Dr. Brian Keating: A $200M observatory hunts cosmic origins

Brian Keating 0:00 This is the shrapnel of an exploded star, and this is a meteorite scoop from over four billion years ago. And this is what Elon will kill for.

Steven Bartlett 0:10 Wow.

Brian Keating 0:11 And all of this is to understand that fundamental question, people wanna know, how did we get here?

Steven Bartlett 0:15 And how does the question of God tie into all of this?

Brian Keating 0:18 Well, for the first time in history, we might be able to answer that question with scientific hard data.

Narrator 0:23 Brian Keating is an astrophysicist and professor whose groundbreaking research and digestible explanations uncover everything we want to know about the universe and what lies beyond.

Brian Keating 0:32 We go way back. 400 years ago, a genius named Galileo looked through a telescope, and he realized that we are not the center of the universe. And now we know the universe is vaster than you or I can comprehend.

Steven Bartlett 0:44 How big would Earth be on this table?

Brian Keating 0:45 Small.

Steven Bartlett 0:46 Not even a grain of sand?

Brian Keating 0:47 Even our galaxy wouldn't be a grain of sand. But we still don't know how the universe began. And so one experiment took me to the South Pole, to the bottom of the planet, and we thought we'd discovered the creation of time and space itself. Took me to the brink of a Nobel Prize, and we were on the front page of every newspaper. But it turned out we didn't see that at all. What we saw was... and we were crushed. I don't get too emotional but... We had to retract these discoveries and it was the most crushing experience a scientist can have. But you cannot stop doing experiments to answer these questions.

Steven Bartlett 1:21 Now you've launched this $200 million project.

Brian Keating 1:23 Yeah, and the data that this experiment is seeing is exquisite because now we know 100% that-

Steven Bartlett 1:33 This has always blown my mind a little bit, 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free, simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.

Steven Bartlett 2:04 Dr. Brian Keating. What is the mission that you're on?

Brian Keating 2:10 I think I'm the luckiest man on Earth. I get to get paid, not that much, but I get to get paid to study the questions that I was most interested in as a 12-year-old pimple-faced kid in Upstate New York, which is, how did we get here? And I think it's the question that people just wanna know. It's the only question you can't know, right? What happened before you were born? You, you have to rely on other people's word for it, right? You have to ask questions and be curious. And what is the only event that ever happened for which there was nobody around to ask? And that's the origin of our universe. And the universe contains everything. Contains life, minds, consciousness. Everything down to, you know, podcasters and, and, uh, and daily life.

Steven Bartlett 2:56 What are some of the most

Steven Bartlett 2:57 sort of controversial existential questions that you seek to answer with all the research that you do?

Brian Keating 3:03 So you've talked about this before on the show. Uh, the, the question of, of, you know, finite versus infinite games. And what we do in science, science is an infinite game, right? You can't win science. But along the way, there's many, many finite games. In other words, fixed competitions for which there's only one victor, right? I got, you know, uh, uh, offered a professorship at UC San Diego, that means 399 other people didn't get that job. I got tenure. A lot of people don't get tenure. I got this, I got that. Uh, and then eventually, I didn't get, you know, spoiler alert, my first book's called Losing the Nobel Prize, but there's only, you know, at most three people that can win a Nobel Prize every year. In my field, the, the f- the infinite game is comprised of many, many finite games. And the most important questions that generate the most controversy, the most heat, the most passion, have to do with the nature of the origin of our universe. It's actually not a settled science. It's not actually known for a fact whether our universe came once, existed in a certain way eternally in a way I can describe, went through cycles of creation and destruction, and/or it follows sort of a Biblical creation narrative. These are all kind of open questions in a certain sense. And because they're not yet resolved, and because the only way to resolve them is through data, we cannot actually answer these. So the human mind is in a hybrid, it's in a superposition. We kind of have a lot of knowledge, but we have a lot of questions. We have a lot of solutions, but we have, don't have a lot of answers. We're trying to understand that fundamental question. And I always say, I wanna know what happened on the Tuesday before the Big Bang. Imagine this, a day before which there was no yesterday. You couldn't even speak about it if you were there. Of c- obviously nobody was there to witness it. But even conceptually speaking, how does time progress if time starts, right? We think about time, and time is very mercurial, it's very hard to describe, define what time is. Is time what a watch measures? Is time how your, my hair gets gray over the years? Is, is time how, you know, we perceive it, sitting on a hot stove versus being with a pretty girlfriend? Are, are those methods unequal? Are they equally valid? But at, at its base layer, if the universe began, if it truly had a singular origin, then time came into existence at that moment as well.

Steven Bartlett 5:31 And how does the question of God

Steven Bartlett 5:33 tie into all of this? And what are the sort of, I guess, the most controversial question is, is there a God-

Brian Keating 5:37 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 5:37 ... or is there not a God?

Brian Keating 5:39 Right.

Steven Bartlett 5:39 And then a sub-question to that would be, what form does this god take? Are these questions that you seek to answer?

Brian Keating 5:46 Me personally, yes. My colleagues tend to shy away from it. It's considered somewhat anathema or distasteful for a real honest to goodness, you know, work-a-day scientist to talk about, to even contemplate the possibility of God.And for me, I, I call myself a practicing, very devout agnostic. I- in the sense that, uh, I, I take my Judaism, in my case, I'm a, I'm a practicing Jew. But the question of what to take on faith, which, uh, which in, which in Hebrew, by the way, the word amen comes from the Hebrew word ămunah, which means faith. It means to believe in something. I always say, "I don't believe in gravity." You know, if I take this rock and I drop ... I, I don't have to believe in it. I have evidence for it. Science, the word science means knowledge. It doesn't mean, you know, uh, faith. It doesn't mean, you know, religion or theology. But for me, thinking about God, mm, provides a certain, the most, um, the most luxurious or the most delightful sort of spice to the research, to the hard work that I'm doing, knowing that the, the team and I that are trying to answer these questions, we can possibly resolve the question of whether or not the universe began as, for example, it begins in the Torah, the Old Testament, the biblical narrative that underpins the Judaism and Christianity and, and Islam as well, of, you know, half the world's population. What if we could substantiate that narrative? What if we could refute it? A good scientist has to be open to both. So for me personally, I've always been interested in those existential questions. I, I, I, I don't put myself out there as a, you know, as rabbi or some exemplar of perfection as religion, but I'm trying. I'm trying to improve. I'm trying to dedicate my life to answering questions that others have posed and stand on their shoulders to hopefully get a closer glimpse of truth. But it's absolutely 100% in my mind, inexorably linked. The question of a creator and the question of the, its creation or His creation, if you will. But, as I say, for the first time in history, myself, my colleagues and I, we might be able to start to answer that question with scientific hard data.

Steven Bartlett 8:02 The question of whether there's a God or not, and which God is most accurately represented by the science.

Brian Keating 8:08 Yeah, and the creation stories that those religions tell themselves or tell the world.

Steven Bartlett 8:14 You, you, you've raised a $200

Steven Bartlett 8:15 million project. What does that mean and what, what is the question you're seeking to fundamentally answer with that $200 million project?

Brian Keating 8:23 Yeah. Let me take a step back. So for 2,000 years, most scientists, people believe the universe was eternal, had been around forever. And then, not, not far from here, in, uh, north of, north of Hollywood is a telescope, 100-inch diameter telescope, about five meters across. And that telescope was used by Edwin Hubble. Hubble observed that every single galaxy that he could see is moving away from the Milky Way galaxy. So every galaxy, which are collections of 100 billion suns, just like our sun, is expanding away from us.

Steven Bartlett 9:02 How could he see that through a telescope?

Brian Keating 9:03 Uh, so he used what's called the red shift. So the red shift is an effect that is related to what Christian Doppler, uh, discovered called the Doppler shift. You ever heard an ambulance and it's coming towards you and it's wa, wah, wah, wah, wah and it gets higher in frequency?

Steven Bartlett 9:17 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 9:17 And it goes wa, wah, wah, wah? That's the Doppler shift. The waves of sound are piling up, their frequency is getting short, uh, getting higher and higher. The wavelength is getting piled up in the direction it's going, the, the, the source, and it's getting lower in the opposite direction. The same exact thing happens with light. Instead of getting higher pitch and, and lower pitch, lower frequency means redder colors. So red is a longer wavelength of light than is blue light. He saw everything as moving away from it, us and the Milky Way. It was a very puzzling discovery. It went against 2,500 years of received wisdom. He observed it with data. It was incontrovertible. Every single galaxy is moving away from the Milky Way galaxy, our galaxy. He said either, you know, we didn't put on our cosmic deodorant (laughs) and no one wants to be around us, or the universe is getting bigger. Tomorrow, it will be bigger than it was today. The separation between galaxies will be larger than it is today. The implication, Steven, if you go back another day before today, yesterday, things were closer. Keep playing that movie backwards, you come to a point, perhaps a singularity, where all the matter, all the energy, everything that is, was, or ever will be was concentrated effectively at a single point. That's the Big Bang. And so in the Big Bang cosmology, the universe starts at a particular moment, time comes into existence, the elements come into existence. All the elements, you know, in, in water, you know, et cetera, hydrogen in water, rather, they all come into existence. And then over billions of years, those elements come together over the force of gravity. They, uh, will eventually fuse two hydrogens together to make helium and so forth, and you get the heavier and heavier elements. Eventually those objects, called stars, they eventually burn up and blow up in what's called a supernova. And before they blow up, they create all sorts of other matter that we're made of: calcium, oxygen, nitrogen, iron. And in their death throw, in their explosive fireworks-like ending of their lives, they give life to us because they blast out into the cosmos, into the galaxy the material that we're made of. So literally, as Carl Sagan said, "We are star stuff." And I brought some star stuff here

Brian Keating 11:34 today. So this is, these are different byproducts. This is the shrapnel of an exploded star. This is mostly made of iron here. I brought these, and I give these away on my website. I made a special website for your listeners, briankeating.com/diary. This is a meteorite, Steven. If you've ever seen a meteor in the atmosphere, that's a rock like that, a mineral coursing through our atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour.

Steven Bartlett 12:00 How do you know?

Brian Keating 12:01 How do we know? We measure their velocity, we can track them on radar.

Steven Bartlett 12:04 But how do you know that this is a meteorite?

Brian Keating 12:06 Oh, well, this has all the characteristics of a meteorite: its composition, its density, its, uh, structure. It has that weird pattern on it.But if you're really curious, what we could do-

Steven Bartlett 12:14 So where does this come from then?

Brian Keating 12:16 Well, this, this one was found in, uh, in, uh, in Argentina, in a place called the Field of the Stars.

Steven Bartlett 12:22 And this could have come from anywhere in the universe.

Brian Keating 12:24 Exactly. This came from... This is basically a fragment of an asteroid that existed before the Earth, Stephen. This is a fragment, a fossil relic of our solar system from over four billion years ago. Older than our Earth, because our Earth formed, at its core, our Earth has iron inside of it. It has an iron core, just like that. That's pretty heavy, right? That's not... And it also made this, here. This, if you give this to your sweetheart, if you compress this by 100,000 times and give it to your sweetheart, she'll be really happy about that. That's pure carbon.

Steven Bartlett 12:57 So that'll turn into a diamond.

Brian Keating 12:58 That'll turn into a diamond. I like to say, you know, pressure is what turns dust into diamonds.

Steven Bartlett 13:03 For anyone that can't see this right now, it looks like a, a dice. It's-

Brian Keating 13:07 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 13:07 It's almost identical to, like, a black dice.

Brian Keating 13:09 It's got, exactly.

Steven Bartlett 13:10 And it's light as well.

Brian Keating 13:10 Yep, it's very light.

Steven Bartlett 13:11 I can see.

Brian Keating 13:11 Now contrast that to... and here's a piece of rock. This is mostly volcanic rock. I collected that in, uh, in Antarctica. I've been to Antarctica twice, to the South Pole. I collected that specimen there. It has holes in it. See the holes?

Steven Bartlett 13:24 Yeah.

Brian Keating 13:24 Those come from bubbling, escaping volcanic gases.

Steven Bartlett 13:27 Ah.

Brian Keating 13:28 So there's volcanoes down at the south, uh, at the, in Antarctica. Not the South Pole. And then here's this one. This is found in-

Steven Bartlett 13:35 Oh gosh, it's heavy.

Brian Keating 13:35 ... Namibia. So this is a meteorite formed in, uh, found in Namibia. Also from the same process that formed our solar system. This was found by the natives that lived there, uh, several hundred or maybe even a thousand years ago. This one's particularly nice. If you're not watching, it, it looks like a human foot.

Steven Bartlett 13:54 And I can't explain how unbelievably heavy that is.

Brian Keating 13:57 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 13:58 I don't think I've held something that's this size but this heavy before.

Brian Keating 14:01 It's extremely dense. It's one, it's the dense... So what happens when a star tries to make the iron in that, it takes more energy to make that fuse, that nuclei of iron, than is given off in the fusion process. So therefore the star can't support its weight. It collapses, it explodes and rebounds. Now, when your listeners or viewers, you know, go to my website and, and if they win one, um, uh, you'll see how attractive these things are to magnets. It's a very, uh, powerful, it's called a rare earth magnet. Neodymium magnet.

Steven Bartlett 14:32 Jesus Christ.

Brian Keating 14:33 And you see... (laughs) So attach it to the meteorite. It's fine to do that. You can do that.

Steven Bartlett 14:40 Wow.

Brian Keating 14:40 That sound. I love that sound.

Steven Bartlett 14:42 (metal pings)

Brian Keating 14:42 The ping. So this material is highly magnetic. And iron, which is primarily the constitution of this meteorite, is, has the exact same chemical structure as, in your blood there's a molecule called hemoglobin.

Steven Bartlett 14:59 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 15:00 It's almost identical to the chlorophyll molecule that plants have, except chlorophyll has a magnesium atom at the center of its chemical matrix. But in hemoglobin, that's going through your veins right now, is iron. That iron came from that supernova. Eventually your mother, you know, and the food that you eat has some iron in it-

Steven Bartlett 15:18 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 15:18 ... and then your body starts to produce blood. And that blood has the same chemical composition as the stars.

Steven Bartlett 15:25 So this 200 million,

Steven Bartlett 15:27 what are you doing with that?

Brian Keating 15:27 Yeah. (laughs) Okay, we're gonna get back, back to the money. Yep, exactly. So-

Steven Bartlett 15:31 What is the fundamental question you're seeking to answer?

Brian Keating 15:34 So let's say you see someone shooting a f-, a gun, right? You wanna see the a- but you see the smoke from the gun, you see the bullet moving at great speed, but you'd like to see who actually shot it. Was it God, you know? Was it, was it mother nature? Was it some quantum fluctuation in the multiverse? And so we're trying to capture that to, to take a picture of the infant universe, to take the earliest baby picture possible using sensors that are sensitive to in-, uh, to, uh, microwave light that we cannot see, that's invisible to us. We could capture a pattern which would only be present if the universe had a singularity, if it went through this incredible rupture of spacetime called the Big Bang. The details of the experiment were worked out over several years. We realized we had to go down to the South Pole, to the bottom of the planet, a place that was only reached 112 years ago. And the enemy of what I'm trying to detect is water. Water absorbs microwaves. That's how your microwave oven works to heat up coffee. So we, we took that telescope there, we made an observation. We claim we detected that baby picture, that snapshot, that reverberations of the creation of time and space itself called inflation. We were heralded around the world, that this was the greatest discovery of all time in science, literally. There was just one problem. When we made this measurement, we were aware that we could fool ourselves into seeing what we wanted to see because we knew how important this discovery would be, but we kind of convinced ourselves that we had seen the true birth pangs of the Big Bang. But it turned out we didn't see that at all. Instead, what we saw were trillions and trillions of tons of dust in our galaxy, for technical reasons, mimicked the signal of the Big Bang.

Steven Bartlett 17:25 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 17:26 And we were crushed. It was literally dust. We saw cosmic dust, the leftover byproducts of exploded stars.

Steven Bartlett 17:34 I just wanna be clear here.

Brian Keating 17:35 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 17:35 So just so I'm, um... I don't wanna move on until I, I fully understand. So you, you went down to the South Pole.

Brian Keating 17:41 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 17:42 You looked up expecting to see these sort of, these waves that show that the universe is expanding.

Brian Keating 17:49 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 17:50 What, you actually saw, like, lines of dust?

Brian Keating 17:52 Right.

Steven Bartlett 17:53 Is that a simplified way of saying it?

Brian Keating 17:54 Yeah. It's-

Steven Bartlett 17:54 But you thought you'd s- seen these s- sort of microwaves of the universe expanding?

Brian Keating 17:57 Yes, exactly.

Steven Bartlett 17:58 Okay.

Brian Keating 17:58 Simplifying it perfectly, we made this discovery and then immediately, effectively in scientific terms, six months later, this is in early 2015, we basically had to admit we were wrong. And fortunately for me and for the universe as a whole, um, I was very close with a man named Jim Simons. He was a monumental scientist mathematician without...... peer, effectively. And he said, "Brian, I, I've been thinking about this experiment, and, um, I want to, I want to have a merger." So he put together this, this dream team, and we're still together to this day. We're building an observatory in Chile, not the South Pole, in Chile, to do what BICEP couldn't do.

Steven Bartlett 18:40 BICEP being the telescope you built on the South- South Pole.

Brian Keating 18:42 That was... Yeah, that lost the Nobel Prize in my first book's language. And we're just now getting data. It got first light a month before Jim Simons passed away, and so we were able to show him the data that this experiment is- is- is seeing. I can't show it to you as, as confidential as the diary is. You hope nobody's looking, but you don't know if anybody is. I can't show it to you, but the data's exquisite.

Steven Bartlett 19:01 So what do you, um,

Steven Bartlett 19:03 what do you suspect-

Brian Keating 19:04 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 19:04 ... is the origin of the universe?

Brian Keating 19:06 Hmm. Well, uh...

Steven Bartlett 19:08 Is it God? Is it some kind of strange cosmic reaction that took place for no reason at all? I know you must have a suspicion.

Brian Keating 19:19 You know, if the universe began with a singular Big Bang, if it began on a certain day or it didn't, I just wanna know the truth. The interpretation of it, that's gonna be going on for... I mean, people are battling about, as I said, we thought we detected that signal, right? So we already have, um, a simulation of what will happen when this is discovered for good, finally, and no dust, right? We know exactly what the media will say. At that time, on one side of the equation were the greatest, you know, religious thinkers and theologians of the time, saying this proves the existence of God, that God created the universe in a singular moment, let there be light, fiat lux. That's exactly what the Torah, the Old Testament, the Bible says. So they said it- it agrees with our hypothesis. On the other side, there were militant atheists, Richard Dawkins, you know, uh, other people saying this proves there's no need for a God. The universe came into existence, like you said, meaningless quantum field of fluctuation out of nothingness. It proves nothing about God. In fact, it invalidate... Literally, Stephen, there were people publishing articles in major newspapers everywhere, "It proves God," "It proves no God." So it's not like I'm gonna think that I have the temerity to say I'm gonna be the final word or we're gonna be the final word. I know this is gonna resonate and echo through the, through the, you know, annals of history. But at the same time, we could also see nothing, and that's the hardest thing, when you see nothing. The human mind doesn't like ambiguity, you know? Like, you could talk about, um, something very, uh, you know, uh, non-controversial. Let's talk about abortion rights. Let's talk about trans rights. Let's... Now, these are incredibly controversial things, right? So what does the human mind do? It selects a side. It says, "No abortions. Abortions for everybody." "No trans rights. Yes, trans rights." Uh, "Immigration. No immigration. Yes, immigr-" The human mind hates that, and for good reason. There's an old Yiddish expression, "He who stands in the middle of the road gets hit by both sides of the traffic."

Steven Bartlett 21:20 (laughs)

Brian Keating 21:20 So the human mind cleaves to one side or the other. I don't think, you know, in terms of, you know, religion or whatever that we'll be the definitive final word on it, but it's sort of a privilege to play the game.

Steven Bartlett 21:34 What is the most

Steven Bartlett 21:35 compelling evidence that you've ever encountered that there might be a God?

Brian Keating 21:38 Hmm. That's a long, uh, long question. Well, I- I hope you'll find it someday too. Um... (sighs) At least in my religion, in Judaism, God is the creator and he's the organizer. He creates, um, light and darkness. He creates day and night. He creates heaven and Earth. He creates beasts and, um, and Earth and fishes and so forth, and then he creates man. And we can't really emulate God. Even if you don't believe in God, you can imagine what a God would be like, right? You can conceptualize. Imagine, you know, King Charles, you know, times a trillion (laughs) or whatever, like the all-powerful force. But at the same time, we're told God is a father, our father who art in heaven, right? Um, and he's a lord. He's like a politician. He's a king. He's their father in this Judeo-Christian concept. It's hard to kind of reconcile what that means, 'cause we don't really have analogies to it, but the one analogy we do get is the one thing that we can create, which is a, which is a human. (laughs) Now, I think for that reason, men and women have a stake in what it means to feel a connection to God. Women much more so. It's almost impossible to, for a man to comprehend what it's like to have the ability to be a vessel for life's creation. I think that's part of the evidence for it. Um, I also think that there's some, there's some clues, but again, it's not proof. You cannot prove God exists. You cannot prove God doesn't exist. You have to be comfortable with that ambiguity, and very few people are.

Steven Bartlett 23:15 If we came from a single-cell organism, as some people say, then there was... then giving birth seems to be quite a new concept. Because, you know, if you think about some of the evolutionary stories of, you know, the single-cell organism that then divided and then, you know, Darwinism's theory that it was the environment that defined how we give birth and different animals give birth or replicate in different ways. So to go back far enough, it seems that, like, giving birth as we know it, which is this, like, process where the baby comes out and they- they cut the cord is actually quite recent in the history of consciousness-

Brian Keating 23:49 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 23:49 ... but also just, like, living organisms.

Brian Keating 23:52 Hmm. Does that make it more or less miraculous or?

Steven Bartlett 23:55 It's so amazing, but it-

Brian Keating 23:57 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 23:57 ... but it- I- it doesn't feel like it gives me... I don't know. There's something in my mind that thinks if a single-cell organism, I don't know, a gazillion years ago, split because of some mutation which caused more single-cell organisms to split, I mean, (sighs) I guess it's still creation, isn't it?

Brian Keating 24:20 And then you could ask the question, what if there was a creator?And this creator not only, um, you know, created that first cell, but created within that cell the possibility, the propensity, and had the knowledge, you know, we can't comprehend it, but, but had the knowledge that that will eventually make a person and have consciousness and be able to conceptualize God. Now, I'm not saying that's evidence for it, but just you can, you can, you can see which would be a greater miracle? That, like, God encrypted in the DNA code that eventually there'll be a Steven Bartlett or Brian Keating? Or, you know, that those are natural processes that are the inevitable conclusion of, of creation of life and evolution, as you say, in Darwinian theory, f- for which we have abundant evidence, right? I don't know which is more miraculous. And, and that's why, you know, miracles-

Steven Bartlett 25:12 But human- humans are pretty new, aren't they? So-

Brian Keating 25:13 Oh, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:14 ... how, how old-

Brian Keating 25:14 Mammals, mammals are like, like e-

Steven Bartlett 25:16 How old is the conscious human?

Brian Keating 25:17 The conscious... I mean, the first, like, homo sapiens that are of our species, probably 200,000 years old maybe.

Steven Bartlett 25:23 So it's only been for 200,000 years that we've been, even been able to think about the possibility of God. Which is almost, in a weird way, it's, it almost, you could say God has only existed for 200,000 years.

Brian Keating 25:32 (laughs) Right. Yeah, that's a, that is a good way of putting it. And, and in fact, many people, and I like to say this, you know, to you, like, "What's your favorite day of the year, like, on the calendar?"

Steven Bartlett 25:42 (laughs) I was gonna say my birthday.

Brian Keating 25:44 Your birthday or... Okay. I always ask people that. I say, like, "What's your favorite day?" And usually I'll get, um, Christmas, uh, my anniversary, my birthday, my first kid's birthday, whatever. But those are all origins. We're fascinated by origins 'cause you weren't there. Like, you can't witness, like, the whole process of your birth. You have to rely on your mother and your father, and maybe there's some pictures and a nurse. But now go back to the beginning of the universe. Well, maybe there was only one entity, you know, maybe it was only God. And why did God make the universe? And then, of course, there's many, many question. The most kind of stringent, you know, or, or, or perhaps most challenging question is, you know, why does evil exist? Why would a good God create suffering, you know, ch- childhood leukemia? Like, it doesn't make any sense. So the, the standard answer for that question is that to not have randomness, to not have chaos, to not have, um, variability in life would, would necessitate a predetermined existence. And a lot of people believe that. I've talked to Sam Harris in my podcast, he's been on here. Um, and he believes strict determinism, every single thing, what's happening to us right now, the words that are coming out of my mouth, your, uh, ear twitching or whatever it's do-, that's all determined. There's no control. There's, free will is a complete and utter illusion. And, uh, because of that, then there doesn't have to be an explanation of why there's, you know, leukemia in, in children or whatever. And, and yes, that is, that is an unanswered question. And I think... But, but I don't think it's a sufficient question not to do stuff. People would ask, "Why does a child get leukemia?" But they won't ask, "Why do, um, humans experience, uh, the highest, the highest pleasures, the highest sensations, both physically, viscerally, but also emotionally and spiritually?" That we, unique among all the creations on Earth, have this ability to appreciate our finite existence, to have love, to have, you know, whatever this connections are. That's what makes life living. Now, we can't answer why is that, like, do we deserve that?

Steven Bartlett 27:41 So for me, the-

Brian Keating 27:42 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 27:42 ... evil and good and, like, pleasure and pain make lots of sense from an evolutionary perspective.

Brian Keating 27:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 27:49 It, it makes a lot of sense as to why you would feel this overwhelming sense of, like, love and protection when you gave birth, when your, your, your son or your daughter arrives in the world because that, that feeling is passed down from your ancestors. And your ancestors had that feeling so they survived and their offspring survived. And that feeling gets stronger as it's passed down because those that have it are more likely to pass on their DNA, so the DNA of that feeling keeps passing through the, through the generations. So I get that. And then with the, with evil, I also c- I can also understand that pretty well.

Brian Keating 28:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 28:22 Um, because, you know, if we think of evil maybe as a feeling or as something that happens or a disease, I can understand that theoretically.

Brian Keating 28:29 No, I wouldn't say... Evil's human, it's, it's human related. There's no evil cancer.

Steven Bartlett 28:32 Yeah.

Brian Keating 28:32 Cancer's not evil.

Steven Bartlett 28:33 And even that I can understand-

Brian Keating 28:34 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 28:34 ... because I can understand the brain is so fragile and I can understand all these human instincts and chemicals and jealousy and, you know, all of, even love comes with it. But, you know, if some, if, if a woman dies, it's probably her husband statistically.

Brian Keating 28:48 Mm-hmm. Yeah, sad, right? Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 28:48 So, like, I understand, you know, that's evil, isn't it?

Brian Keating 28:50 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 28:50 But it, but it's love as well. So I understand that com-, the complexities of all of that. What I can't understand is what active role God is playing in any of this stuff.

Brian Keating 29:01 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 29:01 And, yeah. And I was, I was religious until I was 18, and then I think I, I fell down a rabbit hole listening to, like, Richard Dawkins and some of the others and Sam Harris. And it le- left me in a position where I would probably define myself as being agnostic.

Brian Keating 29:15 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 29:16 But there's still this big question mark which hangs above my life, which is, like, where did, where did human life come from? And is there, is it possible that it just didn't come from anywhere? Is it possible that there was a big bang, b-, you know, at the very start of all of this, it caused lots of reactions? One such reaction was fusing some chemicals which fused in the right order over millions and millions of years and it started to move in a way that, like, plants can't move. And that then led rise to this sort of evolutionary process, and now here I am. And my brain was just bigger 200,000 years ago than the other monkeys. So now that I've developed this thing called conscious where I can think about things and here I am trying to figure it all out now that I have this bigger brain thanks to Darwinian evolution.

Brian Keating 30:07 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:07 Is that, is that the game? And it's, and, you know, when people hear me say that they probably think, "Oh," you know, the, the natural reaction to that is, 'cause it threatens your sense of, like, purpose and belonging and it threatens justice. Your natural reaction to that is, "No, I hope it's not." And so let me think of ways that that can't possibly be true. But I'm, I'm not tempted by that.

Brian Keating 30:28 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 30:28 I'm tempted by figuring out what's true, ir- irrespective of how warm and fuzzy it is.

Brian Keating 30:32 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 30:33 And, um, I still don't know, but I'm hoping science has some answers for me.

Brian Keating 30:41 (laughs) Well, yeah, sorry to disappoint. Right now the, the, the connection, that logical chain that you, that you produced has a lot of so-called missing links. But, uh, you said something that's very interesting to me. Y- you said you consider yourself an agnostic.

Steven Bartlett 30:54 Yeah.

Brian Keating 30:54 It sounds like, in other words, it sounds to me like you're more, you're doing things that an atheist does. Like you're not going to church, you're not-

Steven Bartlett 31:00 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 31:00 ... um, you know, cele- observing mass or whatever you would do if you're, uh... But what do you do, do (laughs) and they, 'cause if you're an agnostic, there should be some behavior that's similar to a theist.

Steven Bartlett 31:12 Why?

Brian Keating 31:13 B- because then you're just atheists, right? I mean, in other words, how do you, what practices... I- I'm a behaviorist in, in, in my life, you know, so I judge people on how they act and-

Steven Bartlett 31:21 Yeah.

Brian Keating 31:21 ... how they behave and, and you, you know a lot about this. So how do you, do you behave as if there could be a God? Do you... You said maybe you want science to explain it. You didn't say like, "I would like to have a personal revelation from Jesus. I, I would like to encounter him." Or, or whatever, Vishnu, I don't care what religion is. But how do you, in practice, live your life such that if God does exist, that, that it would make a difference in the way that you're perceived or judged, if you will?

Steven Bartlett 31:48 Yeah. Well, I, I, I don't because I guess I don't know what, I don't know what practice... 'cause I don't know what God exists or what story is true, I don't know what practice is true.

Brian Keating 31:58 Do you think if God... let's say you were a Hindu, right?

Steven Bartlett 32:00 Yeah.

Brian Keating 32:01 Let's just, let's say you're not Hindu. Let's say you are what you are, a Presbyterian or the Church of England or-

Steven Bartlett 32:05 But if I had a practice, wouldn't that make me religious?

Brian Keating 32:08 Well, I'm saying, do you think if there is a God-

Steven Bartlett 32:10 Yeah.

Brian Keating 32:10 ... we have to do this matrix, right? Let's say God exists, God doesn't exist. Steven behaves like he's religious, Steven doesn't behave like he's religious, right? So right now you're in one of those quadrants. You, you're not sure if God exists. Um, so you're behaving maybe as if he doesn't exist. Uh, I'm asking you, and now he could exist or he could not exist. So imagine you move into another quadrant and you say, "I'm gonna behave like I'm Hindu," or come down to my temple in San Diego (laughs) -

Steven Bartlett 32:32 (laughs)

Brian Keating 32:32 ... or whatever. You're gonna behave in some religion. Do you think if God exists, he's gonna say, "Oh God, Steven, you picked the wrong one. It's not, it's not, uh, it's, it's Jainism." It's, it's, um, it's whatever. It's, it's um, it's um, uh, Latter Day Saint. I don't, I don't think... I think a revolutionary statement, I think God has common sense if he exists. If he doesn't exist, it doesn't matter what you do, right? But if God exists, he must have common sense. Meaning that if you make an earnest attempt to understand or at least engage yourself religiously, not believe and force yourself to believe, not make excuses for evil that happens in the world, or cancer for kids. But if you behave in a certain way, I don't think if God exists, big if, you'll be judged harshly.

Steven Bartlett 33:12 I... This is exactly the conclusion that stopped me being religious when I was 18.

Brian Keating 33:16 (laughs) Really?

Steven Bartlett 33:16 Yes. Exact conclusion, because-

Brian Keating 33:18 Same way about that.

Steven Bartlett 33:18 ... so we would go to re- um, church every week.

Brian Keating 33:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:21 We grew up going to church, read the Bible, all of those things. And then I, I... When I was younger I was operating under this assumption that I was gonna go to hell and burn if I didn't like, obey this, this person in the sky.

Brian Keating 33:32 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 33:32 Then I read these books, uh, yeah, Steven... Richard Dawkins' books and a bunch of other books on the subject matter, and I heard that God was omnipotent and omniscient, which makes a lot of sense 'cause if you create this world and you can, you know, you're, you're active in it, y- you must be pretty powerful and pretty knowing. And then I concluded that if... I basically concluded God would have common sense, and I thought He would understand that I'm struggling and He would understand that as long as I live a good life and I'm not murdering people and I'm not mean to people and I'm kind and I'm respectful to people and I'm a net positive on the earth, then if heaven does exist, any god that I would wanna support anyway would let me in.

Brian Keating 34:11 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 34:12 And he would understand that I didn't have enough information to, to put my flag in any particular religion, so he would let me in. So my, my thesis then became, well, just be a good person and you're kinda hedging your bets because any decent god that's, I think, worth supporting would go, "That was a decent person. He couldn't quite see it," m- you know, whatever, but-

Brian Keating 34:30 But you wouldn't see it a little dif-

Steven Bartlett 34:31 ... "they need to come."

Brian Keating 34:31 Well, uh, sorry to push back, but-

Steven Bartlett 34:32 No, you know, for sure.

Brian Keating 34:33 ... if you, if you... Let's say, I say, "I wanna get in shape, Steven," and, and, you know, I deserve it. Got kids, you know, I wanna be healthy, live a long life, but you see me eating, you know... My... I wouldn't eat cheeseburgers 'cause they're kosher, but hamburgers, french fries, you know, just, just... And I'm, I'm thinking, well, like, you know, whatever, we'll understand. Like, I... In other words, you, you would agree that if you knew God exists, you would do, you would behave very radically differently, right?

Steven Bartlett 34:59 Yes.

Brian Keating 34:59 If, if I, if you had an encounter with God-

Steven Bartlett 35:01 Well-

Brian Keating 35:01 ... Jesus or, or God himself, right?

Steven Bartlett 35:05 It depends. If I knew for sure that he existed and a particular book and doctrine was correct, I would 100% behave in line with that book and doctrine. But if I knew he existed but I didn't know which book was correct, then I probably would behave exactly how I do now.

Brian Keating 35:20 Mm. So, but what about-

Steven Bartlett 35:22 Because the behavior, the practice, the Sabbath comes from one of those books or doctrines, so.

Brian Keating 35:26 Right. But, but even if you couldn't choose, right? What if, uh, it's like, um, wha- what if it's possible that all of them are right and all of them are wrong? In other words, you, um, w- we are so frail, fragile and, and, and a- and adequate to the task of understanding what the true nature of God is that he made it such that... Again, I'm not saying this is true, but, but it made it possible that there would be ways of interpretation for how he existed, right? Like, I as a Jew don't believe in Jesus' divinity, right? But I don't, I don't fault my friends, you know, Jay Bhattacharya, I don't fault him. I don't con- uh, in fact, I think it's beautiful that that's his avenue for worship. He believes that Jesus died for his personal sins.

Steven Bartlett 36:05 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 36:06 Now, you would admit that you would have... uh, Jesus will still die for your sin, or, you know, he did die for your sins if you're an ax murderer. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 36:12 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 36:12 You know, so I just think that level of saying it's, um, as long as I don't murder anybody... You know, it's like me saying, "Well, you know, if I'm de- destined to get into shape, I'll get into shape, you know, my metabolism will work it out," without me taking the s- the, the serious action and working hard, 'cause you do it in your rest of your life, right?

Steven Bartlett 36:29 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 36:30 And I'm not... By the way, I'm not proselytizing. It's actually forbidden in my religion. I'm not a prosely-... But-But the, but that concept of God is, uh, that Richard Dawkins doesn't believe in, I also don't believe in that. Like, he's omniscient, he's gonna prevent, you know, babies from dying from cancer, he's gonna do this or that. Like, that's why they make fun of it. Um, or they, they, they relegate it to the, a friend in the sky you called it, right? I, I don't believe there's a friend in the sky. I don't think that even makes sense. Um, but I believe that we are seeing something so heavily refracted, again, if it exists. It's, it's like, uh, showing a, a microwave telescope, you know, showing BICEP or the Simons Observatory, uh, to, you know, Gog who lived in a cave 200,000 years ago. Like, there's no way to get from there to here. But that doesn't mean, like, there isn't an ultimate there and an ultimate here. For me, I, I, let me just say the final thing I wanna say 'cause I don't wanna make too much about this, but, but, um, there's a value in practicing even if you don't believe. Just like I say sometimes, like, even if you got divorced, like, you should still get married 'cause it changes you and it opens you up to the full panoply of human experience that m- a lot of people don't get to experience. And when people have the capacity, the capability to do it, they should, in my opinion. Uh, by the way, I'm not advocating to get divorced either. But, but the point being, uh, you obviously wrestle with it. And, and, um, interestingly enough, the word Israel, which is the central, you know, country of, of Judaic faith means fight with God. It means wrestle with God. El is God, Yisrael means fight. So how do you wrestle with it? Do you wrestle with it? Do you think about it or do you say, you know, "I'm not gonna read these books that I read before I was 18 because it seems so childish to me now." And so...

Steven Bartlett 38:09 I, I do. I certainly wrestle with it.

Brian Keating 38:10 You do?

Steven Bartlett 38:10 So when I say-

Brian Keating 38:11 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 38:11 ... wrestle with it, not in a way that is causing me any pain or agony or deep frustration, but it's, it's k- (laughs) yeah, it's a recurring thought. And I actually think from doing this podcast and just, um, maybe growing up and, uh, the journey I've been on, I have more questions now-

Brian Keating 38:33 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:33 ... than I ever have since I became agnostic at 18.

Brian Keating 38:36 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 38:36 So I have more questions now. It's funny, I've been on this bit of an arc where I was certain when I was younger-

Brian Keating 38:40 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:40 ... that God was real.

Brian Keating 38:41 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 38:41 And then I was really, um, certain that the God I believed in probably wasn't real. And now I've, I've kind of found myself going back to a position where I'm, like, almost like I'm starting the research project again-

Brian Keating 38:53 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 38:53 ... to figure out what actually is, what actually is real.

Steven Bartlett 38:57 I, I sometimes wonder if I'm looking for the wrong thing.

Brian Keating 38:59 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 38:59 'Cause I think because we've been so sort of indoctrinated into this idea-

Brian Keating 39:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 39:02 ... that it is a man in the sky, and-

Brian Keating 39:03 Yeah. The white beard.

Steven Bartlett 39:03 ... all these things. White, the white beard and stuff. So we're, like, looking for evidence of that.

Brian Keating 39:07 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 39:07 But maybe I should be searching for evidence of something else.

Brian Keating 39:09 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 39:10 May... Is it like a feeling I'm searching for? Is it...

Brian Keating 39:12 It's interesting that you said that. It's remin- reminds me of Einstein. Einstein said, um, he never asked his father, "What would happen, Daddy, if I was traveling at the speed of light and I looked at myself in a mirror?" And he said, "It was good I didn't ask those questions when I was five, because my dad would have given me the standard answer of the 1800s, which was, you know, you see your reflect- or whatever." And then Einstein said, "I would have just accepted that. And then I would never have gone on to create the theory of relativity." What you said echoes what he said. 'Cause if you, if you wouldn't have asked these questions and just accepted the belief that you had when you were 12, you would not be approaching them with the maturity of a Steven Bartlett at age, uh, 32. Right? And now you have this perspective. You have a wisdom that you've accrued from your life experiences, from the, the millions of people that you've helped around the world to expose them to different things. And you're on a journey yourself. So anyway, I, I, I, I just, I don't... So I don't have tolerance for scientists that dismiss it and say it's stupid. And I'm like... But I also, I, I, I find that religious people are too comfortable with saying, "Everything is described by God. Everything happens because of God." Uh, I see this a lot with religious children. Um, sometimes I'll go into a kid's school and teach them, uh, you know, about science. I, I'll bring these, you know, props and stuff. Uh, but when I talk to them, sometimes I'll say, like, "Oh, look, there's a rainbow over there. Oh, that's great. Where did it come from?" And they'll say, "God made it." I think that's... (laughs) I joke. Uh, that's a form of child abuse, you know? If you just say that God made it, you're, A, completely ignorant about the science. But B, you're also diminishing God's power, right? If you say, "No, actually that's an effect of, of water droplets which are formed of hydrogen and oxygen, and here's their chemistry, and here's how they form, uh, a different state of matter when they're in collective. And here's how that causes light to, to fract at different wavelengths. And here's wavelength electromagnetic radiation. Where does that come..." And you keep asking the question why, why, why, why, why. Only when you get to the quest- the answer, the final answer, "I don't know." That's the only time I would say, "Okay, God could come in there." But that takes you back (laughs) , you know. That whole chain of refraction, of light, of dielectric material, of, of, of wavelengths, of, of color, all that stuff, that takes you back 'til, almost to the Big Bang, which then intersects with what I do.

Steven Bartlett 41:17 You said, um, that you think

Steven Bartlett 41:19 of God as almost like a force. Do you think it's a conscious force?

Brian Keating 41:23 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 41:24 I, if you, if I sit down and pray to this God, will they hear me?

Brian Keating 41:30 I honestly could say I don't know. But I know you'll change. I know that you'll hear yourself.

Steven Bartlett 41:34 Okay, so-

Brian Keating 41:35 If you can go down to the ocean, Steven, if you can go down to the Pacific Ocean and just be isolated and just pour yourself out for an hour, I guarantee you, it will change your life. You will be in tears, but no one will see you. That's the thing. That's why you have to be alone. You cannot do it with any other person. You must do it on your own because there's no Sam Harris meditation waking up app. It's not gonna do the same for you as, as just you alone. And not knowing is part of the point, I think.

Steven Bartlett 42:00 But what's that got to do with God? What's me going down to the beach and pouring my heart out, which would get me into my amygdala or get me thinking about, you know, make me emotional. I can imagine, you know. Even listening to certain music can make you feel that... What, what role is God playing in, in that moment?

Brian Keating 42:15 Because if God exists, I do believe that he's inside of you and that you can connect with him. Again, you can't detect him with an MRI machine or you can't detect him with a laser.But, you know, can, if he ... Again, that's a big if. I'm not guaranteeing. I, you know-

Steven Bartlett 42:29 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 42:29 I'm sorry to disappoint. I'm not that kinda doctor, (laughs) you know. I, I can't give you a prescription that'll make you believe, but to have access to it. You have to be open to a communication, right? Imagine you got, you know, a, a, you know, an email and you just never respond to it. Like, people ... Remember the movie Interstellar?

Steven Bartlett 42:45 Yeah.

Brian Keating 42:46 Have you seen that movie? So, uh, they're, you know, the, the people on Earth are communicating with the people on, you know, Matthew McConaughey's daughter, and she ... She doesn't know if he's listening and he doesn't ... And he knows that she's not. But in that sense, he's kinda like this god. Like, he has knowledge that she doesn't have. But if she doesn't try, maybe she wouldn't, maybe just the, the aspect of trying, the attribute of trying is what opened her up to that return signal, the communication that she eventually received.

Steven Bartlett 43:09 It's so interesting 'cause when I asked the question about can God hear me, and if he can hear me, I guess the second question is, can he do anything about what he's hearing?

Brian Keating 43:18 Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 43:19 Um, there's so much evidence in the world that he can't hear you and he's not gonna do anything about it.

Brian Keating 43:24 But again, you say that. But like, what if, uh, you know, who knows? Uh, if, if your, if your parents, you know, like, they were ... A lot of, uh, the stories in the early, in, uh, uh, Testament are about sterile barren women that couldn't conceive, you know, from Sarah, uh, uh, uh, Rebecca to, to R- Rachel. All these women, they couldn't conceive. They cried out. They, they prayed. And again, women are closer to God in many ways 'cause they contain life within them. Um, again, in what sense are you not already the recipient of the beneficence of something that we just don't understand, like-

Steven Bartlett 43:57 Potentially, yeah. But, but, but when I asked this question about like, could I, if I pray, is it gonna influence my outcomes in any way? You know, there's a natural disaster-

Brian Keating 44:05 I don't believe it does. I, I, I don't believe it does for the reason I said before. Like, there, people were praying here for the Dodgers. I'm sure there were equally virtuous people pray- praying for the Yankees.

Steven Bartlett 44:13 That's what I mean. If you think about the scientific method-

Brian Keating 44:15 That's why I said I don't-

Steven Bartlett 44:16 ... we could, we could apply that and say, "Does prayer work?"

Brian Keating 44:18 Right.

Steven Bartlett 44:19 And you could get, I dunno, look through history at the Holocaust or look at some other world, some natural disaster and think, has praying swayed the, the probabilities of bad things happening-

Brian Keating 44:27 Right.

Steven Bartlett 44:27 ... to these people?

Brian Keating 44:29 So I don't believe that at all, but I do believe that fundamentally, a h- a person who believes that their, um, that their actions have some impact will feel at least a sense of gratitude. Let me s- let me give you an example. You're familiar in Christianity, you know, people say a, a blessing before the meal, like grace before a meal. So in Judaism, you do that before the meal, after the meal, sometimes during the meal. Uh, but the point is the more you express gratitude ... You, you cannot be a happy person and be an ingrate.

Steven Bartlett 44:58 Yeah.

Brian Keating 44:58 The more you're grateful for, like the sound of, you know, a, of, of, you know, a, a song that is just so meaningful to you, the sight of a painting or a sunset, the more that you're s- And, and Judaism, we say blessings for those things. Like, we say if we see a meteor shower, we say a blessing. It's hard for me as an astronomer, you gotta say blessing. A rainbow, another thing. Those are like kinda things we become desensitized to in life and we just take for granted. When you taste a, a fine wine or you taste, you know, some delicious food, again, it could just be chlorophyll. "Here, Steven, have ... Here's your plate of agar gum." Like, "Okay, great, I could live." "Here's whey powder. That's all you ever get to eat." No, you'd be like, "This sucks. I know what I'm, uh, had. And if I could only go back to it after I get out, you know, of this situation, I'm gonna be so grateful." To me, that grateful, gratitude connects to the ultimate source of that provided that we can't understand. It's true. I cannot give you ... And I told you, I have problems with prayer 'cause I don't like to be told what to do. I don't like to be told I have to say this in this order, stand up, sit down, fast on this day, do this thing, not eat that delicious pink guy with the curly tail. Like, but when you do that, you know this, the more you're disciplined, the happier life is. You know, who's, who's more happy, the guy who eats everything he wants or Jocko? You know, like, the, the, the person who just gives in to all their temptations of alcohol, the person who abstains and, and elevates what they do? And I think we wanna elevate ourselves above the level of an animal, of the animals.

Steven Bartlett 46:26 But I can have all those behaviors-

Brian Keating 46:28 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 46:28 ... of like a gratitude practice. I can have a meditation practice. I go down to the beach. I can do all of those things.

Brian Keating 46:32 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 46:32 And I still, I can still do all of those things without the need of a god.

Brian Keating 46:36 Oh, sure. Sure.

Steven Bartlett 46:37 And, and I'll get all the benefits of those things. I'd get, when I, when I express gratitude before I eat or sometimes when I'm getting-

Brian Keating 46:44 Sure.

Steven Bartlett 46:44 ... on a plane and I, I, I touch the plane to remind myself, and I can almost make myself emotional just thinking about how remarkable it is that I get to do some of the things I've ha- I've been able to do in my life to the point of like physical emotion-

Brian Keating 46:54 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 46:55 ... um, but without the presence of, of needing to equate that to a god in any way.

Brian Keating 47:01 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 47:02 Uh, uh, so I'm, I'm trying to find, I guess, I'm searching for where God fits in all of this. Why, why is, why is God, why is a God required? Is it just because I have so many blessings that I should be thankful to someone for these things? Which I do contend with.

Brian Keating 47:13 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 47:13 I go, okay, and let me think about how my life has changed in the last 10 years of, you know, from going from someone who was shoplifting pizzas to-

Brian Keating 47:19 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 47:19 ... sitting here and getting to do these. It's, it's remarkable. You, you start to think you're a little bit in The Truman Show if you're not-

Brian Keating 47:24 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 47:24 ... if you, you think about it too deeply. But, um, and you do feel, you think, "Who do I thank for this?" You think, "Do I thank my parents?" Like-

Brian Keating 47:29 Right.

Steven Bartlett 47:30 ... "Do I thank myself?" Uh, so you ... "Do I thank a god?" Um, but I, but is that the reason? It just to, just, just to be thankful? But then I go there's a bias there because there's kids in the town in Botswana that I was born in that are still in the town in Botswana that I was born in, and they're not doing so good. So they, uh, do they have, did God not like them? Did ... And then if you go, "No, God likes both of you," then I go, "Okay, well then, God isn't responsible for this. It was something that I did or my parents did that are responsible for this, so I should thank them. So where does God fit again?"

Brian Keating 47:59 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 47:59 And I just go around in these loops and I go, I don't know what ... Are, are we trying to create a God to make sense of the things we feel and the experiences we have, and the baby that grabs our f- finger and the gratitude and the, the, the s- the solar eclipse and the, the sunset? Are we tryna-... to, to try to give that to someone because it's just so, the aura is just so much, or did God give that to us?

Brian Keating 48:23 Hmm. Well, I mean, eh, the perspective that you're bringing is obviously you've thought about this a lot, and obviously your attitude is healthy and I think that you have. You know, unbalanced, I think, yeah, obviously living as, a good life, even if you're a... I'd never say that an atheist can't be a good person or can't be happy or any of these things. The question is, what, where does it augment and affect your life? Like for example, I don't know if I would give 10% of my income to charity, before tax income to charity, if I, if it wasn't a commandment in my religion. But I don't feel ashamed for that. I don't feel like, "Oh, you needed religion to tell you this?" 'Cause again, I'm still searching just as much as I think that you are. I don't feel like, uh, as untroubled by the answers of it, right? I don't feel like that not knowing for sure that God exists, which I don't believe is possible anyway, that that should be an impediment to me practicing, giving charity, being in a community, um, uh, raising my kids with an appreciation of their history and their culture, um, and, and just the contributions of their religion, of your religion, whatever, to, to

Brian Keating 49:30 the world.

Steven Bartlett 49:30 So if you found out from this new project that you've, you've launched, this $2 million, $200 million project that you've launched to figure out the existence of, I guess where the, what, what, not the existence, but the origin of the universe, the origin of life. If you found out unequivocally that God isn't real-

Brian Keating 49:46 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 49:47 ... convinces you to the point that you now believe that God is not the creator of the universe. And that, I don't know, you figure out some other way we can create universes in little labs, maybe a thousand years from now we can create our own little universes from nothing-

Brian Keating 50:00 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 50:00 ... somehow.

Brian Keating 50:01 Or we find out we're in a simulation.

Steven Bartlett 50:02 Or something else. Yeah, whatever. Yes, exactly.

Brian Keating 50:04 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 50:04 How does that change you?

Brian Keating 50:06 I, because I'm a behaviorist, I, I, I don't, I really don't feel like my life would be better to act as if God doesn't exist. In other words, if I know God doesn't exist, then I'm gonna act like he doesn't exist, right? That's a logical assumption.

Steven Bartlett 50:22 Yeah.

Brian Keating 50:22 Right? So I'm gonna stop giving charity. Like, is that gonna make me happier in life? Is that gonna benefit society or my p- or, or, you know, Zeus or whatever doesn't exist. Like, I already know that's not true, right? So I've kind of done this experiment, like all these other gods I know I don't believe in, Ra, (laughs) you know, Akhenaten.

Steven Bartlett 50:40 So you wouldn't do anything differently?

Brian Keating 50:41 Benefits to my life are so substantive that I would not change my behavior.

Steven Bartlett 50:47 But you're, you're being guided then by your beh- your behavior and the rewards from behavior, which is pretty much my life.

Brian Keating 50:54 Yeah. Well, okay, so right, the breath work-

Steven Bartlett 50:56 I'm being guided like-

Brian Keating 50:56 ... and the meditation.

Steven Bartlett 50:56 No, I'm being guided by, like, if gratitude feels good, I do it. If going down to the beach feels good, I do it. If having a baby feels good, I'll do it. You know? So like-

Brian Keating 51:03 (laughs) It could be dangerous to devolve into hedonism.

Steven Bartlett 51:04 So if you add God to my life, we take it away-

Brian Keating 51:06 Right.

Steven Bartlett 51:06 ... my behaviors are gonna be the same because I'm, I'm being guided by the things that are making me feel good.

Brian Keating 51:13 But I don't think so. You're not like this, uh, hedonistic Instagram influencer.

Steven Bartlett 51:16 No, 'cause that would make me feel good. Like-

Brian Keating 51:18 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 51:18 ... a donut, I've run the experiment and eating the donut makes me feel okay for the time it's touching my tongue-

Brian Keating 51:23 Right.

Steven Bartlett 51:23 ... but then bad for 12 hours when my gut starts reacting badly.

Brian Keating 51:27 Right.

Steven Bartlett 51:27 So I don't do that anymore.

Brian Keating 51:28 Well, let me ask you this question. So if they found out that, uh, working out is, uh, eventually it's, it's, uh, actually gonna shorten your life or it's gonna do the opposite of what you're intending it to do necessarily, would you keep working out?

Steven Bartlett 51:42 How much is it gonna shorten my life by?

Brian Keating 51:44 Um, every, uh, every cr- uh, you know, ab crunch you do, every bench press takes, uh, an hour off your life or something, or a, a couple minutes off your life.

Steven Bartlett 51:54 Ooh, this, it's an interesting one. Um, I would probably live 10 years less to live like 10 years better, like to have a better health span. So I pro- if you told me I was gonna live to 100, 100 with- without working out, or I could live to 90, but I'm gonna be strong and fit for those 90 years, I'll take the 90 years.

Brian Keating 52:17 So my analogy, that's exactly right. So I feel like that level of, of perfecting or enjoyment and the ancillary benefits of gratitude, uh, and, and happiness that I've received tangibly, you cannot convince me as I can't convince you that working out feels, I couldn't convince you working out is bad. It feels bad for you. It does something to you physically, mentally, emotionally.

Steven Bartlett 52:41 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 52:41 Um, I won't say spiritually, but for me to see the benefits, to see the things that I've seen, the, the ... Look, Steven, I've buried my father, okay? And in, in Judaism, one of the core tenets is that it's the highest, it's sort of the highest mitzvah, it's the highest commandment to take care of someone who's died. Why? 'Cause they can't reciprocate. Most of what we do in life, we have some kind of contract, you know, we, we play by the rules, we do things nicely, we have contractors, we invest in Dragon's Den, whatever. We're gonna get some kind ... There's nothing good, there's nothing that will come out of it that will benefit you. I've seen things, I've seen people that are saints that I can't aspire to even be in their presence of, but it's made my life better. I wouldn't change the things that I've done or seen, and y- you couldn't convince me it wasn't good for me. And as I said before, maybe you think I'm weak, but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't feel

Brian Keating 53:37 it was commanded to me.

Steven Bartlett 53:38 You, you mentioned the word simulation-

Brian Keating 53:40 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 53:41 ... a second ago. This is something that I've been thinking a lot about. What is, just for people that don't know, what is the simulation theory and are we living in a simulation?

Brian Keating 53:53 Hmm. Great question. So the simulations theory was really conjectured by a British, uh, philosopher, or he's actually Swedish or So the notion that Nick and others have proposed is that if this is extrapolated indefinitely into the future, whether or not that can happen is a question about planetary resources, you know, part of the reason Elon wants to go to Mars, and I do wanna talk to you about Mars in a bit. (clears throat) Um, and that, uh, that extrapolation leads inexorably to the, to the conclusion that compute will be effectively free and it'll be infinite. It'll be completely democraci- democratized. It'll be completely demonetized. It'll be almost, you know, as I said, too cheap to, to, to measure the expense of computing. And it'll be everywhere, uh, in just a short amount of time. I mean, remember, the, the phone that we have, uh, the iPad that you're using, these are like, these things would literally be mythological witchcraft, you know, uh, 80 years ago, and now they're, they're, they're commonplace. And so the, the notion that Nick proposed, Bostrom proposed, is that that trend continues into the future, that basically the capability of those computers would be to be able to model entire planets, entire ecosystems, even cultures, communities, maybe even people themselves. So we, let's take a parallel, um, uh, uh, uh, detour for just a bit. You're not seeing me necessarily. You're seeing photons are coming into your retinas, right? Photons are, uh, packets of energy, form of light. They travel at the speed of light. They have different wavelengths, the wavelengths we call color. They're going into your, uh, cornea, getting bent a little bit, then they're going to your lens, getting bent more, then they're going to your retina and they're getting detected on this basically, uh, a detector, just like a, a sensor in a camera, which has pixels except it has trillions of pixels instead of millions of megapixel or, you know, few megapixels. And those are being transduced. Uh, the color gets transduced on, on cells that are called cone cells. The intensity is the rod cells. Um, and, and those are getting transduced into electrical impulses that go from the, uh, optic nerve right into your brain. And remember Andrew Huberman told you on the show, the retina's the only part of the human brain that's outside of the cranium. It's outside of the skull. Um, and so it's a part of your brain that's outside, so it transduces it and makes electrical impulses. Those electrical impulses then get conducted like wires conducting electricity, uh, and then those go into your brain and synapses in your brain and the neural, uh, pathways in your brain can reproduce those. Now, you have an Apple Vision Pro I think I s- I saw you with once. Um, so that can, you know, kind of simulate, it could make very accurate representation of me, a holographic perhaps, and you would wanna reach out and touch me. Now imagine instead of just, uh, instead of just the, um, just the raw chem of the, uh, physical electronics of a, of a headset Apple Vision Pro, you just inject the electrical signals into the brain. So that's plausible. It's, it's just purely physical material processes. Uh, photons converted to electrons get con- converted to neuron signals, get processed in the brain. And so all you have to do is get that input sensory inputs in. You could have a digital retina, a f- fake retina and you stimulate it, it goes into your brain. They're working on that. Same with sound. Sound is even easier. You put a little speaker in your ear and you'd hear it. Um, but, uh, so the notion is that we could physically just be disconnected brains in a vat, right? We could just be, uh, in, in this vast system, just bunches of brains, don't ask how they got there, but we're all just receiving stimuli and we're just being fed, I'm being fed an image of you over there, you're being fed an image of me over here. I don't know why. Nobody knows why this would occur, but the computing power is there. If you think that the Apple Vision Pro, if, if you were alive in 1971, uh, you could not have necessarily predicted the Apple Vision Pro. It was too far advanced from, from what we have right, from what we had at that point in time. But imagine it just keeps increasing at any rate you like. Eventually there'll be a point where every bit of information, every atom in the universe, every photon in the universe could theoretically be simulated. Again, I don't know why this is, but it would be indistinguishable from our reality according to people like Nick Bostrom and others that suggests this is ... so, so that our existence is we are essentially in a simulation. So the notion is that we're all these characters in this literal simulation run on some computing device, some hardware device that we don't necessarily understand at this point.

Narrator 58:26 And we're calling that God.

Brian Keating 58:27 Well, that was what I was gonna get to.

Narrator 58:29 (laughs)

Brian Keating 58:30 Uh, so eventually you get to a point where if you could simulate everything, then you would have to ask there must be some simulator, right? There must be some master simulator. So let's say I'm a simulation. Well, who simulated me? And then, oh, who simulated them and then who simulated them? So that's the recursion, that's infinite regress.

Narrator 58:48 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 58:48 You can't actually get to a base level of, um, you know, a final simulator. And if you did, it would kind of be like, uh, like you're talking about this brain in a jar that's created out of silicon and, and, and oxygen and whatever we're made of, but it's physically created by human beings. What if you can't pay the power bill that week and, um, you know, you have to choose between unplugging your refrigerator or unplugging the brain? Like, is that killing something? You know, like it starts to enter into the realm of ethics and maybe even these concepts of a deity. What I've heard and I find quite plausible is, um, remember I said the, the implication of having infinite computing is that you can simulate everything in the universe.

Narrator 59:28 Yeah.

Brian Keating 59:28 Uh, but can it simulate itself? So I wanna digress into what's called complexity theory. There are two different types of, of difficult things. There's like a complex thing, like building an Airbus 320. It's very complicated, right? You can do it if I give you all the parts, all the instructions, give you the right order, and I keep you energized. In fact, like anybody can follow those instructions and make it. The Earth's weather pattern state right now is complex. There's no way that you can actually create that. Like you would need another planet sized thing to create that. That's called irreducibly complex. You cannot make it simpler and then build it up from simpler and simpler things. Unlike an Airbus, you can build it up from smaller and smaller parts.

Narrator 1:00:10 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 1:00:10 And as long as you follow the recipe, you know, if you follow the recipe for the Simons Observatory, you'll get the Simons Observatory.

Narrator 1:00:16 (laughs)

Brian Keating 1:00:16 But if you try to simulate ... And it may be that simulate the weather, you do need another planet. Like we'd need a s- another planet just like the Earth and then we'd introduce carbon dioxide at a certain rate and we'd see is it really gonna cause it ... But like that's totally impractical, right?

Narrator 1:00:29 Mm-hmm.

Brian Keating 1:00:30 So the question of these things is, um-... is it really a simulation if it's not 100%? Like, you could make a very, very good weather simulation. We do have that. Uh, but, but famously they're only accurate for a few days, right? So, so how do you build up, you know, an accurate simulator? It'd have to be the same si- So in other words, do we need, like, another... is there another universe where the simulators are (laughs) that's equally complex to the simulation creation that they made? And then did they stop? Like, did they get... Are they made of silica? Are they artificial? Are they... So there are proposals that you could detect the presence. It's kind of like you mentioned The Truman Show, where... How all computers work right now is, is on this binary code, zeros and ones, five volts, zero volts. Um, but, um, and that means that the world is fundamentally discretized. It's broken into little chunks, like the screen on your computer or your iPad. It's pixelated. In space, it'd be called voxels, volume elements. Um, and so you can, um, you can have an, a large number of them, but it's a big difference between a large number and infinity. To really have a continuous, like, like, um, temperature is continuous, like, go from zero degrees to 100 degrees and there's every step in between. But in the simulated world, because you couldn't have... you need an infinite number of computer power to simulate just from zero degrees to one degree, not... let alone from zero to 100 or every possible combination. So at some level you'd b- you'd see, if you zoomed in really close on the, on the thermometer, you'd see, ah, there's a little jump. So you could detect the presence of the simulator. It's more complicated. Actually, it's done using astrophysical sources called gamma ray bursts and other things that are, um, that have properties that are s- uh, seemingly incompatible with there being a simulation at the most distant and therefore earliest moments in the universe. So right now there's zero evidence for it. Nick Bostrom will tell you, and y- you should have him on, uh, that, that, you know, that that's basically a cop out and, and there are ways around that, that, uh, that fail-safe mechanism.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:29 Aliens.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:31 Do aliens exist?

Brian Keating 1:02:34 (laughs) Yes, aliens, uh, do exist. Uh, there's an old joke. They're called Hungarians. Hungarians, there's so many countries. Um, (clears throat) so I, I... Yes, there's an old joke. There are aliens, there are Klingons, and they're around Uranus. But I wanted to give this to you, Stephen. It's one of the gifts I've brought for you today. This is some soap for you. This is soap.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:53 Uranus soap.

Brian Keating 1:02:53 It's Uranus soap. So you wanna keep your anus clean. Um-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:57 Thank you so much.

Brian Keating 1:02:57 In all seriousness, uh, there's no evidence for aliens. There's no al- Uh, there's what I call possibility does not equal probability. The existence of so many stars in the universe means there's so many planets, which is true. We found almost every single star has maybe 10 planets around it, and we have 100 billion in our galaxy alone. There's 100 billion galaxies in our universe. We're talking a p- a one with 24 zeros after it. That's how many planets there are in the observable universe. So-

Steven Bartlett 1:03:26 Planets.

Brian Keating 1:03:27 Planets. People say, "That means there's w- It's gotta be life in the universe." No, it doesn't mean anything. There could be, uh, so many hurdles for life to get started, let alone to create complex technology-producing life like us, that we're essentially... we're it. And I'm not saying we are it, but I'm saying there has been 0.000% evidence that life exists beyond the Earth. I know you've had Lue Elizondo on. Uh, the claims that he's making are controversial. They're not scientific. They're, they're government. I'm not dismissing his experiences with people he talks about. They're not persuasive. They're not addressing fundamental characteristics. The universe is vaster than you or I can comprehend. You know, if this was our solar system, the nearest star would be, like, near in San Diego. There's almost no way for us to comprehend how enormous our solar sy- our universe is, let alone how vast the cosmos is.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:22 But how much of it can we see?

Brian Keating 1:04:24 We can see... Technically, we can see a lot of the universe, but most of that is way before even molecules formed. In other words, there's no possibility of life. Let's restrict ourselves to the Milky Way galaxy, which is the only galaxy we'll ever be able to explore, et cetera, at least unless we invent wormhole travel like Interstellar. Uh, but, but for now, we have sent probes. The farthest probe we've ever sent was launched in 1977. It's one light day away from the Earth. Okay? So that means traveling at the speed of light, the fastest speed possible.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:56 Which is how much miles an hour?

Brian Keating 1:04:57 186,000 miles per second. 300,000 kilometers per second. It's only, quote-unquote, (laughs) it's only gone one light day away. The nearest star is 1,200 times farther away than that. It's four light years away. So it'll never get to that other star. I mean, it took... And it took 50 years to get one light day, so it'd need 1,200 times 50 years, call it 100. So you're talking, like, vast numbers of, of millennia to get to the nearest star. And that star, we don't even know if it has life on it or not, and it's not actually going to that star. But the point is, the univ- the galaxy itself is so large and the types of environments in which life can take hold are so, so precarious. It's, it's actually... We, we tell ourselves a story, like you said, with molecules, and then they start to evolve, and then they get... It's, it's really not known how life got created. It, it's not known how life came from nonliving material, from hydrogen, helium, oxygen, how that turned into a, a cell. It's a, it's a vast challenge in what's called organic, uh, synthetic organic chemistry and the formation, origin of life. Uh, and then to say that those entities then evolved into some kind of technologically produ- No, no. If we found a dinosaur on Mars, that would be the dis- the discovery of the, of the un- of the history of the planet (laughs) of, of all time, right? A di- or whatever. Uh, even a bacterium on Mars. That'll be an incredible discovery. So some people try to defeat this notion and say, "Well, life didn't have to necessarily, uh, get started in all these planets. It could have started once and then get brought to those other planets through meteorites."Yeah. This was actually created, this theory was created by the same Fred Hoyle who came up with the Big Bang theory, and they called it panspermia. Sounds dirty, but it's not. So these meteorites could carry genetic material and they could land on another planet. They could have landed on Earth. That's one theory, that life on Earth originated from another planet that had life on it. And in fact, this is one of your lovely parting gifts, um, this is what Elon will kill for. I'm gonna give you something that Elon doesn't have. This is a piece of Mars. This is a real piece of Mars. It's 1.524 grams of another planet, and I want you to touch it. You can see it's a little bit reddish, like the planet Mars.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:20 This is much better than the-

Brian Keating 1:07:21 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:07:21 ... butt soap you gave me.

Brian Keating 1:07:23 I gave you a piece of Uranus and a piece of Mars. Here's some information about it. I give out, as I said, these meteorites on my website, brianking.com, to lucky winners each month, and I give out the information. This was found in Africa. And how did it get here? Well, a meteorite hit-

Steven Bartlett 1:07:41 Wow.

Brian Keating 1:07:41 ... the planet Mars, shattered off debris. That debris orbited around Mars for millions of years perhaps. Eventually it plowed into the Earth and landed in Africa. They found it, they said this, they knew it came from space, they analyzed it, it has the same chemical composition, molecular structure as the landers that are on Mars right now measure for Mars. So we know 100% that's from Mars. It's incredible. So Elon is desperately trying to get there. That's your little piece, please-

Steven Bartlett 1:08:15 Oh, thank you.

Brian Keating 1:08:15 ... keep it, keep it safe. And that's one way that life could have gotten to Mars from the Earth, right? Uh, the same kind of thing that happens on the Earth has happened to Mars.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:25 Yeah.

Brian Keating 1:08:26 So it could have hit, uh, Earth, blasted off, um, some amoebas, some, uh, orcas, some kangaroo, whatever, and (laughs) whatever was on the Earth at the time, and then eventually landed on Mars with the DNA of it, but it didn't take hold, right? So planets exchange DNA. It is possible, but we don't see life on Mars.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:45 If we think about this table...

Brian Keating 1:08:46 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:47 Um, give, to put into context how big the universe is, if the universe was the size of this table-

Brian Keating 1:08:52 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:08:52 ... how big would Earth be on this table?

Brian Keating 1:08:54 Uh, incomprehensibly small.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:56 Not even a grain of sand?

Brian Keating 1:08:57 No, no. No, far, far smaller than a grain of sand.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:59 Not even a grain, uh, a fraction of-

Brian Keating 1:09:00 Even our galaxy wouldn't be a grain of sand. Even if this were our galaxy, it wouldn't be a grain of sand. No, no, no. Our solar, our whole solar system would be perhaps, yes, one grain of sand. If this were the Milky Way galaxy, which is 100,000 light years across, it would be, like, one tiny little grain of sand.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:17 What would be?

Brian Keating 1:09:18 Of this solar system, out to the planet Neptune.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:21 So the, what's that, 10 planets or something?

Brian Keating 1:09:23 Well, we have, uh, there's eight planets in our solar system including the Earth. There used to be nine, but Pluto is no longer a planet. Um, so, and we're about one third of the way from the edge of the disc of the Milky Way. So traveling all across there, yes, we would be perhaps the entire solar system actually is smaller than maybe half a grain of sand.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:39 And can we travel to the end of the solar system?

Brian Keating 1:09:41 Well, we sent, uh, this object-

Steven Bartlett 1:09:43 Yeah.

Brian Keating 1:09:43 ... it's gone well beyond it, so the edge of the solar system is about four light years. So we, in 50 years, Stephen, we've only gone, quote unquote, and I'm not denigrating, this is a historic accomplishment. We actually put on these, on these spacecraft, um, digitized pictures of human life, of voices, of songs from every continent, of culture, of recipes, of laughter, of children, crying of babies. They put, and it's called the golden disc, uh, Carl Sagan was responsible for this, and they mounted it to it and it's now f- uh, well, as I said, 24 light hours away. And the farthest e- edge of our solar system, the planet Neptune is f- is four light hours, sorry, 24 light hours is the Voyager spacecraft. So we've only gone one sixth of the... we've gone only six times the diameter of our solar system.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:26 So our entire solar system would be a grain of sand on this table.

Brian Keating 1:10:29 Less even, yeah. About half a grain, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:31 Half a grain of sand on this, this table, this table's about two and a half meters roughly big.

Brian Keating 1:10:35 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:10:35 And how many tables are there?

Brian Keating 1:10:38 (laughs) That's a very good question. We think at least 100 billion tables, each one with 100 billion grains of sand. There are more a- there are more grains, uh, sorry, there are more stars in the entire universe that we can observe than every grain of sand on every beach on every continent on our planet.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:02 That's really wobbled my head. So there's, our entire solar system is half a grain of sand on this sort of two, three meter table.

Brian Keating 1:11:10 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:11 And there are 100 billion tables. So you know, when you hear that you go, "Okay, we really don't matter. Like, we're really... it's, it's so bizarre that we've fallen into the trap of believing that we're, like, important in any way." And then that-

Brian Keating 1:11:24 I don't know.

Steven Bartlett 1:11:24 ... and for me that even throws another question mark towards religion. But the other thing it makes me go is surely there's gotta be some other life on one of these grains of sands on the 100 billion tables.

Brian Keating 1:11:37 (laughs) Again, uh, well, let me just address the first thing. So, um, you're, uh, about 10, maybe tw- uh, 15 trillion times bigger than a virus or bacteria. Um, can that bacteria affect you or a v- a virus hurt you? Of course it can. So size doesn't really make that big a difference in this context, right? Jupiter is, uh, 100 times b- uh, you know, bigger in diameter than the Earth. Does it make it more important? I think the Earth's much more important. I like the Earth a lot better. (laughs) Um, the sun is 100 times bigger than Jupiter, like, would you like to live there? Uh, so the point I'm trying to make is size isn't really that important, number's not really that important, and remember, don't ever forget, we're the only conscious, you know, entity that we know about in the universe, right? There's, there's literally like 70 different types of, of primates, right? Like monkeys, you talked about before, bonobos, orangutan, none of them have what we have. None of them could have this.

Steven Bartlett 1:12:34 But probabilistically...

Brian Keating 1:12:36 Let me give you an example.Uh, I've been to Antarctica twice for BICEP experiments. When I go there ... Antarctica is the seventh continent to be discovered on Earth. It's approximately 12% of the land mass of the Earth. That's a huge, enormous continent with extreme mountains, weather, uh, extreme cold. But the one thing it doesn't have is much life. But if you did that same thing, I said, "Look, Steven. There's this continent. You could hardly walk across it in, you know, five or six years, even if you're a great athlete. You know, people do it, but you, you, it would be very challenging to do it. Um, it's enormous. It's got all the support for life. It's got, um, hydrocarbons, it's got h- heat, it's got, um, uh, rocks. You can build shelter. You can have water, which is the most important thing. How much life do you think is there? Let me just tell you, Steven. There's, uh, it makes up 13% of the Earth's surface. There's eight billion people on Earth. How many people do you think live there?" I mean, as a scientist ... You don't have to be a scientist. You'd say, "I think there's probably, you know, maybe 800 million people there." There's zero people there, basically. So just a probability. I'm not saying it's impossible. Probability is not determined by possibility.

Steven Bartlett 1:13:41 'Cause the, the thing with the South Pole is, okay, so there's no one there and if, if you put me there and said, "Is there life?" And I got a telescope out and I looked around, I'd go, "There's no life here. I can't see anything."

Brian Keating 1:13:50 Right.

Steven Bartlett 1:13:50 I think I'd say I'm the only, the only person here. And then I'd posit meaning to myself and say, "I must be really important." Um, I might think that I'm a god if, if I find no new life there. I'd look around for miles and I'd walk for days and days and days and send out pigeons and whatever.