The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #1980 - Michio Kaku
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,006 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(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) Good to see you.
- MKMichio Kaku
Hi. Yeah, glad to be on the show again.
- JRJoe Rogan
My pleasure. The last time was fascinating, and, uh, you have, uh, sent me down a rabbit hole of, uh, UFO stories and, and reports and...
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Fascinating stuff. But, uh, let's talk about your, your latest book, which is on quantum computing, which is e- equally interesting, if not more interesting, 'cause it might lead us to become aliens. (laughs)
- MKMichio Kaku
(laughs) We'll talk about that too.
- JRJoe Rogan
Please. Um, so first of all, if you could, just tell everybody what it means. What it, what is quantum computing, and how does it work?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, there's a race going on, a race between China, the United States, between IBM and Google, a race to dominate the next generation of computers, because Silicon Valley could become a rust belt. Think about that. The digital computer of today could be like the abacus of years gone by. We're talking about the computer of today could become obsolete with this race to perfect the next generation, which is quantum computers. Instead of computing on transistors, we're computing on atoms. Think about that. This is the ultimate computer. There's nothing smaller than what you can do with atoms, and that's what these qu- quantum computers compute with, and it raises all sorts of problems. The CIA is worried that quantum computers will break right through the CIA and any, any kind of, uh, barrier being placed around your secrets. Industries are going to be created out of nothing. Medicine is going to be turned upside down. Energy production, society, entertainment, every aspect of society will be changed with quantum computers, and that's why there's this race, a race to perfect the quantum computer.
- JRJoe Rogan
How far f- from the finish line do you think they are?
- MKMichio Kaku
Uh, we're still years away. First of all, we've actually built one. Uh, different companies h- are fielding quantum computers. They're kind of primitive, but some computers, some quantum computers, are actually millions of times more powerful than our supercomputer for certain definite tasks. But it may take another decade or so before we get all the, all the kinks out and it becomes part of everyday life. But it's gonna change everything in the same way that the transistor changed everything, the world economy, medicine, art, science. Everything was changed with the microchip. Same thing with the quantum computer.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's very difficult for us. There's only been a few, uh, science fiction authors who have been able to do this successfully, where they can accurately predict what the future's gonna look like. I mean, even they're off usually. You know, HG Wells had some pretty good ideas. But, wh- are we looking at something that we almost don't have a reference for, that it's so mind-blowingly different and much more powerful than anything we've experienced so far that it's h- it's difficult for us to imagine how much it's gonna change the world?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, to imagine how it's gonna change the world, think of the progression of the computer. For thousands of years, the computer was basically an analog device. We used sticks, beads, uh, levers, gears, pulleys, cranks in order to do simple calculations. That was the first era of computation, and that meant that we could keep track of things whi- which we couldn't do before. Then World War II hit, and all of a sudden, we had to break the German code, and that required using electricity and using all sorts of vacuum tubes to crack the German code. And then we went into the second era where we compute on digital and binary, so zeros and ones, zeros and ones. Now we're entering the third era, a natural progression from gears, levers, pulleys to vacuum tubes and transistors and then to atoms. This is the final step in the evolution of the computer. When we compute on atom, these are atomic computers, nothing more powerful than that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whew. So when, when you think about how much it would change life as we know it, that's when things get difficult to understand, right? Because if we think about just trying to imagine what it would be like living in New York City in 1820 and then imagining what it's like today, 200 years later, they would have never been able to guess. Wha- what kind of things is this gonna change?
- MKMichio Kaku
Everything. Uh, for example, think of biology and medicine. To test a drug, what do we do? We get thousands, hundreds of different kinds of Petri dishes, put the drug in, put the tissue in, and just cross your fingers and hope and pray that of these thousands of dishes, one of them will create a super wonder drug. That's why it costs upwards of a billion dollars to market the next wonder drug, because it's all done by trial and error. Now, think of putting that in the memory of a supercomputer, uh, the quantum computer. It the- it analyzes whether or not germs can be destroyed by this substance at the speed of light. Not just one dish, but hundreds, thousands of dishes of these things could be tested at the same time in the memory, the memory of a computer. So we're talking about digital medicine, digital chemistry, virtual chemistry. Think about that. Chemistry without chemicals.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
Biology without biology (laughs) . So that's the, that's the beauty of this technology, that we can mimic atoms. We can mimic molecules and do virtual experiments in the memory of a computer rather than using test tubes like we used to do, uh, that, that we still do today.
- JRJoe Rogan
And we could possibly see things that are just theoretical, uh, right now, like with medicine, like regenerating limbs or regrowing spinal tissue for a person who's been paralyzed, things along those lines.
- MKMichio Kaku
In fact, even immortality is on the table. Uh, realize that scientists who have looked at the aging process realize that the reason why we never understood aging is that aging is the buildup of error, that's what aging is, the buildup of mistakes in the replication of DNA. But what happens if you could put DNA in the computer? Then you can see where the aging takes place, and then we can begin perhaps to slow down the aging process, maybe even become immortal.
- JRJoe Rogan
What about reversing it? What about, uh, old women become young hot ladies again?
- MKMichio Kaku
Uh, well-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think that'd be a problem.
- MKMichio Kaku
... everything's on the table because we're talking about changing the fabric of life itself. You know, the greatest quantum computer is mother nature. Think about it, how does mother nature do photosynthesis?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
How does ma- mother nature create, uh, trees and flowers out of nothing?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MKMichio Kaku
It's all chemicals and molecules. That's what quantum computers can do.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you think about that, just des- describe that complexity that you just described, do you ever wonder if there's some sort of an ongoing code in the whole universe itself, like there's a reason why all these things ha- these things happen? There's a reason why the mycelium and the f- the, the trees have this relationship with the fungus and the earth and the soil and th- the animals have this perfect symbiosis?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, that was the subject of my previous book, The God Equation, where we try to find one theory that allows us to calculate everything, starting with the Big Bang, then c- the, the creation of galaxies and stars, planets, finally the creation of life, photosynthesis, and here we are talking about this on, on, uh, on a podcast. So yeah, we're talking about one equation, which I call the God Equation, which I write about in my book, The God Equation, but there's a problem. The problem is that the theory is so complicated that no human has been able to solve the consequences of this equation. That's where quantum computers can come in. Quantum com- computers can solve the equation and then test it to see whether or not it really is a theory of everything or just the imagination of some physicist. So, that was my previous book, The God Equation, so that's why I decided to write this book, uh, Quantum Supremacy, because it may eventually take a quantum computer to calculate with what is called string theory, and I'm one of the founders of string theory, and we think that is Einstein's theory that eluded him for the last 30 years of his life.
- JRJoe Rogan
This quantum computing creating the answer to this god molecule or this God Equation, if, if this does happen, wh- what would that mean to you, to a, a person who's studied this and, and been a scientist your whole life and the way you look at the world? What, how much would that change if there was some sort of a provable equation as to why things become ever more complex and universes exist and people exist and... ?
- 15:00 – 30:00
(laughs) …
- JRJoe Rogan
- MKMichio Kaku
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MKMichio Kaku
But, you know, like I said, I was chasing after this dream, uh, of an eight-year-old child wondering, is there a theory of everything?
- JRJoe Rogan
It's an amazing dream.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
W- now, w- when, where did you get the designs for this?
- MKMichio Kaku
Oh, well, um, these designs come from an X-ray machine, uh, done by Donald Kerst, uh, who was one of the inventors of the betatron. And so a lot of the groundbreaking work was done by him. And now they're incorporated in most hospitals. Most hospitals have, have one, uh, that do, uh, that creates X-rays to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- MKMichio Kaku
... for, uh, for patients.
- JRJoe Rogan
So was there a schematic online that you duplicated? Did you devise this yourself?
- MKMichio Kaku
Uh, yeah, no, there was a, um, a schematic online. I mean, n- there was no line back then, uh, in the library.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, of course, online. Excuse me.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, in the library, there was a, uh, a schematic, but I had to fill in the details. I had to do the equations to calculate how many turns of wire, how many gauss. I needed 10,000 gauss in order to bend tracks, uh, of 2.3 million electron volts. All the calculations had to be done ahead of time to make sure it would work. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't it funny that the universe is so common that, or excuse me, the internet rather, is so common that I automatically for a second forgot that we were children-
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... when you were younger than me or when you were younger, uh...
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right, there was no internet.
- JRJoe Rogan
There was no internet at all.
- MKMichio Kaku
Nothing online-
- JRJoe Rogan
It was just books.
- MKMichio Kaku
... back then. (laughs) Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It was just books.
- MKMichio Kaku
It was just books.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so you had to have a real hunger for information to go and seek this stuff out.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right. Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you have any particular high school teachers that were influential or inspirational?
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, fortunately, I grew up in Palo Alto, which is now ground zero for Silicon Valley. (laughs) So luckily there were other physicists in the area because they worked for varying associates and different electronics companies. So it wasn't a total vacuum. I was able to get advice, uh, especially in the magnetic field and the, uh, the- the cloud chamber and also the, um, the vacuum tube that contained the, the particles that I was accelerating. It was good to have real physicists there, uh, in Palo Alto because of that fact.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, that's amazing. So did you, were they willing to consult with you and discuss this with you as a high school student?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, in general, right. So I would talk to them about how to build a magnetic field and to calculate using Maxwell's equations, the, uh, the geometry of the, of the particle accelerator. So, uh, yeah, I would go and visit these physicists 'cause Palo Alto was, was to become ground zero for Silicon Valley.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Mm-hmm. …
- JRJoe Rogan
fascinating when you think of where we were just a few thousand years ago to... O- or a few hundred years ago-
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to where we are now. And then you imagine the invention of quantum computing, you imagine everything just... The, the whole idea of whatever we think of current computer progression just goes out the window and it's i-insane......calculation capabilities. We could be able to do something like that in the future.
- MKMichio Kaku
Right. Quantum computers allows us to calculate things that are way beyond our ability to calculate today, like going through a wormhole or warp drive, or even the question of multiple universes. Uh, people ask the question, how come quantum computers are so powerful? It's because they compute in, in parallel universes. This is the multiverse, which of course Marvel Comics has discovered and the Oscars have discovered recently. But m- the multiverse idea comes from quantum physics. Electrons can be two places at the same time. Now some people have a hard time getting their head around that, but get used to it. That's why we have lasers. That's why we have transistors. That's why we have the internet. That's why we have this conversation. Because the electrons that are in this microphone dance between universes at the, at the atomic level. And so we have to get used to the idea that quantum computers introduces a whole new way of looking at reality. Now, reality is not a Marvel comic, but the idea of the multiverse comes from quantum physics, and that is electrons can be multiple places at the same time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think this understanding of this and this, this race towards quantum computing and that kind of pa- and whatever is after that, do you think that is a natural course of the universe, that this happens whenever things are intelligent and sentient, they keep striving to create something?
- MKMichio Kaku
I think so. I think on the other end of the Milky Way galaxy, there's probably a young alien who is also talking about quantum computers, and they've probably already perfected it and have had experience with quantum computers maybe for thousands of years.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, and also possibly every step in humanity's journey along the way to that point exists out there.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right. And all the goals of this ch- journey, uh, maybe they've already accomplished. Like for example, we mentioned the possibility of, uh, slowing down the aging process. Uh, quantum computers will be able to isolate where genetically at the DNA level where errors build up causing what is called aging. In which case, maybe immortality is something that the, the aliens have already cooked up. In which case, we have to deal with a whole new concept of biology and medicine because they probably already have had thousands of years' experience with quantum computers. They manipulate molecules probably as part of their life.
- JRJoe Rogan
And every step along the way probably exists too. So that might be... if you wanted to have a logical reason to why aliens visit us, if they do, if they really are aliens, that would be the answer. There, there's probably a shepherding, there's probably some... probably a s- a natural course that happens with intelligent life where it develops this power while it's still a territorial tribal animal and it's still got these barbaric instincts, it still engages in war, it still engages in theft and deception, and all while about to break through to the next level of intelligence and capability, which may exist, which may be in the entire universe.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, I think that all civilizations in the galaxy probably go through the same basic stages, that first they use rocks and stones to settle differences, but then eventually they begin to understand, uh, chemistry and substances and properties of materials, and then beyond that they discover atoms and the ability to manipulate atoms. I think that's a normal progression and I think that progression is now hitting the computer industry. Now we're going from microchips to atoms, quantum computers. And I think that the aliens in outer space probably went through that phase maybe thousands of years ago, in which case they used the quantum computers to cure cancer, cure aging, a- d- diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. These are diseases at the molecular level, and they've been able to probably use what is called CRISPR technology to cut up DNA, to cut up proteins in order to cure many of these diseases, in which case they may be immortal.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a famous quart- quote from, uh, I think it was Einstein where he said, "I don't know what World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Do you ever worry that... I mean, the reason why... if it made sense that aliens would be here it's because they wanna stop us from blowing ourselves up. Do you ever worry that, like, we're so close to being able to figure out so many things, to be able to change the... all of your ideas, to be able to change the world fundamentally forever, but we could ruin it?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, well, I think we're headed toward what we physicists call a Type I civilization, a civilization which has the power to self-annihilate for the first time, but also the possibility of becoming a planetary civilization, a civilization of the entire planet. That's called a Type I civilization. They control the weather. They control volcanoes and earthquakes. They harness the power of the entire Earth. Then there's Type II. They harness the power of the sun. And for example, uh, Star Trek would be a typical Type II civilization. They've colonized a fraction of the Milky Way galaxy. Then there's Type III. Type III would be galactic, that they roam the galactic space lanes, they, they use black holes as their power supply, they use wormholes to go zipping around the Milky Way galaxy. And the empire of Star Wars, uh, would be a typical Type III civilization. But what are we? On this scale, we are Type 0. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
We get our energy from dead plants. We settle our differences with weapons. And, uh, yeah, we're Type 0, but you can see that we're headed toward Type I.Um, the language of Type One will be probably English. Uh, the dominant languages on the internet are English and Mandarin Chinese. And we're seeing the beginning of a Type One, uh, sports, uh, the Olympics and, um, soccer. We're seeing the beginning of a Type One fashion, with Gucci (laughs) and Chanel. The beginning of a Type One music, with, uh, rock and roll and rap and different trends. Uh, we're seeing the beginning of a Type One civilization emerging right before our eyes. But w- with that is the power to self-destroy ourselves, uh, because, uh, we have the ability to use nuke- nu- nuclear weapons, create designer germs, and, uh, mess up the weather. And so (laughs) it's a race against time to see which trend will dominate, the trend toward becoming a planetary civilization versus the trend toward self-destruction.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's fascinating that you think of culture as being a major part of a Type One civilization, things like rap music, things like fashion. D- because of the sharing of these ideas globally and the adopting of these ideas and- and these art forms globally?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah. You see, a planetary civilization like Type One has a local culture. Different nations still have their own cultural language, cultural habits, and whatever. But globally, (laughs) they settle differences on a global scale. So they coexist w- on one hand, local culture, local languages, local dialects, local jokes and customs, simultaneously existing with a planetary civilization that is emerging. So that's what I'm talking about.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
I'm talking about the emergence of a planetary civilization, or what we physicists call Type One, which is happening right before our eyes. Mathematically, if you get a sheet of paper and calculate when that'll happen, it'll be around 2100. So we're seeing the groundwork being laid today. Every time you turn on the TV, (laughs) you see remnants of ... I mean, you see, uh, international sports-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
... international culture on TV, so we're seeing the beginning of a Type One civilization.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's interesting. Uh, soccer has become much more popular lately.
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm. Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
And music, culture, fashion-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
... um, science. Everything is becoming planetary. That's the d- that's our destiny, to become Type One.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the internet is the bridge for that, clearly.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right. In fact, the internet is the first Type One invention.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MKMichio Kaku
So we're- we're privileged to be alive to see the beginning of the first Type One invention, which is the internet.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Hm. …
- MKMichio Kaku
to our ancient, uh, ancestors by pushing a button-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- MKMichio Kaku
... because we'll all be immortal, and for that matter, our image, our avatars will be sent into outer space and begin the process of colonizing other worlds. And so we may wind up on different planets, uh, basically avatars of our original self, uh, capable of colonizing other worlds. And some people have said maybe they're already here. Maybe he-... th-... our... the people we think are humans are actually avatars from an alien civilization that cloned them so that they appear to be like us. Who knows?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, if I was an alien and I wanted to influence human culture and life, I would most certainly dress up like a person.
- MKMichio Kaku
Right, uh, be an avatar.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
You know, genetically cloned.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
Uh, uh, uh, a human that's been cloned, raised as an alien, but cloned, and then living among us, so they are indistinguishable from other humans.
- JRJoe Rogan
There is a, uh, an old... one of those, uh, pulp comics that was about a, a professor who was absent-minded and didn't realize until one point in time, "Oh, I forgot I'm an alien."
- MKMichio Kaku
(laughs) And he, he had been- He's spent his whole life. ... he had been here his whole life-
- JRJoe Rogan
... trying to educate human beings.
- MKMichio Kaku
And then he forgot the fact that he was really an avatar cloned on a distant planet, and mixing with humans as an experiment for the aliens. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Wouldn't that be the best way to implement that sort of, uh, uh s-... l- if you, we wanted to get that sort of a reaction from a civilization? Wouldn't you just implant aliens without them even knowing they're aliens?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah. If they're cloned, they're genetically identical-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
... to humans. Uh, they look like us, talk like us.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
Except they've been raised and brainwashed to be, uh, to live a life of a, of an alien, but, yeah, they could live among us and we'd never know.
- JRJoe Rogan
See, that's what freaks people like me out when I talk to people like you.
- MKMichio Kaku
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm like, "Maybe this guy's an alien." Like, uh, he doesn't make... it does... You're so much smarter than me, it doesn't make sense, right? So like, uh, if I think about someone who's studied physics his whole life and studied quantum physics his whole life-
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that language that you're talking, I don't know one word of it, so it's so... y- your, your, the way you think is so different, you could be an alien.
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, it's like the, uh, movie, Men in Black. When you find out that most of the Hollywood, um, celebrities, you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Are all aliens.
- MKMichio Kaku
... you... (laughs) they're all-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
... they're all aliens. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's better than lizard people. That's what the, the real conspiracy theorists, t- theory people are worried about. There's a reptilian overlord n- nation that's, uh, controlling the world.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
(laughs) …
- MKMichio Kaku
consistent with, you know, Asimov's Three Laws of don't, don't, uh, threaten humans and don't-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MKMichio Kaku
... create havoc with other robots, as long as you obey the three laws, then you're allowed to exist.
- JRJoe Rogan
But isn't that sort of simplistic?
- MKMichio Kaku
But once the three laws are violated, the chip automatically kicks in and shuts down, shuts down the robot.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. But isn't that simplistic? Wouldn't they just fix that chip?
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, I think that maybe in the next two hun- next hundred years, they'll be smart enough to remove that chip. At that point, I think we should merge with them.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) So that's what everybody's ultimately afraid of, these transhumanists, these people-
- MKMichio Kaku
Ultimately-
- JRJoe Rogan
... who want to become part of a robot.
- MKMichio Kaku
I- ultimately, 200 years from now, I think people will democratically decide for themselves whether they want to become superhuman, supermen, superwomen, or they want to be dominated by our, our progeny, uh, that is, the robots. They will democratically decide how far to push themselves.
- JRJoe Rogan
Geez. What a, what a-
- MKMichio Kaku
S- it's not for us to decide. I think our descendants, 200 years from now, will have to democratically decide whether or not they want to merge with robots.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you ever, um, read any of Marshall McLuhan?
- MKMichio Kaku
Uh, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
He had a great quote that human beings are the sex organs of the machine world.... that's what I worry about. What I worry about is that we're giving birth to another kind of life. I worry that our thirst, our lust for technological innovation, the constant latest, latest gadgets and this desire to have the biggest particle collider and the fastest spaceships, that what this is doing is causing us to make better and better things, which will ultimately allow us to have the technology to, uh, to create a digital life. Some sort of ... Or electronic life, or something that's not, that's not saddled down with all our biological needs and all of our flaws and, and, and programming.
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, my attitude is, why fight it? Why not simply join it?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MKMichio Kaku
Why not merge with it?
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course, yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
Why not explore the universe at near the speed of light? You might not have the power-
- JRJoe Rogan
You might have had a particle collider in your basement when you were 17. Of course you wouldn't think that way.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MKMichio Kaku
Why not become a Superman or a Superwoman and explore the galaxy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
... at near the speed of light?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it seems to be that's what the future is. I mean, I don't think if we went back to our ancestors that were running from big cats and said, "One day, you're gonna live in an apartment building and you take an elevator to your house." It's like, "I don't wanna do that. What are you crazy?" "Yeah, you're gonna just sit in front of the TV all day. No more hunting, no more gathering. You use Postmates, you get food delivered right to your door."
- MKMichio Kaku
Well, when we meet the aliens finally, they will have already gone through that transition thousands of years ago. They will already be part robotic and part organic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think there's a sweet spot for a human being to be ultimately happy? Do you think like, there, there's a thing, a longing for nostalgia that people have, right? They, they wanna be in a log cabin by the river and, you know, l- look out and camp out under the stars. Do you think that is a, uh, nostalgia for the days when things were simpler because things are just never ending with their complexity? And, and the path is just f- accelerating no matter what you do, and you feel helpless. So you just wanna s- pretend you're in the old-timey days.
- 1:15:00 – 1:19:15
No. …
- JRJoe Rogan
to one, one-to-one. Are you, uh, following Neuralink at all in these, uh, similar types of technologies?
- MKMichio Kaku
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
No?
- MKMichio Kaku
Oh, you mean the company?
- JRJoe Rogan
Neuralink.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Neuralink, the Elon Musk invention.
- MKMichio Kaku
Oh, yeah. That's right, I've been following their work.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MKMichio Kaku
They have a long ways to go, but they're making the initial stages of connecting to the brain. This is BMI, brain-machine interface, and, um... Yeah, pretty soon... Uh, also, you know, at the, um, soccer games in Brazil a few years ago, the man who kicked the football initiating the World Cup Soccer Games was totally paralyzed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MKMichio Kaku
Uh, he was... Uh, at Johns Hopkins University, they created a, uh, bodysuit connected to his brain so that he could walk.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MKMichio Kaku
So he could walk-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like an exoskeleton.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah. So he was basically Iron Man, an exoskeleton, and there he was initiating the soccer games in Brazil, in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. We can see this here. Wow, this is crazy.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah, there he is.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is crazy. He kicked the soccer ball.
- MKMichio Kaku
And it was, uh, hooked up by Johns Hopkins University, or, uh, Duke University. I'm sorry.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's a big, very bulky thing. But you could imagine, as technology improves, that would also... It could become like a thin exoskeleton.
- MKMichio Kaku
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or, that was one of the ideas about Neuralink, is that it would be able to bypass the, the human nervous system-
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and control the muscles with some other method.
- MKMichio Kaku
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so instead of... If you have a severed spinal cor- cord, it would somehow or another be able to control the bottom half of your body.
- MKMichio Kaku
Mm-hmm. Right, it does.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is amazing.
- MKMichio Kaku
Yeah. So this already exists, that we can take people that have been paralyzed because of war, disease, accidents, with an injury to the spinal cord, and just bypass the spinal cord totally, and have the brain connected directly. And also you can get people that can actually eventually talk. Uh, talk through a computer, of course, um, and, uh, and answer the internet, uh, engage in dialogue, even though you're (laughs) totally paralyzed.
Episode duration: 2:16:00
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