Joe Rogan Experience #1596 - Avi Loeb

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. ALAvi Loeb0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Hello, Avi.

   4. ALAvi Loeb0:16

      Thanks for having me.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      My pleasure. Uh, I, um, I'm very good friends with your friend, Lex Fridman.

   6. ALAvi Loeb0:21

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      And, uh, he highly recommends you as well.

   8. ALAvi Loeb0:24

      Oh, thank you. You know, he asked me about social media and I told him I have no footprint on social media. He said, "Why?" And I said, "I promised my wife when I married her not to have any account." And he said I should get married.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:38

      (laughs)

   10. ALAvi Loeb0:39

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Yeah, he reads accounts.

   12. ALAvi Loeb0:42

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       He read... And he, he says he doesn't, but then he does. He reads, like comments and stuff, and then he gets mad at things people say. It's kinda funny.

   14. ALAvi Loeb0:48

       Yeah. You see, I save the time. I don't even read what other people say.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       Good for you.

   16. ALAvi Loeb0:52

       And I don't care how many likes I have. That's the other thing.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       That's wonderful. That's a freedom.

   18. ALAvi Loeb0:56

       Yeah, exactly.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       It's a underrated freedom.

   20. ALAvi Loeb0:58

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:59

       Uh, you came on my radar when, uh, you were discussing, uh, a, a mu, a Oumuamua. Is that how you say it?

   22. ALAvi Loeb1:05

       Yes, that's the right thing.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       A Oumuamua, which is an object that we detected in space, that you believe could possibly have been extraterrestrial in origin, meaning from some sort of a civilization.

   24. ALAvi Loeb1:17

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       Yeah. Why did you... d- why... Te- please explain to people what a Oumuamua is, why it's so extraordinary, and why you think it's possible that it came from some other intelligent civilization.

   26. ALAvi Loeb1:29

       Right. So, I'm a scientist and, uh, I basically follow the evidence, just like Sherlock Holmes-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:37

       (laughs)

   28. ALAvi Loeb1:37

       ... trying to find solutions. It's a detective story. You have some anomalies, some things that don't quite match what you expected, and you're trying to find an explanation. And, uh, the thing about Oumuamua is that it was discovered on, uh, October 19th, 2017, um, a little more than three years ago. And, um, it was the very first object that visited our vicinity in the solar system from outside the solar system. It moved too fast to be bound to the sun. Very first object that we have found coming to us from interstellar space, from other places. And, uh, at first astronomers said, "Oh, yeah, it's probably just like the objects we had in our solar system, all the rocks that we have seen before." Uh, we have seen comets and asteroids. So a, a, a comet is a rock that is covered with ice, water ice. So when it gets close to the sun, the surface gets warmed up and the ice turns into vapor, um, gas. And you see this beautiful cometary tail, uh, behind it. That's what a comet is. An asteroid is just rock without much ice on it. Actually, the first person to explain, uh, what comets are, uh, was at Harvard, the university that I, uh, am affiliated with. And the, the story goes that... I mean, it was Fred Whipple that he went to Harvard Square and saw all the slush, uh, during the winter day, you know, and came up with the idea that it's just icy rock or icy, icy rocks or, you know, rocky ice. Uh, and, um, that's what a comet is. And, um, the comets come to us from the periphery of the solar system. And, you know, astronomers said, "Okay, other stars may have them as well." And, you know, since, since they're loosely bound if they are in the periphery, they can be easily ripped apart from their host star, and some of them will fly in our direction, we will see them. So they said Oumuamua is probably a comet. The only problem is there wasn't any cometary tail. So you look for a duck, but it doesn't look like a duck, you know? So then the question is, what is it? And so people said, "Okay, it's just a rock without any ice on it." Then the problem was that it exhibited an extra push away from the sun. And usually you get it from the rocket effect that when, when you make the cometary tail, uh, it pushes the object in the opposite direction, just like a jet plane. A jet plane works by throwing gas out, and that's pushing you forward. So a comet has an extra push when it evaporates. Uh, but there was no cometary tail, so why did it show an extra push? That was the key question in my mind, at which point I started thinking maybe it's not a comet and not an asteroid, something else, you know? And the other strange thing about it, it, it changes its, uh, brightness by a factor of 10 or more, and the brightness of the object, the light that we see is simply reflected sunlight. So just think about it, uh, think about a piece of paper, razor thin piece of paper tumbling in the wind and changing the area that we can see, uh, the projected area of that piece of paper by a factor of 10 as we look at it. That's exactly what we inferred from this object spinning around every eight hours, but changing its brightness by a factor of 10, meaning that the area projected on the sky that we see that reflects sunlight changed by a factor of 10. So that means it has an extreme geometry, most likely flat if you try to interpret the light that it reflected, uh, over... as it was tumbling around. And so a flat object about the size of a football field that has an extra push, if it were a comet, it needed to lose about a tenth of its, uh, weight. So a lot of evaporation. You can't just say, "Oh, it's a little bit of evaporation and, uh, therefore that's why we don't see it." It should have lost a tenth of its weight, you know? If we go on a diet and lose a tenth of our weight, that's, that's a big chunk of, of, of mass, right? So this object didn't lose that because we didn't see it. And the Spitzer Space Telescope looked very deeply behind it to see if there are any traces of dust or, or gas. Didn't see anything. So then...... you know, just like Sherlock Holmes, I was trying to think, together with, um, a- a post-doc of mine, uh, Shmuel Bialy, what could explain it. And the only thing that came to mind is reflecting sunlight. So, um, the object itself is being pushed by the sunlight reflecting off its surface. And, you know, um, that would agree with everything we know about the object, but in order for it to work, the object needs to be very thin, like a sail. You know, the sail on a boat?

   29. JRJoe Rogan6:43

       Mm-hmm.

   30. ALAvi Loeb6:43

       Uh, so a sail is pushed by a wind, uh, but you can also push an object, a thin object, by r- light, and that is called the light sail. And we're actually using this technology now, developing it for space exploration. The big advantage is you don't need to carry the fuel with the spacecraft. You just reflect light off it and it's being pushed. Now, I-
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Well, let me push…

   1. ALAvi Loeb15:00

      unexpected things, we will never discover them, you know, if we put blinders on our eyes. So, all I'm saying is, it's a reasonable possibility for this, a reasonable interpretation for the evidence we have for this object, which is unusual, very... because all the natural interpretations also assume something that we have never seen before. So, I say, okay, so let's consider the possibility of a, uh, a message in a bottle. You know, when you walk on the beach and you see most of the time seashells or rocks that were naturally produced, every now and then, you encounter a plastic bottle that was artificially made. And perhaps Oumuamua was the first plastic bottle, you know, that carries some message for us, and that would change our perception about our place in the universe, you know, we are not alone. Also, I don't think that we are the smartest kid on the block, if you ask me. Uh, I think that we are probably quite typical because half of the stars like the sun have a planet the size of the Earth, uh, roughly at the same distance that could have liquid water on the surface and the chemistry of life as we know it. Now, you open a recipe book for cakes, you can see that you can make very different cakes out of the same ingredients, you know, depending on how you mix them. You can take flour, sugar, I mean, so you get very different outcomes. What's the chance that if you took the soup of chemicals that existed on Earth and put them together in some random fashion to get the life as we know it, that you got the best cake possible? What's the... the chance is minuscule. I think we are sort of typical, like ants, uh, on a sidewalk, you know? We are not really special. That's why nobody is interested in us. You know, it's very arrogant to say, "We are unique. We are special. Uh, the aliens are coming to haunt us." They don't care about us. We are just like ants on a sidewalk, you know? And at the same time, we might learn from them, you know? So if we a- a- approach this from a modest perspective, that we are not really the sharpest cookie in the jar, then by looking at the sky, we may learn something about more advanced technologies that we can bring here, for example. You know, suppose we see a technology that we didn't even dream about, it would be a better investment of our time to learn about it than to go to Wall Street or to Silicon Valley. Instead of us developing it over hundreds of years, you know, suddenly you see something that, you know, we can use here.

   2. JRJoe Rogan17:29

      Well, let me push back on a couple of these things.

   3. ALAvi Loeb17:31

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JRJoe Rogan17:31

      First of all, I, I don't think... if people do believe that there are... that there is alien life, I don't think they necessarily think that we are the best of, of life in the cosmos. I think most people agree there's room for improvement when it comes-

   5. ALAvi Loeb17:46

      Oh, definitely.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:46

      ... to the human race.

   7. ALAvi Loeb17:47

      If, if-

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:47

      But we are clearly the most advanced animal that we're aware of-

   9. ALAvi Loeb17:52

      Here, yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:52

       ... that we're aware of that we can prove currently. Right.

   11. ALAvi Loeb17:54

       But we are not smart. Look at the newspaper.

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:55

       But we're v- but we're not perfect, but we're far more... I w- I don't... ev- the word intelligent is a rough word, right? It's, uh, we're definitely more intelligent than a lot of other animals that we can observe, but what we can do that is interesting is we can radically change and manipulate our environment.

   13. ALAvi Loeb18:14

       Sure.

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:14

       And I think it's preposterous to think that that wouldn't be interesting to another species. Now, if you're thinking of something that's infinitely more advanced than us, millions and millions of years more advanced than us, it probably won't be impressed with us, but we have, uh, uh, we take-

   15. GSGuest (unidentified third speaker, likely calling in or added segment)18:29

       ... biologists go to the jungle to study bugs. I mean, we have people that spend a, a large portion of their life looking for strange little mammals-

   16. ALAvi Loeb18:38

       Yeah, but-

   17. GSGuest (unidentified third speaker, likely calling in or added segment)18:38

       ... that live in the, in the forest.

   18. ALAvi Loeb18:39

       But think about it. Our technology is evolving on a three-year time scale.

   19. GSGuest (unidentified third speaker, likely calling in or added segment)18:43

       Mm-hmm.

   20. ALAvi Loeb18:43

       So, you know, we ... It's a century old, the technologies we have. So, think what it would be 100 years from now, 1,000 years from now-

   21. GSGuest (unidentified third speaker, likely calling in or added segment)18:51

       Yes.

   22. ALAvi Loeb18:51

       ... a million years from now, a billion years. I believe that an advanced technological civilization probably builds a cocoon around itself, is not really interested in establishing contact with lesser civilizations like ours-

   23. GSGuest (unidentified third speaker, likely calling in or added segment)19:04

       But why wouldn't it be?

   24. ALAvi Loeb19:05

       Because we are, you know, not, uh ... First of all, the only thing that can happen as the result of interaction with us is that they will downgrade their lifestyle, you know, uh, their quality of life. So, the only way for us to learn about them is from the trash they throw out. You know, just like, uh, uh, investigative journalists looking through the, the trash of celebrities in Hollywood, you know? The ... To find out what, what are they doing, and, uh, but, um, I don't think they will care much about us.

   25. GSGuest (unidentified third speaker, likely calling in or added segment)19:32

       I do. Let me offer you up another possibility. What if they have recognized that all life, regardless of the ingredients in the cake and how they're put together, that all life seeks innovation and seeks to advance, and that this is a constant throughout the universe, that things go from single-celled organisms, to multi-celled organisms, to interstellar travelers, and that they continue along this path as long as they don't fall into a few possible scenarios that could lead to ultimate destruction-

   26. ALAvi Loeb20:03

       Exactly, but-

   27. GSGuest (unidentified third speaker, likely calling in or added segment)20:03

       ... like nuclear war, like climate change, like all the things that we're involved in right now.

   28. ALAvi Loeb20:07

       But, but that's, that's the point. I think advanced civilizations are probably short-l- uh, I mean, like ours, are short-lived because of stupidity. Now, look, for example, uh, the concept of racism. You know, that's not new. Uh, you know, there was the, uh, the Nazi regime, uh, okay, in the second World War, and racism is still around us. What is it based on? That somehow the color of the skin of a person, you know, makes a difference as to who the-

   29. GSGuest (unidentified third speaker, likely calling in or added segment)20:34

       Well, it's essentially tribalism, right? Because it's, uh, if it's not the color of the skin, then it's the origin of the religion, then it's the-

   30. ALAvi Loeb20:39

       But it, it's stupidity. It's not-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. ALAvi Loeb30:00

      I will back down as soon as there is evidence, you know, if I saw a photograph showing that it's a rock-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:05

      Mm-hmm.

   3. ALAvi Loeb30:05

      ... or if I saw some other objects like it that we definitely have clear evidence that they are naturally produced, then I will give up on it. Like, and I'm not afraid of being wrong, you know, that's- that's part of any work on the frontiers.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:17

      This is my thoughts on the- the quantum physics aspect of this. I think there's not enough people that understand what they're doing to criticize them so there's no social pressure. The difference between that and the concept of exploring extraterrestrial life is extraterrestrial life is inexorably connected to nonsense. It's inexorably-

   5. ALAvi Loeb30:38

      That's right.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:38

      ... collected... It's connected to crazy people-

   7. ALAvi Loeb30:41

      Exactly.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:41

      ... that think that they're talking to aliens-

   9. ALAvi Loeb30:43

      Exactly.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:44

       ... and that they're channeling people from another planet-

   11. ALAvi Loeb30:44

       But, but I have to answer, I have an answer to that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan30:47

       Okay.

   13. ALAvi Loeb30:47

       Suppose...... there was a whole literature on COVID-19 that is completely fictitious. You know, like, people were saying crazy things about COVID-19 that make no sense whatsoever, and that was a, you know-

   14. JRJoe Rogan30:59

       Oh, you can find them.

   15. ALAvi Loeb31:00

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:00

       Those people out there.

   17. ALAvi Loeb31:00

       Suppose there were, there were books about it.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:02

       Right.

   19. ALAvi Loeb31:03

       There were films about it.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:04

       Mm-hmm.

   21. ALAvi Loeb31:05

       Now, would that mean that scientists, reputable scientists should not work on a vaccine for COVID-

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:11

       No, no, no.

   23. ALAvi Loeb31:12

       No. So, who cares if there are people that say nonsense?

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       But that's, this is why that doesn't apply.

   25. ALAvi Loeb31:14

       You don't care, you ignore them.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:15

       This is why that doesn't apply. COVID-19's a real thing, and you can prove it in a lab, quickly, instantly.

   27. ALAvi Loeb31:19

       Yeah. Okay.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:19

       I mean, it's, it's universally acknowledged as being a real thing.

   29. ALAvi Loeb31:22

       Right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:22

       The problem with extraterrestrial life is there's no evidence that it's real.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   What is the normal…

   1. ALAvi Loeb45:00

      and then noticing that the guest is weird once it left through the front door into the dark street. So you can't ... By now, you know, as it, as it moved out, by now, it's extremely faint. It's a million times fainter than it was when it was close to us.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:16

      What is the normal speed of a comet?

   3. ALAvi Loeb45:19

      Uh, it's, um, uh, uh, at least twice as slower. So all the comets and asteroids we have seen before are bound to the sun.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:27

      Mm-hmm.

   5. ALAvi Loeb45:28

      And so they come from the outer part of the solar system, they are sinking on, uh, uh, an orbit that almost goes towards the sun, but not quite, and so they pass near us, some of them. Most of them are moving far away from us, so we don't see any cometary tail. And, uh, they basic- ... Because they are bound to the sun, they are not moving as fast as an object that came from outside that is falling, you know, the ... And we could tell that it is an interstellar object. That was the first thing noticed. We didn't expect it because I wrote a paper about, uh, 12 years earlier saying that this telescope in Hawaii that discovered Oumuamua, and that's why it has this name by the way, because it's, it means a scout in the Hawaiian language, a messenger from far away.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:17

      Mm-hmm.

   7. ALAvi Loeb46:18

      Oumuamua. Uh, it was discovered by a telescope called Pan-STARRS on Mount Haleakala in Maui, in Hawaii. We actually visited that observatory in July 2017 with my family. We were on vacation in Maui.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:32

      Mm-hmm.

   9. ALAvi Loeb46:32

      But back then, they didn't spot Oumuamua when it was approaching us at that time. They spotted it only when, in October that year, when it was receding away. If we would have known about it when it was approaching us, you know, we could have, in principle, sent a CubeSat, a satellite, with, um, a camera that would meet it, uh, halfway and take a photograph.

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:56

       Mm-hmm.

   11. ALAvi Loeb46:56

       A closer ... Uh, not only that we didn't spot it approaching us, but we also didn't suspect that it's something special. Now, there was a second object that came later, uh, called Borisov. It's called after, um, a Russian amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov, uh, that discovered it by chance, and it looked just like a comet. A typical comet with a cometary tail, also came from interstellar space. Just what we expected. So then people came to me and said, "Okay, you see, this one is a comet. It's interstellar as well. Doesn't it convince you that Oumuamua was also natural in origin?" And I said, "You know, when, when I h- went to the first date with my wife, I thought that she's special and unique. The fact that I met a lot of women since then didn't change that opinion. I still think that she's special." So the fact that we saw Borisov like a typical, regular, usual comet after we saw Oumuamua that didn't look like a comet doesn't change my opinion about Oumuamua.

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:59

       So you think they were just hastily looking to dismiss your ob- observations? Without really ...

   13. ALAvi Loeb48:03

       Well, it was not my observa-

   14. JRJoe Rogan48:04

       Yeah. Any observations. Yeah.

   15. ALAvi Loeb48:04

       But they were trying to make the case that it's also natural.

   16. JRJoe Rogan48:08

       Yeah.

   17. ALAvi Loeb48:08

       So, you know, the community as a whole, there was a group of astronomer that came together and said, "It is natural. It is unusual, but it's probably natural." They just said that.

   18. JRJoe Rogan48:18

       Mm-hmm.

   19. ALAvi Loeb48:18

       And it reminded me of a story about the, in 19- at the, in the early 1930s, there was a group, like, of 30 physicists that decided to write a book showing that Einstein's theory of relativity is wrong. So when Einstein was asked about it, he said, um, "You know, why do you need 30 physicists to write such a book? You know, one of them would be enough. You know, if he makes a good argument, that would show that my theory is wrong." So a kid can make a good argument and show that something is wrong. You don't need a group. The only reason you need a group of people is, if- i- if the, if there is sort of a herd, you know, just like in Africa. If you have a group of lions coming together, then they feel much more strong, you know? And, and so th- so it's just an, a sign of authority. They want to establish authority. My point about Oumuamua is, you don't need a group of, you know, of astronomers to come together and say that it's natural. I just want them to look at the evidence and explain it.

   20. JRJoe Rogan49:19

       I, I, I appreciate that. Now, the, the speed in which it was traveling, you, you said that it's, uh, twice as fast, at least, as, as the-

   21. ALAvi Loeb49:27

       Yes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan49:27

       ... average comet? Have there been other things that have been observed that are as fast as it?

   23. ALAvi Loeb49:32

       No, this was the first-... object that we saw coming from outside the solar system. So it was the fastest at the place where we saw it. The fastest ever. Because all the other objects were bound to the sun.

   24. JRJoe Rogan49:46

       Mm-hmm.

   25. ALAvi Loeb49:47

       And by the way, there is this, uh, principle that, uh, is called the Copernican principle that says, "We are never at the privileged time or space." You know, Copernicus was arguing that we are not at the center of the universe. We're not at the center of the world. And you can generalize it and say also that we are never at a special time, okay? So if we saw this object over a period of a few years that the survey of Pan-STARRS was going on, in the region that, of the Earth's orbit around the sun, that means that there are many more out there. You know, you can't, you can't just be lucky that over a few years you see the only object that passes in our vicinity over billions of years. E- e- e- you know, that makes no sense. So there will be many more that we will find in the future if we just look. And in three years, there would be another telescope, much more sensitive than Pan-STARRS, called the Vera Rubin Observatory that could see one such object every month, you know? The only thing that, uh, complicates the picture is that Elon Musk wants to launch all these Space X, um, all these communication satellites, and uh, you know, they would ... They reflect sunlight, so when they go in the dark sky they, they appear, uh, on the telescope images. So we have to know where they are and subtract them off, but that's all.

   26. JRJoe Rogan51:14

       Now, um, this object you, you also deemed when you, when you were t- talking about its reflective surface, that th- there's something about it that is much more reflective, I believe you said 10 times more reflective than the average ...

   27. ALAvi Loeb51:29

       Than the typical.

   28. JRJoe Rogan51:30

       Yeah.

   29. ALAvi Loeb51:30

       Yeah, it's, um, okay, so how did we get that? Um, the Spitzer Space Telescope was trying to detect heat coming off the object. Because we know how close it came to the sun, and we know what temperature it was heated to, okay? So the amount of heat that we can detect from it just depends on its size. If it's very big and it's hot, we would easily detect the heat.

   30. JRJoe Rogan51:54

       And i- this is about the size of a football field, roughly?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Hmm. …

   1. ALAvi Loeb1:00:00

      (laughs) But, um, the way I see it is when I served in the military, you know, and I, I did some, uh, uh, training, uh, in the paratroopers and so forth, there was this saying that, um, sometimes a soldier has to put his body on the barbed wire.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

      Hmm.

   3. ALAvi Loeb1:00:17

      So that others can pass across. And, uh, the way I see it is that I'm trying to create an atmosphere, intellectual atmosphere, that would be, uh, more open-minded that would allow younger people to have a better future in the f- uh, you know, and, and discuss these subjects. To me, I, I also think that it's just inappropriate, unhealthy for science to speculate about extra dimensions, about all these things, while avoiding even the discussion on technological signatures.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:50

      They're not the same. They're not the same people though, right?

   5. ALAvi Loeb1:00:51

      Not the same.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

      I mean, you're saying science in this gigantic blanket.

   7. ALAvi Loeb1:00:54

      Yeah, but, but there is this culture.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:55

      But quantum physicists and astronomers are, is-

   9. ALAvi Loeb1:00:57

      They're not the same.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:58

       Right.

   11. ALAvi Loeb1:00:58

       But, but think about it, the mainstream, uh, I mean, and the astronomers are completely fine with the discussion on extra dimension, the multiverse. They, they don't complain about it. So... And, and, and, you know-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:11

       But it's not their field of discipline, right?

   13. ALAvi Loeb1:01:13

       It d- yeah, it doesn't threaten them, uh, in any way. Uh, I think there is something about extraterrestrial life that is so important for us-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:21

       Yes.

   15. ALAvi Loeb1:01:22

       ... that they prefer, just like my colleagues said, "I wish it never existed."

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:26

       But it's kind of crazy for someone who is an astronomer to not want there to be evidence of extraterrestrial life.... or at least extraterrestrial civilization. Some, some d- discarded piece of, uh, uh, civilization-

   17. ALAvi Loeb1:01:41

       I agree.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:41

       ... hurling through our galaxy, and that's what you believe, right? You don't think it's actually a ship. You think it's some sort of an object that's th- like-

   19. ALAvi Loeb1:01:49

       Artificial. I don't know what it is. It could be just a surface layer.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:54

       But there was something about the way it was moving where it seems to-

   21. ALAvi Loeb1:01:56

       Yeah. It was, uh, pushed by sunlight in my, my view, just like this-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:59

       But the tumbling, though?

   23. ALAvi Loeb1:02:01

       It was tumbling, so it probably was not functional, you know.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:04

       Right.

   25. ALAvi Loeb1:02:04

       It could be a piece of, uh, a surface layer of, of, of a spaceship that was ripped apart, you know. It's something that... Now, let me mention a few examples that my colleagues suggested. So, those mainstream astronomers that try to explain the observed properties of Oumuamua, an example for an explanation that is natural was that it's a dust bunny. You know, the kind of thing you find in a h- household. The collection of dust particles, a dust bunny, you know, you find in the corner of your-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:33

       Yeah.

   27. ALAvi Loeb1:02:34

       Uh, but ju- uh, a size of a football field and 100 times less dense than air that is pushed by sunlight.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:43

       What?

   29. ALAvi Loeb1:02:43

       Very porous. That was an explanation, um, of a natural origin.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:49

       Why would it be so reflective?
6. 1:15:00 – 1:22:08

   Wouldn't you think that…

   1. ALAvi Loeb1:15:00

      put a very, uh, advanced computer system on it with artificial intelligence and a 3D printer, and you load to the computer system the DNA information of all the animals that you want to reproduce somewhere else. And then you produce them synthetically in other places using the raw materials that are on other planets. So you just send this spacecraft, I call it Noah's spaceship. You send it to those places and you produce what you want out of the raw materials.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:33

      Wouldn't you think that if some civilization got that advanced, that they wouldn't be satisfied with the design that we currently experience? Like the design of the animals, the design of the people, wouldn't, wouldn't they want to make that better?

   3. ALAvi Loeb1:15:45

      Yes.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:45

      Like make people that can breathe underwater?

   5. ALAvi Loeb1:15:48

      Yes.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:48

      Make people that don't get cancer?

   7. ALAvi Loeb1:15:50

      Right.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:50

      You know?

   9. ALAvi Loeb1:15:50

      And I think, uh, maybe the ultimate, uh, you know, we are evolving.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:55

       Yeah.

   11. ALAvi Loeb1:15:55

       You know, we started just like animals and, uh, we are getting better, but eventually it may be silicone-based things-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:02

       Yeah.

   13. ALAvi Loeb1:16:03

       ... that, that will, uh, be the future.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:04

       Well, that's a speculation that people have when they look at the archetypal alien, right? With the large head and no genitals.

   15. ALAvi Loeb1:16:10

       (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:16:10

       That what that is, is some sort of, uh, an ad- advanced version of intelligent life. Like that life, as life becomes sort of, uh, immersed in the world of technology, it becomes, uh, they have these symbiotic relationships where the, their parts get replaced by artificial parts, which we see now-

   17. ALAvi Loeb1:16:30

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:16:30

       ... with people. We see artificial limbs and artificial-

   19. ALAvi Loeb1:16:34

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:16:34

       ... you know?

   21. ALAvi Loeb1:16:34

       Yeah. And I think, you know, any form of life, even biological life that we find on another planet, we will be shocked when we see it.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:16:42

       Yeah.

   23. ALAvi Loeb1:16:42

       For example, the nearest star to us is called Proxima Centauri. Now it's not like the sun. It's much smaller, uh, 12% of the mass of the sun, and it's much fainter, but it has a planet close enough so that life can be on that planet. The planet has a permanent day side. It's facing the star because it's so close to, to the star, 20 times closer than the earth is from the sun. That planet, Prox- Proxima b, is facing the star with the same side. So there is a permanent day side-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:17:13

       Like the moon.

   25. ALAvi Loeb1:17:14

       Yes, exactly like the moon, and a permanent night side. And the per- permanent day side is warmer than the permanent night side. That's what we think. Now, my daughters said that, you know, the real estate value would be highest in between the day side and the night side because you will have a permanent sunset strip there. And you know, if you want a home, that would be a perfect vacation place, you know, kind of.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:17:37

       Yes.

   27. ALAvi Loeb1:17:37

       Uh, but, um, if you think about the animals that may exist on the d- day side and on the night side, they would be very different. And also the ones on the day side, since the star is, uh, much colder than the sun by a factor of two or so, it's cooler, like, uh, 3,000 degrees instead of almost 6,000 degrees for the sun. Um, then they ha- the, most of the light emitted by the star is infrared. So these animals would have infrared eyes, not like... Our eyes detect sunlight. That's what we have. But on that planet, Proxima b, the closest planet, habitable planet to the solar system, you need infrared eyes to survive. So these animals would be something very different. They will have infrared eyes. I don't know how they would look. I think even if we find evidence for biological life, it would be shocking to us, not to speak about, you know, technological instrumentation, you know. If they're much more advanced than we are, it would look like magic to us. Uh, you know, it ap- uh, an approximation to God. It will do things that are really crazy for us.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:18:47

       Yeah. So when you think about, uh, taking a 3D printer and, and genetic material and recreating life on other planets, I mean, it sounds crazy to say today, but no crazier than a cell phone would be if you put it in the hands of someone who lives-

   29. ALAvi Loeb1:19:05

       That's right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:19:06

       ... in the first century A.D.

Episode duration: 2:26:59