1 00:00:00,131 --> 00:00:01,611 Welcome to Wonder Cabinet. 2 00:00:03,392 --> 00:00:04,412 I'm Anne Strainchamps. 3 00:00:04,712 --> 00:00:05,692 And I'm Steve Paulson. 4 00:00:06,253 --> 00:00:17,356 There are a few natural marvels that always amaze me, like watching a flock of geese migrating in that perfect V formation, wondering how one bird decides to fly out in front. 5 00:00:17,776 --> 00:00:26,558 Or baby sea turtles who hatch and then crawl to the ocean where they swim thousands of miles together to a place they've never been. 6 00:00:26,939 --> 00:00:32,547 Nature is full of mysteries, especially the complex behaviors called emergent phenomena. 7 00:00:33,047 --> 00:00:38,114 One example of an emergent phenomena are certain species of fireflies. 8 00:00:38,795 --> 00:00:44,002 You get a group of these fireflies together in a field at night in the summer, and they begin by 9 00:00:44,398 --> 00:00:47,222 blinking randomly, like Christmas tree lights. 10 00:00:47,402 --> 00:00:51,287 But after about a minute or so, they start blinking in synchrony. 11 00:00:51,927 --> 00:00:57,654 We understand everything about the chemical reactions that make light in an individual firefly. 12 00:00:58,641 --> 00:01:04,203 But we don't really understand how this group of fireflies starts blinking in synchrony. 13 00:01:05,023 --> 00:01:07,224 Another example are termite cathedrals. 14 00:01:07,424 --> 00:01:15,907 These magnificent mounds termites build that have intricate passageways to control air flow and humidity. 15 00:01:16,527 --> 00:01:19,889 And you wonder, how did the termites know to build that thing? 16 00:01:19,909 --> 00:01:21,449 There's no boss termite. 17 00:01:21,469 --> 00:01:23,170 There's no architectural plan. 18 00:01:23,830 --> 00:01:26,052 In fact, individual termites are blind. 19 00:01:26,573 --> 00:01:33,219 But somehow this collection of 10,000 termites built this magnificent thing. 20 00:01:33,620 --> 00:01:41,367 Welcome to a conversation about nature and transcendence with physicist Alan Lightman, recorded live in New York at the Morgan Library. 21 00:01:41,742 --> 00:01:47,647 in what has to be one of the most beautiful rooms in the whole city, J.P. Morgan's personal study. 22 00:01:47,847 --> 00:01:56,935 And we're gathered together under walnut bookcases that are three stories tall and a vaulted ceiling covered in gold leaf frescoes of Renaissance angels. 23 00:01:57,715 --> 00:02:05,622 This was part of a Spirituality in the Age of Science public conversation series Steve did, a partnership with the Nour Foundation. 24 00:02:06,162 --> 00:02:09,545 So Steve, before we begin, what should we know about Alan Lightman? 25 00:02:09,944 --> 00:02:12,666 So Alan Lightman is both a scientist and a writer. 26 00:02:12,766 --> 00:02:20,091 He's probably best known for his novel Einstein's Dreams, in which he imagines Einstein dreaming of different versions of time. 27 00:02:20,591 --> 00:02:26,315 And that book has been translated into 30 languages and adapted into plays and musicals and choral works. 28 00:02:26,875 --> 00:02:35,121 He's also an astrophysicist who's worked at Harvard and MIT on gravitation theory, black holes, and the warping of space and time. 29 00:02:35,781 --> 00:02:36,982 Okay, let's listen. 30 00:02:41,517 --> 00:02:44,684 It is wonderful to be back at the Morgan Library. 31 00:02:44,704 --> 00:02:47,530 And we're going to be talking about transcendence this evening. 32 00:02:47,550 --> 00:02:52,200 And I have to say, I can't imagine a better place to have this conversation than in this room. 33 00:02:53,093 --> 00:03:02,536 I think Alan Lightman occupies a really distinctive place in our intellectual culture because he straddles several divides that are often very contested. 34 00:03:02,676 --> 00:03:04,417 He's both a scientist and a novelist. 35 00:03:04,977 --> 00:03:10,899 When you read his books, his essays, and his fiction, you get a sense of his insatiable curiosity. 36 00:03:11,659 --> 00:03:18,684 We live in a wondrous and mysterious world and he is continually exploring the question, how much can science explain the mystery? 37 00:03:19,484 --> 00:03:29,391 So Alan, there is a remarkable experience that you have written about when you were spending a summer in Maine and you had a close encounter with a couple of ospreys. 38 00:03:29,891 --> 00:03:31,212 Can you describe what happened? 39 00:03:32,572 --> 00:03:54,459 Well, my wife and I have spent the last 30 years or so on a small island in Maine, and there's an osprey's nest that is a couple hundred feet from the house, and we have a very large picture window that looks out at the osprey's nest, and the ospreys are always coming and going, so instead of watching TV, we watch the osprey's nest. 40 00:03:55,260 --> 00:03:59,121 So the typical pattern of the ospreys is the 41 00:04:00,168 --> 00:04:04,491 Parents who've been vacationing in South America come back. 42 00:04:05,151 --> 00:04:08,834 In the springtime, the mother osprey lays eggs in April. 43 00:04:10,075 --> 00:04:11,496 The eggs hatch in June. 44 00:04:12,156 --> 00:04:16,759 And then the father starts going out and catching fish to feed the family. 45 00:04:17,399 --> 00:04:21,142 And the babies start growing up and getting bigger and bigger. 46 00:04:21,162 --> 00:04:25,225 And by mid-August, the babies are, they're adolescents by this time. 47 00:04:26,105 --> 00:04:28,667 They're strong enough to take their first flight. 48 00:04:30,229 --> 00:04:34,471 So one summer I'd been watching the babies get bigger and bigger and bigger. 49 00:04:36,012 --> 00:04:45,816 And then I was standing on a second floor circular deck and the growing children ospreys were looking at me as I was looking at them. 50 00:04:46,516 --> 00:04:50,478 So to them, it must have looked like I was in my nest because there's a circular deck. 51 00:04:52,148 --> 00:04:59,674 One afternoon, the two adolescents now took their maiden flight, the first time they'd ever left the nest. 52 00:05:00,175 --> 00:05:03,758 An adolescent osprey is pretty big and strong. 53 00:05:03,818 --> 00:05:05,819 They have powerful claws. 54 00:05:06,840 --> 00:05:18,730 And the two adolescent ospreys on their maiden voyage took one loop out over the ocean and back towards me, maybe about a half mile diameter. 55 00:05:20,239 --> 00:05:22,500 and they started flying straight at me. 56 00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:30,882 At first, I was very frightened because an adolescent, Osprey, can rip your face off. 57 00:05:31,702 --> 00:05:42,405 My first thought was to run back into the house, but something made me stand there, and I was looking at them coming at me at great speed. 58 00:05:43,186 --> 00:05:44,146 They were looking at me. 59 00:05:45,186 --> 00:05:47,727 When they were about maybe 20 feet away, 60 00:05:49,164 --> 00:05:55,767 they suddenly made a very high G upward vertical climb and went over the roof of the house. 61 00:05:56,927 --> 00:06:03,910 But in the last second before they made that vertical climb, we made eye contact. 62 00:06:05,570 --> 00:06:14,974 And it was the most profound communication I've ever had with a non-human animal before, and also with some humans. 63 00:06:19,377 --> 00:06:25,946 I can't really describe in words what that moment was like, but it was something like, I mean, I felt like they were talking to me. 64 00:06:25,966 --> 00:06:29,991 It was something like, we've shared this land together. 65 00:06:31,093 --> 00:06:32,415 We're kindred spirits. 66 00:06:33,765 --> 00:06:38,450 The way you write about this, you said that you were shaking, maybe even crying. 67 00:06:38,610 --> 00:06:40,312 I was shaking and I was in tears. 68 00:06:40,632 --> 00:06:46,098 I didn't realize that I was in tears, but after they flew away, I realized that I was in tears. 69 00:06:46,379 --> 00:06:50,223 It was just that electric an experience. 70 00:06:52,297 --> 00:06:53,938 So that's the Osprey story. 71 00:06:55,318 --> 00:07:07,942 I want to kind of try to unpack what happened there and why it was so profound, because it seems like there's something that can be very powerful about an eye-to-eye encounter with another animal, a non-human animal. 72 00:07:07,982 --> 00:07:15,285 And Jane Goodall writes about this kind of thing, her first encounter with David Greybeard, the first chimpanzee she befriended. 73 00:07:16,526 --> 00:07:22,549 What is it about this contact with a being outside of our own species that makes it so extraordinary? 74 00:07:23,089 --> 00:07:43,100 Well, first of all, I felt that there was a mind behind the gaze and these two birds, but also that a really intimate, powerful connection with a non-human species made me feel like I was part of nature, that we were all connected. 75 00:07:43,987 --> 00:07:50,388 I felt that there was a unity to life in the world. 76 00:07:51,308 --> 00:07:55,249 How important was it that this all happened at a nonverbal level? 77 00:07:55,529 --> 00:08:01,610 Because, I mean, when we hear about experiences of awe, it's typically outside of language, it seems. 78 00:08:01,690 --> 00:08:08,312 I don't think, I mean, I've tried to describe it to you just now, but I don't think that words would have been very adequate. 79 00:08:08,712 --> 00:08:10,672 And I do think that our transcendent, 80 00:08:11,238 --> 00:08:17,602 experiences are experiences of feelings of awe or beyond the verbal level. 81 00:08:18,083 --> 00:08:20,104 I mean, they're more primitive than that. 82 00:08:20,384 --> 00:08:24,587 They're something very deep in us before language. 83 00:08:24,607 --> 00:08:27,389 You've described this as a transcendent experience. 84 00:08:28,629 --> 00:08:29,770 What do you think you're transcending? 85 00:08:32,192 --> 00:08:33,192 That's a great question. 86 00:08:34,573 --> 00:08:36,975 Well, I'm transcending my physical body. 87 00:08:37,900 --> 00:08:40,541 I'm transcending my ego. 88 00:08:41,502 --> 00:08:43,322 I'm transcending my sense of self. 89 00:08:44,743 --> 00:08:55,007 I'm transcending the moment in time because I think in these experiences, you're not aware of time and you're not aware of place either. 90 00:08:55,107 --> 00:08:59,269 So time, place, ego, physicality, 91 00:09:00,516 --> 00:09:03,837 all of that is being left behind somehow. 92 00:09:03,997 --> 00:09:05,757 So that's what I think you're transcending. 93 00:09:06,237 --> 00:09:16,860 You have a sense of being alive in the world, which is different than taking your kids to school or going to the dentist appointment. 94 00:09:17,620 --> 00:09:23,922 It's a vivid moment of being present in the world. 95 00:09:25,302 --> 00:09:28,643 And I think those are some of the most beautiful moments that we have. 96 00:09:30,850 --> 00:09:33,772 You have called yourself a spiritual materialist. 97 00:09:33,792 --> 00:09:36,353 Do you want to tell us what that means? 98 00:09:37,073 --> 00:09:43,197 Well, I'm a materialist in that I think that the world is made out of atoms and molecules. 99 00:09:44,818 --> 00:09:55,924 And even the magnificent experiences that we have, the mental experiences, I think, even though we don't understand exactly how they arise from atoms and molecules, I think ultimately 100 00:09:56,605 --> 00:09:58,306 that they do come from atoms and molecules. 101 00:09:58,326 --> 00:10:01,348 I don't believe there's any supernatural element. 102 00:10:02,709 --> 00:10:05,090 But I'm a spiritual person. 103 00:10:06,151 --> 00:10:12,594 I regard myself as a spiritual person in the sense that I have experiences like the communion with the ospreys. 104 00:10:13,435 --> 00:10:14,595 I appreciate beauty. 105 00:10:14,956 --> 00:10:22,480 I have a sense of awe when I see, look out on the ocean and it just goes on forever until it meets the sky. 106 00:10:23,855 --> 00:10:27,777 I feel a connection to nature. 107 00:10:27,957 --> 00:10:31,599 I feel that I'm part of the larger world. 108 00:10:31,699 --> 00:10:33,740 I feel that there are things larger than myself. 109 00:10:35,241 --> 00:10:38,983 And all of those together are my concept 110 00:10:39,677 --> 00:10:40,678 of spirituality. 111 00:10:41,178 --> 00:10:54,749 So I want to sort of pick up this thread of religion and how we talk about God and science, and obviously there has been a tremendously fraught relationship between science and religion, especially in the last few decades. 112 00:10:55,130 --> 00:10:56,851 Some people think they are irreconcilable. 113 00:10:56,931 --> 00:10:59,653 Plenty of other people think the two can coexist. 114 00:11:00,014 --> 00:11:00,814 What's your take on this? 115 00:11:02,396 --> 00:11:08,421 First of all, I separate spirituality from religion in the way that I've described it. 116 00:11:09,246 --> 00:11:11,307 But now we're talking about religion proper. 117 00:11:12,787 --> 00:11:25,213 I think in most religious traditions, God is a being that not only exists outside of time and space, but occasionally intervenes in the physical world to perform miracles. 118 00:11:25,233 --> 00:11:27,053 I mean, we have the parting of the Red Sea. 119 00:11:27,574 --> 00:11:30,795 We have Mohammed splitting the moon in two. 120 00:11:31,635 --> 00:11:34,336 There are countless stories of miracles. 121 00:11:34,536 --> 00:11:35,837 And by miracle, I mean 122 00:11:37,315 --> 00:11:44,756 an event that cannot be explained in terms of logical laws, either now or in the indefinite future. 123 00:11:45,836 --> 00:11:50,897 And miracles are absolutely inconsistent with the scientific view of the world. 124 00:11:52,097 --> 00:12:00,839 Now, there are some religions, like pantheism, that identify God with nature, and that's completely consistent with science. 125 00:12:01,579 --> 00:12:06,600 And there might be a religious tradition, I'm not sure, where God was the clockmaker 126 00:12:07,667 --> 00:12:12,830 who set the clock in motion but then stood back and did not intervene after that. 127 00:12:12,911 --> 00:12:15,072 And that's also consistent with science. 128 00:12:15,192 --> 00:12:16,633 That's the deist position. 129 00:12:16,673 --> 00:12:18,334 That's the deist position, right. 130 00:12:18,374 --> 00:12:19,375 That's the deist position. 131 00:12:19,395 --> 00:12:27,100 And that's also consistent with science because we will never know exactly how the universe started, although we have theories. 132 00:12:28,281 --> 00:12:32,684 But an all-powerful being that exists outside of time and space and occasionally 133 00:12:33,569 --> 00:12:38,758 steps in and performs a miracle, that is incompatible with science. 134 00:12:39,400 --> 00:12:41,583 So that's my view. 135 00:12:41,984 --> 00:12:46,793 So the religion that most scientists tend to love is Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism. 136 00:12:47,735 --> 00:12:47,975 Yes. 137 00:12:47,995 --> 00:12:49,115 Do you go there as well? 138 00:12:49,556 --> 00:12:51,136 I go with Buddhism. 139 00:12:51,176 --> 00:12:53,437 In fact, I've gone to a Buddhist retreat myself. 140 00:12:53,937 --> 00:12:55,738 My wife is a pretty serious Buddhist. 141 00:12:56,578 --> 00:13:01,880 I embrace all of Buddhism except the rebirth idea. 142 00:13:02,140 --> 00:13:02,700 Reincarnation. 143 00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:03,500 Reincarnation. 144 00:13:04,160 --> 00:13:09,482 So that I can't accept because as a scientist, that doesn't make sense to me. 145 00:13:10,162 --> 00:13:15,464 But I love everything else about Buddhism, especially the idea of impermanence 146 00:13:16,747 --> 00:13:21,730 Which of course science tells us over and over again that even the stars will burn out. 147 00:13:22,791 --> 00:13:25,973 And also the idea of being present, of mindfulness. 148 00:13:26,333 --> 00:13:29,135 I think that's a wonderful, lovely idea. 149 00:13:30,076 --> 00:13:35,899 So I want to go back into your own background because you have a really interesting personal history. 150 00:13:36,700 --> 00:13:37,901 And you've written about how 151 00:13:39,133 --> 00:13:42,355 You kind of were this budding scientist at a really early age. 152 00:13:42,375 --> 00:13:46,878 You set up a little science lab in the closet of your bedroom, is that right? 153 00:13:47,078 --> 00:13:47,539 That's right. 154 00:13:47,899 --> 00:13:48,639 What did you do there? 155 00:13:48,759 --> 00:13:49,420 And how old were you? 156 00:13:50,217 --> 00:13:55,040 Well, I started doing scientific experiments probably around the age of seven or eight. 157 00:13:55,901 --> 00:14:01,205 I made ugly stains on the carpet that my parents couldn't clean out. 158 00:14:01,505 --> 00:14:04,307 And I made explosions. 159 00:14:04,567 --> 00:14:05,528 I built rockets. 160 00:14:05,768 --> 00:14:07,349 Well, you made explosions in your closet. 161 00:14:07,790 --> 00:14:08,790 Not in my closet. 162 00:14:08,830 --> 00:14:16,416 No, in my closet I had lots of electrical equipment, capacitors, resistors, batteries, photo cells. 163 00:14:16,636 --> 00:14:18,717 I had test tubes and chemicals. 164 00:14:19,929 --> 00:14:23,171 I didn't actually do the experiments in the closet. 165 00:14:23,191 --> 00:14:24,811 The closet was where I kept everything. 166 00:14:26,472 --> 00:14:28,673 I loved doing experiments. 167 00:14:28,953 --> 00:14:30,154 I loved building things. 168 00:14:30,994 --> 00:14:31,594 It's interesting. 169 00:14:32,015 --> 00:14:36,036 I think that a lot of scientists start off that way. 170 00:14:36,517 --> 00:14:43,760 When I got into college, I realized that there were other science majors who were much, much better than me with their hands. 171 00:14:44,456 --> 00:14:45,977 and they became experimentalists. 172 00:14:46,257 --> 00:14:49,598 When I built things in my college labs, they blew up. 173 00:14:50,938 --> 00:14:51,979 When they weren't supposed to. 174 00:14:53,299 --> 00:14:57,641 I'm not very good as an experimentalist at the professional level. 175 00:14:58,181 --> 00:15:05,404 So I retreated into mathematics and became a theoretical scientist. 176 00:15:05,764 --> 00:15:13,827 Did you know when you were doing those science experiments, I don't know, when you were 10 or 12 or whatever, did you know that you wanted to become a physicist then? 177 00:15:14,692 --> 00:15:14,872 No. 178 00:15:15,853 --> 00:15:26,999 I probably didn't know what physics was, but I did physics-type things like making pendulums with weights on the end of strings and timing their periods. 179 00:15:28,199 --> 00:15:30,020 I knew that I was interested in science. 180 00:15:30,281 --> 00:15:33,042 I was interested in how the world works. 181 00:15:33,862 --> 00:15:38,445 Is that the core attraction of science to you, trying to figure out how the world works? 182 00:15:39,610 --> 00:15:41,511 Yes, I think so. 183 00:15:41,551 --> 00:15:52,216 There's a great emotional satisfaction in discovering something where you're the first person who found out that thing, even if it's a minor thing. 184 00:15:53,316 --> 00:15:57,318 If you're the first person who found out this thing about the physical world, 185 00:15:58,655 --> 00:16:00,136 And there's a truth to it. 186 00:16:00,156 --> 00:16:10,560 I mean, people can debate endlessly on what caused the Civil War, and with good arguments on all different sides, from the social, political, economic side. 187 00:16:11,841 --> 00:16:21,405 But when you find out something that's equivalent to the area of a circle is pi r squared, you know, no one can deny the truth of that. 188 00:16:21,605 --> 00:16:26,767 And there's something very reassuring about being able to find something that you know is true, 189 00:16:28,949 --> 00:16:43,413 On the other hand, I think that all of the debating the civil war, the causes of the civil war, and all the questions that the humanities ask that don't have answers, like would we be happier if we lived to be a thousand years old? 190 00:16:44,354 --> 00:16:47,575 Or is it moral to steal food to feed your family? 191 00:16:48,615 --> 00:16:54,517 Why did Raskolnikov, in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, why did he kill the old lady? 192 00:16:55,248 --> 00:16:59,171 But these questions without answers are also extremely valuable. 193 00:16:59,691 --> 00:17:09,559 And I think that both the questions of science, which have answers, and the questions of the arts and humanities, which don't have answers, they're all part of being human. 194 00:17:10,439 --> 00:17:13,361 We need questions with answers, and we need questions without answers. 195 00:17:14,002 --> 00:17:17,725 Well, let me ask you about the other hat you wear, which is you're a novelist. 196 00:17:18,508 --> 00:17:20,289 I'm partly, I'm just trying to figure out how did you do this? 197 00:17:20,309 --> 00:17:27,114 How did you become a physicist, an astrophysicist doing all of this high level theory and also write all these novels? 198 00:17:27,134 --> 00:17:30,176 How did that kind of fit into your career trajectory? 199 00:17:30,316 --> 00:17:32,458 Well, I was a writer from a young age. 200 00:17:33,138 --> 00:17:36,701 I wrote poetry and then I wrote some bad short stories. 201 00:17:38,042 --> 00:17:43,846 So I had the dual interest in the arts as well as the sciences from a young age. 202 00:17:44,226 --> 00:17:45,587 Did they have equal weight for you? 203 00:17:46,167 --> 00:17:46,768 I think they did. 204 00:17:47,897 --> 00:17:53,242 And what I realized later, much later, was that I had two groups of friends. 205 00:17:54,083 --> 00:18:01,369 I had the friends who worked on the literary magazine and I had the friends who entered the science fair. 206 00:18:02,770 --> 00:18:06,914 I had these two groups of friends and I never thought of them as being distinct. 207 00:18:07,881 --> 00:18:11,102 They were just people that I loved to be with and to talk to. 208 00:18:12,142 --> 00:18:20,325 And it was only much later that I began to realize that there are these two different sides of us. 209 00:18:21,485 --> 00:18:28,127 And our parents and our teachers and our friends push us to be one way or the other. 210 00:18:28,207 --> 00:18:35,089 They push us to either be the spontaneous, intuitive, artistic type, or they push us to be the rational, 211 00:18:36,203 --> 00:18:37,624 deliberate scientific type. 212 00:18:38,124 --> 00:18:45,930 From a young age they push us in one direction or the other because life is easier if you're in one camp or the other. 213 00:18:47,111 --> 00:18:50,654 But I think in fact that many of us have interests 214 00:18:51,158 --> 00:18:53,982 in both the sciences and the humanities and arts. 215 00:18:54,342 --> 00:18:57,867 I'm lumping the arts and humanities together for this conversation. 216 00:18:59,069 --> 00:19:05,757 It's really a shame that we get funneled into one way of being versus the other. 217 00:19:06,378 --> 00:19:10,940 Well, let me ask you about how different those ways of viewing the world actually are. 218 00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:22,883 So I think sort of the common assumption is that science is about trying to understand the material world, what is observable, whereas writing fiction is about creating imagined worlds. 219 00:19:23,824 --> 00:19:24,824 Is that a fair distinction? 220 00:19:24,904 --> 00:19:25,704 Yeah, I think so. 221 00:19:26,125 --> 00:19:33,487 Another thing you could say is that the humanities and arts are ultimately about our inner world as human beings. 222 00:19:34,501 --> 00:19:37,863 our psychology and the expression of our inner selves. 223 00:19:38,563 --> 00:19:45,067 Whereas science, other than psychology, is about the external world. 224 00:19:45,327 --> 00:19:49,609 And all scientists believe that there is a physical reality outside of our minds. 225 00:19:50,590 --> 00:19:51,810 Not everybody believes that. 226 00:19:51,830 --> 00:20:00,455 In fact, there's some very well-known philosophers, like George Berkeley, who believe that everything is a mental construction. 227 00:20:01,445 --> 00:20:12,832 So for you, who you've both had this career in science and also you've written many works of fiction, do these two different ways of thinking feed on each other? 228 00:20:12,852 --> 00:20:16,435 I mean, does writing fiction make you a better physicist? 229 00:20:17,575 --> 00:20:21,078 Well, that's a great question and I don't know the answer to it. 230 00:20:21,298 --> 00:20:24,260 There is an intuitive aspect of science 231 00:20:25,621 --> 00:20:36,744 And I think that the greatest scientists like Darwin and Einstein had very strong intuition about the world, which went beyond just the facts and the numbers. 232 00:20:38,325 --> 00:20:51,588 I think in my own fiction, I can see the effects of science, of scientific background in my fiction, because my novels have greater organization than the average novelist. 233 00:20:51,968 --> 00:20:54,229 And I'm not saying that that's necessarily a good thing. 234 00:20:55,392 --> 00:20:58,716 It's just a feature of my writing. 235 00:20:59,036 --> 00:21:07,366 Some reviewers have pointed out that I have a lot of organization in my novels. 236 00:21:07,386 --> 00:21:12,151 We've been talking about how you became a scientist and also how you became a fiction writer. 237 00:21:13,202 --> 00:21:19,687 I want to pick up the thread of your spiritual history, because you've written about some fascinating experiences. 238 00:21:19,887 --> 00:21:27,132 One was when you were quite young, you say maybe nine years old or so, you had almost an out-of-body experience, right? 239 00:21:27,312 --> 00:21:27,452 Yes. 240 00:21:27,472 --> 00:21:28,133 What happened there? 241 00:21:28,913 --> 00:21:34,838 Well, I was standing in one of the bedrooms of my home in Memphis, Tennessee. 242 00:21:35,478 --> 00:21:42,043 It was in the mid-afternoon, and there were some train tracks that were near our house. 243 00:21:43,125 --> 00:21:44,967 and I heard a train go by. 244 00:21:46,448 --> 00:21:58,018 And something about that triggered a very unusual experience that I suddenly felt like I was not in my body anymore, but I was in outer space. 245 00:21:59,139 --> 00:22:01,421 I was sailing through the galaxies. 246 00:22:01,641 --> 00:22:07,446 I think at nine years old, I knew that there was outer space and there were galaxies. 247 00:22:07,466 --> 00:22:10,369 I felt like I was part of the cosmos. 248 00:22:11,352 --> 00:22:21,438 And I sort of had a sense of a very, very long period of time before I was born and a very, very long period of time after I would be dead. 249 00:22:23,099 --> 00:22:28,342 And I had a sense that I was an insignificant speck in the universe. 250 00:22:29,562 --> 00:22:31,543 And that was the experience that I had. 251 00:22:31,744 --> 00:22:34,145 And it just lasted like one minute. 252 00:22:34,565 --> 00:22:36,086 Any idea what would have triggered that? 253 00:22:36,846 --> 00:22:38,387 No, I don't know what triggered it. 254 00:22:38,768 --> 00:22:39,508 I mean, I know that 255 00:22:40,064 --> 00:22:50,480 The immediate thing was hearing this train go by, but I have no idea why that triggered this expansive feeling that I had. 256 00:22:51,141 --> 00:22:52,603 So I can't answer the question. 257 00:22:53,221 --> 00:22:55,123 I find so interesting as you describe this. 258 00:22:55,283 --> 00:23:01,328 You said it maybe lasted a minute, but it obviously made a huge impression on you. 259 00:23:01,428 --> 00:23:02,268 Yes, it did. 260 00:23:02,969 --> 00:23:08,353 Don't we all have experiences that last a minute and have huge impressions on us? 261 00:23:08,413 --> 00:23:09,154 I think we all do. 262 00:23:11,636 --> 00:23:13,377 Life is made up of those moments. 263 00:23:14,658 --> 00:23:17,240 As you've written about this, you have this wonderful line. 264 00:23:17,580 --> 00:23:23,223 You say, sometimes I wish I believed in the soul, but I've got mathematics. 265 00:23:26,644 --> 00:23:29,086 Can mathematics be a replacement for the soul? 266 00:23:30,527 --> 00:23:32,388 Well, certainly not completely. 267 00:23:33,128 --> 00:23:40,472 But as I was saying a bit earlier to you in the green room, I think many religious traditions have two souls. 268 00:23:41,665 --> 00:23:46,087 There's a universal soul that is not connected to you personally. 269 00:23:47,848 --> 00:23:52,310 And then there's your personal soul that has your own self-identity. 270 00:23:52,550 --> 00:24:04,575 The ancient Egyptian Ka and Ba, for example, the Ka was this universal soul and the Ba was something that contained part of your individual identity. 271 00:24:05,263 --> 00:24:11,866 and the two souls left your body at physical death, the Ba tried to rejoin with the Ka. 272 00:24:13,006 --> 00:24:17,468 I think that mathematics is very close to this universal soul. 273 00:24:18,849 --> 00:24:32,375 It's not personal, but it has an immortality to it because when we find, I mentioned earlier that the area of a circle is pi r squared, that's not going to change. 274 00:24:33,335 --> 00:24:34,396 And if we could talk to 275 00:24:36,327 --> 00:24:48,779 Glyptons on the planet Polyak, they would know, as long as they were reasonably intelligent, they would know some version of the area of a circle is pi r squared. 276 00:24:48,799 --> 00:24:54,304 They would know about the number pi, 3.1417, et cetera. 277 00:24:55,525 --> 00:24:58,668 That's what mathematics is for me. 278 00:24:59,522 --> 00:25:03,643 And the world of mathematics is a beautiful world. 279 00:25:04,583 --> 00:25:05,343 Can you explain that? 280 00:25:05,403 --> 00:25:12,984 Because I mean, I'm not particularly mathematically inclined myself, but I've heard mathematicians talk about the beauty of math. 281 00:25:13,844 --> 00:25:14,845 What makes it beautiful? 282 00:25:16,225 --> 00:25:19,005 The exactness, the purity. 283 00:25:20,245 --> 00:25:23,706 It's not contaminated with human prejudice. 284 00:25:23,846 --> 00:25:25,666 It's not contaminated with politics. 285 00:25:26,887 --> 00:25:29,027 If you see a mathematical proof, 286 00:25:30,360 --> 00:25:44,709 For example, the proof, which is fairly simple, that the square root of two is a number that cannot be expressed as the ratio of two whole numbers, cannot be expressed as a repeating decimal. 287 00:25:45,609 --> 00:25:48,451 It's something else called an irrational number. 288 00:25:48,511 --> 00:25:52,814 When you see the proof of that, you just say, wow. 289 00:25:54,595 --> 00:25:57,517 Or if you see the proof of the Pythagorean theorem, 290 00:25:58,537 --> 00:26:11,142 that if you have a triangle of one angle is 90 degrees, that the square of the side opposite that angle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two legs of the triangle. 291 00:26:11,162 --> 00:26:14,904 When you see the proof of that, it's a beautiful thing. 292 00:26:15,364 --> 00:26:17,805 You're asking me to describe the beauty of it. 293 00:26:18,405 --> 00:26:24,168 It's precise, it's eternal, it's pure, and it's simple. 294 00:26:25,146 --> 00:26:27,710 So those are aspects of beauty. 295 00:26:28,050 --> 00:26:33,358 I think that other people would describe beauty in a different way, but that's what, to a scientist, 296 00:26:34,340 --> 00:26:36,121 or a mathematician, that's what beauty is. 297 00:26:36,901 --> 00:26:49,746 Well, let me ask you about the Pythagoreans in ancient Greece because, I mean, I know there was this kind of, this cult, I don't know if that's the right word, a religion that believed there was something eternal. 298 00:26:50,146 --> 00:26:51,287 And eternal is not even the right word. 299 00:26:51,327 --> 00:26:54,268 I mean, there is a religious foundation to numbers, right? 300 00:26:54,308 --> 00:26:56,729 I mean, there was this whole religion based on numbers. 301 00:26:57,709 --> 00:26:59,150 Does that do anything for you, that idea? 302 00:27:00,392 --> 00:27:00,992 Yes, it does. 303 00:27:01,712 --> 00:27:10,174 There's this wonderful debate in mathematics about whether mathematics is something that we invent or is it something we discover. 304 00:27:11,254 --> 00:27:16,416 Are there mathematical truths out there that are independent of us? 305 00:27:17,916 --> 00:27:22,157 Or do we just invent all of the mathematical theorems? 306 00:27:23,257 --> 00:27:26,278 I think that there is a mathematical world out there that we 307 00:27:27,307 --> 00:27:34,851 discover, although it takes human beings, at least the part of it that we know, it takes a discovery. 308 00:27:35,051 --> 00:27:38,894 But I think there's probably a lot of math out there that we don't yet know. 309 00:27:39,814 --> 00:27:47,038 And every year you see a new mathematical theorem that was postulated several hundred years ago and is now proven. 310 00:27:47,719 --> 00:27:55,383 My view of that is the same as it is of science, that there's an external world out there that's independent of our minds. 311 00:27:57,013 --> 00:27:58,795 Okay, hold that thought for a moment. 312 00:27:59,175 --> 00:28:05,561 My guest is Alan Lightman, whose most recent book is called The Shape of Wonder, How Scientists Think, Work, and Live. 313 00:28:06,021 --> 00:28:11,225 And when we come back, Alan will talk about what science can tell us about the evolution of spiritual beliefs. 314 00:28:12,017 --> 00:28:13,258 Hi, it's Anne. 315 00:28:13,558 --> 00:28:15,120 I am so glad you're joining us. 316 00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,543 We have some amazing guests lined up for the weeks ahead. 317 00:28:18,663 --> 00:28:20,045 I'm really excited about them. 318 00:28:20,465 --> 00:28:21,186 And here's a tip. 319 00:28:21,586 --> 00:28:31,697 Maybe you know this already, but if you follow Wonder Cabinet on Apple Podcasts, those new episodes will show up automatically, like a little weekly gift in your podcast feed. 320 00:28:32,197 --> 00:28:32,898 I hope you like it. 321 00:28:38,825 --> 00:28:39,847 This is Wonder Cabinet. 322 00:28:40,108 --> 00:28:40,949 I'm Steve Paulson. 323 00:28:41,470 --> 00:28:49,546 Let's return to my conversation with the physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, which took place in front of a small audience at the Morgan Library in New York. 324 00:28:51,176 --> 00:29:16,435 i want to pick up the thread of where the religious impulse comes from for a lot of people because i have a i have a pet theory about this and i'd love to run this by you i i tend to think that at root the reason why people are religious is it's it's not particularly because of how they read the bible or any sacred scripture it's it's not even really a set of beliefs it's it's the rejection of the idea that it's just an accident that we're here 325 00:29:17,759 --> 00:29:24,086 I think that's just sort of intolerable for a lot of people that, you know, just like if circumstances were a little bit different, you know, I wouldn't be here. 326 00:29:24,286 --> 00:29:28,570 I think the core idea is that there's some underlying purpose and we were meant to be here. 327 00:29:28,690 --> 00:29:33,515 And just the idea that if you're just going to throw that out the window, that is just unacceptable. 328 00:29:33,555 --> 00:29:34,997 I think for most people, actually. 329 00:29:35,177 --> 00:29:36,318 I agree with you completely. 330 00:29:36,378 --> 00:29:39,341 I would add one more impulse here. 331 00:29:39,721 --> 00:29:47,824 that is involved with the creation of religion, and that is the desire for immortality. 332 00:29:48,364 --> 00:29:54,967 It's just too upsetting for most people to think that this physical body is all there is. 333 00:29:55,967 --> 00:30:02,309 You know, I'm going to lift my fourth score in seven years or whatever it is, and then I'm going to be no more. 334 00:30:03,129 --> 00:30:07,051 That is just a very grim thought for many people. 335 00:30:08,003 --> 00:30:09,503 But it's not grim for you, I take it. 336 00:30:09,643 --> 00:30:14,625 It's not grim for me, although I'm seeing more and more signs of my aging. 337 00:30:15,525 --> 00:30:18,185 Let me ask you about that, because that's a really interesting question. 338 00:30:18,285 --> 00:30:20,306 You're in your mid-70s now, I know. 339 00:30:21,166 --> 00:30:29,028 Does the way you think about these existential questions about why we're here, meaning, has that changed at all for you as you've gotten older? 340 00:30:29,208 --> 00:30:29,808 I think it has. 341 00:30:30,976 --> 00:30:35,137 I think when you get to be a certain age, you start seeing the full arc of your life. 342 00:30:36,357 --> 00:30:42,658 If you haven't asked the question before, you ask, have I done anything that's worth anything? 343 00:30:44,098 --> 00:30:45,719 Am I going to leave anything behind? 344 00:30:46,559 --> 00:30:48,379 So you begin asking those questions. 345 00:30:49,099 --> 00:30:52,040 And for you, how do you start to answer those questions? 346 00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,841 Well, I have my children, one of whom is sitting right here. 347 00:30:59,940 --> 00:31:01,661 who has two children of her own. 348 00:31:02,942 --> 00:31:06,886 So that's a very precious way of leaving something behind. 349 00:31:07,686 --> 00:31:09,408 I'll have good friends. 350 00:31:10,308 --> 00:31:18,655 I hope that some of my books will last, but I would be very surprised if anything I've written is still here 100 years from now. 351 00:31:20,016 --> 00:31:28,103 One of the things that I've, you asked me how I've come to terms with my mortality, and I think that I used to think that only 352 00:31:29,100 --> 00:31:34,284 things that were permanent had meaning, things that lasted a long time. 353 00:31:35,504 --> 00:31:46,692 I've come around to the belief that the moment is what matters, like us sitting here right now talking, this incredible, this extraordinary, beautiful room. 354 00:31:46,872 --> 00:31:53,336 All of us right here are experiencing a moment, and I think that that's what matters because nothing lasts. 355 00:31:54,317 --> 00:31:58,680 If you don't at least appreciate the moment, then you don't have anything at all. 356 00:31:59,531 --> 00:32:10,914 And we're so caught up in the busy life that we lead that has been made more and more busy and frantic by the high-speed communication devices like our phones. 357 00:32:11,774 --> 00:32:19,416 We sometimes don't have the time to think about what's important, what our values are, and just experiencing the moment. 358 00:32:19,436 --> 00:32:27,938 I mean, we've all seen people walking in the forest looking at their phones or at a restaurant looking at their phones. 359 00:32:28,478 --> 00:32:28,878 They're in 360 00:32:29,465 --> 00:32:30,707 in hyperspace somewhere. 361 00:32:30,767 --> 00:32:31,469 They're nowhere. 362 00:32:33,312 --> 00:32:38,861 And at least we can be where we are at that moment, experiencing that moment. 363 00:32:39,822 --> 00:32:42,327 And I think that that's all there is. 364 00:32:44,548 --> 00:32:45,229 That is wonderful. 365 00:32:45,609 --> 00:32:46,230 So well put. 366 00:32:47,171 --> 00:32:50,614 Let me ask you about another moment that you've written about. 367 00:32:50,895 --> 00:32:53,558 You were in Maine at your place there. 368 00:32:53,618 --> 00:32:59,604 You were out in a boat late at night alone and something unusual happened. 369 00:32:59,624 --> 00:33:01,506 Can you describe what happened there? 370 00:33:02,086 --> 00:33:04,449 Well, I was coming back to this island that 371 00:33:04,957 --> 00:33:07,859 I live on with my wife and sometimes children. 372 00:33:08,159 --> 00:33:09,600 And it was after midnight. 373 00:33:10,521 --> 00:33:12,582 There were no other boats out on the water. 374 00:33:13,082 --> 00:33:17,245 And it was a clear night and I could see the stars. 375 00:33:18,466 --> 00:33:26,611 And I was in the ocean and I decided to turn off the engine of the boat and it got even quieter. 376 00:33:29,052 --> 00:33:33,215 And then I turned off the running lights of the boat and got even darker. 377 00:33:34,794 --> 00:33:37,236 And I lay down in the boat and just looked up. 378 00:33:39,939 --> 00:33:44,303 And after a few moments, I felt like I was falling into infinity. 379 00:33:45,344 --> 00:33:47,906 I felt like I was merging with the stars. 380 00:33:50,809 --> 00:33:56,875 I lost all track of my body, lost track of time, lost track of where I was. 381 00:33:58,133 --> 00:34:04,995 It was another moment like the eye contact with the Ospreys where I felt like I was part of something much larger than myself. 382 00:34:06,536 --> 00:34:11,918 And I don't really know exactly how long I lay there because I had lost track of time. 383 00:34:11,958 --> 00:34:19,120 But at some point I got up and turned the engine back on and went to my dock. 384 00:34:20,981 --> 00:34:24,542 So that was another transcendent experience. 385 00:34:25,822 --> 00:34:27,963 So I've had a couple of experiences that are 386 00:34:28,918 --> 00:34:31,420 that share some similarities with what you have talked about. 387 00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,181 They're very similar, these two. 388 00:34:34,902 --> 00:34:46,849 One was when I was hiking in the Waimea Canyon in Hawaii, and another was I was biking very slowly in this nature refuge on Sanibel Island in Florida. 389 00:34:48,310 --> 00:34:54,076 And I sort of like kind of went into some almost slightly altered state. 390 00:34:54,136 --> 00:35:01,423 I sort of felt a little tingling and I had this powerful sensation that everything was right in the world. 391 00:35:02,865 --> 00:35:08,531 And it was sort of this merging with sort of the whole natural, I mean they're both very beautiful places. 392 00:35:09,894 --> 00:35:11,795 It didn't matter at all if I was there. 393 00:35:12,376 --> 00:35:13,897 This was the feeling that I had at the time. 394 00:35:13,917 --> 00:35:17,279 It wouldn't even matter if humanity disappeared. 395 00:35:17,579 --> 00:35:19,020 Everything would be right in the world. 396 00:35:19,820 --> 00:35:22,622 I don't know what to make of that. 397 00:35:23,403 --> 00:35:29,767 My sense of self was still there, but my significance was diminished. 398 00:35:29,807 --> 00:35:32,709 Does that resonate with you in any way? 399 00:35:32,769 --> 00:35:35,911 Yes, I think that's very similar to the moments that I described. 400 00:35:35,931 --> 00:35:37,852 I think probably everybody here has had 401 00:35:38,968 --> 00:35:42,230 moments like that, and they are beautiful. 402 00:35:43,130 --> 00:35:43,571 And rare. 403 00:35:44,131 --> 00:35:45,932 I mean, I've had two like this in my life. 404 00:35:45,972 --> 00:35:46,912 I'd like to have another one. 405 00:35:47,813 --> 00:35:48,093 Yes. 406 00:35:48,333 --> 00:35:52,155 Well, I wish we could order these up. 407 00:35:52,175 --> 00:35:58,639 I think you have to be in the moment to feel the vastness of the cosmos. 408 00:35:59,636 --> 00:36:05,640 But of course, when you're having one of these transcendent experiences, you do lose track of time. 409 00:36:06,201 --> 00:36:12,465 So when we say you're in the moment, in a way, that's a paradox right there because you've lost track of time. 410 00:36:13,206 --> 00:36:18,589 So maybe when we use the word moment, we're meaning something other than chronological time. 411 00:36:19,610 --> 00:36:22,973 We mean something like being present, being alive. 412 00:36:23,967 --> 00:36:27,530 I mean, they're rare, and yet, as you say, there are moments they might just last. 413 00:36:27,550 --> 00:36:33,055 I mean, this probably lasted, I don't know, an hour at most for both of those for me, but it's kind of stayed with me. 414 00:36:33,375 --> 00:36:34,836 And, you know, I still am trying to... 415 00:36:34,876 --> 00:36:38,199 I'm puzzling over what that is and whether that... Is that a mystical experience? 416 00:36:38,219 --> 00:36:44,244 Somehow that language doesn't really work for me in some way, but it's sort of an ecstatic nature experience that... 417 00:36:44,704 --> 00:36:45,405 That seems right. 418 00:36:45,425 --> 00:36:47,147 Well, you don't have to use the word mystical. 419 00:36:47,668 --> 00:36:59,323 There's a concept in Hinduism called darshan, D-A-R-S-H-A-N, probably mispronouncing it, which is the opportunity to experience the sacred. 420 00:37:00,718 --> 00:37:06,900 And the sacred could be God, the sacred could be the universe, the sacred could be nature. 421 00:37:07,661 --> 00:37:20,846 It's recommended to us that we be open to darshan, that we be open to the world and be open to these experiences like the kind that you described and the kind that I described. 422 00:37:21,706 --> 00:37:25,848 And I guess then the question is what are the conditions that open us up to it? 423 00:37:27,012 --> 00:37:37,696 So you have a chapter in your recent book, The Transcendent Brain, where you speculate on the origins of spirituality and you suggest that it's a spandrel. 424 00:37:38,216 --> 00:37:43,018 In other words, it's not sort of a fundamental part of evolution, it's kind of a byproduct of evolution. 425 00:37:43,618 --> 00:37:44,278 Can you explain this? 426 00:37:45,679 --> 00:37:47,760 Well, there are many aspects of spirituality. 427 00:37:49,881 --> 00:38:01,733 But I think that all of them, in my view, either had direct survival benefit or are byproducts of traits that had survival benefit. 428 00:38:02,534 --> 00:38:07,459 One example is our feeling of connection to nature, like I had with the ospreys. 429 00:38:08,713 --> 00:38:15,496 If you go back in our evolutionary history, say a couple of million years ago, we lived in caves. 430 00:38:16,476 --> 00:38:23,340 The selection of a place to live was the most fundamental thing that a group of people could do. 431 00:38:24,140 --> 00:38:32,684 If you've chosen the right place to live, you know who your predators are, you know where to find food, you know where to find shelter. 432 00:38:33,244 --> 00:38:35,345 You might need to be near a lake or a river. 433 00:38:36,577 --> 00:38:47,003 And so there was very strong survival benefit in being tuned to nature, you know, I'm talking like 100,000 generations ago. 434 00:38:47,344 --> 00:39:02,433 But being tuned to nature is one thing and sort of trying to kind of trace these extraordinary experiences that we have that are somehow connected to evolution, to somehow, you know, our genetic makeup. 435 00:39:02,953 --> 00:39:03,994 How far can you go with that? 436 00:39:04,718 --> 00:39:05,858 I think you go pretty far. 437 00:39:05,878 --> 00:39:20,722 I mean, I think that our affinity for nature is hardwired into our DNA and that it goes back to being attuned to nature was a strong survival benefit. 438 00:39:21,862 --> 00:39:25,303 I also think that our feeling connection to other people 439 00:39:26,645 --> 00:39:37,668 If we go back to that same cave, when we were, some people went out to get food, other people had to stay in the cave and keep the fire going or take care of the children. 440 00:39:39,088 --> 00:39:42,229 And you really depended upon your community for survival. 441 00:39:42,489 --> 00:39:45,689 And if you got separated from the group, it was almost certain death. 442 00:39:46,490 --> 00:39:48,930 If you wandered out from the cave on your own. 443 00:39:50,110 --> 00:39:52,051 And so we really, 444 00:39:53,660 --> 00:40:02,250 have this codependence on a community as a necessary survival trait. 445 00:40:03,331 --> 00:40:06,834 There are social anthropologists who have argued 446 00:40:07,888 --> 00:40:15,857 that our feeling of connection to nature and our feeling of connection to other people are very closely related to each other. 447 00:40:15,917 --> 00:40:23,145 My larger question here is, if you were a secular humanist, which I think you would describe yourself as, do you pretty much have to 448 00:40:24,226 --> 00:40:45,194 for sort of the intellectual argument to hold together, do you pretty much have to go back to sort of looking for evolutionary explanations for something like spirituality, something like the origins of religion, as opposed to saying there's just some fundamental mystery there that we really can't explain, like why people develop these feelings or these experiences? 449 00:40:45,214 --> 00:40:46,895 I think you can argue either way. 450 00:40:47,875 --> 00:40:49,476 I mean, I like mystery. 451 00:40:50,476 --> 00:40:52,997 I certainly think that there are a lot of things that we don't understand. 452 00:40:53,788 --> 00:40:55,949 So I would accept that argument. 453 00:40:57,209 --> 00:41:10,655 But in trying to find a reconciliation of science and spirituality, which is part of my mission, my aim is to try to find a scientific explanation for these things. 454 00:41:11,575 --> 00:41:19,138 In doing so, I don't discount at all the magnificent and majesty of these experiences we're talking about. 455 00:41:19,803 --> 00:41:28,101 But it's just that this is a way that I can imagine both a scientific and a spiritual world that are the same world. 456 00:41:28,912 --> 00:41:41,100 You know, what I find so interesting is, I mean, you are carving out the space between, on the one hand, the hardcore atheists like Richard Dawkins, you know, who have absolutely no patience for religion at all. 457 00:41:41,580 --> 00:41:49,505 And on the other hand, people who are, you know, very religiously minded, who really reject the strictly materialist worldview. 458 00:41:49,585 --> 00:41:52,807 And, you know, they talk about scientism, you know, science trying to explain everything. 459 00:41:54,068 --> 00:41:56,149 You're trying to find some middle ground there. 460 00:41:56,169 --> 00:41:57,150 And I guess I'm wondering... 461 00:41:58,014 --> 00:42:00,117 What's at stake here for this, and why does this matter? 462 00:42:01,338 --> 00:42:07,646 I think that science and religion are the two most powerful forces that have shaped civilization. 463 00:42:08,607 --> 00:42:16,838 Of course, I've given my version of religion, which I favor, which is not organized religion but these personal experiences that we have. 464 00:42:17,788 --> 00:42:20,950 Religion is not going away, science is not going away. 465 00:42:21,851 --> 00:42:23,592 They're both part of who we are. 466 00:42:24,252 --> 00:42:31,457 And one thing I don't like about Dawkins is he just dismisses religion and people of faith altogether. 467 00:42:31,477 --> 00:42:32,958 He says they're ignorant. 468 00:42:33,778 --> 00:42:35,940 I think that's condescending and it's offensive. 469 00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:41,183 You know, the amazing thing about human beings is that we are both rational, intuitive. 470 00:42:42,024 --> 00:42:45,146 We're scientists and we're artists, we're painters, 471 00:42:46,152 --> 00:42:47,733 We have spiritual experiences. 472 00:42:47,953 --> 00:42:51,895 We can also work out that the area of a circle is pi r squared. 473 00:42:52,295 --> 00:42:53,936 We have all of these capacities. 474 00:42:55,436 --> 00:42:57,017 It's just amazing. 475 00:42:58,218 --> 00:43:04,061 The human brain is the most complex object that we know of in the universe. 476 00:43:04,561 --> 00:43:07,102 It's more complex than a star. 477 00:43:07,182 --> 00:43:10,043 It's more complex than an entire galaxy. 478 00:43:11,044 --> 00:43:13,165 And it's just extraordinary what 479 00:43:13,577 --> 00:43:15,959 what our brains are capable of. 480 00:43:17,079 --> 00:43:21,242 I think that non-human animals have extraordinary brains too. 481 00:43:21,282 --> 00:43:29,768 I don't think that they have the level of consciousness that we do, but I think that they have pretty amazing brains too. 482 00:43:29,888 --> 00:43:37,453 So I'm just constantly amazed and in awe of what the human brain is capable of. 483 00:43:38,073 --> 00:43:39,174 So I have one last question. 484 00:43:39,454 --> 00:43:41,575 We are in the world of AI now. 485 00:43:42,785 --> 00:43:45,226 do you think AI will ever have spiritual experiences? 486 00:43:46,567 --> 00:43:53,550 Well, let's start with consciousness, which is the foundation for all mental experiences. 487 00:43:54,830 --> 00:44:11,898 So I think if you made a list of all of the manifestations of consciousness, like being able to plan for the future, being able to express a sense of self, knowing where you are in space and time, if you made a list of all of the attributes of consciousness, I think 488 00:44:12,195 --> 00:44:15,837 that pretty soon we will have a computer that checks all the boxes. 489 00:44:16,878 --> 00:44:22,081 But whether that thing is conscious or not is a totally different question. 490 00:44:22,941 --> 00:44:24,622 In other words, it might look conscious. 491 00:44:24,823 --> 00:44:25,863 It might look conscious. 492 00:44:25,963 --> 00:44:28,024 It might behave like a conscious thing. 493 00:44:29,505 --> 00:44:32,667 But when you come down to it, consciousness is a feeling. 494 00:44:33,888 --> 00:44:40,512 You know, it's sensation from all those chemical and electrical exchanges between neurons that's going on. 495 00:44:41,428 --> 00:45:04,478 And somehow, in a way that we don't understand, and maybe never will understand, it produces this feeling that we have, the feeling of being present in the world, of having a self, of having memory, of being able to plan for the future, of being able to integrate all these sensations of sight and sound that come in. 496 00:45:05,498 --> 00:45:08,620 I don't know how we can ever know what a computer feels. 497 00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:11,140 So start there. 498 00:45:12,340 --> 00:45:13,661 Before we get to spiritual experience. 499 00:45:13,681 --> 00:45:15,521 Before we get to spirituality. 500 00:45:15,961 --> 00:45:17,861 So the verdict is out for you. 501 00:45:17,981 --> 00:45:18,542 We just don't know. 502 00:45:18,582 --> 00:45:19,802 It might happen, but we don't know. 503 00:45:20,762 --> 00:45:33,804 But an interesting question for me is that once we build this very advanced AI and it has all the manifestations of consciousness, do we have any moral obligation to it? 504 00:45:34,584 --> 00:45:38,465 And there are ethicists right now who are pondering this, and there'll be more and more 505 00:45:39,253 --> 00:45:40,193 in the coming decade? 506 00:45:40,793 --> 00:45:44,194 For example, do we have to ask it permission to unplug it? 507 00:45:45,374 --> 00:45:57,156 And there'll be all kinds of issues like this that arise as we get the successors to ChatGPT and the future advanced AI. 508 00:45:57,677 --> 00:45:58,797 That's about all I can say. 509 00:46:00,577 --> 00:46:02,657 Okay, what a perfect note to end this on. 510 00:46:02,697 --> 00:46:05,038 Thank you so much, Alan Lightman, and thank you. 511 00:46:08,261 --> 00:46:12,703 That's the astrophysicist and novelist Alan Lightman at the Morgan Library in New York. 512 00:46:13,223 --> 00:46:18,305 This conversation was part of a series of public events we did in partnership with the Nour Foundation. 513 00:46:18,986 --> 00:46:23,408 If you'd like to see the video of the full conversation, there's a link on our website. 514 00:46:23,888 --> 00:46:26,709 It's wondercabinetproductions.com. 515 00:46:27,229 --> 00:46:30,751 You can also send your comments and questions there and sign up for the newsletter. 516 00:46:31,231 --> 00:46:34,893 Wonder Cabinet is produced in Madison, Wisconsin, and Vershire, Vermont. 517 00:46:35,394 --> 00:46:39,296 Our audio engineer is Steve Gotcher, and our digital producer is Mark Riechers. 518 00:46:39,756 --> 00:46:40,537 I'm Steve Paulson. 519 00:46:40,857 --> 00:46:41,998 And I'm Anne Strainchamps. 520 00:46:42,438 --> 00:46:43,639 And we have a favor to ask. 521 00:46:44,139 --> 00:46:50,303 If you like this podcast, it really helps us when you give a good rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. 522 00:46:50,703 --> 00:46:52,424 Be well, and see you next time.