Transcription
I mean, what what are your thoughts on life after death? Because again, I'm going to quote you and I've got to try and find I've got a whole list of quotes here, but you say life is a conduit through which energy in the universe passes. So, say a human, an animal, a plant dies. Where is that energy going?
Yeah. I mean, it's it's what is life? I mean, that's a very good question by the way. Um, the answer is we don't really know that there are two very famous books on the [laughter] reading list.
The reading list is immense. One is called what is life by Irvin Schrodinger which was a very famous book in the 40s that sort of predicted the existence of DNA which was discovered later. Um a a great friend of mine actually Paul nurse sir Paul nurse who's got a Nobel Prize who runs a Francis Crick Institute here in or founded it in London he wrote a book recently called what is life which is brilliant from Nobel Prize winning biologist and he ultimately says that we don't really know but you can pin some things down. So one as you said is it's it's something that happens. It's it's that there's energy a flow by by energy I mean what what do we do? We burn food in oxygen and if we stop burning food in oxygen then we die. So there's there's an energy in the way a steam engine does things. So there's that part of it.
And then there's information that it processes information as well. So that's what we do. We So there's an information component and an energy component. But the point is it's it just a fundamental level. It's no different to something like a a a computing device in the sense that it obeys these basic physical laws which there's got to be a source of of energy and you've got to be able to do things and and your structure is remains and things like that. So that would imply that it's the same as if you your iPhone will stop processing information if you take the battery out.
Yeah.
So it's dead. It's a dead iPhone then.
Um admittedly you can bring it back to life. So it's probably not a good energy because you [laughter] put the back you can recharge it which we can't do.
Currently.
So but you you get the the b the idea is that we and this was all the way back in Schrodinger's book. He said this in the 40s. Life obeys the laws of physics. So it is part of the physical universe. And so therefore you you don't have any there's no conceivable way that your your your conscious experience can persist when the the thing that that the machine stops working.
M.
So and that might sound harsh but I I would flip it around as we did before and say isn't it remarkable that there's this kind of thing it just it's just obeying the laws of physics and the laws of physics are pretty simple.
Yeah.
You know there only four forces of nature that we know of and and and it all started out as hydrogen helium 13.8 billion years ago.
And we managed to get into these patterns that can genuinely I I really mean it bring meaning to the universe.
Yeah. Do you find that that again personally enables you to look at your reactions to and I'm talking about everyday stuff here? You know, nothing particularly traumatic or extra stressful, but like the everyday either mundanity or or maybe it could be the bombardment of like outside news we're receiving daily or stuff you've got going on in the family home. Can you look at everything through the lens of science and go I'm reacting to this because of you know my history and the data and whatever can you can you apply it to your own life in that way.
Well, no, obviously I just get pissed off. [laughter] But but I think there is something to be said like you mentioned data. So it's quite liberating if you say you know like let's say you don't like flying for example. So some people don't like flying and you get nervous, but you can actually go and look at the data and find out that it's safe compared to other modes of transport.
Yeah.
So you could just say, "Okay, I'm not going to be scared of flying then."
Yeah.
If you really if you really can trust the data. So it does it is useful to look at facts are useful.
I agree.
Data is useful. I know it's difficult and I know that we all have different, you know, sort of things that worry us for different reasons and that's, you know, that's that's part of being human, but you can kind of liberate yourself a bit from it.
I agree. I think like I I don't deal with it so much now, but I had like really bad OCD at one point and you have to apply logic and fact to it because it's so illogical. It's so like fantastical and over the top and enlarged at times that you need to have whether it's like photo evidence, fact, data that you've done this thing before, it's nothing bad's going to happen.
Yeah.
And treat yourself like a machine, like a computer.
Yeah. Because I mean it's I mean you are basically I mean it's it's a good question. I did um at talking about the Cricst's podcast. I'm not promoting that, but I'll promote it anyway. [laughter] We here very friendly podcast. We'll promote other ones.
We do. There's a podcast called the question of science and I I love it actually and it's out at the moment. They're coming out once a week and it's just at the Crick Institute and it's just experts on a panel and I chair it and the audience ask questions. So it's like question time but with people who know what they're talking about basically is the difference.
Yeah. And um so we did one on we did for example can we cure cancer which because it's mainly a lot of the Cricst institute is cancer research and it was a tremendously optimistic program actually because you realize how rapid the progresses in understanding this disease and just looking at the statistics as you said earlier the survival rates anyway. So we did cancer, aging, dementia, those things. But also we did one on AI which was really interesting to me because the question is you know is there any difference between us and a a computer let's say. So so could you imagine they call it AGI a general artificial general intelligence that's like us rather than just a thing that does one thing at a time which is what we have now. And there was some debate actually and and the the more neurosciency people felt no that it's really very difficult that the human brain is much not that there's anything mystical going on but it's so complicated and it's all to do with our experience of the world. It's connected to our bodies. So you can't have a brain in a jar. you know that thing that you could just imagine just having taking your brain out and putting it in a thing and just but yeah so it's [laughter] like.
So I think the jury is still out on on whether we are just whether you could whether we now in our conversation whether we could be having this in a big computer.
Right it's kind of the are we living in a simulation kind of question.
And I think the jury seems to be still out amongst the experts on that whether biology ology is really difficult to simulate.
I mean, our brains are not that different to space in terms of the fact that there's so little we know still. There's so much more to be learned about how it works. And.
Yeah, it's it's amazing. I'll probably get it wrong now, but someone was telling me at the creek about some work they've done on on mice and they they they're looking at how they smell you the olactory sort of system and they had these sort of they're just beginning to see that there's there's little co-processes in the brain. So, so a smell will come in and this thing will kind of take that data which is just some it's the same data that comes from your eyes or your ears, right? They're all just neurons going in there. So, your brain figures out what is it? It's a smell thing. It's not a sight thing. And then what is it? And then what would that do? Where is it? So it sends some data to a spatial bit of the brain that is dealing with where it is and how far away it is. And then another bit to is it something you should not like or like like a reflex sort of thing or is it something that you use to build your model of the world? So is it telling you there's some a forest around the corner or something like that? And it's so remarkable that they're just beginning to map out which bits of the brain do this and and how they get the data and where they distribute it to. And it was amazing to me because you're right, we don't know.
We know a lot about it, but we don't know as much as we would like to know about it. It's like the universe, as you said, in that sense.
Yeah. And you know and we're we're living amongst you know I'm sure there's been bad poor mental health forever but.
It seems like and that's the sort of thing that I'm deeply interested in is people's mental health and how we can help ourselves better it and you know we're still yet to crack that one because we're in you know we're up shitz creek with that one at the moment.
Yeah. Yeah. I I think it all comes back to what we were talking about earlier that we've not figured out how to run a world definitely and we we've sort of figured out how to run societies but maybe we're not doing a very good job at the moment and I I.
I would guess it's something to do with the rate of change and the you know the the I I suppose social media and things have fed into that and we're having to live in a different way and interact with people in a different and we've not adapted to it.
And and but I think it's the it's the number one challenge that we face.
For all the reasons we've spoken about how valuable this society is. But you know, one of the one of the uh possible explanations for why we don't see any other civilizations out there is because they don't get very far. So if you think about us at the moment, it's only in the last century, half a century, that we've had the power to destroy ourselves.
Yeah.
And and we don't we've managed to avoid it. It's remarkable probably that for 70 years or so since the the invention of the atomic bomb, we haven't used them again.
Yeah.
After we used the 200 pound.
But we might do. And maybe there's there's a theory that essentially says it's too difficult to manage a planet.
So So when you when you have so many billion living things, people in this case on the planet, you just can't get along.
There's too many.
Yeah.
So I would hate that to be the case.
Because I think that we're so valuable and so rare.
Yeah.
But we don't really, you know, the progress we've made seems to be unraveling somewhat at the moment.
Yeah. I mean, as we are running out of time really quickly. There's so many different tangents again running out of time.
We [laughter] are like ah the world's whole civilization.
Um but I think one burning question I have and this is more from talking to my kids. So my son who is 12 is bang into science like it's his whole world. He loves it. He and I'm constantly trying to learn from him and go back to the drawing board with my like lack of scientific knowledge. And my daughter who's 10, she's, you know, I spoke to her in the car yesterday about this chat today and what would you ask Professor Brian Cox and it was all around aliens obviously.
Um, but there seems to be a point in the education system where girls are whether it's discouraged or feel like they don't have so much of a place in the science world and we can see that reflected throughout history with the few scientific women that are you know historically held up and shown as an example of someone that's done I can think of like Mar Cury and then I'm sort of out of ideas. How can we encourage women to get more into science or for young I think this starts at the school, doesn't it? How can we how can we really focus on that and ensure that we're creating space and room for young women to really find their place in this conversation?
I think as as you said, we have to and this applies to all fields actually. You have to when when a a a child shows interest in something, you've got to really make sure that you don't snuff out that curiosity that you encourage it. And also you're right that there's what could it be that's preventing girls going into science that it's quite complicated and and I the only bit I know is I was involved a few years ago now in um a prize the Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering which looked at this because engineering there's there's an equal problem if not a larger problem and one of the things that was found is that there are unconscious biases from parents If you think of engineering, your your view of what engineering is might be building a road with a with a hard hat on. Now, that's actually quite high-tech now and really interesting. But you might think, I don't want my daughter digging up roads, you know, with all these big blocons.
And so, in engineering, that is the case. And so then and it wouldn't be that it's very rare that parents would try and put their daughter off going into something but your reaction might not quite be might not be quite as encouraging as it should be because you might be under and so science maybe has that image that maybe you know like being a a rocky engineer for example and we have a shortage of spacecraft builders in the UK. We're very good at it. It's one of our big one of our great industries that we're worldleading in and we we don't have enough people going into the industry.
Wow.
So it could be that if if your your daughter you say which rocket building you might have this unconscious image of a load of geeky blo you know playing with computers or something. So, so that we have to make sure that teachers and parents re don't transfer any lack of understanding of the career to their daughters in this case, but it applies to sons as well. It's we try and let them do what they want to do and encourage them whichever way that they want to go.
Yeah. Yeah.
And then but and then you're right and then you get into more complicated issues about career structures which many industries have that um and that's true in academia as well that and people try to do that. So so yeah it's a very good question. Yeah.
But in terms of real youngsters I really believe that it's it's making sure that if you're like if your daughter says I'm interested in astronomy.
You go right.
Yeah.
So you take them outside and you start to know what the stars are. if you could you buy him some binoculars maybe and and which you can get you know and and and you can start you encourage it I think it's all about encouragement and not putting barriers in the way the the one thing I would say also is that it's really important as parents that you can if let's say you you haven't been to un let's say university you haven't been to university and your your son or daughter says I'd like to do that then you can go to the universities as a parent and you can find out what it's like because you might not know people who've been to university and that's one of the big blocks actually and so the universities are really happy if you say what would happen to my child if they came to where would they stay what the where would they live what because you might be anxious about that and you can transfer that to your child as well.
But all the universities higher education colleges all this are really happy if you come and say I don't I don't understand this myself can you show me and then you can provide encouragement and you can you can begin to remove the blocks that might be there.
Yeah. I think there's just some brilliant young women out there who are ready to change the world and it's it's exciting.
There are you know I mean you said about the scientists I mean so one one of the questions I get asked a lot is how do we know how far away the stars are? I got asked that in a school the other week. How do we know how far away the stars are? One of the most important measurements, it was a a great astronomer called Henrieta Levit who was the first to work out that there are some stars they call seed variable stars, but it allows you to work out how bright they actually are by looking at them. And she noticed that in the early part of the 20th century, that's the foundation. That work was used to prove that the Andromeda galaxy, which is our nearest neighboring galaxy, is far outside the Milky Way. But it was her work.
Yeah.
So there are actually quite quite a lot of famous women in the history of astronomy, but also science. But as you said, it's usually Mary Cury.
Yeah.
But there's I mean now.
I felt embarrassed that I couldn't think of any more earlier. I was like, I'm going to have to ask chat GPT because I'd like I need to like know about more of them. The men you can list off, but the women they're they're maybe harder to find. Maybe that's a slight block for young girls, too. They're not seeing it in history.
Yeah.
But there are increasing numbers now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Of role models. But you're right. It's just, you know, the history of science. I said that it really did start modern science in like 1600.
Yeah.
So those names like Newton and Einstein and you know, Galileo, they're men. But of course we're talking about a society in 1600.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So there's part of that I think just historically until you get to the 20th century it was extremely difficult to be a.