All language subtitles for Through the Wormhole s03e03 Is The Universe Alive.eng

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we think we know life
when we see it.

But could life also exist
on a vastly different scale...

...where planets act
like single cells,

and black holes reproduce
the DNA of space itself?

Could the secrets of the cosmos
lie not in physics,

but in biology?

Is the Universe alive?

♪ Through the Wormhole 03x03 ♪
Is the universe alive? Original Air Date on June 13, 2012

== sync, corrected by elderman ==

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

What makes you and me alive?

What makes us different
from a rock or a robot?

Is it the beating of our hearts?

The thoughts
that race through our heads?

Or is it the fact that we are
born, we grow, and we die?

Now some scientists think

we might share
these fundamentals of life

with something much larger
than ourselves.

Could the entire cosmos
be a single, living organism?

When I was a kid,
on summer nights,

I would often look up

and catch the drifting,
flickering glow of fireflies.

They were
living points of light.

Beyond them,
I saw the stars, too,

flicker
in the dark Mississippi sky.

Something about them
also seemed living.

To imagine
a single living organism

encompassing
the entire Universe,

including vast stretches
of empty space,

appears to defy logic.

But before you dismiss the idea,
you have to ask yourself,

what does it really mean
to be alive?

In fact, that question
has no simple answer.

What is life?

There's no convincing definition
that everybody agrees upon,

but most people say,

if it is alive,
then it has to replicate itself.

It has to evolve over time.

However, there are technological
devices that also replicate

and evolve over time.

For example, cars.

Cars replicate in car factories

according
to a set of instructions --

a little bit like
the DNA information

that everybody carries
in their cells.

It turns out that if you look
at these definitions,

then you will have to admit
that even cars are alive.

Jurgen Schmidhuber
is a Professor

of artificial intelligence
in Lugano, Switzerland.

His goal is to push
our definitions of life

to new frontiers.

He believes that some robots
should be considered alive.

He also believes
that a single living organism

can be spread out
over more than one body.

This swarm of tiny robots

is programmed to work together
like ants in a colony

as a single entity
whose collective brain

is distributed among
many separate bodies --

a "super-organism."

Super-organisms
can collectively solve problems

that none of the individual ants
could solve.

And swarm bots
like these collections

of robots each being programmed
according to very simple rules,

they can collectively
solve problems

that none of
the individual robots can solve.

Ants find food and
signal the presence of danger

by secreting pheromones

that change the behavior
of other ants.

Instead of chemicals,

swarm bots exchange
simple electronic messages.

Whenever it comes close
to some obstacle,

then it shifts
its rotation angle a little bit

and moves away.

And whenever two or three
swarm bots collide

or come close to each other,

they exchange
a bit of information.

For example, you can make them
collect in certain clusters.

You can also make them
clean rooms

by pushing all the obstacles
that you find in this room

into a certain corner.

So many, many simple rules
can be thought of

that form a complex
emerging behavior

that leads to other,
amazing results.

If the Universe is alive,

jurgen believes it also must be
a super-organism,

spread out across the countless
light years of space

like a cosmic colony of ants.

But how big
can a super-organism get?

Professor Geoffrey West is a
distinguished particle physicist

at the Santa Fe Institute.

He believes giant, living beings
are all around us.

In fact, most of us
live inside them.

I think an essential feature
of life is its complex system,

which means it's made up of
enormous numbers of components.

But underlying all of that
is this idea of metabolism,

in which you use energy,
resources to drive the system.

And we see that
reflected in cities.

In much the same way

that an organism like
the human body

is made of cells, bones,
and blood vessels,

a super-organism like
the city of Los Angeles

is made of people, highways,
and power lines.

And just like
any biological organism,

energy flows
through the body of a city.

Cities have many of the
characteristics of organisms.

There are network structures
like organisms.

They have flows in them --

everything from automobiles
and people

to electricity
and other resources.

Just as organisms do, we have,
of course, circulatory systems

and respiratory systems
and so on.

Geoffrey has spent
the last few years

working out
a mathematical system

that predicts how much energy
must flow through a being

for it to be alive,

and how that energy
shapes its life.

If you tell me the size
of a mammal,

I can tell you
its metabolic rate.

Its heart rate,
how long it's gonna live,

how many offspring it will have.

Underlying all this

is the mathematics
and physics of networks.

Seeing living creatures

as nothing more than networks
that distribute energy

allows Geoffrey to calculate

that an animal the size
of a small rodent

should have a heart rate
at around 500 beats per minute.

Whereas a whale heart only
pulses once every 10 seconds.

A whale is about 100 million
times as heavy as a shrew.

And yet, basically,

we're all the scaled versions
of the same thing.

So it's a very natural question
that follows from that is,

does any of this work
for cities?

The answer, according to
Geoffrey's calculations, is yes.

Cities distribute energy around
their networks of streets

and power lines

according to the very same rules
as biological beings.

And cities are so large

that their hearts pulse
only twice a day,

with the ebb and flow
of commuters.

We have
this extraordinary artery

coming through the center
of Los Angeles,

the heart of Los Angeles.

And indeed, if you look up,

you see
these extraordinary buildings

which, in many ways,
acting as a heart

because they represent
wealth creation,

and that, of course, is a pump

which helps pump
a lot of this traffic.

A city like Los Angeles

is a living entity
on a colossal scale,

40 miles wide,
slowly pulsing with energy.

But no city lives in isolation.

Our entire planet
is covered with them.

There are, of course,
multiple scales.

You know, we can go from
the scale of city

to the scale of a country
to the scale of the planet.

Geoffrey West has learned
how to see life on many scales.

When living beings
come together,

no matter whether they're ants,
humans, or entire metropolises,

what they create
takes on a life of its own.

But can this concept
make the leap beyond our planet?

Can a super-organism span not
just mountain ranges and oceans,

but also vast expanses
of outer space?

One physicist thinks it might,

and he believes
he has discovered

the heartbeat of the cosmos.

About once every second,
our hearts take a beat.

With each pulse,

they deliver oxygen,
fluid, and energy to our cells.

If the Universe had a heart,

pumping matter and energy
into space,

could we detect its pulse?

Stephon Alexander
was born in Trinidad

and raised in the Bronx.

As a saxophonist,
he learned to find the melody

that threads through the chaotic
notes of a jazz refrain.

And through theoretical physics,
Stephon believes he is learning

to hear the fundamental beat
of the Universe.

It's a wonderful thought
to ponder

that the Universe
could be a living thing.

I mean, even in biology itself,

biologists are struggling
with the definition

and the origin of life itself.

But there should be
certain experiments

that look for patterns

that pertain to the function
of a living thing.

Stephon's research
may be leading us

towards finding those patterns
in the cosmos itself.

While most cosmologists believe
our Universe was created

in an explosive beginning
called the Big Bang,

Stephon believes the Big Bang
was actually a big bounce.

The big bounce model is,
simply put,

a model of the early Universe.

In fact,
there was a previous Universe

that underwent collapse

and bounced out into
and expand the Universe,

which is the Universe
that we inhabit.

In Stephon's theory,

the expanding Universe
is just one phase

in a never-ending cycle
of contraction and expansion,

like a beating heart,

or like the falling and rising
of a bouncing handball.

So let's observe what happens.

I drop the ball.

Gravity's going to, of course,
pull the ball down.

And what happens
is that the ball bounces up.

So likewise,
the bounced Universe,

under the laws of gravity,
will do a similar thing.

It contracts, and it can bounce
back into an expanded phase.

Most of Stephon's model
involves simple physics.

The expanding phase will,
sooner or later,

run out of steam, overcome by
the attractive force of gravity,

which eventually pulls
everything in the Universe

down to a tiny size.

But explaining why the Universe
bounces back from this point

is far more complex.

One of the problems
with the bounce in cosmology

is that you still have to ask
a question.

What happens when you bounce?
Gravity becomes very strong.

Okay, the gravitational
interaction dominates.

That, in fact, would drive us
into the singularity.

A singularity is
a place of infinite density --

a place where gravity
becomes so strong

that it crushes all matter
into a single point,

allowing nothing to escape,
not even light.

Those cosmologists who believe
in the Big Bang theory

believe it was a singularity,

and they had to invent
a new force called inflation

to allow the Universe
to expand out from it.

Stephon, on the other hand,
thinks the Big Bounce Universe

never shrinks down
to a singularity.

As the Universe approaches
the bounce point,

it has to, of course, avoid
that big bang singularity.

So we have to avoid
that problem.

The solution, Stephon believes,

is provided by a tiny particle
far smaller than an atom

known as the neutrino.

Neutrinos, which are some
of the strangest particles

known in physics,

could play a major role

in understanding
the bouncing universe scenario.

A neutrino can,
just at that moment,

have a repulsive force

that prevents you from
crunching into the singularity

and bounce out.

Neutrinos have almost no mass,

and they pass through
ordinary matter undetected.

50 trillion
of these ghostly particles

move right through
each of our bodies every second

without our ever knowing it.

Every star in the Universe

spews out a constant stream
of neutrinos.

In fact, the Universe
is chock full of them,

and they may be what gives
the living universe

its steady pulse.

Stephon has calculated

that under the immense pressure
of a contracting Universe,

this cosmic sea of neutrinos

would become
so tightly squeezed together,

they'd transform into
a special state of matter

called a superfluid.

A superfluid state
is well-known to us.

Liquid helium is an example
of a superfluid.

One of the strange properties
of a superfluid

is that,
if you try to contain it,

it will still flow out, out
of the edges of the container.

It doesn't like to be contained.

This tendency for a neutrino
to not be contained

causes a repulsive pressure

and causes the Universe
to bounce and expand.

If Stephon's idea is right,

our Universe has been going
through cycles

of expansion and contraction
for trillions of years.

At each bounce,

most of the matter,
including any stars or galaxies,

is crushed and then spat out
in completely new form.

But neutrinos survive unscathed.

This invisible sea of particles

is the lifeblood
of the Universe,

the fluid that drives its pulse.

Or, if you prefer,
neutrinos propel the cosmos

from one phase of its life cycle
to the next.

A good analogy
for the big bounce

is like a caterpillar
becoming a butterfly.

You have the caterpillar
that emerges as a butterfly

that looks completely different,

but has the same genetic cold

and is made up
of the same stuff.

So in that sense, the analogy
from biology of metamorphosis,

I think, is quite applicable
here and worth pursuing.

Stephon's big bounce model

portrays our cosmos as
a dynamic, evolving entity --

something that could be alive.

And another scientist has taken
this idea one step further.

He thinks our Universe

has given birth to a whole
family of cosmic offspring --

universes that lay hidden

behind the dark horizons
of black holes.

All living things
share one common feature --

they've all come from something.

The oak tree
rises from the acorn

which fell from another oak.

The human family tree dates back
many thousands of generations.

If our Universe is alive,
does it have an ancestor?

And could it give birth
to other universes?

Lee Smolin conducts research

at the Perimeter Institute
for Theoretical Physics

in Waterloo, Canada.

Lee thinks
about the laws of physics

at the most fundamental level.

He's trying to understand
how our Universe ended up

with the particular laws
of physics it has.

The laws of nature
appear to be fine-tuned

so that the Universe
is hospitable to life.

If you consider
what would happen

if you change the laws of nature
even slightly,

then the Universe would cease
to be friendly to life.

So there is something --

there's a mystery about why
the Universe is so hospitable,

why it's so friendly to biology.

Cosmologists have long wrestled
with this puzzle

which they call fine tuning.

If any of the forces of nature

were stronger or weaker
by a fraction of 1%,

stars and galaxies
would never form.

Even atoms might not exist.

To some, this is a sign
that our Universe

was carefully crafted
by the hand of a creator

who tailor-made it
to support human life.

But Lee wanted a more scientific
explanation, and he found one.

Not rooted in physics,

but in the biological theory
of evolution.

In natural selection,
you explain

how while the intricacy
and structure of life

arises progressively,

you have something
which is very improbable.

There's a method to explain it.

Evolutionists believe that
creatures as complex as humans

did not just miraculously
pop into existence.

But rather, evolved
through countless steps

from ever-simpler organisms.

Likewise, Lee wondered whether
our immensely complex universe

was also shaped by a cosmic
version of biological evolution.

Could the Universe
have a history?

Could it have ancestors?

Has it evolved
through its history?

Could there have been
random variation of laws,

and then selection
of those laws,

selecting those that introduced
the most structure,

the most complexity.

So I asked myself that
as a question,

and cosmological natural
selection is one answer to it.

It's the best answer to it
so far, I know.

But in order for Lee's theory

of cosmological
natural selection to work,

there has to be a mechanism
by which an entire cosmos

can reproduce
and undergo mutation,

the way DNA does
from parent to child.

So you need
a mode of reproduction.

You need variation.

You need something
that determines the properties

to vary from instance
to instance,

from ancestor to child.

And then you need selection.

So what could be those elements
in cosmology?

The answer
to all these questions,

Lee believes, lies in the hidden
hearts of black holes,

where the known laws of physics
break down,

and the as-yet-unknown laws

of a theory called
quantum gravity take over.

When a giant star explodes,
our current theories predict

that its core should collapse
down to a single point

and become infinitely dense.

But Lee's pioneering efforts
to understand quantum gravity

suggest it does not,

and that instead,

this is the moment
an entire new Universe is born.

The star that formed
a black hole is collapsing,

and just before it would become
infinitely dense,

it bounces
and begins expanding again.

And you can evolve new regions
of space-time

still within the confines of
the horizon of the black hole.

But this region could grow
and become large

like our universe did
after the Big Bang.

The dimensions of space
and time of these new universes

branch off from ours
inside the black hole.

The laws of physics
change when that happens

at this very violent event,

so that the parent
resembles the children,

and the children's children
resemble them,

but there are small changes.

It works just like biology.

You have a population
of universes.

They give rise to progeny
through black holes,

and if you ask what laws
are most successful,

those are the laws

that lead to universes
that have the most black holes.

So what you get,
generation by generation,

is selection for the tendency

to make as many black holes
as possible.

Our Universe might exist

on an ever-growing
cosmic tree of life.

But this is not
the most remarkable aspect

of Lee's theory of cosmological
natural selection.

As he explored which laws
of physics

allow a baby universe
to produce more offspring,

he discovered
an uncanny connection

between the cosmic tree of life
and our own biological one.

To make black holes,
you need very massive stars.

You need stars of 20 times
the mass of the sun or more.

And to make these,

you need big clouds of gas
and dust that are cooled.

So the coolant turns out
to be carbon monoxide.

And so you need carbon,
and you need oxygen,

which are the two atoms that you
need most plentifully for life.

And in fact, the universe
has lots and lots of carbon

and lots and lots of oxygen,

so the explanation for why
the universe is bio-friendly

is a side effect of the universe
being very fruitful

in terms
of its own reproduction.

And I find that very endearing.

If Lee is correct,

the laws of physics we know
have been fine-tuned

in order to keep
the cosmos fertile

for its own reproduction.

Those same laws also happen
to make our universe

a place where carbon-based life
can flourish.

Our universe may be
just one member

of a giant family tree
of cosmoses.

Since we can't see
outside our universe,

this idea will likely remain
hard to prove,

but there is one other way

we could determine
whether the universe is alive.

We could find its brain.

What does it take to think?

Inside my head is a network of
several billion buzzing neurons.

In a computer,

electrical pulses scurry across
a maze of microscopic circuits.

Now some scientists are building
computers out of atoms,

deriving logic from the laws
of quantum mechanics.

Since those laws apply
to the entire universe,

why couldn't the universe think?

At M.I.T.,
Seth Lloyd welcomes us

into the weird and wondrous
world of quantum computing.

This is a machine
that calculates in a way

that will one day leave our
current computers in the dust.

It is based on the idea

that atoms and every
subatomic particle can think.

Every atom,
every elementary particle

stores bits of information.

So electrons
spinning like that is 0,

electrons
spinning like that is 1.

And every time
two particles collide,

those bits get flipped
and processed.

The key
to a quantum computer's power

is that it can think
more than one thing at a time.

But to understand
how that can be,

we need to comprehend

the strange science
of quantum mechanics.

The key thing to remember
about quantum mechanics

is that quantum mechanics
is weird.

This is a technical term.

It means funky,
counterintuitive.

It's like the James Brown
of sciences.

You don't know what's going on
or what's gonna happen next.

For the last 100 years,

as scientists have studied
nature at the microscopic level,

they have noticed that particles
can actually exist

in more than one place
at the same time.

And while they have struggled to
explain why this should happen,

Seth and his colleagues
in quantum computing

have simply accepted it
and used it to their advantage.

I will now use this
sophisticated lite-brite device

to demonstrate the difference
between classical computers

and quantum computers.

So in any computer,
classical or quantum,

a bit can be represented
by electron over here.

Now, in a classical computer,

the electron is either
over here, 0, or over there, 1.

It is definitely not 0 and 1
at the same time.

But in a quantum computer,

electrons very happily are
both 0 and 1 at the same time.

To see how
this affects computation,

let's suppose that electron
over here says, "do this.

"Let's tell all these other bits

to make
some interesting pattern."

And now you see what we have

is we don't just have one bit

that is doing this and that
at the same time,

we have many, many bits

that are doing this and that
at the same time.

So the quantum computer
is doing two computations

in some funky quantum sense
at the same time.

And, hey, there's no reason
to stop there.

Quantum computer
is completely happy

doing 100 or 1,000 or a billion

or as many things as there are
elementary particles

in the universe,
all at the same time.

The more, the merrier.

Seth has spent
the last two decades

making this ordered
rearrangement of quantum bits

work in a real device,

one that can do
real calculations.

The heart
of this quantum computer

is chilled with liquid helium

and consists of a small,
superconducting

electrical circuit
known as a cubit.

This cubit
is a little, tiny thing.

It sits in a tiny
little gold package like this,

and in the middle of it,
there's a tiny little circuit

which a supercurrent
can go around like this forever,

or it can go around
like that forever.

So we call supercurrent
going around like this 0

and supercurrent
going around like that 1

and supercurrent going around
this way and that way

at the same time
0 and 1 at the same time.

All this rack
of expensive equipment here

is designed to talk to the cubit

by sending microwave signals
to it,

to tickle it and massage it.

My job as a quantum
mechanical engineer

is kind of like
a quantum atomic masseur.

We massage these molecules
in a bunch of different ways.

And if you massage the molecule
the right way,

you can get this wiggling
and jiggling

so that it's actually performing
a computation.

So the molecule,
as it relaxes and sighs,

"oh, that feels so good,"

says, "oh, if you really want me
to multiply 3 times 5,

I'll do it for you."

Quantum computing
is still in its infancy.

In fact, multiplying 3 times 5

is the most complex computation
Seth's machine has ever done.

But Seth argues
that his computer proves

that subatomic particles
can think,

and that the universe,

which is entirely built
from such particles,

must also be a quantum computer.

It processes
and stores information

at the microscopic level
on everything we see around us.

And if the universe
is processing information,

then it must be thinking,
and it must be alive.

The universe is not alive.

It's more than alive.

It contains life.

It does all the things
that living things do.

It processes information.

It moves energy
from one place to another.

The different pieces of it
can reproduce each other.

But the Universe as a whole

can do much more than just
what living things can do.

The human brain can perform
about 10 to the power of 16,

or 10 million billion
computations in a second.

In the same time,

Seth believes
the universe performs

about 10 to the power of 106
computations,

which makes the universe

impossibly smarter
than we can ever imagine.

If the universe is behaving
like a giant quantum computer,

and let's face it, it is,

then it's capable of any kind of
complex behavior we can imagine.

Not just creation of stars
and planets,

the evolution of life,

it's also capable of behavior

that we probably will never
be able to comprehend.

The universe could be the
ultimate intelligent organism.

And if the cosmos really does
think like a quantum computer,

then Jurgen Schmidhuber is ready
to take the next logical step --

to read its mind.

Some scientists now believe

our universe
is an enormous quantum computer,

processing information

on a scale that dwarfs
human thinking.

If that is the case,

is it possible to discover
what it has already computed

and see inside the mind
of the cosmos?

For centuries, great minds
like Newton and Einstein

have tried to discover

the underlying physical laws
of the Universe.

But seeing the cosmos
as a colossal computation

opens up a novel way
to understand it.

Back at the Swiss
Artificial Intelligence Lab,

Jurgen Schmidhuber
is not only preparing

to unleash hives
of swarm robots.

He has another,
far more ambitious agenda.

He wants to re-create
the Universe in a computer.

Could it be
that the entire universe,

everything that we see
around us,

is maybe just following
very simple rules?

The rules of physics,

which are partially
already known,

but which might actually be
program-like,

as if the entire universe
is just a huge video game.

Jurgen believes

that even though the size of our
video game universe is immense,

the program that creates it

does not have to be complex
at all.

Just as in art,

a few basic curves can create
a pattern of great complexity.

There is a very short program
that makes this pattern,

and I can re-use it
again and again

to make this
slightly more complex pattern.

Only very few of the circles
are used

to define every little detail
of this drawing

which means that the
final drawing, this one here,

can be encoded
by a very simple program

that can be written down
in three or four lines of code.

The entire universe is nothing
more than the pattern of atoms.

So if we could find
a simple program

that re-creates that shape
in a simulation,

Jurgen believes we could
understand all of physics

and the entire history
of the cosmos.

So if we had this short program
that computes this universe,

then of course,
we could replicate

every single event
that ever happened within it.

Especially would, in principle,
be able to figure out

what exactly happened
during the Big Bang

and then afterwards.

But as you might expect,
this is not a trivial project,

because to test any program
you might write,

you have to let its calculations

run through a few billion years
of cosmic time.

And then compare its simulation

with how our universe
actually looks.

The main problem is
that to run this code again,

we need a big computer,

but it would be much smaller
than the universe itself,

which means that it would take
a long, long time

to replicate
what the Universe has computed

within 14 billion years.

But Jurgen isn't
throwing in the towel just yet.

He is putting
all his strength and energy

into building stronger, faster,
more intelligent machines.

When I was a boy,
I wanted to become a physicist.

However, then I realized

there is something even more
productive that I could do.

I could try to build
a physicist,

or a scientist in general,

that is much smarter
than I could ever hope to be,

then I could let this guy
do the remaining work.

That's why I would like to build
an optimal scientist.

We can already build robots
that are stronger than us.

Assuming our computers

keep getting faster
at the current rate,

it will not be long before
we can also program robots

to beat us
in any mental contest.

At some point,
we will have robot brains

and computers that are not only
as powerful as a human brain,

but as powerful as
all human brains taken together.

It might seem far-fetched

that a swarm of futuristic
robots will devote themselves

to the task of finding
the program of the universe,

but just think what finding
the answer would mean.

If we knew the shortest code,

or that short program
that computes this universe,

then we would have answered
the essential question

of theoretical physics, namely,
how does the world work?

So we would solve the
fundamental question of physics.

Understanding
the fundamental rules of physics

from which the universe is built

has driven science
for thousands of years.

It inspired great minds
like Newton and Einstein.

It drove us
to venture into space,

and it is the goal of enormous
atom-smashing projects

like the Large Hadron Collider
in Geneva.

But Jurgen Schmidhuber's work
in computation and robotics,

inspired by the idea

that the cosmos is a living,
thinking machine,

may be the only way to truly
make sense of the Universe.

Or, all of these efforts
may be a waste of time

because one renegade scientist

believes we've gotten it
all turned around.

We don't need to find
the mind of our universe.

The entire cosmos

is nothing more than
a figment of our imagination.

How can I know what's going on
inside your mind?

How do I even know
that you actually exist at all?

It is possible
that you are nothing more

than the product
of my imagination.

In fact, you and I
could both be imagining

everything we see around us.

Could we each be dreaming
our own private universe?

Dr. Robert Lanza has always been

on the controversial side
of science.

He was the first
stem cell researcher

to actually clone
an early stage human embryo.

Described by his peers and
the press as a renegade thinker,

Robert is now pushing
on a new frontier.

He says the Universe is
unquestionably a living thing,

but with a shocking twist.

Yes, the Universe
is definitely alive.

It's not an object.

It's an active process that actually
involves our consciousness.

So if you look at the trees
or the sky,

the truth is, everything you see
and experience

is a whirl of information
occurring in your mind.

Robert firmly believes
that the Universe

begins and ends
in the mind of the observer.

That the universe
is nothing more

than the vivid imagination
of our brains.

He calls his theory biocentrism.

In the external world,

there's a range
of electromagnetic radiation.

At one specific point,
we'll see red,

or to a certain bird,
it may fluoresce orange.

Or to some animals,

they can actually see radar
or ultraviolet.

So all of these things

are not determined
by the external world.

They're determined by us.

So it's our mind

that actually makes
that subjective experience.

So biocentrism
is the only rational way

to explain the structure
of the Universe.

Robert's radical theory
stems from pondering

another strange theory
that is widely accepted --

quantum mechanics.

In quantum theory, particles can
be in multiple places at once.

Until the moment
you make a measurement,

when the particle must end up
in only one of those locations.

Which means nothing is certain

until an observer
makes a measurement.

Robert thinks we must apply the
rules of the microscopic world

to our everyday experiences.

Since everything we see,
hear and touch

is made up
of microscopic particles,

which led him to wonder,

what really happens
when a tree falls in the woods?

So when a tree falls
in the forest,

it creates
an air pressure disturbance.

According to simple science,

that occurs whether or not
anyone is there to observe it.

But we know for a fact
that without the observer,

that not a single particle
in the tree or the air itself

exists with definite properties.

So unless someone is actually
observing the tree falling,

there are no particles there
to make the noise.

So without your consciousness,
there's no sound.

Indeed, there's no tree.

The physical world around us
is all an illusion,

created by our minds,

and when we close our eyes,

space and time
simply dissolve away.

Well, it's actually us,
the observer,

who creates space and time,
and that's why you're here now.

Reality begins and ends
with the observer.

Robert Lanza's
biocentrism is a radical spin

on the undeniable strangeness
of quantum mechanics.

Quantum computation expert
Seth Lloyd

sees a different connection

between biology
and the Universe --

one that is less controversial,
but just as mind-blowing.

He believes
that every single thing

that has happened
since the Big Bang

is part
of a colossal computation

that the Universe
is still making.

And within the universe's
vast array of atomic 0s and 1s

exists what could be
its crowning achievement --

biological life.

So the Universe
is constantly generating

little random bits
of information.

Now, every now and then,

one of these little random
fluctuations will take hold

and get amplified
to a large scale

and start to have really massive
consequences in the Universe.

You could say that when life
came along and created DNA,

that there was already
an ongoing computation going on,

and life figured out how to hack
into that ongoing computation

to make a piece of it do
something novel and different.

To think of the Universe
as a single, living thing

stretches our imaginations
quite a bit.

The cosmos could be driven
by a heartbeat

that pumps out
clusters of galaxies

once every trillion years.

We could be the child
of another universe

and be spawning countless more.

Or the cosmos
could be a giant computation,

infected by a computer virus
called biological life.

And we can't tell
who is more alive --

The Universe or us.

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