Ann Druyan: Cosmos, Carl Sagan, Voyager, and the Beauty of Science
音乐与艺术生物与进化太空与探索技术与编程历史与文明
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sciencecosmoscarlsaidvoyagerdonhumangoingspacespacecraftpossiblesaganrecordcivilizationscientistsbeautifuldoesnappknowingnature
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"all of Wikipedia, for example, all human knowledge, is there something just new that we've developed,"
整个维基百科，例如，所有人类知识，是否有我们开发的新东西，
— Ann Druyan （35:11.560）
🎙️ 完整对话（808 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Anne Drouin, writer, producer, director, and one
以下是与作家、制片人、导演 Anne Drouin 的对话
Lex Fridman (00:06.100)
of the most important and impactful communicators of science in our time.
我们这个时代最重要和最有影响力的科学传播者。
Lex Fridman (00:10.480)
She co wrote the 1980 science documentary series Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan, whom she
1980 年，她与人共同创作了由卡尔·萨根 (Carl Sagan) 主持的科学纪录片系列《宇宙》(Cosmos)，
Lex Fridman (00:16.960)
married in 1981 and her love for whom, with the help of NASA, was recorded as brainwaves
1981 年结婚，在 NASA 的帮助下，她对她的爱被记录为脑电波
Lex Fridman (00:24.280)
on a golden record along with other things our civilization has to offer and launched
与我们的文明所提供和推出的其他事物一起创下黄金唱片
Ann Druyan (00:29.320)
into space on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft that are now, 42 years later, still
42 年后，乘坐旅行者 1 号和旅行者 2 号航天器进入太空
Ann Druyan (00:36.320)
active, reaching out farther into deep space than any human made object ever has.
活跃，比任何人造物体都更深入太空。
Ann Druyan (00:43.000)
This was a profound and beautiful decision Anne made as the creative director of NASA's
这是安妮作为 NASA 创意总监做出的一个深刻而美好的决定。
Lex Fridman (00:48.800)
Voyager Interstellar Message Project.
航行者星际信息项目。
Ann Druyan (00:51.400)
In 2014 she went on to create the second season of Cosmos, called Cosmos A Space Time Odyssey,
2014年，她继续创作了《宇宙》第二季，名为《宇宙时空奥德赛》，
Ann Druyan (00:58.560)
in 2020 the new third season called Cosmos Possible Worlds, which is being released this
2020 年新的第三季名为《宇宙可能的世界》，将于今年发布
Ann Druyan (01:05.440)
upcoming Monday, March 9th.
即将到来的 3 月 9 日星期一。
Lex Fridman (01:07.520)
It is hosted, once again, by the fun and the brilliant Neil deGrasse Tyson.
它再次由有趣且才华横溢的尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森主持。
Ann Druyan (01:14.920)
Carl Sagan, Anne Drouin, and Cosmos have inspired millions of scientists and curious minds across
卡尔·萨根、安妮·杜鲁因和宇宙启发了数以百万计的科学家和好奇心
Lex Fridman (01:21.320)
several generations by revealing the magic, the power, the beauty of science.
几代人都在揭示科学的魔力、力量和美丽。
Ann Druyan (01:27.680)
I am one such curious mind, and if you listened to this podcast, you may know that Elon Musk
我就是一个充满好奇心的人，如果你听过这个播客，你可能会知道埃隆·马斯克
Lex Fridman (01:33.920)
is as well.
也是如此。
Ann Druyan (01:35.480)
He graciously agreed to read Carl Sagan's words about the pale blue dot in my second
他慷慨地同意阅读卡尔·萨根关于我的第二个淡蓝色圆点的文字
Lex Fridman (01:40.400)
conversation with him.
与他交谈。
Ann Druyan (01:42.280)
If you listened, there was an interesting and inspiring twist at the end.
如果你听了，最后会发现一个有趣且鼓舞人心的转折。
Ann Druyan (01:48.280)
This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast, if you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give
Ann Druyan (01:53.160)
it 5 stars on Apple Podcast, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at
Lex Fridman (01:58.200)
Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N.
Ann Druyan (02:02.360)
As usual, I'll do one or two minutes of ads now and never any ads in the middle that
Lex Fridman (02:06.840)
can break the flow of the conversation.
Ann Druyan (02:08.960)
I hope that works for you and doesn't hurt the listening experience.
Ann Druyan (02:13.800)
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Ann Druyan (02:18.320)
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Ann Druyan (02:21.480)
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Ann Druyan (02:26.040)
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Ann Druyan (02:28.840)
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Ann Druyan (02:34.400)
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Lex Fridman (02:39.600)
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Ann Druyan (02:41.440)
I'm a big fan of standards for safety and security.
Ann Druyan (02:45.320)
PCI DSS is a good example of that, where a bunch of competitors got together and agreed
Ann Druyan (02:50.760)
that there needs to be a global standard around the security of transactions.
Ann Druyan (02:55.480)
Now we just need to do the same for autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence systems
Ann Druyan (02:59.820)
in general.
Lex Fridman (03:01.820)
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Ann Druyan (03:06.200)
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Ann Druyan (03:13.120)
that is helping to advance robotics and STEM education for young people around the world.
Lex Fridman (03:19.280)
And now, here's my conversation with Anne Drouin.
Lex Fridman (03:24.480)
What is the role of science in our society?
Ann Druyan (03:26.960)
Well, I think of what Einstein said when he opened the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Ann Druyan (03:35.800)
He said, if science is ever to fulfill its mission the way art has done, it must penetrate.
Ann Druyan (03:46.920)
Its inner meaning must penetrate the consciousness of everyone.
Lex Fridman (03:53.420)
And so for me, especially in a civilization dependent on high technology and science,
Ann Druyan (04:00.660)
one that aspires to be democratic, it's critical that the public, as informed decision makers,
Lex Fridman (04:12.280)
understand the values and the methods and the rules of science.
Lex Fridman (04:18.200)
So you think about what you just mentioned, the values and the methods and the rules and
Ann Druyan (04:24.360)
maybe the technology that science produces, but what about sort of the beauty, the mystery
Lex Fridman (04:30.440)
of science?
Ann Druyan (04:31.440)
Well, you've touched on what I think is for me, that's how my way into science is that
Ann Druyan (04:37.340)
for me, it's much more spiritually uplifting.
Ann Druyan (04:42.160)
The revelations of science, the collective revelations of really countless generations
Ann Druyan (04:50.320)
of searchers and the little tiny bit we know about reality is the greatest joy for me because
Lex Fridman (04:58.280)
I think that it relates to the idea of love.
Lex Fridman (05:02.120)
What is love that is based on illusion about the other?
Lex Fridman (05:07.600)
That's not love.
Ann Druyan (05:08.600)
Love is seeing, unflinching the other and accepting with all your heart.
Lex Fridman (05:16.220)
And to me, knowing the universe as it is, or the little bit that we're able to understand
Ann Druyan (05:21.440)
at this point is the purest kind of love.
Lex Fridman (05:25.380)
And therefore, you know, how can our philosophy, our religion, if it's rootless in nature,
Lex Fridman (05:32.800)
how can it really be true?
Lex Fridman (05:35.520)
I just don't understand.
Lex Fridman (05:36.800)
So I think you need science to get a sense of the real romance of life and the great
Lex Fridman (05:47.000)
experience of being awake in the cosmos.
Lex Fridman (05:50.800)
So the fact that we know so little, the humbling nature of that, and you kind of connect love
Lex Fridman (05:59.040)
to that, but isn't it also, isn't it scary?
Lex Fridman (06:04.560)
Why is it so inspiring, do you think?
Lex Fridman (06:06.880)
Why is it so beautiful that we know so little?
Ann Druyan (06:10.080)
Well, first of all, as Socrates thought, you know, knowing that you know little is knowing,
Lex Fridman (06:16.560)
really knowing something, knowing more than others.
Lex Fridman (06:19.760)
And it's that voice whispering in our heads, you know, you might be wrong, which I think
Ann Druyan (06:27.200)
is not only it's really healthy because we're so imperfect, we're human, of course, but
Ann Druyan (06:32.920)
also, you know, love to me is the feeling that you always want to go deeper, get closer.
Lex Fridman (06:38.960)
You can't get enough of it.
Ann Druyan (06:41.520)
You can't get close enough, deep enough.
Lex Fridman (06:44.920)
So and that's what science is always saying is science is never simply content with its
Ann Druyan (06:50.240)
understanding of any aspect of nature.
Lex Fridman (06:53.700)
It's always saying it's always finding that even smaller cosmos beneath.
Lex Fridman (06:59.760)
So I think the two are very much parallel.
Lex Fridman (07:04.000)
So you said that love is not an illusion.
Ann Druyan (07:08.680)
No, it's not.
Lex Fridman (07:09.680)
What is love?
Lex Fridman (07:12.160)
What is love is, is knowing, for me, love is, is knowing something deeply and still
Lex Fridman (07:21.560)
being completely gratified by it, you know, and wanting to know more.
Lex Fridman (07:28.400)
So what is love?
Lex Fridman (07:30.240)
What is loving someone, a person, let's say deeply is not idealizing them, not putting
Ann Druyan (07:40.720)
some kind of subjective projection on them, but knowing them as they are.
Lex Fridman (07:48.880)
And so for me, for me, the only aperture to that knowing about nature, the universe is
Ann Druyan (07:55.080)
science because it has that error correcting mechanism that most of the stuff that we do
Lex Fridman (08:00.520)
doesn't have.
Ann Druyan (08:01.520)
You know, you could say the Bill of Rights is kind of an error correcting mechanism,
Ann Druyan (08:05.800)
which is one of the things I really appreciate about the society in which I live to the extent
Ann Druyan (08:12.080)
that it's upheld and we keep faith with it and the same with science.
Ann Druyan (08:17.240)
It's like we will give you the highest rewards we have for proving us wrong about something.
Ann Druyan (08:25.040)
It's genius.
Ann Druyan (08:27.700)
That's why, that's why in only 400 years since Galileo's first look through a telescope,
Ann Druyan (08:36.640)
we could get from this really dim, vague, this vague apprehension of another world to
Lex Fridman (08:46.660)
sending our eyes and our senses there or even to going beyond.
Lex Fridman (08:52.440)
So it is, it is, it delivers the goods like nothing else, you know, it really, it delivers
Lex Fridman (08:59.860)
the goods because it's always, it's always self aware of its fallibility.
Lex Fridman (09:06.440)
So on that topic, I'd like to ask your opinion and a feeling I have that I'm not sure what
Lex Fridman (09:12.560)
to do with, which is the, the skeptical aspect of science.
Lex Fridman (09:18.220)
So the modern skeptics community and just in general, certain scientists, many scientists,
Ann Druyan (09:24.280)
maybe most scientists that apply the scientific method are kind of rigorous in that application.
Lex Fridman (09:30.840)
And they, it feels like sometimes miss out some of the ideas outside the reaches, just
Lex Fridman (09:35.640)
slightly outside of the reach of science.
Lex Fridman (09:37.840)
And they don't dare to sort of dream or think of revolutionary ideas that others will call
Lex Fridman (09:43.220)
crazy in this particular moment.
Lex Fridman (09:45.160)
So how do you think about the skeptical aspect of science that is really good at sort of
Ann Druyan (09:50.600)
keeping us in check, keeping us humble, but, but at the same time, sort of the kind of
Ann Druyan (09:55.640)
dreams that you and Carl Sagan have inspired in the world, it kind of shuts it down sometimes
Lex Fridman (10:01.240)
a little bit.
Ann Druyan (10:02.240)
Yeah.
Ann Druyan (10:03.240)
I mean, I think it's up to the individual, but for me, you know, I was so ridiculously
Ann Druyan (10:08.420)
fortunate in that I, my tutorial in science, because I'm not a scientist and I wasn't trained
Lex Fridman (10:14.120)
in science, was 20 years of days and nights with Carl Sagan.
Lex Fridman (10:20.480)
And the wonder, I think the reason Carl remains so beloved, well, I think there are many reasons,
Lex Fridman (10:26.480)
but at the root of it is the fact that his skepticism was never at the cost of his wonder
Lex Fridman (10:33.440)
and his wonder was never at the cost of his skepticism.
Lex Fridman (10:38.280)
So he couldn't fool himself into believing something he wanted to believe because it
Ann Druyan (10:42.640)
made him feel good at the other.
Lex Fridman (10:45.440)
But on the other hand, he recognized that what science, what nature is, it's really,
Ann Druyan (10:52.640)
it's good enough, you know, it's way better than our fantasies.
Lex Fridman (10:57.600)
And so if you, if you're that kind of person who loves happiness, loves life and your eyes
Ann Druyan (11:04.560)
are wide open and you read everything you can get your hands on and you spend years
Ann Druyan (11:09.560)
studying what is known so far about the universe, then you have that capacity, a really infinite
Ann Druyan (11:18.680)
capacity to be alive, but all, and also at the same time to be very rigorous about what
Lex Fridman (11:27.440)
you're willing to believe.
Ann Druyan (11:28.920)
For Carl, I don't think he ever felt that his skepticism cost him anything because again,
Lex Fridman (11:36.280)
it comes back to love.
Ann Druyan (11:37.700)
He wanted to know what Nietzsche really was like, not to inflict his, you know, preconceived
Lex Fridman (11:44.320)
notions on what he wanted it to be.
Lex Fridman (11:46.560)
So you can't go wrong because it doesn't, you know, I mean, you know, I think the pale
Ann Druyan (11:51.720)
blue dot is the, is a perfect example of this, of his massive achievement is to say, okay,
Ann Druyan (12:01.400)
or the Voyager record is another example is here we have this mission, our first reconnaissance
Lex Fridman (12:07.080)
of the outer solar system.
Ann Druyan (12:09.240)
Well, how can we make it a mission in which we absolutely squeeze every drop of consciousness
Lex Fridman (12:19.320)
and understanding from it?
Ann Druyan (12:21.880)
We don't have to be scientists and then be human beings.
Ann Druyan (12:25.880)
I think that's the tragedy of Western civilization is that it's, you know, when it's one of its
Ann Druyan (12:33.000)
greatest gifts has been science and yet at the same time, it believing that we are the
Ann Druyan (12:42.600)
children of a disappointed father, a tyrant who puts us in a maximum security prison and
Ann Druyan (12:50.480)
calls it paradise, who looks at us, who watches us every moment and hates us for being our
Lex Fridman (12:57.400)
human selves, you know?
Lex Fridman (13:00.080)
And then most of all, what is our great sin?
Lex Fridman (13:03.040)
It's partaking of the tree of knowledge, which is our greatest gift as humans.
Ann Druyan (13:09.500)
This pattern recognition, this ability to see things and then synthesize them and jump
Lex Fridman (13:17.680)
to conclusions about them and test those conclusions.
Lex Fridman (13:21.360)
So I think the reason that in literature, in movies, the scientist is a figure of alienation,
Ann Druyan (13:31.480)
a figure, you know, oh, you see these biopics about scientists and yeah, he might've been
Ann Druyan (13:37.600)
great, but you know, he was missing in ship.
Lex Fridman (13:41.760)
You know, he was a lousy husband.
Ann Druyan (13:44.480)
He lacked, you know, the kind of spiritual understanding that maybe, you know, his wife
Ann Druyan (13:52.160)
had and it's always in the end and they come around, but to me, that's a false dichotomy
Ann Druyan (13:59.040)
that we are, you know, to the extent that we are aware of our surroundings and understand
Ann Druyan (14:05.280)
them, which is what science makes it possible for us to do, we're even more alive.
Lex Fridman (14:10.200)
So you mentioned a million awesome things there, let's even just, can you tell me about
Ann Druyan (14:16.240)
the Voyager one and two spacecraft and the interstellar message project and that whole
Ann Druyan (14:22.680)
just fascinating world leading up to.
Lex Fridman (14:24.840)
One of my favorite subjects, I love talking about it.
Ann Druyan (14:27.480)
I'll never get over it.
Ann Druyan (14:29.000)
I'll never be able to really wrap my head around the reality of it, the truth of it.
Lex Fridman (14:35.280)
What is it first of all?
Lex Fridman (14:36.280)
What's the Voyager spacecraft?
Ann Druyan (14:37.280)
Okay, so Voyagers one and two were our first reconnaissance mission of what was then considered
Lex Fridman (14:44.640)
the outer solar system and it was a gift of gravity.
Ann Druyan (14:49.480)
The idea that swinging around these worlds gives you a gravitational assist, which ultimately
Ann Druyan (14:58.360)
will send you out of the solar system to wander the Milky Way galaxy for one to five billion
Ann Druyan (15:06.520)
years.
Lex Fridman (15:08.000)
So Voyager gave us our first close up look of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Ann Druyan (15:19.320)
It discovered new moons.
Lex Fridman (15:21.760)
It discovered volcanoes on Io.
Ann Druyan (15:28.360)
Its achievements are astonishing.
Lex Fridman (15:31.320)
And remember, this is technology from the early to mid 1970s.
Lex Fridman (15:37.240)
And it's still active.
Lex Fridman (15:38.240)
And it's still active.
Ann Druyan (15:39.280)
We talked to Voyager a few days ago.
Lex Fridman (15:42.340)
We talked to it, in fact, a year ago, I think it was.
Ann Druyan (15:46.400)
We needed to slightly change the attitude of the spacecraft.
Lex Fridman (15:50.760)
And so we fired up its thrusters for the first time since 1987.
Lex Fridman (15:55.680)
Did they work?
Lex Fridman (15:57.680)
Instantly.
Ann Druyan (15:58.680)
It was as if you had left your car in the garage in 1987.
Lex Fridman (16:04.040)
And you put the key in the ignition because you use keys then in the ignition and it turned
Ann Druyan (16:09.080)
over the first time you stepped on the gas.
Lex Fridman (16:12.360)
And so that's the genius of the engineering of Voyager.
Lex Fridman (16:17.280)
And Carl was one of the key participants in imagining what its mission would be because
Ann Druyan (16:26.120)
it was a gift actually of the fact that every 175 years, plus or minus, there is an alignment
Ann Druyan (16:35.920)
of the worlds.
Lex Fridman (16:36.920)
And so you could send two spacecraft to these other worlds and photograph them and use your
Ann Druyan (16:44.940)
mass spectrometer and all the other devices on Voyager to really explore these worlds.
Lex Fridman (16:54.080)
And it's the farthest spacecraft, it's the farthest human creation away from us today.
Ann Druyan (17:00.520)
Voyager 1.
Lex Fridman (17:01.520)
Voyager 1.
Ann Druyan (17:02.520)
These two spacecraft not only gave us our first close up look at hundreds of moons and
Ann Druyan (17:08.920)
planets, these four giant planets, but also it told us the shape of the solar system as
Ann Druyan (17:17.720)
it moves through the galaxy because there were two of them going in different directions
Lex Fridman (17:23.400)
and they finally, and they arrived at a place called the heliopause, which is where the
Ann Druyan (17:28.120)
wind from the sun, the solar wind dies down and the interstellar medium begins.
Lex Fridman (17:35.080)
And both Voyagers were the first spacecraft that we had that could tell us when that happened.
Lex Fridman (17:41.900)
So it's a consummate, I think it's the greatest scientific achievement of the 20th century.
Lex Fridman (17:50.120)
And engineering in some sense.
Ann Druyan (17:51.960)
Engineering, I mean really, you know, Voyager is doing this on less energy than you have
Lex Fridman (17:59.760)
in your toaster, something like 11 Watts.
Lex Fridman (18:04.160)
So okay, but because of this gravitational assist, both Voyagers were destined, as I
Ann Druyan (18:10.440)
say, to, first of all, they were supposed to function for a dozen years and now it's
Ann Druyan (18:16.040)
42 years since launch and we're still talking to them.
Lex Fridman (18:20.920)
So that's amazing.
Lex Fridman (18:22.960)
But prior to launch, almost a year, eight, nine months prior to launch, it was decided
Ann Druyan (18:31.080)
that since Frank Drake and Carl Sagan and Linda Solzman Sagan had created something
Ann Druyan (18:36.640)
called the Pioneer 10 Plaque for the Pioneer spacecraft that preceded Voyager, which was
Ann Druyan (18:44.680)
kind of like a license plate for the planet Earth, you know, man and a woman, hands up,
Ann Druyan (18:50.560)
you know, very, very basic, but very effective.
Lex Fridman (18:55.920)
And it captured the imagination of people all over the world.
Lex Fridman (18:59.560)
And so NASA turned to Frank and to Carl and said, we'd like you to do a message for Voyager
Ann Druyan (19:08.760)
because if it's going to be circumnavigating the Milky Way galaxy for one to five billion
Ann Druyan (19:16.400)
years, you know, it's like 20 trips around the galaxy.
Lex Fridman (19:20.640)
And there's a very small chance that a space faring civilization would be able to flag
Ann Druyan (19:27.800)
one of them down.
Lex Fridman (19:29.640)
And so on board, you see this exquisite golden disc with scientific hieroglyphics explaining
Ann Druyan (19:37.240)
our address and various basic scientific concepts that we believe that would be common to any
Lex Fridman (19:48.760)
space faring civilization.
Lex Fridman (19:51.440)
And then beneath this exquisite golden disc is the Voyager record, the golden record.
Lex Fridman (1:00:08.240)
proven to be so robust, nuclear winter, all of these things.
Ann Druyan (1:00:12.800)
This is a prophetic power and yet how crazy that, you know, it's like the Romans with
Ann Druyan (1:00:19.720)
their lead cooking pots and their lead pipes or the Aztecs ripping out their own people's
Ann Druyan (1:00:26.640)
hearts.
Lex Fridman (1:00:27.640)
This is us.
Ann Druyan (1:00:28.800)
We know better and yet we are acting as if it's business as usual.
Ann Druyan (1:00:35.240)
Yeah, the beautiful complexity of human nature, speaking of which, let me ask a tough question
Ann Druyan (1:00:45.160)
I guess because there's so many possible answers, but what aspect of life here on earth do you
Ann Druyan (1:00:49.960)
find most fascinating from the origin of life, the evolutionary process itself, the origin
Ann Druyan (1:00:55.920)
of the human mind, so intelligence, some of the technological developments going on now
Lex Fridman (1:01:02.560)
or us venturing out into space or space exploration, what just inspires you?
Ann Druyan (1:01:07.600)
Oh, they all inspire me.
Ann Druyan (1:01:09.280)
Every one of those inspire me, but I have to say that to me at the origin of, as I've
Ann Druyan (1:01:14.280)
gotten older, to me, the origin of life has become less interesting because I feel, well,
Ann Druyan (1:01:22.960)
not because it's more, I think I understand, I have a better grasp of how it might've happened.
Lex Fridman (1:01:31.640)
Do you think it was a huge leap?
Ann Druyan (1:01:33.280)
I think it was a, we are a byproduct of geophysics and I think it's not, my suspicion of course,
Ann Druyan (1:01:42.560)
which is take it with a grain of salt, but my suspicion is that it happens more often
Lex Fridman (1:01:50.520)
and more places than we like to think because after all the history of our thinking about
Ann Druyan (1:01:56.840)
ourselves has been a constant series of demotions in which we've had to realize, no, no, so
Lex Fridman (1:02:04.360)
to me that's...
Ann Druyan (1:02:05.360)
We're not at the center of the solar system.
Lex Fridman (1:02:06.360)
And the origin of consciousness is to me also not so amazing if you think of it as going
Ann Druyan (1:02:12.800)
back to these one celled organisms of a billion years ago who had to know, well, if I go higher
Ann Druyan (1:02:22.400)
up, I'll get too much sun and if I go lower down, I'll be protected from UV rays, things
Ann Druyan (1:02:30.480)
like that.
Lex Fridman (1:02:31.480)
They had to know that or you, I eat, me, I don't.
Ann Druyan (1:02:34.320)
I mean, even that, I can see if you know that, then knowing what we know now, it's just,
Lex Fridman (1:02:41.440)
it's not so hard to fathom.
Ann Druyan (1:02:43.680)
It seems like, I've never believed there was a duality between our minds and our bodies
Lex Fridman (1:02:50.960)
and I think that even consciousness, all those interesting things seem to me, except one
Ann Druyan (1:02:57.360)
of the things...
Lex Fridman (1:02:58.360)
A byproduct of geophysics.
Ann Druyan (1:02:59.360)
Yeah, all of chemistry, yes, geochemistry, geophysics, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (1:03:07.040)
It makes perfect sense to me and it doesn't make it any less wondrous.
Ann Druyan (1:03:12.440)
It doesn't rob it at all of the wonder of it.
Lex Fridman (1:03:19.320)
And so, yeah, I think that's amazing.
Ann Druyan (1:03:21.600)
I think we tell the story of someone you have never heard of, I guarantee, and I think you're
Ann Druyan (1:03:27.180)
very knowledgeable on the subject, who was more responsible for our ability to venture
Ann Druyan (1:03:34.560)
out to other worlds than anyone else and who was completely forgotten.
Lex Fridman (1:03:40.680)
And so, those are the kinds of stories I like best for Cosmos because...
Lex Fridman (1:03:44.400)
Can you tell me who?
Ann Druyan (1:03:45.400)
No, I'm going to make you watch this series, I'm going to make you buy my book, but I'm
Ann Druyan (1:03:53.640)
just saying, this person would be forgotten, but the way that we do Cosmos is that I ask
Ann Druyan (1:04:03.280)
a question to myself, I really want to get to the bottom to the answer and keep going
Ann Druyan (1:04:08.620)
deeper, deeper until we find what the story is, a story that I know because I'm not a
Lex Fridman (1:04:14.800)
scientist.
Ann Druyan (1:04:15.800)
If it moves me, if it moves me, then I want to tell it and other people will be moved.
Lex Fridman (1:04:22.480)
Do you ponder mortality, human mortality, and maybe even your own mortality?
Ann Druyan (1:04:28.760)
Oh, all the time.
Lex Fridman (1:04:30.360)
I just turned 70, so yeah, I think about it a lot.
Lex Fridman (1:04:34.080)
I mean, it's, you know, how can you not think about it?
Lex Fridman (1:04:37.520)
What do you make of this short life of ours, I mean, let me ask a sort of another way,
Ann Druyan (1:04:48.120)
you've lost Carl, and speaking of mortality, if you could be, if you could choose immortality,
Lex Fridman (1:04:58.520)
you know, it's possible that science allows us to live much, much longer.
Lex Fridman (1:05:02.520)
Is that something you would choose for yourself, for Carl, for you?
Lex Fridman (1:05:05.800)
Well, for Carl, definitely.
Ann Druyan (1:05:07.080)
I would have, you know, in a nanosecond, I would take that deal.
Lex Fridman (1:05:12.400)
But not for me.
Ann Druyan (1:05:13.400)
I mean, if Carl were alive, yes, I would want to live forever because I know it would be
Lex Fridman (1:05:17.880)
fun.
Lex Fridman (1:05:18.880)
But no.
Lex Fridman (1:05:19.880)
Would it be fun forever?
Ann Druyan (1:05:20.880)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:05:21.880)
That's the essential nature of the...
Ann Druyan (1:05:22.880)
I don't know.
Ann Druyan (1:05:23.880)
It's just that the universe is so full of so many wonderful things to discover that
Ann Druyan (1:05:29.000)
it feels like it would be fun.
Lex Fridman (1:05:31.560)
But no, I don't want to live forever.
Ann Druyan (1:05:33.120)
I have had a magical life.
Lex Fridman (1:05:37.160)
I just, you know, my craziest dreams have come true.
Lex Fridman (1:05:42.000)
And I feel, you know, forgive me, but this crazy quirk of fate that put my most joyful,
Ann Druyan (1:05:54.040)
deepest feelings, feelings that decades later, 42 years later, I know how real, how true
Ann Druyan (1:06:00.760)
those feelings were.
Ann Druyan (1:06:02.880)
Everything that happened after that was an affirmation of how true those feelings were.
Lex Fridman (1:06:09.960)
And so, I don't feel that way.
Ann Druyan (1:06:12.080)
I feel like I have gotten so much more than my share, not just my extraordinary life with
Ann Druyan (1:06:20.880)
Carl, my family, my parents, my children, my friends, the places that I've been able
Lex Fridman (1:06:31.120)
to explore, the books I've read, the music I've heard.
Lex Fridman (1:06:36.920)
So I feel like, you know, if it would be much better if instead of working on the immortality
Ann Druyan (1:06:44.440)
of the lucky few of the most privileged people in this society, I would really like to see
Lex Fridman (1:06:51.020)
a concerted effort for us to get our act together, you know?
Ann Druyan (1:06:55.940)
That to me is topic A, more pressing, you know, this possible world, that is the challenge.
Lex Fridman (1:07:04.800)
And we're at a kind of moment where if we can make that choice.
Lex Fridman (1:07:11.000)
So immortality doesn't really interest me.
Ann Druyan (1:07:14.080)
I really, I love nature and I have to say that because I'm a product of nature, I recognize
Lex Fridman (1:07:23.600)
that it's great gifts and it's great cruelty.
Ann Druyan (1:07:27.960)
Well, I don't think there's a better way to end it, and thank you so much for talking
Lex Fridman (1:07:33.960)
to us.
Ann Druyan (1:07:34.960)
It was an honor.
Lex Fridman (1:07:35.960)
Oh, it's wonderful.
Ann Druyan (1:07:36.960)
I really appreciate it.
Lex Fridman (1:07:37.960)
I really enjoyed it.
Ann Druyan (1:07:38.960)
I thought your questions were great.
Lex Fridman (1:07:39.960)
Thank you.
Ann Druyan (1:07:40.960)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ann Druyan, and thank you to our presenting
Lex Fridman (1:07:44.040)
sponsor, Cash App.
Ann Druyan (1:07:46.040)
Download it, use code LEXPODCAST, you'll get $10, and $10 will go to FIRST, an organization
Ann Druyan (1:07:52.860)
that inspires and educates young minds to become science and technology innovators of
Ann Druyan (1:07:57.400)
tomorrow.
Ann Druyan (1:07:58.400)
If you enjoy this podcast, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on Apple Podcast, support
Ann Druyan (1:08:03.920)
on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (1:08:09.800)
And now let me leave you with some words of wisdom from Carl Sagan.
Lex Fridman (1:08:14.160)
What an astonishing thing a book is.
Ann Druyan (1:08:17.120)
It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny
Ann Druyan (1:08:23.040)
dark squiggles.
Lex Fridman (1:08:24.360)
But one glance at it, and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead
Ann Druyan (1:08:29.760)
for thousands of years.
Ann Druyan (1:08:32.080)
Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly
Ann Druyan (1:08:37.880)
to you.
Lex Fridman (1:08:39.760)
Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions.
Ann Druyan (1:08:43.440)
Finding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.
Lex Fridman (1:08:50.460)
Books break the shackles of time.
Ann Druyan (1:08:53.080)
A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
Lex Fridman (1:08:59.640)
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (20:00.680)
And it contains something like 118 photographs, images of life on Earth, as well as 27 pieces
Lex Fridman (20:14.640)
of music from all around the world.
Ann Druyan (20:19.160)
Many people describe it as the invention of world music.
Lex Fridman (20:22.560)
World music was not a concept that existed before the Voyager record.
Lex Fridman (20:27.280)
And we were determined to take our music, not just from the dominant technical cultures,
Lex Fridman (20:33.080)
but from all of the rich cultural heritage of the Earth.
Lex Fridman (20:39.420)
And there's a sound essay, which is a kind of using a microphone as a camera to tell
Ann Druyan (20:47.800)
the story of the Earth, beginning with its geological sounds and moving into biology
Lex Fridman (20:57.280)
and then into technology.
Lex Fridman (21:00.440)
And I think what you were getting at is that at the end of this sound essay, I had asked
Ann Druyan (21:08.680)
Carl if it were, in the making of the record, it was my honor to be the creative director
Ann Druyan (21:15.120)
of the project, if it was possible to, if I had meditated for an hour while I was hooked
Ann Druyan (21:23.160)
up so that every single signal that was coming from my brain, my body, was recorded and then
Lex Fridman (21:34.460)
converted into sound for the record.
Ann Druyan (21:39.000)
Was it possible that these putative extraterrestrials of the distant future, of perhaps a billion
Lex Fridman (21:44.960)
years from now, would be able to reconstitute this message and to understand it?
Lex Fridman (21:51.800)
And he just, big smile, you know, and just said, well, hey, a billion years is a long
Lex Fridman (21:56.160)
time.
Ann Druyan (21:57.160)
It's a long time.
Lex Fridman (21:58.160)
Go do it.
Lex Fridman (21:59.160)
And so I did this.
Lex Fridman (22:01.200)
And what were you thinking about in the meditation?
Ann Druyan (22:03.480)
Like what, I mean, it's such an interesting idea of recording as you think about things.
Lex Fridman (22:09.160)
What were you thinking about?
Lex Fridman (22:10.760)
So I was blindfolded and couldn't hear anything.
Lex Fridman (22:17.900)
And I had made a mental itinerary of exactly where I wanted to go.
Ann Druyan (22:23.320)
I was truly humbled by the idea that these thoughts could conceivably touch the distant
Lex Fridman (22:33.880)
future.
Ann Druyan (22:34.880)
Yeah, that's incredible.
Lex Fridman (22:35.880)
So in 1977, there are some 60,000 nuclear weapons on the planet.
Ann Druyan (22:41.600)
The Soviet Union and the United States are engaged in a, you know, to the death competition.
Lex Fridman (22:51.160)
And so I began by trying to tell the history of the planet in, you know, to my limited
Ann Druyan (22:59.240)
ability what I understood about the story of the early existence of the planet, about
Ann Druyan (23:06.760)
the origin of life, about the evolution of life, about the history of humans, about our
Ann Druyan (23:16.640)
current at that time predicament, about the fact that one in five of us was starving or
Lex Fridman (23:25.540)
unable to get potable water.
Lex Fridman (23:29.320)
And so I sort of gave a kind of, you know, as general a picture as I possibly could of
Lex Fridman (23:37.200)
our predicament.
Lex Fridman (23:39.520)
And I also was very newly within days of the moment when Carl and I fell in love with each
Lex Fridman (23:50.860)
other.
Ann Druyan (23:51.860)
We had fallen in love with each other long before because we'd known each other for years,
Lex Fridman (23:55.600)
but it was the first time that we had expressed our feelings for each other.
Ann Druyan (23:59.680)
Acknowledged it, the existence of this love.
Ann Druyan (24:01.800)
Yes, because we were both involved with other people and it was a completely outside his
Ann Druyan (24:09.560)
morality and mine to even broach the subject.
Lex Fridman (24:13.920)
But it was only days after that it happened.
Lex Fridman (24:17.600)
And for me, it was a eureka moment.
Ann Druyan (24:20.760)
It was in the context of finding that piece of Chinese music that was worthy to represent
Ann Druyan (24:28.800)
one of the oldest musical traditions on earth when those of us who worked on the Voyager
Lex Fridman (24:34.440)
record were completely ignorant about Chinese music.
Lex Fridman (24:38.120)
And so that had been a constant challenge for me, talking to professors of Chinese music,
Ann Druyan (24:46.400)
listening to musicologists everywhere and all through the project, desperately trying
Ann Druyan (24:51.840)
to find this one piece.
Ann Druyan (24:54.200)
Found the piece, lived on the Upper West Side, found the piece, a professor at Columbia University
Ann Druyan (25:02.400)
gave it to me.
Lex Fridman (25:04.600)
And of all the people I talked to, everyone had said, that's hopeless.
Ann Druyan (25:08.960)
You can't do that.
Lex Fridman (25:09.960)
There can't be one piece of Chinese music.
Lex Fridman (25:12.880)
But he was completely, no problem, I've got it.
Lex Fridman (25:17.760)
And so he told me the story of the piece, which only made it an even greater candidate
Ann Druyan (25:24.840)
for the record.
Lex Fridman (25:27.280)
And I listened to it, called Carl Sagan, who was in Tucson, Arizona addressing the American
Ann Druyan (25:35.920)
Society of Newspaper Editors.
Lex Fridman (25:40.920)
And I left him a message, hotel message center.
Lex Fridman (25:45.800)
And he called me back an hour later.
Lex Fridman (25:51.480)
And I heard this beautiful voice say, I get back to my hotel room, and I find this message
Ann Druyan (25:58.200)
that Annie called.
Lex Fridman (26:00.160)
And I asked myself, why didn't you leave me this message 10 years ago?
Ann Druyan (26:05.460)
My heart was beating out of my chest.
Ann Druyan (26:09.440)
I, it was for me a kind of eureka moment, a scientific breakthrough, a truth, a great
Ann Druyan (26:19.960)
truth had suddenly been revealed.
Lex Fridman (26:24.120)
And of course, I was awkward and didn't really know what to say.
Lex Fridman (26:27.760)
And so I blurted something out like, oh, I've been meaning to talk to you about that, Carl,
Lex Fridman (26:32.040)
which wasn't really true.
Ann Druyan (26:33.040)
I never would have talked to him about it.
Lex Fridman (26:34.480)
We had been alone countless times.
Ann Druyan (26:36.400)
We humans are so awkward in these moments and these amazing moments.
Lex Fridman (26:41.880)
And I just said, for keeps.
Lex Fridman (26:45.500)
And he thought for a very brief, like a second and said, you mean get married?
Lex Fridman (26:51.880)
And I said, yeah.
Lex Fridman (26:52.880)
And he said, yeah.
Lex Fridman (26:55.460)
And we put down the phone.
Lex Fridman (27:00.280)
And I literally was jumping around my apartment like a lunatic, because it was so obvious,
Lex Fridman (27:10.080)
you know, it was something like, of course.
Lex Fridman (27:12.920)
And then the phone rang again.
Lex Fridman (27:14.320)
And I thought, damn, no, he's going to say, I don't know what I was saying.
Ann Druyan (27:19.400)
I am married.
Lex Fridman (27:20.400)
I have a kid.
Lex Fridman (27:21.400)
I'm not going to do this, you know?
Lex Fridman (27:23.600)
But he was like, I just want to make sure that that really happened.
Lex Fridman (27:27.920)
And I said, yeah.
Lex Fridman (27:28.920)
And he said, we're getting married.
Lex Fridman (27:30.800)
And I said, yeah, we're getting married.
Lex Fridman (27:32.960)
Now this was June 1st, 1977.
Ann Druyan (27:36.760)
The records had not been affixed to the spacecraft yet.
Lex Fridman (27:42.240)
And there had been a lot of controversy about what we were doing.
Ann Druyan (27:47.560)
I should say that among the 118 pictures was an image of a man and a woman, frontally,
Lex Fridman (27:58.120)
completely naked.
Lex Fridman (28:00.080)
And there was, I believe, a congressman on the floor that said, NASA to send smut to
Lex Fridman (28:07.880)
the stars, you know?
Lex Fridman (28:09.800)
And so NASA really, they got very upset and they said, you can't send a picture.
Lex Fridman (28:14.560)
And we had done it so that it was so brilliant.
Ann Druyan (28:16.360)
It was like this lovely couple, completely naked.
Lex Fridman (28:20.580)
And then the next image was a kind of overlay schematic to show the fetus inside this woman
Ann Druyan (28:29.080)
that was developing.
Lex Fridman (28:30.360)
And then that went off into, you know, additional imagery of human reproduction.
Lex Fridman (28:36.440)
And it really hit me that how much we hate ourselves, that we couldn't bear to be seen
Lex Fridman (28:44.600)
as we are.
Lex Fridman (28:46.600)
So in some sense that congressman also represents our society.
Lex Fridman (28:53.200)
Perhaps his opposition should have been included as well.
Ann Druyan (28:55.840)
Yes.
Ann Druyan (28:56.840)
Well, that was one of the most vigorous debates during the making of the record with the,
Ann Druyan (29:02.240)
you know, the five, six people that we collaborated with was, do we show, do we only put our best
Lex Fridman (29:08.000)
foot forward?
Lex Fridman (29:09.640)
Or do we show Hiroshima, Auschwitz, the Congo, what we have done?
Lex Fridman (29:17.520)
What do you think represents humanity?
Ann Druyan (29:20.800)
If you kind of, if you think about it, do our darker moments, are they essential for
Lex Fridman (29:26.440)
humanity?
Ann Druyan (29:27.440)
All the wars we've been through, all the tortures and the suffering and the cruelty.
Lex Fridman (29:32.360)
Is that essential for happiness, for beauty, for creation, generally speaking?
Ann Druyan (29:37.400)
Well, certainly not essential for happiness or beauty, that's for sure.
Ann Druyan (29:40.600)
I mean, it's part of who we are, if we're going to be real about it, which is, you know,
Ann Druyan (29:45.920)
I think we tell on ourselves, even if we don't want to be real, we, you know, I think that
Ann Druyan (29:51.840)
if you're a spacefaring civilization, and you've gotten it together sufficiently, that
Ann Druyan (29:58.320)
you can move from world to world, then I think they probably took one look at this derelict
Ann Druyan (30:05.240)
spacecraft and they knew that these were people in their technological adolescence, and they
Ann Druyan (30:11.840)
were just setting forth, and they must have had these issues, you know, because it's,
Lex Fridman (30:18.600)
and so it really, you know, that's the great thing about lying is that a lie only has a
Ann Druyan (30:24.200)
shelf life.
Ann Druyan (30:25.200)
It's like, if like a great work of art that's a forgery, people can be fooled immediately,
Lex Fridman (30:32.480)
but 10 or 15 years, 20 years later, they start to look at it and, you know, they begin to
Lex Fridman (30:37.300)
realize the lens, our lens of our present is coloring everything that we see.
Lex Fridman (30:45.480)
So you know, I think it didn't matter that we didn't show our atrocities.
Lex Fridman (30:52.520)
They would fill in the blanks.
Ann Druyan (30:54.200)
They would fill in the blanks.
Lex Fridman (30:55.200)
So let me sort of ask, you've mentioned how unlikely it is that you and Carl did two souls
Ann Druyan (31:02.440)
like yours would meet in this vast world.
Lex Fridman (31:06.340)
What are your views on how and why incredibly unlikely things like these nevertheless do
Lex Fridman (31:12.000)
happen?
Lex Fridman (31:13.000)
It's purely to me, chance.
Ann Druyan (31:15.240)
It's totally random.
Ann Druyan (31:17.920)
It's a just, I mean, but, and the fact is, is that some people are, and it's happening
Ann Druyan (31:24.080)
every day right now.
Ann Druyan (31:26.120)
Some people are the random casualties of chance and that, and I don't just mean the people
Ann Druyan (31:33.080)
who are being, you know, destroyed in childhood, in wartime, I'm also, or the people who starved
Ann Druyan (31:41.200)
to death because of famine, but also the people who, you know, who are not living to the fullest,
Ann Druyan (31:52.120)
all of these things.
Lex Fridman (31:53.120)
And I think there's a, my parents met on the subway in rush hour.
Lex Fridman (31:57.560)
And so I'm only here with you because of the most random possible situation.
Lex Fridman (32:03.560)
And so I've had this, a sense of this, even before I knew Carl, I always felt this way
Ann Druyan (32:08.600)
that I only existed because of the generosity of the rush hour, no, of just all of the things,
Lex Fridman (32:17.360)
all of the skeins of causality.
Ann Druyan (32:21.360)
It's interesting because, you know, the rush hour is a source of stress for a lot of people,
Lex Fridman (32:26.680)
but clearly in its moments, it can also be a source of something beautiful.
Ann Druyan (32:32.560)
That's right.
Lex Fridman (32:33.560)
Of strangers meeting and so on.
Lex Fridman (32:35.340)
So everything, everything is, has a possibility of doing something beautiful.
Lex Fridman (32:43.000)
So let me ask sort of a quick tangent on the Voyager, this, this beautiful romantic notion
Ann Druyan (32:50.080)
that Voyager One is sort of our farthest human reach into space.
Ann Druyan (32:55.880)
If you think of what, I don't know if you've seen, but what Elon Musk did with putting
Ann Druyan (33:00.940)
the Roadster, letting it fly out into space, there's a sort of humor to it.
Lex Fridman (33:07.280)
I think that's also kind of interesting, but maybe you can comment on that.
Lex Fridman (33:12.000)
But in general, if now that we are developing what we were venturing out into space again
Ann Druyan (33:20.080)
in a more serious way, what kind of stuff that represent since Voyager was launched,
Lex Fridman (33:26.720)
should we send out as a followup?
Ann Druyan (33:28.960)
Is there things that you think that's developed in the next, in the 40 years after that we
Lex Fridman (33:35.160)
should update the spacefaring aliens?
Ann Druyan (33:38.160)
Well, of course now we could send the worldwide, we could send everything that's on the worldwide
Ann Druyan (33:44.640)
web.
Ann Druyan (33:45.640)
We could send, I mean, you know, that was a time when we're talking about photograph records
Lex Fridman (33:50.760)
and transistor radios and, you know, so we tried to be, to take advantage of the existing
Ann Druyan (33:59.280)
technology to the fullest extent, you know, the computer that was hooked up to me from
Ann Druyan (34:04.660)
my brainwaves and my heart sounds while I was meditating was, you know, the size of
Lex Fridman (34:09.360)
a gigantic room.
Lex Fridman (34:11.000)
And I'm sure it's not that, it didn't have the power of a phone, as the phone has now.
Lex Fridman (34:17.420)
So you know, now we could just, I think we could let it all hang out and just like send,
Ann Druyan (34:22.640)
you know, every week.
Ann Druyan (34:23.640)
I mean, that's the wonder, like I would send, you know, Wikipedia or something and not be
Ann Druyan (34:30.980)
a gatekeeper, but show who we are.
Ann Druyan (34:34.480)
You were also, it's interesting because one of the problems of the internet of having
Lex Fridman (34:40.240)
so much information is it's actually the curation, the human curation is still the powerful,
Lex Fridman (34:47.600)
beautiful thing.
Ann Druyan (34:48.600)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (34:49.600)
So what you did with the record is actually, is exactly the right process.
Ann Druyan (34:54.080)
It's kind of boiling down a massive amount of possibilities of what you could send into
Ann Druyan (34:58.400)
something that represents, you know, the better angels of our nature or represents our humanity.
Lex Fridman (35:05.180)
So if you think about, you know, what would you send from the internet as opposed to sending
Ann Druyan (35:11.560)
all of Wikipedia, for example, all human knowledge, is there something just new that we've developed,
Lex Fridman (35:17.840)
you think, or fundamentally we're still the same kind of human species?
Ann Druyan (35:24.440)
I think fundamentally we're the same, but we have advanced to an astonishing degree
Ann Druyan (35:32.280)
in our capacity for data retrieval and for transmission.
Lex Fridman (35:37.680)
And so, you know, I would send YouTube, I would send, you know, really like think of
Ann Druyan (35:41.960)
all the, you know, I still feel so lucky that there's any great musical artist of the last
Ann Druyan (35:52.920)
hundred years who I revere, I can just find them and watch them and listen to them.
Lex Fridman (36:00.120)
And you know, that's fantastic.
Ann Druyan (36:02.000)
I also love how democratic it is that we each become curators and that we each decide those
Ann Druyan (36:09.880)
things.
Ann Druyan (36:10.880)
Now, I may not agree with, you know, the choices that everyone makes, but of course not because
Ann Druyan (36:18.000)
that's not the point.
Ann Druyan (36:19.040)
The point is, is that we are, you know, we have discovered largely through the internet
Ann Druyan (36:26.560)
that we are an intercommunicating organism and that can only be good.
Lex Fridman (36:33.600)
So you could also send now, Cosmos.
Ann Druyan (36:36.680)
Yes, I'd love to.
Lex Fridman (36:38.960)
I would be proud to.
Ann Druyan (36:40.440)
I mean, you've spoken about a very specific voice that Cosmos had in that it reveals the
Lex Fridman (36:49.560)
magic of science.
Ann Druyan (36:50.560)
I think you said shamanic journey of it and not the details of the latest breakthroughs
Lex Fridman (36:56.480)
or so on.
Ann Druyan (36:57.680)
Just revealing the magic.
Lex Fridman (36:58.680)
Can you try to describe what this voice of Cosmos is with the follow up and the new Cosmos
Lex Fridman (37:07.320)
that you're working on now?
Ann Druyan (37:09.120)
Yes, well, the dream of Cosmos is really like Einstein's quote, you know, it's the idea
Ann Druyan (37:18.040)
of the awesome power of science to be in absolutely everyone's hands.
Lex Fridman (37:25.400)
You know, it belongs to all of us.
Ann Druyan (37:27.880)
It's not the preserve of a priesthood.
Ann Druyan (37:31.800)
It's just the community of science is becoming more diverse and being less exclusive than
Ann Druyan (37:37.800)
it was guilty of in the not so recent past.
Ann Druyan (37:41.600)
The discoveries of science, our understanding of the Cosmos that we live in has really grown
Ann Druyan (37:50.580)
by leaps and bounds and probably we've learned more in the last hundred years about it.
Lex Fridman (37:58.880)
You know, the tempo of discovery has picked up so rapidly.
Lex Fridman (38:04.360)
And so the idea of Cosmos from the 1970s when Carl and I and Steven Soder, another astronomer,
Ann Druyan (38:13.040)
first imagined it was that interweaving not only of the scientific concepts and revelations
Lex Fridman (38:23.240)
and using, you know, cinematic VFX to take the viewer on this transporting, uplifting
Lex Fridman (38:31.960)
journey but also the stories of the searchers.
Ann Druyan (38:36.520)
Because the more I have learned about, you know, the process of science through my life
Ann Druyan (38:44.600)
with Carl and sense, the more I am really persuaded that it's that adherence to the
Ann Druyan (38:54.240)
facts and to that adherence to that little approximation, that little bit of reality
Ann Druyan (39:02.320)
that we've been able to get our hands around is something that we desperately need and
Ann Druyan (39:08.960)
it doesn't matter if you are a scientist.
Lex Fridman (39:11.400)
In fact, the people, it matters even more if you're not.
Lex Fridman (39:15.960)
And since, you know, the level of science teaching has been fairly or unfairly maligned
Lex Fridman (39:23.920)
and the idea that once there was such a thing as a television network, which of course has
Ann Druyan (39:30.520)
now evolved into many other things, the idea that you could in the most democratic way
Ann Druyan (39:37.280)
make accessible to absolutely everyone and most especially people who don't even realize
Ann Druyan (39:44.000)
that they have an interest in a subject or who feel so intimidated by the jargon of science
Lex Fridman (39:50.840)
and its kind of exclusive history.
Ann Druyan (39:54.800)
The idea that we could do this and, you know, in season two of Cosmos, the Space Time Odyssey,
Lex Fridman (40:01.860)
we were in 181 countries in the space of two weeks.
Ann Druyan (40:06.440)
It was the largest rollout in television history, which is really amazing for a, there is no
Lex Fridman (40:13.920)
science based programming.
Ann Druyan (40:15.240)
By the way, just to clarify, the series was rolled out, so it was shown in not that many
Lex Fridman (40:20.800)
countries.
Ann Druyan (40:21.800)
You said we were in.
Lex Fridman (40:22.800)
Well, our show was in 180 countries.
Ann Druyan (40:25.800)
Yeah, the show, which is incredible.
Ann Druyan (40:27.280)
I mean, the hundreds of millions, whatever that number is, the people that watched it,
Ann Druyan (40:31.760)
it's just, it's crazy.
Ann Druyan (40:33.560)
It's so crazy that, for instance, my son had a cerebral hemorrhage a year ago and the doctor
Ann Druyan (40:43.440)
who saved his life in a very dangerous situation.
Ann Druyan (40:50.920)
When he realized that, you know, that Sam and I were who we were, he said, that's why
Ann Druyan (40:59.560)
I'm here.
Ann Druyan (41:00.560)
You know, he said, if you come of age in a poor country like Colombia and Carl Sagan
Ann Druyan (41:06.080)
calls you to science when you're a child, then, then, you know, you go to medicine because
Lex Fridman (41:13.440)
that's the only avenue open to you, but that's why I'm here.
Lex Fridman (41:17.840)
And I've heard that story and I hear that story, I think every week.
Lex Fridman (41:24.520)
How does that make you feel?
Lex Fridman (41:26.120)
I mean, the number of scientists, I mean, a lot of it is quiet, right?
Lex Fridman (41:31.520)
But the number of scientists Cosmos has created is just countless.
Ann Druyan (41:36.160)
I mean, it probably touched a lot of, I don't know, probably it could be a crazy number
Lex Fridman (41:40.520)
of the 90% of scientists or something that have been.
Ann Druyan (41:43.760)
I would love to do that census because I, because that's the greatest gratification,
Lex Fridman (41:50.240)
because that's the dream of science.
Ann Druyan (41:52.200)
That's the whole idea is that if it belongs to all of us and not just a tiny few, then
Lex Fridman (41:58.360)
we have some chance of determining how it's used.
Lex Fridman (42:03.240)
And if it's only in the hands of people whose only, whose only interests are the balance
Ann Druyan (42:11.320)
sheet or hegemony over other nations or things like that, then it'll probably end up being
Ann Druyan (42:20.240)
a gun aimed at our heads.
Lex Fridman (42:22.880)
But if it's distributed in the widest possible way, a capability that we now have because
Ann Druyan (42:30.640)
of our technology, then the chance is that it will be used with wisdom.
Lex Fridman (42:38.160)
That's the dream of it.
Lex Fridman (42:39.160)
So that's why we did the first Cosmos.
Ann Druyan (42:42.960)
We wanted to take not just, as I say, the scientific information, but also tell the
Ann Druyan (42:48.840)
stories of these searchers.
Ann Druyan (42:53.000)
Because for us, and for me, carrying on this series in the second and third seasons, the
Ann Druyan (43:03.280)
primary interest was that we wouldn't tell a story unless it was a kind of a threefer.
Ann Druyan (43:09.280)
It was not just a way to understand a new scientific idea, but it was also a way to
Ann Druyan (43:17.560)
understand what, if it matters what's true, how the world can change for us and how we
Lex Fridman (43:24.880)
can be protected.
Lex Fridman (43:27.400)
And if it doesn't matter what's true, then we're in grave danger because we have the
Ann Druyan (43:33.200)
capability to not only destroy ourselves and our civilization, but to take so many species
Ann Druyan (43:41.280)
with us.
Lex Fridman (43:42.280)
And I'd like to talk to you about that particular, sort of the dangers of ourselves in a little
Ann Druyan (43:48.560)
bit, but sort of to linger on Cosmos.
Ann Druyan (43:51.760)
Maybe for the first, the 1980 and the 2014 follow up, what's a, or one of the, or several
Lex Fridman (44:00.360)
memorable moments from the creation of either of those seasons?
Ann Druyan (44:07.160)
Well, you know, the critical thing really was the fact that Seth MacFarlane became art
Ann Druyan (44:14.760)
champion because I had been with three colleagues, I had been schlepping around from network
Ann Druyan (44:21.560)
to network with a treatment for Cosmos and every network said they wanted to do it, but
Ann Druyan (44:29.200)
they wouldn't give me creative control and they wouldn't give me enough money to make
Lex Fridman (44:34.680)
it cinematic and to make it feel like you're really going on an adventure.
Lex Fridman (44:40.680)
And so I think both of those things, sorry to interrupt, both of those things are given
Lex Fridman (44:45.200)
what Cosmos represents, the legacy of it and the legacy of Carl Sagan is essential control,
Ann Druyan (44:52.000)
especially in the modern world.
Lex Fridman (44:54.160)
It's wonderful that you sought control, that you did not really push it.
Lex Fridman (44:58.000)
And I kept saying no.
Lex Fridman (44:59.000)
And my partners, I'm sure, you know, they would look at me like I was nuts, you know,
Lex Fridman (45:04.040)
and they probably must have entertained the idea that maybe I didn't really want to do
Lex Fridman (45:08.160)
it, you know, because I was afraid or something, but I kept saying no.
Lex Fridman (45:12.360)
And it wasn't until I met Seth MacFarlane and he took me to Fox and to Peter Rice and
Ann Druyan (45:21.160)
said, you know, I'll pay for half the pilot if I have to, you know, and Peter Rice was
Ann Druyan (45:25.920)
like, put your money away.
Lex Fridman (45:27.680)
And in every time since, in the 10 years since, at every turn, when we needed Seth to intervene
Ann Druyan (45:39.080)
on our behalf, he stood up and he did it.
Lex Fridman (45:43.560)
And so that was like, in a way, that is the watershed for me of everything that followed
Ann Druyan (45:51.760)
since.
Lex Fridman (45:52.760)
And I was so lucky because, you know, Steve Soder and I written the original Cosmos with
Ann Druyan (45:58.960)
Carl and collaborated on the treatment for season two.
Lex Fridman (46:04.080)
And then Brennan Braga came into our project at the perfect moment and has proven to be
Ann Druyan (46:13.120)
just the, really, I have been so lucky my whole life.
Ann Druyan (46:17.160)
I've collaborated, I've been lucky with the people, my collaborators have been extraordinary.
Lex Fridman (46:23.760)
And so that was a critical thing.
Lex Fridman (46:26.200)
But also to have, you know, for instance, our astonishing VFX supervisor who comes from
Ann Druyan (46:33.560)
the movies, who heads the global association of VFX people, Jeff Okun.
Lex Fridman (46:39.840)
And then, you know, I could rattle off 10 more names, I'd be happy to do that.
Lex Fridman (46:46.680)
And it was that collaboration.
Lex Fridman (46:49.720)
So the people were essential to the creation of...
Ann Druyan (46:52.440)
Absolutely.
Ann Druyan (46:53.440)
I mean, when it came down, I have to say that when it came down to the vision of what the
Ann Druyan (46:58.240)
series would be, that was me sitting in my home, looking out the window and, you know,
Lex Fridman (47:04.000)
really imagining like what I wanted to do.
Lex Fridman (47:06.720)
Can you pause on that for a second?
Lex Fridman (47:07.960)
Like what's that process?
Ann Druyan (47:08.960)
Because it, you know, Cosmos is also, it's grounded in science, of course, but it's also
Lex Fridman (47:13.240)
incredibly imaginative and the words used are carefully crafted.
Ann Druyan (47:19.440)
Thank you.
Lex Fridman (47:20.440)
So what's...
Ann Druyan (47:21.440)
If you can talk about the process of that, the big picture, imaginative thinking, and
Ann Druyan (47:28.480)
sort of the rigorous crafting of words that like basically turns into something like poetry.
Ann Druyan (47:35.320)
Thank you so much.
Lex Fridman (47:37.520)
For me, these are rare occasions for human self esteem.
Ann Druyan (47:44.120)
The scientists that we bring to life in Cosmos are people, in my view, who have everything
Lex Fridman (47:55.040)
we need to see us through this current crisis.
Ann Druyan (48:00.520)
They're, very often they come, they're poor, they're female, they're outsiders who are
Lex Fridman (48:09.840)
not expected to have gifts that are so prodigious, but they persevere.
Lex Fridman (48:19.080)
And so you have someone like Michael Faraday, who comes from a family, dysfunctional family
Ann Druyan (48:26.100)
of like 14 people and, you know, it never goes to, university never learns the math.
Ann Druyan (48:33.920)
But, you know, is the, you know, there's Einstein years later looking up at the picture of Faraday
Lex Fridman (48:42.080)
to inspire him.
Lex Fridman (48:44.240)
So it's, you know, if we had people with that kind of humility and unselfishness who didn't
Ann Druyan (48:54.120)
want to patent everything, as, you know, Michael Faraday created the wealth of the 20th century
Ann Druyan (49:02.120)
with his various inventions.
Lex Fridman (49:05.080)
And yet he never took out a single patent at a time when people were patenting everything
Ann Druyan (49:09.520)
because that was not what he was about.
Lex Fridman (49:13.080)
And to me, that's a kind of almost a saintliness that says that, you know, here's a man who
Ann Druyan (49:20.600)
finds in his life, this tremendous gratification from searching.
Lex Fridman (49:28.120)
And it's just so impressive to me.
Lex Fridman (49:30.760)
And there are so many other people in Cosmos, especially the new season of Cosmos, which
Lex Fridman (49:34.840)
is called Possible Worlds.
Ann Druyan (49:36.320)
Possible, beautiful title.
Ann Druyan (49:37.880)
Possible Worlds, well, I stole it from an author and a scientist from the 1940s.
Lex Fridman (49:44.520)
But it, for me, encapsulates not just, you know, the exoplanets that we've begun to discover,
Ann Druyan (49:53.640)
not just, you know, the worlds that we might visit, but also the world that this could
Ann Druyan (50:00.620)
be, a hopeful vision of the future.
Lex Fridman (50:03.360)
You asked me what is common to all three seasons of Cosmos or what is that voice?
Ann Druyan (50:08.500)
It's a voice of hope.
Ann Druyan (50:10.720)
It's a voice that says there is a future which we bring to life in, I think, a fairly dazzling
Lex Fridman (50:17.820)
fashion that we can still have, you know?
Lex Fridman (50:21.920)
And in sitting down to imagine what this season would be, the new season would be, I'm sitting
Ann Druyan (50:27.080)
where I live in Ithaca, beautiful, just gorgeous place, trees everywhere, waterfalls, I'm sitting
Lex Fridman (50:35.560)
there thinking, well, you know, you can't, how do you, how do you awaken people?
Lex Fridman (50:41.600)
I mean, you can't yell at them and say we're all going to die, you know?
Lex Fridman (50:45.920)
It doesn't help.
Ann Druyan (50:47.380)
It doesn't help.
Lex Fridman (50:49.220)
But I think if you give them a vision of the future that's not pie in the sky, but something,
Ann Druyan (50:59.360)
ways in which science can be redemptive, can actually remediate our future.
Ann Druyan (51:06.840)
We have those capabilities right now, as well as the capabilities to do things in the Cosmos
Ann Druyan (51:15.640)
that we could be doing right now, but we're not doing them.
Ann Druyan (51:19.040)
Not because we don't know how to, how, you know, with the engineering or the material
Ann Druyan (51:24.640)
sciences or the physics, we know all we need to know, but we're a little bit paralyzed
Lex Fridman (51:30.880)
in some sense.
Lex Fridman (51:33.120)
And you know, we're like, I always think we're like the toddler, you know, like we, we left
Lex Fridman (51:39.080)
our mother's legs, you know, and scurried out to the moon.
Lex Fridman (51:43.560)
And we had a moment of, wow, we can do this.
Lex Fridman (51:46.440)
And then we realized, and somehow we had a failure of nerve and we went scurrying back
Ann Druyan (51:51.920)
to our mother and, you know, did things that really weren't going to get us out there,
Ann Druyan (51:56.800)
like the space shuttle, things like that, because it was a kind of failure of nerve.
Lex Fridman (52:02.440)
So Cosmos is about overcoming those fears.
Lex Fridman (52:07.080)
We're now as a civilization, ready to be a teenager venturing out into college.
Ann Druyan (52:12.360)
We're returning back.
Lex Fridman (52:13.840)
Exactly.
Ann Druyan (52:14.840)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (52:15.840)
And that's one of my theories about our current situation is that this is our adolescence.
Lex Fridman (52:25.640)
And I was a total mess as an adolescent.
Lex Fridman (52:28.400)
I was reckless, irresponsible, totally.
Ann Druyan (52:31.520)
I didn't, I was inconsiderate.
Lex Fridman (52:34.160)
I, the reality of other people's feelings and the future didn't exist for me.
Lex Fridman (52:41.520)
So why should a technologically adolescent civilization be any different?
Lex Fridman (52:46.800)
But you know, the vast majority of people I know made it through that period and went
Ann Druyan (52:55.880)
on to be more wise.
Lex Fridman (52:59.640)
And that's what my hope is for our civilization.
Ann Druyan (53:02.840)
On a sort of a darker and more difficult subject in terms of, so you just talked about the
Ann Druyan (53:10.600)
Cosmos being an inspiration for science and for us growing out of our messy adolescence,
Lex Fridman (53:18.880)
but nevertheless, there is threats in this world.
Lex Fridman (53:22.200)
So do you worry about existential threats?
Lex Fridman (53:25.400)
Like you mentioned nuclear weapons, do you worry about nuclear war?
Lex Fridman (53:30.040)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (53:31.040)
And if you could also maybe comment, I don't know how much you've thought about it, but
Ann Druyan (53:34.680)
there's folks like Elon Musk who are worried about the existential threats of artificial
Ann Druyan (53:40.840)
intelligence.
Ann Druyan (53:41.840)
Sort of our robotic computer creations sort of resulting in us humans losing control.
Lex Fridman (53:49.400)
So can you speak to the things that worry you in terms of existential concerns?
Lex Fridman (53:54.240)
All of the above.
Ann Druyan (53:55.240)
You don't have to be silly, you know, like not to think and not to look at, for instance,
Lex Fridman (54:00.720)
our rapidly burgeoning capability in artificial intelligence.
Lex Fridman (54:09.360)
And to see how sick so much of the planet is not to be concerned.
Lex Fridman (54:16.920)
And sick is an evil potentially.
Lex Fridman (54:18.920)
Well, how much cruelty and brutality is happening at this very moment?
Lex Fridman (54:25.760)
And I would put climate change higher up on that list, because I believe that there are
Ann Druyan (54:32.640)
unforeseen discoveries that we are making right now, for instance, all that methane
Ann Druyan (54:39.600)
that's coming out of the ocean floor that was sequestered because of the permafrost,
Ann Druyan (54:47.480)
which is now melting.
Ann Druyan (54:49.560)
You know, I think there are other effects besides our greed and short term thinking
Ann Druyan (54:56.840)
that we are triggering now with all the greenhouse gases we're putting into the atmosphere.
Lex Fridman (55:02.580)
And that worries me day and night.
Ann Druyan (55:04.160)
I think about it every single, every moment, really, because I really think that's how
Lex Fridman (55:10.440)
we have to be.
Ann Druyan (55:11.440)
We have to begin to really focus on how grave the challenge is to our civilization and to
Lex Fridman (55:23.600)
the other species that are.
Ann Druyan (55:26.680)
It's a mass, this is a mass extinction event that we're living through.
Lex Fridman (55:31.160)
And we're seeing it.
Ann Druyan (55:32.760)
We're seeing news of it every day.
Lex Fridman (55:35.160)
So what do you think about another touchy subject, but what do you think about the politicization
Ann Druyan (55:40.760)
of science on topics like global warming and bionic stem cell research and other topics
Lex Fridman (55:46.400)
like it?
Lex Fridman (55:47.560)
What's your sense?
Lex Fridman (55:48.560)
Why?
Lex Fridman (55:49.560)
What do you mean by the politicization of global warming?
Ann Druyan (55:53.200)
Meaning that if you say, I think what you just said, which is a global warming is a
Ann Druyan (56:00.000)
serious concern, it's human caused and maybe some detrimental effects.
Ann Druyan (56:05.160)
Certainly there's a large percent of the population of the United States that would, as opposed
Ann Druyan (56:10.960)
to listening to that statement, would immediately think, oh, that's just a liberal talking point.
Lex Fridman (56:20.160)
That's what I mean by politicization.
Ann Druyan (56:21.160)
I think that's not so true anymore.
Ann Druyan (56:22.240)
I don't think our problem is a population that's skeptical about climate change because
Ann Druyan (56:30.120)
I think that the extreme weather and fire events that we are experiencing with such
Lex Fridman (56:37.240)
frequency is really gotten to people.
Ann Druyan (56:40.720)
I think that there are people in leadership positions who choose to ignore it and to pretend
Lex Fridman (56:50.400)
it's not there, but ultimately I think they will be rejected.
Lex Fridman (56:55.640)
The question is, will it be fast enough?
Ann Druyan (57:00.520)
I think actually that most people have really finally taken the reality of global climate
Ann Druyan (57:09.120)
change to heart and they look at their children and grandchildren and they don't feel good
Ann Druyan (57:16.320)
because they come from a world which was in many ways, in terms of climate, fairly familiar
Lex Fridman (57:24.860)
and benign and they know that we're headed in another direction and it's not just that,
Lex Fridman (57:29.920)
it's what we do to the oceans, the rivers, the air.
Lex Fridman (57:35.480)
You ask me, what is the message of cosmos?
Lex Fridman (57:40.240)
It's that we have to think in longer terms.
Ann Druyan (57:46.960)
I think of the Soviet Union and the United States in the Cold War and they're ready to
Ann Druyan (57:50.960)
kill each other over these two different views of the distribution of resources.
Lex Fridman (57:57.560)
But neither of them has a form of human social organization that thinks in terms of a hundred
Ann Druyan (58:05.200)
years, let alone a thousand years, which are the time scales that science speaks in.
Lex Fridman (58:11.800)
And that's part of the problem is that we have to get a grip on reality and where we're
Ann Druyan (58:19.200)
headed and I'm not fatalistic at all, but I do feel like, and in setting out to do this
Ann Druyan (58:30.560)
series each season, we were talking about climate change in the original cosmos in episode
Lex Fridman (58:37.880)
four and warning about inadvertent climate modification in 1980.
Lex Fridman (58:46.120)
And of course, Carl did his PhD thesis on the greenhouse effect on Venus and he was
Lex Fridman (58:52.160)
painfully cognizant of what a runaway greenhouse effect would do to our planet.
Lex Fridman (58:58.200)
And not only that, but the climatic history of the planet, which we go into in great detail
Lex Fridman (59:02.880)
in the series.
Lex Fridman (59:03.880)
So yeah, I mean, how are we going to get a grip on this if not through some kind of understanding
Lex Fridman (59:11.760)
of science?
Ann Druyan (59:12.760)
Can I just say one more thing about science is that its powers of prophecy are astonishing.
Ann Druyan (59:22.320)
You launch a spacecraft in 1977 and you know where each and every planet in the solar system
Ann Druyan (59:32.280)
is going to be and every moon and you rendezvous with that flawlessly and you exceed the design
Lex Fridman (59:39.800)
specifications of the greatest dreams of the engineers.
Lex Fridman (59:44.840)
And then you go on to explore the Milky Way galaxy and you do it, I mean, you know, the
Ann Druyan (59:51.920)
climate scientists, some of the people whose stories we tell in cosmos, their predictions
Ann Druyan (59:59.240)
were, and they were working with very early computer modeling capabilities, they have
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