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

Summary

Mayim Bialik's Breakdown:

Episode: Part Two: Are We Smart Enough to Understand the Universe? Could Humans be Alien Pets? Neil deGrasse Tyson on Simulation Theory, Why Your God is too Small and How Science Will Guide Us into the Future
Date: February 4, 2026
Guest: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Hosts: Mayim Bialik & Jonathan Cohen

---

Episode Overview

This episode continues the wide-ranging, curiosity-driven conversation with astrophysicist and noted science communicator Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tackling subjects at the intersection of science, spirituality, and the unknown, the discussion fearlessly explores humanity’s place in the cosmos. Topics include our cognitive limits, the multiverse, near-death experiences, the possibility of advanced alien civilizations, mystical and psychic phenomena, collective consciousness theories, and the open mysteries at the edge of physics. Always returning to science as a tool for humility and discovery, Tyson contextualizes wonder and speculation with rigorous inquiry and playful skepticism.

---

Major Discussion Points & Key Insights

1. Are Humans Smart Enough to Understand the Universe?

• DNA and Intelligence Gaps:
  • Tyson draws an analogy between humans and chimps—just 1.5% of DNA difference results in extraordinary intellectual leaps (03:20-06:37).
  • The speculation: If aliens existed with a similar intellectual difference above humans, we might appear as mere curiosities or pets to them.

    “If the chimp can't understand our simplest sentence, it means our most brilliant sentence might not be understandable to this next species because it is too trivial for them to consider.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (08:20)

• The "Zoo Hypothesis":
  • The idea that advanced extraterrestrial beings could be observing us as we do with animals in a zoo, unable or uninterested in making meaningful contact (07:04-08:20).

2. The Multiverse, UAPs, and Living in a Simulation

• Historical Perspective on Demoting the Ego:
  • Tyson references Giordano Bruno, a 16th-century monk burned at the stake for suggesting stars were suns with their own planets and possibly life—a tale that illustrates humanity’s recurring reluctance to accept a larger cosmos (09:35-11:47).

    “Your God is too small.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson, quoting Bruno (11:06)

• Variations of the Multiverse:
  • Explains two main models of the multiverse:
    1. Cosmic Bubble Model: Multiple universes as non-overlapping expanding "bubbles" within a larger space-time, sharing the same physical laws.
    2. Quantum Branching Model: Every quantum event spawns a new universe with possibly different physical constants (25:49-28:05).

3. Near Death Experiences, Psychedelics, and Collective Experience

• Skepticism and Scientific Rigor:
  • Tyson questions the veracity of subjective mystical experiences and near-death phenomena, advocating for more controlled experiments, e.g., testing out-of-body claims with hidden messages (12:55-16:20).
  • Cautions against taking personal testimony as evidence without replicable data:

    “Science is what allows us to disentangle what you experience and think is true from what actually happens and is true.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (23:31)

• Contemplating Commonality:
  • While respecting people’s spiritual experiences, he attributes common features across NDEs and mystical states to universal physiology rather than evidence of the supernatural or multiversal travel.

4. Meditation, Intuition, and Universal Consciousness

• On Meditation and “Higher States”:
  • Tyson maintains that deeper brain states—whether reached by yogic practice or psychedelics—yield powerful subjective experiences, but have not delivered objective, new truths about the universe (24:44-25:49).

    “… If entering that trance, the yogi says the next law of quantum physics is… and then we experiment and ‘oh my gosh’… but that has not happened.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (25:03)

• Subjectivity and Perception:
  • Discusses how reality is always a blend of external stimulus and subjective mental interpretation (28:12-29:15).

5. Simulation Theory and the Akashic Records

• Internal vs. Objective Reality:
  • Simulation theory’s popular misunderstanding conflates digital universes with filtering of perception in the brain; both influence the nature of subjective experience, but only empirical science reveals the truly objective world (28:12-29:04).
• Collective or Akashic Records:
  • Tyson is polite but unconvinced regarding claims of a mystical collective consciousness record accessible via meditation. He notes there’s no scientific evidence for such phenomena (32:54-33:31).

6. Frontiers and Limits of Science

• What Science Can and Cannot Do:
  • Tyson distinguishes the humility of science at its boundaries from its justified confidence where experiments confirm theories (37:00-38:20).

    “…on the frontier where we don’t understand, we better be humble. Otherwise, you’re just an asshole.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (38:10)

• Unsolved Mysteries in Physics:
  • Lists the major open questions:
    1. What is dark matter?
    2. What is dark energy?
    3. How did organic molecules become life?
    4. What was before the Big Bang?
    5. Are humans even capable of understanding it all—or are truly advanced answers forever out of our reach? (38:26-40:01)

7. Comfort with Uncertainty

• Learning to Love the Unknown:
  • Tyson alludes to Rainer Maria Rilke’s advice to “learn to love the questions themselves,” embracing mystery as a motivation, not discomfort, for science (41:32-42:40).

    “It is the unknown that has me jump out of bed each day and say, what’s the next unknown that needs my attention?” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (42:45)

8. Will We Be Alien Pets? Reflections on Cosmic Modesty

• The Alien Pets Hypothesis:
  • Accepts with wry humor the prospect that the best humanity may hope for in a vastly populated cosmos is to be cared for as beloved pets by higher intelligences (43:11-44:14).
• Humanity's Self-Importance:
  • Our tendency to center ourselves in the universe is a repeated error. Science repeatedly "demotes our ego" by expanding cosmic context (11:47).

9. Science as Survival

• The Value and Vulnerability of Science:
  • Tyson emphasizes that science is unique in empowering humanity to secure its future and warning that denial of science risks civilizational backslide:

    “The extent to which people either are in denial of science or reject it, that will be the unraveling of an informed civilization. And we might as well just turn around and march straight back into the caves, because that’s where we’re going to end up without it.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (45:43)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Humanity’s Place:

  “I lose sleep wondering, are we physiologically, neurologically smart enough to ever actually figure out the universe?” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (02:52)

• On Humility in Science:

  “A scientist on the frontier has to be in that state. Otherwise, you will force answers before their time… you will derail the pure curiosity that is what got you to be a scientist in the first place.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (42:03)

• On Collective Mystical Experiences:

  “If meditative states are reproducible to some common experience, that signals to us the common origin of the human mind among us all.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (29:26)

• On Science and Subjectivity:

  “Meditation tell us nothing about the objective reality in which that human being is embedded, because it’s all happening inside their head.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (25:03)

• On Advanced Aliens:

  “Earth could be a literal aquarium terrarium that they constructed for their own amusement. And we would be their simulation in their snot-nosed kid’s basement.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson (07:04)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Are smarter beings out there? (02:29–08:20)
• The Multiverse & Ego Demotion (09:35–11:47)
• Near Death Experiences & Scientific Rigor (12:55–16:20)
• On Meditation, Psychedelics & Objective Truth (23:31–25:49)
• Simulation Theory & Akashic Records (28:12–33:31)
• Limits of Science; Physical Frontiers (37:00–40:01)
• What Science Doesn’t Know—Big Questions (38:26–40:01)
• Comfort with Uncertainty; Loving the Questions (41:32–42:45)
• The Alien Pets Hypothesis (43:11–44:14)
• Science as Civilization’s Linchpin (45:43–46:28)

---

Conclusion: Takeaways

• Science is the best tool humanity has for approaching the great mysteries, but it is essential to remain humble, especially at the edges of knowledge.
• Many cherished mystical and subjective experiences are real to the experiencer but await robust, objective demonstration.
• It’s possible—probable even—that more advanced intelligences exist and would see us as quaint or primitive as we see less cognitively complex animals.
• Embracing the unknown is vital, both as a scientist and as a human; the joy is in the journey and the questions as much as the answers.

---

This episode captures the blend of awe, skepticism, and humor that defines the meeting point of scientific exploration and human wonder, as Tyson urges us to probe the unknown relentlessly, but never at the expense of humility or evidence.

Transcript

[Mayan Bialik]

Mind Breakdown is supported by Helix Sleep.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Spring is in the air and so are all of the allergens that come with it. Spring allergens means you need more sleep, but there are a ton of factors that can prevent us from getting a good night's rest. Night sweats, back pain, feeling the person next to you when they roll over a million times. We were so excited to hear that Helix wanted to partner with us. I've had my Helix mattress for about five years now and I have been sleeping so much better. Jonathan and also our kids love their Helix mattresses and all of those issues. Night sweats, back pain, motion transfer. Those things are significantly better with a Helix mattress. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door, which is so much fun. With free shipping in the US they have a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. Plus their Happy With Helix guarantee. Rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. The Happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk free customer first experience designed to ensure that you're completely satisfied with your new Mattress. Go to helixsleep do slbreakdown for 27% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com breakdown for 27% off site wide. Helixsleep.com breakdown. Hi, I'm Mayan Bialik.

[Mayan Bialik]

And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And welcome to part two of our conversation with astrophysicist and the best science communicator in the Universe, Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. If you missed part one of our conversation, you're going to want to check it out. He talks all about his appearances on the Big Bang theater theory, including the scenes that he and I were not in together. He talks about spirituality. He talks about simulation theory. And we start to talk about ways to approach the universe from a scientific perspective that is also curious and skeptically open. We can't wait to share part two with you. Near death experiences, psychedelics, the multiverse, nonlinear nature of time, a little bit about the history of physics. We even ask him to weigh in on the Akashic records, mystical proof of a collective consciousness. And also he's going to talk about the things that he most wants the answers to in the universe. We can't wait for you to hear part two of our conversation with Neil Degrasse Tyson. Break it down. There absolutely are people who, and I'm not just talking about sort of like, let's talk about aliens. I'm not talking about those people who I have a lot of respect for as well. But when we speak to, you know, people who study exoplanets when we speak to people who study signatures and things like these things.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Life signatures.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, Correct. You know, is there. Is there a world literally, in which.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Say it right, In a world.

[Jonathan Cohen]

In a world. Is there a world where there is a set of beings that have a tremendous amount more sophistication than we have already?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I have no reason to doubt that. In fact, I lose sleep. People say, what questions do you. No, no, I lose sleep not on what the next question might be. I lose sleep wondering, are we physiologically, neurologically smart enough to ever actually figure out the universe? And my best example there is, okay, genetically, our closest genetic relative, chimpanzee.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We're within one 1.5% identical DNA to a chimpanzee. Now, if you are very human centric, you'll say, well, what a difference that 1% makes. That 1%. We have philosophy and music and art and the James Webb telescope, and all a chimp can do is stack boxes and reach a banana, okay? Or they can also choose a stick to extract termites, okay?

[Jonathan Cohen]

They can also survive in the wild and raise babies and do many amazing, important things.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay? But that would be survival as any animal would have the ability to surv. We're.

[Jonathan Cohen]

They're very sophisticated.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

We're taking another level here and talking about intellect.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Sorry, I'm partial to primates here, okay.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Being one ourselves. Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Okay. I don't even like you saying intellect. I think it's.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, no, no, no, no, no. That's important, right? I have to say intellect, because. Yes, it's fun. You asked me a question about beings that would make us. Okay, sure. So I have to go there.

[Mayan Bialik]

Yeah, yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So. So what a difference that 1% makes. Look what we have. And look at the chimps. All right. By the way, every animal knows how to survive in the wild. So that, that is. I'm not going to use that to distinguish.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, but primates are sophisticated besides homo sapiens.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, but that's.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I'm, like, defending chimpanzees who are going to be like, didn't give us enough respect. You're right. We don't need to talk about it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's not even the point.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Chimpanzees are awesome.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm not gonna. That's not where I'm even gonna land.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

What I'm saying is, if our toddlers can do what that chimp can do, basically not the survival part, but just the task part. All right? And by the way, you can have a conversation with a chimp and say, oh, Bozo. Whatever the chimp's name is. I'm going into town. There are bananas on sale. If they're ripe, I'll bring some back. Okay. I assume you want some. What is the chimp here? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bananas, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I gave the simplest human sentence that has a place, a time, a destination, and it's not gonna work with a chimp. And no matter how hard you try, I'm asserting this. I don't think it's a controversial claim. No matter how hard you try, you will never teach long division to a chimpanzee. Okay?

[Jonathan Cohen]

They won't write the Bible if you just give them a bunch of typewriters.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

There's enough chimps in it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Eventually. Yes. So let's ask the question. Imagine a life form, be it on another planet, and who has one and a half percent DNA in that vector beyond us that we have, beyond the chimp. What would we look like to them? They're humanologists. So the people who study, they would like, exhume Stephen Hawking, roll him forward, and say, this human was slightly smarter than the rest. Cause he can do astrophysics calculations in his head like little alien Timmy from preschool. Timmy. What? Oh, Mommy, Daddy, I just composed a sonnet and I derived the principles of calculus. Isn't that cute? Let's put it with a magnet on the refrigerator door. So I lose sleep over this prospect.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Mm.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Where the most brilliant chimp does what our toddlers can do, the most brilliant human would do what us. And that's only one and a half percent. Make them 5%, 10%. If they were 10%, Earth could be a literal aquarium terrarium that they constructed for their own amusement. And we would be their simulation in their snot. In those kids basement.

[Mayan Bialik]

It goes to the zoo hypothesis.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, the zoo hypothesis also presumes that whatever is more sophisticated than us. Right. Like, as a lot of astrophysicists that we speak to about these things say, if there are aliens, they've been around. No, but I'm saying I was.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I thought I was special. Oh, okay. I'll get over it. Okay.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We can get you a plaque.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You're my favorite. Neuroscience. No, you're my second favorite. I know several neuroscientists.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Oh, I'm sure we're a dime a dozen. Okay, no, but. But what? What many people say that we have spoken to about this, when, again, trying to speak from sort of a clinical perspective, is that if there are beings that have evolved, they've done so a long, long Time ago, in that they are likely basically AI, or they're utilizing AI or they are essentially. I mean, I'm picturing, like, a room of computers because I was raised in the 80s, right? I'm picturing, like, that's the level of activity we're up against.

[Mayan Bialik]

It's been described that they would have used technology to augment failing body parts or figured out ways to make material body parts last a lot longer.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Exactly. We're toddlers to them. So our most brilliant. So consider this. If the chimp can't understand our simplest sentence, it means our most brilliant sentence might not be understandable to this next species because it is too trivial for them to consider having any value to them at all. And we are so into ourselves that such thinking is anathema to our egos. So I'm perfect. I'm all in on smart aliens being out there somewhere. But there's still the laws of physics that matter. Sure, you can't get around the universal, quote, laws of physics.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The next place I'd like you to take us, I want to talk about. I don't just want to talk about the multiverse in the marvel sense, which I personally love to talk about it in the marvel sense, but I want you to walk us through kind of from a quantum perspective. What does it mean to imagine that this reality, Right, for lack of a better word, this reality is not the only reality.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Is it harder to think that way than what must have confronted people in the age of Copernicus, who says, Earth is just a planet among others? We are not the object of the creation. We orbit this other thing, just like Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn. And how devastating might that have been to you back then to say there's another reality? In fact, in the year 1600, we're now 45 years, 50 years after Copernicus wrote, there's a monk. He's monk, so he's religious. His name is Giordano Bruno, who had read Copernicus. And he said, wait a minute. If Earth is just a planet orbiting the sun, maybe the sun is just a star, just like these stars in the night sky. If that's the case, then these stars in the night sky would also have planets. If they have planets, they might also have life. For that, he was burned at the stake, upside down, naked, with a block hammered into his mouth, so that even in the afterlife, he could not utter such heresies. Oh, now you know. One of his last words reportedly.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I don't like this story, Mr. Tyson.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

And one of his last words were, Your God is too small. If your God is the God of Earth and life on Earth and there's life elsewhere out there, and he's just proposing this. Your God is too small. That's badass. When they're about to, you know, prosecute you and burn you at the stake. So to say, if to have any trepidation at all about there being other universes, that's just in a long tradition of the understandings of astrophysics taking you to the next level, of the next level to demote your ego.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Great. So I'm gonna use an example, please. We speak to a lot of very fascinating individuals who have had clinically cataloged near death experiences. And we've. There are many, many features of these that I would love to ask you about. But in the time that we have, I want to focus in particular on this notion of there being many versions. Right. Of our lives and the ability to sort of slice through time. Right. That there's some sort of quantum grid. Right. And that we have the ability to, you know, time travel. Right. In our experiences. Can you speak a little bit to what that aspect of this adds to a conversation about the multiverse? Is time something that is progressing and that we are experiencing? Are there multiple timelines happening at the same time or. Or is it some sort of loop where you can, as we've had people describe, as if you can slice through time like it's a seven layer cake.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. So a couple of things. And you started with near death experiences. I just want to make one point about that. There's some experiments you can do that have never been fulfilled in their expectations. There are people who say they rise up out of their body and they see themselves down there and they'll either rejoin it or whatever.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, it's a very common dissociative experience

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

that dissociates the word. Thank you. So what you do is you have a truss over your deathbed and you get someone to just write a simple phrase on the top facing upwards like roses are red. Something simple that doesn't require much. The person has an out of body experience, looks down and they say what's written up on that thing? And if they can tell you what's there, then you've got some good evidence. I mean, these are the kinds of things we should be doing experiments on, rather than just taking people's testimonies about their personal experience.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Sure.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So that's the role of science in bringing eyewitness testimony to task.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Sure. Knowing you don't always know when someone's going to have an nde. That's the thing.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Knowing the susceptibility of the human mind to interfere with objective reality in your recounting. So. So that's one aspect of this. Yes, the. There's one story. I'm going to retell this back. I grew up in New York City. There was some guy who had committed some crime and he was running away. He'd shot people. He was running away from the police, and the police shot him, okay? And he fell to the ground. They rushed him to the hospital and apparently his brother was killed in committing crimes. Okay. So they're trying to bring him back to life, and then he's like, near death and he does come back to life and he recovers and he remembers what happened while he was in this near death experience. He saw his brother and his brother said, no, it's not your time yet. And his brother pushed him back to earth. He saw his brother up in heaven, pushed. Pushed him back to earth and then he recovered. Okay, first of all, why would he think either he or his brother were headed to heaven? That's my first comment. Okay? They were both criminals, okay?

[Jonathan Cohen]

You don't know the rules of heaven. Neil Degrasse Tyson.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm just.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You don't know God.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You're right. I'm just. I'm just putting it out there. Okay? That's my.

[Jonathan Cohen]

This is your problem with this story.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, no, it's not.

[Jonathan Cohen]

They use the word heaven.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, no. So then, plus there was like bright lights there and everything he's describing, the operating room table with doctors trying to resuscitate him, pushing down on his chest with bright lights above him. But his brain puts that into heaven and we hear his account. And especially if you're religious, you want that to be real because there's so much invested in the reality of that. Yet the brain is a fungible place. So when I just heard that whole explanation, these are doctors pumping on his chest and he's seeing operating room lights, and that's what his heaven is. Okay? So with the near death experiences, I want more science experiments to be done than just compiling people's accounts.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The thing that I do think is interesting, and I want you to bring it back to the multiverse also, is when you have, you know, thousands of accounts, and I'm not saying this is proof of God, I'm not saying it's proof of heaven, nothing like that, but when you have thousands of accounts of people independently who are all using very similar imagery, very similar experiences, similar notions of course, I have physiological explanations for why you would feel a narrowing Right. When you're near death. Right. And you're having a cardiac event. Right. But there's something interesting to me about what is in common with these stories and a lot of mystical traditions and a lot of the early physicists who developed quantum theory. Right. Who identified that there is something still outside of the realm of what we are describing that has a certain quality to it. And you know, Bohr, all these men, they had a phenomenal understanding of what we would describe as a mystical quantum dimension.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so let me see what I can pick up the pieces of what all that just you put on the table.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's what my therapist says every week.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I mean, disentangle the spaghetti.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Then you're gonna zip me up and send me back into the world.

[Mayan Bialik]

This episode is sponsored by Wondering Jews, an open door media brand.

[Jonathan Cohen]

If you've ever found yourself feeling like you have more questions than answers, you're in good company. The Jewish people have been like that for thousands of years. Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam is a podcast where two of today's most dynamic Jewish voices, Michal Bittone and Noam Weissman, dig into the biggest questions about life through a Jewish lens. It's the kind of conversation where you'll laugh, learn something new, and probably shout in disagreement at least once. Michal and Noam tackle the tough topics like anti Semitism in America, what happens after we die, and the future of religion with guests like Bret Stephens, Michael Rothman Port, and Sarah Hurwitz. And this past month, in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, they've been celebrating some of the Jewish lives and institutions that have shaped American life, from food to music and comedy. Thoughtful, joyful, and always honest. That's Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam, a production of Unpacked. Find it on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube and make sure to hit subscribe. Check out Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam podcast and subscribe at Unpacked Bio nmx.

[Mayan Bialik]

My imbalance breakdown is supported by bio optimizers.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You know, I struggled to get good quality sleep and I just assumed it was stress. But as I learned during perimenopause and menopause, your hormones shift in a way that affects your magnesium levels. And low magnesium, it makes everything harder. Not just sleep, focus, mood, your tolerance for stress. That's why I have added magnesium Breakthrough Bye bye optimizers to my nightly routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium designed to support relaxation and overall sleep. Quality. Try it. See if you wake up more rested and refreshed, you've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Bio Optimizers offers a 365 day no questions asked money back guarantee. Magnesium breakthrough is a huge breakthrough to improve hormonal balance, to help with focus, decrease brain fog, improve sleep hygiene. Overall. Bioptimizers makes it very easy. Jonathan. What do they get when they go to bioptimizers.com breaker and use the code breaker?

[Mayan Bialik]

You get 50% off your entire order and a free bottle of MAS Bioptimizer's

[Jonathan Cohen]

best selling digestive enzyme that'll be added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code.

[Mayan Bialik]

That's a $20 product free on top of your discount already.

[Jonathan Cohen]

This is a limited time offer and while supplies last, you can't get it on Amazon, you can't get it in stores. This offer exists in one place. Our link, our code. That's it. So maybe you were already thinking about it. This is the sign. Go to buyoptimizers.com breaker. Use the code breaker. Grab it before it's gone. Make 2026 the finally start sleeping again.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So when we speak of a quantum realm, it is our realm. We just don't have immediate access to it because our senses don't take us there, but our particle accelerators do. And before that our microscopes and then our particle accelerators and other methods and tools of probing the reality in which we live. And it's not just the small, but also the largest. There's the scale of the universe. That's no different in terms of a scientific frontier entering a realm that's outside of your own than seeing what's in the small, the small and the large. So that's not the same thing as a multiverse. The multiverse is a whole other universe, not different realms within our universe. We experience this other realm, other realm ness when we visit other cultures where they think and do things as we've never done them before. That's what, that's what makes fish out of water stories so compelling in movies that somebody, their world is different from the world they're immersed in. And you know, I think of a fish who's only ever known water and then they're fished out. And then there's a hook in their lip and they're looking around and there's like they feel sunlight like what the hell is that? Who's this creature holding me? And then the hook gets undone because they don't weigh enough to be kept. They get tossed Back in the water. And now they have to describe that experience to other fish. You gotta believe me. I was taken out of this dimension and I was put in a whole other dimension. And it wasn't even wet. I didn't even know what not being wet means. And I felt this fire in the sky and I don't even know what fire is. And it's an alien abduction story being communicated.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's also a psychedelic or transcendental story you're telling.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Sure, except where does that fit in except psychedelic stories? Your brain makes it all up. It's not. I had an argument with Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan so badly wanted me to take drugs.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You shouldn't feel so special. He wants everybody to take drugs.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I said to him, the human brain barely works as it is.

[Jonathan Cohen]

True.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Why is it that we have these books called Optical Illusions? Simple line Drawings. Is it in the page? Is it out? Is it longer? I don't know. Simple drawings are stumping your human mind. Our brain barely works. You now want to stir in chemicals of any kind and assert that you now have a closer awareness of objective reality. I am yet to be convinced of that. You'll have an awareness of other things your brain is capable of. But as a scientist that cares about what is objectively true. And objectively true means you can do the experiment. You can do the experiment and we all get the same answer. That's what objective truth is to me. Your trip that you took in your mind is no less real to you than anything else you've experienced. But science is what allows us to disentangle what you experience and think is true from what actually happens and is true.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So take away the drugs. Take away the drugs. Yogis, mystics, for thousands of years have placed themselves in a state where we actually know the science behind what's happening. And there's phenomenal studies on meditation. Right? What is happening in. Who's it, The Tibetan monks. You can. You can image them, right? What's happening when you are able to lower your brainwaves right, to a theta state? And you are accessing the theta state? Well, yeah, like, it's like, you know, you're getting to the theta state.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Have the Greek Alphabet going there. I like my alpha beta state, but I'm not getting the theta.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, but the notion is when you place your nervous system in such a way. Right? Correct. Your parasympathetic nerves. Right. You are getting your vagus nerve online. We know this is all like the vagus nerve is touching every organ system and lowering Heart rate. It's amazing.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Love me the Vegas Nervous attack.

[Jonathan Cohen]

When you get into this state, there are for thousands of years accounts and even now people who describe, with all due respect to Joe Rogan, pretty much the same kind of trippy next level access to a higher consciousness. Right. They're in touch with something bigger than themselves. Many people do experience a notion of love as this universal language which, yes, many people call God. But even in the absence of drugs, this is the chemistry of our brain. This is endogenous. Right. So what is that mystical experience and what can it tell us about? I mean, many people would say there's a universal consciousness, I've experienced it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Meditation tell us nothing about the objective reality in which that human being is embedded, because it's all happening inside their head. And now is that a narrow minded statement? Perhaps, but I have yet to see evidence. So for example, if entering that trance, the yogi says the next law of quantum physics is. And they write it down and then we experiment. Oh my gosh, then I would be going into those trances. I would say, show me, let's do that. But that has not happened.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No. What happens is other things about God and connection and person. Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

They enter spiritual realm.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, and for people who have trauma or people who are experiencing ptsd, it's very. Apparently it's helpful.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm not denying people their spiritual experiences ever. I will not. I'm not that guy. But the multiverse are actual other universes. And there are different varieties of multiverse. When the general relativity and quantum physics marry, it's really a shotgun marriage because they don't know how to behave in the sandbox. Because quantum physics is the science of the small and relativity is the science of the large. And at the Big Bang, the large was small. So does quantum phenomenon affect the entire universe when it would otherwise just be affecting particles? That's the fun interesting frontier that is being explored there. So the two kinds of multiverse. Well, there's more, but two basic kinds. One of them is we're in an expanding universe. We're in this bubble, this, this horizon in this space time. There could be likely are other bubbles also expanding within this space time. Okay, but space time is expanding faster than these bubbles will overlap. We think if they overlap, who knows what that would look like. But the pockets of universes expanding within a one contingent space time, all of those universes would have the same laws of physics. Whereas another kind of, as I've come to understand this because I'm not the researcher on the frontier Here I give you the names of three or four trustworthy sources here. So another kind is quantum physics in that state pumps out an entire new universe. One this way, one that way. And quantum physics has quantum variations in physical properties. And so this one, the charge on the electron, is slightly different. And this one, antimatter, behaves a little differently. And maybe this universe, there are more planets than this. Or maybe there's no matter in that universe and there's more. So these variations would make it hard to imagine other life that we would have any kind of real relationship with. It's this other kind of multiverse where people think about, in that universe, I have a goatee and I'm evil, or I married my childhood sweetheart rather than this deadbeat that I didn't know.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We don't need to get personal.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So. So those are actual other realities. And I don't want to confuse that with whatever might be going on in your head.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Correct.

[Mayan Bialik]

Just a button on this. Because some people use the simulation theory to describe an internal filtering that is impacting our external reality, whereby in those meditative states, you're dropping your filters, you're dropping some of the early childhood programming. And you know how much is objective reality that we are all experiencing and how much is subjective based on the fact that you and I will look at something and no matter how similar we think it is, it will never be similar.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

My understanding of this, and Mayim can confirm or deny it, is that at all times it's a mixture of the two. No matter what you've done with the state of your brain, it is a combination of your senses bringing reality to your mind, your mind, receiving it, interpreting it, and giving you an understanding of that reality. And that understanding will not necessarily match the understanding provided by others. And that's why we needed science in

[Mayan Bialik]

the first place, 100%. And what's interesting is that when people are, are meditating like that, the similarity of that experience seems to be universal in some way. That is intriguing.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

You mean Earth wide, not universal. You're talking to an astrophysicist, okay? Like Miss Universe was Miss Earth all along. Let's be clear about that.

[Mayan Bialik]

Fair enough.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, so. So I. If meditative states are reproducible to some common experience, that signals to us the. The common origin of the human mind among us all. I mean, that's. That that has interesting biophysiological conclusions you might be able to draw, gaining access to these deeper, these deeper evolutionary states that we evolved past. But maybe they're still there, lurking either for our Benefit or for.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I mean, I like to think of it more as a parallel evolution. Right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Meaning I don't think of it as having sort of a beginning, middle, end, but.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Yeah. Oh, no. Oh, let me get back to the time element.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Oh, yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Love me some time.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay. One of my favorite books. I'm not a big reader of novels. I read mostly nonfiction, so maybe there are plenty of other books that would enchant me the way this one did. I just have never read them.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Let's see. What is he gonna say?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

No, no, it's Slaughterhous.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Oh.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

By Kurt Vonnegut. Okay. Yes, it was. It's partly. Partly autobiographical. At his time serving in the Second World War in Dresden after he'd been bombed by the Allied forces. So that's a. That's a backdrop. But what I. My takeaway was he was abducted by aliens. I loved it. And he was put in a zoo in a closed room. But. And that sounds like. I don't want that. But the aliens gave him access to the timeline of his life, so at any point he could just rejoin his life and live that moment.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Shout out to Kurt Vonnegut.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes, yes. Particularly that early people weren't thinking storytelling in that way. And it was a brilliant mechanism for storytelling rather than jumping back and forth just as a. I thought you were

[Jonathan Cohen]

gonna say the Time Traveler's Wife, which is also excellent.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh. So, yeah, he could have just did it as a storytelling motif. You know, you go forward and backwards, and then you confuse the reader, and it's passed off as brilliant writing. He just made it a literal timeline that you have access to. Our problem is that we are prisoners of the present, forever transitioning between our inaccessible past and our unknowable future. If we had access to our timeline, that'd be a fun game changer. The real question would be, if you go back in time, can you do an offshoot and change what would have happened in that future? Would you have to live it exactly the way it happened? And then you could just get bored with your life?

[Jonathan Cohen]

This is just a fun bonus question. Have you heard of the Akashic Records?

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I might have. It's ringing a bell, but give me more.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I don't know that I subscribe to it, but there is a notion, and it's in many mystical traditions by various names. Indian traditions. There's traditions for a very, very long time. Hundreds, if not thousands of years.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

India means subcontinent India.

[Jonathan Cohen]

South Asia.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

South Asia, yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I would never.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Excuse me.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Sorry.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Excuse me.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The. The notion. And many in communities that you may not intersect with. But many in holistic, alternative, spiritual, mystical yogic circles believe that their there is an accessible record of everyone that can be tapped into. It is everything that you have ever done.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

So it's a communal consciousness.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It is literally a collective consciousness. And there's an elaborate meditation that you go into to access it. And there are people who do readings for other people. You give them your information and, and they pull out things. I've. I mean, you have more experience with this because you've heard more about this than I have. But it's just interesting that these are places where I wish we had more information right? About what are we actually accessing. And many people don't need the proof and they just say, I believe that it exists. And so it does. Those people are not scientists and God bless them.

[Mayan Bialik]

Mind bialys breakdown is supported by by optimizers.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I struggled to get good quality sleep and I just thought like, ugh, it's stress. But I learned during perimenopause and menopause, your hormones shift and it affects your magnesium levels. Low magnesium makes everything harder. Not just sleep, but focus, mood, stress tolerance. That's why we added Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers to our nightly routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium designed to support relaxation and overall sleep quality. Try it. See if you wake up more rested and refreshed, you've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. BIOptimizers offers a 365 day, no questions asked money back guarantee. Magnesium Breakthrough is a fit, fantastic way to improve that hormonal imbalance that especially happens with magnesium. And then you have better focus, you have better sleep hygiene in general. Bioptimizers makes it so easy. Here's what you get when you go to bioptimizers.com breaker and use the code breaker. 15% off your entire order and a free bottle of mass signs. That's Bioptimizer's best selling digestive enzyme. Added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code. That's a $20 product, free on top of your discount. This is a limited time offer while supplies last. You cannot get this on Amazon. You can't get it in stores. The offer exists in one place. Our link, our code. That's it. So if you were already thinking about trying it, this is the sign. Go to bioptimizers.com breaker use the code breaker. Grab it before it's gone.

[Mayan Bialik]

Make 2026 the year you finally start sleeping again.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Looking for the perfect Rental Discover top rated stays loved by guests. Rated highest by real guests. Through authentic reviews, these traveler loved stays are recognized by the details that matter most and validated by real experiences. Choose confidently from rentals you can trust. VRBO Book now A vacation rental loved by guests.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Let me pose a challenge for you. There are four forces of nature. Okay?

[Jonathan Cohen]

I'm one of them.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Neil, that would make you be the fifth force of nature. Okay. So almost every part of our life experience unfolds from the electromagnetic force. It's what holds our molecules together, our thoughts, our interaction with light. Yes, of course, there's gravity, it holds us on Earth. And there's the strong nuclear force that keeps our atoms as they are. But we don't experience atoms so much as we experience molecules. And molecules come together from the electromagnetic force, the charge on the electron. All right?

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's what holds us all together.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Correct.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Literally correct.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

When ligo, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory measured this gravitational wave created by the collision of two black holes in a galaxy long ago far, far away. This washed over the experiment, specifically, exquisitely designed to detect a ripple in the fabric of space and time. It had to be so sensitive it could detect a. A change in the position equal to a hundredth the diameter of an atomic nucleus.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's not even a number.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, okay. If you have powers of telepathy, of mind reading, of whatever that's gonna show up in that experiment. Because we are monitoring the behavior of all matter, energy that is interacting with other matter and energy. So if we don't see that, I'm giving very low confidence that you're actually doing anything interesting.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's very interesting.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Let me tell you how sensitive it is. If someone is walking a half a mile down the street, it'll send a vibration into the Earth that they could detect. So everybody's on shutdown when they're doing the experiment. And there's some things they can't avoid, like the gurgling of the Earth or the cloud. So they model that and then they subtract it out from the data. So that's how precise science is. And earlier on you said science is cocky. They think they understand it. What we do understand, we're justifiably cocky. But on the frontier where we don't understand, we better be humble. Otherwise, you're just an asshole. Okay? And I will tell you, we don't know. Humbly say, we don't know. Dark matter, dark energy. I can list it for you.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Sit down. Be humble.

[Mayan Bialik]

Tell us some of the things that you don't know that are on the frontier, that are, are baffling.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, it's not just what I don't know, it's what is not known.

[Mayan Bialik]

Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

If it's just me, then I'll just research it and I. All right. No, for me, the top the four biggest questions are what is dark matter? We can measure it. We don't know what's causing it. What is dark energy? We can measure it so it's real. We didn't just make this up. It's a measurement. Dark energy, we don't know what that is. Combine those together. It is 95% of what is driving the universe. Everything we know, love about chemistry, biology, physics, engineering, it's in 4 or 5% of what is happening in the universe. I want to know how we got from organic molecules, which nature makes freely and easily to self replicating life.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's the best. It's the best question.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I love it.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's the best.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I want to know what was around before the Big Bang. I know, I want to know. I want to know. Are humans smart enough to figure out the universe or are we clever enough to just step on the rung in the ladder put there by people that came before us and we slowly ascend the wall? No one person had that brilliance. I can't invent calculus. I'm not smart enough. But Isaac Newton did. I'm stepping on his shoulders, using the calculus to make another advance. Maybe we can increment our ways to something that the alien toddler could have just done trivially. So maybe that is how we would figure out the universe. I don't know. But that's for me, that's a big question for me. Those are my big five biggest questions.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So I want to ask something about what was before the Big Bang, because the answer to this, and I am a person who comes from a religious and spiritual tradition where we talk a lot about this and our kabbalistic text delves into things that even the Old Testament does not. And many of them relate to physics and many of them relate to.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Are you a kabbalist? Is that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I'm not a kabbalist, but I value our text. Yes.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Wasn't. Who else, Madonna was a kabbalist, was

[Jonathan Cohen]

it she Madonna studied at a, at a facility that teaches Kabbalah. But in the, in the, in the, in the, in our tradition, it's not something our.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Is Jewish tradition, correct?

[Jonathan Cohen]

In the Jewish tradition, it's not something that is studied lightly. It's an intellectual and kind of specific Religious pursuit. But one of the things that is talked about is that what was.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Plus being named Madonna kind of disqualifies her.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, it's. It's fine. We have rules. One of the things that many of us talk about in terms of what came before is. What came before is something that we don't get to quantify and we don't get to know it, and we don't get to calculate it. And it doesn't mean that it didn't exist and doesn't mean that we don't believe in it, but it's something that is beyond the realms of the understanding we have. That is a scientific approach.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, sure.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Are you comfortable with that kind of uncertainty in general, as a scientist? Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

In fact, there's a poem by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a book called Letters to a young.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Letters to a young.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Ooh, ooh, give me some love there. All right. Letters to a Young poet. And there's a short poem, and I'm embarrassed that it's short enough. I should have just memorized it. But I was never that guy, though, who memorized poems. But there's a line that says, be at peace with all that stirs within your heart.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's right.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Learn to love the questions themselves. So a scientist on the frontier has to be in that state. Otherwise you will force answers before their time, before you have sufficient data, and you will derail the pure curiosity that is what got you to be a scientist in the first place. So I'm completely comfortable saying I don't know what was around before the big bang. And like I said, we have top people working on it. And it's. When you say it's gotta be something, it was God. Okay. But I'm still in the unknown part.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's not your business. Meaning you're not in the business of that.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I'm in the business of figuring out the unknown. And as a result, the unknown does not bring me discomfort. It brings me excitement. I love that it is the unknown that has me jump out of bed each day and say, what's the next unknown? That needs my attention?

[Mayan Bialik]

You mentioned that what does keep you up at night is that potentially there's a civilization that could be, if they are out there, 1%, 5%.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, no, no, not specifically. That's surely the case. What keeps me up at night is, are we smart enough to figure out the universe because that affects my profession? Are we just, you know, bounding along, touching the toenail of an elephant with no hope of ever seeing the elephant. And here we are coming up with hypotheses of what the larger truth is. And that's what keeps me up at night. Not if there's smarter aliens. I'm good with that. And if they find us and they want to make us their pet, I'm okay with that too. No, because to think about it, how do you treat your pet better than you're treating the homeless person who you just stepped over to get to your office?

[Jonathan Cohen]

It feels kind of judgy.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, but am I wrong?

[Jonathan Cohen]

I bought a homeless man a meal the other day, but.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes, but you'd invite him into your home and feed him and shower him the way you would take a stray pet. So we treat our pets better than we treat stranger humans who are strangers.

[Mayan Bialik]

The title for this episode is hopefully humanity will become the pets of aliens.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

That's the best we might be able to hope for. Otherwise it won't bode well for us.

[Mayan Bialik]

Is the universe going to end? And should we be concerned that it is slowly imploding?

[Jonathan Cohen]

I mean, if it does end, we won't know about it.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Well, all of our data, all of our data tell us that we're on a one way expansion trip and just deal with it. It's not going to recycle. It was philosophically unsettling. Because if it was a recycling universe that gets rid of the origin question. It's just always been cycle and doing

[Jonathan Cohen]

it was, is, and always will be.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Exactly.

[Jonathan Cohen]

But Earth, we're not doing so great with, with our planet. But she'll be fine. We won't.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Oh, right, right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We'll kill ourselves off people.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

I, I hadn't heard Earth genderized in quite, quite some time, so I had to, I had to get through that sentence. Sorry. Yes, she will do just fine.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Mother Earth. If we're gonna go there. Mother Earth. When people say save Earth. No. Earth is going to be here before, during and after anything we do to it. It save life on Earth and not even save humans. Save life on Earth. Our survival depends on the survival of the biosphere in which we're embedded, which we're already destroying. Correct.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, that was uplifting.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Okay, okay. You want me to leave you uplifting, though?

[Mayan Bialik]

Let's get a little hope for the end. What do you want people to take away and implement into their daily lives about. About all the topics that we talked about, but particularly our place in the universe and having excitement about the unknown.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

Yes, I'm biased here, but I'm not ashamed of this bias that of anything humans have ever invented science may be uniquely capable, uniquely capable of giving us access to our understanding of our place in the universe and secure pathways into our future to assure our health, our wealth, and our security. The extent to which people either are in denial of science or reject it, that will be the unraveling of an informed civilization. And we might as well just turn around and march straight back into the caves, because that's where we're going to end up without it.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Neil Degrasse Tyson, Such a. Such an honor to have you here and such a pleasure to. To talk about all these things and, and we hope we get more time with you in the future. Your God is too small, my universe is too small. But at least it's expanding.

[Mayan Bialik]

That was probably one of my favorite stories. Also terrifying.

[Jonathan Cohen]

There's also things that he says that it's like. It sounds like they're poems that he's got. Like, does he rehearse them in front of a mirror?

[Mayan Bialik]

I would like to see inside of his brain how many folds he has, please. They said that Einstein had a lot of folds.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You think he's got a lot of folds?

[Mayan Bialik]

Where is he keeping all that information? Does he not have any song lyrics in there?

[Jonathan Cohen]

I don't think. He doesn't have one song lyric.

[Mayan Bialik]

I don't know that that's true.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Did anyone notice the pattern on his shirt? It looks like he's a rock and roller, but I don't think he's got any song lyrics in there.

[Mayan Bialik]

You should have seen him walk in. He walked in with his hat and his skulls on his shirt.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yep. He had. He didn't that he had skulls on his shirt when he purchased it. So it's like a little bit of a deep cut. If you're watching this episode, can you pick up the fact that those are skulls?

[Mayan Bialik]

He's such a fan of the big bang theory. It's unbelievable.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, I think what he said is very true that, you know, that that was so special to have a show about this aspect of, you know, culture and our society. You know, I had never seen it when I auditioned for it. And so I remember when I, when I kind of learned about it, I said, oh, these are the kind of people that I go to grad school with. These are all the people that I hang out with on the daily. When you're in grad school, I feel

[Mayan Bialik]

like my point about the mind body connection was slightly miss set up. Meaning I wasn't attacking science. I was just trying to acknowledge that there are places while the scientific Method is in a. Is our best way at understanding things. There are certain aspects that we cannot study and. Or that have fallen short. And when we've questioned people, they're so quick to dismiss any type of questioning in defense of what has been said to be true. And what he said, which I appreciated, is that many of the things that have been said to be true were not tested, but then they're still defended as this is what the science says. And there's no reason to disbelieve that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I mean, I think there's a couple things, like, truth be told, if I knew you wanted to bring that angle up, I would have presented a more cohesive. We could have talked about Neil Theise, like, I would have. I just. I couldn't. I couldn't pick it out of the air. The Gabor mate one I think is significant because, you know, no one would have thought there's a profile for people who get cancer. Right. Like, it was. It was sacrilege to think something like that. Right. Or to talk about immune properties and how they relate to environmental stressors. You know, he's not in the realm of talking about intergenerational trauma. Right. It's not what I would go to

[Mayan Bialik]

him for or medicine per se. He's not correct.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

He.

[Mayan Bialik]

And he acknowledges the complexity of trying to study both psychology and physiology.

[Jonathan Cohen]

There's a couple issues I have with the fact that we are, let's say, 1% different from chimps. And what would someone 1% more, you know, than us look like? Because that's assuming that it's on some sort of, like, linear and, like, exponential. Like, the scale doesn't have to be the same. But anyway, I didn't want to get into that with him, but I understand the. The point. And I actually. I thought he'd be like, there's no alien. That's not a thing. And I was pleasantly surprised that what he said was the simulation is kind of stacked like that in fractals. And, you know, Valerie mentioned there's literally black. A couple black mirror Episod specifically about that. But also this notion that, yeah, there's got to be something a lot more intelligent than us to be observing us. And that's why he doesn't entertain this notion of, like, they're visiting us and, like, laser lights and like, abductions. That's a different conversation.

[Mayan Bialik]

The other thing that I had an issue with was somewhat of an oversimplification of the caveman's lifespan, because I thought

[Jonathan Cohen]

of that too, because we're not gonna Live forever. There's a ceiling effect to how long we're gonna live.

[Mayan Bialik]

Yes. And.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Or not.

[Mayan Bialik]

The idea that it was clean water and everything was organic, I didn't like that we didn't have enough access to food. So farming, of course, increased the proliferation of food and increased the fact that we could have access to food regularly.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No one knew about nutrition. Also,

[Mayan Bialik]

we didn't have shelter. So, like, I think there's. Well, you know, when we say that science has extended our lifespan, no one is arguing that whatsoever. Of course, medical interventions. The fact that we have sanitation, the fact that we have indoor plumbing.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Wash your hands before you stick them in a body.

[Mayan Bialik]

The fact that we have shelters now that we're not living in caves.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Like, caves can be very protected.

[Mayan Bialik]

There are so many advancements in modern civilization that of course, have, Have. So I feel like it's a. It's a mixed metaphor. It's like, oh, it's not that, oh, we should eat organic.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I agree. I also. And I really don't know why I'm defending chimpanzees this way.

[Mayan Bialik]

You're getting really.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I got really fired up because the notion that if you put a chimpanzee in a human laboratory and you're like, do you understand what I'm saying? And the chimpanzee will not. That doesn't mean they're not in. It doesn't mean they don't have intelligence or capacity. It's not a measurable intellectual capability. But chimpanzees are incredibly sophisticated also. They live in very, very elaborate social groups with very, you know, intricate rules. They use tools, they pass down information. I mean, like, the. It's a very, very highly evolved, beautiful. But, yes, that's true. They don't speak.

[Mayan Bialik]

Besides, the people who are on the TV show Naked and Afraid, who get sent out into the wilderness to try and survive.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah.

[Mayan Bialik]

You know, he says, oh, we can all survive. No, we can't. If I sent 99% of city dwellers out into the wilderness and said they'd

[Jonathan Cohen]

be dead in an hour, good luck.

[Mayan Bialik]

You're not faring so well. That's been bred out of us. We've lost that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, but. But you know that he's talking about ingenuity. And look, I also don't think that spoken language is the only measure of intelligence. We know that there are a lot of different kinds of intelligence. We know that. I mean, even Stephen Hawking, the example that he used. Right. Used a computer to communicate, you know, coupled with eye movements and all these, you know, So I. I don't think he was speaking with such. You know, he wasn't painting with such a broad brush. But just. Again, I don't know why I'm defending the chimpanzees, but I am.

[Mayan Bialik]

I'm always struck by the dark matter, dark energy conversation.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I wish we had more time to get to it with him.

[Mayan Bialik]

Like, the biggest problem in science is that 95% of what makes up our universe is unknown. Is no one else troubled by that?

[Jonathan Cohen]

I think it's a lot more troubling than people let on. I mean, even the fact that when you look at something, you think you're seeing the thing. I'm gonna use this glass. I think when I look at this, like, I see a glass. And if you were to ask me to describe this glass, I'd be like, oh, well, it looks like this. And here's the diameter. And, oh, there's this beveling, and here's the color, right? This is the fluid that's in it that I can perceive and all these things. That's actually. If you pull. If you either pull back or zoom in, that's not what this is, Right. This is the representation that's been presented upside down on the back of my eye on the retina, which I don't

[Mayan Bialik]

even know what you see there. I could be seeing something totally different.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We would probably describe this glass similarly,

[Mayan Bialik]

but all words could be used to be different. But you could actually be seeing something fairly.

[Jonathan Cohen]

That's a different point about the limits of human language. But I'm even talking about individual perception. Yeah. This is an object, right? That is made up of molecules, and it's absorbing everything from the color spectrum except what I'm seeing. Right? So if you were to be an alien from another planet, if you were to be an outside observer, that's. This is actually not what things look like. This is what our brains compute from the data that we can perceive that is processed by the brain that we have. That's what we see. That's why when people talk about that, this is just a projection, right? It's projected onto a screen. The world is wearing a mask, right? That's what all this is.

[Mayan Bialik]

You don't actually exist.

[Jonathan Cohen]

None of us exist.

[Mayan Bialik]

You are a figment of my imagination. Sitting in the chair across from me.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Does my hair look better than I perceive it?

[Mayan Bialik]

Put here by an alien toddler in his terrarium in the simulation that I was created in.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And we'll tap into the Akashic records to have access to it all seems about right.

[Mayan Bialik]

If you want more of this type of fun, follow us on Substack Mind Bialix Breakdown on Substack, where we release content exploring these topics in depth and answer listeners and community members questions. So come on over and check it out.

[Jonathan Cohen]

From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.

[Neil DeGrasse Tyson]

It's Maya Bialix Breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two and now she's gonna break down. It's a breakdown. She's gonna break it down.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Wherever you go, whatever they get into, from chill time to everyday adventures, Protect your dog from parasites with Cridelio Guattro. For full safety information, side effects and warnings, visit cordelioquattrolabel.com consult your vet or call 1-888-545-5973. Ask your vet for Cordelia Quattro and visit quattrodog.com.