Fighting, Philosophy, and the Primal Mind, with Joe Rogan

Neil deGrasse Tyson gets inside the cage with Joe Rogan to explore the physics of fighting, mental and physical health, and the mysteries of the universe. Featuring comic co-host Sasheer Zamata, author and scholar Jonathan Gottschall, comedian Chuck Nice, and sport psychologist Dr. Leah Lagos. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/fighting-philosophy-and-the-primal-mind-with-joe-rogan/ Photo Credit: Brandon Royal

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the hall of the universe. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And tonight we're featuring my interview with comedian and mixed martial artist commentator, Joe Rogan. We're going to explore the science of fighting and the primal mind. So let's do this.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got my comedian co-host, Sasheer Zamedis. Sasheer, welcome back.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're like old timer on the show now.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  I know, I'm a vet.

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh my gosh, thank you. And welcome, you're tweeting at thesheertruth.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Great Twitter handle right there. And also joining us is professor and author Jonathan Gottschall. Jonathan, welcome. Hi, brother. Welcome back to the show. I'm a veteran too. And your latest book, Professor, I love this. Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch. Joe Rogan blurbed your book. That's right. So he says here, "A fascinating story, a great fucking book."

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Joe Rogan, UFC and common hate. I thought he had more vocabulary available to him. That's one of his favorite words.

• 1:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we'll be tapping your perspective and expertise tonight as we explore my interview. And I've been on his podcast a few times. And what intrigues me is, given all the rest of what he is in his profile, he has a deep curiosity about the universe. So I asked Joe if any science teachers early on in his life may have helped kindle his cosmic curiosity. Let's check it out.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  I had one science teacher when I was in seventh grade that probably changed my life.

• 2:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, one science teacher.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the better.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  For the better, yes, yeah, we have to say that.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The vector correct here, alright.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, he talked about the nature of the size of the universe. And I remember one class where he said, "If you want your brain to hurt, just think about something that has no end. Think about the idea that you cannot see the end of space. You look above, look up into the sky, this goes on forever. And you think you can rationalize or you can conceptualize forever, but just think about that." And I remember thinking about that so much after that, I would think about it years later.

• 2:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Years?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Years later, because he was an intense guy.

• 2:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because everything we do, we're in a room, it's this big, that tall, that wide.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a map, I'm driving to San Diego, that's a distance, everything. So much of our lives is contained by a measurement.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, and he, in my small little mind at the time, he planted a seed. And that that seed was this this concept that we take so often for granted, the idea that above you is forever. And that that notion, it's above and below, it's everywhere. And we're in this, I don't have to tell you. But this this concept is, it's it's so hard for us to wrap our minds around, yet so ever-present, and we ignore it. We ignore it, and it's become a big part of my act, I've had several bits.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, is it that we that we ignore it, or we don't even know to recognize it?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Maybe it's so overwhelming that we choose to somehow or another, put it in the back of our mind. People concentrate on weird things about life. And there's so many weird things about life. But the weirdest thing by far is that we're in space, and it's almost never discussed. You go throughout your day.

• 4:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're just floating, there's nothing around the earth.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Above us is a thin layer of gas that protects us from rocks. They periodically slam into the planet and kill everything.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know how thin that layer is? It is to earth what the skin of an apple is to the apple.

• 4:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to, just to put punctuation on your usage of the word thin. Continue.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  I say, there's a fireball floating in the sky. It's a million times bigger than earth. If you stared at it, you'll go blind. It's trying to give you cancer and if it's not there, you get sad. Like, we're in a dream.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jonathan, you teach storytelling as a science. And what do you think of his seventh grade teacher telling him this story? About our place in the universe. Why, why do you think it resonated? Was it because it was a story? In a story form or because just the facts were so mind blowing?

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Uh, my feeling about that is that, you know, hopefully we've all had an experience of like this where, where a teacher has sort of cracked us open like that, right? Sort of suddenly, almost violently to the whole wonder and magic of a subject area. That seems like what happened to Joe there. You know, he had this experience where he saw that science is kind of magical, kind of stirs the soul, right? Sort of like great art does or like a great, you know, poem does. Uh, fills you with that sense of wonder and it fills you with a sense of odd humility about your place, you know, in the universe.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a good poem or a good other source of art, you can think about it years later, just as he thought about the universe.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Right, it sticks with you.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Years later. Well, in his teens, uh, he was national taekwondo champion.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he then transitioned to a career as a stand-up comedian, which continues to this day. And then he hosted, of all things, the, the TV reality show Fear Factor.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what was it? It was on NBC, I think. That's where you stick your head inside of worms and stuff. It was like. Ooh.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  You eat horse penises too.

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a thing?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you remembered that?

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, you remember that.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  If you see something like that, you don't forget.

• 6:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't forget that. Um, and now he's host of one of the top ten podcasts in the world called The Joe Rogan Experience. And he discusses his experience in MMA fighting, philosophy, overall physical and mental wellness. And I asked him what stirred him, what motivated him to be so intense in such a diversity of topics? So let's check it out.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  I think it really started out with martial arts, like martial arts is what really started me thinking. It's really, really got me into psychology because I was very concerned with why I was so nervous and is there a way to combat that? Is there a way to calm myself down before fights?

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is this middle school, high school?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Yes, this was high school. Yeah, I started fighting when I was fifteen. And I did that pretty much every day of my life until I was twenty-one, twenty-two. And then I started doing stand-up comedy at twenty-one. And I realized at twenty, I realized I couldn't do both things. And I realized I didn't really want to fight anymore. So very concerned about brain damage. I was very concerned about, I, I knew a bunch of people, especially with kickboxing, a bunch of people that were starting to show the effects, slurring words and just absent mind. It's very scary, very scary stuff. It's a ride, you have to know when to get off. And you have to be really cautious about it.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  And, uh, so, but martial arts being such a dangerous thing and an exciting thing in, um, in, in so many different ways, psychologically, physically demanding, um, it, it demands so much of your discipline. It's so much of a, a management issue, like managing the way my brain worked. I think that's really where I got mo-most of my curiosity from.

• 8:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it was discipline and structure.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Yes. And some philosophy, like uh the Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi, I used to read a lot of ancient samurai work because they dealt with the most stressful thing possible, a one-on-one swordfight with a person. So I felt like his philosophy in particular was uh very relevant.

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one-on-one swordfight, it's eye contact.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's pretty intense.

• 8:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not, you're not behind a ridge line, shooting a bullet three hundred yards.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and Musashi killed, I think it was like sixty men in combat and one-on-one combat with swords. Sometimes he got bored, he didn't use a sword anymore, he used an oar from a boat. Yeah, he was a maniac.

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these are your heroes?

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Musashi, how, how many people are your heroes killed?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Well, what killed me was your face after he mentioned his heroes killing people.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, that's just weird.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Can we see that picture? You're like, what?

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who am I, who am I interviewing here?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jonathan, you actually joined a cage fighting gym. So, let me ask you, is this from what you've experienced in the culture, looking from the outside and the inside? Is, is fighting like a guy thing? Is it primal? Is it evolutionary?

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Uh, yes, to all, I think, yes to all. Uh, women do fight. Um, they're, they're a distinct minority though, it's still an overwhelmingly male thing. It's a male thing when it comes to, when it comes to sports fighting, it's a male thing when it comes to fist fighting in a bar. It's a male thing when it comes to murdering somebody, it's a male thing when it comes to genocidal warfare.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So what's this I've heard about the, the, the riddle of the duel, what is that?

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Uh, the duel, the riddle of the duel is my, my question about, you know.

• 10:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's in your book.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a, the, the question we have, when you read about somebody like Alexander Hamilton, one of the smartest Americans who ever was, who got himself killed in a really stupid duel over nothing. The riddle of the duel is, why would these really smart guys get themselves killed over nothing? Um, and uh, the answer is, they weren't really fighting over nothing. They were fighting over something really important. They were fighting over honor, uh, we call it respect. And back then, this really had a lot of social currency. Uh, honor was precious coin, bought the best stuff in life.

• 10:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this thing where the man is this symbol of strength and con- and conquest, that that's a little creepy to me that we stuck with this evolutionary baggage. And Joe Rogan, his heroes are combinations of philosophers and samurai warriors. And he's got some strong feelings about the way the public idolizes celebrities instead of other roles that people have in society. Let's check it out.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  It's a hijacking of our human reward system.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's why we treat actors as if they're anything other than just entertainers.

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  I mean, they're just entertaining. It's fun. You go to the movies, it's great. You know, the guy's piloting a starship, he's shooting at the bad guys, yay! But all it is is entertaining, but they get duped by it themselves and they start talking like as if their opinion is like something of like extreme significance because of who they are, because of their stature that they've achieved by pretending to be somebody. It's very strange, really. I mean, there's very few positions in life that are less relevant in terms of like the real world than someone who's completely faking being someone.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Like, you're not doing anything heroic, you're faking it. Uh, you're, everyone knows, you're wearing makeup, there's a green screen behind you, it's all bullshit. And yet, people are treating it like it is one of the most important things they've ever seen. Everyone wears suits and ties with little bow ties and they go to this award show to see who is the best at bullshitting. Who pretended the most effectively? You had me convinced you were Abraham Lincoln, sir! That was amazing! And that's all it is. I mean, it's very, very strange that that is treated as such an important part of our

• 12:54Speaker 02

  culture, whereas teachers are treated so insignificantly and so flippantly dismissed, and the wages they get in comparison, if you look at actors.

• 13:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fact of a thousand, yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  It's crazy. The impact that a teacher could have on your life, that should be one of the most valued and cherished positions in our culture.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jonathan, would you agree that there's some hijacking of this primal reward system?

• 13:28Speaker 02

  I would.

• 13:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then if you're big up on a screen, you are the person who brought home the food, but really you're not, but...

• 13:34Speaker 02

  I would, I would strongly disagree.

• 13:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that, I think the reward system is responding appropriately the way it was designed to be.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we want to value our teachers.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Highly, but we don't. So, is that disconnect purely that teachers are not as good as storytellers as Hollywood?

• 13:53Speaker 02

  There is something catastrophic and something very sad about the way that society undervalues these teachers.

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Shisei, what, what do you think we could do to give, like, teacher roles more value?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  I think we could, uh, give them awards.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Awards?

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Everyone pays attention to award shows.

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, we do.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  And I just created one.

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got one?

• 14:15Speaker 01

  It's called the Teachees, and I have little trophies that we can give, so I want...

• 14:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, there's apples on top?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Isn't that cute?

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's cute.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  I made them.

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you were lying. No, that is really cute.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  So, I want each of us to talk about the teacher we would give a teachee to.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Do you have an idea?

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd probably give it to an English teacher I had in college named David Pollard, who made me want to be, not only an English teacher, but an intellectual.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  I wanted to be a scholar when I grew up after seeing him in class.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's beautiful.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's beautiful.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  I would give my teachee to Professor Teresa Davis, because she always had candy in her office, and that was great, but also...

• 14:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She had candy in her office?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, for like herself, but also for the students. But also, she like, really pushed me as a performer and made me really want to actually pursue this as a career.

• 15:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  And then, you can give yours.

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't have a single teacher in my life. It was an amalgam. Multiple teachers, bits and pieces, some here, some there. And some, and they weren't really teachers. They were people I met in life. Educators, for sure, scientists, but they, I was not accountable to them the way a student is accountable to a teacher. So, but nonetheless, they had expertise I valued and respected. And I'm not done.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I would make my role models à la carte. And I'd staple them together and there's a combination of the... And so that's how... Hey, thank you.

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back. StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City. Featuring my interview with Taekwondo champion and UFC commentator, Joe Rogan. And I asked Joe about the philosophy of the different teaching forms of martial arts. Let's check it out.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  When you're teaching people martial arts, if you establish that sort of relationship between the master and the student, people believe all kinds of nonsense. And so, there's a lot of people out there teaching and demonstrating nonsense, like death touches and stunning people with sandals, having them fall over.

• 17:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's like three feet behind them.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they believe it.

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Falls back from the spirit energy that got sent in their way.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  That's the most extreme example of it. But Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has bypassed that. And Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is... Way more open-minded. And, and if you came in and you were a white belt, but you had an idea, and you said, "Okay, why don't I just try it this way?" To the instructor, they would go, "Let me see. Try that out. Let me see it. Do it." And, okay, try, and then the person you're doing it to, can you resist? And then they would look at it. They'd look at it as a science.

• 17:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's an impossible exchange.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  Yes. In Taekwondo, it would be impossible. You would never do that. You would never say, "Why don't I do it this way?"

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's test it.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, they know how to do it. They're gonna show you how to do it. You need to learn the techniques properly, and you need to listen. And then you say, "Yes, sir," and that's it. That's the end of it. In Jiu-Jitsu, they're gonna teach you the technique, but if you have some... You never know. You know, I mean, Jiu-Jitsu is such a broad language. And I talk about it as a language, because I think what martial arts really are is a way people exchange, and, and very much like a conversation. And someone who has a larger vocabulary, who understands what they're saying more, and who, uh, has a, a broader grasp of the concept as a whole, will do better in a conversation than someone who has a limited grasp of the language,

• 18:27Speaker 02

  only knows a few words. So it's very similar. And Jiu-Jitsu is a much, much broader conversation than any of the other martial arts. Much more science-based, like, what, what is effective, what is not? When it's not effective, chuck it aside. Don't keep trying the death touch. It doesn't work.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Okay, Neil, if there's no such thing as the death touch...

• 18:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No such thing as the death touch.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Explain this.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  It's pretty good, isn't it?

• 19:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what happened after the interview.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We did our death touch.

• 19:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jonathan, do you agree when he said jiu-jitsu is the most sort of scientific form of martial arts? In the sense that it can respond to experimental?

• 19:23Speaker 03

  I do, I absolutely do. And I think I would extend it to the MMA gym in general, and I think Joe would too. An MMA gym really is a sort of a science lab devoted to the con-

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  MMA gym?

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Yeah. To the constant testing, the constant refinement of these martial arts hypotheses. And it works because it's a combat science, whereas, as Joe was suggesting, traditional forms of the martial arts are closer to combat religions. They have all these sort of dogmatic articles of faith that they abide by.

• 19:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa. So if you just walk in there as a novice, people know not to kill you?

• 20:01Speaker 03

  They know not to kill you, absolutely.

• 20:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a good thing.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  There's no glory in killing the new guy, or the big guy in killing the little guy. It's actually a fairly civilized environment, and the rules are pretty clear. There's rules and codes of behavior.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  So if I walked in as a novice, people would be like, "Oh, let's take it easy on her, because she doesn't know anything yet."

• 20:19Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  And then I would trick you, because I know everything, and I would take you all down.

• 20:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so in comedy, what have you, walk in as a novice? Like, Monday night, open mic, whatever, right?

• 20:30Speaker 01

  I mean, you kind of have to. There's no way to- Yeah, if you can't approach the stage already an expert, like, people could get scared and be like, "Oh, I need to write this perfectly before I even get on stage." But you don't know if it's good or not until you get on stage and actually put it in front of an audience. So you kind of do need to, like, fall in headfirst.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's battle-tested.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when I think of fighting, it's all about physics, and force, and leverage, and mechanical advantage. And so I asked Joe Rogan how much he thinks about physics during the fight, while he's fighting. Just check it out.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  In the fight, you're not thinking much about anything. In the fight, you have to be as zen as possible. Yeah, but in training, it's very, very important. It's all about physics. It's all about how you, the right way to get leverage into a technique. If you do a technique from this position, is it less effective than you do it from this position and why? Oh, your weight is lower. You're pushing off the back leg in this position, you get that extra thrust off the back leg. You're turning your hip into it, accentuates the power.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I bet many are not thinking about it in terms of physics. They're just thinking, I guess this works better, let me do it this way. So they have to do more experimenting to find the sweet spot. But if you're thinking physics, you could bypass some of that testing because you know what the fulcrum is and the weight, especially the center of mass, all of this. So I'm just curious if more MMA people should be taking physics classes.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  I think anything where you would be more aware of how to generate power or how to avoid, avoid the impact of something, that's also a big factor. I think that would most certainly help. But I think in terms of, especially with jiu-jitsu, jiu-jitsu is filled with nerds. Like if you go to a jiu-jitsu class, yeah, you would think it's going to be a bunch of thugs and big neck guys. No, it's mostly nerd assassins. Yeah, well, they have pretty thick necks because they're, you know, you're constantly using your neck as a muscle and you have to strengthen it. But they're mostly nerd assassins.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  The best guys are very, very intelligent.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Nerd assassin.

• 22:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nerd assassin, that's quite a, that's a phrase right there.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  It sounds like a great movie I would go watch.

• 23:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Jonathan, let's explore some of the physics of fighting, okay? You call the fist a messenger.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's very literary of you. So what do you mean when you think of that?

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Well, that came from my cage fighting professor, Professor Mark Schrader. That was actually his face. He called the fist a messenger. And the idea is that the body is generating a tremendous amount of force as you step into the punch, as you turn your hips, as you twist your shoulders. And if you're a big, strong fellow, as a lot of these guys in the gym are, a lot of energy, a huge amount of energy is being delivered and focused into the knuckles of that hand.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because they have a body behind the punch.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Body and all that motion behind that hand.

• 23:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's not only the body, but generally in most sports, speed matters. So if you can throw a fast punch, I mean, the physics of it that I would think of is the higher kinetic energy.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you want to impart kinetic energy from your fist into the target. It could be your ribs or your face or whatever else, right? So that tells me that you can't, you know, you have to ask, where is your fist moving its fastest? Is it like here? Is it at the end? It's probably somewhere in the middle. So it's probably an uncomfortable distance you'd have to be to have maximal sort of kinetic energy transfer. That's just thinking off my feet right now.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  Uncomfortable in terms of the danger you're in?

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Yeah, to be in punching range is a very dangerous place to be.

• 24:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  Kicking range feels a little safer, but punching range is very dangerous because in order for you to land, the other guy is going to be in range too.

• 24:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  Quite the head movement and so forth.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the military, they say, because there's some weaponry that if you're shooting at night, there's a visible phosphor.

• 24:50Speaker 03

  Tracers.

• 24:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tracers.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so that's where you can know what you're hitting. But for every... Phosphor tracer that comes out, the enemy knows exactly where you're gonna.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so even though it helps you target.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  They can trace it back to you.

• 25:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They can trace it back to you, so it's not always, doesn't always work in your favor. And tell me about the gloves, no gloves debate.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Um.

• 25:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In other words, big fluffy pillow boxing gloves?

• 25:14Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 25:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For like the old days.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Well, gloves were added in the 19th century in an honest effort to make this sport more humane. And it backfired catastrophically. Most people think gloves make the sport safer, and they do make it safer, they make it safer for the hand. But they make it catastrophically more dangerous for the brain. Because once you armor that fist, you make it basically invulnerable to damage. And you turn it into a brutal club that men can throw around with wild abandon.

• 25:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With no consequences.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  With no consequences.

• 25:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To their hand at all.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Otherwise, you'd just be breaking your fist to pieces against people's skulls. Skulls are heavy and strong.

• 25:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're probably stronger than the bones of your hand.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Much, much more. And so what the glove allows you to do is to bypass the brain's very formidable defenses, the skull. Um, and so it's been a real catastrophe.

• 26:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we dig up fossils, you always find the skull, you don't find the little bones of the hand.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Skull makes it all the way.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  These are little tiny fine bones, yeah.

• 26:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So compare now the effectiveness of a punch and a kick. I would kind of rather be punched than kicked, natively I think this.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  The one reason you might rather be kicked is I'm more likely to miss. You're over six feet tall, my kick, my foot has to travel probably nine feet to get to your head. So kicks are worse if they land, but punches are easier to land. So the last time, there's actual data on this, and the last time I looked a few years ago, about 85% of KOs and TKOs in professional cage fighting.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Those are knockouts?

• 26:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Came not, so the most, so the most serious head trauma came not from the elbows, not from the knees, not from the feet, but from the hands. The most dangerous weapon in this sport is still the armored hand.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's most accessible to you.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  It's close and it's fast, hands are fast.

• 27:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But when a. When a kick lands, the person's down.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  It can be real bad. It can be real bad.

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The person's down.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  But they're very hard to land.

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I'm looking at the mass of the thigh. I mean, the mass of a leg relative to the arm.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's no contest here.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  It's so much more powerful. And you're usually hitting them with the shin. And the shin is one of the biggest, densest bones in the body.

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So have you ever gotten knocked out cold?

• 27:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, once I did.

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What did that feel like? I've never been knocked out cold.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  Uh, I was sparring this big heavyweight named Clark Young. Um, and Clark always took it easy on me, but he was so big and strong that it didn't really matter. And one day, uh, you know, I, I, he knocked me out. And, uh, I just went away for a minute and I came right back. I didn't even know that I had been gone. And I got up and kept trying to spar. Uh, and he just kind of grabbed me and hugged me and said, "Oh, man, you, you went to sleep there for a minute."

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  And so it was very confusing.

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So gentle giant.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  He's a nice guy, yeah.

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  I just kind of, he hugged me and I kind of buried my head in his cleavage and, and, uh, he kind of pet in my head.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  That's how I like to fight, with hugs.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Well, there's a lot of hugging in fighting.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  It's a very affectionate thing between guys, actually. It's kind of weird. It's all this kind of violence and aggression, trying to kill each other. At the end of the fight, it just dissolves into these very heartfelt hugs and congratulations.

• 28:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, they're not a sworn enemy.

• 28:31Speaker 03

  No, no, they've actually become friends. They've actually fallen in love a little bit by the end of that fight.

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we sent our StarTalk Senior Science Sidewalk correspondent, you know, we have one of these.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Chuck Nice, uh, to an MMA gym here in New York City. Just to find out a little bit more about the physics of fighting. Check out his dispatch.

• 28:52Chuck Nice?

  What's up, Leo? I'm here at JKDC NYC School of Mixed Martial Arts, and I'm standing here with Chris Moran, who is a master of the physics of fighting. All right, Chris, before we get into this, I want to let you know that I got some skills. So maybe I should show you what I got, okay? Show me what you got. But I'm gonna come at you for real, okay? That's okay. You cool with that? I'm good. Wait, I'm gonna warm up first. Here we go, hold on.

• 29:21Chuck Nice?

  Alright, that's a joke.

• 29:22Speaker 05

  You're good?

• 29:23Chuck Nice?

  Alright. Alright, here we go. Yo, we not playing pancakes, man. What's this? Come on, you ready?

• 29:27Speaker 05

  I'm good, I'm ready to go.

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  You sure?

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, let's go.

• 29:29Chuck Nice?

  Here you go, ready?

• 29:30Speaker 05

  Let's go.

• 29:35Chuck Nice?

  Damn it! Alright, you know what, maybe? Maybe you should show me a few things.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, let me show you a couple things.

• 29:41Chuck Nice?

  Okay, please.

• 29:42Speaker 05

  Let's go.

• 29:43Chuck Nice?

  So, what happened?

• 29:44Speaker 05

  Alright, so I had my hands up and while you were attacking me, I defended and put a solid structure into your hand.

• 29:49Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 29:50Speaker 05

  Now I'm gonna come in with overwhelming force. Now as I take control of your neck, I'm gonna bring you down using gravity and my body weight. So now, I'll put you in a submission.

• 30:04Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god. Alright Neil, there you go. Getting choked out in the name of science.

• 30:15Chuck Nice?

  Welcome back to StarTalk.

• 30:18Chuck Nice?

  Featuring my interview with comedian Joe Rogan. His podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, plumbs the depths of his favorite topics. And they include hunting. Let's check it out.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  I got into hunting because I had seen too many of these factory farming videos. And I decided that I was either going to become a vegetarian or I was going to be a hunter. And so, that's how I get all my food now. I go on three or four hunts a year.

• 30:48Chuck Nice?

  Pretty impact, freeze it?

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:50Chuck Nice?

  Hack it out of the freezer.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's why I like elk. Because elk is like 400 pounds of meat, so basically I could eat it for a year. Then, I got into archery. And I realized this is an even more difficult way to do it. Because I literally have to get inside of, you know, 40, 50 yards. I can't, you know, I can't, I can't, I'm not that accurate outside of 50, 60 yards. I've shot a deer at 60 yards. The longest I've ever shot anything with a bow and arrow. With a rifle, that's easy. With a rifle, 100 yards is nothing. 200 yards is pretty easy. But with a bow and arrow requires much more discipline. Much more work. Much more practice. I practice every day. And to me, it is also a moving meditation.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  When I'm concentrating on a target and I'm just drawing back and looking at a target in my yard, that is all that is on my mind. I'm just thinking about my shot process, concentrating on the target. And in doing that, I find that it just sort of slowly eases me down, relaxes me from stress and pressure. So it's very much a discipline, a martial art, a meditation, and it's a way I get my food. So there's a lot of things to that. There's a lot of... And when I eat that food, like if I cook an elk steak, or I cooked an elk steak last night, that's... I have a deep attachment to that. There was a screaming giant forest horse with trees growing out of its head,

• 32:18Speaker 02

  running up a hill, and I shot it with an arrow. And it's hard to do. It's very difficult to do. So I... In my mind, I earned it. And there's a, like, an intense connection to my food that way.

• 32:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jonathan, you've written about how human evolution affects our behavior today. So is Joe tapping into this deep evolutionary primal urge by hunting his own food in modern times?

• 32:49Speaker 02

  I guess he must be. I mean, this is a, this is a, I don't know, sort of the deepest, oldest male occupation, I guess, being a hunter. I am so not a hunter that I'm not really qualified to comment on it, though.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so if hunting and fighting is sort of manly, then Joe Rogan is the man's man's man.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's sort of a cartoon almost.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I asked him about the manliness of hunting and fighting and being the man's man. Let's check it out. You, you do man things.

• 33:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you just a caveman manifested in modern day?

• 33:33Speaker 02

  There's definitely some savages in my past, for sure. But, uh, for me, those are just, uh, the, I'm interested in all these things. I find martial arts to be exhilarating and I'm fascinated by it and I find them to be extremely rewarding.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, translation, he has an academic interest in kicking people's ass.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, but getting my ass kicked too, that's a big part of it too. The, the humility that comes from that, it's very important.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very important.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  One of the things that you get from jujitsu is you get strangled a lot and you get humbled a lot. You know, there's, uh, there's a lot of people that I could call up right now and I'd say, hey, you wanna go train? And I'll just go and get my ass kicked and it's gonna happen a hundred percent of the time. There's people that I'm gonna kick their ass a hundred percent of the time that I know and I can call them up too if I feel bad.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Need a little ego boost?

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I know plenty of people that could fuck me up every day of the week. I could wake them up at three o'clock in the morning and they could choke me unconscious. It's just the way it is. It's, there's no getting around that. And I think, um, that, that gives you a, a more honest understanding of where you fit in, in the food chain. Um, uh, hunting, I'm interested in that. I mean, archery, I'm interested in that. I, all these things that I pursue, I don't look at them and go, oh, that's a manly thing. I wanna be manly. Let me go learn how to do some manly shit. No, it's just entirely what I, I'm interested in.

• 35:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, up next, we'll have more of my interview with comedian and podcast host, Joe Rogan, when StarTalk returns.

• 35:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk.

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The American Museum of Natural History. Featuring my interview with Joe Rogan. And Joe hosts a podcast that explores mental and physical wellness. And I asked him about sort of the health fad of sensory deprivation. Let's check it out.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  I'm a big proponent of the sensory deprivation tank. I have one in my studio now. I have my new studio.

• 35:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And your studio?

• 35:52Speaker 02

  Yes. Have you done it before?

• 35:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Oh, you gotta do it.

• 35:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have nothing in principle against it. I just.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  You gotta do it.

• 35:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just like making weird faces about it because.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Well, it's an odd thing.

• 36:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's odd.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like my senses, okay? Don't take them away from me.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Well, it's not taking anything away. What it's doing is there's a large tank and it's filled up with water that's heated to 94 degrees, which is roughly the temperature of your skin. And then there's 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts in there. So you float. And you're half your body, like if you sectioned your body in half, half of it is underwater, half of it is above because of the density of the salt in the water.

• 36:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you need that because you have very low fat content and your muscles would sink otherwise.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  That, but most people are gonna sink. You know, unless you're in an ocean. I mean, if you really, if you can float in the ocean without anything, go to a doctor and get on a diet.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  There's way too much fat in your body. Um, but yeah, I'll sink like a rock. So this tank with this warm water that's filled with salt, when you lay in it, you can't tell where the water is and where the air is because it's all the same. So once you relax, and once you settle in, you're completely floating, you're breathing, your eyes are closed. But even if you open your eyes, you're in total darkness, your ears are.

• 37:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because there's a coffin lid that goes over you.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  There's a big, mine is like a meat locker. Shut this big giant door. It's a really big tank. Um, and you lie down in this thing. And in the absence of sensory input, because you're hearing nothing, you're seeing nothing.

• 37:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Feeling nothing.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  You're feeling nothing.

• 37:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not eating anything.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  No, your brain is like supercharged because you have access to so many more resources.

• 37:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the difference between that and someone who meditates to achieve similar internal?

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Well, I meditate in there, and I think it accentuates meditation. I think that, like, if we were having this conversation...

• 37:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, not only do you go sensory deprived, you meditate on top of that.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, have you been to the surface of Mars in your mind while you've been in this tank?

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Oh, I've had crazy experiences in the tank. Well, your brain produces psychedelic experiences on its own in the absence of sensory input over long periods of time if you relax enough. It's like layers of the onion. It peels back and peels back. The beautiful thing about that is that people that are curious about psychedelic experiences but don't want to just try mushrooms, you can have a psychedelic experience that's completely natural, and it ends instantaneously when you open the door. It's like, this is too freaky. You open the door, you get out, and it's just normal life. Yeah, your brain, in the absence of sensory input, completely alone, in the dark, your brain starts, you start tripping, you start dreaming. It gets very weird.

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, joining us for our discussion of technology and mental wellness is clinical psychologist Leah Logos. Leah, welcome to Startalk. This is your first time on Startalk. Welcome. Thanks for joining us. So, you use techniques like, like technology, biofeedback, to help patients sort of train and focus their minds. Is that a fair characterization of what you do? So, are there proven mental health benefits to a sensory deprivation tank? Or is it kind of a fad thing?

• 39:20Speaker 06

  There's mixed and anecdotal evidence. And certainly, we're moving to this world of psychophysiology, where we're addressing the mind and body simultaneously. So, the idea of shifting the physiology to shifting the psychology is emerging in technical devices like sensory deprivation tanks.

• 39:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, these are tools to organize senses?

• 39:42Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that you can isolate, or enhance, or suppress?

• 39:46Speaker 06

  Exactly. We're reducing the noise to amplify the signal. And the signal can be different depending on what type of performer you are in life. Whether you're a neurosurgeon and you need to have a clear mind for operating, you're an MMA fighter and need to have a clear mind so you can access muscle memory. It serves, the signal can serve different functions.

• 40:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you, you treat athletes as well as others who are highly specialized in their talents. So what's going on in the brain?

• 40:12Speaker 06

  Lots of times ruminations of the past and the future and not being very focused on the present, so.

• 40:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But is that chemical? I mean, what, what's happening chemically?

• 40:22Speaker 06

  Well, what often happens is called beta waves in the brain. I call them squirrels. And they're running around and running around and, and keeping the brain very active as opposed to being in more of a meditative or alpha-like state, which is what the sensory deprivation tanks do.

• 40:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so these would be distractions.

• 40:40Speaker 06

  Correct. But learning to control pieces of the physiology, heart rate variability, for instance, allows you to gain control over your cognitions, your decision-making. The vagus nerve connects from the heart to the brain, so actually gaining control of your heart rhythms affects how your brain functions.

• 40:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, up next. Joe had a question for me about the universe. Check it out.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  My number one question that I've always had about the universe is, do we think of the beginning of the universe and then the potential end of the universe? Do we think of it that way because of our own biological limitations of birth and death?

• 41:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 41:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll tell you why.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Why?

• 41:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. If you look at, I have a, a collection of books, uh, school textbooks, they go back two and a half centuries. So you look at the astronomy books and the mix of topics changes as we learn more about the universe, but none of the books talked about the universe as a thing that had a beginning, middle, or an end. It just wasn't even there.

• 41:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then relativity comes up and Hubble discovers the expanding universe. Wait, we're expanding. That means yesterday we were smaller than we are today. And the day before that, we were even smaller. Let's run that clock back. Holy shit, there's a day when the whole universe was in one place. There was a day when it had a beginning. Nobody thought about a beginning before that, other than biblical beginnings. Nobody scientifically thought about a beginning. So there was no urge. There was no human urge to wrap the universe in a tidy box with a beginning and an end.

• 42:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry, maybe there is such an urge. But we never even had the occasion to think about the universe in that way.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  It was just the data.

• 42:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Once the data came in, there it is. It's got a beginning and right now, as far as it looks like, there is, there will be no end. No, no, no discreet end. We will expand forever.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  What about the idea that it all will eventually contract back down?

• 43:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's what I'm saying.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  It's impossible?

• 43:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's Einstein's relativity allows that as one of the solutions to his equation. But solutions to equations of the universe don't have to be what the actual universe is about. You want to look at the parameters that control the actual universe. And when you do so, we don't have enough mass to recollaps the universe. So, so in other words, I can talk, I can toss a, uh, give me your shoe for a minute.

• 43:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Converse All Stars, very nice. Grew up on these. Uh, so if I toss this up, you know, it comes back.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. That's a universe that has enough mass so that even though it's expanding, is slowing down, one day stopping and, and recollapsing. But there's a speed with which I can toss this. So that it will never come back. That's the escape velocity of Earth. That's seven miles per second. If I throw it at seven miles per second, Earth will keep trying to tug on it. And it'll still get slower, but it will get to infinity before Earth slows us down to zero.

• 44:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The universe is expanding at its escape velocity. It's never coming back.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 44:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you for your shoe.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 44:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Joe, in addition to all the other things that intrigue him, he's just thought deeply about the connection between wellness and our place in the universe. And I'm wondering, Leah, do your patients, are they in search of something bigger than themselves? If not religion, then some spiritual connectivity? Or they just need a simple fix to get through their day?

• 44:53Speaker 06

  Connection is one of the most important and frequent desires that I hear amongst all age groups, from this big to this big.

• 45:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really? Connect to what?

• 45:07Speaker 06

  People, as well as emotions. So there's a type of emotional relating that's restricted, and I see it often, where people who can't let go then operate from a subset of frequencies when they have this beautiful, radiant, emotional range. And so by being able to cultivate the ability to let go through alternative techniques that we've been talking about, physiologically mediated, sensory deprivation, biofeedback, meditation.

• 45:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You let them out of the box?

• 45:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 45:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The emotional box.

• 45:39Speaker 06

  And they're able to feel the world more deeply, feel emotions, perceive other people's emotions, and connect in a richer way.

• 45:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, in this last clip, I asked Joe Rogan for his thoughts about the connection between sort of physical and mental health, just to try to tie a bow on the conversation that we've been having. Check it out.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  A poor physical state will affect your mental state. It grinds on you. If your body is uncomfortable, if you feel sick. Everybody really appreciates health and wellness when they get sick.

• 46:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So wellness is the combination of the mind and body?

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah, I think so.

• 46:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  It's a combination of vitality and a clean mind, you know, or a healthy mind.

• 46:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how much of that do you get from supplements versus diet versus any kind of things you do just for mental peace?

• 46:35Speaker 02

  I think it's all combined into one big mandala of effects. And it's always been very unfortunate that people have associated...

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Fitness and exercise with morons and meatheads. Because it it's made people averse to exercise.

• 46:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a dumb jock.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, you don't wanna be that guy, so you don't wanna go to the gym, you don't wanna be around those people. Those are the people that picked on you in high school.

• 47:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, shoved, gave you the wedgie, shoved you in the locker, yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  So people have this association.

• 47:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physically accosting.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 47:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, now it's a way broader.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, back when I was in high school, you get the shit kicked out of you. Like, when I got bullied, it was violent.

• 47:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  Wasn't, it wasn't like today.

• 47:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  But, yeah, so the I, the idea that any of those things are separate, I think, i- is, that's an illusion. They're all connected. And even brilliant people, um, who don't exercise, I think, could benefit from it. I think the the greatest minds that we have that don't exercise are doing themselves a disservice. I really believe that. It's a mental and physical thing.

• 47:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When I was in college, I wrestled. And it was a two-hour workout each day from four to six.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Dude, you were a stud when you were young. I saw some pictures of you. You were a jack.

• 47:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the day.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  You were a jack. You look at those pictures and just go, man, I gotta get back to the gym.

• 48:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's a lot in tonight's episode and and I will recognize, confess, that there's something primal to this element of combat. But I see primal things in other expressions of what it is to be human. Do you know anyone who doesn't enjoy a beautiful sunset? We all do. Why? The sun is going away. It's gonna get cold in a few minutes. It's, but somehow we all participate in a communal, beautiful moment. Why don't we say that that's primal?

• 48:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why don't we say that taking a stroll in the park, holding someone's hand, is primal?

• 48:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I think of a future, not of one where we're all watching fights. I think of a future where our species comes together in ways where we find what we have in common and celebrate that, rather than, under a microscope, try to find what is different and fight each other because of it. And that is a cosmic perspective. You've been watching Stark Talk. I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.