← Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
PART TWO: Why 3I/Atlas, an Approaching Comet, Could Carry Alien Technology, Why Your Spirituality Doesn’t Conflict with Extraterrestrials, & Why UAPs are A National Security Concern
00:58:43
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- [00:00]
Jonathan Cohen
My Nbialix breakdown is supported by Helix Sleep.
- [00:04]
Mayim Bialik
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 they're 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. Helixleep.com breakdown Discover Top Rated stays Loved by guests. Rated highest by real guests through authentic reviews. Verbo book a vacation rental Loved by guests. Hi, I'm Imbialik.
- [01:29]
Jonathan Cohen
And I'm Jonathan Cohen.
- [01:30]
Mayim Bialik
And welcome to part two of our conversation with Dr. Avi Loeb. He's the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. He's a best selling author. We've been discussing in part one, the search for extraterrestrial life and our future in the stars. Avi Loeb is an astrophysicist and he is literally one of the people who testifies in Congress about asking the government to release unidentified objects and equipment for analysis. He is a deeply, deeply thoughtful and also very, very rigorously grounded in science astrophysicist. And we're so excited to get to talk to him in part two. We have so much more to tackle, including issues of religion, issues of where we fit in the cosmos, and what it might mean to actually make contact with extraterrestrials. So here is our part two conversation with Dr. Avi Loeb. Break it down.
- [02:25]
Jonathan Cohen
You mentioned that in 1.6 billion years the sun will boil off all the oceans and we will have to go somewhere else. But you dropped it very casually. Do you want to expand on that?
- [02:38]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Yeah. So the sun is just a nuclear reactor. Okay, A fusion reactor. And it has a limited amount of fuel. Okay. So once it starts burning a significant fraction of the fuel, it will start dying. And within a billion years, it will become brighter, actually, to start with, and then it will boil off. The temperature on Earth will rise and all the oceans will evaporate. The Earth will become a desert, just like Mars. You know, Mars lost its oceans because it lost its atmosphere, but the Earth in the distant future will lose its oceans because of the sun getting brighter. And you know, when Elon Musk talks about saving humanity by going to Mars, you know, I don't see that as a great vision because Mars is just another rock nearby. So we go from one rock to another. You know, just like if you are in the jungle, you go from one tree to another and then it's a big success story. No, you go, you just found another tree. So who cares? Like the real advance of humanity was to go from those trees in Africa to a high rise in New York City or somewhere else, a big city. That's a big transition. We are not dependent on the bananas that are happening to grow in our environment. We actually can have agriculture that makes the amount of food that we need. You know that. So the next transition is actually to build a habitat in space, space that can support us. And by the way, I see that less of a jump than going from the jungles of Africa to a high rise in New York City. Going from a high rise in New York City to space is less of a transition, as far as I can tell. And I see that as the future of humanity. I do think that we need to go to space. I don't think we should just target another rock that happened to be next to us like the Moon or Mars, because that's very narrow minded, you know, so the Moon will also be inhospitable in a billion years and we should build some habitat in space that supports us and then, then we can go places.
- [04:50]
Jonathan Cohen
I mean, I don't know that you want to go to Mars. The radiation is very bad there. There's a lot of things that seem very inhospitable that I would not want to go there. If we think about the interstellar Gardner theory and Earth like an experiment or like a recipe that was created and potentially many. You know, you make a lot of muffins that fail before you make your first great muffin that has all the, all the good things in it. So if Earth is this amazing recipe that was created, potentially, there's a bunch of failed ones before, potentially There's a bunch of failed attempts at humanity to evolve. Some of the conflict may be, are we going to destroy ourselves through potential nuclear annihilation?
- [05:35]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Yeah. And by the way, related to what you just said, there is a question. Suppose you dig down in Earth. Could there be any. We haven't found any computer terminals in digs. Right. So, you know, it's reasonable to assume that we are the first technological civilization on Earth. But that should not be taken for granted because if it happened, let's say, 200 million years ago, the surface of Earth was mixed with the interior as a result of geological activity. So, you know, so far we haven't found evidence for a technological civilization that predated us. But if you go 200 million years back, it's just 5% of the history of Earth going back, you know, to when it was 95% of its current age. It could have been that there was intelligent life back then and it was wiped out. And that's another thing that would make Mayim a little bit uncomfortable. It's too. I think Mayim really wants to stay on Earth and not go anywhere. Is that true, Mayim?
- [06:39]
Mayim Bialik
Well, I mean, it's interesting because a lot of what we talk about on our podcast is psi phenomenon. We talk to a lot of scientists who are delving into things like collective consciousness and things like remote viewing and telepathy and trying to understand sort of the scientific basis of these things. So I guess I'm interested in the mind. You know, I'm interested in what we can conjure and what we believe. So I'm. I'm very interested in, in transcendental phenomenon. I'm interested in, you know, the similarities between, let's say, ancient mystics and, you know, modern Buddhists. You know, I'm interested in the sort of things that unify us and specifically interested in, you know, the substrates of the brain and the nervous system that allow us to experience these things. You know, I think for a lot of people, the fact that there might have been intelligent life that I'll never be able to detect doesn't feel like the highest priority. But when, you know, something like the telepathy tapes goes viral, saying that non verbal autistic children all meet in a virtual collective consciousness place, like, that's kind of interesting to me, like what I
- [07:48]
Dr. Avi Loeb
should say, we now have some new tool that didn't exist in the past that would actually revolutionize the way we think about the mind. And that's AI it's an artificial neural network. And my point is we Might realize that what we call consciousness, these are just states of a very complex neural network. So once we reach the number of parameters in AI systems that is equivalent to the number of parameters in the human brain, it will exhibit all the phenomena. And when you ask what is free will, for example, I would argue it's actually a result of the human brain being so complex and so unpredictable because of its complexity and the environment that influences it being so complex as well, that makes our actions unpredictable. So we call it free will. But in reality, it's just, you know, we can imitate that by building a neural network that is artificial, that is as complex as the human brain, or even more. And when we build AI that is more complex than the human brain, we will see superhuman intelligence, something that our brain cannot comprehend because, you know, it was limited by biological constraints. And the question is, will we meet a superior intelligence because we developed it in AI artificial intelligence, or because alien intelligence visits us? You know, that is my, my question. Which one would be first?
- [09:17]
Mayim Bialik
Always with the aliens, Avi, always. It's always comes back to the aliens.
- [09:21]
Jonathan Cohen
I see a connection between what you're both saying. If Earth was an experiment, a recipe that was created, and we think about the creation of Earth not from a big bang, but from some external source, which I think is really interesting because it touches on what people are fascinated about with simulation theory, not that we can't control things, but that there's some larger creator outside of our, our environment.
- [09:49]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Isn't that, Isn't that the theme of religions?
- [09:52]
Jonathan Cohen
Well, that's what I was also going to say is that we have this fascination. So what I'm really interested in how the through line and narratives, even from disparate sources, have a commonality that may point to a universal truth of some kind, even if the detail of the story is wrong. But maybe what the. The fact that everyone is fascinated by something may point to something else. So in your theory of the interstellar gardener, or the creation of the Earth from an outside source, then the question is, well, why create it? So the purpose of creating life then goes to the purpose of us being here. We're all cute and funny and we like to make jokes and have. Make babies and write books and. But then the question a lot of the spiritual people ask is, well, what is the larger purpose? Is it simply to propagate the species, or are we here to evolve in some capacity?
- [10:47]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Well, my view is that we are completely insignificant. We have no purpose. We are just, you know, so we tend to think that we Are important. That's what my daughters thought. You know, when they were young, they thought that they're important. But once you realize the cosmos at large, you know, it's not about us. You know, we are late to the party. We arrived in the last few million years of cosmic history, so. And we are not at the center of stage. So if you are going to a play and you are not at the center of stage and you are late to the play, the play is not about you. Okay, I'm sorry to break it down. And that is, you know, going against what we want to believe. And we think that even if aliens visit us, it's because we are fascinating. They want to do something. They realize that we are interested. No, they may be just like, you know, someone that walks on the street and happens to step on an ant in the crack of the pavement and the ant thinks it's all about itself. You know, like I say, forget about us being. We don't have a purpose. I think we should just enjoy the show. You know, we are in this beautiful show that the cosmos is giving us. Instead of looking up, we keep reading the news. You know, the news every day that are depressing. We look down on other people. I say, you know, there is a much more uplifting story going on in the universe at large, and we are not a central part in it. That's the amazing thing that we can actually realize that we should be humble. You know, imagine that we can be humble. We can realize that there is something bigger than us.
- [12:21]
Jonathan Cohen
I 100% agree with you. And the experiment could be totally insignificant, yet still an experiment with a potential outcome which is will this toy species that was created be able to make the leap outside of the. The end result of when the Earth will end? And in the process of doing so, it may be that we have to use extrasensory capability. We have to expand the notion of what we. We believe. We have to avoid only becoming sheep and learning how to question.
- [12:56]
Dr. Avi Loeb
So what do. What do you think? How do they view us right now? Is a success story or as a failure?
- [13:00]
Jonathan Cohen
No, I think what they're like is it that they possibly have been so blind for so long, continuing to fight amongst themselves, continuing to believe that they're so important when the larger opportunity is. Is so much greater than they can potentially see.
- [13:15]
Dr. Avi Loeb
That's. That's exactly my point. That's exactly my point. And, you know, that's one reason I'm really studying interstellar space and looking for someone else out there, because I look at the party that we have here on Earth. And I don't enjoy it so much, you know, and so I'm looking through the window to see if there is any newcomer to the party that will improve the quality of the party. You know, like, and you just look at world politics and people fighting each other in conflicts. We are, you know, we are wasting resources on killing each other. You know, we could do much better. There is a better. We are not the pinnacle of creation. There is room for improvement. And perhaps by seeing someone who survived for much longer, billions of years, we will get a role model that is better than our politicians.
- [14:01]
Jonathan Cohen
I, I completely agree. And to tie this back again to what you're saying is what mime's perspective is on psi phenomenon and looking at expanding consciousness in the more, you know, specific human interaction. Is there a collective consciousness? Are we actually bridged by something non material that we, we may otherwise not have realized? Although the mystics point to it, that can also increase our ability to feel more connected to one another, have a more unified feeling, have more awe, wonder, joy.
- [14:33]
Dr. Avi Loeb
So I had two interesting events six months ago. One, there was a group of scholars from the organization Christianity Today that came to visit me at Harvard, and they wanted to. They asked me whether, if we find extraterrestrials, whether it will, you know, do any, any harm to their religious belief. And, and I said, look, I have two daughters, and when the second one was born, it didn't take away from the love that I have to the first one. So imagining that God is like a parent that can attend only to one child is very demeaning. You know, like, God can have as many civilizations as we want out there in the universe, and God should be able to deal with all of them. Now, of course, if we have siblings, we might get jealous because, you know, just like in a family, if your sister or brother happens to be more successful than you are, you might be jealous. I mean, so if we find extraterrestrials that are more accomplished than we are in science and technology, we might be jealous, but that will not take away your religious belief that there is a parent. And they accepted that, actually, and they were happy with that answer. Now, the second event was a Jewish gathering where I was asked about the same issue. And again, I think science is not in contradiction with religion the way many people portray it, in the sense that if you have a universe and you don't want to study it and you want to believe in God, you actually are losing something. Because when there is an object that is very delicate. In fact, the best expression of love to someone else is when you want to know everything about that person. That's the most sincere expression of love. You want to know everything about the subject of your love. And so if you want to believe in God, doing science is the best way to express your love. Because you want to know everything possible about the universe, right? Anything, any detail that will fill you up with oh, and it's much better to know the details because you don't appreciate the universe as much if you don't know the details. And science is doing just that. It's getting as much data as possible and improving the view of how the universe came about and what it includes and so forth. So the way I see it is science is an enhancer of religion rather than
- [17:11]
Mayim Bialik
now.
- [17:11]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Of course religions make statements about how the universe started that are not consistent with the, the big bang theory that we have right now. But all of these statements about things that science can explore about the physical reality should not be held as absolute truth because science is work in progress. But in, in general, you know, philosophically speaking, I think science can enhance your religious. Oh, and science, you know, if you study the universe you should be modest because you realize that you are not that important. You are short lived, you are such a small, you have such a small body on compared to the rest of the universe. You know, like it's, it's inappropriate to have this hubris that people often have about our importance.
- [17:57]
Jonathan Cohen
Mind Bialix breakdown is supported by bioptimizers.
- [18:00]
Mayim Bialik
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. BIOptimizers 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?
- [18:52]
Jonathan Cohen
You get 50% off your entire order and a free bottle of Mass Zymes
- [18:56]
Mayim Bialik
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- [19:02]
Jonathan Cohen
That's a $20 product, free on top of your discount already.
- [19:07]
Mayim Bialik
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 year you finally start sleeping again.
- [19:26]
Jonathan Cohen
Mind Bialix Breakdown is supported by Bio Optimizers.
- [19:29]
Mayim Bialik
I struggled to get good quality sleep and I just thought like it's stressful. 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 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. 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 buyoptimizers.com breaker use the code breaker. Grab it before it's gone.
- [20:54]
Jonathan Cohen
Make 2026 the year you finally start sleeping again.
- [20:58]
Mayim Bialik
I wonder if you feel like that's sort of just part of our machinery. Meaning you know, when you look at the variety of experiences that people have and we to some really interesting near death experience. People who, you know, have these Incredible experiences and what the kind of unifying emotional content of it is. Even if we remove the God, you know, kind of concept, the, the sort of unifying experience that people in near death experiences talk about, people in transcendental experiences, psychedelic experiences, deep meditative experiences. People describe love. And what many people say is like that word is not even sufficient to describe the feeling inside, right, when you feel protected. And it's different than anything on this human plane. Do you think that that's just sort of part of the machinery? In which case religion would be a way to sort of create, you know, this sort of structure that allows us to seek that. Is that just sort of part of the machinery?
- [21:59]
Dr. Avi Loeb
I think fundamentally here is my, my take on this. Fundamentally we realize since the time that we are born that we will die. That's a devastating piece of news, okay? And we work throughout our life to get meaning to living, you know, because what's the meaning of, of life if you know that it will end and nothing will survive? It's just like unplugging a computer from the power and then the computer is dead, you know, even if it has a superhuman intelligence, you know, all of these AI machines, if you stop the power, there will be nothing. And you can think of the human body just like that, you know, when we die, nothing survives. And if you realize that, then, well, you can take two takes on this one. You can say, oh, actually, death doesn't exist. You go to some other world. And in fact, even if, you know, if you commit suicide, you know, there are these terrorists that are willing to die just for the sake of the promise they're given there. Then they never come back to sue whoever promised them that, of course, and that's the trick here. But the other approach, instead of believing that death is not really the end, is to say, well, I can get a meaning by, by belonging to something bigger than myself, by feeling a connection. And in fact, because I have a connection to something bigger, that something bigger is actually will survive even my death, okay? So that, you know, and that's a way of getting some meaning because there is something bigger than our short life. And, you know, I see myself much in a much more lonelier place. I don't get meaning by connecting to other people with the same devastating fate. If all of us will die, then the connection I have to other people would also disappear. I see myself as, you know, I would be really happy if there was a way to use AI assisted medicine to live forever. I would be really happy to live forever, to Simply eliminate this catastrophe that we imagine where we will die. And that's why we do work throughout our life to fulfill some kind of a meaning. Instead of that, let's avoid dying. Okay, we can do that with AI assisted medicine. If we can avoid dying, then that would be amazing because there is so much that we don't understand about the universe. And I would like to understand it. And that could take me millions of years, billions of years. I'll be happy to live for that long. Of course, I'll give up my tenure at Harvard because I want younger people to also hold this job. You know, that would not be the issue. But I really want to live forever instead of saying, okay, I will die and let's all believe in something else instead of that, let's accept that, you know, we would die if we let biology dictate our fate. But we can avoid biology by, you know, understanding why we die and preventing it. And it's sort of like fixing a car. You know, the car, the engine might not work after a while, but you realize that you can fix the engine and then it will work. And then the car would drive forever. And that to me, is the actual meaning. The meaning is to find a way to live forever. Really to live forever not by having babies or writing books, but you yourself. And just think about the wisdom that you will accumulate in a million years.
- [25:31]
Jonathan Cohen
You'll accumulate an enormous amount of wisdom, but you'll then face the oceans boiling off and have to leave anyway.
- [25:38]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Oh, no, you go to space, as I said. You don't rely on this rock that we were born on. It's just like going from the jungles to a high rise. The next step is going from a high rise to a space station.
- [25:51]
Jonathan Cohen
Tell us about hidden black holes.
- [25:55]
Dr. Avi Loeb
We don't know what most of the matter in the universe is, you know, and that's 85% of the matter in the universe. You know, the thing the, the atoms that we are made of, that our body is made of is ordinary matter. But apparently there is much, six times more of something else, some stuff that we don't know. The only reason we know about it is because it gravitates, it affects gravity, it binds galaxies together. And the visible matter is unable to do that. So we call it invisible matter. We call it dark matter. It's just a way of encapsulating our ignorance. And, you know, one possibility is that in the early universe, early on, there were tiny black holes that were made and black holes would not produce any light. Those black holes that have roughly the mass of an asteroid. You know, like, similar to 3i Atlas. And if it's an asteroid, we don't know what it is. But those black holes, small black holes. Will behave as dark matter. That's one possibility. Just to explain what a black hole is. That's the structure of space time. As I mentioned. Gravity is the curvature of spacetime. And if you condense matter to a point. Then you get such a major curvature of space time. That you get a region of space that nothing can escape from. So it's sort of the ultimate prison. Another way to think of it is like Vegas. Anything that happens inside a black hole. Will never go out of the. Everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. In the case of a black hole, it's definitely the case. Even light cannot escape from a black hole. And by the way, I was the founding director of the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard University. And Stephen Hawking came to my home for the inauguration. And my wife made the. He came for Passover, actually. That was his first experience. And he ate everything that my wife made for him. And loved it, actually, and gave a speech about it. But coming back to Black Horse. He was one of the people who actually studied them in great detail. And realized their properties. But he also realized, you know, that's a funny story. That back in around 1972. There was a. A graduate student at Princeton named Jacob Bekenstein. And he said, well, it looks like black holes might have entropy. Because when you put two of them together. You get more surface. Than the sum of the surfaces that each of them had. And that sounds like entropy that is always increasing. And the entropy should be proportional to the area. The surface area of the event horizon of a black hole. That was a revolutionary idea. And his mentor, John Wheeler, said it's such a crazy idea that it might be true. Coming back to you mime, sometimes crazy ideas are true. Anyway, so Stephen Hawking thought, that's a stupid idea. And he said, I will demonstrate that it's wrong. So he did a quantum mechanical calculation. And realized, in fact, Bekenstein was right. Black holes not only have an entropy. But they actually emit thermal radiation. And they evaporate as a result of that. So small black holes, very tiny black holes would explode. And that's the most important result derived by Stephen Hawking. By trying to prove Bekenstein wrong. So what does it teach us? It teaches us first that scientists can change opinions, okay? And that's accepted, because if you realize new results or new evidence. You're allowed to change opinions. It's not politics. You can change opinions because you realize something you didn't realize before. It's work in progress. And the second thing is, even black holes that you would think are the blackest things that you can imagine that do not emit any light, even they emit light.
- [30:08]
Jonathan Cohen
So what does that mean to our understanding of the fabric of, of the universe? Like what, what are these black holes doing in terms of our, our, our world?
- [30:19]
Dr. Avi Loeb
So every galaxy like the Milky Way, so the universe is organized to stars forming in the core of the galaxies. That, and there are about a trillion galaxies like the Milky Way in the, in the observable volume of the universe and many more beyond. So we can see only out to some distance, which is called the cosmic horizon. That's the distance that light traveled since the Big Bang. We cannot see beyond that because light could not have bridged the distance farther away. And within that distance, we see a trillion galaxies like the Milky Way. Inside each of them, there are about 100 billion stars like the sun, okay? And so at the center of each galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole. There is a black hole that must have been the result of, you know, it's just like water going down the drain. Some gas and stars, you know, went to the center of the galaxy and made this black hole. And you see it in every galaxy. Our galaxy has a black hole of 4 million times the mass of the sun at the center. And every galaxy, I mean, there are black holes that exist all the way back to when the universe was just about 5% of its present age that have black holes that are up to 10 billion times the mass of the Sun. And so these are giant black holes. By the way, if you wanted to make a black hole one way with ordinary matter, you know, if you were to pour water into the orbit of Jupiter, if you fill the orbit of Jupiter with water, you will get a black hole of about 100 million times the mass of the Sun. You just need a huge swimming pool where you pour water. There is not enough water in the Milky Way galaxy to do that. But I'm just saying if you pour water into the. Fill the orbit of Jupiter with water, you get, you know, this would be within the event horizon of a black hole of 100 million times the mass of, of the Sun. And these black holes, these supermassive black holes exist at galaxy centers, you know, and we don't know what happens at the center of black holes because, again, Einstein's theory breaks down. And my advice to you know, some string theorists who have conjectures about what, you know, how to unify quantum mechanics and gravity is take a journey into a black hole and figure it out. And they blame me for having an ulterior motive for sending them into a black hole.
- [32:48]
Jonathan Cohen
There's, like some way out there. Theories, though, that, like, we are in a black hole or black holes are the way that you go through to multiverses.
- [32:56]
Dr. Avi Loeb
But that's not substantiated by what we know as of now, because what happens close to the singularity of a black hole is very different than the type of universe that we have that we are observing. The universe is pretty much uniform all the way out to the cosmic horizon, has the same conditions everywhere. And these conditions go out to distances that are at least 4,000 times bigger than we can see. So it's just a huge volume that has the same conditions. By the way, there is this question of how were these conditions arranged across such vast scales to be the same? Because if you go look in one direction, you know, the light arrived just now to us from that cosmic horizon, you look at the opposite direction. It arrived to us just now. There wasn't enough time for light to cross the diameter of the cosmic horizon. So from that point to the other point. And there must have been something special in the way the universe was prepared early on. And there are theories about that.
- [34:01]
Jonathan Cohen
This episode is sponsored by Wandering Jews, an open door media brand.
- [34:06]
Mayim Bialik
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. Wandering 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 pretty, 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 Rapoport 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, Apple, or on YouTube and make sure to hit subscribe. Check out Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam podcast And subscribe at Unpacked Bio nmx. I'm Kiana, and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like, I can't stop. I'm addicted. Start your free trial@shopify.com.
- [35:36]
Jonathan Cohen
i do think it's strange that all these galaxies have these garbage disposals as black holes in the middle that just, like, we don't know what's happening.
- [35:48]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Think of it as an amusement park, because if you get close to the horizon of a black hole, time is ticking more slowly. So it would make sense to have a beauty salon there. Another thing, because you will age more slowly than anyone else far away. And if you look straight, light, if you go to the right place, light goes in a circle around the black hole. So you can see your back by looking forward. And you can dump your trash into a black hole and get a lot of clean energy in return. That's the ultimate source of clean energy. It's very environmentally friendly if you're not burned by the burst of radiation that comes from that. But if you wanted to use your trash and convert it to energy more efficiently than a nuclear reactor can, a black hole is the best location for that. So having a civilization close to a black hole is a great perk.
- [36:48]
Mayim Bialik
I want to ask a question that is not necessarily political, but it does involve sort of, you know, political entities in that. You know, one of the things that's so maddening to me is that there may actually be debris, artifacts, you know, unidentified materials that the government has. And obviously there's an entire, you know, universe, for lack of a better word, of conspiracy theories around what the government doesn't want us to know and what the government already knows and what the government is covering up. What's the best way to sort of approach this? You know, I wish that there was some, you know, kind of way to just say you have to release this information. But if we can't get the Jeffrey Epstein papers, I don't think UFOs are going to come easier.
- [37:33]
Dr. Avi Loeb
First of all, let me mention an anecdote, because a few days ago, I participated in the podcast where I was asked, you know, some of our audience members are saying that you floated the possibility that 3i Atlas is alien technology in order to distract us from the Epstein files. And my response to that is, go to Amazon right now and purchase a half a meter telescope because that would allow you to see the object in the sky. I cannot really fake it. It's not something I can create with a Jewish laser. And because it's so far away, it's like four times the Earth sun separation and the Hubble Space Telescope, the Webb Telescope, are looking at it, and it's in the right direction. It has to be very far. And it's real. It's something real in the sky, and you can see it yourself. So that's the difference. You know, one difference between a conspiracy theorist and a scientist is as follows. I was asked how to tell the difference. How do you tell the difference between a conspiracy theorist and a scientist? It's very easy. You just give them more data. The scientists will be delighted, even if it contradicts their previous views on the subject. But the more data we have, the better knowledge we have. And if a scientist is not too attached to their ego, they should be delighted with more data. But the conspiracy theorists will be upset, especially if the data violates their conspiracy theory. And so that's the simplest way to tell the difference. If you have a friend and you don't know whether that is a conspiracy theorist or a scientist, just ask them this question. Would you be happier if you had more data? So, coming back to your question, how do we tell that if the government holds secrets, it's by seeing the data. You know, I don't believe stories that people tell me. I don't care about stories. I want to see the evidence, okay? And if I see it, I'll believe it. You know, if the government has something that they know about. And by the way, Tulsi Gabbard just expressed herself a few days ago, saying that, you know, she knows about objects that may be interesting. She didn't really get into details, and, you know, that's interesting. I would like to see that data and maybe help government figure it out. But without seeing the data, I don't care what stories people tell me because I was burned many times before when people would say something turns out to be wrong, and, you know, it's wishful thinking. Sometimes people illusion themselves. They want to believe something, and as a result, they believe in it, but it turns out to be unsubstantiated. So, you know, the judicial system, I mean, if you go to a courtroom, the decision is made by people, okay? And very often there is no hard data. And they have to make a judgment. But look at how many times people on death row were exonerated as a result of DNA evidence. And that tells you that not only the jury, but, you know, but also the people who testified against them were fully convinced that they're guilty. And it turns out they're not guilty. And so why believe people? I mean, I, frankly, that's why I don't like social media, because you can be liked. Everyone would believe the same thing, the same story, but the story is completely fabricated. And by the way, I should say one more thing. Over the past few days, I was interviewed maybe on, I would say, two dozen over the past few days, two dozen television stations. And the one thing that struck me, it was including Fox News, cnn, newsmax, a lot of from all stripes of politics of the political spectrum. And what was remarkable to me is they would invite me to join 10 minutes before the interview. So I would hear other stories before my segment, and I would hear the same stories on the same day, and I would see how the same story is being told in different television stations. And it's remarkable how different the narrative is. You know, our society in the US Right now is so polarized. I got a firsthand look at that by hearing those segments before mine on the stories of the day being told in completely different ways. And that's supposed to be professional reporters, right? Well, they are very biased, I must say, because these stories were not compatible.
- [42:36]
Jonathan Cohen
You mentioned earlier in the interview that you weren't finding much intelligence in academia. Can you speak to academia and the nature of these institutions which have the largest amounts of research happening? What are you seeing there in terms of their approach to breaking down siloed narratives or status quo to find, you know, more interesting truth?
- [43:01]
Dr. Avi Loeb
You see, when I entered science, I was under the illusion that it's all about merit, that it's not about showing off. It's about, you know, discovering something substantive. And then once you discover it, everyone will accept it and it will be a great contribution to our knowledge. That was the narrative that I got from reading books, textbooks about how science, you know, how physics went through early on, but now in retrospect, you know, more than 40 years after that. And by the way, I lived through about half of modern physics, the history of modern physics. So I started modern physics when it was half its current age, which makes me a good spectator, you know, being able to gauge what really is going on. And what I see is that, you know, academia was initially constructed in a way that, you Give tenure to individuals based on their accomplishments, and that would free them from the burden of, you know, being liked or everyone agreeing with them. They could explore new territories of knowledge that are very often foreign to most people. They feel uncomfortable when you tell them that not everything in the sky is rocks, you know, because they are still in the Stone Age, where everything in the sky must be stones. We know that we send space probes out there, and so other civilizations might have done the same. Why is that a heresy? And so the point is that academia was constructed to allow the freedom to think outside the beaten path. And that's the idea of tenure. But what you find in reality is that once people get tenure, they are all about virtue signaling, about showing off, showing that they are smart because they need to get funding to their students, postdocs, so they need to build echo chambers that repeat their mantra. And they expect the people that work with them to repeat their mantras, not to violate their dogma or doctrine. And as a result, what you end up is in a situation where you have these silos, as you mentioned, that people belong to a narrative that was known for a while, and they feel that their ego is tied up with that narrative and that they want to promote that narrative with everyone they work with so that they will get more funding, they will get honors and awards. So it's all about showing off and demonstrating to your peers that you're smart. But that's not really the reason to do scholarship. The reason should be to understand, especially in context of physics, to understand the physical reality in the context of science. So how can you have the mainstream of theoretical physics for nearly 50 years working on a concept of extra dimensions, on supersymmetry and so forth? These are ideas that are the foundation of string theory. And we have no experimental test to validate the path that we're taking. There is nothing that says you're taking the right path. You know, you can go on this path forever, but you want to know whether this path leads anywhere or should you have taken a different path? And the fact that it's celebrated in academia that people got honors, awards for just showing that they're smart without actually explaining nature to me illustrates the unfortunate fate of academic life that is all about showing off and demonstrating that you are smart. But it's not about understanding nature in the context of the sciences. And so I feel that we are missing the point. Now, on top of that, I mean, I belong to Harvard University. I have three narratives to my identity. One is, I was born in Israel. Second I'm Jewish. And third, I'm a scientist. And finally, I'm a member of the Harvard University professors sort of club, so to speak. And all of these facets of my existence, my identity were under attack over the past two years, you know, and I'm entirely proud of my roots. I will not apologize for any of these traits for being born in Israel, for being Jewish, being a scientist, or being at Harvard University. And I believe, and I actually criticized, you know, the politics in Israel, I criticized the politics at Harvard and I spoke with who is now the president of Harvard and after October 7th and said, here are the ways that Harvard should improve. Because what happened was that politics and the far progressive left ideas were introduced to campus and that is not a good way to maintain scholarship. Politics should be out of campus because you are getting students that come from homes that represent half of the country that is conservative. And you should not introduce a political narrative into scholarship because you alienate those students, even if they don't tell you that the same is true about faculty hires. And I think what Harvard suffers right now is the result of this unfortunate approach that was taken over the past decade or two. And we shouldn't have gone this path. Okay? And so just to summarize my answer to you, in the context of science or scholarship in general, we should care about the subject that we are studying, not about showing off and demonstrating that we are smart. That's not the objective. And in the context of scholarship more broadly, we should not bring politics into the campus. Of course we should listen to each other and respect different views and there should be diversity of opinions and there shouldn't be a political narrative that favors one extreme of the political map. And I think all the problems we have right now in academia result from those two roots. And the public is losing some of the trust in our academic institutions, institutions because of that.
- [49:42]
Jonathan Cohen
Avi, before we let you go, tell us a few of your most out there ideas that get you in hot water or get people maybe doing a double take at a dinner party.
- [49:55]
Dr. Avi Loeb
You should ask them about that because to me, all of the ideas sound completely natural. You know, I, I, I'm not trying to be provocative. For example, with respect to Three Eye Atlas, I did not reach out to any news agency. I did not. I just wrote my papers and then the New York Post didn't interview me. They just wrote a big sensational story and that was picked up by other journalists and then it became viral. And then, you know, so I'm sorry, but you know, the one Thing about my, my life that I don't fully understand is to me, everything I say makes sense. It sounds like common sense and I don't expect it to be unusual. And in fact, when people tell me that it sounds strange or unusual, I'm surprised. But on the other hand, it was a benefit for me because otherwise I would not get tenure at Harvard. I got tenured within three years and I got my PhD at age 24. Now if you ask how is that possible, it's because for some reason other people do not have these ideas. You know, I'm not good at computers. For example, when I finished my PhD and I came to visit the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the person there that offered me a five year fellowship, John Bacall, he asked me, you know, what computer languages are you using? And I said, well, I'm just using programs that can allow me to solve ordinary differential equations and otherwise I don't care much about computers. And he said, how do you think you will have a career? That was 1986. And the only reason I managed to have a career is because I think of ideas that other people do not think about. Now you ask me, how is that possible? You know, if other people had the same ideas, then nobody would care about me. You know, I would never, I would never be reported about by the New York Post. I would never get the attention that I get. Like, you know, it doesn't TV stations over the past few days. I would never get to appear in, you know, 4,000 podcasts over the past five years. But, you know, miraculously, it doesn't come up in the minds of other people. I don't know why.
- [52:08]
Mayim Bialik
I think they gave you tenure because they didn't want you to keep asking questions. They were like, let's just give him tenure, he'll stop asking questions.
- [52:15]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Who is this person in the Haggadah of Passover who asks question, how, how is that person regarded?
- [52:20]
Mayim Bialik
Oh, are you the, the wise, the simple, the wicked, or the one who does not know to ask?
- [52:25]
Dr. Avi Loeb
No, asking questions is the wise, isn't it?
- [52:28]
Mayim Bialik
Yes. Well, there's different kinds of questions.
- [52:31]
Jonathan Cohen
I think they gave him tenure to protect him. They're like, if you don't have tenure, so they're going to throw you right out of here. We better make sure you're safe.
- [52:41]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Well, let me say the following. I had the same flow of ideas, the same rate of new ideas since I was young. You know, I'm jogging every morning at sunrise for three miles. I'm in very good shape. And, you know, nothing much changed. And if. If at some point I stop having ideas, you know, I. I told my students, you can shoot me. That's no. No problem. Because what's the point of living?
- [53:06]
Mayim Bialik
You know, you grew up on a farm, and I wonder if you can tell us maybe three things that you learned as a child that you feel created the scientists that you are today.
- [53:18]
Dr. Avi Loeb
I. I loved going on a tractor to the hills of the village to read the philosophy books. And that gave me sort of the peace of mind away from people. And that's one thing that I'm practicing now. I don't care how many likes I have. It's. It's really irrelevant. And philosophy gave me a sense of the bigger picture, thinking about the big picture, not about the technical details. Because, you know, in science, most scientists are nerds. They just dig down the path that they took early on, and they reach sometimes the bedrock of the subject they work on, and then they can't discover anything new. And I'm very different. I'm broad. You know, I look at it philosophically. That makes me quite different. And the only reason I ended up as a scientist is because of circumstances that I was recruited to the Israeli military. And I thought the best way of passing through those years would be to pursue a degree in physics and mathematics. And that was possible in a special program that I attended. And actually, the reason I'm in the US Is because President Reagan started the Strategic Defense initiative in the mid-1980s, and the first international project that they funded was led by me and an experimentalist. And that brought me to Washington, D.C. and after that, I was offered a position at Princeton. And so, you know, it was all a chain of circumstances. And later in life, I realized that it was an arranged marriage, but I'm actually married to my true love because I can pursue philosophical questions using the scientific method. And that's what I'm doing. And the last thing that I learned from childhood was the connection to nature. You know, nature is so beautiful. When I jog every morning, I see, you know, wild turkeys, ducks, bunnies. It's just beautiful. I enjoy that. Much more rewarding than speaking with people. Okay. And then this connection to nature came from my childhood on a farm. And so three things. Having the philosophical outlook, you know, and being connected to nature and. And, you know, not, you know, the style of being on a farm is also, you know, you want to get the job done. That's the kind of people I work with. That's the, you know, the father that I have. He wouldn't say much. He would. He would solve problems. He would not, you know, show off. It's a very different tradition of actually doing things than talking about them. And what you find today on social media is people talk and talk and talk and not do anything, even if they care about the cause. They use it to. To signal their virtues rather than actually solve the problem. They would put something in the backyard, a sign that says that they care about the problem, but they wouldn't do anything to solve the problem. This is not the way. And the right way is, you know, that what my father taught me, which is, you know, just do it, you know, and do it in a way that is not bragging. It's just doing the right thing.
- [56:42]
Mayim Bialik
Our final question for you. What do you want people to think about when they think about the future of humanity, our species, or our planet?
- [56:52]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Okay, first I thought that you will ask a question that I was asked recently, and that is, how do I want to be remembered? And the answer to that is by my future work. I don't care about what I did in the past. I want people to remember me by what I will do in the future. And it will always be true because I always want to get better. But in terms of the future of humanity, it basically follows from what we discussed. My hope is that, first of all, we will realize, let's say if 3i Atlas happens to be an alien tech, or if some future object happens to be alien tech, we will come together. We will realize that we are all in the same boat. And it will start sort of a messianic age of cooperation here on Earth. That's my hope, that instead of looking down at each other, we will look up. And then once we realize there is much more real estate out there and the stage is so big and offers so many resources. My hope is that within the next few hundreds of years, humanity will move on to have groups of people living on platforms, the space platforms. That is the next transition as we went from trees in the jungle to high rises in cities. And the next step is going to space in a habitat that will support us. And that's the way I see it now. My hope is that before I die, we will find a way to extend life. And I want to live forever. If I can do that, you know, then the priorities will change.
- [58:32]
Mayim Bialik
Of course, Avi, we have the solution. Believe in God and you will live forever.
- [58:38]
Dr. Avi Loeb
It could be an illusion that you convince yourself of some story. As I said, I don't want stories I want actually AI assisted medicine to extend my life. I don't need a story, because the problem with this story is that once you die, you can't go back and say, you were wrong.
- [58:55]
Mayim Bialik
I'm going to come back and tell you, Avi. I'm going to be like, avi, you were wrong. Thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure talking with you. Interstellar, the search for extraterrestrial life and our future in the stars is absolutely delightful. And there's even some funny stuff in it if you couldn't tell. Dr. Loeb is a funny guy. So thank you so much, Mayim.
- [59:14]
Dr. Avi Loeb
I should say that's what my wife says, that I'm funny. And she says, the funny thing about you is that you don't mean to be funny. You're just funny because you believe in what you say. But then it's funny.
- [59:24]
Mayim Bialik
I think you missed your calling. You should not have been an astrophysicist. You should have been a comedian.
- [59:30]
Dr. Avi Loeb
Really, now.
- [59:33]
Mayim Bialik
Okay, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Who. You know, the thing about people who study astrophysics, they take a lot of things for granted that they think people understand. It's been a minute since I have had to think about quantum physics, and it's hard. Like, I just want to sort of touch on this dark matter notion because, you know, I. I was not raised a scientist, meaning I didn't kind of discover science as a passion of mine until, you know, high school. So I had no idea, I mean, like, zero idea about a lot of the other kind of scientific stuff that many people who were into science knew about. Like, sure. I, like, had known that Carl Sagan existed and, like, oh, I've heard of these things. But it wasn't until, honestly, I took a deep, you know, dive as a scientist in college, you know, in my 20s, that I understood, like, what does it mean to say that 85% of the matter out there, we don't know what it is? Like, that's a really big concept. And to say, like, well, of course this is not really gravity. It's just the bend of space time. Like, these are big concepts. So in case you got lost, there are wonderful resources. You know, Richard Feynman's great. And, like, there are great resources to try and, you know, sort of, like, get a handle on these things. And also the question is also, how much? And I'm thinking of you, Jonathan. Like, how much do you need to know? Meaning, like, I'm trying to think about what is going through Jonathan's brain when he's like, well, the bend and the black hole, like, nothing can go in and life can't, like can't reflect out. And if it happens in there, everything stays in there. Ha ha ha. A little Las Vegas joke. You know, I'm looking at you and thinking, you know, that's not the best way to explain to Jonathan where 85% of the matter in the universe is.
- [61:31]
Jonathan Cohen
I think about Deepak Chopra, who started our interview with him, our second one, that talked about simulation theory and extrasensory abilities, where he talked about how the hard problem. One of the hard problems in science is the fact that they don't know what this dark matter is, what it's made out of, what it actually does. And it actually showed a lack of, you know, finishedness to our exploration of our existence, the world around us and what we are each capable of. You know, Dr. Avi didn't lean into the psi phenomenon, but there was sort of a moment where we were trying to put it together. Because I do believe that as he explores outer space, we're exploring our capacity here on Earth. And I do think that there is an evolutionary process that we are all in and in the sort of scope of time of humanity. We are still just coming out of this space where our perception of reality is so focused and has been so focused on getting food, replicating the species and continuing to propagate that we don't even see what the larger reality around us is.
- [62:42]
Mayim Bialik
I mean, please. I was afraid to ask Avi if he really loves his wife and his children. Maybe he doesn't believe in love. I was afraid he was getting so. So binary on me. I was like, I don't want to poke this too much. How do you even know you like your children? I got nervous.
- [62:59]
Jonathan Cohen
What do you think about the potential space rock that may be an intergalactic spaceship heading towards Earth?
- [63:07]
Mayim Bialik
The October 29th situation. I mean, look, he definitely identified components of it that I also find very, very, I don't say troubling, interesting, surprising, you know, in terms of coincidence. I'm mostly interested in the path that it's taking. Not crazy about, you know, I made a headlight joke. I'm not crazy about this notion of, like, if there's interstellar space equipment, do they really need headlights? Like, do they need the kind that stay on all the time? Do they switch them on? But there could be other things that are emanating. You know, it's just. I mean, I'll be paying close attention. I'm not making any big Halloween plans. That's for darn Tootin. Sure.
- [63:47]
Jonathan Cohen
That's where you go your Halloween plans.
- [63:49]
Mayim Bialik
He said Oct. 29. I'm like, it's All Hallows Eve is waiting to happen. Jonathan, please remind everyone of all the fun things they can get over on Substack. We're really, really trying to encourage people to join our community over there, which is growing.
- [64:02]
Jonathan Cohen
It's a growing community of breakers. You can get exclusive content that you cannot get anywhere else. Deep dives with Mayim and I. Special episodes happen there and Mayim recently released a handful of Big Bang specific material. So if you're a Big Bang fan, you are going to get a lot of awesome content there. Join us on Substack may be Alex Breakdown on Substack.
- [64:26]
Mayim Bialik
And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.
- [64:29]
Jonathan Cohen
It's Maya Bialix breakdown.
- [64:31]
Dr. Avi Loeb
She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two and now she's going to break down. To break down. She's going to break it down.