Live at the Bell House: “The Space Between Your Ears” (Part 1)

Warning: Our live Bell House show about the human brain and consciousness could just blow your mind.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

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

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Welcome, everybody, to another StarTalk Live at Bell House. We have a wonderful show for you about neurology, psychology. You're gonna leave here learning, and I'm sorry for that. It is now my great pleasure to bring on the host of StarTalk, ladies and gentlemen, Neil Tyson.

• 2:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tonight's show, we're calling "The Space Between Your Ears." And let me bring out my two special guests, two experts on what's going on inside your head. First up, Cara Santa Maria, a journalist on neuroscience and all science topics for The Huffington Post. Cara, come on out. She has a video blog called Talk Nerdy To Me, and her particular expertise is the neurophysiology of love and also depression. So we gotta work that one out. And my second special guest, Professor Heather Berlin, neuroscientist.

• 3:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather Berlin? She's a professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center. She actually probes the human brain to find out what's going on when things are happening to you. And her particular expertise includes...

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Helping Jews. I'm Jewish, it's fine.

• 3:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But compulsive disorders and impulsive disorders.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  I should've waited. With my joke, I remain accurate. We have one more guest from The Daily Show, Wyatt Senak.

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here we go. First, I want to find out a couple of things. You know, what is normal? Because every time I turn around, somebody's identified with a mental disorder. But if most people I know have exactly that disorder, why would that be abnormal? So what is normal for humans? I've seen animals do weird things, and we said, "Isn't that cute?" And if a human did it, they'd be committed. Yeah. So how do you decide?

• 4:36Speaker 02

  It would be ostracized.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Just to be clear.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do your people decide what is normal, what isn't? I have no idea.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  You know, historically, I think that that was just decided by social invention. You know, I've talked to some neuropsychologists who study religion, for example. And a lot of them claim that religion is mass delusion. But because enough people are deluded by it, it doesn't qualify as a mental disorder.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  What's mass delusion, technically?

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go to mass.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  That there are enough individual people who share the same kind of hallucination. And you know what's funny is that really, there are certain things in certain cultures that are considered normal, and in other cultures, they're considered abnormal.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  But actually, there's no such thing as being a normal. There's no normal person. Everybody is abnormal, really.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  I'm normal.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  The question is...

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll be the judge of that one.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Normal-esque.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  How we decide if somebody has an actual psychiatric illness is how much distress it causes the person. So there is the social norms, exactly, if somebody's outside of the social norm. However, it's also how much distress is it to that person? But nobody is normal. I'm sure I could diagnose you with one or two psychiatric illnesses.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Do it, do it, do it.

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's what interests me. Humans are capable of extraordinary, extreme emotions. Of hate, of love, of rage.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  That's a little like hate, but go on.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, well, no, look, look, so...

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Bieber fever. I'd also throw Bieber fever in there. That's an extreme emotion.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When those emotions are expressed in their extreme, havoc is wrought upon society. What possible evolutionary good is that?

• 6:28Speaker 03

  The evolutionary basis of Bieber fever.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  That's a very important question.

• 6:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather, you got some insight into this?

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I think the reason-

• 6:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Bieber fever, or just-

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Our emotions evolved, our emotions evolved initially, if you think about, you know, these sort of little creatures crawling around the earth before humans evolved, it was about seeking out pleasure, which meant food, water, sex, that helped you survive. So we needed these things, emotions, likes, dislikes, stay away from poisonous things.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Are you describing gentrification?

• 6:58Speaker 04

  As we evolved, we developed these more cerebral cortices that interpreted these emotions and put labels on them, like love, and passion, and anger, and hate. But really, they evolved from human need to have sex, to eat.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Life needs.

• 7:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, life needs, animal needs. Animal needs.

• 7:15Speaker 03

  Beneath animal needs. It's like, the brain evolved inside out. And so, generally speaking, we see functions in the brain that are happening in very deep brain structures. Some people call that the lizard brain, or the phylogenetically older part of the brain. And kind of the more outside we get in the brain, towards the cerebral cortex, the more that we see these kind of higher mammalian functions.

• 7:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, so the two of you are saying is that we have these basal sort of caveman lizard needs, okay? And now that we're-

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Write a play!

• 7:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But now that we're smart, we actually try to interpret these basal needs, and that can mess us up.

• 7:52Speaker 04

  And we give them labels, and that can really mess things up. Because we mislabel things. We feel something, and we have to put a label on it, and it might not be the right label. You know, people fall in love with their professors, for example. Well, really, they might feel emotion, they're excited about the information they're-

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The way you said that-

• 8:09Speaker 02

  People keep trying to hook up with me, I think they're crazy!

• 8:16Speaker 03

  But you know, I think we say that these are kind of hiccups and these are mess-ups of evolution, but the truth is, we wouldn't be human without these things either. I mean, what makes us human is language and poetry and putting, you know, meaning into some things that we generally think of as just being these kind of hindbrain or midbrain activities.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  But the scary bit is, really, most of what's motivating our behaviors is happening outside of awareness, and we're only aware of it after the fact, and then we start to make up reasons.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To rationalize it after.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's a good example of that?

• 8:45Speaker 04

  For example, there are free association tasks. They'll learn word association pairs, like mood and tide, for example.

• 8:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't say moon and tide, that has way baggage with Bill O'Reilly saying, "You can't explain the tides."

• 8:58Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 8:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "Yes, I can, so I don't want to go there right now, okay?"

• 9:04Speaker 02

  That's the moon god.

• 9:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you missed, just Google "Moon O'Reilly." It's all there.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  Moon and ocean, let's say moon and ocean.

• 9:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Moon and ocean.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  And then I say to you, "You've learned these things previously, now just name any detergent you want, free association, whatever you want."

• 9:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Name a detergent?

• 9:18Speaker 04

  Name a detergent.

• 9:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sir.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Most people are likely to say tide.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tide!

• 9:23Speaker 04

  They've been primed, and they'll say, "Well, why did you choose tide?" They'll say, "Oh, my mom used it as a kid, or I loved it," but really, it was because they were primed by learning this word pair, ocean and moon. So people explain their behaviors and their decisions they make after the fact. In the lab, we can show that we can manipulate the way people decide things, and they'll come up with all sorts of reasons why they do it.

• 9:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you manipulate people in the lab?

• 9:43Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Why do we even have war then? You could just put Al Qaeda in a lab.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  This comes down to a question, which I probably don't want to take the conversation here, but they always go to this place when I try to write about these kinds of things is, "Does that mean that we have no free will?"

• 9:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, ooh.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Actually, free will is an illusion, I can assure you.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  I disagree.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Everybody needs to know this right now.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Then why would I go like this? "I'm a bat, I'm a bat, free will." Disprove that, scientist.

• 10:17Speaker 04

  There's no explanation for that behavior.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  I'm the only human with free will!

• 10:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Heather.

• 10:23Speaker 04

  Yes!

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the old days, the psychiatry, they lay out on the couch and just have a conversation. But you're saying now, you're beyond this. What are you doing to people's heads?

• 10:34Speaker 04

  So for people who are really suffering, and they've tried all sorts of pharmacological treatments and psychotherapy.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Compulsive disorder suffering.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, they have obsessive compulsive disorder or severe depression. There's a new alternative treatment in which we actually implant electrodes in the brain and stimulate these deeper structures of the brain. And people who are depressed for 20 years, they all of a sudden, even in the operating room, they're awake. We implant the electrodes, we turn them on, and they feel alive, they feel happy.

• 10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're poking around inside of people's brains, and they let you do this?

• 11:01Speaker 04

  They're going inside people's brains. They do, they do, they sign consent.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  No free will, of course they're gonna let you do it.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  Let me go inside your brain! Yes.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man!

• 11:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They let you do this?

• 11:11Speaker 04

  Well, imagine, you're suffering.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  They're desperate.

• 11:13Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're desperate, this is like a last resort, not a first.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  This is a last ru... I mean, people used to get shock therapy for depression. I mean, they still do.

• 11:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw that movie.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  You know, a small amount of people still do.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  They actually, they have to fail shock therapy first in order to get this treatment.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  They're that desperate.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  And they've already tried having a glass of wine.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  I imagine.

• 11:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're taking therapy to another technological level.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  We actually call it deep brain stimulation.

• 11:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Deep brain stimulation.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Sounds so sexy.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  Yes. But it's really these evolutionarily older parts of the brain that we were talking about that evolved for these emotions that we have. Those are the parts that we're actually going in and manipulating.

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The lizard brain.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  The lizard brain, yes. And the alternative was actually, people used to go in and lesion those parts of the brain.

• 11:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lesion, cut?

• 11:55Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I saw that movie too.

• 11:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, they don't destroy it anymore. There's no destruction.

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  How'd that work?

• 12:02Speaker 04

  It's not like that, I don't want...

• 12:03Speaker 02

  What was the effectiveness of it?

• 12:04Speaker 04

  Of the lesioning the brain?

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  It actually worked for some, it wasn't like one flew over the cuckoo's nest. It was, actually, they would lesion these subcortical structures, and they would work for obsessive compulsive disorder, but now...

• 12:12Speaker 02

  You would just cut out the idea of counting to 100?

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Yes! This is one part you're afraid of.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  Before you turn on the oven! Woo!

• 12:20Speaker 04

  But now, this deep brain stimulation doesn't cause any damage. It's reversible, it's adjustable, we can change the amount of stimulation. It's really quite amazing.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  So if you have OCD, and then you get it, and then you're like, "You know what? I want a little bit of OCD." You can...

• 12:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just call in!

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. You're like, "I'm just counting to four before I go in a room." Yeah.

• 12:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So actually, there's an interesting ethical question here.

• 12:44Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you can go in and mess with someone's brain, altering their state of mind, can you go in and make them smarter? Can you go in and change their political affiliations?

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Can I make them fall in love with me?

• 12:56Speaker 03

  First, we have to understand.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Can you electrocute someone until they date you? Duh, I don't need to be a scientist to know how to break someone.

• 13:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so Heather, that's your, like, the fifth date, you just bring them into the lab.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  Yes, they don't know what hit them, yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  You know what, we are a bottleneck to that research. I mean, first we have to understand what intelligence really is, before we could even start to conceptualize a way to go into the brain to improve intelligence, and there's so many facets of how we define intelligence today.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Name ninety.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Well, and what's interesting, and this is a quick aside, is that when we do a statistical measure called factor analysis, and we look at all different intelligence tests, we find this factor called G, the G factor, Spearman's G, which-

• 13:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does that relate to the G-spot?

• 13:47Speaker 03

  For the brain.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the brain?

• 13:48Speaker 03

  The G-spot for the brain.

• 13:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's with the letter G?

• 13:50Speaker 03

  It's this thing that we see, yeah, general intelligence, and it's this thing that we see across all intelligence tests, and they all rank high on it, and so there is this kind of fundamental intelligence, intangible measure, that we don't even really know what it is, but some people have it, and some people don't.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Have you asked those people what it is?

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those who have it, right?

• 14:12Speaker 02

  They might have a, an insight. Can you figure out whether you have it on a test that might be in the sidebar of a Facebook page?

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Possibly.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  Okay, alright.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  But the wave, I think, of the future with these neural prosthetics, as they're called, implants into the brain, where we can stimulate certain parts, is we can actually increase things over time, like memory, like attention, so while it's not intelligence per se-

• 14:37Speaker 03

  And both of those are components of most intelligent tests.

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Exactly, but there's a lot of ethical issues there, because, you know, who can afford to get the implants?

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Right. Rich people. The 1%.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  It's rich people who can afford it.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  Thanks, Eugene.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Occupy cerebral cortex.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  You don't want to let a lot of potentially reasonable hippies into your mind.

• 15:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me ask, given that you can probe the brain, given that there are these disorders that can be adjusted, given that there might be a future in where you go in the brain.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Why are women so crazy?

• 15:17Speaker 02

  I'm just curious.

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• 20:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're continuing the broadcast of our show, The Space Between Your Ears, recorded live at The Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, along with my co-host Eugene Mirman. Joining us on stage that night were professor of psychology Heather Berlin, science blogger Cara Santa Maria, and the comedian Wyatt Sinak.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  One of the other things I study is the neural basis of consciousness and I'm interested in the-

• 20:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What other basis could it possibly have if not neural?

• 20:35Speaker 03

  A lot of people would think that it doesn't.

• 20:37Speaker 04

  People thought it was in the heart. People thought it was way back in the Greek, you know.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  You know, and there are many-

• 20:41Speaker 02

  It's for science, it could be just in the ether.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Exactly. There are people today, there are duelists who truly believe that mental states come from some sort of soul-like substance, that they're not founded.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I don't have them here on stage.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  And one of those people is Yoda.

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yoda, yeah.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  Did you say duelists?

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Duelist.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  Like the monist kind of looks at the brain and mind as the same thing.

• 21:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, duelist.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Duelist, it looks at the brain and mind as two separate kinds of-

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Should I now make my Yoda joke again?

• 21:14Speaker 04

  But I do think that we're getting closer to understanding it. Whereas before, we can only sort of peer into the brain using things like neuroimaging and say, "Oh, this lights up when a person thinks about that or feels this." And that was just looking at correlations. But now, we're getting into causation, because we can actually go in and change a person's emotion or percept. We can induce a memory or an image. So, we can actually go in, stimulate the brain, and cause a person to have a percept. And by going from correlation to causation, we're learning a lot more about the relationships.

• 21:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, why are you you, and why am I me?

• 21:46Speaker 02

  What are you, a high and tidy?

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather, I was driving home, and I said, "Every day, I wake up, and I am me. I'm not someone else."

• 21:58Speaker 03

  The persistence of self.

• 21:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The persistence of me. And, if I had a twin, I would never become my twin, even though we're genetically identical.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  But, there are certain types of brain damage where you might lose that sense of self. There are also ways that we can induce that pharmacologically.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh. Where you are not yourself.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  Where you might lose a sense of self and maybe gain a sense of connection with a greater... You're talking about ecstasy.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  I mean, there are a lot of ways that we can kind of affect our brain, so that that sense of self becomes a little less tangible to us.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, okay, so, when we think of drugs on the brain, we think that somehow they're stimulating phenomena. Is that really what's going on?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, a new paper actually just came out recently.

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A research paper.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Yes, a research paper.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Not the Denver Gazette, to clarify.

• 22:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When an academic says, "A new paper came out," it means something different, yes.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  Where traditionally, people thought, when you go on things like LSD or mushrooms, the brain is, you know, becomes activated, and you have all these hallucinations and weird, strange experiences. But, they actually put these people in a scanner to look at what's happening in their brain while they're on it.

• 23:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A neuroscanner.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  In a neuroscanner, look at brain activation, yes.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Not a copy machine. Or, they don't just hold up "Shazam" to the head and go like, "Man, I don't know what this song is."

• 23:30Speaker 04

  So they put the people in a scanner while they were on mushrooms, the drug that's in mushrooms, and they found actually that they had decreased activation in certain part of the brain, in the prefrontal, in the frontal area of the brain, that has to do with executive function, and that that part of the brain actually decreased, which allowed these, again, the evolutionarily older bit of the brain, the subcortical regions, to have full range to just act out.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you're saying is that our normal state suppresses hallucination.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, so that dreams, for example, when you're dreaming, there's decreased activation in the prefrontal cortex, when you're in their hypnosis, there's decreased activation, so normally, we're suppressing all these weird, freaky, strange things.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Are you also saying that lizards are naturally high?

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lizard brain.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Well, you know, a lot of animals don't recognize themselves in the mirror, and they may not be able to...

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, how do you know that?

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Email!

• 24:22Speaker 04

  When you put them in front of a mirror, they don't notice their reflection. Some dogs will bark as if it's another dog, and some will be like, "Meh, I don't care", and they'll walk off. And so, there are kind of some tests...

• 24:34Speaker 02

  It's very rare, the dog that's like, "Hey, what's up?"

• 24:36Speaker 04

  Exactly, yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Wolf, wolf, back to you!

• 24:39Speaker 04

  But many apes, chimpanzees, and bonobos can look in a mirror, and if you mark their forehead with yellow paint, for example, they'll go to wipe it off. They know that it's on their own forehead.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  And then they'll go to destroy you for putting it on their forehead.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  I am...

• 24:55Speaker 02

  I trusted you! Ah!

• 24:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And did you know that the laws of optics dictate that in a mirror, you can only kiss yourself on the lips?

• 25:05Speaker 02

  Unless you're a vampire!

• 25:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, vampires have no reflection, so that would be irrelevant.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Exactly, that's why vampires never know self-love.

• 25:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so Heather, I interrupted, yes?

• 25:21Speaker 04

  We're talking about our sense of self. There's actually a theory, there's certain cells in the brain called spindle cells, that are only found in creatures that have social interactions, so they're found in humans, they're found in dolphins, they're found in great apes, and these are the animals...

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Also, by the way, by the way, just to...

• 25:37Speaker 04

  That can recognize themselves.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  The three species that have... Have sex for pleasure.

• 25:41Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which are those?

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Bonobos.

• 25:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  Dolphins and humans.

• 25:44Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait. Excuse me. Dogs look like they're having fun when they're doing it.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you say?

• 25:51Speaker 03

  I think all animals get something out of sex. But these are the three species that have sex outside of estrus. They have sex when they can't get pregnant.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  What's the reason dogs have sex with human legs then?

• 26:02Speaker 03

  They're very frustrated. Very frustrated.

• 26:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  OK, so three species that have sex without regard to...

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Procreation.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  Procreation.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And which are they? They're bonobo.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Bonobos.

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Everyone's favorite, eh?

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Dolphins.

• 26:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dolphins.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  No one for the PJs. Awesome orgy.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  Aw, yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Bonobo dolphin. Happening at Burning Man.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Don't give a dolphin too much tequila.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  We're never gonna let Heather get to her point, are we?

• 26:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  I think I made it really. The essence is that our prefrontal cortex acts to rationalize our brain. And we have all these thoughts that are constantly bubbling up. And the prefrontal cortex makes sense of them. Explains why we make the decisions we do, why we behave the way we do, and organizes our thoughts. If you depress that part of the brain with a certain drug or with certain types of therapy, will allow these strange thoughts to bubble up and have no rational meaning.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Now, is the prefrontal part of your brain, is that still the lizard brain part?

• 27:02Speaker 03

  No, that's actually the part of the brain that we consider makes us the most human. Humans have the largest prefrontal cortex of all animals.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  That's right, we do.

• 27:10Speaker 04

  Proportional to the rest of the brain.

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  USA. I think a whale has a prefrontal cortex. USA. Ratio to the body weight.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  Ratio, yes, yeah. We call it the executor of the brain. So I always got really angry when I watched the movie Saw. Because the...

• 27:27Speaker 02

  I would get angry if I watched the movie Saw. I would, Wyatt.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  I say it like I watch it both of the time. The giveaway, for those of you, spoiler alert, is that this guy, you know, who plans these extravagant ways to kill people, had frontal lobe damage, which is not possible. Because when you have frontal lobe damage, the first thing that goes out the window is your ability to plan things.

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, okay. So you get pissed off watching...

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  You're like a fireman watching backdraft being like, "I don't think so." "That's not accurate."

• 28:01Speaker 04

  I'm very obnoxious.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  That also seems like the best way to get out of any like Valentine's Day or anniversary thing was like, "Oh, I didn't plan anything because I hurt my frontal lobe cortex." "Oh, it's bruised. Oh, I'm sorry. We're just gonna have to sit on the couch and rent Saw."

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I didn't know there are movies to which you would not take a neuroscientist because they would just be annoying during the...

• 28:26Speaker 04

  Wait, but I can say something. Hannibal, I think that was the film, was very accurate. So this is one scene where the man is awake and Hannibal has opened up his skull and is taking pieces out of his brain and feeding it to the man. He's eating his own brain. But the thing is, actually, there are no nerve endings in the brain. So a person could be wide awake and you could be cutting in their brain, actually, as we do when we implant these electrodes. They're wide awake.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Most brain surgery is done in awake individuals.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  Absolutely. So you only have to anesthetize the scalp. And then once you're in the brain, they don't feel anything. The brain has no nerve... It's a quite phenomenal thing because the thing that controls your entire nervous system doesn't feel itself.

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you were cool with that scene? That's what you're telling me?

• 29:01Speaker 04

  I was cool with the scene.

• 29:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was an okay scene?

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Yes, that was good for me. Hannibal is very true to neuroscientific evidence.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Now, what about on the show Heroes when the guy who played Dr. Spock...

• 29:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He reached into the brain?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  He would like cut things out and then eat them and get their powers. Yeah. Yeah, that's also real.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Actually, if you eat human brains, you may get preons, which is a disorder that will make you have like delusions and...

• 29:25Speaker 02

  That sounds like that's the new drug.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, you don't want to eat human brains.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Hey, we're gonna go hang out and do preons. Safer than bath salt.

• 29:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let me bring this segment to a close by asking, do you think as neuro... neuro...

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Folk?

• 29:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Neurobabes, right? Okay.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Right on. Babes!

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you think computers will achieve consciousness one day? Kara?

• 29:52Speaker 03

  I think we are the bottleneck to that. I disagree with the Kurzweilian future of the similarity. And I think that as humans programming these things, until we really fully understand computational neuroscience, we're gonna have a hard time programming computers to learn beyond our limitation.

• 30:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather, you think?

• 30:12Speaker 04

  Well, there's a lot of work going on now, actually, in Switzerland, and they're trying to-

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You mean, it's like, it's figures, right?

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. With all this socialism working. Go on.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  They are building a computer modeled after the human brain. It's a huge project. Millions of dollars are going into it, and they're trying to simulate what it would be as if they can make a computer like a human brain. My own personal feeling, and there's a lot of debate in this area, is that there's something about the biological material that's something different. So even if you could map out every connection we have in the brain in a computer, it wouldn't have what we experience as consciousness, because there's something special that it evolved within a biological being, this property of having sensations and perceptions that a computer can never have.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  According to the movie Short Circuit, it's just lightning. That's all it is. Then Johnny Five is alive.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History. This show is about the space between our ears. And we've got two experts on this, one Kara Santa Maria. Kara, welcome to StarTalk Radio.

• 31:34Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's the science correspondent for the Huffington Post, and has a video blog where she talks about all manner of science, including brain issues, especially brain issues, and it's called Talk Nerdy to Me. We like that. And Heather, professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center, specializing in compulsive disorders. Excellent. I mean, I mean, good. I mean, what do you say to that? I don't know.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Eugene Mirman, this is your house?

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Yes, hello, everyone.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you've got a guest?

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Wyatt Senak from The Daily Show.

• 32:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so in this next segment, I just wanna break stride here just a little bit. Every now and then I tweet something, and people write back and say, "Mind blown."

• 32:23Speaker 02

  I know the feeling.

• 32:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My most retweeted tweet of them all was a simple observation that the numerals 11 plus 2 equal 12 plus 1. We agree with that?

• 32:44Speaker 02

  For now.

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you take...

• 32:47Speaker 02

  I mean, we're talking about base 10?

• 32:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, yes, thank you, he's good!

• 32:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not only does 11 plus 2 equal 12 plus 1, so too do the letters that spell 11 plus 2 equal the letters that spell 12 plus 1.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Whoa, mind fellated!

• 33:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So things can blow people's minds, apparently, and the universe is like really good at that, alright? So for example, let me just take you to a few places and then we...

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Butterflies!

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Wow!

• 33:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so here you go. Numbers that get large quickly. So we have million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nantillion, decillion.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  You lost me a billion.

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so we have words for these, that's not the metric prefixes. You can go metric on it, and you get ato and femto and in both directions.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Oh yeah!

• 33:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so here's the point!

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Sure, totally with you.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But none of these are my favorite number.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  So glad I got homeschooled.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The favorite number going on here is Google. It's a number, Google. G-O-O-G-O-L. Not Google, the company that changed the spelling and incorporated themselves. A Google is a 1 with 100 zeros. Now, here's the catch. That number is bigger than the total number of atoms in the universe. And so you might ask, "When would you ever need such a number?" If there's nothing that big to count.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  This is a good example. Right now. Without that number, I'd be like, "What is happening?" But what's the other instance?

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so now wait. Okay. So now, here you go. Here's what you do next. You take the number 10 and raise it to the googol power.

• 34:58Speaker 04

  Googleplex.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Googleplex! Nerd! We found the nerd! Get him! The googolplex.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  Wait, which is actually what Google called their headquarters.

• 35:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's all derivative of what we had first. Now, Google doesn't invent everything. Let me just let you know that. So, here's the point. If a googol is a 1 with 100 zeros, that's 10 to the 100th power. When you go to the power, that's how many zeros follow the 1. 10 to the 100th power is a googol. A googolplex is 10 to the googol power. Which means it's a 1 followed by a googol zero.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  What about a googol to the googol power?

• 35:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you can't. So now what?

• 35:44Speaker 02

  I just did that to him! He made a googol apple and- And then I threw in a googol to that!

• 35:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no. So here's the thing.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Boom!

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you want to write that number, you'd have to write a googol zeros. But there aren't even a googol atoms in the universe. So the googolplex cannot be written out in the available space and matter of the cosmos.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  And your pen would run out of ink.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  But the universe is expanding. So are you saying... Wait. I'm just saying, should we wait like, what, 2 years? Okay, 3 years.

• 36:32Speaker 04

  But the amount of stuff in the universe, is that expanding?

• 36:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. Thank you. Thank you, Kara.

• 36:38Speaker 04

  Sorry, buzzkill.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  So not, so the ink, the amount of ink is not expanding?

• 36:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. There you go. The empty space is expanding, but if you're gonna put a zero somewhere, you need something to write it on, and aren't enough atoms-

• 36:50Speaker 02

  I will use the blood of the poor!

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Plus the regular ink available already.

• 36:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we deal with these numbers all the time.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  We don't deal with these numbers.

• 37:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, sorry, we...

• 37:04Speaker 02

  I do.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  You deal with these numbers all the time.

• 37:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The astrophysicists.

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 37:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, just a couple other quick things. For example, the galaxy has about 100 billion stars in it. Billion.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  I love that number.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, it's a good number, because you feel very Carl Sagan-y when you... 100... Everybody say it together. On three. One, two, three.

• 37:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  See, I like to say, "100 Warren Buffets."

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, let it sink in.

• 37:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we have about 50 to 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and if each galaxy has 100 billion stars, you multiply these two numbers, you get 10 to the 20-second power. That number is bigger than the total number of grains of sand in the Sahara.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  Can I bring in neuroscience here for a minute?

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah!

• 37:57Speaker 04

  So, what really blows my mind, and this is sort of what motivated me to get into the field of neuroscience, is that, given all these extraordinary numbers that you just talked about, and our little speck, this little Earth, right? In the universe, which is huge and expansive and googles and all that stuff. The fact that our little tiny brains, this little piece, 3-pound piece of matter, can comprehend that is extraordinary. How does it do that? How can we understand, if you look at it, compare it to the rest of the universe, it's a speck of dust, yet that speck of dust can understand itself.

• 38:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  And understand its place in the universe and the enormity of it.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Carl Sagan famously said...

• 38:46Speaker 03

  Strip down and... Okay.

• 38:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Read this. Kara, read this to everyone.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  "We are away for the cosmos to know itself."

• 38:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a freshly acquired tattoo.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  It is. That's my newest tattoo, right after our...

• 38:59Speaker 02

  I also have...

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Yours is, "Ass, cash, or grass? Nobody rides for free." Another famous Carl Sagan quote. He said a lot of stuff.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  So, really, this quote speaks to me, which is why I got it tattooed on my body. In a sense, I think that what he was really saying, and I think Neil kind of disagrees with this, with this idea.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  She asked how he knows that I had this tattoo.

• 39:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How did I know?

• 39:44Speaker 02

  I imagine you told him.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  I told him.

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Jesus Christ.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Backstage, we were all in our bikinis backstage in preparation for this talk. That's what was going on.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Neil has cameras all over the world watching us. Duh.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  So, I am not a religious person. I'm an atheist. I'm pretty open about that. Yeah, right? And, in a sense, I think that what Carl...

• 40:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are damned to hell for all eternity, yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  According to my parents.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Yahweh is not happy.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  So, I think what Carl was really saying here is that because...

• 40:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You and Carl were like that.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, we were like that.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you and Carl.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Wait, okay, so you believe in Carl, but not Jesus? All right, I get it.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  So, because in the minds of people like myself, there is no greater consciousness, and because the universe can't contemplate itself, but we are made from the stuff of the stars, we, in essence, are a way for the cosmos to know itself. We can contemplate our own existence in the eternal landscape, to the extent that we are able.

• 40:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so my rebuttal to that, it's a mild rebuttal, but I just want to keep our hubris honest. It assumes that our understanding of the universe is a meaningful understanding of the universe. It assumes that.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  To us.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  What about gray matter, right? Is that a thing, dark matter? What are we talking about?

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here we go.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  That's a thing.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  Dark matter's a thing.

• 41:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dark matter, we don't know what that is.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Yeah! One of its super smart.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  And gray matter is a thing in the brain.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  And gray matter's in the brain. What color matter isn't there?

• 41:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heather, what?

• 41:26Speaker 04

  Yes, the question is, is how, right? And, and I think you're right. We might be having a really distorted vision of what it is that we think our place in the universe is. Completely incorrect. And another sort of mind blowing thing is that perhaps the aliens, right? These space creatures with big heads and big eyes who come down to see us are really us evolved many, many years from now. This is a theory, actually. Coming back to visit us with a greater understanding of who we are. And we're these primitive ape life creatures.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Which is why they haven't conquered us and why they look in our bottoms.

• 42:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So why are they so curious about our reproductive organs?

• 42:03Speaker 04

  They're harvesting them for research, of course.

• 42:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's the thing.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  They're horny ourselves in the future.

• 42:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so Heather, here's my concern about that concept. Because you look at the DNA between we and the badda-ba or the chimps. And it's trifling difference between the two.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  Less than 1%.

• 42:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's less than 1%.

• 42:22Speaker 04

  Wait, but that 1% can code for...

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Well, well, well, I'm getting it! That is the whole point! And they have their own version of Law and Order!

• 42:37Speaker 05

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• 43:12Speaker 04

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• 43:36Speaker 02

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• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. We're continuing the broadcast of our show, The Space Between Your Ears, recorded live at The Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, along with my co-host Eugene Mirman. Joining us onstage that night, we're Professor of Psychology Heather Berlin, science blogger Kara Santa Maria, and the comedian Wyatt Sinak.

• 44:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe the difference between us and chimps is as small as that 1%. Consider another species 1% beyond us, and they studied us and say, "Oh, look at Stephen Hawking. He's slightly smarter than the rest. He can do astrophysics calculations in his head like little Timmy over here." Okay? So if they look at us and say our smartest are like their toddlers, the way we look at chimps and say their smartest are like our toddlers, it makes me lose sleep at night wondering if, in fact, we truly understand the universe. And whether...

• 45:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If we are visited by aliens, they just pass us by because their observation of Earth draws them the conclusion that there's no sign of intelligent life. Maybe our brain is not as great, as you say.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  Of course, of course, but this is a function of human evolution. The truth is...

• 45:45Speaker 02

  I'm just gonna say I am very close to just becoming pure energy. I don't wanna brag, I'm probably about three weeks away from floating around being like, "You do not get it, Eugene Mirman, the living laser."

• 46:02Speaker 04

  So I just wanna say something about this 1%. The 1% can code for things that will, let's say, create a whole new region of the brain. 1% sounds like it's a little bit, but if it's coding for a protein that creates, let's say, the size of the prefrontal cortex, that's a huge thing.

• 46:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so now you go 1% beyond us and we're blithering, drooling fools.

• 46:23Speaker 04

  1% is 1 in 100, that's a pretty big percentage, actually.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  You're saying the 1% are the brain creators who create other things for the... So we shouldn't tax the capital gains of the...

• 46:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I think that's what this is all...

• 46:37Speaker 02

  ...that comes up with new ideas.

• 46:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, so Heather...

• 46:39Speaker 02

  It's a trickle-down brain economics.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  We are actually limited in our capacity by the very thing we're trying to understand, let's say, our brains. But I think that the collective consciousness, which some people talk about, let's say the answer to everything is the table, for example. And I have my little microscope, I'm looking at one little piece, and you're looking at another little piece, and somebody else, but together, we can shine our light and see the entire table, but only collectively. So I think the accumulation of knowledge of everything people discovered before us, and they'll discover after us, the accumulation of all this knowledge will have a greater understanding than one any individual brain can have.

• 47:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So knowledge...

• 47:16Speaker 02

  Homudist!

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so... The future of this would be going into the brain, finding all the lizard parts, and just severing the lizard connection from what we need to function in an organized society.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  Wait, wait, wait, but hold on. So what you're saying is sort of we create these sort of Spock-like creatures, which are very rational but non-emotional, that they would somehow be more evolved. But there's a caveat there, because research has shown that actually, people make better decisions when they're informed by their emotions.

• 47:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is like Captain Kirk on Star Trek.

• 47:51Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 47:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He beats Spock in chess, because Spock is exactly logical, and Kirk just is feeling it.

• 47:59Speaker 03

  And this is also why...

• 48:00Speaker 02

  He just grunts his way to a victory.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  Now I gotta go find a nurse and have sex with her. Or a blue...

• 48:11Speaker 03

  This is also why I have a problem with this Kurzweilian singularity. There are some very human components to neural processing that I don't think in the near future, at least not in the next 50 years, we're going to be able to infuse into machines so that AI can really rival the human brain.

• 48:28Speaker 04

  I think it's important to distinguish between artificial intelligence and artificial consciousness. Computers, they're already more intelligent than we are. I mean, they can do mathematical calculations way faster than we can. They can analyze information way faster than we can.

• 48:41Speaker 03

  If that's how we define intelligence.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  Exactly. But if you're looking at consciousness, perception, so actually, just our simple experience of seeing the color red or smelling a rose is much more complex than anything a computer can do. But we can actually implant things. Let's say, for example, the iPhone. We all have it. It has a lot of memory. It has a lot of things. It's become an extension of ourselves in a certain way.

• 49:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Indeed.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  We don't remember numbers anymore because they're in our iPhone. So now let's say the iPhone gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

• 49:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Phone numbers. I otherwise remember numbers.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  Exactly. Phone numbers, directions.

• 49:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  3.1419536. Don't tell me I don't remember numbers.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Oh, really? What about 18?

• 49:22Speaker 04

  The point I was making...

• 49:25Speaker 02

  You had a real point.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  I actually did. Is that if you can imagine all this information in the iPhone, it will become smaller and smaller and smaller, growing exponentially, as Ray Kurzweil would say, that eventually, let's say we can implant an electron in your brain that has all the information that's stored in the iPhone. So it's not just using what your brain is capable of doing, but it's expanding it using a neural prosthetic. And you'll have access just by thinking about it. Imagine you don't even have to speak in your phone anymore and say, "Call mom." You can just think, "Call mom," and it will happen. And you can just talk to yourself without even having a headset. We'll all be walking around looking like we're insane.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  What happens when you're on a plane and the flight attendant is like, "Hey, you need to stop playing Words with Friends in your head."

• 50:09Speaker 02

  I can think of even more weird things that would happen if your head was a phone by accident.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Say you are doing it. Calling everybody in your phone because you're distracted.

• 50:24Speaker 04

  So...

• 50:25Speaker 02

  I just got pocket dialed by Eugene. Oh, God! Oh, what am I listening to? Mind dialed.

• 50:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you foresee like a USB connection to download brain information and upload?

• 50:37Speaker 04

  Eventually, and eventually, what some philosophers are saying is that we can avoid death. We can achieve immortality by downloading our brain onto a computer. And so, in a sense, all of our memories, our perceptions, everything, could be downloaded, who you are.

• 50:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to bring the consciousness with it.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 50:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, it's just information.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  And we still don't know what that is.

• 50:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 50:57Speaker 04

  Exactly. But as you say, if you're an atheist and there's no such thing as a soul, then what are we really but the computations that are happening inside of our brain?

• 51:04Speaker 03

  We are that gestalt, though. We are that sum that's greater than the whole of its parts. It's the mind that arises from brain or the mind that exists concurrently with brain. And we still don't really know how to define that. But if we thought even more outside of the box, a lot of futurist biological thinkers are thinking about going beyond these neuroprosthetics and actually going into the genome. Because, of course, all the brain is is a manifestation of these blueprints in the nuclei of our cells.

• 51:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So rather than poke the brain, poke the genes to make the brain?

• 51:39Speaker 03

  Tell the genes to create a being which has perfect memory.

• 51:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, super baby.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  I mean, we can go even farther.

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Who will control the super baby? Or will the super baby control you?

• 51:54Speaker 03

  And the bottleneck here is our research. It's our ability to find intelligence in the brain. It's our ability to find consciousness in the brain. And where's the seed of that? We used to think it was in, what, the pineal gland? And before that, we thought it was in the heart.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  A bunch of fools. We know it's in the fourth humerus.

• 52:13Speaker 04

  The only problem with all this is if you think of the roundworm, right? Only has a very few cells and connections in terms of its nervous system. And we can barely understand that, barely. And to think about the complexity of the human brain is like thinking about the complexity of understanding the universe.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  Yes, this is where we get to those large numbers.

• 52:30Speaker 04

  Yes. So, understanding now not only how the brain works, but then how to code it from the genome. I mean, it's not going to happen in our lifetimes.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, a broadcast partially funded by the National Science Foundation. Join us next week for the second half of our show, "The Space Between Your Ears." Until then, for StarTalk, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson urging all of you to keep looking up.

• 52:59Speaker 05

  Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments. With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

• 53:11Speaker 04

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• 53:29Speaker 05

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