Our Burning Questions – Simulation Debate

Summary

StarTalk Radio – "Our Burning Questions: Simulation Debate"

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Co-Hosts: Chuck Nice, Gary O’Reilly
Release: March 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

This special edition of StarTalk Radio features a rapid-fire Q&A "burning questions" format, where Neil deGrasse Tyson answers thought-provoking queries from the StarTalk production team. The central theme is the intersection of science, technology, philosophy, and society, with special focus on simulation theory, AI consciousness, multiverses, education reform, and the human relationship with mortality. Woven with banter and comedic riffs, the episode is designed to both entertain and provoke deeper reflection on science's biggest mysteries.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. How Heavy Is Planet Earth? (04:23 – 10:17)

• Gary O’Reilly wonders about the weight of Earth, comparing it to trying to weigh a truck.
• Neil deGrasse Tyson:
  • Earth is "weightless" because in orbit it’s in freefall, just like astronauts in the ISS. (04:48)
  • Fun analogy: You "didn’t see that coming," but it's "the answer most people didn’t quite see coming." (05:23)
  • Explains how to estimate the weight of a truck using tire pressure (psi) and contact area—demonstrates a scientific approach to an everyday question. (06:51–09:55)
  • Practical trick: Truckers may release air from tires to lower height for overpasses.

"Earth is weightless. Just the same way astronauts in the space station...are orbiting Earth and are weightless, Earth orbiting the sun is weightless."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (04:48)

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2. Quantum Computing & Simulation Theory (10:18 – 16:33)

• Alex P. (Producer) asks whether advances in quantum computing—like Google's quantum chip outperforming classical computers—lend support to the multiverse or simulation hypotheses.
• Tyson:
  • Simulation theory: If our own computers can convincingly simulate universes, maybe we're simulations too.
  • If we discovered physical constants in nature that "max out" oddly (such as an abrupt cutoff in things like cosmic ray energies), that could hint at programmed limits—comparable to finding the painted edge of the world in "The Truman Show".
  • Example: Cosmic ray energy cut-off could indicate an artificial ceiling set by a "programmer".
  • The number of digits of Pi used in physical calculations is a practical programming analogue.
• Philosophical point: If measurement reveals nature is "truncated" at arbitrary values, that's evidence for a programmed universe.

"Suppose you measure something in the universe...and it's only accurate to 12 digits of pi, and then you start getting wrong numbers—it's as if you found the programmer's limit."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (12:12)

"Maybe the programmer had no expectations we'd ever come near that…and we did, because he walked away from the program."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (14:07)

Memorable moment:
Chuck riffs on the "programmer walking away to make a sandwich while humans invent fire," underlining the comic tone.

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3. Imitation vs. Consciousness: AI, Neurons, and Self-Awareness (20:01 – 30:12)

• Bryant (Community Manager) asks: Does the debate about AI consciousness change when comparing silicon-based AIs to systems using living neurons?
• Tyson:
  • Argues the distinction between artificial and biological substrates may be 'artificial' itself.
  • References the Turing Test: All that ultimately matters is indistinguishability by behavior.
  • Tells a story of early computer psychologist simulators.
  • Chuck raises “self-awareness”—humans are continuously questioning and reflecting, even internally.
  • Tyson counters: If that self-awareness never manifests in behavior, does it matter?
  • Asimov’s laws of robotics invoked to show how behavior (not inner experience) is what matters to society.
  • "Bad actors" will emerge in both humans and AI, regardless of composition.
• Energy consumption: Human brains are "low energy," but AI's energy demands are due to data mining, not thinking per se. If AI mimics human-level depth, it could be similarly energy-efficient.

"If something can calculate and do things...and it's way smarter than you...does it really matter what it's made of? Who cares?"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (20:50)

"The Turing machine...suggests a computer is functionally conscious if you can't tell it's not a human on the other side."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (22:08)

"We all have thoughts, right? And so if he never acts on them, it doesn't matter to anybody else."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (27:14)

Much laughter over "Benedict Cabbage Patch" (Cumberbatch) and “Jesus Bot.”

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4. The Rational Robot Politician: AI & Emotions in Leadership (30:28 – 32:03)

• Should AI be allowed to run for office?
• Neil notes that truly rational leaders aren’t often favored because people want emotional resonance, not just logic.
• Suggests an emotionally intelligent politician should have an “ultra-logical” AI as an advisor for balance.

"AI can be programmed to be completely rational. In my experience, no one likes rational leaders."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (30:37)

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5. Transforming Education for the Future (32:04 – 43:46)

• Peter (Legal) asks: If you could change one thing about education worldwide, what would it be?
• Tyson's Educational Reform Tenets:
  • Teach "how to think," not "what to know." Value analytical skills over memorization. (In the real world, it’s about problem solving.)
  • Schools should make students sad to leave—learning should be a joyous, curiosity-driven celebration.
  • Real change happens when there's an economic incentive—legislation and progress tie to financial motivation (e.g., whaling ended with oil's discovery, not just activism).
  • The temptation and role of AI in education: Chatbots highlight how the system over-values grades over genuine learning.
  • Suggests smaller student-teacher ratios and oral exams to combat cheating and foster real engagement.

"We need to train people not what to know—so much as how to think, how to see information and analyze it."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (33:01)

"We need to have schools where at the end of the day, you are sad that the school day has ended."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (34:57)

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6. Sentimental Objects: The Story Behind Neil’s Favorite Office Item (44:22 – 50:48)

• Frank (Editor) asks Neil to describe his favorite office item ASMR-style.
• Neil picks his National Geographic StarTalk glass mug—a chain of memories from work with Carl Sagan’s Planetary Society, Bill Nye, Ann Druyan, Seth MacFarlane, Cosmos, and National Geographic.
• The mug encapsulates his journey through science communication.

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7. Science, Religion, and Facing Death (53:17 – 68:56)

• Zhao (Editor): Asks Neil’s personal stance on religion/atheism/agnosticism and if science leaves any hope for meaning beyond death. Zhao frames it personally: his father is facing incurable illness.
• Tyson:
  • Distinguishes himself from famous “capital-A” atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris). He’s agnostic because he doesn’t share their oppositional stance to religion/culture.
  • Enjoys religious music, uses AD/BC, appreciates religion’s contributions to culture and history.
  • On death:
    • Argues death is likely the same as the non-existence before birth.
    • Touches on physical and cosmic legacy—our body's atoms return to earth or radiate out as energy (cremation).
    • Readings from his book Starry Messenger: Humans are unique, having won the "existence lottery.” The way to honor that is to make the world better for having lived in it.
    • Consolation to Zhao: "We are the lucky ones because we got to be born at all."

"I'm a different kind of agnostic... I am not ardently against people with religious faith... I need some other word that's softer."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (55:31)

"In death, your molecules are recycled—if buried, microbes dine on you; if cremated, your energy radiates into space... You’re still a part of the universe, just in a different form."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (60:06–62:00)

"Each of us, for all practical purposes, is unique in the universe. Now, forever, being alive is the time to celebrate being alive every waking moment along the way."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (Reading from Starry Messenger, ~63:00)

"Our primal urge to keep looking up is surely greater than our primal urge to keep killing one another."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (Reading from Starry Messenger, ~64:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You have burning questions, and I’m the ointment for it. Apply twice a day!"
  — Neil deGrasse Tyson (01:57, 69:33)
• "Sanford & Son went to the universe."
  — Chuck Nice (45:08)
• On AI politicians: "That's a wonderful idea. However, you'll be voted out in the very next election."
  — (31:47)
• “We all have thoughts... if you never act on them, it doesn’t matter to anybody else. It’s your own little world.”
  — Neil deGrasse Tyson (27:14)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:23 – Earth’s weightless nature and truck analogy
• 10:18 – Quantum computing and simulation theory
• 12:12 – Cosmic constants and evidence for simulation
• 20:01 – Imitative AI vs. neuron-level AI
• 22:08 – Turing Test and functional consciousness
• 27:00 – Self-awareness and behavior
• 30:28 – AI political leaders and emotional reasoning
• 32:04 – Fixing education and curiosity
• 41:30 – Calculators, cheating, and learning focus
• 44:22 – Tyson’s favorite office object story
• 53:17 – Religion, atheism, and the science of death
• 60:06 – Starry Messenger reading on life and legacy

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Episode Tone & Final Thoughts

StarTalk’s trademark blend of playful banter (from "Benedict Cabbage Patch" to “Jesus Bot”) and profound reflection (end-of-life philosophy, what it means to be conscious or unique) shines throughout the episode. Neil deGrasse Tyson brings practical scientific thinking to diverse life questions, while repeatedly emphasizing curiosity, humility before the unknown, and celebrating the privilege of existence.

If you haven’t listened, this episode offers both laughter and plenty to ponder—about the universe, our place in it, and how best to spend our “glorious” improbable lives.

Transcript

[Gary O'Reilly]

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[Chuck Nice]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

mother in law talk about me behind

[Chuck Nice]

my back and she doesn't even know that I understand what she's saying. All right, I've shared too much. How about you? Go to Rosetta Stone.com startalk today to explore Rosetta Stone and choose your language. Go to Rosetta Stone.com startalk right now and begin your language learning journey today.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Coming up, burning questions asked of me by the StarTalk team. Gary, am I supposed to be some ointment that'll soothe the burning sensations they feel?

[Gary O'Reilly]

I think you should be.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes, twice a day.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Call me in the morning. Coming up, StarTalk Special Edition. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Special Edition. Neil Degrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. Special edition means I got Gary O'Reilly right here. How you doing, Gary?

[Gary O'Reilly]

I'm good, thank you, Neil.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes. Recently an official American citizen. Congratulations.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yeah. And we've recently been watching the Winter Olympics and I'm pleased to say I enjoy being an American citizen because we win way more gold than the Brits.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's. Yeah. We also have multiples of the population and the resources, but. Yeah. Okay.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And, Chuck, I got you here. How you doing, man?

[Chuck Nice]

Always great, man. Feeling good.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Very nice. Very nice. So, you know, this is one of those episodes where I just hear these murmurs from you and the producers that you guys have questions as well.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Like burning questions. And even though you didn't pay the Patreon fee to gain access to my answers, you sneak in ahead of the line. Yeah. Could you be a little more. A little more.

[Chuck Nice]

You know, I like the fact that Gary just owns it. He was like.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

You know, he's like, when the bouncer lifts up the rope for you at the club, you don't question that. You just walk in.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So what you have Gary?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Well, like I say, our production team and our associates have their burning questions, and we tried to burn through them the back end of 2025, but we got nowhere near completing them, so we've got to pick it up. So it's Burning Questions, take two.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Bring it on.

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right, here we go. Here's one. Maybe it's an unknown answer, but how about this? I was watching a truck the other day.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, wait, who is this from? Who's asking this?

[Gary O'Reilly]

This is me. This is me. Oh, I was.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

From you.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

A Gary O'Reilly question.

[Gary O'Reilly]

I have pushed to the front of the line. I've just ignored the bouncer. And what's happened is a truck has passed me on the road, and I'm thinking, wow, that really looks like it's heavy and it's loaded up with dirt. And then the thought pops into my head, how heavy is planet Earth? Is that some. Is that a knowable.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yes, it is. Yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

Go on, then.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Earth is weightless.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Oh, thank you.

[Chuck Nice]

There you go.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. So just the same way astronauts in the space station who are orbiting Earth are weightless. Earth orbiting the sun is weightless.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, that makes perfect sense because the astronauts are falling around the Earth. We are falling around the sun.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

The sun. So Earth is weightless. Maybe that's not the answer you're wondering,

[Gary O'Reilly]

but you know what? It's the answer. It's the answer I think most people, myself included, didn't quite see coming.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You didn't see that coming. You didn't see that coming.

[Chuck Nice]

I love that answer because that's the case. However, let's say that we fall into another planet. What will we be on the scale?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Well, that's different. That's its force of attraction on you.

[Chuck Nice]

You. Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. And yes, you can weigh the earth that way. You can weigh a planet that way by asking it how much you weigh on that planet. But you're asking about the truck, Gary. Right. And there's a clever way to get the weight of something that has tires. If I may. Okay, here's what you do. Look on the side of the, on the sidewall and look at what air pressure those tires are under.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Generally the bigger the wheel, the lower the air pressure. I don't know for sure what truck tires are. They might be 30 pounds per square inch, something like that. Heavy cars are like 60 pounds per square inch. Your bicycle, if it's like a racing bike, is 90 pounds per square inch. Right. So large tires tend to have lower per square inch. But let me just pick a number and let me say. It's just say 50. All right, let's just say 50.

[Chuck Nice]

That's a good round number.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Just a nice round number.

[Chuck Nice]

50 psi.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

50 psi. Then here's what you do. Walk up to the truck, not while it's on the road passing you, and get a tape measure and measure the area of each tire's contact with the road. It'll be like a square.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You know, because it's round. And then it flattens a little and that flattening will have an area. Okay. It'll be like maybe 5 inches by 6 inches, let's say whatever. And you multiply those per tire. So let's say it's five inches by six inches. How many square inches is that?

[Chuck Nice]

30.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

30. And these full size trucks have 18 wheels. We know that because they're 18 wheelers. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So 30 times 18 is. Let's just, let's just use round numbers here. Let's call it 20. So 30 times 20. 6,000.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, 6,000.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. No, no, no, no, no.

[Chuck Nice]

That's 500. I mean 600.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

600. Okay, 600. So there's 600. We're round, very roundy here. 600 square inches of tire in contact with the road. If it's 50 pounds per square inch, multiply the 50 times the 600 and what do you get?

[Chuck Nice]

30 grand.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

50 times 600 is 30,000 pounds. That would be 15 tons. That's a 15 ton truck right there.

[Chuck Nice]

Wow.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Wow.

[Chuck Nice]

Now or, or it's written on the side of the little side. Little teeny triangle.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Or you could just read it on the side of the truck. Right, but on the side of the truck is its maximum.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Gross weight.

[Chuck Nice]

I got you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, that's how much it's Allowed to be. It doesn't mean that it's actually that weight at that time.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

At that time. And the 15 tons would not only be the truck, but also the tractor unit, the cab, the tractor unit. Yeah. So that's the cause you did it for all tires is the point.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly. Yeah, but yeah, I see what you're saying. Because the tire itself, the more weight it has, the more surface it will take up. Correct. And because of the change in that surface, that is how you can calculate the weight based on whatever's in there. It doesn't make a difference because you're going by that area.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Correct. And the old trick that any trucker knows is that if there's an overpass and you're like an inch too tall for the overpass, you let air out of the tires.

[Chuck Nice]

That's it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And watch what happens. You let air out. What happens to each surface area?

[Chuck Nice]

It gets wider and it shrinks.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It gets wider and. And you let air out. So you've reduced, so you've made the surface area greater and the air pressure lower.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So that when they multiply together, you still get the correct weight of the truck. It'll be correct every time.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, that's cool.

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, that's how you do that, Gary.

[Chuck Nice]

So next time you're on a cross country trucking trek, Gary, bring your tape

[Gary O'Reilly]

measure with you

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

or read the side of the fricking truck.

[Chuck Nice]

Right? Yeah.

[Gary O'Reilly]

There you go.

[Chuck Nice]

Cool. All right, we're going to do Alex. This is our boy Alex. I wonder which Alex. It doesn't say which Alex.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We have two Alexes.

[Chuck Nice]

We have two Alex. Oh, it's Alex P. It's Alex P. Alex Picates. Yes. This is from Alex P. Our producer. And he says Google's new quantum chip can in 5 minutes, complete computations that would take modern supercomputers longer than the age of the universe. Some view this as evidence of us living in a multiverse.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We.

[Chuck Nice]

What other proofs might cement the multiverse theory in your view?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I don't. I think. Let me restate what he's trying to say there. If we have that power, that means we have the power to create a whole very convincing universe within our computers. And you can create, like Mario, you know, the Mario universe where Mario has free will and is thinking complex thoughts rather than just trying to collect coins. And so I think that's where he's coming at. It means we have risen to the power of a civilization that can simulate other civilizations. Right. And maybe we have been created with the Power to then reach that level as well, possibly implying that we are

[Chuck Nice]

creating a living in a simulation.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And so we briefly hint. Hinted at this in an earlier recording. But it's worth repeating that when you. I don't know if you've ever programmed a computer, but when you do, up at the top, you have all these parameters. Okay, what's the value of PI? What is the value, you know, what is the gravitational constant? What are the. And these are your variables that get preset right at the top. And then you just call them in any of your subroutines for when you need it. Okay? And you reuse them, you calculate with them, but you have to set up something there. Okay, so how many digits of PI am I going to hand the computer for when I calculate with PI? When I programmed it, six digits was good enough, but if I want to feel luxurious, I'll give it 12. But PI keeps going. Okay, now suppose you measure something in the universe and it's only accurate to 12 digits of PI, and you make more measurements and it's getting the wrong numbers for PI. That would be evidence that you have reached the programmer's limit of what they established for your world. And that's like in the Truman show where he paddles his rowboat to the edge of the horizon and hits the wall, and it's a painted wall. And so this example's version of the painted wall is the limits of certain physical constants or other phenomena that have unnatural limits that you encounter. And another one was, we have. Cosmic rays are formed by high energy phenomena in the universe. We see them, they arrive here on Earth, and they come from halfway across the universe. You can measure how many cosmic rays have a given energy. Okay, so there's a lot that have this energy. And you go to higher energy, there's fewer and fewer. Okay, all right, just follow me here. You go to higher and higher. There's fewer and fewer. Suppose you get to a point where there's a cutoff and it doesn't sort of blend into nothingness. That could be the upper energy limit of the programmer. They're saying they'll never get there. Let me just put this well beyond. And in fact, we've been humans for at least 100,000 years in our current form, several hundred thousand years. So maybe the programmer had no expectations. We ever come near that?

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yet we did because he walked away

[Chuck Nice]

from the program, or they walked away from the program and came back like, oh, shit.

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Oh, my God.

[Chuck Nice]

Hey, Jim, come over here. Look at this.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Jim, we Busted.

[Chuck Nice]

They've gone nuclear on us, man. They walked away to get a sandwich and we had just discovered fire. We were like. Then they went to lunch and they came back like, oh, oh God.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

What the. Right. Because a thousand years unto us could be a day unto the programmer, however that biblical phrase goes, right? So it could be that we start finding the limits in the universe, the measurable limits. And that would be a way to show that there's a programmer out there. Yeah.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Do you expect it to be infinite and just have no limits limits and just keep going on and on and on?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No. No. So I guess what I'm saying is in a software, you can't just put infinities in it because it has to hold it and then calculate with it. So you have to truncate it in some arbitrary place that you think is sufficient. So when I went to 12 decimal places on the value of PI in my programming, I've written in my life about 50,000 lines of code, plus or minus. And in there, you know, you get your favorite variables you put in. I went to 12 decimal places because that's more accurate than anything we have ever needed to calculate out to the radius of the universe. So I'm good for anything I needed there, right? So with my software, I was not likely to hit the limits of creation. But it's a way to think about it for sure.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Absolutely. And we've discussed this on a number of occasions. We need to be thinking differently to solve problems that have so far stumped us.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Not only that, we need to be thinking differently to even know what questions to ask exactly that we didn't even were not even aware were visible to us in plain sight because our brain wasn't ready to even think that way. I lose sleep over them.

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[Gary O'Reilly]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Hello, I'm Vicki Brooke Allen and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Nailed Grass Tyson. With these burning questions. I think there's an ointment.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah,

[Gary O'Reilly]

I wonder which one you're thinking of.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay. Oh no, no. Okay, let me. No, let me say it the way Sylvester Stallone would say it. You have a burning question and I'm the ointment for it. I don't know. I can't imitate him.

[Chuck Nice]

I was going to say that makes me hate Sly Stallone even more than I do.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm the ointment for your burning question.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Right. This is from Bryant. He's a community manager.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, Bryant, Bryant, Bryant. Yeah, he looks after our fan base. Basically our Patreon memberships and things. So this is cool. Okay, what does Bryant have to say?

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right, how does the debate shift when comparing AI that only imitates life to computational systems built from living neurons or biological substrates that may actually experience something?

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, what a question.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wait, wait. So the question was, how does that debate play out?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yeah. How does the debate shift when comparing AI that only imitates life to computational systems built from living neurons or biological substrates that may actually.

[Chuck Nice]

Actually experience something? Yeah, well, that's a wild question, but yeah, maybe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Maybe I want to give a cop out answer here. Okay, okay. Maybe the distinction is artificial between those two. Maybe if something can calculate and can do things you need it to do, and it's way smarter than you, and it can answer all your questions because as the sum of the world's knowledge of all humans, and then you have another entity that can think up questions as well and respond to you like, does it really matter what it's made of?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Who.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Who. Who cares?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Well, it might. It might.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do you. You. You want to measure? Maybe philosophically for sure, but in practice, this. This is the whole point of the Turing machine. The Turing machine, which came out of his research paper called the Imitation Game, which, and the title of that paper became the title of the movie that starred Benedict Cabbage Patch and Keira Knightley.

[Chuck Nice]

I love Benedict Cabbage Patch Cumberbatch.

[Gary O'Reilly]

That's gonna. That is so good.

[Chuck Nice]

Let me tell you something. He will be forever now Benedict Cabbage Patch from now on.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's how I gotta remember up in the name so brilliantly acted and the whole movie, an important slice of history. There. Point is, in that research paper, he hypothesized, he suggested that a computer is functionally conscious if you can interact with it and do not know whether it's a computer or a human being on the other side of that conversation. So then the race was on. How do we get to do that? We need a computer that understands language. We need a computer that knows what verbs and nouns and adjectives are, that can compose a sentence. We need a computer that can interpret what you said enough to then speak back with you. So when I was in college, I interacted with an early version of this. And this was a. It was an interactive computer that took some cues from psychologists. Okay.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you would say, dear computer, I'm not feeling too well lately. Tell me about why you think you're not feeling well. Okay, well, I'm having problems at home. Tell me about your mother and your relationship. So it knew enough to put words in a place and just come back to you the way a seemingly concerned psychologist would. And this got to a point where you did not know if it was a computer or just a concerned psychologist you were having a conversation with. And this, as far as I was concerned, fully satisfied, this imitation game. And therefore I did not know if that was a person or a computer. There's an early New Yorker comic that has a dog at a console and there's a room of dogs on consoles. And one dog says to the other, this is early Internet. So this is like late 90s, something like that. The good thing about the Internet is no one knows that you're a dog.

[Chuck Nice]

That's funny.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right? Right. And so who cares if it's biological or neurochemical, neuro, electronic. I don't think it matters. What. All that matters is the. In the end is the behavior that you're interacting with.

[Chuck Nice]

So what about. What about self awareness? Because that becomes. I mean, we don't. So what you just described, the consciousness is no longer functional once it stops the interaction. Because it's not being. If it's not being engaged, it's not asking questions. What we ask questions irrespective of whether we are being engaged or not. We have questions of ourselves. We ask questions of the universe. We never stop asking questions, and we never stop having that conversation with ourselves. So that self awareness is what we would say is a integral part of our consciousness. So what about that?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

All right, so the self awareness, if that only manifests to others, if they interact with you, then who cares? Whatever's going on in your head will never matter to me or anyone else in the world unless.

[Chuck Nice]

Unless we interact or unless we interact

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

with decisions you made in your own head because of your thoughts. And so one of Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics. Forgive me if I can't recite them in order. Precisely. One of them is, no matter what, you will not harm a human being. Yes, a human being. That's the first law of robotics. First law. The second law is, you will not allow harm within your power. You will not allow harm to occur to a human being. So you will prevent it if you can. Third one is, you will Protect your own existence, provided it does not conflict with law one or two.

[Chuck Nice]

Right.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

So your self preservation is contingent upon the protection of human beings as well

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

in those three laws. So here you are thinking to yourself, I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to harm someone else. I will react when I see that. Engage. But I'm not going to respond to your pure thoughts. There's a whole Twilight Zone episode on that where this guy was flipping a coin and it landed on its edge. And at that moment he heard everyone's thoughts. And, you know, he walked into a bank and there was a bank guard. Banks used to have guards. There's a bank guard. And he heard the bank guard saying, when the bank closes, I'll take the keys and I'll steal the money from the vault and I'll do that tonight. So the guy's freaking out, he's calling the police on the bank guard. And then he learns that the bank guard just has these. These every single day.

[Chuck Nice]

Every day.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Every day. We all have thoughts, right? And so if he never acts on them, doesn't matter to anybody else. It's your own little world. So if I'm a computer and you're not talking to me and I'm not having any thoughts, what do you care? You want to go in and say one is conscious and the other isn't, when everyone's interaction with them is no different. So I'm not. Philosophically, I agree. It makes a difference in practice. I think it doesn't. That's my point. The robot's gonna wanna protect itself. You can program into it that it wants to protect itself. There it is.

[Chuck Nice]

So, yeah, and so I see what you're saying. Like, if I programmed into you compassion and that by doing so I pretty much anticipate all the scenarios where compassion should be shown. Or I just make it a default setting where you show compassion even before you do anything else. Which is, you know, kind of an understanding, an acknowledgement, and, you know, wait, that be Jesus.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, you done made Jesus right there, right?

[Chuck Nice]

I am Jesus Bot. Bless you, my son.

[Gary O'Reilly]

The thing is, everybody has to build in these guardrails. Everybody has to be the good actor, not the bad actor. And I don't think any of us in this conversation right now believe that that is always going to happen. There'll always be a bad actor.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But, Gary, that's true for humans. That'll also be true for robots. It's gotta be for robotic humans. If I program the robot, like Chuck said, one variant is hugely compassionate. And another doesn't have the guardrails. That robot is gonna do harm just the way humans do harm. And what do we do? We arrest them, try them, put them in jail. So again, I think it's artificial to distinguish what you're made of versus how you actually get interact with. And I'm going back to the Turing test.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Okay. The one thing I would say about the sort of artificial if you want silicon intelligence as opposed to a biological intelligence is the biological intelligence is generally a low energy intelligence, whereas the other is a high energy consumer.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No. So the high energy one you're talking about, all of the AI farms where they're high energy consumption. What's happening there is they are mining the whole Internet of all of its information. It is having way better access to knowledge than you do with your own lonesome self.

[Gary O'Reilly]

So if a human mind doesn't consume anywhere near that amount of energy.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But if you ask AI to think no more deeply about a question than an average human does, I bet it's not using much energy either.

[Chuck Nice]

Right?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

All right.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's what I'm betting.

[Gary O'Reilly]

See the point you're making?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm just betting that.

[Chuck Nice]

And that's when we'll start electing them to public office. Oh yeah. When they start using as much energy to think as we do.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Is that a guardrail? Anyone's considered right now what that AI could not be or should be elected to an office.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, I think because AI can be programmed to be completely rational. In my experience, no one likes rational leaders because they're not as susceptible to emotional appeals.

[Gary O'Reilly]

And

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'm not saying I want it that way. I'm saying this is my read of how people behave. It's like in courts, they want to bring in a jury that can be emotionally swayed by arguments from a lawyer. Not because the arguments are so logical, but because the arguments have.

[Chuck Nice]

Are emotional.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Are emotional and passionate towards the goal of the lawyer themselves. So it seems to me politicians need to be people who know how to listen to you and can internalize your feelings. That's how you get to vote for them. What you could do is have an elected official who has this emotional connection. But this should be at least one member of their cabinet. That's a completely logical bot.

[Chuck Nice]

Now that's kind of cool. An advisor.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

It's a bottle. Logical advisor. So you say, I want to do this, that and the other. And you go up and say, what do you think of that?

[Chuck Nice]

And it says that is a wonderful idea. However, you will be voted out in the very next election.

[Advertisement Voice 1]

Or.

[Chuck Nice]

Or.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's a wonderful idea. You've already hit your term limits. Go ahead and do it.

[Chuck Nice]

Exactly right. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So you got another one?

[Chuck Nice]

Sure thing. This is Peter from Legal, our business affairs.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

[Chuck Nice]

Peter says there's an old saying. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today with an eye. Yeah, it's a pretty cool saying unless

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

the tree's life expectancy is less than 20 years, but go on.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay. He says with an eye toward a much needed future thinking effort that could begin today if you were able to snap your fingers and make it so, what one thing would you change about the way children and young people are educated in the US and even worldwide? In other words, where have we gone wrong in our approach to education? And what would you do to correct that?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Wow. Okay, so I have a lot of thoughts on this, and one day I'm going to write a book. An education book. Not yet, because it's still percolating. I have a lot of ideas on this, but let me distill it down to just a couple of key points. One, we need to train people not what to know so much as how to think, how to see information and analyze it, because we're valuing what to know. You either know it or you don't. Do you know it. And you perform well on Jeopardy. But real solutions in this world come less from what you know and more than from what you can figure out when confronted with a problem that is yet to have been solved. Right. All right. So in the workplace, here's an example. A little contrived, but it's an example. You hand a task to someone in a workplace. I'm a manager, and I hand a task and the two extreme responses. One of them is, this was not in my job description. I don't know. This is. No. Okay, that's one. All right. The other one is, wow, I've never seen this before. Give it to me. I will see what I can do with it. These are two completely different pathways of employees in a workplace. One of them will ossify in place. The other will continue to ascend. Do you see a new problem as something that someone else should solve because you're not trained? Or a new problem as something that you will gladly take on because you like solving the unknown? School should be taught as something where you solve problems more than as a place where you're just loaded with information. So that's my first point. Second, amen to that we need to have schools where at the end of the day, you are sad that the school day has ended.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Think about that.

[Chuck Nice]

So right now, so what you want is all day recess?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

No. So think about it. You know, you're in class and you're looking up at the clock. Can't wait for the buzzer to ring at the end of the day. You can't wait for the date at Friday. You can't wait till the weekend begins at the end of holiday, before the summer, even graduation day, that you say you are now graduates. And you toss your hat in the air and you're celebrating that you don't have to continue to learn when that was your only job was to learn. And I'm not gonna blame you. Of course we have the rock anthem celebrating this school by Alice Cooper.

[Chuck Nice]

Schools out for summer. Summer schools out.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay, so I'm not blaming students for this. I'm blaming the school. Right? Because what's going on in the school where students can't wait to get out? And if what went on the school was a celebration of learning, where your curiosity is fed every day. No one would want to leave school. You would want to stay in there and continue to be enlightened for every waking moment. A B. It also means when you graduate, you graduate to a life of continued curiosity, a life of continued learning. And right now you have people getting out of high school. Let's say you don't go to college, you get out of high school, you get a job. You say, I'm done with school. School's good. Now you have just ossified in place because you are done learning. You don't buy any books, you don't keep. You got no curiosity beyond just your job's task. You want to be good at your job, of course, but there's the rest of the world that keeps moving because you were trained what to know, not how to think and how to be curious. So you got to change that as well. Last thing I've come to learn that in a free society, you cannot legislate behavior in a progressive direction

[Chuck Nice]

unless

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

doing so can benefit you financially. Okay, True. So. Oh, you don't want to integrate the lunch counter at Woolworths. We're not going to go to Woolworths. Okay? That affects your bottom line in order to make the change. I could not have convinced you just by conversation. I had to hit your pocketbook. And I hit your pocketbook. Oh. The lunch counters are now open, are now integrated back as they needed to be in the 1950s and early 60s at F.W. woolworth lunch counters, they each had a luncheonette within the buying floor of the store. So.

[Chuck Nice]

And that's why they are all out of business now, because they integrated. They integrated. They had dei. DEI lunch counters.

[Gary O'Reilly]

All right, Neil, wait.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're almost done. Okay, okay, so consider when whaling was a big business, okay, we're going back into the early 1800s, let's say, right? Whaling. Why did we hunt whales?

[Chuck Nice]

Because they had it coming,

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

that's why. Get your big ass out of my ocean.

[Chuck Nice]

Taking up all this ocean space for yourself.

[Gary O'Reilly]

We were harvesting blubber and we were.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Blubber. Exactly. The blubber that keeps the whales warm, insulates them, because whales are warm blooded. Was a fuel source.

[Chuck Nice]

It's a great oil, clean oil for our lamps.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Everything, everything.

[Chuck Nice]

Clean whale blubber. Big, beautiful, clean whale blubber.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Burn, baby, burn the whale blubber. So you could have started a movement back then, as some did, to save the whales. These big beautiful creatures and we're just slaughtering them for their fat. I mean, come on now. That didn't work until. What happened?

[Chuck Nice]

Alternative fuel source.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We discovered oil in the ground, baby, that was safer and cheaper to process and use. Then the whole industry shifted. And so I'm not gonna expect you to just say to people in a free country that they need to behave in a progressive or green way. So I would tell the people, getting back to the question, I would tell people in the pipeline, in the educational pipeline, be inventive, economically inventive, about how you can create solutions to problems that are not just emotional, philosophical, or even scientific, that are also economic. Because when you make an economic solution to something, it flies, because everybody wants a piece of that. And that's just being practical.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Here, let me then throw in the chatbots, because I can get the chatbot to do my homework. I can get the chatbot to write a paper. So are we going to see students not necessarily being in higher education in a bricks and mortar campus? They've got their chatbots and they do their learning there, or is that taking them out of the knowledge?

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So here's the problem. Here's the problem. Okay, so let's go back to when, because I'm old enough to Remember when the four function calculator dropped in price from $200 to $30. Okay, that happened relatively quickly, like within like a year and a half or two years. Over that time, the big question was, should we allow calculators in the classroom? And the answer was yes, because there's Some things you're learning that were not as important as other things, and some of them is just drudgery work. Okay, like long division.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yep.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Does anyone know how to do long division anymore? Like, when are you going to be somewhere where you need to do long division and you won't have access to a calculator? That's not going to. You're not going to be in caveman and you got to start a fire. It's. Well, I need long division and no

[Chuck Nice]

one taught me that fire didn't start because you didn't carry the two. The hell is your dumb ass problem? Now we're all going to freeze to

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

death because you didn't carry the two. So there's a place for that. And before calculators, we had slide rules. Were slide rules cheating? No, it was just another way to get to an answer. But you had to know your steps. Yep. To get to the answer. Because garbage in equals garbage out. So here's the problem with the chatbots, ChatGPT, et cetera. It is revealing to us that the school system values grades more than students value learning. And as long as that is true, everyone at all times will cheat on all exams to get a grade. But if the system instead were who is learning? Nobody would use the chat box only just to help themselves to learn more, rather than as a substitute for their own ability to write or to know because they themselves would want to learn because the curiosity would be built in. And so until the day that happens, then teachers need to give oral. Oral exams. So we need to hire student to teacher ratio to make that happen. I grew up in Public School. 32, 34 kids per class. Private schools are what, between 10 and 15?

[Chuck Nice]

15 tops.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, tops. So that's the kind of ratio you need to give everyone an oral exam.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. And they get a. And they get two teachers assistants, by the way.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right, right, right, right.

[Chuck Nice]

It's like you have the teacher and then you have like Miss Betty and you have, you know, Miss Judy that helped the teacher. And there's only 13 kids in the damn class.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So those that. Those are my three bits of advice there. Okay, four, when you include my comment about using AI to do your term

[Chuck Nice]

paper, I say if you really want to learn Chinese and careful where you go, learn Chinese and get ready to work for him. Because. Just saying.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I. Time for only a couple more questions. So what you got now?

[Chuck Nice]

This is Frank's burning question. And he's.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That sounds.

[Chuck Nice]

Frank. He's our editor. Frank. Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And.

[Chuck Nice]

And Frank says help Me, I am on fire.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Do you know if he smokes cigarettes? I don't know if he smokes.

[Chuck Nice]

He better.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Otherwise your imitations don't work.

[Chuck Nice]

That's right. Okay. He says, hey, Frank here. I might be editing this video right now.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Nice]

It looks to me like this office is a vault to the universe. Talking about your office, could you grab your very favorite item and describe it to us ASMR style? Wow, look at that.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

But there's so many.

[Chuck Nice]

I mean, there's so much crap in your office.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Oh my gosh.

[Chuck Nice]

Jesus Christ. I swear to God, it looks like Sanford and Son went to the universe.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Sanford and Son down

[Chuck Nice]

the cosmic Sanford and Son.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Now that means you're calling all my stuff junk.

[Chuck Nice]

Well, it's not junk, that's for sure. But I mean, some of it is junk. But it all has. It all has sentimental and personal value. Some of it has actual monetary value too. Some of it is. I. I don't want to put it out there, but some of that stuff in there don't. Thank God there's security because, you know, some of the stuff is. Is money.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Something simple. Let's keep it simple. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right here. Hang on. Okay. Oh. ASMR style. So many years ago, the Planetary Society caught notice of me. They co founded by Carl Sagan, have a mission to promote the public's understanding and appreciation of space exploration, especially that of the planets. I was invited to join the board of the Planetary Society. That's when I met Bill Nye. He was a member of the board. That's where I met Ann Truyan. Anne is the widow of Carl Sagan who founded the Planetary Society. Well, after a couple of years of that, the idea came up. Should Ann Druyan, who owns the rights to Cosmos, resurrect the series? She mentioned it. I said, I'd be delighted to help. I have Modern insights to get a next version. She said, have you thought about being hosted? And I said, no, I don't want to be a TV star. She said, but you may be able to do this uniquely in the memory of Carl. So I said, okay. So I agreed to do Cosmos. Then who was going to fund it? We went to PBS and they said, we want to put in our own writers. And we said no, we got writers. No. And so it didn't land on PBS? No, it didn't. Then Seth MacFarlane took interest in this. Cause he's a science geek. You will know if you watch any episode of Family Guy. He's had like the whole cast of Star Trek. And he's got time machines and weather machines and all. Okay, so Seth MacFarlane says, why not take it to Fox? To Fox? And we took it to Fox and Fox said, we'll bankroll the whole thing. And we said, okay, what kind of control are you asking for? And they said, we don't really know how to make documentaries, so just do whatever you want to do. It was like, oh my God. So while that's happening, Fox acquires National Geographic. This gives Fox a world distribution for Cosmos to show up on TVs in 40 other countries in ways that would not have happened had it just been Fox or definitely had it only been pbs. So I create a relationship with, with National Geographic. Then Cosmos ends and National Geographic says, anil, is there anything else we could do together? And I said, well, I got this podcast called StarTalk. And they said, let's put that on TV. And I said, whoa, you mean like a Talk show on TV? They said, yeah. So we put StarTalk as the very first late night television science based talk show. And it was nominated for Emmy four times. Four times. Now why am I saying all this? Because right here in my hand is a StarTalk mug created by National Geographic. It's a huge beer mug. I think it holds a pint. It's a beer mug that has StarTalk on it. And National Geographic. That could have only come about because it went to Fox after Fox acquired National Geographic. Which could have only come about because Seth MacFarlanes worked for Fox. Which could have only come about because I became host of Cosmos because I was on the board of the Planetary Society. That is this keepsake right here. This is not a metal stein, it's a glass mug. Gary. I think it holds a full pint. That's what you guys do in the uk, right?

[Gary O'Reilly]

That's right, yeah. Might even be called a tankard.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Ooh. Ooh. So this stares at me on the shelf every day, packed with decades of memories that are the origin of its existence. There it is.

[Chuck Nice]

Like I told you, Frank, some of this stuff is junk. So what you say.

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

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[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Again, what are the burning questions? How's my ointment doing?

[Gary O'Reilly]

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin, right? Dr. Tyson, how do you personally position yourself in relationship who's this from? Sorry, this is from Zhao, one of our editors. And yeah, how do you personally position yourself in relation to religion? Would you describe yourself as an atheist or agnostic or something else? And depending on that position, how do you approach the question of death? Even if one is not religious, do you consider it possible that something metaphysical might exist beyond the physical universe? Or does science suggest that death is simply the cessation of existence. What happens to the complex thoughts, memories, and emotions a person developed through their life, throughout their life? I asked this from the perspective of someone who was strongly atheistic and scientifically minded. Now, facing an incurable illness, my father is suffering, and trying to convince myself that perhaps there is something beyond. In light of this situation, how would you approach the question yourself? Or what would be the best intellectually honest way to even consider from a scientific standpoint, the possibility that something metaphysical might exist? That's a long question, but I think it's an interesting one.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. Well, Xiao, thanks for bringing us down.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I know, Scott. Damn, Joe. Okay, a couple of things.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I recently learned that Stephen Colbert, who is himself religious. He's a devout Catholic.

[Chuck Nice]

Devout Catholic.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That he calls people who say that they're agnostic as having no balls. It's an atheist without balls.

[Chuck Nice]

Okay, gotcha.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

I'd say he's an atheist without gonads because they're afraid to commit one way or another.

[Chuck Nice]

I disagree with that. I think a lot of agnostic people did believe in God and then realized there's not a lot there to hold onto, but they still want to hold onto it.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

He just wants you to commit, right?

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah. He wants you to go one way or the other. Gotcha.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

So I'm a different kind of agnostic based on what I've seen and what I've read. I call myself an agnostic only because the definitions of words are how people use them. Unlike what we normally think of as a dictionary defining a word. A dictionary describes a word as it has come into use. Okay. So if you look at leading atheists of the day, Richard Dawkins, who's been on the show several times, you look at Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, now deceased. These are leading atheists who each had atheistic books that they've written. And you look at their behavior. There's a lot of their behavior that does not overlap with my behavior. For example, I will defend the use of AD and BC in reckoning years. BC is before Christ. Ad is anno Domini Latin in the year of our Lord. I will defend the use of that because the Catholic Church put the Jesuit priest on the case to figure out how to fix the calendar that was broken, and out of that came the Gregorian calendar, which all the civilized world uses. So I give props to where it's due. Whereas ardent atheists strip that from the calendar reckoning and use CE common error and BCE before the common error. Who Are they fooling?

[Chuck Nice]

It's the same frame.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Okay? So this is a cleansing of the communication channels just to put distance between them and anything religious. That's not me. Okay? My single favorite Broadway musical is Jesus Christ Superstar. My single favorite choral work is Bach's Mass in B Minor with Handel's Messiah a distant second. But it's still second. Okay.

[Chuck Nice]

How dare you.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Handel's Messiah was actually written in English.

[Chuck Nice]

Yes, I did. After the.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Yeah. Was it the King James Bible? But it was. Anyhow, I am not ardent against people who have strong or even mild religious faith. Not up in their face debating them. This. Whereas all these other folks I just listed have debated devout religious people in their lives. That's not me. Therefore, I don't want to say I'm an atheist. If by saying so you think I'm going to be like that. I need some other word that's softer than that because I personally am softer than that. And my best evidence for this was I had a friend of mine go up on the space shuttle and on my Facebook page I said, godspeed my friend's name. And sts, I forgot which. You know, STS is how they numbered the space shuttle missions. I said Godspeed. Space shuttle people in the comment thread said Godspeed. I thought you were an atheist complaining that I used that word. How dare you use that. Exactly. These were atheists trying to claim me. You have blasphemed your no one.

[Chuck Nice]

Damn it. You've blasphemed nothing. This is so frustrating.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

You heretic of no idea. Right. So that was very telling to me that there's certain behavioral characteristics that are expected. And to the extent that I do not fulfill that, I will not count myself among the ranks of atheist because it's the behavior of the leading atheists that are defining people's understanding of the word today.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

That's why agnostic. Okay. The only reason why otherwise there'd be no question here. Okay. All right. Now, how do I deal with death as I get older? I'm thinking more and more about that and the last chapter of my book, Starry Messenger, Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization. You know what I'm going to do? Are going to read you those last two paragraphs.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Okay.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

And then that'll give you all the wisdom and insight you need to take to your father speaking directly to Zhao. So I've thought long and hard about death. And yeah, I'd lean towards the scientific sense of death where your state of non existence in death is not fundamentally different from your state of non existence before. You were born, think about that. Before you were born, you weren't saying, where am I? How come I'm not anywhere? You just had no existence. And my confidence in a non existence in death comes from people who've had mini strokes. And with many strokes, different parts of your intellectual functioning go away bit by bit. Your ability to recognize other people, to know where you are, to remember, to eat, to speak. You have short term memory, long term memory, and these are neurosynaptic failures of the brain. So in death, where there is no neurosynaptic activity at all to require of death, that somehow your brain is restored into some newly functioning whole, for me as a scientist is unrealistic, but that doesn't alter other thoughts that I have. For example, we are made, not figuratively, but literally of stardust. We are of the stars. We are the same ingredients the stars are made of. Our ingredients came from the stars. So it's not just that we are alive in the universe, the universe is alive within us. And that's a gift of 20th century astrophysics to civilization that borders on the spiritual. Okay, so now in death you've got pretty much two choices in modern society. You can be buried. That's my choice. So that the energy content of my body, which is still there when you die, you have no neurosynaptic thoughts, but your molecules were built up from your lifetime of eating and exercising and the building of your organs and your muscles and other tissue. In death, those molecules still contain energy. If I'm buried and I decompose, all that energy gets absorbed by microbes, by flora and fauna dining upon my body the way I have dined upon flora and fauna my whole life. In that way, giving back to the earth what I had taken or literally borrowed over my life. If you're cremated, the energy content of those molecules, it doesn't go away. It gets transferred to heat. This is what heats the air column over the crematorium. That then radiates infrared energy that was once the energy content of the molecules of your body radiates it out into space, moving at the speed of light. So after someone has been cremated, you can keep a timeline. Where has their radiant energy reached by now? If they died four years ago, if they were cremated four years ago, they would have reached the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, 20 years ago. You can look at a map and see where that has touched. So that in a way, you're still a part of the universe, you're still in the universe, just in a different form. In order to presume you are fully alive and functioning, that requires religion, which is strongly based on belief systems rather than on anything science would tell you about it. I'd like to end Zhao with a reading from the last several paragraphs of a book I published a couple of years ago, Starry Messenger, Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization. I'll be reading from the last chapter, titled Life and Death. Do you know. Do you really know how precious life is? The total number of people who have ever been born is about 100 billion. Yet the genetic code that generates viable versions of us is capable of at least 10 to the 30th variations. That astronomically huge number is a one followed by 30 zeros, producing a million trillion trillion possible souls. Each of us, for all practical purposes, is unique in the universe. Now, forever being alive is the time to celebrate being alive every waking moment along the way. Why not strive to make a world a better place today than yesterday simply for the privilege of having lived in it? On my deathbed, I'd be sad to miss the clever inventions and discoveries that arise from our collective human ingenuity, presuming the systems that foster such advances remain intact. That's what fueled the exponential growth of science and technology in my lifetime. I further wonder whether civilization's arc of social progress will continue with all its fits and starts and thus reward any time traveler from the oppressed spectrum of humanity who choose to visit the future rather than the past. On the whole, I don't fear death. Instead, I fear a life where I could have accomplished more. An epitaph worthy of a tombstone comes from the 19th century educator Horace Mann. I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. Our primal urge to keep looking up is surely greater than our primal urge to keep killing one another. If so, then human curiosity and wonder, the twin chariots of cosmic discovery, will ensure that starry messages continue to arrive. These insights compel us, for our short time on Earth, to become better shepherds of our own civilization. Yes, life is better than death. But life is also better than having never been born. Each of us is alive against stupendous odds. We won the lottery only once. We get to invoke our faculties of reason to figure out how the world works. But we also get to smell the flowers. We get to bask in divine sunsets and sunrises and gaze deeply into the night skies they cradle. We get to live and ultimately die in this glorious universe. Zhao, your father needs you. Now he whatever are his ailments, he not alone in people whose lives have been hit by disease, ailments, accidents, war, pestilence. Regardless, we are the lucky ones because we got to be born at all. So I spent a lot of time wondering if I had never been born. You have to be born in order to then die. So the birth is a privilege and so is the death because that's the package of life that we're handed. And everybody else in that 10 to the 30th variations of the human genome will never know either end of that celebration of this universe. And that is a cosmic perspective. Gary. Chuck, I love these hearing from all

[Gary O'Reilly]

the folks and I'm sure they love

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

hearing from you who are in the StarTalk family.

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Gary O'Reilly]

A pretty cool group.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Our fan base gets to see that our people got curiosity too, right?

[Chuck Nice]

Yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

They're not alone.

[Chuck Nice]

And that there's a lot of people behind the scenes making startalk happen.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

Right? Exactly. All right, I think that's a wrap. Gary.

[Gary O'Reilly]

Yes. Call it a day for now. Pleasure, Neil, Always a pleasure.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

We're all that. And Chuck, we love you, especially in that. That comedy special.

[Chuck Nice]

Oh, you mean just smart enough that you can actually watch on the StarTalk main channel. Oh, that, that one, that comedy special. I forgot all about that. But now that you mentioned it, yeah.

[Neil deGrasse Tyson]

This has been another installment of StarTalk Special Edition. This is the burning questions from the StarTalk family of producers and editors coming in. And I delighted in that. I like being the ointment for the burning sensation that all of you feel. Apply twice a day. As good as new by tomorrow. All right, until we meet again. As always, keep looking up.

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