Michio Kaku: Future of Humans, Aliens, Space Travel & Physics
物理与宇宙学太空与探索音乐与艺术哲学与宗教生物与进化
📋 章节目录
暂无章节信息
🔑 关键词
universetheorytypedonhumanmarsenergygodfutureearthstarstalksaidinternetphysicsspaceableuniversesstringcivilization
💬 精彩语录
暂无语录
🎙️ 完整对话（1302 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Michio Kaku.
以下是与加来道雄的对话。
Lex Fridman (00:02.800)
He's a theoretical physicist, futurist,
他是一位理论物理学家、未来学家
Lex Fridman (00:05.120)
and professor at the City College of New York.
纽约城市学院教授。
Lex Fridman (00:08.360)
He's the author of many fascinating books
他是许多引人入胜的书籍的作者
Lex Fridman (00:10.760)
that explore the nature of our reality
探索我们现实的本质
Lex Fridman (00:12.840)
and the future of our civilization.
以及我们文明的未来。
Lex Fridman (00:15.520)
They include Einstein's Cosmos, Physics of the Impossible,
它们包括爱因斯坦的宇宙、不可能的物理学、
Michio Kaku (00:19.200)
Future of the Mind, Parallel Worlds,
心灵的未来，平行世界，
Lex Fridman (00:21.600)
and his latest, The Future of Humanity,
以及他的最新著作《人类的未来》，
Michio Kaku (00:24.240)
Terraforming Mars Interstellar Travel,
改造火星星际旅行，
Lex Fridman (00:26.640)
Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth.
不朽，以及我们在地球之外的命运。
Michio Kaku (00:29.960)
I think it's beautiful and important
我认为它美丽且重要
Lex Fridman (00:32.960)
when a scientific mind can fearlessly explore
当科学头脑可以无所畏惧地探索时
Michio Kaku (00:35.760)
through conversation subjects
通过对话主题
Lex Fridman (00:37.600)
just outside of our understanding.
超出了我们的理解范围。
Michio Kaku (00:40.200)
That, to me, is where artificial intelligence is today,
对我来说，这就是今天的人工智能，
Lex Fridman (00:43.440)
just outside of our understanding,
就在我们理解之外，
Michio Kaku (00:45.680)
a place we have to reach for
我们必须到达的地方
Lex Fridman (00:47.440)
if we're to uncover the mysteries of the human mind
如果我们要揭开人类心灵的奥秘
Lex Fridman (00:50.160)
and build human level and superhuman level AI systems
构建人类水平和超人类水平的人工智能系统
Lex Fridman (00:53.880)
that transform our world for the better.
Michio Kaku (00:56.640)
This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
Lex Fridman (00:59.240)
If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
Michio Kaku (01:01.600)
give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon,
Lex Fridman (01:04.640)
or simply connect with me on Twitter
Michio Kaku (01:06.600)
at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N.
Lex Fridman (01:09.920)
And now, here's my conversation with Michio Kaku.
Michio Kaku (01:14.680)
You've mentioned that we just might make contact
Lex Fridman (01:17.360)
with aliens or at least hear from them within this century.
Lex Fridman (01:21.740)
Can you elaborate on your intuition behind that optimism?
Lex Fridman (01:25.880)
Well, this is pure speculation, of course.
Michio Kaku (01:28.120)
Of course.
Lex Fridman (01:28.960)
Given the fact that we've already identified
Michio Kaku (01:31.200)
4,000 exoplanets orbiting other stars,
Lex Fridman (01:34.560)
and we have a census of the Milky Way galaxy
Michio Kaku (01:37.560)
for the first time,
Lex Fridman (01:39.160)
we know that on average, every single star, on average,
Michio Kaku (01:43.560)
has a planet going around it,
Lex Fridman (01:45.640)
and about one fifth or so of them
Michio Kaku (01:47.720)
have Earth sized planets going around them.
Lex Fridman (01:51.240)
So just do the math.
Michio Kaku (01:52.960)
We're talking about out of 100 billion stars
Lex Fridman (01:56.160)
in the Milky Way galaxy,
Michio Kaku (01:58.140)
we're talking about billions
Lex Fridman (01:59.820)
of potential Earth sized planets.
Lex Fridman (02:02.880)
And to believe that we're the only one
Lex Fridman (02:05.760)
is, I think, rather ridiculous, given the odds.
Lex Fridman (02:09.160)
And how many galaxies are there?
Lex Fridman (02:11.600)
Within sight of the Hubble Space Telescope,
Michio Kaku (02:14.560)
there are about 100 billion galaxies.
Lex Fridman (02:17.880)
So do the math.
Lex Fridman (02:19.680)
How many stars are there in the visible universe?
Lex Fridman (02:22.500)
100 billion galaxies,
Michio Kaku (02:24.780)
times 100 billion stars per galaxy.
Lex Fridman (02:29.360)
We're talking about a number beyond human imagination.
Lex Fridman (02:33.720)
And to believe that we're the only ones,
Lex Fridman (02:35.480)
I think, is rather ridiculous.
Lex Fridman (02:38.200)
So you've talked about different types of,
Lex Fridman (02:42.180)
type zero, one, two, three, four, and five,
Michio Kaku (02:44.500)
even, of the Kardashev scale
Lex Fridman (02:47.200)
of the different kind of civilizations.
Lex Fridman (02:50.440)
What do you think it takes,
Lex Fridman (02:52.780)
if it is indeed a ridiculous notion
Michio Kaku (02:54.640)
that we're alone in the universe,
Lex Fridman (02:56.220)
what do you think it takes to reach out?
Michio Kaku (02:58.720)
First, to reach out through communication and connect.
Lex Fridman (03:02.660)
Well, first of all, we have to understand
Michio Kaku (03:04.320)
the level of sophistication of an alien life form
Lex Fridman (03:08.720)
if we make contact with them.
Michio Kaku (03:10.520)
I think in this century, we'll probably pick up signals,
Lex Fridman (03:14.160)
signals from an extraterrestrial civilization.
Michio Kaku (03:17.400)
We'll pick up there, I love Lucy,
Lex Fridman (03:19.260)
and there, leave it to Beaver.
Michio Kaku (03:21.280)
Just ordinary day to day transmissions
Lex Fridman (03:23.500)
that they emit.
Lex Fridman (03:25.600)
And the first thing we wanna do is to A,
Lex Fridman (03:28.200)
decipher their language, of course,
Lex Fridman (03:30.260)
but B, figure out at what level they are advanced
Lex Fridman (03:34.980)
on the Kardashev scale.
Michio Kaku (03:37.080)
I'm a physicist.
Lex Fridman (03:38.560)
We rank things by two parameters, energy and information.
Michio Kaku (03:43.640)
That's how we rank black holes.
Lex Fridman (03:45.600)
That's how we rank stars.
Michio Kaku (03:47.320)
That's how we rank civilizations in outer space.
Lex Fridman (03:50.600)
So a type one civilization is capable
Michio Kaku (03:54.900)
of harnessing planetary power.
Lex Fridman (03:57.540)
They control the weather, for example, earthquakes, volcanoes.
Michio Kaku (04:01.280)
They can modify the course of geological events,
Lex Fridman (04:04.600)
sort of like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.
Michio Kaku (04:08.400)
Type two would be stellar.
Lex Fridman (04:12.240)
They play with stars, entire stars.
Michio Kaku (04:15.620)
They use the entire energy output of a star,
Lex Fridman (04:18.440)
sort of like Star Trek.
Michio Kaku (04:20.560)
The Federation of Planets have colonized the nearby stars.
Lex Fridman (04:24.640)
So a type two would be somewhat similar to Star Trek.
Michio Kaku (04:29.080)
Type three would be galactic.
Lex Fridman (04:30.660)
They roam the galactic space lanes.
Lex Fridman (04:33.840)
And type three would be like Star Wars,
Lex Fridman (04:37.700)
a galactic civilization.
Michio Kaku (04:39.880)
Now, one day I was giving this talk in London
Lex Fridman (04:42.320)
at the planetarium there, and the little boy comes up to me
Lex Fridman (04:45.580)
and he says, professor, you're wrong.
Lex Fridman (04:48.760)
You're wrong, there's type four.
Lex Fridman (04:51.000)
And I told him, look, kid,
Lex Fridman (04:53.360)
there are planets, stars, and galaxies.
Michio Kaku (04:57.000)
That's it, folks.
Lex Fridman (04:58.720)
And he kept persisting and saying, no, there's type four,
Michio Kaku (05:02.680)
the power of the continuum.
Lex Fridman (05:05.800)
And I thought about it for a moment.
Lex Fridman (05:07.560)
And I said to myself,
Lex Fridman (05:08.600)
is there an extra galactic source of energy,
Lex Fridman (05:12.220)
the continuum of Star Trek?
Lex Fridman (05:14.520)
And the answer is yes, there could be a type four.
Lex Fridman (05:18.080)
And that's dark energy.
Lex Fridman (05:20.040)
We now know that 73% of the energy of the universe
Michio Kaku (05:25.480)
is dark energy.
Lex Fridman (05:27.560)
Dark matter represents maybe 23% or so,
Lex Fridman (05:30.640)
and we only represent 4%.
Lex Fridman (05:33.040)
We're the oddballs.
Lex Fridman (05:34.640)
And so you begin to realize that, yeah,
Lex Fridman (05:36.400)
there could be type four, maybe even type five.
Lex Fridman (05:39.760)
So type four, you're saying being able to harness
Lex Fridman (05:43.280)
sort of like dark energy,
Michio Kaku (05:45.360)
something that permeates the entire universe.
Lex Fridman (05:47.120)
So be able to plug into the entire universe
Michio Kaku (05:51.000)
as a source of energy.
Lex Fridman (05:52.080)
That's right.
Lex Fridman (05:52.920)
And dark energy is the energy of the Big Bang.
Lex Fridman (05:55.680)
It's why the galaxies are being pushed apart.
Michio Kaku (05:58.920)
It's the energy of nothing.
Lex Fridman (06:00.740)
The more nothing you have,
Michio Kaku (06:02.560)
the more dark energy that's repulsive.
Lex Fridman (06:05.400)
And so the acceleration of the universe is accelerating
Michio Kaku (06:08.960)
because the more you have, the more you can have.
Lex Fridman (06:12.560)
And that, of course, is by definition an exponential curve.
Michio Kaku (06:15.780)
It's called a de Sitter expansion,
Lex Fridman (06:17.600)
and that's the current state of the universe.
Lex Fridman (06:20.480)
And then type five, would that be able to seek
Lex Fridman (06:26.800)
energy sources somehow outside of our universe?
Lex Fridman (06:31.040)
And how crazy is that idea?
Lex Fridman (06:33.000)
Yeah, type five will be the multiverse.
Michio Kaku (06:35.400)
Multiverse, okay.
Lex Fridman (06:36.280)
I'm a quantum physicist,
Lex Fridman (06:37.760)
and we quantum physicists don't believe
Lex Fridman (06:40.280)
that the Big Bang happened once.
Michio Kaku (06:42.120)
That would violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
Lex Fridman (06:45.120)
And that means that there could be multiple bangs
Michio Kaku (06:47.880)
happening all the time.
Lex Fridman (06:49.360)
Even as we speak today,
Michio Kaku (06:52.120)
universes are being created, and that fits the data.
Lex Fridman (06:56.180)
The inflationary universe is a quantum theory.
Lex Fridman (06:59.960)
So there's a certain finite probability
Lex Fridman (07:02.060)
that universes are being created all the time.
Lex Fridman (07:05.120)
And for me, this is actually rather aesthetically pleasing
Lex Fridman (07:08.740)
because I was raised as a Presbyterian,
Lex Fridman (07:13.200)
but my parents were Buddhists.
Lex Fridman (07:15.920)
And there's two diametrically opposed ideas
Michio Kaku (07:19.520)
about the universe.
Lex Fridman (07:21.080)
In Buddhism, there's only nirvana.
Michio Kaku (07:23.240)
There's no beginning, there's no end,
Lex Fridman (07:25.160)
there's only timelessness.
Lex Fridman (07:26.940)
But in Christianity, there is the instant
Lex Fridman (07:29.960)
when God said, let there be light.
Michio Kaku (07:32.760)
In other words, an instant of creation.
Lex Fridman (07:35.320)
So I've had these two mutually exclusive ideas in my head,
Lex Fridman (07:40.160)
and I now realize that it's possible to meld them
Lex Fridman (07:42.760)
into a single theory.
Lex Fridman (07:45.120)
Either the universe had a beginning or it didn't, right?
Lex Fridman (07:48.640)
Wrong.
Michio Kaku (07:49.880)
You see, our universe had a beginning.
Lex Fridman (07:53.160)
Our universe had an instant where somebody might have said,
Michio Kaku (07:56.240)
let there be light.
Lex Fridman (07:57.860)
But there are other bubble universes out there
Michio Kaku (08:00.340)
in a bubble bath of universes.
Lex Fridman (08:02.720)
And that means that these universes are expanding
Michio Kaku (08:07.280)
into a dimension beyond our three dimensional comprehension.
Lex Fridman (08:11.240)
In other words, hyperspace.
Michio Kaku (08:13.080)
In other words, 11 dimensional hyperspace.
Lex Fridman (08:16.360)
So nirvana would be this timeless 11 dimensional hyperspace
Michio Kaku (08:21.680)
where big bangs are happening all the time.
Lex Fridman (08:24.860)
So we can now combine two mutually exclusive theories
Michio Kaku (08:28.640)
of creation.
Lex Fridman (08:30.920)
And Stephen Hawking, for example, even in his last book,
Michio Kaku (08:35.320)
even said that this is an argument
Lex Fridman (08:37.120)
against the existence of God.
Michio Kaku (08:39.320)
He said there is no God because there was not enough time
Lex Fridman (08:42.680)
for God to create the universe
Michio Kaku (08:44.320)
because the big bang happened in an instant of time.
Lex Fridman (08:47.800)
Therefore, there was no time available
Michio Kaku (08:50.400)
for him to create the universe.
Lex Fridman (08:52.360)
But you see, the multiverse idea
Michio Kaku (08:54.600)
means that there was a time before time.
Lex Fridman (08:58.040)
And there are multiple times, each bubble has its own time.
Lex Fridman (09:01.920)
And so it means that there could actually be a universe
Lex Fridman (09:06.240)
before the beginning of our universe.
Lex Fridman (09:09.640)
So if you think of a bubble bath, when two bubbles collide,
Lex Fridman (09:13.640)
or when two bubbles fission to create a baby bubble,
Michio Kaku (09:16.800)
that's called the big bang.
Lex Fridman (09:18.800)
So the big bang is nothing but the collision of universes
Michio Kaku (09:21.520)
or the budding of universes.
Lex Fridman (09:23.720)
That's such a beautiful picture
Michio Kaku (09:25.080)
of our incredibly mysterious existence.
Lex Fridman (09:28.000)
So is that humbling to you?
Lex Fridman (09:30.240)
Exciting, the idea of multiverses?
Lex Fridman (09:32.840)
I don't even know how to even begin
Michio Kaku (09:35.000)
to wrap my mind around it.
Lex Fridman (09:37.640)
It's exciting for me
Michio Kaku (09:38.480)
because what I do for a living is string theory.
Lex Fridman (09:41.680)
That's my day job.
Michio Kaku (09:43.040)
I get paid by the city of New York to work on string theory.
Lex Fridman (09:46.840)
And you see, string theory is a multiverse theory.
Lex Fridman (09:50.520)
So people say, first of all, what is string theory?
Lex Fridman (09:53.400)
String theory simply says that all the particles
Michio Kaku (09:55.640)
we see in nature, the electron, the proton,
Lex Fridman (09:58.240)
the quarks, what have you,
Michio Kaku (09:59.840)
are nothing but vibrations on a musical string,
Lex Fridman (10:03.240)
on a tiny, tiny little string.
Michio Kaku (10:05.920)
You know, G. Robert Oppenheimer,
Lex Fridman (10:07.400)
the creator of the atomic bomb,
Michio Kaku (10:09.640)
was so frustrated in the 1950s
Lex Fridman (10:12.040)
with all these subatomic particles being created
Michio Kaku (10:15.160)
in our atom smashers that he announced,
Lex Fridman (10:18.240)
he announced one day that the Nobel Prize in physics
Michio Kaku (10:22.680)
should go to the physicist
Lex Fridman (10:23.960)
who does not discover a new particle that year.
Michio Kaku (10:28.280)
Well, today we think they're nothing but musical notes
Lex Fridman (10:30.600)
on these tiny little vibrating strings.
Lex Fridman (10:32.960)
So what is physics?
Lex Fridman (10:34.720)
Physics is the harmonies you can write on vibrating strings.
Lex Fridman (10:38.600)
What is chemistry?
Lex Fridman (10:40.160)
Chemistry is the melodies you can play on these strings.
Lex Fridman (10:44.840)
What is the universe?
Lex Fridman (10:47.040)
The universe is a symphony of strings.
Lex Fridman (10:50.280)
And then what is the mind of God
Lex Fridman (10:53.200)
that Albert Einstein so eloquently wrote about
Lex Fridman (10:55.720)
for the last 30 years of his life?
Lex Fridman (10:58.400)
The mind of God would be cosmic music,
Michio Kaku (11:02.760)
resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.
Lex Fridman (11:06.160)
So beautifully put.
Lex Fridman (11:07.280)
What do you think is the mind of Einstein's God?
Lex Fridman (11:11.880)
Do you think there's a why that we could untangle
Lex Fridman (11:16.160)
from this universe of strings?
Lex Fridman (11:19.760)
Why are we here?
Lex Fridman (11:20.920)
What is the meaning of it all?
Lex Fridman (11:23.320)
Well, Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize,
Michio Kaku (11:26.280)
once said that the more we learn about the universe,
Lex Fridman (11:29.760)
the more we learn that it's pointless.
Michio Kaku (11:32.240)
Well, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (11:35.600)
I don't profess to understand
Michio Kaku (11:37.280)
the great secrets of the universe.
Lex Fridman (11:39.320)
However, let me say two things
Michio Kaku (11:41.120)
about what the giants of physics
Lex Fridman (11:43.320)
have said about this question.
Michio Kaku (11:45.320)
Einstein believed in two types of God.
Lex Fridman (11:49.320)
One was the God of the Bible, the personal God,
Michio Kaku (11:54.280)
the God that answers prayers, walks on waters,
Lex Fridman (11:56.560)
performs miracles, smites the Philistines.
Michio Kaku (12:00.040)
That's the personal God that he didn't believe in.
Lex Fridman (12:02.640)
He believed in the God of Spinoza,
Michio Kaku (12:05.480)
the God of order, simplicity, harmony, beauty.
Lex Fridman (12:10.040)
The universe could have been ugly.
Michio Kaku (12:12.840)
The universe could have been messy, random,
Lex Fridman (12:15.680)
but it's gorgeous.
Michio Kaku (12:17.360)
You realize that on a single sheet of paper,
Lex Fridman (12:19.960)
we can write down all the known laws of the universe.
Michio Kaku (12:23.120)
It's amazing, on one sheet of paper,
Lex Fridman (12:25.400)
Einstein's equation is one inch long,
Michio Kaku (12:27.840)
string theory is a lot longer,
Lex Fridman (12:30.040)
and so it's a standard model,
Lex Fridman (12:31.960)
but you could put all these equations
Lex Fridman (12:33.880)
on one sheet of paper.
Michio Kaku (12:36.880)
It didn't have to be that way.
Lex Fridman (12:38.640)
It could have been messy.
Lex Fridman (12:40.240)
And so, Einstein thought of himself as a young boy
Lex Fridman (12:43.160)
entering this huge library for the first time,
Michio Kaku (12:47.480)
being overwhelmed by the simplicity, elegance,
Lex Fridman (12:51.160)
and beauty of this library,
Lex Fridman (12:53.160)
but all he could do was read the first page
Lex Fridman (12:56.560)
of the first volume.
Michio Kaku (12:58.320)
Well, that library is the universe,
Lex Fridman (13:00.320)
with all sorts of mysterious, magical things
Michio Kaku (13:03.240)
that we have yet to find.
Lex Fridman (13:05.280)
And then Galileo was asked about this.
Michio Kaku (13:07.920)
Galileo said that the purpose of science,
Lex Fridman (13:13.000)
the purpose of science is to determine how the heavens go.
Michio Kaku (13:17.680)
The purpose of religion is to determine
Lex Fridman (13:20.680)
how to go to heaven.
Lex Fridman (13:22.400)
So in other words, science is about natural law,
Lex Fridman (13:26.200)
and religion is about ethics,
Lex Fridman (13:29.480)
how to be a good person, how to go to heaven.
Lex Fridman (13:32.320)
As long as we keep these two things apart,
Michio Kaku (13:35.000)
we're in great shape.
Lex Fridman (13:36.960)
The problem occurs when people from the natural sciences
Michio Kaku (13:41.080)
begin to pontificate about ethics,
Lex Fridman (13:43.360)
and people from religion begin to pontificate
Michio Kaku (13:46.200)
about natural law.
Lex Fridman (13:47.880)
That's where we get into big trouble.
Michio Kaku (13:50.800)
You think they're fundamentally distinct,
Lex Fridman (13:53.720)
morality and ethics and our idea of what is right
Lex Fridman (13:58.360)
and what is wrong.
Lex Fridman (13:59.360)
That's something that's outside the reach
Michio Kaku (14:02.080)
of string theory and physics.
Lex Fridman (14:03.960)
That's right.
Michio Kaku (14:04.800)
If you talk to a squirrel about what is right
Lex Fridman (14:08.680)
and what is wrong, there's no reference frame
Michio Kaku (14:12.520)
for a squirrel, and realize that aliens from outer space,
Lex Fridman (14:16.600)
if they ever come visit us, they'll try to talk to us
Michio Kaku (14:20.560)
like we talk to squirrels in the forest,
Lex Fridman (14:22.520)
but eventually we get bored talking to the squirrels
Michio Kaku (14:25.880)
because they don't talk back to us.
Lex Fridman (14:28.040)
Same thing with aliens from outer space.
Michio Kaku (14:30.000)
They come down to earth, they'll be curious about us
Lex Fridman (14:32.280)
to a degree, but after a while they just get bored
Michio Kaku (14:35.440)
because we have nothing to offer them.
Lex Fridman (14:37.920)
So our sense of right and wrong,
Lex Fridman (14:40.480)
what does that mean compared to a squirrel's sense
Lex Fridman (14:43.400)
of right and wrong?
Michio Kaku (14:46.560)
Now we of course do have an ethics
Lex Fridman (14:48.720)
that keeps civilizations in line,
Michio Kaku (14:51.840)
enriches our life and makes civilization possible.
Lex Fridman (14:56.480)
And I think that's a good thing,
Lex Fridman (14:58.040)
but it's not mandated by a law of physics.
Lex Fridman (15:01.560)
So if aliens do, alien species were to make contact,
Michio Kaku (15:06.960)
forgive me for staying on aliens for a bit longer.
Lex Fridman (15:10.920)
Do you think they're more likely to be friendly,
Lex Fridman (15:15.640)
to befriend us or to destroy us?
Lex Fridman (15:18.680)
Well, I think for the most part,
Michio Kaku (15:20.560)
they'll pretty much ignore us.
Lex Fridman (15:22.880)
If you're a deer in the forest, who do you fear the most?
Lex Fridman (15:25.920)
Do you fear the hunter with his gigantic 16 gauge shotgun?
Lex Fridman (15:30.480)
Or do you fear the guy with a briefcase and glasses?
Michio Kaku (15:35.400)
Well, the guy with the briefcase could be a developer
Lex Fridman (15:39.040)
about to basically flatten the entire forest,
Michio Kaku (15:42.400)
destroying your livelihood.
Lex Fridman (15:44.200)
So instinctively you may be afraid of the hunter,
Lex Fridman (15:47.720)
but actually the problem with deers in the forest
Lex Fridman (15:51.320)
is that they should fear developers
Michio Kaku (15:54.160)
because developers look at deer as simply
Lex Fridman (15:57.360)
getting in the way.
Michio Kaku (15:59.440)
I mean, in War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells,
Lex Fridman (16:02.560)
the aliens did not hate us.
Michio Kaku (16:04.760)
If you read the book,
Lex Fridman (16:05.960)
the aliens did not have evil intentions toward homo sapiens.
Michio Kaku (16:11.360)
No, we were in the way.
Lex Fridman (16:13.560)
So I think we have to realize that alien civilizations
Michio Kaku (16:18.000)
may view us quite differently than in science fiction novels.
Lex Fridman (16:21.080)
However, I personally believe,
Lex Fridman (16:22.800)
and I cannot prove any of this,
Lex Fridman (16:24.560)
I personally believe that they're probably gonna be peaceful
Michio Kaku (16:27.320)
because there's nothing that they want from our world.
Lex Fridman (16:31.720)
I mean, what are they gonna take us?
Lex Fridman (16:33.360)
What are they gonna take us for, gold?
Lex Fridman (16:35.360)
No, gold is a useless metal for the most part.
Michio Kaku (16:39.360)
It's silver, I mean, it's gold in color,
Lex Fridman (16:43.600)
but that only affects homo sapiens.
Michio Kaku (16:45.640)
Squirrels don't care about gold.
Lex Fridman (16:47.760)
And so gold is a rather useless element.
Michio Kaku (16:50.560)
Rare earths maybe, platinum based elements,
Lex Fridman (16:53.160)
rare earths for the electronics, yeah, maybe.
Lex Fridman (16:55.720)
But other than that, we have nothing to offer them.
Lex Fridman (16:59.280)
I mean, think about it for a moment.
Michio Kaku (17:01.640)
People love Shakespeare and they love the arts and poetry,
Lex Fridman (17:06.560)
but outside of the earth, they mean nothing,
Michio Kaku (17:10.200)
absolutely nothing.
Lex Fridman (17:12.320)
I mean, when I write down an equation in string theory,
Michio Kaku (17:15.800)
I would hope that on the other side of the galaxy,
Lex Fridman (17:19.760)
there's an alien writing down that very same equation
Michio Kaku (17:22.880)
in different notation,
Lex Fridman (17:24.720)
but that alien on the other side of the galaxy,
Michio Kaku (17:27.240)
Shakespeare, poetry, Hemingway,
Lex Fridman (17:30.360)
it would mean nothing to him or her or it.
Michio Kaku (17:33.960)
When you think about entities that's out there,
Lex Fridman (17:38.080)
extraterrestrial, do you think they would naturally look
Lex Fridman (17:43.880)
something that even is recognizable to us as life?
Lex Fridman (17:48.000)
Or would they be radically different?
Lex Fridman (17:50.560)
Well, how did we become intelligent?
Lex Fridman (17:52.840)
Basically three things made us intelligent.
Michio Kaku (17:56.160)
One is our eyesight, stereo eyesight.
Lex Fridman (17:59.320)
We have the eyes of a hunter,
Michio Kaku (18:01.160)
stereo vision so we lock in on targets.
Lex Fridman (18:04.240)
And who is smarter, predator or prey?
Michio Kaku (18:09.360)
Predators are smarter than prey.
Lex Fridman (18:11.560)
They have their eyes at the front of their face,
Michio Kaku (18:13.240)
like lions, tigers,
Lex Fridman (18:15.680)
while rabbits have eyes to the side of their face.
Lex Fridman (18:18.800)
Why is that?
Lex Fridman (18:19.840)
Hunters have to zero in on the target.
Michio Kaku (18:22.720)
They have to know how to ambush.
Lex Fridman (18:24.560)
They have to know how to hide, camouflage,
Michio Kaku (18:27.000)
sneak up, stealth, deceit.
Lex Fridman (18:30.160)
That takes a lot of intelligence.
Michio Kaku (18:31.960)
Rabbits, all they have to do is run.
Lex Fridman (18:35.200)
So that's the first criterion, stereo eyesight of some sort.
Michio Kaku (18:39.880)
Second is the thumb.
Lex Fridman (18:42.760)
The opposable thumb of some sort
Michio Kaku (18:44.640)
could be a claw or a tentacle.
Lex Fridman (18:46.120)
So hand eye coordination.
Michio Kaku (18:48.640)
Hand eye coordination is the way
Lex Fridman (18:50.240)
we manipulate the environment.
Lex Fridman (18:52.800)
And then three, language.
Lex Fridman (18:55.040)
Because mama bear never tells baby bear
Michio Kaku (18:58.200)
to avoid the human hunter.
Lex Fridman (19:00.360)
Bears just learn by themselves.
Michio Kaku (19:02.360)
They never hand out information
Lex Fridman (19:04.040)
from one generation to the next.
Lex Fridman (19:06.240)
So these are the three basic ingredients of intelligence.
Lex Fridman (19:10.200)
Eyesight of some sort, an opposable thumb
Michio Kaku (19:12.960)
or tentacle or claw of some sort, and language.
Lex Fridman (19:16.640)
Now ask yourself a simple question.
Lex Fridman (19:19.080)
How many animals have all three?
Lex Fridman (19:22.400)
Just us.
Michio Kaku (19:23.480)
It's just us.
Lex Fridman (19:25.200)
I mean, the primates, they have a language, yeah,
Michio Kaku (19:28.440)
they may get up to maybe 20 words,
Lex Fridman (19:30.720)
but a baby learns a word a day,
Michio Kaku (19:32.720)
several words a day a baby learns.
Lex Fridman (19:35.120)
And a typical adult knows about almost 5,000 words.
Michio Kaku (19:41.000)
While the maximum number of words
Lex Fridman (19:42.800)
that you can teach a gorilla in any language,
Michio Kaku (19:46.600)
including their own language, is about 20 or so.
Lex Fridman (19:49.680)
And so we see the difference in intelligence.
Lex Fridman (19:53.080)
So when we meet aliens from outer space,
Lex Fridman (19:55.560)
chances are they will have been descended
Michio Kaku (19:58.040)
from predators of some sort.
Lex Fridman (1:00:03.520)
And who wants to glow in the dark at night reading
Lex Fridman (1:00:05.840)
the newspaper?
Lex Fridman (1:00:07.240)
So I think there are other ways to do it
Michio Kaku (1:00:09.560)
with solar satellites.
Lex Fridman (1:00:12.000)
You can have satellites orbiting Mars that beam sunlight
Michio Kaku (1:00:16.080)
onto the polar ice caps, melting the polar ice caps.
Lex Fridman (1:00:19.480)
Mars has plenty of water.
Michio Kaku (1:00:21.440)
It's just frozen.
Lex Fridman (1:00:24.200)
I think you paint an inspiring and a wonderful picture
Michio Kaku (1:00:27.880)
of the future.
Lex Fridman (1:00:29.760)
I think you've inspired and educated thousands,
Michio Kaku (1:00:35.120)
if not millions.
Lex Fridman (1:00:36.240)
Michio, it's been an honor.
Michio Kaku (1:00:37.400)
Thank you so much for talking today.
Lex Fridman (1:00:39.000)
My pleasure.
Michio Kaku (20:01.040)
They'll have some way to manipulate the environment
Lex Fridman (20:03.440)
and communicate their knowledge to the next generation.
Michio Kaku (20:07.840)
That's it, folks.
Lex Fridman (20:09.000)
So functionally, that would be similar.
Michio Kaku (20:12.400)
That would, we would be able to recognize them.
Lex Fridman (20:15.880)
Well, not necessarily, because I think
Michio Kaku (20:17.920)
even with Homo sapiens, we are eventually
Lex Fridman (20:20.960)
going to perhaps become part cybernetic
Lex Fridman (20:24.760)
and genetically enhanced.
Lex Fridman (20:27.960)
Already, robots are getting smarter and smarter.
Michio Kaku (20:31.520)
Right now, robots have the intelligence of a cockroach.
Lex Fridman (20:35.720)
But in the coming years,
Michio Kaku (20:37.280)
our robots will be as smart as a mouse,
Lex Fridman (20:40.480)
then maybe as smart as a rabbit.
Michio Kaku (20:42.840)
If we're lucky, maybe as smart as a cat or a dog.
Lex Fridman (20:47.200)
And by the end of the century, who knows for sure,
Michio Kaku (20:50.200)
our robots will be probably as smart as a monkey.
Lex Fridman (20:53.680)
Now, at that point, of course, they could be dangerous.
Michio Kaku (20:56.960)
You see, monkeys are self aware.
Lex Fridman (20:59.720)
They know they are monkeys.
Michio Kaku (21:03.320)
They may have a different agenda than us.
Lex Fridman (21:06.160)
While dogs, dogs are confused.
Michio Kaku (21:10.600)
You see, dogs think that we are a dog,
Lex Fridman (21:14.760)
that we're the top dog.
Michio Kaku (21:16.360)
They're the underdog.
Lex Fridman (21:17.480)
That's why they whimper and follow us and lick us
Michio Kaku (21:20.200)
all the time.
Lex Fridman (21:21.320)
We're the top dog.
Michio Kaku (21:22.920)
Monkeys have no illusion at all.
Lex Fridman (21:25.440)
They know we are not monkeys.
Lex Fridman (21:28.280)
And so I think that in the future,
Lex Fridman (21:29.960)
we'll have to put a chip in their brain to shut them off
Michio Kaku (21:32.960)
once our robots have murderous thoughts.
Lex Fridman (21:35.480)
But that's in a hundred years.
Michio Kaku (21:37.480)
In 200 years, the robots will be smart enough
Lex Fridman (21:41.520)
to remove that fail safe chip in their brain
Lex Fridman (21:44.640)
and then watch out.
Lex Fridman (21:46.840)
At that point, I think rather than compete with our robots,
Michio Kaku (21:52.600)
we should merge with them.
Lex Fridman (21:54.800)
We should become part cybernetic.
Lex Fridman (21:56.800)
So I think when we meet alien life from outer space,
Lex Fridman (21:59.480)
they may be genetically and cybernetically enhanced.
Michio Kaku (22:05.360)
Genetically and cybernetically enhanced.
Lex Fridman (22:07.720)
Wow, so let's talk about that full range.
Michio Kaku (22:11.040)
In the near term and 200 years from now,
Lex Fridman (22:13.720)
how promising in the near term in your view
Lex Fridman (22:16.920)
is brain machine interfaces?
Lex Fridman (22:18.760)
So starting to allow computers to talk directly
Michio Kaku (22:22.920)
to the brains, Elon Musk is working on that with Neuralink
Lex Fridman (22:26.880)
and there's other companies working on this idea.
Lex Fridman (22:29.000)
Do you see promise there?
Lex Fridman (22:30.480)
Do you see hope for near term impact?
Michio Kaku (22:32.960)
Well, every technology has pluses and minuses.
Lex Fridman (22:36.400)
Already we can record memories.
Michio Kaku (22:38.600)
I have a book, The Future of the Mind,
Lex Fridman (22:40.920)
where I detail some of these breakthroughs.
Michio Kaku (22:42.840)
We can now record simple memories of mice
Lex Fridman (22:46.360)
and send these memories on the internet.
Michio Kaku (22:49.320)
Eventually, we're gonna do this with primates
Lex Fridman (22:52.080)
at Wake Forest University and also in Los Angeles.
Lex Fridman (22:55.960)
And then after that,
Lex Fridman (22:57.720)
we'll have a memory chip for Alzheimer's patients.
Michio Kaku (23:00.880)
We'll test it out in Alzheimer's patients
Lex Fridman (23:02.840)
because of course, when Alzheimer's patients
Michio Kaku (23:05.800)
lose their memory, they wander.
Lex Fridman (23:07.760)
They create all sorts of havoc, wandering around,
Michio Kaku (23:11.680)
oblivious to their surroundings and they'll have a chip.
Lex Fridman (23:15.640)
They'll push the button and memories,
Michio Kaku (23:18.240)
memories will come flooding into their hippocampus
Lex Fridman (23:21.120)
and the chip telling them where they live and who they are.
Lex Fridman (23:26.280)
And so a memory chip is definitely in the cards.
Lex Fridman (23:29.520)
And I think this will eventually affect human civilization.
Lex Fridman (23:33.200)
What is the future of the internet?
Lex Fridman (23:35.080)
The future of the internet is brain net.
Michio Kaku (23:37.680)
Brain net is when we send emotions, feelings,
Lex Fridman (23:41.680)
sensations on the internet.
Lex Fridman (23:44.400)
And we will telepathically communicate
Lex Fridman (23:46.640)
with other humans this way.
Michio Kaku (23:49.600)
This is gonna affect everything.
Lex Fridman (23:51.160)
Look at entertainment.
Lex Fridman (23:52.480)
Remember the silent movies?
Lex Fridman (23:54.080)
Charlie Chaplin was very famous
Michio Kaku (23:56.240)
during the era of silent movies.
Lex Fridman (23:58.040)
But when the talkies came in,
Michio Kaku (23:59.960)
nobody wanted to see Charlie Chaplin anymore
Lex Fridman (24:03.000)
because he never talked in the movies.
Lex Fridman (24:05.640)
And so a whole generation of actors lost their job
Lex Fridman (24:08.880)
and a new series of actors came in.
Michio Kaku (24:11.400)
Next, we're gonna have the movies replaced by brain net
Lex Fridman (24:16.960)
because in the future, people will say,
Lex Fridman (24:19.480)
who wants to see a screen with images?
Lex Fridman (24:23.120)
That's it.
Michio Kaku (24:23.960)
Sound and image, that's called the movies.
Lex Fridman (24:27.320)
In our entertainment industry,
Michio Kaku (24:28.960)
this multi billion dollar industry is based on screens
Lex Fridman (24:32.240)
with moving images and sound.
Lex Fridman (24:34.680)
But what happens when emotions, feelings, sensations,
Lex Fridman (24:39.920)
memories can be conveyed on the internet?
Michio Kaku (24:43.200)
It's gonna change everything.
Lex Fridman (24:44.800)
Human relations will change
Michio Kaku (24:46.280)
because you'll be able to empathize
Lex Fridman (24:47.720)
and feel the suffering of other people.
Michio Kaku (24:50.280)
We'll be able to communicate telepathically.
Lex Fridman (24:53.280)
And this is coming.
Michio Kaku (24:55.880)
You described brain net and future of the mind.
Lex Fridman (24:58.640)
This is an interesting concept.
Lex Fridman (25:00.960)
Do you think, so you mentioned entertainment,
Lex Fridman (25:03.920)
but what kind of effect would it have
Lex Fridman (25:06.200)
on our personal relationships?
Lex Fridman (25:08.600)
Hopefully it will deepen it.
Michio Kaku (25:10.360)
You realize that for most of human history,
Lex Fridman (25:13.360)
for over 90% of human history,
Michio Kaku (25:16.760)
we only knew maybe 20, 100 people.
Lex Fridman (25:22.040)
That's it, folks.
Michio Kaku (25:23.520)
That was your tribe.
Lex Fridman (25:25.000)
That was everybody you knew in the universe
Michio Kaku (25:28.400)
was only maybe 50 or 100.
Lex Fridman (25:31.720)
With the coming of towns,
Michio Kaku (25:33.240)
of course it expanded to a few thousand.
Lex Fridman (25:35.640)
With the coming of the telephone,
Michio Kaku (25:37.480)
all of a sudden you could reach thousands of people
Lex Fridman (25:40.520)
with a telephone.
Lex Fridman (25:41.600)
And now with the internet,
Lex Fridman (25:42.680)
you can reach the entire population of the planet Earth.
Lex Fridman (25:45.520)
And so I think this is a normal progression.
Lex Fridman (25:48.400)
And you think that kind of sort of connection
Michio Kaku (25:52.320)
to the rest of the world,
Lex Fridman (25:53.920)
and then adding sensations
Michio Kaku (25:55.360)
like being able to share telepathically emotions and so on
Lex Fridman (25:58.880)
that would just further deepen our connection
Michio Kaku (26:01.160)
to our fellow humans.
Lex Fridman (26:02.920)
That's right.
Michio Kaku (26:03.760)
In fact, I disagree with many scientists on this question.
Lex Fridman (26:07.680)
Most scientists would say that technology is neutral.
Michio Kaku (26:11.200)
A double edged sword,
Lex Fridman (26:12.600)
one side of the sword can cut against people.
Michio Kaku (26:15.960)
The other side of the sword
Lex Fridman (26:17.360)
can cut against ignorance and disease.
Michio Kaku (26:20.840)
I disagree.
Lex Fridman (26:22.440)
I think technology does have a moral direction.
Michio Kaku (26:25.920)
Look at the internet.
Lex Fridman (26:27.360)
The internet spreads knowledge, awareness,
Lex Fridman (26:30.680)
and that creates empowerment.
Lex Fridman (26:33.040)
People act on knowledge.
Michio Kaku (26:35.400)
When they begin to realize
Lex Fridman (26:36.760)
that they don't have to live that way,
Michio Kaku (26:38.520)
they don't have to suffer under a dictatorship,
Lex Fridman (26:41.080)
that there are other ways of living under freedom,
Michio Kaku (26:44.560)
then they begin to take things, take power.
Lex Fridman (26:47.720)
And that spreads democracy.
Lex Fridman (26:49.600)
And democracies do not war with other democracies.
Lex Fridman (26:54.240)
I'm a scientist.
Michio Kaku (26:55.240)
I believe in data.
Lex Fridman (26:57.160)
So let's take a sheet of paper
Lex Fridman (26:59.080)
and write down every single war you had to learn
Lex Fridman (27:03.760)
since you were in elementary school.
Michio Kaku (27:05.880)
Every single war, hundreds of them.
Lex Fridman (27:07.800)
Kings, queens, emperors, dictators.
Michio Kaku (27:11.040)
All these wars were between kings, queens,
Lex Fridman (27:13.600)
emperors, and dictators.
Michio Kaku (27:15.240)
Never between two major democracies.
Lex Fridman (27:19.840)
And so I think with the spread of this technology
Lex Fridman (27:22.560)
and which would accelerate with the coming of brain net,
Lex Fridman (27:26.120)
it means that, well, we will still have wars.
Michio Kaku (27:28.480)
Wars, of course, is politics by other means,
Lex Fridman (27:31.520)
but they'll be less intense and less frequent.
Lex Fridman (27:35.440)
Do you have worries of longer term existential risk
Lex Fridman (27:40.960)
from technology, from AI?
Lex Fridman (27:43.440)
So I think that's a wonderful vision of a future
Lex Fridman (27:48.120)
where war is a distant memory,
Lex Fridman (27:51.200)
but now there's another agent.
Lex Fridman (27:53.840)
There's somebody else that's able to create conflict,
Michio Kaku (27:57.920)
that's able to create harm, AI systems.
Lex Fridman (28:00.920)
So do you have worry about such AI systems?
Michio Kaku (28:03.080)
Well, yes, that is an existential risk,
Lex Fridman (28:05.440)
but again, I think an existential risk,
Michio Kaku (28:07.760)
not for this century.
Lex Fridman (28:09.800)
I think our grandkids are gonna have to confront
Michio Kaku (28:12.520)
this question as robots gradually approach
Lex Fridman (28:15.160)
the intelligence of a dog, a cat,
Lex Fridman (28:17.840)
and finally that of a monkey.
Lex Fridman (28:20.440)
However, I think we will digitize ourselves as well.
Michio Kaku (28:23.760)
Not only are we gonna merge with our technology,
Lex Fridman (28:26.160)
we'll also digitize our personality,
Michio Kaku (28:28.560)
our memories, our feelings.
Lex Fridman (28:30.680)
You realize during the Middle Ages,
Michio Kaku (28:32.560)
there was something called dualism.
Lex Fridman (28:34.680)
Dualism meant that the soul was separate from the body.
Michio Kaku (28:38.200)
When the body died, the soul went to heaven.
Lex Fridman (28:40.920)
That's dualism.
Michio Kaku (28:42.440)
Then in the 20th century, neuroscience came in
Lex Fridman (28:45.440)
and said, bah, humbug.
Michio Kaku (28:47.720)
Every time we look at the brain, it's just neurons.
Lex Fridman (28:50.920)
That's it, folks, period, end of story.
Michio Kaku (28:54.640)
Bunch of neurons firing.
Lex Fridman (28:56.840)
Now we're going back to dualism.
Michio Kaku (28:59.640)
Now we realize that we can digitize human memories,
Lex Fridman (29:03.440)
feelings, sensations, and create a digital copy of ourselves,
Lex Fridman (29:09.040)
and that's called the Connectome Project.
Lex Fridman (29:11.600)
Billions of dollars are now being spent
Michio Kaku (29:14.320)
to do not just the genome project
Lex Fridman (29:17.320)
of sequencing the genes of our body,
Lex Fridman (29:19.680)
but the Connectome Project,
Lex Fridman (29:21.640)
which is to map the entire connections of the human brain.
Lex Fridman (29:26.120)
And even before then, already in Silicon Valley,
Lex Fridman (29:28.920)
today, at this very moment,
Michio Kaku (29:31.320)
you can contact Silicon Valley companies
Lex Fridman (29:33.480)
that are willing to digitize your relatives
Michio Kaku (29:36.800)
because some people want to talk to their parents.
Lex Fridman (29:39.760)
There are unresolved issues with their parents,
Lex Fridman (29:42.400)
and one day, yes, firms will digitize people,
Lex Fridman (29:45.800)
and you'll be able to talk to them a reasonable facsimile.
Michio Kaku (29:49.280)
We leave a digital trail.
Lex Fridman (29:52.440)
Our ancestors did not.
Michio Kaku (29:54.080)
Our ancestors were lucky if they had one line,
Lex Fridman (29:57.600)
just one line in a church book,
Michio Kaku (30:00.720)
saying the date they were baptized and the date they died.
Lex Fridman (30:04.400)
That's it.
Michio Kaku (30:05.280)
That was their entire digital memory.
Lex Fridman (30:08.200)
I mean, their entire digital existence summarized
Michio Kaku (30:11.520)
in just a few letters of the alphabet, a whole life.
Lex Fridman (30:15.960)
Now we digitize everything.
Michio Kaku (30:17.960)
Every time you sneeze, you digitize it.
Lex Fridman (30:20.320)
You put it on the internet.
Lex Fridman (30:22.800)
And so I think that we are gonna digitize ourselves
Lex Fridman (30:25.440)
and give us digital immortality.
Michio Kaku (30:28.000)
We'll not only have biologic genetic immortality
Lex Fridman (30:31.280)
of some sort, but also digital immortality.
Lex Fridman (30:34.880)
And what are we gonna do with it?
Lex Fridman (30:37.080)
I think we should send it into outer space.
Michio Kaku (30:40.880)
If you digitize the human brain
Lex Fridman (30:43.080)
and put it on a laser beam and shoot it to the moon,
Michio Kaku (30:46.600)
you're on the moon in one second.
Lex Fridman (30:48.840)
Shoot it to Mars, you're on Mars in 20 minutes.
Michio Kaku (30:51.960)
Shoot it to Pluto, you're on Pluto in eight hours.
Lex Fridman (30:54.800)
Think about it for a moment.
Michio Kaku (30:56.160)
You can have breakfast in New York
Lex Fridman (30:58.480)
and for a morning snack, vacation on the moon,
Michio Kaku (31:02.000)
then zap your way to Mars by noontime,
Lex Fridman (31:05.560)
journey through the asteroid belt of the afternoon,
Lex Fridman (31:08.520)
and then come back for dinner in New York at night.
Lex Fridman (31:11.960)
All in a day's work at the speed of light.
Michio Kaku (31:16.120)
Now, this means that you don't need booster rockets.
Lex Fridman (31:19.680)
You don't need weightlessness problems.
Michio Kaku (31:21.720)
You don't need to worry about meteorites.
Lex Fridman (31:23.760)
And what's on the moon?
Michio Kaku (31:25.320)
On the moon, there is a mainframe
Lex Fridman (31:27.360)
that downloads your laser beam's information.
Lex Fridman (31:31.080)
And where does it download the information into?
Lex Fridman (31:34.000)
An avatar.
Lex Fridman (31:35.760)
Now, what does that avatar look like?
Lex Fridman (31:37.800)
Anything you want.
Michio Kaku (31:40.960)
Think about it for a moment.
Lex Fridman (31:41.920)
You could be Superman, Superwoman, on the moon, on Mars,
Michio Kaku (31:47.400)
traveling throughout the universe at the speed of light,
Lex Fridman (31:50.840)
downloading your personality into any vehicle you want.
Michio Kaku (31:55.240)
Now, let me stick my neck out.
Lex Fridman (31:57.200)
So far, everything I've been saying
Michio Kaku (31:58.960)
is well within the laws of physics.
Lex Fridman (32:00.800)
Well within the laws of physics.
Michio Kaku (32:02.480)
Now, let me go outside the laws of physics again.
Lex Fridman (32:04.760)
Here we go.
Michio Kaku (32:05.920)
I think this already exists.
Lex Fridman (32:08.840)
I think outside the Earth, there could be a super highway
Michio Kaku (32:11.880)
a laser highway of laser porting
Lex Fridman (32:14.760)
with billions of souls of aliens
Michio Kaku (32:17.560)
zapping their way across the galaxy.
Lex Fridman (32:20.880)
Now, let me ask you a question.
Michio Kaku (32:22.680)
Are we smart enough to determine
Lex Fridman (32:25.280)
whether such a thing exists or not?
Michio Kaku (32:28.280)
No, this could exist right outside
Lex Fridman (32:31.200)
the orbit of the planet Earth.
Lex Fridman (32:32.960)
And we're too stupid in our technology
Lex Fridman (32:35.680)
to even prove it or disprove it.
Michio Kaku (32:38.760)
We would need the aliens on this laser super highway
Lex Fridman (32:43.520)
to help us out, to send us a human interpretable signal.
Michio Kaku (32:50.640)
I mean, it ultimately boils down
Lex Fridman (32:51.920)
to the language of communication,
Lex Fridman (32:53.320)
but that's an exciting possibility
Lex Fridman (32:55.000)
that actually the sky is filled with aliens.
Michio Kaku (32:59.080)
The aliens could already be here.
Lex Fridman (33:00.760)
And we're just so oblivious that we're too stupid to know it.
Michio Kaku (33:05.360)
See, they don't have to be in alien form
Lex Fridman (33:07.280)
with little green men.
Michio Kaku (33:09.720)
They can be in any form they want
Lex Fridman (33:11.480)
in an avatar of their creation.
Michio Kaku (33:13.280)
Well, in fact, they could very well be.
Lex Fridman (33:16.240)
They can even look like us.
Michio Kaku (33:17.320)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (33:18.160)
We'd never know.
Michio Kaku (33:19.000)
One of us could be an alien.
Lex Fridman (33:21.240)
You know, in the zoo, did you know
Lex Fridman (33:22.720)
that we sometimes have zookeepers that imitate animals?
Lex Fridman (33:26.360)
We create a fake animal and we put it in
Lex Fridman (33:29.240)
so that the animal is not afraid of this fake animal.
Lex Fridman (33:33.480)
And of course, these animals brains,
Michio Kaku (33:35.080)
their brain is about as big as a walnut.
Lex Fridman (33:37.080)
They accept these dummies as if they were real.
Lex Fridman (33:41.680)
So an alien civilization in outer space would say,
Lex Fridman (33:44.160)
oh yeah, human brains are so tiny.
Michio Kaku (33:46.480)
We could put a dummy on their world, an avatar,
Lex Fridman (33:49.240)
and they'd never know it.
Michio Kaku (33:51.680)
That would be an entertaining thing to watch
Lex Fridman (33:53.400)
from the alien perspective.
Lex Fridman (33:55.040)
So you kind of implied that with a digital form
Lex Fridman (33:58.880)
of our being, but also biologically,
Lex Fridman (34:02.280)
do you think one day technology will allow
Lex Fridman (34:04.560)
individual human beings to become immortal
Lex Fridman (34:07.600)
besides just through the ability to digitize our essence?
Lex Fridman (34:11.560)
Yeah, I think that artificial intelligence
Michio Kaku (34:13.640)
will give us the key to genetic immortality.
Lex Fridman (34:17.160)
You see, in the coming decades,
Michio Kaku (34:18.880)
everyone's gonna have their gene sequence.
Lex Fridman (34:21.280)
We'll have billions of genomes of old people,
Michio Kaku (34:24.160)
billions of genomes of young people.
Lex Fridman (34:26.760)
And what are we gonna do with it?
Michio Kaku (34:28.200)
We're gonna run it through an AI machine,
Lex Fridman (34:30.120)
which has pattern recognition, to look for the age genes.
Michio Kaku (34:35.080)
In other words, the fountain of youth that emperors,
Lex Fridman (34:38.480)
kings, and queens lusted over.
Michio Kaku (34:41.920)
The fountain of youth will be found
Lex Fridman (34:44.040)
by artificial intelligence.
Michio Kaku (34:46.160)
Artificial intelligence will identify
Lex Fridman (34:48.800)
where these age genes are located.
Lex Fridman (34:52.200)
First of all, what is aging?
Lex Fridman (34:53.800)
We now know what aging is.
Michio Kaku (34:55.840)
Aging is the buildup of errors.
Lex Fridman (34:59.680)
That's all aging is, the buildup of genetic errors.
Michio Kaku (35:03.560)
This means that cells eventually become slower, sluggish,
Lex Fridman (35:07.360)
they go into senescence, and they die.
Michio Kaku (35:10.480)
In fact, that's why we die.
Lex Fridman (35:13.720)
We die because of the buildup of mistakes
Michio Kaku (35:16.840)
in our genome, in our cellular activity.
Lex Fridman (35:20.720)
But you see, in the future, we'll be able to fix those genes
Michio Kaku (35:23.120)
with CRISPR type technologies,
Lex Fridman (35:25.440)
and perhaps even live forever.
Lex Fridman (35:27.400)
So let me ask you a question.
Lex Fridman (35:29.160)
Where does aging take place in a car?
Lex Fridman (35:32.120)
Given a car, where does aging take place?
Lex Fridman (35:34.640)
Well, it's obvious, the engine, right?
Michio Kaku (35:37.520)
A, that's where you have a lot of moving parts.
Lex Fridman (35:39.960)
B, that's where you have combustion.
Lex Fridman (35:41.760)
Well, where in the cell do we have combustion?
Lex Fridman (35:47.160)
The mitochondria.
Michio Kaku (35:48.760)
We now know where aging takes place.
Lex Fridman (35:52.000)
And if we cure many of the mistakes that build up
Michio Kaku (35:55.000)
in the mitochondria of the cell, we could become immortal.
Lex Fridman (35:59.360)
Let me ask you, if you yourself could become immortal,
Lex Fridman (36:03.400)
would you?
Lex Fridman (36:06.280)
Damn straight.
Michio Kaku (36:07.120)
No, I think about it for a while,
Lex Fridman (36:10.280)
because of course, it depends on how you become immortal.
Michio Kaku (36:14.880)
You know, there's a famous myth of Tithonus.
Lex Fridman (36:17.560)
It turns out that years ago, in the Greek mythology,
Michio Kaku (36:21.640)
there was the saga of Tithonus and Aurora.
Lex Fridman (36:25.280)
Aurora was the goddess of the dawn,
Lex Fridman (36:28.360)
and she fell in love with a mortal, a human called Tithonus.
Lex Fridman (36:32.120)
And so Aurora begged Zeus to grant her
Michio Kaku (36:37.440)
the gift of immortality to give to her lover.
Lex Fridman (36:42.240)
So Zeus took pity on Aurora and made Tithonus immortal.
Lex Fridman (36:47.080)
But you see, Aurora made a mistake,
Lex Fridman (36:49.600)
a huge mistake.
Michio Kaku (36:52.440)
She asked for immortality,
Lex Fridman (36:54.800)
but she forgot to ask for eternal youth.
Lex Fridman (36:59.160)
So poor Tithonus got older and older and older every year,
Lex Fridman (37:03.520)
decrepit, a bag of bones, but he could never die.
Michio Kaku (37:08.600)
Never die.
Lex Fridman (37:09.440)
Quality of life is important.
Lex Fridman (37:11.600)
So I think immortality is a great idea,
Lex Fridman (37:14.640)
as long as you also have immortal youth as well.
Michio Kaku (37:18.120)
Now, I personally believe, and I cannot prove this,
Lex Fridman (37:20.800)
but I personally believe that our grandkids
Michio Kaku (37:22.680)
may have the option of reaching the age of 30
Lex Fridman (37:26.200)
and then stopping.
Michio Kaku (37:28.240)
They may like being age 30,
Lex Fridman (37:30.880)
because you have wisdom,
Michio Kaku (37:32.400)
you have all the benefits of age and maturity,
Lex Fridman (37:35.720)
and you still live forever with a healthy body.
Michio Kaku (37:39.280)
Our descendants may like being 30 for several centuries.
Lex Fridman (37:43.240)
Is there an aspect of human existence
Lex Fridman (37:45.280)
that is meaningful only because we're mortal?
Lex Fridman (37:49.520)
Well, every waking moment,
Michio Kaku (37:52.120)
we don't think about it this way,
Lex Fridman (37:53.880)
but every waking moment,
Michio Kaku (37:55.200)
actually, we are aware of our death and our mortality.
Lex Fridman (38:00.240)
Think about it for a moment.
Michio Kaku (38:01.280)
When you go to college,
Lex Fridman (38:03.320)
you realize that you are in a period of time
Michio Kaku (38:05.880)
where soon you will reach middle age and have a career.
Lex Fridman (38:10.320)
And after that, you'll retire and then you'll die.
Lex Fridman (38:13.840)
And so even as a youth, even as a child,
Lex Fridman (38:17.280)
without even thinking about it,
Michio Kaku (38:19.560)
you are aware of your own death,
Lex Fridman (38:21.840)
because it sets limits to your lifespan.
Michio Kaku (38:24.680)
I gotta graduate from high school.
Lex Fridman (38:26.240)
I gotta graduate from college.
Lex Fridman (38:27.840)
Why?
Lex Fridman (38:28.880)
Because you're gonna die.
Michio Kaku (38:30.320)
Because unless you graduate from high school,
Lex Fridman (38:32.920)
unless you graduate from college,
Michio Kaku (38:34.640)
you're not gonna enter old age with enough money
Lex Fridman (38:37.280)
to retire and then die.
Lex Fridman (38:39.480)
And so, yeah, people think about it unconsciously,
Lex Fridman (38:42.640)
because it affects every aspect of your being.
Michio Kaku (38:46.920)
The fact that you go to high school, college,
Lex Fridman (38:49.240)
get married, have kids, there's a clock,
Michio Kaku (38:52.240)
a clock ticking even without your permission.
Lex Fridman (38:56.600)
It gives a sense of urgency.
Lex Fridman (38:58.160)
Do you yourself, I mean,
Lex Fridman (39:01.040)
there's so much excitement and passion
Michio Kaku (39:03.000)
in the way you talk about physics
Lex Fridman (39:04.520)
and the way you talk about technology in the future.
Lex Fridman (39:07.960)
Do you yourself meditate on your own mortality?
Lex Fridman (39:11.400)
Do you think about this clock that's ticking?
Michio Kaku (39:14.600)
Well, I try not to,
Lex Fridman (39:15.800)
because it then begins to affect your behavior.
Michio Kaku (39:19.600)
You begin to alter your behavior
Lex Fridman (39:21.960)
to match your expectation of when you're gonna die.
Lex Fridman (39:26.280)
So let's talk about youth,
Lex Fridman (39:27.880)
and then let's talk about death, okay?
Michio Kaku (39:31.040)
When I interview scientists on radio,
Lex Fridman (39:34.840)
I often ask them, what made the difference?
Lex Fridman (39:37.960)
How old were you?
Lex Fridman (39:39.400)
What changed your life?
Lex Fridman (39:41.920)
And they always say more or less the same thing.
Lex Fridman (39:44.080)
No, these are Nobel Prize winners,
Michio Kaku (39:45.600)
directors of major laboratories,
Lex Fridman (39:47.040)
very distinguished scientists.
Michio Kaku (39:48.800)
They always say, when I was 10,
Lex Fridman (39:52.960)
when I was 10, something happened.
Michio Kaku (39:55.480)
It was a visit to the planetarium.
Lex Fridman (39:57.720)
It was a telescope.
Michio Kaku (39:59.400)
For Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize,
Lex Fridman (40:01.920)
it was the chemistry kit.
Michio Kaku (40:03.840)
For Heinz Pagels, it was a visit to the planetarium.
Lex Fridman (40:07.240)
For Isidor Rabi, it was a book about the planets.
Michio Kaku (40:10.880)
For Albert Einstein, it was a compass.
Lex Fridman (40:14.120)
Something happened,
Michio Kaku (40:15.560)
which gives them this existential shock.
Lex Fridman (40:18.840)
Because you see, before the age of 10,
Michio Kaku (40:20.440)
everything is mommy and daddy, mommy and dad.
Lex Fridman (40:22.520)
That's your universe, mommy and daddy.
Michio Kaku (40:25.000)
Around the age of 10, you begin to wonder,
Lex Fridman (40:27.480)
what's beyond mommy and daddy?
Lex Fridman (40:30.680)
And that's when you have this epiphany,
Lex Fridman (40:33.560)
when you realize, oh my God, there's a universe out there,
Michio Kaku (40:38.880)
a universe of discovery.
Lex Fridman (40:40.360)
And that sensation stays with you for the rest of your life.
Michio Kaku (40:45.520)
You still remember that shock
Lex Fridman (40:47.880)
that you felt gazing at the universe.
Lex Fridman (40:50.800)
And then you hit the greatest destroyer of scientists
Lex Fridman (40:55.440)
known to science.
Michio Kaku (40:57.560)
The greatest destroyer of scientists known to science
Lex Fridman (41:02.480)
is junior high school.
Michio Kaku (41:05.560)
When you hit junior high school, folks, it's all over.
Lex Fridman (41:08.840)
It's all over.
Michio Kaku (41:10.720)
Because in junior high school, people say, hey, stupid.
Lex Fridman (41:14.640)
I mean, you like that nerdy stuff.
Lex Fridman (41:17.600)
And your friends shun you.
Lex Fridman (41:19.800)
All of a sudden, people think you're a weirdo.
Lex Fridman (41:22.560)
And scientists made boring.
Lex Fridman (41:25.640)
Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winner,
Michio Kaku (41:27.440)
when he was a child,
Lex Fridman (41:29.000)
his father would take him into the forest.
Lex Fridman (41:31.520)
And the father would teach him everything about birds,
Lex Fridman (41:35.080)
why they're shaped the way they are,
Michio Kaku (41:36.960)
their wings, the coloration, the shape of their beak,
Lex Fridman (41:40.520)
everything about birds.
Lex Fridman (41:43.080)
So one day, a bully comes up
Lex Fridman (41:44.440)
to the future Nobel Prize winner and says,
Lex Fridman (41:47.000)
hey, Dick, what's the name of that bird over there?
Lex Fridman (41:51.360)
Well, he didn't know.
Michio Kaku (41:53.040)
He knew everything about that bird except its name.
Lex Fridman (41:58.760)
So he said, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (42:00.960)
And then the bully said, what's the matter, Dick?
Lex Fridman (42:03.080)
You stupid or something?
Lex Fridman (42:05.200)
And then in that instant, he got it.
Lex Fridman (42:08.720)
He got it.
Michio Kaku (42:09.960)
He realized that for most people,
Lex Fridman (42:12.040)
science is giving names to birds.
Michio Kaku (42:15.960)
That's what science is.
Lex Fridman (42:17.480)
You know lots of names of obscure things.
Michio Kaku (42:19.800)
Hey, people say, you're smart.
Lex Fridman (42:21.720)
You're smart.
Michio Kaku (42:22.800)
You know all the names of the dinosaurs.
Lex Fridman (42:24.640)
You know all the names of the plants.
Michio Kaku (42:26.560)
No, that's not science at all.
Lex Fridman (42:29.880)
Science is about principles, concepts, physical pictures.
Michio Kaku (42:36.440)
That's what science is all about.
Lex Fridman (42:38.560)
My favorite quote from Einstein is that,
Michio Kaku (42:41.600)
unless you can explain the theory to a child,
Lex Fridman (42:44.720)
the theory is probably worthless.
Michio Kaku (42:47.800)
Meaning that all great theories are not big words.
Lex Fridman (42:52.720)
All great theories are simple concepts, principles,
Michio Kaku (42:57.520)
basic physical pictures.
Lex Fridman (43:00.440)
Relativity is all about clocks, meter sticks,
Michio Kaku (43:04.480)
rocket ships and locomotives.
Lex Fridman (43:07.160)
Newton's laws of gravity are all about balls
Lex Fridman (43:10.040)
and spinning wheels and things like that.
Lex Fridman (43:13.160)
That's what physics and science is all about,
Michio Kaku (43:15.760)
not memorizing things.
Lex Fridman (43:17.480)
And that stays with you for the rest of your life.
Lex Fridman (43:20.840)
So even in old age, I've noticed that these scientists,
Lex Fridman (43:24.600)
when they sit back, they still remember.
Michio Kaku (43:28.000)
They still remember that flush,
Lex Fridman (43:30.480)
that flush of excitement they felt with that first telescope,
Michio Kaku (43:34.880)
that first moment when they encountered the universe.
Lex Fridman (43:38.640)
That keeps them going.
Michio Kaku (43:40.040)
That keeps them going.
Lex Fridman (43:42.800)
By the way, I should point out that when I was eight,
Michio Kaku (43:46.200)
something happened to me as well.
Lex Fridman (43:49.240)
When I was eight years old, it was in all the papers
Michio Kaku (43:53.680)
that a great scientist had just died.
Lex Fridman (43:56.720)
And they put a picture of his desk on the front page.
Michio Kaku (44:00.760)
That's it, just a simple picture of the front page
Lex Fridman (44:03.920)
of the newspapers of his desk.
Michio Kaku (44:06.200)
That desk had a book on it, which was opened.
Lex Fridman (44:09.120)
And the caption said more or less,
Michio Kaku (44:11.400)
this is the unfinished manuscript
Lex Fridman (44:14.200)
from the greatest scientists of our time.
Lex Fridman (44:17.520)
So I said to myself, well, why couldn't he finish it?
Lex Fridman (44:22.160)
What's so hard that you can't finish it
Lex Fridman (44:25.720)
if you're a great scientist?
Lex Fridman (44:26.840)
It's a homework problem, right?
Michio Kaku (44:28.880)
You go home, you solve it, or you ask your mom,
Lex Fridman (44:32.000)
why couldn't he solve it?
Lex Fridman (44:33.680)
So to me, this was a murder mystery.
Lex Fridman (44:35.520)
This was greater than any adventure story.
Michio Kaku (44:37.800)
I had to know why the greatest scientists of our time
Lex Fridman (44:41.000)
couldn't finish something.
Lex Fridman (44:43.160)
And then over the years, I found out the guy had a name,
Lex Fridman (44:46.480)
Albert Einstein, and that book was The Theory of Everything.
Michio Kaku (44:51.480)
It was unfinished.
Lex Fridman (44:53.080)
Well, today I can read that book.
Michio Kaku (44:55.760)
I can see all the dead ends and false starts that he made.
Lex Fridman (44:59.320)
And I began to realize that he lost his way
Michio Kaku (45:02.120)
because he didn't have a physical picture
Lex Fridman (45:05.920)
to guide him on the third try.
Michio Kaku (45:09.400)
On the first try, he talked about clocks
Lex Fridman (45:12.560)
and lightning bolts and meter sticks,
Lex Fridman (45:15.040)
and that gave us special relativity,
Lex Fridman (45:17.280)
which gave us the atomic bomb.
Michio Kaku (45:19.840)
The second great picture was gravity
Lex Fridman (45:23.040)
with balls rolling on curved surfaces.
Lex Fridman (45:26.320)
And that gave us the Big Bang,
Lex Fridman (45:28.200)
creation of the universe, black holes.
Michio Kaku (45:30.960)
On the third try, he missed it.
Lex Fridman (45:34.200)
He had no picture at all to guide him.
Michio Kaku (45:38.120)
In fact, there's a quote I have where he said,
Lex Fridman (45:40.160)
I'm still looking.
Michio Kaku (45:41.600)
I'm still looking for that picture.
Lex Fridman (45:44.280)
He never found it.
Michio Kaku (45:45.800)
Well, today we think that picture is strength theory.
Lex Fridman (45:49.320)
The strength theory can unify gravity
Lex Fridman (45:52.240)
and this mysterious thing that Einstein didn't like,
Lex Fridman (45:54.720)
which is quantum mechanics,
Michio Kaku (45:55.840)
or couldn't quite pin down and make sense of.
Lex Fridman (45:59.240)
That's right.
Michio Kaku (46:00.080)
Mother nature has two hands, a left hand and a right hand.
Lex Fridman (46:02.880)
The left hand is a theory of the small.
Michio Kaku (46:05.200)
The right hand is a theory of the big.
Lex Fridman (46:07.720)
The theory of the small is the quantum theory,
Michio Kaku (46:09.880)
the theory of atoms and quarks.
Lex Fridman (46:11.920)
The theory of the big is relativity,
Michio Kaku (46:13.960)
the theory of black holes, big bangs.
Lex Fridman (46:16.360)
The problem is the left hand does not talk to the right hand.
Michio Kaku (46:22.600)
They hate each other.
Lex Fridman (46:24.520)
The left hand is based on discrete particles.
Michio Kaku (46:27.400)
The right hand is based on smooth surfaces.
Lex Fridman (46:31.080)
How do you put these two things together
Lex Fridman (46:33.240)
into a single theory?
Lex Fridman (46:34.280)
They hate each other.
Michio Kaku (46:35.880)
The greatest minds of our time,
Lex Fridman (46:38.200)
the greatest minds of our time
Michio Kaku (46:40.200)
worked on this problem and failed.
Lex Fridman (46:43.280)
Today, the only theory that has survived
Michio Kaku (46:46.720)
every challenge so far is string theory.
Lex Fridman (46:49.520)
That doesn't mean string theory is correct.
Michio Kaku (46:51.600)
It could very well be wrong,
Lex Fridman (46:53.360)
but right now it's the only game in town.
Michio Kaku (46:56.240)
Some people come up to me and say,
Lex Fridman (46:57.760)
''Professor, I don't believe in string theory.
Michio Kaku (47:00.240)
Give me an alternative.''
Lex Fridman (47:02.720)
And I tell them there is none.
Michio Kaku (47:05.760)
Get used to it.
Lex Fridman (47:07.760)
It's the best theory we got.
Michio Kaku (47:09.360)
It's the only theory we have.
Lex Fridman (47:10.880)
It's the only theory we have.
Lex Fridman (47:13.080)
Do you see, you know,
Lex Fridman (47:16.000)
the strings kind of inspire a view,
Michio Kaku (47:20.160)
as did atoms and particles and quarks,
Lex Fridman (47:23.120)
but especially strings inspire a view of a universe
Michio Kaku (47:26.720)
as a kind of information processing system,
Lex Fridman (47:29.000)
as a computer of sorts.
Lex Fridman (47:31.560)
Do you see the universe in this way?
Lex Fridman (47:33.680)
No.
Michio Kaku (47:34.960)
Some people think, in fact,
Lex Fridman (47:36.320)
the whole universe is a computer of some sort.
Lex Fridman (47:39.840)
And they believe that perhaps everything,
Lex Fridman (47:42.600)
therefore, is a simulation.
Michio Kaku (47:44.040)
Yes.
Lex Fridman (47:45.040)
I don't think so.
Michio Kaku (47:46.360)
I don't think that there is a super video game
Lex Fridman (47:49.320)
where we are nothing but puppets dancing on the screen
Lex Fridman (47:52.680)
and somebody hit the play button
Lex Fridman (47:54.480)
and here we are talking about simulations.
Michio Kaku (47:57.560)
No.
Lex Fridman (47:58.480)
Even Newtonian mechanics says that the weather,
Michio Kaku (48:02.760)
the simple weather is so complicated
Lex Fridman (48:04.840)
with trillions upon trillions of atoms
Michio Kaku (48:07.320)
that it cannot be simulated in a finite amount of time.
Lex Fridman (48:10.840)
In other words, the smallest object
Michio Kaku (48:13.880)
which can describe the weather
Lex Fridman (48:17.280)
and simulate the weather is the weather itself.
Michio Kaku (48:21.360)
The smallest object that can simulate a human
Lex Fridman (48:24.360)
is the human itself.
Lex Fridman (48:26.960)
And if you had quantum mechanics,
Lex Fridman (48:28.840)
it becomes almost impossible
Michio Kaku (48:31.360)
to simulate it with a conventional computer.
Lex Fridman (48:34.800)
This quantum mechanics deals with all possible universes,
Michio Kaku (48:38.600)
parallel universes, a multiverse of universes.
Lex Fridman (48:42.440)
And so the calculation just spirals out of control.
Michio Kaku (48:46.640)
Now, so far, there's only one way
Lex Fridman (48:49.760)
where you might be able to argue
Michio Kaku (48:52.320)
that the universe is a simulation.
Lex Fridman (48:54.160)
And this is still being debated by quantum physicists.
Michio Kaku (48:58.320)
It turns out that if you throw the encyclopedia
Lex Fridman (49:00.520)
into a black hole, the information is not lost.
Michio Kaku (49:04.000)
Eventually it winds up on the surface of the black hole.
Lex Fridman (49:07.600)
Now, the surface of the black hole is finite.
Michio Kaku (49:09.960)
In fact, you can calculate
Lex Fridman (49:11.640)
the maximum amount of information
Michio Kaku (49:13.520)
you can store in a black hole.
Lex Fridman (49:15.640)
It's a finite number.
Michio Kaku (49:17.160)
It's a calculable number, believe it or not.
Lex Fridman (49:19.720)
Now, if the universe were made out of black holes,
Michio Kaku (49:21.720)
which is the maximum universe you can conceive of,
Lex Fridman (49:25.000)
each universe, each black hole
Michio Kaku (49:27.160)
has a finite amount of information.
Lex Fridman (49:29.640)
Therefore, ergo, da da!
Michio Kaku (49:32.560)
Ergo, the total amount of information in a universe
Lex Fridman (49:37.080)
is finite.
Michio Kaku (49:38.880)
This is mind boggling.
Lex Fridman (49:40.480)
This, I consider mind boggling,
Michio Kaku (49:42.960)
that all possible universes are countable
Lex Fridman (49:46.600)
and all possible universes can be summarized in a number,
Michio Kaku (49:50.000)
a number you can write on a sheet of paper,
Lex Fridman (49:52.040)
all possible universes, and it's a finite number.
Michio Kaku (49:55.160)
Now, it's huge.
Lex Fridman (49:56.600)
It's a number beyond human imagination.
Michio Kaku (49:59.560)
It's a number based on what is called a Planck length,
Lex Fridman (50:01.960)
but it's a number.
Lex Fridman (50:03.680)
And so if a computer could ever simulate that number,
Lex Fridman (50:07.560)
then the universe would be a simulation.
Lex Fridman (50:10.080)
So theoretically, because the amount of information
Lex Fridman (50:13.960)
is finite, well, there necessarily must be able
Michio Kaku (50:18.520)
to exist a computer.
Lex Fridman (50:19.880)
It's just, from an engineering perspective,
Michio Kaku (50:21.840)
maybe impossible to build.
Lex Fridman (50:24.080)
Yes, no computer can build a universe
Michio Kaku (50:26.920)
capable of simulating the entire universe,
Lex Fridman (50:29.280)
except the universe itself.
Lex Fridman (50:31.000)
So that's your intuition, that our universe
Lex Fridman (50:34.040)
is very efficient, and so there's no shortcuts.
Michio Kaku (50:37.960)
Right, two reasons why I believe the universe
Lex Fridman (50:40.040)
is not a simulation.
Michio Kaku (50:41.320)
First, the calculational numbers are just incredible.
Lex Fridman (50:44.480)
No finite Turing machine can simulate the universe.
Lex Fridman (50:48.320)
And second, why would any super intelligent being
Lex Fridman (50:52.120)
simulate humans?
Michio Kaku (50:54.400)
If you think about it, most humans are kind of stupid.
Lex Fridman (50:57.960)
I mean, we do all sorts of crazy, stupid things, right?
Lex Fridman (51:01.040)
And we call it art, we call it humor.
Lex Fridman (51:03.880)
We call it human civilization.
Lex Fridman (51:06.280)
So why should an advanced civilization
Lex Fridman (51:08.800)
go through all that effort just to simulate Saturday Night
Lex Fridman (51:12.680)
Live?
Lex Fridman (51:14.280)
Well, that's a funny idea, but it's also,
Lex Fridman (51:16.400)
do you think it's possible that the act of creation
Lex Fridman (51:20.200)
cannot anticipate humans?
Michio Kaku (51:22.080)
You simply set the initial conditions
Lex Fridman (51:23.760)
and set a bunch of physical laws,
Lex Fridman (51:26.000)
and just for the fun of it, see what happens.
Lex Fridman (51:28.760)
You launch the thing, so you're not necessarily
Michio Kaku (51:30.720)
simulating everything.
Lex Fridman (51:31.680)
You're not simulating every little bit in the sense
Michio Kaku (51:35.320)
that you could predict what's going to happen,
Lex Fridman (51:37.720)
but you set the initial conditions, set the laws,
Lex Fridman (51:40.960)
and see what kind of fun stuff happens.
Lex Fridman (51:43.200)
Well, in some sense, that's how life got started.
Michio Kaku (51:46.960)
In the 1950s, Stanley did what is called
Lex Fridman (51:50.120)
the Miller experiment.
Michio Kaku (51:51.800)
He put a bunch of hydrogen gas, methane, toxic gases
Lex Fridman (51:57.800)
with liquid and a spark in a small glass beaker.
Lex Fridman (52:02.400)
And then he just walked away for a few weeks,
Lex Fridman (52:05.080)
came back a few weeks later, and bingo.
Michio Kaku (52:08.480)
Out of nothing and chaos came amino acids.
Lex Fridman (52:12.840)
If he had left it there for a few years,
Michio Kaku (52:14.960)
he might have gotten protein, protein molecules for free.
Lex Fridman (52:19.200)
That's probably how life got started, as a accident.
Lex Fridman (52:23.720)
And if he had left it there for perhaps a few million years,
Lex Fridman (52:26.960)
DNA might have formed in that beaker.
Lex Fridman (52:30.840)
And so we think that, yeah, DNA, life, all that
Lex Fridman (52:34.080)
could have been an accident if you wait long enough.
Lex Fridman (52:38.480)
And remember, our universe is roughly 13.8 billion years old.
Lex Fridman (52:42.560)
That's plenty of time for lots of random things
Michio Kaku (52:45.600)
to happen, including life itself.
Lex Fridman (52:51.360)
Yeah, we could be just a beautiful little random moment.
Lex Fridman (52:56.920)
And there could be an infinite number
Lex Fridman (52:59.120)
of those throughout the history of the universe,
Michio Kaku (53:02.320)
many creatures like us.
Lex Fridman (53:04.640)
We perhaps are not the epitome of what
Michio Kaku (53:06.480)
the universe is created for.
Lex Fridman (53:07.960)
Thank God.
Michio Kaku (53:09.880)
Let's hope not.
Lex Fridman (53:11.600)
Just look around.
Michio Kaku (53:12.440)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (53:13.640)
Look to your left, look to your right.
Lex Fridman (53:16.160)
When do you think the first human will step foot on Mars?
Lex Fridman (53:20.400)
I think it's a good chance in the 2030s
Michio Kaku (53:23.360)
that we will be on Mars.
Lex Fridman (53:25.280)
In fact, there's no physics reason why we can't do it.
Michio Kaku (53:29.480)
It's an engineering problem.
Lex Fridman (53:31.320)
It's a very difficult and dangerous engineering problem,
Lex Fridman (53:34.480)
but it is an engineering problem.
Lex Fridman (53:36.600)
And in my book, Future of Humanity,
Michio Kaku (53:38.640)
I even speculate beyond that, that by the end
Lex Fridman (53:41.880)
of this century, we'll probably have the first starships.
Michio Kaku (53:45.720)
The first starships will not look
Lex Fridman (53:47.360)
like the Enterprise at all.
Michio Kaku (53:49.080)
They'll probably be small computer chips
Lex Fridman (53:51.680)
that are fired by laser beams with parachutes.
Lex Fridman (53:54.760)
And like what Stephen Hawking advocated,
Lex Fridman (53:58.400)
the Breakthrough Starshot program
Michio Kaku (54:00.160)
could send ships to the nearby stars,
Lex Fridman (54:02.920)
traveling at 20% the speed of light,
Michio Kaku (54:05.400)
reaching Alpha Centauri in about 20 years time.
Lex Fridman (54:09.080)
Beyond that, we should have fusion power.
Michio Kaku (54:12.880)
Fusion power is, in some sense, one
Lex Fridman (54:15.880)
of the ultimate sources of energy, but it's unstable.
Lex Fridman (54:19.720)
And we don't have fusion power today.
Lex Fridman (54:22.600)
Now, why is that?
Michio Kaku (54:23.720)
First of all, stars form almost for free.
Lex Fridman (54:26.160)
You get a bunch of gas large enough, it becomes a star.
Michio Kaku (54:29.560)
I mean, you don't even have to do anything to it,
Lex Fridman (54:31.920)
and it becomes a star.
Lex Fridman (54:33.480)
Why is fusion so difficult to put on the Earth?
Lex Fridman (54:37.440)
Because in outer space, stars are monopoles.
Michio Kaku (54:40.120)
They are pole, single poles that are spherically symmetric.
Lex Fridman (54:44.880)
And it's very easy to get spherically symmetric
Michio Kaku (54:47.400)
configurations of gas to compress into a star.
Lex Fridman (54:51.160)
It just happens naturally all by itself.
Michio Kaku (54:53.800)
The problem is magnetism is bipolar.
Lex Fridman (54:56.800)
You have a North Pole and a South Pole.
Lex Fridman (54:59.200)
And it's like trying to squeeze a long balloon.
Lex Fridman (55:02.320)
Take a long balloon and try to squeeze it.
Michio Kaku (55:04.960)
You squeeze one side, it bulges out the other side.
Lex Fridman (55:08.240)
Well, that's the problem with fusion machines.
Michio Kaku (55:10.560)
We use magnetism with a North Pole and a South Pole
Lex Fridman (55:13.440)
to squeeze gas, and all sorts of anomalies
Lex Fridman (55:17.560)
and horrible configurations can take place
Lex Fridman (55:20.240)
because we're not squeezing something uniformly
Michio Kaku (55:23.440)
like in a star.
Lex Fridman (55:24.920)
Stars, in some sense, are for free.
Michio Kaku (55:27.200)
Fusion on the Earth is very difficult.
Lex Fridman (55:31.120)
But I think it's inevitable.
Lex Fridman (55:32.960)
And it'll eventually give us unlimited power from seawater.
Lex Fridman (55:37.000)
So seawater will be the ultimate source of energy
Michio Kaku (55:39.880)
for the planet Earth.
Lex Fridman (55:41.160)
Why?
Lex Fridman (55:41.680)
What's the intuition there?
Lex Fridman (55:42.760)
Because we'll extract hydrogen from seawater,
Michio Kaku (55:45.440)
burn hydrogen in a fusion reactor
Lex Fridman (55:47.760)
to give us unlimited energy without the meltdown,
Michio Kaku (55:52.200)
without the nuclear waste.
Lex Fridman (55:53.960)
Why do we have meltdowns?
Michio Kaku (55:55.680)
We have meltdowns because in the fusion reactors,
Lex Fridman (55:57.920)
every time you split the uranium atom, you get nuclear waste.
Michio Kaku (56:00.760)
Tons of it.
Lex Fridman (56:01.720)
30 tons of nuclear waste per reactor per year.
Lex Fridman (56:07.080)
And it's hot.
Lex Fridman (56:08.400)
It's hot for thousands, millions of years.
Michio Kaku (56:11.200)
That's why we have meltdowns.
Lex Fridman (56:13.200)
But you see, the waste product of a fusion reactor
Michio Kaku (56:15.680)
is helium gas.
Lex Fridman (56:17.480)
Helium gas is actually commercially valuable.
Michio Kaku (56:19.880)
You can make money selling helium gas.
Lex Fridman (56:22.320)
And so the waste product of a fusion reactor
Michio Kaku (56:24.960)
is helium, not nuclear waste that we find
Lex Fridman (56:28.600)
in a commercial fission plant.
Lex Fridman (56:30.720)
And that controlling, mastering and controlling fusion
Lex Fridman (56:34.240)
allows us to, converts us into a type one,
Lex Fridman (56:38.320)
I guess, civilization, right?
Lex Fridman (56:40.200)
Yeah, probably the backbone of a type one civilization
Michio Kaku (56:43.280)
will be fusion power.
Lex Fridman (56:45.720)
We, by the way, are type zero.
Michio Kaku (56:47.760)
We don't even rate on this scale.
Lex Fridman (56:49.600)
We get our energy from dead plants, for God's sake,
Michio Kaku (56:52.080)
oil and coal.
Lex Fridman (56:53.560)
But we are about 100 years from being type one.
Michio Kaku (56:56.320)
Get a calculator.
Lex Fridman (56:57.680)
In fact, Carl Sagan calculated that we
Michio Kaku (56:59.960)
are about 0.7, fairly close to a 1.0.
Lex Fridman (57:05.640)
For example, what is the internet?
Michio Kaku (57:08.720)
The internet is the beginning of the first type one technology
Lex Fridman (57:12.280)
to enter into our century.
Michio Kaku (57:14.080)
The first planetary technology is the internet.
Lex Fridman (57:17.400)
What is the language of type one?
Michio Kaku (57:19.840)
On the internet already, English and Mandarin Chinese
Lex Fridman (57:23.400)
are the most dominant languages on the internet.
Lex Fridman (57:26.880)
And what about the culture?
Lex Fridman (57:29.360)
We're seeing a type one sports, soccer, the Olympics,
Michio Kaku (57:34.560)
a type one music, youth culture, rock and roll, rap music,
Lex Fridman (57:38.920)
type one fashion, Gucci, Chanel, a type one economy,
Michio Kaku (57:42.920)
the European Union, NAFTA, what have you.
Lex Fridman (57:45.600)
So we're beginning to see the beginnings of a type one
Michio Kaku (57:49.280)
culture in a type one civilization.
Lex Fridman (57:52.200)
And inevitably, it will spread beyond this planet.
Lex Fridman (57:56.000)
So you talked about sending at 20% the speed of light
Lex Fridman (58:00.680)
on a chip into Alpha Centauri.
Lex Fridman (58:04.800)
But in a slightly nearer term, what
Lex Fridman (58:07.960)
do you think about the idea when we still have to send
Michio Kaku (58:11.120)
our biological bodies the colonization of planets,
Lex Fridman (58:15.240)
colonization of Mars?
Lex Fridman (58:16.560)
Do you see us becoming a two planet species ever
Lex Fridman (58:21.360)
or anytime soon?
Michio Kaku (58:23.120)
Well, just remember the dinosaurs
Lex Fridman (58:26.320)
did not have a space program.
Lex Fridman (58:28.760)
And that's why they're not here today.
Lex Fridman (58:30.440)
How come there are no dinosaurs in this room today?
Michio Kaku (58:33.640)
Because they didn't have a space program.
Lex Fridman (58:35.920)
We do have a space program, which
Michio Kaku (58:38.320)
means that we have an insurance policy.
Lex Fridman (58:40.760)
Now, I don't think we should bankrupt the Earth
Michio Kaku (58:43.080)
or deplete the Earth to go to Mars.
Lex Fridman (58:44.840)
That's too expensive and not practical.
Lex Fridman (58:47.360)
But we need a settlement, a settlement on Mars
Lex Fridman (58:50.560)
in case something bad happens to the planet Earth.
Lex Fridman (58:53.640)
And that means we have to terraform Mars.
Lex Fridman (58:56.400)
Now, to terraform Mars, if we could
Michio Kaku (58:58.600)
raise the temperature of Mars by six degrees, six degrees,
Lex Fridman (59:03.600)
then the polar ice caps begin to melt, releasing water vapor.
Michio Kaku (59:08.480)
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas.
Lex Fridman (59:10.600)
It causes even more melting of the ice caps.
Lex Fridman (59:13.400)
So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Lex Fridman (59:17.120)
It feeds on itself.
Michio Kaku (59:18.880)
It becomes autocatalytic.
Lex Fridman (59:21.240)
And so once you hit six degrees, rising
Michio Kaku (59:24.040)
of the temperature on Mars by six degrees, it takes off.
Lex Fridman (59:27.200)
And we melt the polar ice caps.
Lex Fridman (59:29.280)
And liquid water once again flows
Lex Fridman (59:32.600)
in the rivers, the canals, the channels,
Lex Fridman (59:35.840)
and the oceans of Mars.
Lex Fridman (59:38.440)
Mars once had an ocean, we think,
Michio Kaku (59:39.920)
about the size of the United States.
Lex Fridman (59:42.080)
And so that is a possibility.
Lex Fridman (59:44.320)
Now, how do we get there?
Lex Fridman (59:46.040)
How do we raise the temperature of Mars by six degrees?
Michio Kaku (59:49.040)
Elon Musk would like to detonate hydrogen warheads
Lex Fridman (59:51.680)
on the polar ice caps.
Michio Kaku (59:53.680)
Well, I'm not sure about that.
Lex Fridman (59:56.880)
Because we don't know that much about the effects
Michio Kaku (59:59.680)
of detonating hydrogen warheads to melt the polar ice caps.
🔗 相关节目