This video is episode two from the series “Examining the Big Questions of Time”. Stream the full series now on Wondrium http://www.Wondrium.com/YouTube.
Just a few decades ago, scientists were absolute in their determination that time began with the Big Bang. But that’s all been turned on its head with the rise of string theory and other fascinating developments in theoretical physics. Learn how those advances brought the pre-Bang universe to the forefront of cosmology.
00:00 Was the Big Bang Really the Beginning of Time? 04:18 Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. 07:22 Is Relativity Theory Always Valid? 09:06 Origins of String Theory. 13:51 Quantum Strings Introduce Dualities. 17:41 Why Can’t We Perceive All Dimensions of Space? 21:53 New Big Bang Theories and Controversy. 25:37 Observable Consequences of a Pre-Bang Epoch.
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Physicists from Japan and the U.S. used atoms about 3 billion times colder than interstellar space to open a portal to an unexplored realm of quantum magnetism.
“Unless an alien civilization is doing experiments like these right now, anytime this experiment is running at Kyoto University it is making the coldest fermions in the universe,” said Rice University’s Kaden Hazzard, corresponding theory author of a study published on September 1, 2022, in the journal Nature Physics.
As the name implies, Nature Physics is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal covering physics and is published by Nature Research. It was first published in October 2005 and its monthly coverage includes articles, letters, reviews, research highlights, news and views, commentaries, book reviews, and correspondence.
Human space exploration has had its share of successes, with our probes going far into interstellar space. But humans themselves haven’t made it past the Moon yet. If we’re ever to find other Earth-like planets or alien civilizations we have to be able to traverse the immense span of space much quicker. One potential invention that could make this a reality is a theoretical space drive known as the “Bussard collector” or “Ramjet propulsion”. A recent physics paper published in the journal Acta Astronautica considers the feasibility of this technology.
The thrust from the jet would theoretically allow the ship to reach relativistic speeds, while carrying no onboard fuel. The concept is based on the presence of high-energy particles in space, with hydrogen especially existing in an ionized state that can be affected by magnetic fields.
Dr. Joscha Bach is VP of Research at AI Foundation and Author of Principles of Synthetic Intelligence, focused on how our minds work, and how to build machines that can perceive, think, and learn.
SHOW NOTES 📝 0:00 Open. 0:17 Hello & welcome. 0:37 Dr. Joscha Bach bio and introduction. 0:56 “It’s an insane world; an amazing time to be alive“ 3:46 Conversation on the S-curve; current instability based on not handling aftermath of collapse of Industrial Revolution society with the advent of the Internet. 8:22 “Either kids or long-term civilization”; carbon sequestration involves not burning any carbon at all. 10:08 Organizing principles conflict with systems bent on infinite growth. 14:30 More on Dr. Bach at Cambridge; entrepreneurial journey leads to MIT and then AI Foundation. 16:23 Relationship between the physical world and our minds; pattern generation; types of computers. 18:10 Mathematics vs. Computation. 19:20 Accidental question-Dr. Bach’s thoughts on psychedelics. 20:27 Turing, “something is true if you can prove it“ 23:14 Quantum computing discussion; Minecraft CPU example; “is our universe efficiently implemented or inefficiently implemented?“ 23:50 Relationship between mind and universe; observational interface. 27:28 Materialism and idealism may complement each other. 29:08 Dream space neural architecture; “you and me are characters in a multimedia novel being authored by the brain”; the collective is part of your dream. 31:51 Necessity of ability to change the way you perceive vs. changing a physical world; perception upgrade is really a will or desire upgrade. 34:12 What is a model? Perspectives of variables and their relationship; probabilities. 35:58 Model convergence to truth aided by probabilities; motivations guide preferences. 38:00 People are born with ideas and then acquire preferences; motivation is how you regulate and push against reality; feedback loop from brain regulating body, awareness and unawareness of loops. 41:28 Needs don’t form a hierarchy; they coexist and compete. 43:00 “the shape of your soul is the hierarchy of your purposes“ 45:26 Neurons; dopamine and other brain chemicals speak many languages; “neurons get fed if you regulate what you want to regulate“ 48:50 Social interaction and brain chemistry; neurons work through pattern recognition, then patterns in the patterns. 51:43 Auditory (and all) senses build layers until we get a unified model of the world/universe. 53:24 Question-who’s in charge of the super-intelligence; single mind; which kind of system; sane/insane implementation. 59:50 Precepts; spatial intelligence; pattern to perception to worldview; intentional self. 1:02:36 Self controls simulations in the brain; “only a simulation can be conscious“ 1:05:05 “The reason why you perceive the world as meaningful is because it’s generated in your mind to model your meaning.“ 1:07:10 Everything you can perceive is generated by your mind; model of architecture. 1:11:45 Use of the DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex); “hippocampus has a script”; neurons individually not that important, somewhat interchangeable, just a signal processor. 1:14:52 “Are we individually intelligent?” Not generally so; generations of specialized people talked to each other; rebuilding efforts usually get foundations wrong; “it’s hard to wake a sleeping person; it’s impossible to wake a person pretending to sleep“ 1:17:52 “The family of good people” is a human condition; morals need to guide our decisions but not our model-making. 1:19:00 Human-centric social media; scientists and philosophers are mostly confused people, humble but without answers; Dunning-Kruger Effect. 1:20:40 More on social media; understanding the nature of reality; “which way can I be useful to other people?”; why are we drawn to things that don’t have utility, like politics on current social media. 1:24:20 Social media done right are individual thoughts in the same mind, “Gaia doesn’t exist but it would be very useful to have one”; endgame of social media is a global brain. 1:26:15 Current society optimized for short games; “tumors“ 1:29:02 Lebowski Theorem — “No super-intelligent system is going to do anything that is harder than hacking its own reward function“ 1:31:12 “Imagine you build an AI that is way smarter, why SHOULD it serve us?“ 1:32:20 “Maybe our motivational function is wrapped up in a big ball of stupid so we don’t debug it;” opting out of reality; how can we balance super-intelligence, will, and evolution or conditions of existence. 1:34:08 Philosophical remarks; reiteration that things are just happening, making it very difficult to predict outcomes; there isn’t a running simulation of a better society so it’s difficult to make changes. 1:36:15 Life is about cells, and cells are very rare. 1:38:08 Would have to be a larger, more imperceptible pattern around us and how would we know; Minecraft example.
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In this video I explain how the argument that the universe is finetuned for life works, why it’s wrong, how the mistake happens, and what that means for the existence of god and the multiverse.
“Intrinsically unstable, a wormhole would need ‘stuff’ with repulsive gravity to hold open each mouth, and the energy equivalent to that emitted by an appreciable fraction of the stars in a galaxy,” reads Science Focus’ story. The idea would be that “if ETs have created a network of wormholes, it might be detectable by gravitational microlensing.”
That technique has been used in the past to detect thousands of distant exoplanets and stars by detecting how they bend light. Whether it could be used to detect wormholes, to be clear, is an open question.
Fortunately, spotting wormholes isn’t our only shot at detecting life elsewhere in the universe. Science Focus also pointed to the search for theoretical megastructures that harness the energy of a star by fully enclosing it, or atmospheric chemicals linked to human pollution, or extremely thin reflective spacecraft called light sails, any of which could theoretically lead us to discover an extraterrestrial civilization.
The search for alien life is ramping up. But what if, instead of searching for signs of biology, we looked for something more familiar: an extraterrestrial civilisation.
We speak to astrobiologist and extraterrestrial researcher Dr Douglas Vakoch about transmitting messages into the cosmos in the hope of finding intelligent extraterrestrial life.
