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SAGAN: The surface of the Earth is
far more beautiful...
2
00:00:51,664 --> 00:00:55,395
...and far more intricate
than any lifeless world.
3
00:00:55,601 --> 00:00:57,796
Our planet is graced by life.
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00:00:58,003 --> 00:01:01,734
And one quality that sets life
apart is its complexity...
5
00:01:01,941 --> 00:01:06,537
...slowly evolved through
4 billion years of natural selection.
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00:01:08,981 --> 00:01:10,778
You can describe in detail...
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00:01:10,983 --> 00:01:14,282
...how a rock is put together
in a single paragraph.
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00:01:14,487 --> 00:01:17,149
But to describe
the basic structure of a tree...
9
00:01:17,590 --> 00:01:20,184
...or a blade of grass
or even a one-celled animal...
10
00:01:20,393 --> 00:01:22,554
...you'd need many volumes.
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00:01:22,762 --> 00:01:25,162
It takes a great deal
of information to make...
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00:01:25,364 --> 00:01:28,959
...or even to characterize
a living thing.
13
00:01:31,604 --> 00:01:34,129
The measuring rod,
the unit of information...
14
00:01:34,340 --> 00:01:37,104
...is something called the bit.
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00:01:37,309 --> 00:01:39,504
It's an answer, either yes or no...
16
00:01:39,712 --> 00:01:42,943
...to one unambiguously
phrased question.
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00:01:43,149 --> 00:01:46,380
So to specify whether
a light switch is on or off...
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00:01:46,585 --> 00:01:48,450
...requires only a single bit.
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00:01:48,654 --> 00:01:52,784
To specify something of greater
complexity requires more bits.
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There's a popular game
called 20 Questions...
21
00:01:56,295 --> 00:02:00,231
...which shows that a great deal
can be specified in only 20 bits.
22
00:02:00,433 --> 00:02:02,025
For example...
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00:02:02,234 --> 00:02:04,225
...I have something in my hand.
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00:02:04,437 --> 00:02:05,836
What is it?
25
00:02:06,038 --> 00:02:07,528
Is it alive? Yes.
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00:02:07,740 --> 00:02:09,037
One bit.
27
00:02:09,241 --> 00:02:11,266
Is it an animal? Nope.
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00:02:11,477 --> 00:02:12,967
Two bits.
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00:02:13,212 --> 00:02:15,772
Is it big enough to see? Yep.
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00:02:16,248 --> 00:02:18,375
Does it grow on the land? Yes.
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00:02:18,584 --> 00:02:20,984
Is it a cultivated plant? Nope.
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00:02:21,454 --> 00:02:23,388
Well, with only five bits...
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00:02:23,589 --> 00:02:26,456
...we've made substantial progress
to figuring out what it is.
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00:02:26,659 --> 00:02:29,093
With 20 skillfully chosen questions...
35
00:02:29,295 --> 00:02:32,753
...we could easily whittle
all the cosmos down...
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00:02:33,466 --> 00:02:35,058
...to a dandelion.
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(BLOWS DANDELION)
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00:02:53,686 --> 00:02:56,211
In our explorations of the cosmos...
39
00:02:56,422 --> 00:02:59,516
...the first step is to ask
the right questions.
40
00:02:59,725 --> 00:03:03,422
Then, not with 20 questions,
but with billions...
41
00:03:03,629 --> 00:03:07,087
...we slowly distill from
the complexity of the universe...
42
00:03:07,299 --> 00:03:09,233
...its underlying order.
43
00:03:09,435 --> 00:03:11,960
This game has a serious purpose.
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00:03:12,171 --> 00:03:15,140
Its name is science.
45
00:03:16,709 --> 00:03:19,576
Out here in the great cosmic dark...
46
00:03:19,778 --> 00:03:22,303
...there are countless
stars and planets...
47
00:03:22,515 --> 00:03:25,712
...some far older than
our solar system.
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00:03:25,918 --> 00:03:29,547
Though we cannot be certain, the same
processes which led on Earth...
49
00:03:29,755 --> 00:03:31,655
...to the origin of life
and intelligence...
50
00:03:31,857 --> 00:03:34,690
...should've been operating
throughout the cosmos.
51
00:03:34,894 --> 00:03:38,796
There may be a million worlds
in the Milky Way galaxy alone...
52
00:03:38,998 --> 00:03:40,397
...which are at this moment...
53
00:03:40,599 --> 00:03:44,330
...inhabited by other
intelligent beings.
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00:03:51,777 --> 00:03:54,302
What a wonder, what a joy
it would be...
55
00:03:54,513 --> 00:03:57,380
...to know something
about non-human intelligence.
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00:03:57,583 --> 00:03:59,107
And we can.
57
00:04:03,989 --> 00:04:06,457
Here is an exotic inhabited world...
58
00:04:06,659 --> 00:04:08,854
...mostly covered with a liquid.
59
00:04:13,832 --> 00:04:16,096
We seek the dominant intelligence...
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00:04:16,302 --> 00:04:19,635
...that lives beneath
its fluid surface.
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00:04:35,788 --> 00:04:39,224
This ocean of liquid water
kilometers deep...
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00:04:39,425 --> 00:04:42,986
...is teeming with strange
forms of life.
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00:04:47,533 --> 00:04:51,162
There are communities
of transparent beings.
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00:04:55,608 --> 00:04:58,133
There are societies of creatures
which communicate...
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00:04:58,344 --> 00:05:01,177
...by changing the patterns
on their bodies.
66
00:05:09,188 --> 00:05:12,589
There are beings that give
off their own light.
67
00:05:20,032 --> 00:05:23,866
There are hungry flowers
that devour passersby...
68
00:05:24,069 --> 00:05:26,094
...gesticulating trees.
69
00:05:26,472 --> 00:05:29,669
All manner of creatures
that seem to violate...
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00:05:29,875 --> 00:05:33,174
...the boundaries between
plants and animals.
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00:05:51,730 --> 00:05:54,528
There are beings that flutter
through the ocean like...
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00:05:54,867 --> 00:05:56,960
...waltzing orchids.
73
00:06:14,153 --> 00:06:16,018
These are a few of the species...
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00:06:16,221 --> 00:06:19,088
...that inhabit the water world
called Earth.
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00:06:30,869 --> 00:06:32,302
They're packed with information.
76
00:06:32,838 --> 00:06:35,432
Each one has
a rich behavioral repertoire...
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00:06:35,641 --> 00:06:37,734
...to ensure its own survival.
78
00:06:46,685 --> 00:06:48,915
But the grandest creatures
on the planet...
79
00:06:49,321 --> 00:06:53,052
...the intelligent and graceful
masters of the deep ocean...
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00:06:53,258 --> 00:06:55,055
...are the great whales.
81
00:06:55,260 --> 00:06:58,127
They are the largest animals
ever to evolve on Earth...
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00:06:58,330 --> 00:07:01,128
...larger, by far,
than the dinosaurs.
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00:07:01,333 --> 00:07:04,564
Their ancestors were meat-eating
mammals who migrated...
84
00:07:04,770 --> 00:07:09,207
...70 million years ago in slow steps
from the land into the waters.
85
00:07:09,441 --> 00:07:12,069
Whales, like these humpbacks,
are still mammals.
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00:07:12,311 --> 00:07:14,336
We humans have much
in common with them.
87
00:07:14,546 --> 00:07:16,207
Mothers suckle infants...
88
00:07:16,415 --> 00:07:19,077
...there's a long childhood
when adults teach the young...
89
00:07:19,284 --> 00:07:22,879
...and there's a lot of play.
These are mammalian characteristics.
90
00:07:23,088 --> 00:07:25,818
Vital if an animal is to learn.
91
00:07:26,024 --> 00:07:27,821
But the sea is murky.
92
00:07:28,026 --> 00:07:29,960
The senses of sight and smell...
93
00:07:30,162 --> 00:07:31,925
...which work well for
mammals on the land...
94
00:07:32,131 --> 00:07:33,689
...are not much use here.
95
00:07:33,899 --> 00:07:36,663
So the whales evolved
an extraordinary ability...
96
00:07:36,869 --> 00:07:39,360
...to communicate by sound.
97
00:07:39,571 --> 00:07:43,371
For tens of millions of years,
the whales had no natural enemies.
98
00:07:43,575 --> 00:07:47,136
And then, a new and alien
and deadly creature...
99
00:07:47,379 --> 00:07:51,247
...suddenly appeared on the placid
surface of the ocean.
100
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(WHALES SINGING)
101
00:08:04,963 --> 00:08:09,332
These often noisy and occasionally
deadly objects...
102
00:08:09,535 --> 00:08:13,528
...first appeared in large numbers
only a few centuries ago.
103
00:08:13,739 --> 00:08:15,331
They are artifacts...
104
00:08:15,541 --> 00:08:17,532
...manufactured by land creatures...
105
00:08:17,743 --> 00:08:20,143
...whose ancestors last lived
in the oceans...
106
00:08:20,345 --> 00:08:22,836
...350 million years ago.
107
00:08:32,558 --> 00:08:34,856
(BELL RINGS)
108
00:08:36,929 --> 00:08:38,624
This particular one, however...
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00:08:38,831 --> 00:08:41,925
...is on a mission of understanding.
110
00:08:44,903 --> 00:08:47,872
It's called the Regina Maris...
111
00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:49,907
...the "Queen of the Sea."
112
00:08:50,108 --> 00:08:54,442
And one of its jobs is to record
the sounds of the whales.
113
00:08:57,749 --> 00:09:00,741
Some whale sounds are called songs...
114
00:09:00,953 --> 00:09:03,888
...but we really don't know what
their contents are.
115
00:09:04,089 --> 00:09:06,387
They range in frequency...
116
00:09:06,592 --> 00:09:09,254
...over a broadband of sounds...
117
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...down to frequencies well below...
118
00:09:12,197 --> 00:09:14,757
...the lowest sounds the human ear
can make out.
119
00:09:14,967 --> 00:09:17,765
A typical whale song lasts
maybe 15 minutes.
120
00:09:17,970 --> 00:09:21,064
The longest, perhaps half an hour.
121
00:09:21,273 --> 00:09:25,300
Occasionally, a group of whales
will leave their winter waters...
122
00:09:25,544 --> 00:09:27,409
...in the middle of a song...
123
00:09:27,613 --> 00:09:30,707
...and six months later they'll return
and pick the song up...
124
00:09:30,916 --> 00:09:33,350
...at precisely the spot
that they left it off.
125
00:09:33,552 --> 00:09:34,610
Beat for beat.
126
00:09:34,853 --> 00:09:36,150
Measure for measure.
127
00:09:36,355 --> 00:09:37,879
Sound for sound.
128
00:09:39,558 --> 00:09:43,517
Whales are very good at remembering.
129
00:09:44,162 --> 00:09:46,960
Other times they will
come back after...
130
00:09:47,165 --> 00:09:50,134
...an absence of six months,
and the piece will have changed.
131
00:09:50,335 --> 00:09:55,034
A different song will be
on the whale hit parade.
132
00:09:56,341 --> 00:10:00,744
Very often the members of the group
will sing the same song together.
133
00:10:00,946 --> 00:10:05,883
By some mutual consensus,
some collaborative songwriting...
134
00:10:06,184 --> 00:10:10,280
...the piece changes slowly
and often predictably.
135
00:10:10,489 --> 00:10:13,981
I'm not very good at singing
the songs of whales...
136
00:10:14,192 --> 00:10:16,057
...but here's a try.
137
00:10:16,261 --> 00:10:17,819
In January...
138
00:10:18,030 --> 00:10:22,160
...a tiny fragment of
a long whale song...
139
00:10:22,367 --> 00:10:24,028
...might sound like this.
140
00:10:24,236 --> 00:10:27,103
Whoop. Ahh.
141
00:10:28,106 --> 00:10:31,098
In February, something like this.
142
00:10:31,310 --> 00:10:36,213
Whoop. Ahh. Ahh.
143
00:10:36,682 --> 00:10:39,913
And then in March,
as maybe you'd predict...
144
00:10:40,118 --> 00:10:45,021
Whoop. Ahh. Ahh. Ahh.
145
00:10:46,091 --> 00:10:49,652
One additional "ahh" a month.
146
00:10:49,861 --> 00:10:53,228
(WHALES SINGING)
147
00:10:54,700 --> 00:10:57,396
The complex patterns in the songs
of the whales...
148
00:10:57,602 --> 00:11:00,127
...are sometimes repeated precisely.
149
00:11:00,339 --> 00:11:03,775
If I imagine that the songs
of the humpback whale are sung...
150
00:11:03,976 --> 00:11:05,773
...in a tonal language...
151
00:11:05,978 --> 00:11:08,640
...then the number of bits
of information in one song...
152
00:11:08,847 --> 00:11:11,179
...is the same as
the information content...
153
00:11:11,383 --> 00:11:14,375
...of the Iliad or the Odyssey.
154
00:11:19,324 --> 00:11:21,383
(SPLASHING)
155
00:11:26,031 --> 00:11:27,692
Is it just a romantic notion...
156
00:11:27,899 --> 00:11:30,367
...that the whales and their cousins,
the dolphins...
157
00:11:30,569 --> 00:11:34,562
...might have something akin
to epic poetry?
158
00:11:59,264 --> 00:12:03,860
What might whales or dolphins
have to talk or sing about?
159
00:12:04,069 --> 00:12:06,094
They have no manipulative organs.
160
00:12:06,304 --> 00:12:10,434
They can't make great engineering
constructs as we can.
161
00:12:11,510 --> 00:12:13,205
But they're social creatures.
162
00:12:13,412 --> 00:12:15,880
They hunt and swim, fish...
163
00:12:16,081 --> 00:12:18,208
...browse, frolic, mate, play...
164
00:12:19,151 --> 00:12:20,812
...run from predators.
165
00:12:21,019 --> 00:12:22,919
There might be a lot to talk about.
166
00:12:38,570 --> 00:12:42,529
The great danger for the whales
is a newcomer...
167
00:12:42,741 --> 00:12:46,575
...an upstart animal only
recently through technology...
168
00:12:46,778 --> 00:12:49,372
...become competent in the oceans:
169
00:12:50,749 --> 00:12:52,876
A creature called man.
170
00:12:54,152 --> 00:12:56,882
For 99.99% of the history of whales...
171
00:12:57,089 --> 00:12:59,387
...there were no humans
in the deep oceans.
172
00:12:59,991 --> 00:13:02,016
During this period,
the whales evolved...
173
00:13:02,227 --> 00:13:04,525
...their extraordinary
communications system.
174
00:13:04,729 --> 00:13:08,859
Some whales emit extremely loud sounds
at a frequency of 20 hertz.
175
00:13:09,067 --> 00:13:13,265
A hertz, which is spelled H-E-R-T-Z,
is a unit of sound frequency...
176
00:13:13,472 --> 00:13:18,068
...and it represents one sound wave
entering my ear every second.
177
00:13:18,276 --> 00:13:20,870
A frequency of 2000 hertz sounds...
178
00:13:21,079 --> 00:13:22,808
...and looks like this.
179
00:13:23,014 --> 00:13:25,505
(HIGH PITCHED TONE)
180
00:13:26,084 --> 00:13:28,211
200 hertz, like this.
181
00:13:28,420 --> 00:13:29,648
(MEDIUM PITCHED TONE)
182
00:13:29,855 --> 00:13:31,413
And 20 hertz, like this.
183
00:13:31,623 --> 00:13:33,454
Although your TV set
may not transmit...
184
00:13:33,658 --> 00:13:36,650
...sounds with frequencies
as low as 20 hertz.
185
00:13:37,696 --> 00:13:40,256
The American biologist Roger Payne
has calculated...
186
00:13:40,465 --> 00:13:44,265
...that there's a deep sound channel
in the ocean at these frequencies...
187
00:13:44,469 --> 00:13:47,131
...through which two whales
could communicate...
188
00:13:47,339 --> 00:13:48,931
...anywhere in the world.
189
00:13:49,141 --> 00:13:53,976
One whale might be off the
Ross Ice Shelf then in Antarctica...
190
00:13:54,179 --> 00:13:57,842
...and communicate with another whale
in the Aleutians in Alaska.
191
00:13:58,183 --> 00:14:00,981
For most of their history,
whales seem to have established...
192
00:14:01,186 --> 00:14:04,314
...a global communications network.
193
00:14:06,057 --> 00:14:08,719
What two whales might have to say
to each other...
194
00:14:08,927 --> 00:14:13,261
...separated by 15,000 kilometers,
I haven't the foggiest idea.
195
00:14:13,465 --> 00:14:15,865
But maybe it's a love song...
196
00:14:16,067 --> 00:14:19,730
...cast into the vastness
of the deep.
197
00:14:23,842 --> 00:14:27,005
Now, this calculation on the range
of whale communications...
198
00:14:27,212 --> 00:14:30,238
...assumes that the oceans
are quiet.
199
00:14:34,152 --> 00:14:35,016
(WOOD CREAKS)
200
00:14:35,220 --> 00:14:36,653
(BELL RINGS)
201
00:14:36,855 --> 00:14:39,824
But in the 19th century,
sailing ships like this one...
202
00:14:40,158 --> 00:14:42,718
...began to be replaced
by steamships...
203
00:14:42,928 --> 00:14:46,193
...another invention of those
strange land animals.
204
00:14:46,398 --> 00:14:50,164
Commercial and military vessels
became more abundant.
205
00:14:52,003 --> 00:14:54,164
The noise pollution in the sea
got much worse...
206
00:14:54,773 --> 00:14:57,867
...especially at a frequency
of 20 hertz.
207
00:14:58,777 --> 00:15:00,972
(ENGINE HUMS)
208
00:15:01,580 --> 00:15:04,606
The crew of this vessel try
consciously to keep her quiet.
209
00:15:04,816 --> 00:15:05,942
But when its engine is on...
210
00:15:06,151 --> 00:15:08,711
...it gets very loud at
a frequency of 20 hertz.
211
00:15:10,422 --> 00:15:12,617
Whales communicating
across the oceans...
212
00:15:12,824 --> 00:15:15,759
...must've experienced greater
and greater difficulties.
213
00:15:15,961 --> 00:15:18,088
The distance over which
they could communicate...
214
00:15:18,296 --> 00:15:20,764
...must have steadily decreased.
215
00:15:21,933 --> 00:15:23,628
Two hundred years ago...
216
00:15:23,835 --> 00:15:26,770
...a typical distance that some whales
could communicate across...
217
00:15:26,972 --> 00:15:29,941
...was perhaps 10,000 kilometers.
218
00:15:30,141 --> 00:15:32,439
Today, on a typical day...
219
00:15:32,644 --> 00:15:36,273
...the corresponding number is perhaps
a few 100 kilometers.
220
00:15:36,481 --> 00:15:39,678
We have cut off the whales
from themselves.
221
00:15:39,884 --> 00:15:42,478
Creatures which were
freely communicating...
222
00:15:42,687 --> 00:15:44,484
...for tens of millions of years...
223
00:15:44,689 --> 00:15:47,715
...have now effectively been silenced.
224
00:15:53,531 --> 00:15:55,465
And we've done worse than that...
225
00:15:55,667 --> 00:15:58,067
...because there persists
till this day...
226
00:15:58,270 --> 00:16:01,865
...a traffic in the dead bodies
of whales.
227
00:16:02,073 --> 00:16:05,167
There are humans who gratuitously
hunt and slaughter whales...
228
00:16:05,377 --> 00:16:10,314
...and market the products
for dog food or lipstick.
229
00:16:11,216 --> 00:16:15,516
Many nations understand why
whale murder is monstrous...
230
00:16:15,720 --> 00:16:18,211
...but the traffic
continues chiefly...
231
00:16:18,423 --> 00:16:21,984
...by Japan and Norway
and the Soviet Union.
232
00:16:22,894 --> 00:16:25,089
We use "monster" to describe
an animal...
233
00:16:25,330 --> 00:16:28,493
...somehow different from us,
somehow scary.
234
00:16:29,301 --> 00:16:31,269
But who's the more monstrous...
235
00:16:31,469 --> 00:16:33,562
...the whales,
who ask to be left alone...
236
00:16:33,772 --> 00:16:36,434
...to sing their rich
and plaintive songs...
237
00:16:36,708 --> 00:16:40,667
...or the humans, who set out
to hunt them and destroy them...
238
00:16:40,879 --> 00:16:44,975
...and have brought many whale species
close to the edge of extinction?
239
00:16:47,385 --> 00:16:50,912
We're interested in communication
with extraterrestrial intelligence.
240
00:16:51,122 --> 00:16:53,022
Wouldn't a good beginning be...
241
00:16:53,224 --> 00:16:56,022
...better communication
with terrestrial intelligence...
242
00:16:56,227 --> 00:16:59,594
...with other human beings
of different cultures and languages...
243
00:16:59,798 --> 00:17:01,993
...with the great apes,
with the dolphins...
244
00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:04,691
...but particularly with the whales?
245
00:17:33,698 --> 00:17:37,293
To survive, a whale must
know how to do things.
246
00:17:37,502 --> 00:17:39,936
This knowledge is stored
in two principal ways...
247
00:17:40,138 --> 00:17:43,733
...in the whale's genes
and in their very large brains.
248
00:17:43,942 --> 00:17:45,807
We can think of their
genes and brains...
249
00:17:46,010 --> 00:17:48,911
...as something like libraries
inside their bodies.
250
00:17:49,114 --> 00:17:51,878
The information in the DNA,
the genetic information...
251
00:17:52,083 --> 00:17:53,880
...includes how to nurse...
252
00:17:54,085 --> 00:17:56,246
...how to convert
shrimp into blubber...
253
00:17:56,454 --> 00:18:00,390
...how to hold your breath on a dive
one kilometer below the surface.
254
00:18:00,592 --> 00:18:03,425
The information in the brains,
the learned information...
255
00:18:03,628 --> 00:18:05,186
...involves such things as...
256
00:18:05,397 --> 00:18:06,455
...who's your mother...
257
00:18:06,664 --> 00:18:10,122
...or what the meaning is of
that song we're hearing just now.
258
00:18:13,304 --> 00:18:16,296
The gene library
of whales and people...
259
00:18:16,508 --> 00:18:17,998
...and everybody else on Earth...
260
00:18:18,209 --> 00:18:19,801
...is made of DNA.
261
00:18:20,011 --> 00:18:22,104
The only function
of this complex molecule...
262
00:18:22,313 --> 00:18:26,147
...is to store and copy information.
263
00:18:30,155 --> 00:18:34,114
We see here the set of instructions
in human DNA...
264
00:18:34,325 --> 00:18:38,989
...written in a language billions
of years older than any human tongue.
265
00:18:39,197 --> 00:18:41,131
Each colored cluster of atoms...
266
00:18:41,332 --> 00:18:44,768
...is a letter in the genetic alphabet:
The language of life.
267
00:18:44,969 --> 00:18:46,436
There are billions of letters...
268
00:18:46,638 --> 00:18:49,903
...many billions of bits
of information.
269
00:18:50,408 --> 00:18:52,535
If you came from somewhere
very different...
270
00:18:52,744 --> 00:18:55,804
...you wouldn't be able
to specify a whale or a person...
271
00:18:56,014 --> 00:18:59,450
...in a game of 20 Questions
with only 20 bits.
272
00:18:59,651 --> 00:19:03,052
But a game called
10 Billion Questions...
273
00:19:03,254 --> 00:19:04,949
...might just work.
274
00:19:05,156 --> 00:19:06,487
Every organism on Earth...
275
00:19:06,691 --> 00:19:09,455
...contains as its
inheritance and legacy...
276
00:19:09,661 --> 00:19:11,526
...a portable library.
277
00:19:11,729 --> 00:19:16,098
And the more bits of information
you have, the more you can do.
278
00:19:19,737 --> 00:19:21,932
The simplest organism, a virus...
279
00:19:22,140 --> 00:19:24,370
...needs only about 10,000 bits.
280
00:19:24,576 --> 00:19:28,637
Equal to the amount of information
on one page of an average book.
281
00:19:28,847 --> 00:19:30,576
These are all the instructions
it needs...
282
00:19:30,782 --> 00:19:33,615
...to infect some other organism
and to reproduce itself...
283
00:19:33,818 --> 00:19:37,219
...which are the only things
that viruses are any good at.
284
00:19:37,422 --> 00:19:40,949
A bacterium uses roughly
a million bits of information...
285
00:19:41,159 --> 00:19:42,922
...about 100 printed pages.
286
00:19:43,127 --> 00:19:45,391
Bacteria have a lot more
to do than viruses.
287
00:19:45,597 --> 00:19:50,125
They're not thoroughgoing parasites.
Bacteria have to make a living.
288
00:19:53,872 --> 00:19:57,000
What about a free-swimming
one-celled amoeba?
289
00:19:57,208 --> 00:19:59,472
These creatures are
also microscopic...
290
00:19:59,944 --> 00:20:02,105
...but in the realm
of one-celled animals...
291
00:20:02,313 --> 00:20:03,746
...they are giants.
292
00:20:03,948 --> 00:20:06,974
The whales of the microbial world.
293
00:20:07,185 --> 00:20:11,713
Each contains about 400 million bits
in its DNA...
294
00:20:11,923 --> 00:20:15,984
...the equivalent of about
80 volumes of 500 pages each.
295
00:20:16,194 --> 00:20:18,822
That's how much information
it takes to make an amoeba...
296
00:20:19,030 --> 00:20:23,967
...a creature like a small city
wandering through a drop of water.
297
00:20:27,739 --> 00:20:29,900
And what about a whale
or a human being?
298
00:20:30,108 --> 00:20:31,973
Well, the answer seems to be...
299
00:20:32,176 --> 00:20:36,044
...that there's 5 billion bits.
300
00:20:36,247 --> 00:20:40,274
Five billion bits of information
in our encyclopedia of life...
301
00:20:40,485 --> 00:20:43,352
...in the nucleus of every one
of our cells.
302
00:20:43,555 --> 00:20:47,116
So if written out in,
say, ordinary English...
303
00:20:47,325 --> 00:20:49,953
...those instructions,
that information...
304
00:20:50,161 --> 00:20:54,029
...would fill 1000 volumes.
305
00:20:54,232 --> 00:20:55,324
Think of it.
306
00:20:55,533 --> 00:20:59,765
In every one of the 100 trillion
cells in your body...
307
00:20:59,971 --> 00:21:02,940
...there's the contents of a complete
library of instructions...
308
00:21:03,141 --> 00:21:07,134
...on how to make every part of you.
Those cells are smart.
309
00:21:07,345 --> 00:21:09,836
If this were my gene library...
310
00:21:10,048 --> 00:21:12,949
...it would contain everything
my body knows how to do...
311
00:21:13,151 --> 00:21:14,880
...without being taught.
312
00:21:15,086 --> 00:21:17,884
The ancient information...
313
00:21:18,089 --> 00:21:22,924
...is written in exhaustive,
careful, redundant detail.
314
00:21:23,127 --> 00:21:26,790
How to laugh, how to sneeze,
how to walk...
315
00:21:26,998 --> 00:21:29,398
...how to recognize patterns,
how to reproduce...
316
00:21:29,601 --> 00:21:31,660
...how to digest an apple.
317
00:21:32,170 --> 00:21:34,832
If written out in
the language of chemistry...
318
00:21:35,039 --> 00:21:36,597
...what would the instructions...
319
00:21:36,808 --> 00:21:39,538
...for digesting the sugar
in an apple look like?
320
00:21:39,744 --> 00:21:41,769
Well, let's see.
321
00:21:42,847 --> 00:21:45,475
Amino acid synthesis,
polypeptide chains...
322
00:21:45,683 --> 00:21:50,017
...transfer RNA, genetic code,
enzyme expression...
323
00:21:50,221 --> 00:21:52,781
...enzyme phosphorylation.
We're getting warm.
324
00:21:52,991 --> 00:21:56,859
Hexose monophosphate shunt,
citric acid cycle...
325
00:21:57,061 --> 00:21:59,621
Here we are.
Anaerobic glycolysis.
326
00:21:59,831 --> 00:22:01,458
Now, eating an apple...
327
00:22:01,666 --> 00:22:04,226
...may seem like
a very simple thing...
328
00:22:04,969 --> 00:22:06,698
...but it's not.
329
00:22:06,904 --> 00:22:10,806
In fact, if I consciously had to
remember and direct...
330
00:22:11,009 --> 00:22:15,343
...all the chemical steps required to
get energy out of food...
331
00:22:15,546 --> 00:22:17,707
...I�d probably starve to death.
332
00:22:17,915 --> 00:22:22,682
And yet, even a bacterium
can do anaerobic glycolysis.
333
00:22:22,887 --> 00:22:27,824
That's why apples rot.
It's lunchtime for the bacteria.
334
00:22:28,026 --> 00:22:31,553
They and we and all
the creatures in between...
335
00:22:31,763 --> 00:22:35,062
...possess similar
genetic instructions.
336
00:22:35,266 --> 00:22:37,757
Our separate gene libraries...
337
00:22:37,969 --> 00:22:40,699
...have many pages in common...
338
00:22:40,905 --> 00:22:43,999
...which is another reminder
of the deep interconnection...
339
00:22:44,208 --> 00:22:46,904
...of all living things
on our planet because of...
340
00:22:47,111 --> 00:22:49,136
...a common evolutionary heritage.
341
00:22:51,983 --> 00:22:54,508
Our present human technology...
342
00:22:54,719 --> 00:22:59,622
...can duplicate only a tiny fraction
of the intricate biochemistry...
343
00:22:59,824 --> 00:23:04,056
...which our bodies seem
to perform so effortlessly.
344
00:23:04,262 --> 00:23:06,822
But we're just beginning
the study of biochemistry.
345
00:23:07,031 --> 00:23:11,195
Evolution has had
billions of years of practice.
346
00:23:12,170 --> 00:23:14,604
The DNA knows.
347
00:23:15,807 --> 00:23:20,403
Now, what if what we had
to do was so complicated...
348
00:23:20,611 --> 00:23:24,638
...that even several billion bits
of information wasn't enough?
349
00:23:24,849 --> 00:23:28,341
What if, for example, the environment
were changing so fast...
350
00:23:28,553 --> 00:23:32,011
...that the pre-coded
genetic encyclopedia...
351
00:23:32,223 --> 00:23:35,681
...which may have served us perfectly
well in the past is now...
352
00:23:35,893 --> 00:23:38,987
...not perfectly adequate?
353
00:23:39,197 --> 00:23:40,755
Why, then...
354
00:23:40,965 --> 00:23:45,231
...even a gene library of
1000 volumes wouldn't be enough.
355
00:23:45,436 --> 00:23:48,633
That's why we have brains.
356
00:23:52,110 --> 00:23:54,374
Like our other organs,
the brain has evolved...
357
00:23:54,579 --> 00:23:57,047
...increasing over millions of years...
358
00:23:57,248 --> 00:24:00,240
...in complexity
and information content.
359
00:24:00,451 --> 00:24:04,888
Its structure reflects all the stages
through which it has passed.
360
00:24:05,323 --> 00:24:10,022
The brain has evolved
from the inside out.
361
00:24:10,228 --> 00:24:13,857
Deep inside is the oldest part,
the so-called brain stem.
362
00:24:14,465 --> 00:24:17,093
It conducts many of the basic
biological functions...
363
00:24:17,301 --> 00:24:19,735
...including the rhythms of life...
364
00:24:19,937 --> 00:24:22,770
...like heartbeat and respiration.
365
00:24:22,974 --> 00:24:25,943
The higher functions
of the brain have evolved...
366
00:24:26,144 --> 00:24:29,705
...in three successive stages
according to a provocative insight...
367
00:24:29,914 --> 00:24:32,747
...by the American biologist
Paul MacLean.
368
00:24:32,950 --> 00:24:37,284
You see, capping the brain stem is
the so-called R-complex...
369
00:24:37,488 --> 00:24:39,251
"R" for reptile.
370
00:24:39,457 --> 00:24:41,186
It's the seat of...
371
00:24:41,425 --> 00:24:44,622
...aggression, ritual,
territoriality...
372
00:24:44,829 --> 00:24:46,694
...and social hierarchies.
373
00:24:46,898 --> 00:24:50,061
It evolved some hundreds of millions
of years ago...
374
00:24:50,268 --> 00:24:52,566
...in our reptilian ancestors.
375
00:24:52,770 --> 00:24:57,537
So, deep inside our brains
is something rather like...
376
00:24:57,742 --> 00:25:00,040
...the brain of a crocodile.
377
00:25:00,244 --> 00:25:03,907
Surrounding the R-complex is
the limbic system...
378
00:25:04,115 --> 00:25:05,343
...or mammal brain.
379
00:25:05,550 --> 00:25:07,848
It evolved some tens of millions
of years ago...
380
00:25:08,286 --> 00:25:10,777
...in ancestors who were
mammals all right...
381
00:25:10,988 --> 00:25:15,425
...but not yet primates
like monkeys or apes.
382
00:25:15,626 --> 00:25:19,187
It's a major source
of our moods and emotions...
383
00:25:19,397 --> 00:25:22,696
...our concern and care
for the young.
384
00:25:22,900 --> 00:25:26,734
And then, finally,
on the outside of the brain...
385
00:25:27,338 --> 00:25:30,398
...living in a kind of
uneasy truce with...
386
00:25:30,608 --> 00:25:34,305
...the more primitive brains beneath,
is the cerebral cortex...
387
00:25:34,512 --> 00:25:36,912
...evolved millions of years ago...
388
00:25:37,114 --> 00:25:39,605
...in ancestors who were primates.
389
00:25:52,930 --> 00:25:55,398
This is the point of embarkation...
390
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,693
...for all our cosmic journeys.
391
00:25:57,902 --> 00:25:59,597
The cerebral cortex...
392
00:25:59,804 --> 00:26:03,001
...where matter is transformed
into consciousness.
393
00:26:03,207 --> 00:26:07,507
Here, comprising more than
two-thirds of the brain mass...
394
00:26:07,712 --> 00:26:11,512
...is the realm both of intuition
and of critical analysis.
395
00:26:11,716 --> 00:26:14,913
It's here that we have
ideas and inspirations.
396
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:16,882
Here that we read and write.
397
00:26:17,088 --> 00:26:20,421
Here that we do mathematics and music.
398
00:26:20,625 --> 00:26:24,322
The cortex regulates
our conscious lives.
399
00:26:24,528 --> 00:26:27,463
It is the distinction
of our species...
400
00:26:27,665 --> 00:26:29,656
...the seat of our humanity.
401
00:26:29,867 --> 00:26:32,131
Art and science live here.
402
00:26:32,336 --> 00:26:36,238
Civilization is a product
of the cerebral cortex.
403
00:26:38,843 --> 00:26:39,969
Behind the forehead...
404
00:26:40,177 --> 00:26:43,112
...are the frontal lobes
of the cerebral cortex.
405
00:26:43,314 --> 00:26:45,874
They may be where we
anticipate events...
406
00:26:46,083 --> 00:26:48,313
...where we figure out the future.
407
00:26:48,519 --> 00:26:50,749
But if we can foresee
an unpleasant future...
408
00:26:50,955 --> 00:26:52,889
...we can take steps to avoid it.
409
00:26:53,090 --> 00:26:55,115
Down here in the frontal lobes...
410
00:26:55,326 --> 00:26:57,886
...may be the means
of ensuring human survival...
411
00:26:58,095 --> 00:27:00,825
...if we have the wisdom
to pay attention.
412
00:27:03,768 --> 00:27:08,205
Inside the cerebral cortex is
the microscopic structure of thought.
413
00:27:08,406 --> 00:27:12,001
The language of the brain is not
the DNA language of the genes.
414
00:27:12,209 --> 00:27:15,736
What we know is encoded
in cells called neurons...
415
00:27:15,947 --> 00:27:17,278
...tiny switching elements...
416
00:27:17,481 --> 00:27:21,281
...every connection representing
one bit of information.
417
00:27:21,485 --> 00:27:24,682
How many neurons do each of us have?
Maybe 100 billion.
418
00:27:24,889 --> 00:27:28,188
Comparable to the number of stars
in the Milky Way galaxy.
419
00:27:28,392 --> 00:27:32,920
And there are something like
100 trillion neural connections.
420
00:27:34,999 --> 00:27:39,333
This intricate and marvelous
network of neurons...
421
00:27:39,537 --> 00:27:43,303
...has been called
an enchanted loom...
422
00:27:43,507 --> 00:27:46,305
...where millions of
flashing shuttles...
423
00:27:46,510 --> 00:27:49,206
...weave a dissolving pattern.
424
00:27:49,413 --> 00:27:52,974
Even in sleep, the brain is pulsing
and throbbing and flashing...
425
00:27:53,184 --> 00:27:56,085
...with the complex business
of human life:
426
00:27:56,287 --> 00:27:59,313
Dreaming, remembering,
figuring things out.
427
00:27:59,523 --> 00:28:02,651
Our thoughts, our visions,
our fantasies...
428
00:28:02,860 --> 00:28:05,852
...have a tangible, physical reality.
429
00:28:06,063 --> 00:28:07,860
What does a thought look like?
430
00:28:08,065 --> 00:28:12,001
Well, it's made of hundreds
of electrochemical impulses.
431
00:28:12,803 --> 00:28:14,464
Over there, for example, is...
432
00:28:14,672 --> 00:28:16,071
...a spark of a memory.
433
00:28:16,273 --> 00:28:17,535
Maybe...
434
00:28:17,742 --> 00:28:21,701
...the smell of lilacs on a country
road in childhood.
435
00:28:21,912 --> 00:28:26,246
And there goes a bit of
an anxious all points bulletin.
436
00:28:26,450 --> 00:28:29,942
Perhaps, "Where did I leave my keys? "
437
00:28:32,656 --> 00:28:35,784
The neurons store sounds too...
438
00:28:35,993 --> 00:28:37,790
...and snatches of music.
439
00:28:37,995 --> 00:28:42,329
Whole orchestras play
inside our heads.
440
00:28:47,738 --> 00:28:52,004
The landscape of the human
cerebral cortex is deeply furrowed.
441
00:28:52,209 --> 00:28:53,642
There's a good reason for it.
442
00:28:53,844 --> 00:28:55,334
These convolutions...
443
00:28:55,546 --> 00:28:59,539
...greatly increase the surface area
available for information storage...
444
00:28:59,750 --> 00:29:03,049
...in a skull of limited size.
445
00:29:07,391 --> 00:29:10,554
The world of thought is
divided into two hemispheres.
446
00:29:10,761 --> 00:29:13,491
Over there is the right hemisphere
of the cerebral cortex.
447
00:29:13,697 --> 00:29:16,359
It's mainly responsible
for pattern recognition...
448
00:29:16,567 --> 00:29:19,661
...intuition, sensitivity,
creative insights.
449
00:29:19,870 --> 00:29:22,065
And over here is
the left hemisphere...
450
00:29:22,273 --> 00:29:26,437
...presiding over rational, analytic
and critical thinking.
451
00:29:32,016 --> 00:29:35,110
These are the two sides...
452
00:29:35,319 --> 00:29:39,346
...the dual strengths,
the essential opposites...
453
00:29:39,557 --> 00:29:41,525
...that characterize human thinking.
454
00:29:41,725 --> 00:29:44,285
Before us are the means...
455
00:29:44,495 --> 00:29:48,556
...both for generating ideas
and for testing their validity.
456
00:29:48,766 --> 00:29:53,066
There's a continuous dialogue between
the two hemispheres of the brain...
457
00:29:53,270 --> 00:29:57,639
...channeled through this immense
bundle of nerve fibers...
458
00:29:57,842 --> 00:30:00,606
...which is called
the corpus callosum.
459
00:30:00,811 --> 00:30:05,145
It's a bridge between
creativity and analysis...
460
00:30:05,349 --> 00:30:09,410
...both of which are necessary
if we are to understand the world.
461
00:30:10,955 --> 00:30:14,857
The information content of
the human brain expressed in bits...
462
00:30:15,059 --> 00:30:17,425
...is comparable to the number
of connections between...
463
00:30:17,628 --> 00:30:19,095
...the neurons in the cortex...
464
00:30:19,296 --> 00:30:21,196
...about 100 trillion bits...
465
00:30:21,398 --> 00:30:24,196
...10 to the 14th connections.
466
00:30:24,401 --> 00:30:27,859
If written out in English,
it would fill 20 million volumes...
467
00:30:28,072 --> 00:30:30,540
...as many as in the
world's largest libraries.
468
00:30:30,741 --> 00:30:34,302
The equivalent of 20 million volumes
worth of information...
469
00:30:34,512 --> 00:30:36,878
...is inside the heads
of every one of us.
470
00:30:37,081 --> 00:30:41,814
The brain is a very big place
in a very small space.
471
00:30:43,888 --> 00:30:48,348
Most of the books in the brain are
up here in the cerebral cortex.
472
00:30:48,559 --> 00:30:51,460
Down there, in the basement
of the brain...
473
00:30:51,662 --> 00:30:53,687
...are the functions
that our ancestors...
474
00:30:53,898 --> 00:30:55,889
...mainly depended on for survival:
475
00:30:56,100 --> 00:30:59,092
Aggression, child rearing, sex...
476
00:30:59,303 --> 00:31:01,794
...the willingness to
follow leaders blindly.
477
00:31:02,006 --> 00:31:05,407
Lots of things that we can still
recognize in our lives today.
478
00:31:05,609 --> 00:31:07,702
Of the higher brain functions...
479
00:31:07,912 --> 00:31:09,539
...some of them, like...
480
00:31:09,747 --> 00:31:11,772
...reading, writing, speaking...
481
00:31:11,982 --> 00:31:16,885
...seem to be located in particular
places in the cerebral cortex.
482
00:31:17,087 --> 00:31:19,282
On the other hand, each memory...
483
00:31:19,490 --> 00:31:23,893
...seems to be stored in many
separate locales in the brain.
484
00:31:24,094 --> 00:31:26,790
Old memories are in lots of places.
485
00:31:33,671 --> 00:31:35,502
Here is one of my earliest memories.
486
00:31:42,379 --> 00:31:44,643
(POURS LIQUID)
487
00:31:44,848 --> 00:31:46,110
MOTHER:
That's a good boy.
488
00:31:46,317 --> 00:31:48,649
Lunch is almost ready.
489
00:31:52,690 --> 00:31:53,816
(CLICKS ON RADIO)
490
00:31:54,024 --> 00:31:57,391
(MUSIC PLAYS)
491
00:32:11,942 --> 00:32:14,137
That was a long time ago.
492
00:32:16,146 --> 00:32:18,842
But its imprint has not faded...
493
00:32:19,049 --> 00:32:22,018
...in the library of this brain.
494
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:32,893
But the brain does much more
than just recollect.
495
00:32:33,097 --> 00:32:34,325
It inter-compares.
496
00:32:34,531 --> 00:32:36,931
It synthesizes. It analyzes.
497
00:32:37,134 --> 00:32:39,602
It generates abstractions.
498
00:32:44,742 --> 00:32:47,472
The simplest thought,
like the concept of the number one...
499
00:32:47,678 --> 00:32:49,976
...has an elaborate,
logical underpinning.
500
00:32:50,180 --> 00:32:51,841
The brain has its own language...
501
00:32:52,049 --> 00:32:54,916
...for testing the world's
structure and consistency.
502
00:32:55,119 --> 00:32:57,679
But we never see the machinery
of logical analysis...
503
00:32:57,888 --> 00:32:59,719
...only the conclusions.
504
00:33:01,625 --> 00:33:04,355
There is so much more
that we must figure out...
505
00:33:04,561 --> 00:33:06,222
...than the genes can know.
506
00:33:06,430 --> 00:33:08,864
That's why the brain library...
507
00:33:09,066 --> 00:33:12,502
...has 10,000 times
more information in it...
508
00:33:12,703 --> 00:33:14,136
...than the gene library.
509
00:33:14,338 --> 00:33:19,037
Our passion for learning is
the tool for our survival.
510
00:33:24,315 --> 00:33:28,251
And unlike the musty bindings
of our gene library...
511
00:33:28,452 --> 00:33:30,886
...in which hardly a word
changes in a century...
512
00:33:31,088 --> 00:33:34,751
...the brain library is
made of loose-leaf books.
513
00:33:34,958 --> 00:33:38,917
We're constantly adding
new pages and new volumes.
514
00:33:47,004 --> 00:33:50,667
Emotions and ritual
behavior patterns...
515
00:33:50,874 --> 00:33:52,671
...are built very deeply into us.
516
00:33:52,876 --> 00:33:55,777
They're part of our humanity.
517
00:33:55,979 --> 00:33:58,539
But they're not
characteristically human.
518
00:33:58,749 --> 00:34:00,740
Many other animals have feelings.
519
00:34:00,951 --> 00:34:04,580
What distinguishes our
species is thought.
520
00:34:04,788 --> 00:34:09,657
The cerebral cortex is,
in a way, a liberation.
521
00:34:09,860 --> 00:34:11,987
We need no longer be trapped...
522
00:34:12,196 --> 00:34:15,222
...in the genetically inherited
behavior patterns...
523
00:34:15,432 --> 00:34:17,764
...of lizards and baboons:
524
00:34:17,968 --> 00:34:20,596
Territoriality and aggression...
525
00:34:20,804 --> 00:34:23,204
...and dominance hierarchies.
526
00:34:23,407 --> 00:34:24,874
We are, each of us...
527
00:34:25,075 --> 00:34:28,602
...largely responsible for what
gets put into our brains...
528
00:34:28,812 --> 00:34:33,010
...for what, as adults,
we wind up caring for...
529
00:34:33,217 --> 00:34:34,809
...and knowing about.
530
00:34:35,018 --> 00:34:38,044
No longer at the mercy
of the reptile brain...
531
00:34:38,255 --> 00:34:41,656
...we can change ourselves.
532
00:34:41,859 --> 00:34:44,123
Think of the possibilities.
533
00:35:15,759 --> 00:35:17,750
The city, like the brain...
534
00:35:17,961 --> 00:35:20,429
...has evolved in successive stages.
535
00:35:20,631 --> 00:35:23,429
The vestiges of its past are
still retained...
536
00:35:23,634 --> 00:35:26,933
...among the constructions
of the present.
537
00:35:35,245 --> 00:35:38,078
A city like New York developed
from a small center...
538
00:35:38,282 --> 00:35:42,218
...and slowly grew leaving many
of the old parts still functioning.
539
00:35:42,419 --> 00:35:45,388
Some of the major streets
date to the 17th century.
540
00:35:45,589 --> 00:35:48,217
Its commercial hub,
to the 18th century.
541
00:35:48,425 --> 00:35:50,791
The water and gas works,
to the 19th.
542
00:35:50,994 --> 00:35:55,294
The electrical and communications
systems, to the 20th century.
543
00:36:05,642 --> 00:36:08,634
The city has evolved
much faster than the brain.
544
00:36:08,846 --> 00:36:10,711
Only 10,000 years ago...
545
00:36:10,914 --> 00:36:13,144
...the human brain looked exactly
as it does today...
546
00:36:13,350 --> 00:36:14,817
...and we were just as smart.
547
00:36:15,018 --> 00:36:16,417
But there were no cities...
548
00:36:16,620 --> 00:36:21,421
...only a few scattered encampments
in the vast primordial forests.
549
00:36:21,625 --> 00:36:23,422
Today, it's just the opposite.
550
00:36:23,627 --> 00:36:28,564
Forests and grasslands often seem like
scattered islands in a sea of cities.
551
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,327
If you were an observer
from an alien world...
552
00:36:32,536 --> 00:36:34,697
...you would've noticed that
something complicated...
553
00:36:34,905 --> 00:36:37,897
...has been happening
over the last few thousand years.
554
00:36:38,108 --> 00:36:40,975
It might take you a while
to figure out the details...
555
00:36:41,178 --> 00:36:43,578
...but you would recognize
by its complexity...
556
00:36:43,780 --> 00:36:46,578
...unmistakable evidence
for intelligent life.
557
00:36:47,584 --> 00:36:49,643
On closer scrutiny,
you might recognize...
558
00:36:49,853 --> 00:36:51,582
...individual, intelligent beings.
559
00:36:57,728 --> 00:37:01,425
The evolution of the city is due
to their conscious activity.
560
00:37:02,032 --> 00:37:05,490
Millions of human beings working,
more or less, together...
561
00:37:05,702 --> 00:37:08,466
...to preserve the city,
to reconstruct it...
562
00:37:08,672 --> 00:37:10,162
...and to change it.
563
00:37:23,754 --> 00:37:26,723
It might be more efficient
if all civic systems...
564
00:37:26,924 --> 00:37:29,688
...were periodically replaced
from top to bottom.
565
00:37:29,893 --> 00:37:31,588
But, as in the brain...
566
00:37:31,795 --> 00:37:34,628
...everything has to work
during the renovation.
567
00:37:34,831 --> 00:37:36,731
So the city mostly adds new parts...
568
00:37:36,934 --> 00:37:40,665
...while the old parts continue,
more or less, to function.
569
00:37:43,874 --> 00:37:46,035
For example, in the 17th century...
570
00:37:46,243 --> 00:37:48,404
...you traveled between
Brooklyn and Manhattan...
571
00:37:48,612 --> 00:37:50,842
...across the East River by ferry.
572
00:37:51,048 --> 00:37:54,575
In the 19th century, the technology
became available to construct...
573
00:37:54,785 --> 00:37:56,582
...a suspension bridge
across the river.
574
00:37:56,787 --> 00:37:59,813
It was built precisely at the site
of the ferry terminal...
575
00:38:00,023 --> 00:38:03,720
...because major thoroughfares
were already converging there.
576
00:38:04,962 --> 00:38:08,090
When it was possible to construct
a tunnel under the river...
577
00:38:08,298 --> 00:38:12,598
...that, too, was built in the same
place and for the same reason.
578
00:38:12,803 --> 00:38:16,569
This use and restructuring of
previous systems for new purposes...
579
00:38:16,773 --> 00:38:20,174
...is very much like the pattern
of biological evolution.
580
00:38:20,377 --> 00:38:22,811
Or consider Third Avenue.
581
00:38:23,013 --> 00:38:24,503
In the 17th century...
582
00:38:24,715 --> 00:38:28,583
...you made your way uptown
on foot or on horseback.
583
00:38:29,086 --> 00:38:31,816
A little later, there were coaches...
584
00:38:32,022 --> 00:38:35,423
...the horses prancing,
the coachmen cracking their whips.
585
00:38:36,026 --> 00:38:39,689
And then these were replaced
by horse-drawn trolleys...
586
00:38:39,896 --> 00:38:43,263
...clanging along fixed tracks
on this avenue.
587
00:38:43,467 --> 00:38:45,958
Then electrical technology
developed...
588
00:38:46,169 --> 00:38:49,798
...and a great elevated railway line
was constructed...
589
00:38:50,774 --> 00:38:54,574
...called the Third Avenue El,
which dominated the street...
590
00:38:54,778 --> 00:38:59,147
...until 1954, when it was
utterly demolished.
591
00:38:59,349 --> 00:39:04,286
Anyway, the El was then replaced
by buses and taxicabs...
592
00:39:04,554 --> 00:39:06,784
...which still are the main forms...
593
00:39:06,990 --> 00:39:09,220
...of public transportation
on Third Avenue.
594
00:39:10,027 --> 00:39:13,121
Now as gasoline becomes
a rare commodity...
595
00:39:13,330 --> 00:39:16,857
...the combustion engine will be
replaced by something else.
596
00:39:17,067 --> 00:39:22,004
Maybe public transport
on Third Avenue in the 21st century...
597
00:39:22,539 --> 00:39:27,272
...will be by, I don't know,
pneumatic tubes or electric cars.
598
00:39:28,078 --> 00:39:32,344
Every step in the evolution
of Third Avenue transport...
599
00:39:32,549 --> 00:39:34,744
...has been conservative...
600
00:39:34,951 --> 00:39:37,112
...following a route
first laid down...
601
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,083
...in the 17th century.
602
00:39:39,289 --> 00:39:43,385
But the brain is still more
conservative than the city.
603
00:39:43,627 --> 00:39:47,427
If this were the brain, we might have
horse-drawn trolleys...
604
00:39:47,631 --> 00:39:49,326
...and the El and buses...
605
00:39:49,533 --> 00:39:52,024
...all operating simultaneously...
606
00:39:52,235 --> 00:39:54,760
...redundantly, competitively.
607
00:39:54,971 --> 00:39:57,838
The vestiges of earlier history
clearly in evidence.
608
00:40:08,919 --> 00:40:11,353
When our genes could not store...
609
00:40:11,555 --> 00:40:14,285
...all the information necessary
for our survival...
610
00:40:14,491 --> 00:40:17,654
...we slowly invented brains.
611
00:40:18,395 --> 00:40:23,025
But then the time came, maybe
tens of thousands of years ago...
612
00:40:23,300 --> 00:40:25,427
...when we needed to know more than...
613
00:40:25,635 --> 00:40:28,035
...could conveniently be stored
in brains.
614
00:40:31,808 --> 00:40:36,040
So we learned to stockpile
enormous quantities of information...
615
00:40:36,246 --> 00:40:37,736
...outside our bodies.
616
00:40:37,948 --> 00:40:40,917
We are the only species on Earth,
so far as we know...
617
00:40:41,118 --> 00:40:44,144
...to have invented
a communal memory.
618
00:40:44,354 --> 00:40:47,949
The warehouse of that memory
is called the library.
619
00:40:50,660 --> 00:40:52,491
Libraries also have evolved.
620
00:40:52,696 --> 00:40:54,891
The Assyrian library
of Ashurbanipal...
621
00:40:55,098 --> 00:40:57,430
...had thousands of clay tablets.
622
00:40:57,634 --> 00:41:00,535
The celebrated Library of Alexandria
in Egypt...
623
00:41:00,737 --> 00:41:03,865
...consisted of almost
a million papyrus scrolls.
624
00:41:04,074 --> 00:41:07,373
Great modern libraries,
like the New York Public Library...
625
00:41:07,577 --> 00:41:10,569
...contain some 10 million books.
626
00:41:13,617 --> 00:41:18,054
That's more than 10 to the 14th bits
of information in words.
627
00:41:18,255 --> 00:41:22,282
More than 100 trillion bits,
and if we count pictures...
628
00:41:22,492 --> 00:41:26,519
...it's something like 10 to the 15th
bits of information.
629
00:41:26,730 --> 00:41:28,891
Now, that's more than 10,000 times...
630
00:41:29,099 --> 00:41:32,159
...the total number of bits
of information in our genes.
631
00:41:32,369 --> 00:41:33,927
Something like 10 times...
632
00:41:34,137 --> 00:41:37,538
...the total amount of information
in our brains.
633
00:41:37,741 --> 00:41:40,403
If I were to read a book a week...
634
00:41:40,610 --> 00:41:43,306
...for my entire adult lifetime...
635
00:41:43,513 --> 00:41:45,481
...and I lived an ordinary lifetime...
636
00:41:45,682 --> 00:41:46,910
...when I was all done...
637
00:41:47,117 --> 00:41:50,609
...I would've read maybe
a few thousand books.
638
00:41:50,821 --> 00:41:52,083
No more.
639
00:41:52,289 --> 00:41:56,953
In this library,
that's from about here...
640
00:42:02,265 --> 00:42:03,698
...roughly...
641
00:42:05,402 --> 00:42:07,893
...to about here.
642
00:42:08,104 --> 00:42:11,164
But that's only
a 10th of a percent or so...
643
00:42:11,374 --> 00:42:14,070
...of the total number of books
in the library.
644
00:42:14,277 --> 00:42:18,407
The trick is to know
which books to read.
645
00:42:20,283 --> 00:42:22,843
But they're all here.
646
00:42:32,162 --> 00:42:36,189
What an astonishing thing a book is.
647
00:42:36,399 --> 00:42:39,891
It's a flat object made from a tree...
648
00:42:40,103 --> 00:42:44,540
...with flexible parts
on which are imprinted...
649
00:42:44,741 --> 00:42:47,676
...lots of funny dark squiggles.
650
00:42:47,878 --> 00:42:50,108
But one glance at it...
651
00:42:50,313 --> 00:42:53,146
...and you're inside
the mind of another person.
652
00:42:53,350 --> 00:42:57,081
Maybe somebody dead
for thousands of years.
653
00:42:57,287 --> 00:42:59,255
Across the millennia...
654
00:42:59,456 --> 00:43:02,983
...an author is speaking
clearly and silently...
655
00:43:03,193 --> 00:43:06,094
...inside your head, directly to you.
656
00:43:06,296 --> 00:43:10,289
Writing is perhaps the greatest
of human inventions.
657
00:43:10,500 --> 00:43:13,435
Binding together people
who never knew each other.
658
00:43:13,637 --> 00:43:16,401
Citizens of distant epochs.
659
00:43:16,606 --> 00:43:19,973
Books break the shackles of time.
660
00:43:20,176 --> 00:43:25,113
A book is proof that humans
are capable of working magic.
661
00:43:25,382 --> 00:43:28,715
And this room is filled with magic.
662
00:43:30,921 --> 00:43:33,981
Some of the earliest
authors wrote on...
663
00:43:34,624 --> 00:43:37,650
...bones and stones.
664
00:43:37,861 --> 00:43:42,161
Cuneiform writing is the remote
ancestor of the Western alphabet.
665
00:43:42,365 --> 00:43:46,267
It was invented in the Near East
about 5000 years ago.
666
00:43:46,469 --> 00:43:48,096
Its purpose?
667
00:43:48,305 --> 00:43:49,397
To keep records.
668
00:43:49,606 --> 00:43:53,303
Records of the purchase of grain,
the sale of land...
669
00:43:53,510 --> 00:43:57,310
...the triumphs of kings,
the statutes of priests...
670
00:43:57,514 --> 00:43:59,675
...the positions of the stars...
671
00:43:59,883 --> 00:44:02,681
...the prayers to the gods.
672
00:44:02,886 --> 00:44:05,650
This cone was made...
673
00:44:05,855 --> 00:44:08,346
...around the year 2350 B.C.
674
00:44:08,558 --> 00:44:12,688
4300 years ago, there were people
chipping and chiseling away...
675
00:44:12,896 --> 00:44:14,454
...the message on this cone.
676
00:44:14,664 --> 00:44:16,461
What is that message?
677
00:44:16,666 --> 00:44:18,463
It's a prayer.
678
00:44:18,668 --> 00:44:22,126
The inscription on this cylinder...
679
00:44:23,139 --> 00:44:25,403
...honors a king.
680
00:44:25,942 --> 00:44:30,276
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
in the 6th century B.C.
681
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:34,143
For thousands of years, writing was
chiseled into stone...
682
00:44:34,351 --> 00:44:38,378
...scratched onto wax
or bark or leather...
683
00:44:38,588 --> 00:44:42,490
...painted on bamboo
or silk or paper...
684
00:44:42,692 --> 00:44:45,889
...but always in editions of one copy.
685
00:44:46,096 --> 00:44:47,927
One copy at a time...
686
00:44:48,131 --> 00:44:51,726
...always, except for
inscriptions on monuments...
687
00:44:51,935 --> 00:44:53,994
...for a tiny readership.
688
00:45:07,083 --> 00:45:10,382
But then in China...
689
00:45:10,587 --> 00:45:13,317
...between the 2nd
and the 6th centuries...
690
00:45:13,523 --> 00:45:17,482
...paper, ink and printing
with carved wooden blocks...
691
00:45:17,694 --> 00:45:20,288
...were all invented,
more or less, together...
692
00:45:20,497 --> 00:45:25,434
...permitting many copies of a work
to be made and distributed.
693
00:45:25,702 --> 00:45:28,899
This is Chinese magic...
694
00:45:29,105 --> 00:45:31,130
...from the 12th century.
695
00:45:32,642 --> 00:45:35,076
It took 1000 years for
the idea to catch on...
696
00:45:35,278 --> 00:45:38,406
...in relatively remote
and backward Europe.
697
00:45:38,615 --> 00:45:42,483
Just before the invention
of movable type...
698
00:45:42,752 --> 00:45:45,016
...around the year 1450...
699
00:45:45,221 --> 00:45:48,019
...there were only a few
tens of thousands of books in Europe.
700
00:45:48,224 --> 00:45:50,784
Every one of them handwritten.
701
00:45:50,994 --> 00:45:55,829
Fifty years later, there were
10 million printed books in Europe.
702
00:45:56,032 --> 00:46:00,298
Learning became available to
anyone who could read.
703
00:46:00,503 --> 00:46:03,734
Suddenly, books were being
printed all over the world.
704
00:46:03,940 --> 00:46:06,966
Magic was everywhere.
705
00:46:08,778 --> 00:46:10,541
It is 23 centuries...
706
00:46:10,747 --> 00:46:13,147
...since the founding
of the Alexandrian library.
707
00:46:13,683 --> 00:46:17,517
Since then, 100 generations
have lived and died.
708
00:46:17,720 --> 00:46:20,553
If information were passed on
merely by word of mouth...
709
00:46:20,757 --> 00:46:22,816
...how little we should know
of our own past...
710
00:46:23,026 --> 00:46:25,392
...how slow would be our progress.
711
00:46:25,595 --> 00:46:27,825
Everything would depend on
what we'd been told...
712
00:46:28,031 --> 00:46:29,623
...on how accurate the account.
713
00:46:29,833 --> 00:46:31,630
Ancient learning might be revered...
714
00:46:31,835 --> 00:46:34,929
...but in successive retellings,
it would become muddled...
715
00:46:35,138 --> 00:46:36,537
...and then lost.
716
00:46:36,739 --> 00:46:39,674
Books permit us to
voyage through time...
717
00:46:39,876 --> 00:46:42,868
...to tap the wisdom
of our ancestors.
718
00:46:44,581 --> 00:46:47,948
A library connects us with
the insights and knowledge...
719
00:46:48,151 --> 00:46:50,881
...of the greatest minds
and the best teachers...
720
00:46:51,087 --> 00:46:54,113
...drawn from the whole planet
and from all our history...
721
00:46:54,324 --> 00:46:56,554
...to instruct us without tiring...
722
00:46:56,759 --> 00:46:59,592
...and to inspire us to make
our own contributions...
723
00:46:59,796 --> 00:47:03,459
...to the collective knowledge
of the human species.
724
00:47:11,541 --> 00:47:15,341
There's a fair number
of Gutenberg Bibles...
725
00:47:15,545 --> 00:47:18,412
...and first folios of Shakespeare
in the world...
726
00:47:18,615 --> 00:47:20,947
...but most of the books
you see here...
727
00:47:21,151 --> 00:47:25,520
...are limited editions with
very few surviving copies.
728
00:47:25,722 --> 00:47:27,713
But there also exists in the world...
729
00:47:27,924 --> 00:47:31,291
...mass printings
of paperbound books...
730
00:47:31,494 --> 00:47:35,089
...that I think are still
more wonderful.
731
00:47:35,298 --> 00:47:37,698
For the price of a modest meal...
732
00:47:37,901 --> 00:47:40,631
...you get the history of Rome.
733
00:47:41,271 --> 00:47:45,207
Books are like seeds:
They can lie dormant for centuries...
734
00:47:45,408 --> 00:47:50,072
...but they may also produce flowers
in the most unpromising soil.
735
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:55,217
These books are the repositories
of the knowledge of our species...
736
00:47:55,485 --> 00:47:58,648
...and of our long
evolutionary journey...
737
00:47:58,855 --> 00:48:02,518
...from genes to brains to books.
738
00:48:20,877 --> 00:48:22,469
Libraries in ancient Egypt...
739
00:48:22,679 --> 00:48:24,647
...bore these words on their walls:
740
00:48:25,415 --> 00:48:28,748
"Nourishment for the soul."
741
00:48:29,118 --> 00:48:33,680
And that's still a pretty fair
assessment of what libraries provide.
742
00:48:50,707 --> 00:48:53,870
Even at night, the city,
like the brain...
743
00:48:54,077 --> 00:48:56,841
...is busy assimilating
and distributing information.
744
00:48:57,046 --> 00:48:58,809
Information keeps it alive...
745
00:48:59,015 --> 00:49:03,213
...and provides the tools to
adapt to changing conditions.
746
00:49:05,288 --> 00:49:06,550
The long human journey...
747
00:49:06,756 --> 00:49:11,022
...from genes to brains
to books continues.
748
00:49:15,131 --> 00:49:16,928
Information itself evolves...
749
00:49:17,133 --> 00:49:21,433
...nurtured by open communication
and free inquiry.
750
00:49:24,641 --> 00:49:26,836
The units of biological
evolution are genes.
751
00:49:27,243 --> 00:49:29,939
The units of cultural
evolution are ideas.
752
00:49:30,146 --> 00:49:32,444
Ideas are transported
all over the planet.
753
00:49:32,715 --> 00:49:34,342
They reproduce through communication.
754
00:49:34,684 --> 00:49:37,915
They are selected by
analysis and debate.
755
00:49:38,121 --> 00:49:42,217
In the last few millennia, something
extraordinary has happened on Earth.
756
00:49:42,959 --> 00:49:46,292
Rich information from
distant lands and peoples...
757
00:49:46,496 --> 00:49:48,987
...has become routinely available.
758
00:49:50,433 --> 00:49:52,594
The number of bits to which
we have access...
759
00:49:52,802 --> 00:49:54,895
...has grown dramatically.
760
00:49:59,776 --> 00:50:02,210
Computers can now store and process...
761
00:50:02,412 --> 00:50:05,438
...enormous amounts of information
extremely rapidly.
762
00:50:05,648 --> 00:50:08,412
In our time, a revolution has begun.
763
00:50:08,618 --> 00:50:10,518
A revolution
perhaps as significant...
764
00:50:10,720 --> 00:50:13,382
...as the evolution
of DNA and nervous systems...
765
00:50:13,589 --> 00:50:15,079
...and the invention of writing.
766
00:50:16,225 --> 00:50:19,592
Direct communication among
billions of human beings...
767
00:50:19,796 --> 00:50:22,993
...is now made possible by
computers and satellites.
768
00:50:23,666 --> 00:50:26,601
The potential for a global
intelligence is emerging.
769
00:50:26,803 --> 00:50:31,001
Linking all the brains on Earth
into a planetary consciousness.
770
00:50:34,811 --> 00:50:36,870
Elsewhere, there may be brains...
771
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:38,877
...even planetary brains...
772
00:50:39,082 --> 00:50:41,516
...but there will be no brains
quite like ours.
773
00:50:41,718 --> 00:50:45,552
Mutation and natural selection are
basically random processes.
774
00:50:45,755 --> 00:50:47,620
If the Earth were started
over again...
775
00:50:47,824 --> 00:50:49,758
...intelligence might
very well emerge...
776
00:50:49,959 --> 00:50:54,328
...but anything closely resembling
a human being would be unlikely.
777
00:50:55,698 --> 00:51:00,067
On another planet with a different
sequence of random processes...
778
00:51:00,269 --> 00:51:01,964
...to make heredity diversity...
779
00:51:02,171 --> 00:51:04,366
...and a different environment...
780
00:51:04,574 --> 00:51:06,906
...to select particular
combinations of genes...
781
00:51:07,110 --> 00:51:09,840
...the chance of finding beings
very similar to us...
782
00:51:10,046 --> 00:51:11,513
...must be close to zero.
783
00:51:12,081 --> 00:51:14,140
But the chance of finding another
form of intelligence...
784
00:51:14,350 --> 00:51:15,442
...isn't close to zero.
785
00:51:15,651 --> 00:51:19,781
Their brains may well have evolved
from the inside out as ours have.
786
00:51:19,989 --> 00:51:23,789
They may well have switching elements
analogous to our neurons...
787
00:51:23,993 --> 00:51:26,188
...but their neurons might
be different.
788
00:51:26,396 --> 00:51:30,059
Maybe they're superconductors which
work at very low temperatures...
789
00:51:30,266 --> 00:51:33,064
...in which case,
their speed of thought...
790
00:51:33,269 --> 00:51:36,170
...might be 10 million times
faster than ours.
791
00:51:36,906 --> 00:51:39,807
Or perhaps their neurons are not in...
792
00:51:40,009 --> 00:51:42,876
...direct physical contact
with each other...
793
00:51:43,079 --> 00:51:45,411
...but in radio communication.
794
00:51:45,615 --> 00:51:47,378
So a single intelligent being...
795
00:51:47,583 --> 00:51:50,950
...could be distributed
among many different organisms.
796
00:51:51,154 --> 00:51:54,146
There may be planets in which
intelligent beings have...
797
00:51:54,357 --> 00:51:58,521
...not 10 to the 11th neurons each,
as we do...
798
00:51:58,728 --> 00:52:01,993
...but 10 to the 20th
or 10 to the 30th.
799
00:52:02,698 --> 00:52:06,031
I wonder what they would know.
800
00:52:06,235 --> 00:52:07,862
If we could make contact...
801
00:52:08,070 --> 00:52:09,162
...there would be...
802
00:52:09,372 --> 00:52:13,570
...much in their brains that would be
of enormous interest to ours.
803
00:52:14,310 --> 00:52:15,800
And vice versa.
804
00:52:16,012 --> 00:52:17,912
I think extraterrestrial
intelligence...
805
00:52:18,114 --> 00:52:20,912
...even beings astonishingly
more evolved than we...
806
00:52:21,117 --> 00:52:24,609
...will be curious about us,
about what we know, how we think...
807
00:52:24,821 --> 00:52:28,917
...the course of our evolution,
the prospects for our future.
808
00:52:29,992 --> 00:52:33,291
Within every human brain,
patterns of electrochemical impulses...
809
00:52:33,496 --> 00:52:36,260
...are continuously forming
and dissipating.
810
00:52:36,466 --> 00:52:39,663
They reflect our emotions,
ideas and memories.
811
00:52:39,869 --> 00:52:42,030
When recorded and amplified...
812
00:52:42,238 --> 00:52:45,002
...these impulses sound like this.
813
00:52:45,208 --> 00:52:47,733
(RUMBLING)
814
00:52:47,944 --> 00:52:50,742
But would an extraterrestrial being,
no matter how advanced...
815
00:52:50,947 --> 00:52:53,973
...be able to read the mind
that made these sounds?
816
00:52:54,183 --> 00:52:57,209
We ourselves are far
from being able to do so.
817
00:52:57,954 --> 00:53:01,412
But in fact, we have sent
the very impulses you are hearing...
818
00:53:01,624 --> 00:53:05,617
...reflecting the emotions, ideas
and memories of one human being...
819
00:53:05,828 --> 00:53:09,491
...on a voyage to the stars.
820
00:53:16,772 --> 00:53:19,900
In August and September 1977...
821
00:53:20,109 --> 00:53:22,942
...two Voyager spacecraft
were launched...
822
00:53:23,145 --> 00:53:27,605
...on an epic journey to
the outer solar system and beyond.
823
00:53:28,150 --> 00:53:32,177
Their scientific mission was
to explore the giant planets...
824
00:53:32,522 --> 00:53:34,353
...first Jupiter
and its satellites...
825
00:53:34,557 --> 00:53:37,651
...and then Saturn
and its system of moons.
826
00:53:45,701 --> 00:53:48,261
Close encounters with
these great worlds...
827
00:53:48,471 --> 00:53:52,498
...accelerate the Voyager spacecraft
out of the solar system.
828
00:53:54,777 --> 00:53:57,541
As an incidental consequence
of their trajectories...
829
00:53:57,747 --> 00:54:01,239
...they will be carried inexorably
into the realm of the stars...
830
00:54:01,450 --> 00:54:03,680
...where they will wander forever.
831
00:54:05,588 --> 00:54:08,580
The ships will be slightly eroded
within the solar system...
832
00:54:08,791 --> 00:54:11,624
...by micrometeorites,
planetary rings systems...
833
00:54:11,827 --> 00:54:13,886
...and radiation belts.
834
00:54:17,833 --> 00:54:19,300
But once past the planets...
835
00:54:19,502 --> 00:54:22,130
...they will endure
for a billion years...
836
00:54:22,338 --> 00:54:25,739
...in the cold vacuum
of interstellar space.
837
00:54:26,776 --> 00:54:28,471
Perhaps in the distant future...
838
00:54:28,678 --> 00:54:32,307
...beings of an alien civilization
will intercept these ships.
839
00:54:32,515 --> 00:54:34,107
They'll examine our spacecraft...
840
00:54:34,317 --> 00:54:37,684
...and understand much about
our science and technology.
841
00:54:38,821 --> 00:54:42,848
But a machine alone can tell
only so much about its makers.
842
00:54:43,059 --> 00:54:45,857
So each bears a golden
phonograph record...
843
00:54:46,062 --> 00:54:48,997
...with not only the brain waves
of a woman from Earth...
844
00:54:49,198 --> 00:54:53,794
...but also an anthology of music,
pictures and sounds of our planet...
845
00:54:54,003 --> 00:54:57,200
...including greetings
in 60 human languages...
846
00:54:57,406 --> 00:55:00,671
...and the salutations
of the humpback whales.
847
00:55:00,876 --> 00:55:04,141
The record cover bears instructions
on how to hear the sounds...
848
00:55:04,347 --> 00:55:06,542
...and see the pictures
encoded on the disk.
849
00:55:06,749 --> 00:55:10,685
Including some snapshots
from the family album...
850
00:55:10,886 --> 00:55:12,979
...of a distant world.
851
00:55:41,817 --> 00:55:44,650
The Voyager record is
a message in a bottle...
852
00:55:44,854 --> 00:55:47,482
...cast into the cosmic ocean.
853
00:55:47,690 --> 00:55:50,659
It contains some of our thoughts
and our feelings...
854
00:55:50,860 --> 00:55:52,987
...something of the information
we store...
855
00:55:53,195 --> 00:55:56,631
...in genes and brains and books.
856
00:55:58,067 --> 00:56:00,126
The recipients, if any...
857
00:56:00,336 --> 00:56:04,272
...will understand the pictures
and sounds incompletely at best.
858
00:56:04,473 --> 00:56:06,737
But one thing would
be clear about us:
859
00:56:06,942 --> 00:56:09,740
No one sends such a message
on such a journey...
860
00:56:09,945 --> 00:56:13,108
...without a positive passion
for the future.
861
00:56:13,315 --> 00:56:15,783
For all the possible vagaries
of the message...
862
00:56:15,985 --> 00:56:19,148
...they will be sure that
we were a species endowed...
863
00:56:19,355 --> 00:56:23,724
...with hope and perseverance,
at least a little intelligence...
864
00:56:23,926 --> 00:56:28,192
...and a longing to make
contact with the cosmos.
9999
00:00:0,500 --> 00:00:2,00
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