EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,016 words- 0:00 – 1:35
UFO stigma fades: why serious scientists are paying attention now
- MKMichio Kaku
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Thanks for doing this, I really appreciate it.
- MKMichio Kaku
My pleasure.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's-
- MKMichio Kaku
Anytime.
- JRJoe Rogan
... very nice to meet you in person. We actually did a radio show together once, remotely, a long time ago.
- MKMichio Kaku
Oh. Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was on the Opie and Anthony Show, and you called in.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I was there live, yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
(laughs) Yeah. That was a blast. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it was very fun. To ta- when a person like yourself, you're in this documentary, A Tear in the Sky.
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, for personally yourself, who is a, a very well-respected scientist, to be discussing the subject of UFOs, to me it signifies that there's been a shift in the way our culture perceives these things.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right. Uh, it used to be the third rail of a scientific establishment...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
... that (laughs) if you talk about UFOs, you were pretty much relegated to being a nutcase, and the giggle factor kicks in, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
But things have changed then, you know? Uh, because of the fact that the military is now, uh, basically releasing hours of videotapes of things that defy the normal laws of physics. And the military has, has admitted that, quote, "They're not ours."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
Before there was always that ambiguity that maybe it's a new stealth bomber or a new fantastic device being prepared by the military. Nope. The military now admits that they're not ours.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
Then the question (laughs) is, whose are they then?
- 1:35 – 5:36
From anecdotes to the "gold standard": multi-sensor evidence and extreme flight metrics
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, the 2017 New York Times article, uh, in my mind made, uh, that was a big shift because when the New York Times is reporting about it and saying that this is major news and this is real and there's video evidence that they can't ignore when you talk to high-level people at the government and people like Commander David Fravor, who had that in- infamous, uh, spotting off of the coast of San Diego, when you hear about people like that, that are very reputable, it starts to change the conversation-
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in a lot of peoples' eyes.
- MKMichio Kaku
Right. See, it used to be that one person would see something in the sky and say, "Look, Martha, look, there's something up there." Now things have changed. Now we have multiple sightings by multiple modes. That is the gold standard, the gold standard for looking for these objects. Not just one person, but several people that are reputable. Not just radar, but visual sighting, infrared sensors, uh, telescopic evidence. Now we have multiple sightings by multiple modes, and so the burden of proof has shifted. It used to be the burden of proof was on the people who believed in UFOs. They saw something, prove it. Now the burden of proof has shifted to the Pentagon, to the military. Now they have to prove that these aren't extraterrestrial. And so I think there's been a sea change, a sea change in the last, uh, s- just several years. You know, 50 years ago, there was a congressional hearing and it was coming out of Project Blue Book and there was a lot of laughter and a lot of jokes about thing, little green men in outer space. 50 years ago, that's the way it was. Now things have changed. Now people are looking about- looking at are they a threat militarily? What kinds of sensors do we have? What kind of metrics do we have? We now have frame-by-frame an analysis of these objects. These objects travel between mach five and mach 20. That's 20 times the speed of sound. These objects can zigzag and we can measure the G-force inside the- this object. The G-forces are several hundred times the force of gravity. In other words, any living person's bones would be crushed by these objects, so they're probably drones of some sort. These objects can drop 70,000 feet in a few seconds. Think about that. It can drop a tremendous distance in just a few seconds, and they can go underwater. This is something that we didn't realize before, but yes, they can actually go underwater, and they also move without creating an exhaust or breaking the sound barrier. So, these are things that we can now document frame by frame looking at these videotapes.
- JRJoe Rogan
So for yourself, what was the shift? And wha- how did you feel about UFOs, say like, th- 10, 15 years ago?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, there is this giggle factor, and, uh, it's the third rail, of course, of your scientific, uh, reputation if you believe in these things, but the evidence is accumulating over the last several years. Now, when I was first approached by Carol Ann Corey, uh, the producer of this film, A Tear in the Sky, I was skeptical. I said to myself, "Come on. I mean, five days? Five days you're gonna look for (laughs) flying saucers in the sky? What happens if the aliens are camera shy and they don't show (laughs) up in five days?" So, I was pleasantly surprised when they actually found something. They actually have photographic evidence of objects that can gyrate just the way the Pentagon has said. And so we now have a sea change. A, a center of gravity has changed with regards to looking at these objects. We no longer simply look at one individual seeing something in the sky. No. We demand hours of videotape, multiple sightings by multiple modes. That's the gold standard now.
- 5:36 – 9:20
Pentagon explanations and the hypersonic drone question (Russia/China/US)
- JRJoe Rogan
So what do you think is happening? Do you think that this is something that maybe an- another government from another country has created that far surpasses our abilities, or do you think that this is coming from somewhere else?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, the Pentagon has, uh, listed, I think, five different options. Uh, one option, of course, is that they're weather balloons or something that's an artifact of our space program, maybe, uh, a piece of rocket, uh, that is, is plunging back into the Earth's atmosphere. Uh, that's one category. Another category is anomalous, uh, weather events. Uh, they happen and they have to be looked at very carefully. But the last option, the last option is other.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- MKMichio Kaku
That is not just the Russians or the Chinese, 'cause these objects apparently can gyrate (laughs) faster than what the Chinese and the Russians can, can, uh, muster. But it opened the door to the possibility of other. They didn't specify (laughs) what other was, but you can fill in the dots yourself. Now, one possibility for other is hypersonic drones.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- MKMichio Kaku
We see that in warfare now. The Russians, in the battle of Ukraine, is actually using hypersonic drones to hit targets inside Ukraine. Uh, to be hypersonic, you have to go faster than mach five. Anything faster than five times the speed of sound is called hypersonic. And so the Russians are now fielding hypersonic drones in warfare. But you see, this is something just in the last few months. These sightings, they go back decades into the past, with objects executing these gyrations decades ago. And that's why you have to take them seriously.
- JRJoe Rogan
So the Commander David Fravor event that we talked about, off the Nimitz, that was 2004. Do we have an accurate understanding about military capability in terms of, like, drones and propulsion systems from 2004? Or are there things that are classified that we are not gonna have access to? Like, is it possible that, you know, 18 years ago, they had the capability to have a vehicle or a drone move this way, that just that information has just not been released?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, two years ago, the United States military admitted that it's stopped working on these hypersonic drones. Why? They're unstable. They zigzag, and that's why the Russians have put a premium on this technology to evade our Star Wars program. The Russians wanted a rocket that can maneuver and therefore outwit a stationary Star Wars system designed to shoot down these drones.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
So that's why the Russians have put a priority on this, and they're now fielding it in warfare. We actually see them as a military weapon. Two years ago, the United States military stopped its program. They're too unstable. They, they were not reliable, and it was not worth the amount of money to put into it, 'cause the military was invested in the Star Wars program, not the anti-Star Wars program.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- MKMichio Kaku
But because Vladimir Putin announced the hypersonic drones, now the United States military said, "Oops, nope, we have to get into the game too." So now the United States is also working on hypersonic drones as well as the Chinese. So the Chinese, the Russians, and the Americans are all working on these things. But you can see how primitive they are. We're talking about objects that defy the known laws of aerodynamics with a technology beyond what we have today. And so that's why people are scratching their heads. (laughs) Whose are these things, if they're not the Chinese, the Russians, or the United States?
- 9:20 – 11:52
Illusions vs. physics: distance, wind patterns, and why multiple sensors matter
- JRJoe Rogan
So one of the main points of contention is the lack of visible propulsion method, right? There's no, uh, uh, essentially, there's no heat signature. There's nothing that we understand to be present that normally exists when something is going at a tremendous rate of speed.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right. Not only that, these objects create no sonic booms. When you exceed the sound barrier, uh, you create a gigantic boom that is then s- shatters windows and can be heard miles around. These objects can effortlessly, uh, break the sound barrier and not create a sonic boom. And they don't create any exhaust. Uh, we don't see an exhaust trail from these objects. So either they're an optical illusion of some sort or they have a set of laws of physics beyond what we, w- w- what we can muster. Now, if they are a optical illusion, um, if an object were to move in front of your eyes, traveling at a very slow velocity, but you don't know how far they are away, you may think that object is very far away from you, traveling at enormous velocities. So a weather balloon drifting in front of your eyes can simulate an object traveling at hypersonic velocities if you think that weather balloon is far away from you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- MKMichio Kaku
So how do you tell the difference? Well, you look at wind patterns. It turns out that many of these sightings, these objects defy the direction of the wind. If they are weather balloons that you confuse with a flying saucer, uh, then they would be moving with the direction of the wind. But these objects do not do that. These objects can go against the direction of the wind. Not only that, but we have multiple sightings. If an object is very, very far away... I mean, if an object is close to you, but you think it's far away, then it, then it's traveling at an enormous velocity while it's actually just drifting in front of your eyes. How do you tell the difference? By having multiple sensors, radar, infrared sensors, visual sighting. Then you can tell how far this object is away from you, and then you can say that, "Nope, it's an optical illusion." Well, (laughs) we do that now. We have multiple sightings of these objects by radar. We know how the velocity, the distance. Each time, it comes out to be real. And so that's why we're scratching our heads. Who has this capability? And the answer is we don't know.
- 11:52 – 14:17
Interstellar travel skepticism—and the case for far-advanced civilizations
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there anything that's theoretical that you're aware of that could be applied, like some, from some other planet or s- some other galaxy or whatever, that, m- something that maybe we have theorized that could be responsible for the way these things are able to move?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, you know, when I talk to my friends who are physicists like myself about these things, they sort of, like, laugh, giggle, their eyes roll up to the heavens, and they say something very simple, that a rocket, using conventional means, would take 70,000 years to reach us from the nearest star. Therefore, these objects cannot exist. 70,000 years for a Saturn rocket traveling at 25,000 miles per hour to go from the nearest star to the planet Earth. That's why most scientists disregard these sightings, because they defy the laws of, of Einstein.
- JRJoe Rogan
But isn't that kind of silly? Isn't that kind of like saying, like, you can't... You know how long it would take you to get a horse from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia? Isn't that kind of like saying that?
- MKMichio Kaku
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MKMichio Kaku
And that's why I say that that assumes that these aliens or whatever are maybe 100 years more advanced than us. But open your mind to the possibility that they are 1,000 years more advanced than us. 1,000 years is nothing compared to the age of the universe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
The universe is ar- about 13, uh, uh, 13 billion-plus years old. That's how the age of the universe. And so the age of a civilization just a few thousand years ahead of us, that is just a blink of an eye to the universe itself. And once you go to higher energies, the laws of physics begin to break down. The laws of Einstein and the laws of the quantum theory break down in something called the Planck energy. Why is that important? That's what I do for a living.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
I work on something called string theory which lives at the Planck energy. The Planck energy is 10 to the 19 billion electronvolts. That is a quadrillion times more powerful than our most powerful atom smasher outside Geneva, Switzerland. Any civilization that can harness the Planck energy would be able to become masters of space and time. Space and time as we know it become unstable at the Planck energy, which is far beyond anything
- 14:17 – 18:50
Kardashev scale and the physics of Type I/II/III civilizations
- MKMichio Kaku
that we can muster here on the planet Earth. So, we physicists theorize, how advanced do you have to be to access the Planck energy? Well, we rank them. The Kardashev scale says that there could be Type I, Type II, or Type III civilizations. A Type I civilization is maybe 100 years more advanced than us to maybe 1,000 years, sort of like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
They control the weather. Volcanoes, earthquakes, anything planetary, they control. That's Type I. Then there's Type II. Type II is stellar. They harness the power of an entire star, like Star Trek. Star Trek would be a typical Type II civilization where they manipulate entire stars. Then there's Type III. Type III is galactic. They roam the galactic space lanes, they play with black holes, like, like, uh, the Empire of, uh, the Star Wars series would be a typical Type III civilization. Then the next question is, what type do you have to be to harness the Planck energy, the energy at which space and time become unstable, where wormholes may develop, gateways through space and time, portals through empty space? You have to be Type II or most likely Type III. Then the next question is, how long will it take before you become Type III? Well, we are maybe 100 years away from being Type I. We're maybe a few thousand years from being from Type II. And we're maybe 100,000 years being, uh, from being Type III.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
And 100,000 years is nothing, nothing on a galactic scale. The age of the universe is, as I said, over 13 billion years old. And so once a civilization reaches the Planck energy, that is a Type III civilization, space and time become your playground.
- JRJoe Rogan
How do they make the estimates of how long it would take to develop such technology?
- MKMichio Kaku
Uh, by looking at the gross, uh, d- national product of nations. We know that most nations grow at the rate of maybe 2 or 3% per year in energy consumption. Given that number, 2 to 3% per year, we then calculate how much energy they would have in 100 years, 1,000 years. Now, we are about a civilization, about 0.7. Carl Sagan did the calculation. We're not point, uh, we're not a Type I civilization yet. We're Type 0.7. But that means that by the year 2100, at the turn of the century, we'll probably be Type I. And you can see that everywhere you go. What is the internet? The internet is the beginning of a Type I communication system. We're privileged to be alive to see the first Type I technology fall into our era. What about sports and culture? Uh, the Olympics, the beginning of a Type I sports. Uh, soccer-... the beginning of a Type I fashion with Gucci and Chanel, the beginning of a Type I language. The number one and two languages on the internet are English and Chinese. So we're seeing the beginning of a Type I language. So in other words, the greatest transition in human history is maybe 100 years from now when we become Type I, a planetary civilization harnessing planetary forces. That is perhaps the greatest transition in modern history, and we're about 100 years from becoming Type I.
- JRJoe Rogan
So the Type I, we, we would be able to control weather events and we'd be able to control planetary events.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, you, you believe that by Type I, we'll be able to prevent super volcano eruptions, things along those lines?
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right. We'll have the power of an entire planet at our, our disposal and we see the beginnings of that today because that's been the biggest change in the last 100 years. 100 years ago, we existed as a fragmented civilization, nations battling each other for small turfs. Now, we're beginning to see the emergence of planetary blocks, a planetary economy beginning to dev- develop. And the internet, as I said, is the first Type I, uh, telephone system to fall into this century.
- 18:50 – 21:07
Next tech waves: AI, biotech, quantum computing, fusion, and "BrainNet"
- JRJoe Rogan
When you think of technologies that could potentially change the pattern of progression, meaning that, you know, w- we're on this sort of exponential rate of increase in technology, what about something along the lines of what Elon Musk is proposing with Neuralink, something that would change the way a human being's brain interfaces with information and with each other?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, I think that's coming. Uh, first of all, when you look at the history of science and technology, um, the first phase was the Industrial Revolution of 1800, uh, when we physicists worked out the laws of steam engines and thermodynamics. That was the first great transition in human society. The second great transition was when we physicists worked out electricity and magnetism. There you have us the Electric Age with dynamos and generators and radio and television. The third great transition was the Computer Revolution when we physicists worked out the quantum mechanics of transistors. So all of a sudden, we have lasers, transistors, and the internet. Now, we're entering stage four. Stage four is physics at the molecular level, meaning artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. You are now talking about the fifth wave, the fifth force, and that is physics at the atomic level, meaning brain net.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
Brain net is when we harness the power of the brain, connect it to the internet. Also, quantum computers, when we start to use individual atoms to compute with not simply transistors, but no, atomic transistors. These are called quantum computers. They're coming. And third is fusion power. We're gonna have the power of the sun in a bottle in the fourth stage of technology. So Elon Musk, I think, is ahead of his time, but it's gonna take time to develop the, the brain hooked up to the computer hooked up to the internet. So the future of the internet, Internet 2.0, is brain net. When we mentally control the internet, you simply think and all your commands are, your wishes are fulfilled.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- 21:07 – 28:22
Neural interfaces in practice: exoskeletons, paralysis, and decoding thoughts/dreams
- MKMichio Kaku
We put a chip in the brain. This has already been done. The chip in the brain is then connected to a laptop. The laptop deciphers the electrical impulses of the brain and then operates the internet, operates a typewriter, operates a wheelchair, operates the lights so that the person who's totally paralyzed can now live a (laughs) , a reasonable approximation to a normal life. We can easi- actually connect a human to a exoskeleton and have them kick a football to initiate the soccer games in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MKMichio Kaku
Two years ago in Sao Paolo, Brazil, it made headlines when a paralyzed man was hooked up to an exoskeleton designed at Duke University and he kicked the football, initiating the soccer game, international soccer games in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
- JRJoe Rogan
So was that a vi- is there a video of that available?
- MKMichio Kaku
Oh, yeah. Uh, Google it.
- JRJoe Rogan
See, see if you can find that.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, you can simply Google it. You can see him. You see him, uh, walk up to the ball and, and kick the, kick the soccer ball. And so eventually, we're gonna connect the human mind to the internet. So this means that emotions, feelings, sensations can be sent on the internet, not just digital signals, and that means that entertainment is gonna be totally revolutionized.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
You know, Charlie Chaplin used to be this great actor, dominated the movies until the talkies came. And when the talkies came, nobody wanted to see Charlie Chaplin anymore. You wanted to see actors talk. That lasted (laughs) for 50 years. And once we have brain net, then the actors of today could be put out of business 'cause people will want to know what actors are feeling, their emotional state, their sensations, and that's then gonna be the internet of the future, Internet 2.0.
- JRJoe Rogan
D- What is the bottleneck in terms of communication? Is it, uh, the, like, if we do develop some sort of a, a method where human beings can commu- communicate through technology with our brains, uh, via Neuralink or some similar technology, would the bottleneck be language? And if so, would there be a way to create a universal language? Like, we, are we married to the m- the languages that we currently have because of our region? Because of, you know, you live in America, you speak English or Spanish or whatever you speak, but it's primarily English and Spanish. But you, if you live in Chinese, you speak the various dialects. You l- you, well, obviously, there's a lot of languages and that is an impediment to understanding each other.... do you think that it's possible that a universal language could be created? And if so, would it be created in a way that is very different than any language that's ever existed before?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, we're not there yet. Uh, first of all, the impulses of the brain are digital signals, uh, little blips on a computer screen, and then a computer simply tries to interpret what these little blips are-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
... and then tries to construct, for example, an alphabet so that you can type. You can type by thinking about it. But that requires you to take the, the signals from the brain and then have a computer decipher it through the English language into text. You want something different. You want a universal brain language. Uh, we're not there yet.
- JRJoe Rogan
What about a visual language, like a hieroglyphics, like something along those lines? Like, where you could have a, a universal visual language that everyone learns at a young age?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, we already, at the University of California at Berkeley, been able to put the human brain into an MRI machine which calculates blood flow at thousands of points inside the living brain. Once you know the blood flow at thousands of points on the human brain, you feed that into a computer and the computer prints out a picture, a picture of what you are thinking.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- MKMichio Kaku
Now, I've seen these pictures. They're, they're not very clear. But the very fact that we can extract a picture from a living brain is incredible.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I've seen that. It's pretty fascinating.
- MKMichio Kaku
It's fascinating stuff. And even when you go to sleep-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- MKMichio Kaku
... the machine keeps on going and will eventually print out your dream.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MKMichio Kaku
Now, this has not been done. I've seen pictures of the dreams. (laughs) They're, they're not very good yet. But that's just a matter of time, uh, because, of course, the number of pixels that we have is about 20,000 pixels of the human brain. In the future, we'll have millions of pixels of the human brain to have a much finer, uh, resolution of your dream. And of course, after your dream, uh, just make sure that your wife or husband doesn't get access to the picture. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Ha, ha, ha. Or get a better wife or husband if they're getting mad at you about dreams. Um, do we have a video of the Sao Paulo? Yeah. Let's see this. Not a lot- So this is the guy. ... can't see much happening there. Oh, that's okay. So... It'll replay it, yeah. Oh, so it's very- It's quick. ... simple, yeah. Wow, what a, what a machine that's- Yeah. ... he's connected to. And, and do you liken that to, like, ancient technology, like Morse code as opposed to, like, what we could do now with cellphones? (laughs) And eventually this is gonna get far, far better?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah. Remember, this is the first time in history-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
... that someone with an exoskeleton has been able to, on national television, execute something that we just take for granted.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
You know? And that's today. Can you imagine what, what's gonna happen in the future?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, one of the things that Elon has said is that one of the first uses of this Neuralink technology will be to help people that have damaged spinal cords and help them regain full motion of their body.
- 28:22 – 31:19
Digital immortality and "laser porting" consciousness across space
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, you know, digital immortality is something that's coming.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was gonna bring that up next. (laughs)
- MKMichio Kaku
Uh, for example, uh, William Shatner sat for, what, three, four days, uh, answering questions and having it then recorded and then a computer homogenizes it, cuts it up, puts it in logical sequence so that you can talk to William Shatner years after he has passed away. And so this gives you a form of digital immortality.
- JRJoe Rogan
Pretty crude, though.
- MKMichio Kaku
Pretty crude. But then the question is, what do you do with it?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
One is you can talk to your great, great, great, great, great grandkids. Uh, long after you're gone you can talk to them because all your thoughts, your feelings, your history, your dreams have been recorded, and you can impart your knowledge, your wisdom to your great, great, great, great, great grandkids long after you're gone. Another application is then to take this digitized human, put it on a laser beam, and shoot it throughout the universe at the speed of light. I call this laser porting. So you digitize the human, so all the responses of the human are on a digital signal, you put it on a laser beam and shoot it to the moon. In one second, your digital brain is on the moon. In 20 minutes, you're on Mars. And in four years, you're on Alpha Centauri, the nearest star. And so what do you do when you're on the moon? On the moon, you download your digital information, that codes who you are, onto an avatar.... and the avatar then can roam the moon and not have to suffer from weightlessness, cosmic rays, accidents, loss of oxygen. No, you are an avatar controlling all the movements on the moon. In other words, you can explore the galaxy this way. At the speed of light, the fastest known velocity in the universe, your digital brain waves and information about your brain and thinking can be shot throughout the universe. Now, this is all well within the laws of physics, and this is something that could easily be done within the next 50 to 100 years. However, I'll stick my neck out. I think this already exists.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- MKMichio Kaku
I think that aliens in outer space don't use rocket ships. They don't use that rocket ships 'cause they, they crash, they have problems with gamma rays, radiation, food, whatever. They've digitized themselves, placed, placed their consciousness on a laser beam, and there's a laser highway, a laser highway that could be right next to the Earth for all we know, carrying the digitized souls of civilizations, and we're totally clueless. We're so stupid, we don't even know that that's how the aliens move from place to place.
- 31:19 – 35:43
Wormholes and warp drives: Alcubierre, negative energy, and the Casimir effect
- JRJoe Rogan
What other options are there? I mean, isn't there an option of without, uh, with a lack of better words, folding space-time and generating enough power where you can move from one point to another point almost instantaneously?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, there are two ways to do that. Uh, first of all, in 1935, Einstein with his student, Nathan Rosen, wrote a paper about wormholes. So, a black hole is like a funnel. Take two funnels, stick them back to back, nose to nose. Uh, that is a wormhole that connects one funnel universe to another funnel universe. So, I have two universes connected by a gateway, uh, which is called the Einstein-Rosen bridge, otherwise known as a wormhole. That's one way to do it. The second way to do it was done by Mi- Michael Behr, a friend of mine, who was watching Star Trek one day and noticed how the Enterprise zapped across space by contracting the space in front of you and expanding the space behind you so that you do not go to the stars, the stars come to you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- MKMichio Kaku
So think of walking across a carpet. You can walk across a carpet, which is the long way, or you can contract and compress the carpet in front of you, expand the carpet behind you, and then simply hop, hop over to the other side of the carpet. That is called the Alcubierre drive. Now, then the next question is, what's the catch? There's always a catch someplace, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
Otherwise, we'd be zapping across the universe today, and that is energy. You would probably have to have energy comparable to that of a black hole. In other words, a Type III civilization would have the power perhaps to utilize wormholes or compress space to go across galactic distances. This, of course, is science fiction, but it's well within the known laws of physics that wormholes and Alcubierre drives, uh, that are there possible within the laws of physics.
- JRJoe Rogan
What kind of an energy source could at least theoretically be used to generate that kind of power?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, in Star Trek, of course, they talk about the dilithium crystals.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
Of course, there's no such thing as dilithium crystals, but there is something that can energize this machine, and that's called negative energy. Now, energy, as we know, is positive, but there is a situation where energy can become negative, and that's called the Casimir effect, which is actually measurable. We've actually measured in the laboratory. Uh, the Casimir effect is negative energy, and that's the fuel for a wormhole. Wormholes are stabilized by negative energy. In fact, it was Stephen Hawking who actually created a theorem using Einstein's equations to show that all possible wormholes, all of them, are based on negative energy. That's Hawking's theorem, where he proved that mathematically. Which means that if you have enough negative energy, then in principle, you could rocket to the stars.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you could rock to the stars pretty quickly.
- MKMichio Kaku
Oh, instantly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Instantly.
- MKMichio Kaku
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, l- if we're talking about a civilization that is 100,000 or a million years more advanced-
- MKMichio Kaku
Type IIIs, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that's what we're possibly looking at.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when you have these, uh, encounters like they had with that Tic Tac-shaped object that went from, I believe it was 60,000 feet above sea level to 50 feet above sea level and, you know-
- MKMichio Kaku
Seconds.
- JRJoe Rogan
... less, yeah. So when you're talking about that kind of speed, possibly that's what you're looking at.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right. Uh, we're talking about them reaching us through a method that is far beyond chemical rockets. Chemical rockets, as I said, take, uh, 70,000 years to reach us from the nearby stars. While if, this is a huge if, if you could harness the power of Einstein's wormholes or Alcubierre's drive, then you could do this almost instantly, but you would need negative energy on a fantastic scale, stellar scale. In other words, you're basically Type III. So if you are a Type III civilization, then you do have access to the Planck energy, which is the energy of a black hole.
- 35:43 – 38:49
What makes intelligence: thumbs, predator vision, language—and the limits of alien imagery
- JRJoe Rogan
So, we're doing a lot of looking at the potential for the future, and we're looking a lo- uh, you know, what we think human beings are capable of doing thousands of years from now. What about... Are we...... are we looking at the potential different kinds of life forms? Like, we're the only intelligent life form on Earth that manipulates its environment in the sense of like what humans do. We build houses and planes, and things along those lines. We have other intelligent life, like orcas and whales, but they don't have the same capabilities that we have. Is it possible that there's something that exists that evolved in a way far different than us that has access to, uh, intelligence beyond what we think is possible?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, there are three basic ingredients that made us become intelligent. First is the opposable thumb, or a claw, or a tentacle, a manipulation device. Second is predator eyesight, eyesight of a predator. Predators are smarter than prey. Predators have to scheme, they have to stalk, they have to have camouflage, they have to deceive, which is much more difficult than that of a prey, which simply has to run. So, in other words, some kind of stereo eyesight of some sort. Third, language. Uh, a baby learns, uh, you know, several words a day. Uh, by the time they're in high school, they know f- several thousand words. Animals are lucky if you can get maybe 50 or, or so words out of them. So, those are the three ingredients that made us intelligent. And then you ask yourself a simple question, how many other animals have all three, an advanced language, opposable thumb of some sort, and stereo eyesight? Well, (laughs) we're the only game in town. But that doesn't mean that in the universe there couldn't be other situations with different combinations which have these three ingredients-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
... communication, manipulation of the environment, okay, and coordination of that. Um, that's how we became intelligent, and it could happen in, uh, o- other planets.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think that one of the impediments is what we were talking about earlier, that the, the languages are so different? Like, in order for us to share knowledge with people in China, we have to learn their language, to share knowledge with Germany, we have to learn their lang- w- there, there's gotta be some sort of, uh, communication. What if a species developed where they didn't have a language barrier, or perhaps they communicate in a method that we don't understand yet, or that we're not capable of 'cause we live in a completely different environment than them? Like, maybe they communicate from the jump telepathically.
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, they would have a definite, uh, advantage-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MKMichio Kaku
... if they could t- communicate telepathically 'cause then they can share, share knowledge almost instantly.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's not outside the realm of possibility, right?
- 38:49 – 1:04:14
From synthetic telepathy to memory transfer: hippocampus recording, primates, and Alzheimer’s
- MKMichio Kaku
Not outside the realm of possibility. However, (laughs) it'd be very difficult because our brain has not developed a universal language that allows us to communicate with other brains. Now, we do have what is called synthetic telepathy. Synthetic telepathy already exists, but that's mediated by a laptop computer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
You take two people who are paraplegics or, uh, have problems with, with their brain, you can connect the two brains together, but the language these, these two brains speak is still English.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
So, that's a problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
But we do-
- MKMichio Kaku
We want a universal language.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. But we do know that there's some species that communicate without language, like bees. You know, I remember we were filming this, uh, television show once, Fear Factor, and one of the things we did was we had this stunt that these people had to get covered in bees. So, this beekeeper who was, uh, hired to cover these people in bees had to stop the production down because a neighboring beehive had come over to investigate. And so these bees flew up into the air to visit with the neighboring bees, and they communicated. And I said, "Well, what do you have to do?" And he goes, "We just have to let them work it out." He goes, "They're gonna figure it out. It'll take a little while, though, so everybody should just move away." So we all moved away, and he watched his bees communicate with these other bees. I go, "What are they doing?" He goes, "We don't really know. We real- really don't know. We think they use pheromones. We think there's a... But somehow or another, they're going to relay that they are not moving in, that they're just temporarily here, and that will be enough for the neighboring bees to say, 'Well, enjoy your time here and take care.'" And that's what happened. I mean, obviously I'm simplifying it in the language. But something happened where they worked out that they w- these bees somehow or another knew that these other bees were not from there.
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, when you look at ants, uh, in your own house, for example-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
... or in the forest, you notice that when two ants meet, uh, they, mm-m, they exchange chemicals-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MKMichio Kaku
... invisible chemicals, and they move on to the next ant, and they bump into them and then they exchange chemicals, right? So, we've tried to decipher that language, and it turns out there's only a handful of chemicals that we've identified that are exchanged between ants. And then, at MIT, they tried to construct artificial ants, robot ants. So when two robot ants meet, they exchange a limited vocabulary, just like what ants do in real life, a limited vocabulary. And then the next question is, with these mechanical ants, can you reconstruct ant society-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
... all of ant society given a primitive language that exists between two ants? And the verdict is still out, but the answer seems to be yes, that given a limited vocabulary between two ants, it's possible to construct ant society on the basis of a rather primitive language.
- JRJoe Rogan
And when you say ant society, do you mean like the hierarchy of queen and workers and all that?
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right, and building the nest-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
... and fending off invaders, and disposing of, uh, dead ants. And yeah, all the things that ants do can, can be replicated by a rather simple language that ants use when they communicate with each other.
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what about really complex ant societies, like leafcutter ants that develop these caverns that allow for fermentation and air vents and... Have you ever, have you seen when they've poured cement-
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... into leafcutter ant-
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... colonies?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Fascinating.... like, they have very complex systems of caverns and labyrinths. I mean, it's weird stuff.
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like, it's all these tubes that lead to these rooms and there's vents that go up through the, the, through the ceiling. And when they pour cement in it, it's, it almost is a shame because it's the only way they get to see it, but you have to kill all the ants and, you know, we, we, we get a chance to look at it, but it's magnificent what they're able to do.
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And somehow or another, this is a universal trait amongst these leafcutter ants. I mean, they're able to do this all over the world.
- 1:04:14 – 1:42:17
AI risk and control: from cockroach-level robots to self-aware machines and military incentives
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, some people ask yet another question, which is corollary to what you said, and that is, at what point do the machines become dangerous and turn on us? Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Artificial intelligence.
- MKMichio Kaku
First of all, our robots today, believe it or not, our military robots have the intelligence of a cockroach, a retarded cockroach, a lobotomized, retarded, stupid cockroach. You put them in the forest, and they get lost. They get lost. You put a cockroach in the forest, they find food, mates, shelter. They do perfectly well in the forest. But I can visualize a time in the future when our military robots have the intelligence of a mouse, and then maybe a rat, and then maybe a rabbit, and then maybe a dog or a cat, and by the end of the century, I think perhaps, uh, the intelligence of a monkey. At that point, I think they're potentially dangerous because they have a mind of their own. They realize that they're not human. Now, dogs... You see, dogs are confused. Dogs think that we are a dog.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think... You met Marshall. You met my dog out there.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah. I-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think he thinks you're a dog?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, because imprinting, when you're very young as a puppy, you imprint immediately on who's the top dog, who's the mother dog. And you're very early in your stage of, of growing up, you know your pecking order very, very clear because they are pack animals, unlike cats. Cats are not pack animals. They're hunter, lone hunters. That's why cats are very mysterious. While dogs are pack animals. They understand the hierarchy, and they understand that you are the top dog. They are the underdog, and they are, uh, you are the top dog.
- JRJoe Rogan
But if you met my dog, you know that he reacts very differently to people than he does to animals. If he meets another dog, it's a very different experience. I think he knows the difference between a dog and a person. I just think he accepts the fact that humans are the dominant animal, but I don't think he thinks we're dogs.
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, he thinks that w- they're his tribe-
- JRJoe Rogan
His tribe.
- MKMichio Kaku
... because dogs are tribal animals-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
... that whatever you call it, we are members of that tribe, and we're the top dog. We're the leader of that tribe, and therefore, they follow.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I don't think he thinks you're a dog.
- MKMichio Kaku
Bu-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think he's got the ability to discern between people and dogs.
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, it's a question of hierarchy. We are at the top of the hierarchy. Whatever you call it, okay? Now-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
... what I'm getting at is, what happens when they have the intelligence of a monkey? At that point, they're potentially dangerous-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
... 'cause they can scheme.... they know that we're not monkeys, we're alien to them. So I think we should put a chip in their brain to shut them off once they have murderous thoughts.
- JRJoe Rogan
But don't you-
- MKMichio Kaku
Then-
- JRJoe Rogan
... think-
- MKMichio Kaku
... the next question is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sorry.
- MKMichio Kaku
... what happens 200 years from now when the robots become so intelligent that they know how to remove the chip, they remove... know how to remove all fail-safe systems? At that point, I'm guessing, maybe 200 years from now, I think we should merge with them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy. So, (laughs) so, um, when you say that they could have, like murderous intentions, aren't murderous intentions attached to all the things that we discussed earlier like ego, like, uh, the y- the need to breed, to control territory, all those things, all these biological functions that make c- competition a necessity for human beings in order to perpetuate the survival of the fittest? Like, all those things exist because human beings are these complicated animals that are trying to advance. But why would an artificially intelligent thing that's been created have any instincts to advance or to get better?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, we would have to program it because we are the gods, in some sense. We have to create these things in our machines.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
Episode duration: 2:31:47
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