They, they wanted to get me a voice coach. And I said, "Voice coach? I know how to speak. What do you mean voice?" You know, "Welcome to the uni-" What do you mean, "Voice coach"? These are people who teach you accents, you know, on the screen. I don't need a voice coach.

• 6:58Mayim Bialik?

  What did they want?

• 6:58Speaker 00

  Well, so, they brought in the voice coach and it was like, one of the most amazing moments I've ever had.

• 7:05Mayim Bialik?

  What did they do?

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Well-

• 7:06Mayim Bialik?

  Did you used to speak with an Irish accent?

• 7:10Speaker 00

  They made me what I am today. No, no, no. It was, it was how to read a script. And, and here, here was the transition moment for me. I walked through a portal, through a presidium. It was, "Here is the, a list of planets in order from the sun. Okay? Here it is on, on script."

• 7:33Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  Okay? Give it to me. And so I say, "Okay, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto." At the time. Okay, we're still kind of considering it. All right.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Now, how would you say that if you were not reading it? Okay? Even though it's still there?

• 7:53Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  And I, so here's how I would now do it. I would say, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Now, that's way more sort of off the top of your head.

• 8:05Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  And that bit completely transformed me in my ability to read scripts, again, something you would take for granted.

• 8:14Mayim Bialik?

  This is like-

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Because you did it professionally.

• 8:15Mayim Bialik?

  This episode is behind the Actors Studio with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Exactly! How to turn Neil into a slightly better cameo actor than he was.

• 8:24Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, you do have a very melodious voice. Like, you do have a very beautiful voice.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  I don't hear myself. You know, when I'm out, when I'm out in the, in the, in the world, and I wear a hat and, and the COVID mask helps greatly to tamp down the recognition factor.

• 8:38Mayim Bialik?

  There's no more COVID, or is that what you're here to tell us? It's back?

• 8:40Speaker 00

  No, but I do that and it tamps down the, the recognition factor in the street.

• 8:45Mayim Bialik?

  But your voice is-

• 8:45Speaker 00

  So then I speak and the people just turn around.

• 8:48Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  And then, so I have to like do that and not speak if I want to go totally incognito.

• 8:53Mayim Bialik?

  People often recognize me from my voice. I think if you have any unusual voice, that's not, you know, kind of the, the timber of most people.

• 9:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Now do the planets method style like they're all about to go in different directions and the universe is ending.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn!

• 9:16Speaker 00

  I need my motivation. Thank you.

• 9:17Jonathan Cohen?

  That coach really did work.

• 9:18Speaker 00

  So, wait, so the second time?

• 9:20Mayim Bialik?

  I was just gonna say, the second time.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  Was in the final season and-

• 9:23Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, everyone remembers that.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that's when you got your Nobel Prize.

• 9:27Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, right.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  What do you mean? Oh, oh, just an afterthought?

• 9:31Mayim Bialik?

  I-

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:32Mayim Bialik?

  I was not on drugs.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:34Mayim Bialik?

  I just don't hold memories like this.

• 9:36Speaker 00

  I remember it whether or not you do. Okay. So, I, so that explains why I'll come up to actors where they had some really impactful line that they uttered in a movie and I'll just recite it back to them.

• 9:49Mayim Bialik?

  And they-

• 9:49Speaker 00

  And they'll look at me like, "What? What are you gonna say?" And so, I had to come to realize

• 9:55Mayim Bialik?

  We say a lot of words.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  That when you perform, it's a performance in the moment and you keep moving on.

• 9:59Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  It doesn't sit with you that way it might sit with the people who you touched

• 10:03Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  with your handiwork.

• 10:05Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  And that one, it was a fun, a fun storyline where Raj was asked by the local news to comment on a comet that was coming through. There was some astronomical event.

• 10:17Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  And he thought he'd be cute and say, oh, was Neil deGrasse Tyson not available? Right? And, and the, the, the host of the, of this, the news, or the news anchor just ignored that and then continued with the question.

• 10:36Mayim Bialik?

  Got it.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  So that freaks him out and said, maybe I was not the first choice. And then he starts making fun of me professionally and socially. And then you have, uh, uh, um, who, who among you were watching this on television saying, Raj, pull up, pull up Raj. And so then I catch wind of this and then they, they script me in a conversation with him from my off, they rebuilt my office.

• 11:05Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  In, they took some fixtures on my office and remade everything. And so I'm there and I call him up and he's in a car and I say, Raj, this is Neil deGrasse Tyson. Oh, oh, oh, what about this Twitter, uh, uh, dust up that we're in?

• 11:20Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, yeah, oh, that's right.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Cause it happened over, over social media and, uh, I say, I'm, I'm gonna be at the, what's the bookstore in Pasadena? There's a bookstore there.

• 11:30Mayim Bialik?

  Uh-oh.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  No.

• 11:32Mayim Bialik?

  It used to be Frommans.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Frommans, Frommans, Frommans. I'm gonna be at Frommans, uh, come there and I'll, and I'll, tell me, tell that to my face.

• 11:38Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, right.

• 11:38Speaker 00

  And he says, oh, no, I'm busy. I can't make it. I'm sorry. So it was a very tense kind of thing, but, but the, the funnest script line, which was invented in the moment, not by me, I can't take credit for this, was, uh, I'm going through a list of people who I'm calling out for their conduct on, on social media. And then I, so we hang up and I said, that was satisfying. Now who else needs a deGrasse whooping?

• 12:10Mayim Bialik?

  DeGrasse Tyson.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  DeGrasse Tyson, and then I called Bill Nye, right? And so, so, so I said, Bill, this is Neil. We gotta talk. And then he quickly hangs up.

• 12:19Mayim Bialik?

  That's right.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  And that's my only, that was my only presence.

• 12:22Mayim Bialik?

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• 13:07Mayim Bialik?

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• 13:51Mayim Bialik?

  It's the best way to support our show. What was it like to kind of see the evolution of a TV show that was essentially about the kind of people who dig Neil deGrasse Tyson?

• 14:03Speaker 00

  I was delighted that my people.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Have representation in the acting world. And it was, I was, you know, how many cop dramas can you show? How many, you know, emergency room shows? How many of these is worth one geek show? Okay, and I think Chuck and Bill. Bill, Chuck, Glory, Bill.

• 14:33Mayim Bialik?

  Prady.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Prady. They saw that there was low hanging fruit. That probably would have been rejected in a dozen of other idea proposals to the gatekeepers of what gets aired and what doesn't. And say, here it is, there'll be scientists and no one will know what they're talking about. There'll be jokes and everyone will laugh. It's like, right. Okay, and I'm so glad that it wasn't just a mildly successful show. It was one of the most successful shows ever. And, you know, Gilligan's Island went three seasons. Shall I remind us of this? Okay, the original Star Trek went three seasons.

• 15:11Mayim Bialik?

  Wow.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  And if you look at some of the episodes in the third season, you're reminded why it only went three seasons. And you guys went eight, nine seasons.

• 15:19Mayim Bialik?

  No, we went 12.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  12, was it?

• 15:21Mayim Bialik?

  We would say we were like, we got graduation rings at the end.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:25Mayim Bialik?

  We were like 12th graders.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  12th graders. So just, congratulations, I haven't, you know, seen you since then.

• 15:30Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I mean, I was just happy to be along for the ride, but, you know, having you on and Stephen Hawking. I mean, we had some incredible people on.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  William Shatner as well.

• 15:40Mayim Bialik?

  William Shatner and.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Kareem Abdul Jabbar, my god.

• 15:43Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, we also, we had kind of like most of the Star Trek world, which was like a Bill Prady, you know, kind of thing.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  One last thing, if I may? Just because as I'm, as I'm, you know, fanboying on the show. The, that show took turns that for any other show might have been jumping the shark. Okay? You know, there is your main character interested in a woman who's out of his league. And there's a tension there.

• 16:14Mayim Bialik?

  You don't have to talk about him like that. I'm right here. Oh, you're talking about Penny. I get it.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  And so there's sexual tension there. There's awkwardness and that propels scripting.

• 16:25Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  You're gonna consummate that and have them get married?

• 16:29Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 00

  You don't do that in a sitcom.

• 16:32Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  And but they did.

• 16:34Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  You guys did it and everybody ended up married and it was so that I think was heroic. To get that to work in a sitcom and not have it pull you back.

• 16:46Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I mean, I remember when I joined, you know, people were very, very protective over the Sheldon character in particular and a lot of people felt like he shouldn't have a girlfriend, like it's gonna draw away, but I think the writers found a really nice way to tie it in, I hope.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  The chance of jumping the shark by doing that.

• 17:02Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  And you told me, you probably won't remember this, okay? You told me your instructions, how to act your role was to be a girl Sheldon.

• 17:11Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  Instead of a boy Sheldon.

• 17:12Mayim Bialik?

  Female Sheldon Cooper, that's right.

• 17:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, if you then that, then you become, then you're not interfering with him.

• 17:18Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 17:19Speaker 00

  You are supporting him in that way and that worked brilliantly.

• 17:22Mayim Bialik?

  Now I have to be a female Neil deGrasse Tyson today.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  Well, give me some of your voice.

• 17:27Mayim Bialik?

  Mars.

• 17:28Speaker 00

  Mars.

• 17:30Mayim Bialik?

  I would pronounce it Uranus also, because I am a third grader.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Uranus if you're third grade, yes, that's the.

• 17:35Jonathan Cohen?

  One question to wrap this segment, which is out of the scientists and colleagues that you have now, who do you want to call and give the business to?

• 17:47Mayim Bialik?

  Who needs a deGrasse weapon?

• 17:50Speaker 00

  No, I would not. I don't run around thinking that way. I'll do it for a scripted sitcom.

• 17:56Jonathan Cohen?

  You don't have to publicly share it, but there's gotta be a notebook.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  I'll tell you secretly now, but don't tell anybody.

• 18:03Mayim Bialik?

  Well, maybe we'll get to it in all of the questions that we have. So, in the time that we have with you, you know, obviously, you, you do this, you speak, you educate, you...

• 18:15Speaker 00

  I try to bring the universe down to earth.

• 18:17Mayim Bialik?

  Correct. You try to bring the universe down to earth. And what we wanted to do is, you know, we, we've talked a lot, especially in the last year or so, about sort of this intersection between science and spirituality. What are some of the things that are fantastical? What's the science behind them? So, we're just kind of gonna go through some topics and see what strikes your fancy.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Bring it on.

• 18:38Mayim Bialik?

  Sound good?

• 18:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Beautiful.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Bring it, bring it on.

• 18:40Mayim Bialik?

  And there's obviously, yes.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  I'm gonna preface that by saying, not 10, 15 years ago, I would enter a conversation about spirituality or religion in a kind of a distance discounted way. And then, I had to mature out of that. And, and what I mean by that is, I'm an educator. And people come to me with sincere, honest thoughts, questions, concerns, about their lives, how they were raised, what they care about, what they value. And I, I realized I owed them a more nuanced, more, more thoughtful reply than just, is there evidence for it? Just chuck it.

• 19:23Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  So, I then spent quite a bit of time, uh, reading, is literature the right word? No, reading tracts, religious tracts, all around the world.

• 19:34Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  You know, Hindu, uh, you know, I have a, a copy of the Torah at home, for example.

• 19:42Mayim Bialik?

  It's very popular.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  I have, I have every, I have, uh, every pamphlet that was left at my door by the Jehovah's Witnesses. They also do something slightly different, you know, and so I have a shelf of that. And so I just, I have Joseph Smith's account

• 19:56Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  for the Mormons.

• 19:57Mayim Bialik?

  Yep.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  And, so, that way, when someone comes to me, I have some sensitivity to, to their wiring.

• 20:06Mayim Bialik?

  We weren't gonna start here, but, but since you kind of opened the door to that, I, I'd love this as a sort of framework, because one of the things that I'm interested in is how much... Different traditions, and I include academic traditions in that. How much our function as humans on this planet is to try and figure out where we came from, why we're here, and where we're going? And to me, science is another religion of sorts, right? It's a, it's a set of beliefs, it's a set of theories, it's a set of ways to think and approach things. So many of the religious traditions are trying to figure out the answers to these things. Some have some scientific merit.

• 20:51Mayim Bialik?

  What is your general perspective, right, on trying to frame those three questions? Where did we come from? Why are we here? And where are we going?

• 21:00Speaker 00

  Before the methods and tools of science were available to us, the whole world was a mystery. You know, why is there a storm? Oh, Poseidon has risen up. There's a lightning bolt that struck, you know, even go back to the early 19th century even, when Ben Franklin is learning about lightning and how it operates and what attracts it, and he invents the lightning rod. And now you put that on your, on your building and it protects you from getting destroyed. But before then, churches would get hit by lightning bolts. Okay? And if it was your church and not my church, ah, there was. You, you're, you're, you preaching the wrong gospel there. But God let you know.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  And so, so divinity of all stripes, be it monotheistic or polytheistic, was the account that people conjured to explain that which they had no control over. Science rises up and one by one, these are put in the record books. Okay? No one is blaming Poseidon or, or who's the, the Roman version of that? Neptune. No one is blaming with the Triton. So, so that has been the trend. And that trend continues to this day. And so I have been quoted occasionally accurately as with the following statement.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  If to you... God is where science has yet to tread. Okay, cuz I would say, you know, we have all evidence points to the Big Bang. Someone would ask, well, what was around before the Big Bang? I said, I don't know. Got top people working. Something had to be there, was it God? Okay? The urge to put God or some divine power in a place where science has yet to tread is huge. It's when we've been at, people have been doing that for thousands of years. Literally. Yeah, yeah, okay? Newton did it, Ptolemy did it. I'll give you, let's go back to AD 150, Ptolemy. He pioneered the geocentric understanding of the world. Earth in the middle, everybody's going around Earth.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  You had to put planets on epicycles because planets occasionally go to the left and then they slow down, stop, and then they go to the right again. They invented a word for that. They called it retrograde. All right? So how do you explain all of that? You have these epicycles, so there you are. You know what he said? In the margin of his greatest work, where he lays all this out. He hand wrote. "I know that we are mortal by nature and ephemeral. But when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch Earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia."

• 23:58Speaker 00

  He's feeling it. Okay? No, that was obviously not the Judeo-Christian god. That was the Greek god. He was a Greek polymath. But that's him appealing to divine influence on something he doesn't really yet understand. And even Isaac Newton would do this. So, so this doesn't escape the most brilliant minds there ever was. And it continues basically to this day. But it manifests slightly differently today. Now people go around, so, so the philosophers call this the god of the gaps. Okay? And so my, my reply to that was, if to you, God is where science has yet to tread, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  And because that's an if statement, it's just sort of fundamentally true because it's an if statement. What people have done, especially the atheist community, which is trying hard to fully claim me, but I keep some distance.

• 25:01Mayim Bialik?

  They're very like religious fanatics sometimes.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  They'll try to grab anything I say. What they did was they left off the first part of that quote. And they have their T-shirts, they have, it's say, "God is an ever-receding pocket of science." Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yes, those words came out of my mouth, but it followed a, an if statement. That matters. I'm not just declaring what God is, no. I'm saying if God to you is this, then this has to follow. So, so I don't see science as equivalent to other attempts to understand the world because it does not appeal to a divinity, to, to any divine forces, whereas basically every other religion does.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  So that distinguishes it, I think, from the rest. Now, fast forward to modern times. You know, what happens? People go see the pyramids and, "How did they do it? I don't know. Aliens must have helped." Okay? So you just watch how often aliens show up in people's accounts. So I, I said, "Maybe we're entering an era of aliens of the gaps." But that doesn't have the, the alliteration. So I, so I invented a new phrase. Aliens of our ignorance. So you have people today who, there's something, we, lights in the sky, moving, "I don't know what it is, must be aliens." So aliens are, are supplanting the role that God had played in our ignorance in modern times. But science pushes on.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  And yes, there are theories, the word theory has been misused. I don't want to blame people because, but let me officially say what a theory is. Okay. You can't run around and say, "I have a theory that..." whatever. No, you have a hypothesis. Einstein had a theory. You have an hypothesis. If you have an idea that's not tested, it's a hypothesis. Once it's tested, and verified, and re-verified, and re-verified, and it organizes things that happen in the world in a coherent way, makes predictions that you can verify, that's a theory. There was a day when we called them laws, but we're a little more humble going forward.

• 27:11Mayim Bialik?

  Darwin's theory of evolution is one that people often point to.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  It's fine. We still call it that. People want to think, just because, and for understandable reasons, that when you use the word "theory," well, we're still just making stuff up and we don't know. I'm saying, quantum theory has never been shown to be experimentally wrong, but we still call it quantum theory. We call it Einstein's theory of relativity. We don't call it Einstein law of relativity. It's just a 20th century recognition that an idea that may be right, in every way tested, there might be tests on the edge of it that show where it fails. And that there might be a deeper understanding awaiting us. That's what's going on now. That's what happened between Isaac Newton and Einstein.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  Isaac Newton has the laws of motion, laws of gravity, and it, he's work, it's working. We went to the moon on Newton's laws.

• 28:06Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  And then we find out, wait a minute, if the gravity's really strong, or if you're moving really fast, Newton's laws don't work anymore. We're getting the wrong answer. What's going on? Einstein says, "I got the answer. It's relativity." And relativity gets you in those extreme places, and it gets the right answer. What happens if you put low speeds and low gravity into Einstein's equations? They become Newton's equations. So, it's not like we're Newton's out, Einstein's in. Newton is embedded within a deeper understanding. And so that's where theory carries us into the future.

• 28:43Mayim Bialik?

  I wonder, is there a place where science has gone too far in pushing out some of the mystical, some of the inexplicable? Have we gone too far?

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Am I biased when I say, "Science can never go too far"?

• 29:02Speaker 00

  It is conceived and constructed to give we feeble humans a deeper understanding of the world in which we live. So that we're not running away from mysterious. One of the titles of Carl Sagan's book was A Demon Haunted World, subtitled importantly, Science as a Candle in the Dark. Without the science, we're wandering in the dark, running away from ghosts. And can I tell you what I did with my kids? Uh, should I admit this? I don't know. When they were really little. Okay, so my wife has a PhD in mathematical physics. So we have two kids who are being raised with science literate parents.

• 29:43Mayim Bialik?

  Nerds.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Okay, nerds.

• 29:45Mayim Bialik?

  Sorry.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  And you know, uh, there's.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Do we live in a time where someone will accuse you of being a nerd? Say, nerd! And you know, you know what my reply is?

• 29:55Mayim Bialik?

  Hmm.

• 29:55Speaker 00

  Thanks for the compliment.

• 29:56Mayim Bialik?

  Yep.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  That's all I'd say. So I wanted to, I didn't want them to be afraid of ghosts. Okay, cuz I'm not yet convinced that ghosts are real or have ever been real. So they were really young and so I said, uh, I'm gonna put you in this closet, this dark closet and close the door. Okay? And then, then I'm gonna get a monster to try to break into the closet. So of course it's me and they know.

• 30:26Mayim Bialik?

  Parenting by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  So I close the closet and I go,

• 30:34Speaker 00

  and they start laughing and laughing and laughing. And so they've never been afraid of turning a corner of the dark or of a haunted house. It takes some of the fun out of haunted houses because you're just not buying it, you know?

• 30:49Mayim Bialik?

  I'm scared of everything cuz my parents got into the closet with me. They're like, what if our monster took out?

• 30:53Speaker 00

  And the monster was still there. So let me get, let me give the other half of that. Yes, there are mysteries today that people enjoy, or it gives them a sense of, what do we say, a sense of not knowing everything. And that's kind of important to some people. They don't want science to know everything. What they don't know is, at any given moment, there is no end of science mysteries that are still there. Not still there, it's the next round of science mysteries. It's not, are there ghosts in the closet? No. Is it, what is dark matter? What is dark energy?

• 31:33Speaker 00

  How did we go from organic molecules to self-replicating life? Earth seemed to have no trouble doing that. We still don't know how to do that in the lab. We have top people working on it. What was around before the Big Bang? Is there a multiverse? Will we ever make a wormhole? These are mysteries. And they're less grand mysteries that still exist in all the sciences. So, so my issue here is, yeah, I'm getting rid of some of the, some of the magisterial mysteries that you grew up with, but I'm replacing them with others because science has tread there and has come up with answers where we're moved on to the next question.

• 32:14Jonathan Cohen?

  We are all fascinated with the edges that science is exploring and are along for that ride.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  And the edges are always there. And here's my favorite comment on that. As the area of our knowledge grows, so too does the perimeter of our ignorance.

• 32:29Mayim Bialik?

  Say it again.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  As the area of our knowledge grows, so too does the perimeter of our ignorance. Because that's the boundary between what we know and don't know. So for me, science is like a forever thing.

• 32:47Jonathan Cohen?

  I love this. And if I give voice to some of the people who have said, wait a second, science is sometimes so dogmatic and so assured of what they know that they have missed the mark. For example, when medical doctors said,

• 33:03Jonathan Cohen?

  The mind and body are totally separate and the mind never impacts the body. And now we're showing more and more that those two things are far from the truth and actually have led medicine quite astray. Then they're trying to plead to the scientists to sort of stay open and curious and, you know, challenge continually what we know and push those edges.

• 33:25Mayim Bialik?

  For example, you know, people like Gabor Maté, right, have introduced this notion that we used to think we know why autoimmunity happens. We know why cancer happens, right? We know why diabetes happens.

• 33:39Jonathan Cohen?

  And we know a good chunk of the story.

• 33:42Mayim Bialik?

  But the interplay between, let's say, stress, the environment, right, and our physiology reveals that there is a much more elaborate combination of things that make up what, as scientists, we try and understand. But there are many elements that are harder to put our finger on, correct?

• 34:01Speaker 00

  So, a couple of things. First, and I've said this on social media, just to put it out there. Physics and astrophysics and understanding the universe is way easier than understanding the human mind, body, and soul. Okay? So, let me just make that clear. The human mind and its interplay with itself and your body, oh my gosh. It's part of the reason why neuroscience as a field is so young relative to physics and astronomy. You know, they say astronomy is the second oldest profession.

• 34:43Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  So, we've had the benefit of millennia of brilliant thinkers contributing to physics, astronomy, engineering. You know, the pyramids were built, you know, 5,000 years ago. So, our advances in human... Part of what resisted that was the sanctity of the human body. You don't just cut open the body just to explore, especially not... The human mind, and correct me if I'm wrong, because you are, this is your business. A lot of what we learned about the functioning of the brain came from brain injuries to people. And what was, what was left over after this part of the brain got damaged. So this is not the brain in a Petri dish.

• 35:31Speaker 00

  This is waiting around for a brain injury to see what you will learn on the next emergency room visit. So I just want to make that point clear. Second, um, there is no end of examples you can give, such as the one just presented, where there's a prevailing truth, let's call it, that would later be shown to be false. I will say without hesitation that if you go back to that time and look at the research going on, I guarantee you, whatever was the thing that was ultimately shown to be wrong was not experimentally verified.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  It was, I think this is true, it's probably true, I did a few things on my own. What do you think? Yeah, it makes sense, let's declare it. And so it's the experimental verification that makes it true. And it's very hard to experiment on the human body for the reasons I stated. So that's why all, and especially the human mind. That's why your best examples of this are going to come from the field of medicine. Okay, where doctors are in denial that, let me operate on this cadaver, or let me deliver your baby. And did you wash your hands? No, why do I have to wash my hands? The doctor's hands, okay? There's no research supporting that.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  And so, so, so it's kind of a caricature of science to say, oh, and by the way, there's, well, Earth was flat, and then it's not flat, so, excuse me.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  Earth being flat, that knowledge and expectation predated the existence of telescopes. Okay? And it predated the tradition of science to test your idea. It was, yeah, it kinda looks flat, it's probably flat. Oh, it looks like, and plus the Bible doesn't deny this. We're in the center of the, everything goes around us. We, our vocabulary still preserves a geocentric universe. Well, I don't say to you, uh, uh, Mayim, uh, I don't ask you, oh, what time tomorrow does Earth rotate such that our sightline to the sun appears over the horizon? No, we say, what time is the sunrise?

• 37:53Mayim Bialik?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:54Speaker 00

  That's a geocentric vocabulary word. So, so it's what the world looks like. What science tells us is the world isn't always what it looks like. And it isn't always what it seems. And so that's my reply to you. But just to give a shout out to the medical community.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  You know what our life expectancy was in cavemen? Okay? Half of everyone born-

• 38:19Mayim Bialik?

  Wasn't suffering from menopause.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  That's another way to say it. Uh, everyone was fertile, their whole life.

• 38:27Mayim Bialik?

  We, we did our best work before 20.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  So, so, uh, half of everyone born was dead by the age of 30. Half. Okay? Cavemen, so that's 10,000, 20,000 years ago. Fast forward to 1850, 1840. Half of, in the world, was dead before they turned 35.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  And everyone in that time was eating organic.

• 38:57Speaker 00

  And the water ran pure-

• 38:58Mayim Bialik?

  That's not fair.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  The game went- It's true!

• 39:00Mayim Bialik?

  That's not fair.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  But what, all that is true does not have to be fair. Okay? They all ate organic. And so what happens in the late 1800s-

• 39:09Mayim Bialik?

  They also didn't know to wash their hands before a doctor put his hands inside your body.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  At the second half of the 19th century, germ theory is, it is matures. We have Pasteur, who develops this. We bring the microscope to our bio, to our physiological needs. And between 1840 and today-

• 39:29Speaker 00

  We have doubled your life expectancy. So with all of your comments, well, the mind actually is affecting the body and the doctors were clueless. They had their head up their ass. Whatever else was happening, that increase in life expectancy is not because of how people are eating. It's because of medicine. It is because of science. And, uh, and I, my path into this description came from a New Yorker comic. Okay. Uh, by the art, the artist Gregory. I don't know if it's first or last name, but it says Gregory signs it. There's two, there are two cavemen sitting across from the, uh, uh, fire. And one says to another, you know, they, they say this, they say our, our water runs pure, our game is free game.

• 40:13Speaker 00

  And everyone is eating healthy, uh, eating organic, but no one lives past 30. And so, so, so science matters here. And it's, it is so fundamentally infused in our lives. It is so easy to take it for granted. That's my reply. Oh, one other thing.

• 40:32Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  I know it's kind of related, you didn't say it, but I'm going to bring it up. There are people who say, science will never understand love. For example, that's if, if not love, then something else. Put, put, put in your favorite thing there. Someone to, then I go, I say to such a person, is that because you don't want science to ever understand love? And I realize they want science to have boundaries. And as a scientist, I don't see that as a real thing. And I can imagine an experiment where science then fully understands love. I, I can make one up.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  Uh, for example, we, we find out that you, you look at a painting and you feel great affection for it. Not sexual love, but really you, you, you love the painting.

• 41:23Mayim Bialik?

  It's none of your business what I feel when I look at a painting.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  In English, we don't distinguish between just loving something because you like it a lot

• 41:31Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  And sensual, romantic love. But, so, you look at a painting, and then you look at the same painting, and you feel the same way. And we do some brain scans, and the same part of the brain is being activated in both of you. And we do this experiment, a hundred people, or if it's not the same painting, just something that they have affection for, okay? We found the love center of the brain. Okay, so now, let's go into your brain, and there's something that you don't care, or you don't have any feelings about, and I tickle it while you're looking at it. And then you talk about it, say, "I love this, I never realized it before." And you do this automatically after I tickle the brain. Once we know the brain center and how we can control it, that's science understanding love. Now we move on to the next question.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  That's an example, whether that'll ever happen, I don't know.

• 42:18Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, and I think-

• 42:19Speaker 00

  It's a completely plausible experiment.

• 42:21Mayim Bialik?

  And I think also, I mean, love, it's a good example. I think that there's, there are absolutely certain components that we can understand. The sort of symphony that creates attraction and connection, right? Is a combination of a variety of systems, right?

• 42:36Speaker 00

  Then it's more than one part of the brain, perhaps.

• 42:38Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you, we appreciate it. It's very generous of you, as an astrophysicist.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  No, no, I simplified the case, like, consider a spherical cow.

• 42:46Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  I simplified it to a plausible experiment-

• 42:50Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  Perhaps not yet conducted-

• 42:51Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  That would answer for me what science would have to say about love.

• 42:56Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  By the way, I'm just delighted to be in your company.

• 42:58Mayim Bialik?

  Well, we are delighted to have you here.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  No, really, really.

• 43:00Mayim Bialik?

  We're having a great time.

• 43:01Speaker 00

  Because you're just, you just, thank you for having me.

• 43:04Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  I'm delighted to be in your company too, but a little less so than-

• 43:08Jonathan Cohen?

  I get that all the time.

• 43:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 43:10Mayim Bialik?

  Let's, let's talk about, let's talk about simulation theory.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Oh, sure.

• 43:15Mayim Bialik?

  Um, I, I knew of the phrase, but it was not until we had Rizwan Burke on to talk about simulation theory that I really understood what we're talking about. Meaning, I had heard people say, like, "We're living in a simulation," and I was kinda like, "I don't want to talk to you." But, once I read the book, I understood the structure of what this conversation is. So-

• 43:41Mayim Bialik?

  I know you're asked a lot of things that don't matter. And I don't know where simulation theory falls.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  No, as an educator, I care about what makes people curious.

• 43:49Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  And simulation theories at the top 10 in the list.

• 43:52Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, great.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  God, aliens, simulation theory, in that order.

• 43:55Mayim Bialik?

  Those are literally our bedtime stories.

• 43:57Jonathan Cohen?

  Black holes in the multiverse.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  They come later than god, aliens, and simulation theory.

• 44:03Mayim Bialik?

  Let's dive into simulation theory.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Bring it on.

• 44:06Mayim Bialik?

  I'm curious when you first kind of became aware of this notion of simulation theory. And I'm curious what your take on it is. Does it seem to fit? What doesn't fit? What works for you about it?

• 44:17Speaker 00

  It's hard to argue against it. So, we don't like it. Nobody likes realizing you're in a simulation. But when I go through the arguments, it's hard to argue. I can give you my best argument against it.

• 44:36Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I want your best support for it.

• 44:38Speaker 00

  Oh, sure, sure, sure. No, so-

• 44:40Mayim Bialik?

  And then I want your best-

• 44:41Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm not claiming that I'm in a camp that is cheering on. I'm just, as someone who thinks about this, I will share with you those thoughts. We have ever-growing computing power available to us. And we create worlds on our computer for our own amusement. And let's take something simply like Mario, okay? Look at some primitive version of the Mario game. And there's Mario walking around and he picks up coins, I think, and he jumps. And you can ask the question, is, does Mario have free will?

• 45:18Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  Is Mario self-aware?

• 45:20Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  When you look at the code that makes Mario, it's pretty clear that Mario doesn't. Mario's just following lines of instructions. All right. Well, that's limited by our computing power. We can put more and more nuance into that character as computing power continues to grow. And imagine a future of quantum computing where it's thousands, millions, even billions of times more computing-

• 45:47Speaker 00

  Call it phenomena, computing.

• 45:49Mayim Bialik?

  Sophistication.

• 45:50Speaker 00

  Features, yeah, sophistications that can be put into the simulation. And.

• 45:55Mayim Bialik?

  Like, can you insert free will into that?

• 45:57Speaker 00

  So you can put so many options.

• 46:00Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 00

  That the question about whether your choice is free will doesn't even matter anymore. Because the, the number of options you had available to you essentially mimic having free will.

• 46:14Mayim Bialik?

  This is The Matrix.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  Okay, except in The Matrix, you're living in your own mind and your body still exists.

• 46:21Mayim Bialik?

  But does he knock something over, right? Because.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  Oh, you mean at the beginning, when he's with the, with the oracle?

• 46:27Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, with the oracle.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, how would he have known if that, if it was the case? So that, that depends on whether your timeline is already understood.

• 46:34Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  And you just access your timeline. But can you go back in time before it? Right, all right. So now imagine a future where we create a world where Mario believes Mario has free will. Because the options available to Mario at any node, do I go through the door up, down? Do I just stay here? Do I bake a cake? Do I order pizza? You know, do I take an Uber? It's, it's, it's, it's large enough to be indistinguishable from the.

• 47:02Mayim Bialik?

  It's approaching infinity.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  And the limit, as the end goes to infinity, your choices mimic free will. Now let's make eight billion people and create a world. I'm old enough to remember the video game SimCity. I'm a city kid, so you are mayor of the city. And they can vote you out of office if you don't make them happy in their opinion polls. And you gotta move money, there's only a limit. Do you raise taxes? That way you can improve the schools, but the people won't vote for you if you raise taxes. This is an entire dynamic. And you, you get into it and you say, oh, my gosh, I am mayor and I am doing this.

• 47:42Mayim Bialik?

  I do matter.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  And one feature that I thought was a little contrived, but later on I said, no, it was real. Every now and then Godzilla walks through your city. And I said, this is stupid. And then I said, no, this is real.

• 47:56Mayim Bialik?

  It's Donald Trump.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  And so ask me, why is that real, Neil?

• 48:02Mayim Bialik?

  Why is it real?

• 48:03Speaker 00

  Because.

• 48:05Speaker 00

  There was September 11th.

• 48:07Jonathan Cohen?

  Hmm.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  No, it's not literally Godzilla, but it's something nobody ordered.

• 48:11Jonathan Cohen?

  It's a black squan event.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  Okay, it's something happens that wreaks havoc on your city and now you have to solve what just happened. And so, so I take that to, that was now 20 years ago when I was playing this game today. Uh, imagine there are 8 billion people in a world that they think is a real world and they're all just have, and then they evolve because they programmed in evolution, uh, not only, uh, not only biological evolution, but cultural evolution and scientific and they invent computers. They invent computers in that world and they get bored and they want to create a game. And so they advance to quantum computing and they create. Now you have a fractal. And so there it goes and it's then simulations all the way down.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  And now, close your eyes, throw a dart. Which universe are you in? The first one that programmed the next one, which is real, or the countless others. And you're going to land in the countless others. So, so I don't have a good argument against that. I have an argument that softens it, but I don't have a good argument that will remove that from the table. Can I give you my softening argument? Sure. Okay.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  We do not yet have the computing power to create that world. Sure. So, we can't be any of the ones that have already created another world. That takes out the entire middle of this cascade. Meaning we are either the first real universe that hasn't gotten there yet, or we're the last universe.

• 49:49Jonathan Cohen?

  Right.

• 49:50Speaker 00

  That's simulated that has yet to evolve to that state.

• 49:53Jonathan Cohen?

  If you have to pick one, which are you?

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Well, now that's 50/50. I, I want to be real, you know, like, like Pinocchio. I want to be.

• 50:07Mayim Bialik?

  We're gonna hit pause on our conversation with Neil deGrasse Tyson. There is so much more coming in part two of our conversation with him. We're gonna talk about non-human intelligence. We're gonna talk about near-death experiences, psychedelics, meditation, also the multiverse and the nonlinear nature of time.

• 50:25Jonathan Cohen?

  We also touch on the Akashic records and mysteries that he wants more information about: dark matter, dark energy, what happened before the Big Bang, and are humans smart enough to figure out more about the universe?

• 50:41Mayim Bialik?

  Make sure to check us out on Substack. We've got awesome content there that is not available anywhere else. Please come and join the Breaker community. It's a growing community of people interested in the intersection of science and spirituality. Join us over at biolikbreakdown.substack.com. And we will see you next time with part two of our conversation of Neil deGrasse Tyson, from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.